The cult of Jim Jones, known as the Peoples Temple, is only one of many dangerous groups to deliberately shuffle off their mortal coils in large concerted efforts, but theirs was the most impactful. They are famous for "Drinking the Kool-Aid," an unfortunate and insensitive misnomer...
After leading his church to Guyana, in 1978 they became the victims of the single greatest loss of American life in a non-military action until the 9/11 WTC attacks. Jones got a lot of his ideas from Father Divine, from the Peace Mission, which he eventually tried to take over...
Jimmy was deeply religious in his youth, though his belief in God faded as he grew up. He was a Methodist preacher for a while, and later a Pentecostal preacher. He loved telling people how to live their lives, but he was one of those people who only did what was right under the threat of punishment for misbehavior.
Jim Jones was a serious communist, interested in building a racially diverse "rainbow family", but he was also a doomsday prepper, spouting some serious incel philosophy, which is on-brand for how things ended. While not all negligent parents raise mass murderers, but all mass murderers have negligent parents.
While Jimmy claimed to be the only heterosexual person on the planet, he has been known to rape men and masturbate for a all-male audience.
It's all great until it isn't. If your community asks you to be willing to kill yourself at a moment's notice, you are in a dangerous cult. Some of Jones' followers weren't present for the massacre, but received orders by radio to commit revolutionary suicide. Some of these faithful followers took the opportunity to murder others before taking their own lives.
Family of victims and survivors of the massacre find the phrase "Drink the Kool-Aid" offensive, and rightly so. Making light of such a tragedy is a poke at a deep wound. It's also an odd case of brand confusion: the real juice that was mixed with cyanide was Flavor-Aid.
Jones claimed that a nuclear attack was coming, and he was able to convince people to move away from their home, eventually to Guyana. When people got concerned, they took their problem to congress. Unfortunately, having the government come to take some children away is a great catalyst for the worst action any cult could take.
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[00:00:17] Katie Dooley: Let's ASMR guys. Oh, shit.
[00:00:22] Preston Meyer: We haven't even begun yet and you're a mess.
[00:00:24] Katie Dooley: I haven't even taken a sip and I'm a mess. This is why I don't imbibe. Alright.
[00:00:34] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.
[00:00:36] Katie Dooley: Are we? We should introduce ourselves.
[00:00:38] Preston Meyer: Let's do it. I don't think we've done that in a long.
[00:00:40] Katie Dooley: Okay, so I would start with. Hi, everyone. My name is Katie.
[00:00:47] Preston Meyer: Hi, I'm Preston.
[00:00:49] Katie Dooley: And we are the.
[00:00:51] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon Podcast.
[00:00:55] Katie Dooley: We have talked about a lot of spooky things in the last few weeks, and.
[00:01:01] Preston Meyer: This one gets a little dark, a little fast.
[00:01:02] Katie Dooley: It does. And we're like, moving away from spooky to just like, right. It's not October anymore. And now we're just like an outright horrible. Today we're talking about Jonestown.
[00:01:16] Preston Meyer: Yep. The terrible misnamed Kool-Aid massacre.
[00:01:21] Katie Dooley: Yes. I always point this out. Poor Kool-Aid.
[00:01:24] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, Kool-Aid is still around. Kool-aid is still popular. Do you see Flavor-Aid on the shelves anymore?
[00:01:33] Katie Dooley: No.
[00:01:33] Preston Meyer: So. Well, we'll we're going to go through this pretty chronologically, but the massacre was facilitated with a knockoff brand called Flavor-Aid, not actually Kool-Aid. So they did not drink the Kool-Aid.
[00:01:45] Katie Dooley: Was it a knockoff or just a...
[00:01:47] Preston Meyer: Different brand? I don't know. I was born. I was born in the 90s. And with that, I will also quickly add, I feel like we're already digressing. Survivors and relatives of Jonestown victims actually find the term drink the Kool-Aid really offensive.
[00:02:05] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:02:06] Preston Meyer: And, Preston, there's a really good reason for that.
[00:02:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah. The '78 Jonestown Juice party was the single greatest loss of American life and a deliberate, nonmilitary action, and it held that title until 2001, September 11th.
[00:02:23] Katie Dooley: Which is insanity. So I think, you know, it's easy when you're born in the 90s to kind of make. And Jim Jones is a whack job.
[00:02:31] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:02:31] Katie Dooley: Um, to kind of make fun of this. But yeah, like over 900 people were killed. And there's video footage that's incredibly disturbing. I don't know if we need a trigger warning on this episode, but if you do decide to go YouTube any of the video footage. Absolutely. It is horrifying.
[00:02:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So I didn't YouTube any of the footage, but the story of Jim Jones ended up being used in, um, American Horror Story in there apocalypse season. No. Not apocalypse. Uh, cult?
[00:03:00] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, I think he's like the cult guy.
[00:03:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the weird thing is, I love American Horror Story. Cult actually had very little to do with the good old fashioned cults, but there was one episode where they touched on the big ones, but mostly about the political cult in the States.
[00:03:21] Katie Dooley: And, uh, he he was a cult, but he almost wasn't like he came from very traditional, mainstream Christian backgrounds. He had some divergent beliefs, and even some of those weren't bad or weird, which we'll get into. But there is this, this switch that goes off in his head. And it kind of it absolutely changes from your regular old Sunday church to a death cult.
[00:03:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's mind boggling. It's all nuts.
[00:03:53] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. Let's start with the man himself, Mr. Jim Jones.
[00:03:59] Preston Meyer: All right, so our boy Jimmy was born on May 13th, 1931. So it's a long time ago in Crete, Indiana. He had a weird upbringing. His family was communist.
[00:04:15] Katie Dooley: Yeah, he was a big old commie which is one of those beliefs that's, like I said, divergent at the time, but not really that weird or dangerous.
[00:04:22] Preston Meyer: Right, but people are super worried about communists. Thanks to everything that was happening in the world, especially after the Second World War. Um, as he was a young adult.
