Talk:Jim Jones

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[edit] Conspiracy theories

I'm surprized that there's absolutely nothing on conspiracy theories regarding this whole affair, given that the US government still refuses to hand over some of the relevant documents? Arahmim1 22:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there are at least four different and substantial conspiracvy theories about Jonestown. Of those, 3 link up with other world/govt conspiracy theories. I've managed to find a couple of good academic sources on them and I do plan to put in a brief section on it. I don't want to go hog wild though. The theories are elaborate and since they tie back to others, I think just a little bit about what they are with wikilinks to related topics should be sifficient. Of course, i'll cite my sources. I found a great site with lots of survivor narratives and it has good info about the tragedy itself that I'd like to include in the main article. JIm and Marcheline's biological son Stephan survived becuase he was away from Jonestown playing basketball. His narratives are heartbreaking but insightful. LiPollis 20:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Just because the gov doesn't "hand over" documents doesn't imply a conspiracy. Seems kind of silly to me, why would there be a conspiracy anyhow? He left the country and wanted to be left alone... US Gov doesn't "hand over" documents anyhow, have you made a FOIA request? I've heard of no such thing, and there is no record of a FOIA denial regarding Jim Jones or Jonestown in the FBI's records.IzaakB (my Talk)contribs 14:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why persist in calling this a mass suicide?

The bulk of the available reputable sources on this event state that most of the people who died in the event were murdered. To call this a mass suicide, without any modification, is grossly inaccurate. To call it a mass murder/suicide would be more accurate, and would provide room to clarify that many of the people who died did not in fact commit suicide.

[edit] Untitled Conversation

User talk:82.35.153.30 Hi where is your reference that at the mass suicide at Jonestown people were injected with poison? I have never read it. I will revert your change unless you give the references. Andries 18:59, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I didn't make the edit, but there is ample evidence for this:

"The results of pathology examinations conducted by Guyanese coroner Leslie Mootoo however, revealed his belief that as many as 700 of the victims were murders, not suicides. Mootoo claims that in a 32-hour period he, and his assistants, examined the bodies of 137 victims. They had all been injected with cyanide in areas of their bodies, which could not have been reached by their own hand, such as between the shoulder blades; many other victims had been shot. Charles Huff, one of the seven Green Berets who were the first American troops on the scene following the massacre, claimed that “We saw many bullet wounds as well as wounds from crossbow bolts.” Those who were shot appeared to have been running toward the jungle, away from the compound, at the time they were shot."

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/jonestown/connections_5.html?sect=8

How many areas does a human body actually have that can not be reached by ones own hand? Jcbos 01:36, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistent with article People's Temple

The People's Temple article states that the reason for Jim Jones moving to Guyana was because of claims of abuse and fears of the outside world trying to destroy the group. This article states it was for Tax Evasion. Which is correct?

Leo Ryan brought a laundry list of complaints with him to Guyana, which came from various government agencies and private individuals. In other words both are correct and there's more. --Robert Helms

i also read that Jones so "holy" with his psychic powers that many believed he had, from his knowledge of particular followers private information. They believed he could see into the future and he claimed that a major nuclear war was immenant, based on Jones' increasing insanity, researchers believe he actually believed this was going to happen

The number of deaths is stated to be 914, whereas in the Jonestown and Peoples Temple articles is 913 (or 911). Which number is correct?

The article on the People's Temple states that the poison's flavour was grape, while this article states the flavour as cherry. Sorry for remarking on such a trivial point. Apwith 10:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name

The early life section talks about "Travis Jones", was this his real birth name and if so, when and under what circumstances was it changed?

[edit] Education

Someone should verify this but I have heard Jim Jones is an IU Grad from the Kelly School of Business.

[edit] Homosexuality

I have reverted this page back to include the comments on the arrest and alledged homosexuality. My understanding is that the arrest took place in a movie theatre although a later edit has changed this to a park (I will have to check this further). The comment about being the "one true hetereosexual" is, I believe, true (although I did not make this edit).

I will look to provide sources, however, I would say that a Google search on the relevant keywords should provide some evidence to support these facts. TigerShark 07:17, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Big Sentence

There is a large run-on sentence in this entry that needs to be trimmed up. There are parenthesis in it and without the words in the parenthesis (and even with them) it makes little sense.

