Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
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Part 1
Organ playing throughout
Jones: when he heard, it was through the newspaper. We didn’t have a ad in a newspaper. One, to hold her hand high. That’s important. Because we’ll have to use our funds wisely. One, two. How many heard of it by word of mouth of how great this miracle ministry was, and how great it (final word drowned out)
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: Somebody told you. You see what we need to do, and you know what was told to us, to witness to 20 people a day about these miracles, twenty mi people a day about the radio broadcast on Sunday night, 10:30, and bring them in that way. Bring them in that way. If you are bringing someone, though, and you’re attesting for them, try to bring them with you. But do not forget that that is the way to overcome death. The key to immortality is to tell 20 people a day of this great witness. Our hands clasped again. (Sings)
Tape off for indefinite period, same service
Jones: (Conversational) with that religion. Calvinism. Baptist religion, that’s the basis of your Calv your Bap Calvinist Baptist faith, and they came in, and now those poor people make sixteen cents a day, while the average Christian white makes $20 a day. You say the movie. How many saw the movie in here? Treated like dogs. Given their can’t even buy good alcohol. They give ’em a horrible strong potent alcohol that causes cancer of the stomach, and kills them off, because they got too many blacks, and makes them uh, just toxic, but doesn’t even give them a good drunk. They can’t even get a good drunk. They can’t even go to the toilet. They can’t ride the buses. They cannot go to in the stores. They cannot walk on the streets. They got to walk down, off the curb. That’s what religion brought them. (Ministerial cadence) I’ve come to get you free from religion. I’ve come to give you Christ. I’ve come to give you the Word, the revolution made flesh. I have come to give you a living savior, to bring you out of your institution, to bring you out of your bondage, to bring you out of your darkness, to bring you out of man-made religion. (Pause) Sure, you can’t stand on your feet, some of you, because you’re still Uncle Toms and Aunt Janes, you don’t know the truth when you hear it. (Pause) Peace. (Pause) [You] Say, I love the Bible. Somebody said the other night, I took a Muslim brother in here and I honored him, I said, I’m so glad. He said, I wor I worship Allah, but he said, I know you are the Incarnation of God made flesh. I said I’m glad for my Muslims here. We’ve got a lot of Muslims in this church. And I He said, well, I don’t know, I thought this was a Christian church. Honey (Short laugh)
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Normal tone) Do you know that the most of the leadership is Jewish Mus– and Muslim? (Pause) I don’t know. You said you’re Christian. That’s all right, what’s your Christian You like You like Christianity. All right, King James, that boo– book you love so much. King James, and you go back and get my interpretation of it. I said I had to give people a little bit of truth, they’ve seen too many miracles, and they’re all up in seventh heaven, and they’re saying, oh, what Jesus is doing through him. What Jesus is doing through him. Nobody does a thing through me, honey. It’s me that does it.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Admonishing) Well, now, before you get mad, good Catholic friends, you saw the woman spit up her cancer, and you’ve got one, you know it. You want to get healed from it, don’t you. (Ministerial cadence) Well, you better set and get the truth, because it’s the truth that sets you free. You saw the one that came out of the casket yesterday, you saw the blind eyes that were opened, you saw the back broken that was healed, you saw the one that was crippled up with arthritis in an accident that came running down, you saw those, you saw the blinded eyes open. If you want to get that, honey, you better sit on your fanny and listen to what I gotta say.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: If you don’t like the truth, you never will get these healings. We’ve got a miracle package, and we save that miracle package. We save that resurrection package for those folks that like black liberation. (Cries out) Hey, God.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Ministerial tone) Yeah, you’re part of it. So with my color, I’m light. If you’re Mexican, if you’re an Indian, if you’re Jewish, you’re going to have to be liberated, because these these people from Okie Flats, these folk from down down deep South, all that honky Ku Klux Klan stuff that’s still runnin’ in the vein, they’re gonna come after you. You just think you’re a Mexican. Just because [California] Governor [Jerry] Brown didn’t call you colored, you thought you don’t have a problem. (Pause) You see, back under Governor Brown, the blacks and the Indians and the Mexicans were about to get together, and the foolish people and Governor Brown talked it over, ’cause I’ve got one who was high in his administration that’s in our church, they talked it over, and said we’re going to have to divide these people, so we’ll say the Mexicans can be called white. And the Indians can be called white. And we’ll call the blacks Negro, because if we don’t, they’ll get together. But what honey, you better still look. You better still look. You Mexicans are still being treated like niggers, so you better recognize who you are.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: My Indian brothers and sisters only live to be 42 years of age, of life expectancy in America. Some of ’em still think that they’re pure American, but they’re being treated just like nigger Jim is, they’re being treated badly.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Lower tone) Aw, wake up. How long do you have to be in the world before you get any sense? I’m telling you the truth now. This is what’ll set you free. These miracles are wonderful, it’s good to live a long life, but if you live a long life and be stupid, you might as well be dead.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Voice rises throughout) Sure, we have no dying here. Sure, we’ve had 209 people resurrected from the dead that’ve carried in here with bowel movement even caked on their legs, we’ve even had their eyes set and they’ve been blue, sure, we can do that. But I tell you, that’s not what’s most wonderful. I’m looking over at faces that were once dead in their trespasses of the old religions, they were dead under the old doctrines of fear, dead under the old concepts of the furniture of heaven and the temperature of hell, they were dead, and now their mental concepts, their mind has been resurrected. That’s the greatest resurrection of all. Their mind has been liberated. Their mind has been set free. They now think. They now know the truth, and the truth has set them free.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Voice lowers, then rises throughout) [You] Say, you belong to a Christian church. Yes, I belong to a Christian church, and I told them, I’ve got Muslims on my board. I belong to a Christian church, and they saw a whole breakfast full of Muslims, Jewish, and they had to take them. And I said, if you want me to say that Jesus Christ is the one we’re going to look to in the past, no! Jesus Christ said, that wh– these things shall you do, and greater. We’re not going to look to the past. We’re going to have our own liberation today. We’re going to have our Messiah today. We’re going to have our deliverance today. Today is our day of salvation.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: And they just voted us in. I’ll go into Christian church, if Christian church wants to take us. Long as I don’t have to sign under their doctrines, ’cause it gives us a little more umbrella over you. I’m not afraid of anybody. Nothing in this world or out of this world, up above this world or under it. But you need as many people to protect you as possible. I told my people, some of my Jewish members said, “We must not move that way.” I said, “Do you know a synagogue’ll take us in?” One rabbi said, “I’d like to, but they the congregation wouldn’t allow you to do so. You’d have to practice certain patterns that we do.” But we’ve got plenty of Jewish friends, but we couldn’t go in the synagogue. I talked to Elijah Muhammad, and uh, I couldn’t go in to Elijah Muhammad. I would’ve, but they they said that you had to all have black certain dark skin to be in their movement. I don’t believe that. I believe you can be a nigger and be as white as milk.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Conversational) Now you say, you don’t like that word, “nigger” outside. No, inside, though, our children have been hurt with it so much, we kinda joke about it. That takes some of the sting out of it. And we’re glad to be niggers. When I look at these honkies fightin’ over each other, when they’re dying, and they look so drab, I watched them coming out of Betty Grable’s funeral, and I sa looked at Dorothy Lamour, and I tell you, Dorothy looked like she was 150.
