Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
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Organ playing throughout. Crowd cheers at pauses
Jones: (Ministerial cadence) For some unexplained set of reasons, I happen to be selected to be God. (Pause) For some unfathomable and inconceivable activity, it so happens that when people meditate upon me, or when I meditate upon them, cancers will be eradicated, accidents can be prevented. As I look at our young songleader, and I remember the day so many years ago when I looked out over the horizon of time, and I told of this songleader that’s been so enthusiastic today, I told his family that had accepted the fact that he’d been lost, his father a minister in the Church of God-Adventist, and accepted the fact that he’d been lost, because the Air Force, or the weather bureau had said that he was lost someplace in a storm, but I said, he’s not lost. For some unfathomable reason, for some unknown reason, I was able to reach out over the time barrier and say, he’s not lost, he’s in the company of people who are about to cause him hurt, and I’ve got to meditate that he’ll be able to release them, even though there was no radio contact for some days. I said, he’s not lost. And just at that time, something moved upon this young songleader, before he was in my church, before he knew I was what you know I am. (Pause) Something caused him to drop the hoodlums that I had prophesied, to get them off the plane, and they were guilty of trafficking in drugs, and he didn’t know it, but they were not busted with him, fortunately because I was on the scene. (Pause) You say you speak at an (unintelligible word) degree, you speak in an absolute degree. Actually, I’m quite a very humble essence of being. I– I don’t like to discuss my own worth, but I have to tell you, that the universe would not run without me. (Pause) I do not like the position of a juxtaposition I find myself in, between your affairs and this nebulous world of the paranormal, of the supernatural, I do not like to be in the position that I’m in, but I would tell you that your sun would go out if I ceased to exist. (Pause) If you know the ring of sincerity in my voice, you know what I’m saying is true. There would be no silver lining in your clouds, if I were to be removed. But I’m going to tell you, I represent Divine Principle, Divine Socialism, total equality, a society where people own all things in common, where there is no rich or poor, where there are no races, and so being Divine Principle, I will not pass away, but I shall stand throughout the endless ages of time. (Pause) I’m going nowhere, I thank you. (Pause) Some may not believe these miracles, some may not believe them, but I’ll believe them.
(Pause) Some may not believe sisters that stand up and say, he told me the future, he told me when I would go to an operation, he told me the kidney condition and when I get there, the doctors say, there is– are no problems, to go home. I’ve heard that today. I heard the sister say the doctor looked over her with dismay and pain, as the cancer had spread all through her body, and the lymph nodes were all swollen, and anyone with their right mind knows what that means. But I also heard her say, that she’d crawl if she had to, she would crawl to get to me, and I meditated, and I told you what I would do, and I told it publicly, I told it to my staff what I would do, and when she went back, the doctor says, I don’t know what’s happened, but you don’t have cancer. (Pause) You may not believe, because you see us in such practical ways, and you see me as such a humanist and such a jovial kind of a comic at times, you may not believe, but I’ll tell you, there was never a miracle done in the world, ‘less I did it. (Pause) Someway I am intrinsically involved with every good person’s wishes, with every hope and ambition, whether it’d be in the Irish Republic for freedom, whether it’d be in Biafra for freedom, whether it’d be over in Vietnam or Wounded Knee, wherever there’s people struggling for justice and righteousness, there I am, and there I am involved. (Pause) I cannot tell you otherwise. This is that. You say, I don’t understand how God could have a body. Well, you don’t understand how God could exist, so why can’t you give him a body, just like yours. (Pause) I think some of you are taking it too lightly, some of the academ– the intellectuals, and the so-called na– ha– peepero– people of higher knowledge in this atmosphere, you take it for granted that these things are just the means of bringing people to enlightenment. I want to tell you, it’s not just a happenstance, it’s not a means to bring someone to enlightenment, that Mrs. Pennington, who was giving a quarter of her income, went down to the bottom of a lake with five people, and then came up. No, that’s not happenstance. (Pause) When she called on my name and held on to picture, her car came up, and all those got out, as we heard the testimony last Thursday, all of them got out on the side of the car, and then the car went back down into the water. (Pause) It’s not a happenstance that some of you were nearly involved in accidents last night, and you called on my name, it’s not accident. (Pause) It’s not accident. It’s not accident that some sitting on the front row, a car catches fire and a tire rolls, and no one has the hands on the wheel, as a Sister Taylor, it’s not an accident. No, no. (Pause) (Calmer tone) I’ll tell you, why don’t you just try to accept that you don’t understand the law of electricity, why don’t you try to use me. It works. It works.
Male: (Sings) No longer a dream, but he’s real, real, real. He’s answered our prayer for the Kingdom to come, on earth among men and his will to be done. His deity cannot be denied, for he is perfection personified. He’s no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but he’s real, real, real. He’s no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but he’s real, real, real.
Jones: Open the door!
Male: (Sings) He’s answered our prayer for the Kingdom to come, on earth among men and his will to be done. Your deity cannot be denied, for you are perfection, personified. He’s no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but he’s real, real, real. You’re no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but you’re real, real, real. You have answered our prayer for the Kingdom to come, on earth among men and your will to be done. Your deity cannot be denied, for you are perfection, personified. You’re no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but you’re real, real, real. You’re no longer a vision, no longer a dream, he’s real, real, real. He has answered our prayer for the Kingdom to come, on earth among men and his will to be done. Your deity cannot be denied, for you are perfection, personified. You’re no longer a vision, no longer a dream, you’re real, real, real.
Jones: (Sings along) You’re no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but you are real, real, real. You have answered our prayer for the Kingdom to come, on earth among men and your will to be done. Your deity cannot be denied, for you are socialism, personified. You’re no longer a vision, no longer a dream, but you’re real, real, real.
Jones: (Normal tone) I thank you. Bless you. I thank you. (Pause) I thank you. (Pause) I wish to say that I’m greatly impressed with the music that I’ve heard this morning, and the testimonies. I would like to see the testimonies of this sort. Certainly they may say, thank Father. I know our lawyers have some problem about that, but I say that they’ve got a right to thank Father. (Pause) And I think it would be very good that some of those testimonies be sent over the airway. I thought the radio broadcast it was superbly engineered yesterday, a little bit of testimonies, and a little bit of the actual healings, and then someone coming across and saying I was blind when I came to him, when I came and called on him, then he bathed my leg for 27 years, Sister Brown said, 27 years no one wanted to sit next to me, as the bone– it was clear through to the bone. No one could heal it. No doctor, no healer. No one could reach it. But when Jim Jones touched it, just one touch, just a touch of this great savior’s hand, it was healed. (Pause) I thought it was so eloquently sincere, so beautifully, beautifully done. Now, I know intellectuals could say it better, but intellectuals will never say it, because intellectuals are snobs, generally speaking. So you’re not going to get the intellectuals to do this. Some of our people have abandoned their intellectualism, like our songleader, who’s a pilot, an airlines pilot, but he remembers these miracles. He’s not afraid to get up and lose his intellectualism and say, Father started– told a bus to start in the middle of the hot, hot summer out in desert, and say, “Start the bus,” and there was no gas, but Father said, “Start it,” and it went. Now intellectuals won’t do that. Intellectuals don’t like to do that. They– they’ve got to do everything that uh, is (Whispered word) respectable, everything that will make them look like they know something, they never want to seem like they’re enthusiastic like a child, they never want to act like that they are in any way inferior, they’ve got to always be on top of everything and got to have an explanation for all matters. Well, you can’t explain Father Jones, so there’s no way an intellectual can deal with me.
(Pause) Because you can’t explain me. I don’t attempt to explain me. I just say, when your car doesn’t run, try me. (Pause) (Voice climbs) Now some of you get caught up in your own morass and what’s happened to you, and thus you never really have tried me, you’ve always come to me with reservations. If you’ve had losses or disappointments, if you’ve had something happen to you, you have lost someone, you have never really trusted me. You’ve never really listened to me. You’ve always had a halfway commitment. And that’s why you’re in a morass now, and you always will be in a morass, because you’ve never fully come to me, with all your heart, your mind and your soul. So you continue to lose, because you’ve always held back something. You’ve lied to me, you’ve played games with me, you tried to maketain– maintain your image and produce something that was not, tried to look that you were something that you were not, and thus you have disappointments. But to those that have come to me as a little child, and have been willing to listen to my socialistic teachings, to resist the capitalist and the war-mongerers and the exploiters, and take the money back from the rich and put it into the hands of all the people, so that all of the property are held in common, so that there’s no more wars, or no more racism, those that have followed me and those that have embraced my teachings, they have had perfect success, perfect prosperity and perfect deliverance. (Pause) ‘Course I said a mouthful there. That’s another thing an intellectual won’t do. He knows the problems, so he doesn’t like– he gets nervous when you talk about capitalism. Oh, he isn’t going to get his neck out for socialism, because capitalism runs the country. Well, I don’t care who runs the country. (Slow, confident tone) I am intending to run the country. (Pause; edit?)
