Jonestown Audiotape
Primary Project : Summaries
Summary prepared by Fielding M. McGehee, III. If you
use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
Tape Number : Q 1059 (Part 4 of 6)
To read the Tape Transcript, click
here.
To return to the Tape Index, click here.
FBI Catalogue: Jones speaking
Date cues on tape: (Part 4) October 20, 1973 (Watergate's "Saturday
Night Massacre")
(Part 5) Fall 1974 (A man described as "doing fine" in Part 4 has died
on a recent day in September.)
People named: (Part 4)
People named: (Part 5)
People in attendance at Peoples Temple service (Part 5)o "You measure that heaven of Revelations, and you'll find that the heaven
the King James talks about will fit in comfortably to the downtown section of
San Francisco. Now where you gonna put all these people in a city of foursquare
with twelve gates to the city?" (Revelation 21:16, "And the city lieth foursquare,
and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the
reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of
it are equal;" Revelation 21:12, "And had a wall great and high, and had twelve
gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are
the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.")
o Reference to Ezekiel and Revelation related to heaven and hell
o Two references to Jesus throwing out the moneychangers (Matthew 21:12, and
Mark 11:15)
o "[Jesus said], You clean the outside of the platter, but inside, it's filled
with all kinds of damnable -- and he said some other things, he used a word in
the Hebrew, the Yiddish, that was horrendous." (Matt. 23:25-26, "Woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup
and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind
Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside
of them may be clean also." See also Luke 11:39)
o "Solomon, great prophet, he was a type of God in the old Testament, talkin'
about pissin' over a wall." (3 references: 1 Kings 14:10, "Therefore, behold,
I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam
him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel,
and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away
dung, till it be all gone"; 1 Kings 16:11, "And it came to pass, when he began
to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha:
he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor
of his friends;" 1 Kings 21:21, "Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will
take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against
the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel.")
o "Best prophet's in there, Lot. Spokesman to save Sodom and Gomorrah. But
I'll be damned, if that's all they save Sodom and Gomorrah for, they all to
let Oem all go up. Lot -- they saved that damn town, he was all was left." (Genesis
19:28-29)
o Reference to Noah (Genesis 6)
o "That's what the Bible said, Lot laid with both of his daughters, and his
excuse was, he was drunk." (Genesis 19:30-36)
o "The Truth will set you free." (John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free.")
o "You talk to me about a little word like cuss word that Paul used and all
of them used. Dung. Dung means shit." (Philippians 3:8, "Yea doubtless, and
I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them
but dung, that I may win Christ.")
o "Abraham lied and had his wife say that he was her brother, and went in to
the king and the king made love with her, ... [and] the king finally found out --
he said, what do you do? You let me lay with your wife?" (Genesis 20:2-11)
o Reference to Letter books of New Testament: Romans, Timothy, Colossians,
Thessalonia, Corinthians
o "The Bible traces Jesus through Abraham, in Matthew the first chapter, in
Luke the third chapter... But [it] doesn't trace him very well." Jones then articulates
difference between lineages in two books. (Matthew 1:15-16, "... Matthan begat
Jacob; And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who
is called Christ"; Luke 3:23-24, "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty
years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of
Heli, Which was the son of Matthat..."
o "Thou shalt not kill." (Exodus 20:13)
Bible verses cited: (Part 5)
o "Jesus said, if you can receive it -- this is John the Baptist, which was and
is to come, or Elias had returned as John the Baptist." (Matthew 11:13-14, "For
all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it,
this is Elias, which was for to come.")
o "To him that overcometh, I will make a pillar in the temple of the house
of revolution, and they will go no more out." (Revelation 3:12, "Him that overcometh
will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and
I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God,
which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will
write upon him my new name.")
o "Having eyes, they see not, having ears, they hear not, neither do they perceive,
neither do they understand, because their hearts are not ready to receive."
(Acts 28:25-27, "...Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers,
Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand;
and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed
gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed;
lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand
with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.")
o "The Truth shall set you free." (John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free.")
o "And when they took him away, he did not know what was in the hearts of people.
He said, for what good work are you taking me away? For what good work are you
stoning me? They said, for no good work, but because you're being a man, make
yourself God. Jesus said, it is written, ye all are gods." (John 10:31-34, "Then
the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works
have I shown you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The
Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy;
and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them,
Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?")
o "The account of Scripture says that Jesus raised one -- at most, two from the
dead."
o "Jesus said, when they called Him the prince of devils, He said, no man can
do these things. No devil can do these things. All good things come from God."
