THERE'S NO ANSWER TO THE NIGHTMARE OF WHY.Byline: Dennis McCarthy Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
The first time I went looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. some answers on the insanity that is mass suicide Mass suicide occurs when a number of people kill themselves together and/or for the same reason. Examples Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious or cultic settings. , I found one in a South Bay hospital room in late November 1978. Her name was Catherine Thrash, and she had just returned from Jonestown, Guyana - one of a handful of the Rev. Jim Jones' followers in the People's Temple People's Temple: see Jones, Jim. who made it home alive. More than 900 devotees who had followed Jones from the streets of San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden and Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. to Guyana didn't. Most of them drank cyanide-laced grape punch to commit suicide when Jones said it was time. The ones who balked balk v. balked, balk·ing, balks v.intr. 1. To stop short and refuse to go on: The horse balked at the jump. 2. were murdered by death squads, which then committed suicide themselves. Thrash, an elderly, deeply religious, African-American woman, who was a cook at the compound, hid in a sheet under the cot in her tent when the death squads made their last rounds. When I asked her why so many people would willingly take their own lives in a mass suicide, she smiled and looked at me like I was a child too young to truly understand or comprehend a deeper truth. She said that until the very end, when she realized Jones had turned into a madman, not a messiah, she and her sister were totally devoted to him. They gave him all their money, and followed him penniless pen·ni·less adj. 1. Entirely without money. 2. Very poor. See Synonyms at poor. pen  ni·less·ly adv. to Jonestown. ``We would have followed him anywhere because he was like God to us,'' Thrash said. ``His preachings, his words and commands, totally controlled all our minds. ``Can you understand that?'' she asked, beginning to cry. Her sister was one of the 900 who died there. I nodded that I could understand, but it was a lie. I couldn't understand following anyone into death - never will. Messiah or no messiah. What makes seemingly sane, intelligent people turn into submissive zombies Zombies Companies that continue to operate even though they are insolvent. Also known as living dead. Notes: It's advisable to avoid investing in zombies at all costs their life expectancies are highly unpredictable. willing to give up their lives for what - a higher cause, a better life on the other side, a comet shooting across the sky? It's too easy, too pat to say that these are just people with weak minds, people miserable and failing in life - ready and willing for a strong leader to take over their lives to make something meaningful out of them. A leader so strong, he can tell them when it's time to die. And, they listen. The unanswered questions we had after Jonestown are the same unanswered questions we still have almost 20 years later, in the wake of yet another mass suicide. We haven't learned anything - certainly not why. Why would 39 people living and working inside a San Diego County mansion decide en masse that it was time for them to check out on life? In the next few days, all the experts on cults, brainwashing brainwashing Systematic effort to destroy an individual's former loyalties and beliefs and to substitute loyalty to a new ideology or power. It has been used by religious cults as well as by radical political groups. and other forms of aberrant behavior will be checking in with their opinions and research, but don't look for any concrete answers because there aren't any. Not even Catherine Thrash could offer a feasible one, and she was there at Jonestown. The only thing there is - or should be - today is a little jolt of renewed fear in the rest of us. Fear that some wacko like a Jones or the guru who got his hands on the minds of these 39 people will get their hands on the minds of someone we know or care about. Worse, someone we love. It's every parent's nightmare, and nothing brings it to the forefront in this country like a good, old-fashioned mass suicide in the headlines every 10 or 20 years. I've written about parents whose worst nightmares became reality - parents who lost their kids to cults. Some of these couples spent thousands of dollars trying to get their kids out, some of them divorced over it. Most of them just bided their time and prayed that their kids would outgrow outgrow verb To change the relationship with a condition or structure by dint of ↑ age or size; while children outgrow clothing, and certain behaviors, they rarely outgrow diseases–eg, asthma the mind control, and come home. A few did. Not many. In every case, though, Jonestown was never very far from their thoughts and fears. They all had nightmares about the day they'd pick up the morning paper, and read the headline run all over this country Thursday. ``Mass Suicide.'' They'd pray it wasn't their son or daughter's cult - then, like the rest of us, they'd all ask the question. ``Why?'' No one had the answers. |
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