## Various Authors

# A research text dump on Nikolas Schreck

### 2025

Nazi-Satanism: Nikolas Schreck and the Church of Satan

The Church of Satan

Satanic Policy on National Socialism

Michael Aquino

The Debate Goes On

“Zionist Odinist Bolshevik Nazi Imperialist Socialist Fascism”

Mason and LaVey

Nikolas Schreck

The Manson File

The Abraxas Clique and the Church of Satan

More Satanic Fascism

Order of Nine Angles

Facebook Group Posts

Certainly relevant to ATWA...

On this date in 1987...

Thanks to Jim Watson...

Transcripts

Charles Manson — Interview by Nikolas Schreck (1988)

Bob Larson's First Interview with Nikolas and Zeena Schreck (1990)

Introduction

Conversation Begins

Bob Larson's Second Interview with Zeena and Nikolas Schreck (1997)

Audience Questions

Charles Manson in Private Conversation with Nikolas Schreck (2014)

Nikolas Schreck Interview with the Midnight Writer News Show (2017)

Clip reel

Introduction

Clip Reel #2

Guest Introduction

Clip Reel #3

The Manson Girls

BBC radio feature with Nikolas Schreck and Jeff Guinn (2017)

Nikolas Schreck Interviewed by The Paulcast on The Manson File (2022)

Part I

Part II

Nikolas Schreck Interview on The Mysticism of Charles Manson (2022)

Nikolas Schreck Interviewed by David Flint on The Manson File, Magic, Music & Forthcoming Books (2022)

Nik Schreck Reveals New Perspectives on Charles Manson (2024)

Preview

Introduction

Shrek’s supernatural beliefs

### Nazi-Satanism: Nikolas Schreck and the Church of Satan

Source: Neo-Nazi Terrorism and Countercultural Fascism. 1st Edition. Routledge, Taylor & Francis, London, 2024. <doi.org/10.4324/9780429200090>

Date: 7 May 2024

Just as Charles Manson helped bring the Abraxas Clique together, Anton LaVey also became an important common denominator for them. Nonetheless, the role of the Church of Satan in both facilitating the Abraxas Clique’s actions and helping contribute to the popularization of Siege, especially by Peter Gilmore, has been largely overlooked. More generally, this reflects a larger lack of scholarship on the Nazi–Satanist nexus as a whole. The impact of the Order of Nine Angles (O9A) on the network around the Atomwaffen Division has drawn new attention to this, and recently several reports have been issued there. But there still is not even a single book-length study of either Nazi-Satanism in general or a particular group or individual.

It should be stressed that only a minority of Satanists have ever been neo-Nazis. A 2009 study found that about 10 percent of Satanists felt positively about National Socialism, while 70 percent viewed it negatively.[1]

#### The Church of Satan

Within the confines of the Nazi-Satanist nexus, neo-Nazis do not seem to have been particularly useful to Satanists, and this is especially true of the Church of Satan. But Satanists have been quite useful to neo-Nazis, and this is especially true of the Church of Satan.

The Church of Satan made its public debut in San Francisco in 1966.[2] This put it at the epicenter of the countercultural explosion of the late 1960s. This multi-faceted movement had a wide-ranging impact, affecting politics, drugs, lifestyle, food—and, of course, spirituality. Part of this included the emergence and expansion of previously marginal or marginal religious movements, including cults, Eastern religions, paganism, and the occult. Satanism became a visible part of the latter’s broadly defined milieu.

What LaVey created was a made-for-media new religion (of sorts). With a salacious emphasis on sexuality and devilish aesthetics, LaVey’s best-selling Satanic Bible came out in 1969; in it he elucidated his brand of atheistic Satanism based on a philosophy of amoral individualism, influenced by Ragnar Redbeard and Ayn Rand.[3] Satanism blossomed after LaVey, and contemporary Satanists are divided into theists who worship a literal deity and atheists who see Satan as an allegory and literary figure.[4]

However, the Church of Satan was not the only group associated with Nazi-Satanism. While the Church did include members who had those political proclivities, for other groups Nazi-Satanism was central to their beliefs. (And this does not include Satanist groups that embraced other forms of White Supremacy.)

#### Satanic Policy on National Socialism

Satanism has never been popular with, or even acceptable to, all neo-Nazis; it is a fringe part of an already fringe movement. But some neo-Nazis did embrace this new creed. James Madole—the leader of the fascist National Renaissance Party, which combined occult ideas with National Socialism— had an ongoing relationship with LaVey.

In 1971, despite his general right-wing libertarian approach, LaVey gave public approval for a Satanic fascism. According to Newsweek, he sought “the creation of a police state in which the weak are weeded out and the ‘achievement-oriented leadership’ is permitted to pursue the mysteries of black magic.” (Church of Satan member Arthur Lyons claimed that his actual goal was a “benign police state”—a phrase sometimes credited to LaVey himself.) LaVey would repeat this call for a police state explicitly in his last interview.[5]

A few years later, LaVey described Madole’s party as “enamored with the Church of Satan.” In one account, the occult-fascist leader’s apartment had a “satanic altar,” and he was known to play LaVey’s The Satanic Mass album at party meetings.[6] But while LaVey thought he was “a nice chap who is doing his thing,” it was another National Renaissance Party member whose actions precipitated an internal discussion about the Church’s relationship to National Socialism.

In 1974, Magister Michael Aquino, who was on the Council of Nine, found out that a priest in the Church, Michael Grumboski (“Shai”), had stepped down from that role to join a new Nazi-Satanist group based in Detroit. The Order of the Black Ram was run by Seth Kliphoth (also known as Seth Typhon), who was the Michigan National Renaissance Party organizer—and also a Church of Satan member. (Kliphoth would also spend time in the NSLF.)[7]

In his discussion with Aquino, LaVey dismissed the National Renaissance Party as composed “largely of acned, bucolic types” who

> spend their time getting jeered at in street demonstrations…. I know Madole personally and have been to N.R.P. headquarters. Even have a card. They would do anything for us. So would [the] Klan for that matter. I do not endorse either but acknowledge camaraderie from any source.[8]

However, LaVey added that neo-Nazi groups were actually useful in “drawing off those within our ranks who are unworthy, unstable, or otherwise expendable.” These kinds of people, he said, needed only “a symbol and a scapegoat,” for which the swastika and pentagram were “interchangeable.” But there was no cause for worry because “they will come in handy one day.” (In turn, Madole also sought to profit from their relationship by attempting to recruit Church of Satan members to the National Renaissance Party.)[9]

#### Michael Aquino

Aquino took this opportunity to elucidate the Church’s views about National Socialism. According to him, Hitler was a great leader, and “Mein Kampf is a political Satanic Bible,” a kind of how-to guide that showed how to use symbolism and drama to manipulate the masses. (Aquino waved away the role of antisemitism, saying it “was a personal quirk of Hitler’s, which…is essentially unimportant,” and, furthermore, in the present day it should be “ignored.”) But whereas Hitler understood the mood of his day and used that insight to seize power, today’s neo-Nazis were buffoons who aped the past and set themselves up to fail. Aquino concluded that “all avowed neo-Nazi groups are pariahs in the eyes of the Church of Satan.”[10]

But almost immediately afterward, Aquino left the organization, taking a chunk of the membership with him and forming his own group, the Temple of Set. He was not a National Socialist, but like LaVey, Aquino continued to be interested in the NSDAP. Aquino had already made his fetishization of the SS clear in an essay published while he was in the Church of Satan, but he took this further in October 1982 by going to Heinrich Himmler’s Wewelsburg castle to do a magical “working.”

His recommended reading also reflected his interests in Nazi Germany, which he split up into “pro” and “anti.” Those wanting to learn more from a “neutral” historian were directed toward the works of David Irving. Other books on the list included Hitler’s Secret Conversations 1941–1944, Alfred Rosenberg’s Race History and Other Essays, and Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race.[11]

#### The Debate Goes On

But the Aquino–LaVey discussion did not end the discussion inside the Church of Satan over Satanism and National Socialism. Gavin Baddeley wrote that in the 1980s it had “polarised into those who embraced sinister Nazi-chic as a confrontational expression of individualism, and those who regarded Nazism as the repellent epitome of conformity.”[12]

This continued in Black Flame in the 1990s. However, as the inner circle favored the inclusion of neo-Nazis, their opinion prevailed. But that did not mean that the Church of Satan became a neo-Nazi, fascist, or otherwise White Supremacist organization; it has always been based on a right-wing individualist philosophy. So, the Nazi-Satanists existed alongside people of color (Sammy Davis, Jr. had been a member), Jews (LaVey himself was of Jewish descent), and LGBTQ+ people (which LaVey had specifically welcomed in The Satanic Bible.) Nonetheless, in an outtake for a Nick Bougas documentary, LaVey for whatever reason denounced the “niggers, kikes, fags, wops, greasers, degenerates that are inferior.”[13]

#### “Zionist Odinist Bolshevik Nazi Imperialist Socialist Fascism”

LaVey continued to make statements sympathetic to fascism through the 1990s. In 1993, he said “If a neo-fascist look—and outlook—makes for men who look like men and women who look like women, I’m all for it.”[14] In 1994, repeating popular conservative talking points, LaVey said, “We are already living in an inept and counterproductive fascist state” in the form of “politically correct” liberalism.

> There is nothing inherently wrong with fascism, given the nature of the average citizen…. Now it’s not so much a case of avoiding fascism, but of replacing a screwed up, disjointed, fragmented and stupefying kind of fascism with one that is more sensible and truly progressive.[15]

A little later, echoing Aquino’s earlier views, LaVey said, “The aesthetics of Satanism are those of National Socialism…. The National Socialists had that drama, coupled with the romance of overcoming such incredible odds.” LaVey thought there was “something magical” about the SS taking pride in being evil.[16]

Some of LaVey’s essays on Jews also appeared in posthumous collections. “A Plan,” in Satan Speaks, put his contradictory views on display. LaVey said Satanists “have an affinity for certain elements of both Judaism…and Nazism.” He denounced “Holocaust aficionados” while seeing “non-practicing and part-Jews” as “the future of Satanism.” Because Jews have historically been associated with Satan by religious antisemites, his line of argument went, they should embrace this association.[17] In addition,

> It will become easier and more convincing for any Satanist to combine a Jewish lineage with a Nazi aesthetic, and with pride rather than with guilt and misgiving. The die is cast with the vast numbers of children of mixed Jewish/Gentile origins. They need a place to go. They need a tough identity. They won’t find it in the Christian church, nor will they find it in the synagogue. They certainly won’t find acceptance among identity anti-Christian anti-Semites who use noble, rich, and inspirational Norse mythology as an excuse and vehicle to rant about the “ZOG.” The only place a rational amalgam of proud, admitted, Zionist Odinist Bolshevik Nazi Imperialist Socialist Fascism will be found—and championed—in the Church of Satan.[18]

#### Mason and LaVey

Although he has been labeled as such, Mason was never a Satanist. However, in the short period between Siege’s publication and the start of his prison term, he made little attempt to dissuade casual observers of this.

Mason’s interest in Satanism went back to his youth. In 1968, he bought LaVey’s The Satanic Mass album from another NSWPP member and used a long excerpt from the album as the epigraph to the September 1983 SIEGE.[19] Another former American Nazi Party member, Kurt Saxon, even joined the Church of Satan.[20]

Others in the party also took note of the new group. In 1970, the original NSLF student group named LaVey as part of a new wave of interest in the occult, which was portrayed with relative nuance. The article argued that interest in the occult was a reaction to social degeneration caused by “cultural and racial aliens.” Christian churches were complicit in this, and so white people, in their “panic,” turned to the “black arts” to fulfill their needs. But these opinions seemed to be the exception and not the rule. In 1970, Joseph Tommasi attacked one of his comrades by saying, “To put it BLUNTLY…he’s a satanist, a devil worshipper.”[21]

Mason acknowledged LaVey’s Jewish background—not that that had ever stopped him from collaborating with someone before. Jewish or not, Mason would compare him to his lifelong hero, saying “LaVey has showmanship strikingly reminiscent of George Lincoln Rockwell and knows how to use shock and symbolism to defeat the news blackout and to reach people’s minds and shatter preconceptions.”[22]

In 1988, Boyd Rice told Mason that “I showed him [LaVey] your interview & he was very much impressed & says your views are surprisingly close to his own.”[23] Three years later, Michael Moynihan asked LaVey’s permission to run an excerpt of his writings. Moynihan told Mason, “I know that he is familiar with you and likes your line—I believe he saw the old video interview with you and said afterwards, ‘There needs to be a lot more people like James Mason in the world!’” LaVey replied to Moynihan that he would be “honored” to be included in Siege.[24] He also sent Mason an autographed copy of The Satanic Bible, inscribing it “To James Mason – a man of courage and reason – a rare combination. Rege Satanas!” A picture of this appeared in the second edition of Siege. And LaVey is mentioned three times in the first edition of Siege, including being thanked, while an excerpt from The Satanic Mass, which had appeared in the newsletter, got a standalone page in the book.[25]

It was around the release of Siege that Mason appeared to have the closest association with Satanism. Despite his own lack of self-identification, Mason consented to being billed as a “Neo-Nazi Satanist” for his 1993 appearance on Bob Larson’s show. During this period, he was photographed dressing up in a priest’s clerical collar for a social event with Satanists.[26] In an interview conducted in October 1994, Mason was queried about his opinion of Satanism. He noted that “LaVey advocates good citizenship,” while he sought subversion. Nonetheless, when asked “Do you see a new movement burgeoning from the satanic community and those people who identify with Siege?” Mason replied, “I would hope so.” Elsewhere, he also explicitly named Satanism as one of the views that his Universal Order philosophy encompassed.[27]

But after his conversion to Christianity in the mid-1990s, Mason would no longer refer to Satanism in a positive way. In his prison writings, he identified what he called the “Three Faces of Satan.” The first were Satanists who followed LaVey’s approach, while the second were those engaged in animal torture, child abuse, and murder. But he defined the third, true Satan as another name for Jewish world domination, and denounced the “Satanic Beast System” and “the devil, the Jew.”[28] After his rediscovery in the 2010s, Mason turned even further away. In an essay about the Church of Satan, now he said about LaVey, “I neither disown nor do I embrace either the man or his creation.”[29]

#### Nikolas Schreck

Schreck, the fourth member of the Abraxas Foundation and a Satanist who married into the LaVey family, played a brief but important role in the Abraxas Clique.

In 1984, Schreck founded the band Radio Werewolf in Los Angeles. The name had multiple references; Schreck told Tom Metzger that it referred to the NSDAP radio station which tried to rally the regime’s supporters in 1945 as the war was coming to a close.[30] As for the name “Schreck” itself, its associations included the German word meaning “fright” or “terror” as well as to Julius Schreck, an important figure in the founding of the SS.

Radio Werewolf was a campy goth band; Schreck wore white face makeup, and drummer Evil Wilhelm sported a monocle. Rice described them as a “novelty Rock Band that did monster Pop songs.” Radio Werewolf used numerous Nazi references, some of them obviously tongue-in-cheek; the lyrics for “Triumph of the Will” included “Eva, oh Eva, Come sit on my face / Berlin is burning but we are the master race.”[31] Regardless, this would help attract the attention of real neo-Nazis. By 1988, despite the clear irony of the early band, Schreck’s associations, presentation, and rhetoric implied that the line between irony and belief had been completely blurred—if not crossed entirely.

By 1985, the band was using a werewolf image, made by Robert N. Taylor, as a logo. Like so many others, Schreck also became enamored with Manson, calling him “a sort of shaman, or spiritual spokesmen, for the Western and white consciousness. In the same way that Adolf Hitler was in the ‘30s, I think that Charles Manson fulfills that same role in our time.”[32]

In 1986, Schreck saw EXIT and contacted Adam Parfrey, saying he wanted to do benefit shows—which Radio Werewolf called “rallies”—for Manson. Schreck said that he was already thinking about this when, in June 1986, Manson forwarded a letter from him to Rice. And Parfrey was already in contact, independently, with both of them. Schreck described this as “a whole network of interrelations that just came together.”[33]

In March 1987, Schreck tried to hold a Friends of Justice concert in Los Angeles, but it was shut down. At the same time, he was collaborating with Parfrey on a publication they hoped to issue.[34]

In 1987, Radio Werewolf appeared twice on Hot Seat, the TV show of Wally George, a right-wing shock jock, where they intentionally antagonized both the host and audience. Later asked if he was trolling, Schreck replied, “There’s an implication of insincerity in ‘trolling’ whereas those particular appearances were just slightly caricaturized exaggerations of the general beliefs I espoused at that time.”[35]

The same year, he and Evil Wilhelm went on Metzger’s Race and Reason. (Metzger had attended a performance of theirs around the same time.) The show started with a clip of them playing live, with a swastika flag and the band sieg-heiling—while playing “Triumph of the Will.” In the ridiculous interview that followed, they acted the role of superior beings from outer space who were the “true gods of earth.” Schreck said their goals were far beyond that of the NSDAP, which “was much too liberal, much too bourgeois.” Metzger looked confused at times and was disappointed they did not identify as National Socialists or fascists. Nonetheless, Schreck gave him a button and a membership card in their Radio Werewolf Youth Party.[36]

#### The Manson File

In 1988, Amok Press released The Manson File. Proclaiming Manson as “one of the last true heretics of our time,” it was heavy on illustrations and light on text. The contents included Parfrey’s The Revelation of the Sacred Door, a Rice piece, and several Bougas cartoons. In addition to Manson’s kind words for the NSDAP (“I don’t believe the Nazis will come back in SS hats and boots; they will probably be people living in peace and harmony”), there were several pages of Mason content: the “Independent Genius” flyer, excerpts from SIEGE, the National Enquirer article “Is Charles Manson the New Hitler?,” and a picture of Mason with the Manson Family’s Sandra Good. And as an apparent attempt to cover “both sides,” a piece from another German armed marxist group, the June 2 Movement, was also included.[37]

Early that year, Schreck did a promotional appearance for the book on Maury Povich’s Hard Copy TV show. He also did a second appearance on Metzger’s show, but this time he was much more serious. Unlike Rice’s careful attempts to avoid directly using this kind of rhetoric, Schreck described the Abraxas Foundation in explicitly racist terms. Later in the interview, he condemned the “dysgenic ocean of mud that has swept the world.”[38]

> we are strictly concerned with the western European tradition …. we have no concern for any other. That’s why we maintain a firm alternative to the African culture, the Asian culture, that is dominating the western world. Young people are caught up in a nightmare of racial confusion, and we seek to end that.[39]

Afterward, he and Zeena LaVey spent the night at Metzger’s place. Many years later, Schreck was asked about these appearances. Although somewhat ambiguous as to how serious they were, he said there was “tension between the Addams Family and the Manson Family side of Radio Werewolf. By the summer of ‘87, I felt that the campier, Famous Monsters-inspired aspect… had run its course.” But rather than denounce the views he expressed, especially on the second one, Schreck said, “I prefer to let people interpret my work however they want.”[40]

Metzger, who was particularly interested in cultural politics, appeared to have taken Schreck at face value. On that same show, he referred to the Abraxas Foundation as “part of the movement”[41] and sold DVDs with Schreck for decades to come.

Schreck was also part of the 8/8/88 performance. In the interviews afterward, he called the Nazi regime “one of the few times in the 20th century that humanity’s full potential has been unleashed.”[42] Soon after, he married Zeena LaVey, who had also participated in the event. Zeena was a High Priestess in the Church and acted as its official spokesperson from May 1985 to April 1990. Schreck also met her father, Anton LaVey, who made him a Church of Satan member.[43]

The married couple did a variety of talk shows about Satanism, including the by-then obligatory Larson appearance. In addition to espousing his usual Social Darwinism, Schreck condemned homosexuality as unhealthy, unnatural, and unhygienic—although not morally wrong.[44]

Schreck’s views on this subject also caused him lasting physical damage. According to Rice, in August 1987 “Schreck was putting up pro-AIDS posters with cartoons of a Gay parade where AIDS victims were marching into an open grave” in an area frequented by gay sex workers. Schreck was spotted and chased to his car, “but before he could shut the door, a guy reached in with a knife and slashed him. His ear was cut off, and it fell into the gutter.”[45]

After the success of The Manson File, 1989 was a busy year for Schreck. His documentary Charles Manson Superstar, based on an interview he did with Manson in San Quentin, was released. Schreck and Zeena LaVey narrated it, and it included comments from Manson which were directed at Mason. The interview was shot by Brian King, who had filmed interviews with Mason, Rice, and Schreck in 1987; footage from the Mason interview ended up in Charles Manson Superstar. Schreck also started making a documentary about Anton LaVey, although he abandoned it when the two could not get along.[46] And two Radio Werewolf records were released: Fiery Summons and the Savitri Devi–inspired The Lightning and the Sun.[47]

Two major breaks happened in 1990. The first was between Schreck and the Abraxas Clique. Rice had already been unhappy with how 8/8/88 went and blamed Schreck, saying he “fucked the whole thing for all of us. Schreck is an incompetent shit. A total fuck up.” Moynihan had a different reason. In March 1990, he wrote Mason that a break occurred months before because of Schreck’s dishonesty about his background.[48]

Regardless of the burning of that bridge, Schreck hit it off with Death in June’s Douglas Pearce after meeting at the London book launch of The Manson File. And so both Schreck and Rice wound up on the 1989 Death in June album, Thè Wäll Öf Säcrificè.[49]

The second break happened when Zeena LaVey left the Church of Satan at the end of April and denounced her father. After that, the married couple moved to Europe, where they made music under the Radio Werewolf name. (They continued their associations with the Abraxas Circle for a little while, both contributing to EXIT #5 in 1991.) They also joined Aquino’s Temple of Set but later on became Buddhists. In 2015, they divorced amicably.[50]

#### The Abraxas Clique and the Church of Satan

It wasn’t just Schreck with these links, though; all four of the Abraxas Clique had relationships with LaVey. While in prison, Mason wrote that “a number of my closest and best Movement comrades are bona fide high priests in LaVey’s church.”[51] Siege’s thanks list shows this. Moynihan, himself in the Church of Satan, thanked three who were, or would soon be, in the Church— LaVey, Thorn, and Gilmore’s Black Flame—plus LaVey’s publisher Parfrey. (Rice was noticeably absent, but his influence silently loomed large.)

One reason for this linkage was that LaVey was attuned to the importance of popular culture. He particularly liked to have musicians associated with the Church of Satan and sometimes bestowed membership upon meeting them. LaVey’s belief in a hierarchical social world, and in particular his interest in eugenics, also made common ground with the Abraxas Clique.

The publishers of RE/Search cancelled an issue on LaVey after, in Kevin Coogan’s words, they “decided LaVey was a reactionary.”[52] Former RE/Search collaborator Rice was close to LaVey up until his death and around 1987 had introduced him to Parfrey, who became the beneficiary of the falling out. In 1989, Feral House republished LaVey’s The Satanic Witch (originally titled The Compleat Witch) and in 1992 The Devil’s Notebook, which included an introduction by Parfrey.[53]

For Mason, the most important thing to come out of the Abraxas Foundation–Church of Satan relationship was Gilmore’s interest in, and promotion of, Siege. His official Church of Satan publication Black Flame ran an advance advertisement with the initial cover design.[54] Upon receiving Siege, Gilmore wrote Moynihan,

> My deepest gratitude goes to you for the wonderful and inspiring copy of SIEGE. Bravo to you! … I’m truly enjoying my foray into the writings of Mason. He really has learned so many truths on his journey and offers much wisdom to those who will see. This is an important publication, and the time is right for it…. We’ll do our best to promote this outstanding effort.[55]

In the same letter, Gilmore said, “the struggle continues in the many theatres of the total war, and the true elite will emerge—as Nature’s Law dictates” and ended the letter with “Hail Victory!”[56] In 1993, he gave Siege a glowing review in Black Flame, calling it a “monumental achievement” and recommending it to Satanists.

> If you are a Satanist and have not gotten a sense of perspective on how your movement fits into American Society, look at this account of the American National Socialist movement and learn. Mason’s writing is clear and filled with clarity.[57]

However, Gilmore did not clarify what Mason’s truths were or what Satanists had to learn from him—an interesting omission considering that his organization always stressed legality.

In 1994, when Mason and his teenage girlfriend Eva went to New York City for a talk show, Gilmore and Peggy Nadramia (his wife and the Church’s future High Priestess) made sure to meet them and take a picture. Afterward, Gilmore told Mason that “It is a rare pleasure to contact others who are fully alive.”[58]

Moynihan also played an important role through his connections with the Church of Satan leadership. In 1993, after securing LaVey’s consent to use his writings in Siege, Moynihan sent his class paper “The Faustian Spirit of Fascism” to Gilmore. Its argument about the relationship between fascism and Satanism fits in well with the ongoing debate inside the Church of Satan over the issue. Gilmore ran it as an article in Black Flame in 1994; that same year Moynihan said, “Most of the Satanists I’m in contact with, being realists, are very cognizant of racial issues.”[59]

Black Flame also ran full-page ads for the Abraxas Foundation and Storm—both undoubtedly hard-pressed to find places that would do so. The magazine also reviewed numerous publications and records from the Abraxas Circle. These included Siege, Ohm Clock, and Fifth Path and Electric Hellfire Club, Blood Axis, and Rice albums.

The Abraxas Clique returned Gilmore’s interest, although in the end they got more than they gave. A small image of his appeared in the 1991 EXIT. In 1992, Rice said Gilmore was on the “same frequency and is also very talented as a composer and musician” and in December used some of his music in a British performance.[60] Moynihan planned to release a Gilmore CD on Storm, Ragnarok Symphony, although it never happened.[61]

After Gilmore took the Church’s helm, he pontificated on typical rightwing positions that fit comfortably in the mainstream of the Republican Party. For example, in his article “Pervasive Pantywaistism,” he wrote that “The minions of ‘political correctness’ and a new generation of whiner-spawn have attained legislative power to enforce their pusillanimous intolerance for any difference of opinion.”[62]

The Abraxas Clique also made sure to promote LaVey during his last years. Moynihan’s interviews with LaVey appeared in Seconds, Black Flame, and Lords of Chaos.[63] In 1997, Seconds ran what was billed as LaVey’s last interview, which included an introduction by Gilmore. And in 2000, Rice, Parfrey, and Thorn paid their respects to LaVey in a special Black Flame memorial issue.[64]

#### More Satanic Fascism

New Zealand’s Kerry Bolton was also involved in this crossover. A prolific writer and editor, he has played an important part in what he has called—in a nod to the Abraxas Foundation—an “international ‘occult-fascist axis’.” He started the Order of the Left Hand Path in 1982 and the Black Order in 1994. The latter’s goals included studying “the esoteric current behind National Socialism, Thule [Society], and the occult tradition from which they are derived.”[65] Bolton also published in Black Flame and Ohm Clock alongside the Abraxas Clique. In the interview that appeared in Lords of Chaos, he clearly elucidated the split between cosmopolitan and ethno-nationalist currents in Satanism—the same division that could be found in Heathenism.[66]

Nazi-Satanism also impacted Mason’s old group, the National Socialist Movement (NSM), when a 2006 scandal threatened to sink the NSM. Clifford Herrington had now stepped back from leading the NSM but remained its emeritus chairman; he lived in Oklahoma with his wife Maxine Deitrich (née Andrea Herrington). She ran the Joy of Satan, a theistic Satanist group that shared Herrington’s local NSM mailing address. The revelation of these ties upset some NSM members, a number of whom were followers of Christian Identity. The NSM’s leader, Jeff Schoep, tried to keep all parties happy but was unable to prevent a meltdown and membership exodus, which included Bill White. Schoep ended up having to remove Herrington to keep the ship afloat. Herrington turned around and formed a new group, the National Socialist Freedom Movement, which listed the Joy of Satan as a “comrade organization.”[67]

And the Abraxas Clique networks have influenced Satanism well into the 2010s. The popular liberal Satanist group The Satanic Temple ended up mired in controversy at first because of ties to an Alt Right–affiliated lawyer. But the accusations against it took a darker turn when a 2003 radio show, co-hosted by future leader of The Satanic Temple Lucien Greaves, came to light. In it he appeared alongside those in the Abraxas Circle, including Metzger, Gilmore, and George Burdi (formerly Hawthorne). Reflecting themes common in the Circle, Greaves made vicious antisemitic and eugenicist statements.[68]

#### Order of Nine Angles

Britain’s David Myatt is a neo-Nazi who is widely acknowledged as the leading figure in the O9A, which started in the 1970s. This theistic Satanist current has required followers to involve themselves in various extremes as part of their goal of coming in contact with, in scholar Nicholas Goodrick-Clark’s words, “sinister forces in the cosmos.” These acts can include human sacrifice, and followers are to take on “insight” roles in radical movements, such as Islamism and neo-Nazism. O9A has a decentralized structures based on local “nexions.”[69]

Ryan Schuster was interested in Myatt, whose outlook he thought was similar to Mason’s. The project was never completed, but while he was working on republishing Siege, Schuster also looked into creating an anthology of Myatt’s writings and sent Mason two collections of them.[70] However, a theistic Satanism could hardly have been appealing to Mason, who by then was a Christian. There is no evidence of any further link or influence between the O9A and the milieu that facilitated the first two editions of Siege.

But O9A did have a large impact on the new followers that Mason collected starting in 2015. Members of the Atomwaffen Division were involved in it; like Siege itself, the directive to wallow in taboo extremes—such as the fetishization of mass murder and child pornography—fit into the “edgelord” internet culture which fueled the Alt Right. One of the more prominent Atomwaffen members was Joshua Caleb Sutter, the founder the Tempel Ov Blood, which followed O9A doctrines. Martinet Press, which he ran with his wife Jillian Scott Hoy, published material read inside the Atomwaffen network, including his post-apocalyptic novel Iron Gates, which was filled with sadistic sexual violence. This was not without internal controversy, and in 2018, it was reported that members were leaving over the fact that others were Satanists.[71]

Even the 2021 revelation that Sutter was an FBI informant did not shake O9A’s influence in Atomwaffen circles.[72] After Mason announced that the group had folded, the remnants dutifully started splintering, with O9A being one of the flashpoints. In 2022, after one faction established itself as the National Socialist Order of Nine Angles (NSO9A), the seemingly intrinsic schismatic power of Nazi-Satanism once again came to the fore.

The group issued a new, sixth edition of Siege in 2023; it attacked not just Mason but also Manson, LaVey, and, most hallowed of all, Rockwell. In reply, Mason made a video accusing NSO9A of taking money from the federal government to make their expensive edition of Siege, which included color printing. Mason was particularly incensed by an animal sacrifice they had reportedly engaged in. He said, “this O9A thing seems to be a prime example of…unbalanced kooks” and “Satanism, it’s garbage”—although exempting LaVey from his judgment.[73]

But whether they were linked to security services or not, NSO9A were the ones who channeled Mason’s energy from the 1980s. While Mason may have been right in distinguishing O9A and LaVey philosophically, it was Atomwaffen and the NSO9A that continued the legacy of Nazi-Satanism that Mason had abandoned with his Christian turn. This new generation of neoNazi youth were all too happy to embrace this particular combination of taboo extremes. And if it infuriated their neo-Nazi elders—just as Mason had done to the adults around him when he joined the American Nazi Party at age 14—perhaps all the better.

Notes

### Facebook Group Posts

#### Certainly relevant to ATWA...

Author: Nikolas Schreck (Admin)

Source: Abraxas Circle. <www.facebook.com/groups/1883381595256076/posts/3374612359466318>

Date: 10 June 2023

Certainly relevant to ATWA, I know Charles largely agreed with Ted’s thought and saw a kindred spirit in him though he didn’t approve of the methodology when we discussed the similarities of philosophy. — NS

Robin Wegerle
In 1980 I met a man that was my neighbor. His name was Bob b. Blue. He worked in the music industry. And I think the last place he had worked was for k n a c it was a heavy metal radio station. He told me that the government was going to give us a lot of things that were going to make our lives a lot easier. But it was also going to be our demise. As the things that they were going to give us that we thought were going to make our lives better was actually making our life worse. And more controlled. I always remember those words and I can see that they were true

Russell Hamel
And unlike Charles, Ted WAS a MK-Ultra test subject

Gabrielle Pear
Russell Hamel early Green programming

Gabrielle Pear
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3cU_gu734RE

Hypnosis in MPD: Ritual Abuse aka The Greenbaum Speech by Corydon Hammond.

The comment that Dae Lynn is replying to has been deleted.

Dae Lynn
Gabriel Au Buchon I saw this on another post. If this is a legit letter, he denies the MK Ultra torture & abuse.

The comment that Dae Lynn is replying to has been deleted.

Trini Zer
Nobody can accuse him of not taking action or not trying to warn us.

Rahne Pistor
A national treasure…

Joel Bagley
The real MK Ultra

Mike Marinacci
A real-life version of Kevin Spacey’s “John Doe” in the movie SE7EN. He saw the forces of evil running rampant, and believed killing people who embodied them would wake up the rest of the world. I hope he’s forgiven, and at peace.

Phillip Stocks
Mike Marinacci Only prob with that is you can’t be sure who gets these packages...

Mikko Immonen
The only real critique towards “Industrial society and it’s future” is that it serves too much Kaczynski’s purpose to surrogate his lack of social success and libido, as his bombings did. But I doubt his ideas would have become known without them and what do you know, his predictions started to come true in his foreseen time span and people started paying attention to his manifesto again.

The book doesn’t reason any real methods to deaccelerate technology or vision alternatives.The observations and critique are correct, but his answer just seems to green light his deeds.

You read some acceleritionist stuff and just look at the common people and their dependency on technology (and general dependency), it simply doesn’t seem like the common people can just stop the machineries.

But if you read up on the Mouse utopia/Universe 25 experiement and compare it to world of today, you might paint the picture that technology is already letting people eradicate themselves. But what kind of world follows this can be anything. If any of you haven’t read the manifesto or about the mouse utopia, I highly recommend them. Short and powerful reads.

Patryk Glinski
Real hero...

Hex Matson
I’ve printed several copies of his manifesto and placed them in various book exchange booths several years ago. Sad to realize that this powerful intellect is gone.

Jeffrey Eliot
Hex Matson I think you’d get a knock on the door if you did that in the usa

Hex Matson
Jeffrey Eliot eh, it was already published by the Washington Post in the first place, it’s not like it’s the Anarchist’s Cookbook or something, but yeah, who knows these days.

Casey Strachan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Eneq-drrw

#### On this date in 1987...

Author: Nikolas Schreck (Admin)

Source: Abraxas Circle. <www.facebook.com/groups/1883381595256076/posts/3497468973847322>

Date: 23 December 2023

On this date in 1987, Lynette Fromme escaped from Alderson prison in West Virginia, spurred on by her hearing a false rumor that Charlie was suffering from a fatal cancer.

That day, my main girlfriend called the loathsome Adam Parfrey as a prank and whispered that she was Red, she was near to his address, and needed to hide out there. Mr. Edgy Transgressive’s nervous freak out that ensued was comedy gold. I like to think the shock went a little way to his blessedly premature passage to Hell. Fromme was recaptured two days later. — NS

Chris D Butcher
My mother saved all the newspapers that mentioned it for me. I was 18. Here in the UK the Manson vibe was a much easier thing to carry back then. The Internet made it so much heavier.

Wade Born
Lynette..ya just have to luv her...she was able to easily break out..a shame she practically threw herself in. May we all carry a little mystery into 2024.

Raymond Rodriguez III
100% ride or die lady.

Joey Intervallo
That’s devotion. I can’t even get my wife to bring me some soup when I have a cold...

Damion Murray
Joey Intervallo right! I can’t even get my woman to make me a sandwich after we do it! or to bring me a beer while I’m watching the game.

Nikolas Schreck
Joey Intervallo Damion Murray I tell ya, Charles Manson gets more respect than I do!

Altra Lee
I remember that day. I watched CNN all day waiting for updates and recorded the “Breaking News Story” on VHS.

Nikolas Schreck
Altra Lee Another girlfriend of mine, the media rep for Radio Werewolf, who managed a shop on Melrose in LA displayed a “Run, Squeaky, Run!” sign on the premises.

Altra Lee
Nikolas Schreck lols. I think my sister and I were also saying that exact same thing at the time as we watched for updates

Dave McGuire
“main girlfriend”?

Nikolas Schreck
Dave McGuire The head of the harem at the time.

Nikolas Schreck
Doug Smith
Nikolas Schreck kinda resembles Dave Vanian’s first wife, Laurie

Jeffrey Eliot
Nikolas Schreck & what were her duties pray tell? or are they “unmentionable?” . are you in touch w any former harem devotees???

Nikolas Schreck
Jeffrey Eliot We’re still friends, her best friend who I was dating brought her to me as a “gift” and we had an immediate rapport. I don’t kiss and tell. I remain on a cordial basis with most of my exes.

Robert Anthony Davis
Anyone who can escape from a prison earns a few badass points in my book. Who’s Adam Parfrey? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you type words as harsh as “blessedly premature passage to hell” so my curiosity has now piqued. Haha

Nikolas Schreck
Robert Anthony Davis He published the first Manson File in 1988 on Amok Books, and was one of the most despicable creatures I’ve ever known, which is saying a lot considering what vermin I’ve encountered.

Nikolas Schreck
John DeVore His thievery was the tip of a very ugly iceberg of festering noxiousness as all who dealt with him for any extended time know.

Mike Marinacci
Nikolas Schreck Until we discussed him on PMs, I thought I was alone in my opinion that he was a cold-blooded slimeball. No exaggeration: he is one of only two or three people in my life I’ve encountered in person that gave off genuinely evil vibes.

Lisa Sage
Robert Anthony Davis here’s a snippet from a NY Times article regarding his passing. https://www.nytimes.com/.../adam-parfrey-publisher-of-the-provocative

Mary Bowling
I wonder what her thinking process was? She was going to break out of jail and then show up at Charlie’s jail demanding to be his nurse?

Nikolas Schreck
Mary Bowling It didn’t make much sense.

Mary Bowling
Nikolas Schreck well, she sure is loyal, I’ll give her that!

Rick Franz
What a life!

#### Thanks to Jim Watson...

Author: Nikolas Schreck (Admin)

Date: 6 March

Source: Abraxas Circle

Thanks to Jim Watson from Greater America's 51st State for sharing further Chaos critique from Cielo resident Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & The Raiders. This is a commonly reported reaction of those whom TO harassed:

> "And yet another Manson documentary, based on the O’Neill book, Chaos, and full of conspiracy theories. The author interviewed me long ago when it was planned as a magazine piece, and I was very put off by his questions. He was grasping at every straw and, for example, was trying to get me to speculate or confirm that Terry Melcher and Cielo owner Rudy Altobelli were actually lovers, which they definitely were not. The interview left a very bad taste in my mouth, so if you watch the movie, bring many grains of salt. But I guess it’s better than the Substack piece by a blogger who says that General LeMay used plutonium laced LSD in cahoots with Manson in order to be able to trace anti-war musician hippie freaks, lured to Spahn Ranch by Terry Melcher’s mobile recording studio."

### Transcripts

#### Charles Manson — Interview by Nikolas Schreck (1988)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ycqxZKvGWI

Nikolas: No. That’s lit. You like that picture?

Manson: Yeah, that’s all lit. This will get up on that Emmons book.

Nikolas: Yeah.

Manson: Yeah, this should dust him off. This will take care of his ass.

Nikolas: I think he may have that. So what about I keep this? I’ll get that back inch of paper back.

Manson: I got this one from a Japanese and a bullfighter. That’s Australia. Let me look right up, right there. You don’t mind if I don’t sit down, do you? No. This is the only chance I get to get unhandcuffed. I got it. This is the only chance I get to come around unhandcuffed.

Nikolas: What we’re going to try to do is, um, at first just pretty much get your head in here, so... and then you’re gonna... just a close shot on your head, so...

Manson: You’re not gonna... have you got your gun lined up in there?

Nikolas: No, I’m gonna bring that for you.

Manson: All right, as I give to you, from this heart, DJ, uh, we can keep up with that in the mail. Uh...

Nikolas: Good to finally see you in person.

Manson: Huh.

Nikolas: Good to finally see you in person.

Manson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice of you to do all the things you’ve been doing, man. I really appreciate you. Thanks. There’s a lot of youngsters raising up like you. How’s Bogus? It’s fine. Yeah. L.A.‘s not doing too well, is it?

Nikolas: No, I got out of there.

Manson: Yeah, I figured I was out of there myself a long time ago, yeah. Yeah, L.A.‘s not too cool. Yeah, we can’t get into any music. Because we’re, we’re in, what I’m locked into is a soulless little jealous punk.

Nikolas: I wanted to ask, do you think there’s any way to eventually do that? Any other authorities?

Manson: Well, yeah, there’s probably all kinds of ways we could do it.

Nikolas: We could beat on the table.

Manson: Yeah, I know. I was thinking, let me use that trash can down there, unless you want to pass a rule against that. Everything I do, they make a rule against it, see. If I wanted a bucket of **** they’d tell me no, you can’t have, and they’d pass a rule, send no buckets of **** man. No matter what I want to do, they want to keep me from doing it. No matter what I want, they don’t like it. They, you know, in other words, if I, I got it. I’m very capable and I’m unhandcuffed. It’s all together a different game.

Nikolas: So what I want to do here is I don’t really want to sit and ask you questions that you’ve probably heard a million times before. I just want to talk about a few topics and let you reflect on them.

Manson: Well, see, the way I communicate is... The way I communicate is in music. It’s like... To know someone, you start in the fingertips. You can, you can know me in my fingers. You can know me in my hands. You can know me in my arms. You know, in other words, I’m something inside that goes beyond words. Words don’t. Words blah, blah, blah. You know, they’re a bunch of ******* biscuit. That’s what they teach you in school. You know, I live From here.

Nikolas: What would you tell the people out there that...

Manson: **** the people out there.

Nikolas: People that don’t know you.

Manson: I don’t give a **** whether they know. Anybody that don’t know themselves don’t know me. I don’t care a **** about people. I’m looking out for this guy.

Nikolas: Right here. You’re not angry how the media has portrayed you as it’s the only monster.

Manson: What does that mean? It doesn’t mean anything. The media’s a rerun. Public opinion’s a little girl. It’s a toilet paper commercial. It’s got nothing to do with reality. Reality’s here. Reality’s now, you dig? And reality is that I’m giving you this guy here. You dig what I’m saying? Then I’ll... and we’ll... and I’ll get that...

Nikolas: Well, you say you’re at a holy war against certain people.

Manson: Pollution, pollution, pollution. It’s the only solution for survival on the planet Earth. It’s a revolution against pollution. It’s like all the animals are running this way, and a lion comes on the picture, they all run that way. All the animals are all divided all up, all the people are out there playing all these games. A bigger fear comes, they all get together, and they all run in one direction. The peace plan is that Schultz and all them guys are playing in the Middle East, it doesn’t have any fear in it. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a bunch of ******* old ******** talking about old rhetoric.

Nikolas: What do you think the meaning of fear is?

Manson: The fear is you’ll do it or die. It’s that simple.

Nikolas: Do you think that’s what the world needs?

Manson: That’s the only way it’s going to survive. But that’s not got nothing to do with my world. That’s their world.

Nikolas: What’s their world?

Manson: My world’s out there in that junkyard. You know, my world’s in that picture. You know what pictures my world’s in. We’re not throwing rocks. You know, they’re over there throwing rocks, you know. If that’s what, if that’s what their game is, then that’s where they’re going, and it’s got nothing to do with where I’m running. You know, where I’m running is the, you know, I run in the alley, I run in the darkness. If I was sitting up there where I had my fingers on the buttons, it’d be a different game altogether.

Nikolas: Talk a lot about a lack of order in the world.

Manson: Yeah, there’s no... ****. Ain’t nothing in that, man. Yeah, there’s no order because incompetent ******** like this run your world. These are the ******* ding dings that run your world, man. Look at him. Fat hanging off his ******* jaws. He’s an incompetent ***** ** ****. You think he can wear black cowboy boots and play off this guy and pay that guy to hold me down. You dig what I’m saying? And then come back around to the other side and talk about, I’m a white guy. I’m a white brother. You dig what I’m saying? What I think about race, everybody look out for themselves. I look out for this guy. This is my race, comes out of my ******** man. My race comes out of me. You know, I’m my race. I live on my planet, my world, my desert, my thought. It took me 22 years to get through these ******* hallways. This is what I’m mad about, to land my thought down on that desert. In other words, these guys coming here, they’re trying to work their thoughts out. I already got my thought out, my thought’s already out. I already worked it out. And I didn’t break the law. That’s what’s got me so ******* mad. That’s what got me so balled up. I didn’t break the law. I got some friends that killed some people. But my friends have always been killing people. I live in the underworld. My friends have always been, you know. I mean, that’s part of the life I live.

Nikolas: What do you think about killing and murder?

Manson: Each person, you’ve got to be responsible for you, man. You’ve got to be responsible for your actions. If you want to give me your life, I’ll take it. And I’ll put it in the deck and I’ll deal it. And if you don’t like the way I deal it, then don’t give it to me. But when you give it to me, then it’s mine. I deal it any way I want. If I tell it to jump, it’ll jump. If it don’t, then it’s not mine. Because I could ask you no more than I could do for you. In other words, if I’m with you, I’m totally there with you. There’s no ********. I’m not your leader, I’m not your follower. You dig? But if you want to get up and ride, we’ll ride, and I’ll be right there with you. You see what I’m saying? I don’t count pennies. I’m not playing little petty games. You know who I ride with. I ride in Venice, California, with straight Satan. There’s no...

Nikolas: Do you remember the day you were arrested in Death Valley? Do you have any memories of that thing?

Manson: Yeah. One of these incompetent ******* ******** got me, put a pistol on me, and put handcuffs on me, and I’ve been in handcuffs for 18 years. That’s the only reality he’s got. It’s me in handcuffs.

Nikolas: Do you have any memories you want to talk about from before you got handcuffs on?

Manson: I don’t remember. I don’t play, I don’t remember anything. But I can’t get any music out of this. I can’t get any music out of nothing. These ************* cut me off of my music, see? And then they represent off to the little girls. Look, it’s me, little girls.

Nikolas: Why don’t we talk about what you think music is? You say it’s not anything.

Manson: Music is my soul. Music’s the way I express. It’s my religion. It’s my religion.

Nikolas: You’ve also said sex is religion.

Manson: Yeah, sex is a reflection. Everything’s a reflection of this. When you reflect that, you reflect music. I reflect it in music. That’s me. But I put my soul into the sound. And then these ******* ******** steal it. And then they’ll walk up and down and tell you, Yeah, this is me, baby! And this is me, Roo Boo! But that ain’t them. It’s just a carbon copy reflection of, you know. They won’t let the reality of...

Nikolas: You said that you’re a reflection of everything around you.

Manson: Sure, what else could a child be? When it goes into you, You’re going to reflect it sooner or later. If I’m going like this, pretty soon you’re going to reflect that. All children do.

Nikolas: What about good and evil? Spoken about beyond good and evil. You want to elucidate on that again?

Manson: Well, evil. In order to put this world into order, how much evil do you think would have to be? You see what I’m saying? In other words, just to think world peace up underneath these incompetent ******* ******** that run these places. You dig what I’m saying? What kind of man do you think would have that in his head? They’d bring all these Indians over from India. And they all sit on their... Ahhhhhhhh... and, you know, they all come like they got the great answer, you dig? But they don’t even know how to speak English. They don’t even know what the English words mean, you know? Uh, who... who has the master plan in English?

Nikolas: Well, that kind of gets back to the races.

Manson: No, English has nothing to do with races. When a guy speaks English, he understands the English thought. All the English thought that came from the English words came from the English mind. You know, I can’t speak in Poland or Chinese. I can understand what I’m understanding in English.

Nikolas: Who do you think some of the people in history have been that have been evil enough to put order?

Manson: In the world? I don’t place no emphasis on history because they all lie. The truth is that your history books are full of ********. Most of your books are full of ********. You know that, being a writer yourself. Most of it’s trash. And it’s just for money. If I lived with you for about a month, or two, then you would have a whole different concept of me. You wouldn’t think the same thing of me. Your whole opinion of me would change. Not only your opinion of me would change, your opinion of you would change. And we would kind of reflect off into each other to where we become a part of... That’s the world I’ve always been. Huh.

Nikolas: People don’t know who you are.

Manson: Who am I? I’m anybody I can get away with being. I’ll take his clothes and put his boots on and get the hell out of here. Walk on down the road and be a hobo, if I had a good chance. I don’t like killing. I don’t kill bushes. I don’t kill trees. I don’t eat animals. I don’t like killing, but I’m just like anybody else. I can. When I’m pushed to do that, I can do that just as easy as eating a piece of steak or cooking a chicken.

Nikolas: You want to talk about the art that you’ve done, the string art, and what you’ve put into that.

Manson: Oh, that ain’t about nothing. Yeah, this looks like you’ve put a lot of research into this, man. Isn’t it funny you’ve got so many people play-acting you? So many people play-acting you, you never get a chance to play-act yourself.

Nikolas: Maybe you should look at that after we do that.

Manson: Well, this is important to what we’re doing here, too, isn’t it?

Nikolas: Yeah. That would be great.

Manson: How much time have we got here?

Nikolas: Until about one o’clock.

Manson: Okay.

Nikolas: Do you want to talk about what it means to be an outlaw?

Manson: That’s just being free, being yourself, being whatever you are. I like this, man. It’s a little better than the other ***** ** **** they wrote that said it was mine. They lie, man. They lie so ******* much. And they lie, and then they turn around and represent you young people. We’re the guys up here. Let us teach you, kids. Let us teach you what’s going on. And they don’t know what’s going on. And they won’t face what’s going on, even if they didn’t know what was going on.

Nikolas: Do you think that your thought has had an influence on young people now?

Manson: I’ll put it to you this way. When I was a little kid in the streets, I was smoking grass. And there wasn’t but a few people smoking grass. I come to jail as a beatnik. I don’t know whether you remember beatniks. But what your hippies were of the ‘60s were what we were of the ‘50s. Well, we got ate up by the system. And then when I got back out, the hippie was a takeoff on the beatnik. As the Beatnik was to take off on the Bohemian, or the Bohemian was to take off on the Bubskaboop. In other words, just loop-de-loops and circles that come in and out of these places.

Nikolas: It always seems like you weren’t really a hippie in the sense that you represented order.

Manson: I didn’t represent nothing. I didn’t represent anything. I represented me. I represented a motorcycle, a sleeping bag, and a guitar. And all that other shit’s a D.A.‘s. He put all that **** on me, man. There’s a bunch of broads just following me around. But there’s always broads following me around.

Nikolas: What about this myth about the process and Robert...

Manson: No, that’s a bunch of *********.

Nikolas: Did you ever meet them?

Manson: No, yeah, I know them. I know them spiritually. I know everything. I know everything. Yeah, I was in the same vibration as all those people. In other words, you’re with somebody, you know somebody, you know they’re there, you’re running with them. Well, you know what I’m saying? You’re on the bushes with him, and you’re coyotes with him, or you’re spiritually allied with him in the scorpions, or you’re spiritually allied with him in the awarenesses. See, you notice this guy? As I’m talking, he’s going through all kinds of changes. Well, I’m spiritually allied with this dude, see.

Nikolas: He talked about the wolf, too.

Manson: Yeah, I’m spiritually allied with that character, too, yeah. Yeah. In other words, the ways of animals I identify with more than I do with the ways of the humans. Humans are pretty stupid. Humans won’t survive. Humans ain’t gonna survive. Not the way they’re going.

Nikolas: You think they’re gonna destroy themselves?

Manson: Yeah, definitely. They’re gonna destroy every ******* thing. They’re destroying everything. See, people don’t realize how many... If you sit down and you start thinking people, it would take you 10 weeks to think up 200 million people, man. Do you know how many people that is? Now you run out of food with 200 million people. You run out of oil with 200 million people. You run out of thought with 200 million people. You got a lot of meat there, man. That’s a lot of meat to deal with, Dave. And Jackson wants to run to be president. Man, you better hope somebody wants to be president. You dig what I’m saying? But who in the hell would want to be? Can you conceive? What kind of brain would want to lead these ******* roof scoops out there? You know, because there’s no communication with them. You dig? If you took a horse whip and beat them, they still wouldn’t understand what the hell you’re talking about because there’s no, there’s no intelligence there, man.

Nikolas: There’s too many people.

Manson: Oh, man. Yeah. You know. They’ll pray for Hitler to come back. They’ll wish he had been here.

Nikolas: What do you think about how he helped that man?

Manson: I just think he was throwing in his time during his trip for whatever. See, you don’t have any other choice. Once you get ordering yourself, then you gotta reach the order in your... in your own household, in your own family, in your own kin, in your own kind. You gotta reach that order. You can’t go... I can’t go and tell this man something until I can tell me something. If I’m right within me, then I can tell him what’s right within what I think. But each man has to be right within what he thinks, ****. I can’t make another man right. The other man gotta be right with himself.

Nikolas: We.

Manson: All do. Anybody that wants to put order into the world Anybody that’s got a brain that wants to put order into the world has got to stumble upon Hitler. Because Hitler started putting order into the world. And when he started putting order into the world, it threw him out. It overwhelmed him. It was too big for him. He couldn’t do it. You dig? Nowadays, it’s a different computer. It’s a different... If it’s a different world, it’s a different thought. Nowadays, you don’t need all that explosive power. You can do it... on your computers with your buttons and stuff, with your aids and bades, with your biscuit berades, and biscuit biscuits. That’s in my music, see? But that’s what they won’t let me get out. And then every time they keep that music out, then all the kids raise up and they kill a bunch of people. And then they say, Oh, you’re ****** **. Well, why are we ****** **? Who says you can put your music up over my music? You dig what I’m saying? Who put your voice up over my voice? Who says your God’s bigger than my God? You dig what I mean? In other words, you get down in the alley with it, and whose dog’s the biggest dog? I’m the biggest dog when I’m out there in the street. When I ride my motorcycle and I’ve got my knife, ain’t nobody up over me with nothing. Nothing. Nowhere. Nowhere in town. I was stupid enough to believe that I had rights in this country. You know, I believed what the judge said. In other words, I worked for twenty ******* years to get out of jail. I did everything these ******** told me. I thought that Dang Dang was my daddy, man. I played up underneath that fool and did everything he told me to do, right? Just perfect. Perfect to the letter of the law, all the way down the line. Then when I got outside, I never broke that law. I’m not stupid. You know, I’m not educated in the ways of their education. But on my road, I’m not stupid. I know when I’ve done something and when I didn’t do something. And someone comes to me and they say, I’ve got a problem. I said, What is it? And they said, Will you help me? I said, Sure, I’ll help you. He said, Well, can I be your brother? I said, Sure, I’m your brother. I’ll help you do anything. He said, Guy owes me some money. I said, Well, you’re big enough, go get it. If you ain’t, sit down and keep your mouth shut. He said, What would you do? I said, **** it, man, it’s only money. I wouldn’t put my life up for no ******* money. He said, Well, I’m going to go get my money. I said, Well, that’s up to you. It’s got nothing to do with me. The guy went over and ****** the guy up, took his money. You dig what I’m saying? He come back and said, I killed the dude. I said, What the **** you tell me for? What you tell me for? You making me a conspiracy to something?

Nikolas: You think you’re incarcerated more for your ideas than what you’re supposed to do.

Manson: I’m incarcerated because they’re afraid. I hope... Suffer. They don’t know how many children and how many people are suffering right now because they won’t change. See? They don’t have the intelligence to change. Once you get ‘em, Huh? they’ll go, Huh? the rest of their life. Huh? Huh? They’ll do that for a paycheck. Huh? Huh? You tell ‘em, Don’t do that no more, and they go, Huh? Huh? There’s no communication. You tell ‘em, I tell ‘em, Stop doing that! And they’ll go, Huh? Huh? I said, Stop it! And they’ll go, Huh? And you cut someone’s ******* throat and throw blood in their face, and they’ll go, Huh? Huh? You see what I’m saying? In other words, there’s just no intelligence, man.

Nikolas: You don’t have any hope for mankind.

Manson: Not on that level, not on that level I don’t, no. That’s not mankind. That’s not intelligence, you know. It’s not even beasts. They don’t have the intelligence of a zoo, you know.

Nikolas: When you say beasts, you talk about 666 a lot. What does that mean to you?

Manson: 666 is just a dollar bill. That’s the body of the money. The body of the people that work for the money. Take that gold on that man’s ring. He works How long did you work for that? Two or three weeks to get that ring? And when he got that ring, he puts it on his finger and he ratchets around, and he doesn’t know that he’s holding up the very same value that’s working his African brother to death, and it’s starving somebody else down on the ground, but he wears it on his finger like it was okay. I’d take it on throwing him in the dirt. You know, I wouldn’t enslave nobody for a piece of gold. That’s stupid. Anybody you see wearing gold? You know, they’re just, they’re enslaving somebody else with it, you know. But it’s where their brain is, and you can’t get them out of it. You know why you can’t get them out of it? Ah! Because that was where they hung that ******* last *******.

Nikolas: What do you think about that last *******?

Manson: He was, he’s still there. Didn’t you see him? He’s still right there. Nothing’s changed. It’s right now, then, as it’s right now, now, you dig? And I’m not going back over there. **** them ********.

Nikolas: What does Satan mean to you as opposed to Christ?

Manson: Satan means whatever I’m looking at, whatever I want it to mean. It’s on my forehead. It’s me if I can get up on that highway. It’s me trying to save my air, my water, my trees, and my wildlife. It’s me on that cameraman. It’s me right there in his watch. It’s me in his brain. It’s me right down in his ears. And when he shaves in the morning, I’m sitting right up underneath his razor. You dig? It’s everything that human beings don’t understand. It’s all their fears. It’s what they’re not sure of. You dig what I’m saying? Satan to me would be God. You would be God to me. You dig? I can worship anything as God. Everything is God. The sun is God. The moon is God. Everything is God. Except those stupid ******* people who got that **** stuck up in their ******* heads and won’t get rid of it. They’re out there talking about, Well, Jesus loves you on the front of the cross, and he’s doing all these things. Boo-boo-bah-bah, they’re back there Googling, that’s getting around and playing on the rope scoop, and then back on the boot scoop, and then coming around the back of my alley and saying, Yeah, well, I believe in you. I said, Don’t give me that **** man. I know who you believe in. I know who you believe in.

Nikolas: What about Abraxas? That’s the guy who’s talking about Abraxas.

Manson: Abraxas? Aberaxis, yeah. All right. You remember when they had the harmonic conversion? All the people was up on this mountain over here? Hess died that night. I am.

Nikolas: I am.

Manson: Hess died that night. When Hess died that night, that put me longer in prison than anybody in the world. Hess was always longer than me. But when he died, that put me, the only living thing that was standing on that very same thought that you and I are standing on now. You see what I’m saying? In other words, we’re still in that same dream. We’re still in that same thought. And nothing can take that. You can take my body away and stick it down in that cabinet. It’s still there. You cannot take it. There’s too many people that gave their lives for it. They gave their lives and they’re still bleeding there for it. And the spirit is there. And we could bring the spirit back to life, but for people like this, you dig what I’m saying? He hates white people. He’s scared to death of this black guy. He’s afraid this black guy’s going to beat him up. The black guy ain’t even thinking about it. The only reason he’s scared of the black guy is because he’s messed over the black guy so bad, you dig what I’m saying, he’s got all that back, so what he’ll do is feed me back to this dude. You dig what I’m saying? And say, well, here, don’t hit me, but jump on him. And then they’ll hold me in the point and stand me out here in front of all these black people, you dig, and then push me down in there and try to get me hurt and try to get me killed in every way they can. And then when they can’t, then they say, oh wow, man. Then they want to wear boots and wonder about, I’m going to catch up with you. I’ll bet you I’ll catch up with you. I’ll bet you I’ll catch up with you, buddy. I’ll bet you I’ll make you be what you are. Or I’ll skin your ******* ***. I’ll hang you on trees. I’ll do every ******* thing I can do to do just exactly what I got to do to survive, man.

Nikolas: How do you think you’ve survived so well in this situation?

Manson: Because I’m very adapt. I can adapt to just about anything, man. In other words, I stay right here all the time. I’ve been right here all the time, all my life. So it’s no new thing to me. So when you go out in the prison yard, you’ve got to be up on everything that happens around you. You can’t let anything get into me. I’m letting you get into me now, you know that, don’t you? Satan is getting into me now, see, because you’re getting me. If I was outside, you wouldn’t know me. If it wasn’t for this ******** I’d be gone, man. I’d be old wine up on the road somewhere. You know, I’m gone down the road, man. This is all ******** man. This whole ************* attention thing, I don’t need nobody’s attention about nothing. I can do what I do by myself. I don’t need nobody. I ain’t looking for no followers. I’m looking to survive. And survival to me is out there in that desert. Running around with them wolves and them cowards and bugs and birds and bushes and things. I want to get back on the ground with mine. But now I can’t get all these people that are trying to be and do like me. You dig what I’m saying? In other words, like I got all this ******* attention on me. I got 900 million people. You dig what I’m saying? Now how do I get away from them?

Nikolas: Well.

Manson: Because I am that. I am the soul of. I’m a reflection of. You take a little baby and you put him in the penitentiary. And you raise him up. I’m Richard Milhouse Nixon. I’m Richard Milhouse Nixon. You dig what I’m saying? But I’m him down here under the ground, man. I’ve had to do all the fighting while he gets up there and takes all the bows, see? I got to carry him, ************ while this fat sack of **** won’t let me call my old lady, while his old lady tells him, Shut up! You see what I mean? Squeaky, the one that’s down there doing life, trying to get me out of jail.

Nikolas: What did you think about her escape?

Manson: She’s right on. She better be right on. She knows what she’s got to do, see. She knows what she’s got to do to survive on this planet Earth, just like all the people that are with me do. The ones that are with me do. The ones that are not with me are not with themselves.

Nikolas: What do you think about James Mason?

Manson: I wish you’d send James a copy of this and tell him if he had them swords, I’d just reach and take them swords and break them and pull them down on his feet, you dig what I’m saying? And I’d tell him, now stand at attention when I’m talking to you. That’s where it comes from. It didn’t come from no ******* book. Stand up or I’ll knock your ******* brains out, you dig what I’m saying? Handcuff a *** ** * ***** down there and let me show you how I interrogate the ************. You dig what I’m saying? I don’t interrogate you. I reach in your brain and pull your ******* soul out and throw it on the floor. I’m tired of this ******** you dig? And all these people that run around and play acting like Hoohoo Gaga and playing all that **** they better get in line or get off the ************. You dig what I’m saying? In other words, they’re talking about in the name of the Lord, we’re going to say this, in the name of the Lord, we’re going to say that. In the name of the Lord, if there was such a thing, you see what I’m saying, would he be the devil? If there was such a thing, would he be the devil? What’s that big scar you got running on your face there?

Nikolas: I do have a scar there.

Manson: Yeah, you do. Maybe some running makeup. Yeah, yeah. Looked like you had a scar there.

Nikolas: Kind of hot.

Manson: Yeah, I’m going to get a tattoo of a scorpion over here, if I ever get out where I can get out on the main line. And if I don’t get out on the main line, then we’ll all go to church.

Nikolas: What did you think about Perry Red Worton who said you don’t like to keep?

