We were being trained to survive under desperate conditions, with few comforts and little sleep. We were taught to put our faith in Jim Jones, our leader, and never to question him. We were to let go of such petty desires as living in a nuclear family. Father had a vision much greater than any we could have. None of us was evolved enough to understand or question him.
Whenever my inner voice began to caution me, Jim would intuit my doubt and quickly dispel my “capitalistic” anxiety. On one occasion, when he told us to close our eyes and pray while he turned the water into wine, I peeked. Suddenly he bellowed,
“For those nonbelievers, still too caught up in the material world, who cannot trust, who think they can secretly learn something and in the process only prove how small their minds are … Ha! … Shame on you! … I have turned the water into white wine!”
I was terribly embarrassed that he had seen me doubting. I promised myself I would no longer try to outsmart God. I would be devoted like Sweet Annie, whom I noticed the very moment I peeked. She had been coming to the meetings for a while as Carolyn’s guest and I could tell from her angelic face that she was not plagued by any doubts. Father was teaching us that doubting him was a sign of conceit and selfishness, vestiges of the material world that I was struggling to shed. He always knew how to address my hesitations and dilute my apprehensions.
“Darling, it is hard to give up one’s personal dreams for a communal vision, but through your sacrifices you will grow and benefit a hundredfold. You will be a revolutionary example to Annie when she graduates from high school and joins you at the dorms.”
There were always promises that greater responsibilities and excitement were in store for me:
“You are the only one I can really trust, Debbie.” Father would tell me, using this effective line again and again on my naïve and pliable mind, a line he used on many of us.
It wasn’t long before Jim granted me the very trusted role of Head of the Offering Room. It was a plush assignment. I was in charge of counting the collections from the services—thousands of dollars from each one—and was allowed to choose my own crew. I chose my favorite people: Stephan, Jim’s biological son, fifteen years old, six foot five, olive-skinned, smart, loud, and fun; Shanda, with beautiful milk-chocolate skin, a gorgeous smile, an infectious laugh and quick with numbers; and Robbi, her thick chestnut hair always neatly brushed off her face and the fastest dollar-bill counter in the world. Like Stephan, she had been a member since birth, her parents having been among the original disciples who followed Jim from Indiana. Now, I felt, I was part of the chosen few.
Jim’s public sermons were always geared to new members or potential new recruits. He’d go over the Temple philosophy, explaining in painful detail why he did what he did, why he said what he said, claiming he was the only God we’d ever know. The regular members dreaded these endless harangues, as many of them were already living Father’s teachings: they had sold their homes, handed over the proceeds to Father, and moved into church communes. The offering was a way to reap more money, above and beyond the members’ paychecks, the $65,000 a month in Social Security payments, and income from trust funds that already enriched the Temple’s coffers. These incessant offering calls during the public meetings were for new money from the guests. Jim explained that the donations were used to support all our humanitarian programs: feeding the poor, housing the homeless, getting young black addicts into rehabilitation programs administered by the church, and many more.
My crew had “clearance,” a buzz word for Jim’s approval and blessing, and was allowed to leave the auditorium when Jim called for yet another donation. The Offering Room was always outside the main auditorium and we were grateful, in fact joyous, to be released from the meetings. We spent the time not only counting the money but eating snacks and joking around while the others had to remain in the main meeting. We’d frequently fail to return to the meeting once our counting was completed. Some of the older counselors seemed to be jealous of our position, but I realize now that they were simply annoyed by our cavalier silliness. Their commitment was a serious matter. They had forfeited spouses, family, sex, sleep, and companionship to help create a better world. Of course we had to do the same, but it was not as painful for us. We had not risked and lost as much as the grown-ups. In many ways, our involvement with Peoples Temple was an adventure, complete with scary rides and the thrill of an unknown outcome.
Occasionally, the elders had the Offering Crew “brought up” for our infractions but we seldom got into serious trouble. Jim would take us aside and explain why the older counselors were angry, but he said that he understood how tiring the meetings were, that he truly appreciated our dedication and quick minds, and that we would need to be a little more discreet in the future so as not to look disrespectful of him. One afternoon, however, we were all paddled publicly after we were overheard giggling in the adjoining room as Father spoke of the coming catastrophe. The paddling was administered by a designated church elder. It was painful, but to show we could withstand torture when the time came, we each bravely took our turn in front of the congregation. Our backs to the crowd, our hands gripping the pulpit rail, we concentrated with all our might so we would not cry out in pain. When the meeting was over, Father summoned us to his private quarters and apologized. He explained that he had to punish us in order to show the congregation that he did not favor us. My welted bottom hurt less after his apology.
By 1973, public meetings were becoming longer and more frequent. In summer and on holiday breaks, the college kids were bused with the high-schoolers all over the continent into the ghettos of Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Seattle in order to proselytize and leaflet for Pastor Jones’s forthcoming appearances. From early morning until late evening, we canvassed homes, housing projects, and even condemned buildings where the world’s forgotten and forsaken had sought shelter. We trekked, tired yet enthusiastic, into dilapidated liquor stores and ramshackle markets to “Get out the Word,” “Promote the Cause.” There were times when, my feet swollen from twelve hours of walking, I felt the work was too hard, the days too long. It was my old capitalist desire for an easy life.
