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Father Divine is shown on the movie
poster of the "Guyana Tragedy" with madman Jim Jones.
Father Divine was played by James Earl Jones. |
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Father Divine is shown on the movie
poster of the "Guyana Tragedy" with madman Jim Jones.
Father Divine was played by James Earl Jones. |
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Main house of Father Divine's complex on 72 Macon St in Sayville. It was called the "Sayville Heaven." Jim Jones would later model Jonestown on the concept of Father Divine's Sayville. |
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Father Divine's pupil and heir to "Divine Socialism" Jim Jones. |
The demon seed that eventually grew into Jonestown came from Sayville. Jim Jones was a follower of Sayville�s Father Divine and spent a lot of time with him at his home. Father Divine was so important to Jim Jones, that on the movie poster about the Guyana massacre the two are shown together. The People�s Temple became the west coast version for Father Divine�s beliefs. Father Divine said that Sayville was heaven where all the followers had to worship him as a god, call him father, husband and wife could not have sex, the leader and his wife were called �Father� and �Mother,� all the followers had to give all their money to the leader, etc. It was this template that Jim Jones used to create Jonestown. After Father Divine died Jim Jones said he was his successor and claimed the reincarnated Father Divine dwelt within him. For many years following Father Divine�s death, Jones and his followers were very close to Mother Divine. Mother Divine said that while visiting their house in 1958, �Pastor Jones brazenly made his intent clear, stating he intended to eventually take FATHER'S place.� 1 Then she said, �He visited again the following year and was extended the same hospitality.� 1 After this announcement, Father Divine personally taught Jim Jones �Spiritual Healing.� 21 When Jones then tried to grab the assets of the Divine organization there was a struggle between him and Mother Divine over control of the movement which led to a break in their long relationship. According to the FBI the last known time Jim Jones gave a sermon at a church controlled by Mother Divine was 1976 ��at one of the Peace Missions of his former mentor, the late Father Divine.� 25 Although Mother Divine kept control of the most of the assets and the original organization, Jones became the leader of the movement of �Divine Socialism.� 8
Jim Jones got his idea for his cult from Sayville�s Father Divine. Gonrad Goeringer of the AANEWS said "He saw himself as a west coast version of Father Divine..." while Father Divine was still alive. 10 and according to Maurice Brinton "...Jim Jones was inspired by Father Divine." 11 Jim Jones claimed to be a reincarnation Father Divine 17 and even called his movement �Divine Socialism.� 8
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, ��When Jimmy come back from seeing Father Divine, he was a changed man,� Cordell said. �I saw it right away. . . . I sensed the change. After that, it was 'my way or no way.' It was 'I am He. I'm in control.' He was not just the pastor in the church. He was The Man. Father Divine convinced him he was The Man -- that he was God.� Max Knight, who knew Jones as a kid growing up in Lynn and later as a reporter working at the Richmond (Ind.) Palladium, a local paper, also blames Father Divine." 3
�From that moment on, Jim went downhill fast," Knight said. "He got into drugs. He got into sex. You name it. He felt that he was bigger than God himself, and it destroyed him. He became a little god of his own. There is no doubt about it.�� ��Peoples Temple was starting to look like a cult, �� 3 Jim Jones �claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine,� and in the movie, "Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones". �� Father Divine, played by James Earl Jones, advises Jones to bring sexual desires to fruition.� 4
According to San Diego State University Department of Religious Studies �Jones visited Father Divine and his Peace Mission in Philadelphia several times, and modeled himself after the black preacher who organized a large inter-racial religious group. Jones encouraged Temple members to call him "Dad" and "Father," just as Father Divine did.� 8
Maurice Brinton said �A turning point in JJ's career was his meeting with Father Divine�� and �Jones was vastly impressed both by his spell-binding preaching techniques and by the total control he still exerted on his congregation.� Furthermore, �From Divine Jones he learned all about 'organising congregations', about how to use an 'Interrogation Committee'.� Thomas Dixon, one of the early members of the Temple, said, �The Committee was primarily to deal with those who disagreed with Jones. Whoever was summoned by the Committee was grilled for hours on end with questions such as �Why are you against the Reverend?� and he would �boast for hours of his sexual exploits while forbidding all sexual relations between members of his flock'� Brinton added, �JJ had learned from Father Divine the importance of himself becoming the object of sexual desire of the whole congregation.� 11
According to researchers at University of California at Davis, �Jim Jones borrowed much from the Peace Mission model (and stole away some of its members) [This was after Father Divine died when he wrestled for control of the movement with Mother Divine. Editor]. Like Father Divine, he took to a patriarchal style of organization, with himself at the center, surrounded by a staff that included a heavy concentration of attractive, white women. Like Divine, Jones took to being called Father�� and �Again borrowing from Divine, the community that Peoples Temple founded in Guyana � Jonestown � would sometimes be called the Promised Land.�12 Divine�s promised land concept was developed in on 72 Macon St. in Sayville. Sayville was considered Heaven, the place where god lived.
