(Connor Ashley Clayton is a Ph.D. candidate at the Queen Mary University of London. He can be reached at connor.a.clayton@qmul.ac.uk.)
In an article I wrote in 2020 for this website, I argued for the importance of examining Peoples Temple through the lens of the history of emotions. This article proposes to lay some groundwork to establish an analytical image of what the emotional community of Peoples Temple looked like as early as 1959. In doing so, it will pose a range of questions: what feelings were valued as good? Which ones were valued as bad? How were appropriate emotions supposed to be expressed? How were negative emotions expected to be managed? What did they believe about the nature of their emotions? And what social practices involved the regular mobilisation or regulation of these emotions?
Of course, the answers to these questions in reference to the Temple in 1959 would be very different from the same questions in reference to 1978. But despite a radical shift in emotional culture, neither in 1959 or in 1978 was this shared socio-emotional framework sui generis. Just as the feeling rules within Jonestown were informed by a process of adaptation and augmentation, often in response to developing internal and external circumstances, the feeling rules within Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church in 1959 were similarly constructed.
Whilst Jones built his ministerial style with influence from a number of sources, one of the most important influences came through his contact with Father Divine and the International Peace Mission Movement (FDIPMM). The FDIPMM and Peoples Temple already shared certain similarities; they were both informed by a Pentecostalist, Revivalist surge within American Protestantism which had ebbed and flowed since the mid-19th century; they were both nominally egalitarian in outlook; they both stressed the importance of social aid; and both were in strict opposition to segregation, acting as integrated churches with a majority black American demographic. With a shared group of Charismatic Christian traditions and practices already linking the two movements, Father Divine would provide Jones with the example sine qua non of the type of congregation he wished to lead; one that was positive without fault, radically enthusiastic, and completely faithful – as it appeared to external observers. Furthermore, Jones believed that FDIPMM provided a more valuable resource: potential members of Peoples Temple.[1]
Whilst Jones’ absorption of the Peace Mission did result in some successful poaching of individuals and families, the merger he envisioned at a meeting with Father Divine in 1958 never occurred. Despite a number of rebuttals from FDIPMM, the influence of Divine upon Jones’ ministerial style from 1958 onwards is evident as Jones attempted to bring the emotional culture of Peoples Temple in line with that of the Peace Mission. This was possible because Jones, through his position as minister of the Temple, was able to utilise this position of authority to expound a clear set of feeling rules for dissemination within his congregation. All this is not to say that he was entirely successful; indeed, trends in Jones’ preaching towards the admonishment of his followers for their failure to bring their emotional practices in line with the expectations of the wider community is evidence of this. In many ways, it can be said of both organisations that happiness was a condition of participation, and this meant that each member was expected to engage in emotion work in order to bring their internal feelings in line with social expectations.[2] These expectations were defined by Jones and Divine respectively in several ways: through their sermons, through their decisions regarding worship practices, through song, through work and also utilising publications and newsletters.
One such document, titled ‘Pastor Jones Meets Rev. M. J. Divine’,[3] published in 1959 and circulated for many years among Peoples Temple members, is enlightening in this regard. Written by Jones as ‘a document appraising and discussing the doctrines, practices, and beliefs of Father Divine’s International Peace Mission Movement’, the booklet examines the particularities of FDIPMM from a preferential point of view. With a number of topics discussed, ranging from celibacy to social work, three topics jump out as fundamental to our present study. First, Jones appraises the practice of leader-worship or adulation; secondly, Jones discusses the importance of enthusiasm in worship; and finally, Jones examines the position of FDIPMM toward positivity and negativity. This article will take this three points as launchpads of further investigation and discussion. In all three cases, as will be demonstrated, an implicit emotional framework is constructed. And the preferential nature of this framework is made clear by Jones who emphasises that ‘a fair analysis and evaluation of the Rev. M. J. Divine ministry is necessary to the progress of every honest believer’ [emphasis added]. As such, the document represents more than an open-minded investigation of a religious organisation which had historically been viewed with suspicion; it was a reappraisal designed to be considered, and potentially adopted, by Jones’ existing followers.
