Here are two videos that give you a sense of what happened in Jonestown. The first appears to be a movie trailer. The second is footage from the History Channel set to the music of Blue Oyster Cult.
Dear Friend and Reader:
AS YOU MAY be hearing from places like NPR — or any news media that has a memory longer than three days — today is the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre in Georgetown, Guyana.
Anyone who is old enough to even vaguely remember surely does; that edition of Time magazine was unforgettable; I was 14 at the time and kept my copy for many years. Its page after page of stark, bright photos and blunt reporting may have influenced my choice to be a journalist. The link takes you to the cover, which in turn links to the original article. Jonestown is the source of cultural references to “drinking the Kool-Aid” (or purple Kool-Aid it may have actually been a similar product called Flavor Aid, or a mix of the two, laced with what was believed at the time to be cyanide; I am now hearing that there is some contention over this).
In any event, 918 people ended up dead, including more than 200 kids, a United States congressman named Leo Ryan, his party and a number of defectors from the cult. The adults were coerced into killing themselves, told that men would parachute in from the sky and torture them if they did not. The kids were killed by the adults; syringes were used to squirt the sweet poison into their mouths.
Formally called the People’s Temple Agricultural Project, the group transplanted from San Francisco to Guyana. Here are two parts of a congressional chronology and background summary on the incident (part one and part two). Let’s take a brief look at two charts associated with the event.
The first is the Rev. Jim Jones himself. His chart is dominated by Aries and Taurus; his conjunction of Venus and Uranus in Aries, along with the Moon, pretty much qualify him as a certified narcisist. Not that we needed astrology to tell us that. We might ask what about his chart says “cult leader” — and two things come to mind.
The first is Jupiter conjunct Pluto in the 7th house, in Cancer. Pluto focuses that religous aspect of Jupiter and tells us of someone who really does have spiritual understanding, but because it’s in his 7th house, he tends to project it onto externals (he claimed to be an atheist, a Marxist, a socialist) and eventually became a selfist, naming a “town” after himself and loading it up with money, guns and cyanide.
He also has a Sun-Chiron conjunction. Chiron was not discovered at the time of his birth, but it was discovered at the time of his death, just one year earlier; in his own birth sign and Chiron sign. Notably, Jones has Mercury precisely in the degree where Chiron was discovered just one year earlier (the “rainbow bridge” degree for which Barbara Hand Clow named her book). Sun-Chiron tells us how we express the energy of the healer; this placement gives rise to the wounded healer attribute of Chiron that is so famously characterized as its only meaning. It’s just an aspect of that meaning, though it comes out at times in very brash ways; this was one.
In the chart for the event itself, the Moon is in Cancer; a touch of cosmic irony. We have Chiron, newly discovered in Taurus and close to Jones’ Sun-Chiron conjunction. But the thing about this chart, the central image, occurs in the 8th house, in Sagittarius: a nexus of religion and death. Sometimes the symbolism of a chart is so glaring it would seem you don’t need any astrology training to see it.
That’s not really true, but it’s easy enough to explain. Whenever there is a death, you look to the 8th house of the chart for the story of what happened. Certainly Sagittarius on that cusp fits; it was a religious cult. Three planets are there: Mars, Neptune and Mercury. Mars and Neptune can combine in extremely volatile ways. The theme of isms — belief systems — is spray painted everywhere in this chart, and they are basically all revealed to be lies by the combination of three planets involved; Mercury, Mars and Neptune.
Of course there is no true belief system that would lead you to have 918 people dead and bloating in the jungle Sun; no true belief system that would lead people to squirt poison into the mouths of more than 200 kids; or anything of the kind. The teachers of Jesus Christ, which the Rev. Jones claimed to be, don’t do that. Remember.
The first woman on the first video is named Deborah Layton. She got out of Jonestown and gave her testimony to the American Embassy. The voice of Jim Jones on the BOC tape is footage from the cassette that was found under his Throne. He just had to fucking tape it.
The minute he got out of San Franciso Jones stopped talking God and started talking Socialism. He made a project of trying to contact the Soviet Union and Cuba for assistance in rebelling against the capitalist system and the US Government.
Jonestown was a concentration camp that outlawed personal possessions and allotted its workers less daily protein than their Cuban comrades Re-education consisted of beatings, makeshift waterboarding and stays in a sunbaked metal box for infractions such as failing their Mao lessons. Yeah, they were getting their heads modded with The Little Red Book while the White Night suicide drills provided a haze of unrelieved sleep deprivation.
