19: Jim Jones & The Jonestown Massacre | Red Thread
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You glide over the tranquil clouds, white pillowy plumes ascend in all directions around you. You rise with the wind, a feeling of utter bliss transcends across your every synapse, a feeling as great as this would be a crime not to enjoy. A slight smile cracks, the arches of your cheeks lift and you close your eyes. You lift further and further, higher and higher, as if you've been pulled upwards by God himself. The inertia starts to tug on your stomach, yet you don't let it break your smile. Seconds later though, an unnatural feeling takes hold.

You're being dragged down now, not pulled upwards. Down, down, further down still, back towards the earth. Your eyelids burst open, you frantically look around for something that would bring an element of understanding to your mind, but there is nothing of the sort to be found. You can feel it though. Heat surrounds, the feeling of fire licks at your skin. It prickles and burns. The blue sky and white clouds are now a distant memory. For now you're surrounded by eternal flames.

This wasn't how it was meant to be. You were promised heaven. How did you end up in hell? Well, you're Jim Jones and this is the red thread. That's all I've got for this week, guys. Jim Jones is in hell. Oh my gosh. That's all I've got. There is no way...

There is no way to write anything for this that is not like super depressing without just taking the absolute piss out of Jim Jones. What a horrific individual. He's down there looking up at us right now shaking his fist. Why I oughta. If it weren't for you meddling kids.

Alright, so I'm Jackson. Hi, I'm Jackson. I'm joined by Charlie and Isaiah. And today we're going to be exploring and discussing what got Jim Jones locked up downstairs? What did he do that got him in timeout zone?

Eternal damnation. Eternal damnation, yeah. That's the ultimate time out, really, when you think about it. You may have heard of it before, but Jonestown, this is what Jim Jones was known for, believe it or not, Jonestown is the biggest case of mass unaliving in American history. And yes, we still have to use that word due to YouTube censorship laws. So it's the biggest mass unaliving in American history, and it was all orchestrated by the guy with the silver tongue, Jim Jones.

So today we're going to do a deep dive into the events, the man, the history, and what happened. How much do you guys know? I know Isaiah is well-versed in this, but Charlie, what about you? Only the ending. I don't really know how it got to that point. I just know what everyone else knows about how Jonestown concludes. So you had the same kind of understanding of Heaven's Gate then as well? Yep, pretty much the same boat as Heaven's Gate.

Yeah, you just know the sensational aspect of how it ended, not how we got to that point. So what about you, Isaiah? I've done a lot of reading about Jonestown lately, just like different articles about it, survivors' testimonies, stuff like that, in preparation for a video. And I guess I started reading about it maybe three months ago, four months ago, and I

And I went into it with the mindset of like, okay, I'm going to make a video about this cult, right? And then as I start reading stuff, it's like...

I think Jonestown might be like one of the... At the risk of sounding exaggerative, one of the scariest things to happen ever. I completely believe and understand where you're coming from. It is entirely terrifying how this happened from one guy basically convincing...

over a thousand people to to you know do and it's not just the act itself it's not just the unaliving at the end it was you know years and years of systemic brainwashing and horrible crimes against humanity basically yeah just really awful stuff he's i think jim jones is one of the most evil people to ever live at least that is publicly known right so yep for sure

It kind of reframes the mindset I have going into the story. Because initially, when I was researching it, it's just another cult leader, right? But now it's kind of like...

case study about kind of how bad things can get, right? So yeah, I've been very interested morbidly in the case for a while. And I'm really happy you suggested it to cover for the podcast because all of this has been stuck in my head for a while now. So hopefully this helps with some of that. We'll see. Yeah, it's a way of letting us get everything out there in a digestible format. That's really what's important about this podcast, that it's my catharsis for

what I'm going through. We're here to help get things off your mind to the best of our ability. Thank you, Charlie. It's like therapy for Isaiah. Yeah, when they invite me onto the podcast, they're like, all those therapy sessions? No more. We've got it covered. Yeah, you won't need those anymore.

Yeah, it's a bit odd. We're talking about like really disgusting things like this, you know, mass unaliving event. And this is what prohibits him from seeing therapy in the future. This is like his catharsis. Yeah, that's interesting. But yeah, terrible individual, Jim Jones, awful individual, which is why I didn't feel bad at all writing that beginning intro, putting him in hell. I think that if anyone were to land up there, it would be Jim Jones. So I'm pretty, pretty fine with how that turned out.

uh before we dive into jonestown though this episode was brought to you all by our friends over at factor more from them later on in the show but a huge thank you obviously the factor for supporting the show and we highly recommend you go check them out using our link in the description very good service you'll hear more from them later on other than that though audio platforms are linked below as well as the youtube channel itself if you enjoy the show subscribing on the platform you watch or listen on is just you know super appreciated it helps out a lot

Also tell a friend because I keep seeing so many comments about how mums of typical viewers are now watching the show or listening to the show as well. Have you guys seen these comments? Just constant comments from people's mums watching the show now. They'll say like, my son got me listening to this and now I listen to it all the time. It's like super cute. I love that. We might have like a pretty large mum audience. Yeah.

Yeah, it's super sweet. I've met a few people in person lately because normally people who recognize me are high school kids, maybe college age, whatever. But I've had a couple of 40, 50-year-old guys come up to me and be like, you're on that podcast about Bowen and stuff, right? So that's pretty cool. We're reaching new demographics. Yep, yep.

I wonder how much the Boeing episode helped with that because I do feel like that's like an older person topic almost. It went out to a bunch of people, yeah. One of those guys who recognized me from that was like, listen brother, I'm with you. I hear what you're saying. I'm kind of loud and clear. We're going to have to revamp that too when the next 10 whistleblowers turn up dead. And when one of them is Jackson, it's really going to be sad, but it'll be a good episode.

then you can make that episode really, really exciting for the audience. Yeah. It'll hit home in a different way. So yeah. And also final note, show notes are also in the description. So you can read along with the information we compiled. You can find the link in the description links to everything in the description. So go check out the description. Highly recommend checking the show notes out because it has a lot of information. Views,

Viewer discretion, though, should be advised that there are historical pictures in the document of the aftermath of the events. You could probably imagine what that is. We won't be showing that on YouTube. I don't think we can show that on YouTube, right? Definitely not, is what my assumption would be. Oh.

when I do my video, I think I'm going to show it, but I'm kind of, I've kind of come to peace with the idea that it will get demonetized. So we probably shouldn't, or you could at least show a blurred one, right? Yeah. Maybe, maybe we'll show blood stuff, but anyway, the document viewer discussion advised, like there is pictures in there of the aftermath, but I, I still highly recommend going and checking it out because, you know, it's a historical account of what happened. And it's, I think it's important to kind of understand the gravitas of the situation. Like,

Like that. Yeah, that's all the notes that I have for the start of the show. Let's get into it. November 1978 and over 900 people, including around 300 children, gathered together in a settlement called Jonestown in Guyana, South America. Is that how you say it? Yes. Guyana? Guyana. I've heard Guyana most of the time.

Alright, Guyana, South America.

All while Jim Jones stood above them chanting the words mother over and over again, endlessly until the end came for all. What a horrifying, what a horrifying thing to imagine. As you don't have to imagine it, like we're going to get into it, but this was all pretty much recorded at least in terms of audio. His entire final sermon. What was it called again? I don't remember off the top of my head what it was called.

The Sermon of Death or something along those lines? The Last Sermon at the People's Temple is what a lot of people call it. And a slightly morbid fact, you too can't see this, but my wife always gets me weird stuff for Valentine's Day. So this year, she found me a vinyl of the entire Last Sermon. Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's the vinyl record. And on it, it has a bunch of his letters and notes about the White Knights and a bunch of pictures of the victims and whatnot. So...

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like a, it's like a 50 minute sermon basically that he's preaching or, um, you know, chanting about stuff while people, uh, you know, tragically succumbing to the cyanide.

So yeah, I mean, already Jim Jones, that should paint a picture of where we're heading. Jim Jones, awful person. But let's talk about Jim Jones now himself and where he started and kind of how he kind of came to be. So James Warren Jones, known as Jim Jones, was born on the 13th of May, 1931 in a small unincorporated town of Crete, Indiana to parents James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Putnam.

Jim's father was injured during World War I, so it was his mother who worked and provided for the family instead. Religion seemed to be important to Jim ever since he was a child. He would hold mock church services at his house, but in an act of foreshadowing, he would hold these sermons in front of an audience of dead animals. Jim would find, quote, many of these dead animals around the town, and neighbors started to question why and how he in particular found so many.

This is obvious, but interacting with dead animals as a kid or killing animals as a kid is a very clear...

uh signal that that person is going to grow up with sociopathic tendencies that's pretty well that is one of the most well-documented things that we have in psychology that children that kill harm or find like a very specific interest in dead animals grow up to be like the worst of us literally like the worst people imaginable extremely well documented and it makes sense too because obviously they can't

in most cases, kill humans, but they still have this, you know, intense fascination with death and that kind of pain. So,

they acted out on that which they are able to, which is in this case animals and most cases animals. Another detail about that, according to some people, when he would be confronted about this, like, you know, by some of the adults in town, he would attempt to have a resurrection for the animals where he would like yell and scream for God to bring it back to life. And when the animal wouldn't come back to life, he would say it was because of the people's lack of faith.

Which is kind of indicative of where he goes from here. So he was already at that time also kind of building himself up as like a messianic figure that could resurrect things? Yes. Yeah. The idea of using God as a platform for his own power was already in his mind. Yeah.

Jim met his wife, Marceline Baldwin, while working as a teenager at a hospital. The two married in 1949 when Jim was 18 years old. Between 1948 and 1960, he studied on and off at Indiana University and Butler University, studying English, psychology, business, and other topics like military science, economics, and more.

After university, he decided to enter the ministry, where he was known as a charismatic and charming churchman. Another thing I want to mention, Jim Jones had a particular fascination with dictators. He read all the works of Hitler, Mao, Stalin, stuff like that. And...

And when he was a kid, he apparently would like get younger. Like when he was in high school age, he would get like younger kids in the neighborhood to like march in formation and goose step and stuff like that because he liked the idea of controlling people through like an ordered reform, which is where a lot of that military science interest and stuff comes from.

Yeah, I mean, I assume it all came from his desire to control people. So he looked at individuals in history that were highly effective at controlling large groups of people. So that's probably where that interest stemmed from. The reason too, forgive me for not reading all the document, I scrolled over the main points. Do you have in here about how he switched over to Pentecost?

Like Pentecostal beliefs? Yeah, I don't have the history of why he switched or anything, just that he did switch. So, he initially, when he started to get into religion, told everyone that Pentecostal beliefs is a ridiculous religion. Short summary, in the United States, Pentecostal beliefs are primarily...

or at least stereotypically spirit spiritualism oriented so they're very big on like spiritual moments uh some pentecostal churches will do stuff like speaking in tongues and whatnot they're big on experiences

And Jones considered that anti-intellectual until one day he goes to a Pentecostal tent revival and a woman who is, quote, in the spirit, like speaking in tongues or whatever, points to him and says that he's a prophet. So immediately Jones says, yes, I am a prophet and blah, blah, blah, like goes along with it. And from there he switched over to Pentecost because he saw it as an in that he could tout himself up as some messianic figure. Right.

Yeah, right. It was just a more vulnerable scene, basically, to what he was trying to, you know, espouse. God, that lady must look back on that and be like, holy shit. What have I done? I mean, it's possible that she went along with him eventually and was actually in Guiana. That is very possible, I suppose. Yeah.

So after university, he decided to enter the ministry where he was known as a charismatic and charming churchman. He was a big proponent and advocate for racial harmony. In 1961, he and his wife were the first white couple to adopt a black child in the state of Indiana, which was an unpopular opinion at the time with the church leaders and elders.

Jim also performed, quote, healing miracles, staged events where he was able to help and heal people from illnesses and diseases. Jim Jones knew how to target vulnerable people. He was charismatic and used it to manipulate his followers. We see that all the time with these kinds of figures. Obviously, to be some level of successful at this kind of thing, you have to be charismatic. So that goes hand in hand. Mm hmm.

