Caroline Francht
The Peoples Temple and The Jonestown Massacre
Keywords: Jonestown, The People’s Temple, Jim Jones, other-worldly sect, cult, revolutionary suicide
The People’s Temple Church was a congregation founded on the Protestant Fundamentalist principles of Jim Jones. Jones was also committed to racial harmony and socialist beliefs, which he connected by incorporating them into Christian doctrine. Once the church was established, the congregation began several community outreach programs. However, legal issues concerning Jones and the congregation eventually surfaced. Jones began to prophesize about the impending apocalypse and that relocation was necessary for the salvation of the group. He eventually moved the group to the site of an agricultural project in Guyana, called Jonestown, where various forms of physical and mental abuse took place to ensure the loyalty of his followers. It was here that political and religious beliefs of Jim Jones came into question as well as his effectiveness as a leader. The political and social problems of this group and its leader ultimately lead to the revolutionary mass murder/suicide of all 900 Jonestown inhabitants on November 18, 1978.
Jones’ agenda was clearly political from the beginning. He believed that he was the only God his followers needed and they were the key to furthering his anti-segregation and socialist causes. From the start, he used his faked faith healings, contracts with followers and various forms of abuse to control people and spread his political message.
III. Authority Structure
a. Sources and Criteria of Valid Knowledge
In the early days of The People’s Temple, Jim Jones interpreted the Bible and its teachings for the congregation. It was the Bible and his Fundamentalist perspective of its teachings that attracted people to the young reverend. However, once Jim Jones began to travel to other congregations and they influenced his interpretation of the Bible as well as the way he felt the congregation should interact as a community.
Among those that influenced Jones was the Revered M. J. Divine from the Divine Peace Mission. The Divine Peace Mission was a congregation that lived collectively and surrendered all of their personal assets to Reverend Divine in order to live an abstinent life of spiritual learning under his authority. Reverend Divine frequently mentioned his direct connection with God and although he was not specific, claimed that he was a divine being.
This was the point in Jones’s life where he decided that he wanted more from life than to be the leader of another Fundamentalist movement. Various accounts from survivors of The People’s Temple, including Deborah Layton, who wrote Seductive Poison, talk about the change that Jones underwent once the group relocated from Indiana to California and Jones began his visits to other congregations. His prophecies became a frequent occurrence and he began more and more to test the loyalty of the group. Jones also began to claim that he was Jesus incarnate and that he was having daily discussions with God. During one of these discussions he claimed that God had told him that the Bible was not important and that it was just another book. After that Lenin and Marx were frequently mentioned by Jones and he began to focus more on the importance of Socialism than the teachings of the Bible.
b. Methods of Inquiry
Due to the changing focus of Jones’s sermons in the later years of the congregation, he became the only valid source of information and truth. Although he lost many followers in the transition from a fundamentalist church to a group focused primarily on socialist views, he retained many followers with the promise of otherworldly grace and the religious pulpit from which he preached his political messages. Jones would validate his authority through faith healings he performed during his services however the members of the church were the only ones ever healed and there were allegations that some of the Church’s other authority figures like Patty Cartmell occasionally attended the services in disguise. They were “healed” by Jones to validate his claims that he could perform the faith healings. After he had the faith of the congregation as a whole, he would call on various church members to validate things such the smell of stomach cancer on someone’s breath that he and his assistants had detected and then after the healing, verify that it was gone.
At this point, the person had to choose between going against the tight knit community or go along with what Jim Jones had said. Besides the fact that defectors from the group received harassing phone calls from the congregation, at this point the loyalty exercises Jones had employed were beginning to take their toll. One of Jones assistants, Archie Ijames who was also a minister, stated, “For myself, I have come to the position that I must submit my mind completely to the mind of Jimmy.” (Butler, Klineman74) It is speculated that Ijames knew about the phony healings but was so convinced of the spiritual purity of Jones that he was unwilling to question his methods and go against the church. During the sixties the followers of Jones were subjected to prophesy that accused men in the congregation of molestation and Jones rationalized all of the misfortune of the group as manifestations of the infidelity of certain members. Therefore, Jones had become the Churches source of knowledge as well as the method of verification of the knowledge he presented.
