Charles Manson: Unraveling the Cult Leader's Psychopathic Charm

In this episode, we delve into the mind of one of history's most enigmatic figures, Charles Manson.  Guided by the expertise of my guest, Aaliyah Booker, a criminal justice graduate of Penn State Beaver, we navigate Manson's formative years and dissect the psychological entanglements  that led him to the Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969. 

We discuss the chilling details of that fateful night at Cielo Drive, Manson's foiled musical ambitions, and how a thirst for recognition may have kindled the flames of violence. The conversation takes us through the murky waters of Manson's objectives, pondering the role of chance versus intent in the selection of his victims, and how his followers' blind loyalty culminated in a legacy of bloodshed and horror. 

Finally, we explore the mechanisms of control and influence that define cult leaders like Manson. With Aaliyah's perspective guiding the discussion, we examine the connection between a leader's quest for structure and the design of prison life, alongside the tale of Manson's need for belonging, as evidenced by his correspondence with the Moundsville State Penitentiary. Join us for this exploration of a man whose legacy continues to stir both fascination and revulsion.

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A psych professor's podcast about danger, deception, and desire. From the ugly truth about rage rooms and our unhealthy obsession with serial killers, to the ancestral wisdom of goosebumps and the science behind why we keep playing the lottery, join Dr. Kevin Bennett—Penn State University Beaver Campus Teaching Professor, Psychology Today contributor, and fellow at the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health (UD/MH)—as we unmask the power of danger, deception, and desire through sensational stories and savvy behavioral science.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why Are We Still Talking About Charles Manson?
• 12:29 The Manson Family
• 21:46 Psychological Factors and the Making of a Cult
• 26:38 Drugs
• 31:28 Will There Be Another Manson?

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode contains adult language and explicit discussion of murder and assault that some listeners may find traumatic. We advise extreme caution for children under 14.

Speaker 2: 0:17

You are listening to Kevin Bennett is Snarling.

Speaker 1: 0:21

Go ahead and have a seat right there and make yourself comfortable.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Do whatever you want.

Speaker 1: 0:25

Everyone's had a different approach. I'm Kevin Bennett, psychology professor at Penn State University, beaver Campus, and this is a show about danger, deception and desire. My guest today is Aaliyah Booker. Aaliyah is a senior criminal justice major at Penn State, beaver, and she has two minors One is in psychological science and the other is in civic engagement. Aaliyah is the 2023-2024 Walker Award winner. The award recognizes Penn State students whose outstanding qualities of character, scholarship, leadership and citizenship contribute to the prestige and well-being of their campus, and in fact, it is the third year in a row that Aaliyah has won this amazing award. Every other semester, I teach a course on the psychology of serial killers at Penn State, and she was one of my excellent students in this class this semester. Recently, aaliyah sat down with me to talk about Charles Manson, the infamous cult leader.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Charles Manson, a man whose name has become synonymous with manipulation and terror, was born in 1934. His early life was marked by neglect and abuse, setting the stage for a troubled adulthood. Manson spent much of his youth in and out of reform schools and prisons, where he honed his skills in manipulation and control. By the late 1960s, he had gathered a devoted group of followers, known as the Manson family who believed in his apocalyptic visions and charismatic leadership. Manson's ability to exploit the vulnerabilities of his followers, combined with his persuasive personality, led to a series of horrific murders in 1969, including the infamous Tate-LaBianca killings.

Speaker 1: 2:23

The Tate-LaBianca murders, orchestrated by Charles Manson and carried out by his followers in August 1969, were among the most shocking and brutal crimes of the 20th century. Over two nights, manson's followers murdered seven people in Los Angeles, starting with actress Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant, and four others at her home Jay Sebring, abigail Folger, the heiress to the Folger coffee fortune, Wojciech Frykowski and Stephen Parent. The following night, the group killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home. The murders were part of Manson's delusional plan to incite a race war, which he termed Helter Skelter, and were marked by their gruesome nature, with victims stabbed multiple times and messages written in blood at the crime scenes. These killings shocked the nation and cemented Manson's infamy as one of history's most notorious cult leaders.

Speaker 3: 3:35

Kevin Bennett is snarling.

Speaker 2: 3:40

Begins now.

Speaker 1: 3:42

Who was Charles Manson? Why the heck are we talking about this guy all these years later?

