My fascination with Jim Jones knows no bounds

It happened again last night.

When PBS aired its re-released documentary on the life of Jim Jones, I went into total shutdown mode. His life and the lives of his followers are so totally fascinating to me I had to watch it twice.

Jonestown: The life and death of People Temple can actually be viewed, in its entirety, online.

Initially, I was struck by the fact that I've actually been to Lynn, Indiana, where Jones was born and raised. As a child, I went on numerous vacations to Richmond, Indiana, with my family to visit one of my mother's best friends and her family.

Richmond is actually where Jones went to high school, but I can remember vividly being in Lynn as a little boy in 1986 and seeing the aftermath of a tornado that ravaged the small town.

In any event, it's just one of those weird connections.

The story of Jonestown is troubling on so many levels. It's a case study of the law of diminishing returns. It's scary to think that one deranged and charismatic individual could brainwash so many.

Emotions are scary things, especially when there are so many people in this world who seize upon them.

His story could scarcely be any more different than that of Clarence Jordan, whose integrated Kibbutz-like community preceded Jones by more than a decade. The difference between the two men, of course, is simple: one was a Christian and the other a false prophet.

He was a personalist dictator who seized upon human inadequacy. In his eyes, equality was expedient.