Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

Montell evokes the overused phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” to show the power of language and the erosion of its meaning over time. Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, was a proponent of racial integration and progressive sociopolitical movements. He adopted racially diverse children as part of his “rainbow family” and was known to his disciples as Father, God, Dad, and the Office (55). Jones specifically targeted liberal-minded people, particularly minorities who wanted to build a better world and couldn’t see that happening in the turmoil of the United States in the 1970s. Jones promised his followers “a Socialist paradise outside the evils of what he saw as an encroaching fascist apocalypse in the United States” (53) and even appropriated the Black Panther Party’s ideas, like “revolutionary suicide” (54), to appeal to and condition his followers.

After moving to Jonestown in Guyana and realizing the nightmarish nature of their situation, some of his followers reached out to their congressman, who came to conduct a wellness visit on the cult members. This visit resulted in his death, and shortly thereafter, Jones forced his followers to drink Flavor Aid laced with cyanide or be shot. Some people hid and escaped the event, called by Jones the “White Night,” an inversion of the

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