Addendum: The foregoing letter is dictated to me by our beloved pastor, Jim Jones, who is greatly concerned about you. What a friend to have, many who have been touched by this life and ministry gladly rise to call him blessed and to declare most emphatically that Jim is the most wonderful person alive today…. I am one of that number. Jim is a man of absolutely unimpeachable character, one who is continually involving himself in the practice of doing good for others, who gives and gives and gives of himself of his strength, and time, very often whole nights are spent in wrestling with some unfortunate’s problem, and seldom indeed is he fortunate enough to acquire two whole unbroken hours of untroubled rest a night. Far from doing spite to anyone or enriching himself at others’ expense, he is continually outgoing with deeds of kindness and love which very often necessitates a huge outlay of cash which is cheerfully given in any instance of need to friend or foe. He is a man whom to know is to love. That he has enemies is due primarily to his message of total equality for every race, creed or nation which premise is most scrupulously practiced himself. His love in which his devotees would love to bask, is just as real, tender and enduring for the smaller and weaker forms at his home, he takes in even poor deserted little things that come crying at his door for food or is left off at the edge of his property by hard, insensitive people. You should see his large foundling home. And, mark how sweetly they all get along together, big vicious dogs and feeble little kittens!
Our church, Peoples Temple, received coverage in some large newspapers, such as the San Francisco Chronicle which praised our position in our stand for social justice and as opposed to war. One of our projects is helping families of deceased policemen as well as peace workers who have been assassinated. Incidentally, we get hundreds of letters a week, all of which are faithfully answered. Jim wants you to know it is his pleasure to respond. In closing I wish to affirm that along with thousands of others I would not be alive today were it not for Jim who healed me of cancer, heart trouble and diabetes. Cancer which is the number one killer in the world today is Jim’s specialty. I can’t tell you how many I have seen that have come from pain-wracked bodies at his simple word of command. Sincerely, Jim Pugh, Sec.
I was seventeen years old and profoundly impressed by the importance the Reverend James W. Jones bestowed upon me. At last, what I had yearned for all my life happened, an important adult found me smart, worthwhile, and interesting.
4
Indoctrination
During the year that I was back at school in England, Peoples Temple members continued to demonstrate their concern for me through a concerted letter-writing campaign. I was told in glowing terms about the two radio shows Jim was doing in San Francisco and the wonderful Oregon vacation Jim took with 200 young people, many of whom were from inner-city ghettos and had never seen the ocean before. There were stories about near-death accidents that Jim had prevented, youth group outings, and summer craft fairs.
Although Carolyn had sworn me to secrecy about Jim’s past lives, I confided in Mark about having met the reincarnation of Jesus, who was now living in Ukiah as a revolutionary. Mark was impressed by my stories. On the morning of my written exams he wrote me a note.
Debbie,
Read the examination over first,
then go back and answer the questions
and remember, Jim loves you.
Love, Brutus
When my O-levels were completed and I’d finished school, I had already been successfully recruited into the fold. Ruth tried to convince me to stay with her, attend a trade school, and become a children’s schoolteacher. But the Temple’s pull was too strong. Flying home didn’t seem as scary any longer. I had a known destination and direction. I would be a member of a respectable group, an established organization that was helping the needy, the poor, and the underprivileged. I would move to Ukiah and begin a new life.
Joining was so easy, and I wanted to believe. I was searching for something meaningful and all-consuming. People had jobs that they were wed to, church duties they performed, children to care for, relationships that gave them strength. Perhaps I, too, would be able to feel that my existence was not in vain, that I had a purpose when I rose each day.
Mark came with me. He was only visiting for summer break and was scheduled to return to England to complete his Advanced Level studies before entering university. Once in Ukiah, however, he, too, was quickly seduced by massive amounts of adulation, flattery, and attention. Regularly, at the end of a long meeting Jim would call out in his contrived British accent:
“Where is Mark, my son?”
“Ova harr …” Mark would reply.
Everyone would chuckle as the six-foot-three-inch bloke stood to converse with Jim. Mark lent some comic relief to the long and dreary days that Jim had to push through. For all the suffering our leader had to endure trying to educate imbeciles, fight against racism, and worry about our futures, Mark Blakey, my Brutus, became Jim’s muse. When summer was over, Mark found it hard to leave. Jim told him he was desperately needed and hinted at new responsibilities. With so much love surrounding him, Mark stayed. Jim quickly arranged for me to marry Mark so that he would not be deported once his three-month visa ran out.
“But he’s supposed to go back and finish his A-levels,” I objected.
“Darling, don’t be jealous, I need him here. He has skills and charm and abilities this organization needs,” Jim explained patiently.
“But his parents expect him. His brothers and sister will be upset. And the school is expecting him to return as Head Boy.”
“Honestly, darling, you have much to learn.” Jim looked at me curiously, his voice calm and assuring. “What is more important, helping the poor or finishing school? He’ll learn more with us. He is leadership material. His experiences on his family’s farm, his agricultural expertise, may come in handy in our future.”