Speaker 3: 3:46

Charles Manson was a guy who became a serial killer. I don't think that's what he chose to do. I think that all of what occurred within his family and his upbringing led him to that, and everything just kind of still shocks people to this day about how large his following was, how he was so charismatic and able to manipulate these people in a way to follow him and get all of these people who were so vulnerable to just kind of flock towards him and carry out this plan that he wanted to be done. So it's just interesting to me how he was a man with a plan and he executed it, sad to say, but very well.

Speaker 1: 4:24

And you used the term serial killer, but, as you know, I mean he didn't even kill anybody, right? I mean his, and he's the one person in this class I think he's the only one that didn't actually kill anybody. But he was one of the main case studies in this course. Was he a mass murderer? Was he a serial killer? Well, he was none of the above really. He was a persuader, he was a con man and he influenced people, he manipulated people and that's why we're still talking about it today, because the case was so unusual from the standpoint that you've got this cult leader. He's got dozens or even hundreds of followers, but at his core it was just really a handful of people and they were the ones that went out and did the dirty work for the most part, but he was held accountable for organizing all of these things.

Speaker 1: 5:15

So there's so many things to talk about with Charles Manson and how he fits into society at large. And is he a product of his environment or is there something going on with his brain, different brain structures that made him the way he was? And certainly the connections to not just him but all of these followers and all these cultural connections. I mean it. Just it seems to reverberate and you know there've been many movies made about him and certainly documentaries and podcasts, and people seem to be endlessly fascinated with Charles Manson. And I'm still trying to figure out why. Because if you met him in person he would not be an intimidating physical specimen in front of you. I mean, he was frail, petite, tiny. I mean he couldn't win a physical fight, but he knew that and that wasn't his MO, if he had one. So talk a little bit about how he ended up being this charismatic evil cult leader. Where'd that all come from?

Speaker 3: 6:20

There were people who were vulnerable, who were looking for someone, who were looking for a sense of community, family, and what he did was he provided that, in a way of you can come live on these ranches with me, we'll be one big, happy family. And he targeted a lot of these women who were just looking for a companion. And that's how he was getting with them, because they were having sexual intercourse and he was getting wrapped up in that and they were having these relations. So they all felt, in a way, that this was their person, this was their leader, this was their family and they didn't know how to break away from that. And then it didn't help either that he would make them feel this sense of pride about themselves, because I remember Susan Atkins saying that he had a way of telling her who she was without even using words.

Speaker 3: 7:06

So these women flocked to him because they loved the way that he would make them feel, and at that point they would even take up for him, even though he was the man with the plan and they were the ones that executed it. Like Susan Atkins said, he had nothing to do with it, it was all me. And even when he was getting into trouble. It was like those women were saying, you know, let them go, we're in a relationship. So it just seemed like through the sexual relationships they had his charismatic personality. That's how he would just kind of get them to join his family.

Speaker 1: 7:35

So he had a certain style of you know, I guess, leadership style or cult leader style, and that was to go. I mean to go out and find mostly women, young women who were vulnerable, like you said, in need of belonging, looking for that sense of belonging. And he didn't just randomly pick people, I mean, he seemed to have an eye for who was most vulnerable and who would be most susceptible to his manipulations. And I think he knew in San Francisco and in Southern California that there were so many young people that were disenfranchised, that maybe ran away from home, got into arguments with their parents and said like I'm never talking to you again. And so he knew that they were already vulnerable and they were looking for a place to land, because a lot of these kids were trying to find their own way and try to find their own identity, as so many young people are.

Speaker 1: 8:37

And there's also this built-in sense that, well, whatever communities already exist, they're just not for me, like I'm not fitting in and I can't seem to find the bond I'm looking for. And along comes Charlie and he offers all these things. He says everyone else outside of our group you can't trust, everything's bad, everything's going to hell, and I'm here to help and I have all the answers and all you have to do is trust me and trust us and we'll give you a home and that that for most of us that's not appealing at all, because we know he's a cult leader, but for a small percentage of people that's exactly what they're looking for because it's better than what they're they currently have yeah, and that's what, and that's what he.

