The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

by Jeff Guinn

Jimmy’s two earliest and most enduring lessons from his mother were these: there was always some Them out to get you, and reality was whatever you believed.

Nazarenes were conservative in terms of social behavior—no dancing, drinking, or swearing. Nazarene women never wore sleeveless or short dresses, in fear of inflaming the sinful lust of men.

The consensus was what they termed “Christian communism,” since they believed that “from each according to ability, to each according to need” was the proper church approach. They didn’t share this conclusion outside their group. The Richmond High Christian Youth kids weren’t advocating communist government, where the state owned everything and told you what you had to do. They just wanted their churches to voluntarily adopt a philosophy that mandated compassion and equal treatment for all.

So Jones worked, too, selling spider monkeys door-to-door for $29 each.

He’d learned well from Father Divine that having enemies, real or imagined, was invaluable in recruiting and retaining followers.

Many believed that communists orchestrated the civil rights movement in an attempt to undermine America’s core of white citizens.

Jones was assigned a room in the hospital wing reserved for whites and insisted he would stay only if there was immediate integration.

By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a significantly more integrated city than it had been twelve months earlier, and Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible.

Yet, to maintain his amazing spiritual gifts, Jim had to have critical emotional support and physical release, which Marceline was unable to provide. Through his great insight, Jim realized that only Carolyn could provide these with the quality and devotion required.

These comparisons completely misinterpret, and historically misrepresent, the initial appeal of Jim Jones to members of Peoples Temple. Jones attracted followers by appealing to their better instincts. The purpose of Peoples Temple was to offer such a compelling example of living in racial and economic equality that everyone else would be won over and want to live the same way.

Peoples Temple initiated a drug rehabilitation program that focused almost exclusively on teens.

When he arrived that day, Stoen told a reporter in 2003, he found “20 to 30” Temple members, “black and white,” already at the building, “carrying paint and Tide and hammers and nails. What I think is going to take two weeks they do in one day. They come back the next day, put in some Masonite paneling and disappear. They don’t ask for a word of thanks. . . . That was my introduction to Peoples Temple.”

But in Redwood Valley he wore only secondhand clothes, and belittled “celebrity preachers” who wore expensive suits and drove fancy cars.

But even the most dubious couldn’t deny another fact: the money pouring in from these questionable practices made possible exceptional outreach to those in need. Peoples Temple now had abundant clothing to distribute and food to serve at free meals in low-income areas. Its care facilities accepted clients even if they couldn’t pay a cent toward their treatment. Always, it seemed, Peoples Temple devised new, effective ways to help raise up the oppressed.

Jones was challenged to submit the “cancer” to an independent laboratory for tests. He responded that he could not risk enemies somehow rigging the results.

Jones barked, “Some of you get out there—that sister needs help!” He refused to continue the meeting until the old lady’s bag was securely stowed and she had been escorted to a seat on her bus.

This time, Jones didn’t replace Carolyn Layton. He began having sex with others—essentially, Carolyn became the senior concubine in an ever-evolving harem.

Debbie Layton’s account in her memoir, Seductive Poison, indicates that, at least with her, Jones crossed the line into rape.

Most, though not all, of the time Jones confined himself to adults. There were winsome underage girls in the Temple, and Jones had sex with at least one of them, a fourteen-year-old whose family found out and left the Temple, though without making the reason public out of respect for the cause.

Most locals eventually considered Temple members to be good neighbors, or at least grew accustomed enough to the Temple’s presence to tolerate them. Jones’s followers were embedded in the district attorney’s office, county and town welfare offices, hospitals, care facilities, and almost every other agency and business of consequence.

And the Temple offered more than entertaining meetings. At the back of the main room, nurses provided tests for hypertension and diabetes. Trained social workers helped with welfare and other government-agency-related issues.

