The People of the Peoples Temple

In 1957, Hyacinth Thrash, a fifty-five-year-old black woman living in Indiana, thought she had found her church. She joined a religious organization in Indianapolis that seemed to be free from racism, with a mission to help the poor and the needy. The church, called the Peoples Temple, was led by a charismatic white man, Jim Jones. From 1956 to 1978, Reverend Jim Jones led the Peoples Temple congregation in Indianapolis, Indiana (1956-1965), then in Ukiah and San Francisco, California (1965-1977), and finally in Jonestown, Guyana (1977-1978). Thrash described the first time her sister, Zipporah, saw the Peoples Temple on television: “She came running in from the other room, shouting, ‘I’ve found my church!’ She saw the integrated choir on TV and Jim standing so handsome, and wanted to go.” Zipporah enticed Hyacinth to join her. Hyacinth appreciated how the church aligned with the principles of the early Civil Rights Movement; she engaged in social work in her community while her pastor, Jones, became the director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission. She also believed in the church’s healing powers. In 1964, Thrash’s doctors found a cancerous tumor. When she was deemed cancer free by several doctors in the months following her diagnosis, she claimed she had been cured through faith healing in her church. For Hyacinth Thrash, and hundreds of other followers, the Peoples Temple was a central force in their life, and an organization on which they depended spiritually, socially, economically, and politically. Yet, twenty-one years later and 2,947 miles away, Thrash awoke in Jonestown, Guyana to find that, while she slept, over 900 people died. Among the dead was her sister, Zipporah. On November 18, 1978, Peoples Temple members met a violent and news-making end when Jones and over 900 followers engaged in a murder/suicide by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide. Called the Jonestown Massacre, this event represented the largest one-day loss of American civilian life prior to 9/11. The 918 human deaths in Guyana meant the metaphorical death of the community Thrash had dedicated herself to for over twenty years. When Thrash awoke and realized her community died, she recalled “I started screaming! I thought maybe I was dead too. I pinched myself. Was I alive? I couldn’t believe it.” Thrash’s story gets to the heart of this thesis project, which examines the ideology of the Peoples Temple from a bottom-up perspective to asserts members’ agency over the development of the Peoples Temple organization and settlement in Jonestown. I ask a series of historical research questions: How did the diversity in the Peoples Temple general membership compare to the diversity of the Peoples Temple’s leadership? How did the experience of a new recruit compare to that of a more established member? What parts of the Peoples Temple story are most predominant in retellings of the organization’s history? How do these works portray the victims of the massacre and the leader Jim Jones? How can artists create a narrative that is both compelling and historically accurate? Is fictionalization ever appropriate for historical interpretation, or should artists strive to maintain full historical accuracy? How do survivors or family of the victims feel about adaptations of the Peoples Temple story? And finally, how can a topic of this magnitude be handled in good taste and with proper respect? My research argues that many members of the Peoples Temple remained loyal to the organization for reasons beyond brainwashing or cult behavior. Rather, these members, including Hyacinth Thrash, Grace and Timothy Stoen, Deborah Layton, and many more, dedicated their lives to the organization because they shared a genuine belief in the Peoples Temple mission to end racial and economic inequality and bring about a socialist utopia. Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones capitalized on the social and moral connections of his membership to slowly radicalize the organization over its twenty-two-year history. Because of their love for their peers and their belief in the mission, many members became more dependent on the organization (and therefore on Jim Jones) as time went on. By the organization’s demise in 1978, some members believed that the ultimate sacrifice—taking their own lives—served the greater good. However, not all members responded positively to the evolution of the Peoples Temple. For example, Timothy and Grace Stoen became the most outspoken antagonist for the Peoples Temple community. In the early 1970s, The Stoens joined the Peoples Temple when Timothy became the church\u27s primary lawyer. In 1972, Grace gave birth to a son, John Victor, over whom Jim Jones claimed paternity. Grace defected from the Peoples Temple in 1976 after witnessing the brutal beating of Peter Wotherspoon at the direction of Jim Jones. After defecting, Grace began a legal battle with Jones and the Peoples Temple to regain custody of her son. Timothy defected in 1977 after the organization’s move to Jonestown, Guyana. Their defections, coupled with their increased unease about Peoples Temple doctrine, instigated a rise in public scrutiny of the Peoples Temple and pushed members to radicalize the organization in its final year. Both Jones and general members claimed the case threatened the sanctity and strength of the community. This existential fear and paranoia caused mass murder and suicide to become what seemed to be the only way out for some of the organization’s members. To get to the heart of member-focused stories, such as the Stoens’ custody battle, I have had to reexamine the historiography of the Jonestown Massacre. Much of the existing scholarship on the Peoples Temple has analyzed how Jim Jones alone controlled his congregation through tactics like sexual coercion, love bombing (or the use of excessive affection as a manipulation tactic), financial dependency, and the breakdown of relationships outside the Peoples Temple. I explore first-hand accounts from members within the inner-circle of the Peoples Temple, including The Onliest One Alive by former Peoples Temple member Hyacinth Thrash, Seductive Poison by former Peoples Temple Planning Committee member Deborah Layton, Marked for Death by the organization’s former lawyer Timothy Stoen, as well as assorted excerpts from other Peoples Temple primary sources and reflections. These sources illustrate how the decisions of Peoples Temple members influenced the organization’s progression and development from its founding in 1956 to its end in 1978. The Peoples Temple evolved from a religious organization grounded in social work and a commitment to socialist ideology to one influenced by paranoia built on the relationship of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple membership. Many members’ dedication to the Peoples Temple stemmed from their belief in the group’s social and economic mission. Therefore, my analysis explores how multiple contemporaneous movements and organizations influenced the causes the Peoples Temple members fought for. The Peoples Temple incorporated the philosophies of Father Divine’s Peace Mission, the writings of Karl Marx, the Civil Rights Movement, and the writings of Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton to form a movement that justified ostracizing dissenting voices that members deemed capitalistic, racist, and invalid. As the group’s ever-radicalizing ideologies pushed the organization further from mainstream society, it became more insular and paranoid. These sentiments and emotions reached their peak in the late 1970s, when 1,000 members chose to move halfway across the eastern hemisphere and fully sequester themselves within the Peoples Temple community in Jonestown, Guyana. My research paper is organized as follows: first, I analyze the historiography of the Peoples Temple to demonstrate how the historical narrative has expanded from an interpretation of the members as cultists to an interpretation in which they are shown as more complex historical actors—people dependent on the community, abused at the hands of Jim Jones, or genuinely committed to the stated goals of the organization. Then I place the Peoples Temple in its historical context and discuss how broader social and religious movements influenced the organization and affected the stated ideology of members. Next, I analyze the experiences of individual members as case studies, including Hyacinth Thrash, Deborah Layton, and Timothy and Grace Stoen, to explore the relationship between the Peoples Temple members and Jim Jones. I uncover how members and Jones became increasingly codependent overtime and took on the characteristics of an abusive relationship. Finally, this project culminates in the production of a full-length theatrical script drawn from this research and grounded in public historical best practices