Speaker 1: 9:19

He had the numbers on his side because he knew he, out of the millions of people in the United States at the time, he only needed, you know, a couple dozen people to complete his, his, his plan, as you, as you said. So when did he hatch this plan? I mean he didn't have it his whole life right. I mean this he was trying to do other things before he was really a cult leader. I mean, he was in jail quite a bit.

Speaker 3: 9:44

He did so he started off with. I'm just going to go through his whole kind of history of everything. But he started off young. He was just trying. His whole thing was trying to make a way for himself and a lot of that included burglarizing houses. And then, when that didn't work out, he resulted to stealing cars and he would drive them across state lines which led him into a different couple of federal institutions, which is where he kind of stayed for a little bit. And then after that he kind of got out and he had a wife and he had a baby with her and he started back to stealing cars.

Speaker 3: 10:25

But in that meantime he did various service works that he tried to get into, realized it really wasn't working for him and resulted back into the life of stealing cars once again. And then, once he did that, he and him and his wife got a divorce. He went on to becoming a pimp and he would pimp out all these women. He would con people, scheme them out of their money and he just kind of lived this whole life of crime until about around 1960s he decided he would incite a race war that he would term as helter skelter and he needed these people to kind of incite this race war and what he wanted to do was plant the wallet of one of the LaBianca from the LaBianca family and place it in the African-American community. So it would seem like the someone from the African-American community was the one that was doing the killings, and not Charles Manson or his disciples. So that was kind of his whole plan and how it formulated.

Speaker 1: 11:26

Yeah, I mean exactly and it I mean that's a plan. That's a plan that could have worked. Honestly, I think you know you plant some wallet in a community where people are already suspecting, so I mean it could have worked. Now, the name Helter Skelter where did that come from? Do you know?

Speaker 3: 11:48

I do.

Speaker 1: 11:48

This is the Beatles. Yes, the Beatles connection.

Speaker 3: 11:51

Yes.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Yeah, so there was a Beatles song named Helter Skelter and he was a huge Beatles fan. Trump Manson was, so he idolized everything the Beatles had to say and he really felt like the Beatles were talking to him directly and saying here's the plan. It's helter skelter. The funny thing is helter skelter is just the British term for a children's slide that goes around.

Speaker 1: 12:16

You go up to the top and you go down and you spin around. And those are some of the lyrics from the actual song you go up and you come down. It's just a goofy song. It's not at all about a race war, but that's how Manson interpreted it. But also, Manson was an aspiring songwriter himself. He was a musician. I think that's what he really wanted to do. He was in and out of prison his whole life, starting at a really young age juvenile detention centers and then prisons. And he got out in the 1960s, like you said, he went to California and he wanted to establish himself as a guitar player and a songwriter and he wrote some songs and they were. One of them was actually recorded by the Beach Boys, but he never got the recording contract that he felt that he deserved.

Speaker 3: 13:02

And that's where the Sharon Tate murders kind of came from.

Speaker 3: 13:05

Because I read somewhere where it stated that he was really looking for Terry Melcher who wanted to listen to his music, was going to sign him to a record contract, then decided, yep, no, this isn't for me, we're not going to do it anymore.

Speaker 3: 13:20

So then when he told Tex Watson or yes, Tex Watson and all of them, hey, go to 10050 Celio Drive and go kill them as gruesomely as you can, I think it was really intended for Terry Melcher, but Sharon T and all of her friends happened to be in the house at the time and it was unbeknown to him that there was a change of plans. And it was unbeknownst to him that there was a change of plans. But it's a little weird, though, because I also read somewhere too where Susan Atkins had said that was always the plan was to kill Sharon Tate because they wanted to make this statement, they wanted to have this, they want to shock the world with what they were doing. So I'm a little bit confused on that aspect of if Charles Manson was going after Terry Melcher or was he going after Sharon Tate to prove a point within the Hollywood world.

Speaker 1: 14:11

Yeah, it's unclear what he really knew and what, how much the plan actually matched up with what happened in real life. Because we know that Terry Melcher lived there at one point and then he moved on. But I'm not sure Manson knew that. I think he assumed that Terry Melcher still lived there, but he's not there. Yeah, and other people say, no, everyone knew Sharon Tate was there and that would be a good victim for the purpose of broadcasting his plan. And it's still unclear and you know, even to this day. But we do know that it was a horrific crime scene, just terrible. And Manson was not there, it was some of his followers that went out there and carried out that crime. And then the next day they visited another location in Los Angeles, the LaBianca house. And do you know how that house was picked? I mean, how'd they select that place out of all the homes in Los Angeles?