Father Divine developed many techniques in his Sayville heaven. �Jones took a group of young people to meet Father Divine. When they returned Jones had brought back not only Divine�s songs, but his vision as well. Jones began to implement Divines �insistence on fierce personal loyalty� into his sermons (Axthelm 55). Jones�s meeting with Divine influenced him to the degree in which he �instituted an interrogation committee in the church to question anyone who dared to speak against him� (Axthelm 55) Those who dared to defy Jones would suffer.� 18 Mind control was another technique which Father Divine refined in Sayville. He called it "conscious mentality." 26
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The vat of purple juice the people of Jonestown
drunk.
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| The color of the town of Sayville is purple with gold trim. Purple also symbolizes death. |
More about Father Divine: Details of Father Divine's Life
FOOTNOTES:
1. Mother Divine
fdipmm.libertynet.org/mdbook/jimjontx.html
2. Movie - Divine on box
http://store.artistdirect.com/store/movies/principal/0,,1928932,00.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------
3. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/18/JONESTOWN.TMP
San Francisco Chronicle How spiritual journey ended in destruction
Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle
Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer Tuesday, November 18, 2003
But there were other spirits at work. Cordell and several other early associates
said Jones changed in 1957 after he and a busload of church members rode off to
Philadelphia to visit an infamous black evangelist called Father Divine.
Born George Baker in 1880, Father Divine founded the Peace Mission movement in
New York in 1932 -- a spiritual revival that made this son of former slaves a
very wealthy man.
"When Jimmy come back from seeing Father Divine, he was a changed man," Cordell
said. "I saw it right away. . . . I sensed the change. After that, it was 'my
way or no way.' It was 'I am He. I'm in control.' He was not just the pastor in
the church. He was The Man. Father Divine convinced him he was The Man -- that
he was God."
Max Knight, who knew Jones as a kid growing up in Lynn and later as a reporter
working at the Richmond (Ind.) Palladium, a local paper, also blames Father
Divine.
"From that moment on, Jim went downhill fast," Knight said. "He got into drugs.
He got into sex. You name it. He felt that he was bigger than God himself, and
it destroyed him. He became a little god of his own. There is no doubt about
it."
Peoples Temple was starting to look like a cult,
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4. http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/Father+Divine From
Wikipedia
Mrs. S. A. Divine became spiritual leader of the movement. In the 1972 she
fought an attempt by cult leader Jim Jones to take over the movement's dwindling
devotees. Jones based some of his doctrines on the International Peace Mission
movement, and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine.
After the People's Temple mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, Father Divine was
posthumously slandered in a made-for-TV movie, "Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim
Jones". In the movie, Father Divine, played by James Earl Jones, advises Jones
to bring sexual desires to fruition.
5. http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/mind_control/jjones.html
Jonestown, the CIA & Mind Control [Excerpts from a CIA mind control briefing]
"...where Jones made his start in religious evangelism by studying the methods
and practices of a Black evangelist known as Father Divine. Father Divine was
also known as a fraud and con man."
FBI Summary: Date of transcription: 7/6/79 Federal Bureau of Investigation's
investigation into the assassination of U.S. Congressman LEO J. RYAN
The example of Father Divine � a black minister in Philadelphia whose leadership
of a large movement once had Jones' admiration � arises several times as
illustrating what Peoples Temple should not do. People should not try to cover
up the weaknesses of those organizations as Father Divine's group does (and as
contrasted to the Temple's openness and lack of anything to hide). When one
woman talks about Father Divine taking her to bed with him, Jones admonishes her
gently: "Valerie, Valerie, Valerie? Listen. I think you're wonderful. I like
you, but that point ... [w]hen he put you in the bed... you should have at that
moment said well, that's not the kind of God I want." A moment later, in a
broader context, Jones says, "I don't understand how God would be privileged to
do things that his people are not privileged to do."
