People's Temple Research Paper

Cult are generally accepted to be a “small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous”. Everyone is taught to fear cults because they’re “dangerous”. Most members of a cult, however, are not deranged, mindless, mentally handicapped people. Most members of a cult are regular people that are attracted to the organization’s message or “religion”. One religious cut that attracted mainstream society was the People’s Temple. The People’s Temple cult drastically changed over the course of its lifetime, when it started out as a church with good intentions, like providing for the sick and needy. Eventually the cult changed under the leadership of Jim Jones, where he went from a kindhearted man to a drugged-obsessed, power crazy monster that committed heinous, unspeakable acts in his journey for dominance. In his quest for power, he isolated his followers in a prison camp known as Jonestown and took the lives of 918 men, women, and children, before taking his own life.

At the beginning, the People’s Temple started out as a church that’s main focus was on helping the poor, the outcast, and the needy, and was seen by most as a good and honest organization. The People’s Temple was founded in 1955 by Reverend Jim Jones. Jones started the People’s Temple in Indiana, then moved it to the Redwood Valley in California before moving it to San Francisco. The People’s Temple was able to gain thousands of believers through its many years of charitable ministries and “special miracles”. Raised in poverty, Jones was convinced that a church should provide for its congregants, and for the whole community. Jones was raised by a deadbeat father who had little in...

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...church that’s main focus was on helping the poor, the outcast, and the needy, and was seen by most as a good and honest organization. But all that changed when the leader of People’s Temple, Jim Jones, started showing his true colors: he was a power-hungry, conniving, paranoid dictator who used and twisted spirituality to issue power physically, psychologically, and sexually over his followers. And because he was a sociopath and couldn’t stand losing the power he has obtained over the lives of others, he decided to take those lives, murdered over 900 innocent people, and instead of facing the consequences of his actions, he took the easy way out and shot himself, avoiding justice. The drastic change in the People’s Temple cult was brought on by the drastic change in Jim Jones, where he turned from a sweet, caring pastor into a heartless, power obsessed cult leader.