Speaker 3: 15:13

So from what I know is I know Lino LaBianca was a grocery store owner out in LA. I'm under the assumption it's because he knew that he was a familiar name and he wanted to attract the attention that way. But I'm not entirely sure.

Speaker 1: 15:27

I'm not even sure it's that. I mean, I think that there's, and it's unclear with this one as well, but years ago he was out at the house next door to the LaBiancas doing some type of burglary theft and he thought that would be a good spot to go back to. And I think when they went back they realized there were children there and they decided not to go into that house. So they just decided to go into the neighbor's house, which happened to be a La Bianca's. It could be as simple as that. I'm not sure, but I don't think in either of these cases that the people who lived in the house were targeted because of who they were. It's almost like just what they represented, which was wealth and power and the status quo, all these things that the Manson family was looking to break down.

Speaker 3: 16:11

And between the two cases I did notice that, even though Charles Manson wasn't the killer, it was almost like they kind of had the same MO in a way, because all the four victims within the Tate house were bounded together and killed and then the LaBianca husband and wife were bound together and killed, other and killed. So I don't know if that was just a coincidence or if it was a, if it was just something that just happened to turn out that way, or was that really what they wanted to do? Hey, let's go in, let's time up and then let's kill him.

Speaker 1: 16:45

I don't know if that had any correlation between the two cases and it's it's super complicated because you got so many people involved. It's not like one serial killer and you know that's the only person who's the key player here. You have Charles Manson at the helm. He's telling people what to do and he did not go out to the Sharon Tate house. But apparently he did go out to the LaBianca house and I guess he entered, but he didn't kill anyone there. He was just at the crime scene. He didn't kill anyone there. He was just at the crime scene and Leslie Van Houten, who was one of his followers she was not at the Sharon Tate house but they wanted her to be involved. Somehow he wanted all these followers to be involved directly, like with the you LaBianca in the back like 16 times. But she may have already been dead at that point and so it's unclear for Leslie Van Houten.

Speaker 3: 17:42

You know if she actually committed murder or if she just helped to desecrate a body after it was already dead.

Speaker 1: 17:48

But she wanted to participate some way because these Manson family members were starting to feel left out, the ones who were not part of these killings, and so she participated and she spent the rest of her life in jail. In fact, she was just let out. Within this past year Her parole came up again and this time they let her out. So she's living somewhere in California. I believe she's like 70 something years old in California. I believe she's, like you know, 70 something years old.

Speaker 1: 18:20

But pretty much everyone involved in this case, you know, they served some kind of jail time and, of course, charles Manson went to prison for the rest of his life until he died.

Speaker 1: 18:27

I can't remember what year he died, I don't know if you know that off the top of your head, but he died in prison a few years ago, you know. But he died in prison a few years ago. You know, in the aftermath of it, los Angeles, in fact all of California, was terrified because you have what looked like random killings and really gory, brutal killings, and so, you know, people were out buying locks and alarms in record numbers around Los Angeles, and those two murders were back-to-back in August of whatever year that was 1969. So everyone was on high alert and nobody knew who was doing it. Was it one person or a couple? Was it a cult? I don't think people thought at the beginning, oh, this is a cult, because that's such a strange thing, until everything ultimately came out. And then you had the infamous trials with Charles Manson I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that Like what happened there with the girls who would come to the courtroom every day.

Speaker 3: 19:30

For me it just kind of showed that Charles Manson had no remorse for what he did whatsoever. And it almost just kind of showed that Charles Manson had no remorse for what he did whatsoever and it almost just kind of showed how sick his following was. Because here he is on trial and these females would show up support him wearing these outfits. And at one point Charles Manson shaved his head. There was a big fat X on it, then later kind of turned into a swastika and then these girls showed up with the X on it. So it was like even all of what he was going through, his followers still remain supportive and it kind of attract this attention of all these different females who still wanted his attention in a way to come out and support him.

