Jim Jones Cult Theory

The word “Cult” has not always had such a negative connotation attached to it. Many religions would’ve been considered cults when they first began. By the end of the 19th century many visionaries had revealed radically new religious systems, claiming immunity to the impurities of the old ones (Powers, 1997). These were no more than a group of people organizing themselves in worship and devotion for a person, object, or movement. They practiced rituals different to other “mainstream” religions, and were therefore considered cults.

It was after several moves starting in the Midwest and ending in the Westcoast that Jones decided that the Peoples Temple needed to emigrate from San Francisco to Guyana in order to escape what he believed to be creeping fascism in the United States. Jones was a Marxist after all so there was always that need to rebel against America and its capitalistic ideas (Russell 39). And the communist utopia that Jones and the Peoples Temple had created (Jonestown) began to flourish. It had seemed that the utopia Jones had always envisioned was now reality. The members of the Peoples Temple began to feel at home because it was a place where anyone no matter what race, gender, or even age could live in perfect harmony with one another. In fact during its first phase of existence it could actually be considered a proper socialist community from the point of view of a true political scientist (Latson). And it was not until the late 1970s that Jim Jones and Jonestown began to crumble which could only be explained by Jones’ unusual metamorphosis. Nobody really knows for sure what happened to him when he and the Peoples Temple had left the United States to build their community in Guyana, but it would be something that would end up destroying not only himself but everything he and the Peoples Temple had created.

At days end on November 18, 1976, Jonestown was left lifeless. Jones watched as all of his followers (forced or under free will) drink the poisoned Kool-Aid as he commanded. Yet he did not receive the same way out, he was too cowardly and proud to take his own life, Jones was killed by one of his followers with a single gunshot to the back of the head (Jim Jones 2014). He died that day with his followers, with no punishment. The families of members of the cult will never have closure, no justice for those who had been killed.

Jim Jones was the leader of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project also known as Jonestown. This American religious organization is most known internationally for the events that happened on November 18, 1978. In the 1950s, the group was founded, but the Temple moved their following to San Fransisco in the mid 1970s. But even there they received critical claims and had several newspaper articles written about the group. The course of those events plus the defection of eight temple leaders made Jones prepare for an escape plan to get out of the United States and find a new place to make a compound for his group. There were several places that were considered, but eventually the Temple chose Guyana because of its own socialist politics.

Jones was afraid of a nuclear war, with the turmoil within the world jones was convinced of a nuclear attack upon the United States. During a two year sabbatical with his family to Brazil, they were often harassed by natives stating that the Americans would be to blame if a nuclear attack happened. Once back in America Jones still harbored his fears and moved his followers to one of the 6 safest places in America near San Francisco from an attack. For fear that an attack would happened, jones sent 50 followers to Guyana to begin to build Jonestown on the “Promised Land” (p. 9). Furthermore once Jones had moved his family to Guyana and were visited by the congressman his fears were tipped and the mass murder-suicide

Jonestown was supposed to be a paradise and perfect miniature society for Reverend Jim Jones and his loyal followers, but after only one year of a working civilization, horror would strike ending the lives of nearly one thousand of Jones’s hopeful followers. The Jonestown tragedy has been compared to Adolf Hilter’s inhumane Holocaust and even the gruesome massacres of Charles Manson because all three of these catastrophes were due to one person’s need for dominance.

The mass suicides, that took place under the influence of Reverend Jim Jones, can be explained from a sociological perspective. By looking at how the group dynamics played into the outcome one gets a better idea of the whys? of the massacre. The sociological explanation is but one way to explain this horrific event. It is , however, the only one explored in this essay for reasons of concision.

However, as some of the concepts in social psychology state, the seemingly unatural behaviours of the cult members are inevitable under the influence of various factors. Firstly, status of group members share a similarity towards each other which people with low-esteem are extremely likely to be found among the cult members. A great number of Jones’ followers were drug addicted, homeless or having terrible relationship with their family. While they were abandoned, ignored or even hated by the society and their loved ones, Jones gave every member unconditional love and protection.

Cults have existed throughout history since the beginning of time. A cult is defined in Webster’s dictionary as a “system of religious worship with a devoted attachment to a person, principle, etc.” Over the past thirty years numerous religious cults have caused “ tens of thousands to abandon their families, friends, education’s, and careers to follow the teaching of a leader they will never meet”(Beck 78).