Charismatic Authority.
With the foreknowledge of how far Jones’ authority within Peoples Temple would eventually stretch, it is somewhat unsurprising that the first topic Jones appraises with regard to FDIPMM is that of leader worship. Jones wrote:
I had heard the usual opinions that it was supposed to be a harem run by a demonically possessed immoral person; in fact, I was almost wholly convinced that it was a complete fraud. I had always been extremely opposed to adulation or worship of religious leaders. In order to stop flesh exaltation which seemed to be developing in my own healing ministry, I publicly insisted that no one even referred to me as Reverend. Naturally, one can imagine the revulsion I felt upon entering their church and hearing the devoted followers of Mr. Divine refer to him as Father.[4]
Jones provides here an interpretation of public opinion regarding the group, as well as a reminder that he had taken steps to prevent adulation from developing within his own healing ministry. Max Weber, in his iconic discussions of charisma and charismatic authority, defined the latter as ‘a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural … or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities… regarded as of divine origin or exemplary’ [emphasis added].[5] 
Faith-healing was a fundamentally important feature within Father Divine’s International Peace Mission Movement, and Divine was said to have cured ailments ranging from blindness to cancer and even death. These performances – displays of miraculous, divine power – were fundamental in the development of both Divine’s charismatic authority throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and it would be fundamental to Jones’ development into a charismatic leader also. It is irrelevant whether or not Jones or Divine actually performed any miracle in question. But what matters is that these performances, and importantly the testimonies of these performances, were convincing and emotionally compelling.
Recent sociological scholarship has underlined the emotional basis of charisma.[6] In her aptly titled article, ‘The Emotional Basis of Charisma,’ Patricia Wasielewski has argued that charismatic ‘redefine both objective and subjective aspects of their follower’s realities’ through the skilful utilisation of emotion rules. From this angle of analysis, the performance of miracles is demystified and can be analysed in terms of the emotions mobilised among observers and participants alike. For both Divine and Jones, faith-healing was a powerfully evocative performance which would not only elicit highly-emotionally expressive responses from their congregations, but would also attract potential members among those in physical or mental pain.
Faith-healing was as much a fundamental part to the early growth of FDIPMM as it was to Peoples Temple. In both cases, the practice worked to mobilise intense socially shared emotions. Within the Evangelical and Pentecostal traditions, these intensely positive emotional experiences are considered to be evidence of God’s touch, and thus are considered not only innate but wholly positive and pure. This unique emotional composition was typically expressed through what W. E. B. Du Bois called ‘religious shouting’, which he described as so important for black spirituality that ‘many generations firmly believed that without this visible manifestation of God there could be no true communion with the invisible.’[7] Shouting could come in many forms – as a flexible model of participation – which could include literal shouting, crying, singing, laughing, entrancement, and proclamations of, awe, gratitude, and love. Testimonies of Father Divine’s ability to heal are numerous,[8] and even at the end of the pamphlet ‘Pastor Jones Meets Rev. M. J. Divine,’ Jones reminds his readers that
Never a service passes without someone being miraculously healed, converted, or filled with the Holy Ghost. Our files are filled with the names and addresses of persons who have been completely healed in the last few days. We will gladly furnish these testimonies to friend or foe alike upon request.[9]
Faith healing was but one practice incorporated by Father Divine and Jim Jones within their respective congregations, but other more typical practices were also found. The use of music and song, including traditional Christian hymns and popular songs within the Temple, as well as songs unique to Father Divine within the Peace Mission, was also present. In fact, certain songs from the Peoples Temple Songbook have been identified as being adaptations of songs unique to the Peace Mission. In a particularly dated sociological article, unfortunately tainted by racist language, the authors attend one of Divine’s famous services and describe the beginning of the service and the importance of song:
The followers (or “children”, as they call themselves) are singing the verse:
Father Divine is the captain / Coming around the bend / And the steering wheel’s in his hand.
