Why Did They Do It

The Heaven's Gate group is news--big news. Newspapers around the world showed the special morgue truck needed to carry the multiple suicides. The groups' web page was flooded with Internet hits. The media flocked to the site. Other news--wars, weather, and the basketball playoffs--took a backseat to suicide.

Why are people intrigued by groups that commit mass suicide? The intrigue stems, in part, from their unusualness. But the intrigue also derives from misunderstanding.

First, we explain away the suicide of an individual by blaming illness, pain, and depression, but these explanations don't work very well when a group takes its life. We can understand (although perhaps not condone the actions of) people who, suffering incredible pain with a fatal disease, ending their lives. We can also understand that people suffering from psychological problems-- such as deep, unrelenting depression--may become so confused, so negative, so distressed over who they are that they escape their own existence. But the Heaven's Gate group wasn't fatally ill. The members weren't depressed and confused. So the assumptions that we usually rely on to explain away a suicide don't help us explain their actions. If they weren't suffering, if they weren't depressed, then why would they commit suicide? We are puzzled.

Second, we think of suicide as the most irrational of behavior. Except in cases of extreme pain when the person is terminally ill, we assume that the person is dazed, confused, not thinking clearly- -and, indeed, people who commit suicide often are dazed, confused, and not thinking clearly. But a group, by its very nature, cannot be as irrational as an individual. Thirty nine people had to discuss how they would die. They had make plans: How would they do it? Who would be in charge of removing the plastic bags and shrouding the bodies? Who would go first, who would go last? How could a group discuss such things? The very idea of group suicide is paradoxical, because we assume that suicide is irrational, and that groups are rational. We understand when groups make bad decisions or work ineffectively, but to commit suicide? Unlikely. We realize that individuals commit suicide regularly--so frequently that only a movie or rockstar's self-immolation is newsworthy. But a suicidal group is a rarity.

Third, because suicide is such horrible outcome--the ending of a life and any opportunity for further development--we intuitively seek a dramatic explanation. Indeed, in 1978 a representative sample of Americans were asked "Why do you think people become involved in cults?" (Gallup, 1978, p. 275). Most people blamed the personality characteristics and flaws of the cult members. They were seeking a "father figure;" they were "unhappy" or "gullible" or "searching for a deeper meaning to life;" they were "mentally disturbed," "escapists," or addicted to drugs." And now people are aruging that its the Internet that did it: The WEB is to blame for the spread of bizarre ideas about UFOs and Christianity.

These explanations are all simplistic ones--they demean the group members, blaming their personalities or their weaknesses since their actions make no sense to us. When we read about the individuals in Heaven's Gate we assume they are weak, gullible people who are easily influenced by others. When we read that 39 people committed suicide, we immediately assume that some leader brainwashed them. That they were tortured, forced to watch indoctrination videos, injected with mind-altering drugs, or deprived of sleep for days. Yet they weren't.

These three factors explain the macabre fascination for the Heaven's Gate group. First, we can't explain their behavior with our usual stockpile of beliefs about suicide: they weren't suffering, they weren't crazy. Second, group suicide is always a paradox, because we believe that groups are more rational than individuals, and suicide is irrational. Third, we follow the unfolding story searching for clues that some dramatic, bizarre forces--a charismatic leader, drugs, the WEB--caused the behavior. Only by finding a powerful--and incorrect--explanation can we feel comfortable