[00:04:33] Katie Dooley: Yeah. By the time he's by the time he's in his 20s, the Red scare is in full swing.
[00:04:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But back to his youth. Things were tough. His mother was pretty negligent. His father was a disabled World War One vet, and they just were poor all the time. And so Jimmy didn't make it to school. Really... I mean, not with any regularity.
[00:04:55] Katie Dooley: Now, this is one of a few red flags that we're going to come across. And obviously, not every child with negligent parents becomes a serial killer. But all serial killers have negligent parents.
[00:05:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:05:08] Katie Dooley: Not all squares or rectangles, but all. Wait. Not all rectangles are squares, but all squares are rectangles. This is one of those situations where all almost all serial killers have negligent parents. And Jimmy sure did.
[00:05:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Bad stuff. Uh, reflecting on his youth, he himself once said I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days, a parent was supposed to go with the child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there alone. Always was alone.
[00:05:51] Katie Dooley: Which is really sad.
[00:05:52] Preston Meyer: It is.
[00:05:53] Katie Dooley: And it's amazing that it turned into that kind of aggression which never left.
[00:05:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:05:58] Katie Dooley: He was also, as a child, fascinated by religion and death. I believe he liked killing things. Um, which is another trait of serial killers. He's killing killing small animals.
[00:06:10] Preston Meyer: Follow the red flag.
[00:06:10] Katie Dooley: ...Is a very solid red flag for serial killers. And he was a very charismatic child. Adults liked him. People just generally liked him. He was outgoing. He was happy to get in front, in front of an audience. And he attended Pentecostal church services, which are known to be a charismatic evangelical church group. So this is starting to pour that perfect cocktail of the death cult leader.
[00:06:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah, obviously, not everybody who has negligent parents and goes to a Pentecostal church is going to find all of the ingredients. But he did. He managed to weird people out. One of his childhood friends, Chuck Wilmore, later described him saying that Jimmy was a really weird kid and that he was really impressed with how Hitler won against the Allied forces by killing himself in his bunker. That's a weird thing to latch on to.
[00:07:07] Katie Dooley: That's a very interesting perspective, too, because demonstrably Hitler did not win. I mean, he wasn't taken in for he didn't go to trial. He wasn't in prison. He wasn't executed for his war crimes, but he didn't win the war. So that's also very...
[00:07:24] Preston Meyer: He went out on his own terms.
[00:07:25] Preston Meyer: Sinister foreshadowing.
[00:07:25] Preston Meyer: Absolutely it is. It's absolutely nuts.
[00:07:31] Katie Dooley: It's all I have to say about that. When he was a teenager, Jones was one of those lovely, abrasive, religious people that loves to tell their peers how to live their lives. Uh, he would disparage his and remember he's a teenager. He's in high school. At this point, he would disparage his friends for drinking, smoking, dancing. You know everyone's favorite person.
[00:07:54] Preston Meyer: Good old Footloose.
[00:07:55] Katie Dooley: Right?
[00:07:55] Preston Meyer: Being enforced by your peers.
[00:07:58] Katie Dooley: By your peers. Wow, I. I'm surprised you has friends...
[00:07:58] Preston Meyer: But, I mean, we know at least Chuck Wilmore identified himself as a friend, so...
[00:08:10] Katie Dooley: Good. Good guy. Chuck.
[00:08:11] Preston Meyer: I never found great details, but I have to assume that Chuck Wilmore was also pretty into all these rules.
[00:08:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah
[00:08:20] Preston Meyer: Otherwise, Jimmy wouldn't have had time for him.
[00:08:23] Katie Dooley: That's true.
[00:08:24] Preston Meyer: Who knows? Ancient history. Kind of. So in 1952, Jimmy became a Methodist minister and then later went on to become a Pentecostal preacher. And this was just some good experience to lead into his real solid cult leadership. But we'll get into that later.
[00:08:46] Katie Dooley: And as we said that in the 50s, Jimmy and his family faced a lot of government harassment. Again, this is in the thick of the Red scare as well as their neighbors because of their affiliation with the Communist Party. And this really just made Jimmy double down on his Communist beliefs.
[00:09:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Like most people, you say, hey, don't do that if you liked it to begin with. You don't lean into it harder.
[00:09:09] Katie Dooley: You don't know me!
[00:09:11] Preston Meyer: Right? You just don't get it.
[00:09:13] Katie Dooley: You don't get it, dad. You just don't get me. Uh, sorry.
[00:09:20] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, yeah. He was also a huge fan of integration, which was really unpopular at the time. He hated racism in all its forms. In a time where things were getting ready to bust out into riots all over the nation. So he was on the right side of this argument, this argument.
[00:09:43] Katie Dooley: Which is where I find this part so interesting. And then obviously in the 50s, people just say, hey, Jimmy, if you're for integration or a black person, but knowing how evil he becomes, it's really weird for someone to be so kind in that it messes with my head.
[00:10:01] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah, yeah. But it really helped out when he was trying to build a religion. If he could really make people feel loved and welcome, that that's something a lot of people weren't getting out in the broader community.
[00:10:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah, he was able to grow a huge church because of integration.
[00:10:21] Preston Meyer: Which might feel a little bit like love bombing in some situations. When we talked about cults before in general, that was on our list of red flags. So Jimmy had some some weird personal beliefs, though. According to Joyce Houston, who used to belong to the People's Temple, Jimmy believed that he was the only heterosexual on the planet.
[00:10:42] Katie Dooley: Preston, I had no idea.
[00:10:44] Preston Meyer: I mean, we see a lot of weird rhetoric coming from the involuntary celibate community online. Those good old incels saying real weird things like loving a woman is gay. True if you're a woman. Not if you're a man, anyway. Yeah. Jimmy was really adamant, at least for a little while. I mean, we don't have a long history of this rhetoric, but we have some. That he was the only heterosexual man on the planet. Wow. All men were gay except him. All women were lesbians. And everybody who showed any interest in straight sex was just compensating to fit in.
[00:11:28] Katie Dooley: So a lot of people fitting in.
