Jonestown Audiotape
Primary Project : Summaries
Summary prepared by Fielding M. McGehee, III. If you
use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
Tape Number : Q 1059 (Part 2 of 6)
To read the Tape Transcript, click
here.
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FBI Catalogue: Jones speaking
Date cues on tape: (Part 2) June 12, 1972; Supreme Court ruling on segregating
fraternities. See continuation of tape of Q 1059 (3) for specific mention
People named:
People in attendance at Peoples Temple service (Part 1)
People in attendance at Peoples Temple service, full names unknown (Part
1)
People in attendance at Peoples Temple service, called out for healing (Part
1)
Mrs. Anderson
Antonio
Bailey
Mrs. Bowen
Cherry
Ruby Dean
Gray
Fannie Harris
Dolly Myers
Steve Morrow
Niles
Parker
Paulie
Peterson
Rosie (speaks)
Other names cited by Jones (Part 1)
National and international figures (Part 2)
Bible verses cited:
(Part 1) I don't want you lost at that final day, when you pray and find out
that it won't do you any good, that the Kingdom of Heaven is within (Luke 17:21,
"For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.")
(Part 1) They called him the Prince of Devils. They called Jesus, Beelzebub.
The Prince of Devils. He said, devils can't cast out devils. Devils don't heal.
(Matt. 12:22-27)
(Part 2) Paul said it. Now the old fashioned, vulgar word in the Hebrew for
crap was dung. D-U-N-G. Paul said, I count everything but dung. All things dung
that I might apprehend Christ. (Phil. 3:8, "Yea doubtless, and I count all things
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom
I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may
win Christ.")
(Part 2) It's harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of socialism,
the kingdom of God, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. (Matt.
19:24, "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.")
(Part 2) It says in Second Corinthians 3, that it will kill, the letter will
kill, and the spirit will make alive, or the Bible kills or love makes alive
(2Cor. 3:6, "Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not
of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
life.")
(Part 2) God made the heavens and earth in six days (Genesis 1); You go back
there and read King James, he's got vegetables growing before the sun shines...
You got vegetables growin' in the King James Bible before the sun shines. You
know nothing don't grow without sun (Genesis 1:11-19)
(Part 2) Adam couldn't have been the first man. First place, that doesn't say
he was. One Bible verse says it, but it says go forth and replenish, which means,
fill again. So if he was the first, you don't have to go fill it again. Somebody'd
been on it before he was. (Gen. 1:28, "And God blessed them, and God said unto
them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it"; Gen.
2:7, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.")
(Part 2) Because the Bible says, let you keep silent in all of the churches...
The Bible says for you not to teach, not to even speak in all the churches,
and if you want to ask a question, go home and ask your husband (1Cor. 14:34-35,
"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them
to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it
is a shame for women to speak in the church.")
Summary: Part 1
This tape consists of two different sermons by Jim Jones, the first of an unknown
date (but most likely in the early- to mid-1970s), both taking place before
large congregations in one of his three venues. The second sermon continues
on Q 1059 (3).
There are several themes of other sermons which appear on this tape: faith-healings,
mixed with common sense medical advice; autobiographical pieces that work their
way in; criticisms of people who don't pay attention to what Jones says or how
he sets an example; and the use of the Bible to destroy the veracity of the
Bible and -- by extension -- to support his own theology.
The tape begins in such a moment, as Jones disparages the use of prayer, even
when people pray to Jim Jones to help them. Prayer doesn't work the way that
joining him in the cause with their hearts, minds and dollars does. But people
don't care, he says, or they sleep during his talks, or they don't want to think
about what they hear. He wants them to understand, "the only Christ that you're
going to see is the Christ in you. That's your hope of glory." Then, shifting
from words of promise to ones of threat, he adds, "And if you don't get a hold
of it, the Man's gonna come and gonna take us away."
The theme returns later in the service, when he says, "I stopped praying, and
I started working. And because I started working, hundreds are now free. But
if you would do what I am, if you care like I cared, we could do so much more."
