December 15, 2017 • 53 mins
When authorities arrested members of the Manson Family for the Tate-LaBianca murders, they'd intended it to be the final chapter of a terrifying story. However, as the trial progressed, it quickly became evident that this was only the beginning of a much longer, stranger saga. In the years following the murder, conspiracy theories concerning Manson, his followers, the US government, splinter religions, secret drugs and the occult all proliferated wildly throughout the American zeitgeist. So do any of these theories have a grain of truth? Join the guys as they separate fact from folklore in the conclusion of this two-part series.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is null. They call me Ben where he was super
producer Paul deck Into You are you that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know? Charles Manson is
dead Part two. Yes, last time we went over most
of the background information you're gonna need to know all
in our opinion, and we we talked about his history,
(00:46):
how he grew up, what he experienced when he was
a kid. And then you know, a young man played
some of his tunes. Yes, yes, uh may for many
of our listeners be the first time you were introduced
to what was it? Garbage, Garbage Jump, the music of
Charles Manson. There's a lot more out there, actually, if
you want to just get on YouTube, you can find
(01:06):
and in his and in the years after Helter Skelter,
numerous musicians also covered manson music. Of course, Marilyn Manson
did it, uh, Several other prominent artists and I think
the Beach Boys also took some of his either lyrics
or melodies. Wow. You know, guys, I have to tell you.
(01:28):
Last night I watched the first episode of mind mind Hunter,
and you know, it's dealing with the psychology of criminality
and how the FBI, in particular, another law enforcement began
using psychology and trying to figure out why people do things.
And it gets the big fat thumbs up from super
producer Paul Oh yeah, huge, Wow, he is just flailing
(01:52):
those thumbs around. Did it just did it communicate with
you at a personal level, Paul, I've rarely seen you
this exac. I see, I haven't even met Kemper I
think yet. Yeah, yeahs and yeah. What what it does
is really gives you a foundation for what it was
to come in terms of psychoanalyzing serial killers and trying
(02:16):
to get inside the minds of serial killers, which was
very taboo. The idea even in the show to even
attempt this was in some way by the brass at
the FBI, like heresy. You know, it was a tantamount
to um empathizing with these you know, psychotic killers, and
they were just not okay with it. But it was
totally not seeing the forest for the trees and not
(02:39):
realizing this is a very valuable tool into you know,
figuring out what U current active killers, how they might behave. Yes,
And in the case of Charles Manson, it uses his
case and him the man himself, as a quick example
of the way people or the way law enforcement thought
about finality at a certain time. Right as the Manson
(03:02):
case was going through, and having just done the first
part of this series on Manson, I was fascinated by
kind of the turns. And we've talked about serial killers before,
We've talked about and again Charlie Manson was not a
serial killer, but he was a criminal, at least in
(03:23):
the eyes of the public, in the eyes of the
justice system. Um. But again, just fascinating to think about
it in that way. I guess there's argue that he
was a serial killer, that he just used other people
as his weapons. I would disagree, respectfully, but I would
disagree right Well, there's an important differentiation we have to make,
(03:45):
and there's some questions that still remain unanswered. For instance,
is a person who commits multiple murders automatically a serial killer?
The answer is no. Is a person who so there
will seem to be a theme or a compulsion in
serial killing right, and of course there has to be
(04:07):
mental illness. But if Manson is a serial killer, and
this controversial if we consider Manson a serial killer because
he did have a psychosis, right, he did seek to
launch a race war, Uh, he ordered people to kill
the world is full of people who order other people
to kill. Does that make them all serial killers? Does
(04:29):
that make, for instance, a politician who sends people the
war a serial killer, any general that's ever existed, someone
who launches a drone. It's a it's a tough question,
very interesting question, right, um. And the thing I wanted
to get to surreptitiously through this whole Mine Hunter thing
is that this past episode we really looked at how
Charles Manson became Charles Manson, and at least the ways
(04:54):
that a psychologist would look at it. Now, what we're
going to get into this week is some of the
con conspiracy theories surrounding him and perhaps other ways that
this monolith creature was created. And we highly recommend, of course,
your life is your own, but we highly recommend that
if you have not checked out Part one of Charles
(05:15):
Manson Is Dead, you check it out before you continue
listening to this episode. Please We'll wait. That was pretty fast. Yeah,
faster than I expected, honestly, and I'm a bit worried.
I don't know what you did, but good good on you.
Here's where it gets crazy. So one interesting point that
(05:37):
we kept finding in the course of our research here
was the idea that there were other, as of yet
unidentified Manson family murders. At this point, we can say
that it's plausible, that's quite possible, but there hasn't been
any concrete proof because several members of the Manson family
(05:59):
agree to uh bring law enforcement to the remains of
other murder victims that were not at that point tied
to the family. So it's unfortunately not a far jump
at all to imagine the family itself or or Manson
as an individual, may have committed murders that remain unrevealed today.
(06:23):
At this point in recording, we don't know. And what
we do see is that often when a criminal like
this dies, more information comes out. Right. I think in
our earlier episode may have been Nole mentioned the cancer
(06:44):
that had been a family secret that was ultimately led
to Manson's demise. So it's possible that there are still
secrets there, you know, been in this area here of
other murders, I really feel like Gary Hinman, who was
what is that? July sixty nine. It's the first murder
that we had that we talked about in the first episode.
(07:05):
And the reasoning behind that was because, at least according
to what we know, he wouldn't join Manson's rock band.
And to kill someone for something that seems so on
the surface, so not important to the greater scheme of things, Uh,
it leads you to believe that perhaps somebody else did
something that slighted Manson or part of the family that
(07:28):
would cause them to kill him. I see what you're saying. Still,
though it, you have both been in bands before, multiple bands,
and I know it can be an intense personal relationship.
Do you ever really wanted to kill anyone of your bandmates?
Did you? I mean tour that's it's very much a
(07:54):
marriage with every single person that's in the group or
even touring with you. But I've never wanted to do
any harm to anybody that didn't want to join one
of my bands. Yes, the nature of consent at heart, right, Uh,
the nature of agreement, And we do promise that we
(08:16):
will get we will somehow explain that strange quote you
heard at the beginning of part one. Uh. In another
show that Nolan I do, called Ridiculous History, we have
an episode about the importance of informed consent. If we
plugged Ridiculous History on this show, yeah, a little bit,
but we should plug it harder. Well. Yeah, check it out,
you guys. Ridiculous History. It's me and Ben talking about
(08:38):
silly historical nuggets and sometimes things there's a nice crossover
between certain things we talked about on the show. I
was gonna say, yeah, sometimes, I mean it's always silly,
like the word ridiculous is in the title, but a
lot of times it's just in my mind fascinating stuff
that I didn't know existed. And I've worked for the
site for a long long time and I hadn't read
a lot of these articles. And of course, you know
(09:01):
how I work. I'm probably going to try to pull
cajole or convince you to appear on a segment in
the future. Please. Speaking of segments, we've got some new
ones coming up very soon with our nemesis Jonathan Strickland,
who is doing great work as our complaint department on
stuff they don't want you to know. So if there's
a problem you have with the Manson episode. Please remember
(09:24):
you can write to us directly. We are Jonathan dot
Strickland how stuff works dot com. We're rewarding him for
his good stewardship by giving him the opportunity to torture
us on ridiculous history with quiz quizzes. Oh that's brilliant.
There's a karma. There's a karma to this, and somehow
I got off scott free because we like you. All
(09:45):
things come around that there's checkers in, there's chess, right,
and there's an informed consent. One of the greatest ethical
quandaries of human experimentation or social studies, and one of
the strangest and perhaps most disturbing examples of what happens
(10:07):
when there's experimentation without informed consent in the United States
would be the group of projects known collectively as m
k Ultra. For years, the CIA conducted a series of
just cartoonishly illegal experiments on civilians, on ethnic minorities, on
(10:29):
CIA agents, on CI agents themselves, on prisoners, and on soldiers.
They were most famously using psychedelic drugs in efforts to
create so called Manchurian candidates to brainwash people to make
them do things that they would not ordinarily do, like
(10:50):
a sleeper agent kind of situation, or they can be activated. Yeah,
I mean that that is certainly one of the major aspects.
But a lot of a lot of the stuff even
just went into how do we get somebody to be
more responsive when they're being interviewed? Right, more suggestible? Right? Yeah,
truth serum, sleeper agents, and truth serums. In the book
(11:12):
Helter Skelter, which we mentioned earlier by Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor,
the primary prosecutor for the Manson trial, the author discusses
Manson's programming techniques in depth, and he says that a
lot of the programming techniques that Manson used on his
followers were similar to things that the US military would
(11:37):
use to indoctrinate people intelligence agencies would two And you'll
often find this is true. We often find that Manson
was also an inmate at Vodcaville Prison during the time
that the CIA was using prisoners there for MK ultra experiments. However, yeah,
this is a huge However, if you look at the timeline,
(11:59):
this was after the take La Bianca murders, so it's
not if you learn something from the CIA that he
used in murders later. He did not learn it at Vacaville. Yes,
it must have been previously. Maybe they were learning something
from him during that time. It is however, yes, oh right,
(12:20):
you blew my mind a little bit. It is though.
It is interesting going back to our episode on the CIA,
the FBI and combat encounter culture, right, it is interesting
how quickly a pretty right wing dude who's an avowed
racist trying to start a race war or at least
(12:41):
ideologically fluid right, very much a member of the Church
of Manson. It's interesting how he was so immediately and
completely tied to the um the threat of the violent left.