Manson: D. Although I don’t agree with the way he did what he did, I’m still in accord with that man. I’m in harmony with him. D. In other words, I can be in harmony with other people, even though I don’t like their, I don’t like their particular mode of what they’re doing. But again, I’ve got a lot of friends that are very terrible people to other people. But to me, man, they’re just all, you know, I’m from Kentucky. In Kentucky, I live in a county called Moorhead, and they got them long guns. And if they don’t know you, and you come up to holler, you know, we only got enough to last us to get through the winter. We keep ours in jars, you dig what I’m saying? We raise ours in hogs and cows. Ain’t got no money. Don’t need no money. But I can get through this winter, you dig what I’m saying, kick back, And each summer I’d get up and I’d worry about getting through the next winter. You dig? Yeah, that winter was lost 40 years ago. And I’m the child of Uncle Jess that sent me rolling out of them hills in Kentucky, dig what I’m saying? To save his cabin, to save his earth, to save his planet. Because he stood there and blew himself up when ******* ******** like this come in and want to take you still away and ****. He blew himself up, he blew his kids up, he blew everything up. Hound dog up, chickens up, blew the whole thing up. But when he blew that up, he went into the same eternal dream. You dig what I’m saying? The same eternal dream that I’ve been in, in jail. Can you understand that?

Nikolas: Where do you think you got into that eternal dream?

Manson: I’ve been in jail since 1943. I’ve been locked up all my life. I’ve been locked up all my life. So I’m in that dream. I am not that dream. Don’t get me... I am not that dream. I’m only a witness. One little witness, one little ******* little ***** ** **** in that dream. There’s all kinds of people in that dream that are already all down the road, you know. In other words, if you and I was going to go prove a point, we said we’re going to go prove this point, you dig what I’m saying? And we stand up and you knock me down, I said, I’ll just show you a graveyard you dig what I’m saying and then I say now get up over the graveyard if you want to play knock me down you dig what I’m saying as long as you’re playing knock me down get up over the graveyard and I just sit on the other side of the graveyard and watch him go to hell you.

Nikolas: Talk about the graveyards of the veterans yeah my brother you’re born on Veterans.

Manson: Day I’m born right now anybody that puts their life on the line for me I I’ve always been right there with them. Because I stay right there all the time. I was born and raised there. I stay there all the time, constantly. I’m so much there, you dig what I’m saying? Dad Japan came over and said, Hello. And I said, Hi. You dig? And then anybody with any respect would respect me. But any punk that don’t have respect, and all that fear and insecurity, you dig, then they treat me like the ******* punk that they are. In other words, they give me all their insecurity. They take the most holy man they got, you dig, and treat him as worse as they can. Degradate him, drag him through all kinds of **** spit on him, cuss him, just do everything and then turn around and go to church and worship him on Sunday and think you’re going to get away with it. Don’t work that way.

Nikolas: What do you think would make it work?

Manson: The spirit is in it. The spirit is moving it right now. There’s no doubt about it. Now they’re all running from Jackson, right? They’re all making excuses. They don’t want to give him this driver’s seat, do they, huh? And I’m laughing. I’m laughing like crazy, man. Because I think when he goes up there and says, Well, now, what have we got here? He’s going to find out he’s got a ******* bunch of ******** there, too. Makes no difference what they call you. I call you the Boosku. You’re the commander of Mamscam. What does that mean? You still got to live with what you do. And these people that cut my mail off, let me tell you what they do to me. They cut my mail off. You can give this to the next wavy little kids that you grow up to. They cut my mail off, they lie, they cheat, they got some big old fat women that paint their faces and **** and dye their hair, and they cut the legs off the table so little girls can’t get over and play with the little guys. and they’ve got all kinds of little sex paranoias and little deceiving little lying, cheating little things that they play, and then they’ll push them off on somebody else and say it’s all their fault, that they’re no good and we’ve got the bad guys locked up over here and we’re all the good guys. You dig what I’m saying? When in reality, man, you’ve got a bunch of scurvy ******* PC ************* pieces of ****. You dig what I’m saying? But that’s on one hand. Here’s where Abaraxus comes in. If they didn’t have the love to do it, who in the **** would?

Nikolas: Who do you respect in the world?

Manson: I respect that same ******* ******* that I’m down on every day. That’s abiraxis, man. We roll on it. We’ve been rolling on it ever since he come on the tear. He comes on the tear and says, **** you, you *** ** * *****. Throw **** and **** in his face. Dig what I’m saying? Knock him down. And he comes back and feeds me with it and lets me live. And when he lets me live, then I look back at him and I say, Well, you know, you’re not so bad after all if you let me live. Son, I have to let you live. So, as long as I’m in here, I’ve got to let him live, because he’s only living in my life.

Nikolas: You talk about the spirit of the father in life.

Manson: Yeah.

Nikolas: What do you think about feminism?

Manson: Feminism.

Nikolas: Matriarchy versus patriarchy.

Manson: Oh, I’m a matriarch. I’m a beautiful woman. I’m a very beautiful woman. All my women know that. All my women know that.

Nikolas: Do you have any good memories about the people who were here with you?

Manson: Oh, all of them, sure. They’re all beautiful. Tex, Tex is beautiful. Tex got off his, you know, Tex got up and gave his gym and he tried to walk around and say, Could you get your pimp? You know, and he was there for a while and we were learning new things and we were experiencing our bodies and stuff, but then he decided that he wanted to go back into what his mother was doing. And I looked over at him and I said, Well, if you If you can get anything new over in there, you dig what I’m saying, go ahead and see what you can find out, but I’ll tell you everything on this finger that’s over there. You know, save you a long trip. But he wants to go back through Jesus loves me. You dig what I’m saying, he wants to go back and worship and play all the games that we’ve played for 2,000 years. And if that’s what he wants to do, it’s okay with me. I, you know, I’m still right there saying, Alright, man! You know, like, If that’s what you want to do, but you’re only destroying yourselves, man. You see? Now, every time I come down off of this, you don’t like me. Then I’m a no-good *** ** * ***** because then I put a piece of steel right there on my leg, and I feel I can cut anything with any place I want to cut it. And I live within the sphere of me. I don’t push that off on nobody else. You dig what I’m saying? And I’ll stand back and give other people their space. You see what I’m saying? But if they don’t give me respect, I’m sending all that back around. I’m sending it all back around. You see what I’m saying? Because I live in my mind.

Nikolas: Do you think your mind has power in the world?

Manson: Oh, I would imagine, yes.

Nikolas: Even though you’re here.

Manson: Yes. Yeah, the last, the last wave of these guys, the last wave of these guys that sent me to Vacaville are all gone now. Dr. Morgan blew his brains out.

Nikolas: Do you think you have an effect on what happens to the world?

Manson: Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely. I’m out there on the highway. Sure, I’m out there on the highway. I’m out there on the highway in Big Dragon, in the underworld. I’m out there in Hawaii. I’m out there in all kinds of different things. You might say I’m kind of like Satan. I’m in so many different places at once. Yeah, it would be like Satan. It would be very sharp for one person to do all the things that I’m going to have to do to survive in you, and in you, and in you, and in you, too. See, the judgments are, How will I judge anything? I’m judging it from what’s inside of me. However I see anything, I’m seeing it from what’s inside of me. The man in the mirror. I go beyond the man in the mirror, because I set the mirrors on the ends of your roads, see? But I set them with these little nuisances. When your children come into me, I hang them on the ventilators according to what I need to be, and what I have to get done, to weave my patterns, to do whatever I have to do to survive. And the places where you know the pictures, where we live.

Nikolas: Where’d you go to Deck Valley? Where’d you find them?

Manson: I may, I started all over. We started a rebirth movement. We started the rebirth movement that Carter stole. See, you guys outside don’t realize everything we do in here, they’ll play off and tell you that that’s them. If I dig a foundation for a house, somebody else will stand on it and say, Oh, yes, this is my foundation here, and I’ve, you know, in other words, in the United States, when you run in the United States, you ain’t running into nothing but con, Nothing but ******** and nothing but devil. You’re running in nothing but demon. The United States of America is the demon of the world. He’s the Satan of the world.

Nikolas: Where would you go if you could get on...

Manson: Ah, right wherever I am. Because I don’t really move. If I’m here, I’m here. If I move over here, I’m still here. If I move over there, I’m still there. In other words, wherever I go, I’m still there. I call it Pice. Pice. I’m from Pice. I’m a Lichen. We’re Lichens.

Nikolas: Do you want to explain the liking?

Manson: Well, I like you, you know. You look all right to me, man. You dig what I’m saying? So I accept you as a liking. So when I accept you as a liking, you’re like kin to me, because I never had a family, see. So you’re like my kin. You’re like kin to me, you know, and I accept you completely and totally into that. All the way through your mother’s relationships and your father’s relationships. All the little relationships that you guys have, I didn’t have that because I was over here in reform school, boys school. I had the relationship of the guys over here in boys school, over on the basketball court. The basketball court is my kingdom. Always has been. Because I ruled from solitary confinement.

Nikolas: Do you think that’s your destiny? Not to...

Manson: No, it ain’t the destiny, it’s just me staying alive. It’s my life. In other words, we all do what we have to do to survive, right? Well, you know, you put a child down here, now I’ve survived just long. You know, I’m 40, I’m over 40 years in prison, I’ve survived. And I’ve survived you.

Nikolas: How do you think people are going to remember you?

Manson: I don’t think people, they’re going to be anybody to remember anything. You know, they’re destroying everything. They’re destroyed all the way back down to the coyotes and the wolves and the scorpions and the bugs and the snakes, and they’ll probably see a few of us Fake phony *** ** * ***** sitting over running, looking at the thing saying, Hey, yeah, that’s an old re-running Mars somewhere. You go there and you get Boyd. Boyd Rice? And you tell Boyd Rice, say, You caused Charlie Masson to be locked up three years in a ******* hole. I’ve got that up your *** and lets you do exactly what I tell you to do. You dig what I’m saying? And you take that big dead head you got, you dig what I’m saying, and you set it right in his keister. And you tell him, Now, you do what I tell you to do, and I’m not going to pay you. You dig what I’m saying? In other words, you don’t need money. Not on this road, not where we’re running from. You dig what I’m saying? We’re coming from religion now. You dig what I’m saying? They donate so-and-so to us. You dig what I’m saying? We got the other end of that. We got the other end of that. We got that sharp end of that. You dig what I’m saying? In other words, it’s nice to be nice, but let’s face it. Good don’t have no power over evil.

Nikolas: Nice guy’s finished life.

Manson: I’m last, ain’t I? And look at this nice guy. Look how evil he is, man. Jakey’s nose goes like this. His ears go like that, his gut hangs over these things, okay? And he don’t do anything but what the money tells him. If I paid him three times as much, he’d walk backwards. You see what I’m saying? In other words, it’s just money, man.

Nikolas: Who do you think is responsible for getting you in here? Do you think you made any mistakes?

Manson: Well, I can’t see no mistakes. I think the infinite wisdom of all things are perfect. Even these guys, even though I don’t agree with them, you dig? And I conflict with them, and I argue with them, and I struggle for the same thing they struggle for, profession. You know, I’m reaching for profession, just like we all reach for profession, but my profession is in the air. The water, the trees, and the wildlife, and it goes beyond my physical. You see what I’m saying? In other words, they can’t understand, I’ve already gave this physical up, man. The physical’s hanging down there on the courtroom. You know, if you want to interview me, why don’t you go talk to the D.A. Maybe he can make up some more lies for you, some more stories for you. Because what the **** are you going to understand anyway?

Nikolas: What do you think you can tell people that... What do you think you can tell people to get rid of these lies?

Manson: Oh, I don’t give a **** if they get rid of them. They’re living lies forever, as far as I’m concerned. Because that’s where it boils down to. If you’re lying and you die, you got to live in that forever. You know. I mean, they preach it, but they don’t believe it. I believe it. I don’t preach it, but I know it. It’s a reality. It’s a reality. Jesus Christ is a reality. And so is that other guy. And the conflict that goes in between.

Nikolas: You got the sound? Jeff, can you put the mic on there so we can hear?

Manson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m just checking that dude out, man. Cameramen have a way of hiding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, are you Irish?

Nikolas: Irish English, yeah.

Manson: Yeah, that’s what I figured.

Nikolas: Reddy complexion, huh?

Manson: No, what always happens, every time I get out of jail, I have a kid. And then the broad ends up snitching on me, he’s getting me locked up, and then she takes the kid on down the road, and she raises him up. to be like her. And then I see him when he gets to be about 30 or 40 years old. He’s a little fat ******. He thinks just like his mother. You dig? So I see a bunch of little fat ******* that think just like their mother. And I look at him and I see, Yeah.

Nikolas: Do you know if any of your children have followed in your footsteps?

Manson: They’re all my children. And anybody ever seen me is followed in my footsteps. How else could they do anything else? Should I explain that? It’s a brand new step. Never been done. It’s history. Every step I take now is history. And I’m carrying 900 million people in my mind. You see the Pope? He’s a cigarette **** on the floor. Now open, open, open up your mind into that. See all the orientals and the dragons, all the tongs, see all the feathers, see the swastika spinning, you see it coming alive. In our minds, as a youth, in our minds as a youth, you see that spirit coming back? You see it coming back? You dig what I’m saying? In other words, it’s coming back in the spirit of the youth. It’s coming back from the battlefields. It’s coming back. Peace on earth. Peace on earth. And the peace on earth goes beyond that line. And I put that line on the blind man’s pole. Then I run that down with some other soul, and then I cut that on back with another track and come back and say, Joo, joo, I know my mind. And I trust the very same person that you do. And the very same person that you do. I trust the only person left to trust. Me. Because you all lied to me. You all misused me. You all played your little games up on me. You dig what I’m saying? And I’ll let you lay your little old track up on me. And I’ll let you do your little old thing. You dig what I’m saying? Then this guy wants to **** in my *****. I said, All right. You want to **** in my *****? Lit right over there by the graveyard so you won’t have too far to fall. You see? In other words, like, everybody that thought that they’re playing me, I think they’ll end up fighting out that they got played by themselves. Because we each get the guy in the mirror.

Nikolas: You look in the camera and tell people they’re going to see this. Tell them, tell them who you really are.

Manson: Tell them who I really am. I’m this hand here. With no doubt. Yeah. Yeah, I like that, yeah. Yeah. That shoulder there. There, you look like a healthy young man. I like you. Well, I can’t talk to the people. Well, that’s your reality. You’re the one that does that. I don’t... I’m dealing with you. What do you have to?

Nikolas: Say that you’ve never been able to say before.

Manson: You’ve been through a lot, ain’t you? Yeah, that’s good. That’s why we probably meet as easy as we do. I feel real comfortable with you, man. Yeah.

Nikolas: So what do you have to say that you’ve never been able to say in this situation before?

Manson: I’m going to survive. If you do or not, that’s up to you today. But The only thing that keeps me from surviving is the people that don’t want to survive. So here’s what I would say to all the people that have the death wish. Why don’t you go ahead and find your own way out? Why come to me with all this dying and all this fear and all this ********? I’m not into dying and fear. I’m into music. I play music. I play music. I ride my motorcycle around now. What comes to me, I have to deal with, don’t I? So I go out in the desert, and I’m sitting in the desert, and I’m not bothering anybody, and I’m just having a good day.

Nikolas: And what happened to that good day?

Manson: Somebody comes up and wants to know something. I said, What do you want to know something for? Can’t you just have a good day? Well, I work in the chemical company, and my aunt said, and my cousin, I said, Oh, man. But I thought buying my payday, bro, run, and ooh, **** it’s a room full of confusion. You know, in other words, if it makes sense to the people that are doing it, you know, okay, but it don’t make no sense to me. It don’t make no sense to me, and I’m just a child left out of that.

Nikolas: Do you want to be part of it?

Manson: Over here, huh?

Nikolas: You don’t want to be part of it anymore.

Manson: Part of what? Yeah, in other words, like, I have to say that to say a thought, you dig? Actually, I wouldn’t be here had it not been for those people you call family. They’re the ones that put me here. They’re the ones that butchered up a bunch of people and said, Here, we want you to see this guy. I didn’t want to be seen. You know, I was trying to get out in the desert. They said, Well, this is our star. You dig what I’m saying? I would have went ahead and let you believe in Elvis Presley. You dig? You could have had Elvis Presley for your little dreams. You dig what I’m saying? But Elvis Presley was only the shadow that was playing up over somebody that was dying in the hole down in Brushy Mountain, Tennessee, or someone that was over in the solitary confinement in, uh, you see what I’m saying? In other words, the real Humphrey Bogart and the real James Cagney are actors. I mean, the ones you know, the real ones, they died in here. You know, in other words, we die so that you guys can play at us. In other words, we got to be the bad guys so you guys can be the good guys. But in reality, we know that you’re not the good guys, that you guys are worse than we are. Dig what I’m saying? Which is acceptable because we’re outlaws, and that’s what keeps us out. And as far out as you can get, and when you’re drinking your children’s blood, I see you. You can’t fake on me. because I was your children. You can’t fake on me. I was your children of the 40’s. Eleanor Roosevelt can’t fake on me.

Nikolas: You refer to World War II a lot.

Manson: Yeah, that’s what raised me. I’m a child of my time, you know, you’re a child of your time. My, I’m locked in the Second World War. You’re talking in the Second World War. You’re, well, how old are you now? Yeah, you’re the Vietnam War. Oh, your brothers run the Vietnam War. Well, your brothers are like my little kids. I was brotherhood to the Korean War, and my father was the Second World War. I was even born into the universe. In the perfection of that, I was born 11-11-34, Veteran’s Day, and my grandfather, my granddaddy, was the conductor on the B&O Railroad out of Kentucky, out of the blue moon of Kentucky. That’s off the First World War.

Nikolas: What do you think about one?

Manson: I think it’s very stupid. It doesn’t make any sense at all. No. No, not really. Uh-uh. It’s only necessary to those people who won’t accept in their minds that they’re full of ****. And then you have to, you have to help them submit. They can’t submit. You can’t bring them down to the truth. They want to play act like they’re somebody better or bigger or smarter. They’re like a bunch of chickens, they, what it really boils down, they’re like chickens. and they got the kids down at the bottom and they peck on the kids. Now they pecked on this kid that he grew up. Not only he grew up, he grew up once and went to Mexico City and stood in the bull ring and went, Chick-haw! And spiggle all the way to Spain. You dig? Now they’re ******* English ***********. They don’t want to accept that I’m in the heart of the world because they got no heart. When I say English, you dig once and then I have to turn around and be the king of English if I’m anything. which I really don’t, I’d rather be a coyote in the desert, but I’ve got to play at this ******* human thing, this form that I’m in, and I can play anything, any act. I mean I’ve played them all, you know, but which one ain’t an act? I don’t know.

Nikolas: Doesn’t matter.

Manson: I guess only to how much you’re getting paid. or who’s paying you, or if your dollar’s going to be worth anything to start with, or if you’ve got to give half of it to some Jew ******* ******* that’s doing nothing but laying up and sucking on what somebody else is doing, you dig? In other words, I can’t get them maggots out of my brain. Everywhere I look up, man, I got these little ******* bloodsuckers that get in my head, and they want to just feed from me some more, you know? And I say, Good God, man, ain’t you fed on me enough? Two thousand years ain’t made you fat enough to get off my ******* neck, man, you dig? And then you see Jesus, and you see Christ as being a little God, partner. Because I had the altars of the Druids long before the cross came, and the altars of the Druids will be there long after the cross is gone. Whether the Christians like to accept it or not, he was there, and the cross came by, and passed by my window, and I seen it go by, and I said, Oh, Christ was a little God. But He’s a reality in this world, because he holds atomic warfare. And we can’t blow the world up. We don’t want to blow the world up. So all those that live in the thought of we don’t want to blow the world up, you dig what I’m saying? And here’s another thing that you people talk about, all these peace movements, all these demonstrators, they’ll run out and demonstrate for a nuclear power plant, go home and turn electricity on. If you want to demonstrate for a nuclear power plant, don’t use electricity. Does it make sense? You want to demonstrate for something, on one hand and get their faces up in the camera and like, look at me, I’m different, you know, or pay me to be somebody, you dig? And then on the other hand, they can’t be somebody because they go home and turn the ******* electricity on and use the same ******* pollution. You dig what I’m saying? In other words, you can’t protest cutting down trees with paperwork. You can’t protest pollution running around automobiles, you dig? I told you 40 years ago, get back to the horse, man. Get back to the horse. If you don’t get back to the horse, there’s going to be nothing left of you. Now, it’s dawning in the minds of many. It’s dawning in the minds of chemistry. It’s dawning in the minds of biology. And I got seven big locks in my brain, okay? And then I send off to Norway. Sure! And I send him a thought, and it goes to Norway, and the chemistry, and they’re looking in the little things. You dig what I’m saying? And then I’m over here in Australia, sitting on a Bushman. I don’t need a telephone to communicate with that bush man. You dig ones? That bush man is right inside my soul, man. He’s just, he’s right inside. I can hear, I can hear everything. I can see through his eyes. You see what I’m saying? It’s like I am that bush man. And I am that solitary confinement. And I am that slam dunk. You dig what I’m saying? And I’m sitting there watching all you ******* Rube Scoops, you dig? Playing my life, all these years, you take me from court, you dig? And the lawyer represents me, and then he’s got guys that represent him, and then they all represent that, and then these guys represent me, and they all represent that. They’re only representing me to start with. It’s all in my life that they’re standing up with all this big old **** that they’re standing up in. It’s my life that they’re feeding on at the bottom. The King don’t have any clothes, man. We told you that in ’69 when Nixon fell down. Now you’re trying to drag that same old egg up there and try to put something up that’s already gone, man, rather than try to build another one. You see what I’m saying?

Nikolas: What do you think has happened in the world since you’ve been incarcerated that you’ve made happen?

Manson: Oh, me? Hell, I don’t make nothing happen. I just walk around with what’s going on. I mean, make happen. Well, the same thing with you and your world, what, you know, you’ve made me happen. I mean, you know, how can you say I make you happen when you made me happen just as much as I made you happen? I’m only what you put into me. You dig what I’m saying? No, no, no. You put your thought into me. You sent me this, and you did that, and you said so and so, and you put such and such. And I said, Oh, is this what you see? Man, this must be, you know, wow, you know what they are, right! You know what I mean? In other words, if that’s what you see, then I’ll meet you in that. Yeah, that’s beautiful. Fantastic.

Nikolas: What do you want people to see?

Manson: Do I want people to see me?

Nikolas: Yeah, do you care?

Manson: No, not really. I just like to get on down the road and play my music. See, I played my music for — are you hot in here? I play my music for me. I don’t play my music to entertain people. I play my music because I am my music, you know, and I live 24 hours a day in music. And I get up in the morning, and that’s what I live in all day long, you know. It’s like a long time ago, back in the 50’s when I was in reform school. And I would get in a fight or I’d get in an argument and I’d be down in the solitaire confinement. And they’d have me down in the solitaire confinement and I’d just go . And I turned everything off a long time ago. Back in Virginia, when I was about seventeen. Earth angel, Earth angel, you know, and it was a long time ago I turned all that **** off, man. You know, I mean it really got all that freaking . Ain’t nobody ever tried to help me do nothing, man. Nobody helps you. Everybody wants to ride. They talk about help. But there ain’t no such thing. You’ve got to help yourself. Everybody that says they want to help you, you dig what I’m saying? They got — you know, everybody’s — you know, we all hold a little — and then who does it all balance off on? It all balances off on Rock Hudson to be the macho until they find out that he’s not really that. to the Marine Sergeant who can’t say what he’s doing in the locker room. You know what I mean? I mean, who carries the balance of what the in-betweens are, you dig? In other words, am I a ***** a homosexual, a punk, or am I a macho or a boo-goop or a flim-din? Or am I all things to all people in all ways? Am I their death if they seek it too closely? Am I their judgments if they find harshness within themselves? Am I their benefactor? If I’ve got the... In other words, like, what am I? What am I? Well, then there’s how many millions of people that are in that right now because of you and your generation? Because when I fell out of this penitentiary and I was playing my music, you, Neil Diamond, Buffalo, Springfield, Beach Boys, all of them guys came to me, you dig? And you said, How can you play this kind of music, man? We’ve never heard this kind of music before. You know? I said, Wow, this is a strange kind of music, you know? And I said, Oh. And they copied and stole from me and took it down and put it in whatever they did, you dig? But didn’t you do the same thing just then as I gave you that motion? In other words, like, we’re all in... if we’re in harmony with that. There’s no need to be out of harmony with that. The only fear and violence and bloodshed is created by this dude’s confusion.

Nikolas: You don’t think violence can be part of harmony?

Manson: Violence is very much a part of harmony when you can’t... When you can’t touch intelligence, and you tell it, Get off me, and it doesn’t understand you, and you say, Look, get off of me, and it still doesn’t understand you, you say, Well, what else can I do? I’ll just hang myself. And then I hang myself. And as soon as I hang myself, you know right where to go.

#### Bob Larson's First Interview with Nikolas and Zeena Schreck (1990)

The First Family of Satanism, featuring televangelist Bob Larson interviewing Zeena LaVey (daughter of Anton LaVey) and Nikolas Schreck, was recorded in 1989/1990 but released on VHS with a 1990 copyright date, though some listings show a 2002 video release for archival/digital purposes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BqAz27fx-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT2jyy97wns

##### Introduction

Bob: Hello, I’m Bob Larson, host of the nationally syndicated talk show, Talk Back. My concern about Satanism is the result of research conducted to write my book, Satanism, the Seduction of America’s Youth. What you’re going to see on this video will be revealing, shocking, and for some of you, disturbing. But it’s important information you need to know. In 1966, a one-time carnival performer named Anton LaVey shaved his head, donned a hooded black robe, conducted a devil-worshiping black mass, and established the Church of Satan. LaVey’s book, The Satanic Bible, which ritualized his religion, has sold more than 500,000 copies. Today, Anton LaVey is a recluse who grants no interviews and makes no public pronouncements. The affairs of the Church of Satan are overseen by two people: his daughter, Zena LaVey, and Mr. Nicholas Schreck, founder of the Werewolf Order of Satanism. Zena LaVey and Nicholas Schreck are the chief spokespersons for the Church of Satan, and they are the two people you will see me confront during this video. Whether or not you believe in a literal devil, You should be concerned about the plans of LaVey and Shreck to establish a satanically ruled society. This interview was not a debate with my countering the viewpoint put forth by the Church of Satan. The purpose of this video was to divulge information regarding the agenda of the Church of Satan. Facts that until now have been cloaked in rumor and contradiction. After seeing this video, I’m sure you will be appalled by the evil teachings of Satanism, clearly evident in the statements of LaVey and Schreck. You may wish to use parental discretion for younger children during some parts of this video. And now, the first family of Satanism.

##### Conversation Begins

Bob: Let’s come back to the beginning now for a minute. Let’s go back to 1966 when this whole thing got started. The suggestion is that your father hit on a good gimmick. You’re always accusing the Church of being hypocritical and using gimmicks, but it seems to me that your father hit on a very good gimmick. And then there was a lot of showmanship involved. I mean, news on altars and satanic ceremonies. How sincere was the beginning of the Church? How sincere.

Zeena: It was quite sincere. There had to be public attention to pave the way for Satanism to be a recognized and above-board religion as it had never been before. So there had public attention. You don’t you don’t have a movement without moving.

Nikolas: And the archetype of the devil has always been as a showman.

Zeena: And he always admitted that.

Nikolas: All artists, anyone who has a creative way of attracting attention has always been accused of having having diabolical powers.

Zeena: Yeah, but what I find interesting is, although many people like yourself might think that he was only doing it for gimmick’s sake and because he was a good showman, You also complain that he won’t come and be on your show. So now, which is it? Would you rather have him be a good showman and come on your show?

Bob: Why doesn’t he come out of the closet?

Zeena: He’s not in a closet. He’s living his life happily.

Bob: But he is not, I mean, he is fronting an organization.

Zeena: He came out of the closet in 1966 so that everybody else could come out of the closet.

Bob: But excuse me, but he is not making his views, his doctrines, his beliefs.

Nikolas: His views and doctrines are available in the system.

Bob: He’s not making them open to the objective inquiry of the press, of journalists, of anyone. No, he’s not. I mean, you are speaking for him, but he does not put himself on the line to defend what he believes.

Zeena: He’s past that point. He’s past that point.

Nikolas: He no longer has the need to speak. to the media in that fashion, and certainly, the Christian media is a dying force.

Zeena: And he’s living...

Bob: Wait, wait, wait. The Christian media is a dying force.

Nikolas: The Christian media is now going through its last very extravagant death throes. Jim and Tammy Baker...

Bob: Where do you get these statistics?

Nikolas: Well, all of the evangelists are slowly falling out of favor, and as we move into the Satanic Century, we’re going to see Christianity’s last gasp.

Bob: Well, now, hang on. Excuse me just a minute, Nicholas. You make some broad, sweeping statements that do not have statistical validation. Now, while it is true that certain tele-evangelists have had a mark drop in their audiences, overall, the growth of religious media in America is exploding. Can you quote me in statistics in regards to religious radio stations and religious television stations?

Nikolas: There is much more.

Bob: Do you know how fast they are growing in this country?

Nikolas: There’s much more religious media than ever. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that’s a sign of the death throes of Christianity. You’ve given up your ideals, and now you’re joining the devil’s ranks, which is to entertain people. You are now a part of the media, which is something that the fictional character you base your religion on, Jesus Christ, would certainly not have condoned. You are now using...

Bob: Nicholas, you throw so many... I don’t want to interrupt you. I want to be polite, but you throw so many little zingers out that are just factually inaccurate. I do have to call... You just casually say, This fictional... a character, you completely disregard the historicity of Christ. But let’s come back to that.

Nikolas: As most historians would.

Bob: Well, that’s not entirely accurate, Sarah. Let’s get back to the... Well, it is quite accurate if you want to think about that. Let’s get back to where the whole thing started, okay? Let’s get some facts straight here, and I’m asking you, Zena, because the press has kicked these things around. Jane Mansfield, Was Jane Mansfield a follower and/or a lover of your father?

Zeena: Yes, she was a member of the Church of Satan. I will not discuss my father’s private life, because I don’t think it’s anybody’s business, but she was definitely a devout follower of the satanic philosophy.

Bob: Well, his private life has been pretty well discussed in a number of notable books in the 60s.

Zeena: Well, that’s there for people who wish to discover that. Okay.

Bob: Well, if you prefer not too fine, but I’m trying to get some facts here. The curse, The story of the curse that killed Jane Mansfield that your father supposedly put on someone else and she happened to be in the car. Any truth to that?

Zeena: Books and papers also. So, do you want me to talk about things?

Bob: I’m just asking you. I’m asking you. I’m coming straight to the source here.

Zeena: No, there’s no curse.

Bob: There was no curse. So, she was not decapitated because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, because of your father’s curse.

Zeena: I would say she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, obviously.

Bob: But your father did not put a curse at her request.

Nikolas: On Sam Brody, yes, but not on her.

Bob: No, but he did put a curse. And because she happened to be in the car with him, when he was killed, she got killed.

Nikolas: Because she ignored Anton LaVey’s request that she break communications with Sam Brody, warned her to stay away from her. So she did not do that.

Bob: But your father did put a curse on.

Zeena: Sam Brody.

Bob: Okay, I’m just trying to get the story straight here. Marilyn Monroe, what was the connection with Marilyn Monroe?

Zeena: That was an affair that the two of them had when they were both very young and were relatively unknown. It just so happened that both of their lives took off in a direction that, you know, garnered some fame. But at the time that they had this affair, they were both very young, late teens, early 20s.

Bob: Sammy Davis Jr. He’s been pictured worshiping in one of your father’s altars, wearing a pentagram. Was he at a time a follower of the Church?

Zeena: At a time, yes.

Bob: Are there any prominent stars today who are followers openly of the Church of Satan, such as these people were back in the ‘60s?

Zeena: There are, and some of them we already know of. Who? Well, if you want entertainers, King Diamond is a member of the Church of Satan. He openly admits that. None of these other heavy metal people are.

Bob: Right.

Zeena: And then there are other actors as well.

Bob: For example, home.

Zeena: Well, because of the recent hysteria we’ve seen. I’m not going to put their...

Nikolas: There are people in every field of endeavor, in architecture, science...

Bob: Well, as a matter of fact... You see, you blame it on hysteria, but in fact, if they’re a follower of Satan, Should they not be willing to step forward and say so?

Zeena: Well, that’s what we’re embarking on now.

Nikolas: Well, what the ‘90s are going to see is a massive rise of Satanism. People are going to come out of the shadows and reveal themselves as thorough-going Satanists, because what we’re seeing now is the death struggle between the Judeo-Christian idea and archetype, and the more ancient Satanic archetype.

Bob: Nicholas, For 100 bucks, anybody can join the Church of Satan. That’s what the membership form says. And that’s a lifetime membership.

Nikolas: They can join the Church of Satan on that level. However, to become an active member of the Church of Satan requires that you are already doing something to advocate Satanism. Simply by joining, you do not become a Satanist.

Bob: So, that’s just a quick, easy 100 bucks to pocket.

Nikolas: No.

Bob: Well, it is because, I mean, what do you get for your 100 bucks? A little membership card that says, Hi, I’m a Satanist.

Nikolas: No, Satanism is not like Christianity, a way of gathering sheep together in one place. We feel that the best way to change the world into a satanic arena is by having strong individuals in different areas do their own individual work. So, by joining the Church of Satan, you enter into the possibility of going into the higher echelons of the Church of Satan.

Bob: But if you join a Christian church, there is some obligatory relationship that you have, some duties and responsibilities. Well, the Christian church... Do you not have any duties? I mean, you just pay your 100 bucks, you get your card, and that’s it? You don’t require anything.

Nikolas: That’s all you choose to do. Most Satanists, as most Christians, are not fully committed. Most Christians are not fervent.

Bob: And you guys got that problem, too. Everyone has.

Nikolas: When you are dealing with human beings, you have the problem of insincerity. How many Christians are truly Christian? I maybe met five in my entire life.

Bob: Well, if they’re not truly Christian, then they’re not Christians.

Nikolas: So, that just becomes a semantic problem.

Bob: Okay, yeah. Well, can you be a Satanist or not truly be a Satanist?

Nikolas: It’s a problem of semantics, as I said. You can say you’re a Martian. Well, what does that mean? Satanism is a very broad-based word. To be a member of the Church of Satan is another thing. If I say, Bob Larson represents Christianity, therefore, does Bob Larson represent Jim Jones? and Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggart and Charles Manson, other people who have called themselves Christians, so you understand the problem. It’s a question of semantics and definition.

Bob: Okay, let’s talk about the Church for a minute, because there’s so much that I would know and take for granted, and certainly you would know much more and take for granted, that the average person has no understanding of. It is a Church. It takes that moniker, it presumes that position. And when we think of a church, we think of weddings, we think of funerals, we think of ceremonies of worship, of its views on everything from medical treatment to...

Nikolas: Those are all activities that go under the umbrella of the Church of Satan.

Bob: Let’s find out what goes on in the Church of Satan.

Nikolas: Well, one of the main misconceptions is that the Church of Satan is a physical building where black-robed people come to congregate. The Church of Satan is an idea more than a building. It is a large network of people internationally who are committed to the ideas of Satanism. We don’t all get together and have bingo games and raffles like Christian churches do to keep everyone feeling like they’re part of one big happy family.

Bob: I have to jump in on you now. I don’t approve of bingo games.

Nikolas: No, I didn’t say that you did, but you understand.

Bob: I don’t think that’s truly representational of the legitimate activities of Christianity.

Nikolas: Well, okay, then, if you can say that, most of what you are defining as Satanism is not part of what we would define as legitimate Satanism, just as I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are a legitimate Christian, and Jim Jones was not a legitimate Christian.

Bob: You’re a legitimate Satanist.

Nikolas: The Church of Satan represents legitimate Satanism.

Bob: And some kid who gets a swear elf and cuts the head off of a cat is not a legitimate Satanist.

Nikolas: I wouldn’t be anywhere near him any more than you would.

Bob: All right. Now, let’s talk specifically. Marriage. We perform marriages.

Zeena: Of course.

Bob: What is the Satanic marriage ceremony like? What do they do? They obviously don’t wear white.

Nikolas: They could wear white.

Zeena: They could, they could wear whatever they wear.

Nikolas: There is no dogma or constricting--.

Zeena: And there’s no obligation.

Bob: What do you do? I mean, like witches have a hand fasting ceremony. Do you have something like that?

Zeena: Well, we encourage people to decide what they want. If they want a particular type of ceremony, then we’ll help them write it. But there is no steadfast, hard and solver.

Nikolas: The proper use of black magic is to find out what will work for you personally and devise a ritual that will fulfill your archetypal desires in a way appropriate to you. A ritual that would work for Bob Larson to get what he wants out of the world isn’t going to work for the next person.

Bob: Excuse me, you said black magic. You just let that roll off your tongue like, hey...

Nikolas: Easily.

Bob: A black magic ceremony forsaken...

Nikolas: Black magic, and again, it’s a question of semantics, I would define as the use of will and ritual combined to create change in the world without any restraint on what that change might be. No hypocritical pretending that we are appealing to a higher force.

Bob: Well, have you been to a satanic marriage? I mean, have they ceremony?

Zeena: Sure.

Bob: What was it like?

Zeena: I’ve conducted them.

Bob: You married people.

Zeena: Sure.

Bob: In the name of Satan.

Zeena: If you want to use that terminology, yeah.

Bob: What did they do?

Zeena: It varies.

Bob: We’ve all seen Christian wedding ceremonies. We know the philosophical frame of reference in which that occurs, but we don’t know philosophically what’s happening.

Zeena: Well, a satanic marriage is usually they’re considerably smaller, more intimate, and because you have a gathering of people who are completely for you, and each one is different from the other. We don’t have a set rule as to what the marriage looks like.

Nikolas: Unlike the Christian Church that has an assembly line idea, a certain dogma is read, two people agree to it, you are now part of the Christian community in marriage. We feel that each individual should form a union with whoever they wish to.

Bob: But of course, Nicholas, that’s because in Christianity there is...

Nikolas: We do not...

Bob: A prior philosophical commitment as to what marriage represents, and so what I’m saying is...

Nikolas: Marriage, to us, to Satanism in brief, marriage represents what you want it to represent. We believe each individual is entitled to decide what their life should consist of. There is no bond to any supernatural entity.

Zeena: And even if you decide if you even want to be married at all.

Nikolas: Marriage is not mandatory, nor is... Nothing is mandatory.

Bob: Would you marry 2 lesbians?

Nikolas: I personally do not believe that homosexuality is a natural practice any more than you do.

Bob: And I don’t-- Would you marry them if they thought it wasn’t wanted to be? I mean, Anton LaVey in the Satanic Bible certainly condones it.

Zeena: If they would certainly be able to marry themselves and consider themselves married.

Bob: Well, it may sound like an absurd question, but suppose Joe wants to marry his golden retriever. If we’re all animals, I mean, can Joe conceivably marry his dog?

Nikolas: Speaking for the Werewolf Order, which is my organization in particular, we do not feel that homosexuality is a healthy or natural, or safe, or hygienic practice.

Bob: Well, you’re contradicting Anton in the Satanic Bible.

Nikolas: No. What I would agree with him in this sense, that I do not prescribe any moral onus against it. What I’m saying is, do whatever you want to do, but accept the consequences that come with it.

Bob: You’re not answering the question about the golden retriever, and I’m not...

Nikolas: No, I don’t. I believe bestiality is as repugnant to me as it is to you, but not for moral reasons, but because of natural reasons.

Bob: But earlier you said we’re all animals. I mean, an animal is an animal.

Nikolas: Well, animals don’t breed...

Zeena: So what’s the difference...

Nikolas: Yeah, only humans. Only humans are so neurotic that they break the natural law.

Bob: Without getting too intellectual here, you do have...

Nikolas: Oh, yes, I have a strong...

Bob: Differentiation.

Nikolas: See, that’s something...

Bob: That in effect, you’re not willing to call morals, but in effect, places you as a human animal on a higher rung of evolution’s ladder, giving you certain priorities over what you do to the rest.

Nikolas: No, absolutely not. In fact, I believe that animals should be protected by humans, as it is our duty as the inheritors of the earth to protect the ecology, to protect wildlife, and Satanic ecology is forefront on our agenda. We need to protect the earth that we live on in our natural environment.

Bob: Let’s talk about a worship service. Okay, you have sexual rituals, compassionate rituals, and destructive rituals.

Nikolas: And many more. Those are three...

Bob: Well, those are the three main ones Xantan talks about in the Satanic Bible. Zena These are the three put forth in the Satanic Bible. Describe them. Destruction ritual. What is a destruction ritual?

Zeena: Well, we believe in vengeance. We don’t believe in turning the other cheek. You keep turning the other cheek, and you run out of cheeks. We feel that if you are wronged in some way, that you take it out with the person responsible, whether that’s directly or indirectly, whether that’s actually going to the person, and addressing the problem or the issue specifically, or whether it’s working it out through ritual.

Bob: May I ask, before you go on, have you never had an experience in your life, I certainly have, where I felt I was wronged by someone else only as I matured later in life to discover, in fact, that in that circumstance, I was the one who was wrong, and it was my own selfish ego that placed upon it the imprimatur of saying, I was wrong. But what I’m saying is, if you claim the right to get even with anyone at any time, what if you’re wrong? What if you do a destruction ritual?

Zeena: Well, how do you know that you were wrong?

Nikolas: And what’s wrong with your selfish ego? I would think your selfish ego is a healthier gauge of reality than some moral system found...

Bob: I would think it’s very blinding, because in fact...

Zeena: By instinct, not a gut be blinding.

Nikolas: We’re getting back to our animal natures. We are beasts, and we decide from gut instinct whether we have been wronged or not.

Bob: Excuse me, you’ve never done... Wait a second.

Zeena: Let me do an example...

Bob: And thought you were right.

Zeena: Let’s back up even further. Maybe if what you were experiencing was some youthful ego thing that you think you were wrong, What about infants that are passed from one relative to another, and they’re fine, and they get to one person, and they just start screaming, and there’s something there that’s wrong, and an infant can sense it. Is that infant reacting wrong? Is that a wrong reaction? Well, I would say that on a much more simplistic level, that is the way we react. If we instinctively feel that something’s not right, we have to go by gut intuition.

Bob: What if you’re wrong?

Nikolas: What is wrong and right? And in our case, we are making up our reality. We decide what’s right and wrong. You are letting the Bible or Jesus Christ or whatever God may be...

Bob: Even common sense. I mean, even leaving God out of it to suggest that you can make up your own reality. My goodness, that’s what they did in Tiananmen Square. That’s what they did in Germany in 1933.

Nikolas: And that’s what they’re doing in America.

Bob: These are examples of people who created their own reality.

Nikolas: Everyone creates their own reality. The thing is, you speak for a consensus of reality which is acceptable. We speak for one which at this point in history is not acceptable. So it’s just a question of who manipulates the media, who has the most money to put their reality forth?

Bob: Pardon me saying that I find a world in which your ability to conjure your own reality as you perceive it to be, a very frightening world for people like me. Because you see, I’m guided by some codified rules that tell me what is right and wrong. In your world, I’m not so sure. I would feel very safe.

Nikolas: You would see, that’s your problem. You have, in the satanic world of the future, Christian churches will be allowed to continue, because they pose no threat to us. We don’t need Christianity. Christianity needs us.

Bob: Sure. So, we will let it go. Sure. Tell that to the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. Well, we’re not going to put you in gas ovens. We’re not going to kill you. We just want you to wear an arm band. No, I’m not saying that. I mean, we just want you... No, no, no.

Nikolas: I’m not saying I’m a humanitarian. Don’t try to whitewash me.

Bob: Hitler created a reality. Was it evil?

Nikolas: Hitler was a masterful black magician, of course. He created a reality. Was it evil? I’m telling you that I don’t believe in good and evil, and nor can... Can anyone decide what is good and evil? It’s all based on historical and cultural values. In my point of view, the Christian religion is evil, in quotes, because it is negative.

Bob: But Nicholas, Nicholas, I’m not a Jewish survivor of Buchenwald sitting here with a number tattooed on my arm. If I were... Well, frankly, I’d be incensed, I’d be outraged at you suggesting.

Nikolas: Well, they are incensed and outraged. They’re incensed and outraged.

Bob: You’re not willing to say Hitler was evil?

Nikolas: Absolutely not, because I’m not going to bow down to your level of good and evil. That’s so primitive. I’m telling the human race.

Zeena: What purpose would that serve? You want us to give you these lines?

Nikolas: I’m telling you, you have to decide for yourself.

Bob: No, no, no, no, I’m asking for parrots.

Nikolas: You want rules.

Zeena: No, you do.

Nikolas: You want rules.

Bob: I’m asking you just a fundamental question, a social colloquy in regards to how human beings treat one another.

Nikolas: A hundred years ago, Napoleon was considered the devil incarnate, the most evil person who ever lived. Now he’s forgotten. Everything changes with cultural tides, morals. change with the weather. You can’t say something is good or evil. You can only look at human behavior from a realistic perspective.

Zeena: Well, yes, you really want to look at what is evil. The book that you have sitting right there is probably the prescription for more evil.

Nikolas: The Holy Bible.

Zeena: And if you can tell me this is untrue, tell me. In the name of...

Nikolas: More people have died because of the Christian Church in the past 2000 years of its dominance.

Zeena: With the Spanish Inquisition.

Bob: Well, hang on. You got off Hitler here. You sidestepped Hitler.

Nikolas: No, let’s talk about Hitler.

Bob: Whatever you want to talk about. We’ll talk about this in a second.

Nikolas: Let’s talk about the Bible. Let’s talk about Hitler. Talk about everything.

Bob: I don’t want to misquote you, in fairness to you.

Zeena: I think it’s interesting. Why do we focus so much on Hitler?

Nikolas: Why are you so fascinated with sex and Hitler?

Bob: I’m not fascinated with sex and I’m not fascinated with Hitler. No, I’m not.

Nikolas: Because you keep bringing up.

Bob: No, no, no, no, no, no. I’m sorry.

Nikolas: These are two topics for you.

Bob: Those types of...

Zeena: And so is Satan.

Bob: Those ad hominem arguments really don’t make it in a debate, okay? I mean, that’s not in a... intellectually dishonest, and you’re a brilliant man, and even you know that.

Nikolas: What do you want to get that? What I’m asking? And what’s the issue of that thing?

Bob: What I believe the issue is, and I’m wanting to be fair to you. I’m not wanting to put words in your mouth or misquote you. You’re saying, are you then saying that what Hitler did to six million Jews cannot be morally quantified and called evil? Is that what you’re saying?

Nikolas: Absolutely not, nor can any act of any human being or animal be judged good or evil. There is no such thing as good or evil.

Zeena: Yes, I agree with that, because if you look at every war, no matter whether it was the Third Reich or whether it was the Spanish Inquisition or any war or any movement has always caused bloodshed.

Nikolas: Whoever won the war decided what evil was.

Zeena: And then the victors wrote history. So you always have to keep that.

Nikolas: If King George had won the American Revolution, George Washington would be remembered as one of the great evil tyrants of all time. History decides what is good and evil.

Bob: So if Hitler had won.

Nikolas: If Hitler had won, obviously your school books would say Hitler was good, everything else is evil. It’s so relative that why can’t we, why can’t the human race step out of this primitive argument of good and evil?

Bob: 6 million corpses.

Nikolas: What about Stalin and 10 million Polish? What about the Ukrainians? Sure. Why is there only one?

Bob: Let’s talk about the Ukrainians.

Nikolas: Why is there only one Holocaust, one evil?

Bob: Was Stalin.

Nikolas: What about in El Salvador? There are millions of people dying right now.

Bob: Was Stalin slaughtering other Ukrainians through famine? A malicious act of evil.

Nikolas: There’s no such thing as evil. It was a typical act of a human being. And if you want to look at human history from the day that we came, from the primordial swamp that creation began in, What you’re calling evil is part of human nature.

Zeena: That’s part of evolution, also.

Nikolas: Now, what about the millions of people who were killed in Europe, accused of being witches, children and women burnt at the stake, while crowds of good, pious Christians gathered around and watched them burn for a Sunday celebration.

Bob: I will call that evil.

Nikolas: I won’t call it evil. I’ll say it’s human nature.

Bob: I will call it evil, and I will take it a step further to say that it was philosophically the antithesis and totally inconsistent with what the Bible teaches.

Nikolas: Well, maybe the problem is...

Bob: Now, hang on. What Nazism did to the Jews was philosophically consistent with the occult Aryan ideas of Hitler. So, what I’m saying is...

Nikolas: Well, that’s what you’re deciding, because you’re a Christian in 1989. The Christian Church rulership in the 1600s would think you were a heretic for saying such things. So all I’m telling you is morality is a relative issue, and nobody can decide what is good and evil.

Bob: Is murder relative?

Nikolas: Murder is absolutely relative. When we sent, when I say we, I mean the American government, sent our troops to Vietnam to kill people, was it evil? Were those good murderers? Our Are there good murderers if they’re wearing a soldier’s uniform and bad murderers if they’re not?

Bob: Would you say that to the mother of Sharon Tate?

Nikolas: Yes, I would say that to the mother of Sharon Tate. In fact, I...

Bob: Do you want to let Charlie Manson out of prison?

Nikolas: That’s a whole other issue.

Bob: Do you? Do you think he deserves to be let out of prison?

Nikolas: For one thing, I don’t believe is guilty of the crimes he’s been accused of. But that’s a whole other issue. Oh, you’re kidding.

Bob: Well, how much do you really know?

Nikolas: How much do you know about Charles Manson? How much do you know about Hitler?

Bob: How much do you know about Hitler? Well, now, wait a minute. Zena, Charlie has pretty well made his philosophy known. I mean, he’s spoken clearly and openly. And there’s no denial on his part. of his role in the Tate-LaBianca murders, that he sent those people in that house to commit a bloodbath.

Nikolas: Where’d you hear that? I can show you 20 years of quotes.

Bob: Are you saying that Charlie Manson is a rational mind? Are you saying this man is not a murderous psychotic? Is that what you’re saying?

Nikolas: By your point of view, of course, not.

Zeena: Now, you see, what I find interesting is my father is now suddenly lumped into these ranks. Because all around me, I hear now that my father is just like Manson and just like Hitler. And now I’m beginning to question. No, I didn’t say that. No, you don’t.

Nikolas: You don’t. Many people do.

Zeena: But this is a common opinion. And now I’m beginning to question why. Why is my father so much like Manson? And why is he considered so much like Hitler? And why is he considered so much like even Rasputin, who completely turned Russia upside down? And now I’m beginning to realize that maybe there are two sides to every story. And maybe if you examine the other sides that you don’t hear about, you learn something that is a little more illuminating.

Bob: Zena, I don’t find it terribly surprising that there should be some analogies between your father and people like Rasputin. It seems pretty reasonable to me in terms of the ideology that he set forth. It really is a get yours first, don’t look out for the other guy, Machiavellian kind of philosophy.

Zeena: Well, that’s right, but also you were referring to other people in history that I was saying you have to consider both sides of every story.

Bob: There’s another side to Hitler.

Zeena: Do you think there’s only one side to anything?

Bob: Guy killed six million people.

Zeena: And that’s all you know, and that’s all you have to know.

Bob: No, I know much more about Hitler than that, but in terms of determining his moral place in history. I don’t have a big problem.

Nikolas: Who determines the moral place? Who determines it? Who has the right to determine what is good and evil?

Bob: Well, of course, I would respond from the standpoint of the Christian ethic, but even a humanist sitting in this chair...

Nikolas: I don’t like humanists any more than Christians because...

Bob: You don’t like humanists either?

Nikolas: Humanists, you have to understand this. Once and for all, Christians must know Satanism is not humanism. Humanism is based on Christian ethics and ideas. It just doesn’t have Christ. But it has the same appalling ideas about equality, love for everybody, indiscriminate love for all living things. And we oppose those ideas.

Bob: All Truism, humanitarianism, all.

Nikolas: Humanism and Christianity are in bed together. They’re the same thing.

Bob: The humanists might not appreciate that, but I hear.

Nikolas: Where you’re coming from?

Zeena: Of course they wouldn’t.

Nikolas: And as far as I’m concerned, there’s Satanism, and then there’s other people.

Bob: Yeah, your father, in the satanic rituals, really puts out some zingers at the witches who want to be white witches. He says there really is no such thing. A witch is a witch is a witch.

Zeena: That’s right. Wouldn’t you agree?

Bob: I agree. Now, there’s where I do agree with your father. Yes.

Nikolas: I think you would find that you do agree on a lot of principles with the satanic philosophy if you clearly understood and looked at it. We are saying that the act...

Bob: Well, I don’t know if I’d carry that far.

Nikolas: ...In the sense that the act of manipulating and using the will and using ritual to create change is, by any definition, satanic. And anyone who does that is... at least an ipso facto Satanist. So, these witches that say they’re good witches, white witches, nice witches, are as hypocritical as a Christian to me.

Bob: Your father also says in the Satanic Witch quote of psychics who say, God gave me the gift. These people are playing the devil’s game, but refusing to use the devil’s name. Well, that’s right.

Zeena: Wouldn’t you consider any form of divination, or faith healing, or?

Bob: If divination is biblically forbidden, I would consider it to be satanic.

Zeena: So we would say that anything that would fall under that category would be considered satanic. And it’s not just us. I mean, this has been throughout history. And predating Christianity, there have always been those who have veered from the mainstream, whatever that mainstream was, who have gone out in the wilderness and built shacks to live in, to be away from the mainstream and live their own lives the way they feel they ought to.

Bob: Well, the one thing I can say, you Satanists are certainly more honest than most witches when it comes to acknowledging the authenticity, the reality of what you’re doing.

Zeena: Well, you might not like what we have to say, but we are honest. I mean, we don’t claim to be anything that we aren’t.

Bob: Well, speaking of honesty, before we get off Charlie Manson, Do you want to talk about what happened August 8, 1988 in San Francisco?

Nikolas: Well, I wrote a book called The Manson File, and I’ve interviewed Charles Manson.

Bob: I want to talk about the ritual you held in the theater.

Zeena: Yeah, Nicholas coordinated that.

Bob: Yeah. And when the movie showed...

Nikolas: Let me explain what happened. The Other Side of Madness, a film that was made in 1970, an exploitation film was shown. And of course, as everyone has reported in the national media, the audience cheered during the murder sequence.

Bob: Well, this is a bloody murder sequence. I mean, this was insurance’s body is split open and her child, her unborn child is removed and blood is...

Nikolas: No, that didn’t happen, but that’s a fine point. But yes, it was a bloody murder.

Bob: The audience cheered. Nicholas...

Zeena: Have you been to the Friday the 13th movie?

Bob: Unfortunately, but yeah, Nicholas, you’re just... You’re sitting there so calmly.

Nikolas: What do you want me to do? Cry? What do you want me to do? Have remorse and break down in tears.

Zeena: This is what I find interesting.

Nikolas: What is the proper reaction from a Christian point?

Zeena: You won’t say that Hitler is evil. You sit there calmly.

Nikolas: You want.

Zeena: Us...

Nikolas: What do you want? What’s the right thing to do from the Christian point of view? Should I moan and whine about it?

Zeena: Isn’t this what you expect?

Nikolas: We’re looking at human nature. If you can’t accept it, that’s your problem. I can.

Zeena: Murder is always... part of human nature.

Nikolas: Is it wrong?

Bob: Is it wrong? Is it wrong to murder?

Nikolas: Are you going to change it?

Bob: Is it wrong to murder?

Zeena: Is it wrong?

Bob: Zena, is it wrong to murder?

Zeena: As it says in the Satanic Bible, Can you love the blood-splashed straws that rend you limb from limb? Is that wrong? Can you love and feel...

Bob: You haven’t answered me. Is it wrong? Is it wrong to murder?

Nikolas: Depends on the circumstances.

Bob: You answered the question. Is it wrong to murder?

Zeena: What is wrong? Murder is part of life.

Nikolas: We’re telling you, we don’t believe in good, evil, right, wrong, dichotomy. If I come at you and you kill me in self-defense, is it wrong? Should you sacrifice yourself?

Bob: No, wait a minute.

Nikolas: Murder can’t be.

Bob: That’s not murder.

Nikolas: Murder is no more wrong. Well, there, you’re deciding.

Bob: Murder is no more wrong than that.

Zeena: Okay, then you’re deciding what murder is.

Nikolas: What is it, then? Define everything.

Zeena: If you want to debate it.

Bob: Like, we’ve got 6,000 years of human history to define what murder is.

Nikolas: Killing is a part of animal behavior. Humans do it more than others.

Bob: Well, now, see, I don’t really believe that I would need to worry about walking down a dark alley and being followed by either of you with a gun in your pocket. But But what you have just said...

Nikolas: Here’s the thing...

Bob: Let me present this... What you have just said, articulated to the masses, particularly in a dysfunctional society where people are filled with all types of anger and rage because of past abuses, what you’re really doing I think is potentially lighting a fuse. I’m not worried that you’re going to pull a gun out of your pocket and shoot me in front of these cameras, but I don’t know that somebody else might not do that because of what you said. You’re not willing to condemn murder?

Nikolas: Let me answer your questions in three points. The masses. We have no regard for the masses. Satanism is a religion for the elite. It is a religion for leaders. It’s a religion for competent people. It’s not a religion for anyone who wants to be a Satanist. We don’t say, Well...

Bob: The homeless, the handicapped, those with multiple sclerosis. I don’t care.

Nikolas: I don’t want the homeless, the handicapped.

Bob: The people in Mother Teresa’s home for the nine and the destitute, they need not apply.

Nikolas: I don’t want to. You’ve taken that on your shoulders. That’s your job. You’re doing a great job with the homeless. You help everyone. We’re helping those who help themselves, as it says in your Bible. No, it doesn’t say that in the Bible. You can take the decrepit. You can take people who can’t help themselves. We don’t want them. It’s simple. It’s very simple.

Bob: The homeless, you don’t want to shelter.

Nikolas: No, I don’t want to shelter people who can’t take care of themselves. Why can’t they?

Bob: You shelter the hungry, the starving, you don’t want to think. Dina, what? Go ahead, Dina. What were you saying?

Zeena: That produces more of the same. There has to be some... change. If you look at the animal kingdom, how is the animal kingdom able to survive? There is no such thing as homeless.

Nikolas: Back to social Darwinism again. In the animal kingdom, you preserve what is strong.

Bob: Hang on.

Nikolas: You give more food to the stronger animals.

Zeena: You don’t feed the weak or killing animals.

Bob: I’m trying to...

Nikolas: There’s no welfare in the animal world.

Bob: Nicholas, I’m trying to remain as academically detached as I possibly can. It’s not an academically detached question. But what you think is so absolutely disgustingly outrageous. Now, just wait a minute. Let me...

Nikolas: To me, it’s disgustingly outrageous that you would help these weak people who are draining our resources, who are causing so many problems, we could be doing positive things in the world. These weaklings are taking away all of our energy and resources. And you’ve decided to help them. That’s disgusting to me.

Bob: You’ve never been to a refugee camp?

Nikolas: Why would I possibly want to go to a refugee camp? You have this masochistic love for weakness.

Zeena: And what do you think that’ll gain you?

Bob: Because women have more sensitive natures. I just want to make sure it isn’t this... If you’re going to.

Zeena: Get a soft reaction from me because I’m a woman, then you won’t.

Bob: If you were in an Ethiopian famine camp...

Zeena: What would I be doing there?

Nikolas: Isn’t that the problem of the Ethiopian government to take care of their own people? Why should we be taking care of them?

Bob: No, I tell you what it’s the problem of. It’s the problem... of a communist totalitarian ideology in the Mengistu government that put those people in the place, a philosophy, a philosophy of dialectical materialism, a communist me first philosophy that is not far from what you said. Now, just wait, wait, let’s get back to the refugee camp.

Nikolas: OK, now.

Bob: I want to ask Zena. Zena, you don’t want to feed starving people. You want them to die. That’s what you’re telling me.

Zeena: Now, I like your salesman technique of putting words in people’s mouths.

Bob: Well, then you speak for yourself.

Zeena: Did I ever say I want them to die? I’m saying why do they exist in the 1st place?

Bob: Would you feed them?

Zeena: Why would they be allowed?

Bob: Would you raise money? Would you do what you could to collect the resources to feed them?

Zeena: Would a wolf raise money to collect resources... For the whelps of the... Would you...

Bob: Just yes or no, would you?

Zeena: I’m using analogies. No, of course I wouldn’t. If I did that, wouldn’t they become more and more dependent on me and less and less dependent on themselves?

Bob: No, not necessarily.

Nikolas: Well, that hasn’t been proven yet.

Bob: No, not necessarily.

Zeena: Well, if you look at the welfare state we have and the people who are on welfare, is it true that there are generations of... There are generations of welfare recipients.

Bob: I understand it.

Zeena: It’s not like just a temporary thing.

Bob: No, one’s defending welfare.

Zeena: Well, but it’s all the same kind of thing.

Bob: Here’s what we’re talking about. No, no, we’re talking about. We’re not talking about either lazy people or incompetent people.

Nikolas: Incompetent people. Yes, we are. The Ethiopian government is incompetent.

Bob: But the people who suffer this starvation?

Nikolas: Why do we have a responsibility to help them unless we believe this nonsense in the Bible? If we’re realists, we don’t have any.

Bob: Because they’re human beings, because they feel pain, because they suffer, because they hurt. Does not the hurt and pain...

Nikolas: That isn’t enough. That isn’t enough reason.

Bob: Does not the hurt and suffering of another human being at all.

Nikolas: If the human being is worthy of my attention, I love people who are worthy of my love. That’s very few.

Zeena: And what you’re saying?

Nikolas: People who are strong, I admire them. I’ll help them. I won’t help people who are weak.

Zeena: And what you’re saying is we have to take the responsibility of other people’s actions upon ourselves when we’ve done nothing, absolutely nothing, to have that result. We didn’t do anything to promote.

Bob: Does that matter? They hurt. I mean, they’re in pain. Does it matter? Does it matter? They hurt. I mean, you hurt. You call yourself an animal, but you hurt. You cut your finger, you bleed. We take care of it.

Nikolas: Where’s the social agency that helps hurt Satanists? It doesn’t exist. We help ourselves. And we encourage the same kind of self-discipline.

Bob: Well, you go to the same hospitals I can do.

Nikolas: And let me tell you something. When I go to a hospital, they see them dressed in black. They look at what they call a cult symbolism, and they say, oh, you’re a Satanist. I get treated last.

Bob: That’s because you’ve chosen to wear the beard.

Nikolas: And I’m proud of it. I’m not complaining.

Zeena: I’m saying, Look at the reality of the world. I’m wearing a camel-hair blazer. You’re a Christian. Why should we...

Nikolas: I’m not asking for help.

Bob: I wouldn’t treat you last.

Nikolas: Okay, but I’m telling you.

Bob: That’s the way the world is.

Nikolas: We don’t look for help. Why should we give help to others?

Bob: This is, Zena, this is your father’s book, The Satanic Bible. I mean, this is it. This is the diatribe of the devil that has brought together thousands of people in your belief system. I dip my forefinger in the watery blood of your impotent mad redeemer and write over his thorn-torn brow, the true prince of evil.

Nikolas: Isn’t that poetic?

Bob: Do you believe that, Zenith?

Zeena: And aren’t you taking it a bit out of context?

Bob: I’m reading it. I mean, I’m reading it.

Zeena: Well, isn’t Jesus like that Holy Bible, and I’ll read you something, too.