Every other weekend, the entire core family of 400 headed for Los Angeles to recruit more members. On Friday night we’d fill our eleven buses for the ten-hour drive, arriving in L.A. early Saturday morning. The youth group had to pamphlet the outlying areas, stand on street corners demurely requesting donations for our self-help projects, then rush back to the church, rinse off in a public lavatory, put on blue, full-length choir robes, and greet the visitors and potential new recruits at the front doors. With each contact, we encouraged the poor and downtrodden to “Come, hear, and rejoice in Reverend Jones’s miraculous healing powers.” During the service, we revitalized our new friends with our singing, clapping, praising, and rejoicing.
“Leave behind your hardships … Join us … Move west to California where all your needs will be taken care of … Sell your homes and belongings and live in a place where you will be secure forevermore.” There was even talk of a “Promised Land,” a place that Jim was preparing for us to escape to when the United States became even more hostile to those of color. I secretly looked forward to the rest and peace we’d find there.
The public meeting lasted the rest of Saturday afternoon and into the late evening. Then the Planning Commission had another meeting that began immediately afterward and continued into the early hours of Sunday. Before I gained membership in this hallowed group, I would leave the public meetings with Shanda and Robbi and go to the home of a wonderful black grandmother named Mary, who graciously took us in, fed us, and allowed us to sleep. Over the years, Mary and I became very close.
Sunday morning at ten, the service would begin again with singing and clapping, praises from grandmothers and young people about how Father had changed their lives. Then Jim would arrive at the podium, where he would teach and perform healings until four in the afternoon. We would then lo
ad up into our buses, cram into seats, sit in the aisles if necessary, or if we were lucky, find a place in the luggage rack above the seats where there was room to lie down. On Monday, disheveled and disoriented, we would resume our regular duties in San Francisco or Ukiah as students, city employees, professors, health care workers, social workers, or attorneys.
With school, studying, paramilitary training, Saturday and Sunday revival meetings, Wednesday night teach-ins, and Monday night dormitory socialism classes, we were occupied around the clock. My hard work paid off two years after my joining when, in the summer of 1973, Father rewarded my commitment, my discipline, and my weekly self-accusations for “treasonous thoughts” (like wanting a relationship with a “homosexual” man and even, perhaps, wanting a child) by asking that I join him and his most trusted disciples on the Planning Commission.
This august and exclusive governing body, which convened every Wednesday night from 8 P.M. until 4 A.M. and on Saturdays and Sundays after service from 6 P.M. until 2 A.M., discussed and formed decisions regarding every aspect of the church. I was a little hurt that Mark had been made a member the year before, but Jim comforted me. Men, he explained, were our weakest link. Without their spouses, the men on the Planning Commission had no backbone and were apt to falter.
“I need you,” he said. “You will be Mark’s backbone.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, since Mark had never been “weak.” He had always refused to have any sexual relations with me after our arranged marriage. But at least I was now catching up with him, and I knew I could surpass him. At my first meeting I was shocked to find Annie already a member and was immediately reminded of the time I peeked during the wine incident.
But with privilege also came fear and stress. Jim informed us of his plans for retribution if any members from the inner circle were to leave or betray the cause. There were veiled threats and innuendoes that some of the members who had questioned him or tried to leave had been “taken care of.” There were disappearances and even deadly accidents. One longtime member and father of three who had talked about leaving the church was mysteriously crushed between two railroad cars. Another member was killed driving her car because, Father explained, she was thinking negative thoughts. Families and individuals who were caught before they could leave were publicly beaten and put on “observation” until they had been reeducated. There was the secret rubber hose beating of a member who had molested a Temple child. Father made me watch the beating and had my photo taken holding the rubber hose, which paralyzed my questioning inner voice. And there was the bombing of a military supply train in Roseville, which Jim claimed he and a few others had executed. Each time I had finally calmed my nerves about one incident, another one would come along to haunt and terrorize me.
I was afraid for myself and troubled, but Father reminded me that punishments were deserved. The Cause demanded adherence to strict rules. “Sacrifice was the robe of the chosen few,” he told us again and again. “The end justifies the means.” Doubts were counterproductive. Mao and the Cultural Revolution could not have succeeded without the wholehearted support of the people. I did not know what to think. All I knew was that I had to persevere at any cost. I had to prove to myself and my parents that I could stay committed to a project and see it to the end.
My responsibilities grew. Jim determined that I should join the Diversions Committee. There were just a few of us. I often worked with Teresa, a tall, cute, thin, blond woman with an angular face who ate her fingernails and would soon become my mentor. We had several tasks. As a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, the church was restricted from engaging in political activities. Diversions “D”Committee was created in order to bypass that restriction. Its purpose was to secretly create social change by drafting letters in support of whatever legislation Jim favored, on untraceable typewriters purchased from thrift shops. The letters were handled and inserted into their envelopes by members wearing surgical gloves so that there would be no fingerprints. Our “D” typewriters were never used for official church business and were destroyed after each project. We produced hundreds of letters, typed and written in different handwriting, which were driven out of state and mailed from different locations to members of Congress and local government figures. There were also “reverse tactic” letters written to garner support for the Reverend. The letters looked as if they came from racists, angry at Jim’s attempts to help the poor and people of color. The correspondence exhibited unharnessed racism, using the term “nigger-lover” to describe him and his good deeds.
