Did Heaven’s Gate kill Charlie Kirk, or have anything to do with his demise? An odd question, but a necessary one.
In the wake of this event, many people are seeking answers in the present, and for the future.
Too few of you, though, know well enough, what has happened in the past.
Charles James Kirk was born in 1993, several years before Heaven’s Gate was found responsible for a large mass suicide on American soil. While some think of the group as having existed since the 1970’s and that they ceased to be, disbanded after their “departure,” both of those things are incorrect. This is not a matter of opinion, nor conspiracy theory. The website is active, with suspicious activity in the last (10 – 15) years, and they still admit to sending out materials; presumably for a fee.
Though the founder(s) of HeavensGate.com had multiple iterations of their UFO-Christianity hybrid group, the domain registered in the 1990’s was the first time they were known by that name. In many ways, it was a product of the early internet age. At the time, few people in America knew anything about cults, let alone the internet. Internet cults? Those probably were hard to even articulate back then.
It was only a few short years after they came online, that their suicide event happened. That’s the first part of the fallacy.
Heaven’s Gate itself was a 1990’s invention, dramatically altering the founders’ former belief system entirely.
What Might Heaven’s Gate Have To Do With Charlie Kirk?
Without going into all the history, Heaven’s Gate had a property dispute after the suicide event, which resulted in a corporate entity called TELAH Services which now apparently owns the literature and some other property rights. I have heard they have filed lawsuits against some who use the materials without consent as well. Though more recent reporting claims that Sarah and Mark King are the people who answer the email address still available, I dispute this – since there is no authentication that they also are the web masters.
TELAH’s address is listed on the Heaven’s Gate website, as it has been for many years: 4757 E. Greenway Rd. Ste. 103-178 Phoenix, AZ 85032. This is about 10 – 15 minutes away from Dream City Church, where Charlie Kirk was an important and influential member. Marketing a believed-to-be defunct cult, with a megachurch as a front, might seem unbelievable to you.
But, the parallels are similar.
Heaven’s Gate was considered (and still is among cultists) a one-of-a-kind. Yet, it may have been a duplicate, or clone.
Charlie Kirk Was An Entertainer, Political Commentator, and Religious Leader, Not A Revolutionary
Part of what makes little sense about this whole assassination is the fact that Charlie Kirk was not a politician. He may have been treated as influential, but he really did not change policy. He marketed it. Kirk was a promoter, organizer, and mouthpiece. The confusion our society has between the brains of operations, compared to the voices, is immense.
But, given the religious connotation and outward expression of Kirk’s beliefs, he was also considered a religious leader.
That puts him as a symbol for some, and an enemy of others. A martyr for many, now.
America Is Not Tribal Anymore, It’s A Series of Competing Cults
Though groups like Heaven’s Gate (or TPUSA) present themselves as positive, life-affirming, or otherwise forward thinking and supportive to people with questions or needs, the reality is something darker. Prior to the death of Kirk, there were frequent news stories about salacious scandals coming out of Turning Point USA. Benny Johnson was being questioned by fellow podcasters about the inexplicable rise in his subscriber count. Kirk himself was at odds on & off with the administration. Rumors of splits and rifts in the so-called “MAGA” movement, had been growing louder.
The killing has been regarded as definitively politically motivated, though for the first time in a long time, this has been almost universally questioned by many instead of accepted, especially among the podcaster class which seems to be taking this in the appropriate level of personal; rather than partisan. This has shown or laid bare the talking points from people closer to whatever kind of cult factions within the GOP and Democratic party compared to those who are on the outs of those controlling groups. In other words, if you have no idea what to make of this right now, that’s good, it means you aren’t on the inside of the most horrible faction(s) of American life.
Was Kirk killed for a personal, political, religious, or hybrid reason?
Heaven’s Gate Was Affected By Or Converted to ASH
Whether Kirk was involved in Heaven’s Gate’s modern incantation, or not, the religious fundamentalist online groups he is definitely openly and outwardly part of all learned early on how to grow a following online, from Heaven’s Gate. Any Christian or White Nationalist movement that still exists today has digital skeletons in their closets. Some of them are made of the same fabric. Others think they are different, but are actually functionally the same.
