Victoria's Secrets

     Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 1819 – 1901) was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. The Victorian Era, the longest reign of any British monarch and of any female monarch in history, brought in expansion of the British Empire, rapid industrialization, increased fertility rates and decreased mortality in old and young. But not all was well in this new period of history.

Queen Victoria

     The use of alcohol was rampant throughout British (and American) society, an ill that was recognized and addressed by 'temperance societies'. But narcotic use, in the form of opium, morphine or morphine mixed with alcohol (laudanum) was looked upon by many as benign and, for some, even as a necessity. Narcotic addiction was rarely discussed outside of medical circles. It was a problem, a secret that society tried to ignore.

     As a group, in Victorian times women were frequently provided with opiates to address a range of maladies, female complaints' ranging from nervousness to syphilis to menstrual cramps. It was not uncommon even for pregnant women to use opiates to calm the nerves resulting in the birth of opiate-addicted babies. Dr. Fordyce Barker, founding president of the American Gynecological Society (1876) was the first to import the hypodermic syringe into the USA (see post: A History of Heroin).

Part of the Temperance Movement

       

     Hypodermic medication (morphine) became instrumental in male regulation of female 'maladies' resulting in what became known as a female 'characteristic' of the time, 'hypodermic addiction'. Sir Thomas Clouston (1840-1915) was the Physician Superintendant of Royal Edinburgh Asylum and was a celebrated lecturer with an international reputation for his exposition of the psychiatric disorders of adolescence. He published extensively, with tomes such as 'Clinical Lectures on Mental Diseases' (1883), 'Unsoundness of Mind' (1911) and 'Morals and The Brain'.

The 'Men's Club'

   
     Clouston was a firm believer in 'masturbational insanity' and an uncompromising advocate of teetotalism. Clouston was an addiction specialist as well with a particular prejudice against women. He believed that the 'exhausting calls of menstruation, maternity, and lactation from the nervous reflux influences of ovulation, conception and parturition are ruinous if there is the slightest predisposition to derangement'. These anxieties concerning women's bodily functions was the principle reason Clouston advocated 'morphine to subdue and regulate'.

     The 'opiate eaters' in Victorian society were more often white and middle to upper class (see post: The Opium Eaters). Many were the wives of physicians or nurses with access to drugs. As early as 1782, it was common practice for women of Nantucket Island to take 'a dose of opium every morning'. English novelist, Wilkie Collins recognized that, in Victorian society, women were 'yoked under the established tyranny of the principle that all human happiness begins and ends at home', Many woman, chafing at the boredom and frustration, used morphine to drug themselves into functional passivity.

Wilkie Collins

     But opiate addiction was not limited to the wealthy. Opiates used as medicines and as recreational escapes crossed all socioeconomic classes. Women who worked in factories and farms used opiates to numb away boredom and pain. Drug use among prostitutes was noted to be particularly concerning. Prostitution became both a gateway into drug use and a means to an end for women who fed their habits by earning money any way that they could.

     By the end of the 19th century, women accounted for 50-70% of opiate addicts. Over prescription by physicians, the belief that women were more fragile than men and therefore incapable of coping with pain, and the availability of opiate containing patent medications contributed to the prevalence of opiate addiction in Victorian women. Overdose, death and addiction were overlooked due to the lack of regulation.

     A 'nervous condition' accounted for many of the common complaints, especially of women, throughout the Era and most patent medicines, no matter what their particular benefit, always claimed to cure any nervous trouble associated with the malady.

Posters for Temperance

     Many products contained no harmful substances while others were primarily narcotic-based. More often than not, the markings on the bottle did not note the contents or active ingredients. But whether the origin was physiological or psychological, Dr. Hammond's Nerve and Brain Pills were 'guaranteed' to cure what ailed you.  But first you had to know the symptoms of 'nervous troubles', which were generic enough to include almost anyone:  'This will cure you if you feel generally miserable, or suffer with a thousand and one bad feelings, both physical and mental, among them low spirits, nervousness, weariness, lifelessness, dizziness, feeling of fullness, like bloating after meals, or a sense of 'goneness' or emptiness of stomach in morning, flesh soft and lacking firmness; headache, blurring specks floating before the eyes...'.