[00:11:30] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, if everybody was gay, this would not be happening.
[00:11:36] Katie Dooley: No, they would all just go for it.
[00:11:38] Preston Meyer: Right. So the irony here...
[00:11:41] Katie Dooley: Also wouldn't last very long,
[00:11:44] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean because we'd die.
[00:11:45] Katie Dooley: I hate the, you know, protect the family argument. But yeah, that if you're the only straight man on the planet that wouldn't last very long.
[00:11:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the irony here that Jimmy saying he's the only heterosexual on the planet in '73, there was some testimony that came out that Jimmy had raped a male congregant.
[00:12:06] Katie Dooley: Oh.
[00:12:06] Preston Meyer: Meaning Jimmy's not as straight as he says he is. Problematic. I mean...
[00:12:11] Katie Dooley: There's there's several layers of problems there, Preston.
[00:12:15] Preston Meyer: The behavior is a problem in itself and the instance itself and then the speech around it even more so. Well, no, not even more so. It compounds it. But it's not as bad as the original rape. That's...
[00:12:29] Katie Dooley: Really bad.
[00:12:29] Preston Meyer: Taking the cake right there. That is the big one.
[00:12:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:12:33] Preston Meyer: And, uh, probably wasn't just one time. Probably wasn't just one person. And of course, there's coercion in other situations as well that. Yeah. Bad things. Bad dude.
[00:12:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, this is this is in the 70s and this is where he really starts to go drastically downhill. The massacre again did happen in 1978. So 1973 is three years or, sorry, excuse me, five years before that. He's really in his mental decline at this point.
[00:13:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And then I found a headline while I was going through digging for stuff, uh, that made it look a little bit like he had beat Peewee Herman to the whole theater punch by almost 20 years.
[00:13:16] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:13:17] Preston Meyer: But I did. I did more digging past the headlines as a responsible reader should do, and found that the story's a little bit more interesting. He wasn't just chilling out in the theater, watching a movie, enjoying himself. No. On December 13th, 1973, while attending a theater in LA. Uh, a cop came in to talk to Jimmy. Jimmy waved at him and said, come on, come join me up here in the balcony. And the cop was like, no, come with me, walks into the men's bathroom. So Jimmy walks into the bathroom with this male police officer. And the story is that while Jimmy was in the bathroom, he started masturbating. And you know, any reasonable human being when trying to converse with somebody, sees the other person start masturbating, would have, you know, an issue with this. So he was arrested for masturbating in that public bathroom.
[00:14:12] Katie Dooley: I mean, fair.
[00:14:13] Preston Meyer: So not quite a pee wee Herman situation, but, you know, exciting and sheds a little bit more light on the mental state broadly of this fellow.
[00:14:26] Katie Dooley: Oh. He's just, uh, like you said, a whack a doodle.
[00:14:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:14:29] Katie Dooley: Cuckoo bananas.
[00:14:30] Preston Meyer: Right. So this it went to court. And the file... Everything got sealed. Nobody was allowed to hear about this because the judge was like, no, this is nonsense. And he was acquitted and all that fun stuff. And then after he died, the judges are like, oh, let's open it up again because...
[00:14:51] Katie Dooley: He's crazy.
[00:14:51] Preston Meyer: This is evidence that this dude's been nuts the whole time.
[00:14:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Then in a 1976 interview two years before the massacre. So again, kind of right in the thick of it, Jones actually came out and said he was an atheist. So that's super interesting. Power for the sake of power? Um, even after a teenager. I mean, that's a commitment to some greater. And I don't mean greater as a good purpose. I mean, greater is a bigger purpose of, uh, becoming a minister. All that schooling you need starting a congregation. Again, at this point, people's temple is thriving. Yeah, that's a big, Uh, big wool to pull over everyone's eyes.
[00:15:36] Preston Meyer: Right. Well, it's not like this was like a private discussion that nobody ever heard. Over the next couple of years. This this was a thing that got published.
[00:15:45] Katie Dooley: Yep, yep. Interviews get published.
[00:15:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So it's like people just stuck around, which tells you a little bit about the kind of power that he had over this group that was not super religious in ways that you would expect.
[00:16:01] Katie Dooley: There. There wasn't a strong there wasn't strong theology necessarily. It was your basic Christian theology, but there was a very strong community.
[00:16:10] Preston Meyer: Well, and they were pretty light on any sort of differences from the mainstream theologically.
[00:16:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:16:16] Preston Meyer: It was until it started looking more like, hey, we're worshiping this dude.
[00:16:21] Katie Dooley: Jim Jones instead of Jesus. That's right, I said, Jesus.
[00:16:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I noticed.
[00:16:26] Katie Dooley: Jesus.
[00:16:27] Preston Meyer: Just let it go.
[00:16:28] Katie Dooley: Thank you.
[00:16:30] Preston Meyer: It's, uh. It's just so weird. Well, let's let's get more into this People's Temple. This whole deal.
[00:16:36] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. So Jones's first church was the Community Unity Church, which he founded in 1954. After the Methodist church he pastored that barred black congregants. So, again, this...
[00:16:49] Preston Meyer: Let's bail on them because they're racist. Yeah, easy to get on board with that decision.
[00:16:54] Katie Dooley: And it was that this church that Jim Jones started doing faith healings, which is super core to how the People's Temple grew and grew so quickly. It's, uh, he loved doing healings because of the publicity and the money that it brought.
[00:17:10] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. If you can do miracles, obviously you deserve my money. Because what if I need those miracles for myself?
[00:17:16] Katie Dooley: Right. Uh, and so, of course, these were fake.
[00:17:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:17:21] Katie Dooley: Uh, members of the church that participated knew full well that they were acting. People were brought in and as he got more popular, he just didn't have time for actually sick people. He would always have too many people ahead in the line that were his congregants.
[00:17:39] Preston Meyer: So I did some digging into this because we need details, especially some fun, juicy ones. So they weren't just actors saying, you know, they feel better. They put on full cancer prosthetics to remove like really intense, great stage stuff. And so the Indiana State Psychology Board started investigating, and they asked for tissue samples of these chunks of body that are falling off people when they get healed. Which of course pissed off the congregation leadership like, no, no, you can't have that stuff because you'll find out. Which is super obvious that it's a scam.
