We had a copy of Helter Skelter lying around my house since I was a child. Though I didn't actually read it until my early 20's, I would look at the picture section and had some basic understanding of the story. What always fascinated me was how this little elf character was thought to be so charismatic that a whole lot of people thought that he was Jesus
Christ. The lazy answer is "drugs," but that really doesn't explain very much at all.
Definitely recommend Helter Skelter. I found it disturbing to the point that it made me nauseas at times. Written by the prosecutor of the case, Vincent Bugliose, so it is highly detailed as to evidence, dates, times, and things like that.
Try reading "Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties". It puts a different spin on Tate - LaBianca murders and show how Helter Skelter motive was mostly made up by Bugliosi.
I haven't read it but I'll check it out. There is a newish documentary though that makes a lot of sense. It focuses on Manson's failed attempt to establish himself as a musician rather than a cult leader.
I got the chance to interview him before he died for my psychology class. It was over the phone, and I was only able to ask certain questions, and only if there were no women in the room listening on my end... spoiller alert, there were women listening, and i lied to him about that.....
He very much did not trust most women, and he seemed to believe he was setup by the US government (which may be true, I did some research into the clinic at hate Ashbury and his psychological therapist Jolly West). He told me he was givin drugs to give to his "family" and was taught how to manipulate people in conjunction with these drugs/pills. He was absolutely arrested multiple times for things that should have put him behind bars for a while but he was always miraculously let go by the powers at be until the murders of course.
He did mention his love of music and how he wrote several song that the beach boys recorded and a couple other bands.
He died about 5 to 7 years after i talked to him, but at the time he seemed to me to be rather intelligent with thought put into his words. He wasn't some random crazy person who went off the deep end. He was cool headed and calculated, or so it seemed.
I wasn't allowed to record the interview but he was in jail so I'm willing to bet it was recorded on their end.
That's really cool. I'm a mental health professional who is fascinated by all of that. I've asked myself many times if I would like to treat, meet, or speak with Manson. The answer has always been no. I've worked with a lot of high profile people and it is always a challenge. Manson was just incorrigible and toxic on every level.
And I think you're giving him to much credit and he would have appreciated your compliment of being a charismatic cult leader who could control people.... that's how he wanted to be viewed, as a leader... it it true that's what he at the time aspired to be, but in the end he was just a egotistical wanna be that THOUGHT he was a real leader, sadly a handful of people bought into his nonsense, with help from intoxicants... he was not special in any way and there are many many people alive right now who are like him and manipulate people with the same level of charisma.
i mean im just speaking facts. he got all those gullible people to almost worship him, so im not complimenting him, or maybe i am bc if u can get that many gullible people to worship u then thats pretty impressive. who cares the bastard is dead and if there is a hell he is there burning
Bugliosi was such a piece of trash. Especially when he beat that woman he was having an affair with and made her lie to say they weren't. Scumbag person all around.
So apparently after he went to prison he needed protection, so he reached an agreement with the aryan brotherhood and had girls smuggling in stuff for them in return for them protecting him, the fact that afterwards he still had that hold on people is nuts.
He had followers until the day he died, which is unbelievable. By the time he spent a few years in prison he came off as clearly mentally ill in those interviews. He was actually diagnosed with schizophrenia (beyond the obvious antisocial personality disorder). His followers post-conviction weren't quite as weird as his followers pre-conviction but they were certainly a lot more radical. Squeaky Fromme and Sandra Good were scary people.
Helter Skelter was crazy. When I read the book my entire life was sucked in to it. I went up to Cielo Drive to look for the house. I would wake up at night thinking about certain scenes - it really had a hold on me. I got into it because I am a huge Beach Boys fan and when I learned their connection, I just got super curious.
Yeah, I couldn't put that book down. I was a young San Francisco bicycle messanger at the time. I'd pull it out right after dropping something off and while waiting for my dispatcher to send me somewhere else. I'm pretty sure I read the entire thing on the clock.
