302 Barry Chevannes
17. The Bobo are the only Rastafari to live 19. See Chevannes, Rastafari Origins, for a a communal life. They distinguish themselves more detailed survey of the Rastafari in the from mainstream Dreadlocks principally by United States. wearing a turban at all times and a flowing 20. The chillum pipe is called a "chalice." robe sometimes, and by peddling brooms To "lick a chalice" is to partake in a commu made of straw. nal sharing of ideas, as the chalice passes 18. William J. Petersen, Those Curious from hand to hand. This sacred ritual is called New Cults in the 80s (New Canaan, Conn.: a "reasoning." Keats, 1982); Diane Choquette, New Religious 21. Even the instant dreadlocks that may now Movements in the U.S. and Canada (Westport, be woven by hair stylists are not without their Conn.: Greenwood, 1985); J. Gordon Melton, own statement. If nothing else, blacks, as never The Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America before, are finding pleasure in their own hair. (New York: Garland, 1986); Robert S. Ellwood 22. Indian men smoked ganja using the and Harry B. Partin, Religious and Spiritual chillum only; Indian women smoked tobacco Groups in Modem America, 2d ed. (Englewood using the huka or water pipe. The Rastafari Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1988). merged the two.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Barrett, Leonard E., Sr. The Rastafarians. Bos Chevannes, Barry. Rastafari: Roots and Ide• ton: Beacon Press, 1988. ology. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994. Caribbean Quarterly Monograph: Rastafari. , ed. Rastafari and Other African-Car• Kingston: University of the West Indies, 1985. ibbean World Views. London: Macmillan, 1993. 30
PEOPLES TEMPLE lohn R. Holl
The two central questions about Peoples or reluctantly, virtually everyone present Temple have always been these: why did took the poison. At the very end, Jim Jones the murders and mass suicide take place? and a close aide died by gunshots to the And what is their cultural significance? head, consistent with suicide.1 Peoples Temple began like many Ameri If these tragic events had not occurred, can religious groups—in the mind of a self- Peoples Temple might never have become styled visionary prophet. But it ended in the subject of widespread attention. But an apocalypse without precedent in U.S. with the murders and mass suicide, the religious history. On November 18, 1978, group became infamous. A film, a televi over nine hundred people from the United sion docudrama and more than twenty States died in the small, poor South Ameri books enshrined Jim Jones in popular cul can country of Guyana. On that day gun ture as the image incarnate of the men from Peoples Temple's communal Antichrist, Peoples Temple as the paragon settlement of Jonestown murdered five of the religious "cult." Like other religious people who had just left their jungle com communal movements—both historical munity—a visiting U.S. congressman, three and contemporary—Peoples Temple prac newsmen, and a young defector. Back at ticed a way of life alien to mainstream Jonestown, Jim Jones, Peoples Temple's America. Like other collectivist organiza white charismatic leader, was orchestrat tions such as religious orders and the mili ing a "revolutionary suicide" at which the tary, the Temple demanded individual members of the agricultural community— submission to collective authority and it mostly black, some white—drank a deadly used social control to forestall internal dis potion of Fla-Vor Aid laced with poison. sension. Temple staff carefully monitored How many people willingly gave up their the commitment of members, and they lives at Jonestown? The question will al held public meetings for "catharsis," al ways be open to debate. Certainly young lowing the assembled populace to deter children could not have fully understood mine punishments for wrongdoers and the consequences of drinking the potion, backsliders. Like other religious social and during the suicide council, one woman movements Peoples Temple practiced a pleaded against Jones's proposal. But many communal socialism that flew in the face people supported the plan—mothers of the dominant American ideology that marching up to have their children killed, embraces capitalism, individualism, and elderly people telling Jones they were ready the nuclear family. to go, the sharpshooters who had killed the congressman. Wittingly, unknowingly, In the early years, the Jones family ex panded through adoption. Eventually,
303 304 John R. Hall