Congregation: Laughs
Jones: I look at those people in that honky world, they’re unhappy, they’re they’re they’re empty, their life is meaningless, they’ve got nothing but their possessions and they can only hold [them] until they die, and their family’s standing like vultures ready to take them. When I look at all those unhappy honkies, I’m glad I’m a nigger.
Congregation: Cheers and applause
Jones: I’da joined Elijah Muhammad, but I’m not going to stand and have him look at somebody’s color, I’m going to look at their actions. Man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. We had the Ku Klux Klan doing that to us, they judge us because we were Jewish or black or Indian, they would they would burn their crosses in our yards, if you were Catholic too, honey. Some of you Catholics think you’re not niggers, but you are.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: The Ku Klux Klan is rising again. (Pause) Davenport can tell you, we we saw it, front page news here in the Los Angeles Times, back in Indianapolis, you can’t have Negroes in your home with tha in Martinsville, they’ll burn crosses in your yard. They’ll sweep you away at night. The Ku Klux Klan’s meeting every Friday, and if their hate is against Catholics, Jews, blacks, Indians, Mexicans, anybody from lower Europe, Greeks, Latin, Spanish, so honey, you didn’t know it, but the Ku Klux Klan calls you a nigger.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: We saw the film of CBS saying that they’d taken 50 million a year from the Carolina Klan alone. (Pause) (Calmer) All right. And they’re on the increase. They’re marching around. They marched in the BART Day California Parade, in Northern California, the Ku Klux Klan, and in Southern California, the Ku Klux Klan hoods on, and in Houston, where I healed this bishop that was 87 years of age, cured him of blindness and brought him out of the wheelchair, his testimony’s in this our this month’s magazine (Pause) (Slower) The cops wear their Ku Klux Klan garb right on duty.
Congregation: Murmurs
Jones: (Calls out) Don’t tell me it’s not true. I’ve got the pictures, and the repa– in the newspaper, Associated Press has pictures of them, with their Ku Klux Klan emblems on. (Voice rises) And I want to get some of you people you people, just because somebody puts white on your record, go out there and see how your housing is. Mexicans, look around at this mess. (Pause) Look at the kind of housing you’ve got. Look at the protection you get. Somebody gets hurt in Beverly Hills, boom, there’s somebody right on the spot. If you’re in one of these poor Mexican or poor white or poor Jewish or poor Italian or poor black neighborhoods, you can wait till you begin to rot, and nobody’ll be there.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Ministerial tone) If I had not had revelation at three o’clock on Saturday morning, that woman had her clothes stripped off on her, on Pico Street. They’d stripped her naked, a young woman, stripped her, but my revelation sense of the attorneys and the workers, and they saved her. They stripped her bare. That wouldn’t happen in Beverly Hills. No, they get more protection for their tax dollar. You better wake up. That’s why some of the white mothers are calling themselves Gray Panthers. We don’t not only need some Black Panthers, we need some White Panthers, some Italian Panthers, some Jewish Panthers. We need all kinds of panthers.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Lower tone) Bless your heart. (Pause) (Returns to ministerial tone) I don’t care if you don’t like it. When you die, see if somebody can heal you. When you get cancer, see if anybody can cut it out and take it, like I did, from the woman a few minutes ago, all over her body, took every bit of her pain, it’s still gone, isn’t it, honey? (Pause) Still gone? No more pain in your body, is there? She’s waving her hand. All the pain gone in your chest, brother? Still gone down here out of your chest? My healing’s there she’s shouting back there. If you want to get healed with cancer, you take my black and Jewish and freedom-liberation message. You take it.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Fervor) Because I’m not going to give you my healing, unless you take my truth. If you won’t stand on your feet for what I’ve got to say, then you can sit on your ass and die.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Lower tone) I’m not speaking to senior citizens. I’m not speaking to senior citizens, I don’t expect you to jump up. I’m looking back there at some young man that’s got trouble in your prostate. You got on your feet, though, didn’t you. You had trouble in the back of your back, you don’t think you can stand up for my message, but you had to get up off your feet, young man there, in the white and the blue, you had to get up, you had to get up off your feet, ’cause I wouldn’t heal you, but now I will heal you, because you got up, and you were honorable enough to be obedient, and now I will heal you.