Bob: Zena, you know what I’m reading. I mean, you know the book. It’s patiently right here.

Nikolas: Jesus is the true prince of evil.

Zeena: Will you let me read something from my own book?

Bob: Well, let me read it first.

Zeena: Oh, and why is that? Why can’t I choose things to read as you would choose things from your book carefully?

Bob: Well, because I’m the person conducting the interview right now.

Zeena: Maybe we should interview you.

Nikolas: I gaze.

Bob: I gaze into the glassy eye of your fearsome Jehovah. I pluck him by the beard. I uplift a broad axe and split open his worm-eaten skull.

Zeena: Did you know who wrote that?

Bob: You tell me.

Zeena: Do you know who Ragnar Redbeard is?

Bob: Who?

Zeena: Ragnar Redbeard.

Bob: No, yes, Redbeard, yes. He wrote this. Well, your father’s re-quoted it here.

Zeena: Okay.

Bob: Whatever the case. Now, this is violent. This is abusive. To Jehovah? It’s insulting, but beyond the insulting part of it, do you not find any reprehensibility in using this kind of Language, mind you, I don’t believe that Buddha is God. I don’t believe that Muhammad was a prophet, but I would... That’s because you feel like you have to please everyone. No, because I would have some feelings of sensibility. I mean, you don’t feel that there’s any inciting of any violent rage in people in this type of language?

Nikolas: Obviously there is.

Bob: Of course there is. I’m asking, Xena, do you?

Zeena: Of course there is.

Bob: Well, you do believe there is the inciting?

Zeena: There’s the inciting of some realization. I wouldn’t say of a violent rage. There’s the inciting, what I’ve heard anyway, that people read that and they say, Yes, that’s the way I’ve felt all my life.

Bob: All right, I want to go through the nine Satanic statements, and I’m going to ask each of you alternately, if you will, to elaborate on them, so that there is no misunderstanding.

Zeena: It’s pretty self-explanatory.

Nikolas: Unlike the Christian Bible, the Satanic Bible speaks for itself. It requires no scholars to have councils, a trend to decide what this word meant or that word.

Bob: I wouldn’t say that the Bible does either, but let’s get to the nine Satanic statements, okay? Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence. Zena.

Zeena: Isn’t that self-explanatory? What is indulgence? That you have to be good to yourself before you can adequately be good to others? Is that evil? Is that wrong?

Bob: Are there any limits on that indulgence?

Zeena: There’s another section in the Satanic Bible that differentiates indulgence from compulsion.

Bob: Okay, maybe you’d like to read that.

Nikolas: And self-destruction.

Bob: Would you not Let’s suppose that a pedophile’s indulgence were the molestation of children. Would you place that under this particular heading here of the first satanic statement, if that’s his indulgence?

Zeena: It’s clearly stated in there how we feel about children and animals, and you know it.

Bob: I’m asking you.

Nikolas: It says in the satanic Bible that we revere children and animals above all things.

Bob: So, there are limitations on the indulgence.

Nikolas: Of course. There are limitations imposed by your own self-discipline and fortitude, not because you believe what you read from God. That’s a very primitive and silly way to go about living. We live because we know what is right for us.

Bob: You know.

Nikolas: And to us, as it says...

Bob: You’ve constructed your own individual reality.

Nikolas: And I think it works a hell of a lot better than the Christian one.

Bob: Well, since you talk so much, I’m going to come back to you for #2. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams. I think that does need some explanation. What do you mean?

Zeena: I really don’t see how it does need explanation.

Bob: What is vital existence?

Zeena: You don’t know what vital existence is.

Bob: I’m asking you.

Zeena: Are life here and now, living for, as I’ve said, all of the earthly and carnal pleasures? What is a spiritual pipe dream? Looking to some external deity or source for your answers, if something... horrible happens to you, you just pass it off and say it’s God’s will, I’d call that a spiritual pipe dream.

Bob: Okay. Nicholas, Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit.

Nikolas: Look at the world as it really is. Don’t delude yourself into thinking it’s a way that it is not by calling upon holy cant and Scripture as your guide to life. Let’s look at the real world, look at the human condition as it exists right here and now.

Bob: Number 4, Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted onion grates. See that?

Zeena: Well, I already explained that, too, insofar as turning the other cheek. Kindness, if you’re kind to me, then obviously I will be kind to you. We treat people as they treat us. If someone’s going to be rude to us or treat us inappropriately, then they have to expect that in return. We won’t waste our kindness on what we would consider ingrates, and that is being treated with disrespect or rudeness.

Bob: Number five, Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek. And let me flip over here to page 33 and also quote in companion to that, quote, Hate your enemies with a whole heart. If a man smites you on one cheek, smash him on the other. He who turns the other cheek is a cowardly dog.

Nikolas: Doesn’t that speak for itself?

Bob: Yeah.

Nikolas: What’s your point?

Bob: I’m just asking you. I’m asking you. These are your beliefs.

Zeena: You’re attacked by a gang of drug dealers for no apparent reason. What would you do? Would you buy down to them?

Nikolas: Or would you strike them back?

Zeena: Or would you try to do something to survive?

Bob: Well, you see, I don’t... You’re asking... Do you want me to ask the question? You see, I most certainly, if my life were endangered, by someone who murderously or violently were attacking me. Now, some Christians would differ on this. Some would say, Kneel and pray. I’m not one who would kneel and pray. I don’t run five miles a morning for nothing. I’d run. I’d get out of there as fast as I could or fight for my life. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about vengeance and revenge.

Nikolas: If you wrong me, however you wrong me, I will give you that same wrong back.

Bob: But if someone is physically striking you with their fist or hitting you with a steel rod, there is no question in anyone’s mind you’re being wrong. Not always so. But in the abstract, and this is what we get back to earlier, it seems that you reserve the right always to determine who is the wronged party by your natural brood instincts. And what I’m saying is that the Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful and wicked, and who can know it, and Common sense tells us that we all have been mistaken at some point in our lives, assuming that we were the wronged one, when, in fact, we may have been the person hurting someone else.

Nikolas: The Bible teaches us to hate our own instincts. The Bible is a guidebook to how not to survive. The hero of the Christian religion is someone who willingly sacrificed themselves. Now, to me, someone who willingly dies on a cross and thinks that’s a victory is a neurotic person. I don’t worship such a God. So if you want to sacrifice yourself, go ahead. We want to live and survive. And you live by returning a wrong back to the person. It’s very simple. And I think.

Zeena: That’s the irony, too, of all the accusations of our sacrifices, whether they’re children or animals or whatever. The whole concept of sacrifice is a Christian concept. Because we don’t believe in any anthropomorphic deity, there is no need to sacrifice anything for anything.

Bob: Well, we’ll get to that. I’d like to come back to that in a moment, if I can, please. And if I forget you, please bring it up, all right? I want to get through these statements here. Number six, Satan represents responsibility to the responsible and to the concern for psyche vampires. Zena.

Zeena: A psychic vampire is someone who drains you of your vital energy, someone who is constantly looking to you for their support and for their energy. Responsibility to the responsible means if you demonstrate that you have a certain amount of responsibility, you will gain that much more responsibility. Your actions are rewarded by what you achieve or what you acquire, rather than being siphoned off to someone who hasn’t deserved them.

Bob: You know, Zena, before there was any Nobel Prize for Mother Teresa, and really before most anyone knew who she was, I visit her home for the destitute and dying in Calcutta. And I saw the poor people laying there in the throes of death. I saw her comforting them, touching them, giving them what food and water they needed. Those, by your definition, were psychic vampires, because they could give nothing back.

Zeena: And you don’t think Mother Teresa had some ulterior motive?

Bob: No.

Zeena: That she wanted these people to...

Bob: I really don’t.

Zeena: You don’t think she wanted them to see her point of view?

Bob: No. As a matter of fact... No, I don’t think she did actually... As a matter of fact, I...

Zeena: Because most missions or missionaries want to convert people. They want.

Nikolas: To save souls. Isn’t that what Christianity is designed to do?

Bob: That’s the presumption I think that you people have made, but...

Nikolas: Well, I think it goes deeper than that.

Bob: I think you’ve made that presumption, but I think I’ve visited more mission compounds... I think I’ve visited more mission compounds around this world than you have. And I remember being in a Bangladesh refugee camp some years ago during that time of bloody war. And I saw a Salvation Army officer standing by the bedside of a woman who had walked a hundred miles just to get there to escape the fighting, and she was dying. He could not speak her language. She had moments to live. And I said to him, You cannot convert her. You know that, don’t you? And he said, Yes, I know that. I said, Why are you doing it? He said, Because I feel it is necessary to offer her a few moments of tenderness and comfort in the last minutes of her life. He had nothing to gain by it. Now, she was a psychic vampire by your definition.

Nikolas: Underneath the whole Christian theology and the whole organized structure of Christian dogma is what I feel is a masochistic, almost love and wallowing in despair and death. Christians love nothing more than to see suffering so they can go and whine and moan over it and help people. and feel how good they are that they’re helping people. It’s a very morbid religion. You worship a God who’s nailed and bleeding to a cross. Everything in the Bible drips with morbidity and death.

Zeena: Drink his flesh and drink his blood.

Nikolas: And yet you accuse us of being morbid. If you want to be around dying and sick people all the time, then you have every right to. But we are not obliged to help these people.

Zeena: And shouldn’t that be a choice? Shouldn’t that be... I thought this was a free country. Shouldn’t that be a personal choice from one individual to the next? Certainly there are going to be people who derive pleasure from doing that. And who are you to say that there are going to be people who don’t want to do that? Who are you to say that that’s wrong?

Nikolas: Maybe it is a greater evil, when all is said and done, to keep millions of people alive who are not ever going to be productive. who are going to drain all of our resources and create a stagnant world?

Bob: But to comfort them in the hours of their deaths, to offer an act of human kindness?

Nikolas: Well, that’s why there’s people like you. don’t want us there?

Zeena: You want us to be like that as well?

Nikolas: You go hug them. I don’t want to.

Bob: Well, if I were that dying person and you were standing over my body, yes, I would want you to be like that. If you were dying...

Nikolas: Just by being a human being, you don’t deserve my life. Have you never suffered pain? Of course. And to those I love that suffer pain, I will comfort those who I like, those who I favor. I’m not everybody’s friend.

Bob: Well, I’m sure you, Zena, heard the story from the Bible of the Good Samaritan. Are you familiar with that story?

Zeena: Right.

Bob: Do you know what it’s about?

Zeena: To argue this point, it is going round. Well, it is, it is.

Bob: No, no, it is, it is important to argue the point.

Nikolas: Because you want, you want, your main concern in Christianity is to help the weak. Christianity was designed as a religion for slaves, after all. Historically, if there is any truth to it, the first followers of Christianity were slaves in Judea. Now, is that not true?

Bob: No, that is not true.

Nikolas: Who were the first followers of Christianity?

Bob: In fact, the first followers of Jesus Christ were not only common working people, but some of the most eminent intellectuals of the day, such as Saul of Tarsus.

Nikolas: Well, Sol of Tarstis is the person who recreated the Christian religion in his own vision and rewrote the scriptures in the 1st place. He caught on to a...

Bob: I’m sorry, but that’s hardly historically accurate. You know, I want to...

Zeena: Christianity is interesting, because one Christianity will tell us one thing, another will tell us...

Nikolas: Christianity is fine...

Bob: What did they tell you?

Nikolas: Christianity is fine for people who have this great love for weaklings. Well, we don’t have it. So why must we be forced to be a part of your love for all mankind?

Bob: Well, you certainly must not be forced. Nobody would force you to do anything. I guess... Can’t you understand that? No, I find it difficult to set.

Zeena: You really want us to put up a fight or put up an argument?

Bob: I just...go help them. I think it’s a waste of your time. How you’ve been able to psychologically insulate yourself in such a way. I cannot. I have not always been a Christian. And long before I was a Christian, it was just a matter of human responsibility to another creature, though I may not have believed them to be a creature of God as I do now. If they were suffering and they were in pain and they were hurting, I reached out to them.

Nikolas: How much clearer do I have to make it? A strong animal does not spend all of their energy and time on Earth helping every weak animal. You help those in your own pack, in your own tribe, those who are like you, and those who are not like you, and who are not contributing to you, you do not have a responsibility to.

Bob: If you want to.

Zeena: Nicholas-- In terms, you can say that we are of different species.

Bob: Let’s get to an issue that Zena raised a little earlier, and it’s one that I know is a very sensitive one to you. And that is the issue of the allegations of human sacrifice. Now...

Zeena: It’s not that sensitive.

Bob: I will first of all go on record as being very clear in stating that my understanding, the Church of Satan official ideology, the party line is that we do not condone, we do not permit, we do not practice, or encourage human sacrifice. Correct. Okay. What of those people who do read the Satanic Bible, who do hear your Father’s teachings, and then practice animal and/or human sacrifice in His name?

Zeena: Yeah, Satanists. Just because you read a book doesn’t make you that thing.

Nikolas: How many people have read the Holy Bible, misinterpreted it, and acted on it?

Zeena: Do you know what John Wayne Gacy said to all of his victims.

Nikolas: He read the 23rd Psalm. Should we now say that John Wayne Gacy is a Christian murderer? It’s a foolish, sweeping generalization. Anyone can read a book. Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon, read Catcher in the Rye. Should we ban Catcher in the Rye? Leopold and Loeb rode Nietzsche. Let’s ban Nietzsche. Where do you stop?

Bob: Well, I think there is a serious issue in terms of artistic freedom of expression that you’ve raised. I also think one has to determine whether or not, inherent in the language expressed, the deeds that result from it are philosophically consistent with it.

Zeena: There are far more violent things written than the Satanic Bible. So you can’t tell me that that was written in such a way to promote violence.

Bob: Well, I’m not saying that it was. I’m just saying that it lends itself by the nature of the language used. Well, let’s read it. Let’s read it, okay?

Nikolas: Let me quote something. Jesus says, I come not with peace, but with sword. Now, if I’m a Christian, and I say, Well, I have a sword. I’m going to go kill non-Christians. It’s a matter of interpretation. I would say...

Bob: No, no, that is absolutely philosophically inconsistent with the larger worldview of the teachings of Christ than anyone would know.

Nikolas: Just as it is with Satanism.

Bob: Well, okay.

Nikolas: Why blame the acts of a few ninkingpoops on a book?

Bob: We’ll read from this book, if you’d like, but let’s read this book, all right?

Zeena: Because this one’s more interesting.

Bob: Mad dogs are destroyed. Okay? The fact remains, given the opportunity, they would destroy you. Therefore, you have every right to symbolically destroy them. And if your curse provokes their actual annihilation...

Nikolas: Rejoice.

Bob: Rejoice that you have been instrumental in ridding the world, of a pest. He is made to be trampled underfoot.

Zeena: You love quoting that. I’ve heard you say that before.

Bob: Have you?

Zeena: Yeah, you really say it with gusto.

Nikolas: You could be a really good Satanist.

Bob: You never know who’s listening to you when you’re on the radio. Well, but Zena...

Zeena: It was just that little snippet that someone played for me.

Bob: Zena, you have every right to symbolically destroy them. I’m a writer. I’m a writer and a journalist. I know the responsibilities of language. If your curse provokes their actual annihilation, in other words, you’re only doing this symbolically, but if in doing this curse, you know, putting the pins in the voodoo doll or whatever, if in fact they actually do die, rejoice.

Nikolas: Of course. Why is that inconsistent in our laws?

Bob: I’m asking you, Zena. Your father wrote this book.

Zeena: Right.

Bob: If a person actually dies as the result of the curse you put on them, rejoice. I believe that you’re trying to be trying to give you the opportunity, if there’s an out here and you don’t mean that, fine, say so.

Zeena: Of course we mean that. What do you want me to say? Oh, no, he didn’t mean to write that. Of course. What do you think we would use a destruction ritual for? If your wife is raped and murdered and you don’t know who did it, and you want to throw a random curse at whoever it was that did it. And if it works, shouldn’t you be happy?

Nikolas: Or should you mourn the ****** which I guess Christians mourn the people who kill them, too? Because Christians...

Zeena: I don’t know.

Nikolas: What response do you want from us? Don’t you think that this is the question?

Bob: Of response that I want for you.

Zeena: I’m just trying to... I think you seem to have this idea that we toss around these destruction rituals right and left. We do them every Friday night.

Nikolas: Yeah, we leave people out, no.

Zeena: Regard for who they are. Don’t you think there’s a reason why we have that?

Bob: Sure, you feel that you’ve been wrong and have a right to get revenge.

Zeena: And explain to me why that is wrong. Explain to me if it’s something that’s so blatantly obvious.

Bob: The explanation is that when we allow every individual to become the arbiter of his own actions, the rule of thumb of his own conduct, and the determinate factor as to whether or not he is the wronger or the wrongee, then we have millions of individuals running around choosing their own courses of action.

Nikolas: You’ll never have that. People are too lazy to decide that.

Bob: In society, we have a lot of very hurt, angry, dysfunctional, psychotic people who then in turn use this as an excuse for reprehensible action.

Nikolas: Granted.

Zeena: And they use Geraldo Rivera, too, as an excuse to kill their mother, because Geraldo Rivera-- A psychotic.

Nikolas: A psychotic could look at TV Guide and find a motive for murder in it. It’s really a moot point. You can read any book in the world and find an interpretation that you feel is valid to it.

Bob: Music, this is your album, Nicholas. It’s called Radio Werewolf, The Fiery Summons. You’re pretty good at marketing yourself.

Nikolas: That’s the devil’s place.

Bob: Well, that’s my job.

Nikolas: Illusion and show music.

Bob: You mean the devil is alive and well at Madison Avenue?

Nikolas: Of course. Advertising is the devil’s.

Bob: I agree with that. You’re a self-described satanic musician. You’ve heard his music, Zena. What does it sound like? You tell me.

Zeena: It’s more along the lines of classical music. It would be the equivalent... to it is Satanic Gospel, I guess you could say. It would be the equivalent of what you have.

Bob: Except the word Gospel means good news. In this case, it’s good news to us. Good news.

Nikolas: Good news for you.

Bob: What does the music do to you when you listen to his music? Does it affect you in a certain way? Is there something about the mood, the ambiance of this? What does it do to you?

Zeena: Well, the music that, and I’m beginning to work with Nicholas on his music, we make music for a purpose. It’s not just background music, or it’s not just, you know, fluffy, light stuff.

Bob: This is not elevator Satanic music.

Nikolas: It’s ritualistic music. It is music that by even the act of listening to it, you are participating in a Satanic ritual.

Bob: By listening to it. So if I put this on and listen to it, I’m participating. But I’m just, you’re a listener. I’m asking you, how does it make you feel?

Zeena: It’s very stirring. It’s very emotionally charged. You can’t listen to this music and say you don’t feel something because you do. I’m sure you would probably feel either hate or fear or rage or something.

Bob: I don’t know, maybe he’s a great musician. I just say the guy’s very talented.

Zeena: Right, but I would say that someone who would listen to it would probably feel very similarly to... how one might feel if they’re listening to classical music that is bombastic and...

Bob: Here’s a song called ‘Incubus’, which is about sexual cohabitation with demons, a human being cohabiting with a spirit being.

Zeena: Right. That’s what it is. That’s correct.

Nikolas: True.

Bob: So, how does that make you feel?

Zeena: Well, this is another...

Bob: And this is a woman cohabiting with a demon.

Zeena: Right. There are succubuses, too, which...

Bob: That make you want to do it, or what? No, I’m asking you. He says it is ritual music that draws you into with intent. I’m asking a point blank question.

Nikolas: That particular song is designed.

Bob: Does it make you want to do that or what does it do? He’s named it Incubus. What does it do?

Zeena: It’s very stimulating, of course.

Nikolas: It’s designed for sexual.

Bob: It’s designed to sexually stimulate.

Nikolas: Of course.

Bob: Prepare one for a cohabitation with a demon.

Nikolas: Well, I don’t believe in demons. I’m using a mythological word, Incubus. It’s an archetype. It is a real force, but you believe in demons. I don’t. You’re talking about demons. I’m not.

Bob: Is this commercial music? Is this, is it going to sell, or is it just Satanists who listen to this, or who’s going to write the record?

Nikolas: Satanists listen to it, and people who respond to a Satanic philosophy, whether they call themselves Satanists or not, listen to it. But it is not intended for the millions. Certainly not.

Bob: You mentioned King Diamond earlier. King Diamond is a member of the Church of Satan, correct? King Diamond is a metal musician, kind of thrash metal, black metal. How do you feel about the Vitalikas and Slayers of the world?

Nikolas: Well, musically, I think they’re, I hate rock music. I think rock music’s one of the most dangerous influences on young people.

Bob: Why is it dangerous?

Zeena: It promotes self-destruction, which we’re adamantly opposed to.

Nikolas: It promotes the use of drugs. It promotes a very conformist attitude, even though rock musicians and...

Zeena: Under the guise of non-conformity.

Bob: Does it bother you, Zina, that they’re kind of using your symbols and your faith and ripping it off to get rich?

Zeena: No, I wouldn’t say it bothers me, because they’re doing what they have to do.

Nikolas: It’s a sign of the times, unfortunately, but it is...

Bob: But if it gets a kid into Satanism, hey, isn’t that bad for you?

Nikolas: It doesn’t, though. No, it really doesn’t.

Zeena: It doesn’t.

Nikolas: All it does is give them a surface illusion, which really has nothing to do with Satanism. So it is of no value to us that these people utilize Satanic imagery. If we had public record...

Bob: Excuse me, I don’t understand why. Because it seems to me...

Nikolas: Because that isn’t Satanism, what they’re encouraging. Drug use. What’s getting them away from Christianity, isn’t that? No, it really isn’t. It really isn’t, because these kids...

Zeena: And that isn’t better either.

Nikolas: No, just getting away from...

Bob: You’re real ideological purists.

Nikolas: Absolutely. We’re an elitist organization.

Zeena: I mean, we feel that if people are happy being Christians, that they should stay that way. I’m not interested in driving people away from Christianity whatsoever.

Nikolas: If you want to be a Christian, you have every right to be a Christian, and we don’t want you to become a Satanist. We just want people who are already with us. We’re not trying to convert or proselytize. And I think that has not been understood until this point.

Bob: You don’t want to recruit. You don’t want to convert.

Nikolas: There’s only a limited amount of people in the world who can truly say they respond to the satanic philosophy or understand it. It isn’t for the millions, it isn’t for the masses, it is for the rulers and leaders of the earth, it’s for people who achieve. That’s one percent of humanity can achieve. Now, people are going to move away from Christianity in droves, and they are, but that doesn’t mean they’re all going to become Satanists.

Bob: You describe the Bible as an occult book.

Nikolas: Mm-hmm.

Bob: You say you’re not an occultist. Christians are.

Nikolas: Exactly. Christians, and again, correct me if I’m wrong, believe in such concepts as birth by a virgin, angels and demons, the existence of eternal life, immortality. At the end of the world, corpses are going to rise out of the grave and become real again, depending on whether you’re a Tribulationist Christian or whatever denomination you are. The end of the world is a good thing.

Bob: So, Satanist, you even know the dispensationalists and the pre-Tribulations and all that?

Nikolas: I wish I didn’t know anything about them, but I’m forced to deal with them, so I know every kind of idiocy that is called Christianity, exactly. It’s an occult book. It is all about occultism. It’s God is a spiritual creator in the sky. Christianity is occultism. Satanism says that these gods and belief systems that humanity needs and should have are archetypes, mythologies that make human beings behave a certain way. Everything is a fairy tale. Christ is a fairy tale as much as Satan. It depends on what archetype you choose.

Bob: Zena, if this new satanic century truly does come into being, if your numbers increase in the Church of Satan, and as you would hope the numbers of Christians would decrease, and then suddenly you are the people of the new social order, describe to me what that social order would be like.

Zeena: I think it would take on its own momentum. We would have, what we would see is nature taking its course, because that’s all we stand for, is to let nature dictate what our actions are, whether it’s on a moment-to-moment level or a gut-instinct level. And we’d have to be more specific.

Bob: I mean, what about some of the laws? Would the laws of the land as they currently are changing?

Zeena: The laws would probably become stricter. If anything...

Nikolas: Let’s look at capital punishment, for instance. In A satanic society, a murderer wouldn’t last a minute because every individual would have the right to defend themselves then and there. Someone broke into your...

Bob: Vigilantism, go out and get the guy.

Nikolas: It’s worked for thousands of years, and it should work again. If someone steals, cut their hand off, as they do in Saudi Arabia. That is a much more sane way of dealing with crime than the Christian way, which is to say, oh, you came from a bad background, and we really love you, and here, go to jail and be rehabilitated, and then we’ll let you out after you’ve read the Bible enough. I don’t have mercy for criminals. I don’t have mercy for people who cause strife, and they should be summarily executed and removed from society.

Bob: In talking with the two of you, there’s not much lightness or humor. It’s because that’s because you’re talking.

Zeena: It’s because we’re inside of us.

Bob: This is all really... It’s all very serious. There’s kind of a fortress mentality about this.

Zeena: If we were dragging you to be thrown to the lions, I don’t think you’d see much lions.

Nikolas: Look, you, whether you, whether you or was thrown.

Bob: To the lions, Zenith, come on, now, have you been thrown to the lions?

Zeena: Oh, I would say.

Nikolas: Satanists all over the country are being.

Zeena: As much as the society that we live in now. is. I’d say yes.

Bob: Well, you’re saying it’s not just necessarily me today that you have a beleaguered stance.

Zeena: See, you don’t realize from our point of view, we are under attack.

Nikolas: You think, well, everyone should be attacking Satanists?

Bob: No, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that.

Zeena: But you don’t see from our point of view, either, how we are under attack, and we are retaliating. This is our philosophy.

Nikolas: Do you think I want to come here to explain these things to you? We’re being attacked every day by the media, by religious fanatics and by people like you, even though you claim to be irrational. We have a lot of other things to talk about than say why we’re not this and why we’re not that, but you constantly attack us and slander us. If you’re going to say the Satanic Bible is responsible for murder, then you’re going to have many more Satanists coming out.

Bob: I don’t see that as an attack, because I think that I have the right as a journalist. to cite quotes that I think...

Nikolas: Well, we’re not...

Bob: Encouraging, encouraging the negative.

Zeena: People to cite the Holy Bible, and you say, Well, all these things aren’t Christian.

Bob: No.

Zeena: All these things weren’t...

Bob: I say that they are philosophically inconsistent with what is taught, that they are...

Zeena: Well, it seems they are double...

Nikolas: Well, why is there a double standard? Why? There’s Jim Jones, the Spanish Inquisition, all kinds of religious and holy wars.

Bob: It’s very simple. Because this book says, Turn the other cheek and love your neighbor.

Nikolas: It says so many things.

Bob: That book also says, hate your neighbor and get even with that suffer.

Nikolas: That book also says.

Bob: Perform a destruction ritual on him.

Nikolas: That book also says, that book says, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Bob: That was the theocratic state of Israel. Well, it’s in that book.

Nikolas: Why don’t you take it out?

Bob: I’m not thinking about that was a civil crime in a theocratic state.

Nikolas: Why are you still using the...

Bob: It had nothing to do with person-to-person. I’m talking person-to-person mind up, dear. What about...

Zeena: People still read this?

Bob: I’m talking about the rules that govern interpersonal relationships and those... The Old Testament and love your neighbor, do unto others, but what about all the other things? This book says... perform a destruction ritual, and if he’s annihilated as a result, rejoice. That’s right, it does. Rejoice.

Nikolas: And what about the things in that book? In the Old Testament, it is filled with descriptions of pious, religious people sacrificing goats to Jehovah, your God, not my God, but your God. How do you explain that? Why are you still using this primitive book about goat sacrifice, the proper way to wear your hat when you’re in the desert? This has nothing to do with the modern society we live in.

Bob: The civil ceremony.

Nikolas: So why are you using... Look at it as a history book. What does it have to do with your culture?

Bob: The New Covenant that Jesus Christ established through the cross. That is the message that we now bear.

Nikolas: Why? Why? Why are you... You are of European descent, I imagine. imagine, why do you reject the beautiful and pure tradition of pagan heritage which you have in favor of an alien Eastern Creed that came out of a desert that has nothing to do with the world you come from or live in? Why?

Bob: Well, the answer is very simple, that there is one God and that paganism is an attempt of Satan deterring people from the true God.

Nikolas: What was it when your ancestors before Christ were pagans? What was it then?

Bob: God, were they?

Nikolas: Were they sinners?

Bob: God always was.

Nikolas: And why didn’t anyone hear about it?

Bob: They did hear about it. The invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation of the world, the first chapter of Romans.

Nikolas: What about all your?

Bob: Some of my ancestors probably were pagans because they were a product of that culture in its declension away from the worship of the True Lord.

Nikolas: Well, you are a product of Judeo-Christian culture, which has infiltrated Western society.

Bob: I’m also the... I’m also as you, the product of a personal... decision as to whom I would yield my life to, and what value systems I would choose to live by. I made that personal decision.

Nikolas: And your personal decision, you will admit, is not based on rationality, but faith in a book.

Bob: No, I will not admit that. It is based upon the height of rationality, of God as a demonstrably intricate, loving, personal creator and designer of this universe.

Nikolas: Well, whether you like it or not, in the future, people are going to look at the Bible and put it on the shelf with Mother Goose’s fairy tales and all the other wonderful books that human beings have created to give them some meaning, and it will just be looked at as another book. You have your belief system. It’s based on a book written 2,000 years ago. As far as I’m concerned.

Bob: In part. In part.

Nikolas: It has no relative.

Bob: And it was not written 2,000 years ago.

Nikolas: They’ve revised it. King James revised it to get the parts.

Bob: But there is the Old Testament that goes back with historical consistency far beyond.

Nikolas: And that’s the part that advocates animal sacrifice is the Old Testament. Why don’t you throw that part out then? Why do you worship a book that advocates animal sacrifice?

Bob: Because she used the word, the scapegoating, was a foreshadowing of the ultimate sacrifice, as Christ, our Great High Priest, came to offer Himself as the final sacrifice for sin.

Nikolas: Well, there will come a day when people will look at this tape and hear what you’re saying, and say, These were truly the Dark Ages, when an intelligent person like Bob Larson could advocate such insane ideas.

Bob: The idea that God would love us enough to give of Himself for us. I don’t consider that to be insane. I think it’s the most beautiful idea on the face of this planet.

Nikolas: So Santa Claus is a nice idea too, but I wouldn’t set up a church based on it.

Bob: Is that it does for me what I could not do for myself. You see, as Satanist, you can save yourself. As a Christian, I cannot save myself.

Nikolas: Well, I’m telling you, what if I told you, you’re free. There is no God. There’s no Heaven or Hell. Bob, you’re free to do whatever you want to do. You’re a fairly rational person. I trust you. You can dismiss all this nonsense and live your life now. You wouldn’t go with that. You’d rather...

Bob: Well, I would have to make both a decision of faith as well as a decision of my intellect to determine whether or not that was truly true.

Nikolas: Have you never doubted that this book, the Bible, may not be an accurate portrayal of the universe?

Bob: And I’ve doubted many times the veracity of what I personally believe. And like all people, I’m on my own pilgrimage to find what has theologically been called that ultimate ground of being, that ultimate truth. But as I continue, I’m continuing a pathway paved by mercy and justice and goodness and love, not one paved by vengeance and hate and retribution, where the strong survive. Those are the two things that are antithetical.

Nikolas: What you’re talking about, love, mercy, forgiveness, peace, that’s all theoretical.

Bob: Not if you’re the recipient of it.

Nikolas: Not even any Christian is practicing that at this moment. Christians are cheating on their wives. Christians are killing each other. And the Bible and your church aren’t going to change anything about that. Until you look at human nature, realistically, you’re never going to have a sane perspective on the world.

Bob: Finally, you’re, in a nutshell, your view of Christ and your view of Satan. So there’s no misunderstanding to anyone as to what you truly believe about both. I’ll let you go first and Zena last, Christ and Satan.

Nikolas: Christ is a mythological figure, just as the Easter Bunny, Hercules, Zeus, the Tooth Fairy. And if you want to believe that Christ existed and was a historical personage, that is your right. However, I place no importance on Christ or the teachings of Christ. except that Judeo-Christianity as a whole has, in my view, been a very dangerous cult that has destroyed human potential for 2,000 years, and I oppose the idea of Christianity. I do not accept the religious validity of Christ, but I do believe it is a dangerous social system, and I am glad to see that it’s finally decaying.

Bob: And Satan.

Nikolas: Satan, just as all the other mythological figures I named, is a figure that the human imagination has created as an archetype. If you’ve read Carl Jung, you know what an archetype is, an ideal. It’s a type, a form, and it has no more valid existence than Christ. However, you can decide a lot about a person, whether they resonate to the archetype of the god of death, which is Christ, the god of self-sacrifice and surrender, the god of the meek and the weak, or Satan, who is traditionally the God of the strong, of the powerful, and of the leaders of the world.

Bob: Zena, Christ and the devil.

Zeena: Personally, I don’t even give them the time that I think the average Christian does. I don’t view Christ as anything more than just what Nicholas said, an archetype. Satan, it’s clearly been stated that we use it in the representative and symbolic sense of meaning the adversary, or the opposed, or the one to question, or the rebel, traditionally. And any anthropomorphic form that Satan may hold, you would be more likely to find in something that’s right around us, a physical, object, maybe a car?

Bob: No god, no devil, just us.

Nikolas: It’s up to you.

Bob: Just us as animals.

Zeena: That’s what it boils down to.

Nikolas: We live in a cosmos that is created by nature, comes from nature, and shall return to nature. There’s no judge above us or below us.

Bob: You may be stunned by what you just saw. It’s shocking to hear anyone, even Satanists, calmly discount love, compassion, and moral decency. Don’t comfort yourself thinking the ideas of LaVey and Shreck are pretentious. They meant every word they said. Satanism is not the stuff of Gothic horror novels. It’s an active ideology dedicated to the subversion of values we hold dear. Satanism can and does affect you. Satanic crimes are increasing. We’ve recently learned that international drug dealers look to black magic for assistance. And far too many teenagers are drawn to devil worship because their lives are devoid of love and meaning. Combating such incredible evil is not the job of politicians, policemen, or theologians. That responsibility belongs to you and me. The Bible tells us, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. If you and I will be instruments of God’s good wherever we go, the evil agenda of Satanism will be defeated. Be comforted by the words of 1 John 3:8, The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. If your faith is weak, now is a good time to reconsider what you think about God, Satan, and the origin of evil. If I can help you, don’t hesitate to write me. You’ll find the address on this video. Thank you again for taking time to watch the First Family of Satanism. This is Bob Larson.

#### Bob Larson's Second Interview with Zeena and Nikolas Schreck (1997)

VMFA 312

Aug 12, 2012

Ever the showman, Bob Larson panders to his audience and mostly squanders an opportunity for a thoughtful discussion (as also in the first interview from some years earlier). At times he seems sincere, but it is apparent that his primary concern is putting on a good show, not hosting a philosophical forum and free exchange of ideas. As ever, Zeena and Nikolas answer questions politely and with amazing patience, unperturbed at being consistently cut off mid-sentence. To an educated person, Larson is embarrassing, if also entertaining, to watch. Zeena and Nikolas are clearly more accustomed to interacting with intelligent people in their circles. It is possible to make these observations without taking, and they occur independent of having taken, any actual sides. The point is that when a person has an agenda, as Larson, he deprives himself of the ability to fully engage in and enjoy the debate, and the panelists, as well as audience, are short-changed.

24:08 — 24:30: Delightfully lighthearted moment.

Audience questions begin at 39:58.

My favorite question is asked at 44:10:

“This is directed at Zeena: You said your baptism was to celebrate life; who do you think gave you that life?” The audience howls its approval, giving it a kind of carnival feel, but the woman herself seemed to be asking the question out of love. Of course, the article “who” presupposes that the correct answer must be a personage. All the same, a thoughtful question. Thank you whoever you are for contributing something substantive to the dialogue, if only to highlight this doctrinal point and to give Zeena a chance to explain how she views creation.

From www.nikolasschreck.eu:

Documentary film of Bob Larson’s 1997 interview with Nikolas and Zeena Schreck filmed before a live audience at the Anchorage Baptist Temple.

Although the Schrecks no longer identified themselves as “Satanists”, Larson insisted on using the “S word” against their wishes so that his film was more easily marketable to his unsophisticated customer base.

When Larson booked Zeena’s plane flight to Alaska under the name “Zeena LaVey” Zeena informed Larson that she would not board the flight until the ticket was reissued under her legal name “Zeena Schreck”. Aside from that she informed Larson she’d placed a curse on the name “LaVey” and his legacy and therefore would not only not fly under that name but would not appear for any performances or presentations under that name as well.

Larson changed the ticket.

It was during this same conversation that Zeena first mentioned to anyone outside her closest circle of confidants her malediction against LaVey and his legacy. Only one month after her conversation with Larson, LaVey died — seven years to the day after Zeena’s written curse in 1990 was sealed. Upon the first day of the news hitting the media, Larson confirmed that Zeena had predicted her father’s death during the shooting of this film when he invited her to speak on his nationally broadcast radio show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEu1pXKEL8M

Bob: Recently, I went on the road to face two of the most prominent Satanists in the entire world, black magicians Nicholas and Zena Schreck. Zena is the daughter of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan. This debate took place in a public auditorium, and I want you to see what happened that night when we had a showdown with Satanism.

Bob: I would like you, please, to prepare yourselves for the high priest and priestess of the Temple of Seth, directors of the Werewolf Order and Radio Werewolf, the owners of the Hell House of Hollywood, and indeed the first family of Satanism. Nicholas and Zena Schreck. Give them a hand, would you please, as they come out?

Now come on, you can give them a better hand than that. Come on, give them a hand. Zena, Nicholas, leave it again. Have a seat. Both of you seem rather appropriately attired in black. Except the shirts.

Nikolas: Little color tonight.

Bob: Little color. Man of color with us. And you have the pentagram around your neck? That’s.

Nikolas: The pentagram of Seth.

Bob: The pentagram of Seth. Now, that’s one of the things we’re going to get into right off the bat. We’re going to talk about you being high priest and high priestesses.

Nikolas: Not high priest. Oh, not high.

Zeena: Yeah, we have to clarify.

Bob: Priest and priestesses? There’s no high or low in Seth.

Nikolas: There is a high priest.

Bob: You’re not there yet.

Zeena: No, that’s a jump. That’s quite a jump.

Bob: What do you have to do to get all the way to the top?

Nikolas: Well, first of all, you have to understand the Temple of Set is an initiatory academy of the left-hand path. And the basic purpose of an initiatory school of Satanism, which you could call the Temple of Set, is to evolve and to develop one’s soul to become closer and closer in alignment with that being we call Set, who is the Prince of Darkness.

Bob: Satan.

Nikolas: We’ll get into that later, but Satan, in my view, is a rather corrupted and degraded name of something much older, much more noble.

Bob: So the big monkey monk in the Egyptian black magic was Set.

Nikolas: Set is one of the oldest gods known to the human race. The ancient Egyptians recognized him as the Lord of Darkness. And many of his properties are certainly comparable to that figure that Judeo-Christianity knows as Satan. But as we discuss this, I think we should get into the differences as well. Okay.

Bob: Let’s lay some groundwork first in terms of what you all are about. I have a little brochure here about the Hell House of Hollywood. It says on the front of this, Take a scarifying tour of Hollywood’s haunted house of crime, horror, and the occult. And inside here you are described as having rare and used books that span the spectrum of horror, occultism, crime, obscure objects of art, collector’s item curios, monster mania. It seems to me that a lot of what you do is based on fear, dread, horror. Would that be fair to say?

Nikolas: I would say, absolutely.

Zeena: That would be fair to say.

Bob: Tina, why are you so preoccupied with fear, dread, and horror, death, skulls, darkness, evil? It’s not necessarily.

Zeena: A preoccupation with it, but rather a being in line with it. The powers of darkness, the dark side, has always been something I’ve been attuned to. It’s not a preoccupation.

Bob: You say you were born a Satanist. I mean, you feel that you are part of some generational supernatural lineage.

Zeena: Well, that’s difficult to say. I do feel I was born a Satanist. I don’t feel that simply by being born to a Satanist necessarily makes you a Satanist. But I do feel that they are born.

Bob: So you have this natural...

Zeena: To use The word Satanist, again, I would tend to feel is somewhat limiting and maybe somewhat outdated. There are more well-defined ways of...

Bob: What do you want to call yourself, a Setian, a Satanist?

Zeena: We call ourselves Setians.

Bob: A follower of the Dark Prince.

Nikolas: Well, certainly not a follower. And I think...

Bob: You’re not a follower.

Zeena: This is a good opportunity to give some facts, is that we’re not followers. That would imply the difference between a right-hand path religion as opposed to a left-hand path religion.

Bob: Let me interrupt you at a couple of points here, because you guys talk about things that I know about that they don’t know about. You use this term a lot. Right-hand path, left-hand path. I’m on the right, you’re on the left, correct?

Nikolas: Maybe before we even get into the meat of the matter, we should define a few terms.

Bob: What do you mean by the left-hand path?

Nikolas: Let me start with the right-hand path.

Bob: I wish you had started with the right-hand path, unfortunately.

Nikolas: That’s one.

Bob: That’s one. We have a chalkboard here or somewhere we can keep telling. Go ahead.

Nikolas: For semantic purposes, we use the phrase right-hand path to define those religions or spiritual practices that attempt to submit to a greater force, a God a universal principle that unites humanity together.

Bob: So you put me in the Buddhists and the Hindus and the Muslims, everybody else, all kind of in one category over here.

Nikolas: And let me clarify.

Bob: With the right-hand path.

Nikolas: The right-hand path would consist of, in religions you’d be familiar with, Islam is the most radical right-hand path system. The very word means submission. It’s cousins, Judaism.

Bob: You think they’re radical, you haven’t met the people who listen to me. Okay.

Nikolas: Almost every major world religion is dedicated to not separating one’s soul and empowering it and individuating it, but submitting it to a God. And in your case, submitting to Jesus Christ. But you’re not submitting? We are not submitting We are not, I’ll use the common phrase that I’m sure many people in this room probably consider, devil worship. We do not worship the devil. We use that archetypal figure, the devil, which we prefer to define as Set, as his specific name is Set, as a prototype, a role model, a companion...

Bob: Excuse me?

Nikolas: Excuse me?

Bob: But you do believe he’s literal?

Nikolas: Yes.

Bob: You do believe he’s literal?

Zeena: You mean as an entity?

Bob: He is an entity.

Zeena: He is an entity.

Bob: He is an entity above all entities. And don’t you kind of feel, Zena, that Seth was given a bum rap? I mean, let’s face it, when Moses went down to Pharaoh and said, Hey, you let my people go or you are in big trouble. and got his people out of there and straightened them out to worship the true and the living God, that in fact, somebody must have been on a wrong mission because set...

Nikolas: That historic incident or mythological incident, we can’t say for sure. We won’t argue the fine points. These are the historical facts we know. There was an exodus of certain foreigners in Egypt. They called themselves the Hebrews, though biblical archaeologists have seen that they may have been many groups. When they left Egypt, They were slaves, and the pharaoh at the time was a pharaoh who held Set to be the highest god. Okay. The theory is that...

Bob: Now, wait a minute. You admit Pharaoh, Ramsay II or whoever he was.

Nikolas: We don’t know for sure, but...

Bob: But you admit that he was a devote of Set.

Nikolas: Absolutely. Yes. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. That was not hidden at the time.

Bob: He lost. His troops got drowned. He tried to pursue them through the Red Sea. And they all drowned.

Nikolas: God conquered.

Bob: Water turned to blood, frauds were all over the place. We won. Have you forgotten this?

Nikolas: Okay, in deference to the fact that we are in a house of worship, I will say that is the Judeo-Christian mythology of that historical event. we don’t see it that way but it’s interesting what is interesting about the so-called Exodus is that the Judaic and Christian philosophy may have really been formed there at that event and Set was the ruling god of Egypt at that time so therefore the Hebrews or whoever the foreigners were who left Egypt associated everything wicked, evil, diabolical, depraved with the major lord of the Egyptians who was Seth now?

Bob: Are you saying then that in fact that’s not true? It wasn’t negative.

Nikolas: No, it was true.

Bob: It was true.

Nikolas: Yes. All I want to point out is this one etymological fact of the confusion of Satan and Seth.

Zeena: The fact that Seth was in power then, that everything negative perceived with Egypt came from the ruling gods set at that time.

Bob: But Zenith, he’s the lord of darkness.

Zeena: Precisely.

Bob: He is the one to whom you term for to perform black magic.

Zeena: What we’re talking about is where the term...

Bob: Okay, I understand all of that, but we’re talking about darkness and black magic. And you admit you practice black magic.

Zeena: Yes, I’m a black magician, of course.

Bob: Okay, so you have to understand that from our perspective we’re saying, Whoa, wait a minute. This is evil, this is bad, this is wrong. Where? Explain to me how the tables are getting turned. How do you take all this negativism and turn it into something that you want to devote your lives to follow?

Nikolas: The Lord of Darkness, the Prince of Darkness, the earliest manifestation of that entity or god that has shown up in so many cultures and religions, was not considered a negative force in ancient Khem or Egypt. He was the Lord of Darkness in the sense of spiritual darkness, of the night sky, of literal darkness. There was no implication of evil or moral turpitude until much later in ancient Egyptian culture when the myth of Osiris came in. I’m sure you’re familiar with that. Judeo-Christian morality has a different conception of moral behavior and of ethics than ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, etc. had, so it’s a question of moral relativism.

Bob: It’s a question for you of moral relativism.

Nikolas: No, no, not completely, because if I consider... if I look at the Bible, which I do whenever I’m staying in a hotel, I’ll look through the Gideon Bible.

Bob: God bless those Gideons! Amen.

Nikolas: If there wasn’t one and ours here. What?

Bob: There wasn’t one? No. We will make sure to do it. Somebody in this church rustling me up a Bible before they get out of this building tonight. They’re going back to the room with a Bible. Okay? Make sure. All right. Okay. Yes. I can ask you.

Zeena: Well, to bring it up to date, I think you say, well, how can you reconcile taking something that’s so evil and so dark and turning it around into something good? To bring it into a modern context, you have to understand that This is all relative. It’s something evil and dark to you and all of you, because of your particular perspective, that based on your particular religious belief system, this would be evil to you. But based on our particular religious belief system, this isn’t at all evil to us.

Nikolas: We do...

Bob: Doing black magic...

Zeena: No, it’s not at all evil to us.

Bob: You do spell...

Zeena: I wouldn’t recommend it. I’d have to say here and now. What? This is... that to work with these forces is a very precarious thing that I would not...

Bob: Let me say that again.

Zeena: That I would not recommend.

Bob: I don’t recommend it either.

Nikolas: Well, we would agree with you on that point. We don’t proselytize. We are not trying to convert others. Black magic is probably the most dangerous undertaking of human beings to work with...

Bob: Amen! But, but, but.

Nikolas: And... And I’m not telling these people here to experiment with it.

Bob: You’re telling me black mask is dangerous?

Nikolas: It’s something extremely dangerous.

Zeena: Not only is it extremely dangerous, and not only would we say obviously the people here tonight wouldn’t tamper with it or play with it. But you do. We do. I do because I am. It’s a difference. I would not, I would even go so far as to say people who just dabble in it, or experiment with it, without fully understanding what they’re getting into, are really doing themselves in, it will come back to them in a very negative way.

Bob: Are you saying there are demons that could get them?

Nikolas: No.

Bob: You do believe in evil voices, evil entities. You do believe in evil entities?

Nikolas: Well, you’re using the word...

Zeena: No, no, see here again, I don’t believe in evil entities. I believe that through one’s own abuse, use and abuse of such horses, that is what will do them in.

Bob: Okay, let me just... Let me sidetrack for a minute here, because I want to make sure we have something clear, too. You have something called the Werewolf Order and Radio Werewolf.

Nikolas: Right.

Bob: And the Werewolf Order is an organization that the two of you have founded and head up, correct?

Nikolas: It’s really an anti-organization.

Bob: Well, it says here... It’s a sorcerous circle of thought, a state of mind accessible only by an inherent rapport with the mysterious, unnameable multiplicity of forces that form the nexus of the movement.

Nikolas: I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Bob: What that tells me is this is sorcery conjuring demons.

Nikolas: You would think so.

Bob: I certainly would think so. Especially when right on the front of here it says, The Arsenal for Cultural Terrorism.

Nikolas: Yes, that’s the most important.

Bob: You are a cultural terrorist.

Nikolas: I am.

Bob: And in your organization you have produced some materials, including here, and you advertise this quite heavily, a Charlie Manson video. You met Charlie in prison, interviewed him, and you have a video you’ve done about him.

Nikolas: Yeah, and it’s part of the left-hand past philosophy and development to look at corners of reality that frighten most people.

Bob: Most of us would like to put those corners in a corner very far away and keep the door locked forever.

Nikolas: That’s true. And people who do that, who lock the hidden corners, the fearful things away, they very often overcome them. We suggest...

Bob: But what do you want? Do you want Charlie out serving hamburgers at Burger King? I don’t think you’d order one.

Nikolas: I do not. In fact...

Bob: You want Charlie behind bars?

Nikolas: I do.

Bob: How about Charlie dead? Execute.

Nikolas: That’s just a legal question.

Bob: What do you want to do with Charlie?

Nikolas: I don’t think we should get into a judicial matter. My point is, we look at and we study dangerous phenomena to incorporate that into ourselves and to learn more about our own being. But why wouldn’t you...

Bob: Zenith, tell me. See, the whole thing is you people seem to be fascinated with evil, with the bizarre, with the dangerous.

Zeena: I’m so fascinated with evil. But why Charlie?

Bob: Because-- Charlie’s not a nice guy.

Zeena: Charlie’s a murder. He’s a girlfriend. We’re fascinated with knowledge. We’re fascinated with enlightenment. And to study an individual-- Charlie-- excuse me. Enlightenment? Yes, definitely. To study an individual, as Charles Manson, will teach you more about human nature, more about mental illness.

Nikolas: We do not.

Zeena: Than you should know to deal with any number of people.

Nikolas: What you’re suggesting is, if we’re a historian, to look at topics in history that were unpleasant, that that historian is evil.

Zeena: Charles Manson is only one example. There are so many others, but he’s just one example.

Bob: Okay, lycanthropy and real werewolves. Are there real werewolves? Are you a werewolf?

Nikolas: Everyone involved in the werewolf order considers themselves to be a werewolf. Now let me make the point That doesn’t mean the Hollywood horror movie idea of a werewolf. We mean a black magician who can transform themselves at will into other states of being using sorcery.

Bob: Wait, wait, wait. You believe in transforming yourself into other states of being using sorcery.

Nikolas: Which is a fairly good explanation of what the black magical quest is. attaining mastery over the self to the degree that one can change oneself internally and make changes in the universe.

Bob: Now, what is all of this going to get you in eternity? What’s going to happen to you when you die, Zian? What do you believe?

Zeena: Well, that’s a very good question. Definitely immortality is a topic of our concern. Were I to have a glib, Pat, answer for you, I don’t think that would be fair.

Bob: You don’t know what’s going to happen to you when you die.

Nikolas: Well, it may surprise you to see that...

Zeena: We don’t have such a...

Bob: You don’t know.

Nikolas: Let me put it this way. The Temple of Set, probably one of its primary concerns is understanding how the mortal psyche may become immortal.

Bob: But you don’t know. You’re still looking for the answer.

Nikolas: We don’t claim to know... a dogmatic and final answer.

Bob: Would you kind of like to know? I mean, I know.

Nikolas: The right-hand path is about saying, I know everything. I know it. I read it in a book. I heard it from a God. I know everything. The left-hand path...

Bob: I’ve got it in here.

Nikolas: Well, but where did you hear it from?

Bob: The Holy Spirit.

Nikolas: Okay. Somebody told you. We need to know for ourselves.

Bob: How are you going to find out? You’re going to get it from a book, you’re going to get it from some kind of experience.

Nikolas: No, we don’t.

Zeena: We don’t have it from our self-experience, from our self-development.

Bob: Let’s take another step here. And we’re talking about the Temple of Set, but we haven’t really acquainted these people with what we’re talking about here. Now, you’re claiming some historical relevance to the Temple of Set. The fact is that Michael Aquina, who started what is known in modern parlance as the Temple of Set, was an associate of Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan, that there was a split between the two. He went off, he started the Temple of Set.

Nikolas: Michael A. Aquino was the highest initiate in the Church of Satan in 1975.

Bob: And he had an experience. He met Set in the middle of the night. Set dictated this book to him, right?

Nikolas: Well, Michael Aquino performed an act of black magic in which he had the experience of receiving a book that he calls The Book of Coming Forth by Night. And that book was a recording of a ritual which began the Temple of Set.

Bob: But did this being, Set, appear to him? Manifest itself.

Nikolas: Set spoke through Michael.

Bob: Set spoke through him. To us, he performed a ritual. He got a demon. This demon started talking out of his body. He wrote a book and he said, Goodbye, Anton. I’m starting my own thing. And he goes over here and boom, we get the Temple of Seth. That’s sort of my way of putting it.

Nikolas: Well, your way of putting it is extremely crude and simplistic, but there are more details to it.

Bob: Okay, so he goes over and he says, That’s it. I have nothing to do with the Church of Satan. I am starting the Temple of Seth. And then shortly thereafter, you two came along and you joined the Temple of Seth.

Zeena: Well, not shortly thereafter.

Bob: Right at that time.

Zeena: No, that was in 1975, a good 20 years.

Bob: So he’d been going at it some time before the two of you came along and decided you were going to join him. What then, may I ask, pause you to say, we’re leaving the church of Satan, we’re joining the Temple of Seth? My understanding is that you considered the Church of Satan to be nothing more than atheistic cycle drama, and that the real thing was in the Temple of Set.

Nikolas: That I would agree with you.

Bob: Is that fair?

Nikolas: Yes.

Bob: So you left your background, heritage, upbringing, all of this, and you had your own exodus to the Temple of Set. What did the Temple of Set do for you that the Church of Satan didn’t?

Zeena: Well, what I found with the Temple of Set was not only the religious purity that was simply not there in the Church of Satan, which you have a furrowed brow, I don’t know...

Bob: You used the word purity.

Zeena: We have our own version of religious purity. When you mentioned the Church of Satan was dressed-up atheism, that’s basically all that I grew to understand it to be, although I always wanted it to be more, I always expected it to be more, I always strived to make it more.

Bob: So the Church’s Satan wasn’t satanic enough for you. It wasn’t setting enough for you. It wasn’t devilish enough for you.

Zeena: You could put it that way.

Bob: Okay.

Zeena: What the Temple of Set has is a means by which to measure your magical successes against others. You have a frame of reference. You have other magicians you can interact and work with. You have councils that have a sort of quality check to make sure nobody’s getting too out of line.

Bob: Have you...

Zeena: Let me finish too. It is far from a personality cult, as the Church of Satan has been known to be, because the Temple of Set has had three different, has elected three different high priests at various times.

Bob: Have you, I want to know, have you met Sett? Experience, felt.

Zeena: I have experience.

Bob: Have you been like doing a ritual and you have felt the presence of Sett?

Zeena: Absolutely. I did just two weeks ago in Munich.

Bob: You were in Munich? Yes. What did you do, may I ask?

Zeena: I can’t tell you exactly what I did, but there was an extremely powerful working where I and about fifteen other initiates invoked the spirit of Sett, and there was Incredibly powerful. I can’t go into the details.

Bob: Set made his presence. Set appeared. How? Tell me what you can tell me.

Zeena: He made his presence, no.

Bob: He made his presence. You felt him.

Zeena: Yes. He was there, yes.

Bob: Were you there too?

Nikolas: Yes.

Bob: You felt him too.

Nikolas: Yes.

Bob: Did he say anything to you?

Nikolas: Not in the sense of... Jehovah speaking.

Bob: But did he sort of telepathically or intuitively communicate to you? What did he tell you?

Nikolas: We feel that the presence of the Prince of Darkness is a part of us, and he speaks to us through many means. Not all of which do we claim to understand. Say anything about me? All the time. Nothing but good things.

Bob: I’ll bet, I’ll bet. So you came away from this experience with Seth feeling more empowered?

Zeena: Yes, you could say that.

Bob: If I asked either of you, from my perspective, understanding my language and terminology, please bear with me, do you have demons? Do you have demons?

Nikolas: Well, I want to answer that in two ways, and I’ll try to make...

Bob: No, from my perspective.

Nikolas: The word demon comes from a Greek word, demon, which simply means genius or informing spirit, informing intelligence. There’s nothing about the word demon if we look at its true roots as a word that indicates this Christian concept of a possessing evil.

Bob: But you understand, I’m not talking about it. about the grammar, I’m talking about like what this book talks about.

Nikolas: Well, a demon in the sense of a wonderful, inspiring intelligence as Plato referred to in Socrates, yes.

Bob: Is this a hard question to answer?

Nikolas: No, not at all.

Bob: Do you have demons? Have you conjured demons?

Zeena: Have you felt demons? I think many people tend to think that we have demons like the Catholic Church has saints, or that we that demons hold these demigod places for us. And it’s not like that at all.

Bob: I still have got an answer to the question.

Nikolas: Okay.

Bob: No, no. Using it, you have felt the presence of set. You’ve certainly done rituals in which you’ve called on various forces of darkness to imbue you, to take control of you, or to assist you.

Zeena: No, no, not to take control of me.

Bob: Oh, you don’t like the word control?

Zeena: Not even necessarily to assist you.

Bob: To guide you. to help you do curses, spells. Come forth, whoever, as zapping, you know, that sort of thing.

Nikolas: As black magicians, we look upon the powers of darkness as our friends, as peers. We do not worship them, they don’t control us.

Zeena: You don’t think they control you? No, no. Nor do we view them as being particularly interested with our outcome. But your Jehovah would be.

Bob: What if you’re wrong? What if I lost by loving people, by helping humanity, by seeking to...

Zeena: I’m lost by living by my own code of morals, by my own standards, that I understand to be right and true for me.

Bob: Well, if there’s a heaven or a hell, and you end up in hell, you have lost it all.

Nikolas: Now, your question is a loaded one. Sethians...

Bob: Absolutely.

Nikolas: Sethians have love. Sethians have compassion. Sethians have all of the qualities that are considered to be good things and Judeo-Christian...

Bob: Where is Assetian home for the destitute and dying like Mother Teresa had? Where is Assetian hospital? Where is Assetian home for the homeless?

Nikolas: That’s the issue of altruism. We certainly...

Bob: You don’t believe in altruism?

Nikolas: No. I have nothing against acts of charity and altruism.

Bob: You just don’t want to...

Nikolas: I am not interested in doing it. It’s not part of my spiritual path. I don’t condemn them. But my spiritual path, which is the way of the Prince of Darkness, is my primary concern, is the development and empowerment of myself, not of others.

Bob: But don’t you get it? Don’t you get it? That’s the whole point. The Prince of Darkness focuses you on you. The Lord of Glory of Calvary focuses us on others. I mean, that’s the whole point. I will exalt my throne upon the stars of God. I will be like the Most High. I, I, I, I, I. I mean, this is what Lucifer did in the beginning when he rebelled against God. You’re saying that’s okay?

Nikolas: Yes.

Bob: But he lost and got kicked out of heaven. He was considered a carcass, rotten and abominable branch. You’re on the losing side. Your buddy got booted. I mean, that’s the bottom line.

Zeena: In your book.

Nikolas: Look, Bob, you are making an intellectual mistake here by basing all opinions that you utter on one book.

Bob: Yes.

Nikolas: Well...

Zeena: But it’s not the only book. It’s not the only way.

Bob: No, no, wait. You’re accusing me of this?

Zeena: So you’re saying you have the only way. We don’t discredit anybody else’s beliefs for themselves. We don’t agree with them. We don’t agree with them, certainly, but we certainly wouldn’t say, Oh, we have the only one true belief. We’re the only one true belief for us. Now, why isn’t that good enough for you to say you have the only one true belief for all of you.

Bob: Because there’s a heaven and a hell, there’s a God and a devil, and I don’t want to see you cry. So what, you go do your own thing?

Nikolas: Would you give me a minute to say what we think will happen to you if you Do not. on the right-hand path.

Bob: Yeah, yeah. What’s going to happen to me?

Nikolas: Your psyche, your soul, your mind, everything that you are will be destroyed utterly by your submission to the way of the universe. I will be destroyed. When you die, when you die, you will become nothing. Were you, were you to have a flash of revelation and suddenly practice black magic and the left-hand path, you would find the most ancient way to true immortality, which is what the left-hand path is all about.

Bob: This is the point at which I get a left-hand path alder call.

Nikolas: Exactly.

Bob: So you’re really saying, I’ve lost it too if I don’t turn your way. I just sort of disappear. I’m gone.

Zeena: Opinion. You don’t have to agree.

Nikolas: We know we’re both here because we both have radically different opinions. Let’s accept that. But the difference is you want to save us from our opinion.

Bob: Yes.

Nikolas: We’re willing...

Bob: Oh, no, no, no. I don’t want to save you from your opinion. I want to save you from eternal damnation.

Nikolas: Right.

Bob: Not an opinion, eternity. I really do. Did you do any ceremonies before you came here?

Nikolas: No, absolutely none.

Bob: Why not?

Nikolas: Because...

Bob: Oh, you’re not sure? You didn’t know.

Zeena: Oh no, what? Before we...

Bob: I don’t know the definition of... before we came here...... before you came here tonight...

Nikolas: We have... Okay. You have billed this event as a showdown with Satanism. Yeah. That’s a completely one-way street. We don’t have any interest in whamming you, we haven’t cursed you, and we don’t have a problem with you. This is a healthy way to discuss ancient issues.

Bob: And I don’t have a problem with you. It’s Seth. I got a problem with.

Nikolas: Well, we represent Seth. We are one with Seth.

Bob: But you’re okay. You’re okay. I mean, God loves you. I love you. You’re human beings. You have dignity, value and worth. It’s the head honcho. It’s the bad dude, you know, the dark branch.

Zeena: The bad dude is in me. The bad dude is here, in me, right now. So if you... So if you have something against the bad dude, you’ve got something against me, you see?

Bob: He’s there now.

Zeena: Of course.

Bob: Well, if you’d cooperate, I could cast him out.

Nikolas: We completely reject this idea of possession.

Bob: That’s right, because you’re not controlled, you’re not possessed.

Nikolas: We control our spiritual beings. We control it.

Zeena: Yeah, it’s a question of manipulation.

Bob: A question of what?

Zeena: Manipulation. Manipulating our being.

Bob: We lost our microphone, so you may need to turn... It’s a question of manipulation.

Zeena: Yeah.

Bob: What do you mean it’s a question of manipulation?

Zeena: Well, we do the controlling. We do the... I see evidence of it, so I’m more than think.

Bob: But what if you’re only just being allowed to presume, for now, that you are in control.

Zeena: For the sake of your argument, you’re saying, let’s say it comes down to judgment day, and the devil comes, takes me, and I wasn’t in control after all, because the devil is controlling me.

Bob: You do understand?

Zeena: Okay.

Bob: Okay, I’m glad.

Zeena: For just for the sake of argument, I don’t agree, but just for the sake of argument. Fine, at least I went trying. At least, in my mind, In my soul, I know I went with my intention being what I wanted it to be, so fine.

Bob: Isn’t that like bungee jumping off of a 50-foot tower with a 60-foot cord?

