#peoples temple

[theexodvs]

“Cult” (n.) and “cultic” (adj.)

There is great confusion when describing certain groups and movements as "cultic." Since the most famous examples of cultic groups and movements in living memory include the Manson Family, People’s Temple, the Branch Davidians and Heaven’s Gate, the popular conception of a cult has become a centralized group with one leader with a type-A personality. This is not how most cultic groups take shape.

"Cultic" and "centralized" are not synonyms. They are entirely different concepts, and whether one group or movement is one has no bearing whatsoever on whether it is the other.

The United Pentecostal Church International and Pentecostal Assemblies of the World are both cults. They are part of the Oneness Pentecostal movement*. Note, the UPCI and PAW are not in fellowship with each other and have no official relations. This is because this movement is decentralized, encompassing various different groups that are united in few if any ways besides (some) similar teachings. Whatever leadership and governance model they have, shared or contrasting, is secondary, because Oneness Pentecostalism as a set of doctrines is itself cultic, meaning any group that espouses it is a cult by definition.

Christian Identity is a more pronounced example of a cultic movement that is decentralized. It is a white supremacist group that teaches that white people are the descendants of the ancient Israelites, and that "gentiles" (people who aren't white) can never be saved. Its footprint is almost entirely made of websites, prison gangs, and local congregations, which are not in fellowship with each other or with any larger group. I would hope any decent person would be opposed to this movement and its teachings, but an attempt to treat "cultic" and "centralized" as synonyms might keep one from recognizing CI as something that should be avoided.

Other decentralized movements that are cultic include the Word of Faith movement, the Men's Right Movement, dispensationalism, neurodiversity, the Sovereign Citizens movement, BDSM, the New IFB, kinism, and the Black Hebrew Israelites. Every group that is part of these is a cult, thought they may not be in fellowship with other groups within the same movement.

*The Oneness Pentecostal movement is not representative of Pentecostalism as a whole. Most of the world's Pentecostals belong to the Assemblies of God which has taught the Trinity for its entire existence. Pentecostalism is not necessarily cultic. Oneness Pentecostalism is.

#cult #cults #manson family #charles manson #people's temple #peoples temple #jim jones #branch davidians #david koresh #heaven's gate #heavens gate #united pentecostal church international #pentecostal assemblies of the world #upci #paw #oneness pentecostalism #oneness pentecostals #christian identity #word of faith #prosperity gospel #men's rights movement #mra #men's rights activism #men's rights activist #men's rights activists #mras #mrm #mens rights movement #mens rights activism #mens rights activists

[heavenlydeceptor]

Jim Jones + Addictions

Before starting abusing drugs in 1971, he mostly took medication to treat his known ailments, even though it is also known he was already using prescription drugs like Darvon for migraines. Even then, he often took more than the recommended dosage.

His known medication before 1971 was Insulin for his diabetes (diagnosed in 1954, along with high blood pressure), and Nitroglycerin for his heart.

Sometime around 1971, he started to heavily abuse drugs like Amphetamines, Quaaludes, and later liquid Valium and Morphine, Pentorbarbital, Percodan, Oxycodone, …That same year he also started wearing sunglasses at times, his drugs use being one of the reasons. 

He often mixed his pills with alcohol, generally Vodka, Whiskey or Cognac, an habit he kept up until the end in Jonestown.

There are reports he was using cocaine and heroin at some point, but there are no other details about it, beside the testimony of Neva Sly Hargrave and Tim Carter (who mentioned only Heroin).

The drug he certainly abused the most though was Amphetamines (not to be confused with Methamphetamine). He took it to stay awake, often working 20-hour days or even more, and get up in the morning. His known paranoia was then fueled even more by the drug intake. People in the congregation had no idea of his addiction and the majority thought the short and long time side effects of the drug were due to some chronic illness. Among the side effects he experienced : quicker reaction time, feeling of energy, chronic trouble sleeping, dry mouth, headache, hostility, severe anxiety, increased heart rate, hypertension, paranoia, violent behavior, convulsions, loss of coordination, obsessive behavior.

A side effect he did not seem to experience with Amphetamine abuse was loss of appetite. Amphetamines can be used as appetite suppressants and in diet pills, but he often talked about food and how he had to try to resist it. In 1972 he made a few references to fasting to lose some weight quickly, and in 1974, he said he can get into a “food problem” because it keeps his mind from thinking. Food  was mentioned by Stephan as another addiction for his father, just like drugs. 