[edit] Origins and influences

Sociologist Gordon Melton wrote:

Jim Jones was the pastor of the Peoples Temple, a large California congregation of the prominent liberal Protestant denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Jones had become an advocate of a radical form of Marxist liberation theology, then a popular perspective in liberal Protestantism. However, while he was praised within his denomination and other Protestant churches, for his social outlook and work on racial harmony, he was not without his harsh critics. In 1977, he moved with hundreds of his church members, mostly African Americans, to Guyana, where the church had previously established a small agricultural colony [1]

So I think the article should mention his previous connection to mainline Christianity, as well as any influences (such as Marxism) which prompted him to depart from the mainstream. The media makes him sound like an independently spawned monster. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:14, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

you should also mention that JOnes was one of the first pastors to integrate blacks into a mainstream congregation....something that didnt fly well in Indiana.....

joeyjosef@yahoo.com

[edit] Why is this article so awful?

I mean, really. There's more about whether or not he was gay than about the whole Jonestown business. There's stuff in the Jonestown article which could be imported. john k 14:52, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I admit that this article is really bad. I had put this article on requests for expansion months ago but to no avail until now. Andries 17:56, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dear Wiki Folks, This article is not "awful." It is preposterously and horrbly bad. I researched a film on Peoples Temple and Jonestown a few years back and let me tell you, any survivor or relative of a deceased member will be very insulted by it. I got pretty insulted myself. I don't know where to begin with the mistakes and gross misunderstandings, but I can see that none of its authors, nor all of them collectively, have even a basic knowledge of the subject. This is a very large subject, friends. Dabbling in it will come to no good and will only mislead. Please don't expand it. Kill it and replace it. --Robert Helms

[edit] Removal of homosexuality info

I do not think that removal of information is a good or acceptable way of balancing the article. I do not have the impression that the focus on his homosexuality here is used to defame homosexuals if that is reason of the removal. Andries 18:27, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Removal of information is not the same as removal of irrelevant information. This is an encyclopedia, not autobiography of every single thing about this person. Encylopdedias are for concise, important, relevant history of a person, not a book about anything and everything for mile long articles that have little value. More should be focused on his impact on the world and not so much his sexuality. -Anemos 07:24 04 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, I think his sexuality is relevant information.

Given his assertion of heterosexuality, and allegations of his agressive punishment of a homosexual Temple member, this is totally relevant information. (this unsigned comment was made by 134.84.220.32 16:43, 4 April 2007 )

[edit] Claim to be a reincarnation of Father Divine?

Father Divine died in 1965 after Jones was born. So the assertion that Jones claimed to be reincarnation of Father Divine does not make sense to me. Any explanations? Andries 21:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Jones didnt claim that he was FD reincarnated....he said that FD's spirit came to rest on him....that he was FD in a new body.......(Raven, pg. 140)

joey joeyjosef@yahoo.com

Joey, could you please edit this article and use reliable references (Raven?). U seem to know a lot about the man. Thanks. Andries 22:13, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Jones met Father Divine a few times in person and attempted without success to take over Divine's operation after his death. Philadelphia, where Divine was based, was one of the cities visited many times by Jones' traveling bus tours, and where many converts were brought in. The idea presented by Divine, that he was God, was attractive to Jones because it brought the followers under more full control. That's why he adopted that line. --Robert Helms

[edit] Was Stephan Jones murdered? Please provide references

Please provide references within one week for the following sentnence or I will remove it. The sentences looks doubtful to me because Stephan is described in the quite recent book Hearing the voices of Jonestown by Mary McCormick Maaga as alive and kicking. Thanks.

"[Stephan Jones] died when someone put a bullet into his head from a close range shotgun shot, apparently because of revenge by a Mundy whose family was killed in the suicide."

Also, what does the word "Mundy" mean? It is not in two dictionaries that I checked. Please use only standard English: this is an international encyclopedia in English language. Andries 09:25, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Steve Jones was not murdered. I saw him last year and he looks fine. --R. Helms Stephan Jones is still alive. He is married and has two kids.

