Peoples Temple

Movement·Founded 1954 CE·Dissolved

Judaism → Christianity → Catholicism → Protestantism → Peoples Temple

ArchiveJonestown and Peoples Temple: A Digital Archive, San Diego State UniversityArchiveWorld Religions and Spirituality Project, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityThe recordThe FBI RYMUR 89-4286 investigation files

Branch
Overview Belief 3How to Live 1Practice 1Stories & Scripture 1Community 1 You × Peoples Temple Discussion
Story of Peoples Temple

The promised land in Guyana.

The Temple told itself that the United States was heading for fascism and camps, and that it had found a place beyond that. The films shown at recruitment meetings in San Francisco were of orchards, a school and a medical clinic, all of which existed.

Add to My Beliefs →
Where it is toldSermons, the Peoples Forum newspaper, and recruitment films shown in San Francisco
Who appearsJones, the first settlers who cleared the bush in 1974, the elderly members who were flown out
What it teachesThat a society without racism could be built somewhere else, since it could not be built here
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

The promised-land story was not invented to trap anyone; it was believed, and it was also true in parts. Members cleared jungle, built a school, a clinic and a sawmill, and grew food in soil that was worse than they had been told. For Black members from Fillmore and Watts, moving to a place with no police and no landlords was the whole point, and the recruitment films showed real orchards and real children. The story failed on contact with the economics — Jonestown could not feed itself and depended on imports paid for from San Francisco — and by 1978 it had been rewritten as a siege narrative in which enemies were coming and there was nowhere further to go.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
The self is reborn until liberation. Hinduism · core tenet Go deeper →
Suffering has a cause, and therefore an end. Buddhism · core tenet Go deeper →
The soul is liberated by its own effort. Jainism · core tenet Go deeper →
A covenant binds a people to God across generations. Judaism · core tenet Go deeper →
The church — one body, many members. Christianity · community Go deeper →
The Hijra. Islam Read it in full →

The conversation

argument stays attached to the claim it is about All discussion →

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Where next

Peoples Temple's Stories & Scripture roomback up one layer Propose a change to this passageone button — it routes to the review pool

Numbers count Panfaith activity only — never real-world adherence.

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