The song has five verses. Singing is accompanied by a small brass band. No one officially leads the “children”. It is unnecessary. A few already know the song, and the rest soon catch the simple rhythm. The crescendo increases with each verse. At the end of this song, a large, middle-aged colored woman testifies how Father cured her bad knee… Some listen, others close their eyes and moan. Shouts of “isn’t it wonderful!” “He’s so sweet!” and “We thank you, Father!” are frequent. One or two hysterical negroes walk around dazed and shouting, occasionally falling. The testimony ends with the first line of another song, sung with great feeling by the testifier. It is immediately picked up by the others. The band catches the tune. Soon all are singing.[10]
If one can ignore the distasteful characterisation afforded members of Divine’s congregation, the above quoted piece highlights that the emotionally charged atmosphere of a Divine Holy Communion Banquet was constructed through communal song, music, and dance; followed by a testimonial of healing, religious shouting, and further song. One could argue that by incorporating these variety of practices, carefully culturally tuned and shaped from a history of black worship and Pentecostalism, Divine’s services worked to actively mobilise the congregation toward a state of collective emotional effervescence. Durkheim described effervescence as the sociological process in which defined societal groups come together to participate in religious rituals; these rituals arouse intense, shared emotional energies among participants and work to solidify a powerful group identity as well as a social convergence of feeling and increase intensity in their expression.[11] And this worked in a similar way within Peoples Temple – one is reminded of footage from a healing service performed by Jones during the group’s time in Los Angeles: healing, song, testimonial, and music are intertwined to create an emotionally expressive atmosphere which sees congregants shouting, dancing, laughing, with hands held in the air in praise.[12]
Positivity and Negativity.
Whilst services such as this may have worked to create powerful socially-accepted emotions and their correct expressions among congregants, both Jones and Divine utilised their sermons to expound distinct rules of feeling in much more explicit ways. In the pamphlet ‘Pastor Jones Meets Rev. M. J. Divine,’ Jones appraises the Peace Mission’s doctrinal emphasis on positivity.
The Divine followers have a policy of never speaking about negative situations… I can safely say I have never heard an unkind remark in any of the Divine extensions about another and no matter how much one disagrees with them they continue to extend love and kindness.[13]
Positive thought was a fundamental concept within FDIPMM, as it was believed that by focusing on positive thought, people could rid themselves of all pain, all anxiety, all illness, and all troubles. For example, in 1931 Father Divine advised his followers to:
Be happy even if the world burns down and you are all right. Just get to that place and be perfectly closed in by the Universal Mind Substance, perfectly happy, undisturbed and unvoked [sic], and you are in that place then where you are safe.[14]
Perhaps more explicitly, in 1933 he stated:
Peace, Everybody! Here we are once again. We have danced and we have sung, and I believe everybody is happy! That is all we need to do, is to keep you happy. The spirit of your nature itself will work automatically and will work for the common good of mankind in bringing about desirable conditions, so long as you are perfectly happy and in perfect harmony. That is the Law of the Spirit. The Law of the Spirit will bring about perfect happiness and keep perfect conditions as long as a person is in perfect harmony.[15]
Positive emotion, primarily defined as happiness, was absolutely fundamental to the theology and practice of the Peace Mission. As preventative, curative, and indicative of one’s closeness to God, positive emotion was highly valued and by extension, negative emotions were heavily regulated. As with all emotional practices, this was not clear cut – it is not the purpose of this piece to suggest that all of Divine’s followers were unassailably happy. Rather, the performance of the correct emotional repertoire was central to Peace Mission practice, and membership was in fact predicated on the ability to manage one’s emotions in line with the expectation of the group as defined by Divine.