c. Institutions and Professional Structure
Jim Jones was the head of The People’s Temple but he required the efforts of many individuals to maintain his authority and help perpetuate his claims of divinity. Jim Beam, one of the assistants Pastors, often interrogated members of the church when Jones felt they were losing faith. Beam also assisted in faith healings along with Cartmell and Ijames. The leading members of the Church, it seemed were chosen on their former religious training to some extent, but also as in the case of Cartmell because she was “an expert manipulator who had a photographic memory for details.”(Butler, Klineman 62) It was these sorts of people, those willing to manipulate and intimidate the other members of the Church, that helped Jones gain the control he had over the members of his congregation. During the Years of the Jonestown Agricultural Project, Jones often opened the community decisions up to debate but relied on these and other members of his inner circle to debate his side of the issues and persuade the community to agree.
IV. History
Jim Jones, the founder of The People’s Temple and leader of the congregation, began his religious crusade after moving to Indianapolis in 1951. There he became a self-taught preacher and eventually began a small church. In 1953, Jim Jones founded The People’s Temple and within this church community, Jones preached about racial integration and communism from a Protestant fundamentalist perspective. Founded as an Adventist, evangelical congregation committed to interracial harmony the Church began its crusade in the community and Jones became involved with a series of shady money making schemes. Incidentally, the investigations into Jones conducted by the state of Indiana were inconclusive. However, it was these schemes, such as staged faith healings, which ultimately lead to his political and religious discredit as well as the discredit of the congregation as a whole.
By 1964 the group was federated with the Disciples of Christ and given the title: The Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. The Church also instituted public service programs such as a soup kitchen, care homes for the elderly and a social service center. The People’s Temple outreach programs lead to the incorporation of the elderly, delinquent and runaways into the congregation. His religious demonstrations of faith healings, were however, temporarily left to the wayside in pursuit of his political aspirations. Jones campaigned for George Moscone when he ran for mayor of San Francisco as well as Carter when he ran for President in 1976 and was later invited to the inauguration. Jones also challenged racial segregation in Indiana and the controversy that arose, combined with Jones personal fears of an impending nuclear holocaust prompted the move of Jones and his most committed followers to Ukiah, California. In 1966 Jim Jones moved the group to Redwood, Ca. and from there, the group expanded into San Francisco and Los Angles in the 1970’s.
Once in California, Jones continued to attract negative political attention to himself and The People's Temple because of his anti-racist message. However, The People’s Temple also attracted many minority groups, hippies and progressives with the media exposure concerning its racially harmonious ideals. It is also in California, in the 1970’s where Jim Jones began to receive negative attention for his fraudulent faith healings and the otherwise shady religious activities he directed. This negative attention combined with other personal issues lead to prediction of a capitalist apocalypse by Jones. While in California, Jim Jones continued staging faked miracles and faith healings, as well as other moneymaking schemes such as selling monkeys door-to-door. The profits of these endeavors went to finance the activities of the church. As a group, they were committed to promoting racial equality and religious revivalism at this point, however they were unsuccessful in their attempts to influence society due to the discredit of Jim Jones.
At this point, Jim Jones began steering his followers away from the traditional path followed by most other Adventist and similar evangelical groups. Many similar Adventist groups prophesize the apocalypse due to the evil nature of present society and salvation through a second-coming of Christ to preside over a period of post-apocalyptic divine grace on earth. Many of these groups are thus involved in social reform and evangelical efforts within society (ex: Jehovah’s Witnesses). Jones’s group went in a radically different direction towards something that could be classified as an otherworldly sect and eventually a warring sect. The group began to focus imminent apocalyptic disaster and therefore the goal of the group became to establish a Post-apocalyptic kingdom of the elect or a pre-apocalyptic struggle with the evils of the modern world. The colony of Jonestown, an agricultural project in Guyana, was then founded under the pretense of these beliefs, although some feel it may also have to do with the desire of Jim Jones to escape the social and legal repercussions of his shady dealings in California.
