Episode One: Peoples Temple 

Jim Jones Q454:” I don’t mind losing my reputation, what about you? I don’t mind, I don’t mind being tortured what about you? I’m just no longer afraid and I’ve lost interest in this old world of capitalist sin and racism, I’ve lost interest in it. So, if somebody wants to make me stay in it by compromising with filthy minded people that cannot even have respect for somebody who would die for even his enemies and they want to cause anarchy in our midst.  I would just as soon bring it all to a gallant, a glorious screaming end. Bring it to screeching stop in one glorious moment of triumph. So, you think about it.”.

Welcome to Transmissions from Jonestown. You are listening to episode one, The Peoples Temple.

On November 18, 1978, an entire community of United States Citizens died deep in the jungle of Guyana. At the command of their charismatic leader Reverend Jim Jones, 909 members of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project lost their lives. Some believed they were committing a revolutionary act of suicide, others were forced or coerced by the group. A colorful toxic mix of Flavor Aid, Kool-Aid and cyanide was passed around in Dixie cups. For those unable or unwilling the mixture was administered using syringes.

Jim Jones Q042 (The Death Tape): “Take our life from us. We laid it down, we got tired. We didn’t commit suicide we committed a revolutionary act of suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world. Where’s the vat, the vat, the vat with the green C in, the vat with the green C in please. Bring it here so the adults can begin. Mother, mother, mother, mother, mother please! Mother please! Please, please don’t do this, don’t do this! Lay down your life with your child but don’t do this.  Talking to them, all their doing is taking a drink to go to sleep! Die with respect! Die with a degree of dignity. Lay down your life with dignity. Don’t lay down with tears and agony. There’s nothing to death. It’s like Mac (Jim McElvane) said, it’s just stepping over into another plane. Don’t be - Don’t be this way.”.

Most of us have heard the story, an egomaniacal madman and his brainwashed cult of zombie followers commit mass suicide in the heart of darkness. Nothing more than a cautionary tale reminding us all to think for ourselves and never ever drink the Kool Aid.

Jim Jones Q1057-4: “I want to tell you today for your good, allow no one here to praise anything else, or talk about anything else except what I am. You better get your mind off all this other poopy crack; you better just get off of it. You demand that they only speak of one god, god Jim. You will only let them speak of one god, the savior that’s here talking to you. Don’t let them talk about any other god. I will have no gods before me. I AM GOD AND THERE IS NO OTHER GOD BEFORE ME!”.

Drink the Kool Aid…the phrase itself means to give up, to submit all will and simply go with the flow, to not question the logic behind choices and follow the herd. This idea was greatly applied to the handling of Jonestown evidence after the massacre. Bodies were left out in the jungle sun to rot for days making autopsy or toxicology impossible. Evidence was covered up, lost, and mishandled. The media was misinformed, and family members were kept in the dark for days or even weeks. The government depended on the idea of the public’s blind faith in the drink the Kool Aid scenario, just go with the flow and don’t question things too closely. Several years ago, I was watching a television show about the 70s and there was a segment about Jonestown. The program featured audio clips from a tape infamously known as the death tape, an approximately 45-minute-long recording made in the pavilion in Jonestown while people drank the Kool Aid. It contained audio of Jones ranting about death and loyalty, revolutionary suicide and the consequences of not following through with the destruction of the community. I noticed that the recording contained several layers of hard to hear audio. I immediately sought out the complete recording so I could analyze it.

Jim Jones Q042 (The Death Tape): How very much I’ve loved you. How very much I’ve tried my best to give you the good life.”.

Apparently, resources in Jonestown were limited so tapes were often recycled and recorded over and over. I noticed that the death tape itself had been heavily edited and there were several layers of audio layered on top of each other. Once I had isolated these recordings I became incredibly interested in Jonestown. There’s a lot more to the Peoples Temple than you see in a random documentary. I sent the isolated recordings to the Jonestown Institute, an organization known for archiving the history of the Peoples Temple. Literally hundreds of recordings were found in Jonestown after the massacre. The task of digitizing and transcribing these recordings was monumental, but I was happy to help. The more I listened to the recordings of the Peoples Temple, the more curious I became as to what happened and why.

