Ideology, Charisma, Murder

30 years ago today, a great tragedy occurred. A madman that was considered by his followers to be a prophet, "helped" over 900 people die in several ways. Mass suicide and murder followed people's good intentions. I often find myself wondering how people could follow someone like Jim Jones, or any other maligned leaders of the past for that matter. But, I have realized that a little charisma and a silver tongue can go a long way. And people have a need to believe in better things than seem to really exist. I have read several articles over the past year about Jonestown. The first one, about Jim Jones' grandson and one, today, about the events that occurred exactly 30 years ago. It scares me how easily any one of us could fall into a similar trap.



Believing someone that you think you can trust can happen to any of us. I have met a few people that have steered me wrong in the past, and I believed every word that they had said to me. I am not naive, and I am not stupid, but I had fallen for it. How? The person knew how to read me, and how to talk to me in order to get me to listen. And, they said exactly what I wanted to hear, although I had no clue that it was what I wanted to hear until I heard it. Friends and family warned me, but I believed anyway. There are plenty of people out there that are like that. Once you finally realize that you have been trapped, you are already trapped and extracting yourself is hard to do.



When you want to believe something can exist so badly that you are willing to believe against your better judgement that it does, people can take advantage of that. The people at Jonestown gave their love and trust to a madman and paid for it with their lives, some of them willingly. Be careful who you choose to trust and try not to dive into something without at least looking at what it is that you are getting into. Good intentions can mask bad ideas and lead to disaster. And normal, intelligent people can get lost just as easily as simple minded and naive folks. Intelligence makes it harder to accept that it could happen to us.



I try to make it a point to learn from the past. I use other people's experiences as well as my own to get by, now. When I was younger, I would only use my past as a reference point. I was too stubborn to believe that other people's experience affected me. Remember, we all make mistakes everyday. Except that we can make mistakes and it is easier to except that we do and ultimately it is easier to fix the issues that occur when we do. Learn from them and keep moving forward, treat everyone with respect and love and this world will be a better place for all of us.