Peoples Temple as a group took on the worship and speaking in tongues. In his functions of an extended family. More sig high school years, Jones was seen preach nificantly, Jim Jones was bisexual, and he ing on the street in a factory neighbor led the way in exploring unconventional hood of Richmond, Indiana, to an audience relationships. Sex became something like of both whites and blacks. By the summer a currency Jones used, supposedly, "for the of 1949, Jim Jones had married Marceline cause." With it, he gave some people inti Baldwin, a young nurse from a Richmond macy, and controlled or humiliated oth family of Methodists and Republicans. ers. The offspring of Jones's sexual unions Marcie was shocked, Jones later recounted, included Stephan, the one child born (in when he revealed his sympathies with po 1959) to Jones's wife Marcie. In addition, litical communism and his disdain for the Jones was the father of Carolyn Layton's "sky god." son Kimo Prokes, and he was widely be Jim and Marcie Jones moved to India lieved to be the father of John Victor Stoen, napolis in 1951, and soon Jones was on born in 1972 to Grace Stoen, wife of Temple his way to becoming a preacher. Along attorney Tim Stoen. this path, Jones forged a volatile mix of Quite apart from his controversial theology and practice. Exposed variously sexual practices, Jones called his followers to the Methodists' liberal social creed, com to what Max Weber has termed an "ethic munist ideology, and the apocalyptic vi of ultimate ends": he recruited only the sion of the Pentecostalists, he preached most highly committed individuals, and he racial integration and a veiled communist insisted that followers pursue the cause of philosophy within a Pentecostal framework Peoples Temple selflessly, tirelessly, with that emphasized gifts of the spirit—discern out compromise. Members of Peoples ing of spirits and faith healing. Jones dis Temple in effect took a path that black played a knack for preaching, and he activist Huey Newton had once described learned some tricks of the Pentecostal re as "revolutionary suicide": they gave up vival circuit—how to convince audiences their previous lives, friends, and commit of his abilities in matters of discernment ments, and became born again to a col and faith healing by sleights of hand and lective struggle against economic, social, fakery. More important, he gradually dis and racial injustice that had no limits other covered a formula for building a social than victory or death. This radical stance movement out of a church. Over the years, deepened the gulf between Peoples Temple out of an unlikely amalgamation of dis and the wider society and set the stage for parate ideas and practices, Jones forged the a protracted conflict with organized oppo mantle of a prophet who foresaw capital nents who were equally committed to their ist apocalypse and worked to establish a own cause. It was specifically this conflict promised land for those who heeded his that led to the murders and mass suicide. message. How, then, did it develop? This question Organizationally, Jones started in India can only be addressed by tracing the biog napolis with a small church called Com raphy of Jim Jones and the historical emer munity Unity. After visitors took in his gence of his movement. services following a revival appearance, James Warren Jones was born in east Jones was invited to preach at the central Indiana in the time of the Great Pentecostalist Laurel Street Tabernacle. A Depression, May 13, 1931. The only child crisis ensued when Jones brought blacks to of working-poor parents, he grew up with the service of the racially segregated a strong sense of resentment toward people church, and after witnessing his preaching of wealth, status, and privilege. He was and healing performance, a substantial exposed to a variety of Protestant churches, segment of the Tabernacle voted with their from the mainstream Methodists to the feet, leaving their congregation to walk pacifist Quakers, the Holiness-movement with Jones. Together, on April 4,1955, they Nazarenes, and the then-marginal established Wings of Deliverance, the cor Pentecostalists with their revivalist-style porate vehicle of what was to be called Peoples Temple 305
Peoples Temple. Combining the Pente¬ Guyana), and spent two years in Brazil. costalist ethic of a caring community with Even as he returned to Indianapolis in the social gospel of liberal denominations, 1964, Jones already was laying the ground Peoples Temple became a racially inte work for a collective migration to Califor grated community of believers in practical nia by his most committed followers. Tired service under the umbrella of a church. of racial intolerance and citing fears of Jones modelled Peoples Temple partly af nuclear holocaust, they moved to the quiet ter the Peace Mission of American black town of Ukiah, in the Russian River valley preacher Father M. J. Divine, who, in the of northern California. About seventy