Dear Friend and Reader,
On November 18, 1978, 913 people lost their lives in Jonestown, Guyana in a community set up by an evangelistic religious leader by the name of Jim Jones. It was originally reported as a mass suicide under Jones’ direction, but I have lost a few nights of sleep after watching MSNBC’s special “Witness: To Jonestown” and doing some research which has led me to the conclusion that it was not a mass suicide at all.
Today is the 30th anniversary of The Jonestown Massacre, an event that is barely conceivable to me and to most of us who see the painful images taken on that day of all those bodies spread out like a quilt in the jungles of Guyana. The name Jim Jones is an urban legend among my generation, and it evokes a feeling of darkness and death. For some reason, I’ve really never bothered to look into what happened. I think the pictures said enough for me.
Now, as I’ve filled my head with the facts and the conspiracy theories that surround the event, I still come back to my original question which was not so much what happened, but how and why something like this could happen. I am fascinated by what motivates groups of people to participate in one common goal. How can an entire group consciousness be directed in such an awesomely evil and violent way?
The Jonestown Massacre stands out in a few ways for me. One is that unlike Nazis or slave-traders, who were doing something really obviously evil, Jim Jones was a comrade to many. I sat down with my Grandmother last night and learned that she had corresponded with him many times as a result of her political activism in the Bay Area during the 60s and early 70s. He was very critical of America’s treatment of Black people, poor people and the disenfranchised. He disapproved of capitalism, racism and classicism.
The apparent intent of setting up shop in Guyana was to have a Socialist community where everyone participated equally and was provided for and given all of the things that many of them were unable to afford in America, i.e. medical care, shelter, a job. But what has really blown my mind is finding out that he was more than just a powerful personality and one of those people who can charm honey out of a bee: he was politically astute, socially aware, racially blind and a kind, generous man. There seems to be this common association with the term “cult” that pre-defines the members as somehow “weak” or “psychologically deficient” in some ways. This is just not the case with the members of the People’s Temple.
I have noticed that whenever a large group of people are victims of a narcissistic violent person such as Hitler, there is a common thread that defines the victimized group. It slowly dawned on me as I watched the video and looked at the pictures of the bodies on that fateful day, that most of them were black people.
The majority of the people who followed him were people who had minimal protection and resources to protect themselves. This is the thing he connected to in his followers: the need to feel protected, to belong and to be provided for. He was a true Taurean leader. He offered a way for these people to have material security and abundance and to be able to escape the racism and oppression of America during that very tumultuous period in our history.
To put it simply, he fed them, clothed them, housed them and gave them a family. I’ve certainly experienced this from my precious Taurus friends. They take such good care of their loved ones. From this perspective, I could understand how folks could be swayed to join his movement and be “down for the cause” but I still could not see how all this could lead to these same people deciding to commit suicide together.
My question began to lose viability. The interviews of survivors showed that many of these people were very astute, educated, socially aware and most importantly, kind. The evidence that began to unfold about Jones showed a very different story from what George Moscone and Harvey Milk understood about him. On the outside, his members gladly participated in political demonstrations, gave food to the needy and took in the homeless, all of which Jones encouraged. He was an important fundraiser for Moscone and Milk and was put in charge of the city Housing Commission. Despite all this, something was fishy.
Marshall Kildreth, a journalist for The San Francisco Examiner,В discovered some disturbing things about Jim Jones. He berated members in front of the congregation, and even gave them physical beatings during church gatherings. He was a common charlatan like so many evangelist reverends, and the illusion of him mysteriously knowing things about new members was a direct result of established members of the church breaking into their rooms while they were in the church and obtaining personal information about them.
I came upon an article that claimed he had ties to the CIA, and that the untold story of Jonestown is that these people were being used as guinea pigs for mind control experiments using illegal pharmaceuticals.
Of course no newspaper was interested in Kildreth’s stories about Jones’ hidden abusive personality, because it clashed with the image that the politicians wanted the public to see. Long story short — this man showed obvious signs of an unstable personality before he moved everyone to Guyana. New West Magazine agreed to print Kildreth’s expose in 1977 and soon after, People’s Temple moved to Guyana. Once there, Jones began to display increasingly disturbing behavior. People were forced to work 18 hour days, sign false documents and were afraid to leave under penalty of death. This is not group consciousness; this is a bunch of scared people who felt they had no where else to go.
On Nov. 18, 1978, bodies were discovered piled on top of each other: needle-marks were present on at least 70 of them, according to the chief medical examiner. This could indicate the poison was injected, or a that they were “relief injections” administered to lessen pain and quicken death after the poison was taken orally.
All survivors have now confirmed that many people wanted to leave, but were afraid. The last, and most important thing found was a warehouse filled with Quaaludes, Valium, morphine, Demerol, Thorazine (a dangerous tranquilizer), chloral hydrate (a hypnotic chemical agent), thallium (which confuses thinking), sodium pentathol (truth serum) and of course cyanide.
This is all I needed to know to believe that the members of the People’s Temple were probably being drugged and not at all in a healthy state of mind.
How and why would people be inclined to want to follow a person like Jim Jones? Why would people endure verbal and physical abuse? Why would mothers kill their own babies and children? Why would people continue to believe in someone who slowly changes over time and begins to act in ways that go against everything he has preached to them?
Because people are so lonely, so lost, and so in need of a FAMILY, that it can literally warp your mind. People are struggling without money, suffering without support, sick without healthcare, and desperate to belong. People are not raised to value themselves, their bodies or their instincts. We sense things that aren’t right, or at least don’t feel right, and are told to be quiet. We experience pain from the destructive energy of an angry person and are told to take it and not be so emotional.
I have experienced more of moments like this in my life than I can recall. Those moments when you are concerned by something, get that uncomfortable feeling in your stomach, turn to someone to express it, and are promptly shut down. There is obviously something that human beings need as much as food, clothing and shelter. Something related to being heard and understood. A sense of connectedness. It is this need that makes marks of us all. It makes us more likely to stay involved with someone who hurts us and stay in situations that are unhealthy for us.
So my question now is not, what really happened, but how can we keep things like this from happening to our loved ones. The only answer that comes to mind is kindness. Who knows how much one kind act can contribute just a little bit to building a persons’ self-esteem? Kindness must become our religion. What is kindness? Recognizing that for whatever reason, some people were not taught to value themselves and therefore will put themselves in dangerous situations. When you give someone food when they are hungry, gloves in the winter or just simply forgive them for being angry, you are saying you are worth something. And as evidence by the fact that 900 or so people stayed in a situation that ended in their deaths, kindness has something to do with making sure that everyone belongs. That they feel heard, valued and considered.
30 years later, we are part of a momentous example of group consciousness working in a positive way. We elected a black man to the highest office of the free world. This is a man who believes everyone should have access to healthcare, whether they have money or not. This is a kind thing.
We would be wise to change this survival-of-the-fittest belief that we hold. We need to create a world where people have the instinct to recognize hypocrisy and say, “I don’t need to be a part of this.” This happens when you believe that you have options, and that life can be better than your present circumstances. So each time we extend ourselves in kindness to someone, we are saying, your life can be better. Our life can be better.
We believed this as a group in America, and many of us put aside our prejudices and fears and replaced it with a vision of the future that is more inclusive of everyone. The man that we elected proved that one can be kind and still be powerful. No person who believes he/she is powerful would ever be seduced by a Jim Jones. Let’s all help to create more powerful people. Please, be kind to one another.
Yours & truly,
Rahmana