Founder: Celtic Priests of Druidism

Founding Date: circa 1000 B.C.

Other Names: Samhain (pronounced Sah-ween) is the Celtic name for the holiday Americans call Halloween. Other names include All Souls Day, All Saints Day, November Eve, Hallowe'en.

HISTORY
Every October 31st, hundreds-of-thousands of children dress in costumes which range from the cute and sweet to the macabre and Satanic. This custom is ritually repeated because, well, because its always been done. That is what makes it a ritual. After all, it is a great way for children to get candy, have harmless fun and pretend they are someone else.

But where did the rituals come from? Why do people carve jack-o-lanterns? Why do children dress in costumes? Where did the tradition of bobbing for apples at parties originate? Why when children approach a strangers door do they enthusiastically exclaim, "trick or treat?" How did the custom of orange and black as the colors of Halloween get started? Where did these rituals originate?

Druidism
Michael Judge, writing for the New Age periodical Common Boundary explains Halloween probably began between 1000 and 100 B.C. among the Celtic people. The actual holiday was a commemoration of the new year (Sep./Oct. 1993, p. 29). It was at this time of the year that Baal, the Celtic god of Spring and Summer, ended his reign. It was also when the Lord of the Dead, Samhain, began his reign (Ibid.).

Proinsias MacCana writes, "During this interval the normal order of the universe is suspended, the barriers between the natural and the supernatural are temporarily removed, the sidh lies open and all divine beings and the spirits of the dead move freely among men and interfere, sometimes violently, in their affairs" (Celtic Mythology, p. 127).

As a part of the Druid festival, men and women had to fear not only the departed spirits, who were to return during the evening hours, they must also fear the Druid priests themselves. It was a time of mass human sacrifice. "Men and women, young and old, criminals and innocents, were forced into huge wooden and thatch cages. Often these cages were fashioned in the shape of giants - `wicker men' - perhaps representations of Samhain himself. At a signal from the presiding Druids, these immense structures were torched, everything in them burned to cinders." After the sacrifices, the Druids held thanksgiving meals around "roaring bonfires" (Common Boundary, Sep./Oct. 1993, p. 30).

One of the cardinal reasons for this celebration was because of the Celt's belief in "life after death" (Mythology: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, Richard Cavendish, editor, p. 171). While this belief in itself is certainly not an erroneous belief, their application of this belief lead them to several faulty conclusions.

Because the Celtic day started at sunset, and ran to the following sunset, the festival began on the eve of 1 November, when the souls of the departed were supposed to revisit their old homes in order to warm themselves by the fire and to comfort themselves with the good cheer provided for them in the kitchen or the parlor by their affectionate kinsfolk. All Hallows' Eve, as the beginning of winter and the dying time of the old year, was a night when the dead stalked the countryside. Offerings of food and drink were put out for the ghosts" (Man, Myth and Magic, Vol. 1, p. 67).

It was believed by the Druids that during Samhain, the dead would play "tricks on mankind and caused panic and destruction. They had then to be appeased" (Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 440). Part of this appeasement process involved the giving of food to the spirits as they visited the homes. This formed the foundation of the modern practice of "trick or treat."

Another common belief of the Celts was the idea that those who had died the previous year "had been transformed into animals." Thus, to welcome the dead on this sacred night, the Celts "dressed as animals." Then, "As the dawn broke, they made a great parade to the

Founders: Bonnie Lou Nettles and Marshall Herff Applewhite, a.k.a.: The Two Witnesses, Guinea and Pig, Bo and Peep, and Ti and Do.

Founding Date: 1975

Official Publications: This group produced a number of publications, primarily in the form of posters, flyers and statements. These include: "Undercover 'Jesus' Surfaces Before Departure," " '95 Statement by an E.T. Presently Incarnate," "Last Chance To Advance Beyond Human" and "The Shedding of Our Human Bodies May Be Required To Take Up New Bodies in then Next World." They also produced a video series entitled: "Beyond Human - The Last Call." Finally, they published an official record of their history and beliefs: Heaven's Gate (The Door to the Physical Kingdom Level Above Human), which was published in book form and posted on their Website.

Unique Terms: Next Level, Evolutionary Physical Level above the Human Level, Older Members, Younger Members.

Other Names: The UFO Cult, The Evolutionary Kingdom Above Human, Next Level, and Heaven's Gate. They also operated under the commercial name, Higher Source.


HISTORY
Reared in Texas, the son of a Presbyterian minister, Applewhite studied briefly for the ministry before shifting to music. In 1964 he relocated to Houston where he was employed by St. Thomas University. In 1970 St. Thomas dismissed him following a scandal involving him and a student.
He began hearing voices and eventually admitted himself to a hospital, seeking to be cured of his homosexual desires. Though previously married and the father of two children, Applewhite had been involved in homosexual affairs and had struggled with his sexual identity. (Eventually this struggle resulted in his having himself castrated, an act he believed would be the ultimate freedom from his sexual guilt).