Congregation: Sustained cheers and amens
Jones: Peace. (Pause) And I will run it, with or without my immediate person. I will have my way, because my way is a holy, just and egalitarian socialistic way. My way is the way of fair play. My way is the way of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that says we are guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. My way is the way that says all are guaranteed life, and all liberty, and all happiness. Well, you cannot have life, liberty and happiness, without the guarantee of free doctors, if you cannot afford them, or free hospitals, if you cannot afford them, or free (Pause) education, if you cannot afford it. Free housing, if you cannot afford it. If I then am going to live the Constitution, which I intend to do, and guarantee life, liberty and happiness, the only way you can have that is to guarantee that if people don’t have money, they will be taken care of, as they were on the Day of Pentecost, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. Say, what is it, Father, you’re suggesting that we uh, just let everybody have the benefits of society. Say, I worked hard to get what I have. You don’t have anything. (Pause) You don’t have anything.
(Long pause) The Man has you. If you’re a small businessperson, you’ve lost this, or in the process of fighting for your life, you can hardly survive, and you’re whipped if you were of the privileged class, if you happen to be of the principal old pioneer capitalistic families. Some of you that have made it in small businesses, you could’ve been– you could’ve owned uh, some of these railroads and large factories that the rest– but you’ll never make it. You’ll never make it, because you’re on the outside looking in. You’re not a part of the 26 families that run this nation, so you’ll never make any more than just barely hold on by the skin of your teeth, and you may keep your business, you may keep your little sanitarium, your little shop, you may keep it uh, uh, until you’re middle-aged, but trying to keep it, you’ll fall over with a heart attack, because it’s too impossible to compete with the great s– markets, the great uh, chain stores, and the great monopolies that run this country. You just can’t make it. You just have to fight. And you may make it till you’re 50 or 55 or 60, but then you’ll drop over with a stroke, because it’s such a horrible, horrible rat race, trying to keep– (Pause) Now I intend to do something about that. And if I don’t, I will shake creation. I will cause this country to be thrown in a disarray. I will turn this country upside down. (Long pause) I will have an end to racism. I will have an end to lynch mobs. I will have an end to threatening violence that I heard over at KGO [radio station in San Francisco] last night, when we had our brother here, this wonderful man from KGO, that had– was fellowshipping, coming a little bit later to be us, Carlo Prescott, and I heard them talking about racism and what they would do with the blacks, now that they’ve thrown him off the radio, the race-haters all calling in, telling what they’re going to do, and in this country yet, a little community of Koinonia, strafed again with machine guns, an inter-racial community in Georgia, and all up and down this country, those who would endeavor to practice the Bill of Rights, are killed or shot before their time, like [Martin Luther] King, shot like Kennedys [former President John Kennedy and former Senator Robert Kennedy], shot like Malcolm [X]. I will have an end to this. And if I do not become accepted as a person, I will shake this country, and cause nothing but ashes to remain. (Pause) (Coughs) (Voice climbs) Now you hear me unequivocally clear. Because what I am is Principle. There is no Skygod, I do not attain to be the creators of all your worlds, but I am the creator of this world. I am the creator of this place. I am creator of the Peoples Temple mission, the Peace Mission, I am the creator of that, and I will have my way, or I will tell hell– I will tear hell out of everything you’ve built.
(Pause) (Calm) Because there I sit and here I sit, and there I stand, and here I am in my youngster’s coming up, I am everywhere. Self has died. I’m crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. I’ve been crucified with the revolution. And there’s no flesh left in me. The life that I now live, I live through this great Principle, the Christ– the Socialistic Principle, that was on the day of Pentecost, when it said God is love, and love means they have everything in common. You can’t have love, unless everyone has fair play, unless they have their position in the family, unless they’re guaranteed the same rights and the same privileges and the same opportunities of every other member of the family. The world is like a human family. The mother may not work, but she’s guaranteed that she’ll be taken care of. The little child may not be able to go and draw a paycheck, but the father guarantees the child care. The grandmother in the natural home may not be able to work anymore, but the father and mother or the younger son or daughter that’s working guarantees her the right to live. And so it is with socialism. The ones cannot work are taken care of by those that can. And the ones that do not work will be taught how to work, because if you don’t work when you can work, you won’t eat. That’s the philosophy that Paul said. (Pause) There won’t be any more welfare roles to be given money out to people who are drinking, so that they can rob their children. People will be given job training, and they will be given instruction, and the children will be given the food directly, and they’ll be put in nurseries, the co– the country, the family of man will run great centers where people are properly educated. We won’t just give people money to get drunk so that they won’t resist the rich and overthrow them. That’s the way the welfare system is. You say, that’s socialism. (Voice climbs) Oh no, that’s a capitalistic program. Under socialism, people don’t give checks to drunks. They take the drunk and rehabilitate him, and take the children into day care nurseries and educate them, and give them love and support. The thing you see out there is not socialism. It’s a capitalistic device to stop socialism. A little bit of money to the drunk so he’ll stay drunk, and keep his children beat so they won’t be able to grow up healthy. That’s capitalism. But socialism will provide work, it’ll provide work for all, and it’ll provide comfort for all, it’ll provide provisions for all. (Pause) You’ve been told a lie. And you’ll hear me talk much about socialism, because it’s my middle name. I am God, and God is Love, and Love is Socialism, so you’ll hear me speak much of socialism. You cannot separate the one from the other, and I will have it all over this wide extended plain. There’s nothing you can do about it. (Pause) You can take me and put me in the jails, and I will take it and use it for my glory. You can put me on the y– end of a noose, you can hang me at (unintelligible place name– sounds like “Yardbare”)) at the highest tree, at high noon, but you can hang my body, and if I’d been hung and killed for 42 generations, I’ve been destroyed, but I’ll spring up again. You cannot stamp me out. I’m here to stay. (Pause) Nothing you can do. If you give me bad publicity, I’ll march around your newspapers, and get more publicity.
(Pause) (Speaks quickly) And if it’s bad news, we’ll take it and use it, and not get discouraged, because as Mae West said – and if that old girl can know truth, surely God can know truth – she said, I don’t care how they write my name, I don’t care what they say about me in the newspaper, as long as they spell my name right. And we must have that attitude, because the newspapers are owned by big business. They’re owned by the capitalists that’ve kept the blacks down, they’re the very ones that used to stir up the lynch mobs. The newspapers are controlled by wealth. There’s only one in every city. And they’re always controlled by big money, so you can’t expect them to be friendly to us. They’re gonna to– they’re just having a little rest. They’ll take after us again. But let’s not worry, as long as they spell our name right. We’ll take the best of it, whatever knock comes, and they will use it for a boost, every prosecution will be an upliftment. Every persecution will be an unfoldment, we shall go through, no matter what they give us, we will turn it around. Even though they mean it for evil, we’ll turn it around and use it for good, because we shall remain. (Pause) Oh, I want the persecutions to come on. (Pause) There’s a great love here. They’re not going to tell this story. No, they’re not. But I’ll tell you, the tide’s against them. They may bring us down, down, seemingly, in natural circumstances, as they did Jesus so many days ago, when they hung him on the tree, and he seemed to be a loser, and laid away in a tomb, but my followers got me out of the tomb there, and they’ll always get me out of the tomb (Resurrection story in all gospels). I shall always come out. (Pause) You can’t keep me in a tomb. You can’t keep the Christ idea, the revolutionary idea of socialism, you can’t keep it in a tomb. You just nail it to a tree, and it’ll come off the tree. You tried to nail me with a few guns not long ago, shot me down before all this congregation, my people scream in such agony, I don’t want to ever hear that agony again, they screamed as I fell on the floor, blood gushing out of the holes in my chest. But I said I’m not ready. My time hadn’t come. You weren’t organized yet enough. You weren’t the little gods that I want you to be, because I’m Daddy God, and you’re my baby gods, and I want you to be just like me. (Pause) And I rose on that floor, and I said I’m not ready, and they put– the nurses put their finger through the three holes (Pause) in here, just like a kind of a triangle, put their fingers in them, and they couldn’t– they said, well, you can’t continue. We get a finger in there to swab out the– the mucus and blood, you must go to doctor. I said, I am the doctor and I am the lawyer, and I’m all I need. (Pause) (Coughs) (Calmer tone) So if we did it once, we can do it again. (Pause) And if you’re not careful, and you’re dilatory and careless, then they will take me and do with me what they will. But my name will get known, and you won’t be able to separate yourself from me, ’cause I’ll be on every TV, and on every radio, and in every newspaper, and you won’t be able to say I never knew him, because every time you wake up, I’ll be hauntin’ you, because they’ll be talkin’ more about me than they’ve ever talked about anybody. When I get through– when I get through, they’re gonna be talkin’ about me.
