An apocalyptic cult, 900 dead: remembering the Jonestown massacre, 40 years on
More than 900 people, many of them children, died in a mass murder-suicide in 1978 by drinking cyanide-laced punch at the order of cult leader Jim Jones.

Four decades ago this Sunday, the Rev Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of an American cult in the Guyanese jungle, ordered his followers to murder a US congressman and several journalists, then commit mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced fruit punch.

The Jonestown massacre was, before 9/11, the largest single incident of intentional civilian death in American history. More than 900 people died, many children. It was also a devastating cultural trauma: the end of the last strains of a certain kind of 1960s idealism and 1970s radicalism. Jonestown’s legacy lives on in the ironic phrase “drink the Kool-Aid”. (In actuality it was Fla-Vor-Aid.)

Although he would later become a symbol of the darker side of the west coast counterculture, Jim Jones was born to a poor family in Indiana. Described as an intelligent and strange child, Jones was instinctively attracted to religion, especially charismatic Christian traditions like Pentecostalism. He cut his teeth as a street preacher, and was, unusually for the time and place, a passionate advocate for racial equality.

Although Jones’s followers would later be stereotyped as sinister, brainwashed idiots, the journalist Tim Reiterman argues in his seminal book on the subject that many were “decent, hardworking, socially conscious people, some highly educated”, who “wanted to help their fellow man and serve God, not embrace a self-proclaimed deity on earth”. The Peoples Temple advocated socialism and communitarian living and was racially integrated to an exceptional standard rarely matched since.

In 1965, when Jones was in his mid-30s, he ordered the Peoples Temple moved to California. He drifted away from traditional Christian teachings, describing himself in messianic terms and claiming he was the reincarnation of figures like Christ and Buddha. He also claimed that his goal all along was communism, and, in a twist on the famous dictum that religion is the “opiate of the masses”, that religion was merely his way of making Marxism more palatable.

By the 1970s, the Peoples Temple, now based in San Francisco, had gained significant political influence. Jones’s fierce advocacy for the downtrodden earned him the admiration of leftwing icons like Angela Davis and Harvey Milk and the support of groups like the Black Panthers – a tragically misguided political affinity, given that more than two-thirds of Jonestown’s eventual victims were African American.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ-FkTLPrAw&t=624s

The Peoples Temple was, as David Talbot notes in Salon, successful in part because it was politically useful: “Jones could be counted on to deliver busloads of obedient, well-dressed disciples to demonstrations, campaign rallies, and political precincts.”

There were already signs, however, of a sinister undercurrent to the Peoples Temple. Followers were expected to devote themselves completely to the church’s utopian project: they turned over their personal wealth, worked long hours of unpaid labor for the church and often broke contact with their families. They were expected to raise their children within the commune. As a show of commitment, Peoples Temple members were asked to sign false testimonials that they had molested their children, which the church kept for potential blackmail.

In his 1980 study of Jonestown, the writer Shiva Naipaul, younger brother of VS Naipaul, argued that the Peoples Temple was at heart a fundamentalist religious project – “obsessed with sin and images of apocalyptic destruction, authoritarian in its innermost impulses, instinctively thinking in terms of the saved and the damned”.

The result, Naipaul wrote, “was neither racial justice nor socialism but a messianic parody of both”.

Jones, who had long believed the US was in danger of imminent nuclear holocaust, had been searching for a place where his church would be “safe” during an apocalyptic event. A magazine article alleging abuse in the Peoples Temple spurred Jones’s desire to relocate. He chose Guyana, a former British colony in South America whose socialist regime was politically sympathetic.

In 1977 the Peoples Temple moved its headquarters to a remote area of Guyanese wilderness. Here, Jones declared, they could build a utopian society without government or media meddling. Battling an oppressive tropical climate and limited resources, they began to convert the dense jungle into a working agricultural commune, soon known as “Jonestown”.

The church delivered Jones’s rambling monologues to Jonestown’s inhabitants by megaphone as they worked. In the evenings they attended mandatory propaganda classes. Jones’s writ was enforced by armed guards called the “Red Brigade”.

Jonestown had little reason to expect interference from Guyana – a “cooperative republic” whose government happily ignored signs of the cult’s authoritarian and paranoid bent. Back in the US, however, parents of Jonestown inhabitants – concerned by the strange letters, or lack of letters, they received from their children – had been lobbying the government to investigate.

After a family in the US won a custody order for a child in Jonestown, paranoia escalated. The commune became an armed camp, ringed by volunteers with guns and machetes, threatening to fight outsiders to the death.

During the (imaginary) siege, Black Panthers Huey Newton and Angela Davis spoke to Jonestown inhabitants by radio patch to voice solidarity. Davis told Jonestown inhabitants that they were at the vanguard of revolution, and right to resist what she called “a profound conspiracy” against them.

Sometime during this period Jonestown began drills called “white nights”, in which inhabitants would practice committing mass suicide.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/17/an-apocalyptic-cult-900-dead-remembering-the-jonestown-massacre-40-years-on

Criminals are often intelligent people with twisted minds and emotions.

CNN documentary on Jonestown


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_yIJCiV9Xg

UndauntedYOCA:
Criminals are often intelligent people with twisted minds and emotions.

And followers are usually narrow-minded and overtly emotional even in the face of glaring falsehood.

Smh...
This story really disturbs me.
This is what happens when you don't think for yourself anymore and place your whole life and trust on your fellow man.
This level of brainwashing is something I haven't seen before.
He even made them kill their children first by feeding them poison before they killed themselves.
The story is messed up.
Go and read about it.

I still remember seeing the movie based on this story as a child. It sent chills down my spine then, and now...

UndauntedYOCA:
Criminals are often intelligent people with twisted minds and emotions.

Your Signature: how About I Pm You To Test Your Aphrodisiac on You

'Dont drink the kool-Aid'
haha

Senator Says 17 Foster Children May Be Among Jonestown Dead
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 16,1979 — Initial inquiries show that perhaps as many as 17 foster children that the California authorities had placed with members of the People's Temple may have died in the mass deaths in Jonestown, Guyana, Senator Alan Cranston said here today.

The Senator's remarks at a news con?? were based on a report to him by the General Accounting Office, the investigating agency for Congress. He emphasized that the report was preliminary and that the investigation was continuing.

The investigators have been combing county welfare files for three weeks because Senator Cranston said at a Washington hearing that his staff had been told that perhaps as many as 150 foster care children died at Jonestown. That estimate has since been discredited.

When he was pressed to give details of the investigation, Senator Cranston said that he could not be positive about the findings because the records were so scattered and because errors in assessing files had already turned up. For example, jive names were taken off the list of foster children thought to have died in Guyana when it was found that they left the foster care rolls before going to Jonestown. They may have died there, but not as foster care beneficiaries.

“Some of the children were being supported by foster payments, averaging $200 a month, for as long as four months after they were moved to Guyana,” he said. “Others had their payments stopped, or may have been assigned a legal guardian within the cult, and it is not yet clear whether support payments from California continued.

“Some children simply disappeared. We don't know if they died, ran away and escaped, thereby saving themselves, or if they came back before the mass suicides.”

Senator Cranston said that only three children receiving foster care had been positively identified as dead in Jonestown. One of these, Vincent Lopez of Hay. ward, Calif., had been previously identified by reporters. Mr. Cranston did not name the two others, nor did he give the names of those whom investigators have identified tentatively as foster care children who may be among the unidentified bodies.

Identification of 635 bodies taken from Jonestown was made through fingerprints, but most of the children in the People's Temple had not been fingerprinted. Senator Cranston said that 227 persons under 18 years of age had lived in the commune and had not been Identified.

The 17 children who are on the tentative list were from 5 to 18 years old. Senator Cranston said that Federal investigators had found records showing that there were still 12 active cases of foster children with People's Temple families that had not gone to Guyana. He said that he had notified Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. of California of this so state agencies might check on the children.

Suspicion Not Substantiated

Mr. Cranston was asked if there was evidence that the Rev. Jim Jones's followers had placed children in foster homes that the People's Temple controlled so the Temple could collect the foster care payments.

“I don't have evidence to substantiate that suspicion,” he said.

At another point in the news conference, he said, “I have heard rumors about people who were working for one level of Government or another who were also members of the People's Temple. It is quite possible that this shaped their judgments in ways adverse to the welfare of the children involved, and that is being looked into at the present time.”

It was in his work as chairman of the Child and Human Development Subcommittee of the Senate Human Resources Committee that Mr. Cranston began to inquire into the possible misuse of the foster care program by the People's Temple.

Moving of Cult Bodies Urged

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 16 (AP) — A court‐appointed interfaith group recommended today that the 570 unclaimed bodies of members of the People's Temple be trucked to the San Francisco area for burial, at a cost of about $302,800.

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/17/archives/senator-says-17-foster-children-may-be-among-jonestown-dead-not.html

OMG, it's terrible to read

dettemanon:
OMG, it's terrible to read

but this is reality!!!

We all know that the cult of the Apocalypse has, from its inception, taken the lives of many innocent people or its acolytes. I believe that all cults are dangerous because they strip people of their individuality, elevate their idol above the heavens, and trust their every word. Do you know what kind of crowd is easiest to control? - It's the crowd that believes in your ideals. I've watched many documentaries about cults, and I know this to be true. It's better to keep your children from worshipping false idols or worshipping pop culture idols. As a teenager, it's okay, but with an unhealthy psyche, it can develop into a mental disorder or adherence to a cult.

Sad reality in some Nigerian churches where the Pastor can do no wrong.

Only The True God can set gullible people free.

How can a religion have 4 totally different accounts of the resurrection on which such a religion and it's beleives are based on?

In Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary saw an angel.
In Mark: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome saw a young man.
In Luke: The women saw 2 men.
In John: [Notice there was no angel or young man. Here it was just Mary Magdalene, Peter and the other disciple]
"Mary Magdalene went to the tomb". "So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple". "Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb". "The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen". "Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside". "Then the disciples went back to where they were staying"


Matthew 28:1-7
1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

Mark 16:1-7
1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

Luke 24:1-8
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.

John 20:1-10
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.