Quaaludes and Pentorbarbital were used to sleep at night. If he doubled the dosage of Amphetamine, he actually tripled the recommended dosage to sleep. At high doses Pentorbarbital can cause mental confusion, irritability, paranoid or suicidal ideation and impair judgment, and coordination.

Once in Jonestown he relied more and more on Valium for his anxiety. In February 1978, he was prescribed antibiotics for his cough (which later resulted in a lung infection),Terramycin, Erythromycin and Ampicillin. As with all medications, he also abused them, and natural defenses can be affected by their excessive use. Around September 1978, he started using Elavil and Placidyl for depression, both by injection.

At the time of his death, a lethal dose of Pentorbarbital was found in his body as shown in the toxicology report from his autopsy:

The Cult That Died by George Klineman:

Jim occasionally suffered a condition speed freak call being “over amped.” Sounds would be exaggerated; a car’s horn was enough to drive him up the walls. He would get wild-eyes and threaten to attack people who annoyed him, but guards always held him back before he did any harm. One time at the Temple in Los Angeles, Jim Jones had taken a bunch of pills — he selected them by color — and the locomotive inside him had built up such a head of steam, the boiler was ready to explode. He had to walk off all that energy. Jones and others walked out a side door on to South Alvarado Street. Father was rushing and everyone in his group had to walk faster than normal, to keep up with him. Suddenly he stopped. He turned around and push the guards away.  “Are you alright, Father?”  “Did you hear that?”  ”Hear what?”  “Did you hear the baby frog croaking?”

Raven by Tim Reiterman :

“Marceline became concerned about this new source of friction and psychological problems. It came to a head once when she grabbed the stash from his medicine chest and, while Jones struggled with her, flushed his drugs down the toilet.”

Jim Jones Jr. :

“Once after I went to Georgetown I had to come back with somebody from the Guyanese government who wanted to do an inspection [of Jonestown], and also talk to Jim. We get there, and no Jim. I go to his cottage, and he’s lying there passed out from drugs. So here I am, dragging my father into the shower and standing in there with him, trying to get him in shape to go out and talk to the guest.”

#true crime #jim jones #jonestown #true crime community #peoples temple #cults

[deadpresidents]

There's a YouTuber by the name of Raz0rfist who claims that cult leader Jim Jones was Rosalynn Carter's "spiritual advisor" and one of her closest confidants. I literally can't find any sources for this, is there any accuracy to this? At best what I can find is they met at least once and had a photo taken together.

Are you suggesting that a YouTuber who uses an alias instead of their real name might not have all of the facts straight?

I don't know for sure what the relationship was with Rosalynn Carter and Jim Jones, but I don't think "spiritual advisor" is accurate. Jim Jones had a lot of political connections, especially in San Francisco. Before Guyana and before Jim Jones really went off the rails, the Peoples Temple was a relatively popular movement in parts of Northern California and very much a politically active group. Once they set up shop in San Francisco, they really got involved in voter mobilization and social causes. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone (who, coincidentally, was assassinated along with Harvey Milk just a week after the Jonestown Massacre) actually appointed Jim Jones to San Francisco's Housing Authority Commission in the mid-1970s. Moscone and Milk both had close connections with Jones and the Peoples Temple.

I know there was a Jimmy Carter campaign rally that Rosalynn Carter appeared at where the crowd was filled with Peoples Temple members, and I've read that they met on several different occasions. But this was the Bay Area in the 1970s, so the political scene was full of revolutionary/counterculture groups ranging from the Black Panthers to the SLA, so politicians were undoubtedly rubbing shoulders with some wild folks. Jim Jones was connected, though. Obviously, Jim Jones is one of history's most notorious gaslighters and it seems to me that he worked very hard to cultivate relationships with many, many political figures in the 1970s and Rosalynn Carter was one of them. In Tim Reiterman's excellent book Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), he delves into the efforts that Jones made to connect with Rosalynn Carter and it seems pretty clear to me that she's just being cordial and trying to build support for her husband more than being mesmerized by Jim Jones. But it's not like Rosalynn Carter was helping stir the cyanide into the Kool-Aid at Jonestown.

#History #Rosalynn Carter #Jimmy Carter #President Carter #Jim Jones #Rev. Jim Jones #Peoples Temple #Jonestown

[ubykh]

Para el fanzine Zíncope #1 (cultos) hice dibujitos mientras escuchaba la famosa grabación del final (suicidio masivo) de la gente de Jonestown.

