At one level, the deaths at Jonestown can be viewed as the product of obedience, of people complying with the orders of a leader and reacting to the threat of force. In the Peoples Temple, whatever Jim Jones commanded, the members did. When he gathered the community at the pavilion and the poison was brought out, the populace was surrounded by armed guards who were trusted lieutenants of Jones. There are reports that some people did not drink voluntarily but had the poison forced down their throats or injected. While there were isolated acts of resistance and suggestions of opposition to the suicides, excerpts from a tape, recorded as the final ritual was being enacted, reveal that such dissent was quickly dismissed or shouted down.

Jim Jones utilized the threat of severe punishment to impose the strict discipline and absolu

Under these conditions the individual expects humiliation, ostracism and punishment because of his inability to live up to the criteria and lives in a constant state of guilt and shame. Since the organization is the ultimate judge of good and evil, this guilt and shame is used to manipulate and control members. The organization becomes an authority without limit in the eyes of members and their power is nowhere more evident that in their capacity to "forgive".

Yes. Ordinary social conditioning differs from mind control in two important ways. First, parents, schools, churches, and other organizations do not as a rule utilize unethically manipulative techniques in socializing children, adolescents, and young adults. Second, social conditioning is a slow process which promotes and encourages an initially "unformed" child to become an autonomous adult with a unique identity. Mind control, on the other hand, uses unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control to induce dependency in a person with an established identity, which the manipulator seeks to alter radically without the informed consent of his targets.

te devotion that he demanded, and he also took measures to eliminate those factors that might encourage resistance or rebellion among his followers. Research showed that the presence of a "disobedient" partner greatly reduced the extent o which most subjects in the Milgram situation (1965) obeyed the instructions to shock the person designated the "learner." Similarly, by including just one confederate who expressed an opinion different from the majority's, Asch (1955) showed that the subject would also agree far less, even when the "other dissenters" judgment was also incorrect and differed from the subjects. In the Peoples Temple, Jones tolerated no dissent, made sure that members had no allegiance more powerful than to himself, and tried to make the alternative of leaving the Temple an unthinkable option.

Outside feedback is carefully monitored in cults. No television or media reports of any kind are allowed to infiltrate the group. This creates a higher dependency on the people within the group. If the information needed to make a sound judgment is withheld A person will be incapable of doing so. People are trapped in cults because they are denied both the access to the critical information they need to assess their situation. The psychological constraints on their minds are just as powerful as if they were locked away ph

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Approximate Word count = 1665
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)