Peoples Temple: One Of The Most Famous Cults Of The 1970s
Wikimedia CommonsOn November 18, 1978, Jim Jones led hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide.
Laura Johnston Kohl is one of the few members of the Peoples Temple cult who survived the infamous Jonestown massacre in 1978. Before the 9/11 attacks, the mass murder-suicide in Guyana was the largest loss of U.S. civilian lives in a non-natural disaster — with a final death toll of 918 people.
Cult leader Jim Jones initially founded Peoples Temple as a racially integrated church in Indianapolis in 1956. A decade later, he had relocated the church to California. The charismatic Christian preacher had entranced thousands of young people like Kohl, who were interested in racial equality and ending the Vietnam War.
“My life was in turmoil, I had a failed marriage and I was looking for a place to be political in a safer environment after a series of bad decisions,” she said. “It was the community I was looking for – I was looking for equality and justice, and there were people of all backgrounds and races.”
While the group was religious, it was also founded on socialist ideals, including providing healthcare to its members.
In 1977, after Jones convinced his group to move to Guyana — a former British colony in South America — he established Jonestown, a name that would become synonymous with one of the most famous cults in the world. In the middle of the rainforest, with the U.S. government off his back, he was free to govern his “socialist paradise” of 900-plus members as he pleased. But it wasn’t the paradise his followers thought it would be.
The settlement was not only remote but also riddled with agricultural deficiencies. Because Jonestown wasn’t self-sufficient, it required the constant import of goods and expensive local purchases.
“I had no concerns about moving there. I was adventurous and I was delighted about the opportunity to live in the rainforest,” Kohl said. “My work there was meaningful and fulfilling. The people of Peoples Temple were who I wanted to live my whole life with.”
But in 1978, Kohl was asked by Jones to move to the capital of Georgetown — a 24-hour boat ride away — to work at the church headquarters. Kohl later realized Jones relocated her to stack the deck with glowing praise about the group before U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan visited the settlement. After all, Ryan’s visit was in response to ominous rumors about Jones.
“People were accusing Jim Jones of abducting their children, and his secretaries had run away with scandalous information about what was going on,” said Kohl.
And everyday life inside Jonestown was bizarre, to say the least. Loudspeakers would broadcast Jones’ sermons — which were little more than paranoia-filled rants about the U.S. government.
The Jonestown InstituteLaura Kohl sought community and progressive, political action when she moved to Jonestown. What she found instead nearly cost her everything.
“His drug addiction and his personality disorders were getting worse,” Kohl recalled. “He was less and less able to function.”
It was Ryan’s visit that tipped the scales from curiosity to tragedy. At least a dozen Peoples Temple members begged to fly back to the U.S. with him. Desperation had clearly set in among members — and that was a problem for Jones. So as the delegation awaited their return flight on November 18, 1978, Jones’ militia ambushed them, killing Ryan and four others.
Meanwhile, Jim Jones urged his followers to take their own lives by swallowing cyanide-laced fruit punch — claiming the Guyanese military was encroaching to invade their community. While it was initially believed that all the followers willingly committed suicide, it was later revealed that many of them were likely murdered. The final death toll of the Jonestown Massacre — including Jones and the people who died at the airstrip — reached 918 people.
Kohl’s life was spared as she was in Georgetown at the time. But the horrible tragedy has stuck with her to this day as she finds it hard to forget her fellow members.
“They feared repercussions of the death of the congressman,” said Kohl. “He lied to them every day — he fed them paranoia. They had no recourse… Their bodies were left out in the open, in the middle of the rainforest, in a foreign country. Every possible thing that could be botched, was botched. There is no real way to know exactly who died how. It was just horrific.”
The Family Cult: Developing A Master Race
Public DomainOne of the few female cult leaders, Anne Hamilton-Byrne adopted at least 28 children to be part of a “master race.”
The tragic truth is that famous cults commonly prey on children. One of the most egregious offenders was The Family in Victoria, Australia, which illegally adopted at least 28 children, bleached their hair to make them all look alike, and drugged them with exorbitant amounts of LSD.
Founded in the 1960s by yoga teacher Anne Hamilton-Byrne, The Family aimed to create a “master race” through their secret sect. One of the world’s few female cult leaders, Hamilton-Byrne was convinced that she was a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
The Family’s harrowing adoption practices began in the 1960s. Hamilton-Byrne allegedly brainwashed unwed mothers into handing over their kids, claimed other cult members’ kids were her own, and even stole kids out of hospitals. A doomsday cult by design, The Family taught these children that the end of the world was near — and that they would take over the world after it ended.
Adam Lancaster was one of those kids adopted by Hamilton-Byrne. Now nearly 50 years old, he still remembers the 22 years he spent with The Family — and his late abuser whom he knew as “auntie.”
“While she was on the planet, we were never going to get any closure,” he said. “There is a bit of grief. It still hasn’t hit me. It’s brought a lot of emotions up.”
Lancaster’s potential Stockholm syndrome is starkly emblematic of how many famous cults indoctrinate their followers. For him, there was never an alternative — as he’d been raised to believe The Family’s practices were not only normal but for his own good.
Lancaster grew up believing that another member, Elizabeth Whitaker, was his biological mother. It was only in 1987, when two escaped children alerted police of the cult’s activities, that he realized his adoption had been nothing but a sham.
Authorities uncovered Hamilton-Byrne’s illegal adoption and drugging of children spanning from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. They also discovered that the kids had endured vicious beatings, starvation, and emotional torture at her hands.
“I’d describe her as a crystal bullet,” said Lancaster. “She was open and loving but if you crossed her or did something wrong she was deadly.”
So powerful was the indoctrination that Lancaster rejected an offer to be the ward of the state at age 17 — choosing instead to remain under Hamilton-Byrne’s care. When he finally left The Family in his early 20s, Lancaster was suffering from countless substance abuse issues.
Adam LancasterAdam Lancaster (center) with Anne Hamilton-Byrne (right).
“I ended up getting on the drugs as basically a timeout from the thoughts in my head,” he said. “I think I had a strong constitution from all the drugs [I took] as a toddler, they were pumping drugs into us.”
Hamilton-Byrne had thoroughly convinced her 500-plus followers that she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ while perpetuating lies about a looming apocalypse. She said it was her duty to harvest a healthy batch of children — but authorities uncovering her cult in 1987 thought otherwise.
Ultimately, six children were taken into protective custody, but not a single adult was arrested. In fact, the police actually allowed the adults to leave the space as they investigated the compound. As for Hamilton-Byrne, she was out of town at the time of the raid.
For all her crimes, Hamilton-Byrne never spent any time in prison and the only received a $5,000 fine for falsifying papers for three children. Hamilton-Byrne died in her late 90s after battling dementia. While she ruined Lancaster’s life, he still visited her in the care home before she died.
“Karma had already started with her,” he said. “She would never have wanted to be in the state she was in, in that nursing home. She’s been reaping karma for the last 12 years… It’s very unfair, she got away with it in her own mind. I don’t think she’ll be going to the Almighty.”
