contd...
 
Dale Parks, Jones' personal secretary for a time remembered him; "You had to know the man, he could go days without sleep, and you'd never know the difference. One minute he was this hard headed politician, running some meeting at the Housing Authority, the next minute he was pulling rabbits out of his hat, and before you could catch your breath, he was doing something else. I don't know what it was , but he could get more things done than any two people I ever saw. Maybe it was his glands."
 
Layton also recounts how some time later, having joined the Temple Jones' molested her (he systematically slept with the women that comprised his deputies) , and despite his unwelcome actions she describes his eyes as "soft and kindly, and yet I felt as though he could see through my clothing". And later she accuses him of being a healer, socialist, important civic leader, and in equal measure an immoral abuser, blackmailer and a liar.
 
Commentator and sociologist John.R.Hall states that Jones affirmed the classic trait of charisma, telling his followers "I can have more power if you give it to me. I'm like a dynamo: I'm like a hydraulic system." Jones preached that his personal ego died long ago. He told his congregation, "I'm letting Christ have a body." On other occasions he he referred to himself as God, offering himself as a Saviour: San Francisco Temple member Laurie Efrein Kahalas recalls Jones' preaching, "If you need a friend, I will be your friend. If you need a brother, I will be your brother. If you need a father, I will be your father. If you need a saviour, I will be your saviour."
 
Kahalas, like Layton recalls the first sermon she went to: After Jones has stepped on to the stage "He waited, watched, surveyed, nodded, acknowledged, gently smiled. There was no surface smile from this one ever, in all those years beginning now. It was a welling from deep within, as though smiles were a form of deep yogic breath. Never only the face smiled; a being, radiating life's breath, smile, like an ever-brightening beam of light. When Jim smiled, the world smiled. When Jim smiled at you, your universe brightened."
 
Jones has been described as a intensely driven man who had extremely convoluted motives and methodologies. Hall describes him as a borderline personality. Someone who exhibited traits of paranoia and confronted authorities in such a way that might be seen as unstable. From childhood he was observed to be "tense" and "up tight". Crucially Hall observes "Jones did not develop his 'sickness' in a 'break' from reality, but by bringing reality along with him." Moulding the immediate reality of his community. This is most evident in the subsequent events at Jonestown - but even before this Jones had established a 'grand folie', rather than a private one.
 
And the socialist mission in early 1970's US would, if exposed successfully, probably have been a target for the authorities. Whatever the origin of Jones' paranoia, in that respect at least it had some foundation.
 
Another interpretation of Jones' character is that he was a con man, a fraudster. Staging healings, even trading religion for what was a thinly disguised communalist group. But Jones never lived like a charlatan. He did not have a personally wealthy lifestyle. He did have privileges over other community members (particularly so in Jonestown), but they could never be described as lavish.
 
Rhodes describes being fascinated by Jones' healing tricks. As a reformed pick pocket Rhodes recognised a fellow professional. "He was the best con-man I ever saw - and I've seen quite a few. I knew guys who could talk you out of anything in your pocket and Jones would have taken any one of them to the cleaners. I mean, he just got done telling them what a crock the bible was, and then he'd turn around and pull of a miracle they wouldn't dare put in the bible it was so outrageous."
 
Jones used deceit, that is clear, but apparently not primarily for material gain. Perhaps to further his 'grand folie', to cast his immediate reality into history. Jones was convinced he was a historic figure - like Martin Luther King, adding further fuel to the 'folie'.
 
In his sermons, through their structure and his manner Jones seems to reveal both the passionate and manipulative qualities that his personal deputies recall.
 
Jim Jones voice during sermons and public speaking can be found on this radio documentary (you will need Realplayer)