Nikolas: That’s not the way I see it. Well, we’ve already said black magic is one of the most dangerous pursuits a human being can engage in. We accept that risk very easily.

Bob: But what if it’s an eternal risk?

Nikolas: Well, what if I put it on the other side of this issue and say, what if you are throwing away your immortal psyche by following Christianity in the right-hand path, which is what we believe. So we both are at impasse.

Zeena: Satianism is quite an elitist philosophy. Satianism does not welcome the masses, does not even want the masses, We don’t believe people can be converted. We don’t want people to be converted. And as I said before, this isn’t the kind of thing you should dabble in. This isn’t the kind of thing that you should do for kicks, to be funny at a party. Nor do we believe in equality. There’s absolute inequality. The concept of equality is an outdated, very romantic idea, but it’s impossible. I am not any more equal to you as you are to him in the front row. There is absolutely no such thing as equality, and we have to come to terms with that to understand ourselves more, which, as I said, ourselves-- You sound racist. I didn’t say anything about race. I said you, him, and me has nothing to do with race. inequality man woman inequal inequal inequal.

Nikolas: Each individual is not equal to the other which would be an insult to both of them to say you’re both exactly the same in our view the religion of setianism is many thousands of years older than Judeo-Christianity it is resurfacing now in the world.

Bob: In these last days You can’t believe we’re in the last days.

Nikolas: The last days for you. Before the age of Satan. The beginning for us. Now...

Bob: Well, I have partial agreement. I have partial agreement. It is getting toward the end for us and the beginning for you. You just got to understand that when it starts for you, it’s not going to last long.

Nikolas: Well, that’s based on your... But you don’t know that. They’re extremely accomplished and powerful people in the Temple of Set.

Bob: Did you hear that? Yes. Accomplished and powerful. Absolutely.

Nikolas: Brilliant. Because the Temple of Set is based on intellectual knowledge. The Temple of Set focuses on study, on education.

Bob: You plan on taking over?

Nikolas: No, we don’t plan on taking over. We have no interest. The world is not our interest, only our self. Probably the biggest misconception about Satanism, based again on the Bible, is that we are concerned with dominating the world, making others like us. We don’t care about that whole issue.

Bob: You don’t care if we like you.

Nikolas: No.

Bob: How do you feel about Jesus?

Nikolas: Well, Chempilip Set has studied the idea of Jesus, the historical facts about Jesus, and many of us have come to the conclusion that if one were to analyze what a black magician is, one who goes against the social order of their time, one who breaks with conventions of morality of their time.

Bob: You’re not going to say what I think you’re going to say.

Nikolas: One who declares themselves not to worship a god, but to say, I am a god, is a black magician. And therefore, many of us, and I would have to thank Edward Thorson for putting this into context.

Bob: You’re saying Jesus was a black magician?

Nikolas: If one were to look at, he was a sorcerer who did things that magicians do.

Bob: Well, now, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Nikolas: Let me...

Bob: When any of you black magicians are willing to get crucified and rise again from the dead, I’ll believe it.

Nikolas: Well, that’s a big difference. Well.

Bob: I’m just saying, I mean, he hung out with the unconventional clown. He hung out with the sinners.

Nikolas: But not only, if you really look at it, because he wanted to save the sinners, but because he himself was a cosmic rebel like Lucifer. So I’m saying, Jesus Christ, which merely means, it was not a personal name, it means the anointed one. He declared himself a god. And the point of black magic, left-hand path, Satanism, is to make oneself a god. And he did so in an extremely powerful way.

Bob: I understand the thesis. It’s just that none of you have ever, Aleister Crowley didn’t do it, Michael Quino hasn’t done it, I don’t think you’ve done it, you haven’t raised the dead, you haven’t walked on water, you haven’t cleansed lepers, you haven’t opened blind eyes, and until you do, You have no right to say what you’re saying.

Nikolas: Maybe what you’re saying is Jesus was the most powerful and successful black magician to date.

Bob: Or God, very God, from eternity past who died for our sin.

##### Audience Questions

Bob: I’m sure you’re finding this showdown with Satanism very fascinating. Isn’t it interesting to see what people who worship the devil really believe? their philosophy, what’s behind why they do what they do. It’s frightening, it’s disturbing. But we need to know so that we can fight back in the name of Christ against these evil ideologies. Now during this showdown with Satan, we went to the audience and we let them ask some questions.

Audience member #1: Did you have to denounce any other gods or church beliefs? and continue to worship or believe in one church?

Zeena: We didn’t have to denounce anything. It was more an acceptance of this thing called Seth.

Nikolas: And I should point out, we have been lifelong Satanists. So therefore, there was no need to renounce another faith. This has always been our religion. It is now. perfected in our understanding in the Temple of Set.

Zeena: I mean, I was baptized at three years old as a Satanist. I was the first documented case as a child baptism as a Satanist. And basically what that ceremony consisted of was a glorification of life and all the things that bring life into being, rather than a denial or a condemnation of the original sin.

Bob: You’re telling me? that no blasphemies were involved. Yet you do recognize that beyond what I call organized or institutional religious groups like the Church of Satan, the Temple of Satan, and others, there are self-styled satanic groups who call themselves Satanists who do utter blasphemies.

Zeena: There are self-styled Christian groups who...

Nikolas: We condemn those groups as being ignorant, not based in either historical or religious tradition, and they are anathema to us.

Bob: But you’ve been to ceremonies where nudes have been on altars. You just don’t do it now.

Nikolas: I have no problem with that.

Bob: You don’t have problems with nudes on an altar, do you?

Zeena: Absolutely not.

Bob: Absolutely not.

Zeena: That’s not an issue.

Bob: That’s not an issue. How about ripping up a Bible? Desecrating a cross.

Nikolas: Let me put it this way.

Zeena: Ripping up a Bible is just sillyness.

Nikolas: Let me put it this way. I don’t have any belief in the Bible, so therefore it doesn’t do anything for me to rip it up. The idea of an inverted cross. Most people associate Satanists with inverted crosses. It has no psychological meaning to me to invert something I don’t believe in anyway. So I reject all that.

Bob: All right, gentleman in the threat row has a question here. Yes? It’s understood by all of us that at some point we’re going to die.

Speaker 4: And according to the Christian tradition, when we die, we’re going to go be with the Lord forever. Where are you going to go?

Nikolas: We strive to create our own destiny. We don’t believe in the existence of heaven or hell. Hell has no special meaning for us in the Temple of Set or in the Left-hand Path. We are trying to create our own existence after corporeal death to continue our power in the world, but we don’t believe we go to some metaphysical region.

Speaker 4: You talked about this entity that’s decades old and you said how can something decades old be your peer when it knows much more than you do and how would you know that it’s giving you everything when you’re still studying?

Nikolas: What I said was the temple of Set is decades old. Set, the prince of darkness is thousands of years old earlier than man.

Bob: Okay, let this gentleman ask him the question. I know it’s very good.

Speaker 4: You say in the temple of, you know, Rinse of Darkness and all this here, you can’t find anything in darkness. If you take no light and you go in the darkness, you find nothing.

Nikolas: Yes, you do. We find ourselves. And in the darkness, you find yourself.

Bob: How can you find yourself in the darkness without running into the wall? I can’t see in the dark. I mean, the man’s making a point. You’re in darkness. You don’t see when you’re in darkness.

Nikolas: And my point is...

Zeena: Some do.

Bob: You.

Zeena: Some do.

Bob: See in darkness? You mean that literally? Absolutely.

Nikolas: Oh, could it not be Bob that the light is blinding if one is looking for your inner self, the darkness is illuminated.

Bob: You’re looking inside you for darkness.

Nikolas: Yes, which is a positive value to me.

Bob: To us. To you it is positive to look inside and see darkness.

Nikolas: Yes.

Zeena: This is Director Dezina. You said that your baptism was to celebrate life. Who do you think gave you that life? My mother and my father.

Bob: She says her mother and her father.

Zeena: My mother and my father, and furthermore, I go even further than that. And I believe that I had the isolate will and the isolate intelligence to draw my mother and father together to create myself.

Bob: Wait, whoa, wait, huh.

Zeena: Thereby making me a purely magical child.

Bob: You need to hear what she’s saying. What? You said... You had the isolate will to draw your mother and father together to create you, to make you a magical child. You’re saying that before you were born, before you were conceived...

Zeena: That’s my personal belief.

Bob: Okay, you were some type of ethereal identity that existed in the spirit world or wherever, and that you drew them together to make you so you could take life form to become a sorceress.

Zeena: The sorceress that I exist as today could not have happened if it weren’t from the best combination of the genetic material that I had to work with of my two progenitors. So in a sense, I chose them.

Bob: So you’re suggesting some type of pre-existence, spiritual pre-existence?

Nikolas: We believe that we have created ourselves and that we are developing that knowledge of our godhood further. And that process in the temple of Set is referred to by the Egyptian word kefer, which means to come into being. So if you’re saying, are we denying that God, Jehovah, gave us life? Yes, we are.

Zeena: God in his word says that he is the beginning and the end. How did Set become to be?

Nikolas: Well, we believe, just as we believe that we have created ourselves through our will, Set was the first to create himself and thus set the model for all black magicians to come, this example of, through willpower, creating yourself and making yourself into a god.

Bob: Well, I don’t want to get real deep here, but I’m not sure I understand. Set made himself into something out of nothing.

Nikolas: Basically, yes, because that is the magical process.

Bob: So you’re believing then, like we believe, that Jesus Christ has the power to create out of nothing. That set too has the power to create out of nothing.

Nikolas: Well, this is getting back to the similarity between certain elements of Jesus Christ and black magical practice, in that Christ as a magician, which he has described in the Bible, creates out of nothing. The kingdom of heaven is within him, which is a very satanic thing.

Bob: What was there before there was Set?

Nikolas: That isn’t really a relevant question to...

Bob: I think the a priori question of understanding what was before there was anything is a very important philosophical and religious question.

Nikolas: It’s an interesting philosophical discussion, but I don’t think we have the time to answer here. The point is, we believe that Set was the first black magician and set the prototype for all black magicians to come.

Zeena: Yeah, I wanted to know if you drink blood at any time to gain power.

Bob: Or have you ever drunk blood to gain power? Have you ever done that?

Nikolas: No, it’s not something that is prescribed in satanic ritual to drink blood. That is largely a urban legend or a myth?

Bob: Oh, but Satanists do. I deal with kids all the time. No, but the self-styled... Okay, but they don’t. You know they do.

Nikolas: They’re playing Satanists. Self-styled Satanists you’re talking about have basically taken your Christian negative interpretations of Satanism and they’re...

Bob: You’re blaming us for them?

Nikolas: No, no, no. I’m saying...

Zeena: I eat of the flesh, I drink of the blood, and so maybe some other younger children that don’t necessarily understand this thing, Oh, I should literally eat of the flesh, drink of the blood, and so they’ll drink blood.

Bob: That’s not why they do it.

Zeena: You know, in an inversion... Have you ever done that? Have I ever done that? No, I’m talking about the people you’re referring to that you say...

Nikolas: We do not. You’ve got to understand. We despise these self-styled Satanists who give our religion a bad name.

Bob: You people are fairly dignified compared to them. They’re wackos.

Nikolas: You’re just strange. It would be like saying to you, if I were to judge your behavior by Jim Jones and say, Well, Jim Jones does this. He was a Christian. You must be like that, too.

Zeena: I’m puzzled because I want you to explain what is the value of what you’re doing.

Nikolas: The value of what we are doing is to transform ourselves into the masters of our own destiny and self-deify ourselves, actually become a god. That is what we believe is the value of black magic and of our religion.

Bob: And that may be the most important thing that you’ve said all night. I mean, that’s the most salient point that you make. But surely, sure you do understand. I mean, you have read about the serpent in the garden that that was the first lie. You eat this fruit and you will be a god.

Nikolas: Part of the...

Zeena: This is why you’re not using this book, which is irrelevant.

Speaker 4: But it’s there.

Zeena: It’s in the book. It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant to us. We can’t The myth of the Garden...

Bob: No, I understand it’s your problem, but you...

Nikolas: The myth of the Garden of Eden is not originally a Judaic or Christian myth. It comes from Babylon.

Bob: What?

Nikolas: The Babylonian version of this very ancient myth represents Eve as being heroic for eating of the fruit of knowledge, and knowledge...

Bob: That’s Satan’s side of the story.

Nikolas: It’s where the Babylonian myth comes from. The snake and the serpent.

Bob: It’s a perversion of the original story when it actually happened as an event.

Zeena: If you were to talk to each person here, I think you’d find as many different stories as there are people. They’ve come out of different lifestyles, different experiences. It seems to me that you are a product of your environment because that you’ve followed one path your entire life. We talk about individuation, and I wonder how much you have opened yourself to the possibilities of other ways. Well, that may be at first glance, but the fact is, I was not the only person that was born in the environment that I was raised in or reared in. However, I am the only individual that remains to this day as a black magician, as a sorceress, as a priestess of sept. My father, or my progenitor, I should say, was basically an atheist who liked the trappings, who played with the trappings. And that got him somewhere for a while, but in the end, he was consumed by it. My half-sister reared in the exact same environment. She could be sitting in this room. She’s no different than any average person walking down the street. My son, raised in the same environment, is just-- he wants to be an everyday guy. So at first glance, it may seem like, oh, I was raised in this strange environment. How could I possibly be anything but? But the fact is, human nature being what it is, I could have rebelled and become a Jesus freak. I could have joined-- I could have joined an existentialist group But the point is, through all the choices that I could have had, that I could have done, this is still where I am and this is where I intend to be for the rest of my life.

Bob: So, you’re wanting us to know you are what you are, you are who you are, because in addition to feeling as though there were some pre-existing conditions that determine your genetics, you now, by an act of your will, decide to continue to be who you are. Correct.

Zeena: Right.

Bob: And you’re proud of it.

Zeena: Very proud of it.

Bob: Do you consider the possibility you could change?

Zeena: No.

Speaker 4: What do you do during Halloween and Christmas?

Bob: Halloween and Christmas. Ah.

Zeena: Well, let’s try Halloween first. To be perfectly honest, we have our own holidays that are usually of personal importance to us. So we don’t necessarily take a universally accepted holiday such as Christmas and celebrate it just because it’s the 25th.

Bob: Do you give away presents at Christmas? No, absolutely not.

Nikolas: We do give away presents in the spirit of the winter solstice, and as you know, December 25th, as the arbitrary birthday of Jesus Christ, was decided upon by the Catholic Church so that the pagans could understand, you know, let’s put this Jesus idea over the earlier idea.

Bob: But the fact is, if we choose to celebrate his birth and recognize and commemorate it.

Nikolas: That’s fine, but we do...

Bob: So what about Halloween?

Zeena: Holidays in general...

Bob: What, Halloween? I want to know. Halloween.

Zeena: Halloween. Usually Halloween, we’re the ones providing the entertainment for others. I would love to take a Halloween off and go and do something fun for ourselves.

Bob: Well, what do you do?

Nikolas: Well, usually we have performed...

Zeena: Last year, for example, we had a seance last year at Hell House of Hollywood. We had a seance.

Bob: Anybody show up? Anybody I know?

Nikolas: No one here knows.

Bob: Did anyone show up at the seance?

Nikolas: Well, it was a seance to contact Aleister Crowley, Sharon...

Bob: Who?

Nikolas: Sharon Tate.

Bob: Sharon Tate? Did Charlie ask you to do that? No.

Nikolas: No.

Bob: Did Sharon show up?

Nikolas: He did.

Bob: Sharon showed up. And the baby.

Nikolas: No.

Bob: No, baby didn’t show up. Charlie killed, well, his people killed Sharon Tate, the actress. Sharon have anything interesting to say, like...

Nikolas: No, not particularly.

Bob: Did Aleister show up?

Nikolas: He did.

Bob: That doesn’t surprise me. And Alistair have anything? Remember the famous Satanist, Mr. The Beast Satanist.

Nikolas: Well, he wasn’t a Satanist.

Bob: Well, okay. But he showed up...

Nikolas: But the point is, Halloween...

Bob: Sort of say, like, I wish I hadn’t done all those drugs and killed myself...

Nikolas: No, the point is about Halloween. You know, when it’s Easter, I’m sure you have plenty of work to do.

Bob: Oh, I’m busy at Easter. And I’m even busier at Halloween.

Nikolas: Right, well...

Bob: It’s my vicious time of the year. Gentleman over there, yeah.

Speaker 4: You were saying earlier that people who don’t practice what you believe, when they die, they just are nothing. Is that correct?

Nikolas: Basically, yeah.

Speaker 4: Okay. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. There is a truth here. And my belief is that if you don’t follow Jesus Christ, you will go to hell, you will burn forever, you will feel it, it will be very real.

Nikolas: Right, we are aware of that.

Speaker 4: If you’re right, if your religion is the truth, I’ll take the risk of being wrong. If my religion is true, are you willing to take the risk of being wrong and burning in hell forever?

Nikolas: I said I am more than willing to take that risk and if this tyrant, this Jehovah exists that your Bible describes, I would rather... I would have to be against Him if He existed. I don’t believe He exists, so yes, I would take that change.

Bob: What you call tyranny is your choice, sir. You blame God for something that you freely choose to do. We heard Zena a moment ago say, I am what I am, I’m proud to be what I am, and I always will be what I am. But that exertion of her will, if it then leads to eternal perdition, is certainly not God’s fault. If she goes in hell, she’s made the choice, right, Diane?

Nikolas: On the contrary, I’m saying I take complete responsibility for my decision to be what I am spiritually, and I accept the consequences completely. understanding, I don’t believe at all in the Judeo-Christian mythology of heaven and hell and sin. And as I’ve said, I’m sure you mean well in your harping on this theme, but it doesn’t affect me.

Bob: Well, it could affect you for all of eternity, and the risk that you’re willing to take is really a very hollow assertion in lieu of the fact you’re talking about something that you can’t even begin to comprehend.

Nikolas: But I’m saying If you continue on the right-hand path, you explained earlier how Buddhism and Hinduism lead to dissolution into nothingness. As far as I can see in Christianity, it shares that same idea of Your idea of heaven is to no longer be...

Bob: Oh, quite contrary. No, the Scripture says we will be known as we are known. I expect to be a recognizable identity to have a glorified, risen body. It’ll have some improvements, but it’ll be a heavenly body, but I will have and I will... No, I’m going to know my loved ones will have gone on before me and others.

Nikolas: I think this is a dead end. I believe in my concept of immortality. You believe in yours.

Bob: Though what you heard may have been a little frightening and even a little shocking, I want you to remember this. No matter what the devil says or does, he has been defeated in the name of Jesus.

#### Charles Manson in Private Conversation with Nikolas Schreck (2014)

Source: The Nikolas Schreck Channel

Date Published on YouTube: Jul 13, 2018

Note: A private conversation between Charles Manson and Nikolas Schreck from 2014 conducted during research for the updated and expanded final edition of Schreck’s book THE MANSON FILE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DfsIOjX2hw

Manson: Yeah, well, look what it took me to understand. I’ve been trapped in it.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: It’s not been a good thing. It’s been a ******* curse. You know, here I’m supposed to be all this stuff, and I’m thinking, Wow, what is it? What is it called?

Nikolas: Well, it’s all relative. If all that stuff didn’t happen in the summer of ’69, people would say, Look how wonderful his eyes are, and look how wise he is, if you hadn’t ended up that way, but now they say, Look how evil. So it’s all relative.

Manson: But the reality is the opposite. I was the dumbest one in the whole group. I went for everybody’s story.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: They could tell me anything. Please, could I stay here? I said, Can you stay here? And they said, What the **** you asked me for? What have I got to do with it, do you think? Well, I ain’t got nowhere to go. Well, I ain’t got nowhere to go either.

Nikolas: Is that Lindo or Tex that you’re making fun of here?

Manson: All of them.

Nikolas: All of them.

Manson: All of them. I should try them for murder.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: Well, of course. I should have indict them all, see, and you stand here.

Nikolas: Well, that was the point I’m trying to make in my book, is they dragged you into this ****. That’s obvious.

Manson: Well, I mean, they just did what their parents did to them, you know? Like some little girl would run away and she’d come up and say, you know, my parents kicked me out of my house. I got nowhere to go, but I’ll stay with you. This recorded call is from an inmate at a California correctional... And here’s what I’m guilty of. Can I **** you?

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: He’d say, Yeah. I said, Yeah, you can stay here, you know. Right, right. As long as I can **** ‘cause I didn’t know nothing, I just got out of prison.

Nikolas: I’ve been guilty of that crime myself, I have to admit.

Manson: Yeah, all I wanna do is ****. I don’t care about what you’re thinking.

Nikolas: Right. But, like I have learned, maybe you should think once or twice about who you’re ******* and how they’re gonna betray you.

Manson: I love to, I love to create.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: I mean, it’s my nature. It’s what I was born to do. A lot of humans don’t understand that. Birds and animals understand it.

Nikolas: Well, that’s what drew me to you was your creation, not your destruction.

Manson: Yeah, put them on trial.

Nikolas: Well, in a way, they knew how to play the game of lying and ******** you know?

Manson: Yeah, they learned from their... and not only that, they had space. They had no space. If you’re born without parents, you got no space.

Nikolas: Right, well... That’s why, that’s why Bugliosi and all these people knew these people would, would snitch and betray you and betray each other, you know?

Manson: Well, there’s a lot of them that didn’t betray.

Nikolas: Right, right, some of them didn’t, but...

Manson: Yeah, there’s a lot of them that didn’t, you know, most of them didn’t.

Nikolas: Yeah.

Manson: There’s some good people in that group. They gave, they really gave himself.

Nikolas: Well, I mean, you can almost, how could young people deal with all the pressure of all that that was going on, that huge media thing? I mean, you’d have to be a very strong person to withstand that.

Manson: That’s the reason I escaped and went to Mexico, man.

Nikolas: Right. It’s too bad you couldn’t have stayed there. I wanted to go there and...

Manson: I would.

Nikolas: Yeah, when Ronald Reagan won the election, I went there and thought, I’ve got to get out of America.

Manson: There’s an explanation that could have been explained about so much that was really so simple that it was just another part of the end times. Everything has changed. He throws a nickel up in the air and it goes up and it’s stops just for a second. And then it starts back down. And that’s what we was. We went up and stopped.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: Nichols turned and it started back down again. And it could have been explained. And the ecology of it could have been explained. As I woke up and when I got out and I said, Hey, where’s the cricket at? And they said, Oh, it’s the freeway down. I said, what happened to the forest there? It’s from an inmate. Oh, they cut that down for the outlet track.

Nikolas: You mean when you got out in ’67?

Manson: Well, I got out in ’57. Because I got out. I got out before that. Yeah, you mean every time you got out, it was-- Every time I got out, it was all rearranged and came.

Nikolas: Right, right.

Manson: All the little desert towns that had one, two, three gas stations were all filled up with, you know.

Nikolas: Yeah, like shopping malls and crap.

Manson: Yeah, when you go from L.A. to Frisco.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: They used to feel wildernesses and streams going by onto the road.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: Now you go by this, they’ve got all the streams cut off and they’ve got them in fall.

Nikolas: It’s worse than you can even imagine. It’s a nightmare. It’s just all concrete. It’s terrible.

Manson: Yeah. And they’re just butchering everything.

Nikolas: Right. The California you knew It doesn’t even exist. I mean, I’m sure you can tell that, but it’s gone.

Manson: And you mentioned to people that don’t hear it. You remember that movie that Pulaski made about the, about when he cut Jackal Nicholson’s nose?

Nikolas: Oh yeah, Chinatown, right?

Manson: Yeah. Well, all that water that they were just throwing out in the ocean.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: That water was coming from the water holes in the desert.

Nikolas: I always, it’s funny you mention that. I always thought because I know you were really thinking about that a lot, about the water supply. Yeah. I thought it was weird. Polanski puts a lot of your ideas in his movies and I always wonder why he does. I almost think he’s playing some kind of mind game.

Manson: Well, here’s how far away it is. I got time out the back door. in the prisons, in the hallways of always, I can go back to 1938 and get out in the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky. I can go back to the horse with the Amish. If the **** store don’t exist anymore and it’s gone, It doesn’t affect me because I’ve got the back door.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: My shower right here that I’m looking at opens up in the Brazilian jungle. I’ve got all the birds of the sky. I’ve got Clo guard out the back door.

Nikolas: Right.

Manson: Because that’s why I stayed in prison. Because in prison, time stops.

Nikolas: Right. Well, in a way, it’s like, uh, you know, monks go off to a mountaintop, so in a way, you have been given a blessing in a way. You’d probably be dead if you had stayed out of prison.

Manson: But there’s no out.

Nikolas: Right, that’s what I mean. But like, monks want to go away to do it, but you were forced to do it.

Manson: Recorded call is from an inmate at a California correctional facility. Uh, the, the... There’s, yeah, it’s really, it’s hard to realize that there’s nothing.

Nikolas: Right. There really is nothing. I know what you mean.

Manson: Everything that’s going on, we made it up, man.

Nikolas: It’s just, it’s just our mind. It’s all like a dream. All of it.

Manson: Yeah. And the only thing that’s real is when that thing gets hard.

Nikolas: Yeah.

Manson: And it goes in that hole.

Nikolas: Well, but that’s, it’s not a joke. That is what, that is real. Right.

Manson: That’s what we all exist for.

Nikolas: I mean, the orgasm is what everything is created out of. That’s what the whole dream came out of.

Manson: That’s all I’m talking about. There was no strange mystical power to it. It was just the straight power of the ram bumping heads with the next ram.

#### Nikolas Schreck Interview with the Midnight Writer News Show (2017)

Source: The Nikolas Schreck Channel

Date: 30 Oct 2017

Note 165,000 views as Dec, 2025.

Hear more alternatives to mainstream media narratives at midnightwriternews.com

Author NIKOLAS SCHRECK (The Manson File: Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman) joins S.T. Patrick to discuss the alternative view of the Charles Manson story and the 1969 Tate-Labianca murders. Schreck not only delves into Manson’s history and personality, but he also sheds light on the pre- and post-stories of those who were around Manson at the Spahn Ranch. Nikolas Schreck fills in the gaps on Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, Linda Kasabian, and Charles “Tex” Watson. For those who are interested in the JFK assassination, Schreck details the parallels and characters that exist in both the Manson story and JFK assassination research. Schreck, highly critical of Vincent Bugliosi, spends three hours setting the record straight and presenting the case as you’ve never heard it before! With special ghost appearances from Vince Bugliosi & John Lennon & music from Charles Manson. Nikolas Schreck is the author of The Manson File: Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman (soon-to-be-released updated version). He was the producer and host of the documentary Charles Manson Superstar. He has communicated with Charles Manson for decades. Schreck can be contacted and followed at NikolasSchreck.eu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAEVK_L2K4I

##### Clip reel

News reader #1: We have a weird homicide.

News reader #2: In a scene described by 1 investigator as reminiscent of a weird religious right, five persons, including actress Sharon Tate, were found dead at the home of Miss Tate and her husband, screen director Roman Polanski. Miss Tate, who starred in Valley of the Dolls, was 8 months pregnant and was found in a bikini tight nightgown with a rope around her neck attached to the body of a man.

News reader #3: Two bodies inside, 2 bodies outside.

News reader #4: Among the other victims were Hollywood hairstylist, JC bring and coffee heiress Abigail Folger.

News reader #5: The word pig had been scrawled in blood on the door of the Bel Air Mansion, where actress Sharon Tate and four others were slain.

News reader #6: A wandering band of members of a so-called religious cult with a leader they called Jesus has had three of its followers arrested in the investigation of the murder of Sharon Tate and six others. Those arrested are two women and one man, and the Los Angeles police said they would ask murder indictments against several others. Five women are being held as material witnesses.

Charles Manson: Or am I all things to all people in all ways and my their death? If they if they seek it too closely, am I their judgments if they find harshness within themselves?

Lawyer: Do you know if any of your children followed in your footsteps?

Charles Manson: Their all my children. Anybody ever seen these following my footsteps? How else could they do anything else? It’s a brand new step, never been done. It’s history. Every step I take now is history and I’m carrying 900 million people. In my mind. I know my mind and I trust the very same person that you do and the very same person that you do. I trust the only person left to trust, me (laughs).

News reader #3: I welcome this kind of examination.

Speaker 6: We came.

News reader #3: And for the international order that we have worked for generations to build.

Speaker 7: A new world, a new world order. If suddenly there was a threat to this world and some other species. From another planet outside of the universe.

News reader #3: Always talk to you like they are.

Unknown speaker: And then we’re going to Washington, DC to take back the White House.

News reader #3: And he died. He died. But that’s. Because people have got to know whether or not their presidents are crook. Well, I’m not a crook. You can keep it. Period. Period. Period.

Speaker 7: They are the focus of evil in the modern world. With a contest.

Martin Luther King: Deep in my heart, I do believe. We shall overcome.

##### Introduction

Patrick: This is the Midnight Rider News Podcast podcast podcast Hello America and the world. Welcome to the Midnight Rider new show. I’m Sgt Patrick, your friendly neighbourhood host, traipsing through the trials and travails out of South. Tempestuous, sly and Untruthfully blasted into your eyes, ears and minds by the state sponsored talking heads, court historians and textbook. Conglomerates that control information today.

Tonight we have episode 026, Charles Manson and the myth of Helter Skelter, our featured guest tonight in the midnight Hour is author filmmaker Nicolas Schrek, the author of the Manson File, Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman.

A brief little cleaning of the castle first, please allow us to say that we’re on Facebook at midnight. Rider new show. That’s at Midnight Rider, new show. Our Twitter is at MWN underscore St Patrick. Our LinkedIn is at St Patrick and our e-mail is midnightwriternews@gmail.com. And we’ll be right back with Nicholas Shrek.

From the American Revolution to 911, from the writing of the unseen hand to his time spent with William Cooper, behold A pale horse conspiracy legend Ralph Epperson join the Midnight Rider new show to discuss what it was like to do conspiratorial research.

##### Clip Reel #2

Ralph: Hi. This is Ralph Epperson, author of the Unseen Hand. If you want to know more about the. And spiritual view of American history and the real story of what happened to the outlaw. Jesse James, listen to episode 15 of the Midnight Rider’s new show today.

News reader #1: We have a year to homicide.

Speaker 9: Human Massacre tribe were the night of the tape.

Speaker 10: Slayings the incredible brutality of these savage, nightmarish murders.

Speaker 9: You kill somebody killing yourself.

News reader #1: Clear with Charlie’s gain.

Speaker 9: I walk and live and murder all my life.

Speaker 10: Charles Manson converted intelligent middle class kids into putty like zombie. Cause Yuri could only come to 1 verdict.

News reader #3: Guilty to explain Manson. It could not be done in words.

Speaker 12: The most famous murder in the history of Los Angeles, Sharon Tate, was a young. Actress. Stunning even by movie star standards.

News reader #1: Sharon Tate. She’s today’s kind of girl.

Speaker 12: Three friends were staying with her that night. The windows were open, the cool breeze was blowing.

Speaker 11: It’s simply going to be a quiet, comfortable night, and of course it turned out not to me.

Speaker 12: Charles Manson was a Rockstar wannabe and a madman. He could literally get his followers to kill friends. Everyone wondered, how did he turn these all American women into monsters?

Charles Manson: I knew that people would die.

Unknown Speaker: I knew that there would be killing.

Speaker 12: He controlled them and they did what he won.

Unknown Speaker: You were so young.

Speaker 12: And what he wanted was murder, brutal murder.

Speaker 9: If it don’t get done, then I’ll move on it and that’s the last thing in the world. You. Want me to do?

Speaker 12: You’re about to see what evil looks like. In the face of Charles Manson.

##### Guest Introduction

Patrick: Singer-songwriter, author and filmmaker Nicholas Shrek is the pioneer that founded the Musical Ensemble Radio Werewolf Shrek produced the first album of actor Sir Christopher Lee, who many of you may know from his appearances in the Hammer Horror films. He’s the author of the Manson File myth and reality of an outlaw shaman. And he’s the director of the 1989 documentary Charles Manson Superstar. The documentary featured an interview with Charles Manson, which you know Shrek had gained Manson’s confidence as much as anyone can, after years of correspondence. So it’s a very good documentary to watch. Shrek may know the truth behind the Manson story and the Manson psyche more than anyone. Now he doesn’t do many interviews at all. Most mainstream journalists believe the Vincent Bugliosi Helter Skelter myth a myth? Which with many cannot be fought. So however, he did agree to be on with us tonight because he knows that you are most humble and loyal audience are open minded seekers of historical truths. Now that’s our mission and that’s what we will continue to do tonight. He’s joining us live from Berlin, Germany to tell us how and why. Charles Manson did not order the Tate Labianca murders of 1969. He will also tell us what happened, but more importantly, he’ll tell us why it happened. Nicholas. Shrek. Welcome to the Midnight Rider new show. How are you this evening?

Nikolas: I’m fine and happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. So.

Patrick: Nicholas, it’s hard to believe it’s been 48 years since the murders first hit the headlines and almost instantly became an American myth in so many ways. How did you first get interested in this story?

Nikolas: Well, that, that in itself is is it goes back 48 years. I’ll try to say it in the most condensed way possible in in 1969 when the murders occurred, I was in Europe after. And I was in Paris right before they happened, and I saw the film that is called in America, the fearless vampire killers. And it’s known in Europe as the dance of the vampires. I saw this at the theatre in. Paris and as your listeners may or may not know, the film starred Sharon Tate, who was murdered that very year. And Roman Polanski directed it, and that was. Actually, as it turned out, a film that created part of the genesis of what led to the murders. Polanski meeting Sharon Tate and various people. In the drug underworld that Polanski knew that then moved with him to Los Angeles, actually sort of set the bloody ball rolling that led to the murder. So I saw that film and was strangely fascinated by it. I’ve discussed this before, so I won’t go into great detail about it, but the interesting thing about it. The film captivated me for some reason. I was a child then and. And one of the interesting things about it, another actor in the film, German English actor named Ferdinand Maine many years later was who gave me one of the first major breaks in understanding what the case was all about. Primarily in that he was the first one who clearly and Uncategorically stated to me that though he had no doubt that the killers. In the so-called and murders or Tate lobby out, the murderers knew the victims and he basically stated that that was an open secret in Hollywood and that almost everyone involved in the small circle. Of people who. Need these individuals was aware of that and that was a major break in my research. To the case. So even all those years back, I think it’s interesting that the first thing that even got me thinking about Polanski and Tate was this particular. Horror comedy called The Dance of The Vampires, which I saw in Paris, so I don’t know why it captivated me, but it did. And it stuck with me for some reason. And in retrospect, I think it was some kind of premonition because even though it’s a very light hearted film, something about it seemed. Uncanny or disturbing? And I believe it was a foreshadowing of what would later be my involvement in this case in 1970, when when the I wasn’t really aware and I don’t recall being aware of any knowledge of the murders themselves when they occurred, because I was in Europe. When that happened and it didn’t get covered to the same extent there. So I don’t really remember that. But in 1970, when the Manson and its three Co defendants were on trial, that was all over US. Television and the news constantly. And in the summer of 1970, I was in New England and. Became captivated with the way that the media was covering it. Particularly because at that time in New England I was looking very much into the witchcraft trials and the Sailing witch trial and the Salem Witch Hunt, which is sort of a the epitome of American moral hysteria and mass panic. And even as a. Young child I saw parallels between the Salem witch trial and the way that the media was treating the Charles Manson and Co defendants trial in that they were the sensational tales of occultism and Satanism. And the almost religious level of scapegoating of these people, even as a child, seemed to me to be a parallel to the Salem witch child. So I didn’t study in any great detail, but I was captivated and by it, and particularly from the beginning. I noticed of Charles Manson is being presented as a delusional madman. But the very few things that ever seeped out at that time, which wasn’t much seemed to me to make sense. And. I should also point out at that time in Boston, where I was when that was happening in the New England, the hippie community there, this has been forgotten. Pretty much considered that Manson had been framed to tar or to destroy the reputation of the counterculture and of the peace movement. So that was a very common idea and I encountered in head shops in Boston posters that said Freemason and buttons that said Freemason so from the beginning I had a positive feeling about him or a more sympathetic feeling about him. Probably than many other Americans did at the time, but it was fairly common in the counterculture community. So that was my initial reaction to the actual events that occurred. In 1975, when Lynette phone made her sort of semi attempted assassination activity, you could almost call it because it really didn’t seem to be a serious assassination attempt. In any case, when she was arrested for attempted assassination of President Gerald. Forward. That reawakened my attention after several years in the case and in Manson, particularly in his philosophy, and Lynette Frahm spoke a great deal about her ecological beliefs. Her anti pollution beliefs, really ideology that has now become fairly common. That was then considered radical about the necessity of stopping fossil fuel of stopping corporate destruction of the ecology. So she fascinated me because she seemed cogent and lucid and not at all like the demented maniac that the mass media would presenting us. So then in 1975. You know, when I was a teenager, I began looking into, well, what? What is the actual beliefs of these people? And I found that even from what very little was available at the time. It really didn’t jibe with what the mass media and the trial had presented, and particularly the book Helter Skelter, which is unfortunately. The source of what most of the public knows about this case. It didn’t seem to make sense because what I was looking at as far as direct statements from these people were not that demented ideology of creating a race war or killing people for no particular reason. So it just didn’t make sense to me, though I really had no clear clear idea what the crime was about at the time. That made me doubt it. Strongly. If you follow me so far.

Patrick: Oh, absolutely. So I’d like to hit the scene on both coasts at this time, if you don’t mind, how did Timothy Leary figure into your research? And then I’d like to know about paying a Canyon because it seems like the West Coast rock scene, that sort of move South from San Francisco to Topanga. So how did that rock’n’roll culture of Topanga Canyon affect Manson and those who followed him?

Nikolas: Right, it’s deeper than that, even. But that, of course, is true. And Topanga Canyon in particular is. Not really looked at as as closely as it should be. They the connection between the mansion coming and or Manson Circle, which is what I think is a more accurate way of describing them in the Manson family, which is I’ll explain later, was really a created label that they themselves never used for themselves at the time. But you did want me to mention the Timothy Leary connection before we got to the rock’n’roll investment, so. I just wanted to follow up on that and then we can get into Topanga Canyon. What after this fascination with squeaky foam and which got me looking into it in 1975, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, but you did particularly want to get into that and I think it’s important. I encountered Timothy Leary at the Los Angeles Book Fair in 1976. In the 60s, he was the main proponent of LSD as a spiritual awakening force, and his biography, which I brought to be signed for me to this LA Book where it was. Of high priests. So he was the at least the proponent of LSD in the 60s and in the counterculture that the mass media focused on the most and he became almost synonymous with spreading the idea that LSD was an awakening agent and something of great spiritual value. And he was called by. Richard Nixon, the most dangerous man in America. He was eventually put on trial. He also was deeply involved in the drug dealing underworld as well, so Timothy Leary was, you know, a crucial person in the counterculture of of the American 60s and worldwide. So he had been let out of prison in 1976 just then, and I met him at the LA Book Fair and spoke to. Primarily because I had read that he had recently been released from Folsom Prison and had served time right next to Charles Manson, and I asked him about that. And at that time, I really only knew about the case, what was available. In the media, he gave me a certain look. And a smile that suggested something much deeper than I could convey in the over the radio. But he said in a way that really struck me. There is so much more to this case than anyone can ever imagine. And we spoke about how. The Charles Manson that he heard he never met him, but he heard him next door. They spoke to each other. They were placed in his cell with each other next to each other in Folsom prison was nothing like the bloodthirsty monster that had been presented. In the mass media, so that really intrigued me because really that’s the first time I’d heard anyone say anything sympathetic about him in years and it it opened a door to my looking into what? What does he mean? There’s much more to this case than he’s ever been known. Because of the time. Most people assumed that Poliosis’s Helter Skelter book had pretty much explained exactly. What the case was about. The TV movie that was made that year, 1976, for those who couldn’t read, put it into the minds of the mass public as well, so that that really intrigued me. The interesting thing about really is he had snitched on many of his drug dealer. Associates and that’s how he got out of prison. He he had turned states evidence against many of his former associates, which pretty much means you have. You’re a marked man in the underworld. And I suspect he was placed near Manson to try to get some kind of information from him as well. And in later years I found out that Manson absolutely detested Timothy Murray. And in the early 80s I got to know Leary slightly, but that’s a whole other story, but. It sort of confirmed my beliefs that he was, you know, an extremely unethical person who was up to much more than. Then we could imagine as well. But you know, I think it’s interesting that he’s who opened the door to my looking into this. So then from if you have any questions about that, we can cover it but.

Patrick: Sure. I do have one actually. You know, there have been many comments made by some authors that Leary was actively involved with either the CIA or the FBI, and in more ways than just drug experimentation. And I want to ask you if you believe that was the case.

Nikolas: I well, yes, I absolutely believe it. And I think there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to prove. From my encounter with him, I I really do believe he had some kind of intelligence agency background, a few simple things we can get into without digressing away from the Manson case, which is the central focus, but more overarching way. The real story we’re talking about is what was the. Counterculture. Really. And how did the media mass media report it, and how did its changing of the mass media coalesced with the way the intelligence agencies? Shifting public opinion at the time, so that’s the larger story here. So I think it’s significant. I personally believe there’s plenty of reason to believe that Mary was working on the margins of the CIA. I don’t. I don’t think he. Was employed by them. But I think he was a sympathetic agent. To them, for many things I encountered and many things I’ve encountered in my research. For one thing, his employer at Harvard, which you know that’s no secret. Harvard and Yale have always been. The main recruiting centre in those days of the intelligence community, as they euphemistically call themselves. His employer at Harvard was definitely a CIA agent, and I’m pretty certain that the early LSD experiments Leary was doing with suicide and mescaline and LSD at Harvard sponsored, and that he shared the research. With the CIA, which I’m not trying to make that sound sinister, because at that time most of the American academia was working closely with the intelligence agency. And I and I’m not suggesting it like in some kind of Illuminati, you know, ridiculous, sensationalist theory.

It’s just a fact that the science departments of of United States universities were working very closely with the Pentagon and with the CIA because it was the Cold War and there was a lot of research. Going on in academia, that was useful to intelligence and military application, so I’m certain that Leary was on the margins of it, and I think he was deeply involved with. Some sort of CIA activity, but I think it would be speculation and also too complicated to get into here, but that’s my personal belief. From knowing him, I think he was a completely unethical person who would have gone whichever way he was being paid.

Patrick: You know, I think that’s an important point to make and I’m really glad you made it, Nicholas. You know, while there’s a counterculture here, what we now know is that the lines between the counterculture and the national security complex were blurred at best. Now, when a countercultural movement begins questioning its own leaders, so to speak, and then you throw in copious amounts of. Said it’s not a surprise that confusion and paranoia reigned supreme in 1969.

Nikolas: Well, yeah. I think when what we’re looking at, if we look at the bigger story that the Charles Manson case is own is perhaps more just the most dramatic and sensationally covered of the various facets of what the 1960s were really about. And that is really what this story actually comes down to. Is the interface. Between. I want to put this very carefully because again, I’m not talking about some kind of wild conspiracy theory. I’m talking about the normal activities of intelligence and law enforcement and the way that they interconnect with the criminal underworld. That’s really what happened in the Manson case, and that’s what Leary was involved. And I think it all has a lot to do with the outlawing of LSD in 1966, which, as I’ve said before, and I make it clear in my book, the Manson file makes in reality of an outlaw shaman, the Manson crimes and several lesser known crimes that occurred in the counterculture. Should be with you in the 60s should best be compared to the crime wave that occurred during Prohibition, and I don’t think people really get this connection, so I wanted to try to explain that is that. When the United States government made the lunatic decision during prohibition to ban alcohol, of course it did not lead to an upsurge in morality. What it did was give organised crime a huge industry, which was bootlegging, and the distribution of illegal. Alcohol and that led to, you know, all kinds of mayhem as we know that’s. That’s what created the crime wave of the 19. 30’s the same thing happened in the 60s when the federal government banned research and use of psychedelics and turned the turned usage of them into a major felony. The Mafia and various other organised crime factions moved in to sweep up the profits and that is what led to the Mets and murders. Basically, this competition between drug dealers. Just exactly as what would have happened in Chicago during the 1930s between various gangs. Applying for control. Bootlegging, if that makes sense.

Patrick: Yes, it does. Let’s turn back to Topanga Canyon and the rise of the rock culture of the late 60s. Now, I’ve always believed the culture and environment tell us much about a story, and especially about this story. So what was it about the Topanga Canyon scene that affected Manson and his community so heavily?

Nikolas: Right. Well, I I should say this as a kind of proviso to that is my primary interest at first. When I contacted Manson in 1985, I met musician and my primary interest in him was as a musician. And our first contact was pretty much about music and an effort that I made to make a live recording of him performing his music in San Quentin Prison, which, as I’ve recently discussed with another interviewer, was basically that turned into the film Charles Manson. Superstar. Because the prison authorities wouldn’t allow him to use a guitar, saying that it could be used as a weapon. So instead we did an interview at the last minute, which basically became the core of my 1989 documentary Charles Manson Superstar. So at what you say about. Culture being important. I think it’s extremely crucial to this case and to understanding what this is all about. In fact, it’s the essential factor is Manson’s music. Maybe before I get into the specifics of what you’re asking about Topanga Canyon. If if I were to ask you what is the public myth of Charles? Hansen’s connection to music. I think like most people, the first thing that comes to mind, the myth. Of Manson as a musician is that he was a talentless nobody, desperate for attention from the music industry who was considered to be talentless by everyone he encountered who was spurned, and he then jealously sought revenge on the music industry that had spurned his talent. Out of his micromania. Hatred of society, that’s basically. The the idea that is pushed by the mass media and if you look at most interviews with the ageing rock’n’roll music figures from that time who encountered him, most of them pretty much pushed that party line that he was a talentless musician and that, you know, the murders.

Speaker 12: Right.

Nikolas: Must have some way been motivated by his hatred of the music industry that had spurned him. Well, that’s not even remotely true. Now, as far as his talent, that’s a subjective matter. Whether you like his music or don’t like his music, the fact is in and and here I think it’s important to trace this whole development and see how his music is intrinsically connected to the crimes that occurred. Later and vice versa, how really they’re all part of 1 continuum. When he was in. In in Terminal Island in 1960 he. Well, a little a. Little bit before that he had. Entered, you know, many musicians in prison and he’d been working on guitar playing in several prison bands, but through Creepy Alvin Carpus, who a name may be forgotten these days, but once creepy Albert Carpus was public. You mean? Number one. During the 1930s crime spree, he was a figure in the mob Barker gang and a legendary figure in the United States crime history. He was actually personally arrested by J Edgar Hoover. Well, Alvin creepy carpus was one of the first people who actually saw Manson’s talent in prison when he was just an unknown. Fellow Khan, he taught him some steel guitar rubs and Manson has spoken of him as a kind of mentor. Alvin Carpus, though, was also deeply connected to the underworld and to the Mafia. And as most people who know about prison culture know. The underworld and organised crime. Is very active within prison. So what’s important to know about this is that a lot of people may be aware of carpets being a sort of musical mentor to me. It’s been teaching him some guitar methods and techniques, but what’s more important to the whole case is that carpus gave. Some references for Manson because he was going to be paroled shortly thereafter. To underworld figures who ran nightclubs and who were involved in the music industry so that, as it happens in prison, there’s always a kind of favour given. But there’s a favour owed if you follow that. I’m saying so, he carpus gave Manson references to other music people outside so that when he got out he could look. For. Work another underworld figure, Manson countered in prison was Frankie Carbo, who was also a legendary underworld figure at that time. And he was known as Mr Grey. You you couldn’t even speak about Frankie Carbo in a phone conversation because the FBI listening in would know who you were talking about. So he was spoken of as Mr Grey. But he fixed major boxing fights. He was basically the. Lord of illegal. Gambling of Las Vegas he is. He probably fixed the fight that made Muhammad Ali, or then Cassius Clay, a champion. He’s an extremely powerful underworld figure. Handsome that him and he too threw through the carpets. Connection also gave references to Manson in the outer worlds that when he got out of prison, he could apply for work at various nightclubs. So that’s a very important thing. That ties in later to the crime. Another guy that Manson encountered in prison named Philip Hoffman, who was a drug dealer, which is an important factor to keep in mind because this whole case is all about drug dealing. It’s basically what it all comes down to. Phil Coffman gave references to Manson as well in prison. To go to a guy at Universal Studios called Gary Stromberg. And Gary Stromberg, by his own admission, had been sending LSD in letters. In other words, writing letters that were dipped in liquid LSD to the prison so that the prisoners could take acid and prison. And that was one of the ways that Manson got introduced to the world that was outside of drug dealing. He had formerly. In a petty thief, a pimp, an auto ring operator, basically a petty thief, bill, and a pen. And it was through Kaufman and other people he encountered that he started to see the new crime industry that was worth getting into his drug dealing. And Haight Ashbury was happening right outside, you know, as he was getting out of prison. So these are very important connections to keep in mind. That his musical career, such as it was these references he got. Were underworld figures giving him connections that were also tied to them? And as far as the idea of Manson being this hapless failure as a musician, let’s keep this in mind to set it in its correct context immediately after he gets out of prison and March of 1967. He has these connections with mafia nightclubs where he auditions in San Francisco. He’s giving this reference to Gary Stromberg, who is an up and coming music publicity director, and for a while a producer at Uni Records, which was the new record company from Universal Studios, which is was at the time the most powerful entertainment. Conglomerate. In Los Angeles. So we had very good references and he went to Stromberg in September of 1967 and threw a guy named Wes Reagan, who was the head of Muni Records, was given money to record immediately demo tape at Gold Star Studios. Which people who know something about the history of popular music with no Gold Star Studios is a legendary recording studio where The Beach Boys Mamas and the Papas Phil Spector. And countless other acts of the time recorded some of the most well known masterpieces and hit songs of the six piece, so that is not somebody who was undistinguished musician who was immediately given an opportunity to record a demo tape at Gold Star Studios, assumed pretty much as soon as he got out of prison. So this connection didn’t pan out for various other reasons which I get into in my book. But he then moved to Topanga Canyon mansion and small circle of women that were forming around him at that time to paint the Canyon is a very isolated and remote area in sort of near Malibu and a very rural Oasis in the urban. Decadence of Los Angeles and into Pinga Canyon that time in a place called the Sneak Pit. Hippies and counterculture people that were sick of the urban environment were moving out there to live in nature to the degree that one can, in the midst of Los Angeles. But it’s a very. Wonderful rural area like a island of of peace in the midst of the noise of Los Angeles. So Manson was drawn there and there was a club there that was called the Topanga oral and. There every you know, the the entire elite of the music industry went there to, so to speak, literally let their hair down. And Manson actually performed there with a band, a short lived band that he formed called the Milky Way. And that was where he encountered Bobby Bocelli in the process of looking for musicians to play with. This very short lived band because which most people don’t remember, but. That means that it was again, through his musical career, forming a band that he met Bobby Boselli. Now I don’t know if your listeners are aware of the entire complex sub. But Bocelli committed the first murder, which is in the legend, considered to be the first of these Manson murders, which I think is in this number. So the important thing is to see it in his musical career. It’s what leads him to encounter each member along the way. Of the dramatist person I that ended up being involved in the murders. If you felt that. So Bobby Bocelli was friends with Gary Hinman, who was a small time drug dealer and guitar teacher and musician in that area. And Gary Hinman was, as you may know, one of the first people to be murdered during this very complicated and still. His crime spree that occurred 2 years later, but he was a friend of Manson and Bobby Beausoleil, and they knew each other through their mutual musical interests. So now in this in the Topanga Canyon Corral, Manson encountered pretty much the entire cream of the crop of the. La walking the street and you know, he’s told me many, many anecdotes about how well he knew all the. People you know, everyone he had met there. Everyone from Linda wants that Buffalo Springfield spirit. Many, many other major bands of the time. So he he was a figure on the rock’n’roll scene, known to everybody. Even in 1967, when he had just been released from prison. So that and then they remained in Topanga Canyon on and off. Deeply into 1968 and 69, returning to it on and. Off. The major connection. That was next needed and again it ties music to the murders. Was that Manson melt? Dennis Wilson, who was then the drummer of The Beach Boys. Which at that time was one of the hugest rock bands in the world, second perhaps only to The Beatles at that time, and also in terms of cultural impact. You know, how did they influence The Beatles? The Beatles influenced them, but the very important fact to to bring up there is, you know, the legend. That Manson was supposedly obsessed with The Beatles and. That the murders were inspired by secret messages that he supposedly contrived from listening to. The white album.

Patrick: Right. The Helter Skelter reference.

Nikolas: Well, you have to keep in mind why that’s this, this whole idea that he was a starstruck nobody who only wished he could communicate with The Beatles. Dennis Wilson and all of The Beach Boys who Manson got to know fairly well. And so did many of his other associates, including girls. They knew that. Needles very well. So you know he would. He was moving in circles with people who knew The Beatles quite well. So it’s and he never was a great admirer of the deedles, the young people around him were that he wasn’t. But the fact is, if he wanted to talk to The Beatles, Paul McCartney had visited Brian Wilson, who Manson knew, you know, in that period. And in a in a recording studio in Brian. Wilson’s home, where Manson actually recorded the demo for another album, Paul McCartney, had been there, so he was only ever one phone call away from The Beatles, and he knew many people who were befriended with them. So I think that’s an important point to me. Clear now the significance of Dennis Wilson is often overshadowed. It’s sort of treated like a novelty that this Olson and good-natured and most cheerful of the major rock bands of the 60s would have been involved in the supposedly sinister Manson family, but. The fact is, Dennis Wilson was deeply searching for a spiritual mentor. He had recently gone with The Beatles to. India to meet the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi along with Mia Farrow and many other Hollywood and music industry figures and the whole Wilson family. We’re looking for spiritual answers. Nothing. Was. Strange about Dennis Wilson being intrigued with nonsense, philosophy and spiritual practise. And he the what needs to be understood is Wilson has been treated like he was used and abused by men. Yeah. So the the the myth which I sort of have to keep reminding people. What is the the cover story is that Manson this con man and manipulator swooped in on Dennis Wilson. And like some sort of vampire parasitically abused him and exploited him, but actually the opposite is true. Dennis Wilson was looking for someone to give him a cultural spark. Or inspiration at a time when he was sort of lost and he recorded one of Manson’s songs and he was greatly impressed with Mansons music. And he recorded with The Beach Boys a stone called cease to exist, which he changed the name of the song to never learn not to love. And you can hear that on the 2020 album of The Beach Boys. Well, rather than Manson using Wilson, what happened is that Wilson put this song out on an album without crediting Manson as the. Young Rider took credit for him himself, never paid him except for giving him a motorcycle. And Manson never signed a contract because he is quite naive as to the ways of the outside world. He assumed, according to the Underworld code, that a man’s word is his honour and a lot of the bad blood that came later came from this, which is not understood. It isn’t. That Manson never made it in the music industry. It’s that he did and he wasn’t compensated. He was not paid. And Dennis Wilson. You know, change the lyrics to his song never gave him credit for the song and basically took it as its own, which I think anyone would would be resentful about. So that’s a little different than how most people interpret the story.

News reader #3: Not.

Nikolas: Another important factor which I’m extending in the new forthcoming edition of the Master file a lot more getting into the musical history because I think that’s not sufficiently understood. Not only did was Manson sufficiently admired by the movers and shakers. Influencers of the Hollywood. Music industry. But he was given 2 opportunities to record a major album. 1 was at Brian Wilson’s home studio at Bellagio Rd. That was recorded by Steve Desper, who was The Beach Boys recording engineer and another was recorded with the Wrecking Crew. Which is one of I don’t know if you’re familiar with their legend, but they were basically a crack group of session musicians. The finest session musician. In Los Angeles, and basically they recorded all of the music from many of the hit songs of the 60s, from Sonny and Cher, both Spectre, the birds, countless others you know, you name, a hit song from that time, the open secret in the music industry was this group. That was colloquially known as the Wrecking Crew. This recession, people recorded the real music and that went out on the web. Words to make the band sound better because they were excellent musicians, sometimes superior to the bands. Well, that the when you consider one of the best session groups in the world at that time were hired by Terry Meltzer to record an album with needs and that’s never been publicly revealed. Nobody knows about that. Similarly, the album that Dennis Wilson sponsored to that was going to be released on The Beach Boys label has also disappeared from the face of the Earth. So both of those record projects would have shown Manson in a very different.

Speaker 13: Right.

Nikolas: If you basically I could go further with all of his connections, which I do in the book, but to sum it up, this was not an unsuccessful. Desperate Striver trying to get into the music industry. This is somebody that people like Terry Meltzer, one of the main rock producers of the time. Young and many others admired, respected and were actively trying to promote as what Carol Kay, who was one of the members of the Wrecking Crew, said that when she met Brian Wilson once at Capital Records. He introduced her to. Watson, who she didn’t know at the time, nobody did and said well, you know, he’s going to be the next big thing in the 70s. But look, just to give you an idea of how long the myth the public myth of what you think about Mansons connection to the rock world is.

Patrick: Well, The Beach Boys myth is a pertinent 1 and I think I recall a Beach Boys biopic in the 1990s where the character of Charles Manson, though only appearing briefly. He would he was sort of treated as a hanger on to The Beach Boys.

Nikolas: Right, that was. That was a really incompetent TV movie in the 90s. And I can remember the scene was, yeah, it’s he’s presented as some. Kind of horrific. Horror film stereotype and they are immediately frightened by them. But that wasn’t the case at all. And in in, in the book in which I can lay this all out in much clearer context because it’s really complicated to counter the myth that people have with the with the more banal. Facts. They liked him. You know, most of them liked him. Dennis Wilson admired him and really thought he was a genius. And unfortunately for The Beach Boys myth. Wilson spoke to at least two major rock magazines in 1968 and is ranting and raving about how great this new musician Charles Manson is and how they’re going to put his record out. So there’s a lot of evidence that’s seeped into the public, but you know, you’d have. You’d have to dig for it. Most people believe, as you said, that. Of course, you know our our beloved rock idols and immediately recognised he was dangerous and wanted to get away from it. That wasn’t the case at all. Now and another and another odd thing. I just wanted to mention, in passing in the recent research that I’m adding to the update of the Manson file. I had discovered something I’d heard rumours about, but many people who I spoke to who knew Dennis Wilson after the murders, said that they believed he knew immediately when the Tate lobby on the murders occurred that Manson was involved with it and that he became. Just a nervous wreck because he was aware that he was in some way responsible for the murders occurring in a way that he never fully explained to anyone, though he claimed several times he would eventually write a tell all book about it. So I looked into these rumours and conjectures about this, and as it turns out, several people in the rock. Of the 1969 before the most famous of these crimes, the killing at Cielo Dr the killing of Sharon Tate, Sebring, Frankowski Folger and parent. Before that happened, people in the rock world actually were sometimes holding vigil, waiting for a hit to be put on. And they were already knowing that some kind of murder was going to occur. So that hasn’t the pieces of that puzzle haven’t fully been put together but that. Indicates the degree that the music world, not all of them, but a lot of these people who had encountered Manson and were links between. The social circle around Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski and the Manson come. Which there is a lot of social connection between these people. We’re already aware before the murders that something was going to happen.

Patrick: Right. And I’ve always heard Charles Manson in the murders described it as this sort of symbolic end of the counterculture, the 60s. Now, it certainly was a thing, but it certainly wasn’t the thing and certainly not the only thing. However, you know that certain haze, if you will, that this sort of hungover the summer of love in 1967 and then experienced Monterey Pop and Woodstock, it wouldn’t only end with the Tate Labianca murders, but they also experienced the disastrous Altamont Speedway concert a few months later. And then Kent State wasn’t far behind that. So I think it’s unfair to mark the murders with a stop sign for.

Nikolas: The counterculture, and I think we have to look at that. That’s important point. We have to look at different levels of it and and then this gets into the political dimensions of the Cates which there are. As well, I mean the musical, the political, the spiritual, the psychedelic, they all are important to look at, to understanding the mystery of this thing. Politically, when this whole, I mean basically what is the Manson myth? It’s that a mad man got out of prison, hypnotised middle class ordinary American kids to kill. For him, he was a talentless musician who was spurned by the music industry, and he ended the 60s. I mean, when a hack journalist calls to interview me about this, that’s always the story they’re going to present. And that’s why I refused to do most interviews because it’s just always the same. Party line. That’s all I can call it, but he ended the 60’s. The man who murdered the 60s. Well, the political dimension of it is it isn’t that the Tate La Bianca murders or Manson ended the 60s? It’s that the political currents and tides used the publicity about the Manson murders to destroy the counterculture.

Speaker 12: You.

Nikolas: If you understand what I’m saying. Who was the Governor of California at the time of the Manson murders?

Patrick: Ronald Reagan.

Nikolas: Where was Ronald Reagan? Deeply entrenched in protecting the film and music and entertainment industry? He he’s he is the entertainment industry, a former actor who had. Been elected as Governor of California, basically on the populist promise, I’m going to destroy the counterculture. You know this. This hippie stuff’s gone too far. We’re going to stop. That’s what he ran on in 1966. Already. We have to stop these student protests and you’re you’re aware of the of the way Reagan’s career began. But this is very important to understand. The human factor of who was in charge of California when the Manson crimes occurred.

News reader #3: Give me.

Speaker 12: 3rd.

Nikolas: And when the media turned it into this death of the 60s narrative, which I completely refute. What happened was Reagan, and who was the president? Who the newly elected President of the United States, Richard Nixon, Stam Yordy, the mayor of Los Angeles and deeply corrupt figure the Los Angeles Police Department, which always has been noted for its corruption and its willingness. To cover up crimes if it helps the the industry that at that time was the most powerful in Los Angeles, the entertainment industry. These people and J Edgar Hoover, they hated the hippie counterculture. We know what the Nixon administration was doing as far as black operations to destroy and defame any kind of protest or activism against the Vietnam War effort. That’s been well documented.

Unknown Speaker: Counter.

Nikolas: So you have to consider the death of the 60s narrative was pushed by the Republican Party and its leaders at that time. Basically it is it isn’t. I do have to say this, I’m sure I’ve looked at some of your other radio shows and I can see some. Times. Maybe your listeners would have the idea that it. I’m sure you’ve heard this notion or theory that the Manson family which never really existed, but what’s called the Manson family, was some kind of MK ultra plot to destroy the 60s that the murders. Were devised and orchestrated by intelligence agencies with a deliberate intention. To destroy the 60s. Have you heard that theory?

Patrick: I absolutely have, yes.

Nikolas: Yeah. So that is just patently ridiculous. That’s putting the cart before the horse in a very naive way. It’s it’s, it’s more that the crimes occurred and the intelligence agencies. And the Republican administration of the time, on every level, local California level local Los Angeles level and Washington. Used it to defame anything to do with LSD peace.

News reader #1: Freedom out of.

Nikolas: What was viewed as this anarchic social threat from the counterculture, and it worked. They presented Manson and this commune as you know this demonic. Source of evil and basically it did destroy the hippie movement, but that was not, you know, that wasn’t a plot or a plan, it’s that the propagandists of the Republican administration. And a lot of powerful Democratic Party. People used it to undermine and destroy the counterculture, and I think that is perhaps the deepest historical significance. Of what I can only call the Manson phenomenon because it’s not just the murders, it’s a deeper social phenomenon that changed American life. It led to a turning of the tide. Politically, the counterculture was making strides. From 1966 to 1969. Society was changed. There were alternatives to the establishment. The way the media and the government and law enforcement treated these murders and misrepresented them definitely changed the political tide in America. And I think in retrospect, that is the real historical significance of these crimes.

