Charles Manson & his Brainwashing - 1970 Berkeley Barb magazine

 

Dr. David Smith on the Family in the Berkeley Barb 1970 - Vol. 10 No. 2 Issue 231. Jan. 16-22, 1970 Page 3

LIFE WITH MANSON

Charles Manson and his "family" were in the Haight half a year after the Death of Hippie. They left in the Spring of 1968 and moved south close to the scene of the murders with which they are charged. A Haight clinic researcher, Alan Rose, followed them. Rose lived for four months with the Manson family on the "Spahn Movie Ranch," where they spent a year operating a riding stable-- and doing various other things-- after leaving the Haight. In an exclusive interview with Dr. David E. Smith, founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, BARB got some insights into the personality of the accused slayers of actress Sharon Tate and four others. Dr. Smith told BARB Charlie and other members of the "Manson family"-- mostly young girls-- came to the clinic in April and May 1968 for "general medical things, not drug related problems or psychiatric counseling."

RARE DATA

But the rare "group marriage" sexual scene the Manson family was into attracted the clinical interest of Dr. Smith and Rose, then administrator of the clinic. They were concerned with the health problems that crop up in different types of communal living, and the Manson family was one of the few they'd run across the practiced all-out sexual communism. From that study and their experiences at the Clinic, came a scholarly paper on the group marriage commune to be published this spring in the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs.

WARNING

And coming as a by-product of their study is a warning to people who dig taking other people's trips: your friendly local guru just might be an incredibly persuasive schizophrenic with destructive paranoid delusions, and not a mystic at all. BARB interviewed Dr. Smith Wednesday night for clarification of certain points brought out in the study report-- circulated in typescript-- and received permission to use some of the information it contains prior to its publication. "He, (Charlie) was an extroverted, persuasive individual and served as an absolute ruler of this group marriage commune.  What he approved was approved by the rest of the group.  What he disapproved was forbidden," the report says.

NO BOOKS

The commune at this time consisted of about 20 core members, 14 of them women, plus several visiting "cousins." Three had some college education, one even had a masters degree, but education was "indoctrination" to Manson, and one of his chief tasks was to undo the "brainwashing" society had done on his mainly middle-class charges. Manson "felt that getting rid of sexual inhibitions would free people from most of their other inhibitions and problems," the report said. "Most of the group had refuted the financial and material possession orientation of their families with relative ease. The 'sexual orientation' was not that easy."

INITIATION

The researcher reported how Manson went about the process of reorientation: (Charlie) set himself up as "initiator of new females" into the commune. He would spend most of their first day making love to them, as he wanted to see if they were just on a "sex trip", or whether they were seriously interested in joining the family. He would spend a great deal of time talking with them finding out, as he put it, "where their heads were at." An unwillingness, for example, to engage in mutual oral-genital contact was cause for immediate expulsion, for he felt that this was one of the most important indications as to whether or not the girl would be willing to give up her sexual inhibitions.

DISCIPLINE

The study touches on methods of disciplining family members and prospects who did not shape up. These included refusal to have sex with anyone who was not changing fast enough, and as a sterner measure, a "long talk" technique. "This form would involve two or three partners in the commune approaching the individual in question and asking "Why are you here? What do you want from us? If we asked you to hitchhike to New York and stay there for awhile, would you do it? "If the answer to the last question was yes, and the individual still did not go, he would usually be asked to leave and stay away until he went through sufficient "changes."

THE REJECTS

People usually left "involuntarily" at the insistence of the family..." Those that stayed found the struggle for food-- which they termed an "adventure"-- to be one of the main preoccupations of the daily round. They would rummage through grocery store garbage bins during food forays to town. Other than that, bread came in the form of contributions from new members or gifts of money, food, and clothing from more affluent "cousins." The group stayed in condemned ranch buildings in return for managing the stable of riding horses, the ranch's sole source of income.

KID CULT

The group wasn't into eastern religion or drugs, but the simple daily round of work, lovemaking, casual dope-sacramental use of smoking, and scrounging tied in with Manson's thing about children, the report indicated. There were several kids on the commune. "The child was always the center of attraction and went everywhere the group did. The child was viewed as the one to emulate and follow as he was considered untainted by society. (Manson) used the words of Jesus: "he who is like the small child shall reap rewards of heaven,' to guide their family and child rearing philosophy," the report stated.