(Pause) So you can’t hide from me. You might as well cooperate with me. And I might say, at this very juncture, it’s ins– it’s essential to do so, because it’s an impending wind coming, and you didn’t hear me earlier, and I can give you just one more ounce of grace– one more ounce of grace. Everyone take an envelope right now, before I go on with my work, because there’s impending clouds out there. So you better get fas– fasten your seat belts. And the way you can fasten your seat belts is to give sacrificially, but if you hold back, you can’t rebuke the devourer, you cannot resist the enemy and cause him to flee from you. Some of you didn’t do it properly when the brother stood up from the CBS network, that once had his own TV program [Mike Prokes], but quit when he saw God in me so clearly, God, justice, socialism, and he just stopped his job when he came here to do a story on me. You didn’t listen closely enough. Now I urge you– some of you need to be putting hundreds, and you need to be tellin’ about those jewels you’re holdin’ back, because we’ve got to put all of our resources together. If we don’t use all of our fuel, we’re going to suffer more. And our fuel is what we have. God loves a cheerful giver, and if you hold back, He said, I would have thou perfect, sell all. The young ruler said, I’ve done– I’ve kept the commandments from the youth up, I’ve obeyed all church laws, Jesus said, one thing thou lackest. Sell everything. Some of you are not willing to give all, you’re not willing to sacrifice. I see you have Easter– you’ve donned Easter clothes, when I have said, be humble on Easter. We used to wear overalls to show how much we disapprove of that system. But you had money for that, now I’m asking you to keep our storehouse filled, to make our plans ready for the great D-Day, for the J-D-Day that will fall on one sixteenth at three-oh-nine. Be prepared. Prepare yourself. Arm yourself. And the way you can do it is to give freely, and I want everyone to take an envelope under my voice now, because you’re in holy ground now. Do it, find a way to make that pledge or that commitment, or to give some extra ca– money, because when you give more, then you are being (Pause) found free of the guilt of the sins of waste and money and capitalism that’s all around us. You’ve got to work out your salvation with your money, child. I wouldn’t emphasize it, wasn’t for that, ’cause I don’t take a penny of it. (Pause) My God, I don’t touch a penny of this.
(Pause) Expenses that– that manse, and church and the parsonage wouldn’t even possibly, if it went for another ten years, be equivalent to what I’ve put into this. The organ that I paid for with my own money, the many things I’ve paid for out of my own work. So don’t worry. I’m not getting rich off of you. I don’t have any watches or jewels. The only reason I keep money is for court action and that sort of thing. I wouldn’t have a dollar if it wasn’t– and the attorneys, if they can get something worked up, I’ve asked, I want to be penniless. They say it’s not wise to be penniless, when the time comes that we have to be brought to our issue, brought to our pinnacle, that I should be free to be able to have money to fight in the courts, because I’ll have to. Well, I don’t care. But you certainly see I don’t love money, ’cause there’re no watches or jewels or new clothes, there’s nothing on my back. Nothing on my back. No Cadillac waiting for me outside. I don’t have any desire but to serve you. And I do that better than anybody ever could dream of having done it. (Pause) This is a very important test, this convention, this is your last tance– chance. This is your last chance to straighten up the balance sheet. (Pause) Now one here says I don’t think it’s any of your business. (Pause) Now I had these time sheets fixed out, so that I can keep a running account on who’s here, because when the day comes for her to be saved, I’m sending only the buses to those that are sincere and conscientious, and when you tell me it’s none of my business, you must change this, or leave the church. (Pause) I already know your business. One of you said you owned a business and only made so much money a month. I know how much money you make. Tell me some lie. (Pause) This is just for records, and these initials all have things to do with your life. Every one of these initials down here. OB, YB, YW, and so forth, those are codes that have to do with saving you. This is for your best interest, so fill this out. And you put that there. You put that down. If you don’t, then tell me today, and I’ll take your membership card, and we’ll bide our way farewell, as bad as I hate to see you go, because when you get in trouble, you’re gonna need me. And you’re gonna get in trouble. (Clears throat) (Pause) Just like the man last night I talked to down here, I said, you better quit criticizing me. I want to tell you, he’s in trouble. He left today, the white man down there between our two sisters in the fourth or fifth row back. He’s in trouble, whole lots of trouble. He doesn’t pick his heel against me, and save himself from trouble. You watch the trouble as it starts down his way now.
(Long pause) (Quiet tone) You can’t– you can’t possibly prosper when you touch God’s anointed. (Pause) Socialistic anointing is the greatest anointing in the world, you can’t prosper and touch it . (Pause) Now we don’t talk about our principles or socialism or God outside. Outside you say, he’s Jim Jones, greatest friend I ever had, greatest savior anybody ever wanted to see. Does greater miracles than anybody could possibly do. He could save this country from fascism and dictatorial despotic masquerading communism in the name of communism– masquerading in the name of communism, he could save us from the Illuminati, he could save us from dictatorship, and all these -ism’s, he’s the only one that can do it, because he gets young people off of drugs, gives our people jobs, gives them opportunities, makes them good citizens, once a person comes into his mission, they never get back in trouble with the law. (Pause) Last night, dealing with a child molester, all the evening, all along, me and my council was dealing with him, and I wondered, where in the world could a child molester get such a change of heart. At the end of the day, he said, you know, I want to be a doctor. I want to be a doctor to make up for what I’ve done. I want to be a doctor to do, to serve the people and give them the free medicines that they need. I’m gonna do it, and I knew in his heart he intends to do that. (Voice climbs) That’s– there’s only one that can take child molesters and get them straight. There’s only one that can take drug addicts and turn them around. There’s only one that can take hardened criminals and murderers– I’ve had people in here that have murdered, they’d murder you at the drop of the hat, I’ve got one here who’s killed his own mother, but now, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. There’s only one that can turn people around like that, that’s God Almighty. Socialism. (Pause) (Calms) What are you talking about? If you have any question, you out there, and the reason I’m talking so– in absolutistic terms, I’ve got one of you black finks– you tar-mite finks, setting here, masquerading as a Baptist, and I know you’re an investigator, and you know also that little thing you’ve got recording, it’s about the size of a– a– a– a– a uh, lighter, because I don’t smoke these filthy capitalist cigarettes. I want you to get everything taped. I’m not even taking it from you. But I’m gonna take your life. Your life’s gonna be gone in June. You’re gonna be gone, and I won’t even move my finger. Not one of my people will move their finger, I’m just gonna breathe on you in a mirror, and you’ll be finished. (Pause) Because I have a picture of you in my mind, and my mind’s just not like any mind you ever see, and so I’m gonna out-picture on you, and I’m gonna out-picture on you, and reverse the energy, you’re in trouble, brother. I’m gonna let you take your tape, ’cause I want them to hear it. I want you to take it to your investigating laboratory, and I want those to listen, and I want them to hear the ring of sincerity in my voice. I want them to know what I’m saying. I am God, I’m the only God there is– (Long pause) You are now so all-fired capable– you’re so capable that you can take voice-a-graphs and you can study the electronic frequencies of the voice, and you can determine whether someone’s telling the truth, or whether they believe in what they’re doing, and I’m gonna tell you, when you get through analyzing my voice, you’re gonna know I believe in every damn thing I’m (unintelligible word; “giving”? “doing”?). (Pause) Yes, I can do miracles, no matter what you think about arrangements. Yes, I can heal the sick and cure cancer. Yes, I can open up blind eyes. Yes, I can cause the cripple to walk. Yes, I can stop accidents. Yes, I can cause the sun to quit shining . Yes, I can cause the rain to fall. Yes.
(Pause) (Coughs) You write it down. And you can call me an egomaniac, megalomania, or whatever you wish, with a messianic complex. I don’t have any complex, honey. I happen to know I’m the Messiah. (Pause) It’s only a complex when you’re confused. It’s only a complex when you have some kind of neuroutic– neurotic compulsions and some kind of subliminal pressures. Honey, I don’t have any conflict about it whatsoever. I’m not in conflict at all. I know as much as the light is showing up there through four squares, that I am God the Messiah. (Pause) Now you take that in your pipe and smoke it, honey. (Pause) There wasn’t any God till I came along. There was nobody to help the people. Your God of religions and Bibles– the babies are going to bed hungry, black people have been treated like dogs just because of the color of their skin, Jews were murdered, and they were supposed to be the chosen people of the so-called Skygod, there was no Skygod, and I’m an earth god, though, child, and I’m very much alive. (Clears throat) (Pause) (Warning tone) You better not try to doubt me. You better not try. You better know one thing, whatever you don’t understand about the fabulous things I do, the absolutely fantastic things I do, whatever you don’t conceive, you better know one thing. You better say that black-haired nigger Jim believes in what he’s doing. (Pause) And I was just as skeptical as you. I had to have everything tested on the laboratory of empiricism. I had to have everything proved to me rationally. But I have found out that I can do anything. If the circumstances are proper, I can do anything. I’ve gone through a wall. I’ve done that. Now you ra– you record that on your little meter. I’ve gone through a wall. My own sons can tell you, I disappeared and came back to their own astonishment. That’s what has happened before my own sons. And staff has given their own testimony. I’m telling you what’s happened to my own sons. My own sons can tell you this last Sunday that I was here, they were with me when I said my mind is powerful, and I want to train you how to use yours, and I can cause that bigot in the car in front of me, a white man who had been showing antics and showing ugliness about my mixed car, my inter-racial assembly, and he went by with such arrogance, I said, I’ll cause that man who’s not moved a muscle, I said, I’m going to cause him to scratch his head three times like a monkey. (Pause) I could’ve caused him to scratch his ass three times like a monkey, if I had wanted to. (Pause) But it’s not my desire to humiliate, but to save, so I did not even make him scratch his lower parts, which he really acted worse than– and lower than any monkey ever did, so I should’ve really had him dig his own ass, because he sure acted like a fool.