Speaker 1: 20:10

You know, anytime a cult leader is trying to manage a group of people, there's a sense of control, or you know loss of control, or you know loss of control and he had control at one point. He could basically tell them what to do, and they would always listen. And then, as time went on, he was starting to lose control a little bit. They were starting to doubt the you know, his authority and his um, his, his skills, his abilities and so, and he would tell people you know, the outside, anywhere, anywhere outside of this community, is just evil. These people are terrible. And they would go down, they would take these trips into town from the spawn ranch where they lived, and they would see that there are people like families, having ice cream and picnics and playing Frisbee. And so he started to lose a little bit of control there, because his followers saw this and they're like this doesn't look too bad, the sun's out and people are laughing and eating ice cream how bad is the world? And so he realized he had to step it up a notch. And so that's when he really suggested okay, we've got to go out. And do you know, death to pigs and helter skelter. And that's when the Sharon Tate murders took place and that's so typical for cult leaders because they need to isolate their community, either physically or online or everything. They don't want cult members talking to outside family members. You know, if they have a you know a brother on the outside or a dad, you're not allowed to talk with them because of course their family's going to say you're in a cult, this is nuts, we need to get you out. So he tried to cut off all communication.

Speaker 1: 21:46

But every once in a while somebody would get out and they'd reconnect with their family and he would go to great lengths to try to get them to come back. And it was usually fear, it was terror, and so he would go to great lengths to try to get them to come back. And it was usually fear, it was terror. And so he would employ some of the male followers to go out and bring the girls back who were trying to leave.

Speaker 1: 22:05

And he basically said to these guys just threaten them right, threaten their lives or say I'm going to kill your family if you don't come back with us. And that's when you really know you're in a cult, if you know how to leave. And people threaten your family if you don't if you don't come back with us. And that's when you really know you're in a cult, if you know how to leave and people threaten your family. But that was just a basic strategy that he used all the time, but he relied on other people to do that. You know, he was never the one to say I'm gonna kill you. Uh, he was always, you know, tried to be like positive and all spiritual and everything. But he had like text and these other guys go and do the, do the dirty work.

Speaker 2: 22:44

He has a laser pointer in one hand and a double shot of espresso in the other. This can only mean one thing you are listening to Kevin Bennett is.

Speaker 1: 22:55

Snarling. He seems like somebody who was more comfortable in prison, honestly, than on the outside and by all accounts he's been a model prisoner even before the cult and he was in and out of prison. He was very well behaved and I think on some level he liked the structure of prison and as much as he liked to talk about freedom and the ability to do everything that he wants to do. I think he felt comfortable in that system.

Speaker 3: 23:26

Well, which is why, when I kind of saw that as well, I thought about his cult in a little bit, just because, like how you said, when all of these people would go out, once he lost control, I felt like he no longer had structure, and that's all I felt like he wanted in his life was some form of structure, something that he could go back to every day and it would be the same throughout, because when he was growing up it wasn't the same for him, which is why I think he enjoyed being incarcerated, because he knew that he would wake up at a certain time every day and his life would be the exact same no matter what, versus the uncertainty of is my mom going to be home today, is my mom going to be out drinking again, you know, or am I going to be in this home or am I going to run away?

Speaker 3: 24:10

And stableness. That I think that's why he enjoys being in prison, because it's finally a sense of stable, stability and being able to have structure and control and just a life that doesn't just seem like it's going to change when the wind blows.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Right, Right, I agree. And there's a.

Speaker 1: 24:30

I don't know if you've ever been to Moundsville state penitentiary which is just down the road from here, a couple hours in west virginia. It's an old penitentiary that's now closed but we used to go out there with the psychology club and go on these overnight trips to the prison and it's it's scary and everything, but they give you a history lesson and they and they, they walk you around and show you all the prison cells and talk about various inmates that have been killed there. And then you can go into the museum they have and there's a letter on the wall behind a like a glass case, and it's a letter that Charles Manson wrote to the warden of the prison because his mom was at Moundsville state penitentiary for many years and so his mom was in and out of prison. He was in and out of prison and at one point he wanted to be in the same prison with his mom, was in and out of prison.

Speaker 1: 25:16

He was in a prison and at one point he wanted to be in the same prison with his mom. So he wrote a letter asking the warden you know, can I be transferred from my prison over to be with my mom in moundsville? And of course that was just rejected. But they kept the letter and it has his actual handwriting. He wrote like like a little kid. It's like little kid writing, but it's, it's. It's something to see an actual piece of paper that he, you know he wrote it.