It definitely feels strange like there was maybe some opportunity
there right at the very least, it feels a little
(13:01):
bit opportunistic, right, And that's just the beginning, because we
have more Manson conspiracy theories on the way. Welcome back,
Welcome back. So next on our list of Charles Manson
conspiracy theories, this one involves the Processed Church and the
(13:27):
famous Church of Scientology US no, please, Processed Church of
the final judgment, don't sue us so, and Manson was
transferred to a federal penitentiary at McNeil Island in Washington.
In n he claimed to be a Scientologist. People who
support this theory pointed out that Manson maintained contact with
(13:51):
members of the Processed Church, which is sort of like
like a Protestant Reformation style offshoot of the Church of Scientology,
but even darker, which is hard to believe. Um, and
oh but darker darker than Scientology. Yeah, okay, yeah, that
sounds like fun. How cool is saying that? What do
(14:16):
you think? Yeah, yeah, I think so, okay, we can yeah,
because look, none of this is slander liabel and will
definitely will definitely also to be fair, present what the
Church of Scientology themselves say about Manson. The Processed Church
of the Final Judgment. It really got you spooked, man, yeah, man, yeah,
(14:37):
And the process Church of the Final Judgment is a
very very strange, very intense thing. You can see some
earlier episodes that we did both video and audio on
the allegations of the Processed Church. It's earlier alleged involvement
with serial killers circling back, but for now, suffice to say,
(15:01):
people who believe that Manson was a member of Scientology
of the Process Church. Uh. They they say that he
maintained contact with these organizations while they were incarcerated, and
they think he learned a lot from them. Yeah. It's
also believed that the indoctrination techniques that Manson was using
on his followers, he learned a lot of those. Perhaps
(15:24):
he didn't get him from m. K Ultra, but maybe
he got them from Scientology or Process Church members, or
maybe even other intelligence agencies or perhaps the CIA prior
to him being incarcerated. In the other place, it must
be mentioned that there is again no solid evidence of
Manson's involvement with the Process Church of the Final Judgment. However,
(15:47):
there are multiple instances of Manson's studying dianetics, which is
the thing on which Scientology was created or based and
born um and even Scientology itself and uh two a
squash Matt spheres here. Before we get to we want
to point out the Church of Scientology's perspective. They maintained
(16:10):
that Charles Manson was never a member of the organization,
and they have spent significant amounts of money attempting to
convince people that their stance is correct. It's a very
important point to them. That is. Yeah, they they've invested
in making sure that this is true. And there's you know,
there's there's logic here, because reading the Bible doesn't automatically
(16:34):
make one a Christian, right, Um, just like reading scientology
literature wouldn't automatically make one a scientologist. Correct and being
let's say, um, having a Bible doesn't mean you're a Christian.
And it's an interesting point that you bring up there, Matt,
(16:54):
because scientology literature and an e meter were both found
at the Spawn Ranch. Now, those I'm fairly certain at
the time that was not a cheap thing to come by.
An E meter. Yeah, I imagine I don't know the
going rates from e meters, but we all know what
those are, right, Yeah, a little tin can looking things
on wires connected to kind of a almost like a
(17:14):
radio tuner looking device, which I think essentially was almost
like a measured electromagnetic current like in your body essentially.
And you have to think you're talking about the Spawn Ranch,
that's where there are a lot of people coming and going, right,
and you've also got the ton of family members. Could
have been just another member of the family, could have
(17:36):
been somebody who showed up, maybe a scientologist, showed up
and he never left. Oh wow, so that's an allegation
of another Maybe no, I just mean he became part
of the family. Oh I see, Okay, okay, I was
thinking you were alleging a Manson murder. I don't know.
But also, you know, we have to remember that this
was this part of the world at this point in time,
(17:59):
was an eclectic mix of people. However, the prosecutor, the
author of Helter Skelter, does note these events and does
say that it's inarguably true that Manson and members of
the family did run into members of the Process Church,
(18:20):
members of the Church of Scientology. And it seems like
from what we could find that the primary objection the
Church of Scientology itself will have is when people say
Manson was a member, which wasn't. Reading a book doesn't
automatically make you a member of something. And they did
(18:40):
find that stuff at the ranch. It's true, It's true
they found it. There's another thing that I thought was
really interesting. I don't know, um how much you guys
have looked into this, but text Watson, Charles Quote Text
Watson wrote extensively after his incarceration conviction about the his
(19:04):
his life with Manson and about the situation has escalated
and how everything went down at the trial. And one
thing that he mentioned that launched a thousand chips. There's
a thousand chips of stories like some twisted Helen of
Troy was the idea that there was something strange about
(19:26):
the drugs they were doing, specifically something called orange sunshine,
which was the type of LSD or was it? Wait,
you're saying it could be something else, Bend Well, I'm
so glad you asked. It's no secret that the Manson
family used copious amounts of drugs, especially hallucinogens LSD, maybe mescaline,
(19:50):
stuff like that. It's a way to open yourself up
to the godhead, to the world and get rid of
that ego and which which seems weird, right right right?
That Uh, the path to enlightenment is to send the
self into oblivion. Yeah. But then for somebody who appears
(20:10):
to be a megalomaniac like Charles Manson who's leading his flock,
maybe the idea is to get your followers to do that, right,
so that you become the god hit right like you
are you? Wait you were me? I am you? But
someone's driving yes, So it's yeah, it is a contradictory,
strange thing. For decades, there were allegations that there was
(20:32):
something wrong with or something off about this particular brand
of LSD, and I don't, um, you know, I'm not
a chemist. I've never made LSD. I was under the
impression that LSD is LSD is LSD like a roses
roses rose. Maining I can think of is that maybe
(20:54):
it was combined with some other substance where it still
has you know, the qualities of LSD, but maybe it
has some other additive that um changes the perception of
you know, or changes the way the LSD acts on
your on your mind, because I know you can combine
it with things like PCP or even other hallucinogens that
could change the the experience. So it could be like
(21:18):
a like a cocktail of drugs. I think so yeah.
I mean, you know, it's like it's delivered on pieces
of blatter paper, so you could you could any any
drug that could be distilled into a liquid. It could
be like double dipped. I guess they're dipping these paper,
these sheets of LSD or sheets of water paper into
the concoction. They could dip it into one thing, and
(21:38):
then into another thing in theory. Wha, well, we have
some background on this. Oh yeah, late on me. Well,
Orange Sunshine, This particular brand of LSD was manufactured and
distributed by a fun group known as the Brotherhood of
Eternal Love. You should do their ads, Matt. They operated
(21:59):
out of this um it was, I guess a beach
resort near l A, Los Angeles. Uh, sounds pretty swanky
to me. They they counted this gentleman named Ronald Stark
among the associates, the people they work with. And this
gentleman is believed to have manufactured fifty million doses of
(22:19):
l s D. Oh, and there's one other thing. What's
that he had known connections to the CIA. Wait a second, right, right, smuggling.
I think it was the there's a weird side doing here,
we have to Yeah, okay, so I fell deep into
the rabbit hole of LSD distribution gangs, which are a
(22:44):
huge thing. It's not just the Grateful Dead Revival concerts
and everything there is actually was referred to as the
hippie mafia, the Grateful Dead Family or g d F.
And then you can apparently see a lot of people
at Rainbow gatherings and in different counterculture events who were
claiming to be part of this family. The Brotherhood of
(23:06):
Eternal Love started out from what I could tell as
people who were still very much into the positive energy
of the Summer of Love, and they they thought, you know, uh,
it was almost a moral or ethical duty to distribute
dose as many people as possible. Right, So it wasn't
(23:27):
about the money at the beginning, but of course it
became about the money later. And it's strange because a
lot of these organizations still exist on the fringes, just
under the surface of American society, just slightly out of
the frame of the nightly news. But it's it's very real.
(23:51):
And the conspiracy theory is this that the c i
A purposefully manufactured a different kind of acid, maybe something
like nol is is referencing, or perhaps a different sort
of hallucinogen altogether that people thought was LSD when they
took it, and that the CIA knew this would have dangerous, delatorious,
(24:11):
negative behavioral effects. And we can't use that word conspiracy
theory with enough emphasis right here, because that's what it is.
But there are some things we can look into, Yeah, yeah, totally,
we can bust a couple of myths here, because we
were able to trace back the seed of how this began,
(24:34):
and then it leads us to some questions that that
we hope you will help us with. First four decades
people have argued that the orange sunshine stuff wasn't LSD
at all, but instead it was some other similar chemical, right,
with notably different and dangerous effects the lab created I
don't know, Frankensteining of hallucinogen. Yeah, which is the thing
(24:55):
that happens more and more today. You hear about things
like bath salts or all of these lab chemicals, which
some of them originate in legitimate institutions of learning, like um,
you know, as experiments that then get taken off site
and mass produced. Uh. And apparently these days a lot
of LSD is in fact some sort of analog that's
(25:20):
produced in a lab. So it's interesting. I didn't realize
that was possible, you know, back then. It's like a
chemical cousin, right, Yeah, I think it's similar, but it's
also like it can have very negative side effects, so
the effect is also different. The effect is different, but
it's similar enough that someone doing it that didn't know
better might be you know, convinced that they actually, you know,
(25:45):
got the genuine article. Oh well, I have this picture
of somebody spending like three days naked in a corner,
clawing their eyes, clawing at their eyes and going, why
do people like acid? It's um, it's true, though it's
absolutely correct. There's a weird and continual kind of race
or one upmanship occurring between the legislative powers of various
(26:10):
world governments and the chemist. Because if you if you
pull that little Vanilla Ice move, remember when what was
that beat he ripped off? Do do do do do
do do do pre no. It doesn't go like that.
It goes like this, do do do do do do
do do do do do do do do? Pick up that?