(Pause) But the f– the man kept looking around like an idiot, and his wife wondering why was he scratching his head. Now my young sons and everybody in my car can tell you, I made him do it. So you better watch out, you better be nice to me, because I’m nice, but if you want to be nasty, I’ll cause you to dig your ass out sometime (unintelligible word) (Tape off briefly, no edit) It’s perfectly astonishing the things I do. I astonish myself on what I meditate. People be in jail, and I’ll say I’ll get them out. Somebody facing an execution, and I’ll say I’ll get them off as I did the three in the South, and I did it. You know Sincerity. You know Truth. You recording it now. You can weigh it. I said I got three people off that were facing the electrocution chamber. (Voice quietens) I’ve been able to touch people when they call on me, like the one laying on the bed with the bullet through his brain, the sister here that testifies her own son, and he got right up and walked. I been able through my picture just to lay it upon a body, and they’d raise up in a morgue. I been able to go to people, when they drug one in here– here in this San Francisco meeting, they brought him in, he wouldn’t give his money, he wouldn’t give properly, and he was arrogant, and he fell dead outside. And they carried him in down the aisle (Pause) and bowel movement caked on his legs, and he lay dead twenty minutes. Now if I’d looked in the natural mind, I said, oh, this is impossible. But I’ve learned I’m something else than natural. I’m something else. And so I– (Pause) (Voice rises) I would not be denied. I kept on and I kept on, and I found a way. You wouldn’t believe it. I found a way to get food to Wounded Knee. Oh, you would never believe how I got that there. No, no. (Pause) You wouldn’t know. It came on the TV– came on the TV, they said, there’re no more food, there’re no more uh– insulin supplies for those precious Indians, and I turned around, I said, I gone– I gone– got to do this mission. My people over there in Wounded Knee, they don’t know who I am, but I know who I am, so I’ve gotta do the job. (Pause) Well, you notice in 24 hours later, they had their food supply and they had their medical supplies, just as I said they would, and they had to renegotiate with those Indians. Oh, child, what I have done, you wouldn’t believe. No use for you to try to figure it out. Just try to accept it, because I can do anything. I can do anything but fail. (Long pause) Just like Ellsberg [Daniel Ellsberg, a Pentagon analyst who released military documents from early in the Vietnam War – known as the Pentagon Papers – to the press]. I’m not gonna let that thing fall on (unintelligible word) man that had that courage. I don’t know how, but I’m gonna stop it. You mark my words. I’m gonna stop it. (Pause) They think they’re gonna put him away for years. I’m not gone let that happen. He who told the Pentagon Papers, he who expressed the truth. Oh no, someway, I’m gonna get in there and alleviate that circumstance, you can just bet your life I’ll do it. (Pause) The people don’t care– the churches don’t care, that’s why I say, you can’t belong to my church and any other church. Don’t you try. You, that Catholic sister, you better decide to leave that Catholic Church, because it’s me that’s kept you alive. You that are in the Baptist Church, brother, and comin’ here five or six times, it’s time now that you pull your moorings loose from that old lie. Come out from amongst the unclean thing. (Pause) As brother– as our precious Brother Flower said, he said he’d love to play his horn, but he not going to play his horn if it’s against his will in other churches. The thing he needs to know, he won’t be able to play his horn much longer, unless he plays it only in my missions.
(Pause) I don’t think he needed to know that, because he’s (tape distortion for one word) had a deep heart sincerity, but that’s my concern, I’m the only one that can help you. I’m the only one that can keep you playing your horn, or keep you walking straight. I’m the only one that can save you when you’re in trouble. I’m the only one that can get you out of trouble. I took three out of the courts this week this week. I took Brother Mitchell’s son, I didn’t know him. They thought it– because he was black, they were gonna put the book against him, but I said no– (Tape off for unknown period) – has ever been convicted for murder. No one’s that rich has ever gone to a gas chamber. (Tape distortion) had $50,000 has ever gone for life imprisonment. Why is it that a black and brown and the hippie and the poor are the ones that get arrested, and the ones that die without hospital care are the poor, the ones that live in the rat traps. (Voice climbs) Where your God up there? Where is he? Where did he ever come? Did he ever come? You’ve never asked me for anything, as long as you ask me, I have done everything in my power to get to your need, I’ve never turned away anybody (tape distortion), I’ve never turned anyone away from food, I’ve never turned away one that wanted education, or (tape distortion) turned one away that wanted a healing. No, I’m real. If you want to call me God, then I’m God. But I’m Jim Jones. (Pause) Nobody helped me. I come busted in the poor shanty. I come busted on the side of the railroad tracks. When I looked up at the sky and saw the rain come through my roof, and the frost was so cold, that you’d break ice on your– your pillow and break it on the blanket, nobody helped me. Hell, there’s nobody up there that helped me. My uncle died in my lap when I was a baby. I prayed my last prayer at five, and after that– and I’ve never prayed again. Every time I pass somebody on the highway, from five-and-a-half years old, every time I walk in somebody’s room, they never died. When they were dying, they would spring forth. They’d start to live. When I looked inside of me, when I found the power of socialism in me, and quit praying. I haven’t prayed a prayer since I was five. (Pause) I got some of you folks shook up. (Pause) You see what you’re waiting for. Is he gone drop dead? (Pause) See this? (Pause) See this? This is a– this is the Holy Bible of King James. My grandfather, who was a racist, said the only good one was a dead one. See this? (Pause as he throws the King James version on the floor) See that? I’m still (unintelligible word). You say, why do you do that? Because that’s what’s kept you in bondage. That’s why women are not free. Because you’re supposed to come out of the rib of Adam. You’re supposed to be cursed, because you caused that stupid Adam to eat an apple. And if Adam was the first man, where in the name of heaven, after Cain slew Abel, did he go and get his wife? (Shouts) Come on, you childs of ignorance, why don’t you start thinkin’? That shook you up. See, I can preach it, but when I throw it down– do you know the first time I threw it down? (Calm, deliberate) Thirty-six years ago. (Excited) I stood on it and jumped up and down on it, and spit on it, because I knew it killed. I knew it was a dead letter. I knew it kept me in bondage. I knew it would keep me a prisoner. And I spit on it 36 years ago. The eighth day of June, 36 years ago, I spit on that thing, and I did it a few centuries before that. (Pause) (Small laugh) (Calmer tone) I’m gonna– I’m gonna free myself of some guests tonight, but that’ll be one less that I’ll have to worry about. ‘Cause I worry about you. When you’re hungry, I gotta feed you. When your animal– like the sister that brought me the animal tonight, I gotta take care of the animal. Gotta take the maggots out of it. Gotta lance its wounds. Like the brother tonight, I had to break up the impaction. I worry about you. So if you are such a fool as that, you want to get mad because I tell you the truth, then you are going to just take one person out of my hand, because I really put you in the palm of my hand. I’ll look after you, I’ll care for you, I’d die for you, I put my body right in front of a bullet last week, to save people’s lives in this– I did it with my own body. (Pause) (Calm) What kind of a fool are you, that would not accept me because I tell the truth? (Pause) Particularly poor black and brown– and those black women walked away there mad. Isn’t that something? Walked away mad.
