How Did Jim Jones Use His Influence To Incite Mass Hysteria

PART A: For my historical investigation I will be researching the Jonestown Massacre. I plan to use news articles and sources from the event to answer the research question “How did Jim Jones create a following and use his influence to incite mass hysteria?” I will use sources such as news articles from the time period, as well as sources created by members of the Peoples Temple cult. I intend to use these sources to learn about the massacre and find out exactly what motivated the hysteria that caused the self-inflicted deaths of over 900 people. PART B: Jim Jones, from the very beginning, had a particular obsession with faith. He was a frequent attendant of church in his youth, and he entered the ministry shortly after graduating college in the early 1950’s (“Jim Jones,” 2016). He was charismatic, and an outspoken supporter of the Civil Rights movement. One follower said: He was very charismatic and attracted people who were feeling vulnerable or

McGehee III, a researcher and journalist for The Jonestown Institute. While the original audio tape itself was recorded on November 18, 1978, the transcript was made on July 6, 2001. The document is a transcript of an audio tape found at Jonestown, which was retrieved by the US government. The transcript was written to analyze the last recorded moments of Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple; the tape is the last known record of their activities. This is a valuable source, as it shows the point of view from Jones and members of The Peoples Temple in their last moments. This allowed me to observe some of the mannerisms and methods used by Jones to enrapture his followers. The limitation of this source is the fact that it only shows the point of view of Jonestown members, and lacks the unbiased reporting of facts that followed the event. For instance, Jones tells his followers that he is not responsible for the murder of the Senator, and that people are coming to kill