The Jonestown Massacre (Cut-up)
by Zachary Robert Long (579 words, estimated reading time: 3 minutes)

THE JONESTOWN MASSACRE

Let’s just be done with the agony of it – this revolutionary
paranoia as autumn turned to winter in the year of 1978.
In November 1978, the Californian congressman, Leo J Ryan,
such a finale begins in the Deep South of America with the life of
for help to leave Jonestown and by the end of the morning,
gave the mixture to their babies and children before pouring the
suicide, This is not a self-destructive suicide. So they’ll pay for
Valium, Penegram and chloral hydrate – was placed in front of
his followers – but instead was responsible for a mass suicide that
citizens who were promised they could spend their retirement
had the added attraction of being a socialist republic, a multi-
paranoiac about the possibility of a thermo-nuclear war. He
began to attract new members to the congregation, but also upset
day-to-day operations. Women and sex undoubtedly featured
anyone who wanted to leave with them when they when home.
dependent of drugs and would would fly into rages that dissipated
‘Please, for God’s sake let’s get on with it. We’ve lived, we’ve
made sexist remarks about a woman who was forced to fight a boxing
movement. When events conspired to show a completely
mock suicide in 1976. With Jones looking on, the participants
had to be sold to raise funds to support the ground. Fund raising
‘faith-healing fakery, physical abuse of his congregation and
change dramatically. A disaffected cultist appealed to Leo Ryan
Jim Jones wanted to create an agricultural utopia in the jungle for
Jim Jones. From there it follows an arduous and almost incredible
deterioration coupled with his inability to hide his drug addiction
need became rather more urgent.
But all was not well with the ‘People’s Temple’. A few
atrocities in the Bible – though there were, he conceded, ‘some
murder/suicide in American history, would have seemed like an
fruit punch laced with cyanide and tranquillizers unwittingly gave
Jones’s followers on 18 November 1978 was an unpremeditated
poison down their own throats. A few of the older adults are
this new ‘Promised Land’ where communal living and a sense of
Burroughs and Alan Ginsburg – and the city already had the bodies of congressman Ryan
What those first entered the compound saw would haunt
the cult. In one particularly strong attack in the 12 June issue of
The story of James Jones and his project for a ‘People’s
die than be hounded from one continent to the next,’ a woman
increase his congregation and win over admirers. In 1964, at the
change his message or leave the church. He chose the latter and
them for the rest of their lives. For here was not the ‘agricultural
17 November. Jones himself told the party that they could ‘take
their parents – and existed on a very basic diet consisting mostly
believed to have been forced or injected.
staff, CIA officer Richard Dwyer and NBC news producer, Bob
had found some of Jim Jones’s claims absurd and his attitude to
theological training. Jones was ordained a minister. Although
“They were delighted at the idea of the place serving as a
increasing influence over certain vulnerable groups. Even a
world of California seem dull and prosaic. Jones said little about
purpose in an agricultural environment would soon make the
works of the ‘Beat Generation’ including Jack Kerouac, William
turn their backs on the ‘American Dream” and follow a route to
appalling chapter in the story of Jim Jones and his ‘People’s
version of ‘full of lies and contradictions’ .