Seductive Poison (14 page)

“I would have stepped in, darling, but it would have looked as though I was playing favorites. You know how much I care about you. You are one of my most committed followers, but this will be good for your inner strength.”

“Thank you, Father,” I whispered, so appreciative of his taking the time to speak with me. At least I could hold on to the fact that Father still loved and understood me, he was only trying to make me strong. I knew I would now have to lie to Papa, tell him I was offered a better position at a hospital in Ukiah. I would need to fabricate another life to keep Papa from knowing the awful truth. Frightened, but with a glimmer of hope, I moved north into exile
while the trusted members moved with Jim to San Francisco to make their mark on the city.

The Temple was becoming a reputable and widely recognized organization. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone welcomed Jim (who controlled a huge voting bloc) and rewarded Pastor Jones’s good deeds with several prominent positions. In March 1976, Jim was honored with a mayoral appointment to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. Seven months later, he was appointed to the San Francisco Housing Authority.

During these times, then-California State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown presided over a dinner in honor of Jim. In his flamboyant introduction of the now powerful and influential church leader, Brown proclaimed, “Let me present to you a combination of Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Chairman Mao …”

During these high-flying times, President Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, visited, as did civil rights activist Angela Davis; Cecil Williams, pastor of San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church and a prominent civic leader; John Maher, founder of Delancy Street, the pioneering self-help organization for drug abusers; and Dennis Banks, the Indian rights activist. We did not realize that the legitimacy these prominent figures conferred upon Jim served to reinforce his control over us. The Temple and Jim Jones became an important political force representing the underprivileged, the forgotten, and those unable to defend themselves against big government. As Father’s influence increased, the members became unwitting pawns in his quest for more and more personal power.

Around this time, Father began making references to other groups such as Synanon, the Unification Church (Moonies), and Scientology. He incorporated their techniques and buzzwords into our vocabulary: “Outsiders can’t be trusted,” “Peripheral members are dangerous,” “Anyone who leaves is fair game.” My occasional selfish, capitalistic, and self-preserving thoughts of running away were routinely quashed by Father’s frightening talk of revenge. “Don’t think you can get away with bad-mouthing this church. Mayor Moscone is my friend and he’ll support my efforts to seek you out and destroy you.” As his power grew, we endured more and more threats and suffered tighter and tighter restrictions.

Meanwhile, I was serving my sentence working in a rest home for demented patients in Ukiah, promising myself that this, too, would pass. During that time Jim convinced Mama to join. First she had
been befriended by Karen, Teresa, and Paula, a college comrade who would soon leave for Guyana for an important assignment. They replaced the young graduate students Mama had become close to at the university. Inspired by her new friends and their enthusiasm for a good cause, she came to more and more meetings.

The crucial experience for my mother, who was always fearful of cancer, came one Sunday at the healings portion of the service. Gospel music softly wafted from the piano as Father, his eyes closed, held one hand to his head to receive a message from “beyond” while the other hand scanned the audience for vibrations from someone who needed healing. Father’s voice was filled with tenderness as he spoke.

“I feel the pain you have been experiencing in your stomach and lower back.” I looked around to see if anyone had stood up. “Oh, my brother, you have suffered so …” Jim breathed in deeply to help dissipate the pain. “Yes, God, I know … Sammy? Is there a Sammy Smith in the audience? Stand, my dear brother, you have suffered enough.”

An elderly gentleman raised his arms and cried out as Father, still standing behind the podium, reached his hand toward the man.

“Sammy, you have been through hell in your life, been forced by the white man to hold your urine because there was no rest room for a black-skinned man in Arkansas …”

“Oh yes, Jim …” the man whispered.

“You have seen the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross on your neighbor’s lawn when you were a little tyke …”

“Yes, that’s true …” He began to weep.

“Yes, my brother, you have seen and experienced enough suffering in your life and I am here today to heal you of another … Marceline …” Jim called out to his wife. “Marcie, I need you to help my brother Sammy. I am going to relieve him of the painful stomach cancer that has begun to grow inside of him.”