The emphasis on positive emotion for Divine was not just an individual responsibility but a social responsibility. In this way, Divine came close to recognising the socially contagious nature of emotions – an effect under investigation by scholars of psychology, sociology and anthropology today. In 1938 Divine states that:
These actuated words of expression, and every “emotionated” word or expression, they are all transmittable. We are transmitting them to others. Copy after this Fashion I have shown you, and AM showing you. Not one of my real followers is on the welfare! Not one of my real followers is a beggar![16]
For Divine, the cause of ailments, negativity, and antagonism lay within the individual minds of each of his followers, and it was undoubtedly his training in New Thought throughout the early twentieth century which prompted this. As he reminded his disciples at his banquet table in 1938:
Cleanse your minds of every detestable tendency, of every antagonistic and conflicting idea and opinion and recognise GOD as the Infinite among you… The antagonistic and conflicting minds of the people, they create those things themselves by having infantry [sic] minds and impure minds.[17]
Jim Jones’ adaptation of this aspect of New Thought doctrine was of utmost concern to the young preacher and his nascent Peoples Temple, and throughout the Temple’s lifespan it was a theme which Jones would regularly return to in increasing levels of frustration and desperation. As early as 1957, however, it is clear that Jones was in some ways attempting to imitate the style, success, and size of the Peace Mission at its peak; and that this was conducted in part through his adoption of strands of New Thought which he saw as central to Divine’s method of operation. A sermon given in 1957, for example, contains seeds of New Thought ideology which Jones communicated to his flock:
You have that kind of faith tonight? Do you have a real optimism tonight? How many are optimistic? I’ve heard so many people say today they thought they was dyin’. (Laughs) I’ve heard people thought they were gettin’ sick and gettin’ that and gettin’ the other thing… We can get so positive with God and such an optimism with God that all things are well, even when we look like we’re just dying or naturally we look like we’re disintegrating. [Emphasis added][18]
Here, Jones directly draws the link between remaining positive or optimistic in the face of adversity and the betterment of one’s life. In much the same way as Divine encouraged his followers to be happy even when the world was burning down around them, Jones emphasised the power of positive thought as the solution to individual’s problems. As a natural corollary to this, Jones goes further and warns his congregation about negative thoughts – as Jones indicates in this sermon, this is because negative thoughts bring about negative experiences:
Last night, some sister, she wouldn’t open the little window … in that old storefront mission, and she says now, “you better accept that you’ll get cold.” Uh-huh. That thought come in. I said, I’m not going to think that thought. But it was in. And I felt that breeze coming on my neck… I did everything, but I had that thought on my mind. And Blessed God, I got the first cold I’ve had in years. I worked myself into a cold, just as sure as your foot. I decided I was gonna get a cold, I got one.[19]
Whilst Jones was well-read and well-educated in various doctrines and liturgies, it is likely that his insistence on a doctrine of positive thinking stemmed directly from his relationship in the late fifties with Father Divine. In this same 1957 sermon, Jones proceeds to admonish certain individuals within Peoples Temple with whom he had shared a car ride with a prior evening on the basis that they constantly spoke of their ills and anxieties:
There’re negative vibrations. Talking about our sickness, or talking about our instant pain, (claps once) let no filthy things proceed out of your mouth… we could have a new language, we could give no place to the Devil, we tried it around here, but we dragged down to the realms of iniquity and we bind ourselves with the carnal conversation, but we should be a happy people… I’m so confident that we can visualise the Christ… Let there be joy in our face, let there be peace in our hearts, let there be overcoming power in our members, and we’ll look like changed creatures. [Emphasis added][20]
Whilst this does demonstrate an attempt on Jones’ part to establish the same kind of feeling rules within his congregation, particularly within the 1957 sermon Jones belies his frustration with the failure of this practice to resonate entirely with the congregation. If it was adopted satisfactorily by those members of Peoples Temple, Jones would not be admonishing them for their contrary actions. This frustration of Jones in response to the unpredictability of this distinct emotional style – in which congregants are to practice positive emotions and curtail negative ones – only grew larger as time went on. In 1966, Jones still admonishes part of his congregation for speaking negatively. And interestingly, Jones frames his position from a social angle:
Last week it was affirmed here that there would be no more talking of sickness and tiredness and disappointment and grief, and yet, last evening every time I’d ask somebody how they were, it was well- well- (short laugh) all right… People, I hear you talking. I heard some conversation about how hard times you’ve had since you’ve been here, the month you’ve been here. And we’ve got newcomers coming. You oughtn’t be talking like that, and then the newcomer himself, he doesn’t know what he… should be here or shouldn’t be here.[21]
In both FDIPMM and Peoples Temple, membership was predicated on the ability to perform the correct emotions. And membership, too, brought many benefits: communal support, in-group solidarity, emotional catharsis and release, financial and social aid. As such, there was an incumbent demand upon participants to engage in emotion work to bring their inner feelings in line with social expectations. In this sense Divine offered a specific tool: cognitive reappraisal, or the focused reasoning on one’s thoughts resulting in the reappraisal of a situation as negative or positive. Jones, too, would adopt this theological line in the early years, but utilised his position as a developing charismatic authority to admonish, and thereby manage other people’s emotional expressions, himself.
