...Jonestown, once known as a promising religion, now thought of as a cult. The story of the Jonestown massacre has made me feel very uncomfortable for years. Regarding my opinion and feelings toward the documentary, I am very mixed. Jonestown itself is a very dark subject but, at the same time, I feel like I have learned a lot from it. My belief is that in the beginning of Jonestown, Jim Jones had great intentions. His main goal was to create the “perfect” world, a world without poverty and racism. These are great ideas that everyone should strive for. However, Jim Jones’s insecurities took over his mind and caused him to be afraid and worried of the outside world. Overall, Jim Jones’s intentions were good until his own worries got to him and...
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...Jonestown Section I: The Event One of the more disturbing incidents in American History is the Jonestown Massacre that occurred on November 18th, 1978 in Georgetown, Guyana. It was the largest loss of civilian life in a non-natural tragedy until the attacks of September 11th, 2001. 909 lives were lost under the hand of Jim Jones who had cultivated a following of people over twenty-plus years. Jim Jones started his first church, named The Peoples Temple, in the mid-1950’s in Indianapolis, Indiana (I). From the beginning, he preached a message of socialism and communism. Upon scrutiny of his tactics and teachings, he moved The Peoples Temple to Redwood Valley, California in 1965 and shortly after headquarters were set up in San Francisco. The Peoples Templecame into the public eye when eight defectors and negative media spoke out against the church. Jim Jones decided at this point to move his church to Georgetown, Guyana where the chilling events of November 18th would eventually unfold. To better understand how such a tragedy could occur it is important to understand the background of Jim Jones. Jones was born in Indianaand from an early age expressed interest in socialism and communism, studying the works and lives of Stalin, Marx, Gandhi, and Hitler among others. As he grew older, he became more and more politically involved in the communism movement, joining the Communist Party USA in 1951 (II). Jones was surprised with the reaction he received from Americans when he...
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...Inside Jonestown The tragedy that occurred in Jonestown in 1978 may seem impossible to happen today but when many of the things that happened prior to massacre are looked at, it begins to seem plausible. The Peoples Temple had beginnings that were fairly similar to that of the early Catholic Church. It had common factors that would even appeal to people now. However, it ultimately proved to take a turn for the worst and head in a much different direction than the Catholic Church. One extremely important factor that is important in establishing a church or major organization such as the People’s Temple and the Catholic Church is a strong leader. In the early Catholic Church these leaders were the apostles, especially Peter, and in the People’s Temple it was Jim Jones. They were both very persuasive and passionate about what they believed, which they showed through preaching. However, the positions of these leaders and how they thought of themselves is very different. The Apostles saw themselves as servants of God and Jesus, which can be seen in in Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians when he states “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God……We who know Christ should view ourselves as His servants and our aim should be to be faithful...
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...shot in the head. The people that died in Jonestown were no different than the average American, in fact, they were no different than any of us. However, they were capable of unimaginable acts based only on the words of a man, a reverend, a father, a church leader and authority figure in that community. What drive people to do things, even when they not necessarily agree...
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...Jim Jones formed The People’s Temples that had hundreds, even thousands of followers from a large range of religious and social backgrounds. It was a mystery on how he was able to manipulate and brainwash so many people to follow him and portray himself as their saviour, let along make them do a loyalty test by telling them to drink poison. Many people have different opinion regarding the massacre that occurred in Jonestown on November 18th 1978. This is one of the biggest mystery related to the Jonestown. Was the massacre a suicide performed by the group members to show their loyalty towards Jim Jones or was it cover up for murder? There was a lot of supporting evidence to show that this was an act of murder which was tried to cover...
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...BUS381 Solutions Focused Leadership Laura Schade Dr. Marjorie Lott Argosy University – Inland Empire Analyzing Jim Jones as a Leader When analyzing what is determined as a good leader, one must think about what leadership really is. According to our text, “leadership is a complex phenomenon involving the leader, the followers, and the situation.” (Chapter 1) A leader is someone who is able to influence others to attain goals. “Leadership comes in all shapes and sizes whether religious or political or social…an essential element that all leaders share whether for good or evil goals is vision.” (Mosley, 2009) Jim Jones had a vision of making the world a better place. Or at least that was what he wanted people to believe. In Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, an article by Jennifer Rosenberg, she says that Jim had one child and adopted several children of different ethnicities. He was proud of his “rainbow family” and tried to encourage others to adopt interracially. He was against segregation which was not a popular idea in his time. He started his own church in 1956, the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis, Indiana. Most churches were segregated at that time, but Jim Jones offered a utopian view of what society could become. He was a charismatic man who demanded loyalty and preached of sacrifice. His church established soup kitchens and homes for elderly and also helped people find jobs. In 1966, he moved the church to California because it seemed more open to an integrationist...