Temple Members Q245: Mike Prokes: “My name is Mike Prokes. I came to Peoples Temple almost six years ago to do a documentary for television on Jim Jones and his movement. I resigned my job as a news bureau chief and joined Peoples Temple, because I saw it was the greatest cause for social justice I had ever encountered.”.

 Lisa Layton: “I am Lisa Layton. I was born in Germany, and I left Germany because I’m Jewish and came to the United States, thinking that I might find freedom. However, I realize that there were not many places where there was freedom, and I found Peoples Temple and for the first time in my life felt that this was a group fighting for the freedom of its people.”.

 Loretta Coomer: “My name is Loretta Coomer. At the age of 40, I look back to- back- 1953 and ’54, when I was with Peoples Temple as a teenager. We moved from one church to the other because of harassment, because of our stand for equality of races…”.

 John Harris: “My name is John Harris, and I am a proud member of Peoples Temple, and I have been for some eight years, and now I am proud to say that I am a communist.”.

 Helen Swinney: “I am Helen Swinney, uh- We’ve debated this uh, um, uh, suicide for many, many hours here tonight and I have made up my mind that this is the way I prefer going, because I have been in this group for uh, almost twenty years now…”.

 Edith Roller: “I pray and hope that this tape will at least survive in portions so that they can know what we stood for. I’m glad that my death will mean something. I hope it will be an inspiration to people who fight for freedom all over the world.”.

 The details of these people’s lives, their beliefs, and how or why they died, are disregarded as trivial facts that only distract from the shear enormity of death that has become the symbol of Jonestown. But as many have said before, Jonestown did not exist in a vacuum. The more I researched the events I realized that to not question what happened and simply assume that people that are brainwashed or join a cult have no power over their own moral choices is a dangerous concept. Are we to assume that Susan Atkins didn’t have any choice when she killed Sharon Tate? These people made choices. They created a reality for themselves and their families based upon utopian ideals and radical socialist concepts. They built a new society based on the principals of equality and communal living. Many of the citizens of Jonestown toiled 10 hours a day to build and maintain what they called the promise land.

 Peoples Temple Members: “Really it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in all my life. I just love it. I hope everything is gonna be all right for us.”.

 Though many who joined Peoples Temple were poor, they were not stupid, unskilled or worthless. In fact, joining an organization that celebrated their skills and intelligence while nurturing their feelings of self-worth was the exact reason people joined Peoples Temple. For the disenfranchised, and the unconventional Jim Jones and his super groovy modern movement was a way to get involved, a reason to believe, and a way to a better life. 

 Jim Jones Q953: “How many guests do we have in our assembly today? We are happy to have you. Hold your hands up please so that some worker can come and sit by you and familiarize you with truth and some of the things that we are doing that would be fascinating to you. We are so happy to have you in our midst and we welcome you from the depths of our heart. (Applause). Peoples Temple is a nation that constitutes children’s homes, senior citizen’ homes, convalescent sanitoriums, Promised Land of 25,000 acres, preparation for concentration camps. We are ready for everything that oppressors want to bring our way.”.

 Many loved their leader James Warren Jones whom they called father. To some a mentor, healer, guardian, and prophet to others a fascist dictator, socialist comrade, co-conspirator, or frightening disciplinarian, the many faces of Jim Jones evolved and adapted according to the needs of the temple leadership. Jones was famous for saying that the end always justifies the means. Even if that implied bribery, intimidation, violence or murder. But let’s not jump too far ahead.

Jim Jones was born in 1931 at the height of the great depression in a poor rural community in Indiana.  Growing up, Jones childhood friends referred to him as a really weird kid who was obsessed with death and religion. Jones loved animals and kept several in cages on his parent’s property. His childhood friends would come to see the animals and end up staying for hours while a tiny Jim Jones gave sermons and held mock funerals in his barn. This spooky behavior left unchecked by his parents alienated him from his peers as a child leaving him isolated and often lonely. 

 Q594:  Mary Tupper: “I think that I should um, and take a knife and cut Mr. Tupper all up real good and um – “.

 Jones: “(Laughter) Cut him up real good – “.

 Mary Tupper: “– and then, m – make him look like, you know, um, cut him up and then, put poison in him and invite all f – all my relatives over there and then have ’em eat him, and then they all die.”.

 Jones: (Laughter)

 Young Girl: “My momma’s a damn fool, hope I – I hope I knock the fuckin’ shit out of – (Laughs)”.