Speaker 3: 25:38

He wrote a letter which is on that paper, which kind of brings me back to the the part we talked about earlier where you said is it his upbringing or is it something in his brain?

Speaker 3: 25:47

And I do really feel like it was his upbringing because he just wanted a family, which is why I feel like he started his own family and he knew that and which is why I felt like it kind of became a cult, because he didn't want those people to leave, like his his mom left, or he didn't want those people to leave Like he never knew his dad. He wanted to have those people stay so they would always be in his life and he'd always have them around him, which is why I really do feel like if he would have had a more stable upbringing and it wasn't filled with neglect and trauma of not having a mother for basically your whole time of in those crucial years of growing up and having that sense of nourishment and development, then he might not have developed into the guy he was. He just wanted the affection and the attachment and for someone to love him just as equally as he wanted to love back.

Speaker 1: 26:36

Well, I'm glad you addressed that because I wanted to ask you that. I mean what? You know what? What turned him into the person that he became? Was it something he was born with? Was it his terrible childhood Cause he, yeah, it was not a good childhood. He basically had no mom, he had no dad. I think there was a sense of abandonment that he had. And he was, at the same time, he was fairly smart as a kid and he was socially skilled. I mean, he's a great talker, he's a gifted speaker, like a bullshit artist basically, but he's capable. You know, some people are just really quiet and they don't ever say anything, but he would talk all the time. He's quite confident in his speaking ability. That was his strength. It wasn't physical strength, it was his gift to manipulate people, to read people.

Speaker 1: 27:21

He was able to read people's minds and their emotions and figure out what they wanted, and then he figured out a way to deliver that, or at least convince them that he was delivering. That, I should say so. Could there be another Charles Manson? What do you think?

Speaker 3: 27:39

I don't think so.

Speaker 3: 27:40

It's kind of hard to be who Charles Manson was, and the reason I say that is because he made a name for himself and he's still continuing to make a name for himself years later and it's still baffling to people about how all of this took place.

Speaker 3: 27:57

So, in order for there to be another and I and the reason I say that too is because the hallucinogenics and all of that were very big back then so it was much easier to persuade someone when they're under that that spell that you kind of need them to, to get them to do what you need to do. And I'm not saying they're as big now, but I really don't feel like there is as used now as they were back then. And then the talk about cults all the time. I think a lot of those people were very ignorant to the fact that they were in a cult and they just saw it as a community, as a sense of belonging. So now that I feel like cults are touched on a little bit more, hallucinogenics are touched on a little bit more, everything is just kind of being more aware and brought out into the open. It's harder to replicate replicate what he did because he's no longer appealing to ignorance.

Speaker 1: 28:50

Let's talk about the drugs for a second and then just cults in general. But he utilized hallucinogenic drugs to gain control over his people, his followers, and from what I've read, he didn't really use a lot of the drugs himself. He would take a real small dose of something but give, like the big doses to everyone else so that he was always in control and they were off in that hallucinogenic fantasy land, listening to him then talk, then he would just preach while they were high on acid or whatever drugs they were taking. So he really used that to his advantage and I I wouldn't describe him as a user who was always high and out of control. He was the opposite. He was sober for the most part, um, so he used that effectively, but that by itself wasn't why he was successful, you know, because anyone could try to give people drugs. It doesn't mean they're going to have a successful cult, so. But he used that as a tool. And then he used his sort of natural abilities to read people and feed them what they want. He was even. He even used really, really basic persuasion techniques that come right out of the Andrew Carnegie or sorry, the Dale Carnegie school of persuasion, and there was a book that was written way back in the 1930s called how to win friends and influence people, and it was designed for business people like salespeople to establish rapport and then get them to buy your product or service. Well, he read that and really liked those things, but he didn't use them for business. He applied them to buy your product or service. Well, he read that and really liked those things, but he didn't use them for business. He applied them to the cult. But some of those techniques are just everyday, ordinary things. There's nothing really magical about what he was doing. He would just try to get people to say yes early on in a conversation. You know that's like persuasion 101 or sales 101. And so let's talk about cults in general. No, I've said this before.