He clearly knew how to speak to a crowd, how to communicate with people effectively to play on their emotions and stuff like that. That's pretty obvious. I mean, all cult leaders. Is there such a thing as an uncharismatic cult leader? Can you name one?

Not in history, but like, I don't know, with the internet and you can make arguments for like what is and is not a cult. There's definitely uncharismatic people that have cult-like followings. Yeah, I guess the internet has definitely muddied it up. I think if those individuals were in person trying to kind of form that cult personality around them, they'd have a much more difficult time than just like what they are able to achieve on the internet. Yeah, it wouldn't work in person for those people, for sure. The only one I could maybe think of is Heaven's Gate.

Just because I was he charismatic or just kind of insane. No, he was he was definitely described as charismatic, at least up until the end. Yeah, I remember early on everyone was describing it was like a really likable charismatic figure that was able to get people to a side pretty effectively. Yeah. Oh, I have one.

Camden Gerard Davis. Wait, who's that? I think Charlie and I are both looking around like, who's that? That's the one Mama Max made the video about, remember? Oh! Sorry, I should have said it this way. Camden Gerard Davis.

I thought you said Kevin Gerard Davis. No, no, no. And I was like, who the fuck is Kevin Gerard? So I looked him up and he's just a guy on LinkedIn. I was like, what did this guy do? What did he do? What's so wrong with him? Isaiah's got a bird to pick with this guy. I'm coming for you, Kevin. Look out. He's just an old bald man who has a LinkedIn page talking about real estate. I was like, what the fuck happened here? Yeah, so he says...

He's actually the biggest cult leader in his little town. Yep, yep. Yeah, don't go... Do not harass that guy. Do not go to Kevin. Do not bother him, yeah. Yes, don't.

Uh, okay. So Jim had heard that the church he belonged to had denied a mixed race congregation. So he decided to branch off and try to form his own church to fund this. He had the idea to import and sell monkeys from India. He would go door to door. Okay, hold up before we get into the monkey thing, because that's its own can of worms. Some of the stuff about why he became like a racial advocate, uh,

is interesting. He cites like the first time he saw racial disparity was when he was coaching a like minor league baseball team

And their team had a couple of black kids on it. And another team like refused to play them because of it, which side note, Jim Jones got fired from that job because he was caught throwing a cat off the bleachers. But he cites that like that fueled in him, like a need for like racial prosperity. There was one instance after he became a pastor where he had to go to the hospital and

And he was in... It was one of the only hospitals in Indiana at the time that would treat black patients. I think it was one of... What's the big college? Starts with a C. Whatever. He went to a hospital that saw black patients. And initially the nurses were like, Oh, sorry, we don't want you to be in here with the black people. We'll pull them out of the room. And Jim Jones told...

her to leave them and like spent his time in the hospital ministering to them. So this became a big story in Indiana at the time that a pastor is so righteous that he's willing to stay in a hospital room with black people. Yeah, he definitely, in my opinion, he definitely did not believe in, like he did not care about it in an ethical capacity or anything like that. It was simply a means to an end for him.

It was about kind of controlling people again and also building up his kind of, you know, messianic kind of figure that he was trying to create for himself. When he went to a Pentecostal revival and saw people who needed help and that he could manipulate that, he did the exact same thing with racial relations. He saw people who had a real struggle, a real issue in the society of the time, and realized he could insert himself into that and be their savior.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, bro was throwing cats off bleachers and stuff, obviously. Yeah. He wasn't a good guy, like, even this early on. So don't believe for a second that he was a good guy because he believed in, like, you know, healing the racial wounds of the country or anything like that. It was a tool. It was a tool to him. Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. So anyway, to fund this church, he begins to sell monkeys. He would go door to door and sell them at $29 each, allowing him to gain money while also using them as an incentive. He would give them out to those within his church who recruited the most new members.

It's a very interesting tactic. Yeah. I feel like that's just a huge burden to take on to have a monkey as a gift now. That's a lot to take care of. Oh, thanks. That's what I wanted. Thanks for the monkey. How easy would it be to import this many monkeys from India? I feel like that's just not something that's a simple process. Well, in the 50s or 60s, there probably wasn't that much. There probably wasn't that much.

Yeah. And it was also Indiana, right? Like probably pretty liberal with, in terms of rights for what you're able to do. Like I know America still to this day has a very kind of like,

open idea of what kind of animals you're allowed to own. People own tigers and stuff, right? You can't own a tiger on purpose, right? You'd need a sanctuary to officially own one. What do you mean, to accidentally own it? It just kind of comes across. The people that have them in their apartment or something where you hear those stories occasionally, it's illegal. You can't have exotic animals like that.

legally unless you're a sanctuary or registered with them or something it must be super easy to get that kind of permission though because so many sanctuaries sanctuaries in quotes because they're not sanctuaries they're they're prisons for for poor tigers um like those exist in large numbers so it has to be to some degree very easy to do

I don't know about very easy. Maybe it's different. You can't own anything over here in Australia. Like, you can only own native animals, and that's... It's a very small list of what you're able to own. Anything even remotely endangered, you're not allowed to own. So, I could be coming at this with, like, an Australian understanding of, you know, what's normal and what's not. But from my understanding, it's, like, super...

at least comparatively, super easy over in America to get some interesting animals. And that's why you guys have such a large animal trade. Regardless, this is the 60s, right? So he probably could do it fairly easily, I would have to imagine. It said Jim credits the monkeys for helping his church to get around 300 members. But the plan went downhill quickly when the monkeys arrived from India deceased.

The plan ultimately failed and Jim ended up abandoning a few barely alive monkeys at the customs warehouse where they were later rescued. Jesus, this guy really hates animals. Like, actually, to a ridiculous degree. He hates anything that isn't himself. Yeah. Jim and his wife had nine children, eight of whom were adopted. They called them their, quote, rainbow family. Today, only two of his sons are alive. Stephen Jones and Jim Jones Jr.,

They have both spoken out about their father and their experiences at Jonestown. In an interview, Stephen said about his father, quote, I lived in a community that was filled with every walk of life, every color in the rainbow, every level of education. For the most part, we lived in harmony most of the time, especially early on. It was not fake. I'm so grateful for that because it showed me the truth of that, the beauty of that, the importance of that. So I love that about him.

There was nothing spiritual about my father. Of course, in my view of things, he had every bit the loved and juicy soul in him that everyone else does. But he had lost complete sight of that. His entire existence was superficial.

I don't really like the description of a soul as juicy. That's an interesting way of describing a soul. It is a strange phrasing, but... I get the idea or the concept of how troubled it must be to have a father that's this vile and this evil and still trying to rationalize it in your mind. Especially if you were also kind of indoctrinated by him into this community as well, into Jonestown.

So very, very difficult thing for someone to pass about their own father, I imagine. Yeah. And also Jim Jones Jr. gave an interesting perspective on his father when he said, quote, Stephen and I are a paradox. Stephen is a natural son adopted into a family of very mixed races. He wasn't unique because he was a natural son. In some ways, people would say I was more unique because I was the black son and given his name.

You need to understand that there are dynamics that exist that do not exist in normal families. I mean, there are already jealousies and rivalries and all of that going on, but it is heightened in a family that's got that kind of diversity. Steven said of growing up with his diverse family, quote, I never felt that we were taught how to live within that or that we were guided in how to be aware of and navigate the many feelings we're going to have.

To me, that kind of describes a situation where these children were literally just tokens of Jim Jones, just like kind of status symbols of proof that he is such a loving guy, whereas they were truly neglected emotionally and as a father figure. He would adopt kids, like he would shop for kids based on their ethnicity. And if I remember right, he adopted...

Korean and Native American. Yeah. Just to kind of show off. Yeah. Yeah. He got like one of every kind of race, I think. He was like shopping around for everything. Yeah. I think there were eight, you know, different race kids and then one natural born kid. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So let's take a quick aside to talk about explicitly what Jim Jones believed in, or at least what he purported to believe in, as this helps to establish the shape of what the People's Church would become. And it's an important facet in understanding how Jim Jones was able to convince people to follow in his footsteps so effectively.

So his number one tenet, the thing, this was like his big thing and what garnered so much controversy in the media along with his stances on equality, or at least his purported stances on equality. The biggest one was Christian socialism.

So, initially, Jones was influenced by mainstream Christianity, but he increasingly interpreted the Bible through a socialist lens. He preached that true Christianity involved active engagement in social justice, helping the poor, and fighting against racial discrimination. So, his...

Sure, the things Jim Jones says there is correct, but he would manipulate the scripture oftentimes to further fall back on his point, right? Like, there's a lot of stuff in the Bible where there's stories about, like, Jesus. There's one story where a rich man comes to Jesus and says, what do I have to do to follow you? And Jesus says, sell your goods and follow me. And the rich man can't do it because he loves his stuff so much.

And Jesus says the line that gets quoted all the time, it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven. Jesus isn't saying there that rich people can't go to heaven. He is saying that people...

People get in the way. They let things get in the way of actually, you know, spiritual benefit following after him and stuff like that. But Jim Jones would take verses like that and imply that money will keep you out of heaven, that people need to like it is wrong to have wealth. And he would manipulate the verses a lot to kind of fall into that line of thinking.

Which is, again, interesting because he was a very... He was a wealthy individual. He was an incredibly rich person. Yeah, insanely wealthy. He was able to buy a lot of land, a lot of property in different countries. A lot of monkeys. It's still prevalent today, to be fair. There's plenty of mega church pastors that preach the same thing about like...

Part with your money, follow me, this kind of thing, even though they themselves are flying around on like fucking private jets and shit. It's not like this is exclusive to just Jim Jones. Christianity has been a tool used by some really bad people. Well, I'm a pastor, so that doesn't apply to me, but you would apply to it. You should do that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm chosen by God to have this wealth. I need it to keep spreading the good word. You don't need it. So just give it to us. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, it's also not just exclusively attributed to religion either, though. It is also Hollywood actors and stuff like that who preach online about giving up wealth or other socially good things, doing socially good things, where they hypocritically do the opposite. Again, Taylor Swift with Jets, for example.

Stuff like that. It happens all the time. You're really the pop culture guy, by the way, Jackson. It's not me. You brought up Star Wars yesterday, put it in the fucking document, bring up Taylor Swift here.

Charlie's like it's not me it's you not me I swear it's not me you've stopped doing it because you're embarrassed of it now and I've had to pick up the slack no it's just I don't even think to compare this to Taylor Swift I just wanted to say that it's just more things outside of just religion itself because I don't want to pay yeah

It's Taylor Swift as well. It's religion and Taylor Swift, okay? It's both those things. That's what it always comes down to at the end of the day. Well, Taylor Swift is a religion, so it does make sense. That's true. Okay. So, yeah, and also, like, he would use the socialist angle to prey on the minds of, like, people in poverty because he'd be like, no, we want you to do well. In the same way, he would use the racial angle to play upon people who had, you know, racial issues, stuff like that. Yeah.

Another belief of his was racial equality. One of the core tenants of Jones philosophy was racial integration and equality. People's temple was notably diverse for its time with a significant number of African American members. And Jones himself adopted children from different racial backgrounds, calling his family, a quote, rainbow family. Um,

there's a bunch of stories like in the local local news at the time talking about like the new pastor who is paving the way for racial integration, Jim Jones and stuff like that. And, uh, a bunch of people compared him to figures like Martin Luther King. Like they, they saw him as like a pioneer for racial equality. Yep.

Another belief of his was apostolic socialism. Jones coined the term apostolic socialism to describe his vision of a community where resources were shared equally, mirroring the practices of the early Christians as described in the Acts of the Apostles. He advocated for communal living and the pooling of resources to ensure that everyone's needs were met, that he conveniently was over the pool, but that doesn't matter. Um...

It's always the guy who runs the money who tells everyone to give in their money. It's never the other way around. It's so weird how that always seems to happen. What an odd coincidence. Wow, what a unique idea, Mr. Jones. Why don't we try that? But his argument for it was that in the early church...

The missionaries who went out like Paul and stuff, they didn't have a job or anything other than preaching. So members of the church would finance their travels. Like there was a woman named Lydia who was a seller of purple. So basically she sold expensive fabrics who financed a lot of Paul's journeys. So he's basically saying it is unrighteous to not live that way effectively. Yeah.