Before Jonestown started to fall apart, people actually felt they had a purpose. They felt they had a reason to be living, unlike somewhere else they felt they were useless. Homeless or drug addicts that showed up to Peoples Temple felt it was their home and gave them something to work for. They worked for the idea of making the world a better place, and everybody being treated equally. At the same time, Jones held these gatherings called “white nights” where he would tell people to drink punch. He then proceeded to tell them it was poison and were going to die as a way to test their loyalty in his defense. “They did as they were told and lined up to drink Flavor Aid that was to contain poison. More than once, they did so without question.”

A cult is a group of people that may follow a figure of authority, a god, or an object in an extreme, typically secretive, and radicalized way. Followers of cults are usually subject to groupthink in that they irrationally and unconditionally follow the thoughts and interpretations of one or many figures of authority, with most pledging complete loyalty and obedience to the cult through persuasive coercion. Cults differ to religious sects, as followers of cults are forced into the belief system of the cult, whereas religions are far more open, do not have a leader, and are quite often inherited. One such cult, Heaven’s Gate, was an American doomsday cult based in California, and consisted of at least 41 members. It was founded in 1974 by Marshall “Ti” Applewhite, who had convinced his followers that he was the second-coming of Jesus.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines cult as: "a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also: its body of adherents." Indeed, any religion involving unconditional worship and unquestioning obedience to God could be labeled as a cult (using the derogatory suggestion of the word), since such a religion would have that high level of dependency, obedience, and unwavering compliance ascribed to cults by definition. Many mainstream religions still require their members to believe in God unquestioningly, to have faith that he is good and that what he does is good, to consider one's own wants and needs as unimportant while accepting the will of God as paramount. All of these are certainly characteristics commonly attributed to cults, but while it would not be unreasonable to apply this definition of a cult to any dogmatic religion that requires strict compliance with God's word and will as a condition of membership, the notion of applying the word "cult" to Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any other major world religion today is considered absurd. There are those who make this very claim: that those who worship God fit the classic depiction of cult members in their dogmatism, unswerving

In a country founded upon the concept of religious freedom, it is difficult to justify vilifying some groups while defending others. On the subject of radical cult identification, Natacha Tormey points out in her book, Cults - A Bloodstained History, that, "Cults can hide in many places. They are so adept at blending into society and masking their true colours that often their victims do not realize that they were even in a cult until they have escaped it." They then utilize this camouflage to try to obtain more power through tax exemptions and political sway. For example, the church of Scientology battled tooth and nail to be recognized as a religious organization by the Internal Revenue Service from the years 1967 all the way to 1993. In the end they succeeded in qualifying for tax exemption in 1993, greatly enhancing their financial

On November 18, 1979, in the South American nation of Guyana, a United States Congressman named Leo Ryan, and several news reporters were assassinated by members of a religious cult called the Peoples Temple. Due to increased scrutiny and pressures at home, the Reverend Jim Jones, had moved the majority of his congregation to South America in order to establish a communist utopia. Representative Ryan had travelled to meet with Jones at the requests of numerous family members whom were concerned about their missing loved ones. Subsequent to the assassinations, Jim Jones was not only able convince most of his followers to willingly drink cyanide laced Kool-Aid, but he also influenced them to give the poison to their own children to drink as well. In all, 918 people, mostly due to their obedience to Jones, were either murdered or convinced to freely commit suicide; and some, even consented to the murder of their own children (Moore, R & McGehee, F., 2014). The first question that many people might ask, is what kind of mind control did Jim Jones have over his followers? Moreover, what kind of lessons were his people learning while they were isolated in the middle of a Guyanese jungle? The Control and Learning theories help people to learn a great deal about crime, but they can also aid in the understanding of how criminal organizations or societies work as well.

Some of the people were just compliant. They yielded to social pressure in their public behavior, even though their private beliefs had not changed. I believe these people to be the ones who ended up wanting to leave the cult. Some of these people were killed for trying to leave. There were still others who conformed to the social norms for fear of negative social consequences which they called catharsis. Their example of catharsis was, for example, if a teenager was accused of being rude to a senior citizen , the congregation would hear the evidence and vote on the teenagers innocence or guilt. The punishment could be a severe spanking administered by Jones. Adults who transgressed were punished by being placed in a ring and forced to box with bigger, stronger Temple members. Transgressions subject to catharsis ranged from selfishness, sexism, discourtesy to drug and alcohol abuse, and petty crimes for which members could be arrested and convicted by public authorities.