When Mark’s mother came to America, furious and determined to take the eldest of her four children home, she found herself the center of Jim’s and Carolyn Layton’s attention. By now, Carolyn had become quite powerful in the church and was Jim’s only true confidante. Mrs. Blakey was catered to and indulged, perhaps even made to believe her son was being groomed for some important role in the organization, which in fact he was. A new Temple member, Tim Stoen, who was also a respected San Francisco assistant district attorney, invited her to stay at his home. His beautiful wife, Grace, chauffeured Mrs. Blakey everywhere through San Francisco and the wine country of Sonoma County. Finally, convinced that the Temple was the best place for her son, she returned to Northumberland alone.
Jim continued to pull both Mark and me into his universe. He gave us a sense of importance, and in return, we handed our will over to him. His presence filled my inner emptiness and gradually his life’s work became my own. It was easy to be part of Jim’s world; it was already created, furnished, had friendly inhabitants, instant friends, established rules, and boundaries. Jim was kind and attentive. He told me that I could accomplish anything I set my heart on. I flourished. I became a part of the “skits” troupe, an elite group of individuals whose task was to put on performances explaining why capitalism was bad and socialism good. We made our points by spoofing the political system. Father explained that this was the “common man’s way” to educate the misinformed and ignorant. After each Family Teach-in performance, Jim came and applauded my ability to grasp the Cause’s doctrine and to communicate it to the congregation. Although I missed my parents, I knew I had to succeed at something, and this was my last chance. My new father was strict, believed in “tough love,” and didn’t let me sneak around the rules. He challenged me, inflated my self-esteem with praise, and made me feel safe.
My parents had hoped I would attend the University of California at Davis as had my siblings, but the SAT exams my parents arranged that I sit for in Liverpool, England, indicated I needed a jump start at junior college. They were a little apprehensive about my going to the Temple’s college dormitory, but
they knew I needed structure for my first year. One of my American high school friends had been murdered eighteen months earlier, and Mama and Papa were afraid of my returning to my hoodlum crowd.
Now, as I calmed down, became more confident and determined to succeed, they were amazed and relieved. I was actually maturing. Some concern remained, however, as I, like Larry, visited them less and less frequently. Even Christmas and Thanksgiving now had to be spent with my new family.
Mama began to reevaluate her own life, I imagine, while she marveled at my transformation. She surmised that this church, which appeared to espouse socialistic beliefs (she read about them in the newspaper), might be a safe place to make her own flight away from a life of frustration and sorrow. I was proof that people could change and that there was a better life. She later told me that she felt her life had been built upon sand. She believed she had taken more from America than she had given back. She wanted to be a part of something meaningful at last.
Unknown to her, however, as my weeks inside the Temple turned into months, I began to feel a twinge of homesickness and with it a deep feeling of guilt. I missed my parents, I missed the occasional drag on a cigarette, but worst of all I secretly hated the all-day and all-weekend revival meetings. I knew these meetings were important. Jim had explained to me how he and I needed to help the poor, how those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought into enlightenment—socialism. But being a humanitarian was a full-time job and I was not used to such altruism.
But I felt even more guilt on the fleeting occasions when I wished I hadn’t joined. Father kept my treasonous thoughts in check by warning us that leaving the church would bring bad karma. He reminded us in his sermons that those who had chosen to join were here because we were on the verge of crossing over to the next plane. Without his help, we would not make it. Those who left or betrayed the Cause in any way would be reincarnated as the lowest life form on earth and it would take us another hundred thousand years to get to this point again. I didn’t want to start over as an amoeba.
I began writing myself up and reporting on my negative thoughts. I felt it kept me in check. Nuns and priests went to confession, I told myself. I was in control when I reported on my treasonous thoughts, playing the snitch in order to better myself. Over time, I became the perfect vessel for my leader’s dogma.
The process of controlling new members began immediately and intensely and I’m not sure I’ll ever know what prevented us from seeing through his deceit,. his lies, and his manipulations. Only a few days after joining, I learned that “All men are homosexuals, except for Jim.” I was stunned, but when the information was not disputed by anyone, I obediently believed it. When I heard Larry and Karen’s bed rhythmically creaking at night, I figured Larry and Karen didn’t yet know that he was a “homo.” It even made me doubtful of Mark. I became terribly embarrassed for the men I knew, wondering why they had all pretended otherwise.
I was even more ashamed for the men I knew when the Reverend taught us that men who grew hair around their mouths really wanted to be “pussies.” When I noticed the painted sideburns on Jim’s cheeks, it didn’t occur to me that he might have felt threatened by the virility of men who had voluminous amounts of facial and chest hair and that was why he forbade his male followers to expose their hair.
This kind of warped logic was just one of the many devices Jim used to control the congregation. He intended to discourage any bonds with the opposite sex that might compromise our allegiance to him. It never seemed odd to me back then that only men were homosexuals. I could not see the sickening duplicity, the clever deception, that made Jim out to be the “only real man” and his male cravings the only valid ones.
