The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

by Jeff Guinn

If she couldn’t be happy, at least she could be different.

The other boys wondered where he learned the words.

His mom, perhaps?

Trade unions influenced hiring at major Indianapolis plants, and most of these unions voted not to accept blacks as members.

Boo! Not cool!

So Jones worked, too, selling spider monkeys door-to-door for $29 each. He imported them from a firm in South America,

Boo! Not cool!

You did your homework, learned about every aspect of an issue, and then suggested plans that in some way benefited all sides involved. Essentially, whenever you could, you offered solutions. Then, when you did point out a problem, people who could do something about it listened and were ready to help.

Astute social & business advice.

Jones observed to Terri Buford, “Keep them poor and keep them tired, and they’ll never leave.” How well he understood his people.

Only when these essential elements were in place would a trip be scheduled.

If Jones had put his considerable talents to work as a rock band agent, this might have all ended so differently.

a bit of chicken offal would be dropped into the mouth, and the natural gag reflex resulted in it being coughed back up.

Do you want salmonella? Because this is how you get salmonella!

There were agnostics and atheists in the Temple, attracted by its socialist goals and Jones’s frequent dismissal of the Bible as racist propaganda.

I, as a neo-Pagan occultist for for decades & now as a atheist may have been interested in Jones for this very same reason. But at either end of the spectrum, not interested enough to join a cult. I might have gone to a meeting or spoken to someone but I wasn't coven, church or group oriented then & I'm even more reclusive now.

Jones ordered the auditorium windows opened, and then commanded everyone to shout “Fuck!” in unison. They did, and Jones insisted that they do it again and they did, finally bellowing the same culturally forbidden epithet over and over for a full minute, with passersby on the sidewalks outside certainly puzzled and probably alarmed by what they heard.

But Harvey became a friend of mine, and I went to his house and spent time with him and his partner and realized that a gay couple was just that, a couple.

The writers asked how these things were possible—and then let disenchanted former Temple members provide the answers. Everyone was identified not only by name, but in accompanying photographs. That made them real to readers, rather than faceless, anonymous bellyachers, and immunized Tracy and Kilduff from potential charges by Jones and Charles Garry that they’d invented some or all of their sources.

Now THAT is gonzo journalism. My stomach fucking lurched. All those people's lives immediately were placed in danger.

poisonous.

Venomous, not poisonous.

On Jones’s instruction, Larry Schacht ordered one pound of sodium cyanide, enough for 1,800 lethal doses. It cost $8.85.

Yet he was also a demagogue who ultimately betrayed his followers whether he always intended to or not.

There is a debate on wikipedia over whether or not our current President should be added to a list of famous demagogues.