(26:30):
So so, um, we're we're referencing this, uh, this hilarious
interview with Vanilla Ice on VH one at some point
where he was defending I don't know if it was
v H one, but he was defending um, the sample
that he used and said it was not under pressure
because as as Matt Noell point out, one beat was removed.
(26:51):
It appears that chemists have done that with synthetic drugs,
and if you change a drug, you can how have
similar effects, but it becomes a different thing. So technically speaking,
it's not illegal until someone makes it illegal or passes
a a law with a wider scope. Right, So while
(27:15):
people were taking this Orange Sunshine LST or whatever it
was that flooded the market, various terrible things happened, including
the Manson family activities and the concert the uh yeah
stones right right with the Hell's Angels as security I believe,
(27:37):
and things went south really quickly. And people who believe
there was something sinister about Orange Sunshine other than the
fact that was apparently massively powerful lsd uh, they they
think that Orange Sunshine was also responsible for the disasters
that occurred at Altamont. And what what exactly happened? There
(28:01):
was rolling stones of Hell's Angels right, yeah, the Hell's
Angels stabbed somebody to death, like in the crowd. Yeah,
someone who was coming towards the US were bouncers from
more or less where they were like the security, and yeah,
I believe they literally stabbed someone to death. Yeah. And
then there also happened to be I think two or
three other people that died apart from that at the concert.
(28:24):
I want to point something out too, like we're talking
about the effects that you know, tainted psychedelic drugs could have,
or some of these copycat lab chemical psychedelic drus can have.
But also just you know, regular run of the mill
l s D affects different people quite differently depending on
their mental state. So if you're already mentally not well, uh,
(28:44):
and you you have an acid trip, you could potentially
that could push you in a in a violent direction,
even if it's it's there's nothing wrong with the you know,
chemical makeup of the drug at all. The only thing
I would say, no, well, is that I don't think
it's necessitated you are mentally unwell to have a negative
time taking a hallucinogen. You could have a bad setting, right, Yeah,
(29:07):
setting setting could be bad. You could just have a
really bad day. And I totally agree with you. I
guess all I'm getting at is if you're already kind
of on the edge, uh and and maybe preparing to
or capable of doing something horrendous or heinous like this
the Manson crimes, being on psychedelic drugs certainly wouldn't help.
It's not like it's going to soften you and all
(29:28):
of a sudden make you cool. And chill like it's
gonna it might may well push you right over the edge. Absolutely,
and here's another another seed for this Orange Sunshine conspiracy.
So a lot of the members or many members of
the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and related organizations got busted, right,
(29:50):
and several defendants, including Nicholas sand and Tim Scully, were
on trial for possession distribution related charge. Is they argued
in a very vanilla ice way, no, your honor, we
did not manufacture LSD. Instead, we manufactured something called a
(30:12):
l D which changes into LSD maybe where when when consumed,
but doesn't. It's you know, Star Wars Jedi handwave. This
is not the drug you're looking for. Let us go.
And also, do you guys want some LSD? Wants a
(30:35):
l D that will become LSD after you ingest it.
So this was later disproven, and it was disproven in
a extremely conclusive way because the guys who were on
trial said no, we had just said that to dodge
the charges. We had just gone no, your honor, doo
doo doo doo doo. Oh man. I've also heard that
(30:58):
you can you can find stories of the c I
a UM like purposefully financing the mass production and distribution
of this drug LSD and uh, We've yet to really
find any concrete proof of these claims, but it has
to be said, it's inarguable that the CIA was using,
at least using LSD experimentally at this time. And there's
(31:21):
another question too, when when it goes back to when
it when it goes back to the the idea of
intent mass production distribution, what does that mean? It doesn't
necessarily mean that if the four of us were CIA agents,
doesn't mean we were going out and flashing our CIA
credentials and saying, also, hello, fellow kids, here are here
(31:45):
are drugs. You know, inject one marijuana and have a
unit of fun. No, this kind of operation, were it
to occur, would almost certainly have occurred through proxies, right. Um.
The organizations typically want to keep their hands clean when
they're breaking the laws they are supposed to enforce. Yeah,
(32:07):
that is an interesting quandary though. If you are an
an intelligence agency and you want to do some experiments
with a large amount of some illegal substance, where do
you acquire that substance? And that question, I guess, like
you're saying, Ben, it just it depends on how far
you're willing to bend the rules and the laws right, right, exactly,
(32:29):
And that's why it's important for us to say we
have no, we don't have concrete proof of it. And
you'll you'll read a lot of things in the echo
chamber of the Internet that's say it's absolutely certain, but
it all goes back to primary sources, right. And another difficulty,
(32:50):
another complication in tracing these kind of stories is that
if something like this occurred, it almost certainly would not
have been you know, recorded in a clear paper trail.
It would have been like US American Freedom Airlines to
transport fifteen tons of avocados or something, you know. And additionally,
(33:19):
we know that Orange Sunshine has been claimed, like Noel
already mentioned, claimed to be a cocktail of sorts. Right,
you'll see people saying that it was actually mescaline. But
in both cases, at least as far as we can find,
it appears that later drug dealers just made something made
(33:40):
whatever they wanted, called it orange sunshine because they could
sell it more easily, right, and for a higher price.
So you know, we're not we're not big fans of
passing personal judgment on people. If you what you do
with your time as your own. But if someone tells
you they're selling you or sunshine, you know, just just think,
(34:04):
keep your wits about you. That it sounds so pleasant,
It really doesn't it, It really really does. Hey, do
you remember that question or that that statement we made
early on that we were going to need your help
with something. Yes, well it's time and now answer the question.
So we promised not to identify you. We're not going
(34:26):
to incriminate you. No. No, If you do choose to
respond to the following, do you believe there are different
types of LSD with different effects as we were discussing,
or is it simply a matter of purity, like how
intense of a dose or how much of a dose.
Do you think that some sort of LSD could actually
(34:46):
purposefully drive someone mad or you know, cause them to
act in a way that would be violent or would
that require some third party, some second substance when it
was to be used with l or maybe another just
another variable like a preexisting mental condition. Let us know,
(35:06):
send us an email a conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com. Right, yeah, and while you're banging apples emails,
let's take a quick sponsor break and now we come
to one of the things that fascinated me the most.
And I don't know if I don't know if this
(35:29):
is a well known thing. Our next question is who
was Paul Crockett. I have to admit I did not
know much about Paul Crockett. I have seen his name
in passing before when researching this, but I didn't I
didn't know much until you sent an article out. But
so remember that odd new a g quote from the
(35:52):
beginning of part one of this episode. It comes from
this man named Paul Crockett. And wait, wait, I think
we need to revisit a great idea. Man, Everything that
we do is from some agreement that we have set up.
Everything that we have in this physical universe is something
we have laid out and agreed to. Most people never
set time limits to their agreements, so they are forces
(36:15):
that continue with no end. That quote comes from a
man named Paul Crockett. He is one of the great
unsung heroes of the Helter Skelter tragedy. You've definitely heard
of Manson and could probably name several of his followers.
But this is a very strange wrinkle to the story,
one that you won't find in the majority of reports
(36:35):
regarding the family. Paul Crockett, you see, was one of
the closest things Manson had to a neighbor out there
on the ranch, and he was working as a gold prospector.
But he was a lot of things. He was a
artist of sorts, philosopher, a philosopher, uh, a World War
(36:59):
Two veteran, and very similar to Manson. He was a
mystic student of the all arts, esoteric and occult. He
was the child of a preacher and a school teacher,
and to him, the search for gold and Death Valley
was an alchemical process. He was ruminating on the nature
(37:24):
of reality on the great work Capital G Capital W
and he saw reality as a web of agreements, both
acknowledged and unconscious. During eight months over the spring and
summer of nineteen sixty nine, Paul Crockett developed a rapport
with members of the Manson family who were dissatisfied or
(37:45):
felt they were on the fringes Um two. In particular,
Brooks Posted and Paul Watkins met him as they were
when they were sent out as a scouting party in
the of the land. Right hey, if they found all,
Paul Crockett just probably digging away or working on some dirt,
(38:05):
trying to get that gold. What a young gie and
Joseph Campbell archetype, right, the old wise man right, uh.
And he was about fifty at the time. He was
no stranger to programming techniques. He was familiar with scientology.
And he immediately saw that Poston and Watkins have been
stripped of their egos. They were unable to think independently.
They were bound in a very real way to the
(38:26):
will of Manson. They had been subsumed. And then he
he says that he discovered Manson had programmed all his
people to the extent that they're just like him. He's
put all kinds of things in their head. I didn't
believe it could be done, but he has done it,
and I've seen it working. So he said about de
programming these family members that would visit him. First, First
(38:47):
things first, this is so weird. It was apparent to
them that they thought Manson had supernatural powers. He told
them that he believed them because he liked man and
possessed extraordinary powers. But of course, and he said he
could and would use these to set up a psychic
barrier around his camp to prevent Manson from visiting without
(39:13):
agreement or permission. That is really cool. Can we go
into some of his purported superpowers that he talked about?
Please do? Um. So, one of the reasons that Paul
Crockett became what he became, it was because he had
some experiences that the church and the you know, the
teachings in school couldn't They couldn't explain fully to him. So, uh,
(39:36):
this one time when he was fifteen years old, he
said he was hurled from a speeding car and as
he was following I'm gonna read this quote, all sounds
ceased and time seemed to slow down. I reached my
hand out, but quickly withdrew it when I felt the
pain as it neared the ground. I held my arms
and close to my body, which seemed to be enclosed
in what I later came to call a force field.
(39:59):
When I find we landed in the gravel along the
side of the road, I wasn't even scratched. I just
stood up to brush myself off, but discovered I wasn't
even dusty. So he can make use of force fields.