Speaker 1: 30:51

Nobody wakes up and says, well, I'm going to join a cult today, right, because why would anyone do that? Even people that are in cults, they don't say I'm in a cult. They say I found my community, like you said, the sense of belonging, and so an effective cult leader never uses the term cult. They don't recruit people and say, would you like to join my cult, because everyone would say no. They say I have the answers that you're looking for right and we will protect you and love you and take care of you, and so there's a feeling that I'm going, I'm entering into this group that's going to love me, and nobody else has loved me. So this is a great place to be.

Speaker 1: 31:28

An outside observer would look in and go. This is a cult. But people on the inside just go. These are my people, this is my community, and Manson was really skilled at doing that, walking that fine line between hey, this is a cult, do what I say, or versus. You know, I'm letting you be free. That's what I'm giving you is freedom, right, you're allowed to have your own thoughts here. That's what I'm all about. But it wasn't. It was all about him controlling them, but he told them you're free here.

Speaker 3: 31:57

I feel like you hit it right, right on the mark. He in a way had them thinking, yes, this is what I can do for you, but I felt like it was on the terms of what you're also going to do for me, and he kind of kept that wrapped around as long as you're helping me, as long as you're scratching my back, I can scratch yours. And they enjoyed that. So that's where I felt like that cult part kind of came from. And, like you mentioned, no one ever just says, yes, this is my cult, but that's what he called it his family.

Speaker 3: 32:30

And they lived together as a sense of community and their own little parts on the ranch, and so they had their own family, they had their own community, and that's what it looked like to them. It didn't look like anything more because they didn't see it as anything more. And I think they were blinded by everything that was going on in their outside world, that it was kind of blinding them from seeing what was truly happening. And I feel like that's what happens to most people they don't realize they're in one until they're already in one, because they're trying to push out all the other stuff and accept what's being brought to them.

Speaker 1: 33:03

Yeah, and family sounds a lot better than cult. So, yeah, using the word family, I mean, that's something, that's a word that we all like. So that's what he used the family. This is our family, the Manson family. And then, finally, I've been asking everyone about their case studies.

Speaker 3: 33:24

Why did you pick this one as opposed to all the others that you could have selected. So when you had your class, you had mentioned the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood movie and I went to watch that movie and something about the way it was done kind of intrigued me a little bit more about Charles Manson, because it was almost like the reverse of everything that happened. That kind of made me want to learn, okay, what really truly happened. Why did he do what he did?

Speaker 3: 33:48

Charles manson never laid a hand on anyone, he never participated in any of the killings but yet somehow is responsible for all the killings and orchestrated them in a way to where it was like his name wasn't attached to it until it was and until all of these people kind of came out and said, yes, this is, this is why I did what I did, and I didn't know what I was doing because Charles Manson had me doing this and I didn't know that it was a.

Speaker 3: 34:11

So it like everything that kind of just took place. It was everything about Charles Manson was a mystery, and I guess I just kind of wanted to solve it a little bit more, at least try and find out a little bit more of why he was who he was and why these people were so attached to him in order to do what? To do what they did, because I've always said I couldn't kill for someone else. But yet he had a hundred people willing to do what he like, willing to do these killings, and four main people that would bend at his will and need, especially Tex Watson, who was his right hand man and, if Charles said it, he was the first one to go do it and would orchestrate people to join him to do it. So I just felt like I didn't want to learn from him, but I wanted to learn more about him.

Speaker 1: 34:54

You know and let me follow up on that briefly, because, oh, you mentioned Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and that's funny that that was kind of your entrance into Charles Manson. Is that right? Like you didn't know much about him. Then you watch that movie and I love that movie because I've always liked Quentin Tarantino and I've always been interested in the Manson case. And then when that movie came out I thought it was so original because it's an alternate ending, right?

Speaker 3: 35:21

The ending is not what actually happened.

Speaker 1: 35:23

That worries me a little bit, that people watch that and they think, oh, that's what happened. But no, that's the fun part of the movie For someone like me that's been studying Charles Manson for years. Then you go, oh yes, it would have been so much better if it turned out this way. Right, but it's this nice blend of the story it's played out in history and then the ending is just what if? What if this happened instead? Um, but I'm just wondering. I have my own what ifs and that is uh, it's quite possible that manson and the family would have never been caught or connected with those murders. But somebody talked in prison. It was one of his female followers was yeah, susan atkins.

