![]() ![]() Though Jones was clearly deranged, he could see clearly how events would play out. Five people including Ryan perished in the attack, although several defecting members of the Temple survived the shooting at the Port Kaituma Airstrip. When Ryan and his delegation returned to their plane the next day they were followed by members of the Peoples Church who sprayed them with machine gunfire. Ryan and his group arrived on November 17, 1978, and after getting the full dog and pony show from Jones, Ryan received a note from a follower asking him to take the residents back to the US with him. The clearly imminent implosion of Jonestown came to pass when California Congressman Leo Ryan flew to Guyana with a delegation of news reporters and representatives of the followers' biological families - a group calling itself Concerned Relatives - to investigate the numerous complaints around the church. Jim Jones was growing further addicted to prescription medications like Quaaludes, Demerol, Valium, and morphine, and there was barely enough food to feed the thousand people staying there. ![]() At night they were made to “learn” in their sleep through pre-recorded sermons that Jones piped through the compound’s public address system.Įven without pressure from the US government things were crumbling in Jonestown. On top of all of that, people were forced to perform backbreaking work in hundred- degree temperatures on little more than maggoty rice and brown sugar. He encouraged his followers to snitch on one another and used copious amounts of drugs to essentially lobotomize “patients” whom he felt were dissenting. Not only were Jones’ followers in all the way with him but once they were in Jonestown they were cut off completely from the rest of the world and systematically broken down through techniques that were similar to what Big Brother used in 1984. ![]() By the time Jones had his followers in Guyana, they were in so deep that they couldn’t turn back. When your spiritual leader is a barrel-chested, pill-popping maniac in dark sunglasses who bosses people around, holds all-night meetings, and manipulates them into carrying out sexual acts in front of large crowds, you might want to get out of Jonestown and make your way to the nearest village. As excruciating as this sounds, many of the followers say that they felt a huge sense of accomplishment from their work and that it was the happiest they’d ever been. The "family" members who went in the initial stage of development had to work 18 hour days, tilling the fields and constructing the compound for the followers who were joining them. Once they were there, he never let them leave. They’d all sold their homes and given up their jobs to follow Jones into the jungle. By the time the New West article was published, detailing his extortion, drug use, and sexual assaults, he and hundreds of his followers were already in Guyana. Jones had been traveling to Guyana since 1962, and in that time he’d developed Jonestown as a sanctuary, likely because he knew he’d have to escape the United States at some point. Jones caught wind of an expose to be published in New West magazine, and rather than stick around to find out what happened when the story was published, he abruptly moved to Guyana, South America in the summer of 1977. As Jones grew more erratic and confrontational some of his followers bailed from his San Francisco church and started talking to journalists about the abuses of power. ![]()
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