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...Social psychology examines the influence of groups on the developing self as well as the influence that an individual has on group. Although those with those with good intentions should use power with virtue, many of the world’s most powerful people use power in ways that purposefully harm other people. Social power refers to the force available to the influence in motivating change A power- abusing “religious” leader is Reverend Jim Jones, born 1931 in Crete, Indiana a rural community (Wikipedia). Jones was a voracious reader as a child studying Joseph Statin, Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi and Adlof Hitler (Reiterman, Tim and John Jacobs).He studied each carefully, noting their strengths and weaknesses. In psychological term this is referring to as behaviorism According to his childhood acquaintances, they recalled Jones as being a “really weird kid” who was “obsessed with religion….obsessed with death…” (Catherine Wessinger). In human, awareness of the fact that one is acting deceptively often leads to telltale signs of deception. Therefore, if self-deception enables someone to believe their distortions, they will not present such signs of deception and will therefore appear to be telling the truth. As known in psychology this referred to as Delusional Disorder, it was note that he might have this disorder. “Individuals with delusional disorder are not always dangerous, but they can be when they act on their delusions” (B.Lahey). “As a young man Jones...
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...Jonestown Tragedy In 1978 Minister James Warren “Jim” Jones, developed a following of people known as “The Peoples Temple” in Guyana, South America later known as Jonestown. This group of people included mostly African American, urban, and poor people. Jones based his teachings off Christianity and social philosophy. On November 18, 1978 nine hundred residents of The Peoples Temple drank “Fla-vor-aid” a cyanide laced drink, which later took their lives. The questions still remains was this mass murder or mass suicide? The first argument being that Jones’s people were gathered in the temple, unable to leave in fear of being shot by guards surrounding the temple. During their time in the temple Jones spent his time brainwashing the people into his ways of thinking. Therefore the people were forced to poison their children and the elderly first, and then drink the “fla-vor-aid” themselves. This was considered by some to be mass murder by Jones himself. The second argument being that Jones’s people gathered in the temple and willingly drank the “fla-vor-aid” and took their own lives. Many of the people believed that the U.S. Government was going to be sent to destroy Jonestown because of the killing of a U.S. representative by some of Jones’s temple members. Most people felt as if the children and elderly were murdered while the capable willingly took their own lives, because they had nothing left to live for. I believe out of the two arguments stated above, I firmly agree...
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...JONESTOWN- JIM JONES Jonestown- Jim Jones Student: Thi Nguyen Grand Canyon University: General Psychology- 102 Date: 08-19-2012 Professor: Jennifer Jones Jonestown- Jim Jones The tragedy named Jonestown happened in the past over 30 years and it still has been suspense from the bottom of the heart of everyone. Jim Jones is known as a American leader culture, is one of the most popular historian of America and Guyana’s history as well as the world’s history (Wilkinson, B, 2011). There are many books, articles, video clips described, discussed as well as argued about Jim Jones and Jonestown event. In this research paper as known as a social psychology essay , one more time, I would like write, persuasion, and argue about Jim Jones and what his had done in the past. Furthermore, the paper will describe and discuss in detail about Jonestown events and other concerned that related to this event which gave shock to American society, Guyana, and the rest of the world. Who is Jim Jones? First of all, I would like to introduce about him as well as his life. Jim Jones is a son of James Jones who had a poor health by poisonous gasses in the World War One; and he was a son of a woman named Lynetta in a factory in Indiana. Jim Jones learned from his Mom that he should love animal and care for the people who have underprivileged; and she expected that her son would come a ministered when he grow up. Even though Jim Jones was a noisy child...
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...[Title Here, up to 12 Words, on One to Two Lines] Jim Jones Visionary Leader/Ethical Leader Synthesis Essay In this essay I will explain why Jim Jones was a Visionary Leader but by no means an ethical leader. In many ways Jim Jones was decades ahead of his time with regards to social issues. His leadership helped many disadvantaged people in Indianapolis, Indiana. At first glance it may appear he used his Visionary Leadership for a higher cause; however his unethical pursuits, ultimately resulted in the downfall of his church, his followers and himself when 914 members of his congregation committed suicide after “drinking the Kool Aid”. Visionary Leadership From early in his life Jim Jones had a vision of the world he wanted to live in. Jim Jones was born the only child of a disabled veteran father and working mother during the Great Depression. His poor upbringing shaped his vision of a world in which all people were equal. As an adult he began to attend uni-racial churches in Indianapolis. In 1961 he became the first white man to adopt and African-American child in Indiana (Ryan, 2011). Shortly thereafter he became disenfranchised with the segregation, of the congregations, in the churches he attended. In response to this social norm of the time, Jim Jones visionary leadership began. He started by establishing the Peoples Temple and invited all races and social demographics to join his congregation. Jim Jones encouraged Demographic Diversity (USAF) because...
