Death tape
Encyclopedia
The death tape or "Q042", is the final tape recorded by Jim Jones
before the mass suicide
of the residents of Jonestown
in Guyana
, in 1978.
This recording includes Jones urging the members of the Jonestown community to come forward to receive the poison - first for their children, then for themselves - as Jones describes the horrors of what would await those who did not commit what he described as "revolutionary suicide".
Although some debate has been raised as to the authenticity of the tape, owing largely to the number of edits audible, given the fact that other tapes generated by Peoples Temple
also contain numerous edits, and given the fact that the tape refers to events quite specific to 18 November 1978, it seems likely that the tape is genuine in the sense that it was recorded on 18 November 1978. In the background of the tape there is what appears on casual listening to be organ music and/or choir singing; however, the tape has been analyzed carefully and it is believed that the music is actually a ghost recording from music that was previously recorded on the tape. Since the recording was stopped and started many times, the amount of time covered is somewhat longer than the length of the recording itself.
In 1984 Temple Records
released a vinyl LP
of the tape under the title Thee Last Supper.
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...
before the mass suicide
Mass suicide
- Examples :Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious or cultic settings. Defeated groups may resort to mass suicide rather than being captured. Suicide pacts are a form of mass suicide unconnected to cults or war that are sometimes planned or carried out by small groups of frustrated people...
of the residents of Jonestown
Jonestown
Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby...
in Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
, in 1978.
This recording includes Jones urging the members of the Jonestown community to come forward to receive the poison - first for their children, then for themselves - as Jones describes the horrors of what would await those who did not commit what he described as "revolutionary suicide".
Although some debate has been raised as to the authenticity of the tape, owing largely to the number of edits audible, given the fact that other tapes generated by Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple was a religious organization founded in 1955 by Jim Jones that, by the mid-1970s, included over a dozen locations in California including its headquarters in San Francisco...
also contain numerous edits, and given the fact that the tape refers to events quite specific to 18 November 1978, it seems likely that the tape is genuine in the sense that it was recorded on 18 November 1978. In the background of the tape there is what appears on casual listening to be organ music and/or choir singing; however, the tape has been analyzed carefully and it is believed that the music is actually a ghost recording from music that was previously recorded on the tape. Since the recording was stopped and started many times, the amount of time covered is somewhat longer than the length of the recording itself.
In 1984 Temple Records
Temple Records (1984 UK label)
Temple Records was originally an independent record label run by Genesis P-Orridge and Psychic TV from 1984 through 1994 for releases by Psychic TV and related projects. Releases from this era have a TOPY catalog number. TOPYUS was the sublabel for releases inside the United States of America.In...
released a vinyl LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
of the tape under the title Thee Last Supper.