The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

by Jeff Guinn

The subterfuge involved was simple. Plants in the audience would call out for Father Jim to heal them of the dread disease. They would be escorted to bathrooms by other Temple members in on the act. There, they’d unwrap smuggled packages of rotting chicken innards and return claiming that the sufferer had “passed” the tumor at Jones’s command. To heighten the effect, Temple members not in on the plan would be handed the foul-looking, smelly trophies, and ordered to march up and down the aisles, presenting the ghastly lumps as proof of the healing. Only the most gullible were selected for this responsibility. Jones instructed these followers not to let any visitors look too closely at, let alone touch, the supposed