People's Temple

Article by Vela Decker. Edited and researched by Rob Russell.

The religious movement People’s Temple, led by Jim Jones, moved from the US to Guyana with the aim of establishing a utopian society, Jonestown. In popular knowledge, Jonestown is not so much about a place, but about a day. 

On 18 November 1978, a US congressman sent to examine the situation in Jonestown was murdered with four others on an airstrip in Guyana. Leo Ryan was the first person ever killed on duty as a Member of Congress. Shortly after, 908 people died in Jonestown. Almost all died from cyanide poisoning contained in a vat of ‘Flavor-Aid,’ which many drank under instruction from Jones. Besides natural disasters, the Jonestown deaths were the biggest loss of American civilian life before 9/11. 

The need to view historical events in context is particularly important when the lens narrows in focus to a single day. A single shocking piece of history can get separated from the rest of the story. For People’s Temple, that piece of history is ‘drinking the Kool-Aid.’ 

It is not surprising this day had significant publicity in the past, but I do find it surprising the way the event is popularly mentioned in the present. ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ is famous as a catchphrase, which simplifies the way people discuss the circumstances and simplifies the way people remember the history. 

The phrase ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ has its own Wikipedia page. It explains that the metaphor refers to those who hold unquestioned beliefs, who blindly accept instructions, or who buy into ideas without thinking. Wikipedia helpfully suggests to ‘See Also’: gullibility. ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ is used in business, politics and pop-culture, but not very often about drinking actual Kool-Aid. Frequently this does not refer back to Jonestown directly. It is used as a general accusation that describes those who ran Enron, those who joined Al-Qaeda, or those who voted for Barack Obama. 

When it is connected to the actual event, it is often used for diverse object lessons. Some refer to the group as a cautionary tale about involvement with religion in general or religious fundamentalism in particular. For some Christians, it is a lesson against involvement with new Christian groups that are not ‘real’ Christians. For others, it is an example of the perils of communism or of idealistic thinking. 

This degree of simplification seems excessive. This is too complicated an event, too complicated a group, and too complicated a decades- long situation. I do not want to give a summary of People’s Temple, but rather show how problematic it can be to look at its history only through its end. The history is confusing, full of apparent contradictions and does not conform to a neat narrative. 

In 1954, People’s Temple began as an evangelical Christian group that was later affiliated with the mainstream Protestant denomination Disciples of Christ. This developed into a commune where Bibles were banned, religious services were stopped, and divine power was believed to originate from Jones. It was a group involved in pro-gay activism. However, during the same time period, Jones got members to sign statements stating they were homosexual, for use as potential blackmail if they left the group. People’s Temple was involved heavily in California politics with the aim of fighting racism, helping poor people, and generally improving society. However, Jones eventually saw himself as an enemy of the US. He hosted Soviet delegations in Jonestown, required residents to study Russian and received news from the Russian and Warsaw Pact news services. Jonestown was created as a utopian socialist experiment that would allow inhabitants freedom from a broken US society. In the same place, some who attempted escape were drugged with Valium, Thorazine or Demeral.

303 of those who died were minors or children and 252 were five years old or less; this alone makes it impossible to refer to the entire event as a suicide. Some others escaped, some resisted and were forcibly injected, and some volunteered. Again, the history goes beyond the story of the day. Drills had been practiced for years with members drinking fake ‘poison’ to prove their loyalty to Jones. Many members turned money and property over to the church years earlier. Some residents were elderly, some were former addicts, and many were physically or financially dependent on this community. They were isolated in the jungle in a foreign country with paths patrolled by armed security. Inhabitants were deprived of sleep and adequate nutrition. Children and individual spouses were separated from their families to encourage more loyalty to the group. Those with doubts had little opportunity to confide them, since everyone was supposed to report disloyal behaviour. Offenders could be beaten, locked in a box, or left in an empty well. In this atmosphere, on this historic day, they were told Congressman Ryan was killed and the US government was on its way to blame them for the murder, destroy their commune and take away their children. People were told they needed to die with peace and dignity before authorities arrived.  

Every depiction of history has a longer possible version, so a snapshot of a day in time is nothing bad. However, a very narrow view can distort some histories more than others. It makes sense to refer to this event less in metaphor and vague platitudes and more as a historical event that exists separately from inflamed rhetoric. 

• Larry Layton was the only man to tried in the United States for the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan. Layton was released from custody in 2002 after spending eighteen years in prison. 

• The People’s Temple movement before it’s move to Guyana had an estimated peak membership of 20,000 followers in the 1960s.

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