Peoples Temple (religious movement)

Formation: Jim Jones

Founder: 1955

The Peoples Temple was a religious doomsday cult founded in 1954 by James Warren Jones, otherwise known as Jim Jones. The cult later became famous for the way it ended. On November 18, 1978, more than 900 cult members—many of them children—along with Jones, died at the group’s Jonestown compound in Guyana. The majority killed themselves on Jones’s orders by drinking a grape-flavored beverage laced with poison. This gave rise to the expression "drinking the Kool-Aid" to refer to someone who holds rigid, unquestioning beliefs.

Although Jones became a preacher, he was not particularly religious. Rather, he was a charismatic leader who set out to found a congregation that served his own ends. His goals and philosophy contained many contradictory elements. Fascinated by leaders who influenced the course of history, he admired such diverse people as Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, and Adolf Hitler. He referred to himself as a communist, although his policies—requiring congregation members to give everything to the church, for example—often served his own messianic ends. At the same time, he involved himself with the struggles of the poor and racial minorities. For a time, he also enjoyed the support of progressive leaders, such as California governor Jerry Brown, San Francisco mayor George Moscone, and assemblyman Willie Brown.

History

Believing that the best way to advocate for his beliefs was to infiltrate the church, Jones decided to become a pastor in 1952. He first served as a student pastor in Indianapolis at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, leaving when it barred African Americans from the congregation. In 1954, he set up his own church in a rented basement in Indianapolis, calling it the Community Unity Church. Here, he began the practice of conducting phony faith healings to attract members. To pull off these fake displays, he used private detectives to investigate potential members, surprising his congregation with his "prescient" knowledge of individuals. He also used animal tissue, such as chicken livers, which Jones pretended were cancers he had miraculously removed.

Jones bought his first church building in 1956, naming it Wings of Deliverance, and later, Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. To recruit new members and raise funds, he expanded his fake faith healings, and linked up with Pentecostal groups to organize religious conventions. Jones set up more Temple branches, and in 1960 he established a soup kitchen and offered social services to the poor. Over the next few years, Jones’s preaching style became more flamboyant, with fiery speeches that attacked the U.S. government as the Antichrist. Jones also began asserting tighter control over Temple members, demanding they spend holidays with the congregation, their religious family. He took to calling his faith "apostolic socialism," and compared himself to Christ.

In 1965, claiming he had a vision of a nuclear holocaust in the Midwest, he moved his congregation to Redwood, California. He later established branches in San Francisco and Los Angeles. By the mid-1970s, Temple membership had increased to almost 3,000 people. Services in cities across the state drew thousands more. Between fake faith healings, mailings, and sermons, Jones began to take in between $8,000 and $25,000 a week. He tightened control over members, and like many other cult leaders, led the Temple to view outsiders as enemies. The Temple’s public profile, however, was that of a staunch advocate for the poor and oppressed.

The media began to take notice, with one newspaper rolling out a series of investigative reports. This spotlight, along with Jones’s increasing control over individuals, resulted in defections, including a high-profile exodus of eight members. By this time, Jones required Temple members to live communally, and imposed physical punishments—even for children—for any infractions. In 1974, to escape the limelight—and possible government investigations—the Temple rented land in Guyana, establishing a small community of members called the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, or Jonestown.

Beliefs and Practices

The Peoples Temple never developed consistent religious principles. In fact, Jones often preached against the Christian Bible, and in 1976, stated he was an atheist. Jones admitted to using religion for political ends. However, his political beliefs amounted to an eclectic mix of anticapitalist rhetoric that emphasized hero-worship over ideals. Jones’s capitalist alternative was a "socialist utopia" that relied not on the collective, but upon absolute dependence on Jones himself. To this end, he fled to Jonestown, where the Temple was shielded from the outside world and those trying to extricate loved ones from the cult.

By 1978, more than 900 Temple members had joined Jones in Guyana. Since the mass suicide and massacre, former members have spoken about Jonestown and Jones’s growing paranoia. Later, it was discovered that Jones, who allowed no drugs on the compound, was addicted to amphetamines and barbituates.

One former member described how Jones began to take every defection personally, surrounding the compound with watchtowers manned with armed guards. He administered public beatings and installed loudspeakers throughout the compound that blared continuous messages. Among these were claims that the United States was herding African Americans into concentration camps. He also warned the U.S. government was on its way to Guyana to exterminate them, and held mass suicide rehearsals called White Nights.

Although the government was not on its way, Congressman Leo Ryan was. Former members had come forward with allegations of abuse, and many current members’ relatives were desperate for contact. The resulting media scrutiny prompted Ryan’s investigative trip on November 17, 1978. In Jonestown, some members met with Ryan, telling him they wanted to leave with him. The next day, Ryan led this group to his plane, which waited at a nearby airstrip. Before they could board, Temple guards opened fire, killing Ryan and others. Back at the compound, Jones had initiated the mass suicide of Temple members. One member who escaped described how those who protested were forced to the ground and injected with cyanide. Next, all the children were given poisoned grape drink, and then the adults. Jones shot himself in the head. In all, 918 died, including 276 children.

Afterward, Temple lawyers filed for bankruptcy, and in 1979, the Peoples Temple was officially dissolved. Thousands of photographs and dozens of audio recordings, as well as legal documents from the group became publicly available through a 2018 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to the California Historical Society.

Bibliography

Bay City News Service. "Grant Helps to Make Peoples Temple Photos, Recordings Accessible to Public." SFGate, 17 Nov. 2018, www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/Grant-Helps-To-Make-Peoples-Temple-Photos-13401923.php. Accessed 28 Oct. 2024.

Gritz, Jennie Rothenberg. "Drinking the Kool-Aid: A Survivor Remembers Jim Jones." The Atlantic, 18 Nov. 2011, www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/drinking-the-kool-aid-a-survivor-remembers-jim-jones/248723. Accessed 28 Oct. 2024.

Horton, Adrian. "'It Wasn't Suicide... They Were Murdered': Inside the Jonestown Cult Massacre." The Guardian, 18 June 2024, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jun/18/cult-massacre-jonestown-review. Accessed 28 Oct. 2024.

"Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple." The American Experience, 2013, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/jonestown-guyana. Accessed 28 Oct. 2024.

Layton, Deborah. Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor’s Story of Life and Death in the People’s Temple. New York: Random House, 1998. Print.

Reiterman, Tim. Raven: The Untold Story of Jim Jones and His People. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Scheeres, Julia. A Thousand Lives. New York: Simon, 2011. Print.