(Pause) They come up free on the bus, you know. (unintelligible phrase) They got no money– (short laugh) Oh, they got no money. Got no money to pay for the food. Got no money to pay for the bus. And that’s the way socialism is, you got no money, you’ll be as welcome as the daisies in the springtime. So when I get through preaching, they find some money to get all the way back to Ukiah and San Francisco, ’cause they won’t even get on my bus. They’re afraid they’re going to fall off on a cliff. (Pause) (Voice rises into ministerial cadence) But our buses have gone east three times last year, four times, back and forth, to the Atlantic, and they’ve gone to Canada, and they’ve gone to Mexico, and other buses have crashed and other cars have crashed, but not one have crashed, not one had a scratch, not one of my people had even a cut from all those buses. It’s funny. If I’m so bad, I’ve got somethin’ workin’ for me that’s might darn good. (Cries out) Hey, it’s true, anyhow. (Pause) (Calm) The animals come in half-dead and they’re living down there. Look at them. They look healthy. Look at those children over there. Look at Ever Rejoicing, 93, she looks like she’s real good, don’t she? She’s really rejoicing. Clapping her hands, telling me to go right on. They look pretty good. If I’m such an ogre, why is it I’m doing more for you than your God did? (Pause) Hmm. (Pause) Did you ever imagine– Shirley has a song, and I want her to sing it. Can you imagine, that there wasn’t any heaven, and you gonna have to built it? Can you imagine out here in this swirling bit of space, that’s there only energy, and you can take it and make something with it? Or it’ll just leave you cold and void for all eons of time. Can you imagine? Now let me say, real clear, (self-evident tone) there’s not a God out there like Jim Jones. No, no. No, he’s not– because, if I was sitting out there and looked on this planet, and I saw military generals and rich oil and steel magnates robbing the poor, I’d come down with a stroke of my power, if I had all the power you say he’s got– said he’s omniscient, omniluscent, omnipresent, omnipotent– that means all-powerful. And all powers in his hand. If I was out there, I’d come down and feed every baby, the babies that were washed into the sea, a million of them, just a few weeks ago, just because they happened to be poor, and there were no dikes built for them, they were the wrong part of Pakistan. And the same thing happened a year before, because they were poor and the wrong color. (Voice rises, then falls) I’da gone down to Peru last year, and I’da stopped that earthquake that took those babies, because there was no prevention, no warning system. Some say 600,000 people went to their death. I’d go over to Hiroshima. That bomb would’ve never dropped, if I had been God in the sky. The bomb would’ve never dropped on Hiroshima that you saw last night, that’s still causing little babies coming out of their mothers’ wombs, because their mother got radiation, and little babies are still dying of blood cancer in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while you’re setting here. (Pause) You say, well, what are you saying? I’m saying God is Principle. God is Energy, and you’ve got to learn that energy, and appropriate it yourself. (Pause) This is hard on you, but if you don’t get rid of this– that’s why I threw that Bible down. Some of you hadn’t heard a thing I said. It’s easy to talk about it, but when I throw your idol down, whoo!
(Pause) You say, will he– how long is he going to last? Is he still breathing? (Pause) (Calls out) I’m breathing and I am– will continue breathing. And I will be speaking right here when some of you have long since left the way. (Pause) Got one woman sittin’ back there on the table, you thought you’d come, now you decide you haven’t– gonna move here. Well, that’s all right, child. When you got sick, there’ll be nobody taking care of you. (Pause) Better listen to me. Won’t be nobody taking care of you. You be alone by your hospital bed. There won’t be nobody comin’ to visit you. My nurses, because of my spirit– I’ve taught them to care. They check on every one of our patients, the few that’ll get there. Bob Crabtree wa– had lost his stomach. He has no stomach. Cancer. Last I know in the hospital, he’s out of it. He’s living without a stomach, because I’m here. He developed his cancer before he came to me. (Pause) Well, what did my people do? And I did, I was there. We checked on him night and day. We didn’t w– wait on a standard nurse to come and take his pulse, our nurses slipped in and checked him out. Our nurses checked his e– equipment. Our nurses would get off their d– their s– their time, of their coffee time, their coffee break, instead of taking coffee, and that caffeine’s no good for them, they’d be out looking to see how well my children are being taken of. That’s the way I do. You see, you give me your strength, and I will make a heaven out of your hell. If you believe in me, and cooperate with me, I will cause the kingdoms of this racist society to become the kingdoms of socialistic freedom. I will cause your desert to blossom as a rose, if you start believing in me. (Pause) So all you say, you gotta believe in God, you say God don’t have to anybody believe in him, oh yes, yes, say without faith? Impossible to please God. You gotta have faith even if that guy up there got all power. If I had all power, I wouldn’t care whether you had faith or not, I’d help you out anyway. I don’t– I don’t care whether you got any faith in me or not, I want to help you. (Pause) Thank you, brother, you’re with me. (Pause) So many not with me. (Pause) Well, now, say it. (Pause) (Claps hands once) (Struggles for words) The Bible– it’ll still be there. You can read it when you get home, honey. (Pause) Now, if there’s a God up there like you and me, (Pause) and he said we’re supposed to be in his image (Pause) and he feels like us, he said if he being evil know how to do good – that’s what King James says – you wouldn’t give stone for bread, would you? That’s what the Bible says. You wouldn’t give a serpent for fish. Said, how much more God then would God be? Uh– good. Would you send somebody to hell to burn forever and ever?
Scattered voices: No.
Jones: You might send them there to learn. And that’s exactly what the early scripture said. Turn them over to the judge, and the judge puts them in the prison, and they still in prison till they what? Prison’s a type of hell. Till you pay the what? Uttermost farthing. That means you get out. You say, get out of hell? Oh yes, you get out of hell. Even out of hell. We’re gonna get you out of hell, baby.
Congregation: Laughter
Jones: Otherwise, Jesus, the myth of your Scripture, would be a terrible disgrace. Jesus supposedly went down to hell, according to the epistles, and preached to who? The spirit of the disobedient ones in the days of Noah who were so cussed that they wouldn’t get on that boat and cooperate. Stood off and laughed at old Noah while he’s building that boat. (Pause) Some of these folk’ll never be the same, I can guarantee you that. But it said Jesus went down to hell to those 800 and preached to them, and took captivity captive, led them out of hell, and ascended to the right hand of power. He took them out of hell. Well, if he took some bunch of disobedient folk out of hell, and wouldn’t take you out, then he’s a dirty rascal. (Pause) That’s right, isn’t it, Mother Brown. (Pause) If Mother Brown was in it– she’s grown here, that’d be a beautiful– and you see people seventies and eighties, they were just carrying a Bible like an idol, and– three months ago, you say, right on now, right on. Somebody like Joy down there say, Tell it to them, baby.
Congregation: Laughter.
Jones: Five months ago, they woulda never thought some of these thoughts. If 80- or 90-year-olds not afraid to die – and they’re getting close to it – I’ve seen these older sisters jump up and down on their Bible, and they’re still living. (Small laugh) They jumped up, and when I did it, they throwed theirs down, and jumped up and down on it too. You 25, you act like you’re afraid someone gone knock you down. There’re sisters that’re 80 or 90, jumpin’ up and down on theirs, they’re still going around real good, hey God Almighty! (Pause) I’m not the only one’s jumped up on a Bible. (Pause) (Slower) Now all that hogwash (Pause) that you’ve been taught about hell, about this, about that, about why God made the world, you know you wouldn’t do any of the dirty things that your God’s supposed to do, and it says in the Scripture that He is much higher, as high as above the ear– heavens above the earth, above your ways. That’s what you said your God is. And yet you wouldn’t put one of your children in hell, to burn forever and ever, would you?
Congregation: No.
Jones: You wouldn’t make them stand and pray. You wouldn’t make ’em get baptized. I know you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t make folks say– get ’em to say, you want to get saved, go down and get dunked. (Pause) Or come to church every day. Pray. Pray and pray and sing. Say “Amazing Grace” and Hallelujah. I don’t like singing “Amazing Grace.” You know why? Because the one that wrote that song was a slave trader. Take his name and read it out. He never changed it. To the day he died, the man that wrote “Amazing Grace,” child, slave trader. He also traded in opium, and he sold black babies and brown babies. (Calls out) Never changed his ways. I don’t want to hear the song. I hear it’s one of the most favorite songs till I stopped it around here, was (sings) “Amazing Grace”.
Congregation: Laughter
Jones: What kind of a devil like that, that would sell little bodies, knows about “Amazing Grace”? What’s he know about “Amazing Grace”? He knows about a vicarious grace, you see. He thought he could do every darn thing he wanted, and after all, it wasn’t him that counted. He just leaned on Jesus. He could be a slave trader, Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday sing “Amazing Grace” and he’d go in the Pearly Gates. (Shouts) That’s the kind of crap you’ve been praising. That’s the kind of crap you’ve been listening to, that you could live like a racist pig, all day long– (tape distortion; edit?) I’m trying to win people, get down with them. I won’t say certain things. You never hear me preach about hell. That damnable concoction that was made up to scare people into going to religion. I wouldn’t be that dirty. I’ve always been straight. You never hear me preach hell, do you? You never heard me preach about hell. You never heard me preach about no pearl gates to the city. I don’t want to walk on no golden streets. I like green vegetables. I like the (unintelligible word) trees, I like the giant oaks, I like the beautiful elms, I like the redwoods, I don’t want to go to no damn gold streets. (Pause) (Calls out) Hey! I feel good! (Speaks quickly, excited)Now you– you see all day long, I gotta make you feel good. All day long, I gotta heal you. All day long, I raise you up when they said you couldn’t raise up. When they said you couldn’t walk, I raised you up. And I have to become what you are to do that. But tonight, I’m doin’ my own damn thing, hey God Almighty! (Pause) ‘Cause tomorrow, I gotta put up with some folks who’ll come in here, they’ll be acting like they’re religious. Don’t want to be. They don’t want to be religious. Why, some of these folk are the most religious folk in the world. Joy was religious, she wouldn’t cuss, she can cuss like a trooper now, once she get started. (Pause) Oh yes, but tomorrow, we gotta be straight. (Pause) (Calm) ‘Cause some good people comin’ our way. They don’t know any better. They want to be free, they want to shuck their shoes off, they want to get loose too, but they’ve been afraid to do so, because nobody else did. But that’s what’s the difference. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. (Voice growls) You couldn’t get any lower than I was, laying on that dirty bed, carrying water for two blocks, going to an outdoor toilet, when you set down on the toilet in the middle of winter, your skin would stick to the bottom of it. You couldn’t have a BM in peace. (Pause) I prayed, nobody came and took that BM, nobody gave me any nice place to sit, it’s too bad when you can’t even crap in peace.