That's one I mean, I think that's a superpower. Right.
Ben mentioned that our protagonist here was involved in World
War two and he was flying in an aircraft. He
(40:22):
was a navigator in a B twenty four, and apparently
his aircraft came under heavy artillery fire and some of
that shrapnel went through the aircraft. Essentially, he says, at
least according to him, where it should have impacted him,
but somehow it did not. And again it was one
of those things where time time slowed down, all the
(40:44):
sound went away, and he was okay. So he maybe
he truly believes that he has some kind of superpower
or connected to something larger than himself. Certainly, yeah, it is.
It is sincere rather than cynical. I would agree with that.
So he put these family members into a regiment of
(41:04):
taxing physical work. Do this, and do this with me, right,
And he started by saying, follow me on these physical actions,
because that's one thing they could still do, is follow people.
And then he re taught them how to think outside.
So the Manson family metaphysical rap is very much about um,
(41:26):
we're all one, we're all God. It doesn't matter if
you kill someone, because you're killing yourself, you're killing God. Uh,
And there is no moment other than now. So he
re taught them to think outside of this cognitive box
by using goal setting methods. Right, not what is it now?
(41:47):
I am you? You are me? But hey, what do
you want to do tomorrow? We should, you know, we
should have a measured set goal. And he he still
couldn't say exactly what Antson had done to the followers,
but he thought it was very real, and eventually in
an interview you can read how he tries to articulate it,
(42:08):
goes sort of through word salad and then just shrugs
and says, I can't explain it. It's all part of
the occult. Wow, that's really crazy. So I mean, did
Manson himself purport to be to have some sort of
Alistair Crowley esque communion with you know, the dark arts
or was it more psychological for him? And I it's
(42:31):
interesting to hear from this person's perspective saying this is
definitely what it was. But I don't really recall seeing
any quotes from Manson saying he said do something witchy,
make it witchy. But that was almost like as a manipulation, right, Yeah,
he never It's a great point because he never went
out and said, you know, like I am the dog Messiah,
(42:53):
you know, slouching toward Bethlehem. But he was just going
to be one of the five, the five major beings
that existed him in the Beatles. Yeah, um, yeah, it's
it's weird because he never said that he did. The
powers or the realizations that he ascribed to himself were
(43:14):
much more messi onic in nature, because he gets kind
of lumped in with you know, Satanic Satanism and the
occult and you know that kind of stuff. And if
there's any kind of odd romanticization of him, it's usually
from uh, you know, stuff like Marilyn Manson or the
idea that he was some kind of Satanic superman that
(43:35):
could you know, control people with mind powers or you know, spells.
But that's really not what he was doing, or even
what he claimed to be doing. Yeah, it does appear
that he did have a grasp on people, but you're right,
it was not some kind of like accult thing. You know,
they weren't drawing penagrams and and uh, burning things in
(43:56):
a ritualistic fashion. He strikes me as a very cynical figure.
I think so too. Ideology seems very fluid for him, whatever, sir,
whatever it takes. Yeah, even see the interviews with him
in prison, and again he's and is there any kind
of like information out there? Has he been psychoanalyzed when
he was when he was incarcerated, Like is there a
(44:17):
diagnosis for his condition that we can point to? There are,
There are numerous diagnoses, and I found some stuff when
he was a kid where they said he's got slightly
above average intelligence, which also differentiates him from a serial killer.
R right. I don't know, You're totally on point about that.
From the top of the show. I'm just wondering, like,
(44:38):
did he because in prison you see him giving these interviews,
he seems like he's on drugs or something, but you know,
he probably isn't. Yeah, I would. I would love to see,
you know, an official prison psychologists diagnosis. At the same time,
drugs are readily available in prison, so there's really no
reason to believe that he might not have been on
drugs during some of those interviews. But I don't know.
(44:58):
It's just interesting because he just seems to me to
have been a person that wanted what he wanted for himself,
and he wanted to twist people's um minds and and
make them do dance like his little puppets. He really,
that's that's the weird thing. MK Ultra tried to make
(45:18):
Manchurian candidates. Manson succeeded. Wow, and well, I mean he
didn't have the trigger word. I guess that's why they
were learning everything from him while he was incarcerated that
next time. That's a very disturbing theory. Yeah, I would
love to see diagnosis, you know, because there had to
be something. Everyone who encountered the guy talked about this
(45:42):
palpable aura that he had about him, even the prosecutor
whal Helter Skelter. So Crockett and Manson did meet and interact.
They were neighbors, and Crockett would Crockett would coach the
people under his protection about how to how to deal
(46:03):
with Manson. And this is why the agreement quotation from
earlier is very important, because he would caution them not
to agree to anything. Don't accept anything, sort of like
the old folklore rules about what happens if you wake
up in uh fairyland, right, don't accept eat, don't accept
(46:24):
food or drink, wake any deals or agreements. It's like
that San Pan's labyrinth where when she eats the grape
and things happen. Is that the hand died monster. Yeah,
the Paleman, that's what they call him, which is great.
I still want to know that guy's backstory. You know,
it was pretty obvious. There was a stack of kids
shoes and there's all these like pictograms all over the
(46:46):
place where he's like clearly an eater of children. But
to what end though, to what end? What the dickens
pale man? Yeah, the family followers would watch and Manson
in there's there's this parable like quality to it because
Manson would send, uh, let's say, a female member of
(47:10):
the family that to to bring back one of the
people following Crockett into the fold if they knew they
had a previously existing sexual or romantic relationship, and he
and Crockett Manson Crockett would engage in these hour long, abstract,
esoteric debates as sort of a wizard's duel in his
(47:34):
mental chess game, and it would be about the nature power, agreement,
consciousness and ego and I want to I want to read, um,
I want to read just one part here from my
life with Charles Manson. Often Charlie would engage Crockett in
verbal exchanges which sometimes lasted for hours, but Crockett played
(47:55):
it perfect. He did not fight with Charlie nor openly
disagree in a way that might provoke a ger. He
merely expressed opinions, which left Charlie utterly flabbergasted. Crockett later
confessed that he and Charlie shared many of the same
opinions about the world, but that Charlie had a hole
in his humanity. And then you'll see these different exchanges
(48:17):
where Charles Manson goes, well, look, i'm you, you're me,
and you know it's all one baby dig it, and
Crockett would just sit there and wait a second and
then say, well, I admit that we are similar in
that we I say, I agree that we are similar
in that we are entities experiencing similar stimulus stimuli, but
(48:39):
we have experienced different stimuli, which means I am not
you and you are not me. And he would just
say so. He kept his calm, and apparently this not
only irritated the ever loving Christ out of Charles Manson,
but it also convinced Manson that Crockett had powers. So
Manson began to believe that Crockett had some sort of
(49:01):
wisdom that he could teach Charles Manson, Mason certainly had
some paranoia paranoid qualities to him, for sure, and we
may never know the full details of these interactions, but
one thing is for sure. Paul Crockett was like a
Jedi fighting of the Sith, using the same techniques, the
(49:21):
same source techniques that Manson used, and he managed to
save several people from the Manson family and perhaps to
prevent the spread of further horrific crimes. But you know,
going to that point about Manson's paranoia which was skyrocketing
at this stage in the game or the stage and
the story, we also have to wonder what stopped Charles
(49:45):
Manson from just killing Paul Crockett where they kill everyone else,
and it also or what stopped him from making his
followers do it. And then I still feel like there's
something to the connection there. It just seems like a
strange and massive coincidence for of all people in this
(50:06):
very isolated part of the world, for this one guy
to be there at exactly that time. It's a father figure, man,
I think that's what it is. It's a father figure thing.
I think so, just from what we know about the
background of Charles Manson and having someone intelligent that seems
like he might be able to teach you something, even
though you feel like you know you're the most brilliant
(50:28):
mind in your general surroundings. I bet that's what it was.
That's insane, and so we'd love more information about Paul
Crockett if you happen to know it. He has passed away.
He did for a time have a sort of New
Age philosophical website, uh which you could find more information
about him and his beliefs. But for now, this concludes
(50:53):
our story. Charles Manson and I don't know what you
guys think, but it seems strange to end with conclusions.
I feel like maybe we could end with questions. Okay, yeah,
why don't we um? Why don't we just ask them?
Do you think there's any sand to the arguments about
the occult and hypnotic practices that we've been discussing in
(51:16):
these two episodes? The do you think there is a
way to breach the veil somehow and cause someone to
either believe or do something that they wouldn't have done
without your interaction? I don't know, what do you think?
Ben and I were hanging out the other night and
we were talking about Darren Brown and uh, these skills
(51:38):
possessed by um, these folks that call themselves mentalists, where
they can implant suggestion into people's minds and kind of
cause them to act in a certain way. And with
Darren Brown, it's usually in the service of a lovely
magic trick, you know, kind of thing. But yeah, cameras
and cameras well. Okay, just but to the time point being,
(52:02):
these skills exist, and I think Charles Manson was probably
practicing some of those more than any kind of real
uh accult manipulation. He was just one of the most
effective users of those techniques ever. He had good charisma.
Come to the dog side. What do y'all think? Let
(52:24):
us know about that one. And we asked this earlier,
but we'll just hit it again. Do you think it's
possible that something other than ordinary LSD was at play? Um?