     Whether morphine was the cause or the cure, even large firms like Sears Roebuck had just the thing to cure you one for alcoholism, another for narcotic addiction. Shown underneath the ad for the German Liquor Cure, is a potent bottle of Cure for the Opium and Morphia Habit.  At just 67 cents a bottle, it's calming effect would forever kill any cravings for other narcotics. This was 'the only one' you needed.

     But of particular concern was the administration of opiates, both prescription and over-the-counter, in children.

     The selling of narcotic concoctions and the treatment for opium addiction were becoming big business in the later 1800s. The Pulaski Citizen newspaper of Nashville, Tennessee (1875), ran advertisements by doctors listing concoctions to help calm unruly children. One of the leading causes of infant and child mortality during the 19th century was the practice of attempting to quiet children by giving them narcotics, such as opium and morphine, at times mixed with alcohol (laudanum). These 'remedies' were certainly effective in calming the agitated child.

      In the 19th century, the Pulaski Citizen carried lengthy advertisements for dozens of inexpensive opium based concoctions under a variety of names. These included: 'Godfrey's Cordial', 'Mother's Helper', 'Infant's Quietness', 'Atkinson's Preservative' and 'Soothing Syrup'.

     These tonics may have contained various ingredients but most popular of the time was 'Godfrey's Cordial' which contained high levels of laudanum. It was inexpensive, and it was completely unregulated. An aspect of this problem that went unrecognized for years was associated with the fact that opium is fat-soluble and does not dissolve easily in water and because of this will tend to settle at the bottom of the bottle. This last dose, quite often was exactly that. The 'dregs' at the bottom of the container had the potential to be fatal, especially to a small child. In addition, the 'recommended' dose was usually stated 'as needed', 'at the discretion of the parent' which allowed the parents to drug their children as often as they liked.

     For women, different versions of this same product were advertised: 'Ayer's Sarsaparilla Cures', 'Prof. Low's Liniment and Worm Syrup' and 'Wine of Carday', all aimed at the 'exhausting calls of being a woman'.

     Physicians in the Victorian era ( and even today) were known to treat their own headaches, insomnia, and anxieties with narcotics (see post: The High Doctor). Dr. Jekyll in the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' is an example of a physician who takes a 'potion' that changes his persona.

     In the 1870s, the majority of male addicts in the US were physicians, estimates being between 10 and 20 percent of the entire physician workforce being morphine addicts.

The London Stock Exchange

     In Britain, Dr. James Crombie (1848-1873) believing that the 'delicacy of the syringe' hindered the use of morphine, developed a cheap method of subcutaneous injection by coating a silk thread with morphine which he then drew under the skin, led by a needle. Crombie himself died of a narcotic overdose following surgery on his own wrist.

     The stock exchange in Victorian times and today is known as a workplace of high tension and angst. In 1871, it was reported that Wall Street brokers countered 'one sort of excitement', the gold fever, with another, a 'stimulating opiate'.

     A 25 year old New York lady who visited the exchange on a regular basis was found to be taking morphine several times a day using a syringe to take the drug rectally.

Union Soldiers in the American Civil War

     Narcotic addiction was also regarded as the 'army disease', recognition of the soldiers' exposure, appropriately (and, at times, inappropriately), to treatment with morphine. The emotional damage caused by battle (in the 20th century called 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder') was recognized in the 19th century.

     In the American Civil War, there were over four million troops involved with huge dead, dying and injured on both sides. Opium poppies were grown both in the north and in the south, with the opium doled out often indiscriminately.

     The number of addicted civil war survivors is impossible to estimate but by 1900 (nearly 40 years after the end of the war), when the last of the Civil War veterans were dying out, the per capita use of opium and morphine fell dramatically.

