Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Jonestown pt. 1

Transcript

Jonestown pt. 1 · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why We Do what we Do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why We Do what We Do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: charismatic host Abraham.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm your sunglasses enthusiast host Shane.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: that humans and non human animals do, and sometimes we
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: talk about the some terrible tragedies that happen in the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: history of people and trying to understand those tragedies, and
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: that is where we find ourselves today.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, and so today we are talking about the Jonestown massacre.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Topic that has been done quite a few times in
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: the true crime world, but we are going to take
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a different approach. We're going to
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: look at the psychology of this and how people end
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: up in these spaces unfortunately, and how people can be
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: taking advantage of quite quickly.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, we'll try and unpack all of that. So we
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: will issue some warnings as we get into this about
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: things to be on the lookout for for an episode
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: with topics such as these. But first I would like
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  Speaker 1: of this discussion, men, just thank you very much for
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be so nice. I would love to be
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  Speaker 2: right like that would be That is the clincher there, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a I'm doing ventriloquism right now, but you can't
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  Speaker 2: Agreed.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is just a character's woe. It is Operations
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  Speaker 1: one of our minis that's coming out this week or
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  Speaker 1: next week.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. It is Rabbit Week.
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  Speaker 1: And it is Sports cliche Week. I'm not sure what
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  Speaker 1: that entirely means, but probably using idioms that reference sports
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  Speaker 1: that feels right, like touchdown, yeah, run, things like that.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, Yeah, I think that's that's in
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  Speaker 2: line with what I think I read about it, But
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  Speaker 2: I also didn't read much about it.
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  Speaker 3: Cool. Yeah, all right.
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  Speaker 1: But we, as I said, we are more than just
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: a podcast that reads the dates of things or things
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: that happen on dates. We talk about psychology things, and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes that means taking some historical event and unpacking it
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to try and glean some insight as to how that
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: event unfolded, what we can do about it, and how
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  Speaker 1: we might prevent such a thing from ever happening again,
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  Speaker 1: or trying to predict whether or not it could ever
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  Speaker 1: happen again, as is sort of the case here. But
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: because we are unpacking an event that took place several
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  Speaker 1: decades ago, at this point, this is kind of a
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: history episode or you know, historically situated episode with some
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  Speaker 1: social implications for the current zeitgeist in which we find ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: In case you are unfamiliar with the Jonestown massacre, this
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: is the story of a cult with a massive death toll,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and it's also the origin from which the phrase drink
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the kool aid comes. Yeah, and so you'll get to
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: learn about that if you were already unfamiliar, Even if
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  Speaker 1: you knew about this. There's a lot of details in
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: this that I did not know until putting all of
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: this together. So there's a lot to learn still, I
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: think unless you're like an expert, and maybe you'll just
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: fact check us the whole time, which is also okay.
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  Speaker 2: Right, absolutely so fair warning on this. This discussion contains
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  Speaker 2: descriptions of violence, murder, suicide, child to be, and murder
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  Speaker 2: child murder as well, including murder of infants. So this
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  Speaker 2: is a dark story. There's really no way to get
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  Speaker 2: around those details. I mean, we'll spare the details details,
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  Speaker 2: but there's there's really no way to get around those
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  Speaker 2: bullet points and kind of the things that have happened
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  Speaker 2: without telling we have to tell the whole story here,
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  Speaker 2: is essentially what we're saying.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that we can't let them off the
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  Speaker 1: hook for the things that happened, and so making sure
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  Speaker 1: that we remember how terrible it was means at least
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: sharing what happened. Yeah, Now, what we can do, we
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: can plan to do is so we're gonna be unpacking
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of the history of things that happened before
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  Speaker 1: they even get to Jonestown. And so if you want
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: to listen up to that point. We can give some
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: warnings as we're about to go into the gruesome aspects
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of what took place. Otherwise, be warned that that's in there.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: If that's something you're uncomfortable listening to, you might want
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: to just set this one out and kat just next
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: time when we tuckle something not so sad.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely so. Well, today we're going to
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  Speaker 2: ask the Quirer. We're going to kind of answer some questions,
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  Speaker 2: which is what happened at Jonestown and Jonestown Masker, why happened,
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  Speaker 2: and whether or not it could happen again.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, we want to understand what was going on and
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  Speaker 1: what we might anticipate should future circumstances arise that seem
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: like we're on the verge of something like that. But
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  Speaker 1: we'll get into all of that first. We need to
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  Speaker 1: get into some history about our topic. Is there anything
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  Speaker 1: I'm missing or that we need to do before we
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  Speaker 1: get into our discussion here, Shane that you can think of?
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  Speaker 2: No, I think that I think that covers it.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, great, all right, So let's get into the background here,
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  Speaker 1: and we need to understand how the events unfolded that
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  Speaker 1: eventually led to this tragic event. So we'll start with
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  Speaker 1: the person who set it all in motion and understanding
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: their life.
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  Speaker 2: This is going to start with Jim Jones. Jim Jones
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  Speaker 2: was born in May of nineteen thirty one in a
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  Speaker 2: small town called Crete, which was near Lynn and also
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  Speaker 2: a very small town with a single stoplight. Jones was
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  Speaker 2: born to a World War One veteran who struggled to
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  Speaker 2: maintain steady employment and a mother who worked in factories
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  Speaker 2: and as a waitress to make ends meet.
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  Speaker 1: That's in Indiana, by the way, I forgot to include
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  Speaker 1: that in the details. That's where he was born, Indiana,
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  Speaker 1: in the United States. Now Jim Jones here. He was
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  Speaker 1: described as an intelligent but kind of strange child. He
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  Speaker 1: obviously had a somewhat shaky childhood in that there's like
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  Speaker 1: very few resources around. They didn't have a lot of money,
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  Speaker 1: father was not consistently employed to lack some stability, but
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  Speaker 1: his parents wanted him to have a better life and
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  Speaker 1: they encouraged him to attend college. They wanted him to
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  Speaker 1: become a doctor, and Jones did start on that path. However,
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  Speaker 1: he had some exposure to a figure named Father Divine,
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  Speaker 1: who is a flamboyantly dressed and very like sharply dressed
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: depression era preacher who had engineered an obedient group of followers.
