1. Takeaways of the first article: Lost Paradise is a documentary recreating what happened in the final days in Jonestown; the grueling work of airlifting 900 bodies back to America caused the military to suffer from PTSD (or Shell Shock in 1970); the attraction of Peoples Church; and the accusations of sexual harassments or drug abuse inside the church.
2. Takeaways of the second article: Revealing Jim Jones’ political purpose to infiltrate church activities; tactics he used to manipulate people’s fears for his benefit; and how he restrained all the people to stay in Jonestown.
In this article, I wrote about Jim Jones’ mentality; how the investigation turned into an assassination; and what the survivors of Jonestown think, looking back, including Jones’ sons.
God-Complex
In 1923, a psychologist, Jones Earnest wrote about this extreme narcissistic personality in his essays on Applied Psycho-analysis. He pointed out that some people not only worshipped God but they also regarded them as God. They believed they would never make mistakes. Even if they did, they always had justified reasons behind them.
It reminded me of John Kramer in Saw movies. He set traps as trials to punish sinful people and decided whether they deserved a chance to start a new life. In one scene, John is in the reverse shotgun trap, wearing a black long coat, like a messiah or priest.
But John Kramer was a fictional character with a God complex, and Jim Jones who was a real person with a God complex took away more than 900 lives in one night.
With the sunglasses glued to his face, Jones reasoned that people looking into his eyes would diminish his sacred energy.
Jim Jones initially acted like a passionate human rights activist dedicated to racial equality. As more and more people (80% were African-Americans) supported his preachings, he started exercising healing sessions to prove his God-sent spiritual power. By the end, he considered himself as Jesus Christ who should be worshipped in everyone’s mouth.
The Looming Death
While knowing weapons were transmitted to Jonestown, the late Congressman, Leo Ryan still went to Jonestown without any military aid. He confidently believed that with the support of Congress, even a cult leader knew how the laws worked.
He overly underestimated the madness of Jim Jones who had controlled Jonestown as a mini version of North Korea. There were no telephones, transportation, or Internet, and Jim Jones was the government himself. American laws were stupid jokes for him, and Congress was nothing but people’s enemy.
Even the photographers and journalists on this trip felt awkward in Jonestown. A photographer said that he could tell the whole place was intentionally polished up to show how people had good lives here, beneath the newly painted wall, he could sense this was a harsh and rusty living environment.
The interviews with the town’s people were pretentious. People answered the questions as if they had formulated a script, smiling eerily, behaving conservatively, and escaping eye contact.
The survivors of Jonestown later confirmed that upon knowing the visit from a Congressman, they worked non-stop to rebuild the houses and facilities, and everyone was required to rehearse with Jim Jones again and again to prepare appropriate answers corrected by him.
Interviews with the Survivors
Some were lucky enough to take on the airplane after the unpredictable shooting attack, others were pretending to be dead without drinking the poison, or they were hiding beneath their beds or escaping into the jungle. However, more than 900 people were forced to be injected with the poison, drink the Kool-Aid, or be shot by the guards.
Stanly Clayton, only 25 years old then, initially thought it was another White Night rehearsal, but he saw the guards taking all kitchen staff into the Pavilion, he grew suspicious because the kitchen staff usually weren’t in the meeting. He said, “Most people don’t want to die. They are frightened.” Paused, he continued, “John was like, ‘Hurry, hurry. We must die. We must die in dignity.’”
One survivor recalled, “At the beginning, it was the best life in my life in Jonestown. People worked together to grow food and share the harvest, but gradually we suffered from food scarcity, the severe punishments of bad-mouthing this place, and listened to John rant and rave for hours.”
Jim Jones‘ son, Stephen Jones directly stated his father was a monster, saying, “All the reports about my father were true, sexual abuse, torture, deceit, theft, fake healings, drugging of people, punishing the children. He used people’s fear to control them. I hope that we will learn and examine this tragedy, standing in people’s shoes before judging them, and not let those people die in vain.”
Here to watch Lost Paradise.
