For the first time in years, I again saw the PBS special on "The People's Temple and Jonestown."

This time I really realized how innocent and gullible people can be... Those who feel unloved and needing a sense of belonging and being accepted; and those who desire a "better life."

I cannot help but wonder why? How do people fall under the spell of such a "son of satan" (Intentionally not capitalized) as Jim Jones, and how many more such "Cults" will spring up as this recession deepens?


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**Note: The following text made available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

...This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Metasyntactic variable".



...Jonestown was the informal name for the "Peoples Temple Agricultural Project", an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple, a cult from California, United States, led by Jim Jones.

It became internationally notorious in November 1978, when 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown, Guyana's capital. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations.

On November 18, 1978, 909 Temple members died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning in an event termed "revolutionary suicide" by Jones and some members on an audio tape of the event and in prior discussions.

To the extent the actions in Jonestown were viewed as a mass suicide, it is the largest such event in modern history and resulted in the largest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 2001.

Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown

Im not really certain but probably for the reasons you listed. People can be gullible and times of trauma and emotional despair and weakness can leave them much more vulnerable to suggestion. Take some shouting, stomping, rolling on the floor religion, mix it with Jim Jones' and right there you have all the elements needed for disaster. Some Christians would see another ingredient in the mix, Satan. And Pentecostalists would have a special reason for being offended I imagine.

Its seems that a lot of Xians will believe anything including how this $35 plastic container of holy oil will cure them of any disease of the body and mind.

A shame that these people felt so diminished as people, that they thought they found what they were truly hungry for in this.
And shame on us for allowing ourselves to treat them that way.