{"id":58156,"date":"2014-03-16T18:35:18","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T18:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=58156"},"modified":"2026-02-14T17:13:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:13:37","slug":"jonestown-residents-found-a-home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=58156","title":{"rendered":"Jonestown Residents Found A Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonestown is one of my strongest news-related memories. I was twelve, living in Central California, when I heard the first reports of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan\u2019s death. I followed the story to its end and into a few of the books that appeared on the subject. My interest was innocent and fairly ghoulish; the second part is still true today.<\/p>\n

I arrived at the Jonestown website on a whim. In the late 70s and early 80s, the NPR documentary, \u201cFather Cares,\u201d<\/a> which I had taped on its original air date, was a frequent late-night listening choice. Soothing is the only word for it. But I often wondered what came before and after the short passages excerpted in the program.<\/p>\n

Hearing the tapes in their entirety both adds and detracts from their power. One gets a better sense of Jim Jones\u2019 methods and how he used them to devastating effect. At the same time, one wearies of the more drawn-out sections and bristles at the accusatory rants.<\/p>\n

A dozen hours of Jonestown hasn\u2019t made me any more comprehending of the religious experience than I was 25 years ago: I still believe that faith is a mistake. Yet, I am more forgiving and have come to think that a person\u2019s life is theirs to live in any way they see fit, and that death is one of the choices available to us.<\/p>\n

It is clear from the tapes that Jim Jones\u2019 followers were better with him than they were without him. That\u2019s not to say that he always treated them in a kind manner, or that they weren\u2019t subjected to things they shouldn\u2019t have been. At the same time, they found in him the things they were missing from their lives: a sense of belonging, security, and love. These things, even if only in small quantities, can have more importance than a life lived long. Isn\u2019t this one of the lessons of Jonestown?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonestown is one of my strongest news-related memories. I was twelve, living in Central California, when I heard the first reports of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan\u2019s death. I followed the story to its end and into a few of the books that appeared on the subject. My interest was innocent and fairly ghoulish; the second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":58134,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-58156","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133797,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58156\/revisions\/133797"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}