Enthusiasm and Expression.
So far, we have discussed the development and maintenance of Divine and Jones’ charismatic authority through a lens of emotion, and examined some of the tools and sets of practices utilised in this way. Jones and Divine were the thought-leaders of their congregations, and in establishing what kind of emotions were permissible (both implicitly, in practice, and explicitly, in doctrine), they also established guidelines for how these emotions were expressed and to what intensity. A defining characteristic of Divine’s congregation was their enthusiasm or the intensity of their emotional energies, and this too was noted by Jones in the aforementioned pamphlet published for Temple consumption:
My comments would not be complete without a discussion of the enthusiastic worship that is practiced consistently by this group… I have seen the Peace Mission members stand and sing inspirationally for three hours without direction while they were waiting on the appearance of their “Shepherd.” I have never seen this atmosphere duplicated anywhere in the Americas.[22]
Similarly, Jones’ appraisal of the adulation of Father Divine justifies the practice on the basis of the quality and intensity of emotions produced by such a practice:
I was nauseated by what seemed to be personal worship to their leader. None the less when I would pause to think and be fair in my judgment, I could not help but see a peace and love that prevailed generally throughout the throng of enthusiastic worshippers. Every face was aglow with smiles and radiant friendliness.[23]
The socioemotional demands of congregants require a high degree of active participation, and compose in and of themselves a set of learned and trained emotional practices. During Divine’s Holy Communion Banquets, the range of emotional performances available as previously described would vary from humming, to crying, to laughing, to religious shouting in its various forms. One of Divine’s own disciples recorded a description of a service in 1931 which would contribute to Father Divine’s eventual imprisonment for disturbing the peace:
The fervor of the past two days in the Kingdom and the grandeur of Father’s teachings and the high vibrations he conveyed have been beyond words… It has been impossible to get down much of what was said because of the constant shouting and because of the feelings aroused in me.[24]
In as much as enthusiasm was demanded, it was also constructed. As the practice of religious shouting was not only allowed, but encouraged, it established a high ceiling in both congregations for the permissible intensity of emotional expressions of positivity. This is not to suggest that anything was possible and that no limit existed to the range of permissible expression. Rather, the range of expression was defined both in part by the practice of the groups and the doctrines espoused by Divine and Jones. And this was not always an entirely successful enterprise. Returning back to the Peoples Temple sermon dated 1957, Jones once again admonishes his congregants for their lack of enthusiasm:
But, ohh, this crowd we’ve got today. [Pause] [Voice rises higher] I said, this crowd we’ve got today. This little bunch of people that call themselves Pentecostal. You know, I’d take the name down off of these churches that are cold and dead already… I think that’s mostly what we do, is let our dead folks out. And we had better [unintelligible] this boneyard if we ever did have. Dry bones and certainly most of us are pastoring the First Church of Death Valley. But it’s about time that somebody got resurrected. [Pounds pulpit several times, in full throat] Hallelujah![25]
And in a similar vein, Jones’ preoccupation with higher and higher levels of enthusiasm is made clear again in 1966, when he addresses the congregation for their lack of eagerness:
And you all found jobs, homes, and an abundance of every good desire with now over 25,000 dollars in the bank to do something for our cooperative. But you do not understand what’s in your midst. For you come with no real enthusiasm, and let us say loud “Amens” for this.[26]
It appears that from the earliest days of Peoples Temple, the enthusiasm of Jones’ congregation was something which Jones strived to mobilise, but struggled to achieve. This also touches on another important difference between the style of Jones and Divine, that is the former’s consistently critical sermonising style compared to the latter’s embodied focus on positivity. Compared to Father Divine, whose congregation by the sixties had been practicing the prescribed rules of feeling for at least thirty years, the followers of Jim Jones were not as well versed in the specific sort of Pentecostal participation he desired. This source of frustration perhaps led to Jones’ reliance on the practice of admonishment, which may have explanatory value in assessing how the group transitioned from one focused on positivity in 1958 to one beset by the spectre of negativity and paranoia in 1978.