I’m theorizing that the real reason he wanted to talk to Russia is because he wanted some foreign aid. That way, see, he could keep the millions of dollars he had stolen from his flock and hidden in Swiss and Panamanian bank accounts without having to spend a penny of their money on keeping them alive.
His hero was Vladimir Lenin.
He got them out there because he told them that he could cure cancer, see into the past and future, and save them from the impending Nuclear Holocaust. He told them that any doubtful thought about him would result in a swift smiting from God.
He made them call him Dad.
He was a diseased, defiled slimebucket with a toad in his head.
This is why I need to sit zazen. What that psychopath did to those people fills me with a rage I almost can’t contain. I want the man resurrected to so he can be torn into sushi by the wild black dogs of hell and every atom of his existence bleached from the earth with blood and wind and fire.
~j
P.S.
To clarify an ambiguity….and in the interests of astrological integrity.
It is the Natal Moon in Aries conjunct Uranus…the Node….and Venus…..that has the Rev. Jones completely intoxicated with himself……and gives him the power to connect…!!
But the square to Jupiter and Pluto in Cancer gives this man a hotline to the core of human emotion….its Resonanace and Transformation….hence his unnerving ability to find peoples buttons….and push them…….
Imagine the yearly full moon in Cancer…..and its effect on his Psyche….thus the transit of Pluto finally creates the climate for his “claim to infamy”….(there is a school of thought amongst the cult of celebrity that infamy is the only thing better than fame…!!)
20 ways to spot a lunar tick….check out the Moon…Pluto….!!!
PH
Shanna: So true. I personally know about 3 or 4 women whose mothers sold them to pimps when they were little girls. And everytime i’m ranting about the lies in the media, my Grandmother says “It’s the people in power who get to determine the truth honey.”
Musicman1: “Alienation is indeed a silent road…so we need to commit to an ever growing community reach that encourages discourse…particularly about our emotional condition…!!
THIS IS EXACTLY THE TYPE OF KINDNESS I’M SPEAKING OF! You all are always able to verbalize more clearly what i’m trying to say . . .
People just don’t listen to children. And communicating something you feel with any kind of emotional intensity seems to just turn people’s ears off. As a Scorpio i find this very frustrating. I don’t have the detachment of my air sign sisters and brothers, and so no one believed me when i told them that i was being abused by someone they percieved as healthy and wise.
How can we do this? How can people know about and find a place where someone will listen to them and take them seriously when every where else they have turned has turned their backs?
And LOL on the tractor thing . . . i usually start cleaning like a mad-woman . . .
Big BIG LOVE
As for the original Time cover: The image is a vivid memory from my childhood. And the article was probably the first news story I actually read. I remember never, ever drinking Kool-Aid or punches afterward.
I would agree that the people of S&G were probably no better than us, but then, as the story goes, Lot was happy to offer his daughters as treats to the crowd banging down his door, y’know?
But you that history gets written by the winners. Whoever survived that natural disaster got the bragging rights to tell their tale–Lot and his daughters.
Let us try and find the way in….!!
2000 years of genocide…but now..it is on the News…!!
Old Zen saying…” listen to the knocking from without and within…!!”
Uranus… Venus conjunct in Aries……this man could have you believe that he can breathe fire upon you and that the gift of Prometheus makes you immortal…..(not unlike the Muslim terrorist assertion that 72 Virgins await…!)..and he did…they believed it…why…because …like the victims of every other mass genocide….they wanted to…they needed to…!! And why was that…??
The dynamics of human existence are such that the badly nurtured will of course slot in that necessary missing piece of the jig-saw….”I am loved”…”I am needed”…. to make their self esteem buzz like a top ten hit with a bullet….!! Mr Jones was an artist at spotting the particular hit that was required…just like every other Megolamaniac Seducer of the moral highground….its like feeding heroin to an addict who has been trying “cold turkey” for months….
But what leaps out of the Jones chart to me…is that after spending many years placing all of his followers in Nirvana….nurturing them with his deep Cancerian Moon Jupiter growth through Sensuality…..Intuition….and almost the hand of an Earth Mother…..he responds finally to the Grand Cross created by transiting Pluto in Libra….!!
That motherfucker just pushes him into the land of believing the immortal dogma that he had been preaching…..!! like a surfer tired of his board…fuck’em…wipe out…!!
Transformation with a Bang….!!
Listening from within….it had a profound effect on me……I was recovering from being brought up as a cretin….and discovering love…genius….psychology….music….and astrology…..!!