#jonestown massacre #jonestown #peoples temple #cults #zine #mine #comics #i guess #doodling

[captainpirateface]

#cults #cult of the captain #cultlife #cult life #captainpirateface #bipolardepression #chemicalimbalance #wtf #captainpiratefacelovesyou #sighthsandsoundsofinstagram #sights and sounds of tumblr #cults are fun #don't drink the flavor-aid #the peoples temple #the peoples temple choir #peoples temple #peoples temple choir #he's able #Spotify

[rjptalk]

THE JONESTOWN MASSACRE'S 43rd ANNIVERSARY

Today is the 45th anniversary of this event and we haven’t learned much in this near half century. We have come so far and learned so little. I post this every year. We need to remember how bad we can be and be better. We can be better. We need to try harder. Out of this 45th year following the Jonestown Massacre came the saying: “Drink the Kool-Aid” or “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” Or, “He drank…

View On WordPress

#American-history #history #Jim Jones #Jonestown Massacre #Kool-Aid #Marilyn Armstrong #mass suicide #Peoples Temple

[pleckthaniel]

listening to my jonestown audiobook again. just got to a bit describing how one guy read an aborted series of journalistic articles about the Temple (the Kinsolving series) and decided to join the Temple so he could write his own exposé. He ended up being one of its most steadfast defenders and was in charge of much of their PR for years. (Michael Prokes). A guy who literally joined with the sole intention of making the Temple look bad. Never think you are immune to or somehow above cult recruitment tactics. People who join cults aren't stupid. They're exposed to brainwashing. It can happen to anyone.

#scout talks #peoples temple

[immaculatasknight]

Farming humans

#CIA #MKULTRA #human experiments #cults #Pentecostalism #Jonestown #Brazil #Peoples Temple #mercenaries #massacre #Jim Jones

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Former Moonies Tells of Training in Deception, Suicide

February 21, 1979

WASHINGTON—A former “Moonie” says she received suicide training while a member of the Unification Church, including specific instruction on how to slash her wrist.

Virginia Mabry, a 24-year-old Californian who spent a year as a follower of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, told a congressional inquiry on cults that she and others were under orders to commit suicide “if we were taken from the group or intended to leave our allegiance to Moon.”

In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Mabry said that in December, 1976, following the defection of some high-ranking church officials, a nurse who also was a church leader showed her group how to slash their wrists. “And if that wasn’t fast enough, we were told to go for the jugular vein,” she recounted.

In the event a “Moonie” was captured by a “deprogrammer,” a different method of death was preferred. “You were to throw yourself in front of a car so that the deprogrammer would be blamed for your death,” Mabry averred.

Mabry’s accusations came as Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., undeterred by an intensive lobbying and intimidation effort by Moon’s disciples, chaired an informal inquiry into cults and their mind-control techniques.

Although the hearing wasn’t directed at any particular sect, the Moonies, crying “witch-hunt,” dispatched at least 90 national and state leaders to Congress in an attempt to quash the session. When unsuccessful, they helped pack the giant meeting room and periodically interrupted proceedings with shouts of “liar” in response to critical witnesses. Outside, a protest demonstration was held, replete with band and chants.

Some religious leaders and theologians protested the hearing as an encroachment of the First Amendment right of religious freedom.

“Government is not competent to judge which religious groups are good and which are bad anymore than it can tell which religious are true and which are false,” declared Dr. James K. Wood Jr., executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.

But Rep. Robert N. Giaimo, D-Conn., pointed out that the mantle of religion does not protect sects that break the law or abuse individual human rights, as has been alleged by a number of groups, including the Moonies.

The star witness, who was wearing a special device to help rehabilitate her mangled arm, was a vivid reminder of recent cult horrors.

Jackie Speier, who was wounded in the Jonestown attack that killed her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan. D-Calif., noted that some cults espouse religious beliefs while pursuing a quite different course. She admonished the panel to remember “perhaps the singularly most important factor of Jonestown: It can happen again.”

Mabry claimed that the Unification Church taught that “murder is okay if it’s done in the name of the cause. . . specifically, world domination by Moon.”

In written testimony, she asserted that as a bookkeeper and fundraiser, she was ordered to commit “heavenly deception — a Unification term for fraud and deceit.” Among other things, she said she and others censored mail and telephone calls, solicited money under false pretenses, sold food donated for charity at a profit, manipulated accounting records, received state welfare for medical expenses fraudulently, stole ex-members papers and knowingly disobeyed laws. All of this was done under orders of church leaders, Mabry said.

Mabry said she almost committed suicide when she left the Unification Church a year and a half ago. “Over and over again, you were told by higher-ups, ‘You have to be willing to give your life, you have to be willing to die for the cause.’ We were told that you’ve left your allegiance with God…

“That’s why I considered suicide. I felt like Satan was a part of me because I was leaving the church,” she said. “But I had so much love for the friends I went and stayed with and my parents that I just knew that it wasn’t right, what I was taught.” Mabry sought help from a Catholic priest in Eugene, Ore.

