RESEARCH

My aim with this play is to create a verbatim dramatised assembly of excerpts from of hours of transcripts documents and recordings associated with the organisation known as ‘The Peoples Temple’ (formally known as ‘Community Unity’ and ‘Wings of Deliverance’), running from 1954 until Nov 18th, 1978, when 918 people lost their lives under the direction of their leader, Rev. Jim Jones. The idea when writing this was to create a historical theatrical performance within the context of a leader taking control of people’s lives then taking it from them through coercion and manipulative systemic control and psychological tactics.

I have conducted much research regarding the organisation, including many hours of transcriptions and recordings, Jeff Guinn’s book, The Road to Jonestown, and countless documentaries. I have also had first hand consultation with the joint head researcher of the Jonestown Institute and one of the original people to launch the Freedom of Information request to the FBI following the events of Nov 18th, Fielding McGehee III. I have been able to ask complex questions about the Temple and its operations, where he has provided many resources in the form of links to information archived on him and his wife, Rebecca Moore’s, website, Peoples Temple & Jonestown: A Digital Archive.

Affiliation with Trump, as I have expressed, is the main motivation of the play, as well as the general awareness of dictatorial figures within society. Many resources from survivors of Jonestown and Peoples Temple affiliates also point to the similarities that permeate the history of the movement. For instance, Jonestown survivor, Yulanda Williams, who, in a 2021 interview with journalist Clay Crane, states that this is apparent in the similarities between them (0:26:15 in video):

Other sources, such as Tim Stoen’s article, detailing various philosophical arguments that tie the two dictators together is also insightful, although I do not agree with all of them entirely.

McGehee, in the first of our two interviews, referenced a particular concept known as “audience corruption”, with the association in terms of the following of Jones and Trump, with the energy and ideas they emit being amplified through their cheers and responses, like the feedback loop of a mic and an amplifier.

I believe that these points make the subject highly relevant for awareness in the public sphere, particularly now, in the preamble to forthcoming elections.

Countless other innocent people have also been violently attacked and even killed due to the recent increase in federal border enforcement officers being deployed to cities such as Chicago and Minneapolis, often targeting people regardless of their citizenship status, based on the colour of their skin as opposed to any judicial warrant.

With this production, I intend to make it apparent that figures, such as Jones and Trump do not appear overnight, but grow when systemic failures prompt people to fall through the cracks and allow others to gain from the complicity of those more vulnerable than them.

“He was a very complex personality and a paranoid man, so he would make it a point to always appear as though he was speaking personally to you. He had that type of ability and he was able to read his audience so well that you dared not go into severe questioning of anything that he did because, of course, there would always be consequences if you questioned too much [...] Trump is Jim Jones”.

- Yulanda Williams

A lot of the reasons why Peoples Temple thrived was because the people who joined had so little. It was a movement which encouraged contributing what little time and money people had to Jones and the organisation at large under the philosophy of living in want of naught and giving communally rather than taking, contrary to capitalist norms. Many of them were from impoverished African American communities at a time when racism and poverty were rampant.

Jim Jones offered people, collectively and individually, something to feel hopeful for and pushed them to sacrifice everything in order to preserve it. He performed theatrical healings of his congregation, endebting them for life and prompting them to negate diagnoses and sometimes die as a result.

Once people found out that they were being played and began to leave, Jones would become extremely paranoid, fueled further by drugs he consumed constantly to maintain appearances, sleep and satiate his inexhaustible pursuit for personal gratification.

He abused his position to maintain alleged sexual relationships with many Temple members, some of them reported to be underage, male and female and at times against their will. His inner circle maintained unwavering loyalty, with several exceptions, which would contribute to his eventual downfall, taking the remaining Temple members still under his immediate control with him.

(see Rev. Archie Smith Jr., p 48)

Today, in 2026, many of these same socio-political issues are prevalent in the US, as can be seen in such instances as the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor to name a few.

Others who came to the Peoples Temple also suffered from a mix of addiction, homelessness, unemployment and/or a general lack of purpose or direction. State and local governments had failed these people and backslided on much of the policy reform implemented in the wake of the civil rights movement, with housing authorities denying homes to African-American families and penning them into poorer, less developed areas where crime was rife and police neglected to intercede.