Self Esteem
A look at The People's Temple through two people's eyes

In reading Jeannie Mills' book, Six Years With God, about her experiences in Jim Jones' People's Temple, I am torn with feelings that alternate between pity and disgust. How do people get to the point of letting a crazy person dictate their every move? How do they bring themselves to ignore the very dictates of their own conscience in order to follow a course which they, themselves, recognize as folly? It struck me all at once: These are people who have lost their self-esteem. They magnified Jim Jones into a god who could "protect them" from the bomb, cure them of cancer and give their lives meaning. And they saw themselves as tiny and insignificant beings who depended on Jones for everything.

One of Jones' tools was an ethic of self-sacrifice. People who accept that ethic as their highest value don't permit themselves to demand any rights for themselves. Once someone has given up hir right to anything for hirself, anything can be taken from hir. Jones made everyone work around the clock for his "cause," they had to tith 25% of their income, wear thrift store clothing and not buy Christmas presents for their kids. (They donated $16 per child to a committee which choose presents for everyone according to their age and gender and Jim Jones gave all the presents, himself.) Parents weren't allowed to make important decisions concerning their own kids. Young people were pressured into living in communes where conditions were substandard so that they could donate more money to the Church.

Quality of life wasn't all that they sacrificed. Their very sense of reality was forfeited when Jones used the temple to act out his own sexual fantasies. he forced everyone to "admit" to being gay or lesbian. He was the only straight man in the Church and he would have sex with church women under the guise of therapy.

Life, sanity and even ethics were sacrificed. Jeannie often did things she knew were wrong such as turning a family out of her house after Jones had brought them to California from Philadelphia. On Jones' orders, she refused to even give the family money to make a phone call. The harsh edict was given because this family had the balls to disagree with Jones. Although they were very polite and respectful in their disagreement, Jones called them "ingrates." Obviously, he didn't think anyone who had accepted any help from him at all had a right to hir own mind. But the family members hadn't given up their self-esteem.

Jeannie Mills was a very warm-hearted, giving person who would open her home to people at the drop of a hat. The Church gave her many opportunities to share with many families and children. Her generousity came our of genuine love for people rather than a grim belief in self-sacrifice. But she accepted the ethicical imperative of self-sacrifice with the implication that her needs just didn't count.

Another of Jones' victims who accepted self-sacrifice as a noble value was Deborah Layton, Seductive Poison, 1998, Anchor. Unlike Jeannie Mills, she actually went to Jonestown in Guyana and experienced first hand the severe hardships that existed there. Struggling to accept the unacceptable, she reasoned with herself, "I thought of Mao's cultural revolution. It was hard on the people at first, but over time they grew accustomed to their lives of selflessness. I had learned that this was the only way to grow altruistic. Monks in Tibet, priests in monasteries, nuns in convents, the citizens of Uncle Fidel's Cuba, they all gave up comforts and became selfless. It was a comfort to think that pain was necessary for the greater good of mankind."

Nevertheless, Deborah retained a certain innocence throughout her ordeal. She was very young and naive when she joined the Church. Her naivity allowed her to go on believing many of Jones' lies long after many others recognized the folly of their continued loyalty to the Church. For example, when Jones, who preached celebacy for all Church members put the moves on her, she actually believed he was doing it for her own good, as he claimed, and apologized sincerely for making him do it. Still, with her innocence, she also acquired a certain cynicism. She helped the Church deceive the public in many areas and justified it on the grounds that the ends justified the means. She also snitched on a friend to save herself. But in spite of it, her book conveys a greater feeling of purity than did Jeannie's. Jeannie was far more aware of how rotten and corrupt the Church was. She continued to play Jones' games anyway until she finally was able to say "enough."

Jeannie Mills and her family were spared the Hell that was Jonestown. Debbie Layton went to Jonestown expecting a paradise on earth. Her account of life there makes fascinating reading. It compares with accounts I have read of concentration camps. Shocked nonacceptance is followed by a change in consciousness in which the camp becomes reality as the new inmate learns to adjust and survive. Debbie's first glance at the faces of the people already there told her what a mistake it had been to come. The faces all had expressions of hopelessness. Everywhere, people were apathetic and guarded. They worked under the watch of armed guards. And yet, unlike most of the people there, Debbie was able to escape and tell her tale.

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