Rabbi Maurice Davis of White Plains, N.Y., who claims to have separated 128 young people from cults, said cults generally have dictatorial leaders, unlimited funds, and a philosophy of “instilling fear, hatred and suspicion of the outside world in order to keep the victims in line.”

“Put them all together and you have a prescription for violence, death and for destruction. It is a formula that fits the Nazi youth movement as accurately as it describes the Unification Church or the Peoples Temple,” he said.

“I am not here to protest against religion or religions,” added the Rabbi. “I am here to protest against child molesters. For as surely as there are those who lure children with lollypops in order to rape their bodies, so, too, do these lure children with candy-coated lies in order to rape their minds.”

A host of witnesses called for new laws to crack down on cults. But most theologians claimed that existing criminal laws cover any illegal behavior and that any new ones might interfere with religious freedoms.

________________________

February 19, 1979

Moonies push suicide, 3 allege

WARWICK, R.I. (AP) — Three former members of the Unification Church say mass-suicide was advocated among followers of Rev. Sun Myung Moon and there is potential for a “replay of Jonestown.”

The former members said over the weekend they had been encouraged to commit suicide rather than give up their beliefs. Moon church officials have consistently denied they would contemplate any such actions.

Shelly Turner, of Warwick, said she was repeatedly taught that it was better to be dead than to be a “Judas.” She said she was taught it was better to kill her parents than to let Moon be killed.

Miss Turner, Virginia Mabry, of Pennsylvania, and Rita Ashdale, of Boston, commented in telephone interviews on charges made at a news conference in Providence Friday by Robert B. Boettcher, staff director for the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on international organizations.

Boettcher said members of Moon’s church are being schooled in suicide techniques.

Miss Mabry said she and 25 others were taught in San Francisco in 1976 how to cut their wrists if they were taken captive by “deprogrammers.”

“They asked if any of us had any other ideas, and there were a lot of suggestions from the group of other ways of committing suicide,” she said. “It was sort of a contest to see who could come up with the best way.”

Miss Ashdale, a Boston University student, said: “The brainwashing technique is much more complete than it was in the People’s Temple.”

The People’s Temple in Guyana was the site of the mass-murder suicide of 900 people last November.

________________________

Jackie Speier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Speier

Speier entered politics by serving as a congressional staffer for Congressman Leo Ryan. Speier was part of his November 1978 fact-finding mission organized to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple followers, almost all of whom were American citizens who had moved to Jonestown, Guyana, with Jones in 1977 and 1978.

Several Peoples Temple members ambushed the investigative team and others boarding the plane to leave Jonestown on November 18. Five people were killed, including Ryan. While trying to shield herself from rifle and shotgun fire behind small airplane wheels with other team members, Speier was shot five times and waited 22 hours before help arrived. The same day, over 900 remaining members of the Peoples Temple died in Jonestown and Georgetown in a mass murder-suicide.

#unification church #moonies #Peoples Temple #Jonestown #Suicide #sun myung moon #Congressman Leo Ryan #Robert B. Boettcher

[intriguingpeoplebyangelafloyd]

GUYANA TRAGEDY: THE STORY OF JIM JONES (1980)

GUYANA TRAGEDY: THE STORY OF JIM JONES (1980)

You can watch this for free on YouTube

            This is a TV miniseries based on the true story of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple as well as the famous mass suicide/murder at Jonestown that took place in November 1978. This is one of the best screen depictions on the Jim Jones/Jonestown incident. There is supposed to be a new film being made about Jim Jones, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jim Jones; so I’m hoping that still goes ahead.

            The Guyana Tragedy is based on the book by Charles A. Krause which includes eyewitness accounts. The miniseries starts with Jim Jones early life growing up as a religious idealist, he wants to help African-Americans and the poor. Over time Jones becomes narcissistic and greedy, uses tricks and manipulation to gain and keep followers. He becomes addicted to drugs and becomes so paranoid that he moves to himself and his followers to Guyana where he eventualy has his followers commit suicide. The film has a documentary style and is a realistic portrayal. The miniseries was filmed in Puerto Rico and Georgia instead of Guyana.

            The miniseries stars: Powers Boothe who is brilliant as Jim Jones, Ned Beatty as Leo Ryan, James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) as Father Divine, as well as Brad Dourif, Veronica Cartwright, and Diane Ladd.