(Matthew 12:24 et seq., Mark 3:22, et seq.)
This tape consists of two parts, a continuation of Part 4, which began on tape
Q-1059 (3), and Part 5, which continues on Q 1059 (5). While the first is quite
specific in time -- it refers to the events of the day in October 1973, when
President Nixon fired Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the so-called
Saturday Night Massacre -- the second is of an unknown date. However, Part 5
does seem to occur in Fall 1974, since Jones describes the September funeral
of a man who was still living in Part 4.
Both parts include several elements of a Jones address: descriptions of what
Peoples Temple as an institution, and Jones himself, do for its members; reflections
and predictions on government, politics and American society; liberal use of
quotations from the Bible, mostly as a mean to discredit it; and reflections
on the miracles and healings of the church.
Continuing the subject at hand from the previous tape, Jones speaks of the
self-deprivation he puts himself through in order to bring things to them. "I've
got to take care of you," he says. "I've pledged to take of you from the cradle
to the great transition, and I have done so." By the same measure -- in a continuation
of another subject begun on the previous tape -- he says he is "tired of half-assed
people coming in here, trying to tell me how to run the business."
He later praises a woman who had been a first-time visitor to the church the
previous night, and who understood what he meant. She may not be that educated,
but she got what many members of long standing hadn't yet grasped. He returns
to an anti-intellectual theme later in the address, when he criticizes people
with a college education who can't comprehend what some people -- who can't even
read or write -- can understand. "I'd like to award a degree to some folk, just
in one area, the degree that shows you the difference between your ass and a
hole in the ground," he says, as the congregation cheers.
But the events of the day are what most immediately occupy his speech. He reminds
his followers that he has prepared them for the day when military dictatorship
comes -- with provisions laid aside in a hidden cave -- and the day is coming.
"We're going to have to get out, and then be able to come back after the system
falls." He returns later to Richard Nixon's troubles, and the president's lack
of reason in handling it, when he says that Nixon ordered a plane crash to kill
the wife of a Watergate conspirator and to steal her papers. Jones has to protect
them, because it's a dirty rotten system they've got, irretrievably so. "Honey,
if you cut the cancer out of America, you'd have to kill it." At the end of
the political discourse, he says he didn't start out to preach this. But someone
criticized him, and he felt he had to.
Even as he says at various points that he is not religious, and that there
is no hope in religion -- "I think we ought to go out and ... get in business
and try to raise some money, Ocause it's hopeless coming to church" -- he spends
much of the time talking about religion. He talks about using their religion
to protect them. It's an awful job, but he has taken it on. "I'm crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Christ means the revolution, or the anointing.
I'm crucified for the anointing of the revolution. Nevertheless, I live, yet
not I, the ego of Jim Jones, but the revolution or the Christ lives in me."
He makes a more direct -- if still oblique -- comparison between himself and
Christ later, when he says that some people come to see him because their preachers
tell them, Jim Jones is the Antichrist. "Sure, they couldn't call me what I
am, because if they did, their churches would empty out."
In yet another veiled reference, he talks about the "hard saves" that he and
Jesus have both made. He talks about Jesus whipping the money-changers out of
the temple, throwing over their tables, and "cussed them all the way out. I
know." After a pause, he adds quietly, "Give you three guesses how."
Later, however, he confesses to being tired to addressing them in the language
of their religion. "It's cramping me. And I didn't mind for 20 years, I've gone
through with this shit. But I've gone through with it, but now I've got to get
you to narrow down to be able to take care of you." That means he doesn't want
any more talk of being blessed by the Lord, since the use of the word "Lord"
refers to master, or ruler. It was put in by King James, the slave owner who
sent the first ship to Africa to enslave the black race.
The King James version of the Bible has problems with its accuracy as well
as its heritage. Jones describes heaven -- as reported by the book of Revelation
-- and extrapolates how few people and animals will fit in such a small space.
Not only does the Bible present impossible things, it is inconsistent. Jones
points to Jesus' two lineages from two books of the gospel, and shows how they
differ. He talks about the cussing in the Bible. He talks about the immorality,
ranging from adultery to incest, of its most revered prophets. He talks about
its errors. The gospel writers may agree that an event took place, but they
differ on the details. Even if that reflects the humanness of the writers, Jones
says, it should call our faith in the work into question. "It's like this. There
were four people on a corner watching an accident, and when four people see
an accident, none of Oem can tell the same story about it. And that's true.