[00:18:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:18:24] Preston Meyer: But they they went even further to make things more convincing, they actually drugged a woman named Irene Mason, and while she was unconscious, they put a cast on her arm. And then when she woke up, they're like, oh, yeah, no, you you broke your arm. That's why you're in a hospital now. And so. Okay, well, that's that's weird. I don't know why I don't remember that. And go to church like we do. And so Jim Jones brings her up onto the stage, cuts off the cast and does his blessing thing to heal her. And bam, that arm is fine because it was never broken. It was just cast while she was unconscious.
[00:19:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah, there was a great video I watched researching for this. There's a ton of great stuff on YouTube on Jim Jones. Uh, parts of documentary, actual footage. And there's a lady. She's actually, like, a phenomenal actor. I will give this to her. She's like a little lady, and she's in a wheelchair and she's never walked before. And Jim Jones commands her to heal, and she ends up running around the church with her arms over her head. And like...
[00:19:28] Preston Meyer: That's a hell of a miracle.
[00:19:29] Katie Dooley: It's a hell of a...
[00:19:30] Preston Meyer: If you don't use your legs. There's no muscle to run.
[00:19:32] Katie Dooley: Even if. Yeah. Even if your paralysis is miraculously healed, you haven't stood on them.
[00:19:37] Preston Meyer: Right? All of the effects of atrophy. Oh, yeah. Uh. Miracle indeed.
[00:19:43] Katie Dooley: A miracle. Praise be!
[00:19:48] Preston Meyer: Uh, so in 1956, Jim Jones, he got real popular with this. The believers never stopped believing. And he became a minister with the Independent Assemblies of God. And eventually the congregation he built would be known as the People's Temple Christian Church Full Gospel.
[00:19:48] Katie Dooley: I'm glad he... Yeah, I'm glad you shortened that.
[00:20:10] Preston Meyer: But it looked pretty good. It would have to to attract people. And I mean, people were progressive, accepting people of different backgrounds and ethnicities, like we mentioned, super anti-racist. Pretty cool. And just the group of people as it was as a congregation.
[00:20:29] Katie Dooley: I just said that...
[00:20:29] Preston Meyer: People really were flocking to that.
[00:20:33] Katie Dooley: The energy and the community that he was building.
[00:20:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:20:36] Katie Dooley: Just like we're... Not quite just like we're trying to build here. We're not building a death cult, just a regular cult.
[00:20:44] Preston Meyer: Not a danger.
[00:20:45] Katie Dooley: Not a danger cult.
[00:20:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Katherine Barbour, who is an ex member of the People's Temple, said the people were the attraction of the temple. So much of it was revolving around Jim Jones and he was the one who was always given the credit for everything, but the people were the attraction. It was amazing to be walking into a place and have African-Americans really warmly welcoming you and talking to you and sharing stories with you. It was sweet. So I couldn't find whether or not she was African American. I would guess the way that that's worded, she was probably white.
[00:21:22] Katie Dooley: Laura Johnston Cole, another ex-member, said we all felt that we were a family rather than a church. We, all of us, were doing the right things but in the wrong place with the wrong leader.
[00:21:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so people liked it. I mean, you don't stay in a place that you don't like until it's too late to leave, and we're not there yet. It's not too late to leave.
[00:21:42] Katie Dooley: Yes and Jim Jones made it very hard to leave, too, even when people knew. Well, I wanted to get too far. But even when people knew it was bad, it's hard to get out of South America.
[00:21:55] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:21:56] Katie Dooley: We'll get there.
[00:21:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's just I think it's interesting that when we talk about a lot of the big cults historically, like Charles Manson, people are really drawn to that one central figure, and they really want to latch on to him, try and get into that inner circle. And that was kind of a little bit part of what we saw in The People's Temple. But generally people just really wanted to belong to the group.
[00:22:22] Katie Dooley: They came for the faith healing and stayed for the community.
[00:22:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Fair enough.
[00:22:26] Preston Meyer: At least generally speaking, there. Certainly.
[00:22:27] Katie Dooley: Obviously. Jones wanted the church to be a rainbow family. His own family included an adoptive Native American girl, three Korean kids, an African American boy he named Jimmy Jr, and a white boy named Tim.
[00:22:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he did have one natural son with his wife name that he ended up naming Stephan Gandhi.
[00:22:52] Katie Dooley: Okay, Jim.
[00:22:53] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, you're a white guy with a pretty white name. Naming your son Gandhi feels weird, but you do what you do. You're allowed to name your kids whatever you want. Generally speaking, in most jurisdictions.
[00:23:07] Katie Dooley: Cotton.
[00:23:10] Preston Meyer: Uh, and he did end up having a few kids with other women from the People's Temple, which is is interesting. We'll talk about Father Divine next. Um, one of the things that he adopted from Father Divine's teachings was the idea that nobody should be having sex, and that you should just adopt kids from families that are breaking this rule. But he still had kids of his own with more than one woman.
[00:23:41] Katie Dooley: I mean, I think more people should adopt and foster than do. There's lots of kids without homes.
[00:23:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I got fully on board with the adoption.
[00:23:50] Katie Dooley: Don't steal people's children.
[00:23:52] Preston Meyer: But.. And, well, we'll get into a situation that looks a lot like that later, too.
[00:23:56] Katie Dooley: Oh, no.
[00:23:57] Preston Meyer: Um, lots of problems. You know, cult leader style.
[00:24:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Like, this is definitely a flawed idea.
[00:24:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But Jim encouraged the People's Temple to be deliberately diverse and actually specifically ask the people to adopt kids from Korea in particular because of the whole Korean War thing. A lot of kids without parents were around. So, I mean, it sounds really good until you realize what's happening to these kids, it gets really creepy.
[00:24:28] Katie Dooley: Oh no. Tell me about Father Divine.
