by Suruthi Bala
Jim Jones started his cult, Peoples Temple, with an admirable goal in mind. He claimed that he wanted to build a society in which all people, including people of color, would be treated as equals. Hearing such a message from a white man in the US in the sixties and seventies was a breath of fresh air, if not downright revolutionary, and that’s why so many of those disillusioned by the level of racial segregation and lack of civil rights at the time flocked to Jones.
Many of you reading this book may be familiar with Jim Jones, Jonestown, and the Kool-Aid. Those of you who are truly hard-core will already also have muttered under your breath that it was in fact Flavor-Aid and not Kool-Aid (don’t worry, we know). But there’s so much more to the story of Jonestown than first meets the eye, and in this chapter we’re going to look at how one man can be found responsible for mass murder without ever having pulled a trigger, wielded a knife, or prepared a single cyanide-laced cocktail himself. Or how those who originally joined a group that preached peace, love, and racial equality ended up savagely killing their comrades and children in a promised land they had built with their own hands.
As with almost all cults, the story begins with the leader himself, because it’s from his pathology that the rest of the group will be shaped.
Hell and Hot Takes with Reverend Jim Jones
Jim Jones was born in 1931 in Lynn, Indiana, and it’s safe to say that he had a difficult start. His family was poor, like no-running-water poor. His dad was an alcoholic who had been destroyed by World War II, and his exhausted mother was forced to work around the clock through the Great Depression to support the family. This meant that little Jim was often left to fend for himself. It also meant that the young boy—who was starved of any meaningful attention or love from his own parents—sought it out from others around him.
Growing up in a tiny town, deep in the Midwest, Jones noticed quickly that it was the preachers who commanded the most adulation and authority. So from an early age, Jim Jones knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. He began to practice playing God and preacher with a fun little childhood game. We don’t know what he called it, but it mainly consisted of him killing stray animals and then holding funerals for them in front of a bunch of his kid buddies.
Jones’s eccentric childhood behavior didn’t stop there. While the other kids argued over who got to be which allied soldier in their playground war games, awkwardly, little Jim always wanted to play Hitler. It seems that even as a child, Jim Jones was entranced by power and how much of it one single man could hold.
These little quirks of running around in an American schoolyard in the forties, pretending to be the Führer, unsurprisingly meant little Jimmy Jones was not very popular. For much of his childhood, he was an outcast who spent a lot of time on his own. But all that changed when a prepubescent Jones finally found faith and community at the local Pentecostal Church. Jones was barely a teenager when he started delivering rousing sermons to adoring crowds who hung on his every word. At last, he had found his niche. Given his talent as a charismatic and captivating preacher—and as a savvy organizer—by the age of 25 Jim Jones had already set up his very own church.
Slight sidetrack: One of our favorite things to do when we’re researching a case is to find out what jobs killers had before they fell into a life of murderous crime. Dennis Rader (a.k.a. BTK) was an electronics technician; John Wayne Gacy was a politician and he also worked the kids’ parties as Pogo the clown; Bundy even worked the phones at a suicide helpline. But we have to admit that perhaps Jim Jones takes the biscuit for the weirdest job. Because before Jones was an evangelical preacher and cult leader, he was a door-to-door chimpanzee salesman. Yes, that’s right—in the sixties and seventies in the USA you could buy actual chimps in pet shops, or apparently even on your doorstep. But anyway, back to Jones and his church.
After Jones got himself set up, success came thick and fast as his exciting message of radical, socialist Christianity took hold. It’s amazing to think now that this man, in the 1950s, was able to garner a following in super conservative Indiana by preaching communism! But we have to understand that although generally speaking this kind of philosophy in the US at the time would have been considered abominable—treacherous even—more and more people were becoming disillusioned with capitalism.
After years of postwar consumerism packaged as patriotism, and with the war in Vietnam just kicking off, many people in the area were lost, poor, and tired. And in the absence of a prosperous American dream to believe in, these people needed something more. So Jim Jones told them what they wanted to hear—that the pursuit of material things was flawed; that no one should be poor; and if they were worried about being “commies” they shouldn’t be, because Jesus himself had been a big old communist, too.
Jim Jones, like all successful cult leaders, had struck at the exact right time with the exact right message. That generation was looking for a different way of life. Some turned to LSD, some founded the American Atheist Society, others followed the Grateful Dead from coast to coast, and unfortunately, some found Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.
According to Jeff Guinn in his book The Road to Jonestown, Jim Jones’s particular brand of Pentecostal evangelicalism was formed by his upbringing, which mirrored that of many of his followers. His experiences of poverty made him a big fan of communism and his life as an outcast made him a fervent supporter of racial integration. In fact, Jim Jones’s passion for civil rights was so intense that on one occasion, after his father refused to let his Black friend come over for dinner, he left and never spoke to his father again. At that time Indiana was a deeply segregated state and so Jones’s rhetoric was refreshing—a white man telling Black people that they were equal and that he loved them? Now, that was different. He was different.