Another belief of his was anti-capitalism. Jones was vocally critical of capitalism, which in the 1960s was more controversial than the Rachel stuff. Yeah, I was going to say, he would be very popular today. Yeah, yeah. Back then, this was a pretty dangerous thing to outwardly speak about. Yeah, yeah. Especially with the Cold War in the background. Oh, we'll probably get into it, but there was so much accusation of Russian...

Like he was a spy, that he was a Soviet. Russian interference, yeah. He saw capitalism as inherently exploitative and oppressive. He believed that socialism was the only fair and moral economic system and often demonished the U.S. government for its capitalist policies.

Another belief of his was millenniarism. There we go. Jones held apocalyptic beliefs, often predicting imminent nuclear catastrophe. He positioned People's Temple as a sanctuary, predicting imminent nuclear impending doom, further urging his followers to see their movement as a critical refuge.

That's just another classic, another tentpole of most of these doomsday cults. They need that kind of impending doom to motivate people into their way of life. The world's ending, you know, better get right with God type thing.

and you can survive it if you come with us yeah exactly yeah but to be fair this was the 60s so you might like think about it in today's you know modern era and be like who the fuck would believe in that who would believe that the world's about to end and go give this guy all of all of their money and stuff like that but this was the 60s and again the cold war was russia and u.s kind of relations was was very scary people didn't

truly understand nuclear war. So it was a very terrifying concept. Fear was a prevailing theme in America at the time. Yeah. Cult of personality. Over time, Jones increasingly presented himself as a messianic figure with divine powers, including the ability to heal the sick and raise the dead. He demanded absolute loyalty and control over his followers, insisting that his authority was divinely ordained. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, which, you know, goes without saying. And finally, paranoia and persecution. Jones cultivated a siege mentality among his followers, frequently claiming that external forces, such as U.S. government, mainstream media, and defectors from the group were plotting against them. This fear was used to justify extreme measures to preserve the community and deter defection.

So pretty much like, you know, everything we do. And also he would prey on stuff that was actually happening to do it. So as like racial tensions became worse, he would say, oh, well, us being so racially diverse, they'll come for us. Or the threat of the communists becoming more apparent in the news. He would say, oh, well, we're socialists. That means they're coming for us. So he would position a lot of his beliefs on the opposing side of whatever like the government was doing to further justify his like martyrdom.

Yeah. God, can you look how similar a lot of this is to the shit you see today though? Like that same thing of like the government is there. They're after us. Cause we're seeing the truth type shit. Like that is such a common thing. Now. I,

I was going to say, it's common everywhere, though. The government itself, a lot of the time, uses fear to motivate its civilians and stuff. It's common everywhere. Fear is such a useful motivator. And it's awful because it goes down to human psychology. And people with power know how to use that to their benefit. It's a very terrifying relationship. A lot of different flags, but the same playbook at the end of it. Yeah. Yep. Crazy how little things change.

Yeah, it is. It is very crazy. Before we continue on, so we got an understanding of kind of where Jim Jones came from and kind of his religious identity or how he used social elements to his benefit in that of like, you know, racism, racial equality issues.

socialism, stuff like that to his benefit. We've kind of got an understanding of that now. We're going to go on to discussing how he kind of created Jonestown and established his own church and identity in that capacity after this quick ad break to thank our sponsors.

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Absolutely. In 1955, Jim established the Wings of Deliverance, a Pentecostal church. It was located in Indianapolis and continuing his beliefs was racially integrated. He simply invited everyone. When it began, Jim wanted to overcome and solve so-called world injustices by using the church. In 1956, Wings of Deliverance became the people's temple. He had purchased a church in Indianapolis and began to perform the same healing ceremonies he had become extremely effective at when he was with his previous church.

These were staged with the intent of attracting new members by healing people who were sick or injured. That is still... Yep, I was going to say, this happens still. This is still one of the most common things you'll see from complete fucking snake oil salesmen. How do people... I just... The faith must be so strong where you actually believe it. It's...

I don't understand. We've got decades upon decades of situations where these people have been exposed as liars because obviously no one has those kinds of healing abilities. I just don't understand how it keeps happening.

I truly don't either. It blows my mind. And like when you watch the footage, like even some of the older ones, like the classics that people used to make memes out of back in the mid 2000s, like the street fighter memes with the pastors, like hitting people with coats saying, you're healed, you're healed. Then blasting like fucking Hadoukens and force bombs at them is like, you're going to God now. You can walk again and that kind of shit. And still people believe it to this day.

Yeah. I'm not even going to do the whole thing with calling the people stupid or anything like that. It just doesn't even cover it. I don't think they are stupid. I think they're just completely brainwashed. That many people can't all collectively be stupid. I think it's some kind of psychological element where if you see enough people believing the same thing, then you are mentally tricked into also believing it. I think it's like a form of mass brainwashing that's just kind of more subtle.

So it's not a dig against those people's specific intelligences. I just, it's a very interesting dynamic that still happens to this day. Yep. And I feel like it's always going to happen no matter what. Because, I mean, it's been what, like,

60 years, probably more than that, 60 years worth of these same tactics and they are still effective to this day. Like I don't see it changing. Yeah. On this level, like the church setting where, you know, pastors or what do you, what do you call them over in America? Like the big mega church evangelists evangelists. Yeah. The evangelists, you see them doing it, but this is, this has been a thing throughout all of human history, basically like snake oil salesmen tricking, you know, large groups into thinking that their thing was the correct strategy.

The way to heal themselves and stuff like that. It existed before evangelists really took hold of the concept as well. One of the first things Jesus told the disciples was beware of false teachers who prophesied my name. Like from the get-go, it was an issue.

So how do these evangelists then kind of rationalize that when Jesus himself is saying those guys are liars? They don't teach it. Legitimately, a lot of it is just that they only preach their interpretation of the scripture, so they will never touch on things like that. Or if someone or something kind of brings it to light, they'll put their own holier-than-thou spin on it. For example, when Kenneth Copeland gets confronted about having jets, he's like,

Well, I got to have jets. I mean, I got to be closer to God and I can't be in a tube with a bunch of demons. That's not exactly conducive to a healthy preaching habitat. And it enables me to travel around the world faster to spread the good word. So I've got to have my private jets. Yeah, they're just able to rationalize it. The nickname that most people give it is prosperity gospel.

Uh, they'll, they'll just preach that if you do good things and by good things, I mean, give money to the church. If you do good things, good things will happen to you. And that that's it. Everything's positive. There's no downsides. There's no, you need to curb this behavior. You'll also never see pastors like that.

preaching messages against the congregation, which is part of the job of a pastor. Part of the reason the office exists is to curb bad behavior of members of the congregation. Like, God wants you to do this. You should refrain from doing this. All they do is talk badly about people who are not part of the church and say good things are going to happen to people within the church because that is what the audience wants to hear. They pull out the parts of scripture that they like

And often neglect the stuff that doesn't sell as well. Right. So instead of, I mean, I guess they still use fear to some degree, but they're going a different route where they're using kind of, they're kind of using hope in terms of prosperity as a motivating tool to get people in the congregation. So, you know, involved. In 1965, the people's church moved to California. Jim feared nuclear war and, uh,

Ukiah, located in Redwood Valley, California, was listed in an article as somewhere that may survive a nuclear attack. Here in California, while preaching his message of equality, he was able to attract more middle-class families and young people who were in the progressive political scene.

Jim would donate money to local causes and he started to wield some level of legitimate political power. In the next few years, Jim would also purchase another church and even more property. Numbers in the church began to rise with there being around 3,000 church members in the early to mid-1970s. Jim wanted an even more progressive place to establish his church and ended up buying an abandoned synagogue and expanding his people and presence to San Francisco. Yeah, so he was franchising this bitch. He was probably

propping up new places across the country basically he was expanding very quickly or at least relatively quickly uh he was very successful at what he did do you guys this is just a random question but do you i don't think there's anywhere in the world that would survive a nuclear attack now with how many nuclear missiles are i mean it depends on where the missile hits but yeah but i'm just assuming that they'd be out of land everywhere

Well, that's if they were able to dump every single nuclear bomb all at once, which I don't think would ever happen. True, actually. I didn't even consider that you would need a bunch of ways to launch all of them at the same time, kind of. Yeah. Which I guess would be impossible. Okay, well, then let's move to Ukiya. That's probably the safest place to be. All right, I'll pack my bags.

So trouble started rising, you know, not super quickly, but there was trouble eventually. So in 1977, an article appeared in the New West newspaper, which was titled Inside People's Temple, written by Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy. It was an explosive article bringing to light issues stemming from Jim's local political power, describing how he could and did control votes with his followers.

Did you want to comment on that specifically, Isaiah? Because you were talking before the show about how he kind of used politics to his advantage. Yeah, so he would... Like, he marketed himself as, like, within the church as, like, socialist and, like, racial equality. But outside of the church, like, he was interviewed on, like, news channels and stuff like that a lot. He'd always be like, well, we're not doing anything...

That is beyond, you know, American sensibilities, right? Like I'm not saying that socialism is the way to go. I'm just saying people should be more charitable and stuff like that. He would say stuff to stay in the good graces of the public while at his church saying that he's just doing this to maintain the safety of the church. That if he goes all out on the news, right, that they'll come for him, the enemy will come. So he just has to play it cool while in his church saying the opposite. Um, in public, um,

He was someone who advocated for racial rights, again, like figures with Martin Luther King and stuff like that. And then specifically after the death of figures like MLK, when the country started to become more and more progressive, he kind of touted himself as like, yeah, I've always been saying this. So a bunch of political figures started to lean back.

uh in his direction so he was friends with the carters like jimmy carter the president um he was friends with uh

I don't think it was Nixon. It might have been Ford. He became friends with a bunch of presidential families, like the governor of California, stuff like that. He started to ally himself, be seen in public with a lot of these people. So within his church, he would start to preach politically. He would start to outright say, this is the person we want in power, not this person. And a lot of people looked up to him. Now, that is an issue,

or like a controversy within churches, because if churches become overtly political for one, that kind of defeats the purpose of a church, if you think about it, but also churches are at risk of losing like their tax exemption status and stuff like that, if they become a political entity. So it brings in, it brings like the church's status into question. It brings new members into question. It changes the whole framework of it. Right. Um,

So there were a bunch of like issues popping up with him suddenly becoming such an extremely political figure. Yeah. So he probably, I think he definitely still facilitated those kind of political connections as a way of, you know, having some element of power. I think that much is obvious. He would be able to use those connections to his benefit. So they probably still,

um like they were more beneficial to him than the the negatives would be like they outweighed the negatives basically so that's probably why he still he still did that um jimmy carter though that's sad i thought jimmy carter was like a cool i'm pretty sure it was i don't want to misspeak i know it was one family uh that became president i'm pretty sure it was carter uh there's another vice president he was friends of

Like he would go on flights with them or to dinner and stuff like that. I'm not saying that to imply that the president knew everything he was about because again, publicly, he was like a very, you know, like friend of the people kind of guy. Most people didn't know what he was up to. Most of his congregation didn't even know what he was up to.

At that time, yeah. And the media was definitely playing... Well, before this article anyway, the media was definitely playing into that kind of image as well. So the perception of him publicly was a pretty positive perception. So that's why those politicians probably didn't understand the deeper corruption that lay inside the people's church. Yeah. And also, it was, in fact...

the carters there's pictures of him like with with jimmy carter's wife uh rosalind carter and stuff like that yeah well that sucks but maybe maybe they didn't know maybe i don't think they knew if they did people couldn't know like jones had this grand plan maybe it wasn't always south america but he always had a grand plan of control and the only reason it worked is because he kept it secret for so long so i don't think they knew he that just goes to show how

charismatic he was there's just a 0% chance they would know anything beyond his just like preachings it's not like he'd be like confiding in them like an anime villain being like oh so here's what I'm gonna do down the line like they'd have no clue exactly yeah yeah

I mean, it would be a conspiracy, though, that people would run with. Like, this was all a ploy by some kind of politician. Oh, I've heard conspiracies about it. Absolutely. Yeah. The journalists were receiving calls from previous members who detailed what life was like in the people's church. They were expected to go to church services multiple times a week, some which lasted hours all throughout the night into the next morning. They suffered humiliation. Well, they allegedly suffered from humiliation where they were beaten with wooden paddles and

So he was doing the whole anime thing, Charlie. He was telling people behind closed doors at least. Well,

Well, yeah, but that's not the Carters. That's his most trusted assistant. Well, it could be. Jimmy Carter was his most trusted assistant. Few know this little tidbit. No, but yeah, I mean, that, what was it? That all reminds me kind of of Scientology, like making them write incriminating letters, detailing illegal acts, like having that kind of blackmail over them. That's very like Scientology to me.

