The Jonestown Massacre is More Than a Punchline About "Drinking the Kool-aid"
Trying to Understand the Ritual Human Sacrifice at Pathways Ministries in Albion, Jamaica (Part 4)
Trigger warnings: murder, suicide, sexual assault
I started this series on cults in an attempt to understand how the pastor of Pathways Ministries in Albion, Jamaica convinced two of his members to murder others. From the start, I knew I would do a deep dive into the Jonestown Massacre. The murders and suicides of over 900 members of the Peoples Temple was a flashpoint in the popular culture recognition and discussion of cults, and I had the same set of question about Jonestown as I did about Pathways: How on earth had things gotten to that point? What were the red flags? Why didn’t anyone stop it? Could anyone have stopped it? As I began my initial research on Jonestown, the same book kept being recommended: Tim Reiterman’s biography of Jim Jones, Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People. The book is very long (nearly 600 pages) and intensively researched. The level of detail is staggering and revealing. Anyone who wants a close look at who starts a cult, how they create and build one, and how the leader gains such a high degree of control should read this book.
