Jonestown Research Paper

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The Tragedy of Jonestown: Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid! The Jonestown Massacre is still thought of as one of the largest and affecting losses of life in American history. This mass suicide, which took place upon the day of November 18, 1978, was enacted by the notorious cult leader James Warren Jones (most commonly referred to as Jim Jones), a “prophet” of the People’s Temple. The People’s Temple was a well-known religious sect of Christianity which busied itself, with among multiple things, the idea that no matter what ethnicity, God loved you nonetheless. Jones was later revealed as having had multiple traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and other afflictions of the mental state, giving reason as to why he became the man he did. Jones …show more content…

Jim Jones was an extremely charismatic man, drawing large masses of people to his church with his “prophecies” of a more bright and hopeful future through him. Despite these promises of a better time Jim Jones had multiple dark flaws and inclinations, including his likely mental ailment of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), his abuse of pharmaceutical drugs, and physical state near the time of the massacre. NPD is described as “a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others.”(mayoclinic.org) Jim Jones is nearly a perfect example of someone afflicted with NPD, with his throne in Guyana, seeing himself as a prophet, and his lack of empathy being shown by his encouragement of the mass suicide of hundreds of people, including women and children. The “prophet” also had high levels of charisma and influenced his followers in numerous ways, which people with NPD are inclined to do. Jim Jones also had other issues, including his addiction to prescription drugs such as pentobarbital and amphetamine (which is why many people think he wore sunglasses often), giving him many more psychological issues on top of those which he already had. His physical state was also debilitating around the time of the massacre, “Goodlett was quoted in the press following the …show more content…

Jones also put the people through suicide practices, readying them if they were found by anyone who would wish to interfere with the commune. However, this lasted for a short amount of time before Congressman Leo Ryan was commissioned by the U.S. to check up on the church. Congressman Ryan went to the small city with a crew, and recorded the conditions in which they found at Jonestown. He also met with the reverend and left to go back to the U.S. to report what he had found. Then disaster struck, for Jones had sent armed men after Ryan to ensure that no word of their treatment of the citizens would reach the ears of anyone. They opened fire, killing Ryan and some other reporters. However, there was a survivor, Richard Dwyer, who came back to the U.S. and warned the people of the nature of Jonestown, which made the U.S. send another team of people down to shut it down, but they were too late. For after Ryan and his team came down to investigate, Jones told his people to start committing suicide in the way in which they had been practicing, by drinking generic Kool-Aid laced with cyanide and injecting their children with mixes of powdered fruit substance and poison. Those who attempted to resist committing suicide were instead shot by soldiers, ensuring that only 87

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