I think Scientology did something similar. Oh, I will say a fun fact crossover for all the cult nerds out there. Jim Jones was also a friend of another cult leader. I forget his name. He was this, uh, father divine, father divine. Um,

Or it was that or... No, no, no. That's right. Father Divine and him had issues, but Father Divine's son and Jones got along really well. Basically, he had... Father Divine had a bunch of people live in his house, said that he was like a prophet brought back. Just standard cult stuff. But yeah, there's a little crossover episode for those who are interested. Yeah.

There were so many cults in America throughout history. You guys have the most cults. We're pretty good at it. You're great at it. Another thing to mention, in 1977 at the same time, Jim Jones received the Martin Luther King Jr. Award. What?

No. Oh, no. Yeah. God. Presented to him by Jimmy Carter, probably. The article lists multiple people and their experiences in the church. One individual, Deanna Myrtle, spoke about when they first sold everything they had and joined the church. Jim was compassionate and kind and had taught them how to be the same to other people.

Why do you need to be taught how to be compassionate and kind? Anyway. But over time, it began to change. First, the punishments were mental. For example, he would humiliate someone in front of the whole congregation and then would say, quote, something along the lines of, quote, I realize that you went through a lot, but it was for the cause. Father loves you and you're a stronger person now. I can trust you more now that you've gone through and accepted this discipline. It's just really creepy shit, really. Yeah. It's very creepy stuff.

Others reportedly told the journalists more about the healings that Jim would do. There was one particular ceremony where Jim sought out someone in the crowd who had cancer. This was a staged act...

I don't think the cancer was a staged act. I think the cancer was real, but the whole healing was a staged act. As Jim's wife and an excited older woman went into the bathroom and would come out later with a disgusting object covered in napkins, implying it to be the cancer that had been passed. This was welcomed with applause and praised by the crowd. In reality, this cancer was simply dirty napkins and what appeared to be chicken gizzards. So that's, I guess, what cancer looks like if you pull it out of you. It's just a bunch of chicken necks.

There was also another time that an ex-member, Wayne Pitella, told the reporters that Jim had pretended to get shot when leaving his house. Through the blood and screaming, he was carried back inside only to return walking normally minutes later, declaring he had healed himself. Yeah, he had a med kit inside. He quick healed, yeah.

Wipes the blood from his eyes like it's Call of Duty and he gets right back at it. You just hid behind cover for a little bit. Regenerated.

This happened the night before he went on a trip to Seattle, allowing him to use the topic throughout the entire trip. Jim had convinced others that his shooting was the result of his socialist ideals and the interracial community he was building. And it was conducted by capitalist entities and the US government. So again, he was co-opting kind of like social causes to kind of explain things that may or may not have actually happened. Yeah.

Yeah, so he did a lot of interesting things before the move to South America, which is kind of what I wanted to focus on. It wasn't like he moved to America and then shit got weird. He was just always kind of this eccentric figure who was very good at convincing people. I'll say this too about the abuse that was happening in California. So...

A bunch of the members who were later questioned who did like the fake healings and stuff like that would say, yeah, well, we set up that one so more people would believe that he was a healer because he was. Like even the people who were faking the healings were convinced that he was the real deal. And this was just to help other people know how much of a real deal he is.

They do that with bullshido as well. That's fake martial arts where they have people do like force pushes and people fall over and like single touch KOs. They do that same thing where people are obviously in on it, but they really do believe that the master is truly a martial arts god. It's so like...

why they would believe it when they're in on it at that point. It just baffles me. Surely any rational mind would be like, if he did have the powers, why would he be asking me to fake this? That would be the first question. But the faith is so strong, I guess. When he got to California, he started teaching... Because he had a bunch of degrees and stuff. He started teaching at a...

What do you call those schools for people to go back to get a GED? Like trade schools, kind of? I don't know. It was that or like a community college thing. Anyway, he started teaching history there. And in his history lessons, he would incorporate socialism, stuff like that. And he had several members of his congregation enroll in the classes to be plants so that he could...

make it look like it was natural conversation with the students when the quote unquote students would say something like, oh, well, how does this relate to this? Or doesn't that mean socialism's better so that he could have like natural talk offs of? And then he had other members of the congregation planted to suggest to other students that this guy's really cool and they should join his church. Yeah.

What was the ratio? Was it like one real student to like 99% his congregation that came by? I read something about it that he would have as many as like seven plants in a class. Oh, wow.

Another thing to mention to kind of drive home how evil this guy was, something Jim Jones liked to do throughout his life is he liked to prove to himself how much he could control people. So like, for example, when he married his wife, he would convince her just for no reason, really, that God isn't real.

And then once one day she said something like, well, I guess God isn't real. He would berate her for being so stupid as to believe that. And then one day when she would say, well, I guess God is real. He would berate her for being stupid. He would often like change denomination or religious beliefs just to convince her. And when he came to this point in the church, he was doing the same thing. He would take members of the, while they were in California, he would, uh,

take members of the church and tell them who they should marry other members of the congregation and then effectively kick them out or shame them if they didn't get married and then once they did he would like tell them how many times they should have sex a week or tell them if they were we're not allowed to have kids and i have to be there i have to i have to be there to watch it to make sure that it happens in a lot of these cases he would um

convince these people like even if they were like new couples to the church that he didn't make get married couples who were very involved with the church he would randomly decide that they should have abortions like if they were pregnant he'd be like no this isn't a good one you have to get rid of it um he would demand that he could control people just to prove that he could do it he would convince men several times that he's supposed to sleep with their wives um

for the same reason, just to prove he could. He would have women in the church in recurrence perform sexual favors for him. And there were several times where men and women alike who were like workers for his, who stepped out of line, he would force himself onto and then say it was him executing God's will, that they should be punished and shamed. And, you know, what greater shame is there than that is how he would say it. So...

Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah, he was as evil as it gets. He would... And this was before the trip to South America. This was before the trip to South America. There were other times, because again, he was super progressive. He would tout how important it is to accept gay or lesbian people into their congregation. And he would force himself onto men so much, he would convince them that they were gay and

and enjoyed it so that they could he could then have gay members of the church to seem even more inclusive fucking monster man yeah yeah it doesn't this is all before south america this is while he was a known political figure this is why he was the face of he was the communicator of god to thousands and thousands of people and even in that line of thought

his services began to switch over. There was a service he gave where he said that Christianity is a religion of fools, that God is a figure in the sky who people pray to and does nothing. And then he ended it by saying, "'I am whatever you want me to be. If you want me to be your pastor, I am your pastor. If you want me to be your father, I am your father. If you want me to be your God, then I am your God.'"

He completely pushed aside any idea of religion. He threw the idea of God and Jesus out the window because he is something tangible, something they could look to, and entirely propped up himself as the Messiah, as the closest thing these people are ever going to get to God. And he would do the worst, most heinous things you could imagine, and say it was all the will of God because he is God.

Yeah, the abuse of power. Yeah, just many such cases of all that happening. Obviously, it probably wasn't like extremely public because otherwise he would have had a more difficult time attracting new members.

But most of this didn't come out until years after the events of South America and everything. Yeah, exactly. It was still this prevailing undercurrent of abuse of power from him, just pervasive throughout the church itself. To Guiana. So...

Jim would always keep his followers in a so-called crisis mode, constantly reminding them that things will get worse. He would use examples such as the Watergate scandal with Richard Nixon. He compared Nixon to Hitler and that concentration camps would soon undoubtedly come. But he also gave them hope by saying that Father, a moniker he gave himself, would fight for his people.

Jim wanted to isolate the members of People's Temple, but he needed a way to convince everyone of the necessity of leaving their lives. He posed it as a plan to save their lives, a plan to leave the dangers and corruption of America and settle a land just for them. He called this place the Promised Land. The Promised Land being a reference to the biblical Old Testament, what the sons of Abraham or the children of Abraham called the land they were marching to.

Very unoriginal name. The thing I appreciate in contrast about Heaven's Gate was they came up with some pretty interesting terms. Say what you want about them, but creative. Their marketing was a lot better. They cared about brand image much more. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

He used this term to evoke biblical imagery and connotations of a utopian refugee, where his followers could live free from persecution and fully embrace his vision of a socialist paradise. This was something that struck a chord with his African-American followers. In the 1920s, a man named Marcus Garvey was a pioneer for... Wait, what is the character's name from Fallout 4?

Yeah, Garvey. Preston Garvey. For a second, I thought it was the exact same name. I'm like, did they name him? No, no, no. Okay, so Marcus Garvey. Well, the last name is correct, right? It's Preston Garvey. Yeah, it's still Garvey, but I thought, in my head when I read that, I thought the character from Fallout was Marcus Garvey, and I'm like, there is no way they named him after him. I

I can't believe you remembered a Fallout 4 name. Dude, it's only because that character is so annoying. Another settlement needs your help is burned into my brain for the rest of my life. He's been mean to hell and back. Yeah.

In the 1920s, a man named Marcus Garvey was a pioneer for black nationalism and black pride. He had a vision where all people of African origin on every continent were united, self-sufficient, and proud. For a lot of people in the church, this was seen as the promised land that Jim spoke of.

A quote from Jeff Gwynn in the book The Road to Jonestown. Well, so Jeff Gwynn wrote the book, but it's a quote from Jim Jones. Gotcha. Okay. I know a place I can take you where there will be no more racism, where there will be no more division, where there will be no more class exploitation. I know just the place. Oh, yes, I do.

Again, Jones is perpetuating a lot of... He leans into the idea of oppressed groups of people because people who are oppressed need a way out, and he likes to pose himself as the way out. Jim already had an idea of where he wanted to take the People's Temple, but he wanted to give the impression of a search, a group decision to promote group unity and instill a sense of collaboration among the congregation.

There were searches authorized to scout good areas of opportunity to relocate to, but on October the 8th, 1973, in a meeting with the People's Temple Board of Directors, they unanimously decided that Guyana in South Africa would be... America. Or South America. Yeah, yeah. Guyana in South America would be their next home.

The People's Temple was welcomed by the Guyanese government. They weren't just establishing a church, but were also given permission to build the People's Temple Agricultural Mission.

There was also a dispute within the border between Venezuela and Guyana. Tensions were rising here consistently with the threat of some kind of conflict looming in the future. The People's Temple was set up in this area of Guyana with the thinking from the Guyanese government that having Americans in the area may hold off or deter any future attacks. It's an interesting strategy. Yeah. Like a bullet shield? Yeah.

Jim and over 1,000 of his followers moved to Georgetown, Guyana. They renamed the town to the People's Temple Agricultural Project, or more commonly known as Jonestown. So they built the whole community down there in South America. They

He had previously gone to South America years prior because this has kind of been an idea in his mind, but the funding ran out. This is while the church was still in Indianapolis. The funding had ran out, so he came back kind of defeated. He actually had one of the main members of the church threatened to leave if Jones didn't come back, so he came back. But it seems that he was planning a move like this for a while even before. It's like the criticism in California was just an excuse to get people down there.

Yeah, I mean, he obviously wanted his congregation as isolated as possible. You can't get much more isolated than this commune in the middle of a South American forest, basically.

away from families away from the pesky government away from jimmy carter all those kinds of distractions and stuff it's just the perfect location basically move them to the middle of the jungle get them isolated yeah what else are they going to do life in jonestown jim had successfully manipulated his followers and many now joined him in guiana it would be paradise they would be away from the american media and those who doubted or questioned their beliefs

However, when they got there, the members' passports and medications were taken, leaving them with no way of leaving Guyana if they wanted to. They were forced to work long days out in the sun and attend long meetings in the evening. Food was imported and there were days when the only options available were beans with rice.

