On November 18, 1978, Reverend Jim Jones drove nine hundred and nine members of his church Peoples Temple to their deaths in one of the largest mass-murder suicides on record. The event occurred at their settlement in Jonestown, Guyana where members ingested a grape flavored Kool-Aid under the belief they were committing an act of revolutionary suicide. This act is the culmination of years of manipulative tactics used by Jones to maintain his complete authority and sway over his congregation. Congressman Leo Ryan led a congressional investigation designed to answer the concerns of relatives about their family members residing in Jonestown and to examine malpractice claims against Peoples Temple. On November 17, 1978, Ryan arrived in Jonestown …show more content…
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how Jim Jones slowly and manipulatively built his congregation through a recognition that he could capitalize on and exploit individual’s troubles in order to achieve, keep, and act out his authority. The social, religious, and economic climate of the 1960s combined with the chaos of the 1970s created the dependency, idealism, and rationalization that Jim Jones used to slowly yet blatantly manipulate his way to power and eventually create Jonestown.
Jim Jones was born in rural Crete. Indiana on May 13, 1931, to Lynetta and James Jones. Early on Jones was different from the other children he grew up around. He was an outcast and spent much of his time alone during the day. This loneliness combined with a lack of affection at home had a considerable impression on Jones’s personality and caused him to desire power and a sense of community that he was willing to achieve through manipulative