INTERVIEW

Primarily concerned with health issues, the report did not devote extensive attention to the other problems raised by this and similar communal arrangements. So BARB sought and received a few additional insights from Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith said, "The problem was that Charlie was disturbed. He developed a paranoid delusional system that led to violence, it wasn't a drug thing. "When we studied them there was no violence, but there is a fairly fine line between mysticism and schizophrenia. Every commune we studied that has survived has had a spiritual leader that has nothing but positive visions this wouldn't happen.

GOD'S WORD

"Charlie had a lot of good things about him, he said a lot of mystical things that appealed to the girls, but he also had a lot of serious problems in the area of paranoid delusions, and everything he said was God's word to the girls. "If you totally accept someone you lose your ability to discriminate between the good things and the bad things.  If you know schizophrenics, you know how persuasive they can get, and if you are an adolescent in turmoil who is searching for a guru, you can be easily convinced." Dr. Smith continued:  "This is one of the things that worries us at the clinic.  People can't surrender all individual control to higher authority, they still have to be able to think for themselves."

WHAT'S REALISM?

"...I think there are certain things anyone should be aware of. like what kind of grasp on reality the leader has, how he apprehends reality, but the girls always say 'What is reality.'' "What Charlie did, the main thing, was the sex thing and the infant consciousness.  They put a tremendous emphasis on that, saying the ideal is the infant.  What they are really saying is any socialization is bad and the individual should reject it. "Then what he did was substitute his own philosophy.

CRUCIAL TEST

"The crucial thing to look for is how in touch with reality the leader is, and, secondly, whether his vision runs counter to what you intuitively know is destructive.  If people would think in terms of what is constructive and what is destructive behavior, not what is conventional or not... "So many groups don't develop an individual ethic, just a group ethic, and they aren't much better off than if they stuck with the straight society they are rejecting.  They just go from one group ethic to another group ethic...

HIP MAGNET

"Unfortunately, a very large number of guys like Charlie are running around.  They seem to be attracted to the hip subculture with its freedom and acceptance.  Fortunately, not many of them are as persuasive as Charlie, and they don't end up in positions of power... "There are a lot of people like that, and many of them are in mental hospitals.  Any individual who has an all-encompassing delusional system that has all the answers is very persuasive to an adolescent who is searching for a substitute father figure." BARB asked if the girls in Manson's family were any different in any way.

GIRL PROBLEM

"No, that's the dangerous thing, there are hundreds of thousands of adolescent girls in turmoil that are looking for answers, and if they get hooked up with a guy like that, they are in trouble.  They must analyze their behavior to determine what is constructive and what is destructive.  I'm concerned with the great deal of group conformity that exists in the hip movement," said the 30-year old doctor.  "It's suppose to be the antithesis of conformity." "I think communes can be a very positive and meaningful way of life but only if the participants in the movement think for themselves," he concluded.

Charles Manson's infamous interview with Tuesdays Child magazine

Shortly after this interview, Manson’s telephone privileges were suspended by the court.

CHARLES MANSON: When you look at things in a positive manner, everything can work out perfect. You know, like as fast as man can go, he is destroying everything he can destroy. The pace that he’s picked up in sawing the trees down, killing the animals and shooting everything. You know, I go live out in the desert and I see a lot of madness. I see big fat people coming around with guns, shooting lizards, spiders, birds, anything they can get their hands on. Just killing and killing. They’re all programmed to kill.

 

You know, there’s one thing I flashed on the other day. A policeman took me over and on his helmet, you know, right on his forehead, there’s a beast, a bear, a bear beast on his forehead. And I say, “Well, can’t the people see the mark of the beast?” You know, it’s not… it’s not hard to see. 
           

Is there anything you want to know? That I could tell you?

 

Q: What’s your birthsign?

A: Scorpio

 

Q: Do you know your rising sign?

 

A: You know you wake up every morning and there’s another rising sign.

 

You know, maybe I can tell you where I’m from Everybody is always telling me where I’m from and where I developed my philosophy and what I think and all this and none of this is the things I’ve always said.  I’m from Juvenile Hall. I’m from the line of people nobody wants. I’m from the street. I’m from the alley. Mainly I’m from solitary confinement. You spend twenty years in institutions and you forget what the free world is. You don’t know how the free world works. And then you come out and you live in it and you say, “Wow, I’ve been locked up for twenty years but my mind has been free.” And I come outside and I see everybody’s got their minds locked up and their bodies are free. You know?

I’ll give it to you just like this. All my life I felt all the bad people were in jail and all the good people were on the outside. Then I would get out of jail and I would find out that that the people on the outside smiled and pretended like they were good, but there wasn’t too many of ‘em, you know? And then I’d go back to jail. I think my longest time out in the last 22 years have been maybe 6 or 8 months. And I was out two – let’s see, three different times – one time for 6 months, one time for 8 months and then the last time I’ve been out for three years.

 

Well, when I got out the last time, I didn’t want out. I told the Man, I sez, “I can’t adjust to society and I’m content to walk around the yard playing my guitar, doing the things you do in a penitentiary,” So when I got out I met a 16 year old boy. I was living in Berkley, and I ask him where he lived. And he said, “Weill I live out in my sleeping bag.” I said, “Well don’t you work?” and he told me, “Hell no. Nobody works, you don’t have to work.” I said, “Well how do you eat?” He said, “Well I eat at the Diggers.” And I said, “Well how can you live that way?” He said, “Come on.” He put his arm around me and like I was his brother and he showed me love.

 

He took me to Haight-Ashbury and we slept in the park in sleeping bags and we lived on the streets and my hair got a little longer and I started playing music and people liked my music and people smiled at me and put their arms around me and hugged me – I didn’t know how to act. It just took me away, it grabbed me up, man, that there was people that are real.

 

You know, I just didn’t think there were such real people. There were people with beards and we smoked grass. And like I never had been involved with dope – with what you call dope – except when I got out I took some LSD, which enlightened my awareness. But mainly it was the people. It was the young people walking up and down the street trading shirts with each other and throwing flowers and being happy and I just fell in love. I love everything.

 

But the worst thing is, I have seen how the Haight was going, because being in jail for so long has left my awareness pretty well open. So I’ve seen the bad things that were coming into Haight, the wild problems and the people getting harassed in the doorways and the policemen coming with the sticks and they were running them up and down the street. So I got a school bus and I asked anybody, “Anybody wants to go can go in the school bus. The school bus is not mine, it doesn’t belong to anyone. We’ll put the pink slip in the glove compartment and the school bus belongs to itself.” And we all turned our minds off and we just went around looking for a place to get away from the Man.

 

We went to Seattle, Washington – the Man was there, every we went. We went to Texas – the Man was there. We went to New Mexico – the Man was there, everywhere we went. And like it was just a trip, we were going nowhere, coming from nowhere and just grooving on the road because the road seemed to be the only place where you can be free when you’re moving from one spot to another. You seem to have the freedom to take a breath. To take a breath from the city. To take a breath form oppression, from the madness of the city.

 

And then we went out and got out in the desert. We found a whole world out in the desert. Then I got to see that the animals were smarter than the people. You know, like I’ve never been around many animals. In jail there are hardly any animals around. Then I got to looking at coyotes, and I got to looking at dogs and snakes and rabbits and cats and goats and mules. And we walked around for weeks, following the animals and just see what they do. And there is a lot of love there. That’s where most of the love is, in the young people and in the animals. And that’s where my love is.

 

You know, I don’t have any philosophy. My philosophy is “don’t think.” You know, you just don’t think. If you think, you are divided in your mind. You know, one and one is one in two parts. Like I don’t have any thought in my mind, hardly any at all, it is all love.

 

If you love everything, you don’t have to think about things – you just love it. Whatever circumstances had to you, whatever dealer deals you, whatever hand you get handed, you just love the hand you got, you know, and make it the best you can. And that’s what I’ve always thought. I’ve never had much schooling. No mother, no father. In and out of orphanages and foster homes. And then to boy’s school and reform schools. Like it’s always been like… my head is empty.

 

I have no opinion. I know the truth – the truth is in no word form. It just is. And everything is the way it is because that’s the way love says so. And when you tune in with love, you tune in with yourself. You know, that’s not really a philosophy, that’s a feel and everybody who’s got love in their hearts knows that. Okay?

 

            Q: If you’ve got anything else to say, just keep talking.

 

            A: Yeah, okay, if anybody wants to listen. I realize everybody’s got their own message, dig? But I can’t tell anybody nothing that they don’t already know. But I can sing for them and I got some music that says what I like to say if I ever had anything to say.