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  Speaker 1: So this is like a church thing, right, Like they're
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  Speaker 1: their own little church. He's got this really devout group
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  Speaker 1: of followers who kind of do does whatever he tells
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  Speaker 1: them to do. And they opened several businesses, like it said,
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  Speaker 1: scores of businesses, So we're talking probably over one hundred
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  Speaker 1: businesses that with things like hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and
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  Speaker 1: several other things where that was a way that they
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  Speaker 1: could sort of make money and also potentially push their
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  Speaker 1: their message and their agenda.
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  Speaker 2: Right. And so jones Ha started medical school, but while
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  Speaker 2: in school, he was attending this fundamentalist church, and he
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  Speaker 2: eventually abandoned his training to become a minister. He reportedly
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  Speaker 2: admired the ability of religion to organize the behavior and
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  Speaker 2: loyalty of large groups of people, and saw religion as
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  Speaker 2: a means to advance causes he believed in that he
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  Speaker 2: specifically believed in and acquire money and power. You're going
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: to start seeing some parallels as we go around through
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  Speaker 2: this as well, So like just be on the lookout
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  Speaker 2: for that if that's triggering some things where you you're
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  Speaker 2: not wrong, like your radar is going off correctly.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, okay.
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  Speaker 1: So he went to medical school. He dropped out to
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  Speaker 1: become a minister at this fundamentalist church and then he
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and this I believe was like a segregated church specifically,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: but he wanted the money in power for himself. So
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty six he opened his own non denominational
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Christian church called the People's Temple. And again this was
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: now in Indianapolis, So he's still in Indiana, but he's
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: now in the big city and interestingly, unique to his church,
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  Speaker 1: he preached against racism a lot he allowed for and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: encouraged a fully racially integrated church. He included enthusiastic celebratory sermons.
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  Speaker 1: He also started doing faith healing performances. He claimed to
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: be able to predict and prophesize the future, all of
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: which attracted a lot of people, and particularly he was
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: able to with his anti racism message. He attracted a
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  Speaker 1: lot of Black Americans to his church, specifically now as
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: he was getting going though, there was kind of this
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: fun fact. During the early days of his new church,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: he was still pretty broke, and so to make some
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: money he went door to door as a salesman selling
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: monkeys as pets for twenty nine dollars each. That was like, wow,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: a thing he did Like that was one of those
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: details where I heard and I was like.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: What is that? Is that real?
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Is that really a thing?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: You know? And that makes me think of like, you know,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: I think of like systems a lot, and I think
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: of like, Okay, so now there's a system where he's
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: going door to door, which means he has to travel,
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  Speaker 2: which means it's possible that he has a monkey either
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: traveling with him or a brochure full of monkeys, which
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: also means that he had to go to a place
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: that prince brochures or magazines or order forms for the monkeys,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: which also means that he's got a monkey supplier.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: That's that's true.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: He might say things like I got to get in
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: touch with my monkey guy.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got a monkey guy.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and then he might have to print ads
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: for his monkeys. Okay, we're back from the monkey ad break.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, weird thing anyway, that he was going around
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  Speaker 1: door to door selling monkeys.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I couldn't imagine what I would do if somebody knocked
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: on my door and said that do you want to
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  Speaker 2: buy a monkey? I'd be like, no, leave, get go go.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: They're like dogs are fine and all, but like, you know,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the real pet that everybody wants these days is a monkey.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Let me show you what I got.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Do you think that that was like a big thing
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: back then, Like do you think that like monkeys as
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: pets was like a in vogue enough for there to
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: be a door to door salesman for it.
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  Speaker 1: No?
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: I don't.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: That's That's the thing that's like weird about is I'm like,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: of all the things that you would land on, why
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: that Yeah.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, So at this stage we're talking about Jim Jones.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: He's got a church, the Peoples Temple. He is selling
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: monkeys as a side gig. That's like his gig economy
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: business deal he's doing. Yeah, But eventually what ends up
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  Speaker 2: happening is Jones does not have to sell monkeys anymore
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: because he's acquired hundreds of congrets and started opening soup
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: kitchens and eventually served as the city's Human relations commissioner. However,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: he started being scrutinized by the city when a corporation
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: he and his family had ran started acquiring real estate
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  Speaker 2: transfers that seemed to come from people in his congregation,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: and it was believed that he was essentially swindling people
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: into giving him their property, which is actually pretty common
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: cult leader behavior. What will happen is like, oh, you
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: come in and you give up all of your possessions.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: We're not a material so you sign it over to
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: the church, and the church acquires power. We've seen that
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: in the Scientology group as well, like if you go
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: back to our Scientology episode.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Allegedly allegedly so, but yes, this is very part for
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the course cult leader behavior. So he's got the heat
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: coming down on him from him doing some really shady
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: stuff and starting to catch the eye of public officials,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and he's he's getting really paranoid about being investigated, and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: so he started preaching about the end of days, and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: specifically we're like into the ninth like late nineteen sixties here,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: so we're kind of in Cold War era anyway, and
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: so he preaches this idea that there is going to
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: be a new Clear Holocaust or a new Clear War
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: in the next few years, is what he says. And
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: so with his preaching, the end of days coming to pass,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: because again he fancied himself a prophet. He was able
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: to convince seventy families to relocate with him in nineteen
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: sixty five to a quote unquote safer location according to him,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And so he brought all of these families with him
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and moved across the country to a place called Yukaya,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: which is a rural town in Mendocino County in northern California.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: So it's very particularly back then too, like very small,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: very off the beaten path, And that's where he took
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: all of his congrets because he claimed it was much
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: safer if there were to be a nuclear war. That's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: where they'd want to be.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Right, right, right, that's what he claims. So in nineteen
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: seventy one or by nineteen seventy one, he decided that
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: he needed to be preaching to low income black families
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: in San Francisco, where he eventually spent most of his
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: time conducting a sermons. Later he opened another location in
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles. So he's basically setting up people's temple franchises,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: like in different places and different different locations to really
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: in more people.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So he has his main sort of central
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: hub becomes the Bay Area in San Francisco, but he
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: does have another couple of places where he has his
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: church set up, so while he's in California, he expanded
