My Classmate Didn't Just Drink the Kool-Aid: She Brewed It

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The Jonestown Massacre happened 46 years ago. But to me, it feels way too close — because one of the people who died there was a girl I went to school with.  She was a quiet, shy girl, the daughter of a pastor when I knew her. For years I thought of her as a duped, innocent victim. But it turns out she was one of the leaders, and an architect of the plan to have everyone drink the poison. Is there a way to make any of this make sense?

Content warning: suicide, murder, cults, sexual abuse, child murder

Reference links:

Jonestown, basic background from Brittanica: https://www.britannica.com/event/Jonestown

Maria Katsaris, Wikipedia entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Katsaris

Jonestown: The Women Behind The Massacre documentary film
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8020376/

"revolutionary suicide"
https://inthesetimes.com/article/jonestown-mass-revolutionary-suicide-socialist

"Moonies" (Unification Church)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church

Scientology/Church of Scientology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#:~:text=Scientology%20is%20a%20set%20of,or%20a%20new%20religious%20movement.

Baghwan Shree Rajneesh
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/spring/feature/rajneeshpuram-was-more-utopia-desert-it-was-mirror#:~:text=Named%20after%20the%20iconoclastic%20Indian,utopia%20in%20the%20Oregon%20desert.

Jonestown 45th anniversary article, Daily Journal:
https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/45-years-later-peoples-temple-and-the-peninsula/article_3b001bee-85cc-11ee-aa8d-579b5c0b7b99.html

Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple
https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/
-transcript of Charles Garry's interview with Maria Katsaris re: sexual abuse by father
https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=125494

Charles Garry, Wikipedia entry

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