As a species, we’re constantly searching for answers to life's big questions and that can sometimes lead us down dangerous paths. For too many people, this path can lead them into becoming a member of a cult. Of course one man’s cult is another man’s religion, and the word itself can have many negative connotations. In the first installment, I looked at what makes a cult in a general sense, as well as going through a checklist of sorts to aid us in our journey through the cult mindset. This week’s subject is The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, or as it is informally referred to “Jonestown”. To read more about the People's Temple and the formation of Jonestown, please go back and read the previous post.
I chose this group to start with largely because it is often used in these modern times as the example of a cult, as well as for being one of, if not the worst mass murder-suicide ever in American history, as well as the worst loss of life in a deliberate act until the attacks on 9/11. A total of 918 people died that day, and it’s from the incident at Jonestown that we get the common phrase; “Drinking the Kool-Aid”
Jonestown Compound
Jonestown Houses
The members of the Temple had such unwavering faith in Jones that they all uprooted their lives and fled from growing media pressure to Guyana in 1977. There had already been 500 Temple members in Guyana before Jones and his flock arrived, building the settlement and establishing a working self-sustaining commune. Jonestown had been described as a socialist utopia or paradise, but much to many of the members this utopia began to unravel when Jones and the rest of his flock left California en masse.
Activities that the original Jonestown settlers once enjoyed were altered or stopped all together. The once happy and successful colony became a communist propaganda filled hellhole. Movies the members once enjoyed were replaced for communist documentaries and propaganda, buildings fell into disrepair and the fields began to become overgrown and weed infested. Initially settlers would work six days a week for almost 12 hours a day, but after Jones health began to fail in mid-1978, Marceline changed it to five days a week and only six hours a day after largely taking control over the operations of Jonestown.
Jones would often go into lengthy and often confusing monologues on how to “read” certain world events, and would interrogate individual members about the implications and subtexts of these events. In fact, nothing could be viewed by Temple members without a staffer present to “interpret” the material for the viewers. Over Jonestown’s speaker system, Jones reading the news with a communist slant was commonly heard, villianising the US and painting leaders like Robert Mugabe and Joseph Stalin as the heroes.
Jones greatly admired the North Korean system, and employed substantial mind control and behaviour modification techniques borrow from the North Korean and Mao’s China. He compared the Jonestown schedule to that of the North Korean rigorous system of eight hours of work followed by eight hours of study. This left members in a perpetual almost Zombie-like state, where they were far more susceptible to Jones manipulative techniques.
Jones would also frequently speak to the members regarding safety in Jonestown, putting them through drills that he referred to as “White Nights”. These White Night rehearsals, according to Jones, were to prepare them for the coming attack from the CIA and other intelligence agencies who he said were conspiring with “capitalist pigs” to destroy the settlement and harm or kill its inhabitants. There were at least two occasions during these White Night where a “revolutionary suicide” vote was reached, and a simulated mass suicide was rehearsed, which was a haunting foreshadow of what was to come.
“Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands.”
Temple defector Deborah Layton’s description of the event in an affidavit
It wasn’t known to the majority of Temple members, but Jones had arranged for a monthly half-pound shipment of cyanide to be delivered to the compound since 1976 under the guise of using it to clean gold. One of the Temple doctors requested to test the poison on some of Jonestown’s pigs, to which Jones agreed. The pigs were chosen because they have a metabolism comparable to humans.
While the vast majority of the Temple members had moved to Guyana with Jones, a small skeleton crew remained in San Francisco in order to keep a foothold in the US. With donations all but stopping, the staff were overworked and underpaid. Property was sold off to plug up some of the financial sink hole, but the damage had already been done. Jones insisted around the time of the exodus, that they were not leaving or abandoning California, but evidently they did.
Concerned Relatives
Jonestown Entrance
It was in September 1977 that two former Temple members, Tim and Grace Stoen, took the People’s Temple to a Georgetown courthouse to try to get their five-year-old son, John, back from the Temple. The court issued an order for John to be taken into protective custody by authorities, which caused Jones to react by setting up a false sniper attack on himself due to the fear of being held in contempt of court. This sparked a six day siege, the first series of White Nights. Jones told the members that the compound was surrounded by outsiders with guns and machetes. This culminated in the Deputy Minister assuring Marceline that the Guyana Defence Force would not invade Jonestown.
This siege caused Jones to start looking at potential other places the group could migrate to in another mass exodus. Temple members wrote to over a dozen foreign governments to find out about the different immigration policies that were relevant to the group all moving en masse. Eventually the USSR began negotiating with the People’s Temple and sent out a Soviet dignitary, Feodor Timofeyev, to give a speech to the members and discuss a potential Soviet exodus.
Later on in 1977, some family members of the people that left for Guyana, including the Stoen’s, and defectors formed a group called “Concerned Relatives” which started speaking with the state department about what was going on inside The People’s Temple in Guyana. The state started to feel the pressure from the group and in 1978 started a fact finding mission led by statesman Leo Ryan.