fami 1920s and 1930s, had established a racially lies, half white, half black, made the jour integrated religious and economic commu ney in the summer of 1965. nity with himself at the center. Like Father Jones's congregation became reestab Divine, Jones took to being called "Father," lished slowly, counting only 168 adult or, sometimes, "Dad." Like the Peace Mis members by 1968. But in 1969 the congre sion, Peoples Temple was to become an gation completed its own church building extended family that offered its commu in the hamlet of Redwood Valley, about nal fellowship as a shelter from the uncer eight miles north of Ukiah. The church be tain world beyond. In turn, Jones used the gan to attract the interest of a wide range organization of Peoples Temple as a spring of people—hippies, socially concerned pro board to social action, establishing care gressive professionals, fundamentalist homes for the elderly, running q free res Christians, political activists and militants, taurant to feed the hungry, maintaining a street people, delinquents, and the elderly. social service center to help people with Propelled by these diverse streams of mem needs to get their lives back together, and bership the Temple grew rapidly in the precipitating public confrontations to pro 1970s, establishing churches in San Fran mote racial integration. The unconven cisco and Los Angeles, running a fleet of tional congregation attracted the attention buses to carry followers to church func of the Christian Church (Disciples of tions, running a "human services" minis Christ), which long had been committed try of "care" homes for juveniles and the to a social ministry. In 1960, Peoples elderly, and using the care homes as a Temple became affiliated with the Disciples nucleus for promoting a communal orien of Christ, and in 1964 Jones was officially tation among followers. ordained a minister. By its California heyday in the mid- Peoples Temple not only prospered in 1970s, Peoples Temple had become a col- Indianapolis, it provoked controversy. The lectivist organization that pooled the city was not a progressive one, and there economic resources of highly committed istanee-to racial integra- members. In return, the Temple offered־res־was stqtt^E tion'in some quarters. By publicly chal them an extended, collectivist "family," lenging segregationist policies. Jones economic security, and a meaningful life. antagonized this opposition and enhanced By the power of their organized efforts, it his own statuses a civil rights leader. To energized an activist religious social move demonstrate what a threat he was to white ment committed to racial integration, so racists, he also staged incidents in which cial and economic justice, peace, and other his family and he were objects of harass progressive and radical political causes. In ment. But some of the harassment was real, comparison to both conventional churches and Jones does not seem to have held up and retreatist countercultural communal well under the pressure. In the face of the groups of its day, Peoples Temple was an public tensions, he was hospitalized for an anomaly—a relatively disciplined reli ulcer in the fall of 1961. After his release, giously radical collective that successfully he began to seek a way out of Indianapo pursued an activist politics within the soci lis. Leaving his congregation in the care of ety at large. By 1975 Peoples Temple was associate pastors, Jones and his family vis a formidable force in the left-liberal politi ited British Guiana (pre-independence cal surge that propelled George Moscone 306 John R. Hall into office as mayor of San Francisco. In ward, he promised his followers that 1976 the Temple reaped political rewards: Peoples Temple would protect them from Temple attorney Tim Stoen was called from a hostile outside world. To accomplish that his position as assistant district attorney in protection, and to separate the truly com Mendocino County to prosecute voter fraud mitted from backsliders, Jones twice drew for the San Francisco district attorney; and on the enduring recipe of those (like the fim Jones was appointed to the San Fran Puritans) who claim to be victims of reli cisco Housing Authority Commission by gious persecution—collective migration. Mayor Moscone. First, the Temple moved to California. Peoples Temple was a dynamic, grow There, Jones used internal defections and ing group by the mid-1970s, but its success small incidents of external "persecution" depended on using public relations tech during 1972 and 1973 as the warrant to niques to create a facade that hid its more establish Peoples Temple's "Promised radical aspects. And for all its worldly suc Land"—an "agricultural mission" eventu cess, its status in the larger society was ally called