##### Clip Reel #3

Speaker 6: If you don’t have a place to crash. Come to our ranch, the ranch. Food, drugs and LSD is everything. Well, one here, this mine is source.

News reader #3: We don’t pair up. Everyone’s with everyone.

Unknown Speaker: Charlie Manson is our miracle.

Speaker 14: From here you.

Speaker 9: Do you trust me?

Unknown Speaker: Yes. There will be blood on these hands.

Speaker 7: Move aside.

Unknown Speaker: Killed me.

News reader #1: All of her friends were murdered.

Unknown Speaker: We’re going to kill them.

Speaker 14: All.

Unknown Speaker: How did the world get so crazy?

##### The Manson Girls

Patrick: Now we’ve discussed the Manson Circle, those that were with him in Topanga Canyon at 69. So before we get to Tex, Watson, let’s introduce the girls, specifically Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, and Lynette squeaky from now. I’ve always wondered this. Nicholas is there one that Manson really bonded with and liked most?

Nikolas: Well, yeah, let remind me of that last question. But again, let me put that in a larger context. Remind me of it is the one that Charlie liked the most.

Unknown Speaker: Bad.

Nikolas: Typically this to to even approach that question we have to again start with a myth like I began with, OK, the myth is Manson, the talentless musician who couldn’t get anywhere. In fact a. Very talented musician who immediately had connections to the highest echelons of the music industry. And we were pushing to release an album quickly in the same way. This idea of that these girls were his followers, his disciples, that Manson was a guru who was leading a cult, that was named the family, and that had some sort of coherent ideology. It is like a predecessor of Jonestown or heavens gate, that kind of cult is really not at all. And so to understand the relation of Manson and these young women, one of the most interesting things is to look at the very few documents about Manson and his activities before the murders and. There are a few. Like Dennis Wilson’s speaking about in in the English rock press there. 222 psychologists that knew Manson. In 1968, did a report basically looking into the counterculture about his. And they referred to the group as a group marriage. And from all of my conversations with Manson and many people involved with him that I’ve talked to, that’s a better way to understand what this group was. And Manson said to me in my film Charles Manson superstar, you know, I’ve always had a bunch of Broads following me around. And that’s the way he loved it. These were his girlfriends. They weren’t his disciples. They weren’t his followers. That is the language that Duosi and the mass media used to convict him and to. Make it look. Like they had no agency of their own. They were his mindless, brainwashed disciples. But what has to be understood? It was. It was a group marriage. That phrase, I think, describes it but. So it was a group of women living in a polygamous relationship with a man that then sort of pulled in their tide of a couple of other men. But basically what it was about, and originally everyone I’ve spoken to who knew them at the time. That’s quite a few people in the 60s move them as Charlie’s girls, which doesn’t sound as sinister as the family, but that’s just what they were called. It was him and his girlfriends. So it’s everything in this case, the volume is turned up greatly when the media reps. That’s it. So you you have to remember, these were not disciples, they were his girlfriends. And now you. You started with Atkins. The thing about Susan Atkins is. She people don’t realise where did the myth and the legend of Manson as a guru who brainwashed people came from, and the idea that these murders were random. Well, the first source of that was Susan Atkins, who early on after after they were arrested in 1969. In October of 1969, she was. The first person to speak about any of the murders that this group of people were involved with, and she spoke about the human murder. And she immediately had a well known mafia lawyer, Richard Caballero, who was connected to Paul Caruso’s legendary Italian American. Attorney, who had protected many Mafia people and who had previously represented a drug dealer deeply connected to the crime and. You know the the. Aspect of it is that as soon as Susan Atkins was arrested, Mafia attorneys had swooped in to protect her. She told a story to them that was sold to the media, sold to the Los Angeles Times, and then distributed throughout the world. That made it sound like the murders. Were a attack on random victims for some sort of vaguely defined. And revolutionary purpose. The idea of Helter Skelter didn’t come into it at that point, but what you have to know about Atkins is she basically told or was guided to tell the cover story even before anyone knew what had happened. So how does a penniless hippie girl, 19 or 20? Have two very expensive lawyers who have been well known to represent Underworld and drug dealer figures come in to defend her. They concocted the story with her, I believe, to protect the people really involved, and to cover up what was really going on. So Susan Atkins is essential in that she devised and put out the cover story that, you know, through a book that’s forgotten now that was called the killing of Sharon Tate. And that gets into some of these mafia connections. Which we can get into a bit later. But Susan Atkins is important because she’s was just a habitual liar who claimed, for instance, that she murdered Sharon Tate, that she murdered Gary Hinman. She seems to be exhibitionistic compulsive liar, who, a fantasist who just made-up gory and shocking stories. For various reasons, according to her own ever changing story. Once she told people that she made these storeys up. Because she wanted to scare people in prison because she she was trying to protect herself. So she thought if she sounded like a grizzly serial killer, they would be more frightened of her and leave her alone. I don’t believe that’s true. I think she. Was guided by. Her public attorneys into telling a cover story that would conceal the true nature of the crimes. So that’s an important aspect of Susan Atkins’s. Need to realise. If you believe the mainstream mass media mansion myth, it is one of the criminals who devised it to conceal the real motives of the murder. Now when you’re asking about them, do you mean what is her personality like, or what kind of person she was?

Patrick: Well, yes. What I’d like to know is what these young women were like as people. And I say that because we know that the helter skelter myth that we are fighting is 1, much like what was portrayed by the trailer of the 2016 lifetime movie, Manson’s lost Girls, which we just heard now, they were not zombies who shared one mind, as you mentioned before. Yet I do often feel like their unity at times, such as in that famous clip where their arm and arm, seeing as they walked on the hallway, their unity at a time when the bright lights of the media were upon them. That made it seem like they were brainwashed and naively happy. But these were girls who, you know, in some cases were really weathered. My life in looking for a better way, and they saw Topanga Canyon. As a better way. So yes, I think we absolutely should know who they were.

Nikolas: Right. Well, then they’re not zombies is exactly right. The the main thing I think, for anyone new to this case that that wants to approach it from a fresh angle to try to understand what is being concealed and what actually happened as opposed to what you’ve been told. For 48 years, forget the whole idea that these would hypnotise people with no will of their own. They had their own agency. These were people who did what they were doing for their own motives. When we dropped the whole helter skelter brainwashing mind control scenario, we have to deal with individual. Human beings who are responsible for the crimes they committed and did them for the reasons that most criminals commit crimes. There’s nothing fantastic about them. So in. The case of Susan Atkins, in particular, in 1966, she was already roaming around with two thugs as a thief auto thief, robbing places with them willfully go. She was already a criminal. You know her involvement with dangerous and violent. And went on two years before she met. So she had every profile. She would seem very likely to be involved in a crime. She was known even in the early part of the hate. Her hate. Ashbury period before she met Manson to. Deal drugs from other people and try to sell them, which as we will see, is basically what these Manson crimes, as they’re called, were really all about was drug robbery that turned violent and. So Susan Atkins was not an innocent middle class. You know, girl next door from when she was a teenager, she was already drifting into crime in a major way and was deeply involved in drugs, you know, not not only that drug dealing was made illegal during the 60s, but. You know, she she was saying she was willing to kill a policeman in 1960. Six who was going to arrest her? She was already a hardened criminal by the time she met Nancy. And you asked, how did these girls get involved with them in her case? Now, again, all of these legends and stories we they’re almost like fairy tales. They’ve been repeated so often. But from what Manson told me and I spoke to Atkins once in 1980. 6 I do think basically the story is true. She met him at a drug dealers party in Haight Ashbury and heard his voice. He was singing the song. The shadow of your smile on guitar. And she was enchanted by his music. And again, it’s all about music. So in this story that that’s usually what drew these people to him. But they had they had a relationship, you know, it wasn’t the relationship of a disciple to a religious leader. It was like very typical. The 60s. It is that kind of relationship within within a communal marriage. So Atkins is one of the first to join after a librarian named Mary Bruner and Janet from was pretty much the 3rd, 4th to get involved. But that’s how she got involved when she was ingrained with his music and she got on his this school bus that he had got from somebody and they left. Hate Ashbury San Francisco together, which was falling into criminality and violence and massive drug abuse to the point where the summer of love had turned into a like a a hippie ghetto of destruction and and violence. So they escaped from it. They went to Los Angeles. But that’s how Susan Atkins got involved. But it’s important to understand anyone who believes the Manson mainstream myth. Basically, she started it as a defence for her crime, and probably a way to try to defend herself and get. From the. Crime.

Speaker 14: The shadow of your smile. When you are gone all my dream. And like the dawn. Look into my eyes, my love.

Patrick: And for those who are curious, yes, that was Charles Manson on a rare recording of the shadow of your smile. Now let’s move to Leslie Van Houten simply because she’s probably the girl that we know. Best due to her parole. Drinks now. She also, for whatever reason, and maybe you can explain this to us. Nicholas. She’s the one that everyone seems to have the if we’re gonna let one of them out, it would be her opinion about.

Nikolas: Right. Well, Leslie, when we can begin with her, Leslie Van Houten was the youngest of the women involved with the murders, and she was involved in the murder of Leno and Rosemary LA Bianca, which was, you know, which much less sensational publicity has been generated about that crime. Because it didn’t involve a movie star or a movie star, as the case may be, but she was involved in the tape. Then in the La Bianca murder. Her what? Her actual beliefs were is very hard to gauge. She was probably the most naive as the youngest of them. Her testimony also seems to have been guided greatly. But if you if you don’t want to get into the Pearl issue yet, I should reserve judgement on it. But I think that she may well have believed that the reason she was involved in the La Bianca murder was that she actually believed that by committing this murder. It would free boyfriend Bobby Beausoleil, who had committed the human murder, and there was this undercurrent discussed among the women that if they could make it look like the killer of Gary Hinman, still active by committing similar crimes, that dose away, could be freed.

News reader #3: Her.

Nikolas: Manson didn’t believe that, and I don’t think that was the motive for these murders, but I believe it’s possible because she was very young, very naive and incredibly stoned on acid at the time. She probably really believed that’s. What they were doing. As to what kind of person she was, she was she. As I said, she was the youngest and probably the most naive. Of all of them, however, I’ve heard from other people who also were doing research into this that you know the the another part of the myth is that this mansion group or a satanic cult of some kind, which is absolute. Nonsense. It’s not. Even remotely true, and maybe we need to get into that a bit later too, because it’s so widely believed. But just one interesting tidbit. Several people before Leslie, then Houghton was involved in the Manson group, which was mostly very close to being Jesus freaks in their intense Christianity. Far from being devil worshippers, they were very and matched in. Christian belief some people had encountered her at hippie hippie commune. That was actually satanic. So in a way, Leslie Van Houten probably strangely had some of the most extreme belief systems of any of these women. Although now she’s presented as the most innocent and. And least crazy of them. What I think is she actually was more ideologically motivated than the others.

Patrick: And that’s interesting because Leslie Van Houten is now portrayed as the most mild of the girls. So let’s move on to Patricia Krenwinkel.

Nikolas: Right. Kremlin, Kremlin. Cool. And she’s, you know, because this is a media created story. Crime wrinkles hardly ever mentioned. Most people know nothing about her because she’s the least conventionally attractive and glamorous of these women. So she’s sort of been shunted aside. But she, along with Charles Tex Watson. If you really want to get down to it, it’s the Tex, Watson and Krenwinkel murders she did most of the killing. And the actual savagery? Mayhem of these very violent crimes, along with Charles Watson, though nobody ever speaks about her much or even remembers her because they think of Susan Atkins. Because again, it’s like Hollywood typecasting. Atkins looks like what you could imagine a brainwashed satanic hippie murder. It’s would look like and. But so it’s it’s part of this whole media presentation. But currently Uncle was by her own account, a very isolated, lonely young. Who got drawn into Manson’s group because he was one of the few people who was ever loving to her or kind to her. And the thing about her is she was the most violent of these people when it came down to it. Susan Atkins, who has the reputation of being. Sexy Sadie. The evil murderess doesn’t seem to have actually been involved too much in the actual crime. It was Tony Winkle who did. A lot of the savagery that Charles Charles Watson did most of it, but Krenwinkel should be known as one of the murderers, but she’s not really thought of that way. She’s sort of always shunted to the side. But you know, as I said, if we were to accurately describe these crimes, there are lots incremental murders. The Manson murders. So that’s an important thing to consider. But when Manson met her, she was a, you know, deeply religious Christian, sort of counterculture Christian, as Manson was. So again, not in any way, any kind of occult beliefs or anything that that have been projected on these people. She was one of the most pious and. Christian of the. And then they got attracted to the group. But the thing to remember about her, you sort of have to ask, why is she so unknown? Because she actually did a great deal of the killing, but most people. Have forgotten her. So that just says something about the misrepresentation and misreporting of the case. It’s it’s always the more glamorous or. Bizarre or grotesque characters like Susan Atkins, who’s like central casting as the evil hippie who gets pushed in the front of the TV show and crinkle, sort of, gets lost, as is the next figure. When the Kasabian.

Patrick: And what do we know about Linda Kasabian?

Nikolas: Well, to again, maybe the the most useful way to approach it is to look at the myth and then try to get to what we can discern of the reality. If you look at Helter Skelter, the book, the film and the wave of the mainstream media just regurgitates it mindlessly this, this. False narrative. Linda Kasabian was a innocent hippie Angel. Who was briefly involved with Manson Group? Now we have to look at this, she. Joined if you could even speak of anything as formal as joining this community in July of 1969 and these murders, this crime spree of connected but also disconnected murders that occurred all happened in August. We are supposed to believe that this woman. He was practically a stranger. Mance had met him in, I believe, July 4th of 1960. 9 That you can trust her to go out on this killing mission to create Helter Skelter. But as I got to know Manson, it was clear that he really hardly knew her. I mean, she was there on the spawn ranch for a very brief time. What I believe now, now the the main thing about her myth is the way Vincent Duosi presented. Here. And we have to back up a bit here. In simple Leoc first went to Susan Atkins and said we will give you immunity for immunity if you will testify against the others, and she would have been allowed out if she test turned states evidence against the Co defendants. If you follow me. Well, eventually, bullion OC turned away from that deal and instead that when Linda Kasabian was arrested. He thought well. Seems like a more believable witness. I mean, he was a liar, but he was a genius as a prosecutor, and he knew this Linda Costabile. And he looks kind of a much more wholesome figure than Susan Atkins is going to be. A more credible witness for the prosecution. So he basically left Susan Atkins in the lurch. Who would? Who was going to testify and made the same deal with Linda Kasabian? So probably what the public knows about her. If they’re even. Aware of the story to this extent. Is that she? Was an innocent girl who sort of got caught up in the crime. The way the. Liosi presented it. The only reason she was sent to the Polanski House on August 8th. 9th of 1969 when these murders occurred is because she had a valid drivers licence. That’s what we’re supposed to believe is the motivation for this evil, manipulative criminal genius picking a stranger to do this very delicate operation because she was the only one with a. Valid drivers licence. Furthermore, we’re supposed to believe she stood outside the house that planted the house when the murders happened. She was horrified by what was occurring. She wanted to break away from them, but she was too terrified. This is the myth Julia OSI presented so that she would be a credible witness against. In fact, according to my research, I believe Kasabian and Watson were the major instigators of that particular night of mayhem. Linda Kasabian, before she was presented as this angelic star witness who had gone wrong in Boston, where she came from. She had already been arrested in a circle of drug dealers. When she met the Manson Commune, Charles Tex. Watson. Immediately the day he met her, convinced her to steal $5000 from her husband at the time, which she went and did. So she was already a criminal. She was already a drug dealer. And another interesting factor is she had already been at drug parties at the house next door to where the couple, La Biancas lived. She already was familiar with the house next door to it at a drug party. Scene that was going on there. So her background was already a criminal and her initiation into the commune was stealing $5000 from her own husband to bring to Charles Tex Watson, I believe, though this has not at all been part of the mainstream narrative that that $5000 ended up buying. Drugs that eventually created this chain of events that led to the murders that. So far from innocent. Now, why did she instigate these murders with Tex Watson is because as far as my research has indicated. She and Tex Watson had gone to the Polanski house at Cielo Dr and had purchased from Voytek Frykowski, friend of Roman Polanski’s, who is living in his house with his girlfriend Abigail Folger. While Polanski was in Europe. Working. From Frankowski was getting into the drug dealing business financed by Abigail Folger, who was the heiress to the Folger’s coffee industry. Voytek Frykowski sold Charles, Tex. Watson and Linda Kasabian, some MDA. What what was the originator of what we would today call ecstasies to a slightly different chemical arrangement. But that was the new party drug, the new the new sensation among the rock’n’roll and film elite that was experimenting with psychedelics at that time. So Tex Watson, who was a drug dealer, and Linda Sabian also deeply involved in drug trade, went to buy some from Perkowski. Tate. And exactly what was wrong with it? I haven’t been able to determine, but it wasn’t good. And so when they tried to sell it to others, they got complaints. And apparently a lot of people on the drug community in that week have purchased bad NDA from Frankowski and Frankowski. Had bought it from some Canadian drug dealers, which, as I explained in the Manson file, was also a key factor to the murders and and what they were all about. But maybe too complicated. To get into with the time allotted here. But the important thing. You have to get this straight, Linda Kasabian right now, under an assumed name. Is living as a free woman, but as far as my research has shown, she instigated the crime that it’s best known she and Tex Watson went back to the house to Rob Frykowski and Jay Sebring. Who was also. So a drug dealer at the time to get back at them for what was known in the parlance of 60s drug dealing as burning them on. A bad drug? Deal. So that’s what it was all about. And Linda Casabian, who already like Tex Watson, had a history of robbery and drug dealing, was just doing her usual. You know, so the horrible irony of it is this woman who’s remembered as the angelic. Saviour who who blew the whistle on her Co defendants in my mind, was actually the instigator of the crime, and duosi was cynical enough to make a deal with it simply because she made a better and more credible witness than Susan Atkins. So that’s. And that’s a pretty shocking piece of information. It’s it’s been something I’ve been aware of since the 90s, when I really got into the depths of the deception here. You know, you have to let that sink in. She’s a free woman. I’m pretty sure she instigated. Or was the Co instigator. With Tex Watson of these crimes. One one thing I need to point out. For people who are sceptical about that. Ever since then, she has been continually. In trouble with? The law involving drug dealing, messaging her even her children have become criminals. So you know nothing has changed for her. She started as a criminal. Before she got involved in this comma. And she remained one until very recently. And perhaps to this day. So her criminal record is, is open and available, but you don’t see the mass media ever saying much about it because it blows the story. It just doesn’t fit in to the narrative of her as the heroine who innocently. Adopting these murders.

Patrick: Before we get into the details of August 1969, I’d like to come back to this idea of relationships. With whom did Manson have the best relationship? With whom did he have the most contentious relationship, and who really had a special bond with him?

Nikolas: Right. Well, I my my gut reaction to that is who he liked the most from having spoken to him often and written to him even more often since 1985 is the most undiluted affection that Manson has expressed. His always been for the net. From and and again I could in no way say that I’m speaking for him, because nobody should ever try to do that because he’s too complex to speak. Or, but my personal interpretation from my conversations with him has been that he had the closest bond to Lynette from. And I have to in saying that I have to say as much as I’ve been able to have a rapport and get along with Manson. He’s also a very vindictive, mean spirited person. When you get to know him, he can be generous. He can be kind, but he also has a very wrathful. Ever. And I’ve never heard him say anything completely good about anybody, including myself. I mean, that’s just sort of the rules of engagement with him. So it’s remarkable that the person he’s pretty much only had good things to say about his Lynette phone. And he’s he’s referred to her as his old lady, his woman almost implying a kind of lie. Hopefully relationship that I have never heard and say about other people who was involved with, so that’s my interpretation of it. If they had a genuine love affair, I would say.

Patrick: Would you happen to know if Manson is still in contact with Lynette from or if he’s even allowed to be?

Nikolas: Her she was pulled the net firm in 2009 and the some of the conditions of her paroles that she’s absolutely not allowed to have any contact to Manson whatsoever. And and you know, I’ve had correspondence in contact with her, and I do respect her. And she served her time. So I don’t really want to get into intruding on her personal life, but she has followed the conditions, which requires her to have.

Speaker 15: No.

Nikolas: Contact. Which is ridiculous. It’s still based on the idea that he is a criminal mastermind who could hypnotise her to commit another crime. Which is nonsense, but you have to go along with these things. And she served her time, so I’d rather not get into her personal life and let let her enjoy the free. You you did ask about who did he? Who did he argue the most? It’s just that without a doubt. From what he’s told me and from what other people who witnessed. It’s Susan Atkins. Was always a. Bone they had. A very deep relationship, but she was far from being a obedient zombie. Brainwashed follower. Was very disobedient and constantly causing trouble. People very often by she she was. I wouldn’t call a prostitute because her sexuality went beyond that, but she was always bringing angry men to the spawn ranch looking for her. Who had she had ripped off? She would steal drugs from people and bring, you know, angry drug dealers. Back to the ranch looking for trouble. So and. And she actually broke away briefly. From the commune and sort of tried to form her own group, which is a sort of disputed episode. And this whole thing when she went to Mendocino, but she sort of struggled with Manson for authority. And yeah, she was she was a her. She is a very temperamental person and he is too. You can only imagine the fireworks that came from that, but but she definitely was the one that he had the most contention.

Patrick: Now you mentioned earlier that you would absolutely attach Watson’s name to the murders. So who is Charles Tex Watson?

Nikolas: Well, that is the key question because we’re or if the media and law enforcement and the jurisprudence system in Los Angeles presented this case correctly, we would be talking about the Watson murders because that’s. What they were. Again anyway, and I know I’m sure there’s people who are sceptical about what I’m saying. And how could they not be after 48 years of being lied to and being consistently present? Wanted. Non-stop the same barrage of the myth and the fairy tale of Helter Skelter and of the evil manipulator who convinced and brainwashed these young people to kill for him. Of course they have reason to be sceptical. But we have to remember Charles Watson. He’s who committed these murders. He’s who went. There, he’s who stabbed these people and you know he he is at the centre of this thing. And what more important than what exactly went on with the murders is? Why has he been erased from history? Why don’t people? Why don’t people think? I mean, for instance, Charles Manson is like the epitome of evil in the public consciousness. He’s considered he’s compared to Hitler. The devil he’s considered the most evil person in American history, I would think, based on what exactly? Though I think you’d be hard pressed to say if we really looked at what this pretty venal criminal career has been. All we can prove is he was a pimp. Major auto theft, drug dealer credit card. Theft, you know. Crime on a major level, but not a serial killer. Not a murderer. No. Nobody’s ever ever accused him of physically murdering anyone. On the other hand, Charles Watson, by his own admission, didn’t murder these people. But he claims he did it because he was brainwashed. Basically, if you read his biography. And read his parole testimony. That he had no will of his own. He had no volition of his own, but he, as you say, who was this man? Who is this man? Even before he met Manson, he was in the middle tier of Hollywood and Los Angeles drug dealers. He was a clean cut, good looking guy from Texas, a former football player, a fairly ordinary, not extremely bright person. Who was basically drifted into drug dealing because that was an easy way to make money in the 1960s, and he would now his involvement with Dennis Wilson is also very important to the case. He met Dennis Wilson independently. History is that. He picked up Dennis Wilson hitchhiked. In Malibu. And that they befriended each other and Dennis Wilson, if you can believe this, it’s almost laughable. Invited him to his house for a cup of coffee. Well. You can you can use your imagination and think maybe it was for another reason than a cup of coffee or a stronger. In other words, Dennis Wilson met Charles Watson in 1968. And this is another important thing. If you were to really tell the story accurately, which is impossible at this point because of the abundance of the legend and of the myth, if you will really tell the story the way it is. Dennis Wilson leading Charles Watson is what another incredibly important. Factor in setting this whole chain of events. Charles Watson then became, by his own description a kind of house boy at Dennis Wilson’s. Mention what their exact relationship is. I can’t prove, but I’m going to conjecture and I’m pretty sure is because Dennis Wilson was a voracious user of drugs of all kind, which everyone he knows can testify to. I’m pretty sure that the main attraction. To having Charles Watson. Lived with him and where he takes complete stranger into his house was his drug connection. I also believe, based on things Manson has told me and other inferences that they probably had some sort of sexual relationship as well. So it’s important to consider that Dennis Wilson brought Charles Watson into knowing he introduced him to Charles names. I don’t think a lot of people realise that fact. And if they do, they don’t see the significance of it. So the most important thing here is Charles Watson was an independent drug dealer already. Drug dealer like Linda Kasabian. Or he met Manson. From what I can see, he was operating on a more sophisticated. Network of drug dealers and involved with serious criminals long before he met Manson and he was not the brainwashed follower that you’ve been led to believe. He also was not deeply enmeshed in the Manson Commune as much as other people. He stayed with a girlfriend. In Hollywood. Often left the commune at the spawn ranch and had his own independent criminal enterprises going on. Which is mostly. Dealing marijuana, LSD, mescaline, cocaine, and he himself was taking speed methadone, which is very important into the grotesque and violent nature of the. Things because he was on speed the night he killed these people in such a vicious and repetitively destructive manner, which a lot of people have commented is typical of method dream murders that they make you extremely overly violent and and repetitive stabbing. Is something that people on speed have often been noted to do in the Commission of the. So Charles Watson was basically an independent drug dealer on the fringes of the Nelson Group, sometimes deeply involved, but more often off on his own with his own criminal enterprises. That’s important to know about him also. He was very good friends with Terry Melcher, who lived. In the Polanski House before Sharon Tate and Romans Polanski rented it, he already knew Terry Melcher very well. He already knew Dennis Wilson very well and. He had been to parties with Manson at the Cielo Dr House. Dennis Wilson also introduced Sharon Tate to. Manson and Watson at some of these parties and #4. According to Manson, the first time he met Sharon Tate was at the home of Elvis Presley. When Elvis was in Las Vegas, some people who were a part of what was called the Memphis Mafia. That Manson knew Dennis Wilson knew them and they would go to gambling parties held at Elvis’s House. And that’s where he first met Sharon Tate. So it’s important to understand Tex Watson was deeply involved with the people that were murdered. He knew Perkowski as a fellow drug dealer. He knew JC. He knew Sharon Tate wasn’t a friend of hers, but was on nodding terms. Seeing her at parties. Of their lifestyle. So that’s very important to know. These were he was not impoverished hippie, he was a fairly well dressed mod. You know what knew of the Hollywood party scene? And he was a pretty major drug dealer who was trying to work his way up in the drug dealing hierarchy with in these murders occurred. And I believe from having spoken to Manson about these crimes very often over many years. I don’t even think Manson. Never was fully aware of the activities of Charles Watson. I don’t think he knew exactly what he was up. Not all of it. And that’s very important in why there are still mysteries that endure about these crimes.

Patrick: Now let’s go back to August 9th and 10th, 1969. The Tate Labianca Murph, what happened? Who is most responsible for the murders? And maybe most importantly, why did they happen?

Nikolas: Well, the I think the reason one of the reasons why it’s so hard to understand the complexity of this case is. That that crime, that that happened at Seattle Drive, the the murder of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Frykowski Folger and parent. Is given so much emphasis that you you aren’t really showing the full narrative that led to it, and how that crime then led to the crimes that occurred afterwards. I mean, for the most part, I think the average person who is not deeply involved in trying to understand this case or what actually happened has the idea that Manson sent his hippie followers out to murder people to start a race war that was supposedly called Helter Skelter. And that it didn’t really matter who he killed as long as. People were were viciously murdered and that that would supposedly inspire blacks to rise against white people and that now it doesn’t make any sense. It never did make sense to me, even when I wrote Helter Skelter when it came out in 1974. The book by Vincent Duosi, that’s what I I mean, isn’t that what you would say is? What most people believe.

Patrick: Yes. Think so?

Nikolas: And furthermore, whatever people may believe, they believe Charles Manson is absolutely the the supposed, and it’s a ridiculous, melodramatic word for this confused and actually failure of a crime. He’s supposed to be the mastermind. Of these murders, to understand what happened that night, August 8th and. Of 1969, we have to look at a series of other crimes that Watson admitted before that which are all pretty much either omitted from the narrative or placed in the wrong context. If you don’t mind, I think it’s important as an introduction to get into that first of all. On July 1st of 1969, Watson engaged in one of his usual criminal procedures, which was to he was a drug dealer, but he would rob drug dealers and steal their supply because they’re not going to call the police and say, hey, I was just robbed of my drugs. So this was his MO. That’s basically what he did. He did it several times and I get into a very important, even earlier attempt to rob a drug dealer that occurred in April of 1969, but that may be a little too complicated for what we need to get into in July. 69 he tried this with a major drug dealer and criminal named Bernard Crowe. Who’s? Nickname was lots of Papa. And Bernard Crowe, he basically said, I’m going to go get some marijuana for you. Crow gave him some money to buy the drugs and Watson left his own girlfriend, a woman named Rosina Kroner. With this drug dealer. Lots of Papa. Bernard club. And took off with the money and didn’t bring the drugs back to him. But that would tell you something about the character of Charles Watson that he would leave his own girlfriend as collateral with an armed drug dealer and some other friends that were in the place he did that. And this was July of 69 Bernard Crowe. 3 Rosina Phoner got the number of the spawn ranch and called and asked for Charles and there was 1 payphone at the ranch. The phone was given to Charles Manson rather than Charles Watson because they were both Charlie’s. This guy, Bernard Crow, who was kind of like a super fly black drug dealer type of the time, threatened to come and burn down the ranch and kill everyone there, something to that effect to Manson if you don’t give me back my money. Now you want you follow me so far. So Manson hears this threat and he and TJ Wellman, a friend of his he met on the spawn ranch. He was working there, but he was a Vietnam. That we had some experience with firearms. They both went to an apartment house in Hollywood on Franklin and where where this guy was, Bernard Crow and Manson brought a gun with him and he basically tried to free Rosina kroner. Alex Watson’s girlfriend from Bernard Crowe in the process of that, and there’s been many different descriptions of what exactly occurred, and TJ Wallman, who was there when it happened, told me his version of the story. Hanson has told me his. There have been many accounts of exactly what. But basically, Manson, in the process of this visit to Bernard Crowe to try to get Rosina Kroner back from him, shot Bernard Crow with the gun. He thought that he had killed him, but he actually didn’t. And that’s a whole other complicated story. I don’t actually. Believe that they believed that they had killed Bernard Crow for very long, but that’s the legend that has that has endured. So Manson shot this well known drug dealer who was very deeply tied in with the Hollywood and music. Industry, drug scene and he thought he’d now murdered someone. And this is someone who you have to remember. Manson is reporting to a parole officer diligently and trying to avoid being sent back to prison at this very point is right at the time when a film documentary was going to be. Made by Greg Jacobson, a friend of Terry Melchers, about the spawn ranch to promote mansions music they were going to produce a documentary along the lines of Woodstock, which had come out in 1969 as well. Yeah. So the idea was this was in, in July of 69, Manson was ready to put out one of these several albums, one that was made but recorded at Gold Star Studios with the Wrecking Crew by Terry Melcher. The other one that had been begun to be worked on. Uhm. With Steve Desper and The Beach Boys, his career was moving in the direction of finally, this album would be released and they would make a documentary about this group that at that time Greg Jacobson, who was Terry Melcher’s talent agent. Of the family at that time, they needed a man, and that’s where the name came.

Speaker 10: Well.

Nikolas: So now he’s committed this crime. He shot a major drug dealer. Words spreads to Terry Melcher and Dennis Wilson and the entire music people circle that he was involved with. That Manson’s nickname among these people was crazy Charlie. And when Dennis Wilson and Terry Melcher. Other people in the. Rock. Industry heard that he had now shot this guy. They dropped him completely. Although Meltzer and Wilson maintained some slight contact, they then thought, OK, he’s too unstable to continue with our plans. To pursue his. Recording career. So it wasn’t that he didn’t have a recording contract or wasn’t being taken seriously. It’s that he was on the brink of his music career actually taking off when his friends or supporters in the music industry dropped him because of this crime. So. No. Now Manson is angry at Watson because he’s gone in there and shot a man basically to rescue his girlfriend, and he feels like Tex Watson has dragged him into a crime that wasn’t even his doing, you know, and you. Can argue that. Either way, was it a stupid macho? Action to go in there with a gun? Possibly. But in either case, Manson felt all right to to Charles Tex Watson that he had been dragged into his drug dealer. Business and now he could go back to prison because of what he’s done and it’s totally destroyed his chances at any kind of recording career whatsoever. Not that that was that important to him, but you can understand the emotional fallout of that happening. So he’s very angry at Charles Watson. Shortly thereafter that there’s a lot of tension between Watson and him, because now, according to the underworld code, Manson has gone in and shot the guy. And therefore Tex Watson owes Manson and this is a phrase he said to me and many other people over and over again I told pics. Now you owe me one. You owe me for what I’ve done for you. Now that can be interpreted in many ways. Now a sort of surge of chaos occurs. Because some people know about the shooting in the spawn ranch circle in the commune and other people, it’s not. No. And there’s a kind of paranoia that starts to spread on the ranch. It wasn’t really.

Speaker 7: Like that.

Nikolas: Who make matters worse? Bobby Beausoleil, who, like Tex Watson, was sometimes part of the commune and sometimes independently and on his own. And it’s more of an independent figure. Certainly never a follower of Charles Manson. Like a lot of the men that were involved with the spawn ranch group, he wasn’t really living. All the time and he wasn’t integral part of the group as the women were. He had sold some drugs that he bought from this fellow gay human that I mentioned earlier in context with the Topanga Canyon Corral. He bought some mescaline from. $1000 worth of it is usually the agreed upon amount because a biker club named Straight Satans that were hanging around the spawn ranch and which I believe Manson was in touch with even earlier than that who are celebrating their 10th anniversary. And they wanted mescaline. To help push the festivities into a higher dimension. So Bobby Beausoleil wanted to in some way or the other gain the respect of the straight satans this biker club and he purchased the mescaline from Gary Hinman. And as I told you with Linda Kasabian and Charles Watson with kowski, something about the mescaline was wrong. Was wrongly made. Something was defective. About it and some of these bikers in the straight state and. Ill Manson told me that one of the women of the state, Satans, had a miscarriage. So instead of having a joyous celebration, it turned into getting a lot of their bikers sick. At this 10th anniversary party, Danny De Carlo, who was the you can say the treasurer. Of this biker called the Straight Satans who was hanging around the spine. Put a gun in Bobby Bosley’s hands and Bosley was a very young man at this point. Not they hardened him and like some of the others and said you better go back and get our money. So this is the same story you’re starting to see again and again. It’s about drug deals gone wrong and we want them back. So both solely goes back to Gary Hinman. He’s a friend of his mansions and says I need the money back and it’s a complicated story. And there’s, again, many different versions of what actually happened. In essence, it turns into an argument. At some point, Manson comes to Gary Heinen’s House in Topanga Canyon and sort of like he did with the Charles Watson misadventure with Bernard Crowe. If you’re following the pattern here, he goes back to. Warn him and he says you better pay him back and he cuts him. On the ear and the side of the face with a store that’s like in a pirate cutlass shape. And this sword belonged to the straight Satans belonged to a member of. This biker club. The straight satans when he cuts him in and then he leaves sort of as to give him a warning. You better pay. Mostly what you own. Of course. Now he’s committed another felony that could place him back in prison. At some point after that, Beausoleil got into an argument with him, and after Manson had left the premises and killed him. So you have now these Manson believes he’s killed this drug dealer. Lots of popular Bernard Crowe. Now word starts to spread that Bobby Beausoleil. Has killed Gary Hinman because Susan Atkins and Mary Brenner had gone with him and they witnessed the crime. So they know now that Bobby Beausoleil. Had killed this friend of theirs, Gary Hindman. The important thing here is let’s look at the pattern. What are these crimes about? It’s a drug dealer that the people in Manson’s group are very familiar with. Violence occurs against a drug dealer based on a drug deal that’s gone wrong. So-called burn. So now OK, these are totally banal. Crimes like are happening in underworld at this very moment. And it’s about the most routine kind of crime you can imagine. One drug dealer being angry at another and either committing violence or killing them. Nothing could be more common. It happens in gang land. All the. Time. Suddenly, we’re supposed to believe that. Next crime, which is commit. On August 8th and 9th of 1969, when Frankowski Tate Sebring parent and Folger were killed, we’re supposed to believe that this falls outside the scope of drug dealers who know each other, killing other drug dealers. I don’t believe that’s true, I believe. That, as I said before, Watson and Sabian went back to do exactly the same thing. As we’ve seen, they had been burned by Falkowski and possibly seedling, but I’m not quite sure about that part of. They wanted to go back to rob them and it turned into the mayhem that occurred. It was intended as a violent robbery and they wanted to get JC bring stashed of drugs because JC bring was a major cocaine dealer. They wanted to go back to his house, which was near the C Yellow House that was on Eastern Drive. In the same neighbourhood and get his stash of drug. Turned into a violent confrontation, largely because of Sharon Tates unexpected presence. They were hoping to go there to do a robbery and get away with a huge shipment of drugs that had been delivered just that evening. And that’s a very important part of the case. Who delivered the drugs to the Tate? Presidents that night. In fact, we now know that the FBI was observing that drug dealer and many of the other narcotics operations that were going on with these people. So the FBI were watching the inhabitants of the tape house. And this drug dealer who brought drugs to them, that’s what Kasabian and Watson were trying to steal. So it’s. If you can see the. Basically, it’s continues to be a pattern of drug dealer stealing and killing drug dealer. That’s what this is about, Sharon Tate. They the people who committed the murder went out of their way to make sure she would not be there because obviously they don’t want a celebrity. Being involved in this because that’s. Tracked, you know, unwanted publicity to this. So they even went out of their way to make sure she wasn’t there. How did they know that? That gets into many more mysteries, but the fact is, because she was supposed to be Sharon Tate spending the night while she was heavily pregnant and due to deliver. Her child. She wasn’t feeling. Well, and she was going to spend the night with her best friend, woman named Wells. She wasn’t supposed to be there, and the group of people who murdered her didn’t think she’d be there when she appeared. JC being tried to protect her. It’s a complicated story. Again, that would take another hour to even begin to explain, but briefly it turned into a physical fight between Sebring and Tex. Watson, who I have to add, was on Methedrine and had been for days. So he’s a speed. Three freaking out as he gets into a violent confrontation when he’s hoping to rob JC, bringing Frankowski of the drugs if turned into violence that wasn’t intended, and then it turned into a slaughter thereafter. Basically because there can’t be anymore witnesses to the crime. That’s the gist of what happened that night. To a degree among the people on the spawn ranch, there had been discussion of committing A copycat murder, and I’m sure you’ve heard this theory. To make it look like the. Murderer of Gary Hinman was still loose, and Bobby Bosley had been arrested on August 6. So, right before that, he’d been arrested and obviously they were concerned that he would talk about Manson’s involvement or or somehow it would come back to the ranch of their involvement in the crime. So there was a lot of paranoia intention after these crimes that committed. Now the other factor which. Manson has said to me since 1985 pretty much whenever the crimes have come up. Is that it was really all about the need to pay back the straight satans who were aware that he had committed these felonies. The. Shooting of Bernard Cole. The. Cutting of Gary Hinman with a weapon that belonged to them, which implicated them in the crime so they were insisting they needed even more money from Manson and his group, and in a way you could, you could say it was a sort of extortion. They were the straight satans were pushing Manson to pay them back, and they weren’t satisfied. With what they were getting. Which included some cars that were taken from Gary Hinman. You know, that wasn’t considered sufficient payment. So this these, this increased desperate activity to steal drugs and to rob people was basically to pay back the straight satans. Manson knew that whether the other people in his group knew it. I can’t say I kind of doubt it. Richer engineering. What I’ve seen of the way Manson cop compartmentalises his life and on need to know basis only tells people what they need to know about what’s. I think this was Charles Tex Watson and Linda Kasabian’s effort to bring money into the communal pool, but I think it was an independent activity of their own. And of course it was not going to kill random strangers to start a race war, which is just intrinsically absurd. It was for the same reasons as the two. Before. So that’s what happened that night. We can get into the mechanics of the actual crime, but, you know, even the chronology of how these people were killed is different than they have been led to believe, for reasons that make sense. In terms of the cover story and in the Manson file, I explained from what I believe and from what I have gleaned from people who talk directly to the murderers in prison. Where of course they tell a very different story than they tell to the parole board, to their lovers and to to fellow prisoners. When you go to the parole board, you have to, I don’t think a lot of people realise that you cannot say I lied in court. That isn’t what happened. You have to go along with what you’ve been convicted for. If you have any hope of gaining parole still. The convicted murderers in this case, if the parole boards continue to repeat the story that they were hypnotised by Manson to murder for these very vague reasons, even they themselves don’t tend to offer much credence to the helter skelter nonsense that Bugliosi pushed. But. You know from from what I have gleaned of what actually happened, it was nothing like. The that you keep being told is happening.

Patrick: For the audience, I do want to actually explore the mechanics of the murders, so, so much has been said and written, obviously so much from the mainstream media, but from your research, who killed whom on those nights?

Nikolas: I would, I would say. You have to consider that almost everything you say as a fact about this case is question. Because the stories have but sort of like the JFK assassination. A big problem with it is that these people have repeated their cover stories and their narrative so often that they’ve all blurred together into a mess and and as has been proven, even witnesses of a crime.

Speaker 7: Miss.

Nikolas: Prescribe them wrongly. If they keep describing them, they start changing the details and. Fact turns into fiction very quickly. When you’re under that kind of pressure, when you’re being interrogated, all of that. So you have to consider, I believe there are great mysteries about what occurred in that house when they occurred, who is responsible for them. One of the things I need to bring up here. Which is. One of the you know most enigmatic peculiarities of the whole thing, and nobody thinks about it very much unless. They’ve really studied the case. Imagine this scenario. This hideous murder occurs. Shooting, stabbing, screaming. William Garretson was in the guest house at Seelow Dr. He was a young man, Rudy Altobelli, the owner of the property who had rented it previously to Terry Melcher, and who now rented it to Roman Polanski. This young man was the house boy of Rudy Altobelli. He was watching the guest house on the property. While Rudy Altobelli was away in.

News reader #3: Good.

Nikolas: William Garretson claimed at first when the police arrived the next day to find this carnage this, you know, bloody scene in the front house and on the front lawn. That he didn’t hear anything that night. Why? If these killers had gone to kill everyone in the house, which is the legend that Manson supposedly ordered Tex Watson to go there and kill everybody, why would this? Young houseboy be spared. How could he have not heard anything either? Have the police reports in which neighbours pretty far away heard screaming, shooting reported it even. He didn’t hear anything. He didn’t see anything. Suppose according to his first story to the police. This is one of the ultimate mysteries of the whole case is what was William Garrison’s role? Did he know in advance that this was going to happen? There are some indications of that. Was he complicit in some way in what happen? Did he cooperate or enable what happened? And another thing to keep in mind is another person that’s completely usually written out of the whole thing is Steve parent. This teenager who was killed in the driveway, he may vaguely recall, was visiting William Garretson that night, supposedly at midnight to sell him a clock radio and again like Dennis Wilson and Tex Watson, supposedly being invited over for a cup of coffee, I don’t believe. Steve Parent was going to this notorious drug and party house. To about an alarm clock, but that’s that’s the official story. So you know, there are so many mysteries about that one evening alone, let alone all the other crimes. Just think about that. He he survived the night, didn’t supposedly didn’t hear anything, he was arrested. Was the main suspect the next morning when the murders were discovered and the story he told the police. And I’ve read the report, it’s publicly available. It’s completely hard to accept whatsoever what he tells. So to what degree was this young man William Garretson, complicit in or in some way aware of why and what happened? The problem, as is true with almost everyone involved in this case later in life, he told such ridiculous stories. For instance in the 90s, he got involved. The women who claimed to be as absurd as the sound. The unborn child of Sarin Tate. She claimed that she was cut out of Sharon Tate’s wound. And then this guy, William Garretson, actually promulgated this idiotic story that this woman was Roman Polanski and Sharon Tates child. So he completely blew. And you can look into that. You know, he he really seemed to believe that. And he, unfortunately, he said, a lot of interesting things that are very incriminating, implying that other people were even involved with these murders or knew about them. But we have to look at it all with a huge grain of salt because of the insane. Not you can’t even grace them by calling them. Conspiracy theory. So he’s a completely he’s an important part of the case, but we can’t really believe on face value. A lot of what he said and that’s the crucial factor that is almost always ignored. What why would these people leave him alive after so brutally slaughter? We wanted to. Yes. Also, how much did Rudy Altobelli, the owner of the house, who also had mafia connections and who Manson had far greater dealings with than was ever previously known? How much did he know about the nature of the? These are important questions that I go much deeper in the Manson file, but there’s things for the casual listener to begin. To realise the reason you don’t know what this is all about is because you need to look deeply into the lives of of these obscure personalities on the fringes of the case. Who should be better known? If you can see the pattern forming there.

Speaker 10: Manson idolised The Beatles. He thought they were prophets and they were sending out messages beneath the lyrics of their songs, not only to him, but to other tuned people. And The Beatles came out with this album. I think they called it the white album. It was all white. So Massey gets a hold of the. And he comes back to the ranch and he’s. All excited and. He tells the members of his family The Beatles are telling it like it is helter skelter’s coming down Helter Skelter to Manson meant the last final destructive war among men on the face of this earth. He called it helter Skelter. There’s another song on that album that they played quite a bit black. And there’s a verse in and and in the song. Blackbird about. Blackbirds fixing their wings rising up and flying. So Manson told his family that by Blackbird. Come on, we know what The Beatles are talking about. They’re talking about the black man. And they’re telling the black man to rise up against the white man. There’s another song in that white album called. Piggies demands and piggies where the white establishment and The Beatles are saying, and piggies that the piggies deserve a damn good whacking. Showing the connection between these songs and these murders. Certainly Helter Skelter was his primary motive and the killers. That was their only motive to follow Manson and start Helter Skelter. Manson had two other supplementary motives, one of which was this extreme hostility towards the towards society. Don’t think there’s any question that on these two nights of murders he was viciously striking out at the establishment, particularly to that Tate residents who had been booted off the premises. He didn’t know who the victims were, but he sense they were members of the entertainment industry. And he was striking out at the establishment. And then a third motive, motive was his passion and his lust for death. Blood and murder talked about it all the time.

News reader #3: When do you think of the man?

Speaker 13: I do know what I thought when it happened. I just think a lot of the things. He says are are true. That he’s a child of the state made by us. And he took their children in. When nobody else would what he did, but of course he’s he’s cracked. All right, he’s.

Nikolas: But he said he would he.

News reader #3: When will your things?

Speaker 7: I say, well, you will listen Helter Skelter.

Speaker 13: Well, he bombies like any other.

Speaker 2: Little.

Speaker 13: Kind of fan who reads mysticism into. I mean, we used to have a laugh put in. This time of the other end in a light hearted way that people some intellectual would read us some symbolic youth generation wants it, but we also took seriously some parts of the role in a. But I mean, I don’t know what’s helter Skelter got to do with knife in somebody. What? I don’t even. I’ve never listened to the words properly. How? Let’s go. Which is that? So a noise, you know.

Patrick: That was prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi, the author of Helter Skelter and the Perpetuator of the Helter Skelter myth. You just heard him explain that myth now. You also heard John Lennon’s response when asked what he thought of Charles Manson and his supposed use of Helter Skelter. Now I get a feeling that Lennon didn’t really buy the myth, but that’s just my view. Bugliosi is interesting to me, however, in that he was. Heavily chided by researchers for his faulty work on the JFK assassination. Yet many researchers have never questioned his work on Manson. So what? I wanna ask you, Nicola. This is why do you think Vincent Bugliosi stayed firm on his story until the day he died? And why do you think he wasn’t challenged?

Nikolas: Well, that when when I began researching the book, I just in in in the 80s, I think maybe I need to back up a little bit about how I even began researching it. When you asked me. But that gets into Julio C When I contacted Manson in 1985, it was again to do this musical recording. That was our original plan and then a book called Manson in his own words, by Newell Emmons. Was just about to come out, and Newell Emmons was a criminal associate of Manson who did him a favour. Earlier in his career before his notoriety and as a payback, Manson let him write the exclusive autobiography of him ghostwriter, so to speak, to make a Long story short, Manson was extremely dissatisfied with what? Romans published as Manson in his own words as he felt it had totally not presented his points of view and had even include. Fictional statements, which were very complicated and again I can’t get into. So he said to me, could you put together a book that would have my real works? Can you can you put together something that will? He was so angry at once in his own words. He wanted to sort of alternative counter. Version of that. So with his cooperation, I put together the 1st edition of the Manson file, which is different, the 1988 edition. From the 2011 and the forthcoming. New edition of it, because it was basically a compilation of Manson’s own philosophy and music which was practically unknown at that time. Only then after that book was published did I really start to understand through conversations with Manson, the degree to which the. Ace Poliosis presented had nothing to do with reality. It took a few years of of casual conversations with Manson for myself to even fully understand the extent of the deception. So then. When the Manson file came out and when the film before the film Charles Manson superstar was made through a lawyer in Beverly Hills who had the entire transcript of the court proceedings, which at that time was not publicly available, but he had been researching the case. And he believed that Julio C should not even be allowed to be a lawyer. He believed that this was complete malfeasance, that that you know, that witnesses had been coach. People had been paid off that in no way was that a fair trial. And many other people in the legal community, as you said, we’re extremely suspicious of various. When I read the trial transcripts, I saw the extent of how incredibly flimsy the case actually is. And you don’t really realise what an insubstantial. Case it is and it’s based completely on the hearsay of Linda Kasabian, who is basic. We allowed to have her freedom and her life rather than being sentenced to death for telling the story that Bugliosi wants her to tell. It’s incredibly flimsy case. If you really look at it, if you get away from the self advertising book that Julio C was already preparing to write, even when he took the case on. Because he wrote the book Helter Skelter, as I said in my own book, as a way of establishing his credentials to try to become the Attorney General of California. That was. It was a political ambition and he wanted to paint himself. As a hero, so when I read the transcripts, I couldn’t believe just how fantastic the the idiotic case really was. When you really see every detail of it and only now are other people as it’s slowly becoming public, starting to see what you know, an absurd prosecution. That was. Secondly, a lot of people don’t realise when they consider as many people still do, that they will. C is a brilliant. Legal mind and a great prosecutor. No defence was put on. Do you realise that that the prosecution ended its presentation of its case and the defence rested so there was no defence? There was nothing else that was going to happen but that really else’s prosecution was victorious. Seemed a lot of people, don’t they? I think there was a defence. There was none. Based on that, me and a few other associates actually began getting a legal fund together to get a new trial from Manson. That that the whole saga of that would could be a whole other encyclopaedia, so I’ll skip the details. But in the process of that, I understood exactly to what degree bilious he lied, concocted, airbrushed out important details, refused to allow certain witnesses to speak, who would blow. Story. Intimidated, coached and really persuaded people to commit perjury. Which are all felonies, of course. I mean, the man should not have been allowed to practise law, and most legal authorities look at the case as a disaster, not as a masterful. Legal procedure, but as the exact example of how one should not run a fair trial.

Speaker 7: So.

Nikolas: So, but it was only then that I realised the extent that this is all Julio’s invention, sort of piggybacking, no pun intended, with the pigs, but on Susan Atkins original bizarre story that that her lawyers, Caballero and Caruso, had concocted so. That’s what’s important to understand is Bugliosi is not was not a great lawyer. There was no defence, but on and the whole, the whole trial was really a foregone conclusion from the beginning. Manson had been declared guilty. In public opinion, because of this earlier killing of Sharon Tate book and all the news stories that basically presented him as guilty, Richard Nixon, the president of the United States, had deliberately, and there is a tape recording of Nixon, which I quote in the book. In which Nixon later admits, he says, I knew exactly what I was doing when I said Manson was guilty. I believe that’s how deep the conspiracy to come. What was going on was and how deeply brilliancy was implicit in pushing a deliberate cover story deceptively.

News reader #1: On his way back to Washington from San Clemente today, President Nixon stopped in Denver to talk to a meeting of law enforcement officials. And then he called a news. Conference. Where he charged, the news media tend to glorify and to make heroes out of criminals. Reading from notes he had in his hand, he said. Unless this glorification of the. Of those, obstructing justice is stopped. The system will breakdown. And then the president made the flat statement that Charles Manson, who was on trial for his life in Los Angeles, is guilty directly or indirectly, of eight murders. A few minutes later, his press secretary called back and said he was retracting the president’s statement because he had failed in referring to Manson. Fail to use the word alleged, but by then the trial in Los Angeles had been thrown into a small.

News reader #3: Uproar.

Patrick: When you and I discussed Vincent Bugliosi earlier this week, you also told me that there were other ties between the Manson case and the JFK and RFK cases. Is that correct?

Nikolas: Yeah, and. To to pull back a little and to see the big picture. It’s always tricky to make a narrative of history because we like to make things neat and tidy and make sense. But as a working hypothesis for what this is all about, the deeper. Level of it. You could say that the phenomenon called the 60s began in Dealey Plaza with the murder of John F Kennedy, which created. And uncertainty in authority that had never existed in the USA before it made people doubt.

News reader #3: 7.

Nikolas: That our leaders are telling us the truth. It created this state of disinformation that we still live in now to an even more horrific degree. It it created the causes and conditions of the counterculture because the Kennedy assassination. At the time when Beatnix were sort of a fringe phenomenon on the side of society and there was the beginning of the anti war movement. That assassination, and the mysteries around it, and the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, is what made young people doubt their government. Doubt that the establishment was reliable, trustworthy. I personally believe that was a coup. But you know, we I don’t think we can get into all the details of that. But the 60s began with the murder. Of Kennedy that was covered up. And misreported by the media deliberately to protect the powerful. And it ended with the murder. The Tate La Bianca murders that. According to the traditional mainstream narrative ended the 60s. There are so many connections between the two cases. That I think if we survive long enough to ever tell the full history of what happened in those years from 1963 to 69, and all of the violence, all of the still unsolved assassinations. Luther King, Robert F Kennedy Kennedy, Malcolm X, etcetera, etcetera and onward. To the final blow of the Tate lobby on the murders. If we could ever understand that you would see that it is one phenomenon of the interlinking of the underworld, taking control of American Society and collusion with intelligence services. In a period of chaos after what I believe was actually a state sponsored coup. And the social upheaval of the 60’s, the hippie movement that has been called the counterculture, this debt was, at least in part, a reaction to the Kennedy assassination. And even when you consider, as is well known. The very day of the Kennedy assassination is when The Beatles first album was actually manufactured. The actual physical album was made that day. So Kennedy died and that Beatles first album. That was like the the that was the shot that started the counterculture. They both happened November 2263. Our interesting coincidence is that Sharon Tate. Is a Texan born in Dallas. And ex Watson, who murdered her. He’s also from Texas and he left to Los Angeles from Dallas. And where was he working? As for Braniff Airlines, he was working at Love Field where.

News reader #3: Feet.

Nikolas: Of course, Kennedy landed before his fatal eye to Dealey Plaza, so there’s even that strange coincidences that the two bookmark murders of the 60s Kennedy. While Bianca had this Texan Dallas connection. Now the specific connections are I I go into them in great detail and even further in the new edition of the book. I’ll just think of some at random #1. Jay Sebring, one of the victims at Seelow Dr and Sharon Tates, ex fiancee and boyfriend and perhaps continued to be her boyfriend. Up to the time of marriage, I mean up to the time of the murders new. The rat pack. Which was the nickname for the group of people? Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis junior. Peter Lawford and a few others, Dean Martin and Jay Sebring, was their hairdresser. He Frank Sinatra had brought JC Boone into show business and through their underworld Mafia connections, because JC bring already was a drug dealer. Even before he met Sinatra, Sinatra brought him into this circle of Las Vegas underworld entertainment, the Rat pack. Through that connection, through Peter Lawford, who was John F Kennedy’s brother-in-law, Peter Lawford. Gave drugs to Kennedy and JC bring, but I mean this is important. Sorry. Offered acquired drugs from JC Brian to give to John F Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe when they would have their private affair. That happened largely at Peter Lawford’s home. JC Bring was a supplier of those drugs, so he also cut Kennedy’s hair. So he was part of this underworld mafia connections that of course tie in. To John F Kennedy’s fathers mafia connections, which are very well known. So that’s not the first connection JC bring was was like the hairdresser and drug dealer to the rat pack. Dean Martin, Sammy Davis he was their drug dealer in that early 60s. And Sharon Tate was part of that circle, though, because she was involved with seedlings since 1964. So that’s one major connection. When I spoke to Virginia Graham, who is I? Reviewed her the women who Susan Atkins supposedly gave her quote confession, to which I believe was a coached and arranged meeting, also arranged by the criminal underworld to put across this cover story. Jimmy Graham now think about this for a minute. The woman who coincidentally heard the confession of Susan Atkins, which, as you may know, is what broke the Tate Labianca murders. Was a friend of JC. She had been involved with many mafia figure and and leaders for decades. Before that she was basically a prostitute and Madam. She happened to be the person who heard. What the murders are really about, supposedly from Susan Atkins, she was a friend of Jay Sebring, a friend of Frank. Ultra, a friend of many, a lover of many of these underworld figures. So that’s I believe who was planted in the prison to take this false confession. So that gives you some idea of the complicity of these people. So that’s one direct connection JC bring also. Because he was providing drugs for JFK and Marilyn Monroe, Peter Lawford, who was also like Jay Sebring, a sadist who was interested in ************* and that was one of the bonds of their friendship and a major drug abuser, Peter Lawford. Because of the mafia connections with JFK, the. Meetings between Marilyn Monroe and Kennedy were recorded so that the Mafia could extort or hold them over his head to make him do the promises that his father had made about Cuba and all that kind of thing. So the Mafia actually recorded Monroe and Kennedy. Intimately and Sebring, in the late 60s or mid 60s after JFK’s. Murder would play the tapes at parties of Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe together would be like a party favour he would. To to and he was kind of a braggart, Sebring, who wanted people to know that he had friends in powerful and sinister places. He never really made any secret of it. It was an open secret. So those that’s the first connection. One of the murder victims was deeply Wisconsin in the mafia. Atmosphere around the rat pack and the Kennedy administration, which is I think very well known to your listeners, I don’t think I’ll have to explain what it’s about. Now, why would Vincent be leosa? I want to cover up what the exact nature of these murders are about it. I think it deeply gets into many other connections, and I’ll just mention one because you we could be an entire show about only the connections between. The JFK Warren Commission cover up. And the Manson cover up because they’re the same personnel. Do you know the name Lawrence Schiller at all?

Patrick: Part of what I know, yes, is that he was a true crime author.

Nikolas: This is the most significant way to explain the connections between. Cover up of the JFK murder and the cover up involved in the so-called Manson murders. What the real motive and. What the real? Purpose of these murders, wherein who was? Involved with it. Schiller was a friend of Paul Caruso and Richard Caballero, these lawyers who who were well known for representing Mafia figures like Mickey Cohen and other people, and other drug dealers deeply involved on the fringes. Of the cielo Dr and Manson circle. Caballero and Caruso became seasoning Adkins of the defenders. These guys Shiller was a friend of theirs. They brought him in to sell Susan Atkins story to the Los Angeles Times and to the European media, and basically to spread the cover story to the mass media as. Widely as possible, and he put his name on basically what was a interview or a transcription of the tape that Atkins supposedly made that told story of what happened.

Speaker 7: Store.

Nikolas: And that book was called the killing of Sharon Tate. Now, who was Lawrence Schiller? Two years before this guy is brought in to present the public with its first story of what these killings were about. He was an informant to the FBI, working on the side of the. Jim Garrison trial, which I’m sure your listeners understand the significance of that Schiller, Lawrence Schiller, a lot of people don’t know, was the person who put across to the FBI and to the investigators of the Garrison case. That Clay Shaw, this New Orleans businessman who Garrison, as you know, claimed was one of the conspirators who funded the Kennedy assassination. You know who it was? Lawrence Schiller is who told the FBI and the Garrison investigators that. Clay shaws seeding in in the homosexual underworld of New Orleans was Bernard.

Patrick: Clay Bertrand, yes.

Nikolas: And that’s significant part of what came out in the JFK movie by Oliver probably now. So he did. Lawrence Schiller was in Dallas on November 2263. He took one of the most famous pictures of Oswald in the hallway of the Police Department he acquired because he was the business manager for Jack Ruby. Even before the murders, he acquired the famous photograph of. Would be killing Oswald and sold it to the media in 63. So this is an FBI informant who?

News reader #3: Oh.

Nikolas: Was trying to counter the Garrison investigation and he also was one of the first people Schiller to write a book against the against Mark Lane and the people who were criticising the war, he wrote. One of the very first books that, you know, basically. Made it sound like these people are crazy conspiracy theorists, etcetera.

Patrick: Now, if I remember correctly, I believe he also Co wrote or at least collaborated with Norman Mailer on Oswald’s tale. And then I think he had some involvement with the made for TV movie The trial of. Lee Harvey Oswald.

Nikolas: Absolutely that, that’s. And it’s really amazing the degree which Laurence Schiller, he’s had a very versatile and and a prolific career as a kind of hustler who gets involved in infamous crimes. OJ Simpson, Gary Gilmore. He’s Johnny on the spot. Yeah, he’s the first guy there to get the. Deal. Let me write the book about.

News reader #3: It but you.

Nikolas: Persistent pattern is from the very beginning he’s. This is Jack Rudy’s business manager. And he’s also the guy who got Jack Ruby in 1967 on his deathbed. He went to record him and basically persuaded Ruby to say there was no conspiracy. He wanted to get that on tape. He put out a record to show it. Now how come he this person who has already had a career from 63 to 67 of arguing against any critic? Of the Warren Commission, how come he becomes the person who tells the story? Of Susan Atkins confession to the. Through these two mafia linked lawyers, Caballero and Cruso, if that is suspicious. Furthermore, as you said briefly, and I can’t get into all of it with Norman Mailer, as you know, and maybe your listeners know, Norman Mailer was an ardent believer that there was a conspiracy against Kennedy and that Oswald. Is not the sole. Then he comes out with this book, Oswald’s Tale, which who commissioned that book to be written, who paid for it to be written, who supplied the research for it, Lawrence Schiller. So Laurence Schiller basically paid Norman Mailer to recant his anti Warren Commission beliefs. And print a book that basically concludes Oswald acted alone, basically underscored. The lone nut. So you know you can put the pieces there. To me that’s extremely suspicious pattern of behaviour.

Patrick: Is it possible that his work is being sponsored in some kind of a nefarious way?