[00:24:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So as he was trying to expand his cult, he started reading some of the writings of Father Divine, watching videos of Father Divine sermons. And he got actually pretty much obsessed with this guy for a little while. And Father Divine had this weird habit of getting people to think that he was a god. Which really inspired Jimmy.
[00:24:53] Katie Dooley: I was going to say is that a habit? Can I start that habit?
[00:24:57] Preston Meyer: Uh, I mean, in theory, you could. So Jimmy decided. Well, I need to to go down and and study with this guy. And he did for a few years. Eventually... Well, back to Father Divine first. So he was the founder of the Peace Mission movement, which started back in the 1910s.
[00:25:17] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:25:17] Preston Meyer: This had been around for decades and was growing decently. By the time Jim got to find out about it and he had a multiethnic congregation which was right up Jim's alley. It was pretty great. I mean, he also had a lot of really weird things. Bibles, no good. It was translated by King James himself, rather than by a whole bunch of scholars that just got approval from King James. Weird thing to believe, but...
[00:25:43] Katie Dooley: That feels like a lot of work for King James. I'm trying to read the Bible, and that's a lot of work on its own.
[00:25:47] Preston Meyer: He was too busy writing demonology.
[00:25:49] Katie Dooley: Right?
[00:25:52] Preston Meyer: Anyway, this dude crazy nuts.
[00:25:57] Katie Dooley: Cuckoo Bananas.
[00:25:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Absolute mess, but in such a powerful way that people followed him and including Jimmy. He died in 1965 and Jimmy swooped in to take over the Peace Mission. He wanted that bad.
[00:26:13] Katie Dooley: Right?
[00:26:13] Preston Meyer: Exact style congregation and...
[00:26:16] Katie Dooley: They think you're God.
[00:26:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:26:17] Katie Dooley: I'm...
[00:26:18] Preston Meyer: A huge amount of power he had. He didn't manage to pull it off, but he did manage to take some people back to California with him. Weird flavor stuff. Not not really Christian. Like it it had started out Christian, just like Jimmy did and went really all worship me.
[00:26:36] Katie Dooley: Cuckoo cuckoo banan. I couldn't even I couldn't even say it. I got too excited.
[00:26:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So, like, Father Divine, Jimmy hated the Bible in particular, the King James Version. He blamed the King for the corruption of the text that obscured the true gospel, and that the king's capitalism would be the downfall of America, which, of course, he had to compare to what was in the Bible. The Babylon of John's revelation.
[00:27:03] Katie Dooley: Thinks the King of England will be the downfall of America?
[00:27:07] Preston Meyer: His capitalism. Oh yeah. King James was a capitalist. The creator of the salve trade and and all of that brought over to America with the King James Bible tradition. It's it's hard to follow because it's not true.
[00:27:22] Katie Dooley: Yeah
[00:27:22] Preston Meyer: That's the problem.
[00:27:23] Katie Dooley: Well, and again, a deceased king in a foreign country is not going to be...
[00:27:27] Preston Meyer: I mean, America was largely initially populated by.
[00:27:31] Katie Dooley: Absolutely, but not by the 1960s. Anyway, it just feels very far removed. Yeah. I'm blaming Queen Victoria for the downfall of Canada. It's too long ago. Anyway, uh, so we know that, uh, Jim Jones and the People's Temple ends up in Guyana in South America. And the move to Guyana was one of several moves that the People's and the last move of the People's Temple made after receiving criticism for integrating his congregation. Jim. Jim's. Jim's Jim Jones moved his family and about 70 people from the temple in Indiana to Redwood Valley, California. So he told everyone that there was going to be a nuclear attack on July 15th, 1967.
[00:28:21] Preston Meyer: That's a hell of a prediction.
[00:28:22] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and the deadline convince people to go to what Esquire magazine had called one of the safest places in the world in such an event.
[00:28:32] Preston Meyer: It was upwind from all really good military targets.
[00:28:36] Katie Dooley: And small. Yeah. Small enough. It wouldn't be a target. Perfect. Of course, just like with all death cults, this attack never happened.
[00:28:45] Preston Meyer: But it came close! I mean, almost.
[00:28:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:28:49] Preston Meyer: In May of 1967, just a couple of months before this predicted attack, there was a solar storm that knocked out NORAD early warning radars. And so America was super on edge, like, oh, no, is this an initial strike from Russia before they bomb all of America in the heat of the Cold War. Of course, that got solved relatively quickly, and there was a realization it was a false alarm, just solar flare. No nuclear attack.
[00:29:24] Katie Dooley: From Redwood Valley, the People's Temple expanded to both Los Angeles and San Francisco. People's Temple got really popular in California in the 60s. Yeah!
[00:29:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Hippie dippy time.
[00:29:35] Katie Dooley: Drawing in thousands of locals and all sorts of politicians, including Harvey Milk, the one most famously played by Sean Penn.
[00:29:43] Preston Meyer: It wasn't until the late 60s that Jimmy openly talked about apostolic communism. He had, you know, let it know, let it be known that he leaned pretty hard to the left, but still within what was socially appropriate under the Red scare. But late 60s is like, fine, you know what? It's time. I'm a Marxist.
[00:30:05] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:30:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And I mean, he got in trouble. He got more government observation, but it didn't really ruin things for him. And the church really wasn't hurt too badly by it. People were committed to it. People give their money to the church in exchange for having all their needs satisfied. It's a pretty good deal.
[00:30:26] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:30:26] Preston Meyer: As long as you have enough people bringing in enough money that everyone's needs can still be satisfied, you're golden. And so he was really convinced that Marx was right, that religion is the opiate of the masses. So he fully leaned away from Christian theology, you know, would talk about himself as a messiah type figure. But religion was a thing that needed to be walked away from. And instead just work on hanging out with each other. Spend Christmas and Thanksgiving just with people from the congregation.
[00:30:59] Katie Dooley: Fellowshipping!
[00:31:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And and like specifically, don't go hang out with your blood family. Be with your covenant family.