And as if preaching social justice, racial and class equality, and desegregation weren’t enough, Jones was a natural showman. He had all the razzle-dazzle needed to woo the crowds (and open those wallets). Jones had studied superstar preachers of the past and learned what made the truly top dogs stand out. He knew what he needed to do—he needed to bring out the big guns. So, he started performing miracle healings! And boy, did that pull in the masses. Soon people were coming from all over to watch the Reverend Jim Jones give sight to the blind and help the paralyzed to walk—all while he spoke of a future built on equality and love.
It was all of course just a carefully crafted circus, because like all magical “healings” it was total bollocks; those who were being “healed” were just planted stooges who put on great performances. But, hey, it worked.
Soon, thanks to Jones’s electric personality and narcissistic charm, his congregants were so in love with him that they were willing to accept any and all of his teachings. Through all the trickery and healing magic manipulation, Jim Jones kept racial equality at the core of his principles. He also claimed to want to lead by example, so Jones adopted multiple children from various different racial backgrounds, building what he called his Rainbow Family. His adopted son, Jim Jones Junior (come on, what else did you expect?) was actually the first Black child to be adopted by a white family in Indiana state history.
Are We a Cult Yet?
As you can see, Jim Jones’s vision of an egalitarian utopia didn’t sound all that bad at first. And while, yes, he was definitely lying to his followers about being able to heal the sick, some might argue this was just a means to an end—and after all, healings and even exorcisms are still practiced widely by many mainstream religions all over the world to this day.
So when did the real exploitation start? Well, Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple started to ask for 20 percent of their followers’ incomes. But again, one could argue that’s not unbelievably unusual even for an ordinary, societally accepted religion. Also, socialism was Jim Jones’s whole bag; everybody putting money into one big pot that could be used to help others was the entire vibe of the Peoples Temple. It also appears that in the beginning, Jim Jones did indeed use this money for g
ood. He built homes for the elderly, fed the poor, and started up a drug rehabilitation program. (Considering Jones’s own hefty drug problem, in hindsight this is pretty ironic. He famously wore sunglasses all the time. This wasn’t to look cool and mysterious, but rather to hide how incredibly fucked up his eyes were.)
So after reading all this, maybe you’re thinking: How could Jones have been a psychopath? He wasn’t stealing all the money and he seemed to be genuinely helping people. Well, just because a narcissistic psychopath like Jones doesn’t feel empathy, this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know what he needs to do to reach his ultimate goal: adoration. Remember, psychopaths and narcissists are happy to do good, as long as their actions are rewarded with admiration, attention, and love. And if it had ended here, if this level of power and respect had been enough for Jones, well then, no harm, no foul. But of course, the story doesn’t end happily ever after in Indiana.
The next stage of our journey into the story of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple is to understand when they made the shift from operating within the parameters of a normal religion and crossed over into cult territory.
What Makes a Cult?
One of the fundamental questions we have to ask when we discuss cults is: What’s the difference between a cult and a religion? To those of us who may have experienced a particularly dogmatic version of organized religion in our lives, it may seem like there is little difference. And yes, while certain characteristics absolutely sit in the overlapping center of the Venn diagram, there are of course also key differences.
But, firstly, what’s the same? Both religions and cults expect their followers to:
Accept certain supernatural beliefs.
Venerate sacred symbols and ideology.
Revere spiritual leaders.
Adhere to a special set of laws and doctrines.
Carry out specific rites, rituals, and ceremonies.
With so many similarities, we can see how confusion arises over where a religion ends and a cult begins. But there are vital differences: Cults usually have a living charismatic leader who becomes a living deity. And of course, being divine, this person can never be wrong, so questioning the leader (or their teachings) is completely unthinkable. Cultists must also submit fully to this figure, physically, spiritually, economically, and often even sexually.
Achieving this level of control over someone, let alone a group of someones, is not easy. The only way it can work is if the cult leader has first totally broken down a follower’s ability to think critically. To do this, cults use a series of mind control techniques, including hypnosis, starvation, sleep deprivation, social isolation, and tightly restrictive rules. They also minimize their members’ access to non-cult sources of information and flood their followers with masses of cult-generated propaganda. Cults will often even change followers’ names and identities to totally separate them from who they were before and remove any connection that remains between them and the outside world.
To be further encouraged to sever their ties with outsiders, members of a cult are also told that the world is going to end or be convinced that everyone outside of their group is intensely evil, or in some fun cases, both. This creates a handy “us versus them” dynamic that the cult leader can use to their benefit. This one is particularly useful when it comes to underscoring the idea that the laws and morality of the outside world are meaningless.
Most of you reading this are probably thinking, “Pah, that would never happen to me, I’m far too smart to fall for that nonsense.” Well, maybe, but cults are actually full of highly intelligent people who purposefully go after who they deem valuable members. Cults want people who are intelligent and motivated, those who will work hard and not worry about pesky little things like not getting enough sleep.