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: on his practice of acquiring real estate from his followers.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: So did not learn any lessons from Indiana other than
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: maybe how to get away with it better, right, but
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: he expanded on this idea a lot. He actually further
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: had a lot of things that you would see from
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: cult leaders at the time. He asked people to sever
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: ties with family and friends. He got people to transfer
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: their wealth and their savings to him, and he forged
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: obedience through such actions as making families commit their children
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to the cause, like they would bring them in and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: then like they couldn't leave, you know, they had to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: sort of do all their activities within the church. He'd
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: have them work for him for free. Nonetheless, he did
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: this thing where he would write fake confessions that said
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that these people had engaged in like child sexual abuse,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and then he would make those people sign those confessions
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: even though they didn't do it, so that he could
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: use those signed confessions as blackmail if he needed to.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And that was part of them demonstrating loyalty to him
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and to the church. Is saying like he probably tells
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: them like, I'm not going to use this, but this
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: way you're showing me how loyal you are to me
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: is by taking on this liability of potentially being taken
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to or being accused of this with credibly being accused
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: because we have a signed confession. He would also make
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: people again, people are working for him a lot, and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: they're unpaid completely, it's like all volunteer stuff, and they're
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: working long hours. And he also installed the system of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: reporting on other members, particularly if there were people who
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: expressed doubt or disobedience or descent of any kind, and
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: he would have people inform on one another if that
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: they saw any of that happening, and then he would
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: humiliate and there was allegations of like abuse, being threatened
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: or beaten if they were found to be critical of
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: him or any of the things that he was doing,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: or saying that they were going to go tell other
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: people things like that. So that was kind of the
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: atmosphere he was building inside of his church while in California.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Right, So he went from preaching about non and anti
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: racism stuff and doing things that seemed seemed on the
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: surface to help the community and then he was doing
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: all this stuff in the background and really creating a
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: coercive environment to keep people in and to continue to
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: accrue power. Like that's essentially what's happening.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, exactly.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: And so while he's doing this, he's also still preaching
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: about communism and racial equality and socialism, and he's kind
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: of hitting on the hot topics of the day and
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: really kind of like not only tapping into people's fears
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: but also their hopes by making them feel like, you know,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: we were working towards a greater society, a better societ.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Here's how we do this. And as some scholars will
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: put it, he was using the politics of that time
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: to effectively gain compliance and obedience. He didn't care about
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: it or really even try to create a communist agenda
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: or a community at large, but he used the rhetoric
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: to entice a specific demographic that he would then manipulate
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: into doing his bidding.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: So it's just kind of interesting to think about, Like
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: it was just a means to an end. You know,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: he could have done anything, but like it seemed like,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, he was trying to get vulnerable communities
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: who were likely to be manipulable to him and his agenda,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: and that he landed on sort of Marxism as the
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: way to recruit the kinds of people he wanted to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: his cause.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: However, a lot of this stuff came out later while
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: he's building his church. His public facing image initially was
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: very good for a lot of people, and it made
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: him a lot of powerful political allies who agreed with
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: his messaging and stood up for him. He had a
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: lot of sway because he had so many people under
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: his influence. He could command like several buses full of
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: people to show up at various events like political rallies, protests, boycotts, demonstrations,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: which again, like that made him a very valuable asset
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to many powerful people who then had like a constituency
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of people they could sort of ask Jones to move
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: around for them and have them show up at these
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: different events and sort of be vocal, loudspeaking people. And
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: at his peak he reportedly had as many as twenty
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: thousand followers in his church, which is obviously quite a
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: few people. That was sort of the political climate he
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: was in is he was saying the message that caught
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the attention of some politicians who generally agreed with that message,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: and other public figures too. It wasn't just politicians, so
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: they sort of leaned on him, and he leaned on them,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and they had these sort of quid pro quo ems.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: But yeah, Jones could command such larger groups of people
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that made him very powerful in political sort of arenas
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: if you.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Will, right, And then over time there were as this
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: was going on, so he's creating these political allies, he
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: is gaining followers, and there starts to become an increasing
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: number of allegations of sexual abuse, physical and mental abuse,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: emotional abuse, swindling people out of their money and land,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: which he was actively doing. He was so like they
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: were allegations, but like the allegations are coming out to
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: the public, but like in hindsight, we know this is
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: what was happening, including blackmail, fraud, bribery, and other coros
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: of practices. And Jones was allegedly bisexual according to at
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: least one report, and that he got caught attempting to
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: solicit sex from an undercover male police officer posing as
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a male prostitute. So the reason we bring that up
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: is because at this time we're starting to see this
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: public figure. You're starting to see these kind of cracks
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: form in his public figure, right, Like, he's got a
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: persona that's public, that's supposed to be righteous, that's supposed
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: to be leading the church, and now all these things
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: are happening to start damaging his public image. And he's
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: also on top of that preaching the end times, and
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: so you could see kind of how there's like a
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: pot about to boil over.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Like, obviously we don't feel like this, We
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: don't judge anyone for being bisexual or trying to have
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: a same sex partner in any condition, but at the
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: time that was a really big deal, like that was
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: definitely something that could turn people away from his church,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: could lose him power, could potentially get him in trouble
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: with the law, that sort of thing. And so now
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: at this point he is, again we know, in hindsight,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: although I don't think this was very well known at
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the time, he was addicted to pharmaceuticals. He was becoming
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: increasingly paranoid. Now he's under scrutiny for his probably multiple felonies,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and he starts telling his congregation that black Americans will
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: soon be rounded up and put into concentration camps, and
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: so he's essentially making the case that they need to
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: flee the United States and that he's going to take
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: them to some place where they can be safe and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: free and have their own little community of people who
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: will will hold each other up and live in their beautiful,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: worshiping society, and he will lead them.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, So at this point in time, he's paranoid, he's
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: freaking out, he's got motive to leave. He's got all
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: these things going on, and that's going to bring us
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: to the time where he essentially gets set up in Guyana.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: So we're gonna take a quick ad break and then
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: we're gonna come back to this and we're gonna talk
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: about kind of where this goes next. All right, folks,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: and we are back at this point in time. Jim Jones,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: leader of the People's Temple, is he's got some troubles
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: going on, and so now he is planning on fleeing
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: the country and he's going to try to convince some
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: families to do that, which is part of his past.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: He has done this already.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Now, for context, three years before all the crack started
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: the forum, in his public persona, he had sent a
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: contingent loyal followers to the nation of Guyana, a small
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: country with dense jungles located on the northern coast of
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: South America. His group of people started clearing out trees
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: and establishing a place for them to build a compound
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: and use the land for agriculture. Now, I want to
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: point out, I don't know, do you do you talk
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: about how dangerous the conditions were at the time.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Not so much. Yeah, No, go ahead and feel free. Yeah.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: So what came out later was that when his group
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: went there, they went to completely undeveloped jungle, yeah, to
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: start building this compound. And when I say completely undeveloped,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I mean nothing. There are no roads in, There were
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: no roads out. There were it was very difficult to
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: get supplies. It was lush rainforest type jungle like. It
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: was very very dense, and the conditions are are excruciating.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: I mean it is tropical weather. And so as followers
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: were there with little resources, chopping like basically chopping away
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: they had to they had to actually like chop away
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: enough foliage to even make a trail to get to
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: the place where they were building the compound. And it
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: took so long. It was really horrid. Conditions and these
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: folks were working for hours, I mean like all day,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: for multiple hours a day and exhausting themselves with no pay.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: They were doing it for free. They were doing it
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: for the you know, the loyalty to the church. Yeah,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: and they did this for years, for years.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you had said before the crack started to form,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know how public any of that was becoming.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: But like he I think was aware that he was
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: in trouble and that's why he sent people down there.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, three years before sort of everything came
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: to a boiling point, if you will, he had sent
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: people down there. So they've they've been down there for years,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: clearing away forest, building roads into the area where they
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: have cleared away forest, creating a space for them essentially
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: to build and to grow food, which was again a
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: huge amount of labor. And finally, in nineteen seventy seven,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Jones brought hundreds of his followers with him to their
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: new safe haven in Guyana, which they dubbed Jonestown. Not
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the country of Guyana, but the space they created for
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: themselves they called Jones Sound. This is not an existing city,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: like it was not a municipal area, right, So they
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: just gave it that name. Now, some people might be wondering, like,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: what is going on with the government of Guyana that
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: this could happen. Well, the Guyanese government, that's how I
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: saw that written down. They didn't seem to mind very
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: much for a few reasons. One, this government was extremely
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: small and they were spending virtually all of their money
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and their budget to try and support their citizens, like
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: they were just trying to stay afloat, right, So they
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: really didn't have a lot of bandwidth to do more
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: than what they were already doing for their country. Two,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the group that's moving into their country with all these people,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: because this is a small country, right, like it's the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: third smallest country in South America. The group moving in,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: they were like asking nothing of the government, and they
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: were not interfering with the government's activities in any way.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: They sort of like, we're just going to use this
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: land over here that you're not using, and bonus, we're
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: clearing it for thing activities that maybe you could also
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: use it for. At some point, I don't know if
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: they even made that deal, but essentially they were like,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: we don't bother you, you don't bother us. When win situation, right,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: And so that was another reason. And third is the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: government there was at the time pretty sympathetic to the
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: pretend communist ideals of the group, which is to say,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: they were open to like socialism and communism as a
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: possible way that their government could run. And this is
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a group coming in saying like, we're going to be
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: this totally self sufficient, non US affiliated entity over here
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: out in your jungle where we're not bothering you, you're
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: not bothering us, but we're going to be doing communist stuff,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: which you guys already like and want anyway. Sure, And
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: so the government was kind of like, okay, I guess
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: And so that was why there was really no interference
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: for their activities when they just moved to this random
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: foretant country and started building a city there.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Something that is like an interesting fact too, and
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: know if we get into this, but like it's a
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: thing where not only did the Guyanese government not really
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: care once the compound was established, there were US political
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: ambassadors that would come visit the compound. Yeah, like because
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: of his political allies, the US government also kind of
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: approved this. They were like, oh, yeah, they're fine. Look
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: they've got this compound. They're like, they're doing their thing here,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: it's fine, they're safe, and they would come back and
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: report and they're like, we don't gotta worry about anything
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: about Jonestown. Then they're fine down there. And that was
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: also part of it too, was like the American government
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, they're out of our hair. We don't
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: have to deal with them. Even though there's thousands of
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: you know, like hundreds of American citizens would have got
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: worry about him, the Guyanese government doesn't worry. Well, we're
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: gonna let them do their own devices, which you know
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: is clearly a bad situation here.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they did have a lot of strong supporters in
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the United States that were really defending the things they're doing.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: They had a lot of critics. Yeah, there were definitely
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: some people who were concerned about things that they were doing,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: and in particular people who had friends and family who
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: ended up being at Jonestown that were concerned about them.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: But yeah, they did have a lot of very firm
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: defenders and various circles in the United States.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, okay, let's talk about the compound itself. So
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the compound is built, or at least being built it's
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: continued to be expanded. They're still clearing jungle, they're still
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: clearing forests. The resources are low, like as the farming
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: isn't really working the way they think it is. Like
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: there's lots of things that are happening that are making
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: it very difficult living conditions. On top of this, Jones
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: establishes a network of loudspeakers that are all over the compound,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: so we could broadcast as sermons for hours hours, either
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: live or pre recorded. And when we say hours, we're
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: talking for six eight hour, ten hour sermons.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, possibly all day, all day.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: And some of these are live where he's just kind
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: of talking and rambling and you can go listen. These
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: recordings exist. You can hear him kind of doing these sermons.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if you want to. I
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: don't recommend it because it's a little bit harrowing, but
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: it it is a thing that exists that you could hear.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, so they recorded like almost everything in audio
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: that took place there, particularly as are related to his
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: preaching and sermons, but you did get a lot. You
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: also got to hear other things going on, yeah, in
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the background sometimes and there were some major events that
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: were also recorded. So they're out in the middle of
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the jungle here. They're not going to be getting their
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: food from the nearest whole foods or Trader Joe's or
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: publics or anything. So they set up a system for
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: growing their own food. They grew their own animals, they
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: grew their own agricultural products. Like I actually didn't see
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: what specific foods they were growing, but I'm sure they're
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: going probably things like corn and wheat and stuff of
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: that nature to grow enough to reliably feed the inhabitants.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Farms are a lot of work, by the way, particularly
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: when like your equipment is your hands and some tools,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: and so people were forced to work all day, every
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: day without breaks, essentially as slaves. Like that was functionally
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: what was going on. As people worked just constantly. That
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: was all they did was work. It actually seemed part
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: of his plans that he would work people to the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: point where they were too exhausted to complain or to dissent.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: They were just like after working for fifteen hours or
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: sixteen or hours or eighteen hours or something, and then
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: they've got to go listen to some sermon from him,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: and then they pass out and they just have to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: go back to work at the crack of dawn the
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: next day. Like they're just so burned out and exhausted
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that they're all they're doing is working and that's all
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that they can even think about.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to be clear too, like they're working,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: they're exhausted, they're not getting their basic needs met, so
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: they're not in a position to be able to revolt
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: against whatever's going on, right. Yeah, And also too many
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: of them didn't want to. They believed in the cause,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: they believed in what he was saying. They believed in
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: what they were doing too, so like there was also
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: not a lot of motivation to rebel because they were
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: kind of like like, no, we buy into what this
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: guy is saying.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: But he also took a book right out of you know,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: the Third Reich, which was how they set up a
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: tattletale system.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: So his policy, he set up a policy of informing
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: on dissenters and it was in full force, which I
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: meant that if you said a bad word about the
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: person in charge, you were going to be in trouble. Right.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: So he established a contingent of bodyguards, armed men who
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: were fiercely loyal to him, in him alone, not to
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: the church, not to the compound, to him alone. He
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: also continued tactics of beating, berating, humiliating, forcing hard labor
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: on people who dared to question his authority. Basically, anything
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: that was out of line was going to get you
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: in trouble, going to get you a very significant high
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: level of punishment, and likely aimed to make not only
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: you stop dissenting, but make you an example to other
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: people who may think about dissenting. So like in those
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: republic these are all public facing too, like you would
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: beat people, but like he would have his guards beat people,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: He would have his guards to humiliate people. And there
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: was a lot of that too, where people were made
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: examples for dissenting.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and his guards, his little bodyguard contingent that he
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: had was called the Red Guard. I mean he would
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: sometimes send his Red Guard out into the forest at
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: night and fire guns were people could hear them, obviously,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: and he would tell the inhabitants of Jonestown that they
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: were under attack from outsiders who wanted to kill them,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: wanted to stop them from practicing their faith, wanted to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: tear them apart and turn them against each other. And
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: so this was kind of a tactic he used to
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: try and breed solidarity and unity in the people that
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: they saw him as their protector and that they were
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: all sort of of one mind about their need to
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: stay together, work together, and serve the purposes of the commune,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: if you will. He would also sometimes awaken people in
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the middle of the night two or three am in
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: some instances, and he would have them drink flavored drinks.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I saw different reports here. I saw a report that
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: said that he would tell them that the drinks were
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: poison and so he'd wake up up in the middle
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: of the night and say, we are going to take
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: our own lives. Here are poison laced drinks. Or I
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: saw other reports that instead said that they knew that
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: they weren't poisoned, but they were like doing it as
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: like a rehearsal. So it was like, this is what
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: it's going to look like when it does happen. Let's
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: practice them. And so they'd go through all the steps
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: of preparing it as if they were going to consume
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: a bunch of poison. Either way, it was rehearsal for
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: the potential of one day executing on a real life
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: mass suicide plan and he called these white Knights, these
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: little practice things of his, and eventually there would be
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: like the White Knight was sort of what they were
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: building up to. But that's why when he would sort
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: of randomly wake people up in the middle of the night,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: they'd rehearse this thing, and that was he called them
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: white Knights. N Ights like the nighttime, Yeah.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Like day and night. I think it's important to note
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: here that like, this is happening under reversive conditions. This
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: is happening in a space where in a lot of
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: times at two or three in the morning, folks are
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: getting woken up by the Red Guard. They're getting woken
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: up at gunpoint to go drink these drinks.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Yah.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I bring that up for a reason because this is
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: going to be something that comes up later too. Is
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: that we're talking about a real life like kind of
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: like community suicide plan. But you can make the argument
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: and we'll have probably a larger discussion later on. This
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: is like we can make the argument that it's not
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: actually suicide if it's being co worced and it's being
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: held in their gunpoint, right, people are being forced to
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: do this. It's a really complicated kind of situation that
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: we're talking about here and very unfortunate, especially for the
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: folks that are there.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we have to segue to another AD break.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: We're kind of we have the like one joke that
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: helps segue with AD breaks, but this just feels hard
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: to make jokes about in here. So yeah, I'm just
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: giving you a lot of fair warning. Essentially, you just
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: know that an ad is about to happen. It gets
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: worse and then we'll come Yeah, the story gets much
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: worse and then we'll come back. So here's Here's that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: That was a nice long segue for you. So here
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: we go into an AD break. All right, So we're
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: back moving on with the story. Where we left off
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: was that they were doing these white night rehearsal things
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: to practice for a one day suicide plan. Yeah, that's
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: where we're at in the story of Jonestown so far.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, So at this point it's important to understand kind
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: of where Jim Jones was at. Right. So at this
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: point he's abusing prescription pharmaceuticals so heavily that the actual
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: autopsy report, by the way he dies eventually spoiler, he dies.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: The autopsy reported that he was near levels of toxicity
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: like he was basically he should have died sooner as
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: a result of the overuse of these medications. He would
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: sometimes conduct six hour sermons people were forced to attend.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, I never liked sitting in church when I
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: was a kid. I couldn't imagine sitting in church for
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: six hours. I couldn't imagine sitting in church for six
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: hours in tropical climbs like that. That feels like after
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: working on the farms all day and stuff like that.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Like it's just, that's just it just gets worse as
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: you compound it. It gets worse and worse and worse.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: So he also held what were called catharsis sessions, in
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: which participants were forced to disclose personal secrets or else
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: would be beaten with a paddle. He would also set
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: up boxing matches in which he would sometimes deliberately pit
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: someone weaker against somebody stronger, and would watch these just
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: for entertainment. The catharsis sessions is something that other larger
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: quote unquote religious groups like are rumored to do. Maybe
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: a group that we have done an episode on allegedly
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: has been reported to do these types of things to
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: keep people in their congregation.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course, like, again, these are potential blackmail
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: things that they can use, So they're a little bit
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of humiliating shaming and then potential blackmail that they had
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: under their belts here.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: So in addition, another thing going on in Jonestown, So
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Jones either limited Jonestown residents from communicating with outside friends
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and family, or else he would allow them to, but
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: he would censor their correspondence that they either sent out
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: or received. And all the while he's broadcasting his sermons
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: such that they could be picked up by ham radio
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: enthusiasts and others. Actually, like these were actually not that
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: hard to get a hold of. And he continued to
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: attempt to recruit new people to his utopian quote unquote
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: utopian Jonestown that he had built. And he had these
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: very specific talking points he would use in his advertisements
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: that he would do, which sounds like a segue to
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: an ad break, but it's not. Yeah, and you talk
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: about how they'd cleared all this forest and how the
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: land has been converted to agriculture, and their chickens and
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: cows and other livestock, and I promise that they'd even
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: been cultivating new types of crops that were superior and great.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: For you and all this.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: So he's really pushing this idea that they've created this
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: absolutely utopian society where they're doing all these wonderful things,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: kind of living off the grid on the merit of
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: their own hard work and succeeding tremendously. Is sort of
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: what he would be putting out into the world that
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: other people could hear.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, friends and family back in the
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: United States were very concerned about their loved ones in Jonestown.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: For good reason. They're not hearing from them, they're not
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: getting updates, they're living in another country, and there's no
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: way to communicate with them effectively or efficiently. They also
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: had lack of communication. Communications have felt odd, they fell
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: out of care incoherent and that makes sense, right, because
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: everything is being heavily scripted, it's being edited. It's not authentic, right, right.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: And finally, there was a case in which a parent
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: one custody of a child who was being held at Jonestown,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: which really put them in the crossairs of the law
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: and the US government. Now you start to see kind
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: of a shift that this happens in every and the
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: US government goes, oh, we should probably look at this
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: more clearly.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And to be clear, it was like a parent
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: who was in mainland, United States who had a child
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: whose other parent had taken them to Jonestown. That child
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: won a custody battle saying that they should be able
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: to take that child out of Jonestown. But Jim Jones
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: is not one to let people leave his community once
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: they got there. So there is now some problems legally
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: going on for Jonestown and for Jim Jones and rather
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: than you know, it's kind of ironic to think about
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: if he'd just like let that one person go, it's
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: very possible he would have been able to fly into
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: the radar for a bit longer, right, but he was
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: still into it. He not one soul leaves their space there.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: So now we get to enter a new character named
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Leo Ryan. He is a Democratic congressman from California. He
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: kind of knew some people who were in the Jones
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Sound cult or they were like friends of friends that
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: were in Jonestown in South America. But he also was
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: apparently allegedly somewhat sympathetic to cults, having a family member
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: in the Church of Scientology. That's what the reports that
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I found said, yeah, kind of take that as you will.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: He was also somewhat open to the messaging of Jones
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and his crew, meaning that like they were preaching this
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: communist thing. He had some sympathies toward that, so he
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: kind of seemed like a good person to be able
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: to have an amicable conversation with Jim Jones and set
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: things right and figure out what's going on. And he
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: also was a good person to investigate claims that people
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: were making about the residents of Jonestown, such that they
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: were being held against their will, that they were being
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: abused of that nature. So he's sort of like, all right, lit,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I feel like Jones is probably a good guy. It's
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: probably a misunderstanding, but I'm gonna go check this out
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: and see what's going on and just investigate what are
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the happenings of Jones sounds so I can then you know,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: report back and say everything, you know, tell everyone is
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: out with my own two eyes. Things are good nowhere.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: He's there.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: It's just hard to get messages out because they're in
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: the middle of the jungle. Maybe is what he was
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: going to say. I don't know, but that was kind
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: of why he elected to be a person to go
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: there and do this messaging on behalf of the United States.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: I guess yeah, And you know, it's one of those things.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: I think it's it's really important to go back and
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: kind of like I think, I think what happens is
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: people will look at this in hindsight and go like,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: I couldn't imagine getting caught up in this. I couldn't
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: imagine this. I think it's important to remember that, like
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: this guy le O Ryan really bought into Jim Jones's
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: nonsense because Jim Jones was a charismatic person, like he
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: was like somebody that what people would want to listen
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: to talk to, and like he talked a good game
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: like and so he was he easily convinced people because
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: ultimately people kind of default to wanting to believe people.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: People are not generally suspicious of other people. They want
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: to believe that somebody's a good person. They couldn't believe
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: this person's doing something horrible as even though all the
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: rumors were going on, so like that is something that's
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: going on with Jim Jones, and so Lea Ryan's going
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: out there going like, oh, he seems like a good guy.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I've had a conversation with him, so he must be
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: he must be fine, right, Yeah, yeah, I guess so, yeah,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's it happens, right, Like, that's kind of
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: like you can see how somebody could like easily be
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: sucked into the orbit of a cult leader like this.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: It's possible that he was like legitimately.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: Also concerned that there were things to dig up. I
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: don't know, it wasn't clear. It did seem like though,
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: that like he had those sympathies.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: So we have not actually even gotten to the events
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: of Jonestown yet. We've led up to them, and Leo
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Ryan entering the picture is one of the catalysts that
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: will set things in motion the way that they go.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: But we have a lot more story to tell, and
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: instead of this being an extraordinarily long episode, we're going
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: to go ahead and split this into two pieces. We
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: will leave this discussion with Leo Ryan having planning to
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I guess, go to to Guyana to see the Jonestown people,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and then we'll come back next week with an episode
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: where we'll go into what happens when he gets there
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and all of the fallout from that, And then we'll
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: also spend a lot of next episode unpacking like how
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: did this happen? You know, people want to blame somebody
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and they want to have a reason, they want to understand.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I want to do our best to sort of talk
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: through what could have been going on that allowed this
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: to happen, and then also thinking about where are we
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: as a as a species since then, right, like, has
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: have we changed much or not at all? What could
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: we possibly expect moving forward? But I think a lot
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: of it's just we got to tell the rest of
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the story and also start to understand why things are
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: happening the way that they're happening.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: And you know, this is a big story, like this
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: is a big, complex story that includes political maneuvering and
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: cult behavior. And in this story in particular is I
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: want to say it's unique, but it's not as unique
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: as maybe like you think of it. When you think
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: of cults, like, you know, the general the general guidelines
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: are that you get somebody who's you know, charismatic, they
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: start some group, they bring a bunch of people in
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: and take advantage of them, and it all goes wrong, right,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of the history of cults in a nutshell,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: But this one is particularly bad. Because it's one of
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: the first ones that was so publicly televised and like
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: really in the cultural zeitgeist, and it just was is
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: it's one of those things. We we want to spend
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: enough time on it to make sure that we can
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: unpack the things that are going on and what went
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: wrong and and give you like kind of like the
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: main bullet points. Because there's plenty of books written by
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: about this, right, there's lots of podcasts on it, there's
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: lots of true there's lots of stuff on it, But
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: we want to approach it from like our perspective too
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: and talk about how people get here, and it's it's
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: just a lot to unpack.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: It's also one of the most extreme and severe cases
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: of anything like this that ever happened, so like it
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: stands out even among the annals of history of crazy
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: like cult things that happen, this one stands out, yeah,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: as being the most over the top and extreme in
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: terms of what the what they ended up the consequences
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: end up being. So but we will get into all
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: of that next time. But I think that's a good
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: time for us to maybe transition to some never mind,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: we have to do a lot of things we have.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: We have recommendations that we're gonna do, but before we
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: do that, we have to do our credits, and before
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: we do that, we're gonna run some ads. We like
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: to at the end of our discussions recommend some things,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: even when we're halfway through a discussion. Well, if we
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: are gonna pause and do a part two, then at
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the end of part one, we'll also recommend some things,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: and then we'll recommend more things next time. And it's
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: just a fun thing that we like to do, try
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: and lighten the heaviness of the loads sometimes, although most
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: of our episodes I think are not as dark as
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: this one is. Nope, but all right, yeah, So before
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: we get to our recommendations, though, I would like to
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: tell you about how you can support us. If you've
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: made it this far, thank you so much. We appreciate
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: having you here. And if you haven't already supported us,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: you can do that by picking up some merchant our
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: merch store, leaving us a rating and review. Really, if
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: you do like us and you just click five stars,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: that actually helps a lot. Like that by itself, if
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: you want to add that review, that also helps, that's
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: really great. You can tell a friend You can also
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: head over to Patreon, and if you do that, you'll
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: get a bunch of ad free content, bonus content, early episodes,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: all that sort of thing. And we really appreciate the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: people who have already done that thing. And so at
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: the end of each of our discussions, we go through
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: and we read the names of the people who have
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: decided to help us, which is really lovely and we
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: appreciate it, and so thank you so much to Mike,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: m Megan, Mike t, Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Kiara and Charlie.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: Thank you patrons.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: All the cases for you, indeed, which are you know,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: are not physical, so you don't have to take them
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: if you don't want to, yeah, which is very important.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: We would never forced kisses.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: On anybody, but exactly anyway, if you would like to
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: join that list of people, you may do so, and
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: we'd be happy to have you, or else, you know,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: whatever other way of supporting us that you like, or
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: nothing at all, if that you don't want to do anything,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and that's okay too. If you would like to tell
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: us about your thoughts about the Jonestown massacre, particularly so far,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: or anything else, we've talked about in this episode. Then
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: you may reach us directly by emailing us at info
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: with wwdwwdpodcast dot com, or reaching out to us on
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the social media platforms. Trying to talk just way too
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: fast right now, I need to slow it down.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: You are a okay, my friend, You are a okay.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Also, I cannot make this podcast without my team of
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: people helping me writing and fact checking from Shane and myself.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson, and our audio
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: engineer who writes our music and makes our voices sound
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: good and cuts our episodes up so that they're listenable.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Chunks of speech is justin thank you so much for
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: all of the work that you all do.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, we love you so much.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: All right, I think that is what I have until
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: we get to our recommendations. Is there anything that I
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: am missing before we recommend some things?
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think we got it covered
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: so far.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: All right, Let's do the cue the music for recommendations.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Recommend recommendations.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I will once again just preface this, even though I
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: think I said this before, that these recommendations have nothing
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: to do with our topic at hand. It's just because
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: it is a new week, and so where we've thought
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: of some new things that we'd like to send out
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: into the world for good vibes reasons. Yes, I'll go
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: first if that's okay.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds good.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I am recommending an album. It is kind of old.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: I think this album probably came out in two thousand
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: and six eight six. Yeah, like it's like a twenty
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: year old album, but recently came back into my orbit
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: and I was listening through it and just thinking, this
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: is like a perfect album. Every song is good, every
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: note is good, everything is good. I just I love
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: it so much. This is by the band say A
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Sin Sao s I N and their self titled album,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: which means it's just called say A Sin is so
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: so good. It's like a white cover with a black
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: beatle on it, and that's pretty much all it is.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: But just I love this album. I just think it's
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: really really great. So it's very easy to come by.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Anywhere where you can stream albums, you can listen to it.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I like the whole thing, and I guess I should
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: describe it for people who don't know what this is.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: This is rock, but it's not like heavy rock. It's
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: sort of more poppy that so it's very melodic but
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: maybe a little bit on the progressive side ish like
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: just sort of technically proficient guitar parts here and there,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: and like their drummer is so good. He's such a
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: joy to listen to.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: So yeah, if you like stuff like Circus Survive things
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: like it's like kind of like it's like pop punk adjacent,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: but like not pop punk. It's like that, it's like
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: post pop punk where it's like the vocals are really clear,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: they're really clean, they're really catchy, there's good hooks, the
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: instrumentation is beautiful. It's like pop punkins grew up and
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: wrote like a really good prog rock album.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: because if you think of something like Blinkwin eighty two
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't really sound like say usin, but you could see
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: like the DNA of Blankwin eighty two in Sayasin, but
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: like what Saya Sin's doing, much more technical, much bigger sounding,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: feeling like not the sort of like toilet humor like
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: they're it. Yeah, it feels just grown up and more
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: technically prepared, very mature.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: It's very mature, So.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: All right, cool that's my recommendation is say a Sin
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: by Sayas in an album, ghost stream it or some
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: songs from it. I mean even like first song is great,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: barrier Head is great, Voices is great. Love this whole album.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's really really good.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Cool. I'm I'm gonna listen to that when we're done, because,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: uh man, I haven't listened that in a while, and
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: it's a it's a good one. Yeah, I'm gonna recommend
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: a book, and I'm gonna recommend a book that you
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: recommend it to me, So like, I actually this is
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of fun because you gave me
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: a recommendation and I took that recommendation and I really
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: enjoyed it myself. So now this is essentially a double
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: recommendation for the show. And that is a book called
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. So, man, it's
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: a quick read. Yeah, it's an easy read, not very long.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: It's not very long. You don't have to worry about
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: like the character development is like very straight. It's very linear,
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: like you don't have a lot of like it doesn't
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: get too crazy. It's a really great story about like
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: how bullies suck but like it was a really fun,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: like kind of weird sci fi book about a guy
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: who was kind of down on his luck and he's
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: doing like uber eats for work and then gets hired
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: into working in this like Destin's Secret Society where he
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: gets to like basically work with Godzilla's and it is
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: so fun and I want to share a story. So
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: I'm reading this on a plane. So I was I
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: was on my way to a conference and I'm reading
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: this on a plane and the flight attendant stops and
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: he goes, what are you reading? And I was like,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: I'm reading you know, Kaiju Preservation side. He goes, I
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: went to high school with him, and I'm like, what, whoa?
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: This is wild and he goes he goes, let me
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: finish service and I'll come back and I'll tell you.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: And I was like sure, Like I was like, this
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: is this is gonna be weird.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: So he comes back, he brings a picture of him
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: with the guy and he's like, He's like, it's so
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: cool to see him do well because he was bullied
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: in high school and he's doing well and none of
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the bullies are doing well. And he's like, so it's
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: cool to see that like that he's doing well, and
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: he kind of came out on the other side of that.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: He's like, but he's the nicest guy. He's it's great
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: to see him succeed. He deserves to succeed. So I'm
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: so glad, So like I'm going to tell him, and
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: I was like, please tell him. I love this, Like
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: this is absolute. I'm gonna buy every one of his
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: other books because it is so much fun, right, And
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: it was just like a nice, little wholesome moment to
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: be like, oh, somebody who like worked really hard deserved
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: to get there, come up like the the you know,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: their rewards and whatnot, and it was just like a
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: weird happenstance type of interaction. So you know, maybe that's
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: the moral of the story. Maybe second recommendation is like
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: read books in public so people can talk to you.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, exactly.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: That's so fun.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: That's wild that you know the author and everything.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like best friends with him, that's wild.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: My favorite anecdote was like he goes he in high school,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: he couldn't stand Stephen King and now they're like best
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: friends and it's so upsetting to me. Yeah, like I
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: want to be best friends with Stephen King. But good
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: for him. I'm glad he's got that, you.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Know, true true.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: So no, that's really fun, and I'm glad that you
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: enjoyed it too, because you know, I have repeatedly recommended
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: that to people, and I don't know that anyone has
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: taken me up on that recommendation except for you. But yeah,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: I thought that great book was really really good.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: It was so fun.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's and as you said, it's like quick,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: it's not like you're really committing a huge amount to it,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: but you think you get a really fun story out
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: of it nonetheless, So yeah, yeah, very good stuff. So
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: that was the album Say us In by the band Sayasin.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: It's their self titled album. And then the Kaiju Preservation Society,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: a book by author John Scalzi. And we'll be back
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: next time with our second part of the Jonestowns story.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: So we get into the stuff. So I guess we
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: didn't really get much into the abuse and stuff, like
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: slight descriptions of it here and there. Next time will
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: be a bit grittier, but nevertheless, that's where most of
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the story actually sort of takes place. We built up
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: to it because we felt like it was really important
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: to understand how things got to where they were, Like
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: what was the path that Jim Jones and his actions
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: took to end up at Jonestown and then the things
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: that transpire there.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, cultural behavior does not happen in isolation. It does
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: not happen in a vacuum.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, very much so.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: So come back next week for the conclusion of this
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: story so that you have all of the facts and detail.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: But I think that's all I have for now. Anything
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: you'd like to add before we say our temporary goodbyes.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Nothing at the moment.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you all for listening, See you next week.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: This is Abraham and.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: This is Shane.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: We're out, diya.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: we hope you have an awesome day.