As an 80's baby I heard the phrase "Don't drink the Kool-Aid" before I went to school. The older I got the more I learned that the phrase had something to do with a preacher who convinced a bunch of people to end their lives as a political statement. Then I saw the Heaven's Gate cult news coverage, like everyone else.
I had a very Webster's Dictionary understanding of what a cult was and how it worked. In my youth it wasn't really a line of inquiry I had any unterst in pursuing. I was 16 or 17 before I heard the name Jim Jones. I would be 21 before I would learn his first People's Temple had been across the street from my apartment building at 10th and Delaware in Indianapolis.
But this story doesn't start in Indianapolis. It starts in a little hole-in-the-wall Indiana township called Crete, just east of Lynn on Highway 36, just south of Spartanburg as the crow flies. This light in the cornfields is where Little Jim Jones was born after his mother received a prophetic dream. His boyhood was spent in nearby Lee.
As he only child of a working mother and a disabled father, I recognized much about his latch-key childhood. This familial nucleus was unusual and highly commented on, not least of all because the Jones's did not attend church. All that would change soon enough.
A neighbor lady who took a shine to Little Jim invited him to her church. After that it was all almost destiny. Neighborhood children suffered through his first sermons and various animal funerals. As a pre-teen Jimm was gonna be a preacher.
This book isnt just a tale of the People's Temple, it is a cradle-to-the-grave, objective look at its leader. We don't just get paranoid, high Jim, we get Jim who achieved things! Through it all, and having reached the other side, Jim Jones is less a villain, and more, a weak king with dreams of grandeur who has surrounded himself with all the wrong people. The Rock Star who signs with a Bad Manager (Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Elvis) The Movie Star with an Addiction (Judy Garland, among so many others)
With so many directions he could have gone in, I am saddened that one who made his whole life about helping others and walking his talk; ended up using his power for evil. And we are talking about tangible good that he was able to achieve, only to go to the dark side.
The impact of Jones' descent into madness can be measured in the number of lives lost that final day at Jonestown. I made the mistake of looking up the audio recordings (It was Jones' routine to record everything). Hearing his voice implore "Mother, don't do this. Mother. Mother. Mother, lay down your life with your child" sent chills up my spine.
I don't think the younger generations are aware of Jim Jones. The Kool-Aid phrase isn't in their lexicon. This is worrisome to me because of the extremely fine line there is between Jim Jones and any given Megachurch Televangelist. Just like the razor -hin line between cult and religion.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐5/5
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