Pamela Benitez, Conversation 4: Cults

The cult that comes to mind is that of The Peoples Temple Cult however they are more well-known for what happened to the cult, the Jonestown Massacre. The cult was ruled by a single man by the name of Jim Jones, the cult started in 1954 and was going by a different name but it was too long and was shortened to Peoples Temple. Jim Jones was inspired by the way African American churches worked, he liked that it wasn’t stiff and the people seemed to want to be there. The belief that was shared in the cult was Christianity and radical social justice. His cult was racially integrated which was something new at the time, this attracted many people. Jim Jones believed in equality in all races and did peaceful protests against businesses that didn’t allow integration.

The cult was becoming very popular and the church was becoming crowded, Jim needed the money to expand the church and relocate. He didn’t want to directly ask members for money because he knew they didn’t make enough income. So he constructed a plan, to perform in the church and go to other churches and claim that he was able to heal those who were sick. His performance allowed him to make an income, ‘curing’ people from headaches to cancer. His performances brought him more followers and allowed him to make more money, using the performances to gain their trust.

Eventually, the cult made enough money to open stores, where people would donate clothes to be sold, and allowed members to work in the stores. These locations would also serve free meals to low-income areas and even help teenagers get into college if they couldn’t afford to attend. The People’s Temple would also give the students free housing and meals.

Jim Jones decided he needed his cult to do something bigger and better. He wanted to the cult be something more than just a collection of churches around America. He wanted a self-sustaining utopia and so he inflicted fear on his followers claiming that the CIA and the FBI wanted them dead. Due to fear and trust in their cult leader, the followers settled in Guyana, a country in South America in 1977 where they devoted their time and lives to the church, building new cottages for the hundreds of followers who lived on the property. Jones became stricter as time progressed to where everything was decided by him, he censored outgoing mail and read every single mail that was being brought to the settlement. People were trapped and weren’t allowed to leave because their passports were locked away, and they had to pay their way out.

A few people were able to leave but were told to keep the cult a secret, and a handful managed to escape and made it public about the dangers of the cult and the situation in the town. The CIA had started to look into the cult and Jim heard news of this and manipulated it to strike fear into the cultists by claiming that the CIA wanted to kill the women and children. The CIA had sent a congressman and some press to investigate the location but these people were shot dead because the people were manipulated to believe that they were there to kidnap the followers.

Jim Jones had the followers commit suicide by having them drink poisoned Kool-Aid. There were a few who objected and were forcibly executed through injection of poison. Jim Jones had also committed suicide by shooting himself. There was exactly 909 deaths, with 400 bodies unidentified.

A way to know you’re in a cult, or avoid a cult is by doing the following

• There is only one person who runs and decides things, a person who dictates everything
• Things are too good to be true
• Everyone shares the same beliefs and opinions and anything that opposes those beliefs is frowned upon or shamed
• Contact with family and loved ones was minimized or prohibited.
• The person uses fear to gain your following