 Jones was an intelligent child always reading, interested in communism, civil rights, religion, and the inner workings of the human mind. Growing up he attended old time religious services, learning the power of evangelical influence over the zealous, the superstitious, the poor and the vulnerable. He also attended communist rallies which helped him form the idealistic concepts of anti-capitalist communal living Jonestown was built on.

 Jones Q049A: “Well, they’ll — they’ll ask you point blank, are you a socialist. Sure — Surely, I believe in this communal type of living. I believe in a cooperative lifestyle. I believe in a non-violent socialism.”.

 Loving communism in the McCarthy era was social suicide and Jim Jones realized, preaching in a religious setting was a powerful and safe way to share his ideas and create a movement based on communism, without getting blacklisted. He spent time at the Seventh Day Baptist church where he learned that performing faith healings was a productive means of income as well as a quick way to build a fellowship. Jones also spent time with Father Divine, the leader of one of Americas first religious cults. Father Divine was the leader of the International Peace Mission Movement, a predominantly black religious organization centered around the ideas of communal living and racial equality. His followers looked to him as a living god. They gave up their homes and estates to live in one of the many communes run by the cult. They believed not being loyal to Father Divine or doubting his evangelical power could kill a man. Jones had learned how a man of meager means from Baltimore had traveled to the south spreading home grown socialism to the poor huddled masses using nothing more that the pulpit. Father Divine drove a Cadillac, lived in luxury, swayed votes in local elections, ran several businesses, and at one time had a following in the tens of thousands. Maybe more importantly than that Divine preached what may have been to Jim Jones the number one injustice in all the world., the plight of the disenfranchised African American. After Father Divine’s death, Jones unsuccessfully attempted to highjack the International Peace Mission Movement only to be denied by Father Divines surviving wife Edna Rose.

In 1956 Jim Jones finally had a church of his own, the Peoples Temple, in Indianapolis. There he would preach racial integration and perform his faith healings.  He no longer needed to censor his sermons or use any subtly in his doctrine. Reverend Jones Pentecostal preaching style and unconventional services drew a mixed bag of followers, most were poor black families, many elderlies, but most of what later became the churches core administration was well educated and white. These were his coconspirators that had firsthand knowledge of how the show was run behind the scenes. They helped him fake faith healing ceremonies by gathering information about people, going through people’s garbage, and even pretending to be healed on stage.

 Sermon Indiana 1965 Q648: Jones: “I hear a doctor’s name. And I know nothing of you personally. I know none of your– nothing of your life personally and you’ve told no one here anything. Is that correct?”.

 Morris: “That’s correct.”.

 Jones: “I hear a Charles A. Mayfield.”.

 Morris: “Yes!”.

 Jones: “Now (speaking in tongues) I should say that uh, in July of last year, you were x-rayed.”.

 Morris: “Yes.”.

 Jones: “You’ve told no one here.”.

 Morris: “No one.”.

 Jones: “There’s difficulty in your back–“.

 Morris: “Yes.”.

 Jones: “–in your abdomen.”.

 Morris: “Yes, yes.”.

 Jones: (speaking in tongues)

 Morris: “Yes, yes, oh, yes! Oh, yes!”.

 Jones: “Hands clasped. Libra transparent face powder. You know that?”.

 Morris: “Yes, yes! My God! Oh, yes!”.

 Jones: “Yes. Yes.”.

 Morris: “Yes!”.

 Jones: “Well, what we said about never– Miles nerving capsules and any material that has to do with Reverend Ike– “.

 Morris: “Oh, yes!”.

 Jones: “–remove it from your home.”.

 Morris: “Oh, yes! Cause I throwed it out! Thank you, Jesus! Oh, thank you, Jesus! Yes, I throwed it out, Father. Yes, Father!”.

 Jones: “Yes. All right. Now, sister, sister– go– go to the bathroom, and the cancer that’s in your body will pass through your body.”.

 Morris: “Oh!”.

 Jones: “Go!”.

 Congregation: (Cheers)

 Announcer:” She’s giving– She gives the pastor a hug! She gives the prophet a big hug. She’s so grateful that the cancer’s been removed from her body.”.

 Morris: “Oh, thank you, Father! Oh, thank you, Father!”.