Concluding Remarks.
In this short article, in essence abridged from a work-in-progress chapter of this author’s upcoming thesis, I have attempted to paint a rough map of the emotional communities of Father Divine’s International Peace Mission Movement and Peoples Temple, between the loose dates of 1958 and 1966. This was done for two reasons: first, to demonstrate how the initial community of Peoples Temple was influenced by the contemporary example of FDIPMM; and secondly, to demonstrate that whilst Jones utilised his position to mould the emotional style of his community to be closer to that of Father Divine’s, this was not always successful. Indeed, from 1957 through to 1966, a clear source of frustration for Jones which bleeds through his sermons is the failure of individual congregants to successfully internalise the feeling rules he was attempting to establish.
I suspect that this frustration, and the spectre of Father Divine after 1965, would encourage Jones towards stricter methods of communal emotional regulation as his expectations and the reality of participation diverged. This would culminate in disastrous ways after the group’s migration to Jonestown, where emotion work of all kinds became less sustainable in the face of communal adversity and isolation. But as demands of emotional conformity and performative expectations increased, so too would the pendulum swing towards paranoia. paranoia, in one sense, as no one could be sure exactly what someone else was feeling due to the high demands of the emotional community; and paranoia in another sense as one lapse – one failure to clap at the correct moment – could result in public shaming directed by Jones and his inner circle.
Even with this preliminary conclusions, questions remain. If we measure the success of an emotional style as the degree to which it is incorporated by, and works for, the individuals whom it impacts, why did Jim Jones encounter so much frustration, as early as 1957 in mobilising his community toward the adoption of these emotional practices? Why by contrast was Father Divine’s International Peace Mission Movement so successful? Whilst I do not presume in either case that there was a monolithic response to either emotional style as practiced by FDIPMM or Peoples Temple, it seems clear that the Peace Mission was not beset by the same kinds of emotional unpredictability as the Temple. As research progresses, so too will these questions change. But, at the very least, I hope the two aims of this article have been accomplished: to outline the emotional communities of Peoples Temple and the Peace Mission, and to demonstrate how heavily the former was influenced by the latter.
Notes:
[1]The official statement of FDIPMM in response to the tragedy at Jonestown, 1978, claims that Jones had explicitly stated his intent to ‘eventually take FATHER’s place’. ‘Rev. Jim Jones Once Sought Control of Peace Mission Movement; Cut Down by Retribution; Takes Hundreds With Him in Death Pact,’ Father Divine’s International Peace Mission Movement, November 24, 1978. Accessible from: https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=98031, accessed on 15/04/21.
[2] Happiness as a condition of participation is a feature of many Evangelical groups: Wilkins, Amy C., ‘“Happier than Non-Christians”: Collective Emotions and Symbolic Boundaries among Evangelical Christians,’ Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 71 No. 3 (2008) pp. 281-301 [283]. For more on emotion work, see: Hochschild, Arlie, ‘Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure,’ American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 85 No. 3 (Nov. 1979) pp. 551-575.