Nikolas: I I can’t prove it, but I believe it absolutely, and I’m happy to go on record to say it doesn’t make any sense to me that this guy who he’s like the zelling of murder, mayhem, an assassination, who happens to be there every time one of the think these things happen. Wins. You know he gets rubies admission that. No, there was no conspiracy. He’s there to get Susan Atkins describing what supposedly happened in these murders. He’s, you know, I’ve I’ve given you just a general idea of his history. And that to me is the mysterious and sinister part of this case. It’s got nothing to do with brainwashed hippies or diabolical cult. It has to do with in what way is this shadow government of the United States? And its media enablers putting across. A grand narrative about all of these violent events that marked the 60s, all of them, furthermore, of a final thing I want to add just to to clarify how deeply fictional the story that you believe. I don’t mean you, but the public about this case. Jerry Cohen, an even more obscure. Person was a journalist for the LA Times. He’s who broke the story about the Manson murders, and he’s the first person. Wrote about them as a savage, diabolical hippie cult who believed their leader was Jesus and who murdered people for some bizarre ideology. Jerry Cohen was a very good friend and business associate of Lawrence Schiller, Jerry Cohen. Was also involved as the FBI informant in the Garrison case, trying to disprove. If there was any conspiracy, so there you have another figure, and Jerry Cohen also is responsible for writing this book, the killing of Sharon Tate that was widely distributed to the media so that even the murderers could get an idea. What is the cover story we’re supposed to tell? And that was the basis of it. So this journalist, Jerry Cohen, should be looked into as well. Killed himself a few years ago. But he and Schiller worked together on the fringes of many of these controversies, so that is also very suspicious. Then we get into Biliotti himself. Now you know I’m. I’m sure most of your particular listeners know of his, you know, gigantic book that he worked on for 20 years, reclaiming history, which is an ironic name. OK, so julios, he spent 20 years of his life trying to disprove that the Mafia, or the CIA, or anyone that alone not named Lee Harvey Oswald was involved with the murder of Kennedy. He also did this ridiculous televised broadcast. Which you may be. Familiar with in 1986, where he and this shows the theatrical nature. Of the whole phenomenon we’re dealing with, he did a TV show where he pretended to be the prosecutor of Lee Harvey Oswald. And he of course wins the case. And like in the light of his supposed heroic victory in the prison case, he then also proved that Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible.

Patrick: Well, in that mock trial I could say in most assassination researchers think that Jerry Spence was not exactly the man to put on that defence.

Nikolas: Well, of course. And but the same could be said in the real Manson trial, which really was also an organised media event more than. A real child. You know Irving Kanarak a name nobody remembers was mansons lawyer, and he did a horrifically bad job, almost seemingly deliberately. Bad job of failing as any kind of defence attorney, so that that ties in with that too. But if now if people think this is all conspiracy theory. And nonsense. I want them to consider just one fact which you may be aware of is before Julia OSI began to do the research. To do this bizarre televised trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. And she pretended to be. Lee Harvey Oswald. Prosecuting attorney. He was in contact with David Atlee Phillips, well known CIA officer, who I’m sure your listeners are very aware of. He’s murky who we are, but in case there’s anyone who doesn’t. David Atlee Phillips was a high-ranking CIA officer who I believe and many other. Researchers believe was operated in the CIA covertly as Maurice Bishop, and in that capacity was the hand. Power and eventual framer of Lee Harvey Oswald. And you know many thousands of JFK assassination researchers. Have. Amassed a great deal of evidence, including the children of H Howard Hunt, who said that Hunt himself admitted that David Atlee Phillips. Was deeply involved in the JFK assassination. You’re surely aware of all that.

Patrick: Have you heard that Howard Hunt recording? It’s actually pretty striking.

Nikolas: Right. I have, yes. I mean, it’s easy to digress from one controversy to the next, but to try to stay focused on the Manson thing, anyone. Yeah, but it’s what I’m talking about is it’s the same story. JFK, cover up Manson cover up. It’s the same personnel covering up the true nature of two murders. I’ll leave it to your audience to try to figure out why they would have a motive to do that, but be to me, a huge smoking gun. In giving us an idea of who was Vincent Bugliosi. Who was he working for and why? Because yes, he was an egotistical arrogant self promoter and hustler like Lauren Schiller, but he had reasons to do what he. And this connection. This was found in the Library of Congress that he was in touch by letter with David Atlee Phillips, a person directly in my mind and many others connected to Lee Harvey Oswald. And one of the principal architects of the assassination and of the consequent. Cover up of the assassination was in friendly contact with the liosi, and there’s a letter which I’m reprinting in my book in which basically gave it out. Lee Phillips, CIA officer is telling Bugliosi how to continue the cover up. He’s basically telling. Him. You know you’ve you’ve got to do something to stop these conspiracy theorists that he calls them. Who are who are doubting the official story, and that after this contact and this letter, which you may have seen, it ends with David Atlee Phillips saying, you know, OK, I’ll look forward to meeting you in London. Or something to that effect. So we have one little piece of evidence to prove that they meant that do the OC and Phillips knew each other? If that isn’t damning evidence of the complete lack of objectivity of the loses cover up, I don’t know what else could be.

Patrick: Nicholas, I want to ask about communicating with Manson and the girls today. What does Charles Manson like in 2017? Can outsiders write him? What are the chances he’ll even read it or respond? Are we able to write the girls? And I ask all these things because listeners really seem to want to know if they can correspond.

Nikolas: Well, I haven’t had any contact with any of the women for decades. Only when I first began researching the case because I quickly found they’re only going to stick to the cover story only. And on a human level, I can’t blame them. They are holding on to a very flimsy wishful thinking, hope that they can ever be paroled, which I don’t believe they can be, but they need to keep repeating this story that they tell to the parole board. So nothing is to be gained by my point of view. And trying to determine the true. By speaking to them anymore, Manson still. He’s 83 years old. He’s not in the best of health, but he still occasionally answers letters he calls people regularly. Since I’ve moved to Germany, it’s much more difficult to communicate with them. And I haven’t made any secret of this, but the only way you can communicate with the American prisoners are not allowed to call overseas. It’s actually illegal. But he has done that through third parties. He he will call me, he’ll call someone he knows and that person. Will put a. Call through, so that’s how we’ve communicated since I’ve moved to Austria and then to Germany and he. Manson, being Manson, has managed to frequently acquire cell phones in his cell, no pun intended. Cell phone. But literally so in this case, and we’ve had very long and detailed conversations when he’s been able to talk to me without guards or fellow prisoners over hearing him and an important thing to say about that is the person who I’ve spoken to in these more intimate cell phone calls. And many other people who’ve had this experience can can attest to this. He’s an incredibly different person when you’re talking to him without the camera on and when he knows that his call is not being listened to. As far as answering what is Manson. Mike the Manson you know from the media reports and the interviews he’s done over the years is a performance for the most part. It’s a character he plays, you know, in dripping bloody letters called Charles Manson. It doesn’t have a great deal to do with the much more thoughtful and complex person that presents himself when you have the chance to speak to him under different circumstances. That’s that’s a kind of performance he does and.

Speaker 7: Difference.

Nikolas: You know that has to be understood. The person you think you know is not exactly the real person.

Patrick: So let’s talk about that question of parole. I’m interested to know who you would support being paroled and whose potential parole you would not support.

Unknown Speaker: M.

Nikolas: Well, I have. I have to point out there’s there’s a spiritual perspective to my answer there and that I’m a Buddhist, so therefore I don’t believe in the death penalty for even the most heinous. Of crime. So I don’t believe that people should be killed because they killed. So that’s the first thing. So I don’t believe in the death penalty under any circumstances for anyone as far as parole. I don’t believe Manson ordered these murders. I don’t believe he is the mastermind of these murders. I believe he is an accessory to these murders. He’s guilty of being an accessory to these crimes. He was not the instigator of the crimes. I believe that 83 years old, he’s not a nice person. I wouldn’t trust him with the keys to your car or your purse. But is he a serial killing murderer? No, never was. And I don’t think at 83 years old Charles Manson, it’s a danger. I I do believe he’s a criminal and I know he’s still deeply connected to the underworld and that even in prison he manages to pull off criminal enterprises. That would amaze people and even at his age and even in his condition. But is he a murderous threat to society at this point? No. So and I and I did in the 80s, actively work to try to get him a retrial, and he participated in that even as recently as 2008. So, but I don’t believe he wants to get out. I have to add that I think after all the years I’ve known him and even these sort of frustrating efforts to help him to gain some legal redress for what I believe is an injustice, I don’t think he actually wants to get out and I’m not sure that he ever did really though. He made several escape attempts. I don’t think he actually wanted to and I can’t fully explain that, but. But that’s the case with with Charles Watson. I believe he was the instigator of these murders. I think he should remain in prison. I don’t know that. I don’t think he’s a homicide on mania because he killed for money, killed for drugs. He was. He was killing for the usual reasons that. Criminal skill. I don’t think he’s particularly dangerous person. He it’s not like what people would think that he’s a psychopathic murderer who would suddenly start killing random strangers. But he’s lied about what happened for 48 years. He’s supposed to be a Christian preacher. He’s even doubly hypocritical in that he has never admitted he is the responsible party for these crimes. He can. Yes, he takes blame for having done the actual murders, but he continues. To push the idea that he was brainwashed, innocent who was caught up in the evil Mansons mind control and. He’s deep involvement in the drug dealing network and criminal underworld of Los Angeles. There’s no doubt about it. And I believe he should remain in prison for what he did. He did it on his own volition, and he should serve a life sentence. I absolutely believe that. Leslie Van Houten is the one who’s most often touted as that she should. Be allowed out? I I don’t. I don’t really have a firm decision about the women. Susan Atkins. I don’t think she actually was very deeply involved in the crime. She bragged a lot and she told a lot of fantastic stories. She was certainly an unstable person, but I think she became more stable when she was off of the huge amount of drugs she was taking and I don’t really think she was in danger to society even by the mid 70s. From what I gathered from wrinkle, I don’t think is any kind of current danger to society. So as I said, she did the majority of the killing and butchery that Tux Watson didn’t do. I don’t think she is any kind of threat to any. Living on a moral basis, whether she should continue to serve her life sentence is another issue. I’m not I don’t know what exactly what good that does. She seems to be rehabilitated, whatever that means. But it’s I think it’s a difficult decision. She certainly deliberately murdered those people. So if you believe the death sentence should not be commuted from life, then you know that’s a very. Difficult question to answer. Casabian, who was not in prison, I believe, should be in prison, and our symbolic OSI and all of her Co defendants and everyone else involved in that case. And I have to add, many Hollywood celebrities and music people who met her and knew her and the others they know.

Speaker 9: Right.

Nikolas: She’s not innocent. She was not the innocent, just going along for the ride Angel that she’s been presented as. She should definitely be serving time in my.

Patrick: It seems like the Hollywood scandal of the day is another one that’s been hidden for decades, and that’s that of Harvey Weinstein. Now you’ve been asked about this quite a bit. So what are your thoughts? Do you see any parallels regarding the service of the Hollywood establishment here?

Nikolas: Well, actually that’s come up quite a lot recently. People have have asked me through my Facebook page and through my representative have sent questions that I’ve wanted to even perhaps write an essay about, because I think that’s a very significant question. You’re asking a lot of sceptics and of course, there are many. Because if there’s been any brainwashing in this case, it’s not Manson. Brainwashing his followers, but the media brainwashing their own willing victims, they find it hard to believe. How could these well known murders have been misreported and misrepresented, so grotesquely? If what I’m saying is true, how could the media have got it wrong? For so many. Well, I think exactly as you’re saying, the Harvey Weinstein case and you may well even lead to a break. In this case. I would I actually believe that’s a dim possibility. Why? Because what happened in 1969 was if the case. Been presented with the murders and the crimes and the underworld background of the drug dealing. And the sexual behaviour of the people who were killed and of the people who killed them. If it had been revealed, and I’d get into this in great detail in my book, it would have shown that the Hollywood Film and music industry was deeply connected to the criminal underworld, to drug dealing. With *********** to many other felonies and not, I’m not judging it morally, but if you can look at Harvey Weinstein and understand that the media knew these things were happening, many people reported. To them recently Ronan Farrow, who is the son of Mia Farrow, a very good friend at Sharon Tate, who I also believe if she were to be honest, knew a great deal about what the true nature of these murders were. But I’m sure she would deny it. Now it’s an interesting coincidence. Ronan Farrow. Their son tried to tell NBC about the nefarious ****** and sexual abuse activity of Harvey Weinstein. And they killed the story and many other people tried to get the media to report on this for decades, and they didn’t. And as you said, there’s a deep. To how the Manson case was misreported if in 2017.

News reader #3: Only.

Nikolas: Now is the media and they are, I believe the media are the enablers of powerful abusers. In the film industry, because they’re dependent on them for their survival, you know they work hand in hand with each other. So of course they cover up each other’s lives and crimes. In 1969, when Los Angeles was even more corrupt, when the film industry was totally in the hands of the Mafia. And we know through figures. Like Robert Evans, who was Roman Polanski’s close friend, and he was later involved with the Cotton Club murders, who has proven to be a cocaine dealer, but at the time was the head of Paramount Studios and a figure equally as powerful as Weinstein later became.

News reader #3: The meeting.

Nikolas: He had protected him and basically the Los Angeles film industry and music industry was protected by their media enablers to cover up the sexual peccadilloes and the drug dealing and the drug abuse that was going on at the highest levels of Hollywood. And connections to the criminal. The world there wasn’t to scapegoat the hippie movement particularly. That was collateral damage. But I think if you can look at this case now and see how all of these very well known people are admitting that they evaded the truth that they lied to protect their careers, is it really so hard to imagine that in 1969 some of the major figures in Hollywood and the rock industry and the film industry? Deliberately evaded the truth and lied, and that the media cooperated to cover up their deep knowledge of what really happened in these infamous murders. And The thing is, like the Weinstein thing. And I believe it’s going to keep going deeper and deeper. Were there to have been a child that was a real child and not just this coached and manufactured stone trial in the Manson case.

Speaker 12: You.

Nikolas: The film industry would have been destroyed by what would have been revealed about its true nature. Then in 1969, and Manson has often said this to me in so many words many, many times under for many years that what was covered up was not who killed these people? But the relations between the people and what it would have revealed about their actual lives. So it’s basically just you’ve been lied to for 48 years to protect the reputations of powerful film and music industry people and the ageing survivors of that. Group of people have been lying for decades, and I could name them, but you can figure out pretty easily who were the friends of Sharon Tate and JC Broom. And in my book I get pretty clearly into the details of what the nature of this cover up and what these lives were. But what you’re engineer I would say to the sceptical listener if, if Weinstein’s crimes could have been covered up and look at Roman Polanski recently charged again by a German actress. This. Week for a rape. That commit was committed. She’s claimed many years ago. How many more crimes will he not ever be held to account for? A lot of things have come out about Hugh Hefner’s life was the minute he died. As soon as he was cold, a lot of women started revealing the amount of hidden abuse. And there’s even a connection with Hugh Hefner and his Lieutenant. Victor rounds to the Manson murder, which I get into in my book, so I think that’s a good not a metaphor, but, but it’s really the same story. Ever since the 1920s, Hollywood and the media have been working to cover up their own depravity, their own criminal actions and and the public. Has largely gone along with it. This may be a turning point the Weinstein case, but I have a feeling America. In the amnesia operation it is, it will probably be distracted by some other event reasonably soon, but it’s a good gives you a good idea of what went on in 1969 when there was no Internet, when there was no way for people to reveal what the lives were, the media went along with it. They didn’t report it. Properly and 48 years later, we have a a litany of lies that has been. The facts about the Manson case.

Patrick: Nicholas Shrek, author of the Manson File Myth and Reality of an Outlaw shaman. Now if anybody out there wants to get a hold of you or wants to read more, how can they do so?

Nikolas: They they can reach me through my official Facebook page. Nicholas, Shrek official my website nicholasshrekeu.edu. And my Instagram account, so there’s ample ways to reach me and the publication date of the next Manson file will probably be sometime in late November or December. I’m still working on it and still even at this day, new information and important parts of the puzzle. Come to me. So the last edition came out in 2011. There will be a significant amount of new material in this and I’m hoping that it will come out by the end of this. Here so you can reach me through all those various social media platforms.

Patrick: If you’d like to hear even more, I would highly recommend the newest version of the Manson file when it is released and for those who are spelling challenged, Nicholas. Shrek is spelled NIKOLAS. SCHRECK. So Nicholas, thanks for being on the show tonight.

Nikolas: It’s been my pleasure and the final thing I can say is what we’ve discussed is I think you know, even though it’s been lengthy, is really the tip of a very deep iceberg. And it’s not as if the the your listeners, if they’re intelligent, can put two and two together and follow up on some of the the more obscure names which I’ve mentioned and do their own research. And I think they will be pretty startled by the fact that a lot of this mystery is out there in plain view, but it simply hasn’t been. Put together in a coherent manner, and it’s simply too complicated for the general public to even grasp just how complicated the mystery and the cover up is. So. Thank you again for the time and I appreciate your thoughtful questions.

Patrick: Have a great night, Nicholas. I’ll talk to you soon.

Nikolas: OK, we’ll speak soon. Thank you.

Patrick: I’m Steve Patrick. This is the Midnight Rider news show, and we’ll be right back. He’s the godfather of reality television, and now he has taken the reality of the JFK assassination straight to the establishment media in Part 2 of the Jim Garrison tapes. John Barber is a pioneer, a conversationalist, A storyteller, and a friend of. Truth seekers worldwide.

Speaker 15: Hi, this is John, Barbara, writer, director of the American. 80 and the second assassination of President John F. Kennedy, if you want to know how I continue to challenge the media elites in the name of Jim Garrison’s legacy, listen to episode 10 of the Midnight Rider News show.

Patrick: I want to thank Nicholas Shrek for spending three great hours with us and I want to end tonight a little differently. Than we normally do. When you think of the Manson case, many of you will still think of the helter skelter myth, and all it entails. It’s a story more one sided than Oswald acting alone or Marilyn Monroe dying of an accidental over. Dose you will often hear alternatives to those mainstream theories, but when you see Charles Manson either in film or documentary, there is little to no chance that you will see or hear an alternative except for here on the Midnight Rider new show, we made a promise to you to bring you alternative theories on mainstream history. And tonight we have done just that. So we’re going to leave you tonight with the song my world by Charles Manson. So from the other side of the mountain, on the best side of midnight, I wish you peace.

Speaker 14: My world is a sad world, often wonder if they’re flat. Such a food. Mad world with no pictures in my frame. Everyone says crazy fool. You’re always gazing at the night. With my. Around the tree. Loving life with all my. Crazy I missing. Not knowing what to do. One crazy dream. In a frantic world of blue. And somehow stumble through the night. Such a fool. Loving life with all my. My world is a sad world, such a fool. No. Loving you without a name with no. No, no one to blame.

#### BBC radio feature with Nikolas Schreck and Jeff Guinn (2017)

Source: Radio 5, 5 Live Drive, BBC 5 Live, 20th November 2017, Monday, 16:00.

Notes: The day's top news and sport with Anna Foster and Tony Livesey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IujHxVoYuKU

Anna Foster: It's 20 to 7 now on DRIVE. The cult leader Charles Manson has died in prison in California at the age of 83 after over four decades spent behind bars for orchestrating a series of brutal murders in the late 1960s. Manson became synonymous with the dark side of counterculture around that time, believing that the murders would start a race war and allow him to seize power. His followers were called the Manson family. They killed nine people altogether under his direction, including the heavily pregnant Hollywood actress Sharon Tate, the wife at that time of the film director Roman Polanski. Now, Manson wasn't actually at the scene during any of the killings, but he was convicted for seven counts of murder. Here he is in court in 1971.

> Manson: I don't accept the court. I don't accept the whole situation. You know, like I was in the desert minding my business. This confusion belongs to you. It's your confusion. I don't have any confusion. I don't have any guilt. I know what I've done, and no man can judge you. I judge me.

> Lawyer: What have you done Charlie?

Tony Livesey: Well, Manson was sentenced to death in 1970. This was later commuted to life imprisonment. He gave several television interviews while he was in jail. Here he is speaking to Tom Snyder on NBC.

Manson: Sometimes I feel I'm scared to live. Living is what scares me. Dying is easy.

Tony Livesey: Well, for the rest of the program, we'll be exploring who Charles Manson and his followers were, the crimes they committed, and the almost cult-like status that the group has gained since. And just to give you a little warning now ahead of that, especially if you're listening with children, there inevitably may be some disturbing and graphic details to this story.

Anna Foster: And do share your thoughts with us as well as we go along. 85058 on the text or @bbc5live on social media. Joining us then are Jeff Gwynn, an author who wrote the best-selling book, Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson. Hello, Jeff.

Jeff Gwynn: Hi.

Nick Godwin is the executive producer of Manson, which is a feature-length drama documentary about the man. Hello, Nick.

Nick Godwin: Hi there.

Anna Foster: Nicholas Schreck is with us as well, a musician, author and filmmaker, a close friend of Charles Manson since 1985. He wrote the book The Manson Files and produced the documentary Charles Manson Superstar. Hello to you, Nicholas.

Nicholas Schreck: Hi there, how are you tonight?

Anna Foster: Very well, thank you.

Jeff, we'll start with you because I'm conscious that there's a whole generation, really, a younger generation who might recognize the name but know very little about the story of Charles Manson. Take us back, and how did he get from a career petty criminal, I suppose, to somebody who was one of the most evil men of his age?

Jeff Guinn: Well, Manson was always the wrong man in the right place at the right time. When he was paroled from prison in 1967, he was paroled in California and first made his way to the San Francisco area, Hate Ashbury in the Summer of Love. where so many young people, young Americans, who were estranged from their families and wanted someone to tell them how to live, where to go, a guru was the term at the time, and some of them encountered Manson there. His philosophy was cobbled together from the Bible, Beatles' lyrics, and the great and well-known How to Win Friends and Influence People. which is, of course, the book that was written and was a huge bestseller. There wasn't a lot original about him, but what he found was an original place to try to attract followers. From there, they migrated down to Los Angeles. That was where really the nexus of the reporting industry was located in America. At that time, it moved from Los Angeles. He happened to be there at a time in American history where the kinds of acts he and his followers got involved in became notorious.

Anna Foster: Nick, to pick up on that, how did he take a place and a time that as Jeff was saying there was so synonymous with love and turn it into something that was so deeply filled with hate?

Nick Godwin: I think Manson wasn't the only one at the time who was acting as a sort of Pied Piper, if you like. There were a lot of kids out there, sort of late teens, early 20s, who were looking for something. I think Manson, in the end, of course, was by far the most sinister, but there were a whole proliferation of weird... abusive cults were springing up at the time. I think Manson, though, took it a whole stage further. I mean, people say he was a very compelling character. He was... Vincent Bugliozzi, who was the prosecutor, says that, you know, although Manson was completely uneducated, he was extremely intelligent and he was extremely manipulative. So he was able to take... if you like, the sort of insecurities and the desires of these kids to find something new, or after all, most of whom had run away from home or left home, and manipulated them using all that intelligence, but also all that prison cunning. He'd been in prison half his life, I think, by the time he was let out.

Anna Foster: What was it, Nick? Because I know that was a lot of what you were interested in, how people and who fell under his spell. What was it that drew you to his story in the first place?

Nick Godwin: Well, the Manson story's been told many times, and we made this film seven or eight years ago, but at the time it had still been told many, many times. So we wanted a new angle on it, if you like. And we tell the story very much through a character called Linda Kasabian, who was one of the members of the family. She, in effect, was the getaway driver on the night of the Sharon Tate killings, and she ended up turning state's evidence. After that, she went into hiding and had, I think she hadn't spoken for 20-odd years. I mean, it took her six months to find her and persuade her to take part. But so... If you like, our way of trying to understand Manson was very much through her story. And, you know, she joined the family a month before the killings. She thought it was great at first. She was a 20-year-old single mum who was looking for something new. A friend suggested going up to the ranch where they all were, and she said it was great at first. It was, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And they were sort of step by step drawn further and further away from the norm. But it happened pretty rapidly, the real turn to the dark side.

Anna Foster: Yeah, I mean, when we look at it, Jeff, and when we kind of pull it apart and look at all of the different layers, I suppose, what is it about the Charles Manson story that means that even now we're still talking about him and the members of the family and the crimes that he and they committed. Why do you think it's lived in the psyche for so long?

Jeff Guinn: Well, it began, of course, in 1969. It was a time when it seemed like the whole world was coming apart. Particularly in America, there was great racial strife, great divisions over the war in Vietnam. And the Manson killing not only was horrific in and of itself, but it happened in Los Angeles, which is sort of the center of the entertainment industry, It involved an actress who was relatively famous and, of course, her husband, Roman Polanski, much more so. And to a certain extent, after Manson's arrest, as the long, weird trial extends, it passed from just being sort of a crime story into almost entertainment, painful to watch, but you couldn't look away. You can almost think of Manson then as the equivalent, let's say, of a criminal Kardashian. that people just wanted to kind of watch and see what crazy thing would happen next. If Manson had been executed as scheduled, I think he generally would have been forgotten then within a generation. The problem being his sentence was commuted to life and every few years he would do something else crazy or weird. That would keep him in the public eye, plus Vince Bugliosi's Helter Skelter. Nine million copies sold. So Manson actually became part of the culture, as well as someone who was caught up in the criminal justice system.

Nicholas Schreck: Will I be allowed to offer an alternative?

Tony Livesey: Sorry, yeah, Nicholas, is that you? Yeah. Yeah, I was just gonna introduce you, Nicholas. So this is, we said hello at the start, Nicholas Schreck, musician, author, filmmaker, and friend of Manson since 1985. Nicholas, go on, what would you want to say?

Nicholas Schreck: Yeah, I just wanted to say, with all due respect, the opinions that you said in your introduction, what Mr. Gwynn has said, what Nick has said. This is mainstream media's view of what occurred, my research, and I'm the only person here who knew Manson very well and have spoken to people on both sides of the equation, people involved with the Manson commune, Manson himself, people who were friends with Roman Polanski. None of what you have said is essentially true. I will just say two points to begin with, and then you can ask what you like. Linda Kasabian was a well-known drug dealer before she met Manson. She was a professional drug dealer. The way she joined the commune, which was never called the family until the media called it that, was that she stole $5,000 from her husband at the behest of Charles Tex Watson, who was also a drug dealer. Linda Kasabian and Tex Watson were drug dealers in the underworld, and they largely... devised and had the motive for the crimes that we remember as the Tate-LaBianca murders. Linda DeSable, according to my research, is one of the guiltiest of the people who were involved. However, Vincent Bugliosi, whose book Helter Skelter is, by any serious researcher, not something that is credible because he was basically creating a prosecution case. He was not telling the truth. The final thing, Linda Kasabian is free today. As far as my research shows, she was central to planning the crime. She was a drug dealer who was trying to get back at Jay Sebring and Wojtek Furkowski, who she bought drugs from with her lover Tex Watson. So that's the first thing I wanted to say, then you can refute it.

Tony Livesey: I just want to talk more about Manson himself, Nicholas, in the sense that it is indisputable that these people were murdered. So, what we're questioning here, or what you're trying to question, is the level of Manson's responsibility, it's as simple as that.

Nicholas Schreck: I believe he was an accessory to these murders, he is a criminal, he lived by the underworld code, He knew about the murder of Sharon Tate and the others after it happened, and he didn't call the police because he's a criminal. He went back and helped them get rid of evidence. That's true. He was an accessory to these murders. The idea that this group of petty criminals and hippies was some kind of religious cult is nonsense. Furthermore, the main point here, he was not the mastermind of these murders. He was scapegoated and allowed to become this figure of incarnate evil.

Tony Livesey: OK, all right. Let's get the counterpoint there, then, Jeff Gwyn and Nick Godwin listening in. Guys, you've heard what Nicholas has had to say. In essence, ‘Charles Manson has been demonized along the way’. Jeff, do you want to start the response there?

Jeff Guinn: I think the basic response is that Manson used to claim he was the man of a thousand hats, that he could appear to be anything he wanted to be. He can be very persuasive. I think what we've just heard is completely wrong, just as the person who was saying it thinks I'm wrong. I have my research. He has his. We've both put those forward in books and in film, and I think people can judge for themselves.

Tony Livesey: Nick Godwin.

Nick Godwin: Well (laughs), I think that's utter nonsense, really. The prosecution case was tested out at trial and a jury found Manson and the family guilty. So, unless there is hard evidence to the counter, I think it's utter nonsense. But I think it also goes…

Tony Livesey: Well, I wrote a thousand…

Nick Godwin: I think it also goes to show the hold Manson has over people. He does have a sort of glamour and a hold over people and has done ever since the ever since the prosecution one of the things that happened in California it was very interesting you know in California they changed the law about filming people in prison because every time a news crew went in and Charles Manson was interviewed he's a really compelling character and as crazy as can be, but just to get around just to get around the problem, they stopped all filming in California prisons for a long, long time.

Tony Livesey: Let's return, if we can, Jeff and Nick, to the transformation of this guy. Let's talk about his classification mentally from the start, because was there a point? He kind of had influences within the music scene, didn't he, in L.A.? He got to know one of the Beach Boys and He had pretensions at making his own music, didn't he? So at that point, do you think he was truly murderous? Or was there some level of transformation? Was it drugs that changed Charles Manson?

Jeff Guinn: Well, you know, I was able to talk to people that knew Charles Manson from childhood. I found his first cousin, Joanne. He lived with her and his uncle and aunt when his mother was incarcerated. I found his adopted sister who had never talked before. Manson, from the time he was young, was a thoroughly disagreeable, violent person. He knew how to present himself in certain ways, sometimes good, sometimes evil.

One other thing just to touch on real quickly, we talk about, ‘oh, the media invented the family’. As we said, name the family, that's not true. If you talk to Greg Jacobson, a close friend of Dennis Wilson and somebody who ran with him in Manson for a while, Greg will tell you. that the origin of the name family came out of that time and it was something that they said about Manson and his followers. So everybody can look into things and you can always find somebody who's known Charles Manson or even talked to Manson and you'll hear one version or another and it might change from day-to-day. People died. They died for no good reason. And Manson, ever since, has tried to keep himself in the public view. That's something he always enjoyed. And he knows how to play people very well. So no, there was no egregious sudden change, and he was always a pretty despicable human being.

Tony Livesey: Let's bring Nicholas Schrett back in. Nicholas, let's put to one side the disagreement over what particularly happened and who was responsible. Let's just talk about Charles Manson for a moment, because you knew him from '85 onwards. What was he like as a person? What did you discover about Charles Manson?

Nicholas Schreck: I would say the main thing quickly that the general audience can understand is he performed a character called Charles Manson at the court, at the trial and in media interviews, very much to his own detriment, he played a part. He was cast as the villain and the bogeyman, and he played that part. The private person that I knew and that other people knew had elements of that, Charles Manson, that the public's familiar with, but I also saw the human being behind all that. He was not this sinister, evil figure of absolute dread that the media has presented for years. He was absolutely a criminal. He was a pimp. He was a drug dealer. He was not a mass murderer. And I'm not at all saying he's innocent of crimes. I'm saying the crimes have been presented wrongly. And in my book, The Manson File, I present a thousand pages of information about what kind of person he was and what he did. But the other thing, as far as his keeping a spell over people, this was the excuse that these people used. They had the responsibility for what they did…

Tony Livesey: Yeah, I understand that, Nick. I'm sorry, I'm not closing you down, but we've only got a couple of minutes left. And Nick Godwin, I just want to move on to the general view, because quite a few people, I say a handful, a small handful of people have texted the program saying, why are you talking about Charles Manson? I just want to reflect on the effect this had on society in America at the time when all these crimes happened. I mean, did you get any sense of that when you were making your documentary?

Nick Godwin: I think as both the guests have touched on, what was so compelling about Manson is he also, if you like, signaled the confluence of music… music in a way that could never happen today. He was hanging out with the Beach Boys. He was trying to persuade Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son, a big record producer at the time, to produce his own music, as well as the sex, the drugs, the cult side. I think after that, the immediate thing that happened is there was absolute terror in LA. We heard stories of the sale of guns tripling, people buying fencing. I think it was a much more innocent time.

Tony Livesey: Well, it was kind of a flip side wasn't it, to kind of the hippie utopia that many Americans thought could legitimately exist in the 1960s.

Nick Godwin: There was, but there was a crossover. It would be hard to imagine today, if you like, between the superstars and this, you know, ragtag bunch of hippies led by Manson. It's hard to imagine, you know, a superstar band hanging out with people like that today, but the barriers were much lower back in the '60s.

Tony Livesey: Jeff Quinn, final word to you. We've got a minute or so left. What's your assessment of how Manson behaved in prison? We talked earlier his death sentence was commuted. So you often hear from people in that position where they say, well, actually being in prison was worse. Do you get the sense by playing up to his notoriety that he kind of enjoyed the role of playing Charles Manson as Nicholas Schreck said.

Jeff Guinn: He certainly did. Leslie Van Houten told me that just before the members of the Manson followers, Manson himself, were captured in Death Valley, Manson told them that if he was ever arrested again, he was gonna play Crazy Charlie, and would do that until everyone in the law decided he was so insane he couldn't be held responsible for anything, and they would let him go. He's played Manson successfully right up to the day of his death, and in that, you can call the man a success.

Tony Livesey: Jeff, we must leave it there. Jeff Gwynne, Nick Godwin and Nicholas Shrek. Thank you very much indeed.

#### Nikolas Schreck Interviewed by The Paulcast on The Manson File (2022)

##### Part I

The Nikolas Schreck Channel

May 13, 2022

The Paulcast interviews Nikolas Schreck on The Manson File, April 2022 Part One of Two

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljrEHbNtrCA

Paul: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another Manson Saga discussion panel. I’m Paul, that’s Danny After Dark, like and subscribe. And today is a very special day for us here on the old Paulcast. It’s been a long time coming and I can’t wait to get to it. So our guest this evening, for the first of a two-part interview is many things. Musician, spiritual teacher, filmmaker, and for the reason we are here tonight, the author of The Manson File, Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman. All this info and on all his other books and music can be found on www..nicholaschreck.world. Welcome to the podcast, Mr. Nicholas Schreck. Hello, Nicholas.

Nikolas: Hi. Thanks for inviting me, Paul. Danny, hi, how are you? And now, live from Lookout Mountain.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: We can proceed with the interrogation.

Paul: All right, via phase of making you talk.

Nikolas: You can try.

Danny: Okay.

Nikolas: I’ll never snitch. All right.

Danny: So let’s just jump right into just a very great basic question. When and why did you decide to release another version of The Manson Pile?

Nikolas: Okay, well, each time I have done anything on this subject, starting in 1988 with the first Manson File, and then the Charles Manson Superstar, 1989, then the Manson File, 2011 revised and greatly updated edition, every time I do it, there is so much more information that comes to me. So I think I’m — I mean, in 1988 and 1989, I stupidly thought, okay, I’m finished with that. That is enough of this. And of course, that was completely wrong. And then in 2008, a French publisher, , contacted me, and people had known that I had gathered a lot more information. And I think it’s important to add that I had not the slightest desire to write about it, or to even reveal it, or to even talk about it. Because you have to understand, by the mid-90s, I had learned the basics of what the crimes were really about. I had had many conversations, many of them very confrontative and angry with Charles, saying, Look, here’s this information, not at all what you told me 10 years ago. The rumor that I had a lot more information, because a lot of journalists and a lot of writers and TV people came to me to ask about this, and I really did not want to do it, because I knew the ******** it would bring into my life. I knew the deranged nature of the Manson sphere, and I thought, I don’t want to do this, someone else should do it. It’s too much of a burden, and I don’t need all of the aggravation that will come with it. This French publisher came to Berlin and met me and convinced me that it was worth doing this revised edition of The Manson File. And so you can imagine all the information I had gathered from 1988 to 2008. And then I talked to Charlie about it, and I don’t know if you’ve got that recording that we mentioned.

Paul: I’ve got it queued up and ready to go.

Nikolas: That will illustrate. This is from around the time, I spoke to Charlie, and you have to understand from when I moved to Europe in 1990, I moved to Austria, and then I really didn’t do anything about this topic or subject for years. And my connection to Charles was friendly, he was just a friend. Of course, the case came up occasionally. He would tell me anecdotes, some of them quite illuminating and important. But for the most part, when we were done with the first Manson file and Charles Manson superstar, our relationship was simply that of friends. And probably at that time, I got to know him a lot better as a human being than our initial, you know, Because I don’t think people get that my initial contact with him was in a professional basis, was let’s put out this record. It was as a fellow musician to a musician. I like your music. Let’s get your music out there. I like your philosophy and what you have to say. You never get to say it without some idiot interrupting you or, you know, distorting it. So let’s do an interview where you were allowed to talk. his idea to make The Manson File, as I’ve said many times, as an antidote specifically to Manson in his own words, the book by Newell Emmons that he was quite dissatisfied with. So at first our relation, I was friendly and of course I liked him and we had a good rapport, but it was a professional relationship. It became more of a friendship over those many years, which I think was important in winning his trust So in 2008, after I agreed to do this hugely updated version, finally, after this French publisher flew to Berlin to persuade me, I talked to him and, you know, and we — and I said, Okay, will you agree to do formal interviews about these subjects? And, you know, we went back and forth. These are the parameters of what I want to ask you about, will you talk about them honestly? Will you agree? And, you know, he said, I won’t talk about that. I will willing to talk. So it was from that point on, it became like a series of interviews with him. And so I think it would help to bring us back into that time if you can play that tape recording. This is a conversation we had in which he basically agreed, okay, we will, we will, I’ll participate completely with this book project under these conditions. And I agreed to them. So if you play that for your listeners or watchers, they will, they’ll get the flavor of what our agreement was. And I think you’ll see something about his personality, which I will mention afterwards. Okay, perfect. So roll it.

Paul: All right.

> Manson: My, me, that’s me, baby, right? You know, all I’m doing is trying to do the same thing that everybody should, if they had enough brains to figure out this, get on their knees and do it. It’s not a question of what I would want to do it. You know, I don’t want to do it, but the past has already done it. Well, you sort of... It’s where your part comes to. Okay. You’re the educator. You’re the master manipulator. I don’t mean negative. I understand that. In other words, you can write the books and make the films. You can do all the masterfulness. You are the master. There ain’t no doubt about that. You are him. You are real. I agree with you. Here’s the thing. You have the wisdom. And I swear to you, I just want to get across exactly what you think, what the truth is. with no ********. That’s all I’m trying to do right now. And I really appreciate that. I can tell you mean that.

Paul: You know what I find really interesting about that is that he uses the term master manipulator. And the way I pick up on that is that he’s like, he knows what control the media has. and what the written word and everything has on everybody considering all the helter skelter nonsense right and he’s saying that you can put it out there and like change the minds of people.

Nikolas: Right but and also but I think it’s important to understand too this is Charlie doing his pimp flattery thing too of course and and so I didn’t I didn’t feed into it like oh wow I’m the master manipulator I kind of moved on from that. But I think he meant it sincerely, and he did mean it, but I think it shows you something about our relationship. And I mean, also there’s a degree of he knows that I’m a thorough researcher, and he already knew by that time we had had arguments in the 90s about, look, you told me in 1986 this, that’s not true, here is this. Though we had had quite a bit of discussion about these matters to do with the crimes particularly. So he also is trying to say, he’s trying to be flattering so that I write a more appealing portrait of him. But I have to say, considering that he’s considered the biggest control freak in history, except maybe the person right above him as the most hated person in history, He didn’t ever try to persuade me to write something different. Right. He never said, Don’t say this. I mean, yeah, to the degree that he said, Okay, I’ll tell you this much, but I will not snitch on this person. I will not tell you that name. But he was very specific about that, and he was quite cooperative during this period between 2008 and 2010 or so, in which we held these very intensive, what he called interrogations, you know. And I think, you know, he was used to being questioned by cops. And I think he didn’t quite know where am I coming from, that I just want to get the actual truth. I’m not judging you. I’m not bringing you to court. What happened? If you’re saying this didn’t happen, then what happened? And it took a while for him to get used to the idea, this is not a police interrogation that I’m trying to pin something on him. But if he’s saying for all these years, that is not what happened, Helter Skelter didn’t happen. That’s a lie. This is a lie. Tell me what happened. And so it worked out fairly smoothly. So I think that conversation kind of gives you the idea of how the book I mean, this new version of it is a mutation of that version. This work has been going on since the 90s, really, but since 2008 specifically. And then when the 2011 edition came out, the final thing about the making of the book A funny thing is my French publisher sent him, I had them send him the very first copy that came off the printer to be very careful that it was the very first. And in prison, you have to get a book from the vendor. You can’t just send a book to prison. You have to come. So they sent it from France to Charlie, and he got it. And he couldn’t read French at all, so he’s extremely frustrated thinking, Well, what the hell did he write? And he’s starting to get a bit paranoid about it, actually, which happened quite often with him. Right. The funny thing is, this edition of the book does not have a complete discography of all of his recordings because with all the new information I discovered, something had to go from that. So I’m going to — I put the discography up in our Abraxas Circle Facebook group, and it’s on our Manson file board for people to read. But so in the 2011 edition, the French edition, at the back, it had all of his records. It has photographs of all of his — every album that he ever you know, all the bootlegs, everything he either authorized or the many things that were just stolen from him. And the point, of course, was to show people who didn’t know he is an accomplished musician and that his music, whether the average moron hates it and thinks it’s horrible, appeals to people and that he, you know, he’s at least as successful as many alternative musicians financially. This is how many... This is how many hundreds of records have been put out in tapes and CDs because people like them. And that was the point. How does Charlie take it? And this, again, is his personality. I heard from, you know, other people I knew that knew him, Shrek’s trying to sell all my records. He’s got a catalog of all my records in it. So that was his first, you know, and that’s how he thought. Right. The immediate thought is, if it’s my music, I’m being ripped off. And then, you know, I said, no, that’s not true. And I described what it is. And when he saw the English edition shortly thereafter, he, you know, apologized to the degree that Charles Manson apologizes.

Paul: Sure.

Nikolas: And yeah, but that that too kind of said something about the like, even when I’m trying to show, look, he’s an accomplished musician and he his resentment and paranoia creeps in and and he thinks he’s being ripped off.

Paul: Right. It’d be hard for anybody to get into the mindset that he’s in considering how he grew up and how many times basically the ball was dropped with anything to do with raising the guy. Like there’s no way he could have trusted anybody to that point.

Nikolas: No, I never blamed him for that. I mean, it could be exasperating.

Paul: Sure.

Nikolas: Other people who knew him, like prisoners who knew him very well and were with him all the time, would often try to, they told me, try to talk him down from being unusually paranoid about people, think, I think someone’s trying to rip me off this. And they would say, no, you know, you’re overthinking this. So, yeah. And I had sympathy with him for this because, of course, the way he was raised, his mother, actually as Ben Gurecki, a friend of his and correspondent learned firsthand by going to the records in Ashland, Kentucky. I thought this was a myth, and many people thought it was just urban folklore or something Charlie said to make his mother look bad. But Ben discovered the paper that the night that his mother and her brother Luther were arrested for this robbery was the night, the very night that she really did say to a waitress at this tavern in Kentucky, the waitress said, Oh, he’s a cute kid. And she said, Oh, you can have him for a mug of beer. And that’s what she did. She actually did it. The police wrote it down. It’s not, I always thought he’s exaggerating or it’s urban folklore, but it happened, but I never knew that was the very, so imagine that. You get traded for a mug of beer, and then your mom’s gone, her brother’s gone, and you find out she’s going to prison. So that’s extremely traumatic. And I didn’t know that it happened that way. And then after that, his mother has some lover, one of many coming and going, who was basically annoyed by him, cramping his style, having this kid around. I don’t think people grasp she sent him into the criminal justice system because he was an a nuisance he hadn’t done he hadn’t done anything you know he he was thrown he was just like he said a million times garbage people a throwaway kid thrown away he’s thrown into you know this very brutal reform system of that time and he never got out of it so how could he and then he was betrayed and and uh snitched on and made into the scapegoat for for everything evil in history so by people he supposedly loved and who loved him they right all threw him under the black bus as soon as they smelled that gas chamber so right you know how who I never blamed him for not trusting anybody because how could he?

Paul: Yeah yeah absolutely so we have um a few questions for a few more questions about the book, and then we we’ve broken it up into parts. We’ll try and get through four parts in this first interview and then another four in the next. So, Danny, you have another question.

Nikolas: Sounds like a plan that we can definitely not fulfill. But yeah, like, like, like most plans, but it’s good to have good to have dreams. So we will. Yeah, we’ll shoot for this shirt for the moon.

Danny: So with this new edition of your book, who were some of the contacts that changed the game for you?

Nikolas: Well, actually an old contact that really changed the game and was in the 2011 edition, a crucial factor was that Zena and I had met Roman Polanski’s producer and very close friend and intimate who was deeply involved in everything going on at the time of the murders and And the cover up of the murders was Gene Gutowski. In the 2011 edition, he was still alive. And when he spoke to us at length about these things and confided in us, he asked us, you know, don’t, I’ll tell you all this, but don’t reveal my name until after I’m dead. He didn’t care that it was eventually revealed, which is interesting. But You know, and I also have to say at the time we met Gutowski in the mid-90s, I wasn’t planning a book. I wasn’t, I didn’t come to him like, Here, I’m interrogating you about a book. It was that his friend, the actor Ferdinand Main, the night before, by coincidence, it had come up that the story that was told about the murders wasn’t true. And Ferdinand Main told us that, I’ve said this before, that it’s an open secret in Hollywood and among people that knew Polanski and Sharon and Jay and Wojtek, that it was a drug deal between people that knew each other and that they invited them in and that that was what was covered up. He didn’t know much about it. To make a long story short, he said, However, Gene Gutowski is in town. And that was very strange and rare. I’ll call him and tell him you want to know about it. And they had been friends for decades. They were best friends. Very weird karmic connections between them that go back to World War II. And I get into their friendship in the book because it’s important. And how do we know any of this stuff is because Ferd Van Main happened to open up one night and introduced me to Gutowski. So a major thing about this new edition is I couldn’t reveal much about what he said because it would reveal who he was. And in this new edition, I can go at length about everything he told us and the implications of it. Other important, in fact, I dedicate the book to someone that was extremely crucial to the research was Bob Estie. If you look him up, he seems like the most innocuous person in the world and the last person you would think would have inside information on this mystery. Bob Estie was one of the pioneers of the disco sound in the mid-70s. And he was a flamboyantly out gay guy, exactly what you would think the pioneer of the disco sound would be. Through the actress Sally Kellerman, who he had, he was the musical director for her nightclub act in New York. He was looking to move to California to get more deeply into the music industry there. Sally Kellerman was a client of dear Rudy Altabelli. And she said, oh, well, I know he has this house that you can stay in. Well, we know what house that was. And he didn’t know anything about where he was. Bob Estie. So he moves into this house and then Altobelli, creep that he is, and apparently he did this with many people, said things to terrify him and scare him. And many people have said this to me, showed him the blood on the very couch that was still there, caked after, this is about, you know, this is not that long afterwards, it’s the mid ‘70s, showed him the pictures of the crime scenes. And in the guest house, Bob Esty was given Abigail Folger and Wojtek dead that they slept on the night they died. And behind him, and I put this picture in the book at the end where I thank him, there is the zebra skin rug that you see in the crime scene very prominently behind him. And Altabelli gave him Helter Skelter, which he knew was ******** but he gave it to him like, here, I’ll read this book. And then And then Estie figured out, oh, where I am and what this place is, and then I’m, you know, sleeping in the bed of the victims. And this was the kind of sadistic behavior that Altobelli, you know, he was a very mean-spirited person. So Estie befriended him. So, I mean, I get into this in great detail in the book, but Estie spoke to me a great length as well about everything that Bob, that Rudy Altabelli told him while they were drunk, while they were snorting cocaine, while they were just using mountains of drugs at Cielo Drive. And he made it very clear that Cielo Drive, because of Altabelli, was the party place, the drug place, you know, and it still was. And with total impunity, no worry about cops coming. that it was the place for, in the mid ‘70s still, drug deals, cocaine, massive amounts of cocaine and weed in the midst of the disco era. So Wall, you know, and Altabelli is a gossip, talking about everything that ever happened, drunk off his head on Coke, told him everything and told him very revealing things about how well he knew Charlie, basically confirming that he knew Tex Watson very well. that Tex Watson was dealing drugs with Terry Melcher’s permission from Cielo Drive. So, I mean, I won’t get into everything he said, but he was, because he didn’t care, he had no vested interest in this. And when I spoke to him, he was actually quite ill. And I think he just felt like I’m not in show business anymore, no one’s gonna kill me. And I don’t even think he realized the significance of some of the things which many of these people didn’t. So he was a very important source that you’ll see in the book. But he made it very clear that Tex and Terry Melcher were up to no good, and that Altabelli was aware of all this. And he stressed to me the importance of Altabelli being there for the Melcher residency and the Polanski residency, and people pretty much ignore him. But he is really the key between all of it. Right. And that he knew Manson well, and that he, you know, this idea that there was this very brief March meeting, I know who you are, Charlie, that’s just another coverup and ******** to kind of minimize how well they knew each other, you know?

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Yeah, so they, and you have played often the homosexual that lived in the back tape, which Phil Murphy brought up to him, so.

Paul: That was, and we have, we actually have stuff in our questions about that because that was such an enlightening interview.

Nikolas: So those are some, I mean, those are those are some. There were there were others. I don’t want, it’s all in the book, but another very important source that finally gave me a gleaming of light on the fame **** videos was And actually, it’s very interesting. When I went to Los Angeles, both times in 2018, to go to Charlie’s memorial service and ash spreading in Death Valley, which was in November 2018 on his first posthumous birthday, and then again, I went in August 2019 to screen Charles Manson Superstar for its 30th anniversary, which was on the 50th anniversary of the crimes, many people came to me with more information and all kinds of things were brought to my attention and one that I’ll mention a few things um a a very good friend of Connie kresy if you look her up she was the playmate of 1969 she was a girlfriend of Victor louns who was the right-hand man to Roman Polanski she dated Polanski as well and She told this friend, this friend of hers heard one of my interviews on Midnight Writer, I believe. And she contacted me and said, when you come to LA, come meet me and I’ll tell you about that. So what she told me was that Connie Kresge was deeply involved in the making of these ***** films, that she was in them, proudly so, you know, it was the 60s, it was, you know, there’s not like some horrible thing they were hiding, but that Polanski, Hugh Hefner and Victor Lowndes and many other celebrities traded films and videos of celebrities having sex. And that there was a, you know, it was like a hobby. And because they had this new state-of-the-art video equipment that very few people had access to, they felt comfortable sharing it with each other because the average, the peasants could not see what the aristocracy are doing because they didn’t have the technology. So, and she got into, it wasn’t, I think, much more complex than just Sharon Tate having sex with people, but Hefner and Lowndes collected **** going back to, I’ve mentioned this before, Joan Crawford in a ***** movie giving a *******. Marilyn Monroe, apparently filmed by Frank Sinatra. Kim Novak, supposedly, allegedly, filmed by Jack Warner to blackmail her. A lot of blackmail films of movie stars. And this gets into a whole other layer, which I’m not going to get into here, of a celebrity ***** ring that I believe was already going on with Johnny Stompanato, if you look him up, a mafia guy who is related to Lana Turner, and supposedly Lana Turner, the movie star, her daughter killed him. that is a whole other cover-up, but it seems connected. I think what was happening in the 50s was still happening in the 60s. So that was a very important revelation to explain what were these ***** films and a confirmation they did exist. And there was much, it was much more to it than just Sharon Tate. She was just the flavor of the month. It was, you know, you name it, everybody. Right. And one thing that you say, one thing important, including Greg Boutzer and Jane Wyman. Greg Boutzer was Sidney Korshak’s lawyer, the guy who did the dirty work. So that complete, that connects the ex-wife of Ronald Reagan and a lawyer of Howard Hughes and Sidney Korshak, Greg Boutzer, who got Robert Evans the job at Paramount to this ***** ring. So people who understand the case will see the implications there.

Paul: One thing that’s interesting, and I’m skipping a little ahead, but I think that it’s important too, because we’re talking about it right now, is a lot of times there’s a lot of looking down on the ***** angle of things that were happening. But You say in the book you got confirmation about it. There was Joanna Pettit, who is a friend of Sharon Tate’s talked about it. And so did like you were talking about earlier, Gene Gutowski.

Nikolas: Yeah, he completely confirmed it with that. And I must say Gene Gutowski, without any shame, he was proud of it. He was like, he was a *******. He was, he told us, you know, I dedicated my life to beautiful women and He had gone through the Holocaust and gone through World War II, and he said, I’m gonna live it up for the rest of my life. And he wasn’t hiding that at all. He had no shame about, you know, ******. And he described some of the Peter Sellers, Ewell Brenner, he confirmed things that Charlie said. When Charlie Manson and Gene Gutowski are talking about the same thing, but are not even aware of each other really, except as a name, I tend to give it a lot of credence. And he particularly stressed that his close friend, Yul Brynner, was very much a collector of **** a participant in ****. But again, that’s not like some salacious thing about how decadent and evil Hollywood is. Why is it significant to anyone studying this case is not because it’s so exciting or salacious. It is because this is a lot of what was being covered up. What all of the secrecy wasn’t about, it wasn’t always about some sinister thing to do with the murders. It had a lot to do with the very practical and pragmatic nature of Hollywood covering its tracks. So, you know, like any business would. Who wouldn’t? Who would want to admit to these things in 1969? Now today, You know, you’ve got celebrities saying, I’m going to a rehab clinic because I’m a junkie, and here’s my latest ***** video. So maybe young people are thinking, Well, what was the big deal? Or, Not only am I gay, I’m married, and you know, this is another planet we live on in 1969. Right. Right. People don’t understand how significant it was to protect the reputations of musicians and film industry people at that time. and politicians. And so it’s not like I’m wagging my finger about how decadent Hollywood is at all. It’s a significant reason for all the lying and cover-up.

Paul: Right. And Manson alluded to some of the **** stuff as well in the Murphy interview when he talks about Rudy Altabelli, the homosexual in the back, where he’s selling marijuana and ****. And so there’s like a weed dealer selling ****. That’s a whole different thing.

Nikolas: And that gets into Charlie always was involved in ****. It’s in police records in the 1950s, you know, and the significance of Three Star Enterprises, his pimping and **** operation in the 50s is very much overlooked because it doesn’t fit into the cult leader Idea, it just shows him as an ordinary criminal doing what ordinary criminal does, which news. flash, that’s what he was, was a criminal. And weirdly, the way the official narrative tries to make him into some freakish, you know, cult leader messiah, but most of his activities were completely run-of-the-mill crime. So it’s important to realize he’s making **** with underage girls and homosexual **** and everything he could sell, like any businessman in that business, with three-star enterprises, and then he gets out of prison in 1967, and he went right back to it. And there’s a lot of, the way that the commune presented itself was as Hollywood Productions, where I met many people, oh, we’re a film production company, you know, and the bus sat on it, Hollywood Productions. And they had cameras, and they, this is a very underplayed part of how they presented themselves, is we’re, you know, we’re a hippie guerrilla filmmaker making collective. Well, they were, you know, Charlie was definitely making and selling **** whether he shared that with everyone. And he was very compartmentalized. People like Susan Atkins and others were definitely involved in that aspect of what he was doing. And the final thing about this, Bob Esty said that Altabelli had a film company, a little company called Cottage films. And he was referring to his cottage, his guest cottage. But Esty said that Altabelli was an Anglophile, very much enamored of English culture and British slang. Cottaging in British slang is when two homosexual men would go to a public bathroom when homosexuality was illegal in Britain. So cottaging was like a pun. for his cottage films. So now I don’t know what, how exactly was Charlie involved and with Altabelli, but Charlie confirmed to me and many others that he himself was in gay ***** and was paid, you know, relatively well for doing that in 1967 at his Universal Studio. So that it’s a very important part of the whole thing of what was happening. And the fear of celebrities and people that were in these films, that these things would be seen, was palpable.

Paul: Right. Do you think that Manson could be compared, and I’m just jumping around a little, because we have all these different parts, but we’re...

Nikolas: No, I said, well, let’s get back to your plan. Let’s Oh, no, it’s good.

Paul: It’s great. The so with Manson being involved in three star enterprises, and then you say getting out and having the bus, are you? Are you saying that it was sort of like a three-star enterprises?

Nikolas: Yeah, as well.

Paul: And was it also with how integrated they were in Hollywood? Was it a thing like with Epstein where Manson would show up with some girls who were fine to screw around with people?

Nikolas: Yes.

Paul: And that’s a foot in the door for Hollywood.

Nikolas: Yeah, I’ve thought of it like this way. If you think of... The New Hollywood, when the counterculture started becoming groovy and hip, and these old fogies at the movie studios thought, how can we sell movies to this young generation? Charlie, too, is a guy born in the 30s. He’s not a hippie. He’s, you know, comes from the beatnik generation. But, you know, pimping wasn’t really a very good thing to be doing when there’s free love and everybody’s ******* everybody for free. All of the inhibitions of the 50s that a pimp could rely on, that you can get a prostitute to do something your wife wouldn’t, that had all fallen away, because in California, it was a perpetual ****. But Charlie used definitely, and would admit it, that he used pimping techniques. And he came with this entourage of girls, and of course, that opened the door to him. And I can say that I saw him doing that with me and other people that later, that was how he thought. Not long after I got to know him and we were working on the first book and film together, he would introduce me to girls and one in particular right around the corner from where I lived in Hollywood. And he wrote to me, he said, You can go over there and she’ll do whatever you want. And I’m sure he told her to. And And I remember he wrote, she’s crazy, but that’s Hollywood, which I thought was the various coming from him. But I mean, so that he thought of women as currency. There’s no doubt about that. And he continued to. And he did that with The Straight Satans. He did that with the Aryan Brotherhood much later in his Right.

Paul: Danielle, we actually have another question about the sort of pimping Manson and the way that the way that works. Go ahead.

Danny: Yeah. So kind of an outsider looking in, regards to Manson. It appears as though kind of what you were saying with his pimp tactics that he was playing everybody, manipulated, manipulated everybody, lied to everybody. How would you say, how would you put it where it looks like he would kind of pin one person against another, where you’re my good friend, they’re the bad guy and vice versa. How did you see that played out, not just in regards to women and his pimping tactics, but even with friendships that he had?

Nikolas: Oh yeah, well, yes. I mean, I wouldn’t, yes, of course. He always said, I’ve never lied, but of course he lied often. But mostly he evaded the truth or veiled it. He really didn’t, he tried not to lie. I think he went through some kind of mental gymnastics to come up with weird metaphoric ways to say things that were not exactly a lie, whatever that says about his character. I think he didn’t really want to lie. But yeah, I recommended to Paul that you read Iceberg Slim, the pimp, because that Charlie learned when he was very young. He wanted to be a pimp. He told me this. And he said he regretted. He said the only thing he regretted was being a pimp. He didn’t regret all the other things he did. He did regret using people and forcing young girls. He said he had some shame about that in the late 50s. And when he got into Scientology in prison, he said it was specifically to try to clear his negative feelings about himself. He felt a bit guilty about that. So to get to your question, I remember a particular conversation we had where he was basically saying, I never had a cult, but now all these people think I’m a cult leader. Maybe I should have a cult. And he said, But it would never work because everyone in my cult hates everyone else. Absolutely true. And I said, Well, wasn’t that basically true on the ranch too? He said, Yeah, it was. And I said, But that’s — I said — and by that time, I had seen this for years. That’s because you play everyone against everyone, these divide and conquer tactics. that pimps use like oh you’re you know this is what they do to women you know you’re the most beautiful one and I love you and I’m going to buy you a boutique and we’re going to move to Hawaii those other ******* I I never really like them you know they’re just for money you’re the special one and then they tell the next girl the same thing well that’s what he did to a lot of these if I can be honest sad dysfunctional men with daddy issues just as severe as Susan Atkins or any of the other girls in the group, these men looked at him as their daddy, and he flattered them, and he played them against each other. And when he saw that they had jealousy, I mean, in Buddhism, we call it the three poisons of the mind that create disturbing emotions. Well, when Charlie saw that weakness in somebody, people would talk to him, You know, I don’t know why you hang around so-and-so. They’re horrible because blah, blah, blah. He would say, yeah, you’re right. They’re horrible. You’re wonderful. And I want you to be. I mean, he used this phrase in Charles Manson’s Superstar that I thought was funny. He says, you know, all these people playing goo goo gaga trying to be commander of man scam. And that’s what these people, he got all these people vying for I don’t know what they thought they were getting, but some kind of extra praise, giving them titles, giving them special jobs. And very often, and this actually, he once compared himself to Hitler because he read a lot of biographies of Hitler, that Hitler would give all of his lieutenants the same task, and they’d all go out and diligently try to do it and find out, you know, Goering is doing what Goebbels is doing, and they all hated each other ‘cause they thought, we want to prove to the Fuhrer that we can do. And Charlie did this very, you know, so-and-so isn’t doing this right. Can you help me? And, oh, of course I can, Charlie. And so he very much played people against each other. He told them all, you know, you’re my favorite, and this one let me down. And that all worked until the internet. And when the internet was invented, and Charlie had no access to it until he had cell phones much later, and then he did have a little bit of access to it, then people played the tapes where, you’re my best friend, and then, oh, no, I hate so-and-so. And I can give you an example for myself. I’ll give you two. For the most part, we had a very good rapport for many years. And really, and this happened when I was talking to Derek Hayes, my friend and his mutual friend. Derek and I often talked to Charlie together on a party line. And one day I was, we were having a, just like a casual conversation, not about anything important or controversial. And as often happened, the German phone line just dropped out from the conversation, just whoop, it’s gone. But I could still hear Charlie. He couldn’t hear me. And he’s going, That *** ** * ***** he **** blocked me. That ************ hung up on me. And just ripping me to shreds because he thought I hung up on him and deliberately snubbed him. And he went on for maybe five minutes about, you know, that ************* ********** did blah, blah, blah. And then I wrote to him the next day. I said, You know, I heard every word you said, you understand I didn’t hang up on you, the phone, hung up. And then he, again, when I say his kind of apology, he did begrudgingly apologize, but that’s how quick he could turn. And what was it about? I didn’t do anything, but he thought I hung up on him, thought I dissed him or disrespected him, which I wouldn’t, you know, I never hung up on him. So. Right.

Paul: So was that the-?

Nikolas: Well, and I want to give one more example to show how Basically, too, we were friends, but again, as I said, newsflash, he was a criminal, he was a crook, and any opportunity he could to engage in criminal activity, he would. And remember, the people he harmed, Gary Hinman, was a friend. That was a friend of his. He didn’t have any compunction about doing what he did to him. And I think that’s important. ’14, by that time, Charlie and I had been speaking about a new edition of the book, because the 2011 edition had been out for a few years, and he was giving me all this new information and saying, That’s wrong. No, you got that wrong. This wasn’t this. It was that, that kind of thing. I said, All right, then there’s no reason to keep it in print. If this all needs to be changed and that needs to be revised, I’m not going to put it in print. And he said, All right. And then, He immediately, I found out, said to other people, a few, and of course, different people, Hey, can we keep printing the book, a bootleg copy, so he could make money off of it? Right. And yet, he remained completely friendly to me. And when I presented that with him, he just laughed like that’s him. And this kind of explains something about him that I think is hard for people to grasp. he like, because he lived in prison, he could be friendly with people that are ripping him off. They could be friendly to him because he’s considered this dog eat dog. You take advantage and you rip people off. And for like, how could he, Danny DiCarlo was extorting him on the ranch and yet he was kind of friendly to him at the same time. Right. And this is, unless you see prison life where you have to It’s almost like war. You have to learn to deal with your enemy in a civil manner. So it was very hard to grasp. Who is this guy’s friend? Who is this guy’s enemy? Because if someone could make like people who paid him, oh, that’s my friend. But he privately would hold them in complete contempt. And let me say one fact loud and clear in neon flashing lights. There is nobody on earth except maybe Cappy And to a lesser degree, Lynette Fromm, there’s nobody. I didn’t hear him rip apart with hateful, venomous everybody. There’s nobody. You can’t. And at the same time, he might praise them Tuesday. And again, they’re a miserable *** ** * ***** on Friday. So if anybody on earth thinks, you know, they were his special girl, then you better sit down, kids, because you weren’t. Yeah, he had. He had the same-- but this was a mood disorder. It wasn’t a personality. He literally was so-- he had so much anger and so many abandonment issues that he just could not allow himself to fully trust people and to have a long-term friendship that was not-- I mean, he always was psyching people out, no matter how well you knew him. He would always--.