Congregation: Cheers and applause
Jones: (Normal tone) Good God. (Pause) It’s sweet to know Jesus. (Voice rises) Because Jesus is a revolution. (Pause) (Normal tone) I do love you with all my heart. That’s why I tell you the truth. People that lie to you don’t love you. People that tell you the truth love you. Thank you. And there’s not a church that would’ve interrupted their offering to preach. But I know we’ll find money some way. (Voice rises) But the truth, you cannot buy. The truth is not for sale. You can’t find the truth anyplace else. That’s why, as badly as we need money to fe feed our children, keep our children’s home, keep our senior citizen homes, educate our young people in the colleges, (Lower urgency) I stopped it because I knew you needed the truth. Some of you don’t listen to my tapes too well, but when I get on the ball, and open my mouth, you begin to listen, at least a little bit. (Voice rises) And I must give you the truth. I’d rather have anything happen than if for you not to have the truth. You can afford to get sick, but you cannot afford to be lied to. You cannot afford to live in darkness. You cannot afford to live under the lies of the old church religious system. (Shouts) You must have the truth. You must have the truth. God, you must have the truth.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Lower ministerial tone) Halleluia, hallelulia, hallelulia, hallelulia. Jehovah jah. Peace. (Pause) (Normal tone) So we are accepted in a Christian church, because they accepted us, and let me be the bishop. I told the man in there, I said, my people think I’m God. (Pause) He didn’t know what to think about it.
Congregation: Laughs
Jones: And I said, that I I’m certainly more of a God than a spook.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Conversational) And they say that somebody’s God up there in the sky is in the State Department says two out of three babies are going to bed hungry. (Pause) And God was lonely when he got out there and made space, they say, that that Skygod, that he was lonely, and he looked out over space, and he made him an angel. And the most beautiful one he meant made didn’t like him. (Pause) Satan, the most beautiful one, rebelled and took a third of his angels away. Said God, that Skygod was lonely. (Pause) That’s sweet. Now, I wouldn’t do that to you. If I found myself in this hellhole, and I was alone, I’d stay alone, ’cause I love you too much. (Laughs)
Congregation: Light applause
Jones: You understand what I’m talking about? (Ministerial cadence) You can call me a Redeemer, though, if you want to. You can call me a Savior, if you want to. You can call me a Deliverer, that’s come up out of Zion, if you want to. You can call me a liberationist, if you want to. You can call me a revolutionist, if you’d care to. But don’t you call me no Skygod. (Pause) (Normal tone) He said, well, I guess you got a point there.
Congregation: Laughs
Jones: And people calling God a spook, and all these babies going to bed hungry, people dying in concentration camps, first it be his chosen people, the Jewish people. Black people suffer, just because of the color of their skin. He said, I don’t understand God you being God. Do you understand anything else being God?
Congregation: Shouts of “No”
Jones: Come on.
Congregation: Cheers and applause
Jones: (Voice rises with challenging tone) I’m asking, do you understand anything else? Do you understand why we started and where we come from? (Pause) Do you understand that? Do you understand why God began the whole thing, (Pause) that people have to look for cancers and pollution and smog, the only peace we’ve got’s up in Redwood Valley, and we have to put fences around it to give people havens, sanctuary, swimming pools, mustard greens, strawberries, the best care, the only Garden of Eden that I know in America is up in Redwood Valley, and I made it, this God made it with his hands?
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: Peace. You say you been worshipping a spook. (Voice rises to ministerial fervor) Paul said, I perceive that you’re entirely too superstitious. He said, you make an engraving, a superstition to the unknown God. That’s what all the Christians are doing. That’s what all of ’em they got an unknown God. He’s never shown up. They live in poverty, they live in ghettoes, they suffer and die before their time, they face cancer, they can’t get a good doctor (Voice drops) I’ve had to get a sister this morning that had been operated on, hadn’t even been sewed up properly. (Pause) Had to heal her. Didn’t I? Over here. Had to heal her.
Man: Right.
Jones: (Voice rises) Hadn’t even been sewed up properly. They’ve still got VIP on people that’re very important, and you can lay and die, if you don’t know the right people in the hospital, that (stumbles over words) the wheel that’s got the money or the most grief, the one that whe squeaks the loudest gets the most grease, rather. (Pause) I’m talking about the earth as it is. You think you had no trouble about believing in God. Before you saw me, you said you believed in God. (Pause) Why do you believe in God? (Voice becomes conversational) Because, you said, I didn’t get here from nothing.
Man: Laughs
Jones: Well, that don’t mean nothing to me. I can look out there and see in Redwood Valley, outside of our property because our property’s clean, you can go out there and look out on some of their fields and you’ll see horseshit.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Ministerial tone) Now, excuse me, I’m using Paul’s language to try to get a truth across to you. Paul said, I count it all dung. Now just listen, won’t be too much longer. You can look out and see a pile of horseshit, but that don’t mean necessarily that you want to find which made it.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (off mike) What?
Voice too soft.
Jones: I think it better a better way would be to say, you can look out on our hills all around there and you can see the elimination that come from buzzards. (Pause) It’s there. It didn’t come from nothing. It come from buzzards, but you better not let play with buzzards, ’cause they’ll eat you before you stop breathing.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Voice continues to rise) Buzzards that pick on your flesh before you’re dead. So some of you say, well, I’m here. Somebody had to be there. How do you know it’s friendly? (Pause) How do you know what’s up there is friendly? (Pause) If you look in here and I’m supposed to be the creator of this house, (pause) (lower tone) and I am
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: Shh. I am the creator of this house. If you came in here, (voice drops) and saw two out of three of my people hungry, you’d say he’s a lousy creator. If you saw people in here that didn’t have proper clothes and were starving and were dying of thirst, you’d say, Father Jones is a very poor God.
Congregation: That’s right.
