It has been a long time since those days in November 1978. Some of you may not even have heard about it. But it took place 40 years ago today, in Guyana, South America.

The Jonestown massacre, organized by the leaders of The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, and more precisely, Jim Jones. It doesn’t really matter with what fancy name the leaders call their cults. And you can easily read about the background of this particular cult and the event since there is plenty of information available. Naturally on film as well, there among a 2006 documentary and a 2007 movie.

Here we just peek a little at the psychological side of it all. It’s not that hard actually to understand what makes people want to belong to such a group, especially since they don’t know at the time where it all would lead. And when they do find out, it is just too late for most of them. It wasn’t a suicide pact but plain and simply a massacre of hundreds of people.

What many of you might not know is that there were survivors. Here’s one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afmRwwSNCTI

But what does draw people to follow one man, however charismatic and with however enthusiastic primary disciples? It is a subject that has been studied extensively. Here is one of those studies. Cult members often have no idea that they’re in a cult. It starts as just another slightly abnormal and thus exciting common experience. Soon peer pressure, familiarity and the need to please ensue, and things get muddled. A bit like a cancer growth that spreads without the host first knowing about it until it may be too late to get out of a bad situation.

The situation gets extra complicated if children are involved and used as pawns. All is fair in love and war is employed in cults ruthlessly, drawing in and keeping the members in the web of manipulation. Of course, not all cults are religious. Some, like the Jim Jones' cult, propagated socialism. But what is characteristic of any cult is that they employ numerous, interchangeable ways to ensure their hold of their members, and feed on both their ignorance and search for truths. And we all know how adjustable people can be. In the end, you try to make the best out of a bad situation.

Sometimes it just isn’t enough. Your journey of life has become part of and entangled with other’s journeys of life, and there’s no independent solution to problems anymore. Unless you get outside help. Hopefully it happens early enough.

Sources: Peoples Temple (Wiki) https://www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/what-to-know-about-the-psychology-of-cults/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178116319941