Short Reviews and Book Notes 103

Ken Levi (Edi tor ) , Violence and Religious Commitment: hnplications of JimJones's People's Temple Movement. Pennsylvania and London, Pennsylvania State Uni- mrsity Press, 1982. pp xv + 207. s

I'here is something rather unpleasant, perhaps even ghoulish, in trying to generalize about the Jonestown tragedy. We would like to believe that it was a unique incident. And ofcourse it was unique, in one sense. But throughout history there have been all too many instances ofthe association ofviolence and religious commitment.

What are the real implications of the People's Temple Movement? How was it that 3ver nine-hundred people were prepared to drink a ritual potion of a stmwberry- ftavoured drink, laced with tranquilizers and cyanide? How many did indeed drink of 'their own free will' and how many where either shot or forced at gun point to drink it on that fateful day in November 1978, and how many had already been so subjected to 'brainwashing' or mind control that they would do anything their charismatic 'Father' asked of them? Could it happen again? What do we need to look out for in order to prevent the emergence ofanother 'suicide cult'? It is the beliefs, the fervour with which they are held, the organization, the people involved, the reaction from society, or what, that is the crucial variable----or which combination ofvariables is it that is responsible for such an occurrence?

The problem is we just do not know the answers. Violence and Religious Commitment provides a valiant attempt to find some explanation, but the more one reads through the often conflicting papers, but the more one understands how ve D' little we do in fact understand. The papers offer very little more than we already know in the way offactual information. Most of them rely on newspaper reports and the rather slight evidence o f the few who escaped or had defected. One ofthe most illuminating chapters in the book is that by Jeannie Mills who was shot to death, allegedly by a People's Temple hit squad, shortly after completing her contribution. Some of her statements are worth

�9 quoting:

I couldn't complain to anybody, I couldn't really formulate the thoughts clearly in my own mind. ( p. 165)

I think my religious upbringing had made me gullible. (p. 166).

� 9 in People's Temple, even ifyou get divorced or change jobs, or whatever change you make in your personal life, lhis family structure was permanent. We had the feeling, we will always be together. And it felt go~d. (p. 167).

� 9 we were sotired. (p. 168)

It changed from love to fear�9 (p. 169).

People's Temple was not the biggest and the baddes t . . , there are groups that are far more mind controlling than People's Temple . . . the SLA and Manson, both of these were far more violent . . . (p. i 73)�9

(Jones) was a tiger backed into a corner, and nobody would let him out. (p. 173)

The other papers are by academics, some of whom seem to be painfully ignorant about the new religious movements which they indiscriminately bunch together, as they superimpose a theoretical gloss on their generalizations. This tendency is somewhat alleviated by the presence of James Richardson's contribution which successfully

104 Short Revkws and Book Notes

demonstrates that not all new religious movements are identical, but this does not in itselfhelp us to identify the crucial difference(s) which resulted in the mass suicide. Tom Robbins and Dick Anthony have a general discussion about the brainwashing issue, but it does not differentiate or relate directly to theJonestown situation. Anson Shupe and David Bromley's paper documents the use made oftheJonestown deaths by the anticult movement to resuscitate anticult sentiments. Stanley Hauerwas, a professor of theology, sees the self sacrifice as Demonic and the tragedy being not that the people died for what they believed, but that they died for false beliefs and a false god.

One of the more theoretically astute papers is by Edgar Mills. It is entitled 'Cult Extremism: The Reduction of Normative Dissonance' and in it Mills argues that we exist morally ~ithin a value space whose boundaries are set by varied and partly inconsistent values and norms. It is the inconsistency between conflicting norms which is the source ofindividual autonomy-- ' the ordinary morality ofindividuals is sustained by their contrasting loyalties to inconsistent standards, with the consequent necessity to keep correcting their behaviour whenever allegiance to one norm threatens severe violation ofanother ' (p. 81). Reduction ofone's value space to a unidimensional line of consistent values reduced one's moral autonomy. Mill's argument is that in situations such asJonestown, in which only a single, consistent set ofvalues is available, individual autonomy is drastically reduced and consequently there is little to dampen tendencies to totalitarian extremism.

Methodologically it is unfortunate that we have no way ofcheckingjust which factors were responsible for theJonestown tragedy. The uniqueness oftbe incident means that we cannot play with control groups or assess the various theories that have been put forward. Given these circumstances perhaps this book does as much as could be. expected in its review ofwhat happened in Guyana. I am however unconvinced that it adds as much as it might to our general understanding of the relationship between violence and religious commitment. None of us is anxious to be supplied with another case history, but there does remain the uncomfortable memory of the photographs showing the legend over Jim Jones' throne in Guyana: k

'Those Who Do Not Remember The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It. '

EILEEN BARKER London School of Economics

P. K a r l J . Rivinius SVD, Die Anfa'nge des 'Anthropos'. Briefe yon P. llqlhehn Schmidt an Georg Freiherrn yon Hertllng aus den Jahren 1904_1908 und andere Dokumente. (Ver r f fen t l i chungen des Miss ionspr ies te rseminars St August in bei Bonn. 32). St. Augus t in , Steyler Verlag, 1981, pp 230, D M 32.50.

This work provides a documentation of the hitherto unpublished correspondence between P.W. Schmidt and Georg yon Hertling (president of the Gfrres-Gesellschaft between 1876 and 1919) for the period 1904-1908, the letters ofrecommendation for the setting up of the journal Anthropos and a reprint of the now almost unattainable prospectus of the journal: 'Einladung zur Mitarbeit und Abonnement aufAnthropos', 1905. In a systematic introduction the author traces the lines of development which led to the foundation of the famous journal, Anthropos, International Review of Ethnologr and Linguistics, which by 1981. had existed for 75 ~:'ears. He places the 'Projekt einer neuen Zeitschrift ftir V61kerkunde und .Sprachwissenschaft' in its contemporary historical