On 18 November1978 Nine hundred and fourteen people died in Jonestown, Guyana from ingesting a lethal combination of purple Flav-or-aid laced with Potassium Cyanide and tranquillisers including; Valium, Renegram and Chloral Hydrate. All were members of the religious community The People Temple.
 
The deaths at Jonestown have generated an enormous amount of misinformation. A cursory examination of the events surrounding The Peoples Temple yields the conclusion that the Rev Jim Jones, was a deluded and tyrannical leader who coerced his community into such extreme action with the use of mind control techniques and brainwashing.
 
This view relegates the event as an aberration and incomprehensible, inevitably creating the comfort of distance between 'us' and 'them'.
 
Unfortunately this view does not provide any answers to those most perplexing questions; how could parents kill their children? Why did so many people kill themselves?
 
Jones had desensitised his community to this particular method of suicide with repeated suicide drills, which he called 'White Nights'. In preparation for the ultimate sacrifice to the cause, a theology of 'Revolutionary Suicide' involved community members drinking liquid that they were told contained poison. Although on at least one occasion it had been laced with tranquillisers, the liquid used during these drills was otherwise innocuous. Though its psychological impact was probably immeasurable.
 
Without doubt the majority of the community were still committed to The Peoples Temple cause to the last moments, as the contents of this anonymous note that was found at Jonestown after the deaths bears out.