But ... we don't listen to some four stupid asses on a corner, and build our whole
life around them, do we?"
The message is summed up in the title of a pamphlet Jones wrote: "The Letter
[of the Bible] Killeth, But the Spirit Giveth Life."
No one really believes the Bible, he says. He speaks first of Bishop Crane
as an example, a black Baptist whose blindness was cured by Jones. Afterwards,
Crane read the Bible for the first time in a long time, and "saw what a lie
it was." (Bishop Crane has apostacized Jones' message by Part 5, and died; see
below.) Jones also says that evangelist Billy Graham told Temple leaders -- not
just Jones -- that he didn't believe the Bible either, but it was a good way
to make money.
Jones' message isn't for everyone, and he calls them out during the service,
tells them he sees them frowning at him. He says they're hypocrites, and tells
them to get out and go home.
The section ends with an attack on American hypocrisy. He says America calls
itself a Christian nation, but -- offering example after example -- Jones says
it doesn't even follow the basic commandment of "Thou shalt not kill."
Part 5 opens with a question-and-answer session, as Jones takes questions from
the floor. While he wants to hear about concerns on a "high level" or "apostolic
Christianity as politics" -- and not individual concerns, that's what people
bring to him. He wants to refer those question to the council, to deal with
them on a human level. Even so, they need to understand that his spirit governs
the council, so if they will "trust the spirit of this high dimension, this
high evolution ... if you will project your mind on the mind that is fearless,
the mind that is utter compassion, then automatically that situation shall be
resolved."
A 50-year-old woman raises a question about marrying a 66-year-old man. Jones
uses the occasion to blast the institution of marriage, saying it takes away
from socialist perfection. "[M]arriage is a part of the propertied system in
this stage of the revolution. Marriage represents the ownership of one individual
over the other... Marriage is a very low state of consciousness in our day." Nevertheless,
he adds that it is her choice, and even though he is a "ready writer that one
day is going to write a revolution across the pages and the annals of American
history," he would never tell anyone what to do.
Jones laments the death of Bishop Crane, a black Baptist who once came to Redwood
Valley to be healed and who renounced the Bible (see Part 4, above), but who
fell away from Jones' teachings and said "said that he was glad that his God
was in the sky." Even as he turned back to the church that had treated him like
a dog, Jones said, Crane assailed Redwood Valley and spoke against the ministry
there. When he did, Jones said he was forced to remove Crane's picture from
his meditation file. Four days later, Reverend Crane died."[W]hen he began to
worship something that did not exist, he had no source for his life... He worshipped
an unknown God that does not exist in the skies, and he died, and what a stinking
heritage this is." His obituary was filled with names of important people in
Texas, "but the one that he knew that brought him back from the dead one time
after another, that one that was all-important, he has forgotten."
Jones talks about Christ being God, about Christ's words that all men are gods,
that gods greater than him will follow, and finally, God Himself would come.
He then describes himself as the fulfillment of that biblical promise. "[Christ]
said, each man would approach the Father for themselves. And that day has come,
when the Father has approached you, and you have approached Him."
Jones goes on to offer the evidence of proof. Saying that Jesus raised only
a few from the dead, he reminds his congregation that he raises people from
the dead every day. No one has died in his church, he says. He points to a young
woman and repeats what he told her when she died in his church: "I said, it
is not my will that you die, that it is my will that you live to see the revolution,
and I brought her back from her paralysis, I brought her back from death, and
now she lives, both now and forevermore."
His ministry has spread, he continues. People outside of his immediate fold
are doing his work. They may not name his name, but they name his spirit.
This tape continues on Q 1059 (5).
FBI Summary:
Date of transcription: 6/21/79
In connection with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into
the assassination of U.S. Congressman LEO J. RYAN at Port Kaituma, Guyana, South
America, on November 18, 1978, a tape recording was obtained. This tape recording
was located in Jonestown, Guyana, South America, and was turned over to U.S.
Officials in Guyana and subsequently transported to the United States.
On June 17, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B108-39.
This tape was found to contain the following:
JIM JONES conducting several Temple services, including preaching and question
and answer sessions.
Differences with FBI Summary:
The summary is accurate -- in the minimal information it gives -- and meets
the FBI's purposes.