"Don't Drink the Kool-Aid" by Kaden Hunt

A phrase that many people hear nowadays is “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid” (Higgins). The phrase is warning to not dive into a particular belief system or philosophy too quickly. However, this simple expression has a very dark origin. In 1978, cult leader Reverend Jim Jones convinced his followers, the Peoples’ Temple Agricultural Project (nicknamed “Jonestown”), commit mass suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with cyanide. Over 900 men, women, and children died (Moore), making this tragedy the largest loss of American life leading up to the September 11th attacks. Over the years, it has been speculated that this event was not a mass suicide, but a mass murder, earning the nickname “the Jonestown Massacre.” Errors in the investigation and connections to the U.S. government have been sources of intrigue as to why this event could not have been what it seemed, which has caused conspiracy theorists to form three theories: Jones killed his followers out of pure insanity, the massacre was a cover-up for the U.S. destruction of a missile base in Guyana, or it was a site for a CIA experiment for the mind control drug program MKUltra that went horribly wrong.

Reverend Jim Jones has been described by many people as insane. He was a fanatic who believed that he was a human incarnation of God himself with a mission to unite all members of society with what he called “Apostolic Socialism” (Ortiz). He was born into a poor family during the Great Depression and lived in a house without any plumbing (Ortiz). As a boy, he was obsessed with Karl Marx and the concept of socialism (Ortiz). He was described as the kid who had no friends and was obsessed with God and death (Ortiz). He joined the Methodist church in 1952 but later left because they would not allow him to preach to African Americans (Ortiz). He started his own church, the Peoples’ Temple, where he preached about loving one another as equals. This especially drew in African American followers that were enduring racial segregation at the time, eventually causing his cult to be 80-90% black (Carey). He would also perform healings during his services and later claimed that he could raise men from the dead and that he was the human incarnation of God. He once quoted John 14:6, saying “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light. No one can come to the father

but through me.” (Ortiz). Much of his fanatical behavior was due to his addictions to drugs and alcohol (Carey). Towards the end of his life, he became fanatical. Deborah Layton, a former cult member, is quoted as saying, “I wrote an affidavit begging the United States government to get involved, that 1,000 people were being held against their will in Jonestown, and that Jones was a monster and had lost his mind,” (Effron & Delarosa). He ran his cult like a military camp. He forced people to get up at 5:30 in the morning to dig ditches all day with no breaks (Carey). He also had multiple sexual partners, both male and female, and would brag about his sexual escapades in front of his congregation (Carey). It was also rumored that he would attempt to subdue cult members thinking of defecting by means of extreme torture or antipsychotic drugs (Carey). When police went through Jones’ stash, they found prescription drugs such as Quaaludes, Valium, and Morphine, enough to care for 66,000 people(King). One survivor is quoted saying:

 If a person wanted to leave Jonestown or if there was a breach of rules, one was taken to the extended-care unit. It was a rehabilitation place, where one would be re-integrated back into the community. The people were given drugs to keep them under control. (King)

            It was no secret that the Reverend was losing his mind, but still, people followed him to the bitter end. Or did they?

The first theory surrounding the Jonestown massacre is that Jones simply killed his flock because of fear (Higgins). This is the most common theory and has much corroborating evidence. The event that started the beginning of the end for Jonestown was a lawsuit filed by a former cult member, Grace Stoen (Moore). She had escaped Jonestown but left her son, John (Moore). In order to get him back, she filed a lawsuit against Jones, who believed that John was his son and would not give him up (Moore). This event caused Jones to go paranoid, and he would repeatedly sound alarms throughout the camp and force them to perform drills in the event of an impending attack (Higgins). He even attempted to move his congregation out of Guyana and to Cuba, where they would be safe from the mercenaries he said Stoen supposedly hired (Higgins). Eventually, the lawsuit reached worldwide attention, causing Congressman Leo Ryan to plan a visit to Guyana to investigate Stoen’s claims (Moore). When Ryan arrived in Guyana, he was met by a dozen defectors asking for his help to escape the cult. Ryan and his news team decided that the situation was becoming too unstable and drove to an airstrip in an attempt to board a plane and leave (Higgins). But, before they could escape, Jones sent an armed squad to the airstrip that opened fire on the group, killing Ryan and four others (Higgins). By this time, Jones had reportedly become completely insane (Higgins). This was caused by a heavy addiction to drugs and alcohol, specifically morphine, with one of his followers quoted saying to him:

You complain that we watch your every move and judge you, and it's true. Certainly, I am guilty of that, I make allowances for what I see you doing that seems other than it should be, and on the other hand I watch your pain and it tears me up inside. (Carey)

He also used a variety of drugs to control and pacify his followers, such as Quaaludes, Demerol, Seconal, Valium, and Thorazine (King).  Many theorists believe that Jones’ paranoia caused him to force his followers to commit mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced kool-aid (King). Any followers that did not comply were supposedly forcefully injected with a lethal dose of drugs or simply shot by Jones’ armed guards (King). This theory seems most likely to be true, as it is not far-fetched that an insane cult leader would murder his own commune.