Their (Heaven’s Gate) use of early internet forums, and the beginning of the world wide web, as well as being website developers themselves; made them a truly inventive kind of organization.
Many of the practices may still be at play today. The same practices.
A Brief Detour About 1990’s Internet Cults
Any religious group that was formed in the 90’s knew of them, studied them, and even learned from Heaven’s Gate, and ASH. Many in the Christian fundamentalist groups, UFO conspiracy theorists, jihadists, and others all saw what Heaven’s Gate (and ASH, which predates Heaven’s Gate by many years) accomplished and many of them emulated them. Think of ASH like a programming language itself. Or, perhaps a few commands. Those are functions that are embedded in the entire foundation of the internet. Heaven’s Gate was transformed into a suicide cult from exposure to ASH – another (perhaps more important) – forgotten horror of the early days of the internet.
Learn About ASH, to Understand Heaven’s Gate, if You Want to Know What Happened to Charlie Kirk
Without getting into the entire history here, the group that I wrote about in The Self Radicalization Myth on my personal website (known in short as “ASH” here) was the pioneer in luring, grooming, and radicalizing people online to commit acts of terror usually in the form of suicide. That means that any group who was formed, especially on a religious or politically fringe level, in the 90’s online, was susceptible to infiltration from whoever created ASH.
The creator(s) of ASH, and their leadership, remain perhaps the greatest mystery of the internet, and the 20th and 21st century. But this means that Kirk and his group may have inherited, adopted, or been willfully led by suicidal cultists who have been operating since the dawn of the internet. The overtones, undertones, and operational measures all follow a pattern.
What Would Heaven’s Gate Have To Do With the Assassination of Charlie Kirk?
Many political commentators, such as Kyle Kulinski, or Hasan Piker, routinely refer to the GOP or more broad Trump support as “a cult.” Some go as far as to say that Republicans are a “death cult.” Or a “suicide death cult.” If that is true that means they have also inherited, absorbed and adopted ASH principles. Once you know how those things work (which many of you do, or actively participate in without realizing it) – you can see how the political system has used it. People who might be in the modern Heaven’s Gate, would think of themselves as quite superior to the rest of us.
For the time being, consider that Heaven’s Gate – or its ancestor – is in the background of Kirk’s church, and TPUSA.
- As a suicide cult, he could have planned this event or been involved in planning it, being tricked into believing this would send him to the “next level,” or perhaps lying about it being staged. This did send him to another level of notoriety, on both sides of the political aisle with people calling him a martyr, and taking over the news cycle
- As a possible competitor to other religious fundamentalist groups, if he were not in Heaven’s Gate, he could have been eliminated as a threat to the power of another Christian-type conspiracy cult
- Due to the Christian overtones of the belief system, in its current form, and Kirk’s recent jihadist tweet – actual Islamic fundamentalists may have killed him for religious, not spiritual reasons
The Islamist Attacker Theory
I will divert here to say that in the case that Kirk was murdered, rather than allowing himself to become a martyr by suicide-by-assassination (which I wrote about at length in my book The Digital Lynching of George P. Floyd – 2020 – 2022) it is possible that associations with the Trump team and rhetoric like this (to the left) made him a target for retribution.
While I do believe this kind of rhetoric still falls under the banner of free speech, I also recognize that Islamists and Muslims of any sort would or could find this incredibly threatening. The illusion that the shooter of Kirk must be an American male is also short-sighted at this stage of an investigation. The specific word choice of “slit the throat,” and the unusual placement of the bullet in Kirk’s neck, make this an eerie and potentially connected piece of content.
Cultural Connotation of “Talking Out the Side of Your Neck”
Muslim men live all over America.
Talking about their culture in a violent way, could upset any of them.
Targeting the whole group, could make the whole group angry.
Should this result in violence? No. But, we know it does.
That violence is not unique to Muslim men, either.
Sadly, ideologies like those that Kirk and his network are involved with, foster and have those things fester. They have compulsions to push racial or religious division, and anger or hatred.