Speaker 1: 36:05

she was arrested on some other unrelated charge and then she was talking to somebody in prison saying, oh yeah, that was the Manson family that did the Tate murders. And had she not said that, I don't know if they ever would have connected those murders with this group of I don't even want to call them hippies that are living out in the Spahn Ranch. I don't know. Or it would have taken longer, certainly, to make the connection. They probably would have killed more people before they were caught.

Speaker 3: 36:30

I definitely think that more people would have ended up dying. But Susan Atkins was talking to her cellmate at the time and I think she wanted this credibility of, yes, I'm a killer, I'm a murderer, and if you get in my way you'll end up dead too. And I think that was kind of her putting her foot down, trying to make herself seem more than what she was and in turn got everyone else caught up in the process. But I don't even think that was her true goal. I think that she just wanted to live up to the standard that she wasn't, so that while she was incarcerated bad things didn't happen to her All right.

Speaker 1: 37:05

What else can we say about Charles Manson?

Speaker 3: 37:07

Charles Manson was a man who, till this day, even though he is dead, I don't think he knew the gravity of what he did, or if he knew why he was doing it. I don't even think he knew the true reason for it. I think that he just wanted attachment, he wanted a sense of purpose, he wanted to hurt people who had what he was missing, and I think that's more so of where it came from. But Charles Manson, in my eyes, isn't someone who was born a killer, wasn't someone who had this brain defect that made him into one. But I think it's more so of his trauma in his early life and those developmental years that made him into one. But I think it's more so of his trauma in his early life, in those developmental years that made him into the person he became so he was a product of his terrible environment.

Speaker 1: 37:54

I tend to agree with that. I mean, there are some serial killers where you look at them and you go well, there's clearly something going on with their brain and they had traumatic brain injuries when they were younger and uh. And then there's others where you go, wow, it's just one traumatic event after another in their early years and you go well, nobody could come out of that and be normal, and I think Manson fits into that category. Is there any one thing that could have prevented all this? Like, if something happened to Charles Manson different than what he actually experienced, would it have changed?

Speaker 1: 38:27

I think so the trajectory of this terrible history.

Speaker 3: 38:32

I think even if he just had his mother in his life, who was stable and who would have raised him, even if she was a single mother and his father wasn't present, I just think he needed some form of parental guidance and just someone to love him and make him feel as every human should feel, and you know how that there's like that Maslow hierarchy of needs. His needs weren't met and I feel like love is kind of one of those basic needs that you do need and his basic needs weren't met, which led him to become who he was. And I think that even if it wasn't his mom, but someone in his family, whether it be a grandma, grandfather, just someone that could have raised him and shown him that affection that he was craving, I think that it would have had a different impact.

Speaker 1: 39:18

You know, it's really interesting that you mentioned Maslow's hierarchy, because I think I don't know if Manson was aware of it, but even if he was not aware of it he seemed to make use of it, because at the base of the pyramid you have physical needs, right, basic biological needs and safety, food, water, those things. And as you move up the pyramid it turns more social. So you have things like love and sense of belonging that are up on the hierarchy and those are things that he talked about all the time. He talked about love because he said he preached love and the cult is all about belonging and creating a sense of belonging. And then, at the very top of the pyramid, you have self-actualization, which is your intellectual and emotional coming out and you're saying here's who I am, who I want to be, and so you have this kind of long-term vision of yourself and how you fit into your community and you're able to look back in the past and make use of that information to inform your future. So it's this grand theory.

Speaker 1: 40:19

I don't think he was very much into the whole self-actualization, but the love and the sense of belonging parts, and the physical and those safety needs and biological needs I think he was aware of those. So I guess the point I'm making is that he was aware of this pyramid and took full advantage of it, because he used some of those ideas to manipulate his followers. Aliyah, thanks for talking about Charles Manson. Have a great day.

Speaker 2: 41:01

Thank you. This podcast was recorded and edited by Kevin Bennett in the beautiful foothills of western Pennsylvania. You can find Kevin on Twitter at KevinBennettPhD. For email, Facebook and other contact info, head over to Kevin-Bennettcom. That's Kevin Bennett, with a dash in between.

Speaker 1: 41:25

If you are interested in more stories about psychology, science and pop culture, check out my writing over at Psychology Today. Just Google Kevin Bennett, Psychology Today. Thanks for listening and please remember to be good, Be good.