Jonestown—in a remote corner precarious. Because of the Temple's com of Guyana, an ethnically diverse, socialist- plex communal economic practices, its governed South American country oriented leadership began to be concerned in 1975 toward the Caribbean. that the group would be charged with tax At its inception, Jonestown was just a evasion by the U.S. Internal Revenue Ser pioneer camp. But even before the site was vice. Moreover, like many other alterna established in early 1974, a memo by tive religious social movements, both Temple attorney Tim Stoen suggested that historical and contemporary, Peoples the Temple should methodically prepare Temple garnered considerable opposition— for collective migration by consolidating both from defectors and from scandalized its property holdings and other affairs in outsiders. the United States; the group was to remain Beginning in Indianapolis, Jones pro in California "until first signs of outright jected the belief that his racially integrated persecution from press or government," group of followers could not survive in their then "start moving all members to mis surroundings. Like Moses and the ancient sion post." In practice, the Temple followed Jews searching for a land of "milk and the basic thrust of this plan. The initial honey," like the Puritans who fled to North settlers devoted most of their efforts toward America from England to found a "city on construction of housing and other facili a hill," Jones sought redemption for his % ties to accommodate a large influx of set followers in collective religious migration tlers, while Temple operatives in Guyana's to a promised land. Indeed, Jones explic capital of Georgetown used their public re itly borrowed the term "promised land" lations and political skills (and sexual al from Father Divine, who had established a lure) to establish secure political alliances series of agricultural communities called with members of the patrimonial socialist the Promised Land in upstate New York regime of the black prime minister, Forbes during the 1930s. Divine himself was one Burnham. of a series of "black messiahs" (another In the summer of 1977 Jones ordered was Marcus Garvey) who promised blacks the collective migration for which the salvation from the racism of a country to Temple had begun preparing years ear which their people had been brought forc lier. At the time, it was widely believed 2 ibly as slaves. But Jones's promised land that they left California because of press was not only to be a refuge for blacks; it exposés appearing in California's New West came to represent a sanctuary from the magazine and other media outlets. The United States, portrayed by Jones as exposés were fueled in part through infor Babylon. mation provided by Temple defectors and Peoples Temple operated in the world, outside relatives, and in part by conserva yet Jones never expected acceptance from tive efforts to unseat liberal San Francisco the world. From the Indianapolis years on mayor George Moscone, with whom Jones Peoples Temple 307 and the Temple were allied. It was the de dollars into overseas bank accounts beyond fectors who offered the inside view: they the reach of authorities in the United States. accused Peoples Temple of shady financial In early 1976, the Temple sought to dealings, faked healings, and atrocities of clarify its tax situation with the IRS. Over psychological catharsis and physical pun a year later, in early March, 1977, the IRS ishment. finally notified the Temple that it had been In addition to their other concerns, in denied tax-exempt status. Soon thereafter, the press exposés the opponents raised the the opponents unintentionally substanti issue of custody rights over children in ated the Temple's longstanding concerns Peoples Temple. Most notable of these was about its tax status: in late March of 1977, the child born to Grace Stoen, John Stoen, they revealed to a Temple ally, American who had been raised communally within Indian Movement (AIM) leader Dennis the Temple as a son of Jim Jones. In July Banks, that the Temple was the subject of of 1976 Grace Stoen had defected from the a U.S. Treasury Department investigation Temple, leaving her husband and her son (itself initiated by a reporter, George behind. In the fall of 1976, the legal fa Klineman, who had close ties to the ther, Grace's husband Tim Stoen, signed a Temple's opponents). Mistakenly, the power-of-attorney form for John Stoen, ap Temple leadership took their opponents' pointing Jim Jones and others "to exercise "treasury agent" to be connected with the all powers and rights, that I might do in Temple's tax situation (the opponents ac connection with said minor." The four-and- tually had talked with a Customs Service a-half-year-old boy was