@thedisasterautist Quite so.
There's even a possibility (unproven) that Jones himself may have intended to escape after everyone else was dead and been shot by one of his followers to prevent it. (The timing of the final deaths on the still-running Jonestown tape recording is weird.)
@RationalLeft: For my money, I do believe Jones by that time was legit bananas. Not few of his ilk go from being a grifter and charlatan all the way to believing their own bullshit and their own press. Alas, I've seen it happen IRL on more than one occasion, and it was never pretty. I know we joke about such happenings, but it's dead terrifying when you see it up close.
@thedisasterautist I think he was always insane.
"Raven" remains the ultimate book on him and his cult.
@RationalLeft: I read more than I really want to know about it several years ago because I typed and finalized the manuscript that went to press for a graduate thesis about Jones, the People's Temple, and Jonestown.
That said, I put the book you suggested on my list. Merci for the heads-up.
@RationalLeft: I'm not sure I'd say he was always insane, but I'm totes fine with he always had more than one screw loose. Then as his success and accumulated influence and power grew he went borderline and then, alas, crossed the border.
@thedisasterautist One striking thing in the book is his fascination with mass poisoning long before Guyana.
The author was one of the reporters who was there at the airport shooting.
@RationalLeft: Yeah, I knew about that, about the interest in food poisoning. I've read/heard that some in the field of "messiah" types that that's not unusual because they a) usually get paranoid about being assassinated and b) sometimes fantasize about mass killing as a "final show of power", if that makes sense.
@thedisasterautist The latter was definitely a factor. He once told his followers he'd poisoned them all, just to enjoy their panic.
@RationalLeft: Every "revolutionary" movement gets to that point once the gung-ho militants start feverishly dervishing themselves into tizzies trying to "out-hardcore" the others. That's how people go from community outreach all the way to death-squads and Jonestowns.