The Classroom
The training program of the group for the ‘transition’ involved the setting-up of a strict daily regimen for all members, changing their names, cutting their hair, abandoning all earthly connections, abstinence from sex and worldly pleasures, which also ended up in the voluntary castration of 8 members of the group, including Do himself (152).
The requirements for partaking in the program tells us about certain Gnostic influence of the founders, as told by Jenkins, since the leaders of the cult regarded the human body as ‘troublesome vehicles’ that should be shed in order to achieve a higher state of existence or consciousness (223).
Youtube.com: March 27, 1997 Inside Heaven's Gate. ABC NEWS