Native American and Health Care

For decades now, the Native Americans, along with Alaskan Natives, has faced constant neglect from Congress in their efforts to push through legislation that would significantly improve the healthcare of this particular ethno-racial group

'Half-cut' science:A qualitative examination of alcohol industry actors' use of peer-reviewed evidence in policy submissions on Minimum Unit Pricing

Aim: To assess the extent to which alcohol industry actors cited evidence in submissions to the Scottish Parliament Health and Sport Committee’s 2011 call for written evidence on the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Bill and to compare any citations of peer-reviewed evidence to original sources. Methods: All submissions to the consultation (n=128) were manually searched to identify those written by alcohol industry actors (n=25). The reference lists of all the alcohol industry submissions were reviewed and peer-reviewed sources were retrieved, read and assessed against their in-text citation within the alcohol industry submissions. Results: Although most industry submissions cited evidence of some sort, only 7 (28%) cited peer-reviewed evidence. Comparing the total number of citations to peer-reviewed evidence (n=17) to original sources demonstrates that 82% were questionably cited. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that the majority of references to peer-reviewed evidence in this sample of alcohol industry policy submissions were misleading with examples of citations being presented as supportive of arguments that the original evidence source specifically argued against. This suggests that even the depiction of peer-reviewed evidence within alcohol industry policy submissions needs to be treated with caution

