Status Updates From Cult City: Jim Jones, Harve...

This explains the Dirty Harry movies. “The androgynous Mr./Ms. Satan, who flip-flopped on his/her gender, nevertheless took a strong stand for candor when he/she revealed his/her four unjust confinements in mental institutions…Jesus Christ Satan boasted experience as an elected official—a ward boss …(of) psychiatric patients in the Napa State Hospital had elected him/her their president.”

City = loony bin party, from Emperor of the United States Joshua Abraham Norton, to Harvey Milk the reinvention machine, to door-to-door salesman turned charlatan miracle worker Jones. “In the upside-down universe of San Francisco, a secular Jew pledged faith in the avowed god at the head of an ostensibly Christian sect, while the man of God stood by the open advocate and enthusiastic partaker of hedonism.”

Armed guards early on, before they gunned down a Senator in Guyana. “San Francisco Examiner religion editor Lester Kinsolving, an ordained Episcopal priest…(Temple guards) prevented his photographer from entering the house of worship with his camera and who closely monitored their movements.”

Clandestine intelligence gathering. “Jones had a way of knowing: a secret squad of Peoples Temple insiders burglarized homes, posed as telephone survey takers, and rummaged through the garbage to glean medical, dietary, and other personal information. Jones maintained, ‘People’s refuse always tells the truth about them’.”

False Christ performing false signs and wonders. “The preacher’s influence and gifts of perception compelled followers to cede their faculties to their supposed superior and blindly obey. That’s power, even if merely of a charismatic and psychological sort.”

Claimed to be a more effective miracle worker than Jesus. “he took credit for raising more than forty corpses back to life in 1972 alone.”

Hypocrisy. “As it turned out, the leader of the supposedly drug-free church increasingly relied on drugs, both tranquilizers and amphetamines.”

Use of media: “Jones’s cynical use of religion and his healings proved crucial to attracting congregants. Peoples Temple newsletters made very specific boasts about Jones’s powers.”

Ever since I watched a documentary in Jonestown, I wondered why Jim Jones was known as a ‘fundamentalist preacher’ instead of as a socialist organizer. Preying on added demographics explains it. “As he started to preach from the Bible, he started to steal members from other churches to become his members. He started to proclaim himself to be God in a living body.”