Reopening the Heaven’s Gate: spirituality does not offer suicidal short-cuts

ABSTRACT In 1997, thirty-nine members of a religious cult from California, US, committed mass suicide to gain abnormal powers exchanging their present body form. This is popularly known as Heaven’s Gate. In 2021, in India, two young women were killed by their learned parents to get abnormal powers by giving-up their present body form. The paper connects such incidences and answers questions like why we feel that our present form of life is worth quitting? Ten eminent personalities from different fields were interviewed. Their responses are presented in a “belief-emotion-behavior,” a novel format, analyzing the relationship between the three.