In 2018, Quentin Tarantino used "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" to artistically reproduce the murder case that took place in the affluent district of Beverly Hills, Hollywood in the late 1960s, and it also caused many audiences to comment on this 60th period. A few years ago, the attention of the old things was dusted off. Taratino's film only highlights the bloody scenes of murder, but the brainwashing and mind control of his followers by Charles Manson in the actual process is even more creepy. To a certain extent, the "Manson family" has become a special cultural phenomenon that cannot be erased in the American countercultural movement, that is, synonymous with the "mind control cult". What kind of person is Manson, and why can he gain so many followers in a short period of time, and build a bloodthirsty criminal group around him?
Manson’s childhood was very unfortunate. He was born on November 12, 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mother Catherine is a problematic girl who ran away from home at the age of 15 and gave birth to Manson at the age of 16. Catherine is a drunkard and often goes to jail for crimes. According to Manson's memories, Catherine did not want to be a mother. "One afternoon, my mother was in a restaurant and I was sitting on her lap. A waitress joked with her and wanted to sell me to her. My mother said:'Just give me a beer and he will be yours. That waitress is really good. He brought a bunch of beer, my mother drank the wine, and left the restaurant alone. After a few days, my uncle was still looking for the waitress in the whole town, and finally brought me home. , Manson spent most of his childhood with his relatives. But these relatives also have their own problems. His grandmother was a religious fanatic. One of his uncles always said that he was a girl, while the other uncle committed suicide because the land was confiscated by the government while taking care of him.
A painful childhood allowed Manson to steal from the age of 9. Three years later, he was sent to a work-study school in Indiana. Soon he learned to burglary and steal things on the bus. He kept escaping from the work-study school and was sent back again and again. By the age of 17, he entered a federal prison for the first time for stealing a car. In his first year in prison, he was charged eight times for fighting. By 1954, he was released on parole for serving his sentence well. In the next year, he married a 17-year-old waitress. The two came to California. Soon after his wife became pregnant, just one month before giving birth, Manson was arrested again, serving three years in prison in California, and his wife divorced. In 1957, Manson was released after serving his sentence and started pimping business in Hollywood. He married again, then went to jail again for fraud and fraud, and divorced his second wife. In 1960, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for instigating others to prostitution, serving his sentence in Washington State. From adulthood at the age of 18 to 1967, he spent almost the first fifteen years of his life serving a sentence or parole.
However, seven years of prison life in Washington State changed him, turning him into a more dangerous and cunning criminal. He did three things in prison. The first is to learn to play the guitar with a cellmate named Alvin Capris. He was deeply fascinated by music and devoted his spare time to practice. He imagined that after he was released from prison, he could join the show business in Hollywood, so he not only wrote his own songs, but also learned a lot of acting skills. The second thing was also under the influence of Capris, Manson began to learn science teaching. Scientology was created by American science fiction writer Ron Harperd in 1952. It claims to be able to heal people’s traumas through spiritual means. Manson’s original purpose of learning Scientology was to "understand himself better." Later, he and A senior member of Scientology, Lafayette Reimer, under the supervision of Remer, studied more than 150 hours of intensive science education courses and shared his innermost secrets with the faithful. Manson was fascinated by the doctrine and missionary methods of Scientology, and these methods played a key role in the development of his personal cult in the future. The study of Scientology opened to him the evil door of controlling other people’s thoughts. He began to consciously learn this knowledge, including the third content he learned in prison: Dale Carnegie’s public Relationship theory. At that time, Carnegie was already well-known in the United States and had many students. Among Carnegie's many works, Manson particularly likes a work called "How to Win Friends and Influence Others". He has studied this book repeatedly and kept the content in mind. According to the memories of the followers of Manson in the future, Manson used almost all the content in this book in the process of reaching out with others and winning their favor.
After serving his sentence, Manson came to the Ashbury District of San Francisco. With a guitar and various communication and communication skills, he gradually gained some followers. In 1967, Susan Atkins, a follower of Manson, discovered a place called Sparn Film Farm. It was originally used as a filming base for Hollywood movies, and has shot a series of famous western films. . The farmer, George Span, was 81 years old at the time. He was blind, alone, and needed help in his daily life. Manson took a fancy to this place and won the old man’s trust by letting his followers do odd jobs for the old man. In addition, Manson was so skillful that he often discussed some philosophical issues with the old man. The old man liked it deeply. Fucked him and allowed Manson and his party to move into the farm. Manson has his own territory, and their organization is constantly expanding. At most, they have more than 100 believers and more than 30 core members. These people have no proper professions. They rely on picking up food from the trash and stealing food. Health, drug abuse, promiscuity, and organization of some hippie group activities on the farm have become more and more influential.
The success of Manson's conspiracy is not only attributed to his certain musical talent and communication skills, but also has an inseparable relationship with his era. In the late 1960s, the United States was in the midst of a counter-cultural movement. A large number of young people joined the anti-institutional, anti-family, and anti-materialist life. They were young and passionate, yearning for pure beauty and freedom, but at the same time, they lacked life. Direction, easy to be tempted by others. Manson's appearance can be described as the right time. In the eyes of these young people, especially young women who have just entered the society, he is almost a perfect incarnation: talented, immaterial, approachable, eloquent, knowledgeable, especially for society. The so-called "independent" thinking. By Manson's side, many young people feel that they are accepted and even favored. At the same time, Manson has packaged himself as a "prophet" against authority and social institutions, advocating a romantic, bohemian style. Lifestyle, all people who join the Manson family must give up their personal private property and any stable private relationship, all wealth is shared together, and people are not subject to any social ethics constraints. They believe that they are in a greater cause, which is a social revolution that can bring about a new order and way of life. Manson also opposes all mass media. TV, radio, and newspapers are not allowed on Spann Farm. In his opinion, these mass media are controlled by the government and big companies and transmit false information to the public. At the same time, he also prohibits them. His followers communicated with their relatives. In addition, he would also impose severe punishment on those who dared to betray him. Under this combination of grace and power, those young people who did not know the world were gradually brainwashed by him and obeyed his words.