 Jones: “Look at that mass! Look at that bloody mass! Thank God! (unintelligible). Yes, praise and thank god. Praise and thank God.”

 Announcer: “There’s the mass. There’s the mass, being held in a white napkin…”.

 Many Peoples Temple members believed Jones could cure cancer, blindness or take away a person’s pain at will. A skill he proved to his congregation again and again with the help of his inner circle and Peoples Temple leadership. His wife Marceline would hide bits of raw chicken liver in her hands, and when an afflicted (usually a plant in the audience) received Jim’s blessing the cancer would eject itself from their body. Many of his flock believed Jones had an almost magical quality when you were in his presence. When he spoke to an entire congregation, you felt as though he spoke directly to you, like he could see inside your soul.

 Jones Q1057-4: “And you that don’t clap, I’m watching you, I’ve got eagle eyes. I’m watching you. Listen, brother, I’m asking you in the balcony, why aren’t you clapping? I’m talking to you in that balcony. Now you stand by me. People wanted to nail you to the cross for something you’d done, which I wouldn’t dream of doing but I– I covered and cared for you and overcame the problem, and then you have other gods before me. You should be ashamed of yourself.”.

 Jones was also celebrated for his powerful sexuality. From early in the church’s history Jones had several lovers and close relationships with young attractive women in the temple. He didn’t try to hide this, in fact he often talked about sex and relationships in his sermons and even regarded himself as an incredible lover with mystical sexual abilities. He was also alleged to have had homosexual relationships with some of the men. He swore and often made odd and blasphemous remarks during his sermons. But his congregation fed off the wild energy of these services.  

 Jones Q635: “ I wasn’t even beginning to think about crying over myself, but just now, this moment, it hits me— I don’t know what the fuck it is all about. What the fuck we, what the fuck some of us beating our asses off night and day, and you people won’t even rise above your vaginas and your dicks. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Just so I can get you cooled down, cause you consider the woman an emotional animal, and if you get her under control, get her all cooled down, so you can fuck the next time she goes to Georgetown. I know you pricks. Love— I’ll tell you, sweet. You don’t listen. You goddamn people get your twat going, and it gets itchy, and the dick gets itchy, and you don’t give a shit who you’re laying up to. It can be a goddamn snake, and you still lay up next to them. Have you fucked him since?”.

 Janice: “Yeah.”.

 Jones: “You fucked him since.”.

 Janice: “Yes, Dad.”.

 Jones: “Okay. Then what in the hell do you fuck hi— how the hell the guy going to know mad, how you going to know he’s mad, when you’re fucking him?

 Jones Q636: “You assholes that can’t even fuck. I could fuck 15 times a day, and I gotta worry about all this shit.”.

 In the beginning the movement was all about integration and equality. The mayor of Indianapolis appointed Jones the director of the human rights commission. Jones led several civil rights demonstrations and was credited with integrating the first movie theater in Indiana. He helped integrate hospitals, schools, churches, restaurants, needless to say he wasn’t very popular with right wing conservatives in the early 60s. Jones’ rhetoric was becoming increasingly political and more militant.

 Jones Q1057-4: “You got too much poppycock in your mind. That poppycock never saved you. That poppycock never took your great grandmothers and grandfathers out of the cotton fields. That poppycock of Sky God and fly away religion never helped any of us. We don’t want none of it here, and if you talk about any of that other religion, I don’t wanna hear nothing about your Bibles or your religion. I only want to hear you tell me how we’re going to build a free society out of this earth. I wanna hear about a heaven on earth and I don’t wanna hear nothing else!”.

 Doubtless Jones was already on an FBI watch list along with the Black Panthers and similar politically motivated groups of the time. You could barely buy a book without ending up on somebody’s shit list. You certainly couldn’t take a trip to South America or outwardly support communism without the CIA opening a file…but that’s exactly what Jim Jones did. Unfortunately for us Jim Jones file with the CIA and FBI were eventually purged. There’s just nothing there. For someone with so many obvious red flags, how could he just be ghosted like that and why? This was a time in our history unlike any other. A cultural revolution was brewing. Counterculture movements were under the constant watch of intelligence agencies, phones were bugged, and groups were infiltrated. The government was experimenting with drugs and mind control, a project they called MK Ultra. They were destroying movements from the inside out and creating a giant network of drug dealers, arms dealers, illegal international traders and guerrilla armies. Total disdain for the government and mistrust of authority was already a daily part of the Peoples Temple infrastructure. A sort of mounting paranoia that was affecting not just Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple but the entire country. Vietnam, Cuba, JFK, and the counterculture movements were all happening.  The cold war was blowing full blast. Jim Jones started preaching about nuclear war.

