I write about this historic date because I feel it is important to remember.
So. It was on this date, November 18, 1978, when Jim Jones, the founder of the “Peoples Temple,” led hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide. They were in the country of Guyana in South America. It was a farm community in the remote part of the jungle there. Founded by Jones. He named it after himself — Jonestown.
On that terrible afternoon, many of Jones’ followers ingested a poison-laced punch. Some of the people did it of their own free will. But many others, sadly, were forced to drink down their death at gunpoint. Tragically 909 people died that day. More than 300 of them were children.
How does something like this happen? How do almost a thousand people perish at the hands of one man? How do they commit to sacrificing their children?
Well. Clearly. Those people were not thinking clearly.
The majority of them had been convinced of an alternate reality. A false one. We don’t hear the term much in the news these days, but brainwashing is a very real thing. It is also called Coercive Persuasion.
Basically, it is a systematic effort to persuade people to accept an allegiance to someone or something. The ones doing the brainwashing use a technique that manipulates human thought. It beats down their will and their ability to make their own choices. The brainwasher controls the physical and social environment. They isolate their victims from reason or voices of reason.
Today, more typically, we hear of gaslighting. Brainwashing is more of a common tactic of cult leaders and dictators. But gaslighting? It can occur in personal relationships and professional working relationships.
In the case of Jim Jones, he offered promise and hope. Jones was a charismatic churchman. His movement started decades before, when he established the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in the 1950s.
So here is the thing. It was the 1950s and 60s. Discrimination was huge against blacks (and many other groups, for that matter). But Jones preached against racism. As such, his integrated congregation attracted many African Americans.
Their group eventually moved to Northern California. Then, during the 1970s, he was accused by the media of committing financial fraud, physically abusing members, and mistreating children.
With all this pressure escalating, Jones decided to move the congregation to Guyana. But he must have seen the trouble coming. Three years earlier, he sent a small group of his followers to South America to set up “Jonestown.” In the jungle.
He promised all his “people,” once there, that they would build a socialist utopia. Paradise. But once everyone got down there, it was far from paradise. The members had to work long hours in the fields. If they didn’t follow Jones’ orders, they were severely punished. He took their passports. Their correspondence was censored and altered. They had to attend endless meetings. They were encouraged to spy on each other.
Jones was a heavy drug user. An addict. He also had mental health issues. All of this was escalating. He became paranoid that the United States was out to get him. And with all of that, the congregation had to begin participating in mock suicide drills.
Back in the United States, a group of concerned relatives asked Congressman Leo Ryan (D-CA) to go to Jonestown and investigate. So, on November 17, 1978, Ryan flew there with a group of journalists and other observers.
At first, things seemed okay. Copasetic. Ryan and his group were getting ready to leave. And that is when several Jonestown members asked Ryan to get them out of Guyana.
Jones found out about the defection and sent a group of his thugs to the airstrip. Ryan and his companions were ambushed and killed as they tried to leave. Murdered as they boarded their planes.
And next, back at Jonestown, Jim Jones gathered his members together and told them to be ready to commit main a “revolutionary act.” Cyanide was mixed into powdered fruit juice. The members drank it down. Some willfully. Others by force.
The unthinkable. Sadly, 909 people died that day at the hand of Jones. Until the September 11th attacks, the tragedy in Jonestown represented the largest number of American civilian casualties in a single non-natural event. A terrible loss.
And with this, we should never forget the potential of human behavior.
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Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
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That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
— Aldous Huxley
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The tragedy of Jonestown. The great loss.