            The next theory surrounding the Jonestown Massacre is that the U.S. government murdered the Jonestown residents to cover up the military destruction of a Soviet missile base in Guyana (Moore). This theory has been pushed forward by Dr. Peter Beter, a professional conspiracy theorist (Moore). He theorized that the U.S. government had penetrated Jonestown and had informed Jim Jones of their operations in Guyana (Moore). Supposedly, the U.S. state department purposely sent Rep. Ryan to Guyana to be killed to throw off any suspicion of U.S. involvement with Jonestown (Moore). They then used the massacre as a way to hide dead bodies from their attack on an apparent secret Soviet missile base in Guyana (Moore). This theory is supported a large U.S. military presence in Guyana and the way the body count grew as the investigation proceeded (Moore). According to Jim Hougan, “Revisions to the toll were continual, and sickening: 363, 405, 775, 800, 869, 910, 912, 918… To newspaper readers and watchers of the evening news, it seemed almost as if the slaughter was on-going, rather than a fait accompli” (Hougan). This theory also hypothesizes that Jones’ body at the scene of the massacre was a body double (Moore). Apparently, the real Jones fled to Israel to receive secret cancer treatments (Moore). On his way to Israel, when the plane he was traveling on crossed into Syria, the now-feeble Jones was forcefully grabbed and thrown off of the plane to tie up the final loose end (Moore). This theory is described as fitting seamlessly into the historical events happening at the same time but seems a little too perfect to be true (Higgins).

The third conspiracy theory about Jonestown is the theory that the cult itself was a front for a mind control experiment in the CIA program MKUltra (Moore). This theory is appealing because MKUltra itself, illegal CIA tests of drugs such as LSD for their effects on mind control and soliciting information, was a conspiracy proved to be true (MK-Ultra). The top-secret program has become common in popular culture as the basis of many films and television shows, such as Stranger Things (2016), The Prisoner (2009), and The Manchurian Candidate (2004), which is what makes this theory so popular (Logan). One conspiracist, John Judge, believes that Jim Jones was an agent for the CIA and that all of his cult members were a part of another MKUltra trial (Moore). The discrepancies related to the body count of the massacre are presumably because the cultists who fled the massacre into the jungle were killed by a joint task force of American Green Berets and British Black Watch troops (Moore). Another conspiracist, Jim Hougan, although not directly supporting the theory of an MKUltra experiment, theorizes that Congressman Ryan was murdered by Jones out of fear that he would discover his involvement with U.S. intelligence agencies (Moore). He says in one of his articles that “it was feared that Ryan’s investigation would embarrass the CIA by linking Jones to some of the Agency’s most volatile programs and operations” (Hougan). Regardless of the involvement with MKUltra specifically, this theory succeeds in tying Jim Jones to top-secret programs run by U.S. intelligence agencies.  While not all conspiracists believe that the massacre was specifically related to the MKUltra trials, the consensus is that one of the more believable theories about Jonestown is Jim Jones’ connection to the U.S. government (Moore).

The Jonestown Massacre remains one of the most speculative events for conspiracy theorists in the modern era. The ever-changing body count and possible government connections have caused theorists to surmise one of three things:

1. Jones murdered his followers out of psychosis and paranoia

2. The U.S. government staged the massacre to cover up a military operation conducted against the Soviet Union.

3. The commune was one of many testing grounds for the CIA mind control program known as MKUltra (Moore).

The first theory is the most likely to be true, as Jim Jones’ lunacy was well documented. It would not be stretch to assume that Jones would have rather his cult died with him than go back to Western society. Regardless of the cause of this horrific tragedy, the Jonestown Massacre is another example in our society of fanatical devotion to a charismatic leader gone wrong.

Works Cited

Carey, Pete. “The Mystery of Jim Jones.” The Mystery of Jim Jones - SJM 11/29/78 Last of a Series, San Jose Mercury News, www.maebrussell.com/Jonestown/Mystery of Jones, SJM, 11-29-78.html.

Higgins, Chris. “The 35th Anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre.” The Jonestown Massacre: The Terrifying Origin of "Drinking the Kool-Aid" | Mental Floss, 8 Nov. 2012, www.mentalfloss.com/article/13015/jonestown-massacre-terrifying-origin-drinking-kool-aid.

Hougan, Jim. “The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue.” Alternative Considerations of Jonestown Peoples Temple, San Diego State University, https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16572.

King, Peter. “How Jones Used Drugs.” The Mae Brussel Website, San Francisco Examiner,  www.maebrussell.com/Jonestown/How Jones Used Drugs.html.

 Logan, Megan. “9 Films and TV Shows Inspired by MK-Ultra, Ranked.” Inverse, Inverse, 26 Oct. 2016, www.inverse.com/article/18521-stranger-things-inspired-by-mk-ultra-the-manchurian-candidate-x-files.

Moore, Rebecca. “Reconstructing Reality: Conspiracies About Jonestown” Jonestown.sdsu.edu: Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples ..., 30 Dec. 1969, https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16582

“MK-Ultra.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/topics/us-government/history-of-mk-ultra.

Ortiz, Debi. “The Reverend Jim Jones.” What Big 5 Personality Traits Do Cult Leaders Have in Common?, www.bdrum.com/p130g3/index.htm.