At the same time, Manson also gradually extended his hand to the showbiz. He got acquainted with some singers and agents in the circle. He hoped that through the relationship between these people, he could realize his dream of being an artist. The most important figure is Dennis Wilson, a member of the Beach Boys band. Manson met Wilson through two female believers. In order to get Wilson's support, he asked female believers to provide him with sexual services. Wilson lent Manson several thousand dollars and introduced music publisher Terry Melcher to Manson. Through these contacts, Manson gradually entered the Hollywood performing arts circle, often haunting some of the mansions in Beverly Hills. But the good times did not last long. Although one of his singles appeared on the Beach Boys album, it was changed by Wilson. Melcher’s mother noticed Manson’s various evils and warned her son not to mix with him. Melcher thus Severed diplomatic ties with Manson. Manson's acting dream was frustrated, so he hated Hollywood artists.
As his personal influence increased, Manson began to move around. The late 1960s coincided with the vigorous rise of the African American movement, and the influence of the Black Panther Party continued to expand. In the summer of 1969, Manson told his followers that he had learned from the Beatles’ "White Album" that a race war between the U.S. government and the Black Panthers was about to begin, and they should work hard to provoke both parties. The relationship contributed to this war. On the other hand, there is a more important reason for Manson's attempt to commit murder. In May 1969, Manson and a drug dealer named Bernard Crowe had a dispute over drug money issues. Manson shot Crowe but luckily it was not fatal. Two months later, Manson instructed his subordinate Bobby Bussolel to steal from his friend Gary Zinman. Bussorell and his party kidnapped Zinman, killed him two days later and falsified the scene, trying to blame the Black Panthers. The police arrested Busorell. Manson worried that Busorell would confess his relationship with these crimes under pressure from the police. He urgently needs to create new cases to convince the police that the Black Panthers caused these murders.
On August 8, 1969, two days after Bussorell was arrested, Manson ordered Charles Watson to lead three of his men to 10500 Siero Avenue. His order at the time was, "Kill all the inside. Everyone". His idea was to make the entire murder scene look consistent with the circumstances of Zinman's death, so as to convince the police that Bussorell was innocent. That night, they killed a total of five people at 10500 Siero Avenue. Including the famous director Roman Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant, two assistants, Tate’s hair stylist, and a passing salesman. In a pool of blood on the scene, they left the mark of the Black Panther Party, the paw print of a leopard. Two days later, in order to further confuse the audience, they entered a nearby middle-class family, killed the Lablanca couple and left the same mark on the scene.
The tragedy shocked the entire Beverly Hills and even the entire upper class of the United States. This was the first case in the history of the upper class of the family to destroy the family. For a time, all the upper-class people were raging, and the number of gun sales increased by 100%. Many wealthy families began to install home security systems and hire bodyguards. This attack completely changed the American public's view of American social security issues, and at the same time, for the first time felt the threat to society from the counter-cultural movement.
In 1971, after two years of careful investigation, the police finally arrested Manson and the four members involved in the murder. A widely watched trial began immediately. The trial was repeatedly interrupted by Manson's supporters. Many supporters blocked the door of the court for protests from beginning to end. Manson carved a cross symbol (later changed to a Nazi symbol) on his forehead in prison, and his female supporters also shaved their hair and engraved the same symbol on their heads. There was an explosion during the trial. A bomb was placed under the judge's desk. Fortunately, no one was injured. In the end, the judge convicted Manson of seven first-degree murders in the Tate-Lablanca case. Two other first-degree murders were added later. Five people including Manson were sentenced to death. The death penalty was abolished in ‧ and the sentence was changed to life imprisonment.
Although Manson was brought to justice, his influence persisted for a long time. In August 1971, six members of the Manson family robbed a firearms store in Los Angeles, took hostages and demanded ransom; in 1972, seven members of the Manson family were charged with murdering a young couple; the most famous incident occurred in 1975 In 1 year, a core member of the Manson family named Lynn Fromm tried to assassinate the then U.S. President Gerald Ford. Fromm was sentenced to life imprisonment for this and was not released until she reached 60 in 2009, but she stated in an article in 2012 that she was still loyal to Charles Manson.
Manson passed away on November 19, 2017, at the age of 83. Throughout his life, he was not only a notorious murderer, but also reflected the general mentality of young people in the American counterculture movement in the 1960s. In a documentary, Diane Lake, the youngest member of the Manson family, recalled the scene when she first met Manson: "I was only 14 years old at the time. Parents were always kind of not hugging and lacking care. People, I met Manson for the first time, he expressed his admiration and admiration to me, the feeling is magical, joy and love gush out endlessly...Charlie invited me to join his big family, what I need It’s these.” These memories reveal to the American public a disturbing fact that Manson seems to cater to the needs of young people more than the government, and knows how to control them psychologically, through some seemingly harmless means. Gradually attracted them to degenerate into criminals. On the other hand, the inter-ethnic war predicted by Manson as early as the late 1960s became reality time and time again in subsequent American history, and became more and more intense with the development of social contradictions. In this sense, Manson is a unique American cultural phenomenon, and its influence deserves more in-depth attention.