[3] The Jonestown Institute, ‘Jim Jones Meets Father Divine (Text)’, accessible from: https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16635. PDF of original document also available from The Jonestown Institute, ‘Pastor Jones Meets Rev. M. J. Divine,’ accessible from: https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/01-04-JJFatherDivine.pdf.
[4] The Jonestown Institute, ‘Jim Jones Meets Father Divine’.
[5] Weber, Maximilian, Theory of Social and Economic Organisation, trans. Henderson, A.M., (Talcott Parsons, 1947) pp. 328.
[6] Wasielewski, Patricia L., ‘The Emotional Basis of Charisma,’ Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 8 No. 2 (Fall, 1985) pp. 207-222.
[7] Du Bois, W.E.B., The Souls of Black Folk, (Project Gutenberg ed., 1996 [1903]) accessible from: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408-h/408-h.htm.
[8] For example, see the legal deposition of a devout follower of Divine: FDIPMM, ‘Supreme Court: New York County Verinda Brown, etc., Plaintiff, against FATHER DIVINE, et al, Defendants, State of New York, County of New York, SS’ accessible from: http://peacemission.info/fdipmm/mdbook/lambtx.html accessed on 4/04/21.
[9] Federal Bureau of Investigation, ‘Pastor Jones Meets Rev. M. J. Divine’, pp. 1-33, [27]. Accessible as a PDF from: https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13779 uploaded 17/02/2013, last updated 12/05/2020, accessed on 04/04/2021.
[10] Cantril, Hadley; Sherif, Muzafer, ‘The Kingdom of Father Divine,’ Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 33, 1938, p. 148 [pp. 147-167].
[11] Durkheim, Emile, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, (New York: Free Press, Project Gutenberg ed., 2012 [1965]) pp. 210-211.
[12] Footage available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/hOv_hSJJ3vo.
[13] ‘Pastor Jones Meets Rev M. J. Divine,’ pp. 9-10.
[14] Father Divine, quoted in The Word of GOD Revealed: FATHER DIVINE’s Words from ‘The Notebook of John Lamb’, Instalment 08, November 21, 1931. Located online at: http://peacemission.info/fdipmm/wogr/31wogr08.html, accessed on 01/01/2021. Upload date unknown, due to the uploading process being a private work conducted by remaining members of the Peace Mission with outside assistance. It should be noted that FDIPMM had quite unique, idiosyncratic rules of grammar and syntax and this, in part, was a result of Divine’s own unique language as transcribed by the Peace Mission – hence, the unknown word “unvoked”. Last modified Dec 4 2019.
[15] FDIPMM, ‘The Spirit of Happiness Works Automatically… By You Being in Perfect Harmony with the Law of the Spirit of Life That Is in Christ,’ 1938,
[16] Father Divine, ‘Message Given at Banquet Table in New York City’, 1938, accessible from: http://peacemission.info/fdipmm/worddrtv/38070414.html, accessed on 28/04/21.
[17] Father Divine, ‘The Golden Rule Put into Practice’, July 4, 1938, available from: www.peacemission.info/fdipmm/worddrtv/38070414.html, accessed on 25/04/21. As noted before, FDIPMM had quite unique, idiosyncratic rules of grammar and syntax and this, in part, was a result of Divine’s own unique language as transcribed by the Peace Mission – hence, the unknown context for the word “infantry”.
[18] The Jonestown Institute, Transcript of FBI Audiotape Q1058-2, accessible from: https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27329, accessed on 25/04/21.
[19] Audiotape Q1058-2.
[20] Audiotape Q1058-2.
[21] The Jonestown Institute, transcript of FBI Audiotape Q1055-2, accessible from: https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27322, accessed on 25/04/21.
[22] ‘Pastor Jones Meets Rev. M. J. Divine’, p. 20.
[23] ‘Pastor Jones Meets Rev. M. J. Divine’, p. 6.
[24] New Day, August 13, 1974, p. 18. Recorded November 1931 by John Lamb, in the Journals of John Lamb.
[25] Audiotape Q1058-2.
[26] Audiotape Q1055-2.