And then we have a map here, which will show up on screen of what the kind of settlement itself looked like. There were a bunch of dormitories, a bunch of cottages, about 52 cottages, educational tents, a pavilion, a large structure. It had a lot of stuff. They built a lot of stuff to give them credit, but that's because it was basically a labor camp. This group of 1,000 people, I think it was like 600 of them were adults, if I recall correctly off the top of my head.

They were basically forced to work all day in the blistering heat, just setting up this settlement and doing all the menial tasks. While Jones, Jim Jones himself and his upper trusted confidants, or his inner circle, kind of just chilled, just kind of relaxed in their little mansion away from the group, which is just...

Incredible.

The area was plagued with mosquitoes and tropical diseases. They used drugs such as Valium and Quaaludes to subdue and control members. It was around this time in 1976 when Jim allegedly obtained his jeweler's license which allowed him to be able to buy and start a stockpile of cyanide under the pretense of it being used to clean jewelry.

It's also possible that he accrued the large amounts of cyanide under the assumption it was being used as pesticide for agricultural purposes. I feel like cyanide's probably not, like, the go-to pesticide even back then. I feel like that'd be alarming then, too, wouldn't it? Uh, yeah. I don't know. Well, it was a pretty large community. I think you can mix it with stuff. It's pretty much that having, like, saying that you need pesticide gives you a license to obtain it and store it, basically. Yeah.

Well, yeah. It was a large...

amount of crops and stuff that they needed to protect. So I could see it being fairly believable. I couldn't find specifically which answer was the most likely. He did have a jeweler's license from what I could see. And so the theory is that he used that to buy a large amount of cyanide. But I personally think that the agricultural theory is the stronger one, but I've seen both tossed around.

Previously, Jim had lived amongst his followers, but that shifted in Jonestown. He lived in a cottage that was away from the community. Here, away from the rest of Jonestown, his declining health and antics were hidden. Jonestown was restricted in practically every way except for Jim and some of his closest staff. They ate and lived decadently. Yeah, not just beans and rice. They had everything that they could want. The finest of meals over at Jim's cottage, whereas everyone else ate like medieval peasants, basically.

But his health was not doing well? Was he suffering from something? He was probably eating a lot of McDonald's that was flown over. I don't know. Who knows?

Yeah, his health was declining. It's been documented that he was rather unwell towards the end. He also had a whole life of drug abuse, so I'm sure that contributed. He used barbiturates a lot, I think. So yeah, that doesn't do good over time.

Everything was communal in Jonestown, the dining hall, the laundry area, showers, toilets, and more. Everyone would come together in the evening to work on projects, take classes, watch a movie, or have meetings. People who believed in Jim and the cause were dedicated to Jonestown and making the community thrive. Jonestown became a nearly fully self-sufficient village. While always thanking Jim for what they had, the people had truly built the village from the ground up and they could finally see it all coming together.

Which I guess speaks to what one of his sons said about how it was like a place that they really appreciated. Yeah. I mean, the more dedicated followers definitely appreciated it or at least had convinced themselves that there were, you know, benefits to it. But there were definitely a lot... I don't know how large, but a group of people who desperately wanted out. I mean, that's definitely true. And plus, like, I think...

If I remember right, the ethnic split of it was it was like 70 to 80 percent like African-American and then like like 10 percent Asian. There was a very small like minority group there. So Jones would come out every day and be like he would lie a lot about things in the US like, oh, yeah, they're rounding up minorities now. Aren't we glad that, you know, we're all here, stuff like that. So it was every day being told that this is the best case scenario.

that contributed to their appreciation he restricted their information so he could just control the narrative of what the world was doing the world's in shambles now it's all in flames we're the last bastion that kind of thing America was nuked everyone's dead it's just us yeah yeah

Armed guards patrolled Jonestown. If anyone was caught trying to flee, they were taken to what was called the Extended Care Unit. People were also taken here if they spoke out against Jim or exhibited any other concerning behavior. Here, they would be drugged back into submission, most often by being fed cheese sandwiches filled with sedatives. Jonestown had previously had...

...drills where Jim... excuse me, unaliving drills where Jim would give his followers poison. The drinks were completely fine, but the followers would not be told this until after they had drank it. There were also events called White Night Rehearsals, where people were given drinks and then told it was poison and they only had minutes to live. After people would begin screaming and crying for their and their loved ones, he would tell them the truth. This was an interesting tactic by Jim Jones and was intended as a way to prepare and condition his followers for the events that would eventually take place.

and desensitizing his followers while also testing their loyalty. That is fucking crazy. Was his plan always, like even before coming here, to have them mass...

No, what I think it was... So it's the natural end point of this fixation of his, right? Initially, I'm going to convince people to believe stuff. Then I'm going to have physical control over them. Now I'm going to have life control over them. It's the natural progression of this obsession that he has. So what I think happened is once he gets down here, he realizes there's not really... Congratulations, you've moved from being super rich in the United States to you now have a jungle compound.

with like barely any amenities, right? So all that he can do, or at least for everyone else. So all he can really do is just exercise his control over him and killing them is the final point of that. There's no more control you can have over a person than to convince them to take their own life. But,

But I also think, though, that the unaliving event was motivated by an impending doom. I think he would have been more than... Yeah, that's what I remembered. The final one is, yes. I think he would have been more than content to live forever in this kind of, you know, paradise. Yes, I agree. The only reason he went through with it is because he lost. And he was going to lose his control. So he had to take that final step. He felt like he was losing control. So this was a way of...

ending on a high note for himself, basically. Yeah, and some of these white knight rehearsals... So there were various men in the compound who were effectively a kind of militia. Like, they were armed, and he would randomly send them out in the jungle a lot of the time and be like, oh, there's federal agents over there in the woods, and they would spend all day running around looking for them. During a lot of these white knights, they would stand guard around the Jonestown. There was one white knight that...

That went on for seven days, if I remember right, six or seven days of him saying that they're going to be attacked any minute now. And there were people who stood at their position for like three days straight just waiting. Yeah. Jim would create tension and suspicion throughout the community, encouraging people to turn in those who were starting to think thoughts that contradicted Jim or thoughts that implied that they may want to leave.

This created an avenue and competition for people seeking Jim's approval to exert that ambition. This also strengthened Jim's control on the community as people felt that he was the only person they could really trust as they couldn't trust each other if every neighbor was a potential snitch.

Wanting to go home was the ultimate betrayal. Jim calling it blasphemy and he would scold anyone who attempted to even speak about seeing their family or visiting home. The only source of news from the outside world was through Jim. He would have radios where he would listen to broadcast stations and then relay it in his own rants that was fueled with paranoia and delusion over the loudspeaker throughout Jonestown.

No one was to speak while Jim was talking, meaning conversations between co-workers, used specifically as it was ostensibly a labor camp, was impossible when he rambled endlessly throughout the day. Yeah, I mean, there were loudspeakers everywhere and he would just rant endlessly about what he kind of painted as a picture of the outside world. Basically what you were saying before, Charlie. So, and I think it's... Labor camp is a pretty generous term as well because there was also...

abuse running the same levels of abuse but worse that were back in California now now running rampant throughout the community as well from Jones himself and probably his inner circle

um yeah so that paints a very very very very bleak picture while this was happening in jonestown back home a group of former people's temple members which i should mention by the way uh i kind of implied that jim jones was pentecostal during this whole time shortly after like getting some members of the pentecostal church he became his own thing like his own entity people's temple was not a pentecostal denomination um

A group of former People's Temple members and family members of those currently in Guyana established themselves as the concerned relatives, something similar that happened with the Heaven's Gate cult many years later.

They believed, correctly, that those in Jonestown were being held against their will. They would write flyers and send their concerns to the media in an attempt to get the word out. They also lobbied members of Congress to try and launch an investigation into Jonestown. They penned a document titled, Accusations of Human Rights Violations, which targeted Jim Jones alone and featured violations such as...

Prohibiting telephone calls, prohibiting contact with outsiders, censoring all incoming and outgoing mail, extorting silence from relatives in the United States by threats to stop all communication, and preventing their children from seeing them when they travel to Guyana.

In this document, they also highlighted a chilling threat made by Jim Jones to all U.S. senators and members of Congress about alleged bureaucratic harassment. In the letter, in the Jones, the letter said, in the letter, Jones said, it is equally evident that people cannot forever be continually harassed and belagored by such tactics without seeking alternatives that have been presented. I can say without hesitation that we are devoted to

to a decision that it is better even to die than to be constantly harassed from one continent to the next. Yeah, so that's the first mention of where his end goal. Again, I don't really like the word goal because he would have continued on happily if he didn't feel like he was losing, but the end kind of thing that he was going to eventually do, this is where he started threatening that, definitely. Yeah.

Yeah, because he effectively has a thousand hostages with him. Yeah, he does. Makes it hard to do anything. Another thing, too, there was a specific instance that became really big in the news around this time. If I recall right, it was... There was a married couple that had gotten a divorce, and the wife...

And the kid, or maybe I have it backwards, and it was the husband and the kid. I'm pretty sure it was the wife and the kid. They were in Jonestown, and the husband was lobbying with the media to get his kid back, basically. So it became a whole, like, Jim Jones is kidnapping children, stuff like that. Basically, the news made enough of a stink around what was going on that politicians started to get involved. And it's not a good look when the pastor, who was once a big friend of the president and political families, is like, if you bother me, I'll die. Right.

Everyone will die. So people got really concerned really fast. So...

The document covers much more, including how Jim Jones used mind programming and intimidation to control his followers. The concerned relatives demanded that Jim answer to their questions regarding his statement about the willingness to die, that all the guards surrounding Jonestown be removed so that people can move freely, that Jim return all passports to his followers, and that he encourage and allow home visits, stop censoring mail, and blocking his followers from contacting or being contacted by their loved ones. Um...

Another thing, too, is there were a few visits by the government to Jonestown because legally all these individuals are still United States citizens. So...

And several of them were sending out social security checks. So there were investigations made by the FBI to Jonestown to go to these people who were receiving checks and the people would be like, oh yeah, Jones got all the money from my check, but I did it willingly. So they were... Several times, federal agents would show up, do an investigation, then leave because everyone they interviewed was just like... Legally consenting. Exactly, yeah. Oh no, we want this to happen. What's wrong? Um...

Which is what they were trained to say as well, obviously. Yes, correct. They were at literally threat of death. They were being told to just go along with whatever Jones wanted them to. Not just them as well. It's kind of like a North Korea situation where... It's the whole family. Yeah, it's the whole family. Jones responded to this by hiring Mark Lane, an attorney, to prove that everyone, including government agencies such as the FBI, were creating conspiracies against him.

In an interview, Mark said that if anyone wanted to leave, they were more than cooperative and it simply wasn't disallowed. Saying that they would personally get that individual in a car, in a plane, and fly them back to where they wanted to be. But everyone who was asked if they wanted to go always responded with no. Back in America, concerned relatives had gotten the attention of U.S. Representative Leo Ryan, a Democrat from California.

Leo decided he would go to Jonestown himself to investigate what was happening, and this was the beginning of the end.

I was looking up Mark Lane, what he did after this. I'll dig into that a bit deeper later. Because surely he didn't get any more work afterwards. Not only did he get hired for this, what led to fucking 900 deaths, but he also was unsuccessful in creating that conspiracy narrative. He failed at that too. Mark Lane would go on to be a part of the OJ Simpson trial. Imagine that.

Alright, so Leo Ryan traveled to Guyana in November of 1978. Accompanying him was a group consisting of congressional staff, members of the concerned relatives, and various people from the media. They first arrived in Georgetown, where they traveled via small plane to Jonestown. Only a few were able to accompany Leo due to the restricted size of the airplane. At first, only Leo Ryan, Legislative Counsel Jackie Speier, and two attorneys for the People's Temple, Mark Lane and Charles Gary, were allowed into Jonestown.