Wilhelm Reich would have documented the dysfunctional elements…..at play in any of these cult communities…but I want to address Rahmana’s call for kindness..!
How do we indeed address these vaccuum-like social black holes that suck in our young and manipulate them…..sometimes with extremely mortal consequences….how indeed…?
Kindness yes…but the deeper truth would seem to me to be an ability to operate on a Neptunian level so that we clearly see the needs of the little adults all around us….!
Alienation is indeed a silent road…so we need to commit to an ever growing community reach that encourages discourse…particularly about our emotional condition…!!
Perhaps a drop-in centre for a 3rd. Eye Scan…..or a Chakra read-out…!!
“hows your current volcanic crisis son…?
“is she really dismantling a tractor…as a therapy gig….?…perhaps you should think about growing wheat…!!”
But it aint rocket science…..we lost our way when the poor…. sick…. needy… and those who truly believed that their community would stand by them….suddenly found that they were the fodder…the casualties…the guinea pigs for ethnic experiments…… the exploitative class who would work till they dropped and still keep their dignity if they could…and take out another loan…!!
The Forgotten……!!
Well…we have moved the mountain…and as soon as that Sky News/CNN helicopter gives us so much of a sniff of another lost soul being turned over……then I would suggest that each and every one of us has a Social and Moral responsibility to fight for Democracy…and the rights of every disenfranchised soul…..
Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven…somehow expresses the Anger…but his treatment of Jazz…. and Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Charlie Parker….. gives one an insight into the kind of transcendant power that we all need to aspire to….we can make this gig….but not if we turn the other cheek…..! Or indeed a blind eye…!
It is time to Sing real loud…and let your Voices be heard…!!
Big Love
PH
Fe: “That could be a tall order.”
It definitely is.
I say sodom & gomorrah, because i highly doubt it was some abhorrent, evil society any more than ours is. I think like many stories in the Bible, it has been distorted. And supposedly many people died at once–my imagination just went into overtime and i thought, what if it was something like what happened at Jonestown? Cause heavily religious people would say some shit like it was “The wrath of god” when really, it was the wrath of one man.
Just like how for 30 years now, most people have thought Jonestown was a mass suicide, and it just wasn’t. And it’s difficult for me to compare Jones to Idi Amin. I mean, everyone in Uganda knew Idi Amin was a psychopath. There is a long list of people who tried to expose Jim Jones for who he really was and they were all murdered. So no one knew. It’s just that, it was so un-expected. He was saying and doing all the right things. He wasn’t racist, and he in fact was embracing many of the qualities that revolutionaries like Angela Davis (who was actually friends with him) and Harvey Milk represented.
I think it’s hard for the past to be put to rest when you don’t really even know the truth about what it is. I mean, what were mind control drugs doing at the compound? Something just isn’t right . . .
Like, we’ll probably find out the real deal about 911 and Iraq in about 30 years. Just like it took a good bit of time to find out the truth about Vietnam.
I’ve been thinking about writing something like “20 ways to know you are dealing with a crazy person” . . . .
Rahmana:
I’m not sure about the Sodom and Gomorrah analogy, but the last days of Hitler in the bunker springs to mind. I think Jonestown is its own category, similar in nature to other atrocities performed by Idi Amin, preceeded by the killing fields in Cambodia.
An unimaginable scale of murder by megalomaniac dictators, large and small.
Its events like these that, though abhorrent to recall, are important to remember, so that we don’t allow this to occur again. I hope for survivors of Jonestown and their families and friends, that the past can be put peacefully to rest. That could be a tall order.
Fe: It was very difficult watching the interviews of survivors and learning about the victims. The last few days i have been thinking about that story in the Bible about Sodom & Gomorrah and how it is probably a metaphored-out, manipulated story of a community of good people long long ago who were lambs to the slaughter for greedy narccissistic people.
I remember the city of San Francisco was reeling from this, in shell shock. It was very hard to feel anything when we heard the news. Nothing like this had ever happened to the city–ever.
So we watched this on TV like it was some sort of horror show, just that it was a horror show that was happening to family members and friends. And it was broadcast on national network news.
We didn’t know then what it was to be confronted with a personal tragedy of this magnitude to one community. Our community.
This one, it seems now, to have opened the door for this town to feel like the protective skin over its psyche was ripped off. Where there should have been someone to trust, particularly with the care of your needing soul, there was actually no one. It was a horrible and profound betrayal of a community.