All religions can be used for evil. Treating the Islamic faith as a unique threat, and discriminating against it, has been an American sin we need to collectively address.
Twitter Use of “Next Level” Among Trump Cultists
Heaven’s Gate referred to their ascend (suicide) as achieving the “next level,” a comment which made people think they were going to achieve something perhaps even more important than Jesus Christ or Christian religion. This is partially how they appealed to people. Heaven’s Gate was even active in recruitment at universities, not unlike TPUSA. The phrase “next level” has always been common. Some cults transform the meaning of common words into something different. It is a tactic that is packaged as unique, but is really dime a dozen.
Unusual Usage of “Next Level” On Twitter In Trump’s Loyalists
Out of over 70,000 tweets, I found only (1) where Charlie Kirk used that common phrase. A few months prior to his death.
But never before. This might be a caching problem, or perhaps just a search algorithm issue, but I found it odd. If Heaven’s Gate is still as operational and more powerful than ever, so they may have become very cautious about uttering this phrase too often but found ways to still use it as a signal.
Higher level next level participants may be encouraged to say it less, making their use of it more secretive, and therefore more powerful.
- Benny Johnson has many references including likening TPUSA to “next level,” as well as occasionally saying “next-level,” referring to things in a general sense
- Marco Rubio – 0 mentions found in my search
- JD Vance – 0 mentions found in my search
- Donald Trump – 0 mentions found in my search; however many references to “next” and “level(s)” and “heaven” hasn’t been tweeted since 2020, when it was a habit once or so a year since 2012.
Again, these details are inconclusive, but they present a picture of how this concept may exist in the network of those members of the GOP who are often viewed as being in “a cult.” The commentators who make this observation or accusation never think about a specific cult. They think it’s a cult of Trump but that may not be true either. He does not appear singularly devoted to any cause but himself.
Brass Tacks That Our FBI, Local Law Enforcement, and Politicians Won’t Do
In my piece about the myth of self radicalization, I attempt to dispel the illusion of a modern day lone wolf. For Charlie Kirk, a lot of things would have had to go into pulling something like this off, and in most cases, these roles are not all encompassed in a single individual. They each usually require specificity and specialization that most individuals do not singularly possess:
- Director & Executive Authorization -> who decided to do it and authorized it
- Strategic Planning -> picking date, time, weapon, shooter, media campaign
- Financing -> somebody has to buy the gun, getaway vehicle, etc.
- Operational Command -> actually ordering from director level to the field
- Actual Shooter/Trigger -> physical person, or drone operator
- Accomplices -> anybody who played a role, including unbeknownst to them
Perhaps there are other operations or conditions where more roles or types of people who are involved could be detailed. However, this is a fairly comprehensive list of those who would need to be involved to eliminate a single target, a public figure like Charlie Kirk. If the law enforcement on the case were smart (sadly, I do not think they are) they would be looking into leads on all fronts, rather than just a gunman. The insistence that they can catch a single gunman plays into the myth of self radicalization. A minimum of (2) people had to be involved here, I suspect.
There Are Suspects Who Should Be Questioned About Operational Knowledge
“The left” is an indistinct group that cannot be prosecuted. You do not become a member of “the left,” any more than you become a member of “MAGA.” These vague groups were crafted by the political parties to divide you, confuse you, and keep you angry at both invisible monsters and imaginary people, who you map that onto in your real lives. Similarly, there is no “right wing” to investigate. That is a losing battle and ultimately foolish for anybody who wants to know why this individual thing happened.
Social justice is a plague of both sides of our political system, and that can be understood to mean taking an individual case of injustice, and making it a societal issue. You hear podcasters all the time say “more broadly,” as they lose sight of anything individualistic or actionable. That’s why we remain stuck.