The others were allowed in later on in the evening. Jim had painted Leo Ryan out to be the bad guy. Leo instead openly greeted them with kindness, asking if anyone wanted to talk to him as he would listen with an open mind. Jim had practiced with members on what they needed to say if asked any questions, which they then repeated when talking to Leo in order to convince the exploratory group that everything in Jonestown was fine.

Also, during this time, Jim and Marceline's sons, Jim Jones Jr. and Stephen Jones, were in Georgetown with a few others as they had formed a basketball team and were set to compete against the Guyanese official team. While there, Jim Jones Jr. got a call from his father with a message, we are going to visit Mr. Fraser. This was a code chosen by Jim Jones that came attached with a chilling meaning, revolutionary unaliving. It's

It signaled to the followers that they were to prepare for a mass unaliving drill or ultimately the actual mass unalive event. Jim Jr. didn't believe it at first, but his father insisted it had to be done. At first they wanted to go back, their families, wives, and children were there. But even though they were then ordered to go back, they didn't. Due to this decision, they survived what would entail.

Yeah, so that's why Jim Jones Jr. and Stephen Jones are still alive. Imagine having to, like... Oh, man, being in that situation where you know your family is back at the compound and some terrible event is about to take place. I don't know. Awful. The, um...

That is such a chilling line. We're going to visit Mr. Frazier. Yeah, I tried to dig into that. I couldn't find any kind of significance. I'm sure it's just a code. It is just a code, but I thought maybe there was a deeper meaning to the Mr. Frazier part, but I couldn't find anything. The we are going to visit is so haunting. Yeah.

However, that afternoon, two members, Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby, made an important defiant move. They passed a note to NBC reporter Don Harris reading, please help us get out of Jonestown. The note was intended for Leo Ryan, Vernon mistaking Don Harris for him. Vernon later recounts that moment, Don was walking around the edge of the pavilion when he stuffed the note in the fold of his arm, but it fell. He picked it back up, handed it to Don saying, you drank it.

He dropped this. But a child who saw yelled out, he passed the note. He passed the note. Oh, God. That's fucking... That's terrifying. So sad. The settlement itself reminds me of... No, actually, no. I'm not going to say it. It was going to be a fucking cultural reference. Make the reference. I was going to say, it's like Resident Evil almost. It feels very like...

It was very scary. Yeah, go ahead and call Charlie the pop culture machine. Yeah, you guys, I'm fucking nervous. I'm stopping, I'm stopping, I'm stopping. No more references. This is just like the Las Plagas. This is just like when Darth Bane issued the rule of two to the Sith.

That's always your go-to with Star Wars. It's like the only Star Wars reference you know. It's like actually all I know about Star Wars lore history, like outside of the movies, yeah. Don brought the note to Jackie and Leo, who immediately understood that they were correct with their assumption of Jonestown. The next day, Don brought the note to Jim, filming the conversation with him. Jim knew who they were talking about, Vernon Gosney, and accused him of just wanting to leave his son in Jonestown.

He told Don that Vernon had lied. He was simply playing games. During the conversation, Jim begged them to leave Jonestown alone. So this is where the paranoia and desperation from Jim was starting to take hold. Now that he knew that people were trying to talk to the reporters and the people that had come to conduct the exploratory.

you know, investigation. It's terrifying how like the first day they're there, he's like, oh, well, welcome to this. You can check out Jonestown here. We're having a great time. And as soon as Jome sees the note, like his face drops and he's like, it's a game. It's a joke. Leave. Get out. Like, yeah, leave us alone.

It's simply a social experiment. It's a prank. It's a prank, bro. What's up, everybody? Today, we're going to be cultivating a city in Guyana. Make sure to hit that subscribe button. Jonestown started to descend into chaos. Over the next few days, more and more people wanted to defect. The aircraft originally coming to pick up those leaving was only able to hold 19 people, so a second small craft was quickly ordered in.

Most people began leaving to the airstrip with Leo and Richard Dwyer staying behind in case anyone decided at the last minute they also wanted to leave. There were some who then decided to leave, including a man called Larry Layton. To say people were suspicious of this was an understatement. Larry is one of Jim's biggest and most loyal followers. He was allowed to join Leo and Dwyer on the trip out of Jonestown. To note how...

terrifying this is. Jim Jones has been running this cult for years and years at this point, right? In South America. Now, the whole facade has dropped. There is a...

or not a senator, a representative there with like a whole news crew. And he's like, all right, whoever wants to leave is coming with me now. You two stay here, get more people. If they want out, we're getting in more planes. Like the, the charades over, right? There's no way Jones comes back from this. At the very least, it's going to be a national news story. And most likely he's going to get arrested. So extradited. Also, I want to, I want to make a reference real quick before we get into the more sad parts here. Um,

uh, no, not a references in that. No, no, no pop culture reference. Uh, just, I was going to say a reference to Leo. Like he, he stayed behind with one other dude to try to get as many people out as possible. This guy was like a hero almost in my eyes. He was a very standup guy. He's a representative that actually went to this place with the intention of fixing things. Uh,

You don't see politicians doing that these days. You don't see anything like that. This guy is like an American hero in my eyes. Very stand up dude, honestly. Yeah, you would not see a representative touch boots on the ground in an actual tough situation anymore. That just would not happen. There's a photo here as well, which is taken before him being attacked. He just looks like a pleasant old dude, kind of like a...

stand-up cool guy that just wanted to help it looks like and sounds like I don't know anything about his policies or what he voted on or anything like that but just the this this small little bubble him trying to do good in the world big big big ups to Leo honestly Leo was actually nearly stabbed when they were just about to depart a member angry at what was happening and about how many people were leaving grab a knife and attacked him others were able to hold him back but it was very clear to Leo that they needed to leave

They arrived at the airstrip ready to leave, but quickly realized that the two aircrafts hadn't arrived. After half an hour, they showed up and the group hastily boarded the planes. The smaller of the two planes was set to depart first. It taxied at the end of the runway when someone inside pulled out a gun and began to shoot the other five people in the plane.

At the same time, a truck pulled up and several armed cultists from Jonestown began to open fire on the other plane. This was captured by a news reporter who dropped their camera when the attack began. In the video, at first, you can hear the truck rolling up with no one being concerned. Then, when the shooting starts and the camera drops, you see members of the People's Temple firing before the camera cuts off.

Five people were killed. Congressman Leo Ryan, photographer Greg Robinson, cameraman Bob Brown and reporter Don Harris and a temple defector Patricia Parks.

This attack was directly ordered by Jim Jones, who had become increasingly paranoid and believed that the departure of defectors and the negative reports that would follow would lead to the destruction of his community. Just tragic. Like, again, Leo Ryan and his team went there. These reporters went there with the intention of spurred on by, you know, the information coming from the families of the people back home.

they came here to try to solve this issue, basically. They put themselves in mortal danger, and sadly, it ended tragically for them. Very sad situation. At 4 p.m., an announcement rang over the loudspeaker at Jonestown. It was Jim Jones' son, Lou. His voice was calm as they gathered some heard Jim arguing with a small group. "'There must be another way,' one asked Jim."

Tell me what it is, Jim asked back. Oh, dick, stop being such a pain in the ass. You're just afraid to die. Man.

It's like... Pretty normal thing to be afraid of, I would say. Yeah, pretty reasonable. You're afraid of death or something? Before this happened, Jim Jones had had a vote, quote-unquote, with the community, this was years before, that if America attacks, what are they to do? And the four options were...

defect to Russia, North Korea, or some other communist country. To run and hide in the jungle, to fight, or to what happened, the mass unaliving event. The...

He highly suggested that the two middle ideas about running in the jungle or fighting would just result in a more belabored death for the women and children. So everyone voted as a first option to flee to another country to seek asylum and as a backup the unaliving event. Apparently Jim Jones had sent a letter to Russia that was like, can we all come live in Russia? And Russia was like,

No. Why would we do that? The fact they even responded is kind of crazy. I don't think they responded. I think it was within Russia. There are reports that people were like, what? Oh, gotcha. But I've also heard some say that the letter never actually made its way to anyone important. So maybe Jim Jones didn't send the letter. Maybe someone did on their behalf. Who knows? Well, I also think that Russia, even if it went to like

up the ladder of the chain of command i still think they would have said no just out of fear that they were american insiders or something they wouldn't let americans in at the time yeah and what are you going to do with them like here have a commune go nuts um but like pretty much as this was happening there was kind of this tone from a lot of members of like you know you asked for it you know this is what you chose to have yeah

There were more whispers, with some asking how to make it taste less bitter. Will it hurt? Is it quick? Even though Larry Shatt, the doctor at Joestown, had spent a lot of time developing the mix of flavor aid, tranquilizers, and cyanide, at this last moment they were still asking him to improve the taste. Tension began to build in the crowd as they awaited Jim to get on stage.

Most of Jim's sermons have been recorded, including this one. A final 44-minute speech infamously nicknamed The Death Tape. He got on stage and spoke to the crowd of Jonestown, following art excerpts from Jim's final speech. How very much I've tried to give you a good life.

Not only are we in a compound situation, not only are there those who have left and committed the betrayal of the century. Some have stolen children from others and they are in pursuit right now to kill them because they stole their children. And we are sitting here waiting on a powder keg. So to sit here and wilt for the catastrophe that's going to happen on that airplane, it's going to be a catastrophe.

It almost happened here. Almost happened when the congressman was nearly killed here. You can't steal people's children. You can't take off with people's children without expecting a violent reaction. And that's not so familiar to us either. Even if we, even if we were Judeo-Christian, if we weren't communist, the world opinion suffers violence and the violence shall take it by force. If we can't live in peace,

Let's die in peace, which he was met with applause. Yeah. Interesting note about that is that the congressman and their group didn't steal children. They gave people the ability to leave, which then these cult members perceived as them being stolen, in which case it was just saving them, really, which is tragic. It's what 30 years of indoctrination gets you. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. During the speech, a woman named Christine Miller was recorded as she voiced opposition to Jones's plan. She argued for alternatives to what was about to occur, such as fleeing to Russia or fighting back against perceived enemies. Jones replied, quote, To have other people's lives in my hands, and I certainly don't want your life in my hands. I'm going to tell you, Christine, without me, life has no meaning.

And then there was applause to that, by the way, which is just fucking Christ. Oh, my God. I'm the best thing you'll ever have. That's such a fucking unhinged statement. Yeah. Holy. She says, I said, I'm not ready to die. Jones, I don't think you are, but I know what you meant. I don't think you are, but I look at all the babies and I think they deserve to live. But don't they deserve much more?

They deserve peace. We all came here for peace. And we've... Have we had it? No. I tried to give it to you. I've laid down my life practically. I've practically died every day to give you peace, and you still not have any peace. You look better than I've seen you in a long while, but it's still not the kind of peace that I want to give you.

I know that, but I still think as an individual, I have a right to, you do, and I'm listening, to say what I think, what I feel, and I think we all have a right to our own destiny as individuals, right? And I think I have a right to choose mine and everybody else has a right to choose theirs. Yes, I'm not criticizing. Well, I think I still have a right of my own opinion.

I'm not taking it from you. I'm not taking it from you. Unfortunately, the exchange between Jim Jones and Christine Miller during the final meeting in Jonestown did not lead to a change in the outcome. Christine continued to voice her concerns and present arguments, but Jones became more assertive and other members of the community began to speak up, with many echoing Jones's rationale or reinforcements of his argument.

The atmosphere became more charged and coercive, and ultimately, Christine's objections were overshadowed by the collective pressure and dominant narrative pushed by Jones. Christine was eventually worn down by the responses from Jones and the community. The speech moved forward with preparations for the mass plan.

The exact fate of Christine Miller is not clearly documented, but likely the majority of those at Jonestown, of which there were 900 deaths, she is believed to have died in the events. How would she not have been accounted for? I'm super curious on that. I imagine everyone would have been identified.

I think it means there wasn't specifications as to the method because as we're going to find out, a bunch of people didn't drink the Kool-Aid and they were shot.