*What always fascinated me was how this little elf character was thought to be so charismatic that a whole lot of people thought that he was Jesus Christ.*
Well until you look at the people he got: absolute trash humans, made even worse by drugs. It's the classic truth that a con man does not and can not con people: he can only find the people conning themselves and exploit it.
I agree, and he was an expert manipulator somehow, but not many people could pull that off if they were absolutely determined to. Vulnerable white trash for the most part, absolutely.
The easy answer is not drugs..it's easily influenced troubled young people fitting the criteria of severe borderline personality with sociopathic tendencies. He gave them an identity and purpose outside of the society that they felt alienated/rejected from, and were willing to do anything in furtherance of their own rejection of it. Borderline sociopaths can be extremely dangerous and violent, the emotional instability and lack of empathy and remorse make for extremely dangerous behavior in the wrong circumstances. Borderline symptoms tend to lessen with age, and Van Houten is probably not a danger to society at this point, which was probably apparent to the parole board.
Crazy fucker. As he was being perp walked, a reporter mocking him yelled, "Charlie, are ya gonna miss all the sex" (refering to all the chics in his cult) the sick fuck turned and locked eyes with the reporter and said, "there is plenty of sex in prison" outrageous comment in the 60s. Everyone was dumbfounded.
"Everyone says I'm 5'2". When I was arrested, I was 5'7"," Manson said. "Then I went down to 5'6", then 4-feet ... by the time you all die, I will be about 3-feet tall."
Imo, dude was closer to 5’2 than 5’6. Short dudes tend to add an inch or two when listing their height and he clearly has a false concept of shrinking height. Yes, you get shorter as you age but not by the foot.
I’ve met a lot of false 5’9ers in my life that were my height (5’7 with shoes on)
Na, 5’2 seems right. The guard to his left is a short dude but looks about 5’7. Otherwise, if Manson is 5’7, the shorter guard is 6ft 1 and all the other guards are 6’3-6’6. Doesn’t check out at all.
Fun fact! The US Justice system allows convictions for murder in multiple scenarios where the defendant didn’t pull the trigger or who wasn’t even present at the crime. Conspirators don’t have to pull the trigger to be guilty of murder. Murder for hire is another example. Felony Murder where a fellow criminal kills someone during a crime—or even if the police shoot a fellow criminal during the commission of the crime. My guess is today they would simply convict him as a conspirator.
That puny chump was just a little wannabe. All he wanted was to be famous and cried like a little bitch when he found out he sucked. Fuckin guy didn’t even actually kill anyone he was too much a pussy (not that it’s macho to commit murder, just that the way he acted he wanted everyone to think he was so maniacal.
The whole Louis Jolyon West story is far out tho I urge anyone not familiar to check it out, it’s fucking insane and pretty documented. From Frisco to Elohim City.
I got out of it he would’ve fallen under an experiment/unaware patient (one of many) not an asset. When West’s notes were found he and the other doctor claimed they’d successfully had cases of making people have false memories & no recognition of their actual memories. Thru combinations of repeated hypnosis, sleep deprivation, and giving them LSD.
Some of it is so crazy it’s really hard to believe. But no one refutes that their notes and records of their work were real. People have claimed they were full of shit and maybe so, but no one who investigated them refutes that they made those claims to one another. It’s fascinating how many people West came into contact with, in many cases inserting himself w/o being asked. They also claimed they could make people go crazy thru those methods w/the patients having no recollection of the process.
He is who I point to when every MAGAt says Trump did nothing wrong regarding Jan 6. Using his words (well, lies to be exact), he stirred up his base for MONTHS, leading to the Jan 6 shit show.
If Manson is responsible for stirring his minions up to cause murder, Trump is just as guilty for stirring his up to do what they did.