[00:31:06] Katie Dooley: Which as we know is a BITE model red flag.
[00:31:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that kind of controls not ideal.
[00:31:09] Katie Dooley: Now, the real hero of People's Temple is Mr. Muggs. The church had a mascot for a little while. A chimpanzee named Mr. Muggs.
[00:31:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:31:28] Katie Dooley: Jim told people that Mr. Muggs was rescued from a lab. But Jeff Gwynne, Jones's biographer, says he just bought him at a pet store. And the 1960s were wild man. If you lived in the 1960s. Please email me holywatermelonpod@gmail.com, because...
[00:31:47] Preston Meyer: I just remembered a movie that I watched as a kid and it wasn't new when I watched as a kid. It was called Monkey Shines.
[00:31:53] Katie Dooley: Oh no.
[00:31:54] Preston Meyer: People are so obsessed with monkeys in the 60s 70s that people would buy monkeys.
[00:32:00] Katie Dooley: Yeah, Jim Jones sold monkeys, guys!
[00:32:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:32:05] Katie Dooley: The 60s.
[00:32:05] Preston Meyer: From door to door.
[00:32:06] Katie Dooley: The 60s were fucking wild.
[00:32:10] Preston Meyer: So Monkey Shines that the movie that just came in my head that I have to tell you a little bit about. Okay, lay it on us. It's about this quadriplegic. He's stuck in his chair. He's, you know, moving around with a little stick and in his mouth, and he gets a monkey to help him out around the house. And the Shine... Psychic.
[00:32:33] Katie Dooley: Oh no, that's weird.
[00:32:35] Preston Meyer: And, like, he gets all kinds of stuff done.
[00:32:37] Katie Dooley: Is it endearing? Because it sounds creepy.
[00:32:40] Preston Meyer: The first third of the movie is pretty good. Like everything's hunky dory.
[00:32:46] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:32:46] Preston Meyer: And then things turn dark.
[00:32:48] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say this sounds like a fucking horror movie.
[00:32:52] Preston Meyer: The dude and... The paraplegic gets some negative feelings about the people around him, and the monkey starts killing them.
[00:33:00] Katie Dooley: What? No!
[00:33:02] Preston Meyer: A thing that monkeys and chimps are known to do when you keep them as pets.
[00:33:07] Katie Dooley: Kids don't buy monkeys from door to door salesmen. I don't think that's the thing anymore. But, uh, don't do it.
[00:33:15] Preston Meyer: I've haven't seen a door to door salesmen for...
[00:33:16] Katie Dooley: Period.
[00:33:17] Preston Meyer: Anything other than religion.
[00:33:18] Katie Dooley: Uh, said by our resident Mormon. Uh. So we got a letter from a Jehovah's Witness in our neighborhood. And Bryant wrote. Return to sender and hail Satan on it and put it in the mailbox. And the postman put it back in our mailbox because of the Hail Satan. And I was like, you should have just put return to sender. But thanks, babe.
[00:33:45] Preston Meyer: And you just put Hail Satan on the other side of the envelope next time.
[00:33:48] Katie Dooley: Well, they have a return address, so I actually just want to, like, send them a letter that's like, hail, Satan! Um, please stop mailing us. Save a tree. Uh, instead of. Anyway, I digress.
[00:34:00] Preston Meyer: Every time I try to study with the Jehovah's Witnesses, I get one visit and they never want to come back.
[00:34:06] Katie Dooley: You need to...
[00:34:07] Preston Meyer: It's really frustrating to maintain a conversation over several visits.
[00:34:11] Katie Dooley: We should find an ex-Jehovah Witness. We probably have more success than...
[00:34:15] Preston Meyer: I know a few.
[00:34:16] Katie Dooley: I do too. All right. We have that little aside now. Jonestown, Guyana. It was named after Jim Jones.
[00:34:27] Preston Meyer: Of course it was. Who else would it be named after?
[00:34:30] Katie Dooley: So Jonestown started because Jim was getting more and more paranoid. So in the early 70s, the Temple was already being accused of fraud and abuse. Rightly so.
[00:34:39] Preston Meyer: Well, and like a lot of cults have have done the whole let's leave America to avoid government supervision and whatnot. Usually like Mexico, you know, somewhere close by. Nah, bro, let's go to South America.
[00:34:54] Katie Dooley: Let's go to South America! Jones also being an integrationist and a communist probably didn't help matters with him being watched closely by officials.
[00:35:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:35:06] Katie Dooley: And he chose to build his utopia in Guyana. So Guyana is a country in the northwest part of South America. It's kind of like south of the Caribbean islands.
[00:35:14] Preston Meyer: Nice and diverse. You got a lot of people who are involuntarily immigrated from India, from Africa. A good handful of European descent options.
[00:35:26] Katie Dooley: There's still a large indigenous population, which is quite unique for South America being colonized.
[00:35:32] Preston Meyer: Right. So it's actually a pretty nice place for Jones' whole rainbow family idea. Absolutely.
[00:35:39] Katie Dooley: And there were prominent black leaders in Guyana, so something to make his black congregants feel really comfortable. And it was an English speaking and socialist country. So checks all the boxes for a whole bunch of people who have probably never left the United States before.
[00:35:53] Preston Meyer: Right. It's the perfect place to set up this little...
[00:35:58] Katie Dooley: Literally a commune in a socialist country.
[00:36:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:36:01] Katie Dooley: Also, I love that he is living the communist life.
[00:36:05] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, even China and Russia never really lived...
[00:36:08] Katie Dooley: Not like this.
[00:36:10] Katie Dooley: So Jones purchased 3800 acres of jungle west of Georgetown, the capital, and 500 members of the temple went down to clear literal jungle vines, palm trees, to...
[00:36:24] Preston Meyer: Snakes.
[00:36:24] Katie Dooley: Venomous snakes, probably giant spiders. Ugh. Things like...
[00:36:29] Preston Meyer: There's a lot of things that make me not want to go.
[00:36:30] Katie Dooley: I know I was in the jungle in, um, Guatemala.