[edit] Autopsies

I read in the book by McCormick Maaga, in contrast to what had been written in this article that only about a dozen corpses received autopsies. I have corrected this. I do not remember the exact nr. so I wrote "less than twenty". Andries 14:30, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citations and keeping the untruths out of this article

In general, I urge all contributors to this article to read reliable sources and to cite them accurately because there seems to be many myths about the man and we have to be strict to keep the nonsense and disinformation out of this article (the autopsie mistake hereabove is a good example). I am aware that there is much to improve regarding citation and attributing opinions, and dates in this article and I am co-responsible for this, but I cannot do it alone. Thanks. Andries 14:30, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Friends, The two best sources for information on Peoples Temple are:

1. Raven: The Untold Story of Reverend Jim Jones and His People by Tim Reiterman. E P Dutton, New York, New York, 1982.

2. The website “Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple” whose URL is http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/

Please, everyone, read as much of this material as you can (set aside a few weeks) before you expect any person who knows a lot about this topic to take what you say about it seriously. --Robert Helms

[edit] CIA

Any connection between Jones and the CIA? My first clue was a Michael Franti lyric that goes, "the CIA runnin’ like that Jones from Indiana but they still won’t talk about that Jones in Guyana", and web investigation revealed that the LaRouche people connect him to CIA mind-control operations. That bunch is pretty nuts but a lot of their research is solid (even though their conclusions may not be). Is there anything to this? Or are we just going to have to wait till the documents are declassified?--Rockero 20:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

There is no solid evidence as to whether or not Jones was a member of the CIA. It is mainly a theory presented by conspiracy theorists whose only backing is speculation..

[edit] Advice or order?

I think that Jones word about the suicide was an advice, not an order. Of course, Jones had big authority so the followers have seen Jones' advice as an order, but he voiced his view on the suicide as an advice. Here is the transcript of the final speech, just before the suicide. [2]

"JONES: (Inaudible.) ... Don't, don't fail to follow my advice. You'll be sorry. You'll be sorry. If we do it, than that they do it. Have trust. You have to step across. (Music.) We used to think this world was--this world was not our home--well, it sure isn't--we were saying--it sure wasn't.

He doesn't want to tell them. All he's doing--if they will tell them-- assure these kids. Can't some people assure these children of the relaxation of stepping over to the next plane? They set an example for others. We said --one thousand people who said, we don't like the way the world is.

VOICE: Take some.

JONES: Take our life from us. We laid it down. We got tired. We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world. "

Andries 21:34, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jim Jones the Rapper

I hope you guys are aware that there's a rapper called Jim Jones, and his name leads here with no redirects to his page at Jim Jones (rapper). I Am Ri¢h 01:07, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Whom did Jones murder?

This article categorizes Jones as a mass murderer and murderer. But I think there is no evidence that he personally ordered mass murder. Yes, he advised suicide, but mass murder? Where is the evidence? I also think that the evidence that he was a murderer is doubtful. He has probably ordered the murder of members of the Ryan visiting party, though I do not think this is proven. Does ordering someone to murder make someone a murderer? I do not know about this. Comments and references are requested. Thanks Andries 21:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Considering that there were almost certainly people who resisted the mass suicide at Jonestown and were force-fed or involuntarily injected with the poison, as well as it being fed to children who had no idea of what they were doing, it is reasonable to call him a mass murderer. And yes, legally, someone who orders another to commit a murder is responsible for it. And if you don't think Jones was aware of what was going to happen to the senator Ryan, listen to the suicide tape.24.151.79.108 06:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

There are many examples of someone being responsible for the orders they give, from murder-for-hire to Adolf Hitler. How many people did Hitler himself personally kill? A few, grant you, but he is generally regarded as being responsible for millions of deaths -- he did not personally kill every one of them. When you are in authority and it is expected others will carry out your orders, ordering the death of someone is itself an action that kills and makes one personally responsible for the act of killing. --Chibiabos 10:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monkey Salesman

"Jones was selling pet monkeys to raise money to start a church." (from the San Francisco Chronicle)

"After working as a hospital orderly and a methodist minister, he founded his own church in 1953, which he at first financed by working as a door-to-door monkey salesman."

"A failed door-to-door monkey salesman, Jim Jones (1931-1978), founded his own church in 1953, which he later renamed The People's Temple Full Gospel Church."

A photograph of Jones with a pair of monkeys.