     Narcotic addiction of veterans was also seen among British forces following the Crimean War (1853-1856) as well as among Prussian militia in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.

   
     The Victorian Era was a period of great advances in industry, in war, in medicine and in society. But not everything went well and not everything is well remembered. Some things have been kept as 'secret'.

   
     * The history of narcotics use: subject of research for the novel Whip the Dogs - Amazon Kindle

Scrying

     Scrying has been described as a means used by psychics to see visions, predict the future, or to tell somebody's fortune. Probably the most common image of scrying, popularized in modern culture is the gypsy man or woman staring wide-eyed into the 'looking glass'.

13 Moon Scrying Bowl

     Scrying has been a practice throughout Europe for centuries and the medium used most often (at least in movies) is the glass (crystal) ball on the the gypsy's table. Almost any reflective surface has been used in the past to see visions, including mirrors, glass, shiny stones, fire, smoke, coals of a fire, fog or mist and ponds or bowls of water. The swinging pendant (much like the watch in hypnosis) has also been used as a reflective surface or focus for scrying.

     The Cup of Jamshid was a divination bowl in ancient Persia, used by wizards and practitioners of the esoteric sciences for observing all 'the seven layers of the universe'. The cup was filled with the elixir of immortality and was the subject of stories and poems for hundreds of years: 'For years, my heart was in search of the grail (the Cup of Jamshid), What was inside me, it searched for, on the trail' - Divan of Hafez.

Scrying with a Pendant

   
     Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints movement (Mormons) used the reflections from 'seer stones' for miraculous revelations. Smith even had names for these stones (which he viewed by placing them at the bottom of his hat), one of which he had found in a neighbor's well. According to Smith, he also possessed two special stones he named Urim and Thummim made into spectacles that allowed him to 'translate' the Book of Mormon from the golden plates. Smith had used 'seer stones' prior to establishing the Mormon Church, mostly to look for treasure. After Smith, seer stones continued to be used by Mormon leaders such as Hiram Page and David Whitmer.

The Cup of Jamshid

     But perhaps the most famous scryer of them all was Nostradamus. The son of a Catholisized Jew, born in 1503, he was an apothecary (druggist) which, in those days was enough to be thrown out of medical school. Apparently this did indeed happen when the dean of the faculty at the University of Montpellier medical school discovered his background. Gradually, Nostradamus moved away from pharmacy and medicine and grew closer to the 'occult', using several techniques but, most famously, scrying to make predictions about the future. Nostradamus wrote his trance-induced forecasts in quatrains, a four line verse. These prophesies have been studied and claimed by many to have predicted Hitler and WWII as well as the 'end of the world' (see post: The End of the World).

Joseph Smith Receiving
 the Golden Plates

     Jon Dee mathematician, scholar, magician and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I used a polished 'shew stone' (essentially a crystal ball), a rock composed of polished volcanic glass brought back to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors, to see visions of angels.

     What all these techniques have in common is trance, a type of self-hypnosis that many of us have experienced without the pond of water or the crystal ball. Hypnotic fixation on the roadway as we make our way home after a tiring day at work or gazing into the flickering flames of a camp fire can result in the feeling that time has flown by, the world has stood still. We may even see visual hallucinations in the red of the fire or on the black of the asphalt.

John Dee Performing an Experiment for Elizabeth I

     *Paranormal experience: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.

Synchronicity-Spooky at a Distance

     Synchronicity, a concept first proposed in the scientific literature by Carl Jung in the 1920s, is the 'experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance but which are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner.'

Carl Gustav Jung

     It is an idea that has been claimed by some to be superstition, by others as describing scientific connections and still by others as proof of an 'otherworldly' power in the events of our lives. Synchronicity is an idea that may be difficult to understand but, according to Jung, 'the idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined as the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships that are not causal in nature. These relationships can manifest themselves as simultaneous occurrences that are meaningfully related.