[00:36:33] Preston Meyer: Mhm.
[00:36:35] Katie Dooley: Like. It was. It was enough.
[00:36:41] Preston Meyer: You need more secure shelter to go to sleep at night.
[00:36:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean we were, we were good I but I don't want to know what those first few nights and... Yeah I'm fine. It gets worse. I don't know why I'm freaking out about clearing a jungle when they're all about to die.
[00:36:56] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. So we talked a little bit about some of the, the the red flags, you know, controlling people's time and whatnot. Tell me... Tell me about white nights.
[00:37:07] Katie Dooley: White nights are terrifying. If your organization practices white nights, you are in a danger cult. Leave immediately. Uh, white night at Jonestown was a suicide drill. You know, fire drills where you practice if there's a fire. A suicide drill is where you practice killing yourself. Really good. Um, I feel like...
[00:37:32] Preston Meyer: Healthy thing.
[00:37:33] Katie Dooley: I feel like I should. Sorry. I feel like I should put a trigger warning before I go any further. The intensity of white nights would vary. So one or on 1 or 2 occasions, community members would arm themselves with weapon and stay up for days at a time waiting for this like impending invasion. Some instances were less intense and simply called upon people to pledge their willingness to die in front of the congregation. These would happen randomly and in the middle of the night, which is I mean, what is going on is a scary red flag, but the random in the middle of the night is also a huge red flag in the BITE model of manipulation and deprivation of sleep. So you are no longer thinking straight during the day because you're literally sleep deprived. So these intensified leading up to November 18th or sorry, the frequency increase leading up to November 19th, November 18th, 1978.
[00:38:31] Preston Meyer: There's there's an interesting story to the lead up of all this mess.
[00:38:37] Katie Dooley: This has been a long time coming, which is almost scarier. It's...
[00:38:42] Preston Meyer: So in 1972, we're looking back a few years right now, uh, Grace Stone, who was a member of People's Temple, gave birth to a little boy named John. Jim Jones claimed to be the father. Even though Grace had a husband named Tim. So I have to assume that Jim and Grace have been sleeping together. That seems like a reasonable conclusion here. The weird thing is, Jimmy didn't like people being romantic or sexual and told people don't do it. But you're the exception of the rules, Jimmy. You do your thing anyway, Tim, Grace's husband signed an affidavit confirming that Jimmy was the baby's daddy without getting a paternity test.
[00:39:25] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:39:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Weird move. Four years later, Grace abandons her family to escape the cult. And then her husband left a year after that, leaving little John...
[00:39:39] Katie Dooley: No!
[00:39:40] Preston Meyer: With Jimmy and the cult.
[00:39:43] Katie Dooley: Uh oh.
[00:39:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So they went to the US courts to try and get John back. Let's get some. The power of great America to bring our kid back from Guyana. They got some traction. One of the congressman from California, uh, Leo Ryan, went to Guyana with several family members of people who were still trapped in the cult. Like they... A small army. Let's get our family back. And things, well didn't go super well. Some of the congregants told Leo that they wanted help leaving. The people who were in Guyana. Hey, take me with you when you go. Which was the goal, so that's kind of cool. But this really pissed Jimmy off. So when they were waiting to to get onto the airstrip or to get onto the plane at the airstrip, Jimmy had a truck of gunmen keep them from leaving by killing them.
[00:40:41] Katie Dooley: Oh.
[00:40:41] Preston Meyer: They killed Leo Ryan and four others and wounded a whole bunch more. And Jimmy then told his faithful congregants that the Guyanese military was going to come and take their children, which is easy enough to believe because they just had people come and try to take the children.
[00:40:56] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:40:57] Preston Meyer: Uh, so that really sucks. And the only way to prevent that was for everybody to take Hitler's way out. Bad day for everyone involved.
[00:41:06] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. So some people have described the death of over 900 people on November 18th, 1970, as a mass suicide, but is very much a mass murder. As audio and video recordings, which again you can find on YouTube and they're very disturbing.
[00:41:24] Preston Meyer: Haunting.
[00:41:24] Katie Dooley: Demonstrate that people were coerced to drink the cyanide-laced flavoring. Basically, they held a gun to your head. Which way do you want to go? Because you're going. 300 of the deaths were of minors.
[00:41:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, fewer than 10% of the people present survived the Jonestown massacre. That's that's really bad.
[00:41:48] Katie Dooley: Right. And you know, a it's a little bit of apples to oranges. But if you think of the number of people at ground zero, and obviously there was a huge loss of life on September 11th, definitely more than 10% of people survived. So this is this is scary numbers like no, I won't say nobody made it out alive, but very a very lucky few. Lucky few. There's probably some survivor's guilt there.
[00:42:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There was about 11 people escaped in the jungle. Of course, mentioned some people died on the airstrip. There were 14 who survived the gun attack. Wounded, of course mostly, most of them. Four people survived the Flavor-aid cyanide because they hid or played dead. I wonder if any of them, like, pretended to drink and then played dead. Or if they just...
[00:42:41] Katie Dooley: I, I read, I read two and one lady hid under a bed and there were guards checking rooms, so she was very lucky.
[00:42:48] Preston Meyer: Wow.
[00:42:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Everyone was called out to where this was. I was outside and she hid under a bed. And then one person claimed to have not heard what Jim was asking people to do. But when he saw people falling down dead, he swooned and laid there until it was over. Could you imagine being one of those four people walking? And there's footage, like I said, there's if you have any sort of morbid curiosity, there's footage of 900 bodies lying there. I would I don't know if I would want to be one of those four people.
[00:43:23] Preston Meyer: God, no, no no, no. Yeah. And the murder/suicides weren't just limited to Guyana. Radio orders were released by Jones to everywhere, where the church had any sort of presence, that it was time to commit revolutionary suicide.
[00:43:39] Katie Dooley: And some people did kill themselves or the people they were with or killed the people they were with, and then themselves, and then some people didn't. So if you were in America, you had a higher chance, depending on who you were standing next to when those orders came in.