And you know, to piggyback on the previous question, we asked,
do you think there are different types of LSD that
have different effects and some of them could be more
nefarious than others? And finally, do you think there are
dangerous cults like this that are still active in the
(52:48):
US today? Let us know let us know. I'm going
with almost certainly on that third question, and uh oh,
I hope we can learn about them before some sort
of disaster card. You can reach out to us on
Facebook and Twitter, where we are Conspiracy Stuff. Instagram we
are Conspiracy Stuff Show. And if you don't want to
do any of that stuff, you can also doute the
(53:08):
old fashioned way. How do we do that? Guys? Write
us an email. We are conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is null. They call me Ben where he was super
producer Paul deck Into You are you that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know? Charles Manson is
dead Part two. Yes, last time we went over most
of the background information you're gonna need to know all
in our opinion, and we we talked about his history,
(00:46):
how he grew up, what he experienced when he was
a kid. And then you know, a young man played
some of his tunes. Yes, yes, uh may for many
of our listeners be the first time you were introduced
to what was it? Garbage, Garbage Jump, the music of
Charles Manson. There's a lot more out there, actually, if
you want to just get on YouTube, you can find
(01:06):
and in his and in the years after Helter Skelter,
numerous musicians also covered manson music. Of course, Marilyn Manson
did it, uh, Several other prominent artists and I think
the Beach Boys also took some of his either lyrics
or melodies. Wow. You know, guys, I have to tell you.
(01:28):
Last night I watched the first episode of mind mind Hunter,
and you know, it's dealing with the psychology of criminality
and how the FBI, in particular, another law enforcement began
using psychology and trying to figure out why people do things.
And it gets the big fat thumbs up from super
producer Paul Oh yeah, huge, Wow, he is just flailing
(01:52):
those thumbs around. Did it just did it communicate with
you at a personal level, Paul, I've rarely seen you
this exac. I see, I haven't even met Kemper I
think yet. Yeah, yeahs and yeah. What what it does
is really gives you a foundation for what it was
to come in terms of psychoanalyzing serial killers and trying
(02:16):
to get inside the minds of serial killers, which was
very taboo. The idea even in the show to even
attempt this was in some way by the brass at
the FBI, like heresy. You know, it was a tantamount
to um empathizing with these you know, psychotic killers, and
they were just not okay with it. But it was
totally not seeing the forest for the trees and not
(02:39):
realizing this is a very valuable tool into you know,
figuring out what U current active killers, how they might behave. Yes,
And in the case of Charles Manson, it uses his
case and him the man himself, as a quick example
of the way people or the way law enforcement thought
about finality at a certain time. Right as the Manson
(03:02):
case was going through, and having just done the first
part of this series on Manson, I was fascinated by
kind of the turns. And we've talked about serial killers before,
We've talked about and again Charlie Manson was not a
serial killer, but he was a criminal, at least in
(03:23):
the eyes of the public, in the eyes of the
justice system. Um. But again, just fascinating to think about
it in that way. I guess there's argue that he
was a serial killer, that he just used other people
as his weapons. I would disagree, respectfully, but I would
disagree right Well, there's an important differentiation we have to make,
(03:45):
and there's some questions that still remain unanswered. For instance,
is a person who commits multiple murders automatically a serial killer?
The answer is no. Is a person who so there
will seem to be a theme or a compulsion in
serial killing right, and of course there has to be
(04:07):
mental illness. But if Manson is a serial killer, and
this controversial if we consider Manson a serial killer because
he did have a psychosis, right, he did seek to
launch a race war, Uh, he ordered people to kill
the world is full of people who order other people
to kill. Does that make them all serial killers? Does
(04:29):
that make, for instance, a politician who sends people the
war a serial killer, any general that's ever existed, someone
who launches a drone. It's a it's a tough question,
very interesting question, right, um. And the thing I wanted
to get to surreptitiously through this whole Mine Hunter thing
is that this past episode we really looked at how
Charles Manson became Charles Manson, and at least the ways
(04:54):
that a psychologist would look at it. Now, what we're
going to get into this week is some of the
con conspiracy theories surrounding him and perhaps other ways that
this monolith creature was created. And we highly recommend, of course,
your life is your own, but we highly recommend that
if you have not checked out Part one of Charles
(05:15):
Manson Is Dead, you check it out before you continue
listening to this episode. Please We'll wait. That was pretty fast. Yeah,
faster than I expected, honestly, and I'm a bit worried.
I don't know what you did, but good good on you.
Here's where it gets crazy. So one interesting point that
(05:37):
we kept finding in the course of our research here
was the idea that there were other, as of yet
unidentified Manson family murders. At this point, we can say
that it's plausible, that's quite possible, but there hasn't been
any concrete proof because several members of the Manson family
(05:59):
agree to uh bring law enforcement to the remains of
other murder victims that were not at that point tied
to the family. So it's unfortunately not a far jump
at all to imagine the family itself or or Manson
as an individual, may have committed murders that remain unrevealed today.
(06:23):
At this point in recording, we don't know. And what
we do see is that often when a criminal like
this dies, more information comes out. Right. I think in
our earlier episode may have been Nole mentioned the cancer
(06:44):
that had been a family secret that was ultimately led
to Manson's demise. So it's possible that there are still
secrets there, you know, been in this area here of
other murders, I really feel like Gary Hinman, who was
what is that? July sixty nine. It's the first murder
that we had that we talked about in the first episode.
(07:05):
And the reasoning behind that was because, at least according
to what we know, he wouldn't join Manson's rock band.
And to kill someone for something that seems so on
the surface, so not important to the greater scheme of things, Uh,
it leads you to believe that perhaps somebody else did
something that slighted Manson or part of the family that
(07:28):
would cause them to kill him. I see what you're saying. Still,
though it, you have both been in bands before, multiple bands,
and I know it can be an intense personal relationship.
Do you ever really wanted to kill anyone of your bandmates?
Did you? I mean tour that's it's very much a
(07:54):
marriage with every single person that's in the group or
even touring with you. But I've never wanted to do
any harm to anybody that didn't want to join one
of my bands. Yes, the nature of consent at heart, right, Uh,
the nature of agreement, And we do promise that we
(08:16):
will get we will somehow explain that strange quote you
heard at the beginning of part one. Uh. In another
show that Nolan I do, called Ridiculous History, we have
an episode about the importance of informed consent. If we
plugged Ridiculous History on this show, yeah, a little bit,
but we should plug it harder. Well. Yeah, check it out,
you guys. Ridiculous History. It's me and Ben talking about
(08:38):
silly historical nuggets and sometimes things there's a nice crossover
between certain things we talked about on the show. I
was gonna say, yeah, sometimes, I mean it's always silly,
like the word ridiculous is in the title, but a
lot of times it's just in my mind fascinating stuff
that I didn't know existed. And I've worked for the
site for a long long time and I hadn't read
a lot of these articles. And of course, you know
(09:01):
how I work. I'm probably going to try to pull
cajole or convince you to appear on a segment in
the future. Please. Speaking of segments, we've got some new
ones coming up very soon with our nemesis Jonathan Strickland,
who is doing great work as our complaint department on
stuff they don't want you to know. So if there's
a problem you have with the Manson episode. Please remember
(09:24):
you can write to us directly. We are Jonathan dot
Strickland how stuff works dot com. We're rewarding him for
his good stewardship by giving him the opportunity to torture
us on ridiculous history with quiz quizzes. Oh that's brilliant.
There's a karma. There's a karma to this, and somehow
I got off scott free because we like you. All
(09:45):
things come around that there's checkers in, there's chess, right,
and there's an informed consent. One of the greatest ethical
quandaries of human experimentation or social studies, and one of
the strangest and perhaps most disturbing examples of what happens
(10:07):
when there's experimentation without informed consent in the United States
would be the group of projects known collectively as m
k Ultra. For years, the CIA conducted a series of
just cartoonishly illegal experiments on civilians, on ethnic minorities, on
(10:29):
CIA agents, on CI agents themselves, on prisoners, and on soldiers.
They were most famously using psychedelic drugs in efforts to
create so called Manchurian candidates to brainwash people to make
them do things that they would not ordinarily do, like
(10:50):
a sleeper agent kind of situation, or they can be activated. Yeah,
I mean that that is certainly one of the major aspects.
But a lot of a lot of the stuff even
just went into how do we get somebody to be
more responsive when they're being interviewed? Right, more suggestible? Right? Yeah,
truth serum, sleeper agents, and truth serums. In the book
(11:12):
Helter Skelter, which we mentioned earlier by Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor,
the primary prosecutor for the Manson trial, the author discusses
Manson's programming techniques in depth, and he says that a
lot of the programming techniques that Manson used on his
followers were similar to things that the US military would
(11:37):
use to indoctrinate people intelligence agencies would two And you'll
often find this is true. We often find that Manson
was also an inmate at Vodcaville Prison during the time
that the CIA was using prisoners there for MK ultra experiments. However, yeah,
this is a huge However, if you look at the timeline,
(11:59):
this was after the take La Bianca murders, so it's
not if you learn something from the CIA that he
used in murders later. He did not learn it at Vacaville. Yes,
it must have been previously. Maybe they were learning something
from him during that time. It is however, yes, oh right,
(12:20):
you blew my mind a little bit. It is though.
It is interesting going back to our episode on the CIA,
the FBI and combat encounter culture, right, it is interesting
how quickly a pretty right wing dude who's an avowed
racist trying to start a race war or at least
(12:41):
ideologically fluid right, very much a member of the Church
of Manson. It's interesting how he was so immediately and
completely tied to the um the threat of the violent left.
It definitely feels strange like there was maybe some opportunity
there right at the very least, it feels a little
(13:01):
bit opportunistic, right, And that's just the beginning, because we
have more Manson conspiracy theories on the way. Welcome back,
Welcome back. So next on our list of Charles Manson
conspiracy theories, this one involves the Processed Church and the
(13:27):
famous Church of Scientology US no, please, Processed Church of
the final judgment, don't sue us so, and Manson was
transferred to a federal penitentiary at McNeil Island in Washington.
