Destructive cults
The People's Temple, led by
James Warren (Jim) Jones
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Background of the Peoples Temple:
This was a Christian destructive,
doomsday cult founded and led by James Warren Jones
(1931-1978). Jim Jones held degrees from Indiana University and
Butler University. He was not a Fundamentalist pastor as many
reports in the media and the anti-cult
movement claim. He belonged to a mainline Christian
denomination, having been ordained in the Christian
Church/Disciples of Christ. (At the time of his ordination,
the DoC allowed a local congregation to select and ordain a
minister on their own. However, ordinations conducted without
denominational endorsement were not considered valid within the
rest of the church.)
The Peoples Temple was initially structured as an
inter-racial mission for the sick, homeless and jobless. He
assembled a large following of over 900 members in Indianapolis
IN during the 1950's.
"He preached a 'social gospel' of
human freedom, equality, and love, which required helping the
least and the lowliest of society's members. Later on, however,
this gospel became explicitly socialistic, or communistic in
Jones' own view, and the hypocrisy of white Christianity was
ridiculed while 'apostolic socialism' was preached." 1
It was an interracial congregation --
almost unheard of in Indiana at the time. When a government
investigation began into his cures for cancer, heart disease and
arthritis, he decided to move the group to Ukiah in Northern
California. He preached the imminent end of the world in a
nuclear war; Esquire magazine listed Ukiah as one of nine in the U.S. that cold
survive a nuclear attack. They later moved to San Francisco and Los Angeles.
After an expose during the mid 1970's in the magazine New
West raised suspicions of illegal activities within the
Temple, he moved some of the Temple membership to Jonestown,
Guyana. The Temple had leased almost 4,000 acres of dense jungle
from the government. They established an agricultural
cooperative there, called the "Peoples Temple Agricultural
Project." They raised animals for food, and assorted
tropical fruits and vegetables for consumption and sale.
Jones developed a belief called Translation in which
he and his followers would all die together, and would move to
another planet for a life of bliss. Mass suicides were practiced
in which his followers pretended to drink poison and fell to the
ground.
During the late 1970's, Jones had been abusing prescription
drugs and appears to have become increasingly paranoid. Rumors
of human rights abuses circulated. As in most high-intensity
religious groups, there was a considerable flow of people
joining and leaving the group. Tim Stoen, the Temple attorney
and right-hand man to Jones left to form a group called Concerned Relatives.
They claimed that Jonestown was being run like a concentration
camp, and that people were being held there against their will.
These concerns motivated Leo Ryan, a Congressman, to visit Jonestown in
1978-NOV for a personal inspection. At first, the visit went
well. Later, on NOV-18, about 16 Temple members decided that
they wanted to leave Jonestown with the visitors. This came as
quite a blow to both Jones and the rest of the project. While
Ryan and the others were waiting at Port Kiatuma airfield, the
local airstrip, some heavily armed members of the Temple's
security guards arrived and started shooting. Congressman Ryan
and four others were killed; three were members of the press;
the other was a person from Jonestown who wanted to leave. 11
were wounded.
Fearing retribution, the project members discuss
their options. They reach a consensus to commit group suicide. Most appear to have committed suicide by drinking a grape
drink laced with cyanide and a number of sedatives, including
liquid Valium, Penegram and chloral hydrate. Some sources say it
was Kool-Aid; others say FlaVor-Aid®.
Other victims appear to have been murdered by poison injection.
The Guyanese coroner said that hundreds of bodies showed needle
marks, indicating foul play. Still other victims were shot. A
very few fled into the jungle and survived.
In all, 914 died: 638 adults and 276 children. Some sources say 911
died. Their bodies were in a
state of extensive decay when the authorities arrived. There was
no time to conduct a thorough investigation. TV station KTVU in
San Francisco CA has a collection of photographs of the "Peoples
temple Agricultural Project." Some are quite disturbing.
Unfortunately, their web site implies that all of the dead
committed suicide. 14
The Peoples Temple organization did not survive the mass
suicide/murder in Guyana. Their former headquarters building in
San Francisco was demolished by the Loma Prieta earthquake of
1989.
Conspiracy Theories
The murder/suicide of over 900 people sent shockwaves through
the world. It generated enormous public support for the
anti-cult and
counter-cult movements. As with many
major political assassinations or mass murders, Jonestown has
spawned a number of conspiracy theories which attempt to explain
this remarkable occurrence:
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Some people believe that the People's Temple was an
experimental laboratory operated for or by the CIA in order
to perfect mind-control techniques. They speculate that Leo
Ryan uncovered this information and that he and over 900 of
Jones' followers had to be assassinated in order to maintain
secrecy. We have not been able to uncover any hard evidence
that would support this belief. U.S. government records
relating to the mass deaths have never been made public.
This contributes to the conspiracy theory. "In 1980, the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced
that there was 'no evidence' of CIA involvement at
Jonestown." 11 |
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Some have suggested that Jones worked closely with the
communist governments of Cuba and the USSR in the hopes of
eventually moving the Temple to the USSR. |
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The anti-cult movement also cites mind-control
techniques by Jim Jones and his officials as the cause of
the disaster. It is often claimed that the Jonestown
disaster was a mass suicide made possible by mind-control.
The many victims who were shot or forcibly injected with
poison are ignored. Some surviving members claim that they
were exposed to mind-control methods. However, others claim
that living there was the best experience of their life. |
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Some claim that Jonestown was a spectacularly successful
grass-roots demonstration of what people could accomplish if
they break free of capitalism and join in a common cause.
