Jonestown and our Deliverance from Cults

April 9, 2007

It is a cold Monday night in San Francisco and I am in tears. On KQED, I just watched a documentary on Jim Jones, the People's Temple cult, and the mass suicide of over 900 people in Guyana. No, that is right at all - it was the murder of 900 people by Jim Jones.

The documentary forced me to remember that event as if it had happened yesterday. When I ride the bus out Geary, I see the gap between buildings where the Peoples' Temple used to be. I see faces of people I knew and worked with in politics. I cannot remember their names. I had been very involved in the mayoral campaign of George Moscone which put the People's Temple in the public eye. I had defended the Peoples' Temple in conversations with friends just because Jones's followers had worked for George's election.

In a previous post about the Hoffman Quadrinity Process, I wrote of my experience with one man, a follower of Jones, who did the Fisher-Hoffman Process of Psychic Therapy. The Process, which has some hallmarks of a cult in its history, turned out to be his deliverance. I will quote that last paragraph again to restore some hope in my heart.

"I have not kept in touch with people that I worked with [in the Fisher-Hoffman Process of Psychic Therapy]. But one person, a very articulate and bright African-American, and his Process, were memorable. Early on in the prosecution of Father, the name Jim Jones kept coming up in our sessions—my client said that Jones was a remarkable psychic, a healer, a prophet, a seer. I had never heard of Jones and though the People’s Temple was only a few blocks from where I lived in San Francisco, I felt no desire to “check him out.” I just kept encouraging my client to examine any transference he might have to Jones. After a few more weeks and the “prosecution of father,” I noticed that Jones’s name was not coming up. I asked how he was feeling towards Jones. He replied that Jones was just another fraud preying on the black community. He left the Peoples’ Temple before the exodus to Guyana and escaped the horrific aftermath.

Just that result is enough for me."