Peoples Temple, The (Jonestown) – Nostalgia Central

Perhaps one of the most infamous cults of the 20th century, thanks to its horrifying ending, the Peoples Temple began in the 1950s as a Pentecostal sect led by pastor Jim Jones.

Jones garnered a huge audience as an evangelical preacher by promoting racial equality within his congregation at a time of segregation, as well as claiming healing abilities. But his intentions were not virtuous.

After allegedly receiving visions of a nuclear attack on the US, he encouraged his followers to relocate to Guyana, where he established a 27,000-acre commune under the guise of a colony he dubbed Jonestown in 1975.

By 1977, Jonestown housed over 1,000 followers, and things had taken a dark turn. Jones ruled as a God-like figure, took control of his congregation’s bank accounts, stole their passports, beat them, forced them to work and manipulated them into having sex with him.

Jones’s writ was enforced by armed guards called the “Red Brigade”. The commune became an armed camp, ringed by volunteers with guns and machetes, threatening to fight outsiders to the death.

After California congressman Leo Ryan and a television crew visited the site and helped 14 followers attempt to escape, Jones’s brainwashed army retaliated, resulting in fatal shootings.

As the group boarded planes to leave, their escorts drew guns and opened fire. They shot Ryan dead, combing his body with bullets to make certain, and killed four others – including two photographers who captured footage of the attack before dying.

Wounded survivors ran or dragged themselves, bleeding, into the forest. One of Ryan’s aides, Jackie Speier, survived five gunshots and eventually became a congresswoman representing California’s 14th district.

Fearing Jonestown was doomed, Jones told his devotees they must commit “mass revolutionary suicide” and administered cyanide-laced ‘Fla·Vor·Aid’ fruit punch to his congregation at the main church building.

Those who wouldn’t “drink the Kool-Aid ” (this incident is where the term derives) were forcibly injected with poison.

A staggering 913 dead bodies, a third of which were children, were discovered by Guyanese troops on 19 November 1978, including Jones – who had suffered a fatal bullet wound to the head.