 Jones Q932: “This Haiphong Russian Roulette, playing with a nuclear war – and you see, I’m horrified by it, because I have given the date, the month and the year where nuclear war will take place. I want to be like Jonah of old, I want to be proven wrong. Jonah got mad when his prophecy went wrong. See, God showed him Nineveh was going to be destroyed, and then God decided not to, and Jonah got mad because he didn’t get the– the prophecy carried out, supposedly. Jonah didn’t– uh, he wasn’t happy that his own prophecy hadn’t ca– been carried out. I’ll be happy if one of my prophecies fail. They haven’t yet, but I’ll be glad when one of them does.”.

 Sometime in 1961 our story takes a bizarre turn. Jim Jones resigns from the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission and leaves Peoples Temple in the hands of his associate pastor. Jones has had an apocalyptic vision and decides to travel abroad. According to his biographers he first travels alone to Hawaii, it was there that Jones read an Esquire magazine article about the 9 safest places to survive nuclear fallout. Bello Horizonte Brazil was on that list. Jones made his way to South America stopping in Guyana where it is believed he did some missionary work with Amerindians. Oddly enough newspapers in Georgetown, the capitol of Guyana reported Jones making anticommunist speeches at this time. This is very out of character for Jones. For a period of about 6 months Jones disappears for a while. The next sighting, we have of Jones is in Cuba where he and his wife had their photograph taken with Fidel Castro, just months after the bay of pigs. Jones had more than one passport issued around this time. The first was issued in Chicago in 1960. We know he used it to travel to Guyana. The second was issued in Indianapolis in 1962. Which is odd because Jones and his family were living in Brazil at this time. So, who applied for or picked up the passport? Jones erratic behavior, his willingness to leave behind the temple he worked so hard to build are good indications that something strange was happening. Many people believe it is around this time that Jones became involved with the MK Ultra project or was recruited into the CIA. South America in the 70s, as you will hear in later broadcasts, is fraught with guerrilla warfare, CIA covert operations, and political upheavals. Having multiple passports and possible body doubles with bad mustaches is pretty suspicious. 

 Jim Jones and his family had up to this point, lived a relatively modest and frugal lifestyle suddenly found themselves living in luxury in Belo Horizonte Brazil. Where the money came from was a mystery. Jones claimed he was teaching at the university or worked at Eureka laundries depending on who asked him. He even claimed to be a gigolo scamming rich old ladies, or a Korean war vet receiving checks from the government monthly. All were lies. No one knows where he went all day or what he was up to. We do know Jones was seen by neighbors leaving for work early in the morning wearing a beige suit and clutching a leather briefcase. A car from the US consul would often be parked outside the Jones residence and was seen delivering groceries and packages to the Jones’.  A communication is sent to Jones from Jon Lodeesen, a CIA agent. The note stated that Jon needed to see Jones at the US Consul. Attached to the note was a passport picture slightly resembling Jones if he had a receding hairline and a bad mustache. A local newspaper reported that Jones and his family were suspected CIA agents trying to spy on the Brazilian government. In fact, there was a detective in the Brazilian police department investigating allegations, but the detective died before his investigation was complete.

 Jones had an old acquaintance living in Bello Horizonte. As a child Jones had preached on the streets of Richmond Indiana, there he met a police officer by the name of Dan Mitrione.

Later Dan Mitrione joined the FBI and moved to brazil to train law enforcement in advanced counterinsurgency techniques. His expertise in counter guerrilla warfare and torture techniques made him useful in takeovers of South American national socialist movements. He was a professional when it came to influencing people who opposed the law or government. He punished dissenters and used violent interrogation techniques. Later in his career Mitrione is kidnapped and killed by guerrilla fighters in Uruguay. It is around this time that Jones CIA file was purged. It boggles the mind that Jones would work so hard for the civil rights movement only to join the CIA so he could torture the very people he defended and admired.

