Summary Of The Cult That Died By Jim Jones

I read the book The Cult that Died: The Tragedy of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple by George Kilneman, Sherman Butler, and David Conn. The book is a biography about Jim Jones and the mass suicide he pulled off by constructing a dangerous cult. Even though the leadership of Jim Jones led to an abundant amount of casualties, he still managed to gather over 900 followers throughout his time.

Growing up, Jim Jones considered himself an outcast. Hence, his target audience was the hopeless, the less fortunate, and the minorities. His primary idea was equality. He announced that individuals of any race, gender, and age were welcome in his church —the People’s Temple. The aspect of equality influenced a great amount of his followers. Many referred

His members referred to him as Father and openly shared with him all of their transgressions. He used aggressive tactics like home visits from an Interrogation Committee and loyalty tests. Members would even spy on each other in order to gather more information for Jones. One of the reasons his followers were so open to him was the fact that they recognized him as a healer. They witnessed him perform great miracles with the help of “the girls,” who were in charge of gathering the materials and assisting Jones with cancer cures. It got to the point in which people would seek out Jones’ treatments over conventional medicine. One instance of this dealt with a woman whom Jones told had throat cancer. Because he “found” the cancer, he was able to “heal” it, by digging the so-called tumor out of her throat. People sometimes thought he was not legitimate, but yet were still drawn to him. Their curiosity outweighed their

Precisely, he called himself he reincarnation of Jesus Christ. In 1965, after years of residing in Indianapolis, Jones proclaimed that a holocaust would soon take place in the area. He told his followers that God showed him the place which would be their new “safe zone” —Ukiah, California. Jones’ followers had to swear to secrecy; they could not tell any family or friends about the upcoming move. Once in California, Jones spent much of his time preaching in San Francisco, gaining more and more followers each day. As the numbers grew, he decided to buy over 3,800 acres of land in Guyana, which he would call Jonestown. Jonestown was only fit for about 300 people, but 1,100 individuals were living in the area. Due to the crowded population, food became scarce. Jones told his people that they were destined for deprivation, and the only way they could achieve happiness was to follow him into death. He had discussed a variety of ways to perform this, but the one that fit the most was the chemical, cyanide. While in Jonestown, Jim Jones stated, “We aren’t getting anywhere, and the best thing we can do is to commit suicide, but I will have to stay alive to explain why we did it.” Unfortunately, over 900 of Jones’ followers willingly poisoned themselves for their