To understand who could have wanted to kill Charlie Kirk (including himself) you would need to look at all those who would benefit from his demise:
- Charlie Kirk (suicidal Manchurian candidate)
- TELAH Services, Dream City Church, Other Groups Kirk Was In
- Donald Trump and His Cabinet: JD Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, others
- TPUSA; Benny Johnson, Financiers
- Kirk’s Widow
- Jihadist Group(s)
- Democratic Party Operatives
- Republican Party Operatives
- Other Foreign Adversary (DPRK, China, Russia)
You can decide for yourself what each individual here might gain from killing Kirk and martyring him. It’s possible that there was some collusive effort among many of them to make this happen, as well. Though our society has become accustomed to the trite phrase “two things can be true at once” – more often – “things happen because of the interests of many people, not just one.”
Confusion & Terror May Be the Point, Or Just Secondary Rationale
It has become very unsettling for people that the normal orgy of evidence we have come to expect in a mass shooting (this was not a mass shooting) are not present here. No manifesto. No real suspect. The “person of interest” may not turn up any help either, if they find them. Reports of “antifascist” or “transgender” scribblings on the gun or bullet casings should be taken with extreme skepticism at this point. Even so that does not mean they represent the true intent of the killer or their director. It is something that causes confusion, misdirection, and gets people to latch on to things they cannot know for sure yet.
A Turning Point, Breaking Points Says
I’ve been very critical, insulting, and offensive towards people in the podcast space including Krystal Ball & Saagar Enjeti.
My words can be cutting. Deep. Or shallow. But the purpose of my rhetoric has been to make a change.
That change sometimes requires radical language. But I do not wish ill upon people, or want them harmed.
These two human beings are non-violent, attempting in their own way to understand this insane world we live in. I think they are misguided, arrogant, and consumed with the same kind of mind control brainwashing that they accuse their political opponents of being under. But, Saagar, somebody who knew Kirk personally, was notably emotionally upset, channeling in some way how many people may feel but not be able to express yet. As a new father, he said he very much was shaken by the whole thing. I understand. And I also can see that all the leadership these people have followed (whether they realized it or not) are falling apart on them. Or turning against them. After building a sense of community or even family, over the last few years through the COVID experiment. Their opposition became like a distant relative they only saw at Thanksgiving.
Even members of their audiences feel like they know these people.
A few things which were said that I believe I can help clarify or give more perspective on that could help the podcaster network as a whole gain clarity on how to move forward:
“Everything’s 9/11”
Saagar spoke this, perhaps how many millennials feel, but which highlights the immaturity and emotional stunting of our generation. This is not the way I personally feel, either, but I understand why many feel this way. 9/11 was the first time most millennials were shocked by terror, and that over our lifetime we saw many times politicians or others use it to justify war and lie to us about the state of the world.
But this was not nearly a 9/11 type event.
9/11 was about disrupting the economic engine of the United States and to demonstrate how our culture has become depraved in the search for greed on Wall Street. This point, sadly, was not taken by the American people. Instead, there was a kind of doubling down effort, and a retaliatory campaign which cost many lives abroad, and at home in different ways, dragged us into a state of persistent depression including young people, and the civil liberties loss is still not understood.
That is an issue for another day, though.
“Shocked” by the lack of evidence
The lack of evidence, suspect, manifesto, or things of that nature, was actually a reality check. It is highly suspicious to have an orgy of evidence with a killer who confesses immediately, that is caught or kills themselves within minutes or hours of an attack. While we have become accustomed to this, there is a major issue with that and it should be rectified in the mind of those who cover events like this. Part of the reason people like Saagar and Krystal would be unsettled or confused by a lack of immediate information, is because they are part of pushing incomplete information and forming concrete narratives about basically no information immediately in the wake of tragedy.
There should be no shock that law enforcement doesn’t know what happened here unless they were in on it.
Comparable to the 1970’s Saagar seemed unaware of
While Kirk was a political commentator, and our culture has elevated such people or confused them with actual civil rights leaders or the like, he was mostly a news personality. Broadcasting in a modern sense of extemporaneous long-form or live-event coverage type media, sure. But a newscaster none-the-less.
Outside of an active war zone like Gaza, where hundreds of journalists have been killed, American society actually has approximately (1) comparable to what happened to Charlie Kirk, and that leads me back to the suicide hypothesis.