Jones: But Father, it’s so much (unintelligible word) that everyone here has the same birthday, the same weekly allowance for their children, the same equal Christmas, and we’re going on August the third, we’re all going on the same equal vacation. And if they don’t have the money, we’ll find a way, if you’re an honest, faithful, supporting member not in just material things, but in your soul for this work we’ll find a way. (Pause) And if you’re an actual supporting, contributing person in your commitment to this church, we’ll find a way even to San Francisco every other week. Because we’ll not let (unintelligible word) or money bar you, if you have put your commitment where your mouth is, and put your time where your mouth is, we’ll take care of you fairly. There’s no respect of persons here. (Voice rises) But yet you’re so quick out there, you’ll say, oh God is beautiful, God is wonderful. But God made this world, and two out of three babies in this world are hungry in Africa today. In Africa, the poor camels and donkeys and horses are dying. The TV shows you, little black babies, Arab babies, Muslim babies, Jewish babies are falling dead all over Africa, because of a drought, an act of God. (Fervor) Seven years drought, an act of your so-called Skygod. They’ve had no water for seven years, (Voice drops to dramatic tone) and your TV news shows you every night those poor people dying, dying, and what’ve we got? We’ve got money for Cambodia, money to bomb little babies in Cambodia, money to blow little Vietnamese children to hell, we’ve got money to make napalm. (Pause) (Conversational) Now, listen to me, children. Now think it through. If we’ve got money for that, we could take that money over there. You say, “Well, that’s not God. That’s man.” Who made man? (Pause) (Voice rises) Who gave him the power? Or you say, well, Go that’s the devil. Who made the devil? If I started a world, (Pause) I’m gonna get ’em I’m gonna shake some of these folk loose today.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Conversational) Hah. Now be seated. Now you relax yourself a little bit. Now, if I made a world, I wouldn’t make any devil. (Pause) I wouldn’t make any devil. What would I want with a devil? You’ve listened to these old fairy tales that King James cooked up for you, King James of England, who sent the first ships to Africa to bring our forefathers back in chains, and what did King James name the ship? Good Ship Jesus. That’s how he got us to come over here. He’s gonna give us an education. And our folks came over here, saying we were gonna get an education, and they brought us over here in the Good Ship Jesus. (Intense but conversational) And how’d they get our sons in they got our sons, the pride of Africa, princes, kings, they took the best of our people, brought ’em in chains, and they got ’em off the boat, and they were fightin’, they said, we’re not going to pick your cotton. (Pause) (Lower tone) Yeah, and so they killed off the smart ones. Then they got the dummies. Mmm-hmm. They killed off the smart or the poor that were beat down, beat down till they were tired and too hungry, they said, now we’ll give you some food, if you’ll have a Bible study. And we’ll teach you about Jesus. And now you get Jesus, and you won’t have to worry, if you work here in the cotton fields now, but bye and bye, you’re gonna have shoes, and all God’s children gonna have shoes, and you’re gonna go away, gonna fly away up into heaven, and you’re going through the Pearly Gates, you know, and sit up in the City, and finally, it took on, ’cause there wasn’t another way you could get our people to work in those cotton fields 20 hours a day. You know that, honey? You know what I’m talking about? You understand it? Yeah. You know, the only reason they could get our people to work the cotton fields, and work their their backs to the bone, their hands to the bone, sweat the only thing that could keep them alive was the lie the white man had given them. (Sings) “You got shoes, I got shoes, all of God’s children got shoes. When you get to Heaven, gonna put on the shoes and gonna walk off” (Unintelligible word) Well, we’ve been singing that for 2000 years, but Jim Jones come along and says, (sings) “You got shoes, you got shoes, all the damn honkies got shoes”
Congregation: Laughter
Jones: “We’re gonna build a heaven, if you don’t give me some shoes, we’re gonna take off our your shoes, and gonna walk all over your ass.”
Congregation: Cheers and laughter
Jones: (Cries out) I don’t care you like it, I’m still the one to heal that cancer. I’m still the one that raised the one up in the wheelchair, I’m still the one that raised the two up from the dead yesterday, I’m still the one that had the blind that gave them healing yesterday, I’m the same God (Pause) same God same power. (Normal tone, rises throughout) This woman can tell you, hopeless heart condition, raised her from the dead. This woman can tell you, setting with her son, was dying with cancer, brought him back, healed him, he’s healthy now. Every place I walk, I can see people that were in wheelchairs or that were dying. These people can tell you, it’s the same one that said, “Ass,” honey. Same God. Same God.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Cries out) I won’t preach like this every day, but I’m telling you, I didn’t come here to give you miracles just so you could go back to those old (Voice breaks) gospel churches, those old lying-dog, jackleg churches, I didn’t come to give you the truth, that you could go back into that old lie. I came to set you free. I came to get you to stand on your feet, and to be a proud nigger. That’s what I came. (Pause) (Calmer voice) Bless you. Some of you standin’ up with me too, aren’t you. I love you for it. I adore you for it, because you’re standing with me. (Pause) All right. You can be seated. (Pause) Bless your sweet hearts. (Pause) Sweet hearts.