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...Drinking the Kool-Aid? On November 18, 1978, at a commune often called “Jonestown” in the jungle of Guyana, 900 people died in a mass murder/suicide; all were members of the Peoples Temple, an American religious cult. At the request of their leader, men and women administered lethal doses of cyanide-laced punch to over 300 infants and children before gulping down their own. How could so many people be convinced to kill their babies and themselves? His name was James Warren Jones. Like his idol, Hitler, he was a dominant propagandist, a charismatic leader, and an evil human being. Summaries In the piece “Propaganda under a Dictatorship” (1958/2016), Aldous Huxley, renowned English novelist, and Oxford graduate expands on ideas he first presented in his 1932 novel, Brave New World, which examines a futuristic culture in which no individual thought takes form. Huxley’s essay explores the practical use of propaganda by Adolph Hitler in controlling the minds of eighty million German people in the years leading to the Second World War. He examines, with chilling account, Hitler’s...
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...James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader and community organizer. Jones was the founder and the leader of the Peoples Temple, best known for the mass murder-suicide in November 1978 of 909 of its members in Jonestown, Guyana,[1] and the murder of five people at a nearby airstrip, including Congressman Leo Ryan. Over two hundred children were murdered at Jonestown, almost all of them by cyanide poisoning.[2] Jones died from a gunshot wound to the head; it is suspected his death was a suicide. Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple there in the 1950s. He later moved the Temple to California in the mid-1960s, and gained notoriety with the move of the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco in the early 1970s. Jones was born in a rural area of Randolph County, Indiana,[3] to James Thurman Jones (1887 – 1951), a World War I veteran, and Lynetta Putnam (1902 – 1977). Lynetta reportedly believed she had given birth to a messiah.[4][5] He was of Irish and Welsh descent.[6] Jones later claimed partial Cherokee ancestry through his mother, though according to his maternal second cousin Barbara Shaffer, this is likely untrue.[6][note 1] Economic difficulties during the Great Depression necessitated that Jones' family move to nearby Lynn, Indiana in 1934, where he grew up in a shack without plumbing.[2][7] Jones was a voracious reader as a child and studied Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler carefully...
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...surface he preached equality and between genders and races, but in reality failed to achieve this harmonious vision. Jones’ thesis utters that if you want to understand Jonestown, you have to look at humanity because refusing to understand Jonestown was refusing to fully commit yourself to the study of religion. The author reinforces “Nothing is foreign to me” through recognition of the ordinary humanness Jonestown’s White Night victims. To begin, after watching the short film about Jonestown, I found it a funny coincidence that Post Malone released his new album “beerbongs and bentleys” including a song called “Jonestown”. The interlude of Malone’s song repeats...
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...On May 31, 1937, ten people lost their lives. The Memorial day Massacre was one of the most brutal massacres ever in the United States of America. But, it was an important part of the Great Depression. What happened was that Chicago union protesters were protesting about Republic Steel’s Chicago plant turning union. But the steel mill was ready for the protesters. Republic Steel’s Chicago plant hired police. The company-hired police blocked the pickets. Once the pickets arrived, they were surprised to see the Chicago police’s blockade. Then the protesters and the Chicago police started squabbling, and out of the blue, the Chicago police pulled out their revolvers and shot into the mob, killing ten of the “rebels.” This all happened...
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...Religion is a major contributor to the prejudices and social detachment in the structure of society. Religion is practiced all over the world in some form or aspect. Religion may be defined as the concept of devoting one’s life to a standard of set codes, beliefs, rituals and/ or traditions. Early religions practiced in America justified conformity in early settlers. One of the first structural religions practiced after the arrival of the Europeans to America has influences of Puritanism (Jamestown 1492). Christianity among many different religious, originated from the concept that some individuals are blessed with while others are cursed (Cain and Abel, Genesis, Ch. 4, Holy Bible, King James). This chapter in the Bible has been used to discipline, control race relations, social contacts, and individual life styles to name a few. The Holy Bible is used actively in the United States court room, before every testimony, A Judge or bailiff will ask Individuals if they “swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God? Jim Jones founded the “Peoples Temple Full Gospel Christian Church”, (Wessinger, 2000) as a means of providing hope in desperate times, elderly, poor, and disadvantaged citizens were converting. Jim Jones used social and ethnic issues to subdue his flock of mostly African Americans. The Christian aspect of the People’s Temple was soon transformed into what many refer to as a “cult”. The power associated with religious...
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