Well I knew about it, I'm young(ish) and British.
Younger JW's Have Never Heard of Jonestown
by WalkTall 20 Replies latest jw friends
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babygirl30
I actually JUST watched a special on Jonestown the other day (I'm 32...and YES - I heard abotu the "Koolaid" but never understood the details of the story) and it's where thye interviewed the remaining survivor about his experience living in Jonestown and how the whole mass suicide took place. Needless to say, I CRIED hearing this man tell of how children and babies were injected with this cyanide koolade, and how husbands made SURE their entire families 'died' before they did...and how Jim Jones made his 'chosen men' LINE UP the bodies to appear as if they were all hugging each other as they died - when in actuality - this man described how cyanide poison made people foam at the mouth and they were screaming and crying!!! Even how when people tried to escape the cult, Jim Jones had them killed - so NOBODY could leave. When it was over, I talked ot my bf about JWs and how 'cultish' they seem to me. How that whole koolaid death is like feeding off JW literature and how you're forced to accept it - no questions. Scarey how such a massacre can easily happen...
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Aussie Oz
worse, they also no nothing about themselves either...
My kids have never heard of rutherford, think Russell was some dude who preached a lot and that 1975 was just a good year for cars...
oz
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Black Man
yeah, and they have not heard of 1975 either..........
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broops100
Sad thing is that religion still exists. They are known as the Children of God. Click this link or insert into your browser to their website: http://www.thefamily.org/en/ - (Im new here so Im not sure if this will be clickable when I post this reply :)
It was when I read a book by a former Children of God escapee & how she escaped the cult. (She spoke about David Blane (I think that was his name)... I was a JW at the time of its read, & what really bothered me was that SO many of their teachings were the same as JW's, in the way they kept recieving new light etc, and devils crafty acts etc. The book really bothered me, not because of her terribly recovery but the uncanny similarities with their religion, but the penny still didnt drop until other things pricked my unconscious mind too.... Things like:
- Why if I didnt go to the meetings should I feel sooo bad, worthless & full of guilt.
- Why did we as a family always feel marked? We were treated like 2nd hand citizens who were never worthy of an invite to any get togethers which were frequently happening!
- Another thing was when the mother in law died. Hundreds of JW's come to her funeral. It was quite sick actually. Many of them she didnt like, despised & the feeling was mutal due to many congregational run ins she had had... They came to be nosey & just see some of the expected disfellowshipped family !
Well one day I thumbed the internet & came across something that made the penny drop & then I recalled the Jonestown story to my mind.
It was the WTBS' love of figures that finally did it. In their earliest publications they printed that lets say 10,000 had died during the War then as the decades past their own figures within the Year Books & WT's became inflated to such a degree that 10's of thousands had died. The trouble here was that not even that many JW's (bible students) existed in the beginning to have died, so their figures were inflated & it proved to me they were extreme liars capable of deluding us of anything....
Thats when I re-searched more, became shocked, more shocked & freed my mind totally by reading the book : Crisis of Conscience - Thank 'whoever' for waking me up & saving my whole family from even more years of mental abuse....
We had a great Christmas, have celebrated 40th & 16th Birthdays.... Were not disfellowshipped, just faded & living under the radar so as to not upset the rest of the JW family Clan !
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broops100
Just visited their website myself.... Erk they are very much like JW's and just as SICK<<<< - The similarities are painful....
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poppers
What was wrong with these people?
Someone who was in a position of "authority" told a group of well intentioned people a bunch of BS that was drummed into their heads repeatedly over the years until they actually believed it. They literally drank the kool-aid when they were told to. Sound familiar?
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broops100
Never ones to want bad publicity they changed their name again from The Children of God to 'The Family International'.... I also stand corrected the man wasnt David Blane but Jim Jones - Im sure there was a David Bloke involved in this somehow too ??!! lol
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LongHairGal
WALK TALL,
That is why things have to be repeated from time to time. There are babies born every day who have never heard of the tragedy of Jonestown or anything else for that matter. I may just have been coming into the JW religion when this tragedy occurred. Of course, there was not a mention of it in the hall. Of course, back then I would not have known I was in a high-control group. There is an expression that you "can't see the forest for the trees" and this probably applies to many JWs.
I have watched several documentaries on this topic in recent months and saw interviews with Jonestown survivors. A few similarities between it and the JW religion disturbed me.
Of course, when these people left the continental U.S. (VERY UNWISE) and went to go live isolated in that jungle compound guarded by guys with machine guns and headed by a control freak - they sealed their doom because there was no way they could escape without being shot. In fact, they were lucky they could even go to the toilet without being monitored. What a scary feeling when the first rude awakening came to somebody and they realized there was no getting away!
Even though this happened in relatively recent times and got much press coverage, there is always the danger that history will repeat itself somewhere. This is the tragedy.