I think it’s important to note that during the summer of 1978, before Congressman Ryan’s arrival, Jones had sought the legal services of Mark Lane and Donald Freed, both Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists, to help him make the case of a “grand conspiracy” by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies against the People’s Temple. It seems like Jones was wanting to repair his reputation, despite the growing pressures from the Concerned Relatives group, maybe to make a grand return to the US. Jones would end up paying Lane and Freed to generate conspiracies claiming the charges brought against the Temple were not true, and implicating organisations like the CIA, FBI and even the US Post Office. This, to me at least, shows that Jones wasn’t necessarily set on the mass-murder/suicide outcome for the group, and that maybe a peaceful resolution could have been sought. Maybe.
During this time, Jones’ health and been in serious decline with him being informed of a possible lung infection - which he used to tell his followers that he in fact had lung cancer, probably to garner more support and sympathy. Jones was said to be using injectable Valium, LSD, barbiturates and other stimulants and substances which would have had a significant impact on both his physical and mental decline. Over time, he voice would become slurred, words would become blurred and he often couldn’t finish his sentences when giving his speeches over the compounds speaker system.
The Incident in November 1978
Congressman Leo Ryan
Jones held a reception for Leo and his party, and at first Congressman Ryan was satisfied with what he saw as it truly seemed like the cohesive socialist paradise Jones had advertised it to be. That was until the second day when members started passing notes to Ryan, saying they and their children are being held captive. Ryan approached Jones and asked him what was going on, and of course, he denied everything. Jones told Ryan that members were free to leave at any time, which of course was a lie, as members had to seek permission from Jones himself, and they’d better have a good reason.
Things got to the point where one of the members tried to attack Ryan with a knife while Ryan stayed behind to process any additional defectors, and it isn’t known whether the member was instructed to do this by Jones, or whether he did this of his own volition. The attack failed, but it caused Ryan to make the decision to leave pretty much immediately. He managed to gather 15 members who were all going to leave with him because they had said they didn’t want to be there anymore. Ryan even said to one member that he was going to describe Jonestown “in basically good terms” and that none of the sixty relatives he had interviewed wanted to leave, but when that news got back to Jones he proclaimed that all was lost. Jones didn’t stop Ryan or the 15 members from leaving.
The group had already arranged for a 19 passenger utility aircraft to take them from the airstrip outside Jonestown back to Georgetown, but a second aircraft was required because of the defectors. When the group arrived at the airstrip around 4:30pm on 18th November, the planes were nowhere to be seen and it wasn’t until roughly 40 minutes later that the aircrafts arrived and landed.
The first plane that was ready for take off contained a Temple member, Larry Layton, who produced a handgun when the plane had taxied to the far end of the airstrip, and began shooting at the passengers. He wounded several passengers before one of the victims disarmed him. While the was happening, the other passengers were boarding the second larger aircraft. A tractor appeared within 30ft of the aircraft at roughly the same time as the shooting on the other plane, members of the Temple opened fire with shotguns, handguns and rifles while at least two other shooters circled the plane on foot. The exact number of shooters isn’t known, but most sources state that there were perhaps nine shooters in total, all of whom are not known.
The first few seconds of the shooting were captured by NBC cameraman Bob Brown, who was sadly killed along with other members of Ryan’s group, Temple defectors and Ryan himself. Ryan was shot over twenty times. Many others were injured, but the pilot of the first smaller aircraft managed to flee to Georgetown, leaving the dead Ryan and other members of his party behind on the airstrip.
Mass Murder-Suicide
In the early evening of the 18th November, Jones called a meeting under the pavilion and the discussion that was had between Jones and the members was recorded in what is known as the “death tape”. It’s a 44-minute long recording and again, unless you’re fairly immune to these kinds of disturbing situations, I recommend you don’t listen to the tape. It makes for some very, very uncomfortable listening. At one point during the meeting, Jones said the following to his followers:
“one of those people on that plane is gonna shoot the pilot, I know that. I didn't plan it but I know it's gonna happen. They're gonna shoot that pilot and down comes the plane into the jungle and we had better not have any of our children left when it's over, because they'll parachute in here on us.”
Jim Jones during the meeting in the pavilion
I think this statement makes it perfectly clear that the attack was orchestrated by Jones himself, who must have instructed his closest followers and security to launch the attack when it became clear that he was going to lose some of his congregation. Jones’ mental state at this point would have been unstable to say the least, part due to his failing health and part due to the cocktail of substances he was injecting into himself on a daily basis.
That statement also repeats something Jones had said many times previously; that the hostile invading forces would capture the children and convert them to “fascism”, hence why they “...had better not have any of [their] children left when it's over…”
Before the meeting took place, aides of Jones’ prepared a large metal oil drum that had been converted for use in meal times with grape Flavor Aid, poisoned with cyanide, Valium, chloral hydrate, and Phenergan. It is often erroneously referred to as Kool Aid, however it was a cheaper off-brand alternative that was actually used in Jonestown.
On the tape, you can hear Jones urging members to commit “revolutionary suicide”, an act that the group had practised for many times previously during the White Nights rehearsals. Jones was not only going to martyr himself, but he was dead set on taking every single other person down with him.