Congregation: Build to cheers
Jones: Shh. You may be seated. (Pause) I want to hold this analogy. Though I did not intend to preach, I had to preach, ’cause some people are going to lose their life if I don’t preach. If they don’t have the truth, then they’re gonna lose their whole soul. You didn’t have any soul until I came along, some of you. You’re like a big car without a motor. I had to come and get the soul in the thing, give you the mind, the spirit of Christ, the spirit of revolution. I had to come and give it to you. I’m making that analogy. If I were to create a world, I wouldn’t create a devil. I wouldn’t create anybody because I was lonely. No, not I. That doesn’t apply to me. That doesn’t apply to a lot of you. You’re better people than that. There’re Baptists and Methodist and Jewish mothers in here, you wouldn’t have done that, would you? Would you’ve been up in the sky, would you’ve created somebody because you were lonely? That’s what Billy Graham said. (Pause) Somebody asked him one of the scholars asked him, a Jewish rabbi, “Why did God create us?” This Jewish rabbi was an atheist. Lot of atheists anymore in the churches, in the synagogues. He said, “Why?” He said, “Well, because God was lonely. God needed somebody to worship him.” (Sneers) What a ridiculous, superficial, stupid thing to say, that God would make somebody to worship him, because he was lonely. Then he made a devil. Now, all that you can say to me, your God you worship God? before I came, and you’ve got a world filled with war, blacks starving, Indians dying at Wounded Knee, Jewish fighting for their life in Israel, wars and rumors of wars, (unintelligible word) depressed, everywhere, all over the land. (Pause) Two out of three babies going to bed hungry, and you say, (high pseudo voice) “I don’t understand why they believe Jim Jones is God. I can’t understand that.” (Unintelligible phrase) We don’t understand why you are making so much ado over your Buzzard God.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: I don’t make to call your God I don’t mean to be disrespectful to your God, but the best thing I can do is to shock you. The way they get mental patients cured is to give them electro-shock. I’ve seen some of them, they were bad, they were talking and their eyes popping and they’ll be quivering, and they go in and give them electro-shock boom! and they’ll come out of that electro-shock, and they’ll start remembering their children, and begin to have peace. But the shock is horrible. They froth, they have to bite on a rubber heel, they go into uh, seizures, the shock is terrible. And I know I’m like that to some of you. The truth is like an epileptic seizure. It’s like electric shock, but when you get through, you’ll be healed of your mental illness.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: (Calls out) You see the saved in a world that’s filled with babies, two out of three that’re going to bed hungry, world that has tidal waves hit the same place in India twice in one year, and three million die, earthquakes that have swallowed up the Peruvian Indians, in the last three years, twice, famines that strike Africa. Why don’t they strike San Clemente? That’s where [President Richard] Nixon lives.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (High voice) I mean, you’re not going to hear (unintelligible pronoun) say, you I I I’m quarreling with your concept, you say God, your God, has all power. You say your God can do anything. I only say, if you’ll give me your faith, I will give you more by far than your Buzzard God ever gave you.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: Shh. I say that, if in every city I had this kind of a following that would like me, this honest one, this most honest one, I could change this nation and make it blossom like a rose. I could turn its dry ground into great brooks that would bring forth living water, if you would elect me your savior, if you would elect me your president, if you would elect me a leader, I say, I would do ten thousand times more for you than any religious opinion’s ever done. I do not claim to be omniscient, omnipotent, omniluscent, omnipresent, but you claim, you God has all power. You claim that God made the devil, and that God will let the devil reign only as long as He wants him to reign. You claim that God was able to do everything, but he couldn’t make even a good man except Job (tape distorted) your King James, Job was the only good man. (Voice lowers to conversational) And what happened to him? (Pause) God looked at him. When I see good people here, my heart goes out. I look at the choir, I look at you older people, and I showed that bishop, I was showing him Bertha up in the kitchen, I said these are gems, I said Mother Taylor I talked about her before she got in I said, you don’t know women like that. (Quiet, inttense) They work work in their eighties, and then she came in, I was so glad she stepped in. I said, these are the qui princes and the kings of the earth, they’re the jewels of the earth. I said, they’re too good for America. They love too much. They take in everybody. They even help every little animal. They protect the little flower. They They’re honest in their dealings. I said, they’re too good. America’s too corrupt to even appreciate them. He just sit and listen to me. (Pause) I said, they’re jewels. What do I do when I see a jewel? I like Mom Taylor, I said this week, some up to Redwood Valley, you’ve worked long enough. [It’s] Time you rested now. You’ve got a home the rest of your life. (Voice strengthens) But what did God what did your God do? Shh! What did God do? (Pause) (Quieter) What’d I do to that sister there, I healed yesterday. Stood up and healed that sister yesterday, wasn’t it. Healed her. Don’t even didn’t know her, but I told her things in her life and I said, in your heart, I knew she wanted to go to Redwood Valley, and I said, come on, and I made arrangements and gave her a home. (Pause) (Voice strengthens) Just didn’t even know her. But what did your Sky Buzzard God do? He said, See thou my servant Job? See him? That’s what your Buzzard S– God did, in the King James Bible. Said, see thou my servant Job? He’s a man, perfect in all of his ways. He said, I’m going to turn you over Job over to you, Satan, and you try him any way you want to, and he’ll remain faithful. That’s the way your Buzzard God awarded [rewarded] faithfulness. So Satan, what did he do? (Pause) What’d he do? He destroyed his house, he destroyed his lands, he took his wife, he destroyed his children, burned his fields, and finally, he put skinworms and boils all over Job’s body. And Job had lost everything, and poor old Job was even when he was with eaten up with skinworms, he said, though the skinworms destroy me, yet somehow, in my flesh, I will see God. That’s the way your Buzzard God awarded Job. The only man that He could point to, this perfect God that you worship in your Bible, the only one He was able to make perfect, everybody else had turned him away, everybody else had turned their back on him, everybody and no wonder. Job had to be a lunatic. (Pause) If I took your wife away from you, and I killed your children here, this woman, stand up. You were five years in a wheelchair, isn’t that right?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Crippled. Couldn’t walk. You follow me because I’m a liberator, don’t you? If I’da If I’da put you in the wheelchair and then put you blind, you’d spit in my face, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t want any more to do with me, would you?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Now you people, you’re the ones you look at us like we’re stupid, you look at my people like they’re stupid because they call me God. We think you’re stupid because you worship something you’ve never seen. (Calls out) You worship a Buzzard.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Voice cries out, then lowers) And the only thing you can tell me is why, is because when I’m here, something had to make me. And I say, there’s buzzard manure on every hill. That proves a buzzard made it. But that don’t prove that you want to find the buzzard.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: (Ministerial tone) I say you cannot prove that there’s a loving Deity in the sky. You cannot reach to anyplace in the sky and find Heaven. You can travel for the next three hundred million light years, and every scientist and astronomer will tell you, you will not find even the ends of the dark cold space. And you say, well, I’m going to go there in a twinkling of an eye. You’ll be caught up in a moment, in a twinkling of any eye. Well, you know how an eye twinkles? It doesn’t twinkle as fast as the speed of light. (Snaps fingers rhythmically) What’s light Every time I snap my finger, light moves 186,000 miles, at every snap of the finger. Do you know how long you’ve got as a go that fast to get up there, outside of the dark reaches of the cold space? You’ve got to travel like this, 186,000 miles a second, for 300 million years, and you still won’t find the end of space. Now where in the h hell are you going?