Late in the session, an unidentified woman contrasts the respect shown to Father
Divine and that shown to Jones: "I'm saying, the respect that I saw there for
nothing, we're not getting for everything. And I think we had a lot to learn
about the respect that went on back there, that we haven't got here."
He concludes with one comment on the news: according to a survey, the American
people revealed that they trusted preachers second among professions, right
after doctors. He says that's wrong, that preachers should be trusted last, as
evidenced by the example of Father Divine. He adds that he himself is not a
preacher, that he doesn't fit that role.
6. http://www.solidrock.net/library/anderson/essays/jim.jones.and.ted.robinson.php
Jim Jones and Ted Robinson By Brian Anderson
Jim Jones did not preach from the Bible. His sermons were taken from newspaper
and magazine articles, and were a weird blend of Marxist socialism, Buddhism,
and teachings from Father Divine and the Peace Mission. The only time Jones
referred to the Bible was to degrade it as being full of errors and
discrepancies. Sometimes in his meetings he would stomp on it, and one time he
even set it on fire to prove it was only a "paper idol."
Jones taught his congregation that they were all homosexuals and lesbians and
the sooner they recognized that the better. According to Jones, he alone, was a
true heterosexual and the only man who could really satisfy a woman. He required
his members to abstain from sexual relations with their spouses, while he freely
and frequently had sexual intercourse with many different Temple men and women.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JonestownReport/Volume6/reflsly.htm
�A Story of Deprogramming� by Neva Sly Hargrave 2003 Author Email:
[email protected] Former member of the People's Temple
Did you think Father Divine spoke through Jim Jones? Because that�s what he told
the dear seniors from Father Divine�s group.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/FAQ/faq_printable.htm
Jones visited Father Divine and his Peace Mission in Philadelphia several times,
and modeled himself after the black preacher who organized a large inter-racial
religious group. Jones encouraged Temple members to call him "Dad" and "Father,"
just as Father Divine did.
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Articles/print_jt1978.htm
Jim Jones visited Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia, and
subsequently borrowed some of Father Divine's themes and emulated his
organizational structure. Jones became known to his congregation as "Father" or
"Dad." Borrowing the rhetoric of Father Divine, Jones emphasized "the promised
land" in his sermons.
Divine Socialism to wipe away evil capitalism and open the way for the socialist
millennial condition.46
Dualism characterized the catastrophic millennial worldview taught by Jim Jones.
The United States was the Antichrist and capitalism was "the Antichrist system."
The United States was "Babylon,"47 and Jones would lead the elect to the
promised land where they would build a new Eden.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. http://www.indianahistory.org/library/manuscripts/collection_guides/m0205.html
Indiana Historical Society
"...was greatly impressed with Father Divine."
10. http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/jonestn1.htm
On the Jonestown Murder-Suicides
by Gonrad Goeringer AANEWS from American Atheists
"He saw himself as a west coast version of Father Divine..."
11. SUICIDE FOR SOCIALISM? by - Maurice Brinton
Part 2 http://www.uncarved.org/pol/brinton2.html
"...Jim Jones was inspired by Father Divine."
Part 1 http://www.uncarved.org/pol/brinton1.html
A turning point in JJ's career was his meeting with Father Divine, the legendary
black pastor from Philadelphia. Jones was vastly impressed both by his
spell-binding preaching techniques and by the total control he still exerted on
his congregation (which consisted mainly of elderly black women). From Divine
Jones he learned all about 'organising congregations', about how to use an
'Interrogation Committee'. He saw the Committee as the logical extension of his
grip on his flock. In Indianapolis Jones started to surround himself with a
group of 'totally loyal' men and women, black and white. They would watch and
report to Jones on the other parishioners. This was probably the first instance
in history of a totally integrated, 'non-racist', 'non-sexist' Secret Police.
Thomas Dixon, one of the early members of the Temple, broke with JJ on this
issue. 'The Committee' he said, 'was primarily to deal with those who disagreed
with Jones. Whoever was summoned by the Committee was grilled for hours on end
with questions such as "Why are you against the Reverend?"