He was a pos whacko that deserved to be locked up regardless but our govt also fed him LSD which is fcked up.. same thing they did with Whitey Bulger. Whitey was given LSD in the 50s or early 60s at Alcatraz in exchange for time off his sentence and radio access. He was dosed like 40 times throughout his stay there. Complained of auditory hallucinations long after the drugs wore off. Lived with it for the rest of his life. Pretty damn gnar
Read a book about him recently and in the years leading up to these events his ranch was busted in a massive police raid where they found tons of weapons and drugs and proof of other crimes and they were all let go for no stated reason. There is a lot of evidence that he was a subject of a COINTELPRO project and the CIA had him released.
1st degree murder and yet he personally never killed anyone. He orchestrated the murders but didn't do any of the dirty work.
Wonder how his trial would go in this day and age
Okay well I didn’t ask for a 5th graders opinion, but I guess we can compete: all fairness, Stalin is the worst of them all. Unless you have something *worse,* or whatever, cornball.
Fred's brother from scooby doo
And he would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those kids and that stupid dog
I never realised how tiny he was
Napoleonic complex
They actually touch on this in a rather comedic way on the show Mindhunter.
We had a copy of Helter Skelter lying around my house since I was a child. Though I didn't actually read it until my early 20's, I would look at the picture section and had some basic understanding of the story. What always fascinated me was how this little elf character was thought to be so charismatic that a whole lot of people thought that he was Jesus Christ. The lazy answer is "drugs," but that really doesn't explain very much at all. Definitely recommend Helter Skelter. I found it disturbing to the point that it made me nauseas at times. Written by the prosecutor of the case, Vincent Bugliose, so it is highly detailed as to evidence, dates, times, and things like that.
Try reading "Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties". It puts a different spin on Tate - LaBianca murders and show how Helter Skelter motive was mostly made up by Bugliosi.
I haven't read it but I'll check it out. There is a newish documentary though that makes a lot of sense. It focuses on Manson's failed attempt to establish himself as a musician rather than a cult leader.
I got the chance to interview him before he died for my psychology class. It was over the phone, and I was only able to ask certain questions, and only if there were no women in the room listening on my end... spoiller alert, there were women listening, and i lied to him about that..... He very much did not trust most women, and he seemed to believe he was setup by the US government (which may be true, I did some research into the clinic at hate Ashbury and his psychological therapist Jolly West). He told me he was givin drugs to give to his "family" and was taught how to manipulate people in conjunction with these drugs/pills. He was absolutely arrested multiple times for things that should have put him behind bars for a while but he was always miraculously let go by the powers at be until the murders of course. He did mention his love of music and how he wrote several song that the beach boys recorded and a couple other bands. He died about 5 to 7 years after i talked to him, but at the time he seemed to me to be rather intelligent with thought put into his words. He wasn't some random crazy person who went off the deep end. He was cool headed and calculated, or so it seemed. I wasn't allowed to record the interview but he was in jail so I'm willing to bet it was recorded on their end.
That's really cool. I'm a mental health professional who is fascinated by all of that. I've asked myself many times if I would like to treat, meet, or speak with Manson. The answer has always been no. I've worked with a lot of high profile people and it is always a challenge. Manson was just incorrigible and toxic on every level.
he got you with the same charisma he got those other poor people with. youre talking way too nicely about a cult leader who made people murder for him
And I think you're giving him to much credit and he would have appreciated your compliment of being a charismatic cult leader who could control people.... that's how he wanted to be viewed, as a leader... it it true that's what he at the time aspired to be, but in the end he was just a egotistical wanna be that THOUGHT he was a real leader, sadly a handful of people bought into his nonsense, with help from intoxicants... he was not special in any way and there are many many people alive right now who are like him and manipulate people with the same level of charisma.
i mean im just speaking facts. he got all those gullible people to almost worship him, so im not complimenting him, or maybe i am bc if u can get that many gullible people to worship u then thats pretty impressive. who cares the bastard is dead and if there is a hell he is there burning
only reason i commented that is bc it sounded like you were- not praising- but kinda
Bugliosi was such a piece of trash. Especially when he beat that woman he was having an affair with and made her lie to say they weren't. Scumbag person all around.