Even later, he answers the question of how to become like him, by saying simply,
"Quit seeking and start working."
His ominous tone also returns. People who don't help the church after they've
heard the truth, die. He tells of a man who thought "this preacher, he's too
dirty-mouthed, always talks about social gospel, helping others, wouldn't let
his wife give, he's dead." But, he adds, that doesn't mean he brings on the
deaths. Rather, he says, he only sees the coming catastrophes.
The genesis of his loss of faith in prayer came when he was a boy of five and
watched his grandfather die, while a rich man -- with a rich man's ailment --
was treated by a doctor, because the rich man could pay. That's when he stopped
praying, he says, and then continues, more angrily, "That's your damn system.
That's your damn God you had. That's your damn religion you got." In reality,
he continues, God doesn't have any power except what's in you, since you are
His hands and His feet. He concludes the thought: "No God in the world but in
me and in you."
Another part of his biography emerges -- as well as some deep emotion -- when
Jones speaks about his years in South America, his exposure for the first time
to starving babies, his frustration with getting support from the church back
in Indiana, and his decision to sleep with another woman in order to get the
money needed to save the children.
Along the way, he talks about his experiences as a chaste youth -- he was a
virgin when he married Marceline, he says -- and his vows of monogamous sex.
But when the couple arrived in South America and saw what was there, "we got
together and said, these 200 babies are worth our lives." He adds that breaking
his marital vows and sleeping with the woman outside of marriage was like dying
on a cross. "That was the worst death I know... And I got baptized that night.
I lost my virtue for others."
He then adds that he was with Jesus at the moment of the crucifixion, but it's
unclear whether he means he was present, or whether he himself was Christ. In
a breaking voice, he does add, "It's a tough job, being God. It's a tough job...
I'm not worrying over me, because I have died, you see. I don't live any longer.
That's the key to being God. I have no ambitions, I've seen all of life I wish
to see. There's no hidden secrets that it holds, any allurement for me."
He talks about the youth of the church, saying they are good young people who
don't get into trouble, once they're part of the church. They give up smoking,drinking,
and doing drugs. But it isn't religion that made them clean. Jim Jones made
them clean.
Jones reverts to a familiar theme of tearing apart the Bible story of creation,
asking rhetorically what kind of Skygod is it who would make people because
He was lonely, and who would create a devil to give the people choices of good
and evil -- and then punish those who made the wrong choice.
He criticizes the other churches that people go to, and says those preachers
are hypocritical, and worse. He notes that people complain about his dirty language,
but the truth is, the others do dirty deeds. "If you ever get just as good as
I am, this world will be a nice place to live in." He returns to the theme during
his weepy description of his time in South America. People are with him on Wednesday
nights, he says, but then return to the traditional houses of worship on Sunday.
"Don't go back to those lying churches," he pleads. "Don't go back to them...
Come out from amongst the unclean thing. Be with separate people. Become the
body of God." He makes a final plea for people to stay with him during the healing
part of the service, when he tells them, "Once you get healed from me, you're
supposed to stay healed in mind and body," and there is only one way to do that.
He weeps, he says, not for himself, but for them. "I'm crying, because here
the greatest healer, and the greatest father-lover -- and that's what I mean,
not romantic, sexual lover -- but the greatest father, the greatest humanitarian,
the kindest human being that's ever walked in our day, only has a handful of
people by comparison to what he should have."
The first part of the tape ends during the healing service. He performs healings,
but reminds people to watch their sugar intake and their blood pressure. He
directs one woman to see a nurse about information on a healthy diet.
He has difficulty making connection with some people during the healings, discerning
people's thoughts as rapidly as usual, because his preaching sometimes "creates
a lot of aggravation" among those in the church, and he has to put out more
energy to override it.