JJ would 'boast for hours of his sexual exploits while forbidding all sexual
relations between members of his flock'.. JJ had learned from Father Divine the
importance of himself becoming the object of sexual desire of the whole
congregation. But the Temple meetings are well attended. They provide a platform
for stalinist hatchet-woman Angela Davis (see Solidarity London, vol. VII, no.4)
and for Allende's widow.
12. Divine - Communist http://chsc.ucdavis.edu/Jonestown.AOchapter.pdf
Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America,
Europe, and Japan. With Philip D. Schuyler and Sylvaine Trinh (London: Routledge,
2000).
And then there was Father Divine. During the 1930s, he dabbled with the
Communist Party, but more centrally, he relocated the destination of
back-to-Africa dreams by setting up his peace missions in major Eastern U.S.
cities and establishing The Promised Land � rural, interracial cooperative
communities � in upstate New York (Weisbrot 1983). Jim Jones borrowed much from
the Peace Mission model (and stole away some of its members). Like Father
Divine, he took to a patriarchal style of organization, with himself at the
center, surrounded by a staff that included a heavy concentration of attractive,
white women. Like Divine, Jones took to being called Father, or sometimes, Dad.
Over the years, he would vacillate between operating an urban human service
ministry akin to Divine's peace missions and establishing an exurban settlement
in California not unlike the black messiah's upstate New York communities. But
Jones's mission eventually took a more radical direction � emigration to escape
the degradation of racism and class inequality in the United States. Again
borrowing from Divine, the community that Peoples Temple founded in Guyana �
Jonestown � would sometimes be called the Promised Land.
13. Zee, "The Guyana Incident," p. 358; also see Lincoln and Mamiya, "Daddy
Jones and Father Divine."
14. http://hss.fullerton.edu/comparative/dangerouscults.pdf
Dangerous Cults, Mind Control Cults, Doomsday Cults�
Dr. James A. Santucci Department of Comparative Religion California State
University
"...Jim Jones was greatly influenced by the person and work of Father Divine,
who established a racially integrated community in the 1920s and 1930s."
15. http://www.discernment.org/articles/sexuality.htm
Father Divine - fornicator
16. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1998/11/08/NEWS4041.dtl
Utopian nightmare
LARRY D. HATFIELD, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF Gregory Lewis and Eric Brazil of The
Examiner staff and Examiner Librarian Judy Canter contributed to this report.
Sunday, November 8, 1998
Jonestown: What did we learn?
"James Warren Jones was born May 13, 1931, in a tattered town called Crete in
Indiana. He was different from the beginning - a Holy Roller preacher as a
child, selling spider monkeys on the streets of Indianapolis to buy food as a
young student and modeling himself after Father Divine, whose Peace Mission drew
a cult following at the time."
17. http://mrs_s_a_divine.exsudo.com/
REINCARNATION OF DIVINE
Mother S. A. Divine fought an attempt by cult leader Jim Jones to take over the
movement in 1971. Jones based some of his doctrines on the International Peace
Mission movement, and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. He was
only able to persuade one member to join his cult, the People's Temple. The
convert wrote Mother Divine trying to convince her that Jones was Father Divine
until the infamous mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978.
18. http://www.collegetermpapers.com/TermPapers/Religion/jonestowm.shtml
Term Paper
Father Divine, a famous black cult leader in Philadelphia at the time intrigued
Jones. Jones took a group of young people to meet Father Divine. When they
returned Jones had brought back not only Divine�s songs, but his vision as well.
Jones began to implemented Divines �insistence on fierce personal loyalty� into
his sermons(Axthelm 55). Jones �s meeting with Divine influenced him to the
degree in which he �instituted an interrogation committee in the church to
question anyone who dared to speak against him�( Axthelm 55) Those who dared to
defy Jones would suffer. Jones�s threats as Thomas Dickson remembers where such
that �he�d get awfully violent--not physical, but verbally�
Jones began going public with his doubts and confessed that he no longer
believed in the Virgin Birth. Jones then demanded a show of hands by his
congregation signifying who agreed with his view. Only one hand was raised. The
owner of this hand became an immediate trusted ally as well as aide to Jones.
