Watched the documentary the other day "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" and it continued to confirm my biases [as all things do, hence Confirmation Bias] about religion.
"But wait!" you cry. Jonestown was clearly a cult, not a religion. Well, as Tom Wolfe once wrote, a cult is just a religion without political power.
Jim Jones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"Later that same day, 909 of the remaining inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, died in what has commonly been labeled a mass suicide. However, there is much ambiguity over whether many who died committed suicide or were in fact murdered. While some followers obeyed Jones' instructions to commit 'revolutionary suicide' by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid[3] (often misidentified as Kool-aid, this is also where the term, 'to drink the kool-aid' orginated) [4], others died by forced cyanide injection or by shooting. Jones was found dead sitting in a deck chair with a gunshot wound to the head, although it is unknown if he had been murdered or committed suicide. The autopsy on his body showed levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital that could have been lethal to humans who have not developed physiological tolerance. His drug usage (including various LSD and marijuana experimentations) was confirmed by his son, Stephan, and Jones's doctor in San Francisco."
You watch these people who were there, who had family die there... you watch video and listen to tape... and you can't help but think how bugfuck crazy these people were. But they're not so different from anyone else. Searching for meaning... community... connection. And to get those things, people will do anything, apparently.
And me being me, can't mention Jonestown without touching the conspiracy theories and CIA connections... More at the links, yadda, yadda...
Jonestown conspiracy theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"According to the New York Times, the first official on the scene, Guyanese Coroner Dr. Leslie C. Mootoo, determined that all but three of the people in Jonestown had been murdered: 80-90% had been injected with poison, while the remainder were shot or strangled. The coroners for the few autopsies of Jonestown victims conducted in Delaware were not informed of Dr. Mootoo’s findings...
On September 27, 1980, a column by respected investigative reporter Jack Anderson was published under the title "CIA Involved In Jonestown Massacre." This was the first allegation of CIA involvement in the Jonestown incident. According to Anderson, both Richard Dwyer and Jim Jones had ties to the CIA, with Dwyer's ties dating to at least 1959; when quizzed directly about this alleged CIA involvement, Dwyer responded "no comment." At one point on the sound-recording made during the mass suicide, Jones' own voice commands, "Take Dwyer on down to the east house" and a short time later, Jones says "Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him." This is considered by some to be evidence that Richard Dwyer, a U.S. embassy official, was really a CIA operative"
Jonestown Massacre: A 'Reason' to Die:
"The Temple had a strong association with the World Vision organisation that many conspiracy theorists believe to be another CIA front, and had as a consultant, a mercenary from the rebel army UNITA, supposedly backed by the CIA.
Other supposed CIA connections with “Jonestown” include the allegations that:
Richard Dwyer’s name had appeared in the publication Who’s Who In The CIA
US Ambassador John Burke and another embassy official, Richard McCoy, had strong links with the CIA
The Georgetown CIA station was situated in the US Embassy building
Dan Webber, sent to Guyana immediately after the massacre, was with the CIA and
Joseph Blatchford, the officially appointed attorney for the “Jonestown” survivors, was involved in a scandal involving CIA infiltration of the Peace Corps.
...Leo Ryan’s murder is seen by many as being much more sinister than the hysterical behaviour of a madman. Leo Ryan had been a strong critic of the CIA and was the author of the Hughes-Ryan Amendment, which, if passed, would have required that the CIA report to Congress on all of its covert operations before they commenced. Soon after Ryan’s death, the Hughes-Ryan Amendment was quashed in Congress. The question conspiracy theorists ask is whether Ryan was killed in order to reach this objective and the massacre at “Jonestown” merely a smoke screen to distract attention away from Ryan’s murder?"
The Black Hole of Guyana--The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre, by John Judge, 1985
To comprehend this well-financed, sinister operation, we must abandon the myth that this was a religious commune and study instead the history that led to its formation. Jonestown was an experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and military intelligence code name for mind control. A close study of Senator Ervin's 1974 report, Individual Rights and the Government's Role in Behavior Modification, shows that these agencies had certain "target populations" in mind, for both individual and mass control. Blacks, women, prisoners, the elderly, the young, and inmates of psychiatric wards were selected as "potentially violent." There were plans in California at the time for a Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence, expanding on the horrific work of Dr. José Delgado, Drs. Mark and Ervin, and Dr. Jolly West, experts in implantation, psychosurgery, and tranquilizers. The guinea pigs were to be drawn from the ranks of the "target populations," and taken to an isolated military missile base in California. In that same period, Jones began to move his Temple members to Jonestown. The were the exact population selected for such tests.
The meticulous daily notes and drug records kept by Larry Schacht disappeared, but evidence did not. The history of MK-ULTRA and its sister programs (MK-DELTA, ARTICHOKE, BLUEBIRD, etc.) records a combination of drugs, drug mixtures, electroshock and torture as methods for control...
On the scene at Jonestown, Guyanese troops discovered a large cache of drugs, enough to drug the entire population of Georgetown, Guyana (well over 200,000) for more than a year. According to survivors, these were being used regularly "to control" a population of only 1,100 people. One footlocker contained 11,000 doses of thorazine, a dangerous tranquilizer. Drugs used in the testing for MK-ULTRA were found in abundance, including sodium pentathol (a truth serum), chloral hydrate (a hypnotic), demerol, thalium (confuses thinking), and many others. Schacht had supplies of haliopareael and largatil as well, two other major tranquilizers. The actual description of life at Jonestown is that of a tightly run concentration camp, complete with medical and psychiatric experimentation. The stresses and isolation of the victims is typical of sophisticated brainwashing techniques. The drugs and special tortures add an additional experimental aspect to the horror...
*Yes, I do arrive at my major philosophical conclusions from watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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