One temple member tried to argue with Jones, stating that the Temple should alternatively attempt an airlift to the Soviet Union, whom they had been trying to organise with for a new mass exodus. Jones and other committed members argued against this point, and reincarnation was even cited as being a reason to commit suicide. Christine Miller, the woman who had been arguing for the airlift, appears to stop her dissenting when Jones announces that “the Congressman has been murdered” after the airstrip shooters returned on the tractor. In fact, there isn’t anymore dissent from Temple members after the Congressman is confirmed dead.
Listening to the death tape really is a harrowing experience. I listened to it in it’s entirely once several years ago now when I first became interested in this topic, and the screams of the children in the background as they are forced to consume this deadly cocktail is heartbreaking and haunting.
For very young children, a syringe with the needle removed was used to squirt the poison into their months, with a one-year old being one of the first to receive this poison death. Mothers with their babies were queueing to take the poison, but after the first few people began to show the signs that the poison was taking effect, “they showed a reluctance to die.” The poison took roughly five minutes to kill each person, and once people had consumed it, they were escorted away down a wooden walkway leading outside of the pavilion.
It isn’t clear if some thought this was just another White Nights rehearsal, hence why they went along with it. Jones’ repeated drills broke the wills of the people to the point that they (mostly) willingly drank the poisoned drink.
“Die with a degree of dignity. Lay down your life with dignity; don't lay down with tears and agony.”
“I tell you, I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many anguished cries...death is a million times preferable to 10 more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you – if you knew what was ahead of you, you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight.”
Jim Jones response to the peoples reactions to the poison
Jones was eventually found dead, lying next to the chair from where he would give his speeches, between two other bodies with his head cushioned by a pillow. Many of the children didn’t get that luxury.
Aftermath
Memorial Gravesite in Evergreen Cemetery, California
Most of the accounts from the event itself come from the tape, but also from one survivor, Odell Rhodes, and although his statements are largely regarded as factual there are some inconsistencies. Such as his claim that the children seemed like they were “in a trance like state”, however the soul-touching cries of the children on the tape contradicts this.
The mass-murder/suicide at Jonestown was the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the unfortunate terrorist attack of 9/11. Not everyone in the People’s Temple died that day though, as a small group fled into the jungle on the morning of the 18th. There was also a small group based in Port Kaituma, including Jones’ own son, plus the two lawyers who had been sent away prior to the meeting in the pavilion. Three high-ranking Temple members claimed they were given an assignment to carry luggage containing large amounts of currency and an envelope, which were to be delivered to the Soviet Embassy in Georgetown. The letter read:
“Dear Comrade Timofeyev,
The following is a letter of instructions regarding all of our assets that we want to leave to the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Enclosed in this letter are letters which instruct the banks to send the cashiers checks to you. I am doing this on behalf of Peoples Temple because we, as communists, want our money to be of benefit for help to oppressed peoples all over the world, or in any way that your decision-making body sees fit.”
There were 87 survivors and 918 people dead in total.
The media had a field day with the events at Jonestown, with it making covers for months afterwards. There is still much debate as to whether this is a mass suicide, or a mass murder. Personally, I think it’s somewhere between the two, although it’s hard to argue that any of the children could have possibly consented to such an act. Jonestown has since gone on to define cults and cult-like behaviour, with it being compared to groups such as The Family International and even Scientology. The popular phrase “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid” is direct reference to those tragic events. It even features heavily in some conspiracy theories.
The site itself was used by the Guyana authorities for some time, before being left to be reclaimed by the jungle.
In the first post, I went through a checklist of features that can be used to help define if a group is a cult. Let’s go through a few of the main ones, however I won’t be spending too much time going through the checklist for this cult, mainly because whether The People’s Temple is a cult or not is a settled debate; it undoubtedly is.
The group had shown excessive jealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader, and regarded his belief system, ideology and practises as the Truth. Questioning or doubt was certainly discouraged, although little evidence exists to support the view that it was punished. There were mind-altering practises, coupled with the leadership dictating exactly how members should think, act and feel. The group employed the outsider vs insider mind set, as well as claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leadership and its members. Finally, the fact that so many people agreed to this almost ritualistic suicide, shows that they felt that there could be no life outside of the context of the group, and the reprisals for leaving were described as being catastrophic.
It can be hard to spot the signs of a cult mind-set when you are on the inside, and that’s why it requires society as a whole to be more understanding of the individuals who get dragged into these situations. These groups paint the outside world as a scary, violent and aggressive place that will never welcome the groups members, so it’s a good start to prove that point wrong.
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Enjoyed this? More [Cult Watch]
[Cult Watch] The Peoples Temple - Part One
[Cult Watch] What is a Cult?
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Sources:
Jonestown on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown)
People's Temple in San Francisco on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Temple_in_San_Francisco)
Jonestown Houses Image courtesy of The Jonestown Institute from Wikimedia Commons (
Jonestown Entrance Image courtesy of The Jonestown Institute from Wikimedia Commons (
Leo Ryan Image courtesy of the United States Congress from Wikimedia Commons (
Memorial Image courtesy of Mercurywoodrose from Wikimedia Commons (