1978
On Saturday, November 18, 1978, the communal settlement of the Peoples Temple church in Guyana, South America, became the paradigmatic "destructive cult." A total of 918 persons died on that day as aresult of the activities of the memebers.
Some argue that Jonestown was a CIA mind-control experiment, and that Jim Jones was a rogue CIA agent. Ohters claim that the U.S. government could not tolerate an inter-racial and socialist group of Americans to survive and hence, murdered them. Still others believe that repeated suicide rehearsals had prepared the group to die.
Temple members had practiced suicide drills for years. That is, they pretended to drink poison and then fall down "dead" as a part of a loyalty test to Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. The mental preparation and physical enactment required to accept the idea of suicide was step one in this scenario.
Step Two was a hostile visit by U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, which Temple members saw as an "attack" by their enemies.
Step Three was the defection of 16 members which Jones saw as disloyal and a betrayal. This led to step four, which was an attack on the congressman and the group of defectors.
The final step was the gathering at central pavilion in Jonestown. Audiotape seems to indicate a general agreement to commit suicide. Jim Jones is heard encouraging people to take the last step so thaat they would see each other again on the "other side."
The choice that Peoples Temple members saw on that final day was between betrayal---of their ideals and beliefs and all they'd worked for---and loyalty---to each other and their ideals. loyalty meant death, while survival required betrayal. In the end, people believed they had nothing to go back to in the United States and chose loyalty rather than survival.
As many accounts have attested, the members lived in constant fear of severe punishment and brutal beating for committing trivial or even inadvertent offenses which Jones deemed disloyal. Jones claimed the mass suicide a revoultionary act and that it would be revenge ont he world that ad denied them their humanity. To make the chioce not to willingliy go with Jones and the others was labeling oneself a traitor. Those people who could not successfully escape on that day were forced to drink the cyanide laced fruit drink or were shot. Children were injected with the poison. Hence the tragedy is reffered to as a mass suicide/murder.
There were few survivors--three of which were sons of Jim Jones' who were not in Jonestown that day. Some hid and others faked their deaths. The survivors who returned to the U.S. faced a worse fate, complete isolation from society becaus eof their decision to follow Jim Jones. However, some survivors are attempting to make known the effects that Jim Jones had on people--brainwashing. They are attempting to create memorials for those who died, many of whom have never been identified.