When did The Peoples Temple become a cult? When did Jim Jones become a cult leader?

November 18th is the 30th anniversary of the mass murder-suicide that left 918 people dead in Jonestown, Guyana. "Drinking the Kool-Aid," a reference to the massacre, has come to mean embracing a group or leader with blind, unquestioning obedience.

By coincidence, November 18th also happens to be SGI Day, commemorating the 78th anniversary of the founding of Soka Gakkai.

The thread "Tricycle Serves Gakkai Kool-Aid" was revived over the weekend with questions about the word "cult" and whether it applies to SGI. Leaving the SGI question aside, I'd like to explore "cult" as it relates to Jones and his followers.
Some claim "cult" is a meaningless word because it's totally subjective; a cult is in the eye of the beholder. OK. If your position is that Peoples Temple was not a cult, or that cults don't exist in any objective way, we'll have to agree to disagree. My position is that Peoples Temple was definitely a cult. I'm interested in considering when it became one.

Charismatic Jim Jones started the group in the 1950s. A proponent of integration, he was ahead of his time. He attracted followers who were energized by his vision for social justice and by his powerful sermons. In California, he was not regarded as a fringe cult leader. Quite the opposite. As the San Francisco Chronicle noted:

Jones, who demanded that his flock call him Father, was one of the most politically powerful people in San Francisco, wined and dined by such luminaries as Rosalynn Carter, Assemblyman Willie Brown, Mayor George Moscone and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally.

His followers were racially and economically diverse. Many were very well educated. All were idealistic. They weren't a bunch of creepy misfits. From the Chronicle article:

"When I joined Peoples Temple, I was 17 and it was like joining the Peace Corps," she says. "I felt we were doing something that had meaning. I wanted to be part of something that was doing things for other people, and besides, Peoples Temple offered a community of friends."

Community. Friendship. Helping others. An impressive roster of powerful allies. Nothing wrong with this picture.

If you didn't know how things would turn out on Nov. 18, 1978, would you have condsidered Peoples Temple a cult? From the outside looking in, probably not.

Yet there was some questionable stuff going on below the radar. Deborah Layton's book goes into chilling detail. The Chronicle summarizes:

Layton became a senior insider in Jones' entourage. She was entrusted with flights to Europe and Panama to open Temple bank accounts, where Jones stashed the millions he was taking from Temple members who freely gave him their life savings, their homes and just about everything else.

"The reason I did well," Layton says now, "is that I'm a little soldier and I follow orders so well."

OK, it's starting to sound a little culty. Then again, people give money -- even their life savings -- to all kinds of organizations and movements. Churches don't have to account for funds the way some organizations do. Financial gifts are offered out of pure faith. So large sums of wealth and financial secrecy don't necessarily make it a cult. Plus, a lot of people think of themselves as metaphoric soldiers of faith.

Maybe things started to go haywire here:

In the summer of 1977, after an expose of Peoples Temple in New West magazine, Jones and his followers fled to Guyana. Jones had become increasingly paranoid, convinced that the CIA, the FBI and the media were out to destroy him.

It's not inconceivable that the FBI really was monitoring him. The press probably was getting nosey.

Jones promised that Jonestown would be paradise, a utopian colony in which followers could realize the ideals of Peoples Temple. His followers went willingly and enthusiastically.

Once the Temple members got to Jonestown, of course, it was a different story. They weren't allowed to leave. They were psychologically broken down, controlled and terrorized, culminating in mass murder-suicide.

Today, when you say "cult" this is what people understand: a situation in which followers are isolated, brainwashed and abused by a crazed charismatic charlatan who kills them all. By this standard, the word "cult" can be applied only as a post-mortem.

Arguably, Peoples Temple was a cult and Jones was a cult leader long before they moved to Jonestown. Followers increasingly invested their wealth, energy and identities in Peoples Temple and in Jones. Over their years of involvement, they had grown too committed (or too compromised, or too resigned) to walk away. Some followers knew that Jones had gone off the rails -- and perhaps had always been off the rails -- but their families were devoted members of the Temple. Leaving the group meant leaving loved ones behind, and many just couldn't do it.

For a number of complicated emotional "reasons," hundreds were deeply loyal to Jones and followed him into the jungle. It didn't happen suddenly. Jones didn't go from helping to elect Mayor George Moscone (and getting a patronage appointment as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority) to ordering mass suicide overnight. It took time and a series of disturbing events for people to recognize what was really going on in Peoples Temple: deceit and pressure applied by a "Father" authority, with horrifying consequences.

To me, Jonestown is proof that smart, sincere, successful people can get hooked into a cult. Those people weren't idiots who signed up to die in the jungle; they signed up for idealism, friendship and a larger, shared sense of purpose. They were attracted to charisma, as most of us are. They trusted. Over time, they were manipulated by a pattern of authority, deceit and pressure -- a pattern common to many groups that I would call cults.

Jonestown is at the extreme end of the cult spectrum only in retrospect. Remember, Peoples Temple was once a promising, diverse bunch of do-gooders with friends in high places.