Congregation: Laughter and applause
Jones: It’s all right. Stretch a little. You’re tired. Your back Some of you are older, stretch a little. I don’t mind. Just stretch. Just stretch. You’re home. Just stretch. I’m preaching longer than I usually, so just stretch. (Pause) I’m about finished, though. I’m trying to get something through to our birdbrains. (Pause) How can you worship a Bible that I can prove to you is full of errors? Matthew the first chapter, Luke the third chapter, disagree with even who Jesus’ grandfather is. One said that it was Heli, the other one says it’s Jacob. One says his great-grandfather was Matthan, the other misspells it and says it’s Matthat. M-A-T-T-H-A-T. They can’t even spell right. The Bible cannot tell the same story in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, they’re all telling the same accounts of Jesus’ works, and not one of them tell the same story. Get [“The Letter Killeth”] my yellow book about your black book. (Pause) Now I will not preach this again for a long while. (Pause) The minute you die because you won’t bring God down where He can be of help to you, you won’t let Him get down where He can help you. You’ve got God up there in the sky, you’ve got God in the imagination, the only thing that’s going to help you is something that’s got flesh. All spirits that confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, that the savior is come in the flesh, now, today, is anti-Christ. You’re going to be without hope unless you confess that (emphatic) Christ is here, or that Saving Grace is here, that a Revolution is here.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: (Voice rises throughout) So, the only argument you can give me about worshipping a Skygod is, (takes deep breath) I didn’t come from nowhere. Neither did buzzard manure. It didn’t come from nowhere. But buzzards are not nice. You say, you mean, I’m buzzard manure. (Pause) Well, how did you feel until you found somebody that loves you? How have you suffered? Have you suffered like diamonds, or have you suffered more like buzzard manure? Have your pains been something more like buzzard manure I will use another word, if I get through some of these hard heads, but I’ve got some sister over there, is ’bout to have a stroke, and I don’t want to raise her. She’s– she don’t need to be raised today. It’d be hard on her, to go through the death process. And I do love people. So you you without argument, (Pause) you can say, yes, something had to be out there. (Pause) But you cannot tell me and say, yes something out there is loving. That you cannot say. Because if you go by the fruit of what it made – two out of three babies going to bed hungry – that’s not love. To make people a certain color and then to suffer all their days long, just because they’ve got beautiful black skin, they work for half the pay in this state of California, to pay twice the rent, to be cheated every time they move, to walk in a department store and have everybody waited on before you get waited on–º
Congregation: Stirs
Jones: No, that’s not love. Whoever made you did not love you. (Cries) I did not make you, but by damn, I will save you.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Quieter) Now you get that in your little smoke pipe, or you get it in your cud and you chew it. (Intense and low) Savior, I am, a Redeemer I am, a Deliverer I am, a Father I am. (Monotone) I can save you when you’re in jail, just like I brought that man out of the jail just a few moments, and I can promise, I can make prophecies and keep them, just like I prophesied life to her son and he lived, just like I promised doctor here, reverend at 92, that he would not go back to jail, and I paid my money and got him out, just like when his leg was broke the same day, I healed it. He didn’t have to have a splint, he didn’t have to have a cast, I healed it before they had a time to set it. I came to him and healed it. (Voice rises) Oh yes, I can heal you, oh yes, I can raise you from the dead, oh yes, I can open your blinded eyes, oh yes, I can get you out of prison, oh yes, I’ll give you a home, oh yes, I’ll take you in when you’re lonely, oh yes, I’ll make a heaven out of your hell I’m in a war against your Buzzard God. I’m at war with your Buzzard God. I’ve come here to defeat your Buzzard God.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (off mike) Right? (Long pause) (Voice rises) No preacher in America that loves you so much, that when we need money so badly, to prepare for our exodus, because we’ll have to leave, just as sure as M– the children did under Moses from Egypt, we’ll have to find ourselves place to hewn out in the mountains, and we need supplies. We need all kinds of supplies. Even getting us distilled water. We have to take care of every provision, sanitary equipment, all kinds of medical supplies. We need it. But there’s not a preacher in the world that would’ve stopped short in his offering he’s too conscious of paying for his Cadillac there’s not a preacher in the world that would’ve stopped his offering and said, my folks, I love you, I want to tell you the Truth. I want to give you the Truth.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: With $250 in an offering. That’s all that’s been taken. (Pause) (Wearily) Oh, how I would that you had the truth. (Pause) Now we will finish our offering and then we’ll go into our healing service. (Pause) You said, Jesus didn’t preach this. Oh, yes he did. Jesus said, I was a slave. Phillipians said, Jesus, though I was a servant that means slave in the original Jesus said, though I was a slave, yet I considered it not robbery to be equal with your Buzzard God.