In 1977, Jones coordinated a mass exodus of Jim Jones and 800 of his followers to The Jonestown Agricultural Project in Guyana. This was set up as a socialist community but also served as the establishment of an apocalyptically transcendent “Kingdom of God” for Jones and his followers. It was within this community that the elder members of the group, as well as Jim Jones himself practiced various methods of persuasive coercion, in order to achieve the unwavering loyalty from his followers that was at this point crucial. However, there were defectors and there was a group called Concerned Relatives working against Reverend Jones. Shortly after one such defector decided to fight Jones for the custody of her minor son, still in Guyana, and the Concerned Relatives group got the U.S. government involved in their fight for their loved ones, Jones began the “white night” rituals.
“White night” rituals were nightly rituals during which Jones would tell the members of Jonestown that the flav-o-rade he had given them was poisoned and ask them to drink it. Once they had, he would tell them that they had been put through a loyalty test and that they had not been poisoned. However, he also made it very clear that there would come at a time when he would ask them to die by their own hands at his request. It was clear that Jones was teetering on the edge of doing something rash and the visit of Congressman Leo Ryan was what sent him over the edge.
Jones had originally agreed to meet with the Congressman to discuss the groups’ work but was angered when the Congressman Ryan brought along representatives from the Concerned Relatives group and members of the press that had previously written negative pieces about the group. During a welcome ceremony the visitors attended, they were passed a note from one of the members of Jonestown that asked them to help them leave. The two who had written the message along with the visitors and the other defectors were on the air strip ready for take off when a man pretending to be a defector opened fire on the group, killing everyone in the plane.
Following the shooting at the air strip, Jones assembled the community and announced on tape that because they could not live in peace the community should die in peace and distributed the cyanide laced flav-o-rade that was the cause of death for most members of the community. However, there is no way to know how many resisted and were forced to comply nor if the two hundred children that died were even aware of the repercussions of their actions.
Jones originally presented himself as a fundamentalist Christian interested in interracial harmony although through various accounts of his behavior as well as his eventual underlying goal of a socialist utopia it is quite clear, that in the end at least, this was not the case. Jim Jones preached to his congregation that violence of any kind was unacceptable but was reputed to have frequent violent arguments with his wife, Marceline, and a member of the church, Faith Worley, even witnessed him beat his son with a belt. Also in contradiction with his Christian message, Reverend Ross Case who was also a member of Jones’s inner circle claimed that in discussion of on of the more uptight members of the congregation Jones had commented, “She needs someone to screw her.”(Butler, Klineman 67) Also once in Jonestown “he preached atheism and did not believe in a God that answers prayer” but he reportedly did believe in reincarnation. These views quite obviously contradict his original teachings regarding religion and the path to salvation.
One must also imply that from the importance Jones placed on his Socialist political message, equality in the community was included in the message, however, while in Jonestown Deborah Blakely a defector of the group asserts that while in Jonestown reported a definite contradiction between the excessive workload most of the members of the community were expected to burden (mostly agricultural) along with their meager diet and “privileged diet of Reverend Jones and inner circle”. (276 Hall) Therefore despite the importance of equality that Jones stressed he was quite unwilling to actually live under the conditions he required the other members of his community to submit to.
Despite these accounts, however, we must not fail to take into account the legitimacy of the goal that was undoubtedly important to this group: racial equality. Recognizing the impact this group, including Jones, had on society is also important. The group’s homes for the elderly and disabled that remained in operation after Jones and the majority of his followers left for Jonestown certainly demonstrate the compassion and concern for society expressed by the group. It is also important to realize that until defectors from the People’s Temple began to accuse Jones of criminal behavior he was a highly regarded individual. Jones received the Martin Luther King Humanitarian of the Year Award in 1977, was named one of the 100 most outstanding clergymen in the United States by Religion in Life, was appointed director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission, and received many other distinctive titles and awards for his outstanding contributions to society.