Think about those tech companies that now offer their employees “fun” sleep pods in the office. Sure, it may be a cool new workplace trend, but we can’t help feeling that there is something a little sinister about the whole idea. Is it really a perk to help the workers chill out? Or are they there because they never want you to leave? I mean, why waste all that precious time you could be working going home to sleep? Just stay here! Look at our lovely hammocks! Because work!
In any case, you see our point—cults want the very best workers, those who are driven and who will work themselves into the ground with no clue about balance. And successfully recruiting attractive, smart, high achievers makes it easier to enchant even more members. Often this targeted recruitment by cults works because intelligent, deep-thinking people, who also long to make a positive contribution to the world, may feel like they are failing to do so on their own. This leaves them susceptible to someone “showing them the way.” So it’s important to understand that joining a cult and staying in a cult isn’t about intelligence. It’s about abuse, and anyone can fall victim to that.
Now that we all understand the tactics of cults a bit better, let’s get back to the Peoples Temple and the exploitation that began to emerge. Despite some followers already handing over 20 percent of their incomes to Jim Jones, he soon started to tell them that if they really wanted to win favor, they should leave their jobs completely and serve him, God, and socialism full-time.
(Ding ding ding—cult bell!)
But even after quitting their jobs, some of Jones’s followers still felt that it wasn’t enough dedication, so they were delighted when the Peoples Temple suggested that they could also hand over all of their money and their houses, too, in exchange for a small allowance, food, clothes, and somewhere to sleep. And all that could be theirs for the low, low price of giving away all their worldly goods, working for 20 hours a day, and sleeping for just two hours a night. Bargain.
Food deprivation and sleep deprivation—along with economic abuse—are key to cult management. It stands to reason that a poor, tired, starving person is much more likely to go along with whatever crazy shit you tell them than someone who’s had a square meal, eight solid hours of shut-eye, and still has a home left to escape to.
As his control over his followers grew, so did Jones’s megalomania. In one of his most famous sermons, he threw a Bible across the room, and when he was not smote by almighty God for desecrating His holy text, Jones told his followers, “There is no heaven up there; we have to make heaven down here.”
This is a fascinating moment on the road to Jonestown, because Jim Jones initially used Christianity and a God that people were already familiar with to draw people in; he told them that he had a direct connection with Jesus and God—a hotline to the big man—so they should respect and revere him. But soon Jones couldn’t help himself, he needed to be the all-powerful one and usurp God himself, and so communist Jesus got bumped. And it worked. By this point, the congregation was growing and Jim Jones was powerful and famous; he decided that it was time to look beyond Indianapolis.
In 1965, Jim Jones decided to take his show on the road and moved his church to Ukiah, California. He said that he chose Ukiah because he was convinced that it was one of the few sites that could survive a nuclear attack. Why Ukiah would purportedly survive is a bit of a mystery, but it doesn’t matter. Jones was playing on the contemporary societal fear of nuclear war, painting himself as the knower of top-secret atomic truths and also starting to hint at the end times. Many birds, one Ukiah-shaped stone.
A year after the Ukiah move there were about 80 followers in the Peoples Temple; by 1971 there were thousands. In a time long before TikTok, aggressive Facebook ads, or being Insta-famous, Jim Jones was the king of marketing. How did he do it? Well, he got himself a fleet of Greyhound buses, filled them up with a bunch of young, attractive devotees, and sent them off around the country, recruiting new members under the banner of socialism.
It was now that the communal-living fun really took off. Members lived together, ate together, and planted stuff together, and people of all shapes, sizes, and—crucially—races were welcomed with open arms. This sort of insular, together-all-the-time lifestyle
is crucial for cults. Jim Jones couldn’t have people going off on their own, thinking, and mixing with outsiders who might tell them that they sounded nuts. And also, if everyone is locked down in one place, it’s much easier to keep an ear out for any voices of dissent from within.
Through the Peoples Temple, Jim Jones claimed to be doing what God, in his view, had never done: build heaven on earth. At this stage Jones fully broke with traditional Christianity, declaring that communism had been his goal all along. Cult leaders who use an existing religious framework like this only do so to make the transition period more palatable for followers. After the initial growth stage of the cult is complete, the leader will usually end up subverting the belief system to serve their own needs.
But whatever beliefs Jim Jones had, his PR expertise, unique showmanship, and polished marketing meant that even the politicians of time loved a bit of Jim. They all knew that if they just dropped the Reverend a line, Jones would guarantee a huge crowd of his followers would show up to their next fundraiser/rally/rodeo. This whole “rent-a-crowd from the Peoples Temple” system was instrumental in 1970s local government elections in San Francisco and was also a keystone of the cult’s power grab of political influence. Don’t believe us? Angela Davis and Harvey Milk are both on record saying that Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple were something to be “admired.”
By this stage Jones wielded so much influence that there was absolutely no external oversight into what he and his people were up to on their commune, and everyone in power—including the politicians he hung out with—failed to notice the warning signs of what was really going on. As Jim Jones’s fame and influence continued to grow, so did his ego, and it wasn’t long before things at the Peoples Temple started to get weirder and weirder—and not just sleeping-on-mattresses-on-the-floor and working-outrageously-long-farm-hours weird.