Prompted Suicide: Jonestown

...

Jones began looking into revolutionary suicide. He began to practice these mass suicides by pretending Jonestown was under attack and conducted suicide drills with fake poison. These were rehearsed for months before Jones finally used real poison. (Chidester)

Jones began to get so paranoid that he encouraged members to spy on each other for signs of disaffection, disloyalty, or violations of Temple rules. This heightened paranoia made Jones think death was the only answer and he told his members, “I’m talking about planning your death for the victory of the people” (Russell, 39). While others asked if they could just move Jonestown so the American press couldn’t do anything and their location would be unknown Jones refused and continued to push towards suicide. He told the only doctor in Jonestown, Larry Schacht, to find the most efficient way to poison a thousand people. Schacht ordered one pound of sodium cyanide to be delivered from the United States. (Russell,40-41). On November 18, 1978 Jones gave everyone in Jonestown a mixture of the cyanide in a drink called Flavor-Aid (“Stories From Jonestown”). He told everyone that they were committing suicide. Many went along with it because they truly believed in Jones and his decisions as the leader. However, many refused and tried to escape. Those who refused to drink the poison were instead injected with poison and died along with those committing suicide. Jones truly believed that this was the thing that he and his followers could do. People from the age of 2 months to 97 years old ending up dying from poisoning. A couple who returned to retrieve their five year old son arrived and found the son had been given the poison and he was dead. (Chidester,Smithwick)

While there were very few survivors, those survivors were happy to be alive but are forced to live with guilt that they escaped and so many others died. Today, the members are known as Christian believers gone wrong.They blindly followed the man who led them to their own deaths because they had believed he could fix all their problems. The members went as far as referring to Jones as “Dad” (Latson). Even as they committed suicide, they still wholeheartedly believed Jones was doing the right thing. Notes were found on the corpses saying they believed in Jones and thanking him for the life he gave them. These member were stolen from, lied to, and brainwashed by Jones which is why this event has become known as the biggest cult disaster in history. (Fondakowski,Latson, Chidester)

Works Cited

Latson, Jennifer. "The Jonestown Massacre, Remembered." Time.Com (2014): N.PAG. MasterFILE Elite. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.

Russell, George. "The Left’s Great Crime." Commentary 133.1 (2012): 38-41. MasterFILE Elite. Web. 23 Feb. 2016

"The Jonestown Mass Suicide." History Today 58.11 (2008): 13. MasterFILE Elite. Web. 23 Feb. 2016

Chidester, David. "Jonestown and Peoples Temple." Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. 2nd ed. Vol. 7. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 4952-4956. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 24 Feb. 2016.

Vandecarr, Paul. "He Lived To Tell." Advocate 903 (2003): 37. MasterFILE Elite. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.

Courteau, Darcy. "True Believers." Wilson Quarterly 36.1 (2012): 102-103. MasterFILE Elite. Web. 6 Mar. 2016

Lofton, Kathryn. "Understanding Jonestown And Peoples Temple." Indiana Magazine Of History 106.4 (2010): 422-424. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Mar. 2016

"Stories From Jonestown." Publishers Weekly 259.28 (2012): 50. MasterFILE Elite. Web. 1 Apr. 2016.

Hutchinson, Siviku. White Nights, Black Paradise. Infidel Books, 2015. Web. 30 March 2016

Fondakowski, Leigh. Stories From Jonestown. Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2013. Web. 31 March 2016.