 There are nine more months unaccounted for in this segment of our timeline. Jones is said to have worked for CIA owned Invesco in Rio where he failed as a salesman. For a guy who was good at selling monkeys door to door that’s ironic. Finally, in 1963 Jones and his family return to Indiana to gather their flock. Jones now claimed to believe the world would be engulfed in nuclear war by 1967 and wanted to move the Peoples Temple to Ukiah in Redwood Valley California. They loaded up the busses and moved everyone that they could to California. Upon his return the Peoples Temple message had become less spiritual and much more political.  Jim Jones now often referred to the bible as propaganda and would toss it across the room to make a show of just how little it mattered in the face of social injustice.

 Jones Q932: “I’ve sincerely and conscientiously not only to attempted to prove, but I have proven that you cannot base your faith upon the Bible. Did you get what I said here tonight? Until something’s proven empirically, epistemological concepts or whatever your conceptual ideas, they have to make a juxtaposition with reality someplace, so that you know, by empirical evidence, that what you have said was reality is tested to be reality, and proven to be reality.”.

 Settling in the small rural community of Ukiah, the Peoples Temple inserted themselves into local politics and purchased tons of real estate. They owned childcare facilities, thrift stores, old folks’ homes, motels, apartment buildings. To the predominantly white community, the invasion of mostly black counterculture revolutionary neighbors in the mid-60s would have drawn some attention. Marceline Jones and several members of Peoples Temple worked at the Mendocino county state hospital. This hospital was part of an experiment, to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill. As California deinstitutionalized its large state facilities the Peoples Temple funneled residents to Peoples Temple run halfway houses and care facilities, including a 40-acre ranch called happy acres for disabled children. As it was being essentially liquidated, the state hospital was also alleged to have been one of the many hospitals experimenting with LSD, electrotherapy and mind control techniques, as part of the MK Ultra program.

 Jim Jones: “Right on.”.

 Announcer: “As this 1952 CIA memo says, the aim is controlling an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against such fundamental laws of nature as self-preservation.”.

 MK Ultra Victim: “I was a subject in radiation as well as mind control and drug experiments performed by a man I knew as Dr. Green. I was a subject from 1966-1976. All of these experiments were performed on me in conjunction with mind control techniques and drugs.”.

 MK Ultra Dr.: “Well we told them, uh, I don’t think they would have even known what LSD was at the time. They were told they might be given some medication that could made them feel worse.”.

 Jones Q1053-4: “These are days when America’s house is on fire, and we are in grave danger. Now we $300, we don’t like to sacrifice, but it’s a worthy investment, if we could do anything to stop what they’ve got in mind here in California, you give us a little bit more time to get ourselves together so we can get out of here, or get on our way— when the bomb falls, to get on our way to protection. Because they are now talking of experimentation. He kept saying UCLA. That’s University of California. They’ve already done lobotomies there on people who— really, they’re not sure of the consent they got. He didn’t portray it half as bad as it is. They’re already doing chemical therapy, altering with drugs in the prisons. Senator Kennedy told us last week, they’re doing in the feeble-minded institutions, they’re doing it in the mental institutions, they’re already doing this. You can do nothing. There’s no use to talk about trying to stop this altering of the mind with drugs, there’s no use to talk about brain surgery being stopped, until you get these fat capitalists off the scene, until the money-mongers are off the scene, there will always be this dealing with the mind altering the human behavior, because what they want is every black person to go on as a slave. And they’re trying to give them passive drugs— passive, surgery that will dissect and by incision, and by chemistry, introduction of drugs to alter their behavior so that they will not question the dirty, stenching, smelling ghettoes that they’re living in, and they will not quarrel with the fact that they’re making half the wages of the white person, or they will not quarrel with the fact that they’re sent over to Vietnam to fight the rich man’s wars. They’re trying to get a whole breed of automatons.”.

 Peoples Temple was recruiting new members from nearby impoverished communities in Oakland and San Diego. As Peoples Temple membership grew so did the number of social security checks cashed each month by the temple. The people lived and worked in temple run homes and businesses, long hours with very little pay.  The harder you worked the greater proof of one’s loyalty. They bussed hundreds of Peoples Temple members into larger cities for political rallies and revivals. The counterculture movement was a bustling economy for Peoples Temple recruiters. By the early 70s, the Peoples Temple had moved its headquarters to San Francisco. Jones had effectively run an entire city using only his own people. In a big city like San Francisco it was important for Jim to have some friends in high places. He filled the temples busses full of people dressed in their Sunday best, willing to vote or rally for whomever Jones told them too. Soon this gave Jim Jones influence in local government. Peoples Temple played a large role in getting Mayor George Moscone elected. Allegedly, temple members bussed in from all around to vote for Moscone, sometimes more than once. Grateful to the temple, Moscone appointed Jim Jones chairman of the San Francisco housing authority. This gave Jones direct access and control over more impoverished people in the bay area. 