In n he claimed to be a Scientologist. People who
support this theory pointed out that Manson maintained contact with
(13:51):
members of the Processed Church, which is sort of like
like a Protestant Reformation style offshoot of the Church of Scientology,
but even darker, which is hard to believe. Um, and
oh but darker darker than Scientology. Yeah, okay, yeah, that
sounds like fun. How cool is saying that? What do
(14:16):
you think? Yeah, yeah, I think so, okay, we can yeah,
because look, none of this is slander liabel and will
definitely will definitely also to be fair, present what the
Church of Scientology themselves say about Manson. The Processed Church
of the Final Judgment. It really got you spooked, man, yeah, man, yeah,
(14:37):
And the process Church of the Final Judgment is a
very very strange, very intense thing. You can see some
earlier episodes that we did both video and audio on
the allegations of the Processed Church. It's earlier alleged involvement
with serial killers circling back, but for now, suffice to say,
(15:01):
people who believe that Manson was a member of Scientology
of the Process Church. Uh. They they say that he
maintained contact with these organizations while they were incarcerated, and
they think he learned a lot from them. Yeah. It's
also believed that the indoctrination techniques that Manson was using
on his followers, he learned a lot of those. Perhaps
(15:24):
he didn't get him from m. K Ultra, but maybe
he got them from Scientology or Process Church members, or
maybe even other intelligence agencies or perhaps the CIA prior
to him being incarcerated. In the other place, it must
be mentioned that there is again no solid evidence of
Manson's involvement with the Process Church of the Final Judgment. However,
(15:47):
there are multiple instances of Manson's studying dianetics, which is
the thing on which Scientology was created or based and
born um and even Scientology itself and uh two a
squash Matt spheres here. Before we get to we want
to point out the Church of Scientology's perspective. They maintained
(16:10):
that Charles Manson was never a member of the organization,
and they have spent significant amounts of money attempting to
convince people that their stance is correct. It's a very
important point to them. That is. Yeah, they they've invested
in making sure that this is true. And there's you know,
there's there's logic here, because reading the Bible doesn't automatically
(16:34):
make one a Christian, right, Um, just like reading scientology
literature wouldn't automatically make one a scientologist. Correct and being
let's say, um, having a Bible doesn't mean you're a Christian.
And it's an interesting point that you bring up there, Matt,
(16:54):
because scientology literature and an e meter were both found
at the Spawn Ranch. Now, those I'm fairly certain at
the time that was not a cheap thing to come by.
An E meter. Yeah, I imagine I don't know the
going rates from e meters, but we all know what
those are, right, Yeah, a little tin can looking things
on wires connected to kind of a almost like a
(17:14):
radio tuner looking device, which I think essentially was almost
like a measured electromagnetic current like in your body essentially.
And you have to think you're talking about the Spawn Ranch,
that's where there are a lot of people coming and going, right,
and you've also got the ton of family members. Could
have been just another member of the family, could have
(17:36):
been somebody who showed up, maybe a scientologist, showed up
and he never left. Oh wow, so that's an allegation
of another Maybe no, I just mean he became part
of the family. Oh I see, Okay, okay, I was
thinking you were alleging a Manson murder. I don't know.
But also, you know, we have to remember that this
was this part of the world at this point in time,
(17:59):
was an eclectic mix of people. However, the prosecutor, the
author of Helter Skelter, does note these events and does
say that it's inarguably true that Manson and members of
the family did run into members of the Process Church,
(18:20):
members of the Church of Scientology. And it seems like
from what we could find that the primary objection the
Church of Scientology itself will have is when people say
Manson was a member, which wasn't. Reading a book doesn't
automatically make you a member of something. And they did
(18:40):
find that stuff at the ranch. It's true, It's true
they found it. There's another thing that I thought was
really interesting. I don't know, um how much you guys
have looked into this, but text Watson, Charles Quote Text
Watson wrote extensively after his incarceration conviction about the his
(19:04):
his life with Manson and about the situation has escalated
and how everything went down at the trial. And one
thing that he mentioned that launched a thousand chips. There's
a thousand chips of stories like some twisted Helen of
Troy was the idea that there was something strange about
(19:26):
the drugs they were doing, specifically something called orange sunshine,
which was the type of LSD or was it? Wait,
you're saying it could be something else, Bend Well, I'm
so glad you asked. It's no secret that the Manson
family used copious amounts of drugs, especially hallucinogens LSD, maybe mescaline,
(19:50):
stuff like that. It's a way to open yourself up
to the godhead, to the world and get rid of
that ego and which which seems weird, right right right?
That Uh, the path to enlightenment is to send the
self into oblivion. Yeah. But then for somebody who appears
(20:10):
to be a megalomaniac like Charles Manson who's leading his flock,
maybe the idea is to get your followers to do that, right,
so that you become the god hit right like you
are you? Wait you were me? I am you? But
someone's driving yes, So it's yeah, it is a contradictory,
strange thing. For decades, there were allegations that there was
(20:32):
something wrong with or something off about this particular brand
of LSD, and I don't, um, you know, I'm not
a chemist. I've never made LSD. I was under the
impression that LSD is LSD is LSD like a roses
roses rose. Maining I can think of is that maybe
(20:54):
it was combined with some other substance where it still
has you know, the qualities of LSD, but maybe it
has some other additive that um changes the perception of
you know, or changes the way the LSD acts on
your on your mind, because I know you can combine
it with things like PCP or even other hallucinogens that
could change the the experience. So it could be like
(21:18):
a like a cocktail of drugs. I think so yeah.
I mean, you know, it's like it's delivered on pieces
of blatter paper, so you could you could any any
drug that could be distilled into a liquid. It could
be like double dipped. I guess they're dipping these paper,
these sheets of LSD or sheets of water paper into
the concoction. They could dip it into one thing, and
(21:38):
then into another thing in theory. Wha, well, we have
some background on this. Oh yeah, late on me. Well,
Orange Sunshine, This particular brand of LSD was manufactured and
distributed by a fun group known as the Brotherhood of
Eternal Love. You should do their ads, Matt. They operated
(21:59):
out of this um it was, I guess a beach
resort near l A, Los Angeles. Uh, sounds pretty swanky
to me. They they counted this gentleman named Ronald Stark
among the associates, the people they work with. And this
gentleman is believed to have manufactured fifty million doses of
(22:19):
l s D. Oh, and there's one other thing. What's
that he had known connections to the CIA. Wait a second, right, right, smuggling.
I think it was the there's a weird side doing here,
we have to Yeah, okay, so I fell deep into
the rabbit hole of LSD distribution gangs, which are a
(22:44):
huge thing. It's not just the Grateful Dead Revival concerts
and everything there is actually was referred to as the
hippie mafia, the Grateful Dead Family or g d F.
And then you can apparently see a lot of people
at Rainbow gatherings and in different counterculture events who were
claiming to be part of this family. The Brotherhood of
(23:06):
Eternal Love started out from what I could tell as
people who were still very much into the positive energy
of the Summer of Love, and they they thought, you know, uh,
it was almost a moral or ethical duty to distribute
dose as many people as possible. Right, So it wasn't
(23:27):
about the money at the beginning, but of course it
became about the money later. And it's strange because a
lot of these organizations still exist on the fringes, just
under the surface of American society, just slightly out of
the frame of the nightly news. But it's it's very real.
(23:51):
And the conspiracy theory is this that the c i
A purposefully manufactured a different kind of acid, maybe something
like nol is is referencing, or perhaps a different sort
of hallucinogen altogether that people thought was LSD when they
took it, and that the CIA knew this would have dangerous, delatorious,
(24:11):
negative behavioral effects. And we can't use that word conspiracy
theory with enough emphasis right here, because that's what it is.
But there are some things we can look into, Yeah, yeah, totally,
we can bust a couple of myths here, because we
were able to trace back the seed of how this began,
(24:34):
and then it leads us to some questions that that
we hope you will help us with. First four decades
people have argued that the orange sunshine stuff wasn't LSD
at all, but instead it was some other similar chemical, right,
with notably different and dangerous effects the lab created I
don't know, Frankensteining of hallucinogen. Yeah, which is the thing
(24:55):
that happens more and more today. You hear about things
like bath salts or all of these lab chemicals, which
some of them originate in legitimate institutions of learning, like um,
you know, as experiments that then get taken off site
and mass produced. Uh. And apparently these days a lot
of LSD is in fact some sort of analog that's
(25:20):
produced in a lab. So it's interesting. I didn't realize
that was possible, you know, back then. It's like a
chemical cousin, right, Yeah, I think it's similar, but it's
also like it can have very negative side effects, so
the effect is also different. The effect is different, but
it's similar enough that someone doing it that didn't know
better might be you know, convinced that they actually, you know,
(25:45):
got the genuine article. Oh well, I have this picture
of somebody spending like three days naked in a corner,
clawing their eyes, clawing at their eyes and going, why
do people like acid? It's um, it's true, though it's
absolutely correct. There's a weird and continual kind of race
or one upmanship occurring between the legislative powers of various
(26:10):
world governments and the chemist. Because if you if you
pull that little Vanilla Ice move, remember when what was
that beat he ripped off? Do do do do do
do do do pre no. It doesn't go like that.
It goes like this, do do do do do do
do do do do do do do do? Pick up that?
(26:30):
So so, um, we're we're referencing this, uh, this hilarious
interview with Vanilla Ice on VH one at some point
where he was defending I don't know if it was
v H one, but he was defending um, the sample
that he used and said it was not under pressure
because as as Matt Noell point out, one beat was removed.