A randomized trial of brief intervention strategies in patients with alcohol-related facial trauma as a result of interpersonal violence

Facial trauma is associated with male gender, low socioeconomic status, alcohol misuse, and violence. Brief intervention (BI) for alcohol is effective at reducing consumption in patients presenting with facial trauma. Singlesession control of violence for angry impulsive drinkers(SS-COVAID) is a new intervention that attempts to address alcohol-related violence. This study assessed the effect of SS-COVAID and BI on drinking and aggression in facial trauma patients. Male facial trauma patients who sustained their injuries as a result of interpersonal violence while drinking and who had Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores of ≥8 were randomized to either BI or SS-COVAID. Patients were followed up at six and 12 months, and drinking and aggression outcomes were analyzed. One hundred ninety-nine patients entered the trial, and 187 were included in the analysis. Of these, 165 (89%) considered themselves to be victims, 92 (51%) had sustained a previous alcohol-related injury, and 28 (15%) had previous convictions for violence. Both interventions resulted in a significant decrease in negative drinking outcomes over 12 months of follow-up (p<0.001). Neither intervention had a significant effect on aggression scores, nor was there a significant difference between interventions in terms of either outcome. Both SS-COVAID and BI had a significant effect on drinking variables in this patient cohort. No effect on aggressionwas seen despite the fact that SS-COVAID specifically addresses the relationship between alcohol and violence. One reason for this may be that the facial trauma patients in this study considered themselves to be victims rather than aggressors. Another possibility is that, while BI may successfully address lifestyle factors such as hazardous or harmful drinking, it may not be effective in modifying personality traits such as aggression

Conflicted and confused? Health harming industries and research funding in leading UK universities

University researchers face growing expectations to engage with commercial sources of funding. This pressure is likely to increase in the context of the covid-19 squeeze1 and, in the UK, both Brexit and a research impact agenda promoting external collaboration.2 Alongside this, there are efforts to reduce conflicts of interest in research involving pharmaceutical and medical device companies,3 and policies rejecting tobacco industry funding.4 Yet limited attention has been paid to funding from other health damaging industries such as alcohol, gambling, and ultra-processed food and drink. How well are universities equipped to manage such conflicts of interest

T CELLS IN THE PATHOGENESIS OF SPONTANEOUS AUTOIMMUNE PERIPHERAL POLYNEUROPATHY

The immune system defends the body from pathogens, and its function is essential for life. Adaptive immunity protects the host through specific targeting and elimination of pathogens and toxins. However, due to the stochastic nature of adaptive immune cell antigen specificity, cells that attack the host are inadvertently generated. Autoimmunity, or immune attack against the host, causes severe morbidity and mortality in the population. Furthermore, treatments of autoimmune diseases often have limited efficacy and serious side-effects. To develop better treatments for autoimmunity, the underlying pathogenesis must be understood. For my thesis, I studied a mouse model of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) to understand the mechanisms behind disease. CIDP is a debilitating condition caused by autoimmune demyelination of peripheral nerves. In my studies, I researched the role of T lymphocytes, the immunosuppressive cytokine interleukin 10 (IL-10), and other immune cells and markers in NOD.AireGW/+ mice that develop spontaneous autoimmune peripheral polyneuropathy (SAPP) that resembles CIDP. I demonstrated that T cells are required for SAPP, and that IL-10 paradoxically exacerbates SAPP. I delineated a novel mechanism in which IL-10-induced STAT3 increases S1pr1 expression and CD4+ T cell migration to accelerate T cell-mediated destruction of peripheral nerves. My results suggest the increased IL-10 expression observed in CIDP patients may be a marker of disease activity and progression rather than immunosuppression.Doctor of Philosoph

The pursuit of ignorance:The UK’s anti-lobbying clause will jeopardise evidence informed policy making

No abstract available