Jonestown - The slaughter of a thousand people!

Slaughter i Jonestown

A cult can be described as a group you can join by fulfilling the wishes of a charismatic leader. That's a simplified description of a cult, but it doesn't cover everything. A cult is considered to have a charismatic leader who can "influence" others for their benefit or thebenefit of the "group." 

This also applies to our elected officials in politics.

I want to develop this further. In both family and politics, we all have a need to believe in those who will shape our future. We want to be accepted, loved, and equipped for the challenges ahead. We believe in the future that strong bonds can create.

I know that I am very mentally strong. Because of this, I withdraw from many social situations to leave individuals in a maturation

phase where decisions for the future are created by the individuals themselves. I throw out some anchors here and there and alwaysprovide a parachute. For me, it is crucial that the "student" learns through multiple sources, and I only point towards an alternativepath.

In a cult, the leader "exploits" their outstanding ability to influence their surroundings toward a desired result. The cult leader is "charismatic" or very mentally strong and manipulative. The religious belief in the cult is less important; the cult only exists as long as the leader is present. The leader is the driving force.

On November 18, 1978, a total of 918 people died, 909 in JonesTown, and of these, "272" were children. To be fair in my presentation of Peoples Temple and Jim Jones, I want to first talk about the dream, the perfect Christian and socialist society that was behind theideology.

In 1955, Jones founded the church "Wings of Deliverance," which later became the Peoples Temple. In 1966, when Jim was seen as a healing pastor, his sermons could be structured like this: First, he spoke about injustices, then racism, and finally "healing." He knew that what attracted people were miracles, but to experience them, the congregation had to listen to social criticism first. In the back of the church, there was healthcare personnel and tables set up for free healthcare. For the community's seniors, there were blood pressure monitors, and others could be tested for immune diseases. 

They also had a well-organized social activity, including accompanying members to hospitals when needed. So, one can perceive significant social engagement.

Until 1978, Jim had been the group's pastor and, as he himself said and others testified, a caring father figure. He had, in his intimacy with the group, seen the group as an extension of his body. He believed that people had no life without him. Members were not just apart of his life; he could no longer separate them from himself.

Despite the symbiotic intimacy in the group, there were always some who found this uncomfortable and deserted, taking the group's somewhat unsavory history to anyone willing to listen. The group, which had grown into a small community in 1978, was under intense pressure from the public, authorities, and concerned relatives. With JonesTown, the society was shielded from scrutiny, and the world's vivid fantasies built catastrophic images before anything happened. 

The pressure was not only on Jim Jones but also on the American authorities. What was really happening over there in the jungle?

Due to all the media coverage and the pressure from worried relatives, Congressman Leo Ryan took on the mission to investigate what was happening in Jonestown. He took with him a group of people and journalists with no clear opinions about the temple sect.What Ryan and the journalists saw were happy people dancing, singing, and loving life in their small town. Within the camp or the Jonestown society, they practiced so-called "white nights" disaster preparedness every other night.