Cults – Jonestown: The Terror Within

Jonestown: The Terror Within.

Cults have existed throughout history since the beginning of time. A cult is defined in Webster’s dictionary as a “system of religious worship with a devoted attachment to a person, principle, etc.” Over the past thirty years numerous religious cults have caused “ tens of thousands to abandon their families, friends, education’s, and careers to follow the teaching of a leader they will never meet”(Beck 78).
Opinions vary as to why people are drawn to cults. “Martin Marty, professor of religious history at the University of Chicago, attributes the growth of cults to the frustrations of seemingly rootless people”(U.S. News and World Report 23). Marty’s classification of a rootless person is a person who is overly frustrated by modern life and is at a loss for direction. Often the rootless individual will “short-circuit and try to hook their lives to any guiding spirit” (U.S. News and World Report 23).
The psychological classification of people who join cults are those who feel neglected by their society. ”Cults are picking up on these people who feel their interests have been overlooked” (U.S. News and World Report 23).

The sociological studies on cults and those who join them have found “that many of the converts are young people, often without strong family ties, who are unsuccessful in dealing with life’s problems and are seeking instant solutions supplied by others” (U.S. News and World Report 23).

The People’s Temple was religious cult founded and lead by Jim Jones, based in Jonestown, Guyana. The converts belonging to Peoples Temple may have joined for various reasons differing from one another, yet the one common bond they all shared was Jim Jones. They loved Jim, they feared Jim, and eventually they died for Jim .

Jim Jones was “a self-proclaimed messiah in a polyester suit, a man who played God from behind mysterious dark glasses that gave his followers the impression that he was omniscient”( Axthelm 54). Born in 1931 in Lynn, Indiana to James Thurmond and Lynetta Jones, he was looked upon by his parents as a gift from Saint Francis. Jim’s father was white and an active member of the Ku Klux Klan. His mother was part Cherokee which lead Jim in later years to refer to himself with pride as an “ All-American mongrel”
The Jones family was financially in the lower class. Jim’s father fell sick and died early in Jim’s life leaving Lynetta to raise and support Jim on her own. Hard times and lack of money lead to Lynetta occasionally having to work in a factory twenty miles away from their home. Jim still being a youngster was left in the care of a neighbor. Even though Jim and his mother were separated frequently they still kept close ties with each other.
Jim was brought up as a Methodist. He became quickly fascinated with the pulpit oratory. Vera Price, a childhood playmate remembers, ”He’d always be the preacher, standing up making sermons”(Axthelm 54). Even at the young age of seven Vera, recalls Jim’s speeches encouraging strict discipline. She remembers occasions when Jim was playing with other children and “he’d hit them with a stick and make them cry. He had a power that most boys don’t have”(Axthelm 54). As Jim matured into a young adult this internal power he possessed was not fully matured. In high school Jim was in the popular crowd, but never the leader of the pack. “Only in retrospect does anyone claim to have spotted seeds of the horror to come.’ I had a hunch something bad was going to happen to him,’ says a middle-aged man in Lynn. He was smart as a whip. But he had some strange ideas. He never fit in with the town. He was different”(Axthelm 54).

Jones graduated from Richmond High School just outside of Lynn, It took him ten years of off and on schooling to receive his Bachelor of Arts degree from Butler University. After graduation he worked for a short time as an orderly at a local hospital where he met his future wife, Marciline Baldwin.
Jones’s strong dedication to the church soon led him to becoming a pastor at a Methodist church in Indianapolis.