So, yeah, I remember that. I thought it was saying here that like what happened to her is still a mystery to this day or something like they don't know if she died or no. It's just saying that if she fought or if she willingly took it, it isn't documented. Yeah, this is this quote I'm about to read. Is this the quote from Jones? This is from Jones. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Please get us some medication. Simple. It's simple. There's no convulsions with it. It's just simple. Just please get it before it's too late. The GDF, which is the Guiana Defense Force, will be here. I tell you, get moving, get moving, get moving. So this is him telling everyone to get their drinks for the crew to start handing it out. Yeah.

Don't be afraid to die. You'll see people land out here. They'll torture some of our children here. They'll torture our people. They'll torture our seniors. We cannot have this. A woman speaks and says, I just want to say something for everyone that I see that is standing around or crying. This is nothing to cry about. This is something we could all rejoice about.

We could be happy about this. They always told us that we could cry when you're canting into this world. So we're leaving it and we're leaving it peaceful. I think we should be, you should be happy about this. I was just thinking about Jim Jones. He just has suffered and suffered and suffered. We have the honor guard and we don't even have a chance to

Here, one more chance. That's few. That's gone. There's many more here. That's not all of us. That's not all yet. Of course, she's talking about people taking up the Kool-Aid. That's not all yet. That's just a few that have died. I'm looking at so many people crying. I wish you would not cry. And from that, there's applause.

She continues, I've been here one year and nine months. I never felt better in my life. Not in San Francisco, but until I came to Jonestown. I had a life. I had a beautiful life. I don't see nothing that I should be crying about.

We should be happy. At least I am. Twitchy's met with a pause. That is just horrifying. That level of brainwashing where you're actually happy about what's about to happen. And you're seeing it in front of you, by the way. People have already drunk the Kool-Aid, if you will, and they are dying painfully. And you're still... She's viewing it as a positive thing. It's just actually...

terrifying she's counting as she's speaking there's a few there's another there's another you know they're just dropping around them jones says um that some of the audio is cut off because there's people talking and stuff over the recording but from next year we hear wants to go with their child has a right to go with their child i think it's humane i want to go i want to see you go though they can take me and do what they want whatever they want to do i want to see you go

I don't want to see you go through this hell no more. No more. No more. No more. So he's like actively saying, I want to see you guys die. I want to see you die. I want to watch it. We're trying. If everybody relax, the best thing you do is to relax and you won't have no problem. You'll have no problem with this thing. If you just relax, I, with respect, die with the beginning of dignity. Lay down your life with dignity.

Don't lay down with tears and agony. It's nothing to death. It's like Max said, it's just stepping over to another plane.

Don't be this way. Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialist or communist to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity. Imagine fucking dying while this lunatic is like yelling at you to calm down and stuff. It's insufferable. I mean, obviously he's insufferable, but just he's his own level of delusion about people should have some dignity while he's up there completely fine at this point. Like,

What he was referring to here about this is no way to die, this is no way for a communist to die. A bunch of people tried to fight back. If I recall right, it was, I think the numbers estimated around 100, so like a tenth of them were trying to escape or leave or like, I'm not drinking it. So the militia, which had at this point gotten back from the airfield,

was grabbing people who... Because what happened is everyone drank it and then they have to wait like 10 minutes for it to kick in and kill them. So during those 10 minutes, everyone who wouldn't drink it was being dragged outside of the temple and shot. The militia were routing up people. They were laying them in the...

in these like ditches next to the houses and executing them uh several of the people who had drank the kool-aid just laid down next to those bodies and waited to die um so as he is saying this in the tape where he's like this is no way to die be respectful you can hear gunshots you can hear people screaming as the other 800 just stand there and wait for the poison to kill them and

I mean, yeah, it's hard to even say anything about it. It's just so horrifying. It's hard to even process what that looks like. If you go looking for the audio yourself, your discretion, of course. Yeah, of course. We have no choice. Now we have some choice. Do you think they're going to allow this to be done and allow us to get by with this? You must be insane. Children, it's just something to put you to rest. Man, huh.

You hear children crying. And then Jones is chanting. Mother, mother, mother, mother, please. Mother, please, please, please don't do this. Don't do this. Lay down your life with your child, but don't do this. Okay, so there's an explanation of what the whole mother kind of stuff is after these next few quotes. So we'll just shoot through these quotes real quick.

Free at last. Keep your emotions down. Keep your emotions down. Children, it will not hurt if you be quiet. Music begins to play as children are heard crying. Take our life from us. We laid it down. We got tired. We didn't commit this. We committed an act of revolutionary taking our lives, protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.

Again, people weren't actively not choosing to do this, and yet they were being summarily executed by his honor guard, basically. It wasn't as overwhelmingly voluntary as it initially sounds. There were definitely a lot of people who didn't choose what occurred, and that's just so tragic. Yeah.

So those excerpts are, of course, from the dialogue of the final tape. So Jim had turned to his wife expecting help in convincing everyone. But Marceline, who lived for her children and stayed by her husband through their turbulent relationship, couldn't move. Instead, she yelled, how can you do this? The community respected Marceline and Jim knew this. Three of her sons were away in Georgetown. Lou and Agnes, as well as their children, were in Jonestown.

She was stuck in the middle, and Jim reminded her that her children were dead or were going to die. Marceline lived for her children. How could she continue living with them gone? She stopped fighting back at this point.

Yeah, it's just, again, this man is like, this goes back to what you were saying at the start. Jim Jones has got to be one of the most evil people that has ever existed. Yeah, there's not just, like, sure, if we want to tally up kill counts, there's people who beat him. But as far as, like, the level of personal...

Just devilishness in everything he did. He was a demon infecting the lives of so many people, and he did it intimately. Yeah, just like the level... Just a monster, man. Yeah, the level of joy he got out of it, the level of dedication is...

It's almost unmatched, you know? Is it Joy, though? Did he enjoy watching them die? Yeah, I mean, he sat there watching the entire time. And with everything else that happened to him over the years, like, you know, the sexual assault or the manipulation of converts, stuff like that.

It's all like a game. It gave him some level of satisfaction. Otherwise, why would he be continuously doing it so much and putting... I didn't know if it could have been a scenario where he truly believed that what he was doing here with this divine act of protest that was going to get them into this upper echelon of, I don't know, divine, spiritual, whatever.

Uh, nah, like he doesn't, at this point he had abandoned religion too. He had stated several times, there is no God. There is no, uh, maybe he never said there's no afterlife, but there's no Christian heaven at least. And that he's their God. Right. So, and he even says right there, when all this starts, he said, even if we were Judeo Christian, the guy who previously started all this as a Christian pastor is now saying, even if we were Christian, they would want us dead. Like,

He's so far removed from it. And I think everything he says is just a means of manipulation. I don't think he believes anything he's putting out. Same. That's where I'm at as well. Less than 100 people escaped that evening. One was Tim Carter. In an interview later on in life, Tim shared that he really could not believe they were going to die that day. He was sent on an errand with a few others by Jim when the gathering first began.

When coming back, he could hear people screaming, not with joy, but out of pain. He found himself surrounded by death. Shocked, Tim began to look for his wife and his young infant son. When he found them, they had both already taken the mixture, and he held them in his arms as they died. A quote from him says, That's how I feel about Jim Jones.

Tim walked around numb, the voice in his head conflicted between the fact that his son had been murdered. Tim and others walked to and through the front gate, hauling heavy suitcases and dredging through mud.

Behind them, they could still hear Jim on the loudspeaker chanting to the crowd, Mother, Mother, Mother. It seems that Jim was speaking to his wife, Marceline, here, and she was called Mother by most of the temple members. Jim was telling Marceline that she shouldn't scream. Instead, lay her life down with her children. Jim Jones was later found with a gunshot wound to his head, most likely self-inflicted.

It's unknown why exactly he chose a gunshot instead of what everyone else experienced, but the most likely answer is that by choosing a different method of death from his followers, it could be seen as a final act of asserting control and maintaining a unique status even in death. Some other possibilities are that Jim saw this as a less painful method, given that he had now seen people screaming and convulsing over an extended amount of time in front of him, or that he saw the gunshot as a more dramatic or martyric way of ending his life.

Ultimately, it's likely a combination of factors. It should also be mentioned that after the guards who had been executing everyone came to the middle, they all took the Kool-Aid mixture and died. That's why some people were able to escape. That's why people like Tim were able to get out. There were two survivors whose stories were unique. One of them pretended to be dead in a ditch with people who had already died. So when the guards passed by, they thought they were dead. And another one had hidden under their bed.

Um, and apparently the guards made rounds through the houses to make sure everyone was rounded up, but didn't check under the bed. That's how that person lived. Um, Jim Jones was also found lying on a pillow on the stage in front of everyone else. So he, he comfortably laid down and took his own life on his own terms.

Yeah. So I don't think it was a final act of asserting control because there were other members that were getting shot. I really think it was just he saw how awful it was from the people that took the Kool-Aid. Yeah. And he just thought that would be the quickest, less painful way of going. So he was a coward. Yeah. Yeah.

So, there's, of course, you know, pictures of the after effects of the military showing up and getting the bodies. Just, there's a picture here of, like, the state of the settlement after the fact. And there are just bodies piled up all around the buildings. And it's just some of the most horrific images I've seen. Just really, really awful stuff.

What were the needles used for, though? I thought it was all from the mixture. Isaiah, do you know?

There were the tranquilizers, I'm pretty sure. So they drank and shot up the tranquilizers? I think that's possible. That or the tranks were mixed in the Kool-Aid, which wouldn't really work. So maybe as people were convulsing, they began injecting it or something like that. Because they had a bunch of tranquilizers on hand. Yeah.

There were definitely people discovered with piercing marks on your arms. Injection marks. Needle marks. So there were definitely people that were being injected with stuff as well, but I'm not sure how prevalent it was or what the combination was or anything like that.

I don't think I've ever seen pictures of like the actual Kool-Aid they drank. That shit looks so fucking haunting. Like it looks diabolical. It just looks like an evil thing. Yeah. I also always imagined it as like this big communal Kool-Aid thing that people went and like a punch bowl their cup into like a punch bowl. But it looks like it was something they passed around in the little cup. Yes. Yeah. It was little cups. They were handed out to individual people. Okay. Yeah.

It was grape-flavored Flavor-Aid, if I recall right. Which is like knock-off Kool-Aid. Yeah, it was definitely Flavor-Aid. I don't know of the flavor. I think grape probably makes the most sense because I've heard references. I think it was grape, if I remember reading right. Because they just mass-bought it. And then it was laced with potassium cyanide. And then...

There was tranquilizers used. I don't think they tried to mix any of the drinks. It won't really do anything. I think it's talking about that's what the injections were. Yeah. All right. And then we come to the aftermath, which...

Those who were injured at the airstrip were evacuated by a Guyanese government aircraft and taken to a nearby village. A medical doctor was called out to Jonestown to examine the bodies. He looked at 200 and identified that over 70 had needle marks. So that kind of implies the split. There was definitely a lot of them that had injected stuff as well. Yeah. Notes. Sorry.

Unaliving notes were also found throughout the town. One in particular by member Annie Moore tried to explain that Jim Jones was actually a good man. Some excerpts of the letter read: "Where can I begin? Jonestown, the most peaceful, loving community that ever existed. Jim Jones, the one who made this paradise possible. Much to the contrary of the lies stated about Jim Jones being a power-hungry, sadistic, mean person who thought he was God of all things.

Even though he directly said that. He literally said that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I assume this letter was written before that final...

Maybe, but I mean, these people... No, this was like the note that... Yeah, this was the note she wrote. The most devoted people definitely just are in their own world, 100%. So they directly believe this. I mean, it's just a juxtaposition of writing something like this while people around you are dying from his actions. He's a peaceful, loving man as these bodies keep dropping. You guys misunderstood him. He was the one that made the paradise possible, as you have

We're surrounded by bodies. Another quote, meanness and making fun were not allowed. Maybe this is why all the lies were started. Besides the fact that no one was allowed to live higher than anyone else. The United States- Except Jones. Yeah, of course. Jim literally did. He had a cottage where he ate just the finest meals. The United- This is a quote again. The United States allows classism. The problem being this and not all the side tracks of-

Black power, woman power, Indian power, gay power. So this is more like rationalizing what it is, even though they're ignoring the obvious fact that classism did exist here, even in this socialist community, in that Jim Jones was of a class above everyone else. And even things like the honor guard, you could see as a class of itself because they had more rights and more power there.

to exert over other people. So even, even in this state, classism and, and these kinds of things that they were apparently fighting against existed.