[00:43:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So Jim was found with a gunshot wound in the head. Uh, which tells us that he couldn't stomach the idea of drinking cyanide. Like, you know, like a quitter. Um, his nurse, Annie Moore, was also found in a similar state. And I think it's really interesting that there remains some confusion about which of the two pulled the trigger on the other before killing themselves. It's a little bit weird.
[00:44:24] Katie Dooley: That's interesting.
[00:44:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's authoritative voices saying both sides of the story. They're both... Both of these options.
[00:44:33] Katie Dooley: And there'd be no witnesses. So.
[00:44:35] Preston Meyer: Right? It's just crazy. Mr. Muggs the chimp.
[00:44:40] Katie Dooley: No.
[00:44:40] Preston Meyer: Was also shot and killed that day. They couldn't convince him to drink the Flavor-Aid. So it was time for the bullets.
[00:44:48] Katie Dooley: Poor Mr. Muggs.
[00:44:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And of the small number of survivors, some of them later killed themselves out of guilt or despair. Others, like Mike Proulx, defended the group after the massacre, but then went on to kill himself. Mike killed himself in a hotel room just so that he could die faithfully like those in Guyana.
[00:45:12] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:45:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And to be with the group, uh, there was a young man who. I did read his name, and I don't want to share it. Uh, you can you can go dig it up if you want, on your own. Who had his family all die in the massacre. And then he decided, well, it's time for me to go on a murder suicide rampage in a schoolyard. Yeah. So that happened in LA, uh, very shortly after the massacre. And then many others who escaped before and after the massacre. Uh, like Al and Jeanie Mills were tracked down by faithful members of the congregation and were murdered in their homes. So it's not just Jonestown, but it was a much bigger problem.
[00:45:58] Katie Dooley: Absolutely.
[00:45:59] Preston Meyer: Lasted for a little while.
[00:46:01] Katie Dooley: Yup. It's wild.
[00:46:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Danger cults. We need to be better at recognizing them before they get to this level of scary.
[00:46:11] Katie Dooley: Yeah. There are other dangerous cults and other death cults, but I think Jim Jones kind of takes the cake from, uh. I want to say pop... pop culture is probably the wrong word, but he's probably the best known death cult leader.
[00:46:27] Preston Meyer: For sheer numbers alone
[00:46:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah
[00:46:27] Preston Meyer: Gained him that spot for sure. And the scary thing is, it's it all sounded, at the very least decent when it was started.
[00:46:39] Katie Dooley: It was great until it wasn't.
[00:46:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's the trick. That's always the way it is. Whether it's NXIVM or Scientology or who knows what the next one's going to be. It's it's good until it's not.
[00:46:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I, uh, belief is a crazy drug.
[00:46:57] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:46:57] Katie Dooley: And I, I mean, I guess all you can do is teach people about the BITE model and how to recognize it in both the groups you're involved with and then your friends and families behavior, because there were definitely red flags. But if you had dedicated ten years to the People's Temple.
[00:47:14] Preston Meyer: That's your whole life.
[00:47:15] Katie Dooley: Your entire life.
[00:47:16] Preston Meyer: Red flags is enough.
[00:47:17] Katie Dooley: And then even if you did remove yourself, you weren't safe necessarily, right? I don't know how to wrap this up. I'm sad.
[00:47:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's, uh, it's bad news. It's. It's weird because before things got really weird before people were in too deep to get out, for the most part. They were not really talking about anything that was weird relative to what every other church was.
[00:47:46] Katie Dooley: No, I mean, the faith healings were a bit out there, but it was the 60s and.
[00:47:50] Preston Meyer: People are still doing faith healings.
[00:47:52] Katie Dooley: Well, it was the 60s and people sold monkeys door to door. There was weirder shit happening.
[00:47:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:47:59] Katie Dooley: Uh oh. Brutal. Uh, pet rocks were popular and...
[00:48:06] Preston Meyer: When did that?
[00:48:06] Katie Dooley: I don't know, I'm not that old, Preston.
[00:48:09] Preston Meyer: Okay, well, anyway, what's the name of the episode where we talked about the BITE model? Fake Me T Church.
[00:48:16] Katie Dooley: Fake Me To Church.
[00:48:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. For some more detail on cults in general, Fake Me To Church talks about a lot of the red flags.
[00:48:25] Katie Dooley: We also have a lovely interview with our good friend Sarah, uh, who talks about her experience in a cult. Uh, she was obviously not in the People's Temple because she's far too young for that. Um, but she does talk about her experience as well. Um, just again, good to be aware of these red flags. Even if you just Google the BITE model, it breaks it down very nicely.
[00:48:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. A couple of months ago we had a nice chat about communism and in particular religious communism. That helps give a little bit of context to how these people were living as well.
[00:48:57] Katie Dooley: Look at how our episodes are just building on each other, Preston.
[00:49:00] Preston Meyer: Right? I feel like our plan is starting to really show itself.
[00:49:05] Katie Dooley: Oh, careful. That makes us sound like a danger cult. Uh, yeah. Just wait until July 15th, 2023, when the world ends. Okay? Um, and our plan comes to fruition. We're kidding. We're just going to keep recording this until you're sick of us.
[00:49:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, so far, it hasn't stopped being fun. And we have a lot of fun with many of our listeners on Discord, Facebook, YouTube.
[00:49:34] Katie Dooley: Instagram. Hey, Preston. If our listeners wanted to flesh out more of their learning and get a deeper understanding, is there a resource for that?
[00:49:43] Preston Meyer: We've got actually a whole bunch of bonus episodes that's exclusive to Patreon that we've also had a lot of fun recording those.
[00:49:52] Katie Dooley: And did you guys hear about our Patreon book club?
[00:49:57] Preston Meyer: Man, we're gonna have some fun with that. Yeah. So it's a completely separate tier, uh, for the price of $5 a month, every two months, we are going to read a book with you guys and have a discussion with our lovely patrons. So if that sounds super interesting to you, subscribe today.
[00:50:15] Both Speakers: Peace be with you!