Summary: Part 2
The second part of the tape begins with a description of the work of Peoples
Temple -- the health examinations it gives to its members, the free immunizations,
the education to young people -- but this speech is more political. He speaks
of the power of socialism to protect him and his followers from other dangers,
including knife attacks. The ultimate protection offered by the church, he says,
is the underground refuge where they will go when the nuclear holocaust comes.
And it will come, he warns, reminding the congregation that, through his prophecy,
"we know the day, the hour, the minute, the year" of the Armageddon. Nevertheless,
he talks about some of the recent errors by madmen in the military and elsewhere
that have almost triggered the war.
Jones says that America thinks it's immune, because the bombs didn't hit us
in World War II, and because America is a Christian nation. That leads into
his attack on American policy in Vietnam and its historical relationship with
Native Americans.
Along the way, he interrupts himself to remind one person that, just because
he's in the room, doesn't make him a follower. The person needs to listen and
stop wandering around. "I'm not seeking followers," Jones says. "I'm seeking
comrades. But you have to learn to follow before you can ever lead." Some people
try to con him into thinking they're followers, he adds, but he knows who they
are. "You think you can fool me, and I won't say a word. I just won't bring
you up one night... When the caravan gets ready, there'll be an asterisk by your
name, don't call them."
That theme continues to find voice throughout the talk. Political organization
and discipline -- as opposed to religion and anarchy -- are what they need to
stop war and genocide. People who do their own thing aren't neutral, they're
part of the problem, "just as much a part of the problem as the warfare state,
the military-industrial complex that's creating the napalm bombing the children.
While you're out smoking your weed and doing your thing, people are dying."
Jones blasts the people who just sit around and talk, or who hear his words
without acting on them with a supreme insult: "I have more respect for a capitalist
than I do an anarchist." He explains that later, by reminding them that they
have the truth, and someone who declines to act upon the truth is worse than
someone who hasn't been exposed to it. "If you don't give of yourself, and discipline
yourself, you're a murderer, you're a traitor, you're worse than all the killers
that are making the napalm, because you know better."
Jones treads on familiar territory when he talks about the Bible. He defends
this use of foul language, by saying that both Paul and Jesus used the word
"dung." (In other addresses, he includes Solomon in that number.) He blasts
the inconsistency of fact in the Bible (returning to the creation story) and
the archaic laws (such as the old Testament's prohibition on women speaking
in church) as demonstrating the book's irrelevance. He attacks the King James
version of the Bible, and reminds his congregation that King James was a slavemaster
who brought their forebears in chains to America on the Good Ship Jesus. He
turns his disdain to mainline churches, and says they don't care about the parishioners
the way Peoples Temple does. These are common to many addresses of this period.
He does talk about evolution, and adds that monkeys should be insulted that
we say we're higher than they are. For people who disagree with him on evolution,
he invites them to look at the development of human embryos, or to feel the
tailbone at the tip of their spines. That subject returns towards the end of
the tape, when he cries out to the assemblage: "Now, you may not want to take
the monkey preacher, you may not like me with my tailbone, you may not like
this nigger settin' here, but when you get ready to die, you'll be huntin' this
nigger up, I know you will."
The address continues on tape number Q 1059, Part 3.
FBI Summary:
Date of transcription: 6/21/79
In connection with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into
the assassination of U.S. Congressman LEO J. RYAN at Port Kaituma, Guyana, South
America, on November 18, 1978, a tape recording was obtained. This tape recording
was located in Jonestown, Guyana, South America, and was turned over to U.S.
Officials in Guyana and subsequently transported to the United States.
On June 16, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B108-37.
This tape was found to contain the following:
JIM JONES talking before an assembly of People's Temple members regarding God;
how good it is to be a Socialist; how JONES cared for orphans in Brazil; healing
Pople's [sic] Temple members of their physical disorders; light-colored dark
people who believe they are better than other dark people; Hiroshima; Vietnam;
and Wounded Knee.
Differences with FBI Summary:
The summary is accurate and meets the FBI's purposes.