They speculate that the U.S. government assassinated the
people at Jonestown because they could not tolerate its
success. 12 |
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Some in the academic community view the disaster as
having been primarily caused by the hounding of Jonestown by
anti-cult groups, news reporters and federal investigative
agencies. If this theory is true, then the
mass death at Jonestown was a self-fulfilling prophecy. 1,2,3,4 |
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Our Assessment:
The views of the anti-cult movement are hopelessly divergent
from those of sociologists and NRM (New Religious Movements)
researchers. Our beliefs, for what it is worth, are that the
main contributing factors to the Jonestown tragedy were:
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Jim Jones' mental illness, aggravated by his use of
drugs. |
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The group's intense fear of the imminent end of
civilization. |
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The extreme isolation of the Agricultural Project. |
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Opposition and pressure from anti-cult groups, the media
and U.S. government. |
Freedom of
Information:
The Committee on
Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives (now
called the Committee on International Relations)
conducted an investigation into Congressman Ryan's death. Much
of the documentation that they collected on Jonestown was
classified and has "remained inaccessible for the
intervening decades to scholars, individuals who lost family
members at Jonestown, and the general public."
9 An academic group of NRM scholars asked
the House committee to declassify the documents. They held a
press conference on the 20th anniversary of Ryan's death,
1998-NOV-18 in Washington. Dr. Gordon Melton of the
Institute for the Study of American Religion said:
"Twenty
years later there appears to be no compelling issues of
national security or interest to keep these documents
secret...it is our belief that the time has come for the
release of these documents so that a more thorough
assessment of what occurred at Jonestown can be made. Our
understanding of the Jonestown deaths is still hindered by
the unavailability of numerous key documents that would
highlight the situation at Jonestown immediately prior to
and during Congressman Ryan's visit, the relationship of the
State Department to the Jonestown community, and the state
of mind of Peoples Temple leader, Rev. Jim Jones."
Over 6000 pages of information were obtained from the U.S. Department of State by an unknown person
who has posted it on the Internet. 7
Movie trailer and reviews:
A movie trailer for "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" is available on YouTube. It was constructed from
news footage and former peoples temple members. See: http://www.youtube.com/
The movie is to be released on 2007-APR-10 by PBS Home Video and Paramount Home
Entertainment for general sale.A collection of movie reviews can be viewed at:
http://movies.toptenreviews.com/
Unfortunately, many reviews incorrectly refer to the tragedy as a mass suicide;
it was actually a mass murder-suicide.
Read
reviews or pre-order this DVD safely from Amazon.com's online store As of
2007-APR-09, Amazon sells it at 30% off for $17.49 plus shipping costs. You can
select free but slower shipment on orders
over $25.00.
Various TV stations started broadcasting the documentary in early 2007.
References:
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"Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and the
People's Temple," Department of Philosophy and Religion,
University of North Dakota, at:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~remoore/jonestown Keven Hozak
has published "an alternative view to the usual
anti-cult hysteria which characterized discussion of Peoples
Temple... It will also raise questions about the treatment
of Peoples Temple -- both in life and in death -- by various
governmental agencies: local, state, and federal." See
Report 1 and
Report2
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M.
McCormick Maaga & Catherine Wessinger, "Hearing the
Voices of Jonestown," Syracuse University Press,
Syracuse NY (1998)
Read reviews and/or order this book from the Amazon.com
online bookstore
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Catherine
Wessinger, Ed., "Millennialism, Persecution and
Violence: Historical Cases (Religion and Politics),"
Syracuse University Press, (2000).
Read reviews / order this book
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John R.
Hall, article in Stuart A. Wright, Ed., "Armageddon in
Waco", University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL, (1996).
Read reviews / order this book
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Tobin
Dickerson, "People's Temple - Jonestown," at:
http://www.religiousmovements.org This essay has an
extensive bibliography and list of hyperlinks to People's
Temple web sites.
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SF Gate
at www.sfgate.com has a
series of articles from the San Francisco Chronicle
on Jonestown that you can find by entering
jonestown in the "jump to:"
box.
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"The
Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy: Primary Source Materials From The
U.S. Department of State" at:
http://www.icehouse.net/zodiac/ had over 6000 documents
obtained from the State Department. Included on the website
were parts of the House of Representatives' report on
Jonestown. The web site is no longer online. but an archive
copy may still be available at:
http://web.archive.org/
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Laurie Efrein Kahalas, is a surviving member of the
People's Temple:
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has written the book: "SNAKE DANCE: Unravelling [sic] the Mysteries of Jonestown," Trafford Publishing,
(1998). Read reviews / order this book |
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has a website at:
http://www.jonestown.com She was "contacted
by an Angelic Presence four years prior to
what the world would come to know as 'The
Jonestown Tragedy.' " |
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has written an essay "About Jonestown: An
open letter to scholars, activists, and
advocates for religious freedom" which
is online at:
http://etext.virginia.edu/
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"Scholars present request to declassify Jonestown documents," at:
http://www.cesnur.org/
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Deborah Layton, "Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the People's Temple," Anchor
(1998). Read reviews and/or order it
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Jonathan Vankin and John Whalen, "The Jonestown Massacre: CIA Mind Control Run Amok?," at:
http://www.conspire.com/jones.html
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"Peoples Temple (Jonestown)," at:
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/
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Tim Reiterman & John Jacobs, "Raven: The untold story of Reverend Jim Jones and his people," E.P. Dutton
(1982). Read reviews / order this book
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"Somber Remembrance of Jonestown Massacre," 11 photographs, KTVU, at:
http://www.ktvu.com/
Copyright © 1996 to 2007 by Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2007-APR-09
Author: B.A. Robinson 
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