Biography did a Jim Jones episode in which they state that he was a door-to-door monkey salesman.

My conclusion is that Jim Jones was a door-to-door monkey salesman. Ecto 21:30, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, such ready made sources really help to improve the article. Many thanks again. (I had read that Jones sold monkeys but to collect references and links etc takes time) Andries 21:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I removed it again, because my request for a cite in the article was not done. If you would put a cite in the article, please re-add it. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:18, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm new here. I don't know how to make a cite. Could you please point me in the direction of a manual? Or maybe you could do it, if it's not too much effort. I suggest the above San Francisco Chronicle link. Thank you.Ecto 05:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Zoe, removing contents that are not yet referenced in the article itself, but abundantly referenced in the talk pages does not strike me as constructive. I willl re-insert it incl. the reference. Andries 09:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The assertion without a cite was repeatedly inserted despite requests to cite evidence. User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The assertion was removed despite the immediate availability of evidence to cite. Going through the effort of removing it when there was a citation ready-made on the talk page was a waste of time, regardless of your request. No worries. Ecto 23:24, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey folks. I fixed your monkey salesman link problem. Pschelden

[edit] Huge penis: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

The article states that Jones had a huge penis. I think this is an extraordinary difficult to verify claim that requires extraordinary evidence. There is a citation for it, but I think that we need at least two independent citations for that. Thanks. Andries 23:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd call that vandalism. I removed the following:

'Jones had a massive penis which he used "in the name of Christ"^[1]. {{fact}}

No, it was John Dillinger and Jimi Hendrix that had the huge penises. A fixation on sex will be the saddest of many possible ways to misunderstand the Jonestown affair. --Robert Helms

[edit] Date of death

According to one of the audiotapes found at the Jonestown compound, Jim Jones was apparently alive long enough on November 19 (the day following the massacre) to record shortwave news reports about the massacre. This site, which is clearly the authoritative non-government source of knowledge about the entire event, conclude that it may or may not be Jones' voice on the Nov. 19 tape, and apparently some survivors who knew Jones have identified the muffled male voice on that tape as Jones'. That being the case I'm going to alter his date of death to "November 18-19(?)".

[edit] Audio tape

According to the reviews(I don't have the stomach to listen to it) on this audio tape which was recording upto and including the start of the mass suicide Jones claims to have been the one who shot Leo Ryan. http://www.archive.org/details/ptc1978-11-18.flac16

I believe the quote in question was something like "Are you going to separate yourselves from whoever shot the senator? I won't--I don't know who shot him, but as far as I'm concerned, I shot him." Meaning that Jones, as well as everyone else at Jonestown, was equally responsible for the senator's death, and they all had to face the consequences. 24.151.79.108 06:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LGBT categories

I removed the two LGBT categories. In part, it is because the article provides insufficient information to imply that Jim Jones was actually homosexual or bisexual. I see no reference to him identifying as homo-/bisexual (in fact he said he was the only true heterosexual). I also see no evidence saying that his same-sex acts were frequent enough to merit him being labelled otherwise. Having sex with a man once does not necessarily make you bisexual, as odd as that may sound to some. I'm not saying he wasn't, but in order for the cat to make sense there needs to be more information given or everyone who was ever curious will suddenly appear in the cats. - BalthCat 04:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

"Having sex with a man once does not necessarily make you bisexual" that's a POV. Devilmaycares 23:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

As is saying it does. The wiktionary definition is "being sexually attracted to persons of the same sex", and speaks nothing of actions. Actions may imply but do not certify bisexuality. So, in the absense of self-identification and evidence it isn't an isolated incident... unless there's a source that has analysed his actions and defined him as bisexual or repressed homosexual, I'm thinking it's inappropriate to add the cats. - BalthCat 00:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

grumbles* well I'll grant that this is a point of view on both our parts and you've been very nice about it so I'll go with your stance on this article. Devilmaycares 04:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality of the word "cult"

As anybody who has read the first sentence of this article, as I found it today before my edit, can tell you, the first sentence of this article states that the Peoples Temple is/was a cult. Now, as anybody who has read the Wikipedia article on cult can tell you, that aricle states that "In common usage, "cult" has a negative connotation, and is generally applied to a group by its opponents, for a variety of reasons."

