DOCUMENTS FROM JONESTOWN
SLAVERY OF FAITH
The following documents are either letters written to Jim Jones as part of
our "catharsis and self-humiliation exercises and original FBI Interrogation
documents, evaluations of some of the children, my son Jakari and niece
Dawnyelle included. All courtesy of  www.jonestown.edu.org

As I read through these letters it still assists me in realizing why I had such
low self esteem and some signs of self-hate. The mentality was to continue
to lift Jim up as an revolutionary, God and the most caring person and at
the same time to keep ourselves in the mental state of not being good
enough.  Years later this type of mind shifting had an effect on me.

Reading these I could not believe that every day I had to fight to keep my
sanity - to try not to internalize all the negative statements that were
thrown to us - the workers, the residents of Jonestown.

I never thought I was good enough for anything - but in the back of my
mind a voice kept reminding me that "you are a child of God" and hence
the ability to try to keep some sort of wits about myself when everything
else was  falling apart.

There are many times through the years I questioned myself as to why I
did not believe that Jim Jones would actually go through with killing
everyone. I just could not get my head around it. Even though we did have
the suicide drills and he spoke often of us dying for the cause - I did not
see it coming.  For years and years I blamed myself for not having the
insight to see in front of the eight ball. And after years of trying to sort it
out, I realized that the plan was in process from the very beginning.

When Jim Polk from CNN and his wife Cara sat me down at their kitchen
table one night before the documentary aired and after his return from
Jonestown, or what was left of it -  telling me he  had something to share -
my heart skipped a beat. It was the tone in his voice that let me know the
news would not be good. The news was that the cyanide had been bought
months and months before. It brought me to tears - how did we not know?
Jim's plan to go down in history was put in motion in the beginning. And
then my reality set in - how do you get inside the head of a madman?   And
how do you look at young women - his mistress's and see that type of
blind dedication? You only see in others what you see in yourself-I never
saw what they saw, and I believe most of the residents of Jonestown did
not either. With sleep deprivation, poor nutrition the plan to break spirits
and hope prevailed - ending in the death of Jonestown.

As you read these documents keep an open mind - for they are strange- a
sign of the times I survived.

Peace, Leslie