(Pause) (Calls out) Come on, child, wake up down there. Come on. Gonna get on the ball here. I don’t care if you don’t want me to baptize you. Some have already decided you don’t want me to baptize you. I don’t give a damn if I don’t baptize any of you, but if you want me to heal you, I shall heal you. If you want me to raise you when you’re dead, I can raise you. If you want me to take you in, when nobody’ll take you in, I’m here. And I don’t give a damn if you don’t like my religion, it suited me for seven years, hallelujah! Hey, God Almighty! Freedom! (Pause) You’re sweet! You ever get– (pants with exertion) I don’t know how we get new people, new people that act like this place– this white sister here smilin’, laughin’ it up. (Pause) Some of you people, I’ve healed you. She would meet me for the first night, walkin’ her (unintelligible word) and she’s preachin’ me on. Huh. Some of you, I’ve fed you, some of you, I took in your children, some of you I fought for your– your children, yes, and yours, it was your child. That was you settin’ there in prison. When I gave her $2000 when she was falsely accused, when I said she’d be acquitted, nobody did it but me. Nobody did it but me. (Pause) (Calls out) I said early Sunday morning before the meeting began, I said Angela Davis [UC-Berkeley professor fired for Communist Party connections] will be acquitted on all charges. Because she’s being charged– she’s being charged because she’s a woman, she’s too educated, she happens to be a woman doesn’t need a man, she doesn’t have to be a man, and she’s black, and that’s why they were trying to crush her to the ground. That’s why.
(Pause) (Calmer) Ever since you began, that’s the reason for all slavery. It’s the reason (unintelligible phrase) along with these two precious minister’s sisters to get together. Slavery. Some book saying some quirky idea of King James, ’cause he’s out compensating for his homosexuality, he didn’t want to l– anybody to live in real companionship of togetherness. (Pause) (Calls out) Come on, now. And you women have had to be down, scrubbing the floors and licking somebody’s boots, because you’re supposed to have taken the apple and give it to that stupid Adam. (Pause) What a dumb story we believe, what a dumb, dumb story we believe. You know it’s dumb. You may not be willing to clap, but you know it’s as dumb as I know it’s dumb. (Pause) Adam, the first man, and Eve the first woman. And they don’t know their hind end from a hole in the ground. That’s what the Book says. What the Book says. They didn’t know right from wrong, did they? They hadn’t never eaten of the Knowledge of the Tree of Good and Evil, had they? So they didn’t know what was right, they didn’t know what was wrong. That’d be like getting my pussycat up here and saying, Pussycat, pussycat, don’t you drink any milk. Pussycat don’t know why he don’t– not supposed to drink milk. He likes milk. I say, pussycat, you eat that milk, you gonna die. The day you drink that milk, you gone die. Pussycat looks up and said Meow. (Pause) You got Adam and Eve sitting in the garden. Sittin’ out here in the garden. Dummies. Don’t know any– they don’t know anything. Don’t never have eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. ‘Long comes God. (Drops tone to connote God’s voice) Big old God up there. He says, you eat that tree– the day you eat that tree, you gone die. Here comes some old wise fellow over here, he’s a snake. He says, don’t you listen to him. (Pause) Said– (laughs) He said– he said, a good apple’s on that tree. He said, a good apple’s on that tree. Now you just go over there and eat that apple, and he said, that’s just God don’t want you to be like him. He don’t want you to have much as sense as he’s got, he don’t want you to know what he knows, now you eat that apple, and I guarantee you won’t die. Who told the truth? (Pause) The snake. ‘Cause they ate the damned apple and they got out and went to bed with each other, and had two kids. Hey! (unintelligible exclamation) Hey! (Pause) I have to raise somebody from the dead. Keep the oxygen handy. I– The only reason I have to raise people from the dead is because they’re already dead, you see. But nobody– your Skygod won’t raise you– I’ve got somebody so upset over there, she’s about ready to die. She about ready to croak. So I’ll let you take a walk, honey, if you want to. (Pause) But you stay around, I’ll lift you up, were you to fall down. For 24 times this year, people up to 96 years of age have fell down and have given up the ghost, and there’s no God come out of the sky, old nigger Jones just walk down and said (Calls out) Arise. Arise! Pick up your bed. Arise! ‘Cause I’m on the scene. And we’re a bunch of niggers gonna get together, and we’re gonna make a heaven out of a hell. (Pause) (Voice quietens to command) Get that brother going out there. He needs to hear this. (Pause) No young– no young Tom (unintelligible word) round here. We do, we gonna have to throw them in the pool. Okay. I wash my feet last Monday, it’s all right. (Pause) Put a– put a little salt on ’em, a little pepper– (Pause) I don’t mean to do this, and don’t do it often, but you see, I give my life to you. I become a living viable force to save you. I listen all night to your problems. I heal you when nobody else can heal you. I raise you from the dead when nobody can touch you. So you gotta let me do my own expression for a moment, and get rid of all these burdens. Why is it that– that people get healed? Why was it the woman whose hand was crippled like that – it was like that, wasn’t it? –
Congregation: Yes!
Jones: And her foot was like this? Her foot was like this? Why did it get taken away? Because I took her pain into my body. I took it into my feet. I took it into my back. The other night, I’m shoveling it out, and I’m putting it on you, I’m putting it out in the air, I’m just breathing free, and tomorrow I’ll be able to run again. It feels good. (Pause) (Unintelligible word; “peace”?) What a dummy dumb dumb we’ve been. What kind of a God would it be that wouldn’t want you to have the same knowledge that he had? How you gonna know what’s right from wrong if you don’t have the knowledge of good and evil. Unless a pussycat gets something in him to tell him not to drink milk, he gonna drink milk till the world stops. Unless a lion gets something inside of him of the knowledge of good and evil, he’s gone keep on chasing jackrabbits till hell freezes over. (Pause) (Cries out) Stupid! (Adopts dumb accent) And you say, it’s here in the book. (Pause) (Normal tone) Well, (Pause) well, well. (Pause) The bo– beautiful part about it is, I didn’t take the offering before I preached it to you. That’s what you get from me. (Unintelligible phrase) red shirt and the old (unintelligible word) pants, I don’t give a damn if you don’t want to help yourself. If you don’t want to put any money out for food – you see, we got rice for all of our people for a year. Our nurses are getting supplies. We’re getting the things you’ll need for any kind of trouble. And every kind of medical supply, we’ve got it. Every kind of transportation, we’ve got it. When they g– honkies want to get– to take freedom away from us, they’re gonna have to take 12 busloads of us. (Cries out) Hey yeah! (Pause) So you don’t– you didn’t get lied tonight. I didn’t take your money, so don’t look sad. I didn’t take an offering till you got what you had coming to you, the truth. Know then (unintelligible word) been giving you the greatest gift I have to give you is the Truth. If you could learn to think like me, you’d get the power I got. (Growls) But as long as you got fear, you won’t have any power. You’re afraid of somebody up there. I’m afraid of nobody. I’m afraid of nobody. (Pause) (Normal tone) That’s why– That’s why I can live on an hour of sleep. Most of you just laying there and think– (pants) did I aggrieve God today? Did I blaspheme? Did I pray as much as I–? Should I read more Scriptures? Oh, my God. You’re worried, you’re worried. I don’t worry about nothing. When I do go to bed, I sleep.