(26:51):
It appears that chemists have done that with synthetic drugs,
and if you change a drug, you can how have
similar effects, but it becomes a different thing. So technically speaking,
it's not illegal until someone makes it illegal or passes
a a law with a wider scope. Right, So while
(27:15):
people were taking this Orange Sunshine LST or whatever it
was that flooded the market, various terrible things happened, including
the Manson family activities and the concert the uh yeah
stones right right with the Hell's Angels as security I believe,
(27:37):
and things went south really quickly. And people who believe
there was something sinister about Orange Sunshine other than the
fact that was apparently massively powerful lsd uh, they they
think that Orange Sunshine was also responsible for the disasters
that occurred at Altamont. And what what exactly happened? There
(28:01):
was rolling stones of Hell's Angels right, yeah, the Hell's
Angels stabbed somebody to death, like in the crowd. Yeah,
someone who was coming towards the US were bouncers from
more or less where they were like the security, and yeah,
I believe they literally stabbed someone to death. Yeah. And
then there also happened to be I think two or
three other people that died apart from that at the concert.
(28:24):
I want to point something out too, like we're talking
about the effects that you know, tainted psychedelic drugs could have,
or some of these copycat lab chemical psychedelic drus can have.
But also just you know, regular run of the mill
l s D affects different people quite differently depending on
their mental state. So if you're already mentally not well, uh,
(28:44):
and you you have an acid trip, you could potentially
that could push you in a in a violent direction,
even if it's it's there's nothing wrong with the you know,
chemical makeup of the drug at all. The only thing
I would say, no, well, is that I don't think
it's necessitated you are mentally unwell to have a negative
time taking a hallucinogen. You could have a bad setting, right, Yeah,
(29:07):
setting setting could be bad. You could just have a
really bad day. And I totally agree with you. I
guess all I'm getting at is if you're already kind
of on the edge, uh and and maybe preparing to
or capable of doing something horrendous or heinous like this
the Manson crimes, being on psychedelic drugs certainly wouldn't help.
It's not like it's going to soften you and all
(29:28):
of a sudden make you cool. And chill like it's
gonna it might may well push you right over the edge. Absolutely,
and here's another another seed for this Orange Sunshine conspiracy.
So a lot of the members or many members of
the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and related organizations got busted, right,
(29:50):
and several defendants, including Nicholas sand and Tim Scully, were
on trial for possession distribution related charge. Is they argued
in a very vanilla ice way, no, your honor, we
did not manufacture LSD. Instead, we manufactured something called a
(30:12):
l D which changes into LSD maybe where when when consumed,
but doesn't. It's you know, Star Wars Jedi handwave. This
is not the drug you're looking for. Let us go.
And also, do you guys want some LSD? Wants a
(30:35):
l D that will become LSD after you ingest it.
So this was later disproven, and it was disproven in
a extremely conclusive way because the guys who were on
trial said no, we had just said that to dodge
the charges. We had just gone no, your honor, doo
doo doo doo doo. Oh man. I've also heard that
(30:58):
you can you can find stories of the c I
a UM like purposefully financing the mass production and distribution
of this drug LSD and uh, We've yet to really
find any concrete proof of these claims, but it has
to be said, it's inarguable that the CIA was using,
at least using LSD experimentally at this time. And there's
(31:21):
another question too, when when it goes back to when
it when it goes back to the the idea of
intent mass production distribution, what does that mean? It doesn't
necessarily mean that if the four of us were CIA agents,
doesn't mean we were going out and flashing our CIA
credentials and saying, also, hello, fellow kids, here are here
(31:45):
are drugs. You know, inject one marijuana and have a
unit of fun. No, this kind of operation, were it
to occur, would almost certainly have occurred through proxies, right. Um.
The organizations typically want to keep their hands clean when
they're breaking the laws they are supposed to enforce. Yeah,
(32:07):
that is an interesting quandary though. If you are an
an intelligence agency and you want to do some experiments
with a large amount of some illegal substance, where do
you acquire that substance? And that question, I guess, like
you're saying, Ben, it just it depends on how far
you're willing to bend the rules and the laws right, right, exactly,
(32:29):
And that's why it's important for us to say we
have no, we don't have concrete proof of it. And
you'll you'll read a lot of things in the echo
chamber of the Internet that's say it's absolutely certain, but
it all goes back to primary sources, right. And another difficulty,
(32:50):
another complication in tracing these kind of stories is that
if something like this occurred, it almost certainly would not
have been you know, recorded in a clear paper trail.
It would have been like US American Freedom Airlines to
transport fifteen tons of avocados or something, you know. And additionally,
(33:19):
we know that Orange Sunshine has been claimed, like Noel
already mentioned, claimed to be a cocktail of sorts. Right,
you'll see people saying that it was actually mescaline. But
in both cases, at least as far as we can find,
it appears that later drug dealers just made something made
(33:40):
whatever they wanted, called it orange sunshine because they could
sell it more easily, right, and for a higher price.
So you know, we're not we're not big fans of
passing personal judgment on people. If you what you do
with your time as your own. But if someone tells
you they're selling you or sunshine, you know, just just think,
(34:04):
keep your wits about you. That it sounds so pleasant,
It really doesn't it, It really really does. Hey, do
you remember that question or that that statement we made
early on that we were going to need your help
with something. Yes, well it's time and now answer the question.
So we promised not to identify you. We're not going
(34:26):
to incriminate you. No. No, If you do choose to
respond to the following, do you believe there are different
types of LSD with different effects as we were discussing,
or is it simply a matter of purity, like how
intense of a dose or how much of a dose.
Do you think that some sort of LSD could actually
(34:46):
purposefully drive someone mad or you know, cause them to
act in a way that would be violent or would
that require some third party, some second substance when it
was to be used with l or maybe another just
another variable like a preexisting mental condition. Let us know,
(35:06):
send us an email a conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com. Right, yeah, and while you're banging apples emails,
let's take a quick sponsor break and now we come
to one of the things that fascinated me the most.
And I don't know if I don't know if this
(35:29):
is a well known thing. Our next question is who
was Paul Crockett. I have to admit I did not
know much about Paul Crockett. I have seen his name
in passing before when researching this, but I didn't I
didn't know much until you sent an article out. But
so remember that odd new a g quote from the
(35:52):
beginning of part one of this episode. It comes from
this man named Paul Crockett. And wait, wait, I think
we need to revisit a great idea. Man, Everything that
we do is from some agreement that we have set up.
Everything that we have in this physical universe is something
we have laid out and agreed to. Most people never
set time limits to their agreements, so they are forces
(36:15):
that continue with no end. That quote comes from a
man named Paul Crockett. He is one of the great
unsung heroes of the Helter Skelter tragedy. You've definitely heard
of Manson and could probably name several of his followers.
But this is a very strange wrinkle to the story,
one that you won't find in the majority of reports
(36:35):
regarding the family. Paul Crockett, you see, was one of
the closest things Manson had to a neighbor out there
on the ranch, and he was working as a gold prospector.
But he was a lot of things. He was a
artist of sorts, philosopher, a philosopher, uh, a World War
(36:59):
Two veteran, and very similar to Manson. He was a
mystic student of the all arts, esoteric and occult. He
was the child of a preacher and a school teacher,
and to him, the search for gold and Death Valley
was an alchemical process. He was ruminating on the nature
(37:24):
of reality on the great work Capital G Capital W
and he saw reality as a web of agreements, both
acknowledged and unconscious. During eight months over the spring and
summer of nineteen sixty nine, Paul Crockett developed a rapport
with members of the Manson family who were dissatisfied or
(37:45):
felt they were on the fringes Um two. In particular,
Brooks Posted and Paul Watkins met him as they were
when they were sent out as a scouting party in
the of the land. Right hey, if they found all,
Paul Crockett just probably digging away or working on some dirt,
(38:05):
trying to get that gold. What a young gie and
Joseph Campbell archetype, right, the old wise man right, uh.
And he was about fifty at the time. He was
no stranger to programming techniques. He was familiar with scientology.
And he immediately saw that Poston and Watkins have been
stripped of their egos. They were unable to think independently.
They were bound in a very real way to the
(38:26):
will of Manson. They had been subsumed. And then he
he says that he discovered Manson had programmed all his
people to the extent that they're just like him. He's
put all kinds of things in their head. I didn't
believe it could be done, but he has done it,
and I've seen it working. So he said about de
programming these family members that would visit him. First, First
(38:47):
things first, this is so weird. It was apparent to
them that they thought Manson had supernatural powers. He told
them that he believed them because he liked man and
possessed extraordinary powers. But of course, and he said he
could and would use these to set up a psychic
barrier around his camp to prevent Manson from visiting without
(39:13):
agreement or permission. That is really cool. Can we go
into some of his purported superpowers that he talked about?
Please do? Um. So, one of the reasons that Paul
Crockett became what he became, it was because he had
some experiences that the church and the you know, the
teachings in school couldn't They couldn't explain fully to him. So, uh,
(39:36):
this one time when he was fifteen years old, he
said he was hurled from a speeding car and as
he was following I'm gonna read this quote, all sounds
ceased and time seemed to slow down. I reached my
hand out, but quickly withdrew it when I felt the
pain as it neared the ground. I held my arms
and close to my body, which seemed to be enclosed
in what I later came to call a force field.
(39:59):
When I find we landed in the gravel along the
side of the road, I wasn't even scratched. I just
stood up to brush myself off, but discovered I wasn't
even dusty. So he can make use of force fields.
That's one I mean, I think that's a superpower. Right.