then taken to live agent). Faced with what they regarded as at Jonestown. These events set the stage a serious governmental threat to their or for a custody struggle over John Stoen, and ganization, Temple leaders launched final this struggle became the most celebrated preparations for the migration. In the glare among a series of custody battles that even of the media spotlight, the collective mi tually raised the question of whether adults gration began in earnest in July of 1977 at Jonestown were there of their own free and was effectively completed by Septem will. ber (a steady trickle of immigrants contin ued to arrive in Jonestown through October Although the collective migration took of 1978). place during the press exposés, it would be a mistake to assume that the exposés There is no way of knowing how caused the migration. There was a differ Jonestown would have developed as a com ent sequence of events, driven by other as munal settlement in the absence of its con pects of the conflict between Peoples flict with opponents. The migration to Temple and the small but increasingly co Guyana did not cut the Temple off from herent group of grassroots opponents. The its detractors; it simply shifted the dynam leadership of Peoples Temple actually un ics of a struggle that eventually culminated dertook the migration because of their in the murders and mass suicide. In the concerns about a U.S. government investi aftermath of the 1977 migration, the in gation of the Temple's tax status. In the creasingly organized opponents continued years of preparing for migration, the to feed information about the Temple to Temple had gone to considerable lengths reporters and government investigators; to keep "black people's money" out of the they filed requests that the U.S. embassy hands of the Internal Revenue Service. By in Guyana check on the welfare of their the standards of poor people, they had cre relatives in Jonestown; and they initiated ated substantial collective wealth (between court proceedings both in the United States ten and fifteen million dollars) by collec and Guyana to try to obtain legal custody tivizing the financial and housing dona of Jonestown children. One father even tions of committed members who "went tried to kidnap his adult daughter from communal." The Temple was using the re the communal settlement. sources to finance Jonestown and the mi The most famous case was that of the -John Victor Stoen. In the sum ״,child-god״ gration, and it was shifting millions of 308 lohn R. Hall mer of 1978, Temple attorney Tim Stoen, embassy officials in Guyana checked up the legal father by California law, went on the status of relatives in Jonestown, but over to the camp of Temple opponents. they did not find evidence for the oppo On August 26 a California court granted nents' charges of mass starvation and custody to Grace Stoen. Her lawyer then people living in bondage. One embassy travelled to Guyana. When people at consul observed, "The Concerned Relatives Jonestown refused to hand over John Stoen, had a credibility problem, since so many the lawyer obtained a court summons for of their claims were untrue." Jim Jones and the child. In Jonestown, Jones Frustrated in both their legal efforts and responded with a dramaturgical state of their attempts to get the U.S. State Depart siege. Reaffirming his paternity of John ment and its embassy to take their side in Stoen, he threatened death: "I related to the complex dispute, yet propelled by the Grace, and out of that came a son. That's belief that Jones had to be stopped, the part of the deal. The way to get to Jim Concerned Relatives increasingly pinned Jones is through his son. They think that their hopes on political intervention. In will suck me back or cause me to die be Washington they attracted the active sup fore I'll give him up. And that's what we'll port of Leo Ryan, a San Mateo congress do, we'll die." Through political and legal man already sympathetic to the U.S. maneuvering, Temple staff managed to anticult movement. In December, 1977, vacate the court order (it had been made Congressman Ryan had written U.S. Secre despite the fact that Grace Stoen had never tary of State Cyrus Vance, asking him "to revoked a standing grant of custody to a investigate what action might be taken in Temple member). The crisis abated. connection with Mr. Jones." The State De In the aftermath, the legal process in partment had responded by describing the Guyana seemed to stall, and in the months situation as a legal controversy that did that followed, the frustrated Temple oppo not warrant any "political action without nents, with the increasingly active partici justification." Ryan rejected this view. In pation of Tim Stoen, turned to methods May of 1978 he wrote to