Jim Jones & Jonestown - Thesis

247). Further, Jones began preaching about "revolutionary suicide" which was a kind of "collective suicide" as an "outcome of being attacked by forces" against Jonestown.

These facts that are generally supported by other sources can easily lead an alert reader to assume that Jones started with an idealistic spiritual movement and gradually he apparently became obsessed with power - and paranoid that some group would try to wipe him out - and turned his church into a cult. The PBS research claims that prior to the mass deaths Jones "confiscated medicines from every resident" and kept himself "medicated" on barbiturates and amphetamines. It doesn't take a doctor or psychiatrist to project that being on amphetamines (speed) and barbiturates (downers) could induce wild highs and lows, radical mood shifts which could certainly lead to paranoia, fear, hostility, and violence. "Hard physical labor" was forced on members six days a week - a far, far cry from the peaceful "People's Temple" activities back in California. And Jones declared that "all men" (except Jones) were to become gay, and he is reported to have had frequent sexual contact with any women he wanted.

As to how Jonestown turned from a peaceful agricultural project to a death scene, one can project from the rehearsed suicide scenarios, from the drugs Jones was taking, and from the paranoia and dictatorial control he wielded, that he had likely become a delusional monster. Sick of heart and mind, Jones apparently carried out his hideous plans on November 18, 1978, at the expense of about 900 people who were duped into following his neurotic and pathologically paranoid instructions.

Works Cited

Metcalf, Bill. "David Chidester. Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, The People's Temple,

And Jonestown." Utopian Studies 16.2 (2005): 335-338.

Public Broadcasting Service. "Race and the Peoples Temple." Retrieved March 2, 2009, at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/jonestown/peopleevents/e_guyana.html.

Richardson, James T. "People's Temple and Jonestown: A Corrective Comparison and Critique." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 19.3 (2001): 239-255.

San Diego State University. "Alternative Considerations of Jonestown…