 

Steve Alexander for Tuesday’s Child

Local occult publication Tuesday’s Child was born on Nov. 11, 1969 — three weeks after the Manson murders and a month and a half before the new decade. The newspaper — if it can even be called a newspaper; avant-garde magazine or cultural zinelet seems more appropriate — was assembled and curated by a bunch of angry beat poets and old L.A. Free Press writers, producing an “ecumenical, educational newspaper for the Los Angeles occult & underground.” They circulated the paper all over the city, selling it for 25 cents a copy. 

At the helm of Tuesday’s Child were founder Art Kunkin and editor Chester Anderson. Kunkin was a broke occult-and-labor-union-obsessed retired journalist. Anderson was a Haight-Ashbury zine-maker and musician who slept on a cot inside of the Tuesday’s Child offices in Hollywood. Together, their paper took shape: nonsense, “useful” witchcraft, political satire, riddles, socialist poetry, comics, countercultural sentiment and whatever else came into Kunkin’s head while he trolled the Sunset Strip.

• 

• 

Left: Tuesday’s Child inaugural issue published on Nov. 11, 1969. Right: A graphic comic from within the pages of the occult publication.

Charles Manson on the cover of Tuesday’s Child as the “Man of the Year.”

Unsurprisingly,   Tuesday’s Child’s favorite subject was Charles Manson, as he was the perfect intersection of crime, occultism, celebrity, class warfare and local news. One issue featured a crucified Manson on the cover, while another proclaimed he was “Man of the Year.” The timely coverage of the Manson murders through the absurdist lens of Tuesday’s Child was not only chilling, but it also predicted the rise of Manson’s notoriety and a cultish cynicism that would overtake the softer free-love ideologies of the 1960s. 

Tuesday’s Child inexplicably ceased publication in the mid-1970s. Though the reason it shut down remains unclear, the publication probably didn’t make many friends publishing essays like “The Universe as an Electric Train” or “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Still — and like the time it reflected — reading Tuesday’s Child, which can be found deep in the Los Angeles Public Library archives, is enjoyable in its confusion. It is darkly playful and politically provocative with prose that captures our lesser-known California magic.

To hear more about Tuesday’s Child and the hijinks that surrounded the publication, tune into Rebecca Leib and Jason Horton’s Ghost Town podcast

Life: What was the Manson Family? Manson: The D.A. put the word “family” on it to make me a leader and bring me into the conspiracy. They’ve never really been my family or my followers. We were together in a dream, man. Life: You stay in touch? Charles Manson: I know everything they’re thinking. They won’t think nothing in the next 20 years that I don’t know. I answer their letters before they write them. If you got all those people, and you put them in this room, everything would be all just like it once was. We’d sit around and sing. The family circle can never be broken. We’re still together. There’s no taking us apart. Life: How did this group get started? Manson: I get out of the penitentiary— a man can understand this— and I haven’t been with a broad in a long time. So I meet a broad on the street corner. She’s real young. So I ask to stay with this other broad [Mary Brunner]. So we meet another chick [that] didn’t have no place to stay. That was Squeaky [Fromme]. Then we meet Patty [Krenwinkel]— and Patty’s got a credit card! So we’re just going to have a little vacation trip, so we get a bus. We’re just tripping. And Susie [Atkins] wants to freeload, see? So I look up and I’m sitting on the beach with 12 girls. They’re lighting my cigarettes, spoiling me, and actually it’s a pretty nice little trip I’ve got going. Life: Why did it go bad? Manson: The troubles came when the guys came. Every guy that came had troubles. And everybody that comes in that circle, I gotta go through all their changes. Life: The troubles weren’t your fault? Manson: I’m not saying I didn’t influence— I did influence. But no more than I’ve been influenced. It’s hard to explain 20 years of a running psychotic episode. It had no logic, no good, no evil; it all runs in insanity. You put 30 people in a circle, and you’ve got a vortex of everybody’s thought and will, and it reflects off onto one head, and that head goes off into madness. I was stuck in that psychotic episode. Life: Are you psychotic? Manson: We can go in and out. Life: Do you every hear from these people now, like Squeaky? Manson: She’s in the joint doing life. Life: Do you write to her? Manson: Back and forth. She’s me. Life: Do you hear from Sandra Good, who was jailed for writing death threats to corporate executives? Manson: yeah. She’s out now. Life: She’s the one in Vermont? Manson: She’s your blue socks. Life: How about Mary Brunner? Manson: Mary Snitch? Life: Is she still in jail? Manson: No. she snitched. When she had [my] baby, I held the baby up and I held a knife to it and said, “If the cops come and say, ‘Tell or we’ll kill this baby, what are you going to do?’ She said, “I won’t tell. I won’t tell.” Life: Is Susan Atkins, who boasted of the killings, still in jail? Manson: If they let her out tomorrow, she’s still going to be in jail. She’s imprisoned herself. She’s playing Jesus for parole. They say, “If you accept Jesus as your savior, we’ll let you out.” So she says, “O.K.” But I got nothing against Susie. I love her. You know. But I wouldn’t want her around me. Life: Do you regret that those people are not free and happy today? Manson: Don’t you realize what those kids have done for you people? What do you think would have happened if the Manson family hadn’t did what they did? You seen the Vietnam war stopped, didn’t you? Life: Because of what you did? Manson: No. because of what these kids did. You forgot? It was the peak of the revolution. [Sings] “You say you want a revolution…” Life: Are you saying the murders were political acts? Manson: Why was people killed? There was $250,000 worth of gold coins laying by the dead body, by LaBianca. Why didn’t they pick it up? You think we weren’t in the peace movement? Life: Are you at peace with yourself? Manson: Sure. How do you think I’ve survived all this madness? By not having a mother and father. Life: You think your suffering absolved you from later deeds? Manson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Later deeds? I’ve done nothing I’m ashamed of. Nothing I couldn’t face God with. I wouldn’t kill a bug. Life: But you’d kill a person? Manson: I’d probably kill all of them if I could— is that what you’ve been waiting to hear? Hey, time and circumstance made me into this Manson guy, Satan. Society wanted to buy this evil, mass-murdering-devil-fiend. I’m nobody. I’m the hobo in line. Give me a bottle of wine and put me on a train. Life: You said you lived in darkness. Manson: I do. It’s away from the light. I don’t fit into the world you guys live in, so I live over there in the shadows of it.