And then this final quote from the letter, we died because you would not let us live in peace, which is just an incredible thing to write when the whole thing was kickstarted by them shooting up some representatives of the United States who came to try to give people more rights, basically. It hurts. It hurts to see that the people were taken disadvantage of and led to this kind of mental condition by Jim Jones, where...

They're living in a different reality. They're living in Jim Jones's reality. And I don't think anything would have undone the brainwashing that they had experienced. Like, how do you solve that? How do you go...

and take a person like that who's writing this while bodies are dropping around them and re-acclimate them to society in a correct, you know, a more realistic way of thinking. Well, you can't. I think that's pretty evident from, was it Stephen? One of Jim Jones' sons who still looks back on it like pretty positively trying to rationalize his father as like a kind of misunderstood person with a good heart. It's like once you get that deep in there, it's so hard to break that spell. Yeah.

I think it depends on the person, right? Because yes, Steven's that way, but Jim Jones Jr. has been like an open, like critic of Jim Jones ever since, right? Or like, look at, look at the guy above, like he, sure. He was snapped out of it by his wife and kid being killed, Tim Carter, but he was in that cult, right? Like he was, if he was in the compound, he would have died too, but he came out of it. And also this letter, um,

Think about the position this person's in. They just drank something that gives them 10 minutes to die. Is that the time you start to question your belief? Or is that when you double down to try to make yourself feel better in your last moments? That is a very good point, actually. That is such a good fucking point, yeah. It's like a self-affirmation. Like, it's not his fault, it's not my fault, it's your fault. I mean, what are you going to do?

There's no problem.

Larry Layton, the person who left the compound voluntarily before and was involved in the shootout against the U.S. exploratory group at the airfield, he was kind of said to be like one of Jones's most passionate and loyal followers, was the only person eventually held accountable for any crimes that took place at the events. He was ultimately extradited, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.

Is Larry Layton the one who actually started shooting inside of the airplane? I think... I couldn't find direct reports if he was or not, but I think... Yes, okay. According to this one article I've pulled up, he was the one who started shooting inside of the plane. Yeah, when I was editing before, I was trying to figure out if that was the case. Yeah. Okay. The devastation was extensive in total...

In total, 909 people died. The US tried to get the bodies buried in Guyana, but there was pushback from the Guyanese government and the families of those deceased, so ultimately they airlifted them all back to America, which cost the government millions of dollars. Over the next year, the bodies had to be claimed by family members. Some were never claimed, as families could not afford the $500 it would cost in transport fees for a private burial.

Finally, the unclaimed bodies were laid to rest in Oakland Evergreen Cemetery in California. And the most recent kind of stuff that's happened about this was as recent as 2008 when money was raised to put two black granite stones that listed the names of those who died in Jonestown, including controversially Jim Jones himself. These were placed in the Oakland Evergreen Cemetery. And this has caused a lot of upset, obviously, and even lawsuits. But still to this day, Jim Jones's name remains on those graves.

granite stones which is I mean I would want I would not want I get it why I guess

I mean, like if it's, if it's a tally of those dead, sure. But it's also like a thing of respect. So I don't, it's like, if we were statistically counting up how many people died, we would include Jim Jones. If we were making a memorial for the people who died, I probably wouldn't include Jim Jones. It's the latter. This is meant to be a memorial to the people who died by putting, by putting the people, the person responsible for their death on the same memorial. Yeah. I don't like it. It feels weird.

It's an awful thing, in my opinion. That should be rectified. I don't understand why it even passed...

It implies to me that someone on the committee that put these stones there was a Jim Jones fan or something. I don't understand. He was real to me. Yeah. It's not about erasing him from history or anything or being like, this name should never be said like it's Voldemort. It's more about tying his name still to the victims in this situation feels very offensive to me.

Anyway, until the events of 9-11, what happened in Jonestown was the largest single incident of intentional loss of life in American history. Approximately 80 to 100 people survived the events. All the rest tragically died.

And that is Jonestown. The reason it's approximate is because there were, for one, there were kids born in Jonestown who escaped. There was never documentation of. There's some people whose bodies weren't found, but it's believed they escaped to nearby areas in South America and just stayed there. That's why it's kind of unknown. And it's not like there were really good documentation of who was at Jonestown for its duration, so it's very hard to get an

If I recall right, there were some people in Jonestown who were just South American who heard about it and decided to come over and live there. So there was a lot of different factors for people who lived and didn't live. But yeah, the largest intentional loss of life of Americans until 9-11. Yeah. Still to this day, if I recall right, the largest...

single mass hold on the largest massacre of americans by one individual yeah that would make if i recall right yeah civilians americans civilians yeah yeah yeah i would also believe that it's the largest unaliving event for americans as well

collective unaliving event regardless um yeah that's jonestown just a very very depressing tale of one man being able to convince a bunch of people to do the unspeakable uh and again goes back to the beginning uh he is in hell i can i can only hope he is in the furthest pit of hell

I can comfortably say he likely is. Likely. You got to put likely there just in case. Just in case he's listening. He's like, wait a minute. Then we get sued by Jim Jones' spirit. There's a verse in the Bible when Jesus is talking about the people who claim to be Christian, claim to be pastors and lead people and did evil things.

where it's talking about them at Judgment Day. It says, there will be many who stand before me and say, did I not prophesy in your name? And Jesus says, depart from me, you wicked servants, I never knew you. A lot of people look at that

Some people interpret that as like, oh, I can't be sure of my salvation because the Bible says there will be some people who prophesy for God and were never Christians, were never in faith. But it's not talking about that. It's talking about animals like this, right? Those who use prosperity, those who use wealth, the comfort of God as a means to push their own agenda. They're the people who God never knew.

People this evil, this demonstrably evil where even Jesus doesn't want to be their friend. There's no path to salvation for them. They're that beyond. You had your chance in life. You don't get a second one now. Not after you took it from so many people. Yeah.

Yeah, that's one of those things that I say this a lot, and it's totally up to the individual, but when it comes to like a truly evil person, I just can't quite rationalize those that forgive them. Because like, as you just mentioned, there are cases where even Jesus doesn't, right? Like where even Jesus wouldn't be their friend. After death at least, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's just one of those things where like, I just...

I don't get it. There are people that are just legitimately too far gone, don't deserve any type of forgiveness or empathy or anything.

But like if it's if it helps the individual find closure, then that's totally fine. But for others like outside that like forgive them like, oh, we need to learn to like let bygones be bygones and move on. It's a human being at the end of the day. I just don't get it. I just really can't fucking rationalize. I think it's important to understand that some people and in fact, a lot of people are just beyond salvation in that capacity. A hundred percent.

I think there is, I guess personal philosophy, I think there always is a way of salvation for, like in a religious sense. Like Paul, the greatest Christian who ever lived to many, began his life as a serial killer, effectively. He would hunt down Christians and execute them. And that guy became the leader of missions. So I think as far as God concerned, there's a way back. But as far as people are concerned...

I think there is a point you don't come back from. I think there is a point where... Imagine had Jim Jones not laid on a comfy pillow and...

gone along with everyone else imagine if he had been arrested what rehabilitation is there you know like what level of this guy is now once again a thing that can be trusted to exist like no I don't see it I don't you've lost that sure from from like a theological sense or in it in the terms of spirituality or religion right sure but on a on a modern understanding of people I guess I

this is far beyond the point where it's like there's no return rehabilitation if this isn't too far then I don't know what is yeah yeah

Man, you had me just looking up Paul here. Wait, that's a crazy fucking story. He was the leader of the church, the road to Damascus. He was on his way to hunt down and kill more Christians. And then God appeared in a beam of light and said, Paul, why hast thou forsaken me? From there, Paul dedicated his life to God. Yeah.

He wrote most of the New Testament letters. He became a leader for the church. God can bring people back from it, but that is people who are willing to listen. It's not animals who use his name to massacre hundreds of people. Just out of curiosity, though, the Christians that Paul murdered, would they not be slightly upset that the person that they believed in, they had faith in, then chose to forgive them?

forgive their killer? So I know this is kind of unrelated, but I think it's interesting. It is kind of tangentially related, I guess. The person who... So Paul, when the light shone down from heaven, Paul was blinded. It says he was blind, like couldn't see anymore. And then another Christian, I believe it was Ananias. I may have the name wrong, but a Christian was told by God or an angel, go to Paul and

and heal him and baptize him for he's now part of the church and an Ananias says absolutely not he's like are you insane you're just trying to get me killed you're going yeah yeah christian serial killer what are you talking about yeah there's no way and and uh the angel says i will show him or god says

Go to him. He will become a member of the church. I will show him what great things he must suffer for my namesake. He's telling him that this isn't going to be an easy road. He's not forgiven for everything on earth that he has committed. And like, it's, it's not like bearing up the cross and becoming one of the first people is, is something that is just lackadaisical. He can get over. Right. But it, it,

There's a forgiveness of God that surpasses understanding of humans, right? And God looked at the soul of Paul and knew what he had capability, what he had potential to be. Could any human have looked at Paul and say, oh yeah, this guy who's like killing Christians, selling women and kids into slavery, that guy's going to be the head of the church? I don't think so. But God...

God had an intention beyond us. And I think part of the reason God chose Paul is to show us that there is no too far gone. Anyone who says they're not good enough for Christ has no idea what they're talking about. I think that's part of the reason.

I get the core moral of the story there, that if you do a bad thing, there is a path to correcting the behavior and being a better person. I think that's important. I think, especially in a modern context as well, you always want to be improving. You don't want to be the same bad person that you were, for example. But again, in a modern sense, it's just so difficult to see these things committed to

or bad people being forgiven by other, especially unrelated people, being forgiven by them. It just hurts knowing that a lot of these people...

aren't actually salvageable i guess is what i'm trying to say like that there is no modern salvation for them maybe a spiritual salvation if if you want to go that direction but like not everyone if god sees it fit to make someone into something greater than themselves and that is his forgiveness that's something i'm certainly not capable of but um

There is a point of too far gone with humans, even if not with Christ on this side of eternity, at least. But yeah, Paul went from killing Christians to becoming the leader and founder of many, many churches. So that's the biggest reversal ever. That's impressive. That's why like the letters of Paul are so impactful for me, even if you aren't a Christian, because when he's writing to the church and he says things like, how can we neglect so great salvation? Or he says things like, um,

even one as shameful as I like that guy means it right. He knows what forgiveness means. So, but that again, that is entirely up to God. People like Jim Jones, at least on this earth, not interested. Yeah, you know, absolutely.

uh, so that's going to do it for this Jonestown episode. Did you guys have anything positive at the end? Yeah. Okay, here we go. I say, you just released a cheese video. Just shout that out. What a, what a gear shift. It's got to end with smiles to some degree. Send, send people over to your cheese video. Uh,

So I made a video about cheese. It's a video about a long-running conspiracy around the dairy industry and cheese and the USDA manipulating stuff around what's considered healthy, what isn't healthy to sell off a market they needed to support. It's a weird little rabbit hole, so come check that out on Wendigoon if you're interested. Yeah, go check it out. And what about you, Charlie? Give us something to smile about. What do you got cooking?

I've been really into magic cards again. So I've been playing a lot of Commander and that's been fun. This wasn't the things we like. I meant content-wise. Where can people go to smile? Not like that, Charlie! Not what you're enjoying outside of content. Not what makes you smile.

I ranked every fast food French fry recently with Matt. There we go. Go check that video out. That'll make you smile unless you don't like French fries or don't agree with Charlie's opinions. In which case, leave comments on that video telling him how you feel. Yeah, that's going to do it for Red Thread, though. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for sponsoring the show, Factor. Appreciate it. Feel free to like, subscribe,

what is it like subscribe all that kind of stuff uh comment yeah today we're in the jungles of guiana starting the compound share the video with your moms don't forget to do that we need an even larger mom audience uh thank you very much we'll see you next time in the red thread goodbye bye-bye see ya