If you got upset with something, with Jones, you still felt respect for others in the Temple and you’d think, ‘If this is wrong, these other very intelligent, very decent people wouldn’t be here, so, therefore, I must be wrong.’ ”

During his introduction of the guest of honor, Willie Brown described Jones as “a combination of Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and chairman Mao.” The highlight came when Jones was presented with “a certificate of honor,” which read: “On the occasion of a dinner in his honor, in recognition of his guidance and inspiration in establishing the many humanitarian programs in Peoples Temple, and in deep appreciation for his tireless and invaluable contributions to all the people of the Bay Area.”

When in October Democratic vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale made a quick campaign stop in San Francisco, Jones was one of several dignitaries invited to meet him.

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

“In Jonestown, after a while, Jim Jones lost his divinity,” Laura Johnston Kohl says. “Everyone saw too much.” Often, they heard too much.

At a meal they shared with Jones, Carolyn, Annie, and a few other Jonestown leaders, Jones ranted about conspiracies. Moore was struck by how quickly the others picked up on Jones’s complaints and added their own: “They fed each other’s fears. There seemed to be no objective voice questioning the reality of those fears. Jim went on and on, and they agreed with everything and encouraged him to say more.”

Jones added that despite all the healings he’d once accomplished, he’d now “forgotten how.”

“Dad said, ‘You’re going to meet Mr. Frazier,’ which was code for everybody dies.

Somewhere in Jonestown, human guinea pigs had sampled the deadly potion. Jones asked Katsaris, “Is it quick?” She replied, “Yeah, it’s really quick, and it’s not supposed to be painful at all.” Jones nodded and told her, “Okay, do what you can to make it taste better.”

The death scenes

By the next day, when Ryan’s death was announced, the first murder of a U.S. congressman engaged on official business in American history and apparently at the hands of some jungle church cult comprised of U.S. citizens, journalists and broadcast crews began swarming into Georgetown.

The scene at Jonestown was horrific. Soldiers and investigators were shocked when elderly Hyacinth Thrash tottered out of her cabin and asked what was going on. The old lady was dehydrated and confused, but otherwise all right. Everyone else was dead, including settlement dogs and Mr. Muggs, the pet chimpanzee.

No bullet wounds were found on other bodies, but some had odd abscesses that a Guyanese pathologist later testified were caused by injection; they had apparently refused to drink poison, and were held down and forcibly injected.

Because of the corpses’ continuing deterioration, no firm count of those forcibly injected could be made. Estimates ranged from as few as twenty to as many as a third of the Jonestown dead.

The U.S. commander contacted Washington to request snow shovels to scrape up some of the remains.

The announced number of dead grew to 700 on Thursday, 780 on Friday, and finally, a week after the tragic event, 909. Counting Sharon Amos and her three children, plus Ryan and the other four killed in Port Kaituma, the final death count of November 18, 1978, was 918.

But one misconception evolved into part of the cultural lexicon. Initially, most news outlets correctly reported that the Jonestown settlers died by ingesting cyanide that was stirred into a vat of Flavor Aid, an inexpensive powdered drink. But some reports mentioned Kool-Aid. As a familiar brand, “Kool-Aid” proved more memorable to the public than “Flavor Aid.” “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid” became a jokey catchphrase for not foolishly following deranged leaders.

In those dark days, there was one act of kindness. Dianne Feinstein, now acting mayor of San Francisco, came calling, not to badger the Temple members for money or to threaten them, but to ask if they were all right and to take some of them to breakfast.

Demagogues recruit by uniting a disenchanted element against an enemy, then promising to use religion or politics or a combination of the two to bring about rightful change.

Traditionally, demagogues succeed by appealing to the worst traits in others: Follow me and you’ll have more, or, follow me and I’ll protect what you already have against those who want to take it away from you.

Jim Jones attracted followers by appealing to the best in their nature, a desire for everyone to share equally. Beyond the very poorest members of society, who were clothed and fed and treated with respect, no one materially benefited from joining and belonging to Peoples Temple.