As I was recuperating from the excitement of the first Uncommon Knowledge hypnotherapy Diploma course last night I happened to catch a documentary about Jim Jones charismatic cult leader who led over 900 followers to commit suicide in ‘Jones Town’ Guyana in 1978. Many of his followers were abused by him personally and many others sold their homes and gave to his cult ‘The People’s Temple’ the proceeds and all their savings.

The program didn’t really address why people do this although it was fascinating as an eye witness account of life inside the cult. But why would anyone of normal intelligence get sucked into a cult that took their money and for over 900 Jones followers the ultimate theft their lives?

Cults: Giving everything

On the first module of the course we had discussed how vital it is for people to meet their emotional and physical needs in order to be healthy and happy.

These include a need for a sense of security, a need for intimacy, community, stimulation and excitement and a connection to other people as well as the importance of feeling you have a purpose as so on.

Now many of the survivors of the Jones Cult still talked, decades later, with starry eyes about the sense of community, belonging, and special purpose the cult had given them as if, perhaps, these had been the best days of their lives even though some of these people had lost loved ones to the cult.

We all drive instinctively to get our needs met any way we can. If suddenly our emotional needs are seeminly met ‘on a plate’ and we haven’t been meeting these needs in our pre-cult life then the cult may become irresistible.

What a person (unless they are psychologically informed) doesn’t foresee is the terrible price they have to eventually pay for all the ‘love and kindness’, attention, special status, sense of belonging and so forth the cult initially swamps them with.

Many of Jones’ adherents were drawn from the poor and disaffected-people not leading satisfying lives or meeting their basic needs in healthy ways.

Giving then taking

Cult members were coerced into working longer hours until many only slept one and half hours a night (sleep deprivation is a basic brain washing tool). Gradually and perniciously cult members were forced to inform on their children, parents, friends for ‘disloyalty’ and punishments were dished out. But despite this the cult was still meeting certain basic emotional needs. And as with any abusive relationhsip people come to fear life outside of it.

We may ask ‘what can she possibly see in him?’ of a woman dating a manipulative bully. A better question might be ‘what basic emotional need is he meeting in her but at what eventual price?’ It is the same with addictions. They seem to meet needs but then start to demand more and more ‘pay back’ see my: Are you in a smoking cult

So Jim Jones (like many cult leaders before and since and yet to come) seemed to offer community and friendship to the lonely, structure and purpose to the aimless, status to the disaffected and excitement to the bored. Along with the standard fare of brainwashing systems(as so clearly delineated in Arthur Deikman MD’s book ‘The Wrong Way Home’ ): Sleep deprivation, staged ‘miracles’, alternate use of hope and fear, group think and fear of rejection from the group, control of alternative viewpoints or dissent and ultimate authority vested in one supposedly infallible leader.

It’s clear to see that the People’s Temple was no different from any cult that eventually takes more than it gives whilst never letting people forget what they ’should be so grateful for.’ Some members did eventually lose the rose tinted spectacles and ‘fall out of love’ with Jones and his People’s temple but sadly many did not.

We can learn about everyday psychology from so called abnormal psychology. All these cult patterns exist beyond just recognizable cults, such as in some couple relationships, ‘dysfunctional’ families and within the psychology of addiction.’

I think people need to learn more about basic psychology for self protection apart from anything else. Knowledge is power and so is understanding.

All the best

Mark.