‘Jonestown Canada’ – did MAiD turn Canada into a suicide cult?
I’ve often wondered if there is anything effective one could say to brainwashed members of a destructive cult to help them realize the peril of their situation in time to change their minds, exit the cult, and save their lives.
What might one have said to the U.S. citizens of Jonestown prior to the 1978 “white night” mass suicide of over nine hundred men, women, and children? These were members of the Peoples Temple cult who perished along with their delusional leader, Jim Jones. What words might have turned the victims away from willingly and knowingly drinking fruit punch laced with sedatives and cyanide?
Death in suicide cults does not happen suddenly or unexpectedly. Members are indoctrinated over long periods of time into accepting that suicide is the only real solution to whatever problem the cult is facing. The grim act of self-destruction is spoken of in glowing terms and cloaked in euphemisms. Suicide is portrayed as something good and dignified, as an act of hope, self-determination, or even revolution.
How does this kind of indoctrination happen? What psychological mechanisms are at play in a suicide cult that strip a person of one of the strongest driving forces of human nature—the will to live (self-preservation)?
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