In November 1978, more than nine hundred people died in a clearing in the Guyanese rainforest. For decades, the story of Jonestown has been reduced to a phrase, a cautionary shorthand for blind obedience. But that language skips the part that matters most.

This episode traces the long, ordinary road that led there. From the early years of the Peoples Temple in the American Midwest, where food, housing, and dignity were offered to people the state routinely failed… to the slow narrowing of belief, the erosion of choice, and the creation of a world where leaving no longer felt possible.

We follow the movement south, not as exile, but as promise. We examine daily life inside Jonestown, the routines, the labour, the loudspeakers, the rehearsals, and the way fear was organised long before it was acted upon. And we reconstruct the final days, using court records, testimony, and the forty-four-minute tape that captured the end of the settlement’s logic.

This is not a story about madness. It is a story about how belief becomes an environment, and how a place built to protect people can quietly turn into one that will not let them go.

Content warning: This episode contains discussion of mass death, psychological coercion, and harm involving children. Listener discretion is advised.

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If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at [email protected].

Paranormia is an Audio Always production.

Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.

Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.

Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.