Peoples Temple, that Peoples Temple had used so effectively "Please be advised that Tim Stoen does in the United States—political pressure and have my support in the effort to return his public relations campaigns. Calling them son from Guyana." Then Ryan began to selves the "Concerned Relatives," they work with members of the Concerned Rela wrote to members of Congress, they met tives to organize a visit to Jonestown. with State Department officials, they orga The expedition formally was billed a nized human rights demonstrations. In the congressional delegation (although it did face of these efforts, the Temple's seige not meet congressional criteria). Diverse mentality hardened. In March, 1978, a motives shaped it. At least two opponents, Temple letter to members of Congress Tim Stoen and Steve Katsaris, wanted to stated, "I can say without hesitation that retrieve their relatives "by force if neces we are devoted to a decision that it is bet sary," as Stoen put it. A less-clandestine ter even to die than to be constantly ha strategy hinged on the opponents' accounts rassed from one continent to the next. I about desperate conditions at Jonestown; hope that you can protect the right of over in this scenario, the presence of visiting 1,000 people from the U.S. to live in peace." relatives together with outside authorities A woman who defected from Jonestown in would break Jones's discipline and result May of 1978, Debbie Blakey, told an em in a mass exodus. The press had agendas bassy official and the Concerned Relatives too. Don Harris, a soldier-of-fortune jour that Jonestown was developing plans for a nalist, organized an NBC crew to cover a mass suicide and the murder of resisters. story about people trapped in a jungle com In turn, the Concerned Relatives publicized mune. With a congressman and the news the diehard threats to raise the alarm men making the trip, the expedition against Jonestown. For the most part, their promised to confront Jones with the choice efforts accomplished nothing. United States of either submitting to external scrutiny or Peoples Temple 309 precipitating a flood of bad press and gov spoke about the need for more interchange ernmental inquiry. with the outside world. Suddenly blood When Peoples Temple staff first learned spurted across his white shirt as bystand of the planned expedition, they sought to ers disarmed a man attacking Ryan. Jones negotiate conditions about press coverage stood impassively by. Ryan was disheveled and the composition of the congressional but unhurt; the attacker was Don Sly, delegation. But Ryan considered the nego former husband of a Concerned Relative tiations a delaying tactic, and he decided named Neva Sly; he had accidentally cut to proceed to Guyana with the group of himself, not Ryan. "Does this change ev Concerned Relatives and the news report erything?" Jones asked Ryan. "It doesn't ers. They would try to gain access to change everything, but it changes things," Jonestown once they reached the capital, Ryan replied. "You get that man arrested." Georgetown. But there, Ryan met further Then embassy official Richard Dwyer led resistance. With time running out before Ryan to the departing truck, and they piled he would have to return to the United in with the reporters, the four representa States, he flew with the reporters and a tives of the Concerned Relatives, and six subgroup of the Concerned Relatives to Port teen people who had decided to leave Kaituma, a small settlement near Jonestown. Jonestown. Faced with a fait accompli, When the truck reached the Port Jones acquiesced to the visit. Kaituma airstrip and the travelers started At Jonestown, Jim Jones already had loading into two planes, a Jonestown man coached his community for days about how posing as a defector pulled out a pistol in to respond to the visitors. On the evening the smaller plane and started shooting. Si of November 17, Jonestown offered Ryan multaneously, a tractor came up pulling a and the others an orchestrated welcome, flatbed; from it the Jonestown sharpshoot serving up a good dinner and musical en ers shot toward the other plane. Left dead tertainment from The Jonestown Express. were Congressman Leo Ryan, NBC reporter But during the festivities, a message was Don Harris, two other newsmen, and de passed to NBC reporter Don Harris: "Help fector Patricia Parks. At Jonestown, Jim us get out of Jonestown." The note was Jones told the assembled community that signed "Vern Gosney." On the reverse side they would no longer be able to survive as was the name "Monica Bagby." The next a community. With a tape recorder run day, Jonestown staff tried to occupy the ning, Jones argued, "If we can't live in visitors with public relations activities. But peace, then let's die in