Jim created these “diversions” to bring his heretofore unknown name before the politicians. Suddenly, government officials were hearing about the humanitarian works of Jim Jones. This clever ploy would later offset serious public concern and criticism about the questionable tactics of the church. Through Jim’s deceit, many Californian politicians were gradually entangled in our web by coming to our defense or by responding to our gracious pleas for their help. Once Jim got to know them, they would sometimes confide their hopes, plans, weaknesses, and perversions to him. He often used the information to procure a better position on a committee for himself or to get the official to publicly praise him and the Temple’s work. Jim, in turn, would provide the “outsiders” with favors from within our church, for example, with an attractive staff member who had caught the politician’s attention. He would always send a trusted aide who might gain access through her visits to that politician’s home or office. Here again, the end justified the means.
In 1974, Mark was assigned the honor of going to our newly purchased Promised Land in Guyana, South America. Jim had met with officials there and was impressed by their socialist ideals and by their government, made up of blacks and East Indians. The fact that Guyana was a former British colony and that everyone there spoke English was also an added bonus. I was secretly hurt. I wanted to go. True to Father’s word, Mark was to be a guiding force in our future. But I was not completely sorry to see him leave and therefore exhibited mature support. We had been distant, as was required of loyal disciples, and I was tired of comparing myself to him. Shortly after Mark’s departure, I graduated from junior college. I had made the Dean’s Honor List and my parents, ecstatic about my success, wanted me to continue my education. Even though I saw less and less of them, I knew they missed me and were extremely proud of me.
Papa, however, had gotten a bad reputation with Jim after I reported my conversations with Papa almost verbatim. “Bugsy-girl,” he’d said, “I understand that is what Jim thinks, but it’s important to ask questions … have you originated any of these thoughts yourself? Even if what you have been taught is correct, it is important to research it for yourself.”
Father warned me that “the old man,” as he called Papa, had asked my eldest brother, Tom, to check on Larry and me. Soon thereafter, I was told I could not visit my parents without another member present. I knew this was Jim’s way of safeguarding my loyalty, but I was unaware during these supervised visits that my mother was a target. Over the following year, Karen and Teresa would become my mother’s best friends and gradually, over the next year, recruit her into the fold. I was jealous that they had clearance from Jim to spend so much time at my parents’ home.
When I was accepted into Antioch West College for Medical Sciences for training as an operating room technician, my parents were reassured. I was living in San Francisco and, unbeknownst to Jim, sneaked over to visit my parents, eat lunch, and sleep. School and study were intense, but I loved to assist the surgeons and was proud to know the procedures and which instrument to hand to the doctor before he had to ask. I grew comfortable with the hospital staff. Soon doctors were requesting that I be assigned to their operating room and even though I was still a student in training, I began to feel confident.
In 1975, just before my final certification examination, I was offered a position with a leading San Francisco surgical hospital. But Jim had noticed a slight change in my demeanor. It was as if he could
smell confidence and pride seeping out of my pores. My newly found self-assurance and burgeoning relationships with outsiders were becoming a threat, so Jim orchestrated a setup to rein me in and nip my ambitions in the bud. He called an emergency Planning Commission meeting in San Francisco. When I entered the room late, having returned from a nap at Mama’s house, I noticed that Sweet Annie and Teresa seemed nervous. For the first hour, Father spoke of moving our headquarters to San Francisco so he could be more accessible to the politicians. I knew something was wrong when Karen and Carolyn, who often sat near me, positioned themselves across from me, on the other side of Jim’s chair. Neither made eye contact with me. Then, Robbi, who had just turned eighteen and was new to the Planning Commission, stood up and announced that she felt I was acting treasonously.
I was shocked, and wondered if I had been seen visiting my parents. Next, Trisha stood and said she knew I was on the Diversions Committee. How could she know this? It was top secret and I had never mentioned my privileged position to anyone. Only Jim, Carolyn, and Teresa knew, and Teresa would never have betrayed me. Finally, Karen jumped up and said that I was too close to my parents and a spoiled brat. I was disturbed by her vehemence, but when Carolyn could not face my heartbroken gaze, I knew I had been set up. My inner voice screamed something at me, but I could not hear it.
Jim’s maneuver worked. From 7 P.M. until the next morning I was yelled at, spit on, and humiliated. Finally, my arms hanging stiffly at my sides, as was required of those being confronted, Father told me how disappointed he was in me and that I could no longer waste my precious and valuable energies outside.
“It was a vain and selfish aspiration. In the future you shall keep your ambition for me and the Cause, my darling.”
I was ordered to pack my belongings and immediately return to Ukiah, where I would have to work hard to prove myself again. When everyone had left the church, Father came to my room while I packed. He apologized for my harsh treatment and stroked my hair.
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