Karma

      Synchronicity, is it 'karma'? Not quite. 

     The idea of 'karma' in Hinduism is one that explains cause and effect through a system where beneficial effects are derived from past beneficial actions and harmful effects from past harmful actions, creating a system of actions and reactions throughout a soul's life (or lives) forming a cycle of rebirth. The causality is said to be applicable not only to the material world but also to our thoughts, words, actions and actions that others do under our instructions.

     To qualify as synchronistic, the two or more events involved must be temporally coincident (taking place at or about the same time) and must be mutually acausal (not related one to the other in any causative way).

Jung's Concept of Synchronicity

     Jung believed that events which we often see as coincidence, events due to a chance happening, have a causal relationship 'in the greater scheme of things'. Jung discussed this concept of synchronicity with renowned physicists such as Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, suggesting a relationship between synchronicity and the theory of relativity as well as quantum mechanics. Jung and Pauli thought that there was a unifying 'idea' in life, an underlying unified reality from which everything emerges and returns to, the 'unus mundus'.

     In the world of quantum physics, there are indeed strange things that take place:

Albert Einstein

     'Spooky (at a distance) physics' or 'interaction at a distance' is the effect or interaction of two objects which are separated in space with no known mediator of the interaction. This goes against the ingrained human idea that objects must touch (physically or through a magnetic or gravitational field) in order to interact.

     The theory of quantum mechanics predicts that two or more particles can become 'entangled' (quantum entanglement) so that even after they are separated in space, when an action is performed on one particle, the other particle responds immediately. Scientists still don't know how the particles send these instantaneous messages to each other (instantaneously, faster than the speed of light), but somehow, once they are entwined, the two (or more) particles retain a fundamental connection.

Quantum Entanglement (Spooky at a Distance)
-Separated Ions Affect One Another

     Synchronicity is distinct from apophenia which is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. An extreme form of apophenia is paraidolia which is the perception of a sound or 'image' as being significant. An excellent example of 'hopeful over-reading' of information was the perception of a photograph of the Martian surface taken by one of the Viking missions in 1976 showing a face staring into the cosmos.

A Face on Mars

     This was later shown to be an aberration of the light on the top of a high Martian plateau. Other more common examples of paraidolia are the perception of faces in cloud formations, coded messages on musical recordings and most popularly religious paraidolia, such as 'Jesus on toast' or 'Mary on a sandwich'. The most well-known case of religious paraidolia was the sighting of the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich found by Diana Duyser of Florida. Mrs. Duyser claimed to have kept the sandwich on her night stand for over 10 years, during which time she had excellent luck at the casinos. The fact that the sandwich had remained mold-free was considered, by some, to have been proof of the sandwich’s miraculous nature.

Virgin Mary (Jesus?) on a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

     These cases often prove, in the end, to be quite profitable. In 2004 the grilled cheese sandwich was listed for sale on Ebay, where the (partially eaten) sandwich was bought by Golden Palace Casino for $28,000.

     Is there really some 'unifying' force or influence in our world that we are unable to see? Are we so deeply immersed in our own space that we cannot 'see the forest for the trees'?

     Is the idea of synchronicity similar to fractals, the repeating patterns that are ubiquitous in nature. Fractal patterns are obvious when examined from afar but easily overlooked when viewed from up close.

The Repeating Pattern of Fractals

   
     Some researchers argue that synchronicity is much more common than we appreciate, that it occurs every day and everywhere and that these synchronistic events tend to become obvious to us only in the case of the most startling coincidences. Are the events in life 'cause and then effect' or is there something more? Is there an 'overseeing' rule of (quantum?) law which says that everything is related? Can there be effect and then cause?..Or is that even stranger, even more unimaginable than 'spooky at a distance'?

Alice Through the Looking glass

     Stranger things have been written and reality is often stranger than fiction (see post: Stranger Than Fiction).

 
     'That's the effect of living backwards. It always makes one a little giddy at first...It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards!' said the White Queen to Alice. ('Alice Through the Looking Glass' - Lewis Carroll)

     *Synchronicity: subject of research for the novel The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle

The Psychomanteum and Near-Death Experience

     A psychomanteum, is in a sense an adjunct to scrying (see post: Scrying). The psychomanteum is the mirrored room used by practitioners to contact the spirit world. The practice of using a psychomanteum is often called 'mirror-gazing' and has been used in one form or another for thousands of years.

Dodona, North-West Greece

     A natural pool of water or water collected in a bowl, even the reflection of a pool of blood have been the mediums used for this practice. The psychomanteum has also been called the 'apparition booth', found at oracle sites in ancient Greece. One of the earliest sites of a psychomanteum has been discovered at Dodona in north-western Greece, a site famous for its oracles and one that probably pre-dated Zeus as the patriarchal god of the Greeks with the worship of the 'mother goddess'.

     Near-darkness, a flickering light and mirrors aim to place the practitioner into a trance-like state. The lack of depth when gazing into a reflective surface, such as a mirror, decreases mental alertness, promotes relaxation and allows visions or hallucinations to be more easily induced.  'Catapromancy' was the term used to describe the use of mirrors for divination in ancient Rome and ancient Greece.

Mirror-Gazing

     One such catapromancy center was described by an ancient traveller: 'Before the Temple of Ceres (Roman goddess of agriculture, grains, fertility and motherly relationships) at Patras, there was a fountain, separated from the temple by a wall, and there was an oracle, very truthful, not for all events, but for the sick only. The sick person let down a mirror, suspended by a thread till its base touched the surface of the water, having first prayed to the goddess and offered incense. Then looking in the mirror, he saw the presage of death or recovery, according as the face appeared fresh and healthy, or of a ghastly aspect.'

     There were even specialists in the priesthood of Rome who gazed into mirrors, known as the 'speculari'.

     But the use of a psychomanteum is not a phenomenon that died with ancient civilizations. The Ganzfeld Experiment (see post: Scrying) is a more modern technique that, in effect, creates an environment of sensory deprivation and has been used to investigate parapsychological phenomena. Several researchers, including those who examine near-death experiences (Dr. Raymond Moody) have used the psychomanteum as a tool to examine the 'para-normal' as well as altered states of consciousness (see post: Altered States of Consciousness).

Ganzfeld Experiment

     The 'Institute of Transpersonal Psychology' (ITP) in Palo Alto, California has been given large grants for research into the use of psychomanteum, especially as a tool for coping with the grief of a deceased loved one. According to researcher, Dr. Arthur Hastings: 'More than half the participants feel they have had some kind of contact with their departed, most often through a mental conversation or feeling their presence. Sometimes it is visually or through touch.  Sometimes the departed is not present, yet nine out of ten participants feel a sense of resolution.'

ITP

     Is the use of a psychomanteum just another technique similar to others used in various societies to contact the dead? Does the altered state produced when using a psychomanteum give the practitioner the same experience as the Bwiti of Central Africa when they consume ibogaine and become the 'seers of the dead' (see post: A Drug to See the Dead)?

   
     For an interesting interview with Dr. Raymond Moody and 'near-death' experiences, click on the link below.

     The 'Experience' of Dying

   

     *Paranormal experience: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.

Runes

     Runes or the runic alphabet is a writing system that originated in Germanic Europe, the earliest runes dating to about the year 100 AD. There were a number of variations of the script also called Futhark (Futhorc)-Elder, Younger and Anglo-Saxon being the three best known; the naming of the script, was a derivation of the first 6 letters of the script itself (Fehu, Uruz, Thuriasaz, Ansuz, Raidho, Kenaz) much as the our own (Latin or Roman) 'alphabet' is named after the first 2 corresponding letters of the Greek (alpha and beta).

