The Mind Is Not to be Trusted

"Cristina has the unfortunate task of explaining the People's Temple and the events at Jonestown while Chelsea decides to be a bit lighter and talk about the Mandela Effect."

Presented by: Cristina
Category: Cult

Jim Jones was the leader of the People's Temple and the most famous cult leader of the 20th century.

Beginning his career as a civil right's advocate, he became disillusioned with the Christian faith as he watched the suffering of people around him. He began using the church as a way to spread his own beliefs. Studying Father Divine as a model for gathering followers, he created the people's temple.

While the People's Temple did good, by founding soup kitchens and putting pressure on businesses to integrate, Jim Jones became more and more convinced of his own divinity that lead to him manipulating women to sleep with him.

Persistent belief in imminent nuclear war, fear of CIA interference and a custody battle, led to the formation of Jones Town in Guyana in 1976, with Jones himself arriving a year later. There the abuse of his followers continued and increased. Jones, heavily drugged to keep himself awake, believed that people should always be working and gave them as little sleep as possible. He also began White Nights, training sessions where he'd wake his followers up to tell them the military was on their way to kill them. On these nights, he would give them fake poison only to reveal it was all a loyalty test.

In November, 1978, concerns about Jones Town led to Representative Leo Ryan visiting the compound with an entourage. There he received a request to help escape. He and his team took 15 people, including Larry Layton, back to the airport to fly home. Security guards, with the aid of Layton whom Ryan had been warned was not to be trusted, attack the group and killed 5 of them, including Ryan.

Back at Jones Town, the members were gathered and given poison. Thinking it was just another test, they took it. When it became obvious that the poison was real this time, many chose to take it after seeing their loved ones dead. Those who didn't were shot.

909 people died in Jones Town that day. More than a third of them were Children. Jim Jones himself died from a gunshot would to the hit. His death was ruled a suicide, though some believe he was murdered. The Jones Town massacre was the single worst day in U.S. history in terms of a deliberate death until September 11, 2001.

Jim Jones and the People's Temple is now considered the text book for identifying cults.

Presented by: Chelsea
Category: Scientific Theory

The Mandala Effect is the name used to describe shared chrono-anachronistic memories created when a time traveler, usually Sam Beckett, has changed the timeline enough to subtly alter the timeline. The name, coined by Fiona Broome, comes from Nelson Mandala, a South African activist who died during a hunger strike in the 80s in the original timeline, but lived and became president of South Africa in the current timeline.

Other examples are not as dramatic, such the popular children's book series the Berenstain Bears, originally the Berenstein Bears or the movie Shazam starring Sinbad, not Kazam starring Shaquille O'Neil.

While the time travel cause of the Mandala Effect is verified and well-documented, there are of course deniers. Some claim that the changes have not occured, we are merely creating false memories due to suggestibility. They believe that false reports, as well mixing up memories formed at the same time is the reason behind Alexander Hamilton no longer being president, rather than a conspiracy between pro-Burr and pro-Adams operatives.

Takeaway: Be opening to being wrong.

Trivia

 * First mention of Mal.