 The Peoples Temple was praised for its social services and Jim Jones had gained a reputation with many powerful people. He met with First Lady Rosalind Carter, presidential candidates, governors, and famous civil rights activists like Angela Davis. But behind closed doors Jim Jones was becoming increasingly paranoid. Loyalty to Peoples Temple was equated with loyalty to Jim Jones himself and any desertion or defection of any member was taken as a direct insult to Jones and an outright act of terrorism against the movement.

 Q679: Prokes: “Kay?”.

 Kay: “Uh-huh?”.

 Prokes: Mike Prokes.

 Kay: “Hi, Mike.”.

 Prokes: “How you doing?”.

 Kay: “Oh, fine.”.

 Prokes: “Haven’t heard from you for a while. Jim just wanted to know what your attitudes and feelings are at this point. “.

 Kay: “You know, I mean my attitude is okay, it’s just that uh, I just really think it’s just too much for me and uh, I know that I can’t, you know, continue to be a part of uh, PC. You know, I have no problems in coming to church, you know, it’s just that I have a problem staying up all night, and trying to work, and going to school, and going to meetings twice a week, and you know, I mean I just cannot hack that. And then maybe if it was in nature of a meeting that I was going to that had some end results, you know? I mean, in my mind, there is none. I just know that emotionally, I cannot just stay up like that and function like a normal person. I just can’t do it.”.

 Prokes: “All right. I’ll pass it along, and possibly get back to you.”.

 Jim Jones enlisted the inner circle of Peoples Temple leaders, known as the planning commission, to spy on temple members. Spying on his flock was something he had always done. It came in handy to know intimate facts about someone’s health status or family history when conning them into believing they had been healed by divine powers. Digging through people’s trash, accessing public records, and tapping phones were all part of the routine. But now that Jones held some real power the diabolical methods of data warehousing his people became more Orwellian. He encouraged his followers to donate not just their assets, but to sign away the custody of their children. He coerced people into signing false documents stating they had molested and abused their children, as well as committed heinous crimes, as a show of loyalty. A good friend and loyal partner to Jim Jones was Tim, the assistant DA for Mendocino county, Tim helped facilitate the signing of many of these documents. Children were encouraged to rat out their parents if they suspected defection. Before long, Peoples Temple members were paranoid and distrustful of each other. They were learning to only trust father, and also to fear him as most believed he could see into their minds.

 Jones Q1022: “This is just a short note from me to let you know that life outside of Peoples Temple is hell. Life away from our Father is unbearable.  We all realize our mistake and hope that others can learn from this. All must realize that in this time of much trouble and oppression that the only safe place is with Father, that nothing can be accomplished without Father. We’ve got to put an end to rebellion, or we won’t be able to get this group to a point of safety. “.

 Male 4: “When the girl that was with you- “.

 Jones: “Well, when are you gonna stop to think, young man? If everybody flared off, this organization might as well be destroyed, and I shot.”.

 People were often publicly humiliated by Jones or beaten for whatever crime whether real or imagined they had committed. Often the accused in these situations believed Jones had psychic powers, when in reality it was their family and friends spying on them.

 Q734: Female: “Goddamn stupid ass motherfucker!”.

 Male: “That’s right.”.

 Female: “Your stupid goddamn ass.”.

 Jones: “Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it. You could avoid this shit, if you’da confessed the last night.”.

 Male: “That’s right, Dad.”.

 Female: “Dumb ass!”.

Female: “Hit him in the– hit him in the– in– in his butt.”.

 Jones: “Hit him in the balls. Hit him in the balls! Hit him!”.

 Marriages were arranged and split apart; families reorganized. People were accused of being homosexual or of promiscuity, something Jones himself knew a lot about. It was clear that designing families was part of the structure of Peoples Temple. A micromanaging technique that would become more oppressive later in Jonestown. 