     The use of this writing system became less common as Christianity infiltrated Europe, introducing the alphabet of the Christian Roman Empire. Runic 'symbolism' however continued and became a common 'device of divination'.
Runes were said to have been created by the Norse god, Odin and the use of these 'letters' was associated with the ability to bring the dead back to life (so many cultures seem to want  to do that!).

   

Odin

     Odin declared:
'I know a twelfth one if I see, up in a tree, a dangling corpse in a noose, I can so carve and color the runes that the man walks and talks with me.'

    For divination, 'Casting of the Runes' was generally a straight forward affair, gently throwing the letters (usually inscribed on stone) onto a flat surface and then examining their relative positions one to the other. Runic reading is usually meant to address a particular issue, examining the past, the present and 'what will be' if the person who casts the runes continues on that same path.

Nazi Schuhutzstaffel (SS) Symbol

     In World War II, the Nazis (many of whose members were obsessed with the 'occult') adopted a variation of the 'sig' or sun sign as the insignia of the infamous SS much as they had adopted the swastika (another sun symbol) from Indian culture (see post: Symbols of the Sun).

Dagaz

Sig

     Each Rune can also have a meaning on its own such as 'Dagaz' for
 enlightenment and 'Tiwaz' meaning struggle.

   

Tiwaz

     *Religious symbols: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.

Sacred Geometry

     The term 'geometry' means 'measure of the earth', a Greek word inherited from ancient Egypt. The yearly flooding of the Nile caused chaos in the fields and each year, after the waters had receded, 'geometry', the redefining and re-establishment of boundaries, was carried out. It was the re-establishment of the principle of order and law on the planet.

Thoth

     This 'measurement of the earth' evolved into the basis for a science of natural law, embodying the archetypal forms of square, circle and triangle. This led to the belief that 'God created the universe according to a geometric pattern': Plato: 'God geometrizes continually'; Gauss: 'God arithmetizes.' And, in a way, this is true.

     Nature is geometric, often symmetric from the 'simplest' snowflake to the most beautiful flower. In ancient Egypt, it was the god Thoth (Djehuti) to whom were attributed many aspects including science, religion, philosophy, magic and the mediating power between good and evil; responsible for the calculations that made the heavens, stars and earth.

The Geometry of
a Snowflake

   
     Note that, in English, the spelling of the name 'Thoth' is itself near-symmetric. The Greeks adopted this deity and added to his attributes, the science of mathematics and geometry among others.

     Thoth, the 'ibis (sometimes baboon)-headed' deity (see post: What Did They See?) became especially known for magic, writing, judgement of the dead and the development of science. The 'golden ratio' is a ratio studied since ancient Greece and first remarked upon because of its frequency in nature.

     A 'golden ratio' is present, in arts and mathematics, when the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one; a ratio of approximately 3:2. Within this, there is a certain appealing beauty that is caught by the eye.

Kolam-South India

     The mathematics of the 'golden ratio' are intimately related to the Fibonacci (named after Leonardo of Pisa-a.k.a. Fibonacci) sequence, a number theorem.

Christ with Compass

     The Fibonacci sequence appears to be a 'rhythm' that is inherent in nature. It is seen in ancient Indian mathematics as well as in Sanskrit poetry. In many cultures, geometric patterns are still considered sacred, powdered onto the doorstep each morning (kolam).

   
     By definition, in the Fibonacci sequence, each number is the sum of the previous two. It is a sequence that appears throughout nature, such as in the the arrangement of leaves on a stem, the branching of a tree; and is applicable to computer algorithms, graphs, data structure.

The Golden Ratio

     'Sacred Geometry', the 'Golden ratio', the 'Fibonacci Sequence'...It's beautiful, it's natural, it's everywhere. It's all one more way to have 'Fun with Numbers' (see posts: Fun With Numbers and Geomatria-Fun With Numbers Again).

The Geometry of a Low Pressure
Weather System

     To create symmetry, to create a perfect geometry that reflects the natural world, mankind created tools that allowed him to build pyramids, castles, spaceships.