During this time he met Nettles, a registered nurse who dabbled in astrology. Though reared a Baptist, Nettles was a member of the Theosophical Society and was involved in channeling messages from spirits. She introduced her "spiritual" practices to him and they quickly became inseparable, convinced they had somehow been linked together in previous lives.

Within a year, Nettles left her husband and four children departing with Applewhite, in 1973, to discover their higher purpose. They came to the conclusion they were the two witnesses mentioned in the Book of Revelation, and developed the germ form of their theology that the kingdom of heaven was a physical evolutionary level. During this time, Applewhite served six months in prison for car theft. While incarcerated he wrote their first publication, Statement I. Upon his release they rejoined and set out once again.

In March of 1975, they mailed Statement I to "ministers, evangelists, and awareness centers far and wide" (Ibid.). One who received it, Clarence Klug, a New Age teacher, invited them to speak to his class. After the meeting those attending were invited to Gold Beach, Oregon, to hear more. At that meeting Clarence and twenty three others joined "The Two," who were using the names Guinea and Pig (they believed they were part of an experiment being conducted by the Next Level). Since they now had a "flock," they took the names Bo and Peep. With this, the "UFO Cult" was born. In August of 1975 they held a meeting at Canada College, promoting it as a UFO meeting. Though Applewhite stated he did not like to use the term UFO, its use became a major method of generating interest in his meetings. After this they held a meeting at Waldport, Oregon on September 14, 1975. Press coverage of this meeting was not favorable and the group quickly moved on to meetings in Denver, Chicago and Tulsa.

Dividing the followers into groups comprised of two man teams, they sent them out to share the message. Separated from their leaders, followers began to doubt and defections occurred. Nettles and Applewhite had predicted their own death and resurrection, and members were becoming disillusioned because this promised "de

Organization Structure: This philosophy transcends a number of organizations and movements. Lacking its own organizational structure, goddess worship permeates and affects such diverse and seemingly unrelated areas as radical feminism, Jungian psychology, general Pantheism and extreme environmentalism.

Unique Terms: The term Goddess can mean anything from a specific personal deity to an abstract concept simply referring to a power or force within one's self.

As Merlin Stone, a radical feminist, writes, "In the beginning, people prayed to the Creatress of Life, the Mistress of Heaven. At the very dawn of religion, God was a woman" (When God Was A Woman, p. 1).

HISTORY
Certainly Goddess worship has been practiced for centuries. Rosemary Ellen Guiley writes, "Goddess worship extends at least back to the Neolithic era of approximately 10,000 years ago, and may even be as old as the Stone Age of 25,000 to 30,000 years ago" (Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experiences, p. 239). The well known mythologist, Joseph Campbell, cited an archaeological discovery dating to 6500 B.C. which contained "the basic motifs of the great mother-goddess" (The Masks of God, p. vii).

Though Goddess worship is certainly ancient, for the purpose of this Profile, only its modern resurgence and recent manifestations will be discussed.

Guiley correctly summarized the reappearance of this ancient pagan religion when she wrote, "The rediscovery of Goddess in the West in the late 1960s coincided with the women's movement, the ecology movement, and the beginnings of the so-called New Age movement." She continues by citing one other religious movement which helped popularize this philosophy. "Perhaps one of the most visible arenas for the revival of Goddess is the neo-Paganism and Neo-Pagan Witchcraft nature religions" (Harper's Encyclopedia, pp. 240-241).

DOCTRINE
As with many movements, often the point at which it eventually arrives is not the place for which it was initially heading. Such is the case with feminism. What seemed to start out as a social movement to secure equal pay for equal work (along with other rights), has become a rallying point for radical feminists whose purpose seems to be, at least in part, to re-write the Bible, "re-imagine" God's nature and reintroduce paganism.

Feminist writer,Christin Lore Weber does an adequate job of promoting all three of these purposes when she explains her version of Jesus' role in history. She writes, "Just imagine for a moment that what we call Incarnation is not an event applicable only to the one person of Jesus at a distinct point in time. Imagine, instead, that Incarnation is a non-historical quality of the creative process of Ultimate God-Mystery that transfigures created beings, radically shifts all consciousness in the cosmos, and results in what is earth-created matter becoming transformed into God.

What distinguishes Jesus from the rest of us is that he knew, was conscious of, who and what he was. He knew he was God's Word; that is not to say the rest of us are not. As women, we have a particular responsibility, for God incarnated in our being may add a dimension to cosmic consciousness, as well as to the Christ, that cannot be imagined in a creation expressed by a primarily masculine spirit. We have a responsibility to descend into, become one with, and then unfold the womanness of God in creation. That is how we become Christ. WomanChrist" (WomanChrist: A New Vision of Feminist Spirituality, pp. 43-44).

Going the next step beyond Weber'sWomanChrist, Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor introduce the Goddess. "Perhaps ancient women had access to psychic and physical powers we have forgotten. Ancient people of both sexes, living under the Stone Age Great Mother had `magical' power of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, teletransportation, of fire-walking and shape-changing" (The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth, p. 425).

For many