Is Wikipedia the "oppenent" of the Peoples Temple? I would surely hope not. I emplore someone who feels brave enough to suffer the slings and arrows of a revert war to delete this the word "cult" from the firs sentence of the article, unless it can be proven that it belongs. Zombiebaron 22:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I changed the word cult to group (which is used elsewhere in the article consistently) and linked the first sentence with the second. I also removed the Neutrality tag. Izaakb 19:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] His death

The article is not particularly clear. Did he commit suicide? Was he killed by someone else? Was it never clear how the gunshot wound was inflicted? Nil Einne 17:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

People's Temple There is no evidence to prove that Jones had committed suicide or that he was murdered. We will probably never know. - Christina 20:03, 13 November 2006

[edit] History Channel

An editor posted this information and I removed it for unencyclopedic information. Please wikify and provide source information and clean it up if it is to be re-added. (i.e. "History Channel recently made...") This is not a 'current events' article.

History Channel Presentation The History Channel recently made a presentation of real film mixed with reenactments of the building of Jonestown, the horrors within the town, and the end to it. It was presented in a timeline fashion. Within two hours, the viewer would see five days (Nov. 15-19), including the day of the mass suicide. It also contains interviews from survivors, including Jim Jones' son, Stephan.

[edit] Suicide and Children

Its a widely held belief that persons too young to tell right from wrong cannot be responsible for life or death decisions, and based on that, the statement "909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, committed mass suicide" might be somewhat contradictory: can it really be suicide if an individual is unaware (such as a child would be unaware) that drinking something made to taste like a kid's drink could kill them or even what death is? Isn't suicide the intentional taking of one's own life?

It is a good point philosophically, but aside from the legal discussion, if you put a gun you think is unloaded to your head and pull the trigger -- and it fires and you die -- you may not have had the intention to kill yourself (proximate cause) but you DID in fact kill yourself (actual cause). "Suicide" is both a legal and a non-legal term, each having a different definition. I think the use of "suicide" with regard to the children is appropriate even if they were unaware they were drinking poison or could legally choose to die.Izaakb 20:49, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Really? So when someone poisons a drink and gives it to a child without telling the child it's poison, it is called suicide. I call that murder.Azn Clayjar 20:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drug Abuse

To my knowledge Jim Jones abused meth and other hard stimulants, not marijuana and LSD. You can't really "abuse" marijuana and LSD in the same way other drugs are abused. No other person has every become this "wacko" from psychedelic use, at least not in the way Jim Jones went crazy. Meth is more known to make people angry and rant in the way he often did (much like Hitler and his amphetamine abuse). Please cite evidence for what has been claimed. Zachorious 03:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I have no historical knowledge about Jones' substance habits, but I do have quite a bit of knowledge about marijuana and LSD. I will assume that the word abuse means addiction here. It is debatable whether marijuana can cause addiction, since user can go "cold turkey" after years of use with no withdrawal symptoms. LSD, on the other hand, severely discourages addiction, since after about 3 days of frequent use its effects start to diminish rapidly.

The statement

"His drug abuse (including various LSD and marijuana experimentations)..."

taken from the Jim_Jones#Jonestown_and_mass_murder-suicide section, is both judgmental and self contradictory. (Please excuse my poor Wikipedia quoting skills.) It is selfcontradictory because, by the time experimentation becomes abuse, it has ceased to be experimentation. It is subtly judgmental because it implies that any entheogen use is abuse, and abuse itself is a loaded word. To me, being so close to a tally of the dead (including the a separate tally of the dead children), it seems to shift the blame for Jones' character flaws onto the drugs. Coming from a land with a strong tradition of entheogen use for ritual, religious and medicinal purposes, this is quite unacceptable to me.

I would like two changes. Firstly, I think that the drug use issue merits its own paragraph. Secondly, the word abuse ought to be substituted for addiction (which is fairly impossible with LSD), if such was the case, and if so it needs to be properly documented. I am not contesting his use of these entheogens, but a convincing case is only made for pentobarbital addiction.Apwith 14:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political life

We need some information on his political ties in San Francisco (his appointment by Mayor George Moscone as Housing Commissioner, apparently (needs citation?) as a reward for helping elect Moscone). 198.150.76.150 18:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

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