Marcie ran over and helped the man choke up a small growth no larger than a chicken liver and she marched around the audience with it as people screamed and sang to the glory of Father’s gift. Mama sat in wonderment at the miracle being performed before her eyes. When Marcie came toward me I almost gagged from the putrid smell, then held my breath. Carolyn had warned me that just the scent of it could give me cancer.

After ten minutes of singing and clapping, Jim resumed the clairvoyant segment of our service. He began to hum into the microphone.
His head was down, his eyes closed, and he seemed to be concentrating on listening to an ethereal voice.

“There is someone in the room with an Aunt Dora, who is going blind. She lives in West Virginia. Please stand if you know who you are.

Mama rose up sheepishly as all eyes turned to glimpse her. She looked younger than fifty-eight, I thought.

“I have an Aunt Dove who is going blind,” she said reverently.

“Ahhh.” Jim raised his brows. “Through the ether plane I sometimes am unable to decipher the exact words that are being given to me.”

“Yes, she is the sister of my mother-in-law.”

“Sshhh,” Jim hushed her. “I know. I have the powers to see and know everything.” Mama stood still. “You also had an Aunt Dora in Germany who was going blind.”

I watched in amazement. Karen and Paula had just come back from visiting Mama, and now Jim was doing a psychic reading on her. This was exciting!

“Lisa, you have been sad a very long time and hold yourself responsible for a tragedy you have no right to weigh yourself down with.”

What tragedy, I wondered.

“In this house you will grow strong once more and proud. You’ve felt entrapped by the secret for too long. Step out now and come to me. You are a beautiful Jew and your children have inherited your good looks.”

I was embarrassed that through my mother, I, too, was being singled out as a Jew. Was that the tragedy he had referred to? But no, in his eyes it seemed to be an honor. He often preached that Jews had suffered racism similar to that of our black brethren, and that our government was going to implement the same tactics to get rid of them that Germany had used against the Jews. Perhaps there was no need to be ashamed after all.

Later, I saw Mama at the podium, her cheeks flushed. Jim seemed to be consoling her, holding her hand, stroking it gently, both of them seemingly enchanted with one another. Watching her face, I knew Jim had made another faithful member.

Soon thereafter, Mama separated from Papa and Jim urged her to invite Annalisa. My bearded brother, Tom, and Papa were never invited. Mama missed Annalisa and begged her to give the church a chance. Annalisa came to several meetings with her two little children
but I could tell she wouldn’t make it. Even though Jim gave her the royal treatment, she had too many questions. She wouldn’t be a good follower.

I was oddly relieved. I didn’t want her to join. I hadn’t wanted Mama to join either. I believe that, subconsciously, I wanted my family to be a venue out of the church, back to the outside world that I no longer inhabited. I didn’t want my family to see how, in my effort to rise in the organization, I had hardened. I didn’t want anyone to hinder my ascent into the upper echelons where I could feel safer because I was more in control. Having both Mama and Annalisa around would create a conscience for me that I had not needed to confront so far. Their presence had the potential to create a huge conflict of interest.

Larry was not an issue; Jim had carefully dismantled our closeness by criticizing my brother’s character and commending mine. I was the one Jim needed to make the church great. Larry was too caught up in shallow concerns like his relationship with his second wife, Karen. According to Jim, though still motivated by the goodness that had brought him into the cause, Larry showed weakness by being in love. I was unfettered by such worldly concerns and was thus already more powerful.

During the months I worked in Ukiah, my attitude and comportment were reported weekly to Jim by the owner/member of the rest home. Finally, one day Carolyn Layton came to my aid, as she would again later in San Francisco and Jonestown. She requested that I work with her on the covert and highly confidential “blackmail tapes,” clandestine recordings we made of every member of the Planning Commission.