Ben mentioned that our protagonist here was involved in World
War two and he was flying in an aircraft. He
(40:22):
was a navigator in a B twenty four, and apparently
his aircraft came under heavy artillery fire and some of
that shrapnel went through the aircraft. Essentially, he says, at
least according to him, where it should have impacted him,
but somehow it did not. And again it was one
of those things where time time slowed down, all the
(40:44):
sound went away, and he was okay. So he maybe
he truly believes that he has some kind of superpower
or connected to something larger than himself. Certainly, yeah, it is.
It is sincere rather than cynical. I would agree with that.
So he put these family members into a regiment of
(41:04):
taxing physical work. Do this, and do this with me, right,
And he started by saying, follow me on these physical actions,
because that's one thing they could still do, is follow people.
And then he re taught them how to think outside.
So the Manson family metaphysical rap is very much about um,
(41:26):
we're all one, we're all God. It doesn't matter if
you kill someone, because you're killing yourself, you're killing God. Uh,
And there is no moment other than now. So he
re taught them to think outside of this cognitive box
by using goal setting methods. Right, not what is it now?
(41:47):
I am you? You are me? But hey, what do
you want to do tomorrow? We should, you know, we
should have a measured set goal. And he he still
couldn't say exactly what Antson had done to the followers,
but he thought it was very real, and eventually in
an interview you can read how he tries to articulate it,
(42:08):
goes sort of through word salad and then just shrugs
and says, I can't explain it. It's all part of
the occult. Wow, that's really crazy. So I mean, did
Manson himself purport to be to have some sort of
Alistair Crowley esque communion with you know, the dark arts
or was it more psychological for him? And I it's
(42:31):
interesting to hear from this person's perspective saying this is
definitely what it was. But I don't really recall seeing
any quotes from Manson saying he said do something witchy,
make it witchy. But that was almost like as a manipulation, right, Yeah,
he never It's a great point because he never went
out and said, you know, like I am the dog Messiah,
(42:53):
you know, slouching toward Bethlehem. But he was just going
to be one of the five, the five major beings
that existed him in the Beatles. Yeah, um, yeah, it's
it's weird because he never said that he did. The
powers or the realizations that he ascribed to himself were
(43:14):
much more messi onic in nature, because he gets kind
of lumped in with you know, Satanic Satanism and the
occult and you know that kind of stuff. And if
there's any kind of odd romanticization of him, it's usually
from uh, you know, stuff like Marilyn Manson or the
idea that he was some kind of Satanic superman that
(43:35):
could you know, control people with mind powers or you know, spells.
But that's really not what he was doing, or even
what he claimed to be doing. Yeah, it does appear
that he did have a grasp on people, but you're right,
it was not some kind of like accult thing. You know,
they weren't drawing penagrams and and uh, burning things in
(43:56):
a ritualistic fashion. He strikes me as a very cynical figure.
I think so too. Ideology seems very fluid for him, whatever, sir,
whatever it takes. Yeah, even see the interviews with him
in prison, and again he's and is there any kind
of like information out there? Has he been psychoanalyzed when
he was when he was incarcerated, Like is there a
(44:17):
diagnosis for his condition that we can point to? There are,
There are numerous diagnoses, and I found some stuff when
he was a kid where they said he's got slightly
above average intelligence, which also differentiates him from a serial killer.
R right. I don't know, You're totally on point about that.
From the top of the show. I'm just wondering, like,
(44:38):
did he because in prison you see him giving these interviews,
he seems like he's on drugs or something, but you know,
he probably isn't. Yeah, I would. I would love to see,
you know, an official prison psychologists diagnosis. At the same time,
drugs are readily available in prison, so there's really no
reason to believe that he might not have been on
drugs during some of those interviews. But I don't know.
(44:58):
It's just interesting because he just seems to me to
have been a person that wanted what he wanted for himself,
and he wanted to twist people's um minds and and
make them do dance like his little puppets. He really,
that's that's the weird thing. MK Ultra tried to make
(45:18):
Manchurian candidates. Manson succeeded. Wow, and well, I mean he
didn't have the trigger word. I guess that's why they
were learning everything from him while he was incarcerated that
next time. That's a very disturbing theory. Yeah, I would
love to see diagnosis, you know, because there had to
be something. Everyone who encountered the guy talked about this
(45:42):
palpable aura that he had about him, even the prosecutor
whal Helter Skelter. So Crockett and Manson did meet and interact.
They were neighbors, and Crockett would Crockett would coach the
people under his protection about how to how to deal
(46:03):
with Manson. And this is why the agreement quotation from
earlier is very important, because he would caution them not
to agree to anything. Don't accept anything, sort of like
the old folklore rules about what happens if you wake
up in uh fairyland, right, don't accept eat, don't accept
(46:24):
food or drink, wake any deals or agreements. It's like
that San Pan's labyrinth where when she eats the grape
and things happen. Is that the hand died monster. Yeah,
the Paleman, that's what they call him, which is great.
I still want to know that guy's backstory. You know,
it was pretty obvious. There was a stack of kids
shoes and there's all these like pictograms all over the
(46:46):
place where he's like clearly an eater of children. But
to what end though, to what end? What the dickens
pale man? Yeah, the family followers would watch and Manson
in there's there's this parable like quality to it because
Manson would send, uh, let's say, a female member of
(47:10):
the family that to to bring back one of the
people following Crockett into the fold if they knew they
had a previously existing sexual or romantic relationship, and he
and Crockett Manson Crockett would engage in these hour long, abstract,
esoteric debates as sort of a wizard's duel in his
(47:34):
mental chess game, and it would be about the nature power, agreement,
consciousness and ego and I want to I want to read, um,
I want to read just one part here from my
life with Charles Manson. Often Charlie would engage Crockett in
verbal exchanges which sometimes lasted for hours, but Crockett played
(47:55):
it perfect. He did not fight with Charlie nor openly
disagree in a way that might provoke a ger. He
merely expressed opinions, which left Charlie utterly flabbergasted. Crockett later
confessed that he and Charlie shared many of the same
opinions about the world, but that Charlie had a hole
in his humanity. And then you'll see these different exchanges
(48:17):
where Charles Manson goes, well, look, i'm you, you're me,
and you know it's all one baby dig it, and
Crockett would just sit there and wait a second and
then say, well, I admit that we are similar in
that we I say, I agree that we are similar
in that we are entities experiencing similar stimulus stimuli, but
(48:39):
we have experienced different stimuli, which means I am not
you and you are not me. And he would just
say so. He kept his calm, and apparently this not
only irritated the ever loving Christ out of Charles Manson,
but it also convinced Manson that Crockett had powers. So
Manson began to believe that Crockett had some sort of
(49:01):
wisdom that he could teach Charles Manson, Mason certainly had
some paranoia paranoid qualities to him, for sure, and we
may never know the full details of these interactions, but
one thing is for sure. Paul Crockett was like a
Jedi fighting of the Sith, using the same techniques, the
(49:21):
same source techniques that Manson used, and he managed to
save several people from the Manson family and perhaps to
prevent the spread of further horrific crimes. But you know,
going to that point about Manson's paranoia which was skyrocketing
at this stage in the game or the stage and
the story, we also have to wonder what stopped Charles
(49:45):
Manson from just killing Paul Crockett where they kill everyone else,
and it also or what stopped him from making his
followers do it. And then I still feel like there's
something to the connection there. It just seems like a
strange and massive coincidence for of all people in this
(50:06):
very isolated part of the world, for this one guy
to be there at exactly that time. It's a father figure, man,
I think that's what it is. It's a father figure thing.
I think so, just from what we know about the
background of Charles Manson and having someone intelligent that seems
like he might be able to teach you something, even
though you feel like you know you're the most brilliant
(50:28):
mind in your general surroundings. I bet that's what it was.
That's insane, and so we'd love more information about Paul
Crockett if you happen to know it. He has passed away.
He did for a time have a sort of New
Age philosophical website, uh which you could find more information
about him and his beliefs. But for now, this concludes
(50:53):
our story. Charles Manson and I don't know what you
guys think, but it seems strange to end with conclusions.
I feel like maybe we could end with questions. Okay, yeah,
why don't we um? Why don't we just ask them?
Do you think there's any sand to the arguments about
the occult and hypnotic practices that we've been discussing in
(51:16):
these two episodes? The do you think there is a
way to breach the veil somehow and cause someone to
either believe or do something that they wouldn't have done
without your interaction? I don't know, what do you think?
Ben and I were hanging out the other night and
we were talking about Darren Brown and uh, these skills
(51:38):
possessed by um, these folks that call themselves mentalists, where
they can implant suggestion into people's minds and kind of
cause them to act in a certain way. And with
Darren Brown, it's usually in the service of a lovely
magic trick, you know, kind of thing. But yeah, cameras
and cameras well. Okay, just but to the time point being,
(52:02):
these skills exist, and I think Charles Manson was probably
practicing some of those more than any kind of real
uh accult manipulation. He was just one of the most
effective users of those techniques ever. He had good charisma.
Come to the dog side. What do y'all think? Let
(52:24):
us know about that one. And we asked this earlier,
but we'll just hit it again. Do you think it's
possible that something other than ordinary LSD was at play? Um?
And you know, to piggyback on the previous question, we asked,
do you think there are different types of LSD that
have different effects and some of them could be more
nefarious than others? And finally, do you think there are
dangerous cults like this that are still active in the
(52:48):
US today? Let us know let us know. I'm going
with almost certainly on that third question, and uh oh,
I hope we can learn about them before some sort
of disaster card. You can reach out to us on
Facebook and Twitter, where we are Conspiracy Stuff. Instagram we
are Conspiracy Stuff Show. And if you don't want to
do any of that stuff, you can also doute the
(53:08):
old fashioned way. How do we do that? Guys? Write
us an email. We are conspiracy at how stuff works
dot com
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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