Congregation: Few cheers and scattered applause
Jones: (Voice rises) That’s what he was saying. I’ve had enough of your praying. He said, I’ve had enough of looking up. He said, look within. The Kingdom of Revolution, the Kingdom of your hope is within. He said, quit looking up. Look here. Today’s the day, Salvation heaven’s on earth. He said, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, (Cries out) in earth (Pause) (Normal tone) I’ll preach this every now and then. This’ll scatter us. [You] Say, we’re getting too crowded, we have chairs now, it’ll take care of for two or three weeks, ’cause people don’t like the Truth. They’d rather worship a Buzzard than they would a real living God.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: The majority of people would rather worship a Buzzard. (Pause) They’d rather stick with that Buzzard, because he, they think, brought them here. (Pause) Do you worship the honky? He brought you here from Africa. (Pause) Do you worship him? How do you feel about the honky? He had power. Buzzards have got power too. They can tear your flesh off. Do you like the honky, because he brought you from Africa?
Congregation: No
Jones: Do you like those that put you in chains?
Congregation: No
Jones: Well, you don’t have to like Skygods, either. I’ve been cussin’ ’em out for 50 years, I’m a great-grandfather nearly, and I’m feeling better, and the more I curse out your Buzzard Skygod (shouts) the better I feel. Hey!
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Excited) That’s where I get my energy from.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: That’s how I can heal the sick and raise the dead, by telling the truth. The more truth I tell, the more power I get. (Pause) [You] Say, you’re going to drop dead doing it. Not on your chinny-chin-chin. (Pause) I’ve been (voice breaks) doing it for 50 years, nearly. (Pause) (Sighs) If you don’t like it, I do.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: There’s my son, anyway. He’s out of jail, just like I said, didn’t (unintelligible pronoun)?
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Voice strengthens throughout) They put him in jail on something false, I get him out in a few minutes. You find out if your Skygod’ll bring you out. You see if your old jackleg preacher I stopped my service I stopped, I said get down there, I’ve got the money in my hand, I said, right here and got it in my hand, and people said, go get him out now. He’s one of my sons. Said, get him out. He was there for false charge, but if he’d been there for a charge of something he’d done, I’m gonna be with you through thick, thin, hell or high water.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: We are not lawbreakers, we are law-keepers. We believe in not harming anything, not even a little fly. I put them on my hand and let them get out the door. And I’m gonna tell you, they’ve done enough dirt to you, that no matter what happens to you, I’ll fight for you.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: (Normal tone) You see if any ch– preacher loves Jesus so much they say, Jesus loves you. That that may be. It’s easy to say a spook loves you, but did you ever get them down, find out whether they love you or not. They’ll say, (Fake evangelist) Jesus loves you. (Pause) (Normal tone) If you feel a little tired, just get up and walk, you don’t have to sit, I’m tol told you, you don’t have to. (Fake evangelist) Jesus loves you. (Normal tone) That doesn’t help you much. [You] Say, preacher, do you? (Pause) [You] Say, I know Jesus does. He says, well, now we’re (unintelligible phrase). But I want to know, do you?
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: He said, ohh, (Fake evangelist) Jesus loves your soul. (Normal tone) But he don’t love it enough to raise a finger to go down and get you out of jail. (Pause) He don’t love you enough to get you a ride home. Every service, I drive 700 miles, every Thursday night, to be here in our miracle service. One way. But every service, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, Monday, Tuesday, all day Sunday and Saturday, I stand here, until every one of you get away home. Yeah, I’m supposed to be the devil. I know you’re settin’ back there, young man. Your preacher says I’m the anti-Christ. (Pause) He says I’m the devil. (Pause) And he says he’s worshipping God. Now isn’t that funny? He’s worshipping God, and he wouldn’t even let you ride in that big Lincoln he’s got.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: (Emphatic) I’ve got 11 Greyhound buses, all air-conditioned. And when they come and get come for your you, your preacher’s gonna sell you out. And he’ll try to be like the capos were wi- against the Jews. He’ll try to sell you out. And he won’t give you any comfort. And he won’t give you a ride in his Lincoln. But I’ve got 11 Greyhound buses, and I’m going to load ’em, and I’ll tell you, if they try to stop one of us, they’ll have to kill all of us.
Congregation: Sustained cheers
Jones: Peace. Peace. All right, anyhow. (Ominous) They’re coming, too. They’re coming. I can hear the tromping. They’ve taken Uruguay, they’ve taken Brazil. They’ve experimented on little babies in the laboratories, the fetuses. They gave syphilis to hundreds of blacks and didn’t give ’em penicillin in Alabama. They gave in Montgomery, they sterilized last week, 10-, 11-, 12-year-old girls, because they happened to be black. They gave [a] cancer-causing drug on 350 Mexican mothers here in lower California just to see in Texas to see, what it would do to them. I hear them coming. You keep on worshipping your Skygod, ’cause he ain’t gone do nothin’ about it. If you’ll come over and get the Living God, I’ll fight for your freedom, and bring you justice.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: I’m saying nothing more than what Jesus said. Jesus said, I am God. And they crucified him for it. They said, for that, we are going to crucify He said, why are you going to kill me? Because I’m teaching that ye all are gods. Because your ancient law says, it is written, ye all are gods and sons of the most high. So we are sons of the most high, and that most high is a socialist non-violent revolution. That is the (last word drowned out by cheers)