Christine Chubbuck was a newscaster in 1974 who killed herself on air after delivering a very disturbingly calm intro. Though the feed cut, and I believe the footage has basically been taken off most parts of the internet, this was a news personality that was killed in front of a live audience during what would otherwise be a routine broadcast. She definitely committed suicide, whereas Kirk’s death is being classified immediately as murder due to the fact that he did not pull the rifle trigger himself.
Podcasters finally felt the proximity of terror
Though some podcasters like Nick Fuentes may have had brushes with some personal squabbles turning into doxxing or things of that nature, and many people including non-public figures deal with death threats online (I have) – most of them clearly do not result in actual violence. When podcasters cover Palestinian genocide or school shootings, things of that nature, they often perform their outrage. It is obvious and uncomfortable for me to watch, and I have been trying to quell it for a long time.
But this time, Kirk, was seen as one of their own.
Not just the people who knew him personally, though many did.
This time, the assumption is that Kirk was killed for his beliefs.
Yet, we don’t know that.
Everybody Wants To Know Where We Go From Here But Won’t Like the Answer
The answer is to look at yourself, especially if you’re reading this, because that means you are either a chief of staff or Congressional staffer, journalist, or one of my mystery readers. If you’re involved with Congress, how often has your boss had you make statements which you know are wrong, misaligned with the expressed purpose or platform you think you represent, or have some other creepy feel to it? Journalists ask yourselves the same thing. Have you dehumanized victims on one side or another or used mass casualty events to further your career?
Anybody who is talking about gun control right now fails to recognize that we still do not know who did this or why.
That means, it could have been Heaven’s Gate sacrificing one of their own to the next level in pursuit of some bizarre and suicidal belief system. Gun reform will not stop that from happening again. If it were a jihadist extremist who wanted to shut Kirk up on a religious level, gun control would not stop it here. “Gun violence” in America and around the world is not a single bucket. Gang violence, domestic violence, political violence, religious violence, and interpersonal violence are all unique phenomena that require disciplined and rigorous language to differentiate.
Otherwise you are left with a muddled lack of explanation.
Heaven’s Gate is a real threat, and an active threat.
They are dangerous for religious people, especially in the state of Arizona, where the megachurch Charlie Kirk belonged to is within walking distance.
Silence For Me, and Not For Thee?
My perspective, point of view, and contribution to the nation has been censored out of existence. I have been threatened, SWAT’d, sued, made homeless, and been silenced by both sides of the political aisle. You reading this have done that to me.
I have no mass movement. No followers. No backing.
My wife is my only loyal supporter, and bless her for that.
You do not recognize me as a player on this stage because I do not have the vanity metrics you think are important. Yet, my influence, impact, and effect are more powerful than even the biggest influencers who are really there to keep conversations in place. Charlie Kirk, for all of his virtues or villainy, gave people virtually nothing. His legacy will not be that of a monumental civil rights leader, but rather, an unfortunate and confusing part of our media landscape where celebrities were manufactured to suppress free speech while claiming to promote it.
You may have thought that ignoring me is non-violent, and it is. But thousands of people pretending I do not exist, for years on end, including violent attempts on my life which have gone unreported even though they were known, has made my life immeasurably harder, and I have something to offer the world nobody else can.
America Needs To Know What Happened To Charlie Kirk
Regardless of who killed Charlie Kirk, or why, we deserve to know the truth.
I actually expect you not to understand this.
And at this point, you owe me a response, and an opportunity to respond.
I have contacted thousands of you, hundreds of times, and 0 have taken an outward interest in my identity. Things I’ve said and done have moved metaphorical mountains, yet you still leave me in the shadows. Nobody has done more to cause peace at scale than me, from Philadelphia to Kyiv, North Korea to Gaza, and all over the internet. My effect is being felt. I am changing things. But tragedy like this with Charlie Kirk are what you people are tuned to crave, and ultimately our society will cause it.
If Heaven’s Gate killed Charlie Kirk, even at his request, we need to know.
They are still out there, and so are the creators of other foundational online cult programs.
If he was not involved with Heaven’s Gate, or they were not involved with him, it is still a foundational program that needs to be studied to undo the power of online radicalization, which people do not do themselves. God help us…
