Crepuscular is a really interesting sounding word. It sounds like it should be related to shell fish or human musculature or something like that. But this word, the New York Times Word of the Day for today, actually means “of, relating to, or resembling twilight; dim; indistinct.” There is, however, a zoological definition: “appearing or active in the twilight, as certain bats and insects” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/crepuscular?s=t).

According to www.etymonline.com, crepuscular in the figurative meaning of “dim” or “obscure” is evident in the language in the 1660s, but the more precise definition doesn’t come until the 18^th century: “from Latin crepusculum ‘twilight, dusk,’ related to creper ‘obscure, uncertain,’ from Proto-Italic *krepos ‘twilight,’ which is of uncertain origin. It is not certain whether ‘twilight’ or ‘obscure’ was the original sense; de Vaan writes, ‘there is no known root of the form *krep– from which the extant meanings can be derived’” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=crepuscular).

On this date 41 years ago, 909 people lost their lives in the Jonestown suicide/murder.

The People’s Temple was a cult established by Jim Jones. The cult started in Indianapolis in 1955. After about 10 years, Jones moved the group to Redwood Valley, CA, and he eventually opened branches in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Jones eventually moved the headquarters of the cult to San Francisco, where he and his followers became more involved politically. They helped George Moscone get elected mayor of San Fracisco, and Moscone paid Jones back by appointing him to be chairman of the S.F. Housing Authority.

Despite his being a cult leader, Jones had numerous influential and mainstream friends, including Walter Mondale, Rosalynn Carter, and Willie Brown (an assembly member in California now most famous for promoting the career of Kamala Harris [in exchange for certain favors, apparently]). But several members of the cult defected, and Jones and his group started to get some negative publicity.

Jones decided that he needed to move his cult out of the country, so he visited Guyana, on the Northeast coast of South America. It was about 3800 acres, but the land was not very good and it was quite removed from a large body of water. Despite the obstacles, the People’s Temple began constructing their own little paradise on earth. Jones and hundreds of his followers made the move to the People’s Temple Agricultural Project, or Jonestown, in 1977. The idea was to escape the investigations being performed by journalists into the cult’s activities.

Leo Ryan, the Congressional representative from California’s 11^th district (near San Francisco), began his own investigation into the People’s Temple, even going so far as to visiting Jonestown in Guyana. Leo Ryan was murdered for his efforts. This disaster led to the mass suicide of the members of the People’s Temple who had remained in Jonestown. Of course, it was not all suicide. There were many children, including babies, who could not have drunk from the big vat of poison prepared by the Jonestown leaders. The vat contained grape Flavor Aid laced with a variety of chemicals. Indeed, from that suicide we derive the phrase, “drink the Kool-Aid,” though it is hardly fair to Kool-Aid.

Here’s what a lot of people don’t remember about this horrible experience. The People’s Temple was not a Christian or even a religious cult. It was a socialist cult, even a communist cult. Guyana was chosen in part because at the time it was a socialism nature. Jones even said in an interview: “I believe we’re the purest communists there are” (https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27298). Three members of the cult escaped the mass murder/suicide and delivered over half a million dollars and note to the Soviet embassy in Guyana, which read, “The following is a letter of instructions regarding all of our assets that we want to leave to the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Enclosed in this letter are letters which instruct the banks to send the cashiers checks to you. I am doing this on behalf of Peoples Temple because we, as communists, want our money to be of benefit for help to oppressed peoples all over the world, or in any way that your decision-making body sees fit” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown#cite_note-q050-37).

So, here is some speculation. I’m guessing that Jim Jones genuinely believed that he was called upon to build a better world. He just chose the wrong philosophy, a philosophy of control and manipulation rather than one of freedom and self-responsibility. But many leaders are like that, though most of them are not as extreme as Jones was. Still, leaders who believe that they are so wise and so good that whatever they say is right are truly dangerous.

It doesn’t matter whether such leaders, who believe all that they do is right and that anyone who disagrees with them is evil, “the voice of Satan,” one might say, are dictators, presidents, cult leaders, or even the college administrators. Such leaders as these will take the people who follow them into a crepuscular world.

The image is from an account of Jim Jones’s visit to Castro’s Cuba where he met Huey P. Newton, the author of Revolutionary Suicide (https://www.conservapedia.com/Jim_Jones).