Soon thereafter I understood that church policy prohibited sexual relations between members. We were taught that sex was selfish and harmful because it took our thoughts away from helping others. Jim said that in every important organization before ours, sex had always lured the weak away from the path of truth. Lust and desire were character flaws. If one were to be truly devoted, one had to abstain. Those caught not abiding by the rules would be publicly confronted. If they were married, the women had to declare that it was Father they had always thought of and fantasized about when they were with their husbands. These embarrassing proclamations, coerced by Jim and his staff, were meant to discourage all of us from any form of closeness with each other.
Young, malleable, and eager to conform, I tried to shelve and forget my yearnings for boys and a relationship. I was becoming distrustful of men. But it was harder to maintain my asexual equilibrium after Jim arranged my marriage to Mark. That the union was never consummated on the few occasions I saw Mark was a result of his devotion to Father, not mine.
I tried to be the perfect follower and student, but life in our Santa Rosa college dorm was arduous. I had to prove myself to the resident enlightened Temple students because I was new, white, and from the privileged class. So I became a chameleon and learned to change identities quickly.
Brenda, a newly found friend, suggested that I try a different look. “Girl, your skin’s too brown to be a honky’s.” We purchased an easy home perm kit and, with care and determination, administered the magic to my head. After less than an hour, I pulled my fingers through my cotton candy hair. It looked full and big, like Angela Davis’s. When I looked at myself in the mirror I was transfixed by my transformation. Brenda and I took a collective breath and stared at a person we did not know. She was awesome! Not a WASP, not a honky, but “Solano,” a hip, militant Chicana. Almost as impressive as Angela Davis, the one woman outside the Temple whom Father admired and constantly spoke of.
I adorned myself with big hoop earrings and became comfortable with my new identity as the weeks passed. I was actively doing what Father said we should do: “Know how the other half lives.” I felt sure I had taken a bold step in the right direction.
When the new quarter started, I registered for a Chicano Studies class. In this politically correct environment, I gained what I thought was a deep understanding of oppression. My white bourgeois mind developed into enlightened Chicano outrage. In class, I raised the race issue at every opportunity and verbally attacked Caucasians, pointing out all the faults of the rich white oppressor. Well versed in this rhetoric from our Family Teach-ins, I became the spokesperson for my Mexican-American classmates and all other oppressed people. When we had the occasion of hosting a guest lecturer, my professor touted me as a shining example of a self-aware Chicana. It didn’t strike me that I was repeating my childhood tendency of telling stories and lies and I never worried about being phony because I had already learned from Father that the end justifies the means.
On one occasion, I got so caught up in my new identity that I slapped one of my white roommates in the face during one of our highly volatile college catharsis meetings. The purpose of these meetings, one hundred miles from Father’s aura was to “come into the truth,” bare our selfish souls, and admit to our weaknesses. I became incensed when Jenessa stood up, her blond hair coifed and obviously bleached, and announced, confident in her whiteness, that she was unwilling to continue in the catharsis. When she questioned the lightness of the meetings we were having outside of Father’s purview, I smacked her in order to correct the wrongness of her thinking. She wrote me up.
Jim was not pleased. I had to stand before the congregation and explain why I had hit my comrade in the face. After acknowledging my misdeed, I was reprimanded by Jim and told to let my hair grow out—this was not the way Father had intended I apply his teachings.
“After this grotesque breach of judgment, your meetings are forbidden,” Father declared. “Having Angela Davis’s hair does not make you an outspoken radical of her intelligence. Read If They Come in the Morning and I expect a written analysis of her thesis next week, Solano Layton.” There was a faint rustle and I thought I heard someone snicker. “Each of you must continue to write up your worries and treasonous thoughts. I know your t
houghts, I have heard them in my mind. But you must write them up. I cannot do all the work for you. We must each take responsibility for your own progress. As always, if you have any concerns about a comrade, bring it directly to me.” He nodded at Jenessa. “I will determine who and what types of situations are worthy of confrontation or forgiveness.” Then his eyes rested on me.
“And you …” I stood again, respectfully and obediently, as was expected of anyone being confronted. “You must receive what you thought your right to inflict upon Jenessa.” As instructed, my victim hit me back in the face. Only then was I allowed to apologize to her.
I had joined Peoples Temple only six months before and I had already fallen from grace. But I was not defeated. I was determined to make my way to the top and this was only a stumble. I would work hard and regain Father’s respect. I knew in my new socialist head that despite my occasional fears and misgivings, Father’s cause was where I should be.
In the months that followed, the college students began some paramilitary training to prepare for the post-nuclear world. We jogged every night, practiced field navigation using a compass and flashlight, studied guerrilla tactics, memorized portions of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, and sang “The Internationale” at the close of each evening devotion.
We learned that our weakest man was as critical to our operation as the leader. We knew that we needed to persevere and stay in good physical condition because one day, when the Third World War began, Jim would need us to lead the people through the inevitable nuclear holocaust. As we sang, “… we’ll tear down our planet’s false foundation, Then build a better world anew,” we were told that we, the youth of Peoples Temple, would be in charge after the devastation.
Seductive Poison Page 8