for this most astounding of compliant acts? Various explanations have
been offered. Some have focused on the charisma of Jim Jones, a man
whose style allowed him to be loved like a savior, trusted like a father,
and treated like an emperor. Other explanations have pointed to the
kind of people who were attracted to the People’s Temple. They were
mostly poor and uneducated individuals who were willing to give up
their freedoms of thought and action for the safety of a place where all
decisions would be made for them. Still other explanations have em-
phasized the quasi-religious nature of the People’s Temple, in which
unquestioned faith in the cult’s leader was assigned highest priority.
No doubt each of these features of Jonestown has merit in explaining
what happened there. But I do not find them sufficient. After all, the
world abounds with cults populated by dependent people who are led
by a charismatic figure. What’s more, there has never been a shortage
of this combination of circumstances in the past. Yet virtually nowhere
do we find evidence of an event even approximating the Jonestown
incident among such groups. There must be something else that was
critical.
One especially revealing question gives us a clue: “If the community
had remained in San Francisco, would Rev. Jim Jones’s suicide command
have been obeyed?” A highly speculative question to be sure, but the
expert most familiar with the People’s Temple has no doubt about the
answer. Dr. Louis Jolyon West, chairman of psychiatry and biobehavi-
oral sciences at UCLA and director of its neuropsychiatric unit, is an
authority on cults who had observed the People’s Temple for eight
years prior to the Jonestown deaths. When interviewed in the immediate
aftermath, he made what strikes me as an inordinately instructive
statement: “This wouldn’t have happened in California. But they lived
in total alienation from the rest of the world in a jungle situation in a
hostile country.”
Although lost in the welter of commentary following the tragedy,
Dr. West’s observation, together with what we know about the principle
of social proof, seems to me quite important to a satisfactory understand-
ing of the compliant suicides. To my mind, the single act in the history
of the People’s Temple that most contrib-uted to the members’ mindless
compliance that day occurred a year earlier with the relocation of the
Temple to a jungled country of unfamiliar customs and strange people.
If we are to believe the stories of Jim Jones’s malevolent genius, he
realized fully the massive psychological impact such a move would
have on his followers. All at once, they found themselves in a place
they knew nothing about. South America, and the rain forests of Guyana,
especially, were unlike anything they had experienced in San Francisco.
Robert B. Cialdini Ph.D / 115