Internet Artifacts

Very cool. Interesting bit about Heaven's Gate. I was young when it happened and have a vague memory of reading a Time magazine article with a cross-sectional drawing of the building with people in beds in different rooms.

Reading up on Wikipedia, I don't understand how they got from "sleeping in tents and sleeping bags and begging in the streets" in 1975, to "stopped recruiting and became reclusive" in 1976, to purchasing land, renting a $7000 house with cash, and operating a cutting-edge web design firm in the mid-90s.

Maybe they came into money in 1976: somebody got an inheritance, they recruited a whale, etc.

That would explain why they suddenly became reclusive: the leader doesn’t want the people with the money exposed to the outside world.

Cults will surprise you. When like-minded people are willing to put everything they have into a project, 18 hours a day with no breaks, they can accomplish a lot.

Oh I've seen Wild Wild Country, that made sense to me and there's a logical thread to follow. Osho was also (for some time) a legitimately intelligent and charismatic leader/writer/philosopher able to rally smart people.

The story here on Wikipedia paints a picture of a destitute super-fringe cult that disappears for 20 years and then emerges with some level of tech wizardry and no mention of anyone that was responsible for that. There is an HBO docuseries.