     These tools were the magical implements of the builder, the architect, the engineer: the compass, the planer and the set-square.

   
     *Sacred geometry: subject of research for the novel The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle

The Reverend Jim Jones

     James Warren Jones is remembered for one thing and one thing only - the deaths by suicide of 913 men, woman and children through the ingestion of cyanide-laced soft drink, in the compound of Jonestown, Guyana November 18, 1978. The story of Jim Jones is the story of the demagogue who tried to attain power and influence riding 'on the coat-tails of God'.

Jonestown

     It would probably be misleading to say that all of these 'false messiahs' had strange upbringings and troubled childhoods but this theme certainly can be applied to the founder and leader of the 'People's Temple'.
     As a child, Jones was obsessed with religion and death (usually a bad sign, as far as I can tell). He was bright and well-read, studying the works of Stalin, Marx, Mao Zedong, Ghandi and Hitler (this reading list was probably another bad sign). At the age of 27, Jones became a member of the Communist party and spoke out against American and UN intervention following the invasion of the south by forces of  the northern regime on the Korean Peninsula.

Jones and his 'The Peoples' Temple Christian Church Full Gospel'

     He drew 'inspiration' from a faith-healing service in a Baptist Church and realized that there was money to be made and power to be gained leading gullible flocks astray. Within a few years, Jones was the leader of his own church with the somewhat cumbersome name of  'The Peoples' Temple Christian Church Full Gospel', more affectionately known simply as the 'People's Temple'. Multiple sites were opened and membership blossomed but, like so many other 'religious' leaders, Jim Jones was obsessed with the end of the world (see post: Doomsday in Modern Culture).
     He predicted a nuclear holocaust for July 15, 1967 and moved his main base to Northern California. As time passed, the media and politicians began to question Jones' methods and membership in the 'People's Temple' started to weaken. It was time for Jones and those who still followed him to seek sanctuary from the interference of the American government and the probing eyes of the media. Jones started his project in Guyana in the early 1970s and, moved there with his followers in 1977 amid the pressure of alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse by disaffected former members.

   

Jerry Brown

     By that time, drug abuse by the leader had also been alleged and Jones' religious devotion was also in question (a factor which, if proven to be correct, would have disallowed any tax-free status his institution had been enjoying in America).
     Members stated that Jones 'used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion' (shades of Karl Marx? - see post: The Demagogues Who Usurp Religious Belief) and that once, in a fit of rage, Jones slammed the Bible onto a tabletop and declared, "I have to destroy this paper idol." Jim Jones had turned into a devout communist and atheist rather than a religious zealot. During his 'learning years' in California, Jim Jones made political connections with politicians such as Jerry Brown (governor of California), Harvey Milk (gay activist and popular San Francisco City politician), Walter Mondale (vice-presidential candidate) and the wife of president Jimmy Carter. Despite being far away in South America, Jones' cult still affected the American psyche with most of his followers in Guyana having close relatives back home on the US mainland.

   

Congressman Leo Ryan

     With pressure mounting on the federal government, Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown with the goal of investigating alleged abuses. The congressman was killed (along with four other)s as he was boarding a plane to leave by members of  Jones' armed guards called the 'Red Brigade' (reading too much communist literature?).

     Later that day, anticipating that the 'gig was over', Jim Jones led his nearly 1000 followers to their deaths. Jones had once mentioned that, with death, souls are taken away by  UFO to a higher realm (see post: Stranger than Fiction).

     Was this man's story a tale of drug abuse (barbiturates and LSD were found in Jones' body at autopsy) and mental illness compounded by the isolation in South America, harassment by government and media officials and his fear of the 'End of the World'?

     Or was this man simply  the 'darkness trying to shut out the light' (see post: The Good and the Evil ). Watch the PBS documentary below:

     Jim Jones Jonestown Nightmare in Paradise. - YouTube

      *Religious personality cults: subject of research for the novel  The Tao of the Thirteenth God - Amazon Kindle.