During a sermon soon after Jones�s first confession, Jones �threw a Bible to the
floor and complained, �Too many people are looking at this instead of me� �
19. http://216.67.254.97/~biblical/RMI/RMI%20P.html
influenced by Unitarian Humanism, Father Divine, and Marxism,
20. ttp://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9780195127447&displayonly=CHP
Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in Modern America
Philip Jenkins April 2000
His more eccentric ideas derived from Father Divine, who was preaching his own
godhood as early as 1915.
21. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428385/bio
Jones made a pilgrimage to Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia where
he learnt "spiritual healing". He then began it on his own by planting 'actors'
among his believers and miraculously 'healing' them.
22. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown
unsweetened Flavor Aid
23. www.positiveatheism.org/writ/jonestn3.htm
Los Angeles Times Saturday Journal Remembering Jonestown by Tim Reiterman, Times
Staff Writer November 14, 1998
"Out came the purple cyanide potion"
24. http://www.rickross.com/reference/jonestown/jonestown4.html
The Rise and Fall of Jim Jones November 16, 2002 By Rick Ross
"revolutionary suicide."
25 Speech in Father Divine Church - 1976
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Tapes/Tapes/TapeSummaries/162.html
Tape Number: Q 162 FBI Catalogue: Unidentified Individuals Speaking
Date cues on tape: Summer 1976 (Peoples Temple trip to East Coast, including
Philadelphia) Jim Jones speaks to a congregation in Philadelphia, apparently at
one of the Peace Missions of his former mentor, the late Father Divine. Temple
members made several trips to Philadelphia, and while his several references to
a specific mining disaster would seem to place it in 1972, the allusion to the
past legal troubles of former Vice President Spiro Agnew and former President
Richard Nixon suggests it came during a 1976 cross-country trip.
26 Mind Control Techniques of Father Divine
http://www.walkingdead.net/~phxclench/divine.html
WHO IS THIS KING OF
GLORY? by St. Clair McKelway and A. J. Liebling
(This is part of a long portrait of Father Divine which was
published in The New Yorker in June, 1936.)
"In the Father's sermons at this time there ran a refrain which had to do with "conscious mentality." He would say, "Relaxation of the conscious mentality is the super-mental relaxativeness of mankind." The Angels, who sat nearest to him at the big dinner table, had achieved this sublime state, it seemed. They had relaxed their conscious mentalities until they had been born again as Angels, they had got fine new names, and they didn't remember anything that had ever happened to them in the past. Verinda and Thomas thought the Angels, and everything about them, were enviable, and they began to try to relax their conscious mentalities. The way to do this, they were told, was to love the Father and think about him all the time. The employers of Verinda and Thomas were puzzled, and somewhat unnerved, when, during this period, their splendid servants seemed to be going to pieces."
27 Dangerous Cults, Mind Control Cults, Doomsday Cults� Dr. James A. Santucci Department of Comparative Religion California State University &"Jim Jones was greatly influenced by the person and work of Father Divine, who established a racially integrated community in the 1920s and 1930s."
28 http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/mind_control/jjones.html Jonestown, the CIA & Mind Control [Excerpts from a CIA mind control briefing] "...studying the methods and practices of a Black evangelist known as Father Divine. Father Divine..."
The strange cult and the diplomat. The Reverendo Jim Jones of the Guyana compound. The rev of the People�s Temple. The reverend�s story and bio web site. The website has an interview with the history and his biography. The murders were terrible. Information on Famous Religious Cults History in America and History, urban legends, and folklore. Who is Jim Jones? What caused the suicides? Jim Jones was a cult leader who used mind control. Was the CIA involved? The Guiana mass suicide: Causes and people involved. His brigade. The gay homosexual link in his belief system and the People Temple. Homosexuals in Sayville. Sayville Heaven commune. Religious cults and mind control techniques over its members. Father Devine. Purple cyanide potion and the purple Flav-R-Aid.
Jonestown, Guyana Mass Suicide, Massacre, & Jim Jones Cult
Rev Jim Jones Mass Murder & the People�s Temple tragedy
Reverendo Jim Jones bio & Peoples Temple suicide cult
cult leader Jim Warren Jones in Jonestown Guiana Suicides
Reverend Jim Jones pictures, images, pics, and photos
Reverend Jim Jones interview, history, and biography
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