 Jones Q1018: “Get close, assemble yourselves closely this week. Get around me close, whenever you can. I love you.”.

 Jones spoke constantly of plots against Peoples Temple by outside forces like the FBI, CIA or law enforcement. He lived in constant terror of what he called the fascist capitalists that he claimed set fire to his churches, tortured their animals and had even tried to assassinate him. But what Jim really feared was the possibility of Peoples Temple defectors and how what they knew could destroy the organization from the inside out. Many stories about ex temple members turning up dead were circulated, some had substance, but none were ever proven. All the same, this drew negative attention to Jones and his practices. As the movement became more restrictive, disciplined and militant of course there were some defectors.

 Peoples Temple members Elmer and Deanna Mertle left the temple after their daughter was severely beaten with a paddle at a temple service. They changed their names to Al and Jeannie Mills and started the Human Freedom Center to help others that wanted to leave the temple.

 Jones was becoming more emotionally unstable. His fear of being exposed to the world was becoming real as more and more defectors began to speak out against the temple. 

 Elmer Mertle: “To leave Peoples Temple you had to decide you would rather die than continue to go there and see the beatings and the mistreatment of people. The rip off senior black people, of their and homes, all their property. You had to decide that you were ready to die when you left the church.”.

 Deep in the jungles of Guyana the Peoples Temple had leased several acres of land. There a small settlement had been built. They called it Jonestown, the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. Despite harsh jungle conditions and dense canopy, they had managed to build several cottages, a school, a clinic, plant crops, and even raise some livestock. It was supposed to be a paradise, a land of equality, living all for one in a socialist system, away from the injustices of the world.

 This is our socialist land…

 Ronald Beikman: “Hi my name is Ronald Beikman. Its nice over here and everybody likes it over here and I’ll be glad when you guys get to come over here because its just a joy when you get to see all you young people back there. Father loves all of us.”.

 Mike Touchette: “Hello family. Its such a joy and great pleasure being here because of father’s love. We are trying to make, and we are making a place of refuge for all of you here. I love it here and this is the place where all of you will be.”.

 In 1976 Jones decided to test the scope of his influence over his people. Cups were passed around and people were told to drink the poison liquid. After an emotional ceremony of devotional eulogies and agonizing dirges, they were told that this had only been a test of loyalty, and that they had all passed.

 Several relatives of Peoples Temple members and PT defectors formed the concerned relative’s group. As Jones had feared, the suicide drills and increasingly bizarre activities of the temple had prompted public interest. The concerned relatives began a campaign to investigate Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. Stories about public beatings, suspicious social security checks and disappearances of ex temple members began to circulate amongst the press. On August 1, 1977, New West published a damming news article. It speculated about where Peoples Temple got its money. Even more damaging to the temple were the eyewitness accounts of child abuse. Jim Jones panicked, this trickle of negative press would soon turn into a tidal wave that would defame him as a con man and destroy the organization. Jim Jones moved to Jonestown to avoid being investigated. His people followed him to Guyana seeking a life free from oppression. At this point in our story, things get pretty strange. Jim Jones drug use increases. His health deteriorates. He becomes even more paranoid, distrusting all of his followers and dragging them with him down into the rabbit hole. Raging endlessly into the night against an unseen foe, against all the injustices of an inhumane world.

 Jones: “But don’t ever say hate is your enemy. Love has practically caused me to get you destroyed. If I had hated a little more, just a little more, we would have had a little less trouble. Because I look at my faults analytically. Sure, you gotta love, principle. Loves the only weapon, shit! Bullshit! Martin Luthor King died with love. Kennedy died talking about something he couldn’t even understand. Some kind of generalized love and he never even backed it up, he was shot down. Bullshit. Love is the only weapon with which I’ve got to fight, I’ve got a hell of a lot of weapons to fight. I’ve got my claws. I’ve got cutlasses. I’ve got guns I’ve got dynamite. I’ve got a hell of a lot to fight. I’ll fight! I’ll fight! (screams) I will fight, I will fight. Let them hear it in the night. I ask you to fight. Let the night roar with it, they’re out there, they’re out there, they’re listening. Let the night roar with it. Let the night roar because they can hear us. They know we mean it. We’ll kill them if they come.”.

 END TRANSMISSION