During our weekly meetings, to “prove our loyalty to socialism,” each of us was asked to recount the worst things we had ever done. Ghastly acts were admitted on tape, but judging from my own experience, most of the stories were made up in order to out-do the others. What’s more, people were told to sign affidavits saying that they had molested a child, contemplated killing the President, or been involved in a myriad of other illegal acts. To prove my loyalty, I wrote creative letters with detailed plans on how I was going to torture and murder the governor, my congressman, and the President; I lied about having stolen items from a store in town, anything to show I was not afraid. Having to make up these stories didn’t seem that troublesome at first because Father explained that they
were only supposed to prove our faith in him. No one but Carolyn—and now me—knew that they were filed and kept ready for use.

For the next several months my new task was to listen to the tapes, summarize the confession, jot down the most salient and damning quotes and where on the tape they could be found, and label and file everything for later use, should anyone need to be blackmailed.

It’s hard to explain why I didn’t realize something was seriously wrong; why I stayed deaf to the warning calls ringing in my ears. I ignored my doubts and my conscience because I believed that I could not be wrong, not that wrong. A healer, socialist, and important civic leader could not possibly be an immoral abuser, a blackmailer, a liar. It did not occur to me that Jim could be all those things. I thought that it must be extremely painful for Father to sacrifice his own goodness for the larger cause, as he did when he committed—or ordered us to commit—reprehensible and illegal acts. I saw his moral transgressions as purely altruistic—something like the means justify the end. And who was I to criticize him? My own development, I was told (and believed), was not advanced enough to allow me to understand Father’s motives and actions. I could only hope to be enlightened by imitating his example and striving to become wiser, more principled, and closer to him.

By blackmailing my brethren, I earned Jim’s approval and proved my dedication and atonement. At last I was making my way back into Father’s good graces and I was invited to ride in his bus, the exalted Bus 7, to the meetings in Los Angeles.

5
Father Loves Us

It had been many months since my expulsion to the hinterlands. I had seen very little of Mama. It was becoming harder and harder to spend time with her. Since Annalisa’s rejection of our cause, I felt that Mama’s need for my companionship was growing. There were new pressures being laid upon her shoulders: the need to prove her loyalty, to stop working at the university, to devote more of her time to higher purposes, to divorce herself from the materialistic world. She’d even, unbeknownst to me, moved into one of our communes, and began to give the proceeds from the sale of her belongings to Jim.

A new and sickening feeling began to darken my thoughts. With my mother now my comrade, my love and affection for her had gradually turned to fear. Being a new recruit, Mama was in the most dangerous stage of indoctrination, obligated to report on others, especially family members, to prove her loyalty. Father had taught us that it was the “little selfish acts” that would grow into treason. No longer could I sneak off to her place and take a nap. Never again could I ask for help or candidly discuss my concerns with her.

I was surprised and extremely anxious when she caught me after our Sunday service in Los Angeles, while we were preparing to head north.

“Darling … Can you come on my bus back to San Francisco? I’d love to spend a little time with you. I never see you anymore.” She handed me a small bag of her delicious homemade protein cookies.

“I can’t, Mama. I’ve been asked to ride on Bus 7,” I pronounced proudly, then felt guilty. I was not being a good daughter, but what did she want? Didn’t she know we weren’t to have familial ties? Even my talking to her was being monitored. Since my confrontation on the day I had sneaked to her place for a visit and nap, I’d been very cautious not to show any interest in her. That Mama had sought me out in front of Father’s bus proved that she had not lost the dangerous maternal attachments Jim had sternly and repeatedly condemned.

As she slowly turned to leave, tired and lonely for my companionship, I could feel myself closing down. I desperately wanted to hold and console her, but because that would betray my weakness, I had to lock her out of my mind and soul. With each of our encounters I felt tremendous guilt. The realization of my childhood dreams of our joining forces had come too late. I was already moving into enemy territory and she was the dangerous agent who could woo me, weaken my resolve, and have me crucified for the greatest sin of all, my love for her.

It had been more than six months since my humbling confrontation. I had been deeply humiliated. I wondered if any of my friends liked me anymore. Even Sweet Annie had been acting aloof. True, I had admitted to awful thoughts and acknowledged doing things I really hadn’t, but that was what everyone else did when they were confronted.