Taking in to account both sides of this story is also important when considering the event that has quite obviously earned the group its most negative attention: the mass murder/suicide in Guyana. Although the gruesome nature is difficult to ignore, Jonathon Z. Smith’s essay, “The Devil in Mr. Jones”, provides a much-needed alternative approach to the event that took place in November of 1978. Smith makes the point that there have been many people through out the history that have died for their religion as well as the point that we have very limited information concerning the nature of The People’s Temple doctrines. Therefore, we don’t have an accurate perspective on what dying meant to these people. Simply stated, our limited information and our mainstream perspectives may not be the best tools to use when considering the actions of the members of The People’s Temple.
VI. Suggested
Position in Comparative Scales
a. The People’s Temple is very difficult to compare to other religious groups because of the tendency of the group to change based on the changing beliefs of their leader. However, using a scale of 1-10, the basic premises of the group and its belief system can be reasonably illustrated: on a scale of 1-10, 1 being emphasis on traditional authority and 10 being its emphasis on the testimony of experience, I would say that the group began as a 2 and ended at an eleven on the scale. In the beginning doctrine was based on Jones’s interpretation of the Bible but at the end, the groups basis of knowledge and guidance was quite obviously the words and experiences of Jones.
b. On the same scale, 1 being complete centralization of authority and 10 being decentralization of authority, I would say that although Jones had an inner circle, the group receives only a two. Jones preached equality and tried to act as though the community made decisions as a whole but in reality relied on the loyalty of his inner circle to convince the members of the community that what he thought was right.
c. Regarding the tendency of the group to place emphasis on spiritual realities or material ones, ten being the former, I would give The People’s Temple a five. Jones himself preached about salvation in the earthly years and did not completely abandon his message in the end, however the increasing importance of creating an earthly utopia was quite clearly his main goal when the group was moved to Jonestown.
d. Again, regarding whether the group was geared more towards spiritual/moral objectives or pragmatic aims, I would give the group a five. Jones used pragmatic aims as the justification for his spiritual and moral objectives for the group and because of hypocrisy it is had to decipher what his goals actually were.
e. Issues regarding where the power resided in the group, in a divine being (1) or whether it was realizable in the individuals (10) are difficult to assess as well due to the changing doctrine of the group, however I would estimate it at about a 7.5 because while the group was focused on salvation and furthering the word of God Jones was the ultimate authority figure in the group and he held most of the power because of the freedom he allowed himself when interpreting God’s word and the importance of the Bible.
Primary Resources:
Hall, John R. “The Apocalypse at Jonestown”. In Gods We Trust. Edited by Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony. 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. 1990.
Hall focused on the Jonestown portion of the history of The People’s Temple and the abuse suffered by the members of the community. Also discussed was classification of the group among other similar religious groups.
Klineman, George and Sherman Butler and David Conn. The Cult That Died: The Tragedy of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. New York: Putnam. 1980.
This book provided a detailed account of the events surrounding The People’s Temple and Jim Jones. It was surprisingly detailed for a researched book written by outside parties and was extremely effective in portraying the feelings of the group’s members.
Layton, Deborah. Seductive Poison. New York, New York: Doubleday. 1998.
This book gave a personal account of the repercussions of the mental and physical abuse the members of The People’s Church were subjected to as well as insight into the mind of a member. This book helps answer the question of exactly why someone would want to belong to an organization like The People’s Temple, a question that many people in popular culture have asked when considering the group and other similar groups.
Smith, Jonathon Z. “The Devil in Mr. Jones”. Imagining Religion. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1982.
This book provided an insightful perspective on the events surrounding the Jonestown massacre. It raised some interesting points concerning the historical and social significance of the group as well as the importance of not approaching the situation in a critical manner.
Secondary Resources:
Hall, John R. “People’s Temple”. Odd Gods. Edited by James R. Lewis. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. 2001.
This book provided a historical overview of Jim Jones and The People’s Temple. It was very interesting because it focused on the possible cultural meaning of the group’s actions but also gave a surprisingly neutral view on the events of Jonestown, which was uncommon among the other books and articles found on the topic.