Jim Jones Essays

is truly astonishing… There is no way that Jim Jones could have been a prophet…” AQUINAS: “These people killed their children and then themselves because of their faith in Jim Jones. How could someone with no motives of credibility be followed with such devotion? How could this be possible?” HUME: “I do not understand why they all killed themselves, but I do understand why they could follow him. I am, however, not entirely sure what you mean by Jones having no motives of credibility.” AQUINAS:

Warren Jones, most commonly known as Jim Jones, was an American cult leader who led almost one thousand people to their death through poisoning. The devastating event is known as the Jonestown Massacre, and Jim Jones was the leader of it all. On November 18, 1978, nine-hundred people were killed from poisoned Kool-Aid in Guyana, South America. Jim Jones created a region called the Jonestown Settlement in Guyana which is where the tragic deaths occurred. (“Jim Jones Biography” 1; “Jim Jones” 1; “Jonestown”

On November 18, 1978, in “Jones town” more than 900 members of an American cult Peoples Temple died in a mass suicide-murder under the direction of their leader Jim Jones. The megalomaniac leader, Jim Jones, was born on May 31, 1931, in rural Indiana. Everything started at the 1950’s, when he began working as a self-ordained Christian minister in small churches around Indianapolis. He wanted to do a church of his own, and to collect money for it he tried various ways, including selling live monkeys

James Warren “Jim” Jones, the flock of followers in Jonestown, Guyana surrounded their beloved preacher unknowing of what was to come. In the gatherers punch were traces of cyanide and valium, which is deadly upon ingestion. Some of the more loyal followers drank willingly, but those that were reluctant were forced to obey. Being smaller, children were the first to succumb to the poison, followed shortly after by the elderly and then the rest of the group. The acclaimed messiah Jones decided to take

Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple Cult “Jim Jones of the Peoples’s Temple began as a sound, fairly mainstream Christian minister” (Sects, ‘Cults’ & Alternative Religions). Before all the madness Jones seemed like a caring person, that wanted to bring peace to a town he made, Jonestown. Instead it turned into something more horrific. Jim Jones was the manipulative mastermind behind the traumatic events that happened in Jonestown, Guyana, this essay will discuss interviews by people who are survivors

Jim Jones was a cult leader in the 1970s who convinced hundreds of people to commit suicide. He was extremely persuasive and convinced people, especially minorities, to join his cult and move to Guyana for mass suicide. He used several rhetorical devices to make himself more convincing. Jones used the rhetorical devices and appeals of ethos, an either-or logical fallacy, and pathos to persuade the members of his cult that they had no other choice but to commit suicide, or else they would face far

reason for the deaths besides Jim Jones himself and that reason is fear. Jones used this fear to shape the identities of his followers through forcing them to join his community from blackmail, convincing most of his followers that the public media were all liars and dangerous, and most importantly getting the people of Jonestown to kill themselves. Everything started off with Jim Jones gaining followers of course, but how did Jones followers start to grow? Well Jim didn’t always play nice, in fact

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

people were led by Jim Jones to a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones was as a notorious cult leader. He was the founder of the People’s Temple religious cult. To gain more followers Jones promised those people that if they followed him he would build a utopia. Jones first started to get recognition in 1952 when he joined the ministry. He got a job as a student pastor at the Somerset Methodist Church in a poor predominantly white neighborhood in Indianapolis. Jones started to make a

Jim Jones was a cruel cult leader with a long, successful career and an idea that ultimately led to the deaths in Jonestown. James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in Crete, Indiana. Jim Jones was described as a weird kid, and he would usually hold funerals for small animals, Jim even stabbed a cat to death when he was ten-years-old. At around this time, Jim Jones began visiting churches. Jim Jones was also very intolerant of racial discrimination and had African American friends that weren’t

Jim Jones: Suicide or Loyalty? There have been many studies done on persuasion and cult leaders. Cult leaders are usually very good at using persuasion to gain followers. In some cases, cult leaders will go to major extremes just to have people follow them. Jim Jones was a very powerful man with the use of persuasion. Jim Jones started the People’s Temple in the 1950s in Indiana. The People’s Temple was based on socialist ideals and Christian redemption. Jim Jones made the cult seem very attractive

the weapons of persuasion used by Jim Jones and the temple leaders were deemed effective in the execution of the ‘revolutionary suicide’. The techniques of persuasion used by Jones and his leaders of the people’s temple could be classified as - entrenchment of credibility, manipulations, authority, “illusions of choice” and peripheral cues. Self-justification was also used by the members to justify their unhappiness, physical punishments and fear of death. Jim Jones had established credibility by forming

The cult leaders Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite and Neville Cooper were highly charismatic men who proclaimed a compelling message of a better and different world, who as their followers saw as saviors, in part because of the way they portrayed themselves, with having the fixes for their frustrations. For Jones, his appeal was about his Christian approach to their social problems and his beneficial community work Peoples temple offered. With Applewhite his appeal was about giving purpose to those

1. Discuss how the Peoples' Temple movement can be understood as an apocalyptic movement. What type of millenarian vision(s) did Jim Jones and his followers subscribe to? The People’s Temple movement can be understood as an apocalyptic movement because of their millenarian visions. The first vision that is understood through the People’s Temple is postmillennial movement. Postmillennialism is best understood as the belief through human progress the world will slowly get better (Wojcik, 1997, p.

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

poison to kill them for not doing what you read in love stories. Jim Jones committed a mass murder by potassium cyanide poisoning while Nannie Doss created a series of murders along her years by arsenic poisoning. In this research paper we get to look back on Jim Jones and Nannie Doss’s earlier childhood, what actually made them notorious, and how their crime spree ended. James Warren Jones also known as Jim Jones was born in Crete,

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

Jonestown was supposed to be a paradise and a perfect miniature society for Reverend Jim Jones and his loyal followers, but after only one year of a working civilization, horror would strike, ending the lives of nearly one thousand of Jones’s hopeful followers. Jonestown was an independent society located deep in the jungles of Guyana in South America. This perfected society was created for people who did not like how the United States was governed. The Jonestown tragedy has been compared to Adolf

Author Rebecca Moore comes with a different perspective about Jonestown. Moore, had two sisters who were both involved with The Peoples Temple. She also had a four –year - old nephew who was the child of her oldest sister and his father was Jim Jones, leader of The Peoples Temple. Moore, states that writing this book is a personal quest to find answers of what happened to her family members. She knew many people who were members of The Peoples Temple and did not consider them to be crazy or a

order to give up. Jim Jones was their leader. Jim Jones forced the members to obey him, no matter if they didn’t want any part of what he wanted them to do. Then he made sure no one could make him pay for his crimes. The Jonestown incident was a mass suicide lead by Jim Jones which scared survivors and obliterated families. The People’s Temple Early life of Jim Jones Jim Jones’s early life was a hint of what he would he would become. On May 13, 1931 in Crete, Indiana Jim Warren Jones was born. During