A now middle-aged Stephan Jones, son of the infamous cult leader Jim Jones, is shockingly honest: he admits that he has a lot in common with his father. Both men were able to manipulate people’s perception of them.
Drug Addiction After Cult Tragedy
After the Jonestown massacre, Stephan suffered from survivor’s guilt and turned to drugs. Like his father, he was able to conceal his drug use and maintain a façade of normalcy. But the fear of transforming into his father and support from the people he had in his life rescued him from his drug-induced stupor and denial. Unlike Jim’s supporters, Stephan’s friends were unwilling to pretend that he was okay during his downward spiral. As Jim became increasingly paranoid and drug dependent, however, his followers were reluctant to take the reins from the delusional dictator. Instead, they showered him with praise – even in the final moments of their lives as Jim was urging them to ingest poison.
Jim Jones' Followers
Stephan had discovered that his father was a fraud early on. As a child he had been manipulated through the medium of fear. To dissuade young Stephan from straying too far from the house, his father told him that “a boy about [his] age, tried to go to the store by himself, and two men carried him away and cut off his penis.” But that did not disillusion young Stephan; the humiliation of his mother did. The philandering Jim actually revealed his affairs to his dedicated wife in order to feed off of her sadness, and thus feel important and needed during her display of grief and jealousy. Unfortunately, Jim needed an endless supply of attention and adulation that neither his betrayed wife nor his growing congregation could ever satisfy.
Munchausen Syndrome: Like Father, Like Son
Stephan said that the cult leader would fake illnesses up to his death in Jonestown in order to manipulate people. And Stephan himself admitted to feigning sicknesses and intentionally hurting himself for the same purpose: to benefit psychologically from the care and sympathy of others. Whether or not witnesses actually believed in the validity of the illness or the seriousness of the injury did not matter; the fact that they went along with it, nursing the wound or offering words of sympathy and encouragement, was what Stephan and his father lived for. The theatrical Jonestown leader would even pretend to be the reincarnation of famous men such as Vladimir Lenin to bolster his own image.
Lessons of Jonestown Massacre
The extremity of his father’s psychological instability forced Stephan to extract himself from his own self-destructive behavior. And, over the years, he has separated himself from the legacy of his father by, ironically, developing compassion for the troubled dictator. He no longer hates the infamous leader and has gained insight and closure from the tumultuous years spent with his father and the tragic culmination of his father’s vision.
Stephan Jones is very honest about his struggle to maintain a safe distance from the same characteristics that destroyed Jim Jones. And he has his notorious biological father to thank for his vigilance.
Sources
"Like Father, Like Son" by Stephan Jones
Jonestown Massacre Interview with Stephan Jones
Witness Jonestown - Hear from Jim Jones' Son
Sabrina Dawkins - Sabrina Dawkins received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Appalachian State University and her Master of Arts in Sociology from ...
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