 

 

 

 

Similarities of Tarantino's 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood' & Federico's 'Teddy Bears Live Forever'

Ahead of it's UK release Quentin Tarantino's new movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood briefly follows the exploits of the Manson girls as they roam around Hollywood obeying their cult leaders orders. These girls only feature in the movie shortly but another movie that was also released in 2019 delves into the psyche of these girls (that are prey to cult leaders such as Charles Manson) in a much deeper way. 

In director Fabrizio Federico's new movie Teddy Bears Live Forever lead character April personifies the Manson girl prototype, she is a young faded ''It girl'' suffering in exile from multiple-personality disorder (brought on by a UFO Cult in Hollywood) and she decides that the most evil one of her six personalities must lose her virginity in order for her to regain control of her inner demons.

As April suffers bizarre flashbacks in a solitary room, sleepwalking, telephoning rent boys, listening to The Carpenters and terrorising her old guardian with her untamed sex appeal. She ultimately set's out to become a modern saint in a strange quantum dimension in physical reality. 

''I made the film on intuition and a sensation to focus on some powerful messages (trauma, anti-establishment, false idolatry, existential angst and spirituality) wrapped up in an isolated feline martyr quality.

The main character April is fighting to regain a state of grace that she lost as an ''It girl'' living in a superficial society obsessed with illusion while working in Hollywood. April is trying to penetrate the essence of her problems by being brave, screaming & articulating her pain through the film. She's trying to release the poisoned fragrance of her trauma. She's deprogramming her self by losing her mind.

In the beginning of the movie we're shown a glimpse into her former ''It girl'' pop-culture life, at the complete absolute zenith of her fame, which is full of tacky excitement, flashes, games, disciples, vibrations and action.

But then the film moves to the aftermath of all that, and to her current isolated life in London after rejecting her followers. But now she is battling her six personalities, so in a way she's leading six different realities and levels of consciousness. Each personality is a different level of consciousness, but music is her true prayer. She listens to The Carpenters while in exile, because she identifies with women who suffered, like Karen Carpenter, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe etc... but she also enjoys hanging herself by visualising her suicide.

The film is also an insight into gurus, and how they deal with their followers problems, whether they are suffering from family or social suffering and how ultimately they can be tossed aside back into societies void to fend for them selves.

NEW FILM // TEDDY BEARS LIVE FOREVER (2019) 
OUT NOW // http://fabriziofederico.co.uk
Soundtrack by MAO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDk74wTOHZE&t=2483s