Last year I saw a documentary about the cult leader Jim Jones called “Jonestown: The Life And Death of People’s Temple”. It is the history of the murder/”suicide” of 913 members of the People’s Temple in Guyana through photos, clips, recordings and interviews of surviving members.
The Reverend Jim Jones was a master at getting people to join his “ministry” because he reached out to people who were disenfranchised and he preached equality. This appealed to a larger community and he expressed caring and was able to eventually use his power to persuade the followers to drink cyanide-laced cherry Flavor Aid.
This is a very disturbing example of evil persuasion through isolation, charismatic authority and all of this in relationship to brainwashing and manipulation.
There are two kinds of isolation–physical and mental. Jim Jones used both.
Physical isolation isn’t always possible for some cults, MLM companies or religions. It’s possible they may employ both kinds of isolation, but normally the mental isolation is enough to keep their members involved. They begin to “divide and...