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: Some of us know what our God is. When I put up my hands, (cries out) somebody knows what I mean. Somebody knows what I’m saying. (Pause) (Ministerial tone) You think I could take all this praise personally? (Normal tone) I couldn’t stand it. They had that bishop in there, that superintendent in there, and all those people were praising me, telling how they were dead and raised, how they were blind and saw I couldn’t stand it. I had to walk out. (Pause) I can’t stand it, because they he didn’t know what they were talking about. But then when I got back and I told him about God Socialism, then I stepped I said, are you people through praising me? I said, it’s too religious to suit me. I said, I’m gonna tell where the man where it’s at. I couldn’t stand here. I’m not an egotist. I’m not narcissistic. They’re not praising me, those that really know. Oh, they’re praising me in that I’m the Father of their country. They’re praising me in that I’m the Father of this new nation. They’re praising me in that I’m the Father of Socialist Freedom, but they are praising an idea. Their God is (cries out) an Idea. Hallelujah! (Pause) It’s a Word. It used to be just a word. It used to be just a word, but now that word is made flesh. That word has a thousand fists, yea, 2000 fists, this Sunday morning in Los Angeles, (Voice lowers to growl) that word has taken on a body. Socialism God lives.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (off mike, speaks foreign sentence) (Pause) (Normal tone) Yes, we may we may die, but we will live. But we’ll not die begging. We’ll not buy that kind of life. That’s not living. Who calls that living? Some of you people worship like old Paul Robeson said, Methuselah lived 900 years. But who calls that living, when no woman would give in to somebody that lived 900 years? That’s what Robeson used to sing, made fun of it. Who’d want to live 900 years and be dead? Now, around here, when we live, we do at least have something to live for. We’re not afraid, we speak our mind, we stand up for what we believe. And we’ve gotten such a place, we’re not afraid. (Imploring for understanding) No, we don’t want to be tortured, but we can get in a place where to live in America with all of its hate and its violence and its crime, its disorderliness, its racism, its bigotry, its anti-Semitism, that’s a prison in itself. Even some of you got fine homes, you got businesses, convalescent homes, you feel like you’re in a prison, don’t you? (Pause) Don’t you feel like you’re in a prison, don’t you feel like you’re not free? [You] Say, what more can a jail Jail is bars, prison bars doth not a jail make. (Pause, clears throat) (Unintelligible word) talk to her, somebody health’s at stake, ’cause that’s not a (unintelligible word leak?) they were taking. (Pause) (Unintelligible name) Mr. Cardinel? Talk. (Pause) Three o’clock. Later in the day than I like. Later this weekend than I like. But how long can you afford to wait for lies? You’ve waited years for lies.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: All right. And I want to say something downstairs, I don’t want nobody slobbering over any table. We’re sittin’ up here, trying to get people the truth. I don’t want nobody down there confabbin’. Get away from those tables, and get your elbows off the counters downstairs, and quit puttin’ food in your mouth. And you keep yourselves workin’, just like we are. We don’t want anybody playin’ around, ’cause we don’t like to keep church any better than anybody else. We keep church so that the Man will know, so that the honkies will know, that there’s plenty of us together. That’s why we’ve got church going on up here.
Congregation: Cheers and applause
Jones: After awhile, our church services won’t be so long. We’ll have some fun before the time of our great perfection comes. (Pause) (Normal tone) Hmm. That’s wonderful. Now how many love the Truth?
Congregation: Stirs
Jones: How many love the Truth enough to give and help us through this day? (Pause) We were at 40, we were at 30, how many will stand and say, yes, Father–
(tape edit)
Jones: –somebody that I’ve never seen anybody like that before. There’s a man like I’ve never seen before. I’d hear about him once. He comes every Thursday, and rides on the back of a bus, 700 miles one way, and then goes Thursday night back to San Francisco, 700 miles, holds a meeting there, he comes 700 miles back and holds a meeting here on Saturday and Sunday, then goes back 700 miles (unintelligible word) to Redwood Valley tonight, and does that every week. You say he does that? He has to be a better man than anybody on earth.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (More emphatic) You say he’s adopted eight babies, eight children of all races? You say he wears old used choir robes and never bought a pair of new shoes? You say he lives in a block home, never bought a piece of new furniture? [You] Say he doesn’t go to restaurants or doesn’t sleep in a hotels, sleeps in the church? [You] Say he sleeps on a bus floor? You say he does those things? You say he takes in every little animal, and all the people? Why, that’s enough for me. I don’t care whether he can heal or not, I’m following him, I’d say. I’d say, I’ll follow him through hell. He’s all right. (Pause) He’s cool.
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: I’d be in here today and see a young man stand up (stumbles over words) in jail, the police had him and throwed him in jail, and I bring him out, and I said in one day, he did it? Not only one day, I did it in 30 minutes.
Congregation: Delayed cheers
Jones: Thirty minutes. (Pause) That’d be enough for me. I’d sit there [You] Say, service is long. Oh, I’d be glad to set for 10 hours for a man like that.
Congregation: Stirs. Call of Amen
Jones: I’d say whatever he’s doing, ’cause he’s tryin’ to build faith, we get people together, because they gotta build faith, we gotta keep people by every we means, I have to become all things to all men, that by any means I might save the more. (Pause) I should ha only have to be, as you know back there, sweet mother, the militant revolutionary. That’s all I should have to be. That’s the highest calling. You know me in the highest calling. To become all things to all men, that by any means I might save the more. But I have to be a Pentecostal preacher to some, and I have to be a holiness preacher to others, and I have to be a healer to some, and I gotta be a miracle worker to others, I’ve gotta reach everybody on every level, and I’ve got a right to do it, because Paul said, you must become all things to all men, by any means, to save the more, and when people are out there worshipping spooks that keep them hungry, that keep them starved, that keep in chains, that keep them in ghettoes, (intense) while people are worshipping spoons, then I spooks, then I will become God, for by any means, I will save the most.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: (Cries out) I will become all things to all men, that by any means, I might save the most. (Normal tone) And it takes me several hours to do that. (Pause) Yes, I’ll become Jesus Christ, yes, I’ll become Moses, yes, I become Vladimir [Lenin], yes, I become that which I have been. (Pause) And I was those that I mention. (Pause) But I don’t have to be those that I mention. I’ve done enough in the name of Jim Jones to write the best Bible you’ve ever seen
End of tape
Tape originally posted April 2001