Jim Jones

===Early religious and political influences===
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the [[Church of the Nazarene|Nazarene Church]]'s pastor, developed a special attachment to Jones.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=25}} She gave Jones a [[Bible]] and encouraged him to study it, teaching him to follow the [[Holiness movement|holiness code]] of the Nazarene Church.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=26}}{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|pp=13–14}} As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was baptized in several of them.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=27}} Jones developed a desire to become a preacher as a child and he began to practice preaching in private.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=29}} His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local [[Apostolic Church of Pentecost|Apostolic Pentecostal Church]] and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=42}}{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=18}}

Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death.<ref name="pbs.org">{{cite news |year=2007 |title=Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple |publisher=[[PBS]] [[American Experience]] |location=US |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/jonestown/ |access-date=June 20, 2020}}</ref> Jones regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for [[roadkill]] that he collected.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=32}} One neighbor of the Jones family even stated that Jones killed a cat with a knife for one of these funerals. When he could not get any children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=29}}{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=19}} Jones claimed to have unique abilities, such as the capacity to fly. He once leaped off a building's roof to demonstrate his abilities to others, but he fell and broke his arm. He nonetheless persisted in saying he had exceptional abilities despite the fall.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=32}} At times, he would put other children into life-threatening situations and tell them he was guided by the [[Destroying angel (Bible)|Angel of Death]].{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=32}} Jones allegedly committed countless sacrilegious pranks in the churches he attended as a boy, according to claims he made in adult life. He claimed that he had stolen the Pentecostal minister's Bible and had covered [[Acts 2:38]] with cow manure. He also asserted that he substituted a cup of his own urine for the holy water once at a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] church.{{sfn|Chidester|2004|p=2}}

One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.{{sfn|Kilduff|1978|p=10}} Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=31}} Jones regularly used offensive [[profanity]], commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or "Hello, you dirty bastard", {{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=14}}{{sfn|Chidester|2004|p=2}} similar to his mother Lynetta, who frequently swore in public and found amusement in people's offence at a woman cursing.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=35}} Jones's mother usually beat him with a leather belt in order to punish his misbehavior.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=31}}

Jones also developed an intense interest in social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied [[Adolf Hitler]], [[Joseph Stalin]], [[Karl Marx]] and [[Mahatma Gandhi]].{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=24}} Jones would tell his wife that [[Mao Zedong]] was his hero. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=14}} Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=24}} but as [[World War II]] started, Jones developed an intense interest in the [[Nazi Party]]. He was fascinated by their pomp, their cohesion, and Hitler's total power. The members of his neighbourhood found it disconcerting that he extolled [[Nazi Germany]].{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=34}} Jones acted as a dictator over the other kids, ordering them to [[goosestep]] together and beating those who disobeyed.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=34}} One childhood friend recalled Jones shouting "Heil Hitler!" and giving the [[Nazi salute]] to German prisoners of war who were travelling through their town on their way to a detention facility.<ref name="pbs.org"/>

Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated:{{blockquote|"I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there, alone. Always was alone."{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|pp=16–17}}}} Tim Reiterman, a journalist and biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=22}} Jones went to see the Kennedy family in 1942 when they spent the summer in [[Richmond, Indiana]]. They took part in services four times a week while attending a summer religious convention at a nearby Pentecostal church.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=29}} When Jones returned to Lynn in the fall, he upset his neighborhood by explaining sexual reproduction in detail to young children. Jones's mother was urged to control his behavior by many individuals in Lynn, but she refused. Many parents decided to keep their kids away from Jones as a result of the issue. He had established himself as an outcast among his friends by the time he started [[Secondary school|high school]] and was progressively despised by the locals.{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=35}}