Paul: And that was just a given to him because of how he was raised. And because you’re saying in prison, that’s just like you can be friendly to them, but if they get a chance, they’re going to pick your bones clean.

Nikolas: Exactly. So he could be completely loving, actually very generous, very kind, and sincerely so. You know, a lot of people, you read these books that have been written about him or most news reports, it’s like, hello, how are you? Said the cult leader manipulatedly trying to become a rock star or whatever. Yeah. And no, he was genuinely, could be loving, friendly, open, extremely generous. For a thief, he’d often offer me money, or many other people. He’d give away, you know, he figured, and he sincerely believed, people think it’s just a con man’s trick, nothing belongs to anybody, so it’s all in flow. He really believed that, which is true on a deep, universal, mystical level. But from an ethical point of view, no, it doesn’t belong to you. And you’re creating pain for him, for this person who you’re stealing from. And we discussed that later in his life when death was looming, karma, you’re gonna have to face the consequences of this. And I always thought it was strange how he was so focused on Nobody can steal his words. Nobody can steal his music. Even the Rolling Stones stole Start Me Up from me one day, I was ranting and raving about, or you name it. Prince is wearing the same coat that I wore, and everyone’s stealing from him. And yet, he had not the slightest compunction from literally stealing anybody’s property. If he heard or even suspected that someone had any financial resources, he just considered, Well, that belongs to me. Right. As I’ve discussed with Charlene Kafritz, and as I mentioned in this recent David Ferrier interview, Abigail Folger. So those are important. And the final thing I’ll say about that, knowing this about Charlie and seeing it for decades, anyone who thinks he would get involved in a crime for some bizarre ideological reason, never happened. His only concern was financial gain. Can I get money from it? Secondly, did somebody disrespect me and do I need to give them a lesson? Those two, there’s the only reason he would risk a crime. He would never in a billion years think I’m for some philosophical reason or, you know, If you knew the very pragmatic criminal that he was, that’s what it was about.

Paul: Right. And there’s actually a couple of saying that it’s about money ties into a couple of questions we had to do with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys and also the rock star thing. Because it seems like, as with everything in this, there’s a lot of half truths. And so Manson was making music with Dennis Wilson and the Beach Boys and stuff. But people say because he got snubbed and wasn’t able to become a rock star, that’s why he was angry and went on a vengeful crime spree. But it’s more that he didn’t get paid and it was a money thing. And you mentioned, and I’d like you to talk about it a little bit, you mentioned that he called them the Beach Boys murders. the crimes at Cielo. And was it and Waverly?

Nikolas: Well, yes, both. They were both connected. I mean, there are so many different streams and strands of motive and resentment and tension that led to these two murders, but the way he came up with the Beach Boy murders he I don’t know how often he said that but he said you know what it’s got nothing to do with the Beatles and he said particularly that was the girls I didn’t care about the Beatles it’s the you know you could call them the Beach Boys murders and he explained this incident which I describe in the book which seemed very important to him well let me set that in context first of all you have to remember in his mind He’s already making some progress in the music industry. And anyone that says this was a talentless nobody peering in and wanting fame and success, he’s out of prison for three months, and he’s at Universal Studios. And Russ Regan, the head of Uni Records, the guy who actually, by weird coincidence, named the Beach Boys-- that’s a weird synchronicity, even before he met them. is paying for Charlie to go to Gold Star Studios and record in 1967. The guy just got out of prison, and that’s already happening. He’s got a potential job as a technical advisor on a film at Universal through Gary Stromberg, this Jesus Second Coming film. And then Neil Young is already pushing his music to Mo Austin, who I heard from someone that met him, still has Charlie’s tape. or did have the tape that Neil Young gave him. So he’s already on his way to some sort of success. And then he meets Dennis Wilson, but look at it from his point of view. Dennis Wilson, why is it the Beach Boys murders? Where did they meet, first of all? They met at Gary Hinman’s house. This whole hitchhiking girls. is embellishment and later exaggeration to make it look like, oh, Dennis didn’t really like Charlie Manson. He just wanted to **** these girls and it was just good, clean fun. And then he learned how terrible he was and he dropped him. But from Charlie’s point of view, Dennis Wilson brought him into everything. Dennis Wilson introduced him to Tex Watson, who he already knew. And that’s very blurry, did Charlie? know Dennis before Tex or after? Charlie himself seemed confused about that, and I’m not sure about the chronology there. I think Tex knew Dennis a little bit earlier or simultaneously. So just to put it in very clear terms, look at from his point of view, he meets Dennis Wilson, and Dennis Wilson introduces him personally. They met at Gary Hinman’s house, first of all, so how can you not connect it to murders right he introduced him to Sharon Tate at a party at Elvis’s house when Elvis was away he remembered very specifically he introduced him to Terry Melcher Dennis Wilson introduced him to Rody Altabelli introduced him to John Phillips and the whole and Mama Cass and the whole Mama C and mamas and papas are very crucial to the point where you could call it the mamas and the papas murders actually even more so He introduced him to, you know, without Dennis Wilson, there is no Tex Watson in Charlie Manson’s life, or Sharon Tate, or Terry Melcher, Rudy Altabelli, or Cielo Drive. So that’s what he meant. But he specifically told me this story, which I recount in the book, that the recording with the Beach Boys, and it almost seemed from what he told me, like they wanted him to be part of the group, not just put out his, album, but to actually be part of the recording entity. That’s how he put it.

Paul: And do you think that that’s do you think like it would be tough? And this kind of goes for a bunch of people in the in involved. How do you know what to believe?

Nikolas: You don’t. I said that’s what he said. I don’t. It’s like, yeah, it’s out of hearing him talk about it for 30 years. Like if you keep repeating the same You got the impression they were grooming him like, I mean, they did actually say, Come on tour with us to Texas, play with us. So there was something there. I mean, who knows? It might’ve been a idea for a week that was dropped. They were all high and they were desperate. The Beach Boys were desperate for credibility at a time when their career was falling apart. And they replaced the Maharishi, their guru, with this new guru. And so who knows? That’s how Charlie put it. So the recording sessions with Charlie were not going well. They went to Brian Wilson’s and Charlie in his usual way. I don’t want to do this. No, I don’t want to do it that way. I don’t like that. And the Beach Boys are very, you know, Brian Wilson, for all his craziness, was a genius when it came to mixing and mastering and recording. And he wanted, he really did like Charlie’s music. And I’ve heard, to this day, his entourage has to shut him up when he says positive things about Charlie. So Dennis was enthusiastic, but so was Brian, and so was Carl, apparently. So they were arguing, and it led to some heated argument, and it looked like it wasn’t going to work out. And I can well imagine Charlie doing that, having seen the same thing in trying to work with him.

Paul: I can totally, like you say, there’s paranoid stuff happening.

Nikolas: Right, I mean, I mean, if you say, hey, I could imagine if you said, do another take, Charlie, he probably wouldn’t like that. You know, I could, I could, the normal things that happen in a recording studio, I think he wouldn’t be comfortable with. So, They went on tour, apparently, and he said that Brian Wilson invited him to Bellagio Road, his house, alone, to have a kind of man-to-man talk with him about-- and he said, you got to get new clothes, you have to change your attitude, and even gave him singing advice, like, I really like that song, I don’t remember which one, but maybe try it like this, the phrasing, normal thing a musician would say, he’s trying to help them. And Charlie did appreciate and respect Brian, I think. I think he did actually like and respect him. Right. And then in the midst of this, he said to Charlie, you gotta get better clothes, you gotta look better, and you should cut your hair, and you should go to my barber, Jay Sebring. And he said that when, this was ’68, and he said when Brian Wilson said that, they both heard, ding, a bell ringing. And they both looked around, and he said he didn’t think about it again until he went back to Cielo Drive that night. And he said to me, actually, in this conversation, he said, you should ask that guy if he remembers that, as if Brian Wilson would talk to me about Charlie.

Paul: You could just call him up.

Nikolas: Hey, you want to talk about Charlie? But Charlie wrote to the Beach Boys for years afterwards with song ideas. I don’t know what he was thinking. He actually kept writing to the Beach Boys for years, like, here’s an idea, or try this. Or like when Neil Young came to Berlin and I was trying to interview him through his management company, he said, yeah, well, tell him it’s about time to get in touch with me and we’ll do something. Like it was still 1968 and that might not affect Neil Young’s career at this point.

Paul: Right. You said, so you said something that I actually was, we were gonna ask you about, because there’s a big divide when people talk about Manson going back to Cielo after the murders. Some people don’t believe he did it. Where does the info come from that he went back and what do you think happened?

Nikolas: When he went back? Okay, let me focus on that. 1986, when Newell Emmons put out Manson in His Own Words, this was a big topic that we went back to again and again, so I’m very clear on it. He was ****** at Newell Emmons, who he considered a fellow crook. I knew Newell Emmons, he was a criminal and he was a drug dealer. And he was definitely part of the underworld. Charlie was on drugs in Vacaville, very medicated when he spoke to Newell. and told them things that he probably regretted saying, a lot. And Newell put it in the book, and there was no firm agreement, like, this is off the record, this is on the record. And Charlie did say to me several times, I’ll tell you this, but don’t print this. And I’m sure he did that with Newell. But Newell couldn’t record anything. He had to take penciled notes in his car when he left. So who knows what was accurate. Charlie was very angry at Newell. I remember specifically because I had to be the mediator between them about these issues ‘cause I liked New Orleans and actually thought he was the all right person. I got along with him.

Paul: Oh, did we freeze up for a second?

Nikolas: We froze up for a second. I guess the CIA- There we go. Yeah, look out mountain tuned in and we’re getting too close.

Paul: To- Those damn lasers.

Nikolas: And I was just about to start the MK Ultra mantra that will hypnotize people.

Paul: Oh. Part two-part two.

Nikolas: All right, so Charlie was angry at Newell because Newell writes in a very matter of fact way that Charlie in his own voice saying, I went back, I put a towel on the man on the floor, she very carefully doesn’t name as if I don’t know who that is, that stranger on the floor. And then he went back to the house. He totally describes it. And that is very much in his own words. I think it’s verbatim. But Charlie was angry at him for doing that ‘cause he didn’t want, at that point, when he was in Vacaville and when he got out, he had a little bit of an idea that maybe he could ever be paroled. He gave up on that. But there was a brief period where he did try to go to classes and make some vague effort, like working in the chapel, showing that he could be reformed. And he was very aware of the law that if he went back, that makes him much more culpable. Right. And he always said, Well, they can’t lock me up. I didn’t order it and I wasn’t there. But if he was there, even if he didn’t order it, it makes him aiding and abetting an accessory for the murder. By California law, at least, and I think by most United States law, if you go to a crime scene and you help the murderers cover it up, even if you didn’t do it, he knew that. And he knew that, and he didn’t like that Cummins put that there. But then, and so he yelled at him about that and many other things in the book. And then a few years later, he told me, In an anecdote, yeah, about going back there. He told me it was the most frightening night of his life. He never felt such a high level of fear. And he told me in detail about going back there and told me he went with somebody who he would never, ever tell me who, though I asked about 60 times over many years. Oh, never even said he or she, which sometimes make me think it’s a she because it would be more normal to say he in general as a, ambiguous somebody. He had never even specified the gender. I have reason to believe a top contender could be Krenwinkel.

Paul: Oh, interesting. What do you think of Tex saying TJ Wolleman went, thought he.

Nikolas: Thought TJ went up? I mean, I think that’s also possible. I think Tex was, I think TJ was more involved in this than we think, though I knew him too, and he claimed he wasn’t. I believe he I think I spoke to Steve Grogan in 1988, and Steve Grogan was a lot more tough and more of an ex-con at that point. He just got out of prison, and he was working as a session musician for Hank Williams. And we talked about the going back, and he was kind of ambiguous about it. I wouldn’t totally rule out that he did. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know, I get the vibe from Charlie. Maybe at least I think maybe several people went back. As far as I know, maybe they went back and forth. It’s very hard to determine. But he did tell me that and many other people and many other times he went back. Now, what do I think happened? I think Tex and the girls left a complete panicky scene without any plan whatsoever. And Charlie being Charlie, that looks to me like his particular imagination to go back and set the scene in a different way. And I think, I think he dragged the bodies around and I think he, I think text occasionally says he doesn’t remember the rope. I think that’s true. I think that was Charlie who went back with somebody and dripped the blood on the blue, you know, box that was in the room. And I think, I think he dragged their bodies around. And now I don’t, obviously there was an attempt to make it look like. the like Billy Doyle and Harrigan were behind this. And that’s a very important part of the crimes. They either, I don’t know if Tex was smart enough to do that or if he was even knew them. I don’t know. I don’t know who did, but pulling down Wojtek Furkowski’s pants and everything about it. And of course, Mama Cass and John Phillips both told the police immediately, this is clearly Billy Doyle, our friend, and Harrigan getting revenge on Furkowski because he was raped there a month before. And that’s a very important part of the way the crime scene was presented. To me, that seems like something Charlie would dream up, but who knows? It could have been Tex. It could have been someone we don’t know. I believe other people were involved in the planning and execution and the aftermath, but we will never know.

Paul: Right. Do you think that with what you know of Manson and kind of jumping back to how he used pimp tactics, like I did read that book that you told me to about the Iceberg Slim and a lot of the stuff lined up with him using people. Do you think that with those murders, do you think he was more involved with what was happening than he put out there? just because he he has a good way of massaging people into doing something that he wants them to do.

Nikolas: I don’t think he would have that much to do with that particular night. And and. I and the other thing I have to say from knowing him, you know, I understand the average person who reads Helter Skelter or whatever the latest. permutation and regurgitation of it is if you didn’t know this human being this person you could think okay he was an evil cult leader who hypnotized the person I knew had no fear and clearly would go I mean why would you think he would get other people to do something he clearly was willing to do himself I mean, think about the logic here and leave aside your idea that he’s a coward who hypnotized people to go out and kill because he was too, you know, craven to do it. On the contrary, he was an extremely violent person, capable of being extremely dangerous on his own. He had already gone over for no particularly helpful reason to Rosina Kroner’s apartment, made the whole situation worse by shooting Bernard Crowe, did he have the slightest hesitation about going over there and shooting someone and leaving them dead? No. Hinman, Bobby needs help. Okay, I’m over there with a cutlass slashing a friend in the face. Where’s the fearful coward? On the contrary, and you know, he was a dangerous person, more than capable of killing someone on their own. Right. And he said that many times. I don’t need to get someone to do something for me. I’ll handle it myself. I mean, with Nick Grillo, the manager of the Beach Boys, and I believe this, the business manager, he went in and yelled at the manager. You know, the manager says, and you can hear that tape that I played at the 50th anniversary of the LaBianca crime. You can hear him saying this. Grillo says, sue me about the 5,000 bucks he wants that the Beach Boys didn’t pay him. And Charlie yells at him, I won’t sue you. I’ll kill you. I’ll burn your house down. I’ll kill you. He had no compunction. He had no filter. So why do people find it hard to believe?

Paul: And that’s a really good point that he just got up and went to those. So why wouldn’t he do this one?

Nikolas: And completely reckless and people, he wasn’t a great mastermind and he wasn’t even a particularly good criminal because to be a good criminal, you have to be cool, calm and collected and think twice, three times and four times about the consequences of your actions. He didn’t. Peck took some money and this guy made a threat to the ranch, goes over and shoots him.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: And he made everything worse when he did these things. And I often said to him, why throw your life away for Tex Watson? Why throw your life away for Bobby Beausoleil? Why? You know.

Paul: Right. Did he ever have any sort of answer to that when you asked him?

Nikolas: Not really. Kind of vague, actually. Never a very satisfying.

Paul: Seems like with the way he was, impulsiveness wouldn’t have been off of the table. Just being in that moment.

Nikolas: If you knew, well, what’s the difference between, I accidentally hang up on him and he’s ready to kill me, and you know, it’s the same temper, the same moods, the mood swings. And also it was, he wanted to show the kids, I’m the man, I’ll show them how to handle this. And that’s what he said to Bobby Bosele, you know, this is how a man handles it. And there was a lot of this, man, like to Tex, too. Tex was a rumpkin. Tex was a little girl in a man’s body. I had to show him. And he’d say, Linda Kasabian was like Tex’s wife, telling him, You’ve got to do that better. And that was another thing, Charlie. So Where, why think that, I don’t, the Charlie Manson I knew would, I would definitely believe in capable of killing someone he wanted to kill without going to tell some teenagers, You should do it for me. Why? Why, you know, that’s, and why did he go back to Lombianca’s house the next night? You know, that he was involved with.

Paul: Right, yeah.

Nikolas: And the thing is, he had no, he never denied Cutting Hinman, he never denied, shooting Crow. He never denied to me cutting Shea, even though he didn’t kill him exactly, he did admit he was involved with the murder to the point that he cut him, which makes him culpable.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: And he did it in broad daylight with other people watching him. This is not a frightened person who needs to send Susan Atkins to go kill for him.

Paul: No, right?

Nikolas: I mean, so I’m not saying, oh, he’s such a nice and sweet person, which I guess idiots think I’ve ever said, which I never have, on the contrary, he admitted. I did — and he was proud of it. He never said, Oh, I wish I hadn’t done that to Gary Hinman or Crow or Shay.

Paul: Right. And he’s also — we had a recording from Ben Gorecki, who you spoke of earlier, about — and Manson talking about his time in Mexico. and the time that they killed all these rats, and I was on the aggressor side. Now, not a lot has been said about Manson’s time in Mexico, but it sounds like he had that similar sort of dangerous going on there.

Nikolas: Because I had been in Mexico a lot, and we, unbeknownst to me, when I went there in the early ‘80s, did a lot of similar things, looked for shamans to take psychedelic drugs, went to the, Pyramid of the Moon and the Sun and Tehuetacan, went to Acapulco. Strangely, all the things he’d done, I had done them. So we compared notes, and we both really liked Mexico. He talked about it a lot. He definitely said many times, and to me, and to different people, and even to the parole board, that he killed people in Mexico. He said, I left some people, I had a Magnum, I left some people dead on a beach. He told the parole board, I was arrested for murder of some French people in Mexico. He told Ben, he told lots of people I’ve known over the years. He talked to prisoners that spoke to me about how that’s how he got involved in drug dealing, cocaine from Cuba to Mexico and Miami, and he implied that he was still involved with the same drug narcotics trafficking network 10 years later. And I know for a fact that when I knew him in the 2000s, he was still in touch with Mexican drug cartels. And they have a very high respect for him, and they speak very highly of him. And the way I know that-- I’ve mentioned this before-- in, I forget, 2000-something, he said, hey, man, can you open a bank account for me in Berlin? And I’ll send you the money and you just keep the money and it’s my bank account and just keep it there safely. And if I need something, then you could... And I absolutely didn’t want anything. That’s the last thing I need to do is money being sent from Charles Manson.

Paul: No, thank you.

Nikolas: Yeah. So I hesitated on that, but he took my address and he filled out the proper banking form from the prison. to transfer from his account. And he had a lot of money in his account. For all of his *** stories about everything, people sent him money constantly. So he had, and that’s why other prisoners extorted him and threatened him because he had access to money. So he sent me, I got the form from the bank, $1,000, and he said, I’m going to send in increments from Charlie Manson’s arrest. But because he couldn’t speak or because of dyslexia for one thing, but he couldn’t read or speak German, he filled out the German address totally wrong. Therefore the bank sent it to me, refused, which thank you. But then I got a letter from Mexico saying, you know, Charlie said that you can send me something from Mexico.

Paul: Oh my God.

Nikolas: Yeah.

Paul: Wow.

Nikolas: And I didn’t answer it. I mean, there were, but, you know, and he spoke Spanish. He respected Mexico and definitely, I mean, he’d said it many times. So people who act like he was a coward, he, and furthermore, he’s told me and other people quite proudly that he committed what is called the institutional murder. That when he, I’m not sure of the year, but when he was younger to prove his place in the hierarchy, if somebody’s a snitch or a child molester, or they’ve broken some of these many laws in the underworld code, you have to kill them if you kept them. And he said he did. He said he killed someone, not that he wanted to, but to prove his point, his place in the prison hierarchy. He told me and a few other people that. So this is someone very capable of killing, why send people to do it?

Paul: Right. it seems like there’s a bit of a, there’s a bit of a gray area when people are looking at the commune itself. And I think we’ll be able to get where we’ve got about 15 minutes left in this interview. So we’ll be able to get to it a bit more in the next one.

Nikolas: I’ll just give you yes or no answers so we can get through.

Paul: But one thing about, okay, so while we’re on that then, the commune is a lot of people, like I said, think it’s a bit of a gray area. They’re not sure exactly what it is. Now, I’ve read the write-up by Dr. David Smith from the Haight-Ashbury about it being a group marriage. There’s also, there was a chop shop and they were using stolen credit cards. There was criminality going on there. But it’s made to look like just a big jumbled mess. Like everyone had to do with everything that was going on there. They were all moving in one cohesive unit. Was it more that Manson had his had his commune and he would just get a cut if he like, I won’t tell what you’re doing. I don’t care. It has nothing to do with me. Just give me my money. Was that kind of how he was running there?

Nikolas: That’s the way he was in prison all the time I knew him.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: I don’t care where you got it, give me money. I should get money. I mean, he had this, I have to say, a kind of entitled idea. Like, his attitude was, Society ****** me over, my mother ****** me over, I don’t know who my father is, nobody’s ever given me a break, therefore, I’m owed everything.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: And if, you know, That’s how he saw like some kind of balance or karma. That was his attitude. So yeah, I don’t, he didn’t ask questions. And, but what was the commune? I don’t, it wasn’t any organized thing. It was a spontaneous coming together of a bunch of misfits. The girl, now one thing I can say, he compartmentalized with women. I can tell you, he did not tell women everything he was doing. like many men of his generation and many people in the mob, you know, there’s the saying that actually Charlie Manson and Tom Metzger, the head of White Aryan Resistance, both said to me at different times, as far as criminal protocol, you know, there’s different ways of communication. They said, there’s television, telegram, telewife. And That’s this old school thing. Don’t talk about to women, and certainly not to 18-year-old girls about... And Charlie compartmentalized his criminal activities from his other activities. Not everybody knew what was going on. So you had a group marriage, you had a chop shop. The men were very much involved in a fairly sophisticated auto theft ring that Charlie was, again, this was stuff he was doing since the ‘50s, and he learned Frank Costello in prison told them in the ‘50s, you need a front operation. If you’re going to be a criminal, get a skill. And Charlie loved Frank Costello and listened to his advice and learned auto repair, which really means learned auto theft. And that’s what he did. He was very good at it. And he knew people like Bruce Davis and all these crooks and criminals who you never even think of, the Bill Vances, the thugs, these weren’t hippies. He, all these ex-cons he knew, he kept in touch with criminals all over the country. They were on the margins of the Verne Plumleys and the Bill Vances. Nobody thinks about them because they’re not glamorous or sassy or spooky. They’re just thugs like you could meet in any criminal organization. And that, you know, so all these things were happening at once. There is no, what it wasn’t was a cult, what it wasn’t was. Like I said, actually, like Charlie half jokingly said, Well, everyone said I had a cult. Now I wish I could have a cult. And he meant it. He wasn’t thinking anything. And Charlie didn’t make plans. He didn’t have, you know, I think people look at, he got out of prison, resentful of society and planned helter skelter. How can I gather my minions to hypnotize them to kill for? No, he didn’t plan from one day to the next.

Paul: Right, and the cult thing, I mean, religion and crime, what about the mob? What about the mafia?

Nikolas: Well, but in this tape recording of this conversation we had that I was listening to that I told you about, he’s talking about the mob as a religion. He’s talking about the mafia. He very often said, you know, the Holy Ghost, and he meant the mafia. And he meant God, God says you have to do this, you have to do this. He meant like you have no choice but to do what the mob tells you to do. So he saw it in a religious way. Absolutely. So let’s get through some of your other questions. I want to try to follow your.

Paul: All right. We’ve, it’s funny because we’ve, I knew it was going to happen too. We’ve chipped away at a bunch of them. Danny, was there any on this first half that you thought we should definitely get to?

Danny: I was going to ask, when things started to fracture at the ranch, when the commune began to split, who were the two main cliques within that?

Nikolas: Well, that’s hard to determine exactly because everyone remembers it differently. They’re all high. They all have later resentments. And some of them like hated each other and then became friendly. So, you know, like people remembering their high school years, it’s very difficult to say. My impression is there was a clique around text who was a slick drug dealer who was well-dressed, living in the city and more of a mod and not like, not a hippie, not really trying to drop out of society. I get the impression a lot of the girls were not excited about moving out to the desert with scorpions and snakes in 110 degree weather and roughing it. Charlie loved it, they didn’t love it so much, and Tex was more of like an urban, He was a slick, groovy drug dealer, and I think there was a text faction. Linda was definitely of that faction, you know? But just like now, you can see that everybody, it’s quite clear and evident. Everyone who knew Charlie in recent years is all feuding with each other, stabbing each other in the back, hating each other, saying, I’m the whatever. That was going on in the ranch, clearly, and because of Charlie’s, habit of playing people against each other. And why did they all betray him ultimately, except for a handful, you know, because that kind of psychological tension, when they had the opportunity to save their lives, they blamed it all on him. And that, I mean, there’s nothing cult-like about that. There are cults who have stuck together after committing horrible crimes, the Japanese, a poison cult, for instance. You know, they never snitched on each other or expressed resentment. There’s been many other cults. This was not a cult. As soon as you got the police coming, saying you’re gonna go to prison and possibly to the gas chamber, he did it. That’s not a cult leader. You know. Yeah. Where’s the messianic belief? Like Susan Atkins immediately, oh, okay, yep, he did it all, he told us to do it. And she’s supposed to — and Tex Watson is supposed to be his most hypnotized right-hand man who would kill for him and die for him. And yet, just a few months later, he did it all. I did — he hypnotized me. He put his voice in my head. That’s not a cult. That’s ordinary criminals blaming it on who they can blame. Right.

Paul: Yeah. And I think that’s — That’s huge for people to know is that it isn’t just, because it feels like the whole thing’s been compressed. They’ve taken all the stories that fit the narrative, all the people, all the, just to make it seem like it’s all in a tight little, neat little bundle.

Nikolas: Well, the media, the media has done a lot of that in that the way that newspapers, magazines, and hack writers have to tell a very clear and unambiguous story that with good and evil and a plot and There was no plot, it’s chaos.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: It was sheer chaos. And a sociopath on methadrine has a lot, metamphetamine, has a lot to do with what happened. There’s nothing very mysterious about that. I’ve known quite a few sociopaths on meth. And I mean, also an important thing is the drug dealing experience that I had, that I mentioned in the early part of the book and how that tied into something much later. I think that’s important about these two lawyers of Tex Watson.

Paul: Right. All right. Well, we’re we’re coming up on the end of this one.

Nikolas: So we’ll well, is there is there anything I can quickly address of your other questions? Let me we have time to do it.

Paul: Yeah. Yeah, if you want, it doesn’t matter to me.

Nikolas: We’re not we’re not doing this again. So let’s yeah.

Paul: All right. Well, so you said earlier a name that is super interesting to me, and that’s Charlene Caffritz. And can you explain who Charlene Caffritz was, what she had to do with Manson and the commune and how she was tied to Sharon Tate and the Hollywood people as well?

Nikolas: Yeah, according to now, I don’t I’ve never seen him talk about her anywhere else, but in 2012, when I visited Charlie in December of 2012, and we had many hours to discuss everything. I don’t know how she came up, but she did. And I asked, Well, what was the deal with Charlene Kafritz? And he said, Well, what I said was, do you think she died mysteriously? Because Charlene... Let me explain who she was for people who may not be familiar with the case. Charlene Kafritz was the young daughter of a very prominent family in Washington that were involved with the State Department, involved with the Kennedy and Johnson administration. And she married into another even more prominent Democratic Party donor, you know, socialites on the Washington, D.C. scene, the Caffritz family. A lot of people think she’s the heiress to the Caffritz family. She’s not. She was from another prominent political family, and like aristocracy, they marry into the same group. And so she married into this very wealthy socialite Caffritz family. And then she divorced her husband, and he left her a huge amount of alimony. And she became a groupie in California, starting with Dennis Wilson and many other rock stars. And Dennis Wilson got tired of her, apparently she was into S&M, And Dennis was not particularly. And this apparently happened quite a lot. Dennis would foist off women he was sick of on Charlie. And apparently Mama Cass, I believe, introduced Caffritz to their scene. I’m not sure about that, but I believe that’s what it was. So it’s all very incestuous. So Charlene then fell in love with Charlie totally. And as I mentioned before, she called her name — her nickname was Charlie. So they were Charlie and Charlie. And she had all this money, and she — and Charlie being Charlie, spent it very quickly on, you know, had her buy musical equipment, bought a car, which he — in this entitled way, he complained it was the wrong car. It was a — And now, in talking to me in 2012 in the prison visiting room, he was praising her, being quite honest that he wasn’t even particularly attracted to her, but using her for her money, and being like a gigolo. He said she really liked sex. And so he had sex with her. He filmed ***** films with her and for her with some of the girls at what seems to be a ranch that she owned, as far as I could tell, it was a **********.

Paul: Right, and it’s made to sound like that in Lynette Frome’s book, Reflection, as well.

Nikolas: But interesting, Lynette Frome doesn’t describe ***** or sex, but she does just hint at the S&M, a boot and whip lady, and the possibility of ********** which Charlie said it was a ********** and that they filmed *****. For what reason? I don’t know if it was commercial or personal, but that they did. But they seemed to be doing that all the time. It was nothing extraordinary. And then I said to him, Do you think... But he was treating her like he didn’t particularly like her, that he was ******* her because she would pay for anything he asked for.

Paul: She was bankroll.

Nikolas: Yeah, exactly. And he said that of a lot of the women who joined the commune. He said, I didn’t particularly like them. They had this much money, and they were willing to give it. He was quite honest about that. So I asked him, she died in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, which is a mental hospital in Washington, DC, where Ezra Pound had been put after the war, and John Hinckley, after the Reagan shooting, the famous lunatic asylum. And she had drug problems. She was arrested for heroin possession and put in there. And a lot of people, more of the people in the CIA, mind control, government, blah, blah, blah, way of thought tend to think, oh, she was murdered. She was silenced in St. Elizabeth’s. And I don’t think so. And I asked Charlie. Now, Charlie was the first one to believe a conspiracy theory. He had told me things like, Michael Jackson isn’t dead. They just pretended he is. Nicole Brown Simpson, she’s not dead. And he once told me, if you ever hear I’m dead, it just means they slipped me out the back door. Don’t believe it. So he was the first to believe bizarre conspiracy theories. So I said, what do you think happened to Charlene? He said she was just out of her head and on drugs all the time if she was going to OD at any moment. And he said, he just said that would be totally predictable. And she said she was way out of her element. And she said, being between everybody. And I said, what do you mean? And I said, you mean Sharon Tate? She said, yeah. And he said this very casually, not like it’s a big secret, as he always did. He said, yeah, man, all these people knew each other.

Paul: Right. And that’s interesting that you say she was kind of in over her head because I feel like that that’s kind of a theme for some of the for some of the murders, especially in the Hollywood scene. It’s like all these people that don’t have a lot of rules on them. and start to overreach and do things like Wojtek Furkowski thinking that he can like rape a drug dealer and just go about his merry way.

Nikolas: And rip people off and whatever. This is something that I think is it happened in the 60s that that ethical and moral compass deteriorated to the point where where let it all hang out became do anything to anybody with and not fearing the consequences. And then it becomes a very thin line between crime and revolution. And I think there was a confusion between that, between freedom and criminality. And Charlie played on that, and I think he sincerely believed it too. Like, okay, we’re against the establishment, so it’s a revolutionary act to break all their rules and to rip off the man and to, you know, so.

Paul: Right, and that’s why the, sorry.

Nikolas: Yeah, go ahead.

Paul: That’s why there was a bunch of revolutionaries who were kind of, well, revolutionaries and stuff who were kind of drawn to him after the fact, even though they were kind of looking at it wrong.

Nikolas: Well, yeah, and if we get into the political thing in the next part, I mean, people would like to forget on the left that Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were very enthusiastic supporters of Charlie. Abby Hoffman and his wife went to visit the girls at the ranch to support them during the trial. Jerry Rubin went to the prison and visited Charlie, and I write about it in the book, in a mainstream book, praised Charlie highly. I’m sure he was cringing after he was convicted. But people would like to forget that the weathermen supported the murders. You know, Bernadine Dorn, one of the most prominent left-wing radical leaders came out and supported the murders and said they, you know, far out, they killed those rich pigs and stuck a fork in them. So that has all been covered up. The radical left wing of the counterculture, which by no means was it all left, but that wing definitely were pro-Manson. At this weatherman convention, these people were saying Manson power, and had a picture of Sharon Tate on the wall at this meeting that was called the Wargasm Meeting. I believe it was held in Detroit, as if Sharon Tate is like the symbol of capitalist, fascist oppression. And then years later, you had neo-Nazis supporting Charlie with the same enthusiasm as Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies did. So he was a polarizing force that every extreme could find something in.

Paul: Oh, and he’s still used in Met to sell magazines, to do all sorts of stuff. It’s like he’s not, he has gone so far beyond being a person that somebody, anybody, like he could find something in him to be able to put him up as a poster boy.

Nikolas: Right. And imagine being that person and trying to figure out who you are yourself. Imagine waking up every day and you’re everything to everybody. How do you know who you are? And I think he was quite honest about not knowing.

Paul: Right. All right. Well, that’ll do it for part one. We’re at our time here as well.

Nikolas: Well, I’m not coming back after that for part two.

Paul: No. All right. Well, this has been our one part.

Nikolas: You can cut it into two parts, but I’m sure the hell I’m not coming back for more.

Paul: Yeah, yeah. Awesome. All right. So we’ll we’ll stop this now and then we’ll come back. Nicholas Schreck might be with us.

Nikolas: We’ll see. We’ll see. I’ll roll. I’ll roll a dime and see what happens.

Paul: All right.

Nikolas: So there’ll be a little bit of suspense and we’ll see if I come back or not.

Paul: Yeah. Perfect. All right. Thank you. We’ll talk to you in a few.

Nikolas: Thank you. Thank you for all of you for listening and we may or may not see you soon.

##### Part II

The Nikolas Schreck Channel

May 13, 2022

Nikolas Schreck is interviewed by The Paulcast on the Manson File, April 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIwxi4UUA_Y

Paul: Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Manson Saga discussion panel with me. Paul over there is Danny after dark and we are joined again by Nicholas Street. He did in fact come back.

Nikolas: Well, after the little private conversation and the arrangement we made, I think the conditions are satisfactory.

Paul: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, perfect. All right.

Nikolas: You know, you know what to do.

Paul: Yeah. Oh, man, I’ll never snitch.

Nikolas: That’s what they all say.

Paul: No, right. All right. Danny, do you want to just dive right into her?

Danny: Yeah. So in in Chapter 5, the Outlaw you quoted GAIL Zappa and Michael Walkers, Laurel Canyon quote, if you were surprised by the Manson murders, you weren’t connected to what was going on on the Canyon period. Can you explain that quote and why Gail’s Appa made that statement?

Nikolas: Well, I don’t know exactly, but I can tell you I talked to Gail’s app. And she confirmed that she had met Charlie at the Whiskey a go go when she was the booking agent at the Whiskey Agogo before she married Frank Zappa, and she worked with Mario Maglieri and Elmer Valentine. Who were these mobsters that own the whiskey agogo? And so she met him. Early on. And as a character on the music scene, and then later he got involved with Frank Zappa, musically went over there and jammed with Frank Zappa. She also knew Bobby Bosley and independently, a lot of people knew Bosley and Charlie separately as two different characters in the Hollywood. Music scene.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: But girls, Zappa, you know, she said that. There were so many of these entourages, including her own, including including the group around Frank Zappa. There were all these little entourages around charismatic men, for the most part, all of them with their. You know, ideology and their their message and there were so many of them. And then of course, there was drug dealing and. Big money being exchanged so nobody was surprised by what happened. None of those people, none of you know the way that it’s presented to the general public by the official narrative. These people were so hard. Celebrities were horrified that maybe they’re going after celebrities. No, the people.

Paul: Right. I think that’s big.

Nikolas: In Beverly Hills and Bel Air and all over LA who were involved in the narcotics trafficking were terrified that a whole bunch of drug dealers were killed.

Paul: Right. Yeah. And I think that’s really important.

Nikolas: Gary, I mean, people already knew you have to remember, these people knew who, Bernard. Crowe was Terry Melcher and Dennis Wilson and Greg Jacobson knew who he was. Mama Cass knew who he was, so OK, this guy is shot. Gary Hinman. Dennis Wilson had dealings with. He’s dead. So this is a chain of fear coming. And then.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Sea bring in for Kowski, where everyone in the Hollywood scene knows what is happening at Cielo Dr it’s it’s not even a secret. You know, it’s a joke to pretend it’s a secret. Everyone knows what’s happening. They’re dead. Of course. People are terrified that.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: They are the people who have burnt people, the people involved in drug deals. They were terrified. That’s and that’s why Polanski’s friend Richard Silbert, the art designer for Rosemary’s baby, he’s made this famous statement to Newsweek, toilets were flushing all over Beverly Hills. Now, if that was said in August, a few days after the murders, why would a close friend of Roman Polanski say that if he doesn’t know exactly what it’s? Well, they’re, you know, among those people, it wasn’t a mystery what happened. It was a mystery. Maybe. Who did it because there were so many culprits. And because life like Burkowski was such an *******. So many people hated him, and Sebring was so much in debt was such a loud mouth.

Paul: Right. Right.

Nikolas: And in gossip, there were plenty of people who had, and had all these mob connections to Sinatra and others. It’s more a guessing game who did it, but not why.

Paul: Right. And and it’s interesting that you mentioned about the toilets flushing everywhere because we listened to you mentioned in your book about Amos Russell. The the.

Nikolas: The Butler, the Butler for Jay Sebring. Yeah, he wasn’t. He was. He called himself a Butler, but he was a. He did everything. He was a handy man. He was his social secretary. He did everything he he was a Jack of all trades. But he called him Snow Butler.

Paul: The Butler for Jason bring. Right and. So he says that two women came, yeah.

Nikolas: Because one one point, Winifred Chapman also was the maid for Sebring, so there were other people there, you know, with the they shared.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Nikolas: The Polanski’s maid also went over to Sebrings to clean up. So yeah, so Amos Russell was. Anyway, he was his valet. His everything.

Paul: OK, that’s interesting. Right. And he says in his when he’s being interviewed by the police, that two women came by. Now in your book you you name one of the women that he didn’t know the name of.

Unknown Speaker: M.

Paul: And the other one was, he says, Miss Charlene, who we’re assuming is Charlene McCaffrey.

Nikolas: She is Charlene McCaffrey, who is for people who may not know. The receptionist at Sebring International, but more importantly.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: The girlfriend of Joel Rostow, one of the major drug dealers to the Stars who had been robbed in a. Home invasion, exactly like what happened at. Cielo drive in April, April 15th, I believe. Not sure of the date. I think it was April 15th. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m ever. Wrong.

Paul: OK.

Nikolas: I think they’re so friendly in that way that. Joel Rostow and her were at his apartment and. They were robbed of their drugs. Someone came in with a gun. Two men and robbed them of the drugs. Well, that was Tex. And Tex was already robbing people’s drugs. And what did he do with that? He tied their hands together. He said. Where’s the stuff he ran? He took the drugs and he accident. And this is typical of the whole.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Chaos of this whole criminal constellation, he ended up shooting Ross down in the foot. And. The neighbours heard it and texts and whoever he was with, I don’t know. And actually this was one of the points, Charlie corrected. I had written in the 2011 based on erroneous information that I corrected that it was Bruce Davis who went with Tech to do that. Charlie’s interest. Now, Charlie, when I asked him in 2008. About the this rostyle robbery. I said to him, are you telling me text didn’t say to you we robbed this mob guy and he’s probably going to be angry at us. And Charlie, I quote this in the book 2 times in his life. He did this weird, very formal way of talking. And like another voice like he was possessed. By a lawyer, he said. I am not obliged to talk about this at that at this time like some like some consiglieri whispered it in his ear on. To me, that said, yeah, of course I did.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: But he didn’t want to talk, but he then later said it wasn’t Bruce Davis. So.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: You don’t know about it, but you know who it wasn’t. And I’ve had quite a I’ve had quite a few conversations like that. I don’t know anything about that except it was a blue Toyota. It wasn’t a green Volvo.

Paul: So how did? Yeah.

Nikolas: So that was a giveaway that of course he did know. So he said that wasn’t. Bruce Davis turned out to be true. It couldn’t have been because he was in England at that time. So.

Paul: OK. Interesting.

Nikolas: So now Charlene McCaffrey and Rostow were robbed. And she knew all of.

Paul: Right. How did you find out it was text. Sorry to interrupt, but I was curious how the information came out that it was texts that robbed them.

Nikolas: Susan Atkins told another. Person that she was in prison that these robberies had gone on long before.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Nikolas: And and then another source, who I can’t reveal, also said that they knew that Tex was robbing people going back to 1968 like a year before the crimes. So that comes from.

Paul: Interesting, yeah. Sorry, I was going to just say, yeah, we were. We were going to get into Texas history of robbing, robbing, Robbie and yeah.

Nikolas: Well, Robert, well, the thing the important thing there is, Charlie said always that the reason text came, he met him at Dennis Wilson’s and then they hadn’t seen each other for a while. And then he contacted him and came to the ranch with Dean Moorhouse. And Charlie specifically said, I don’t know what this is, that he had robbed a prostitute and that he had been involved in a drug burn where he had robbed a drug dealer and he was hiding out. That’s why he went to the spawn ranch and Charlie said that he in in retrospect, he he let him move into the ranch for the trade of a 1935 truck that Charlie liked.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: And and Charlie said he, in retrospect, he regretted for he just wanted the truck. He didn’t like tax particularly. He didn’t even want him to be involved with the group because he did not trust him and said this was someone known for ripping people off and drug burns.

Paul: Right. So no wonder it brought down.

Nikolas: You know, so, so, so this is what this was. What Tex Watson’s MO was was robbing drug dealers. And as Susan Atkins says, tellingly, in her myth of Helter Skelter book, if you Rob, why does she say it? But she does. In her book, if you Rob a drug dealer, they’re not going to call the cops for the Better Business Bureau.

Paul: A bunch of meat.

Nikolas: And that this was Texas, MO, from the beginning, from the very beginning, so.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Yeah, so Charlene McCaffrey went back to Sebrings under Steve Mcqueen’s supervision, Steve McQueen, who is one of Jay Sebring’s best friends, did not, as far as I know, I could be proven wrong. Tomorrow there could be a photograph of him in Sebring’s house. I don’t know, supposedly drove up and down. The street supervising people going in to take to get stuff out of Sebring’s house before the cops came and the queen knew about the murders before the cops did so.

Paul: I was thinking what what sparked my my memory about that question in particular was talking about the toilets flushing all over LA and everyone getting stoned. Amos Russell had said that he didn’t know. This and it could just be him saying it, but he said that he didn’t notice anybody taking anything out of the house. Do you think it was just a disposal run so they would have not been? Under.

Nikolas: Who? I know. I I I don’t like to speculate, you know? I mean, most Russell did. I heard Charlene McCaffrey was one of the people sent. She was deeply connected to the drug dealing and the narcotics through Joel Roskell.

Paul: Who knows? Right.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah.

Nikolas: What other reason would there be to go there to quickly go in? Amos Russell said she was kind of nervous, like.

Unknown Speaker: Right. MHM.

Nikolas: You know, and of course I’m thinking most wrestlers to a certain degree is also protecting the reputation of his employer. Sure, sure.

Paul: And it’s.

Nikolas: But he knew he he heard that. You see, this was the reason, as I point out in the book, he was not used as a witness. Leo. She didn’t call on him to tell us about the people who came over to clear out Sebring’s house and who did? Who told Amos Russell something happened to Mr. J.

Unknown Speaker: No.

Nikolas: We don’t know, but he knew it well before the cops.

Paul: Right. Yeah, it’s that’s one of those ones where it’s total missed opportunity for any sort.

Nikolas: No.

Paul: Of tree mountain.

Nikolas: And then and I do know who the other woman was, I have discovered who she was. As I explained in the 2011 edition, I knew her first name, but I spelled it wrong, and once I got the spelling right, then I figured out exactly who it was. A young woman who lived with Tate and Polanski at CL. Drive, a young Polish actress who was under, let’s say, euphemistically under Romano’s wing. You know, as you guide as he guided her.

Danny: OK.

Paul: So to speak.

Nikolas: Yeah, so to speak, as he guided her in her Hollywood career. And she’s mentioned in the Earl Deemer interview with him, and it’s clear that Deemer knows something about that. There’s a lot of questions. Deemer asks if you know what really happened. It’s clear he’s probing Polanski about issues. I’m. I’m digressing a bit.

Danny: I bet you do.

Nikolas: For. Instance Polanski pretends he never met Vitold Kay. I know for a fact, Gene Gutowski told me he met him the night before and when he got to LA, that Vitold Kays, who panicky and anxiety ridden, told them this was a drug deal. Boy Tech was stealing drugs. People came over to the house. He called me. This is what you have to know. So.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Deemer is pushing Polanski, and Polanski lies to him in this interview. He says I never met him. I’ve heard about him. I. But he did meet him and he even came to Paramount for this meeting. That was held in Paramount and Julie Andrews dressing room so. You know, Deemer clearly knew who this other woman was, and I did not mention her name because she’s very prominent and very wealthy now, but you can figure it out if you want to. If you put two and two, you easily can figure out who she is.

Paul: Right. OK. I’m going to. I’m going to kind of switch gears quick because. In the last one I didn’t get to ask you a couple questions. I wanted to about the book itself. Now I’ve gotten, luckily enough. Thank you very much. You, you you forwarded us to 1 of.

Nikolas: Yeah.

Paul: The. The Manson file, the pre, the pre.

Nikolas: Right.

Paul: And. It’s put together like just like because I’m a I’m a fan of your music. I like the. I like the way you put stuff together. It all feels very intentional and with the way that this is put together, you’ve said before that this is a book about Manson and everything surrounding him. And so you broke it up into different chapters. The Chapter 0 is my life with the thrill.

Unknown Speaker: MHM.

Paul: Phil Cult, then the philosopher the Minstrel, the wizard, the Beverly hillbilly, the outlaw, the revolutionary and the soul for sale. Can you talk a bit about the importance of how you put this together and what these different facts, these different chapters, how they represent the man himself?

Nikolas: Mm-hmm. Well, people who have read the 2011 edition will realise this is the same exact chapter order as was there one major chunk that I added. And. In a way, it was an advantage that we stopped printing it in 2014 after Charlie came to me with all these revisions and corrections and I realised to my horror that I had to keep doing this. I added because everyone asks about it. What was the 1st chapter? My life with the three or?

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Chapter 0. My life with the thrill kill called is specifically answering the two questions I’m asked most. What was Charlie like? And I for the and in the other editions I got into it, but this is more of a personal.

Unknown Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Nikolas: Explanation of my I think it’s very important that people know before they even read all this. Who is the person that I know? I didn’t know this cult leader that most people think they know. I didn’t know that person because he doesn’t exist. So I think it was very important to set in context. This is this complicated.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Human being that. I knew.

Unknown Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Nikolas: And so therefore, this person who did these things was this person, not the person. You may think he was. So that was important. And then secondly, how did I get into it? Is the question people ask me every single day what you know? And I, as I said in the book, kind of with the same tone that you ask a lunatic like. When did this begin? You know when they’re laying on the couch and.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.

Nikolas: So I answer those questions in great detail and get into a bit more biographically. How I was drawn into it, these bizarre connections to the case and how, as I said, I fell down the rabbit hole of this thing when I was very young. So that’s that is all completely new material of the Chapter 0. And then the other chapters, the the way I designed the book. Was. Of course, of course, the crimes are brought up immediately in the preface, but I have to accentuate to anyone interested. Don’t get this book if you think it’s a true crime book, because you will be bored out of your mind reading about Manson’s music in detail about his philosophy. About his political ideas about his ecological ideas about. You know everything about the entire person, because to me, you know, there is nothing intrinsically interesting about these crimes. They are exactly like the Wonderland murders. They’re just another grubby. I mean, they’re mysterious because they’ve been so covered up. What is interesting about them is the degree of powerful people.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Who have spent decades concealing what happened.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: And not doing a very good job of it, you know, not not. It’s not a masterful conspiracy. It’s a bunch of different people protecting their ***** from different vested interests. But not all working together and sometimes working against each other. As I point out in the book, it wasn’t this grand Illuminati conspiracy. It’s actually pretty flimsy. And if you take a little time, you can quickly look through the lies. So.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: So it’s not I I wanna, you know, caveat emptor. This is not a true crime book. And if you just want to go over forensic evidence of stab wounds, I don’t do that. That’s this is about. This is about this person. I got to know because I said, do you want to put out this record? And I got to know him and it led to this. It snowballed. Into this so.

Paul: Kind of turned into the the real Manson in his own words.

Nikolas: Well, that was that. Yeah. Well, that as, as I’ve said before, Charlie, originally, I wouldn’t have even written the the first book, the 1st edition I was putting together a book about his philosophy. And as I mentioned in this book, after the 1988 edition came out and did very well and he really liked it.

Paul: Is a lot of.

Nikolas: And tried to get at other prisoners, which is a sign of how much he liked it because he didn’t take. Normal civilians were not even human. To him, prisoners and the underworld were the people he respected, and so he wanted to get it. And then I mentioned in the book that he had an idea to do a follow up called the mind of Manson and he had a very specific I describe it a way he wanted the cover to be and what it would be. And a lot of that. That we worked on but didn’t do became the wizard, which is a chapter about his spiritual. Influences, practises, philosophy and everything to do with his metaphysical beliefs, which to me, along with his music, is by far the most important thing about him. The least important thing about him to me is that he was an accessory to this rather squalid drug deal series of murders that his friends got involved with, you know, and in no way do I mitigate his guilt. You’ve read it. Is there any point at which I say he’s innocent or unjust person?

Paul: Right. Right. No, that’s it. And that’s a big that’s a huge misnomer for this, for this whole thing is that. I mean you you put in here everything there’s you put in here that. Yeah, he was. He’s culpable for it. Of course he was. He was criminal and but you don’t just leave it at that which I think is is interesting. And one of one thing just kind of a random question to do with I believe it’s the wizard chapter. You talk about him being him being like a shaman, and you’ve called this myth and reality of an outlaw shaman. But I didn’t realise quite. What a shaman was and how there was sort of a a criminality to that as well, or sort of an underworld bit to being a shaman. Can you briefly explain that just to?

Nikolas: Yeah, well, there can be. I mean, the new age movement has kind of misinterpreted and romanticised as shaman, but when I went to Mexico myself in search of them when I was very young and looking for psychedelic drugs directly from shamanic traditions rather than.

Unknown Speaker: MMM.

Nikolas: The western way of doing it, there were some fans who had spiritual abilities and wisdom and who I say in the book would cut your throat for 15 pesos.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: They had wisdom and. In tribal cultures all around the world, shaman actually the word comes from a Siberian root word. But because of anthropologists like Mercea Eliade, who studied shamanism, the word has come to be used universally for the witch doctor, the curandero the the tribal. Spiritual guide, but Shaman is actually it’s from Siberia. Yeah. Charlie, was that I believe that’s what he was. You you are born to be a shaman or you’re not. And if he was in a tribal society, that’s what he would have. Been. His speaking in tongues, his oracular veiled way of communicating truths, all of that, and his connection with nature. His. Feeling that spirits came into him and spoke through him, which he sincerely believed and which I believe. But that doesn’t mean that you’re a good person. And I think a lot of new age people think ohh. But he was a mean, you know, murderous, etcetera. Yeah. But so shamans are used to do black magic and tribal society.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: They are experts in how to kill people through sorcery, and these are things Charlie was very interested in too. Is using them like he said many times. You know, I don’t need a weapon. I do it with my mind. So he, you know, people think I’m crazy to say. How could he be a shaman? And also, as I point out in the book, he was a shaman in potentia. He never had the training. He never, you know it. It’s a traditional thing. You need to be trained, but a lot of his problems in life, I believe, were because that’s what he was and he never got to become that, you see. So he had the spiritual gift.

Paul: Right, yeah.

Nikolas: Like he had a musical gift and he he frankly he squandered both of them. In my opinion it’s a tragedy. He had wisdom. He had spiritual understanding on a very high level, but he had this other side of him.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Money and greed and crime and immediately gravitating to that and his music. I and I’ve you can hear me. I said it to him. I was drawn to your creative side, not your destructive side. And I never made any bones about that. And I never did get into his. Final pursuits, which he constantly tried to drag me into as he did with everyone he knew and. Did that happen on the ranch? Sure, I can see it. Obviously it did. He tried to do it with me 100 times.

Paul: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that’s yeah, yeah.

Nikolas: You know, and I mean, and when you say did he did he manipulate people to do things? It just came naturally, like I described my first meeting with new lemons. I hardly knew Charlie. And he’s saying, you know, go to Channel 5 and tell new lemons this now. A weak person who’s looking for a father figure and a leader, which I’m not looking for would say yes, Charlie, you know, and you listen to many of these conversations that people have with Charlie. You know that he, you know, he’s saying you know, so the pyramids are built by Theodore Roosevelt. And I went down to the submarine in 1922. And you ************ didn’t even know about the whole finances of what was going on in that particular situation. And then. And someone will say yes, Charlie. Yes. And then, but I would ask him. Well, wait, what do you mean? By the are you saying this? Are you saying that so I tried to understand what he was saying and he would then.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: You know, like he would often say you people did this to me and I’d say I’d. Well, I didn’t do anything to you. Leave me out of it. And he’d say, well, and then he’d go in another voice like this was the person who was dictating to the Manson character. He’d say no, man, I’m. I’m saying you people like I’m you are the world but I’m you know. Like he would back off from that persona to explain it if you gave him time. 2 Now very few people did that. No, like his sycophants and his fans. Just yes, Charlie. Yes, Charlie. And I don’t know what the hell he’s saying or care. And then his detractors are. Let’s get back to the murders. When? When? Why did you hypnotise these people to start a race war? So. So either way.

Paul: Sure. Yeah.

Nikolas: That if you took your time with him and that well, wait, what do you mean by that? Because you said here this and it doesn’t quite and he would take the time to explain it.

Paul: Right. OK.

Nikolas: And he would often say, you know, to everyone, like, does that communicate to you? Do you know what I mean? Because he felt like he wasn’t being understood and.

Paul: Yeah.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: You know, so I tried to decipher what he was saying, but you had to ask him.

Paul: Right. Yeah and.

Nikolas: If you just let him ramble and rant, he would go on for 10 hours and you know, like 1. Funny thing he said to me, which I’ve said before, he said, you know, we’ve got a problem in communication. You keep trying to say something.

Paul: ******* perfect. OK, so we’ve we’ve gone through a couple more of these. Of these questions you you went a little bit into because we we bounced back, but you went a little bit into Joel Ross. Now. Switching gears again and Joel Rostow and Gino Massaro are two very important people in this that I didn’t hear about until I really started looking into it. They’re another couple people left off. The main thing. So can you. Briefly explain who they are and what they have to do with this other than what you’ve said about him being a drug dealer and being ripped off by tax.

Nikolas: Right. Well, Joe Rostow was a a low level mafia connected guy from Boston, which is interestingly, where Linda Kasabian came from. I don’t have any reason to think they had a connection that they certainly might have because they were in the same world. They were both dealing acid in Boston. And in Los Angeles, so like the Canadian connection. Like you there, there’s a Canadian connection to this crime. Ian Quarrier and the whole Canadian contention of drug dealers bringing the MDA to boy Tech Frankowski. There’s also a Boston thing of the Kasabian ANS and Joel Rostow coming to LA acid dealers.

Paul: Mm-hmm.

Nikolas: Coming Valley, so Joel Roskell was the crime partner of Genome Massa. Wow. Right. Another, much more deeply involved mob guy. Although Rostow had connections to various so-called syndicates and families, he worked for several in New England, New Jersey and a few others. And in New York City. And I’m not going to get into it, but the book gets into great detail. On this mafia scam, huge thing of. Stealing valuables and money at JFK Airport, which Joel Rossdale was very much a part of.

Paul: And where he was found dead coincidentally.

Unknown Speaker: Good.

Nikolas: Where? Well, where he was beaten to death and left in a in the back of a car with blood pouring out of it. That the cops found in his underwear with his head beaten in right before the trial. Began.

Paul: Wow.

Nikolas: Yeah. Now the most likely person to have killed him is his crime partner, Gino Massaro, who was in possession of Rostam’s gun when the police came to interrogate him. He was never convicted now.

Unknown Speaker: And.

Nikolas: To get into genome masaro. Very briefly, because that’s a whole show in itself, as you well know and have probably handled in Texas memoir, which is a transcription of the legendary and much hyped text tapes. Well, that that book will you die for me, Reverend Hoekstra, this scammy?

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Nikolas: Christian evangelist who tried to make a reputation by getting infamous criminals to become born again Christians he had access to the tech tapes and in. Will you die for me? Text writes this casual comment that the families. Mafia vending machine connection is who? Bernard? You know theoretically was who he was fronting this money. That was that that he stole from Crow. That in other words, he was going to go buy this amount of weed for 2000. Something bucks that he took, stole from Crow and Kroner. And was going to pay our this mafia vending machine. Well, the best way to understand this. Look at the Manson Mythos blog. Dennis La Calandra has done incredible precise, detailed research proving that genome Massaro was indeed, we knew he was connected to a vending machine. Operation from the FBI report, which has been common knowledge for quite some time. Time. But if go to the Manson Mythos blog and you will see that Dennis has gone deeply into the history of this vending machine company Disco Mat, which was a front for a major New England narcotics operation run by by Patriarcha, who was the head. The feared head of the New England Syndicate and Massaro was on the board of that. Group. And Charlie, I mean, so you really got to look at this research, it’s incredible what it absolutely shows that disco mat, this vending machine operation was part of a major narcotics operation. And if I haven’t made myself clear enough, that’s what. This whole thing is about is there was a major international drug dealing ring on the highest level, not just St criminals. But what we saw at Cielo Dr was like the curtain opened for a second and you got a flash. And you saw a little bit, but everything beyond it, it ties in to disco map, genome Massaro, Joel Rossdale. And these major drug dealers and one thing I want to point out about masaro in the book.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: I just there is if if anyone doubts that Tex Watson knew genome masaro, this is proof that they were in the same world. In 1968, there was a robbery exactly like what Tex did to Rostow and Mccaffery exactly like what Tex did to Sebring and Frankowski exactly like, you know what? Texas MO Gino Massaro dressed up in a police uniform with several other. Criminal associates and raw and broke into another criminal’s apartment house and said where’s the stuff exactly like Tex did with Joel Rossdale. And they were trying to rob cocaine and they were trying to avenge themselves on another burn. Too complicated to explain here. But this endless cycle of burns and drug deals.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Genome masaro.

Paul: People trying to get one over on each other.

Nikolas: Right, right. And that’s all that happened with Cielo. That’s that’s what that was about. Genome Masaro was shot.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Almost fatally, during this break in. And someone who was in the house was a guy named Ivars Opinicus, which is an extremely unique name. I believe there’s only one on the planet and. Ivar’s Apinis was later directly connected to Tex Watson’s lawyers. Deloach and walson. And if you don’t know who those two people are, they showed up after Tex was arrested in McKinney, TX. They showed up in Dallas and said we are Tex Watson’s lawyers and we’re here to represent him and the judge said get the hell out of here, Tech said. I don’t want to see them. People. Well, they were later disbarred for major narcotics trafficking, pimping, running, massage parlours that were warehouses, all kinds of crimes. They were very high level criminals and they knew techs since 1968. And and had worked with him so.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Here’s the smoking gun. When Ivar’s appendicitis, this guy who you will remember, was involved in the break in and shooting that Massaro was involved in, Ivar’s Upper Netis was arrested in the 70s for flying a plane filled with cocaine from South America. Major drug dealing. This is not just Bernard. Pro on the street corner, this is a major, very well funded, sophisticated narcotics trafficking organise. Ivar Zapp Unitis was working with Walshin and Deloach so that is a direct connection and I called him. I tracked him down and I called him and when he had called him he was immediately hostile to me. Although he didn’t even know who it was, immediately hostile, I said, as I often did to get into peoples to because if you say the M word. The phones down immediately for the most part.

Paul: Right, yeah.

Nikolas: And if it isn’t, it’s probably a ******** artist who the most anyone who enthusiastically wants to come forward and tell you something is usually lying. It’s the people who don’t want to talk to you that you want to talk to you. So I said, well, I’m work. I’m working on a book on the music industry in the late 60s, which is vaguely true, kind of.

Unknown Speaker: Hmm.

Paul: Right. Right. Sure there’s there’s reference.

Nikolas: Yeah. And he said, yeah, like, he didn’t believe. Yeah. And and I said, can I ask you some questions because I had seen an FBI and when I said FBI, he cut me off at port, he said I don’t have anything to say to you, you know, don’t I have nothing to say to you? I say, can I? And I always try this. Can I ask you one question? And now he’s even angrier. And he says. 1. And I say, how well did you know Charles Watson and Gino Massaro? And he said, are you ever call me again? You’re dead and hung up on me.

Paul: Jesus.

Nikolas: So now if I was him, I’d say, you know, that was 50 something years ago. I I really don’t remember those names. Sorry. Right. But he was angry. I think nobody had mentioned this to him and he is an absolute link between Tex, Watson’s criminal drug dealing lawyers who have a long history of drug dealing. And Geno Masaro, which connects it to Rochdale and then we get into Horn. Ave.

Paul: Which is exactly what I was going to say. There’s another connection of people because Horn Ave with like you were saying, the department that has to do with lots of Papa. It also has to do with Gino Massaro and and Joel Ross staff if you want to just expand on that a little bit and say what you know.

Nikolas: And Joe ruffino. It’s it’s, it’s in, it’s in the book for pages. I have a chapter called Horn. You know about Horn. And and I get back to it again and again.

Paul: No.

Nikolas: It’s it would be too detailed to get into here, but. Let’s put it this way. Joel Rostow, who delivered drugs to Cielo, Drive to Sebring. The Knight of the murders, who is the girlfriend? I mean the the boyfriend of Charlene McCaffrey. JC brings receptionist. Has a criminal operation going on at Horne Ave in another apartment? Bernard Crowe. Who Charlie shot and who cheques Watson ripped off at Rosina Kroners apartment on Franklin is running another sophisticated criminal operation in the same building, and they’re very similar. They’re making fake ID’s and, you know, not blue collar crime, not drug dealing, but. You know, fake passports and this kind of thing. Fake credit cards, which is interesting because.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Charlie’s commune survived on fake credit cards and credit card scams of every kind, so you got two people that no one ever thought of being connected there. And as I explained in the book on the day of the murders.