Congregation: Applause
Jones: I’m– I’m God. Good. I’m God good, but you know the old– I can sure understand that– that joke about the devil. The devil was out walking, and I see– say this to reiterate. The devil was out walking one day, and somebody stop him and said, “Lucifer. The most beautiful angel. What did you leave heaven for? The Bible says you were the most beautiful angel there was. And you went and left Heaven, and took a third of the angels with you.” He said, “What did you do a thing like that for?” Lucifer says, “Well, I got good reasons.” The man kept pestering him, and he said, “All right, I’ll show you why.” He says, “See that old rain barrel there. Well, turn that rain barrel upside down.” He said, “Now I’m gone get up on top of that rain barrel,” says, “I want you to go round this rain barrel and say ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hosanna.'” And the old boy took about 15 trips around the rain barrel, and he says, “I’m tired.” Lucifer said, “That’s what happen to me.” (Pause) The devil said, I got tired. (Full throat) What kind of God you made? What kind of a sick God you put up there? A God that you gotta say Hallelujah to, a God that you gotta say Amen to, a God that you gotta pray to, a God that you gotta worship, what kind of a egotist are you put up there? (Normal tone) You don’t need to worship me. All I want from you is to do right. Feed my children. Do something about the misery around you. Take care of the animals. I don’t care whether you like me, call me Jim Jones, call me asshole, I don’t care what you call me. (Pause) I’m laying it out straight tonight. I don’t care what you call me. Call me Father, call me mother, call me hermaphrodite, call me queer, call me whatever you want, (Calls out) ’cause I don’t care what you call me. Just do what’s right. Do what’s right. (Pause) (Normal tone) Good God Almighty. What kinda God they got? What kinda God? Get down on your knees, and up on your knees. Poor Catholics– I used to wear – my mother was a Catholic – down and up. And I saw the priest. I saw what he did when she was hungry. No, he didn’t come. My father was a Pentecostal, and they– they didn’t come, when the stomach was growling, growling, eating up its very lining, they didn’t come. I got back– oh, I’ve been a rascal in my day. (Pause) And one night I come in that Catholic Church, there wasn’t nobody around, and I got myself up on the box, and I did (struggles for words, then pauses for breath during non-verbal gesture)
Congregation: Laughs.
Jones: I did it. Still right up there, and I did it. I filled that holy water with some real water. (Pause) And the next day– (Pause) next day I went to the– I went to Mass at St. Mary’s to see what was going on, and they said, never been a better service, and they didn’t know they were anointing themselves with my pee. Hey hey hey hey! (Pause) And I got back– Every time a little child did something wrong, the preacher of that Pentecostal church would be the first one to report him. They wanted to get every little kid that did anything, any little kid that dared to think for himself, any little kid that wouldn’t go along, they’d grab him and get him in trouble. So I fixed him up. I fixed him up. I went out and got the old cow. I looked down and found some nice fresh leavings, you know. (Pause) He always– Brother McFarlane always opened his Bible– he had this great big thing, he didn’t have nothing but a Bible. Wouldn’t feed you. He’d kill you if he could’ve. Wouldn’t– he kicked dogs. He drove his daughter insane. One of his sons got in jail for assault and battery, ’cause there no love in his home. You know what I’m talkin’ about. I had to sit under that. Oh, I did, I thought– I thought, and all you got’s that Bible, and I’ll fix you up good. Opened that Bible and I was just a shaver. I just– I wasn’t maybe seven, eight years old. I put that– I packed that cow manure right in the middle, right on Acts 2:38. Packed it real good. (Pause) ‘Cause I knew he’d open it. He was one of us, you know. Jesus’ own. I come up with that bunch, with Jesus’ only. I knew that was one of the first places he’d go, ’cause he’d always find a Trinitarian in, so he’d want to kill ’em, and he’d kill ’em, he’d make them feel like they were miserable. They hadn’t been baptized in Jesus’ name, he’d preach them into hell, you know how they was. So he opened that– (Pause) (Snorts)
Congregation: Laughter
Jones: He used to say, we shouldn’t say darn. You know what he said? (Cries out) “Who in the damn hell did this?” (Laughs) (Pause) Hypocrites. I– in my one town, my people can back it up. The Bible church preacher found– what did mother– this mother Pentecostal, she can tell you, Sister [Edith] Cordell, I raised her up when she was dying of cancer, she spit it out, she’s now cuttin’ hair, she’s adopted twenty-some children, she’s in– she’s in– way past her three score and ten, she don’t look like she’s dying, she’s been laughing at me preaching for 20 years. Look at her over there. She looks pretty good. Isn’t this the truth? (Pause) The Bible church preacher? (Unintelligible word; “Petty?”) They found him on a Sunday School table with a child. (Pause) He preached a homosexual into condemnation, till he went out and committed suicide. I’m not a homosexual, but I got great love for people that’ll dare to be themselves. (Pause) Preached that youngster into condemnation, till he killed himself, while he was down, raping a little girl on a table. (Pause) What happened to Jay Ed (stumbles over name) Golder? That biggest Pentecostal church in America, Christ Church? They found him out friggin’ with his cousin, who was 15. Caught him red-handed. What’d they do with this woman? She was the one that’s Pentecostal 20 years ago till I saved her. Look at her. You think– you oughta seen her then. She had a straight knot, long sleeves, she couldn’t smile. She was really in bondage. But she had a real spark in her. She loved monkeys. That’s how she got to me. I love monkeys, and she loved monkeys. (Calls out) Hey yeah! (Pause) She had no use for my preachin’, but she liked the way I liked animals, and the way I treated people, and the way I love kids. And so she kept staying around. And now she’s cut her hair and she’s been free-lancing. She’s never had a man, but she had a lot of fun. (Pause) Oh, child. Reared all these babies. Look at that woman. In her 70’s, with these little children, she’s rearing little babies. Look at them. Every day. And cuts all of our hair free, never runs out, always there when you call for Edie [Edith Cordell], always there to take care of somebody’s baby, and she’s spit on the Bible with me 20 years ago. She’s still living, so now you don’t need to hold your heart over there anymore. (Pause) Say, it’s late. I could get you free, so you would sleep good for a few nights, and it’ll make up for all the time you’ve lost, if you’d get in your heart what I’m saying to you right now. If you’d get it in there. So good. One town– the preacher in her church when she started out to get with me, stole– Nathan A. Urshan. He’s the head of Harvest Time. You can listen to him on all the broadcast, the head of the United Pentecostal Church. He stoled her goods. (Confiding tone) Stoled it. Stoled her contracts, stoled her deeds, stoled things out of her safe, and then had her dirty family to act like she was insane. But I got wind of it.
(Pause) The Spirit of Jones told me. She was miles away, but I lifted up the phone when the detective come, and I said, there’s– there’s somebody at your– the door– door, it’s a detective, they’re coming to pick you up to take you to the asylum, with a warrant from your relatives, but I said, he happens to be black, and I know how one nigger knows how to talk to another nigger. (Calls out) Hey yeah! (Pause) I said, give me that nigger cop. No, I didn’t, I said black. But that’s what he was, he happened to be a nigger. He knew how it was to feel oppressed and persecuted. He was low-rated, and I said, they’re persecuting this woman. She’s taken black children, she’s helped– I’m a man that’s adopted by– oh, he say, I know you. (Pause) I know you’re Jones, Reverend Jones, you’re the one that fight for blacks, I’ll leave her here. (Pause) Said, I’ll leave her here. You know what we had to do? The Spirit of Jones had to show where they’d stole the stuff. Stand if it not true. Mary Stahl back there, another old-time Pentecostal, she still living. Mary Tschetter. She’s still living. One of my nurses there. I said, Eva Pugh back there, she an old time Pentecostal, she used to have her hair in a knot too, she sure still living, cookin’ all day, takin’ your money, and lookin’ after it, most honest woman in the world. Works like a horse. She not dyin’ back there. She leanin’ on the pictures lookin’ at me, wonderin’ what’s the use. (Laughs) Hey, they know I’m good, you see. They’re not afraid of what I’m saying, because they know that Jim Jones, (Gravelly tone) they’d lay their life for him. He knows– they know, he’d give his life for them. (Pause) (Normal tone) If it’s not the truth, may I have to eat every Bible in this place, and I’d– that’d be the worst thing I could think of to eat. (Pause) I said where it was. And I got hold of a Dr. Louis H. Deer in the town, I said, they’ve stolen those deeds of this woman to make her look insane. We had to send her to psychiatrist to get a mental bill of health to prove she wasn’t mental. Because they had a trick all set up. Nathan Urshan told us, her own son, adopted that she’d reared, who stayed and wanted to get her property. Her other daughter came, she also turned against us, that’s the kind of love I’ve got. She’d do a dirty things to me, but when she died, I called you long distance and said she’d live. Three thousand miles away. Her dirt got to her, till she took poison. And they said she’d never be well. Her daughter. But I lifted her up, and her daughter left that old mess. I raised her out of the hospital without any damage. Me. Say, who do you pray to? (Full throat) Nobody. It’s me. If you’ve got that, then you’d be like me. You’d be free. That’s why I can do these things. I don’t look to anybody outside of me. It’s all in me.