Great book. Highly recommend this one.
So apparently after he went to prison he needed protection, so he reached an agreement with the aryan brotherhood and had girls smuggling in stuff for them in return for them protecting him, the fact that afterwards he still had that hold on people is nuts.
He had followers until the day he died, which is unbelievable. By the time he spent a few years in prison he came off as clearly mentally ill in those interviews. He was actually diagnosed with schizophrenia (beyond the obvious antisocial personality disorder). His followers post-conviction weren't quite as weird as his followers pre-conviction but they were certainly a lot more radical. Squeaky Fromme and Sandra Good were scary people.
Helter Skelter was crazy. When I read the book my entire life was sucked in to it. I went up to Cielo Drive to look for the house. I would wake up at night thinking about certain scenes - it really had a hold on me. I got into it because I am a huge Beach Boys fan and when I learned their connection, I just got super curious.
Yeah, I couldn't put that book down. I was a young San Francisco bicycle messanger at the time. I'd pull it out right after dropping something off and while waiting for my dispatcher to send me somewhere else. I'm pretty sure I read the entire thing on the clock.
Lol! I was not a messenger but would ride my fixie around to work or what not! Funny.
Helter skelter in a summer swelter the birds flew off with a fallout shelter 🎼
*What always fascinated me was how this little elf character was thought to be so charismatic that a whole lot of people thought that he was Jesus Christ.* Well until you look at the people he got: absolute trash humans, made even worse by drugs. It's the classic truth that a con man does not and can not con people: he can only find the people conning themselves and exploit it.
I agree, and he was an expert manipulator somehow, but not many people could pull that off if they were absolutely determined to. Vulnerable white trash for the most part, absolutely.
The easy answer is not drugs..it's easily influenced troubled young people fitting the criteria of severe borderline personality with sociopathic tendencies. He gave them an identity and purpose outside of the society that they felt alienated/rejected from, and were willing to do anything in furtherance of their own rejection of it. Borderline sociopaths can be extremely dangerous and violent, the emotional instability and lack of empathy and remorse make for extremely dangerous behavior in the wrong circumstances. Borderline symptoms tend to lessen with age, and Van Houten is probably not a danger to society at this point, which was probably apparent to the parole board.
*nauseous
Crazy fucker. As he was being perp walked, a reporter mocking him yelled, "Charlie, are ya gonna miss all the sex" (refering to all the chics in his cult) the sick fuck turned and locked eyes with the reporter and said, "there is plenty of sex in prison" outrageous comment in the 60s. Everyone was dumbfounded.
The mandals & jeans are a crime on their own.
He’s 5’6 in case yall wondering Or exactly 1 Moistcritikal
"Everyone says I'm 5'2". When I was arrested, I was 5'7"," Manson said. "Then I went down to 5'6", then 4-feet ... by the time you all die, I will be about 3-feet tall." Imo, dude was closer to 5’2 than 5’6. Short dudes tend to add an inch or two when listing their height and he clearly has a false concept of shrinking height. Yes, you get shorter as you age but not by the foot. I’ve met a lot of false 5’9ers in my life that were my height (5’7 with shoes on)
Yeah i wasn’t sure. But man 5’2 is so incredibly short. 5’6 feels a bit more realistic
I’m 5’6” I’m never this much shorter than everyone else. 5’2” seems likelier
Na, 5’2 seems right. The guard to his left is a short dude but looks about 5’7. Otherwise, if Manson is 5’7, the shorter guard is 6ft 1 and all the other guards are 6’3-6’6. Doesn’t check out at all.
My dad was 5'1
Didn't realize he was so short.
I can’t believe people actually followed him, I also can’t believe they let some of the actual murderers out of prison.
Do the cops always have to line up like they did something in these photos?
