Nov 18 2008
It happened three decades ago and I still have trouble understanding how
On November 18, 1978 more than 900 people drank a lethal concoction in the middle of a South American jungle. The mass suicide has always been a disturbing episode for me to ponder. How could one man, cult leader Jim Jones, have such influence over these followers? The “People’s Temple” was founded by Indianapolis preacher James Warren Jones, who had no formal theological training. A combination of religious and radical socialist philosophies formed the basis of his teaching. Jim Jones had a kind of attractiveness that many followers could not resist.
The I.R.S. started investigating his organization. The news media intensely followed the story. Jones became somewhat paranoid. In 1977 he convinced his congregation to follow him to an isolated tract of land that the People’s Temple had purchased in Guyana. The encampment was called Jonestown. Soon relatives of cult members demanded that the U.S. government rescue what they believed to be brainwashed victims living in concentration camp-like conditions under Jones’s power.
To investigate their concerns, California Congressman Leo Ryan, accompanied by several journalists, arrived at Jonestown to interview its inhabitants. He reported that his life was threatened by a Temple member during the first day of his visit. Ryan cut short his visit and decided to return to the U.S. with some Jonestown residents who wanted to leave. As they boarded their plane, a group of Jones’s guards opened fire on them, killing Ryan and four others. Some members of Ryan’s party escaped. Jones knew they would report the murders. This would make it impossible for the commune to continue functioning. Jones decided his followers must make the ultimate sacrifice.
912 followers were given a lethal purple drink, a mix of cyanide, sedatives, and tranquilizers. Jones didn’t drink the deadly nectar. Instead he fatally shot himself in the head.
It seems an improbable story, a bizarre tale, almost unbelievable but true. How intelligent people fall for such a scheme remains mysteriously unexplained. What’s more … it could happen again.
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