(Pause) (Normal tone) Hell. Dr. Louis Deer called and said, you made n– Urshan, the head of the Pentecostal Church, Harvest Time, he– headquarters at Lo– St. Louis, Missouri. He said, I know the Bible’s not true. Her son told us today, I mean, we know it’s not true. We know there’s errors in it. But we’re not gonna quit with uh– of preaching this now. People wouldn’t pay their tithes. They wouldn’t– What would you do? You’d confuse them. (Pause) Yeah, and what they meant was, I wouldn’t have no Cadillac. I’d confuse folks so they wouldn’t give me any money. ‘Cause a lot of you folk tonight, you’re not gone come back. You won’t think you need this place anymore. It’s what gonna happen. I want to set you free. (Pause) You won’t feel you need this place. The only reason you need this place is because we’re getting this food together. And when you get sick, I can do something about it. And when you get in trouble, I can get you out. That’s why we come together. But we’re trying to get the place to– where folk would grow up, so we could be ourselves, we wouldn’t have to go through all this tomfoolery. (Pause) ‘Cause I could think of a lot of fun things we could do here tonight besides this kind of s– trip, settin’ on these chairs and v– pushed up rehi– behind these tables, singin’ (Sings) Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. (Pause) (Normal tone) I can think of a whole lot of things that’d be more fun. (Pause) I was settin’ here and some sister say, he healed me of a heart trouble, he healed of knee trouble, he healed me of back trouble. I can think of better stuff to do. (Unintelligible word) they don’t believe it anyway. Folk believe the devil does all these healings. Mighty good devil. (Laughs) Mighty good devil. God made you, ’cause he was lonely, and (stumbles over words) I’m gonna bring it right there where your nonsense is, and then we’ll quit on that one. God made you, ’cause the theologians said that, he was up there in heaven wanderin’ around through the skies. He looked down out there and he all alo– too many– too much sky, and then, he wan– he didn’t want somebody, he wanted somebody to worship him. (Pause) What a kind of a mess we been stuck with. You ask any Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, they’ll tell you that same story.
(Deliberate) That God was lonely, and so God created people to worship him. And then they say, why did he let sin come into the world? (Voice rises) He’s all perfect. Because he said he wanted you to be intelligent enough to know the difference. You can’t know the difference. What kind of poor, beat kid– like I stood up as the foreman of the grand jury, and fought for justice for this lad, that (unintelligible name) case, that murdered these people on the highway. He’d been wrapped in a chair with steel wire, and beat, with his stepfather beating him, and his stepmother– his mother be in the chair, wrapped in a wire, and the stepfather beat her, till the blood would roll from her. (Pause) They had not a square meal. (Normal tone) He’d been poor all of his life. He’d been a nigger all of his life. And so he murders somebody on the road, and they want to kill him. (Pause) And they come to me, the grand jury foreman, says indict it, I said I won’t sign this. (Pause) Once there was a Nazarene that came up to testify before me, as the foreman of the grand jury, and he said uh, oh I– I know they did it. He said, I was there. He said, I was on the road. And they were bumping my car for 40 miles. Is that correct? Forty miles, they were bumping my car, up and down, and nearly drove me off the road. And then I saw him stop to go back to get to that girl. (Pause) He said I saw him stop. So I know he did it. I said, what’d you do? He said, I went home, had a milk– some warm milk and read my Scriptures, had my prayers. (Angry) He told me this shit, like– I mean, I’d want to kill him. I bet you– I’ve never done noth– they made me so mad, that I’ve ever been my life. (Normal tone) He said, I had my prayers, and he said, I asked that God would protect that girl on the road. I said, you crazy bastard. One quarter of a mile, there was a house. You coulda gone to a phone, and got to a s– uh, got to a phone, before that girl was shot through, and now she lays a paralytic– paraplegic, and it’s been our church that sent her more money, than other churches haven’t done anything. (Pause) She’s a Catholic, but they didn’t do anything. Susan Barthleme [Bartholemew]– They had her for three hours in a car, while they raped her, before they shot her. (Seething) If that damn dirty church-goer had not had his mind on his damn Skygod, and looked to the God in him, he’da stopped at the next phone and rang the sheriff and said, I got somebody– there’s an– undoubtedly a maniac on the road that’s been shoving my car for 40 miles, trying to run me in the ditch. You know he’s no– up to no good, if he’s doing all that. You know he’s a dirty bastard if he did all that. But he went home, had his warm milk, kneeled down, read his Scriptures and went to bed. I took my finger at him, I said I won’t sign an indictment against this young boy who’s been whipped like a dog, all because you say some God wanted to let him know good and evil, wanted him to make a choice.
(Gravelly anger) What kind of choice can you make when you been treated like an angry dog from the time you were born, when your mother’s beat before you and you’re beat, and the man beats you, everything associated with man becomes evil, and God’s supposed to be a man? Oh yes, we make him a man. Yeah, we made him man. He’s never a woman. (Pause) By God, if I was gonna elect one, I’d make it a woman. (Pause) See there– I’ve lost some of you, but I’m gonna have a lot less burdens. (Off-handed tone) Oh I know, you’re looking at me, you’re smiling at me, you’re– you’re– you’re– you’ll smile at me, you look real sweet, but you won’t be back. I tell you where it’s at, but you won’t tell me, you just smile. You just puttin’ up with me tonight, and you won’t put any money anymore, and what the hell is it to me, because I won’t have to feed you, I won’t have to clothe you, I won’t have to worry about you when you’re on a hospital bed, I won’t have to bathe you, I won’t have to– to do any of the things I do for you, so it’s your problem. Nobody gonna look after you. (Rises to anger) Your Skygod’s not gonna come down. You think he is, but he wouldn’t. And if he did, why does he come to you, and he won’t come to the poor black mothers. Why didn’t he come to Angela [Davis, presumably], why didn’t he come to the four black children that were blown up in the Baptist church, why doesn’t he come to all the poor whites that are starving? Right now, right now, while I preach, two out of three babies are going to bed according to the Washington State Department, U.S. government report, two out of three babies are crying tonight, because they’re going to bed hungry. What kind of a Skygod have you got? (Pause)
Congregation: Cheers
Jones: (Normal tone) I said, Nazarene, I said there’s only one person I’d like to indict. You were born white, never knew what it was to be treated like a dog. You’re a good churchgoer with a fine new car. I said, if I’m gonna indict anybody, I said, I’ll indict you. Because it’s people like you that cause the trouble. You don’t even take your time to take a phone to get a little girl out of trouble. You only look after your own ass. That’s the church people, only look after– I said, if you want– if you want me to send anybody to jail, I’ll send you to jail, but I’m not touching this man. ‘Cause he’s sick. And that’s the story you been given. God made us with evil around us, and the potential of evil in a devil. His most beautiful angel turned out to be the devil. What kind of a mess– if I couldn’t do any better than that, make something that would turn out to take one third of my angels, I’d resign. (Pause) I’m talking about this myth– this myth God you got. I’m not talkin’ ’bout– (Cries out) Wake up there, honey. (Pause) Put some salt on her. (Pause) By God, I’m telling you, it’s too hard to get truth across. It’s too hard. I– I– I– I don’t like this job, it’s heavy to put my voice through this, but I’m trying to get about a hundred people to think. I’ve been working. I had 10,000– 10,000. I used to pack– I couldn’t even see my people ’cause people like to see someone raise the dead, they like to see me– cancers come off, cataracts come out, deaf ears open. The 10,000 filled Cato Tabernacle, until I threw the Bible down. (Pause) Till I took a black child, they run like beetles under a rock. Those good saints filled Cato Tabernacle, until I started to be human. (Pause) I got no use to (unintelligible word) religion. You get it? That shows the love I’ve got for you. You know where I’d like to be? Out in the movement for the mines, up here where our white niggers were blown to hell and gassed two weeks ago. Shh– No, don’t clap. Don’t– I want these people to get it. They’ll hear it over your claps. My heart’s aching because people’s so damn dumb. So damn dumb they won’t think. It aches. I don’t need your claps anymore. I’m tired of people. Not the ones of you that are supportive and want to do it, but you see, I’m not a God like your Skygod. I don’t want you to worship me. I want you to do whatever good I’ve done, and repeat it and do greater good than I’ve done. If you can see it– tale a picture of me. I said it over and over again. Hear my teachings. Take cognizance of my teachings. Take a picture of me, and then, if you can, reproduce a better picture than I am. I don’t want you standing around saying Hallelujah to me. That’s a bore. What kind of a damn egotist who set around, say Hallelujah, praise God. Thank you, Jesus. You know why they say Thank you Father to me. ‘Cause you’ve got that dumb Skygod that never even showed up. He’s like a fart in a breeze. And you’re always saying, thank you God, thank you Jesus, thank you God, so my people said, we’re tired of hearing these folk. They used to didn’t say that to me. They wouldn’t say thank you, Father. I was just Jim. Hi, Jim. Hi, Jim. Good to see you, Jim. But all these folk come in here, bless Jesus, thank Jesus, bless God, Hallelujah, the– oh, it’s Jesus, so wonderful, praise Jesus. Never seen him. Never showed up once. Never put a meal in their la– uh, this is craziest bunch I ever saw. Yeah, I’d come in here and I’d feed them, I’d dress them up, I’d take them in, I’d get them to the doctor, I’d heal ’em, and they’d say–
End of tape
Tape originally posted October 2000