peace." Medical staff Ryan and embassy staff began to make set up cauldrons of Fla-Vor Aid laced with arrangements for Gosney and Bagby to cyanide and tranquilizers while Jones called leave. Don Harris then tipped off Leo taking the poison "a revolutionary act." Ryan's assistant, Jackie Speier, about mem One woman named Christine Miller spoke bers of the Parks family, who also might up against the plan, but she was outnum want to leave. Jones pleaded with the bered by others who argued in favor. Parkses not to depart with his enemies; he Amidst low wails, sobbing, and the shrieks offered them $5,000 to cover transporta of children, people walked up to take the tion if they would wait several days. But "potion," then moved out of the pavilion they decided to leave with Ryan. "I have to huddle with their families and die. In failed," Jones muttered to his lawyer, the confusion, two black men slipped past Charles Garry. "I live for my people be the guards. The community's two Ameri cause they need me. But whenever they can lawyers, Charles Garry and Mark Lane, leave, they tell lies about the place." sequestered at a perimeter house, plunged into the jungle. Everyone else died. As a dump truck was loaded for depar ture, Ryan told Jones that he would give a The proximate cause of murder and basically positive report: "If two hundred mass suicide was the refusal of Jim Jones, people wanted to leave, I would still say his staff, and the loyalists among his fol you have a beautiful place here." Ryan lowers to brook compromise with oppo- 310 John R. Hall nents whom they believed were out to bring Temple, and only publicly denied by Tim Jonestown as a community to an end. Stoen much later, when he took the side Rather than submit to external powers that of Grace Stoen in the custody battle. To they regarded as illegitimate, they chose date, the evidence is not completely con to stage the airstrip murders as revenge clusive, but the weight of it leans, in my and shut out their opponents by ending view, to Jones as the father. If this is so, their own lives. Their socialist community then one of the Concerned Relatives' cen unraveling in the face of pitched opposi tral atrocity contentions—that Jones tion, they sought revolutionary immortal amounted to a kidnapper—would lose its ity. In the popular mind, they achieved moral force, and one significant element infamy instead. The stigma of the mass of their campaign against Peoples Temple deaths carved this infamy in the narrative would turn out to be based on a public structure of myth. If Jim Jones were any construction of reality that differed from thing other than a megalomaniacal mad privately held knowledge. man or Antichrist, if Peoples Temple were The second controversy—about govern anything but a cult of brainwashed robots, ment agencies—is even murkier. The then the stigma of avoidable carnage Concerned Relatives mobilized some gov would not necessarily fall on Jones and his ernmental interest in Peoples Temple. But accomplices alone. Either the story of some government initiatives preceded the Jonestown would have to be told as an advent of the Concerned Relatives, and the atrocity tale or an unthinkable question inquiries of various government agencies would have to be posed: Did the people of fed on one another. In particular, early on Jonestown have the right to live in isola the U.S. embassy in Guyana had diplo tion from the intervention of opponents matic and strategic concerns that led to who sought to dismantle their community? monitoring the Jonestown settlement. Both Roland Barthes once observed that because the government might have been myth has an important quality: "The able to prevent the tragedy and because it reader lives the myth as a story at once may have acted in ways that propelled it, true and unreal."3 Put differently, history there has been considerable speculation is much messier than any story that re about the government's role. One book duces it to myth. Thus, the popular ac weaves together some well-established facts counts of Peoples Temple have been with highly questionable inferences to raise displaced by the accumulation of careful the question of whether Jonestown was a scholarly research on Peoples Temple by "CIA medical experiment."4 Whatever the theologians, historians, sociologists, and truth of the matter, such accounts cannot other students of religion. Compared to be easily assessed because the U.S. govern our knowledge of many other alterna ment has suppressed information about its tive American religions, we have a quite dealing with Peoples Temple, partly on the detailed historical record. To be sure, basis of the sensitivity of its diplomatic and there is still much potentially important geopolitical interests in relation to the so