#guyanatragedythestoryofjimjones #jimjones #guyana #themadmessiah #peoplestemple #powersboothe #leonardodicaprio

#guyana tragedy the story of jim jones #jim jones #jimjones #guyana #the mad messiah #peoples temple #powers boothe #leonardo dicaprio

[heavenlydeceptor]

“But to me death is not … death is not a fearful thing, it’s living that’s treacherous…“ – Jim Jones, the Jonestown Death Tape, November 18, 1978.

#jim jones #jonestown #true crime #tcc #james warren jones #peoples temple #reverend jim jones

[bluehairandproverbs]

[Sharon] Amos, a trained psychiatric social worker, caused a sensation during one of her first meetings. Eager to impress Jones, who was also in attendance, Amos said that to prove her gratitude to the Temple and its leader, she would feed her three children only birdseed so that the money she saved on more traditional food could be donated to Temple programs. For once, even Jones was at a loss for words. Jack Beam eventually broke the stunned silence by saying, “That won’t be necessary, sweetheart, but I know Jim sure appreciates your commitment to the cause.”

Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

#the road to jonestown #jeff guinn #books #peoples temple #i'm at a loss for words too

[randomwikiarticles]

The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ,[1] originally Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church and commonly shortened to Peoples Temple, was an American new religious organization which existed between 1954 and 1978 and was affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Founded by Jim Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Peoples Temple spread a message that combined elements of Christianity with communist and socialist ideology, with an emphasis on racial equality. After Jones moved the group to California in the 1960s and established several locations throughout the state, including its headquarters in San Francisco, the Temple forged ties with many left-wing political figures and claimed to have 20,000 members (though 3,000–5,000 is more likely).

The Temple is best known for the events of November 18, 1978, in Guyana, when 909 people died in a mass suicide and mass murder at its remote settlement, named "Jonestown", as well as the murders of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and members of his visiting delegation at the nearby Port Kaituma airstrip. The incident at Jonestown resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Because of the killings in Guyana, the Temple is regarded by scholars and by popular view as a destructive cult.

#peoples temple #cults #jim jones #jonestown #mass murder #mass suicide

[ubykh]

#jonestown #cults #death tw #mass death #peoples temple #my uplods

[crvstybowlofcereal]

so the other day i tried to replace "im going to kill myself" with "im so ready to drink that kool aid" but then i realized no one around me could appreciate my comedy genius because they dont know what the fuck im talking about.

#peoples temple #no one at work knows the same fucked up shit i do #even if theyre into truecrime its just the famous serial killers.. #thank you atwwd for giving me content to be autistic about all the time

[whatisonthemoon]

Jim Jones of Peoples Temple on Sun Myung Moon

Ethiopia is inside the Somalian territory, after US and renegade China imperialist power tried to invade. But the Cubans, in spite of US protest, are breaking off all trade agreements, all negotiations on SALT as Carter has, and his lackeys and the Transnationals in the Trilateral Commission — again, many don’t understand the Trilateral Commission, primarily conceived by [Nelson] Rockefeller, the big big big multi-nationals, and is made up mostly of USA business people, and of course all of the Carter Administration, and attempts to really govern in these last stages of senile monopoly capitalism, European capitalism, American capitalism, and Japanese capitalism. Very few Asians are represented. That’s why Sun [Myung] Moon got into some difficulty in his religious fanaticism, his fascist fanaticism. But his brand of fascism, you see, Sun Moon Unification Church, does not blend into the will of the Trilateral Commission. And he’s the wrong color. Racism is rampant in the Trilateral Commission. So Sun Moon is a deviate from the right, and the deviations of the right are feared as much by the Trilateral Commission as the deviation of the left. They want the apathetic middle, in which there is total indifference, despair, apathy, the feeling you can do nothing but follow a line that is constantly bombarded, that’s Trilateral Commission decides through its great television corporations, its newspaper magnates, that its line will be followed. That is its will. It’s the God in these last stages of capitalism. And as I’ve said, every member of the Carter Administration, or any administration, is forced to join the Trilateral Commission. You need to understand that dreadful, upper echelon, elitist ruling element of monopoly capitalism. It was the Trilateral Commission that decided that Aldo Moro must die, that no political prisoner would be exchanged for him, even though he was a member of the Trilateral Commission. Primarily, the power behind the Trilateral Commission is still US capitalist. 

- A recording of Jim Jones

Related links below

“An official of the Moonies was a periodic dinner guest of Synanon’s legal department.”

The psychological massacre: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple: An Investigation

#jim jones #peoples temple #capitalism #anti-capitalism #sun myung moon #unification church #racism #trilateral commission #cults #religion #politics #leftist politics