In 1978, California congressman Leo J. Ryan and four other people were killed in Jonestown, Guyana, by members of the People's Temple; the killings were followed by a night of mass murder and suicide by 912 cult members.

...Some of these guest speakers included Jim Jones cult survivor ...Layton...

Hijacker's letter had similar message about suicide, San Francisco Chronicle (...As more details emerge about the hijackers responsible for this month's World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, one way to understand the cult of bin Laden is to look back at the horrors of Jonestown...

...Jones tape-recorded the horror of that "White Night" suicide ritual in his jungle compound, known as Jonestown...

...Jones said:

"It's the will of (the) Sovereign Being that this is happening to us. . . . Don't be afraid to die. . . . There's nothing to death. It's just stepping over to another plane."

Both sets of followers were told they were not committing ordinary acts of suicide -- something that violates the tenets of both Christianity and Islam...

This term, Goldman will bring several speakers to her class, including a man who witnessed the 900-person Jonestown mass suicide in 1978...

..."I don't consider myself a cult expert. I don't want to be a cult expert," says Deborah Layton over a cup of hot tea, about 30 minutes after watching the powerful Jane Campion cult-drama Holy Smoke. "I only know what my own experiences were, and from my own experiences I can say what I think the dangers are. But that's it."

Of course, Layton has plenty of experience to draw on. As a member of People's Temple leader Jim Jones' "Inner Circle," the Piedmont resident saw the charismatic preacher rise from small-town minister to powerful political leader to self-described "revolutionary"--and finally, inside the guarded walls of Guyana's Jonestown--to maniacal mass murderer...)

But those of Alice Inghran never arrived. The woman's remains were discovered late last year when a San Francisco funeral home that had been storing her ashes went out of business.

Inghran is one of 913 Peoples Temple members who either drank or were forced to drink a cyanide spiked fruit punch Nov. 18, 1978, at the demand of Jim Jones, a religious leader who took his followers from the San Francisco area to Guyana...

The surprise discovery of her ashes has caused shock among an active network of survivors and victims' relatives...

...There is a simple headstone over the mass grave, stating "In Memory of the Victims of the Jonestown Tragedy, Nov. 18, 1978.")

The horror lingers, yet the number of aberrant groups keeps growing as people seek community.

On November 18, 1978, Tim Stoen and his wife, Grace, sat anxiously in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown, waiting for the right time to return to the jungles of Jonestown to try to reclaim their only child, six-year-old John Victor. Then they heard the news: Jim Jones had led more than 900 of his Peoples Temple followers-including their son-in a mass murder-suicide...

IN NOVEMBER, 1978, the world was stunned by dramatic pictures and stories about Rev. Jim Jones and the mass suicide of hundreds of people in Jonestown, Guyana. While the deaths were real, the stories were fabrications created to cover up the theft of more than $26,000,000, planned mass murder (not suicide), and the fiscal rape of the treasury of San Francisco by corrupt politicians.

Jones' second in command, Teresa Buford, was a survivor of the massacre. Her confession, revealing the true nature of what happened, details Jones' blueprint for creating his own nation, funded by U.S. taxpayers' dollars stolen as part of San Francisco's corrupt political system...)

WHEN I WENT TO JONESTOWN with my 5-year-old son, John Victor, in February 1977, I believed I was going to make the world a better place. I guess I was a super-idealist. Fed up with racism and poverty in America, I was looking to create a utopian society where people of all races and classes could create a community...

About 120 people with claims against the People's Temple have received final approval for a $9 million distribution of the cult's assets.

...The People's Temple was founded by the Rev. Jim Jones, who led a mass murder and suicide of more than 900 members in 1978 in a cult encampment in Jonestown, Guyana...

A chilling tape made available last week records the last chaotic hours of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. It confirms that the Rev. Jim Jones knew in advance that Congressman Leo Ryan, his aides, newsmen and defecting cult members would be killed, and that Jones was convinced reprisals would follow...