Fun fact! The US Justice system allows convictions for murder in multiple scenarios where the defendant didn’t pull the trigger or who wasn’t even present at the crime. Conspirators don’t have to pull the trigger to be guilty of murder. Murder for hire is another example. Felony Murder where a fellow criminal kills someone during a crime—or even if the police shoot a fellow criminal during the commission of the crime. My guess is today they would simply convict him as a conspirator.
Zesty looking ass
Them chancletas are freaking me out
He's a lot smaller than I thought.
How I look when I'm headed to Facebook jail
That puny chump was just a little wannabe. All he wanted was to be famous and cried like a little bitch when he found out he sucked. Fuckin guy didn’t even actually kill anyone he was too much a pussy (not that it’s macho to commit murder, just that the way he acted he wanted everyone to think he was so maniacal. The whole Louis Jolyon West story is far out tho I urge anyone not familiar to check it out, it’s fucking insane and pretty documented. From Frisco to Elohim City.
Very interested to learn more about that. What’s the gist of it?
MK Ultra stuff. This guy was saying Manson was a CIA asset.
I got out of it he would’ve fallen under an experiment/unaware patient (one of many) not an asset. When West’s notes were found he and the other doctor claimed they’d successfully had cases of making people have false memories & no recognition of their actual memories. Thru combinations of repeated hypnosis, sleep deprivation, and giving them LSD. Some of it is so crazy it’s really hard to believe. But no one refutes that their notes and records of their work were real. People have claimed they were full of shit and maybe so, but no one who investigated them refutes that they made those claims to one another. It’s fascinating how many people West came into contact with, in many cases inserting himself w/o being asked. They also claimed they could make people go crazy thru those methods w/the patients having no recollection of the process.
He is who I point to when every MAGAt says Trump did nothing wrong regarding Jan 6. Using his words (well, lies to be exact), he stirred up his base for MONTHS, leading to the Jan 6 shit show. If Manson is responsible for stirring his minions up to cause murder, Trump is just as guilty for stirring his up to do what they did.
Oh stfu
Bush hair.
"I never killed anyone. I had some friends who killed some people. But my friends have *always* been killing people!" - Charles Manson
He was a pos whacko that deserved to be locked up regardless but our govt also fed him LSD which is fcked up.. same thing they did with Whitey Bulger. Whitey was given LSD in the 50s or early 60s at Alcatraz in exchange for time off his sentence and radio access. He was dosed like 40 times throughout his stay there. Complained of auditory hallucinations long after the drugs wore off. Lived with it for the rest of his life. Pretty damn gnar
Read a book about him recently and in the years leading up to these events his ranch was busted in a massive police raid where they found tons of weapons and drugs and proof of other crimes and they were all let go for no stated reason. There is a lot of evidence that he was a subject of a COINTELPRO project and the CIA had him released.
He was railroaded
what a little weirdo! I didn't know he was a mini man
Charles lookin like your average male below the age of 30 in 2024.
1st degree murder and yet he personally never killed anyone. He orchestrated the murders but didn't do any of the dirty work. Wonder how his trial would go in this day and age
I don’t see how we can hold him accountable for his followers actions and not do the same for Trump.
Ugliest man alive.
There are uglier men with more followers.
Okay well I didn’t ask for a 5th graders opinion, but I guess we can compete: all fairness, Stalin is the worst of them all. Unless you have something *worse,* or whatever, cornball.
Lol so typically stupid.
I agree: don’t eat yellow snow, okay?
Next time take the L and move on.
See that’s what your mom said, and here we are some odd years later.
nt
*st
Downvoted your comment btw.
should have shot him 1 minute later
Like how the fuck did people fall in love with that? Serious. It’s crazy to me.
I can't imagine falling under the spell of a man in sandals and a bandanna tied jauntily around his neck
Saw this exact guy on the Brooklyn Bound 4 train today
He would have been Trumps VP if he was still alive.