research to be done. Particularly impor cialist government of Guyana. Opening the tant issues are the factual question of the government files on Peoples Temple might biological paternity of John Stoen and well yield significant reassessments of its the broader question of the role of gov history (the same holds for the NBC video ernment agencies in the opposition. Much "outakes" from the Jonestown coverage). anecdotal evidence suggests that Jim Whatever comes of further research, the Jones was indeed the biological father of popular myth about Peoples Temple al John Stoen: this view was held even by ready has been substantially revised. Im certain people outside the Temple who mediately after the mass suicides, popular knew Grace and Tim Stoen at the time of accounts portrayed the Concerned Rela the child's birth. It was affirmed in an tives, Leo Ryan, and the press that visited affidavit by Tim Stoen in 1972 shortly Jonestown as tragic heroes. Yet it is now after the birth, taken as fact within the evident that their own actions were conse- Peoples Temple 311 quential in affecting the course of events. terms its cultural legacy is defined by the Thus, the murders and mass suicide can public understanding of Peoples Temples. not be adequately explained except as the It is a legacy that keeps changing. After outcome of an unfolding and interactive the murders and mass suicide, Jonestown conflict between two diametrically opposed became the quintessence of the "cult." groups—Peoples Temple and the Con Jonestown undoubtedly shifted the circum cerned Relatives. In this conflict, the Con stances of other alternative religions in cerned Relatives were able to marshall to subtle yet profound ways, for it confirmed their side significant allies within the es the most dire warnings of the anticult tablished social order—the press, govern movement. But Jonestown has also inspired mental investigators, a congressman. It is radically different understandings. The cul now possible to see more clearly what was tural significance of the movement is obscured by the popular myth. The apoca deeply intertwined with certain central is lypse at Jonestown is an extreme case of a sues of American social history, most no more general pattern of religious conflict tably, (1) the status of blacks within a between a new religious movement and racially divided society, (2) the character established social interests. In this pattern and mission of religion in an increasingly (found in the history of the Puritans and secular society, (3) the agendas and strate the Mormons, for example), collective reli gies of left-liberal political movements, and gious migration is a strategy employed by (4) social and ethical issues about the char the religious movement when conflict acter of welfare, bureaucratic organization, erupts between the movement and oppo social control, politics, and public relations nents who regard it as threatening to an in a society where Jones borrowed many established social and moral order. of his most questionable practices from the wider culture, but directed them to Peoples Temple ended with the mass sui countercultural purposes. Because of the cides. It made its historical mark not like complex connections between Jones's world the Puritans and the Mormons, by success, and ours, Peoples Temple is a benchmark but by dramatic failure. Yet this organiza by which to chart American cultural prac tion was infused with many of the contra tices and religious development. dictions of American culture, and in these
Notes
1. Information for the present chapter is tions of a Religious Myth (University Park: Penn drawn largely from my book-length study, sylvania State University Press, 1982). John R. Hall, Gone From the Promised Land: 3. Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Jonestown in American Cultural History (New Hill and Wang, 1972), 128. Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1987). 4. Michael Meiers, Was Jonestown a CIA 2. William Jeremiah Moses, Black Messiahs Medical Experiment? (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary Manipula• Mellen Press, 1988).
Suggestions for Further Reading
Chidester, David. Salvation and Suicide: An In• mas Robbins and Dick Anthony, 290-293. terpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1988. and Jonestown. Bloomington: Indiana Univer Moore, Rebecca, and Fielding McGeehee sity Press, 1988. III, eds. New Religious Movements, Mass Sui• Hall, John R. Gone from the Promised Land: cide, and Peoples Temple. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Jonestown in American Cultural History. New Mellen Press, 1988. Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1987. . Afterword to "The Apocalypse at Jonestown." In Gods We Trust, edited by Tho