The child's mouth was filled with poison using a syringe without a needle, and Paul then injected more poison into her own mouth. The phrase has been used in the business and technology worlds to mean fervent devotion to a certain company or technology. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. Archived November 5, 2016, at the Wayback Machine Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for Peoples Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana.

Although Temple films show Jones opening a storage container full of Kool-Aid, empty packets found at the scene indicate that it was Flavor Aid that was used in the murder-suicide.Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist. In 1989, Jack Solerwitz, a lawyer for many of the air traffic controllers who lost their jobs in the 1981 PATCO strike, explained his dedication to their cause in spite of the substantial personal financial losses he incurred by saying: "I was the only lawyer who kept the doors open for them, and I thought I'd get a medal for it. Law at the Bar: Lawyer for striking air traffic controllers won back 60 jobs but suffered personal loss".

Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he did not genuinely believe in his own teachings, but was "morally bankrupt" and only manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".

It is unclear whether they intended to refer to the actual Kool-Aid–brand drink or were using the name in a generic sense that might refer to any powdered flavored beverage. This implies that it was referred to as Kool-Aid because that brand was better-known among Americans. By 1978, reports surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will.

Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church, [134] and raped several male members of his congregation. Jones regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he collected.In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. The majority of the community members were minors or the elderly, and the fewer people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the workload required to support the community. After learning that he might have a lung infection in 1978, Jones told his followers that he actually had lung cancer in an effort to gain their compassion and increase their level of support. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation.