Jim Jones Preaching at the Peoples Temple 1972 Henry Bemis 2026-09-23 | Jim Jones Preaching at the Peoples Temple 1972
End Time Christians 2010 Henry Bemis 2021-07-04 | I am not judging anyone or any group. This video is for Educational purposes ONLY. Friends I think we need to be aware of the World around us and what many people believe about the Future.
Heavens Gate Final Exit Tape (March 20,1996) Henry Bemis 2021-07-03 | This tape was filmed the evening of March 20,1996. It shows the entire "Away Team" group in their space uniforms before they all started the suicide process the next day.
Heavens Gate Members Final Goodbyes (March 1996) Henry Bemis 2021-07-03 | Quite simply this was a VHS recording of the Members of the Heaven's Gate cult saying personal goodbyes to the World. I will not elaborate too much on this video but I will simply say that these were the last words of these people before they took their own lives. I hope this is a warning and a lesson on how dangerous and tragic religious deception can be.
Ted Haggard Megachurch Scandal Henry Bemis 2021-07-02 | I am not trying to glory in the fall of this man. I hope Ted Haggard has found grace and restoration after his fall. But I have a duty to the wider community to WARN those of you who may put too much devotion and adulation to a mere human being. Whether a Political leader or a Religious or Sports idol ultimately it must be understood that Humans will LET YOU DOWN. Trust in God - not Man. Also I make NO money off of my account. Even though money grubbing YT is putting ads there to rake in the $$$$$ I am NOT profiting from these videos. This is a labor of love to all of you who are seeking Truth. God Bless.
Heavens Gate UFO Cult (1997) Henry Bemis 2021-06-25 | This is a really good documentary on the Heaven's Gate UFO cult. We must not forget our past.
The UFO Believers (1992) Henry Bemis 2021-06-25 | This is rather a lighthearted film on the whole amazing UFO phenomenon. Now with them practically every day on the News showing flying saucers engaging US Navy ships I think that we can't afford be serious all of the time my friends right? They are trying to instill FEAR into you...I would like you to think critically and HAVE A LAUGH!! This film was put out in 1992 and was a kind of tongue and cheek documentary about the various devout and arcane UFO believers throughout the Nation. It is VERY hard to get. Some copies online sell for like 77$. This was videotaped off TV onto BETA then transferred to MP4 format so the quality is still good while not 750q.Again this is my attempt at levity and a chance for you my friends, well-wishers, and supporters to get some HUMOR into your system in these dark crazy days. God Bless...
The Roswell UFO Cult Henry Bemis 2021-06-25 | I posted this as a service to all of my subscribers and supporters. With all of the recent PUSH for Worldwide acceptance of the reality of UFOs via the Government and the mainstream Media I thought it would be healthy for us to take a different look at the whole Roswell UFO phenomenon.
State Brainwashing of Children (1981) Henry Bemis 2020-11-30 | This is a long lost PBS Special from 1981 that I wanted to share with you all. It was supposed to show what would happen if the Soviet Union every took over the USA and the consequences. Yes it was a bit of scaremongering propaganda during the Reagan Era. However, while it may be campy now to watch I think this video does give a fascinating glimpse into how someone in a position of authority may gain control over another will and thoughts via social programing/conditioning. I was 13 when I first saw this on TV when it first aired and I remembered bring scared that this might happen to our school. However now with our OWN Government and leaders ever increasingly controlling every facet of our lives this 1981 film may be more relevant that ever before. Please share your thoughts.
African American Faith (1987) Henry Bemis 2020-11-24 | Examines the Black church in America as a source of Black heritage and cultural identity, a wellspring of social and political action, and a refuge for impoverished urban blacks. Shows hot two Black churches in Chicago, one with a middle class congregation and one serving the inner-city poor, balance the spiritual needs of their members with their mission of addressing the social and economic problems facing many disadvantaged Black Americans.
Poisoning Plot Against Jim Jones (10/5/78) Henry Bemis 2020-11-21 | The bulk of this tape consists of Jim Jones reading the news of the day from October 5, 1978 in Jonestown, but the most significant part of the recording is in the last 15 minutes, when Jones returns to the microphone numerous times – first with increasing stridency, then with a flattening lethargy – to complain that someone has attempted to poison his food. He has avoided the most severe effects of the assault because he didn’t eat all of the food, even though both he and an unnamed nurse became ill. He tries to determine who is behind the scheme – at one point, it seems he will discern the culprit by looking at pictures of Jonestown residents – and his threats become more dire. “You better quit trying to poison me,” he warns, “because I will be here to see you die by normal means. You’ll just die. Death process will take over, and it’ll be you that will be put six foot under, by your own thoughts, minds, and attitudes, by touching the anointed.”He acknowledges more than once that people feel hostile towards him, and says that it “comes towards me for having to be the driving force for your freedom.” He asks for more gratitude for himself, more appreciation for what he does for them, a recognition of how much he loves everyone there. “Try hard,” he pleads. “Try hard to think of some reasons to be grateful, instead of always in your states of apprehension and hostility.”The segments following the news also include announcements of increasingly draconian surveillance of people, to make sure they continue the production of the land. Jones describes the function of the “work observers” late in the tape: “There are more observers today, and believe me, there will be names taken – plenty of them – because we have increased our observer staff by at least double… It won’t be somebody just walking that you think you know. It’ll be someone you don’t know.”He defends his decision by holding out the carrot of a move to the USSR, where there is more room and additional benefits that Guyana cannot provide. But granting permission to allow Peoples Temple into the Soviet Union comes with a price: “let us work hard. That was one request they made, that we study their constitution well, their language and to work hard, work very hard here, extra hours, to build this project to the very, very best we can.”He also wants people to do better on the tests – language, Soviet and Guyana history, news – and says people need to pay attention when he reads the news, because they are responsible for its content. “I would advise that you listen, because the test will be more severe this time. To shut me out will be only to hurt yourself and require five extra classes.”The reading of the news takes up the bulk of the tape. As is the case in other tapes, Jones adds periodic editorial comments. Some obviously come from him, as when he pauses to describe the US arms shipments going to the South African regime as being financed by US tax dollars, and adds, “much to our sorrow.” At another point, he praises a US Senator for decrying the Camp David accords, and concludes, “Bravo to such courage.” At other points, however, it is hard to determine whether the use of such adjectives as “fascist,” “imperialist,” “monopoly capitalist,” and “dictatorial,” comes from him or from the news copy he’s reading from, since – as in other newscasts – he relies heavily upon Soviet and East European wire services for his information.
Escape Attempt From Jonestown (November 1977) Jim Jones ANGRY! Henry Bemis 2020-11-20 | The tape consists of a portion of a meeting in Jonestown during which two young men – Tommy Bogue and Brian Davis – who made an unsuccessful escape attempt appear before the community to explain their actions and to learn what discipline they will face as a result. Neither the beginning nor the end of the meeting appear here, so there is no firm indication of what the community’s decision will bewhen the tape ends. (The boys’ voices are difficult to differentiate, and both are indicated on the accompanying transcript as “young man in trouble.”)Tommy and Brian had apparently left the Jonestown community under cover of darkness after having stolen several items such as flashlights and matches. They had made few plans beyond the escape itself, and weren’t even going to stay together: one had planned to go to Venezuela, and the other planned to live along a local river, catching fish to survive. Jim Jones is upset, in part, because he says he has had to involve the Guyana government in locating the young men, costing him good will and political capital; the community is upset, in part, because it lost a day of work searching for them.At the beginning of the tape, Jones is reminding the young men of the dangers they faced while they were gone. There are wild animals in the jungle, he says, ranging from tigers and ocelots, to several kinds of snakes that can kill a human being. The animals don’t bother the people of Jonestown, he reassures them later in the tape, “because we have a protective aura. Nothing comes in here.” But that protection doesn’t extend beyond the perimeter of the community.Jones also tells Tommy and Brian that everyone in the country was on the lookout for them. He had alerted every person in the government, from the prime minister on down to the local police. There is a law, he says later, making everyone in the country responsible for returning Temple members to Jonestown. And that’s how they were caught. “How do you suppose we knew where you were? You passed two government people. They informed us. All the natives informed us.”What’s more, he adds, had they made it to the Venezuelan border, “[t]he Border Patrol said, if you try to cross, you’d be shot.” If they had been captured by the local police, they could have been thrown in jail and “whipped 39 times with a cat o’nine tails.” And if they hadn’t been caught soon, someone would have found them in the jungle after five or six days, and they would have been barely alive.At some points in the tape, Jones asks the young men what they would have done to survive, although — apparently in an effort to prevent them from lying — he reminds them that the Jonestown leadership knows a lot already. When the escapees say they would have found jobs, Jones sounds perplexed. There are jobs available at Jonestown, he says. Beyond that, they have free medical care, as well as the love of the community.Later in the meeting, though, Jones offers another reason the young men shouldn’t have left, and the tone of his voice suggests this one is closer to his true belief: “There’s no possible way we can tolerate anarchy,” he says, “no possible way that we can tolerate people going out and living on their own.”Tommy and Brian apparently have declared they wanted to return to the U.S., but Jones says they won’t return to what he calls “that fascist Babylon” until everybody in San Francisco has joined them. At that point, he says to cheers and applause, “then we’ll be glad to be rid of the likes of both of you.”Jones’ anger seems genuine. He speaks through gritted teeth on several occasions. He sets the tone of the abuse leveled at the boys by calling them “vermin,” “parasitical,” “contemptible.” At one point, he snaps, “You’re vile. You’re evil. You’re insidious. You’re low.” At another, he literally spits numerous times in disgust.While Jones’ criticism of the boys is the most prolonged, he is by no means alone, and other community members follow his lead. While tentative at first, eventually a number of voices speak against them. The anger of the community is as deep as Jones’. “We didn’t want to look for you at all,” one woman shouts. “We woulda left you [in the jungle].”A woman who had counseled one of them, promising him confidentiality, says she thinks their actions have relieved her of that obligation. Jones agrees — “It’s all obliterated… Your privileged relationship with your counselor no longer exists in this room. She’s ordered by the good of the collective to tell everything you’ve said” — and the woman speaks of the young man’s lack of interest in the community, in the cause, and in socialism itself. At other points in the tape, other women — or perhaps the same one — says the young man described himself as being more of a capitalist than a socialist, although he is apparently willing to accept the benefits of a socialist life.
Jim Jones Talks About Lawsuits - Revolutionary Death (6-13-78) Henry Bemis 2020-11-20 | While principally a news tape, this daily reading of bulletins and commentary to the people of Jonestown includes several lengthy asides of more relevance to the community, and more editorial rhetoric on some of news items themselves. Jones also speaks more distinctly and with more animation in this tape than in others from previous days.The source of all of this could be his early announcement that former Peoples Temple attorney – and now “class enemy of the people” – Tim Stoen has filed two lawsuits against the Temple. The two suits – one for $18 million filed by Wade and Mabel Medlock for fraudulent deprivation of property, the other a $15 million defamation action by Steven Katsaris – are intended to “starve” the people of Jonestown, Jones says, and to turn the press against them. The Temple is no longer considered to be the source of healing or even religion, but rather a nest of socialists, and while that’s good, it opens them to press attacks. “[T]hey have all this self-righteousness about exposing socialists and trying to make them look bad, headline after headline. There’s nothing in the news except Jim Jones, Huey Newton, and the cooperative named Synanon, and now a new wave of attack on Scientology.”Much later in the tape, after Jones has read numerous other items showing how socialists are persecuted in other countries, both by their governments and the press, as well as how some socialists have succumbed to the pressure and become revisionist, he notes that death will come to all of them – “revisionist, apologist, opportunist, capitalist” – as it will someday come to them. The only difference, he says, is in how you die. “[T]he only thing that makes nobility is in what we stand for,” he says, “but that dying then cannot be noble unless it is a revolutionary death.” They have the will to live, the strength to go on, the desire to build the community for a lifetime, but if they are attacked by “the enemy of the people, a class enemy” – i.e., the same description he gave for Stoen and the Concerned Relatives – “we are certainly ready and able to meet revolutionary death.”Worse than that kind of death, he says, is abandoning the struggle, and this is something he sees infecting Jonestown. The symptoms are many: people waste food, destroy property, break tools, don’t take care of themselves, and are driven by “your own animal and sexual appetites.”It is a theme he has built on for weeks, and throughout this session. Commenting upon a news story on the seven liberation movements in Africa – all of which have the support of the Soviet Union, according to the Carter Administration, but which are really are outgrowths of the people’s demand for freedom from oppression, according to Jones – the Temple leader chastises his own people: “Some of you will never relate to it, because you’ve always had Father to provide your every need.”The sentiment drives the concluding minutes of the news portion of the tape. “How much do we have to hear to be inflamed in our motivation to build this community, to be inflamed with a passion to protect it, for socialists’ sake, to build it instead of wasting every day,” he admonishes, then again a few moments later, “I don’t know how some of you do it, how you stop struggling for people, when they still can’t determine their own destinies,” and then finally, “Please, for socialism’s sakes, awake out of your lethargy, out of your self-indulgence… Try to identify with the struggle.”Jones’ emotional critique of his community plays out in his reading of the news as well. The session opens with a lengthy reading on a half million blacks in Rhodesia being placed in concentration camps, with hundreds of political prisoners being hanged each day, and hundreds more babies dying in their mothers’ wombs due to malnutrition and lack of health care. He returns to it over and over, reminding his listeners that the camps are modeled on similar camps the US erected in Vietnam. “There should be nothing but an incensed indignity, a hatred, a passion that goes deep to our soul against that system that … has its hold on the throats, strangling and murdering and killing and torturing, by the hour, untold tens of thousands,” he demands, then adds, “We should hate US imperialism.”
First-Person Account of a Visit to Jonestown (3/8/79) Henry Bemis 2020-11-19 | Following his visit to Jonestown, newspaper publisher Carlton Goodlett accedes to a request from a Temple interviewer to record his impressions of the project. While he was there only a few hours, Goodlett says, his impressions were positive. He saw several parts of the community, including such agricultural facilities as the piggery and chickery, as well the medical clinic, although he adds that he didn’t have extended tours through any of them. He had a good meal while he was there, he says, and heard a good performance by the Jonestown band. He also remarks that people who were living on the streets of San Francisco just a few years before are now productive members of society.Most of the interview apparently takes place as Goodlett is en route to the Georgetown airport to take a plane back to the U.S. Following an edit – and as Goodlett is about to get on the plane – the interviewer asks for a brief message to the world. In a stronger voice than the early part of the interview, Goodlett says, “I for one plan to do everything possible to spread the message, and I have come to Jonestown, I have seen the wave of the future in terms of living in the present, and about what I found, I find very intriguing and challenging.”The second part is a short snatch of conversation at the end on the second side of tape between two men who are tired and ready to go to bed, apparently after having worked all night.
White Night at Jonestown - Berating Stanley Clayton (12 April 1978) Henry Bemis 2020-11-19 | Recorded during a White Night probably in April 1978, this tape alternately shows the anger, fear, and isolation within Jonestown. Jones feels under attack due to the pressure from the Concerned Relatives and the absence of some of his supporters within the Guyana government from the country. The danger of a fascist coup growing within the USA adds more tension to the meeting.The tape begins with Jones talking about being under attack for holding a child named Dana Truss. He says the community needs to make its decision about what to do, but he knows what he wants to do for himself: he’ll take Dana and John Victor Stoen into the jungle, get to America, kill some enemies, and then die someplace. He faces death as a reality, he says, and lives with it every day.Even though the community needs to make up its own mind, the first commitment needs to be to the children. “If you’re not prepared to die for your children, you will not stand up for your children.” He says he will die for the communist collective, he will die for principle.Much of the meeting is about Stanley Clayton, and about lust and sexual love within the Jonestown community. “And that’s trouble. It’s trouble here also. All you that are in love, it’s trouble.” In times of crisis, he says, you’ll make the wrong decision based on personal love. He returns to this several times: “you people won’t even rise above your vaginas and your dicks,” he says at one point. Later, he says, “we ought to cut the pricks off so we can have fried sausage at night. We’d be better off.”One thing he can’t understand is why one young woman – Janice – insists on being with a loser like Stanley, instead of Dr. Schacht. Janice is berated over and again, but Stanley takes most of the heat. Part of Stanley’s problem is that he sleeps around, but Jones also says Stanley is the class enemy, because he dealt drugs in San Francisco. Jones says he can’t figure it out, and ends his angry lecturing of Stanley by breaking off and saying, “I’m ready to die.”Jones’ point on infidelity and, by extension, lust is, “when you won’t be loyal to a woman, how in the hell do I know, what the fuck you’re going to do on the front line” of the coming war.Others join in the attack on the wounded Stanley and Janice, sometimes to the point of hysteria. The crowd is angry enough that Jones has to tell them not to tear clothes, because we got to replace them. Provided, of course, they get through the White Night. Which they always do, he adds with sadness or bitterness. At the end of the tape, though, he muses, “Don’t I’d like for one to come and not pass.”The residents are going to have to get on the radio and talk to their relatives. Jones want them to speak with gut. He wants it rehearsed so they get it right.Marceline says she’s upset that no one reacted when Jim said he would die for the cause. Jones chides her gently, saying, it’s their lives, it’s their decision.Jim says he knows what Stanley is thinking, but he wants to hear Stanley say it. He continues with the observation that everyone there is a burden to him, that he’s had to sleep with men and women he hated.Dr. Schacht speaks up and says he wants to die a revolutionary death. “Life is shit,” he says, “except for socialism.”One unidentified man says the reason Stanley sleeps with so many women is that he has to be homosexual. Jones picks up on that. Stanley admits to the feelings, and Jones says he’s proud Stanley made the admission. Jones continues that if women were smart, they’d be lesbian and Amazons. Then they’d be ready to fight a revolution. As it is, whenever there’s a man around, they go crazy.
Jim Jones Reads News - Demands Personal Property Lists (April 11, 1978) Henry Bemis 2020-11-15 | While most of the tape is devoted to the newscast, Jones does issue a few directives for the residents of Jonestown to follow. The most significant is his request that all people must turn in their lists of personal property to Central Supply, a demand he makes at both the beginning and the end of the tape. There are additional details to the order: at the beginning, he notes that those people who have been found guilty of theft in the past will have their lists posted for all to see; at the end, he says that people have a two-hour amnesty – beginning at that moment – to turn over anything that is not theirs to Central Supply.To make sure the lists are accurate and match what the people say they own, Jones says that people from Central Supply will have the authority to inspect anyone’s possessions, at any time, and without notice. Again, those under greatest scrutiny will be those who have been involved in thefts in the past.Jones defends the policy in a couple of ways. He insists that it is one thing to steal things “from big stores, corporations which can clearly be shown are properties of the bourgeoisie and the ruling class. But,” he continues, “to steal from your own fellow comrade is stealing people’s property that’s to be shared equally and will be considered the most heinous and horrendous and disgusting of crimes against the people. It will be stopped.”The use of his staff for surprise inspections has a precedent as well. While Jones regularly criticizes the CIA and other agencies which spy on American citizens, he differentiates those from an intelligence branch of a nation which defends the social orders and protects the people. “Our social order,” he concludes, “is clearly proven to protect the people.”Given the repetition of this demand and the animation in Jones’ voice, it is apparent that something has triggered the issue, but he does not specify the cause.As with other news tapes, this one includes a number of editorial comments along the way. Some of them are Jones’ spontaneous reactions (“Thus is the corruption that we see constantly of racism all around us,” he says after a pause following the story of a rich landlord who shot a deaf-mute boy. “It’s disgusting. Most disgusting. No way to describe it”). Other comments are less clear in their origin, especially when they seem to be read in the same tone of voice as the news item itself, so they may reflect the slant of the news service he is quoting. In describing New York’s cutbacks to hospitals in New York, for example, he reads/predicts that “170,000 patients are now confined to death because there will be no assistance for them.” At another point, in describing tobacco company opposition to a new anti-smoking program, Jones refers to their lobbyists as representing “powerful tobacco corporations that also have their hands, according to many authorities, in dope, particularly marijuana, production of napalm and other merciless, barbaric, and inhumane military types of warfare equipment that have destroyed children from Vietnam to Africa.”Jones does find ways to link the items in the news to concerns in Jonestown. When he first mentions the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, he reminds his listeners that the agency was “one of our conspirators that has tried to hold back our checks and has held back upwards of 60,000 US dollars in checks we need for this commune badly, desperately, so that we can buy a boat.” Later, in enumerating Rupert Murdoch’s attacks on “progressive forces in liberalism” – ranging from Jimmy Carter to the Black Panthers to Synanon – he adds Peoples Temple to the list, since Murdoch owns New West magazine, and they all remember New West magazine.
Jim Jones Reads News - Talks of Move to USSR October 3, 1978. Henry Bemis 2020-11-14 | Jim Jones reads the news to Jonestown residents. While parts of the newscast may come from other wire services that Jones often used – the BBC, Voice of America, and European radio networks – he relies most heavily, and perhaps exclusively, on Radio Moscow and other Soviet news sources for this edition. It is not only the coverage of stories that reveals this, but the tone, the rhetoric and even the use of first-person pronouns when describing events in the Soviet Union and its allies. The bulletins of overt Soviet origin are scattered throughout the broadcast, including these items:• Congratulations to the new democratic republic of Afghanistan;• An award given to the president of Vietnam• Congratulations to Guinea on the 20th anniversary of its republic;• Support for a conference on African liberation movements and against apartheid;• Soviet perspectives on a meeting between Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance• Expressions of friendship between Leonid Brezhnev and the Ethiopian government• Soviet geologist exploration of coal deposits in Mozambique• Soviet space mission sets records• Economic council of Soviet-bloc countries meeting in Mongolia;• Discussion of role of trade unions in USSR• Soviet development of boat to allow for navigation of small, winding rivers• Soviet dissident émigré to Israel disowned by fatherAs with other news tapes, however, it is not always clear when the editorial asides are part of the copy, or whether they come spontaneously from the reader. The name of the country “The Soviet Union” is almost always followed by “the avant garde of liberation of the world,” but that is language that is common both to Radio Moscow and Jim Jones. This is also the case with a three-time description of Washington, DC as “the center of world imperialism.” One commentary – “the USA and her Western imperialists were on the wrong side of every question and the Soviet Union and Cuba were on the right side of every issue” – seems to be part of the news copy which Jones is reading, but a longer string of anti-Western invective in the description of NATO – “the military adventurers, aggressive expansionist fascist imperialist lackeys of US imperialism” – likely comes from Jones.But it is Jones himself who takes advantage of several opportunities to disparage religion. When reporting that the pope had died after about a month in office, Jones comments that “God’s representative on earth does not seem to be faring very well.” As he reports on monsoon floods destroying crops and killing thousands of people in India, he adds, “An act of God.” When he notes that scores of pilgrims en route to a religious festival, also in India, drowned in a boating accident, he comments, “It seems that God does not protect his own while they’re going to bow at his shrines of festivals and worship.” Finally, in describing the battle for Lebanon as one between government forces and Phalangists Christian fascists, he offers the aside that “Christians mostly all over the world are fascists except in Ethiopia.”Jones is almost certainly the source of the several comments that the threat of nuclear holocaust will spin out to an inevitable conclusion. In reporting the talks between Vance and Gromyko on limiting strategic arms, he adds, “Let us hope it’s not too late before the terror of nuclear holocaust rains down upon North America.” A moment later, he expands upon a story from the Middle East to suggest that this is “the spot that would lead to World War III, which would mean the end of US society. Over 200 million of our beloved people there would die in less than 13 minutes.” Finally, he adds that an economic summit of Communist-bloc nations in Mongolia concluded with a statement that “nuclear war is still absolutely inevitable, but may be postponed. Let’s hope that they put the emphasis upon postponed, though most scientists say that, even within the year, nuclear war is likely.”Other commentary is familiar to the people of Jonestown: he describes West Germany as “prid[ing] itself as being the successor to Hitler’s Third Reich,” he says “fascist South Africa [is] upheld by US tax dollars which burns my stomach every time I think of it,” and he labels the US condemnation of other countries’ human rights record as “hypocritical.”
Entertainment Night at Jonestown 10/1/78 Henry Bemis 2020-11-14 | A number of Jonestown residents perform skits and sing songs for the community. The lyrics of the songs – including “A Simple Song of Freedom” by Bobby Darin, “Yesterday” by Paul McCartney, “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, and “The Internationale” – are adapted to reflect their own beliefs and understandings of political philosophy. The skits are statements of the oppressed people of the world, most likely written by the performers themselves.
Jonestown Discusses Visit of Congressman Leo Ryan (10/7/1978) Henry Bemis 2020-11-10 | Recorded on November 7, 1978 – eleven days before the mass deaths in Jonestown – this tape divides Jim Jones’ time between reading the news of the day and alerting the people of Jonestown about the plans of Congressman Leo Ryan to visit the community on an unspecified date in the near future.This tape may show some of Jones’ earliest reactions to Ryan’s plans, since the news of the pending visit seems fresh to Jones. He is most animated when he speaks of the possible arrival of the congressional party – which would include some of the “group of bad relatives who are working with the conspiracy” – to the degree that at one point, he hurries through a news item, mispronouncing the last word of the story, in order to talk more about the more immediate threat to the community. Jones is also confused about the congressman’s name – perhaps because of its unfamiliarity, perhaps because, as evidenced in the slight impairment in his voice, he may be fighting fatigue or pharmaceutical haziness – and refers to him half the time as “Congressman O’Ryan.” But the first time Jones identifies the congressman, he is quite emphatic: “His name is Congressman Ryan.”The news items – which predominate the first half of the tape – include: . The Shah of Iran and his new military government; . A summit of Arab leaders; . Tension between Tanzania and Uganda over a border dispute; . The U.S. Energy Department’s views on OPEC’s oil pricing policies; . Monsoon rains in India; and . A single-line reference to “a young black youth … castrated and tied to a tree, left to die.”But much of the tape centers on the uninvited fact-finding delegation headed by Ryan and including many of the relatives who have caused so much difficulty for the Jonestown community. Jones offers several ideas for handling the relatives: to refuse to see them; to accept that they will come into Jonestown, but to say “No” to every one of their demands and requests; and to sign a petition that expresses the community’s opposition to the relatives’ visit.Jones focuses on this last point in particular – “Collect these names as fast as we can” – because that will allow the community to go through normal channels and work with the Guyanese to block the legal entry of the relatives. And if the relatives can’t get in legally, then the only way they can come is through illegal means, and they should know what that means. “[T]hey will have to suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be grave indeed,” Jones promises, then adds in the next sentence, “if anyone approaches this property illegally, they will leave it dead.” At the end of the message, he shifts the responsibility for warning “hostile” relatives to the community members. “If you want to help your relative to one day wake up from their insanity. [i]f you care for your relative [who] might be on this illegal excursion,” he says, “you had better tell now so we can get it stopped, because if they come in here by night, they are finished.”In language that will become quite familiar to the people of Jonestown by the time Ryan arrives slightly more than a week later, Jones refers to the California congressman as a “Birchite” (i.e., a member of the John Birch Society), a “reputable fascist” and a right-winger who supports the minority white government in the Union of South Africa as well as “the brutal dictator that killed the blacks in Chile.” As for other members of the congressional party, Jones continues, “if your relatives come with him, your relatives are no better than he is.”But the relatives are not only guilty by association. Jones describes Tim and Grace Stoen as being “as high in their salutations for fascism as they once were in their devotion to socialism.” The others who will accompany Ryan “are filled with hate. They tell the most horrible tales. They whip up dreams of madness out of their own nightmares and evil souls. These are wicked people. Those are enemies.”
Jonestown Crisis Meeting October 1978 Henry Bemis 2020-11-10 | This tape consists of a series of messages that Jim Jones – and one unidentified male in one segment – gives to the Jonestown community during a series of perceived crises that rocked the Jonestown community in mid-October 1978. Whether Jones addresses the issues of low productivity, people contemplating suicides, runaways, or emigration to the Soviet Union – and whether Jones discusses these matters in conversational, deliberative or excited tones – it is apparent that the calm and steady experiment in socialism has spiraled out of his control, at least for the duration of this tape. Some of the reprimands along the way are out of context (who ran away? what precipitated his demand to stay away from his cabin? what is going on that he feels compelled to order people to smile?), but the overall sense is of a man trying to treat a deep gash with a single Band-Aid.The first segment begins with a discussion of the troubles in neighboring Venezuela, but Jones reassures his followers, if things get out of hand, they can escape to the Soviet Union. “They’ll take us.” Jones then speaks about the community’s enemies, and reports what Joe Mazor – a detective who was hired by the Concerned Relatives but who defected to the Temple’s side when he saw the determination and love in the people’s faces – says about their enemies, such as Tim and Grace Stoen, Deanna and Elmer Mertle, and other members of “the conspiracy.”But much of the first segment is an address to people who are discouraged. Jones tells them to take it easy, to let security “rove constantly” without interference, and if anyone is entertaining thoughts of suicide, to “please give your name in the radio room, because it’s a grave and dangerous thing that you’re doing to yourself.” While he wishes he could help them out of this life, he says it’s important to find a way past their depression. He recommends mood elevators and other medication (in a later segment, he speaks of tranquilizers). He recommends that people write him notes – messages in the suggestion box or personal notes for his eyes only – so he can counsel them. Whatever it takes, he says, he wants to “stop good socialists from laying down their lives.”He makes his strong argument against suicide, for several reasons: they dissipate the energy that could be directed towards their enemies; the same energy drain affects his ability to perform miracles; they will set back their souls 500 generations (a reference he repeats in a later segment); but most of all, he asks the residents of Jonestown to imagine how their enemies would laugh. “Would you want to give them the satisfaction that you’d taken your own life? Let them smear in the press that you hated socialism, that you didn’t believe in equality and justice? Would you want that written? That’s the way they’d write your epitaph. Not that you were a hero, but that you did not like brotherhood socialism, and you preferred capitalism.” He returns to it again and again, not only in this segment, but throughout the tape: “Don’t be so silly as to lay your life down, to give the fascists a laugh, and the newspapers a headline. That is silly, and it is a waste of your whole potential.” He says the same for himself: “I never wanted to give the enemy, capitalism, racist pigs like Ku Klux Klan white bullying cops– I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of killing myself.”Jones diverts into a melancholy aside about his own life, a heartache involving his “only girlfriend” that he says shaped the rest of his life. “[O]ne thing that I learned from that experience, that people only use you, until they become communist. And I’m glad for that experience … It made me trustworthy. Never again to fall for anyone, to only be in love with you as a family, and communism above all.”In the second segment, Jones laments that a girl didn’t listen to what he had said the previous night about suicide and had tried to do something. She is now on a medication that makes her “more tranquil.” What’s worse, her betrayal of the cause stemmed from a problem in a “personal romance.” Once she gets better and proves herself responsible, Jones says, “we will not interfere with your sick love affairs.”
Jonestown Promotional Film (Full Version) Henry Bemis 2020-11-03 | A collection of Jonestown promotional films in one video.
Welcoming New Jonestown Members (April 2 1978) Henry Bemis 2020-11-03 | Jim Jones leads a meeting of the Jonestown community, and many elements of such meetings – references to specific items in the news, conjecture of the coming economic collapse of the U.S. and/or nuclear war, reminders both of the miracles which Jones performs to save people’s lives and the health care that residents receive on a daily basis – are present. The main difference between this and many other Jonestown tapes is that this was recorded on a night that a number of new people had arrived.In the course of this meeting, then, Jones talks about the benefits of living in Jonestown, even as he acknowledges some of the hardships and temporary inconveniences they have to endure. He and other leaders review some of the rules which govern the community. Newcomers also witness what happens when people break the rules: there are several reviews of the misbehavior of some Temple members already in Guyana, and Jones decides on several penalties, ranging from placing miscreants onto the Learning Crew, to requiring a woman to let a large snake crawl over her.“Don’t expect to come over here and find Hollywood,” Jones says as the tape opens. There are problems in Jonestown. Living conditions are more crowded than what they want, family housing has not yet been constructed – although couples can live together – and people are working harder than he intended them to. Both the CIA and Social Security have blocked their money, there are essential supplies needlessly – and sinisterly – being held up at the docks in Georgetown, and the Federal Communications Commission is giving them trouble about their radio transmissions. But still, Jones adds, the community provides what’s necessary for its survival. The people just have to decide what’s more important, if “you have your little creature comforts, or is it really important that your children are taken care of in their hour of need?” A moment later, he points out that most of the people who come, especially the blacks and poor whites, are grateful to be there. Addressing the people who do complain, Jones says, “The only reason you got problems is ’cause you give yourself time for problems.” The theme returns through the two-hour tape: “Cuba was surrounded for ten years, we got no reason to complain,” Jones says later in referring to the their proceedings as a “trouble night meeting”; “You realize you have no reason to complain when two out of three babies are going to bed hungry,” Jones says about halfway through.It isn’t that they don’t allow dissent within Jonestown, he adds at one point. But “[y]ou got to be awful careful about dissent. Dissent better be over something mighty crucial, mighty crucial.” He makes another less direct mention of dissent later, when he says how important it is for the people to stand up to their enemies in the U.S. by staying in Jonestown – thereby denying them a chance to disgrace and kill them – and that Jonestown will survive only if they stand in solidarity. “So we demand that. Solidarity, cohesiveness, unity, and no talking behind anyone’s back. You got any improvements, constructive suggestions, we welcome it. Any ideas on how to make this a better place, we welcome it, but we don’t want any back talk.”The conversation also turns – and also returns several times – to the conspiracy against Jonestown. The forces that have aligned against them, both government and relatives, require the community to be more restrictive than it will be in the future. While there are some people coming and going, in general, Jones doesn’t want anybody to leave until everyone from the U.S. is down there. The problem is, people who leave are subject to kidnapping. Worse, some of them – he mentions Tim Stoen and Yolanda Williams by name – turn into traitors themselves and start working against the things they once believed in. Jones reminds them of what the conspiracy has done – laid seige to the community for six days, fired shots from the jungle – even as he recalls the protection they all have, including from the beasts of the jungle surrounding them, as long as they stay within the encampment.“We’re in a war,” Jones says several times, and their enemies are not just those who attack their community. He criticizes the capitalist system, the military that would produce a weapon as insidious as a neutron bomb, the “right wing” that wants to have a nuclear war, and an intelligence system that is so out of control, even the president is not above investigation. He brings that back to the importance of adapting to the hardships of Jonestown. “[W]hen you stop to think of the murderous shit that’s being done by United States,” he says, “you’ll adjust.” As with other subjects in the meeting, the theme of neceessary adjustments recurs several times.
I am God and There is NO OTHER!! (Jim Jones Sermon) Henry Bemis 2020-11-03 | A 1971 sermon given at the Los Angeles branch of the People's Temple. At 19:00 Jim Jones states that he is God.
The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and PTL Henry Bemis 2020-11-03 | The Rise and Fall of Jim Bakker and PTL
Struggles of an Inner City Church (Washington DC) 2000 Henry Bemis 2020-10-26 | Easter in Washington, D.C.: The White House holds its annual Easter Egg Roll on its great lawn. But less than a mile away is the city’s Shaw neighborhood—one of the country’s most impoverished communities—where residents celebrate a more spiritual commemoration of the holiday. In the months leading up to Easter, LET THE CHURCH SAY AMEN follows the lives of four Shaw residents who rely on their neighborhood’s storefront church, the World Missions for Christ Church, to sustain them through the challenges of living in the inner city. Within the tightly proscribed boundaries of this church and its small congregation, they call upon faith and community to overcome the unemployment, homelessness and violence that affects their lives, as well as the lives of many other American families living in poverty.Presented by executive producer and scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., LET THE CHURCH SAY AMEN is a riveting and emotional documentary that tracks the daily lives and journeys of four World Missions for Christ parishioners as they work towards fulfilling their hopes for a better life, using their church as a source of strength and spiritual power. A former corner store, the church is a sanctuary where members gather every Sunday to sing, pray, testify and work to change their community. Originally founded in the 1970s by Rev. Dr. JoAnn Perkins with the support of her mother and eleven siblings, the church has not only saved the lives of those in Perkins’ neighborhood, but also those in her family. While living on welfare, Perkins earned a Ph.D. in special education through scholarships at Georgetown University. Meanwhile, her brother Bobby had slipped into a dangerous drug addiction. In the film, Bobby testifies how he was saved from a path of certain destruction by joining the church, which prompted his sister to give up her title and make him pastor.Update on cast since 2000:Darlene Duncan earned her nursing assistant degree and now uses her skills to provide medical help for those in need in her D.C. neighborhood. She also runs her own services out of her home for people who can’t attend church.Brother C continues to work on his music ministry after successfully releasing the CD he recorded with his family in the film. He’s sold many at screenings of the film across the country and is planning to record his second CD soon as part of his music ministry.Pastor Bobby Perkins, Sr. and First Lady Gail S. Perkins continue to pursue a 24-hour ministry, traveling into neighborhoods and communities in need, offering their counsel and support. Pastor Bobby Perkins’ sister Dr. JoAnn Perkins continues to run the World Missions for Christ Extension Center, which offers educational opportunities to members of the community.David Surles finally got his house with a tree, but not the one he expected. He was hired as the chaplain of the shelter featured in the documentary and now manages a group home where he lives. As he explained to audiences at the screening of the film, “The house has a tree, in fact several, but you have to be careful of what you pray for. These trees have a lot of leaves that drop and always need raking.”LET THE CHURCH SAY AMEN also follows the stories of three other parishioners: Darlene Duncan, a mother of eight who wants to get off public assistance by training to become a nurse's assistant, despite having only a sixth-grade education; David Surles, who lost his job, children and home to substance abuse and now lives and works in a homeless shelter, hoping to reunite his family by saving enough money to buy a house; and singer and evangelist Ceodtis Fulmore, or Brother C, who wants to reach out to young people by producing religious music. The church provides support for its members’ struggles and uses its modest resources to meet the essential needs of the community, hosting clothing and food giveaways, after-school tutoring, a book club, computer training, services for battered women, educational training and more.World Missions for Christ Church is representative of an urban phenomenon: the storefront church, a long-time fundamental part of African American and Latino city life. Growing out of a need to reach the most disadvantaged citizens at the street level, these small churches sprang up as life rafts of faith in almost every American city during the Great Depression. Though rarely recognized by the media, these churches have become indispensable fixtures in the American landscape, transforming city blocks into religious and social service centers. By looking at the daily lives of the members of the World Missions for Christ Church, LET THE CHURCH SAY AMEN reveals how faith and community become essential for those who want to create lasting change within cities across the U.S., including the nation’s capital.
The MOVE Cult (1985) Henry Bemis 2020-10-23 | MOVE is a black militant anarcho-primitivist group founded in 1972 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by John Africa (born Vincent Leaphart). The name is not an acronym. The group lived in a communal setting in West Philadelphia, abiding by philosophies of anarcho-primitivism. The group combined revolutionary ideology, similar to that of the Black Panthers, with work for animal rights. The group is particularly known for two major conflicts with the Philadelphia Police Department. In 1978, a standoff resulted in the death of one police officer, and injuries to 16 officers and firefighters. Nine members were convicted of killing the officer and received life sentences. In 1985, another firefight ended when a police helicopter dropped a bomb onto the roof of the MOVE compound, a townhouse that was previously located at 6221 Osage Avenue. The resulting fire killed six MOVE members, and five of their children, and destroyed 65 houses in the neighborhood. The police action was strongly condemned. The MOVE survivors later filed a civil suit against the city and the police department and were awarded $1.5 million in a 1996 settlement. Other residents displaced by the destruction of the bombing filed a civil suit against the city and in 2005 were awarded $12.83 million in damages in a jury trial.
Jonestown Tragedy (November 29, 1978 Newscast) Henry Bemis 2020-10-23 | Jonestown Tragedy (November 29, 1978 Newscast)
Fleeing Jonestown (November 18, 1978) Henry Bemis 2020-10-23 | Film of US Congressman Leo Joseph Ryan Jr. and his staff fleeing Jonestown with disaffected People's Temple members.
Cults 1982 News Report Henry Bemis 2020-10-23 | CBS News documentary about a young man joining a Cult.
Westboro Baptist Church Documentary Henry Bemis 2020-10-23 | This film is from film maker Steve Drain. He did a great job with this balanced and coherent documentary and I am sorry he has not made more films.I am posting this as an EDUCATIONAL resource that that is ALL. I hope we can have some respectful discussion in the comments below. PLEASE be nice friends. Thank You.
God, I Love You (1971) The Countrymen Henry Bemis 2020-05-17 | God, I Love You (1971) The CountrymenI know very little about this group....anyone have any more info?
Indianapolis Baptist Temple (1977) Henry Bemis 2020-04-28 | The Indianapolis Baptist Temple is an Independent Baptist church based in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The church's building was seized by the U.S. federal government after the church refused to withhold taxes from employees' paychecks for 16 years. The pastor of the church, Greg J. Dixon, died in October 2019 aged 87.
Salvation Army Training College (1952) UK Henry Bemis 2020-04-23 | Salvation Army Training College (1952) UK
Bishop James Pike (1981) Apostate Priest Henry Bemis 2020-04-23 | The life and controversial career of Bishop James Pike are examined, including his impact on faith, organized religion, society, and social issues as well as his personal demons and challenges.
London Church of Christ Cult (1999) Henry Bemis 2020-04-23 | The International Church of Christ (ICC) is a Christian based mind control cult. It has all the traits necessary to classify it as a mind control cult, including the teaching that it is the one true church, love bombing, deceptive recruiting, time control, relationship control, and the rest.It was founded in Boston in the United States in 1979 by the cult’s present day leader Kip McKean. McKean is, according to the cult, the “greatest living treasure that God has given the Kingdom on the face of the earth today”.Wanting to get a branch in every major city (with more than 100,000 people) by the year 2000, the group is very evangelistic, using church plantings to start new branches. As an example of how this works, the original Boston branch planted the London, England branch, who started the Sydney, Australia branch, who planted the Auckland, New Zealand branch (which resulted in Cultwatch being started). The Central Auckland Church of Christ then planted the Christchurch branch. However this rapid expansion leads to members burning out – sometimes after just a few months.
Close Encounters with the New Age (Kevin Logan) Henry Bemis 2020-04-23 | Kevin Logan a British Anglican vicar expires the apostate, spiritually bankrupt Religious scene in mid 1990s Britain.
