 Applewhite taught that he was a walk @-@ in , a concept that had gained popularity in the New Age movement during the late 1970s . Walk @-@ ins were said to be higher beings who took control of adult bodies to teach humanity . This concept informed Applewhite 's view of resurrection : he believed that his group 's souls were to be transported to a spaceship , where they would enter other bodies . Applewhite abandoned the metaphor of a butterfly in favor of describing the body as a mere container , a vehicle that souls could enter and exit . This dualism may have been the product of the <unk> that Applewhite learned as a young man ; Lewis writes that the group 's teachings had " Christian elements [ that ] were basically <unk> on to a New Age matrix " . In a profile of the group for Newsweek , Kenneth Woodward compares his dualism to that of ancient Christian <unk> , although Peters notes that his theology departs from <unk> by <unk> the physical world . 