Danny: Right.

Nikolas: For Kowski is asked by Sebring to take a young woman who supposedly is Sebring’s last conquest, Susan Peterson to drop her off. Where? That very St a very short St Horn in near Sunset Blvd, which I used to go by a million times because the old sunset on sunset strip the tower records the legendary tower records was there. It’s right there. It’s an incredibly short St.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Paul: Right. It’s around the go. Go. It’s around everywhere.

Nikolas: And. It’s. Yeah, it’s right in the centre of everything that Charlie was. So you’ve got you’ve got Rosstown Crow running criminal operations on a very short St that Perkowski goes to drop off 1 of Sebring’s girlfriend on the same St and you got Diane Linkletter living in the house across the way. But. And you can look this up in the police reports.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Bobby Jamieson. A singer-songwriter, a little bit like Charlie, who was considered to be he’s going to be the next big thing. And he had a bad temperament and really didn’t get along with people. Bobby Jameson, who appeared by the way with in the film Mondo Hollywood that has Sebring and both soley in it. And that’s a whole other thing. How did Sebring and Boselli get into that movie? I found that out.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: You’ve got this cluster of people Diane Linkletter supposedly killed herself by jumping out of the window across the street from that same building where Crow and Rockdale are. But she’s with edgerston. Who was connect was believed by the police to be one of the suspects at Cielo Drive. And her boyfriend, living in Horn Ave, was a guy named Harvey Darif, and several people said, including the police who interviewed them was delivering drugs to Cielo Dr that night. Do you fully conceive this tiny St? All of these people are connected on that one St.

Danny: All right.

Nikolas: Finally. If that’s not enough to be suspicious and make you think this is the network from which all of it came, which seems very likely to me.

Unknown Speaker: Hmm.

Nikolas: You also have wided text. And this is something one of the major things Charlie corrected about. My 2011 edition was I had based it on what I’d heard that they took, that they succeeded at Cielo drive to get a lot of drug. Charlie was adamant that it failed in some way. I don’t know why and that what happened the next night was contingent on some failure. I I can’t define it more than that. Something went wrong.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: They didn’t get enough money. They didn’t get enough drugs and he said now. I’ve said this commonly enough. I think people know that. Charlie told me that. He he took money from the La Biancas. That was the purpose of that whole thing. Whatever other motives may be, and whatever connections there are, which I get into all of that in the book the ultimate.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah.

Nikolas: It. Goal was to rob them and he took money to the straight Satans to pay the straight satans off in Venice because they were extorting him. About Beausoleil and Crow, which they knew about.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: What he implied when I, well, OK and I tried to get more details and I it makes me again wonder, what did he do when he went back? Did he look for drugs?

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Another thing I wonder did he know there were films there that he took? That’s completely speculative. I want to make that clear. But knowing Charlie, did he have other motives to go back alone or with one person? Because he often mentioned something obsessively, even he mentioned acid. In the LSD tabs in the refrigerator at Cielo drive. Did he see them? Did he take them? You know, again, that’s speculation, but.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: The point here is he implied. Whatever was taken from CLO was brought to somebody else exactly as he had brought. Money and what he said valuables to the straight satans. Well, where did text go?

Unknown Speaker: Hmm.

Nikolas: He didn’t go right back to spawn. He went to sunset to this gas station. Where’s that gas station? It was at the end of Horn. So is that an incredible coincidence that all of these things on one day happened for Coski Sebring’s girlfriend got places where Crow and Rostow and Linkletter and Gareth and Durston are all connected and the pistol resistance it’s in? The FBI report of Eugene Massaro, where did he move when he moved from Florida to California to that very apartment house on? 1.

Paul: Yeah, it’s incredible. That place is just a mystery wrapped in a Riddle wrapped like crazy.

Nikolas: So. But, but you know it, it’s never. It’s hardly been mentioned if you if you’re not an aficionado of the case, you wouldn’t even know about it. But it’s suspicious beyond belief now to why? Why is it connected? What was the connection? We don’t know. And I don’t pretend I know, but.

Danny: Right.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: If Charlie. Robbed the La Biancas to pay back. The straight satans. Is it possible? That Tex went there to pay back Crow or Rostow.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: He had had dealings with why did Crowe never retaliate for nearly being killed? It is very unusual in the underworld. Someone comes. Who? You know who it is. You know where they live. They come and nearly kill you. Usually there are repercussions.

Paul: Right, sure.

Nikolas: Why weren’t there? I’m only bringing up the idea. I don’t claim to know. Nor did Charlie even hint he just. Said whatever they took, they brought it to someone and it actually didn’t help them out too much. Therefore the next night.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Which was successful.

Paul: So 1.

Nikolas: Yeah.

Paul: Yeah. So one thing, Danny, if you want to to chime in the. You said that they might have been something they didn’t get something or whatever, and now there was a. Shortage. Of drugs for some reason, right?

Nikolas: Well, that’s another thing that definitely. Uh. Text said I want it when he called Sebring or Frankowski. I don’t know who I’ve heard different. I’ve heard so many stories about that. I don’t know if he called Frankowski or he called Sebring. I leaned towards Sebring to make an appointment. I’m going to come over with this amount of money. I want this more and a lot of people were doing that that night. This party that everyone was going to was dropping by to pick up drugs on a Friday night in Los Angeles. That’s what the party all these celebrities were going to was. There was no party. He made an arrangement and part of it was I want acid.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: And apparently Rostow did not bring the LSD that was needed. Now, Charlie says there was acid in the refrigerator. So again, there are conflicting reports in no way do I claim to know which of those is true, but that was. That’s what I’ve mostly heard is that there was an argument. OK, I want the acid and Sebring said, well, we don’t. I don’t have it. And Rostow apparently didn’t have it. And you were beginning with this a possibility. Me. That I have had raised and we can get into this, was that the connection that Joel Rostow said? I’ll be back with the acid, but he never came back. Was Rosemary la Bianca? That has been suggested and hinted at by 4 different people who are not connected with each other. I don’t know if it’s true, and I believe there are many other motives for the LA Bianca thing, but it bears bringing up. And the people who claimed that that was what went on. In a roundabout way, Verne Plumley, who is one of these rather unknown ordinary crooks AWOL military veteran who was a thief. And you know, basically just an ordinary crook on the ranch. He absolutely claimed that there was a direct connection in the drug dealing of La Bianca, that the LABIANCAS and the Tates, as he called them, had some kind of drug betrayal. He claimed very early on, that was what went on. I absolutely believe there is a connection between the two victims that the victims knew each other in some way.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Absolutely believe that and I believe the connection is Sebring and LA Bianca. It seems to have explained this even today in the Abraxas circle. Facebook group everything from many different angles points to people saying Sebring and La Bianca was the connection between these two crimes. Leno la Bianca.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: So the people who claim this, Susan Atkins, told. Women that she was involved with in prison, two different ones, that there was an argument text and Sebring that had something to do with the betrayal of the La Biancas directly. Ian quarrier. Who is this drug dealer? Very important to the case. We haven’t really even talked about him, but he. Is. Crucial to the whole case claimed that he knew everyone involved. He told a lot of people in this brief period after. The murders before he went totally crazy and was locked up in the famous Bedlam Insane Asylum in England that he knew everyone that he knew, all of them. He knew la biancas. He obviously knew Roman and Sharon and Sebring. He was there at the house often. He was there the day of the murders and he was possibly there. After the murder, so Quarrier is very important, he claimed. Rosemarie, la Bianca. He knew her and he lived near her through a drug dealing connection. Yeah. So. You know that these are all things that have to be, but, but I don’t know because I think there are many other reasons and motives for the law. Bianca thing, I don’t necessarily know that it was about drugs particularly. It could have been likely that it could have been, but there are many other factors.

Paul: Considering all the drug dealing things that were happening at the time. And how much?

Nikolas: Right, right. But an important thing is that Gypsy claimed and other people have too that.

Paul: Would make some sense.

Nikolas: And. La Bianca’s first wife Alice. Both confirm there was a break in at the lobby lancas the weekend before they were murdered. And they also were at Lake Isabella. Someone broke in then that was immediately after the Boselli killing. That yellow thing hadn’t happened yet, so another possibility they were already trying to get.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Money to either, and there were all these chaotic plans. Get a lawyer for Bobby, pay off the straight satans for some reason. They desperately needed money, so they were already targeting the labiancas a weekend before the CLO Dr murders. So that adds a whole other layer of mystery. The case so get into some of your questions, though. That’s enough digression.

Paul: Right.

Danny: I was gonna ask in regards to. Well, two questions. The timeline you’ve spoken about the timeline at CLO Drive and I was just wondering what you felt the series of events were that happened that night. And then also in the book you referenced some interesting revelations about Steve and parent. Can you talk about those?

Nikolas: It’s it’s so complicated. I’d rather people read the book about it because the timeline it’s you have, you have to see the. It’s like rushman this movie where you can look at it from different angles since two, OK, the first timeline I ever heard.

Danny: Sure.

Nikolas: Was Charlie said, and I forget sometime in the 8687. Period. There’s a guy getting out of San Quentin. He’s been here for years. I want you to meet him. He will tell you some things I can’t tell you. So I went to Northern California to meet this ex-con, who was like central casting ex-con. Tattoos buffed. Aryan Brotherhood moustache. Everything and very temperamental and seemingly ready to snap. At his second, I’m sure he was back in San Quentin within the week. Very friendly, very friendly, and very respectful of Charlie. And if Charlie said talk to me, he was very hospitable. Met him and he told me what he said, Charlie told him was the timeline. Which I explained in the. Book. I don’t know if it’s true. That’s what Charlie felt was necessary to have this. Have me go from LA to Northern California to meet a fellow inmate who he seemed to trust. Who said? Here’s what it is. And then I told Charlie on the phone. OK. That. So and so and he said, who? And I said, you know, and I I don’t know who you mean. And I said come on and and and he, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know anyone in that. And I got the point. And he did that kind of thing a few times, right? Whatever he was doing mind games or who knows, it was important enough for him to do that. And he never mentioned that again. That was the. First time I heard a timeline which I explained in the book so.

Danny: OK.

Nikolas: I’ve heard so many different versions of it I’m not complete. I would never say I think there are huge factors we don’t know. I’ve even. I mean, I’ve heard so many credible reports from people on the fringes of it all, and I don’t mention this in the book because I usually if I don’t have three different sources for something.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: I don’t have any reason to believe it to be true, and I don’t. I even heard that they went over first. Got into an argument about something. Left and came back that very. Night. Possibly you know, but I I can’t prove that. I heard that they came over a little bit earlier, got into an argument and then went back. But I didn’t, you know. So I’ve heard so many different explanations of the timeline. And as you will see in the book, one of them which Charlie. Didn’t deny, and usually there were points where he would say that this is wrong. From the 2011 book, he said this isn’t right. It was this or that or that’s not. Right. Right. And one story I heard was that they left in a panic, and that Abigail and Voytek were not dead yet.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: And that they that they and that they, they just panicked and assumed they were dead because they were so drugged and then came back and finished them off. That’s another thing that Sebring was not dead yet, that he was bleeding to death in the bushes and that they shot him later. And then that was the gunshot that one of the neighbours heard much later in the middle of the night.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: You know, there’s hundreds of factors to be considered, and after everything I’ve heard, I can only report. Here’s what I heard. Here’s. Yeah. But.

Danny: Yeah. What have you heard about undercover FBI agents? The Knight of Cielo, Dr and the lobby.

Nikolas: Yeah. Yes, this disgruntled FBI agent claimed that he.

Paul: I’ll be right back. I’m sorry. I just heard something crazy outside. I’ll be right back. Everything’s all good. Keep going.

Nikolas: OK, OK. All right, that’s how. Is anyone not going to think that’s mysterious? Well, we’ll never. We’ll never see him again, that’s for sure. That’s about the worst timing. In an interview I’ve ever seen. I think.

Danny: You know what, you can expect that for him. That’s why I’m here, Nicholas.

Nikolas: OK, right. Right, right. Well, we won’t admit that we know exactly what’s going to happen, and we arranged it. But anyway, we’re we’re we’re totally innocent of whatever may happen to Paul, so. So that’s weird. Your phone wires are cut. UM. Yeah. Where were we before?

Danny: The FBI undercover possible undercover FBI agent on the night of Seattle and La Bianca.

Nikolas: Yeah, they’re a disgruntled that’s the disgruntled FBI officer claimed to a source I believe to be reliable, that a lot of what was covered up was not because of some sinister plot, but because the FBI were watching Sebring and Rostyle and a sting operation was going to be done. Because of not the narcotics, but money laundering and something to do with this New York. JFK airport theft thing and other things that Rostow was involved in that they were following these people. And oh, they didn’t get him.

Paul: He was a close. You know what happened? Just a quick interlude.

Nikolas: Yeah.

Paul: 2 cats just rammed into my door that we’re fighting. I see an outside. I just look outside. There’s hair everywhere. I’m like.

Nikolas: Right. That’s that’s the way this thing is. Right.

Paul: That’s the way it goes, OK.

Nikolas: Yeah, no, that see that now there is a perfect example. If people don’t believe that this thing attracts uncanny energy, it absolutely. If you talk about it long enough, you be calling up demons in a few minutes. You know, so.

Paul: Literally scared the ****. Out of me. Just all of a sudden I’ve listened to you guys bang.

Nikolas: Well, that’s that’s a perfect example. That’s a perfect example of what I mentioned in the early part of the book, this element X, there is something it isn’t about secret societies or cult organisations. There is a metaphysical.

Paul: Yes.

Nikolas: Undercurrent to this thing that attracts mayhem and disorder of that kind and the perfect timing of that when we’re talking about why did these people come to this house? Yeah, you know it. Couldn’t be better so.

Paul: Something goes crazy and yeah.

Nikolas: Right, right. And there were 26 cats roaming around Cielo. Dr, of course, that’s. Other factor there were wild cats wandering around the property so.

Danny: Ohh, that sounds like a dream.

Nikolas: Yeah. I believe that a lot, some of them were. Candice Bergens left over, but I don’t I I don’t have a chapter about the cats of Cielo drive. Maybe. Maybe I’ll just just do the animals. Christopher the dog and.

Paul: Ohh, Nicholas, that’s that’s gonna be. Left for this one. Right. The animals of Cielo drive.

Nikolas: Sapperstein.

Danny: All right, I’ll give the book a four-star reading instead of A5.

Nikolas: OK, so anyway, yeah, the claim from a disgruntled FBI agent was that a lot of what was covered up was because of sheer embarrassment that they were. Right. Hanging around parked down the street. Listening to people that there was, that they were wired and they fell asleep on the job and these murders happened and supposedly will the police say absolutely the law biancas were also under surveillance? We don’t know for what reason or by whom, but it’s in the police report and, you know, I believe a.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: A lot of what was covered up is not only to do with the protecting of celebrity reputations, of sexuality and drug abuse, and obviously clear connection to crime in an underworld, but also sheer embarrassment. Of various law enforcement people who? We’re looking at Manson. We’re looking at Sebring. You know. The CIA contingent say Charlie was a CIA stooge, who they let him get away with everything. Well, Sebring was getting away with everything. Frankowski was getting away with everything. All of these people were indulging in open and flagrant criminality on a constant basis. Nobody. Drop them so you know. But I think that’s credible. I think it’s credible that a lot of the cover up has more to do with bureaucratic embarrassment at their incompetence at letting. Also, it would have blown this undercover operation if they got into it.

Danny: Is that how you feel Nixon got involved in the cover up?

Nikolas: Right, very often. I I don’t know. I you know, I I think that’s very important. That is crucial. The President of the United States was clearly asked to intervene to do what he did. And as I’ve said many times, and I quote it in the book, it’s not just that he. A lawyer, a very shrewd lawyer who never made a move without thinking of the political consequences of what he was doing and saying. And a criminal, you know, a very sophisticated criminal who was.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: At a point where he is telling his Hench men in the White House to go commit a burglary of the Brookings Institute, he happens to bring up. A year later, you know, and I’ve quoted it before, this is very important, he says. Well, they were so worried about that Manson thing sometimes.

Paul: Yep.

Nikolas: You know, I knew exactly what I was.

Unknown Speaker: Thing.

Nikolas: Sometimes you’ve got to win a case in the press, like with Alger Hiss, and that he’s talking about a a supposed Russian spy that he destroyed his reputation back in his earlier red baiting days. So it’s how crucial is that that the President of the United States. Is even thinking about the Manson case in the midst of ordering the Watergate burglaries that the Brookings Institute burglaries. And it’s on the secret tapes. And it’s it’s publicly available.

Paul: Right. Right now, chaos and Co, Intel pro, those things, seeing as we’re we’re talking CIA and stuff right now. Those were two things that were like, Co Intel Pro as FBI, CIA had chaos and it was both things to destabilise the. Left now it’s. I mean this is the perfect thing set up on some ladder.

Nikolas: I would, I would say also not only the left but the right. And I have seen in my own life with right wing extremist groups, people that I knew FBI sending infiltrators, Agent Provocateur. I’ve seen it first hand and I know that they do. That.

Paul: Right. So do you think that?

Nikolas: And bugging people, tracking them down. Encouraging violence to see who will do. It. That all I think that happened with the.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: For men and with a lot of. Left wing groups. As well.

Paul: So do you think that with the way that this all went down, that that has anything to do with the murders or just that it was sort of a happy little accident that all of a sudden this, this murder comes to light and the people that did it look like these hippies? You know, they’re trying to.

Nikolas: Well, what are you asking specifically? Do I think that intelligence agencies engineered these murders to stop the 60s or stop the hippie movement?

Paul: More just that, do you? Well, do you think that there was anybody in there who were provocateurs who are like, if they heard something? They’re like, yeah, we should. We should do this. Or do you think that because we know that Nixon knew about it? He said we knew what we. Were doing with the Madison.

Nikolas: I don’t, I don’t think Nixon knew about the spawn ranch or ever knew about any.

Paul: No, I I just made about the cake.

Nikolas: I mean, I I well, Irving Kanarek, who mostly talked nonsense in the trial Charlie’s defence lawyer.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: He says it right in the trial transcript. He says I cannot prove it, but I believe that evil younger this is a very controversial and brave thing to say at that moment, is who’s responsible for Nixon interfering? He says it in the trial on the record, and I believe that’s true.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Younger was a very close friend of Ronald Reagan, the then governor. Which is a whole other level, the Reagan involvement.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: So Irving Kanarek said it openly in the trial. I believe evil younger who is Vincent Bugliosi’s boss, who was known among his colleagues and friends the way that lawyers behind. Poliosis bat called them the bug younger was called Evil Younger. So I mean, he was known to be corrupt and barbaric and destructive. And so I think that.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: I don’t to to make it quite simple. I don’t believe the CIA or FBI or anyone planned the Cielo murders. This is putting the cart before the horse like all politicians, as we see in the culture wars in the United States today. Anything that happens is leaped upon.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: By partisan political parties to make their point.

Unknown Speaker: MHM.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: So of course, hippies, LSD, free love dropping out of society leads to killing pregnant women. That’s perfect for their propaganda. Did they make it happen? No, that’s absolute nonsense. I think it’s idiotic. You know, and it’s it’s assuming that intelligence agencies have capabilities and a competence that they have proven they don’t have.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: You know they’re.

Paul: Right. And how do you mean about that?

Nikolas: They’re they’re not. They’re not well, CIA is not spectre, you know. They, they, they failed a lot. We know a lot of their secrets. They, you know they they they didn’t know the Soviet Union was falling apart until it did. But they can control people’s minds and it’s just nonsense.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: I think that the CIA connection, which I made clear in the 2011 edition. Is with the Polish exiles, which makes perfect sense because during the Cold War, which people forget, the Cold War was happening in 1969, tension between the Soviet Union and their satellite States and the NATO nations was very tense.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Polish exiles are coming to California. And the FBI is definitely looking at them. And the CIA definitely talked to Jersey Kozinski, who is this writer who introduced? Voytek Frykowski to Abigail Folger in New York at his apartment jersey. Kaczynski, you can look up many people, believe him to be deeply connected to the CIA as an asset. They told Kay Gene Gutowski another thing people are going to jump on in my. Gene Gutowski was deeply involved with intelligence, and I don’t think it had anything to do with planning the crime, but one reason he was able to figure out what happened and who was where is he had state department connections, and since the end of World War 2, Roman Polanski’s friend Gutowski. Was. Brought in recruited into the OSS and Army intelligence because he could speak Polish. German. He could interrogate German officers and he was called the operator because he was so skillful.

Paul: No interest there.

Nikolas: People who believe in mind control and CIA when they read how deeply connected Gutowski always was. To intelligence are going to jump to wrong conclusions, but. The the the CIA connections are with Perkowski, with Jersey Kozinski. With the Why would they not be? Of course, intelligence agencies are going to say these are a bunch of foreigners from a hostile communist nation. Are they double agents? Who are they working for? What are they doing? And when the daughter of the Army intelligence officer ends up dead next to a Polish?

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Exile, who has a very murky and confusing background story. He claimed to be involved in the communist leadership and. His visa is not quite regular. The FBI and CIA definitely thought what is this? Is it a wet off? Is it an intelligence? They found it wasn’t, but they certainly looked into it. So. So there is a CIA connection, but it is totally explainable. It’s during the Cold War and you’ve got.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Foreign nationals from a hostile communist nation, which? To be expected, some of them would be double agents.

Paul: That’s why and we’ve spoken about before that it it takes a real knowledge of the times, the 60s and what was going on and like what’s happening with the CIA and what was happening with Hollywood.

Nikolas: Well, that’s that’s why. I spend a lot of time in in my book to set the times are crucial, and I mean one thing about the times I think is important to stress as I’ve compared it, not a metaphor. It’s an exact comparison. If you take the prohibition of alcohol in America.

Unknown Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Nikolas: That happened during the gangster period of Al Capone and that crime wave. The prohibition of alcohol led to the mob moving in on alcohol distribution, and it led to a wave of murders and violence all across America.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Out of that. Came Sidney Korshak, who was an associate of Al Capone. You know, and he and he moved to Hollywood and he took over Hollywood for his Chicago mob. He was the Chicago mobs man in Hollywood.

Paul: Alright.

Nikolas: What happened in 1969 started and I explained this in this chapter controlled substances. These were not the first hippie murders. It started in Haight Ashbury in 1966, when the federal government outlawed the sale of LSD and many other psychedelic drugs. They immediately became attractive to organised crime. And organised crime swooped in the distribution and people were killed very quickly after that happened and I get into the Super spade case and other very grotesque hippie murders in Haight Ashbury that occurred when Charlie and the commune were there.

Unknown Speaker: Right. Right.

Nikolas: And again, I’m supposed to be this great Manson apologist, Charlie told me many times, hinted that he had something to do. You. With Super Spades death with the death of this drug dealer, he hinted it to me to Paul Krassner to Ed Sanders and he in this writing he offered for the first Manson file, the black White bus. He describes A confrontation with a black drug dealer that he later told me was super state. So. You gotta look into Haight Ashbury. Already had. Very bizarre. Psychedelic. Drug murders happening Charlie and the commune leave and go to LA, and then they happen again. And what is that like? It’s it’s exactly like prohibition outlaws alcohol. The mob moves in, people get killed. 1966 psychedelics are banned and outlawed. The syndicate moves in on these hippie drug dealers, and there’s a competition for a lot of money when when something’s illegal, it’s very lucrative. So the prohibition gangsters. You know, is what happened again when you, America’s insanity of constantly trying to with this Puritan effort to ban recreational drugs like they did with alcohol, it leads to murder. And that’s what happened. And I think that’s something everybody misses about this.

Paul: Right. I think so too. It’s it shows a real down to Earth connection to the mob it and also with all that stuff happening, law enforcement and how it dealt with. With anything to do with the hippies in Haight Ashbury, they were just leaving people to die in OD in the road. Like everything was not nice. It was a it was an intense time.

Nikolas: No, nor nor should it be romanticised in any way. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t some utopia. It very quickly turned into hate. Ashbury turned into a centre of. Rape. Abuse, exploitation and drug deal burning, you know. And it was reported at the time. But everyone remembers it through this utopian marijuana cloud of peace and love. Well, it wasn’t like that, you know, it was dangerous. And Charlie brought the commune away from hey, because it was dangerous for young women to be there.

Paul: Right. And there is also a big biker presence there as well. So it it brings all these.

Nikolas: So. Oh, the bike. The biker aspect of it is huge. This is not about. How hippies turn evil. It’s about hippies, trusted bikers. You could say the same with Mick Jagger thinking ohh. We need security for this concert. Well, OK, the Grateful Dead have used the Hell’s angels. We’ll use them too. There’s a great deal of naivete on the part of these very young.

Unknown Speaker: MHM.

Nikolas: And experienced rock musicians and counterculture people getting involved with. You know, biker gangs that are murderous and they thought, well, they’re, they’re they’re wearing the costume of the counterculture. They must be like us.

Paul: Right, yeah.

Nikolas: To to the real his the real history of the death of the 60s, this narrative that mostly conservatives tell to say, look at how evil hippies really were, and look where it went without the straight satans. In the Charlie story, the murders don’t happen the way they happen. It’s about the straight satans extorting. Really, it’s about Danny Decarlo and the straight satans making the Beausoleil Henman conflict happened. That wouldn’t have happened without De Carlo and the straight Satans pushing it to happen. Same with Altamont, that it wasn’t about hippies acting evil and crazy. That’s a total misreporting.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: It’s about bikers doing what bikers do and and trusting bikers, so that’s, you know, those two things are very important part of it that are left out of the. And has nothing to do with cults. It has nothing to do with any metaphysical belief whatsoever. It has to do with organised crime. Bikers on drugs are violent and like to be violent. It’s very simple.

Paul: Right. Right. And OK, so while we’re on, while we’re on this sort of topic with the the mob and stuff we’ve heard, you’ve mentioned in other interviews the connection of Manson to. Alvin Carpas and Frankie Carbo, so we don’t need to get too much into their relationship. But you found some interesting information about Frankie Carbo trying to hook Manson up with the job.

Nikolas: Yeah. And I I actually today I’m going through some cassettes of my old conversations with Charlie. I found the first one and I can share it with you maybe.

Paul: Alright.

Nikolas: Later.

Unknown Speaker: Sure.

Nikolas: In the future where he’s describing I and I, I say to him in the I just listened to it today, coincidentally, and trying to transcribe. These old cassettes to digital. He’s saying I said so. You knew. You knew that Frankie Carbo knew la Bianca? He said yes. And I said, and you owed LA Bianca a favour. I mean, you owed Carbo a favour because he tried to get you a job. I’m mistaken. I just heard it. So I remember I said he tried to get you work in the San Francisco nightclubs. Charlie said no. Baltimore. He tried to get me and he got me a job. At the Trocadero nightclub in Baltimore. And then he explained what that was. And then I looked into it in great detail and found it was the centre of the mob in Baltimore, Frankie Carbo, one of the most important mobsters in America, one of the most powerful syndicate kingpins. Went out of his way to get Charlie a job in Baltimore, at the Trocadero, and I have. It’s weird that you mentioned it because I found that particular conversation and then I researched it. And the FBI did a huge report on the Trocadero as a seething hotbed of prostitution and criminality. And you can see. But the real job they were hiring Charlie for was not night manager, but. Glorified pimp that looks like because it was a strip club or adult entertainment club. Burlesque and the girls were made available after hours. So.

Paul: Right, it seems to be kind of like 3 star, the Trocadero, the the black bus, all sorts.

Nikolas: So now. Right. Well, that’s the important thing about that. And Charlie said, I wish I had done that because he said at least the mob pays you. Not like the music industry. And he meant that he he wasn’t being sarky meant I wish I’d just.

Unknown Speaker: All right.

Nikolas: You know, he felt like the organised crime was more honest than the Melchers and the Wilsons. So the important thing about that, if you know, Charlie, some Frankie Carbo, an incredibly powerful person in the underworld, went out of his way for this nobody because he liked him. They they became very close friends when they were in prison together.

Paul: Right.

Unknown Speaker: MHM.

Nikolas: Did him this favour? Well, you owe Frankie Carbo a favour.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: And and he told me. I said you’re telling me you know you didn’t know Leno, La Bianca. But Carbo knew la Bianca. He said yes.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: I’ll put two and two together.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah.

Nikolas: I need money. Who? Who? Who could give me money right away. Who could pay me? Or where is money? And Frankie, I then found out Frankie Carbo was in prison in 1969, much later. And I asked Charlie, well, how did you, how do you commute? Did you write to Carbo what he said he knew?

Unknown Speaker: For.

Nikolas: The. Again, tying to prostitution, a guy who knew Carbo, who ran a brothel in Nevada, out in the desert, and he was Carbone’s Middle man on the outside, exactly like Charlie later had his middle men on the outside, and his implication was he got messages from this guy.

Unknown Speaker: All right.

Nikolas: Out in the Nevada desert from Karbo, but that is crucial and a lot of things that happened in 1967 in Terminal Island. These favours Phil Kaufman. I’ll introduce you to Universal Studios. A lot of favours were given to Charlie and I believe he called them in when he was desperate and needed money. But that is, I think, crucial that that CARBO did, and that’s how Charlie was. He agreed to do new Emmons book simply because he owed him a favour in the underworld. So what state? What? Yes. And So what favour did Carbo?

Paul: Right. It was a type of currency.

Nikolas: Say to Charlie. You know what? How what? What? What? How did he pay how you owe me. One is. Charlie’s whole life was about this. You owe me one. What did he owe Carbo? Now what is puzzling about that.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: And I I don’t know the answer to it and I make it clear the Waverly thing is infinitely more mysterious than this yellow. If carbonella, Bianca and Carbo apparently was owed money from this compulsive gambler La Bianca, that’s what Charlie implied. What a miraculous coincidence that Charlie happens to go to parties at the door next door, house next door, and that Linda Casabian, also a year before that goes to payote parties with Harold, True and Kauffman, and people who met Charlie in prison. So.

Paul: Great.

Nikolas: That is baffling to me. Both are credible. But what are the odds seem impossible that you happen to be assigned A robbery or a hit at a house you already are going to often next door? So so these this is 1 of 25 contradictions. How do these stories fit together?

Paul: Right.

Danny: In regards to the Waverly Dr murders, can you because we see this brought up a bit and there? Seems to be a little. Difference of what people think it is, but what can you explain what you think the little Black book was and what was it?

Nikolas: Well, he, he explained it. Charlie explained it and I I quote him in the book. He said it has to do with all kinds of financial chicanery being run out of the governor’s office. Who was the governor? Ronald Reagan, who got Ronald Reagan into power, Sidney Korshak, Sidney Korshak. Who knew Frankie Carbo, who knew Charles Barron, a mafia guy who Jay Sebring knew, who knew? Frank Costello. He explained. Specifically, I mean you can we can find it. I quote it. I deliberately quote it. I explain in detail, Charlie. Said exactly what was in the Black book.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: There’s no mystery about it. Now, did he mean it? Did he mean it metaphorically? Did he mean it? Really. And then another, you know, there’s so many puzzles about this. Charlie didn’t snitch about anything.

Unknown Speaker: And the.

Nikolas: And I asked him this why he’s snitching about Frankie Carbo. The Carbon’s dead. And then many, he implied that there were mob figures involved with the CLO drive thing. And when he was very old, I said, well, you, you’re basically implicating your friend Frankie Carbo in the LA Bianca thing. Why at this point, can you not tell me who these mob figures were? That you’re saying had something to do with Cielo, but he would not.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Although I’ve pointed this out too, that when he said when he did this on again off again thing about wanting a lawyer to try his case again and he did. Later I said why last time we tried this in the 80s, you didn’t go through with it because you didn’t want to tell someone what happened. Why now? Are you not? And we talked to many, many attorneys at that time and some of them agreed to talk to him. And I said, why would you do it now? He said, because the old men that would have killed me then are dead. And now I’m the old man. Well, that’s if, you know, Charlie, he’s saying the mobsters that who who would have had the power to kill him and who would have been the old men.

Paul: Right. Right.

Nikolas: With the like Carbo people who were in their 60s in the 1960s. You know, so.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Yeah. So I don’t claim to have answers to that. There are many contradictions to these things, but definitely Charlie owed A favour to Frankie Carbo and that is at least one of the favours.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Now we’ve talked about the true crime aspect. I just do want to make it clear again, the book covers, if you think it’s all about true crime, as you know, it’s not.

Paul: Right. Yeah. And the, the, the, the thing that I like about it is that it’s all over the place because this topic in and of itself has opened my eyes to a whole bunch of different things. It’s the spirituality, different types of music different.

Nikolas: No.

Paul: Different types of living. The.

Nikolas: Well, I mean, I think I think what I got into as far as the cover up is not just about murders, it’s about the degree that Charlie was involved in the highest echelon of the California music industry that was covered up. Melcher’s lies are unbelievable.

Paul: No. Right.

Nikolas: It’s incredible, the audacity with which he presented an entirely false narrative that everyone in the Hollywood world knew was a lie.

Paul: Right. And there’s so many.

Nikolas: I think the and I get into Meltzer’s life a lot more than anyone has previously into his neuroses into how. His financial troubles is what I think led him to get involved with Tex, Watson and Charlie in the 1st place. And of course he I believe he turned to crime to solve his financial problems with the help of Watson. So that’s a very important part of the music part, the mystical part, the revolutionary part. All of that is equally important so.

Paul: Right. Right.

Nikolas: I understand people are mostly interested in these crimes, but. I don’t want to give people the false impression that’s all that this book is.

Paul: Right. About no. And like we’ve said before, I mean we could do probably at least an hour and a half on every single chapter of this.

Nikolas: Right, right. Right, right. Well, that’s.

Paul: In and of itself, because they have so.

Nikolas: That’s why I wrote it. So you can just sit down and read it and.

Paul: Much into it.

Nikolas: Not have to talk about it. Yeah, there you go. I don’t know if there’s anyone literate anymore left in the world that for the most part a meme, or you know, a minute video is about all they can handle, but this it’s exhaustively in there. You could take one sentence of my book and go further, research it, and that will open 20 other doors.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Paul: Absolutely, yeah.

Nikolas: Not that by any means do I feel it is definitive, and I I did want to point this out like it never ends. It will never end. The amount of information about this and different perspectives from different people never ends. And like I said in the first part of the interview, every time I went to Los Angeles.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: In particular, people would come to me with very significant new information. And I’ll just mention like I want to give people the idea of how much more there is to know about this. It is never going to be. Over. Which is why we not only maintain this Abraxas Circle Facebook group, which we opened after Facebook deleted the Manson File Facebook group for no. Explanation for the most bizarre. Are abstract reasons and why we have opened this new Manson file board which is a permanent archive to not only as an augmentation to everything about the book, but the new information that will come out of the book, which as you explained in your last episode, your Watchers. And find it at Manson Mafia. The. At createaforum.com, that’s a new board that we’ve opened because.

Paul: And we’ll link in the description as well.

Nikolas: Yeah. And that’s where permanent it’s going to be a permanent archive of not just me, but many researchers who are working in this field, many people who know Charlie, I’m done with it. I’m done with this. I mean, it will. The information will keep coming to me and I will keep reporting it, but I’m not going to do any official.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Project on it.

Paul: But it’s been so easy going the whole time.

Nikolas: Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don’t think people know how easy going it’s been.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: Charlie, knowing Charlie brought me into the depths of madness that no one can even imagine. The the things that have happened to me because of it. I haven’t just sat on a computer and looked stuff up. I’ve been in the real world dealing with people and you know, it’s like it led. Very early on to very real police harassment. Attempts to frame me from the Los Angeles police because I knew Charlie. It led directly to my near murder when my ear was cut off. That wouldn’t have happened. It isn’t that he did it.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: But getting into his mandala into his circle led to that the yeah, it it not only hasn’t been easy, it has been.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Threatening and malevolent, and I wouldn’t recommend anybody do it either.

Paul: Well, when when I first got into it and started talking to you, you definitely gave me the warning and said keep your eye in the door.

Nikolas: Right, I’ve told. I’ve told many people that I’ve told many journalists and interviewers who have all gone down the rabbit hole, and I’ve known most of them, most of them for the past 30 years, and I’ve seen what’s happened, you know.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Paul: Right. And it’s and it’s not even people who are that close to it cause we can we can attest to having crazy experiences having gotten into this and just the the weird energy surrounding it. But I want to again mention the the the new myth and reality.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Really.

Nikolas: Yeah.

Paul: For them, because when we first started out and we were looking for information, the myth and reality Facebook page was huge for us. There was you could the you could type in. Anybody’s name. Find out all the information that’s that had been spoken about and then that when that was taken away, it was ridiculous. That was a huge.

Nikolas: Well, that’s that’s why we years ago created this board as I’ve joked just in case place, which is what the people on the ranch called this little lean to that they made as a hideaway.

Paul: Yeah. Right.

Nikolas: I knew I knew Facebook was going to eventually arbitrarily ban it, so we already set up another Facebook group and this. Other and now we will create a permanent archive there, which researchers can place, you know, very complicated material without being censored and at whatever length you want with photographs. And it can be a permanent archive of the whole experience. And then again, not just the crimes, every aspect. Of Charlie’s life.

Unknown Speaker: MHM.

Nikolas: And the lot, you know, and the peripheral people involved with him, but getting back to this endless thing, like, I wanted to point out and I’ll get into some of these other things that came to me in LA.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Just so people understand, I don’t even talk about half. Of what comes to me, you know, even with this huge book, it’s still condensed to what I thought was absolutely essential.

Paul: Right.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: There may be things that are more important than I left out. I don’t know. You know, there’s there’s so much. But just today. And this is the point I want to make. Nobody knows exactly what happens with any of these incidents. We may have a rough idea and we could come to a consensus based on circumstantial evidence. But for instance, here’s a minor incident is everybody knows that there was the legend that Sharon Tate was initiated. Into the witch cult of Alexanders on the set of eye of the Devil, this movie that she was filming in 1965 in London, and she was still involved with Sebring. And the the story is that, you know, she that’s why she was killed because she got involved in this witch cult. That was one of the many rumours in the early right after the murders happened. And they’re occultists and conspiracy theorists that believe it to this day. Well, my point is, who knows, because everyone in the Polanski. Circle said that’s ********. She was not interested in occultism at all. That was a publicity gimmick. They hired this Alexanders and his wife, Maxine. And to make the movie seem more spooky and give it some credibility, it was, you know, and there’s a picture of Sharon with these witches. You’ve probably seen it in a in a protective circle. So conspiracy theorists then go see it’s, you know, the Illuminati initiated her and they killed her. Because she knew too much about witchcraft, where everyone in the Polanski world said Ohh no, that’s laughable. And I believe them. They, they and there’s no proof that she was interested. So today through a completely round about arbitrary way, I talked to someone who knows. Was Maxine Sanders personally and she told me directly that Maxine Sanders very credibly explained. We met Sharon Tate on the set. I didn’t think much of her. She seemed, and this is very believable because it wasn’t romanticised ********. She seemed like an empty, hollow person who had nothing but being attractive, a hollow person with no interest, just a vulnerable, beautiful girl with nothing inside. And she said that. She went away from the set for a moment and that Sharon came up to her and said this very specific quote whispered to her. We are sisters now, and Maxine Sanders, the head of the Switch group, said. What? And it turned she said that her husband claimed to have initiated her. Must have been very brief.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: Minutes within minutes. But you know that that now, as of yesterday, I would have said that’s a ******** story. There is no proof that there is a first hand person telling. A credible story, not romanticising it not making a big deal of it. You know, it’s probably a casual thing, but just to point out. Every aspect of this whole phenomenon, you say one thing and then somebody else will come up and say, well, it’s not exactly how I remember it. I thought it was this. And I’m not like report reports I’ve heard about the Hinman.

Paul: It’s easy for it. To get flipped on its head.

Nikolas: Murder. I don’t know what the hell the that there could have been many other factors there. I can only report what I what seems that the circumstantial evidence support. So just to point out, even did Sharon Tate have a mild interest in occultism or did she not even? That is Schrodinger’s Cat could be.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Could not be and though. So two other things I’ll mention that. Are remarkable. That came from going to Los Angeles, and this is as uncanny as the cats coming to your door right when we’re talking about strangers coming to your door in Los Angeles, I invited.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: Someone that was in the Manson File group, she said. I have some things to tell you like many people do about this. And I said OK, when I go to LA, I’m giving this screening and lecture. I’ll invite you. And I invited her to the screening and we had had some correspondence and me and Mike Brenner. After we appeared together, I interviewed him at the lecture on the 50th anniversary. Of the crimes we went to the worst diner in the history of the United States, with the only place open, and we were there in the middle of the night. And so this woman is who I invited. Was talking about connections at her family, which is connected to show business and the entertainment industry had to the case. And she said Mike Brenner, sitting Mike Brenner, Charlie’s son in case people don’t know, sitting right next to me. And she says, my mother.

Unknown Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Nikolas: Who was the daughter of a movie star? And I’ll get into this later. Was walking in Topanga Canyon one day and gave birth to a baby to a hippie group that needed. Help. They didn’t know what to do. A baby was born. And we said, well, why are you saying that? And then they said well, in 1969 when she saw the picture of the guy who stuck his head out the window and said, hey, we need help. Do you know what to do with the baby? It was Charlie. So. This girl’s mother delivered Mike Brenner.

Paul: Wow. Holy ****. Wow. That’s incredible. I think we had a little freeze.

Danny: Close all that.

Nikolas: Again, the cats are going to come. To door.

Paul: The cat? Yeah, I’m. I’m waiting. I’m jumping now.

Nikolas: So so. What are the odds of that? And then I talked to her mother about a year later on the phone, and she described all of it, which I will describe in another way. His definitely Charlie stuck his head out the window. Said. Do you know we we’re having a baby? We don’t know what to do. This woman had just learned what to do, by the way. She was very young. She was like an 18 year old hippie. She said sure, I’ll come in. And she described it all and it’s exactly the right place.

Paul: Oh my wow.

Nikolas: The right time. What? What are the odds of that? Possibly. So then and then another thing that happened at the 2019 the.

Paul: That’s unreal.

Nikolas: There was the opportunity to bring the door. From the. Tate House, from this yellow drive to the event. That was one thing. And then out of the blue, and I can’t mention this person’s name. The possibility was well. A very wealthy person who is a collector of odd artefacts. Introduce the possibility through a middleman. I can bring the murder car to the event. The actual car that. Went to CLO and Waverly and it exists and it is exists. It’s under protection and that didn’t happen because of certain paranoia but. The owner basically said well, can you in that mansion world, I want to get rid. Of. It can you find someone. Can you be the middleman to find someone to sell it so that the authentic car that was at the centre of this? Mystery and nightmare. You know that that appeared out of the blue in the same time period. All these things? Oh, it’s it’s still. It’s still available. It’s still there and you know, and the person that does not want to be revealed to who owns it, but they they do want to get rid of it for.

Paul: Wow, where did it end up? Did you do that?

Nikolas: You know, I I imagine bad vibes and that kind of thing. You know and.

Paul: I don’t want it.

Nikolas: Now. Yeah, so, so, but those are three examples of just stuff that comes.

Danny: Want it?

Nikolas: To me.

Paul: Right. Wow, that’s incredible.

Nikolas: I don’t even look for it. Yeah, those are three of the most striking. But I mean, I can think of many where? I mean, I meet someone on the aeroplane. Oh, what do you? I’ll. I’ll give you one last example. And when I went to California to go to Charlie’s memorial.

Paul: Sure.

Nikolas: I was sitting with a girlfriend of mine in the back seat of a Uber that picked us up and I mentioned the name Charlie. And. This girl, who I was with also knew. Charlie, you know, on the phone from 1987 had talked to him. I said something casually. The Uber driver, a woman, says Charlie Manson. There’s no reason to say that no reason to think it. I said, yeah, she said.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: For the for the whole ride, she says. I went to school. With. Ruth Ann Moorhouse. No, no, no, I’m sorry. Not Ruth Ann Moorhouse lutesinger. Sorry Kitty lutesinger. I went to high school with Kitty Lutesinger at that time, my dad took me to ride horses at the spawn ranch. All the time I knew Kitty Luke Singer very well.

Paul: Oh, OK Kitty.

Nikolas: I got involved with a mafia guy who turned me into a prostitute in Las Vegas.

Unknown Speaker: Jesus.

Nikolas: Got away from him. And got and went to a insurance company run by a guy named DeSantis, who was related to Lino Labianca. And that was a mob front. So within 1/2 hour she knew Kitty Lutesinger, who is the girl who snip. On the whole thing, Bobby Beausoleil’s girlfriend. Went to school with her, described her already being a bit odd and bohemian, and not a surprise that she would end up with that group spawn Ranch horse driving and. Hired to escape from prostitution, got a legitimate job in Las Vegas with DeSantis, who is part of the gateway. Supermarket chain ownership and according to her, why would she tell me? And that was a mob front. She didn’t know anything about the case. She just thought this is weird. This guy knows Charlie Manson and I had. That was the person who drove me in to LA.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Paul: Wow, yeah.

Nikolas: You know, I don’t have to look for. It. It it comes to me.

Paul: And these will be things that like little things like this. It’ll be it’ll be nice to because you don’t have to put out another book or anything like that. If you drop something like that on the form.

Nikolas: Well, that’s the form. The form will be for that and I and I will say to other people who are who are, you know, equally competent and well informed researchers look into this look into that.

Paul: Then people can look into. Right.

Nikolas: And and it needs fresh eyes. It needs new eyes. It needs people who look at it from other perspectives and have other sources of information. So. No. So just I think it’s necessary to point out and you may have seen it to a limited degree once you open this door.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: It comes to you.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: And I mean just today. You know, out of the blue, the Sharon Tate, which initiation is brought up.

Paul: Right. No, there’s all sorts of weird little like we could do a whole nother show on the synchronicities.

Nikolas: Right. And and even even with that, I’ll just mention briefly that woman who told me it was connected to the. Junk, which is JC, brings international corporate symbol.

Paul: Oh my God.

Nikolas: Her name was Sharon.

Paul: Just keeps going. It’s incredible.

Nikolas: Yeah, I mean and this now what that is, I try to get into this in my book too in the. Element X.

Unknown Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Nikolas: Passage. It’s very hard to convey the weirdness of this thing to people who. Not. Encountered it.

Paul: Right. And like you say, we’ve we’ve seen certain things. I was at work and I saw a black bus right after talking to you one day I was. I was born near Chatsworth, where a whole bunch of crime was going on. And it, Chatsworth. In Canada. Yeah. Not chat. Not chats with there, but.

Nikolas: Right. Right, Chatsworth, Canada. Right, yeah.

Paul: And just weird things like that and once you see, like, even people. People that I know who aren’t into this, who just know about it on account of I’ve talked to them a little bit about it. As soon as I started talking to them about it, they would see his face in magazines, hear his name dropped in TV shows. Just it’s just everywhere, everywhere.

Nikolas: Right. It’s it’s like it’s like there’s a glitch in the cosmos and it’s to do with this.

Paul: Yeah, exactly.

Nikolas: And and where does it come from? Is it Polanski, born in France and bringing it? You know what? Where? Who is the centre of it? It’s not just Charlie. It’s everyone involved. And there is a parallel. I think people don’t see you have in this whole epic this whole saga, these two diminutive.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Little guys very driven, very creative, artistic men whose doom brings them together from Cincinnati. And from Paris together into this nightmare. And they both seemed to be cursed in some way.

Paul: Right. Wow.

Nikolas: And they both. They both are cursed by. Invading a friend to stay with them. Polanski meets Voytek Frykowski in the 50s at A at a a party at the. A Polish friend of mine tried to teach me how to pronounce this name wootz. Is it spelled LODZ? But it’s the film school that Polanski and Burkowski went to.

Paul: OK. OK. OK.

Unknown Speaker: Yep.

Nikolas: At a party that was held for the students there, Polanski was put in guard of the letting people in. And this guy Voytek comes who everyone thinks is bad news. Don’t let him in. He’s trouble. He knows these, you know, ruffians and thugs. He’s drunk. Don’t let him in. He’s fighting all the time. Pensky said you can’t come in and voice type charmed and said let’s have a beer and. Polanski went against his friends and let him into the party. Does it begin there in woods, in night in the 50s with that mistake? And then, Charlie, you know, meets this guy through Dennis Wilson? Hey, I’m in trouble. Can I stay at the ranch, Tex? Sure. So.

Unknown Speaker: Yep.

Nikolas: There are these parallels between these two diminutive guys that, like young girls, and. Very, there’s a lot of similarities there, though. Probably people on both sides of the equation don’t want to see that.

Paul: Right. Well, and another thing that you that kind of on the topic of the book on how everybody has the two sides to them like you can look at Manson and be like he’s he’s a dangerous dude. He did a lot of criminal things. He’s a criminal, but at the same time he also had a lot of philosophies that you would find in self help books. Now then on the other side of things with Polanski, which I’ve done myself, has been like, well, that guy’s, you know. Underage girls and you got away with with molesting that girl and stuff. But he also brought Polish immigrants over from the war-torn country and paid for them to stay in the states or sponsored them, right?

Unknown Speaker: The.

Nikolas: He was he. He didn’t even he knew for Kowski was a freeloader. And he said many negative things about him and that whole group of people I’ve talked to relatives of them. They thought of that for kowski’s bad news. And Polanski said no, he helped me back in Poland. His father gave me money for this film. I’m going to help. Him. Move to Paris and America. And he tried to help him, but he the guy was a total ******. He got him a job. Bob making scenery at I think Universal and he could he quit. This wasn’t good enough for him. So yeah, his Charlie and Polanski’s generosity. In a strange way, hospitality is what bit them both.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: So it’s a much bigger story. And where does where is this? Is it melt your story? You could argue that. Is it Dennis Wilson’s? Who? Who is at the centre of it?

Paul: Right. Well, I think in the in the Scanlon Murphy interview, Manson says this person was going for the music this person was going for love, a brother. This person was going for this. And I think that’s very reflective of the fact that it’s it’s a whole bunch of different things. It can’t be put in a in a in a little box. Because.

Nikolas: Well, I think too I want to point out too about the love of Brother thing. M. I’ve never said that. Of course, that wasn’t an aspect of what happened. Not, and there was never any doubt in my mind.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: When I even heard of the Hinman thing when I was very young, I thought, well, clearly they are copying. This pseudo revolutionary graffiti. They’re copying it, but it isn’t. I don’t know people, so simplify what I’m saying.

Paul: Right.

Unknown Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Nikolas: I never said that they didn’t talk about Helter Skelter on the ranch. I didn’t say Bouliac invented it. I’m saying that wasn’t the motive for the crimes.

Unknown Speaker: Right, right.

Nikolas: He took. They were talking about it and he cleverly said OK, well, here’s let’s make it the motive. But of course they talked about race war. Of course, they didn’t want to start one. They thought one was going to happen, but I don’t know. They my ideas are very watered down and simplified when they. The public. So yes, Helter Skelter was real. It wasn’t the reason these people died at all.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Paul: Right. I think it’s the half truth that make it that make it easy for these people to spin these, these these yarns because there’s enough truth in it that if you look, you know there was Helter Skelter on the on the ranch they were talking about it but.

Nikolas: Right. And and and idiot Krenwinkel. Might, as I’ve said, might as well put spawn Ranch, Chatsworth on the refrigerator because the police knew they had a little nightclub called Helter Skelter that they had come and raided and. You know, and I think that that was just some brain fart of hers. I don’t think it was a diabolical plan.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Gee, idiot was listening to Beatles Records and they were talking about it, so she stuck it there. And that’s what that helped to hang them. Because Jacobson and other people heard them talking. But it has, it’s not the reason. Same with love a brother and I believe Susan Atkins told the truth once in her life.

Unknown Speaker: Right. Right.

Nikolas: It has to happen, and of course, that’s the typical irony of this case. Some of the most truthful things have been said about the biggest from the biggest liars.

Paul: Right. And it’s tough to figure out who to listen to and what, what to listen to.

Nikolas: What? What? Right. But but after everything I’ve researched and seen, I believe that that Sadie blurted out the truth at the moment of desperation when she feared. OK, I’m facing the death sentence now when she was being convicted at the trial, she said Linda. We needed money to get Bobby, a lawyer, and Linda said. These people burned us up in Beverly Hills for this new drug, MDA. Let’s get the money from them. That’s the truth. But.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Yeah, it’s not love of brother and Charlie emphasised this to me. It was Sadie was terrified of going to prison and she wanted to get money for Bobby to say, look, we’re helping you don’t snitch on me. We’re that was he claimed it was her idea. So was there? Yes, there was a I don’t think there was any of this sentimental love of brother. There was fear. He’s going to snitch on us and we’re going to end up in prison. And so was that a factor? Of course, was the the and obviously the little pig on the door did not.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: That’s clearly an afterthought after after this mess happened, they thought, well, let’s throw that there too. But clearly the law, Bianca, they’re going way overboard to do even though they hadn’t even seen the human crime scene. So let me make it clear. Yes, Helter Skelter is real.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Wasn’t the most. Loved brother or let’s do something, Bobby, like, was a part of it, but it was interior decoration.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Misleading interior decoration had nothing to do with the motive, which was robbery, which is typical criminal motive. That’s it. So I want I just need to make that clear because I’m sick of people saying that I don’t think those things were factors.

Paul: Right.

Unknown Speaker: Same here.

Paul: Right. Right. And that’s that’s really good and I’m really glad that you brought that up because that’s that’s huge and we do talk about the half truths a lot.

Nikolas: And it’s it’s it’s. Yeah, it’s they were killing. No pun intended. Two birds with one stone.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: And and another thing that Charlie said to a few.

Paul: Yeah.

Nikolas: Other inmates and a lot of valuable information came to me from people who knew these people in prison. Text and Krenwinkel I have nothing on. They never said anything to anyone. That’s amazing but true. But several convicts who knew Charlie told me. He said. Who? Who will it be? Is Expendables. People who have broken their word, people who are worthless. He said that to these. So he meant these people broke their word, they they and Charlie in, you know, he was consistent in believing if you break your word in a criminal deal, you deserve to.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Why?

Paul: Right, yeah.

Nikolas: And he had no remorse for these peoples deaths. None. I can vouch for that. He never did because he believed, well, they broke their word.

Paul: Right, yeah.

Nikolas: Well, what did they break their word about? Even with Hinman in the Hinman trial, people ignore it. He he said he was greasy. He was dealing bunk drugs. What’s the big deal? He said it himself. In 1971, when people act like Bobby made that up 10 years later, Charlie admitted it right away.

Paul: Right. Interesting.

Nikolas: So so he said this to other prisoners who would agree with him. Yeah, well, if someone breaks their word, you kill them. So the point was yes. These were these were expendable people, and that implies, in his view, the Labianca somehow broke their word.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: Keeping in mind from what I’ve seen of Charlie, he could have been wrong because he thought everyone was breaking their word.

Paul: Right. Yeah. I thought everyone was doing something.

Nikolas: And I I also have wondered was there mistake in identity? Is this tote, was it you know? Who knows? Because I, knowing him and his temper and his jumping to conclusions. You know, maybe maybe that’s a justification.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: Because he thought everybody was, he thought Grey wolf and star at some point. So they’re cheating me. They’re ripping me off. They’re. I don’t think they were. You know, he would say that stuff to me and other people and he’d say it about everybody. So that’s a factor.

Paul: Well, like you said about your phone call, he thought you hung up on him and the ******* world was over.

Nikolas: Right, right. If if I didn’t write to him and say I’d, I heard everything you said. What are you talking about? Maybe he would. You know, he could have said. Well, Shrek hung up on me. I’ll kill him, you know.

Paul: Right. You know what to do.

Nikolas: Why? Why not? Why not? Yeah. So, yeah, so I can read back into history. That kind of behaviour and.

Paul: Right on.

Nikolas: I think there is a lot of chaos and confusion and not not logical decisions being made. Any final questions?

Paul: Well. I mean, Danielle, do you have anything else you want to know about? This has been amazingly enlightening, and we’ve hit a lot of different spots in the book. It it jumped around so I wasn’t able to point out as many spots in here as. Like to be like this was at this part of the book, but it it hit all the spots we wanted to know about and there’s so much more in this book than what we’ve talked about on here. And I think anybody who.

Nikolas: Right. Yeah, we’ve we’ve covered. We’ve covered less than 1/10 of. Of it, yeah.

Paul: I think anybody who wants to know about Manson and wants to know about anything to do with it should be checking this book out because it is a a 3D look at the whole situation and the the man himself, his spirituality. His music. The people he associated with just everything and there’s like we didn’t. There’s names that you won’t recognise but that are very important to the story itself and connections and. I just. Yeah. I thank you so much for, for letting me read this book and have this this textbook to to learn advanced mansions and.

Nikolas: Well, it’s. It’s my pleasure. And I’m not, you know, as you see most of the interviews I’ve been giving are not in the Manson community, which is a ridiculous word to call this lunatic asylum.

Paul: Right. In the Manson asylum.

Nikolas: Yeah, it’s there’s. I have nothing really to say to that. You know, I’m trying to. Tell people in the in the larger world what this was about. So this is one of the few interviews I’m giving that is this specifically. Going to go in, I mean, though I’m sure many people outside of the Manson sphere will see this, this is one of the very few interviews I’m giving of that type. So.

Paul: Thank you very much.

Nikolas: And and and I and I wanted to grant it the. Well, I wanted to grant it to you because you have been sane. You have not been venomous and and filled with no. Well, not saying I think that. Yeah. Yeah. I’m just saying you have been civil and you have.

Danny: Thank you. It’s quite an honour. Are you talking about?

Nikolas: Then. Professional and unfortunately, almost nobody else in this niche has, so that’s why I agreed to talk to you. So I appreciate that too. And I think I think many people appreciate an Oasis of civility and sanity instead of the venomous.

Paul: Well, thank you very much.

Nikolas: You know, seething lunatic asylum that you find in so many other places.

Paul: Well, thank you very much. I’m glad it’s coming across like that. We try very hard to to to stay on course.

Danny: Thank you.

Nikolas: Well, I’m. I’m sure. I’m sure it takes a lot of medication and electroshock to keep it in control.

Paul: It feels like.

Danny: It a lot of me yelling at the two of them. It takes.

Paul: To stay perfect. That’s right.

Nikolas: Right, right. So what, what any final question to end on and final thought.

Danny: I have a final question just to kind of wrap things up, I guess. So now that the Manson file will be coming out soon, are there any upcoming projects related to the book that you’ll be? Doing and are there other projects not related to the book that we should keep an eye? Out for in the future.

Nikolas: Well, from my perspective this, you know, the pandemic interrupted my life and every writer, musician and creative person. This book should have come out years ago. It should have. It was ready. A certain version of it was ready before Charlie died, we started.

Unknown Speaker: Right.

Nikolas: The Facebook page N11, his final birthday and then on the 11th and on the 19th he died. That meant I have. OK, I’ve got to add his death. And then I and I had to put him in the past tense because it was. Charlie is had to become Charlie was, and then I had to add his death and information. But I thought, well, that won’t take long then. Mike Brenner got in touch with me and then there was this matter of the funeral and Zach Baggins, which you will notice I didn’t get into at all. Except no, I mentioned it in the briefest passing because. It hasn’t been resolved yet. Still, after all this time. But I did research every aspect of that. And. You know, and I I have this radio show which I’ve referred to, which I did on the subject, so that delayed it well, OK, what’s going to happen with this trial and this state and the various personalities vying for Commander of man, scam and. That delayed it so. They should have been out in these different versions. I’m glad it didn’t, because then even more information came to me and came to me and came to me that this is part of a larger in France and Italy and England, Germany, all of my books are being republished by various publishers, the mansion. Style is being printed in a French edition. There are it’s being translated right now for additions pen self, a French company. There are other and and so all of my work, the Satanic screen is coming out in Spanish. French, Italian a new English version. Flowers from hell is coming out in a new deluxe version, so this is part of a larger project just to get all of my 20th century works out in a final revised updated edition and it’s so it’s part of a greater. Whole, you know, for people interested in the Manson world, that’s what they think I do. But that’s only one. Aspect of what? I do, and if you had asked me in 1989, will there be any more Manson projects, I would have said hell no, never. So don’t. Yeah. So I hope not, but there there are some tangential things that I am not the central.

Unknown Speaker: Ohh wait.

Paul: Don’t do it.

Nikolas: Organiser or creator of that I’m involved with that are of course, certainly involved with it and some of them are quite interesting. I can’t really talk about them yet, but they’re not, they’re not my. I project they’re they’re connected to other people and I’m helping or supervising and I will continue to do that, but I certainly am not going to do any main thing about this topic ever again, and I’m happy to leave it to others. And as I point out in the book, there’s many competent and intelligent people who I’ve.

Paul: Right.

Nikolas: You know, I hope I’ve left the path open for them to go further.

Paul: Right. Well, you’ve helped us understand quite a bit.

Danny: I will go further and I’ll bring Paul with.

Paul: Me. Yeah, that’s right. Drag me kicking and screaming.

Unknown Speaker: Right. Right.

Paul: Across the finish line.

Nikolas: Right. And then and then of course, too, outside the literary world, I have not recorded since March of 20. 21 when my last album came out, so I’m going into the studio again soon and. I. Hope to dedicate myself again to music, which is what I was doing when I got in touch with Charlie in the 1st place. It was all about music. That’s why I got in touch with him. That was what I was doing. That’s what our bond and rapport was based on. So.

Unknown Speaker: Great.

Nikolas: I definitely will not be spending the rest of my life talking about. What happened in 1969?

Paul: Right. The two longest years.

Nikolas: Right, right. 3033 year long years.

Paul: Yeah. Oh, man.

Nikolas: All right. Well, thank thank you both for your hospitality and for your intelligent and reasonable questions and for maintaining, as I said, a sane Oasis in a world of insanity. And yeah, I wish you and your watchers all the best.

Danny: Thank you.

Paul: Thank you. All right. Thank you very much, Nicholas.

Nikolas: Many blessings. My pleasure.

Paul: And thank you all for watching. And remember to check out the new Manson myth and reality forum for any of the new stuff coming. You know, any new information.

Nikolas: Right. Right. And exactly and that and that is going to be a permanent archive of all of this, that will be continually added to that will be much more substantial than anything that could be done in a Facebook page or social media because it’s not under the control of any corporate.

Paul: Right. And that’s awesome. Thank you.

Nikolas: And and I should point out too that if you want to join that that the administrator is always ready to help you join it and teach you how to to function there, OK.

Paul: Absolutely. And we did as mentioned earlier, we did a a kind of lesson video with with Wiley, who was who’s the administrator there. And so if any of you want to.

Nikolas: Right. Well, that that actually the I I want to say too there’s a team of people who have helped me and who have made this happen. And. Merlin Nowak helped with the. Design of the book my manager Annie Barta set up the infrastructure for how to sell it and how the Internet works. The at the mansion file at Nicholas Shrek Dot World there are people who are fielding any questions about it constantly. Wiley Manning, the new board, the people who helped me with social media, this hasn’t. This has been a very much of a group. Effort and you know all those people were extremely helpful in making this happen. So you know, nothing gets done alone.

Paul: Right. Well, that’s awesome. Yeah. Big shout out to them and and to you. Thank you very much again and thank you everyone. We will catch you next time.

Unknown Speaker: Nice.

Nikolas: OK. And remember that arrangement we made about this Part 2?

Paul: Yeah, I’m on it.

Nikolas: OK, talk to you soon. Bye bye.

#### Nikolas Schreck Interview on The Mysticism of Charles Manson (2022)

YouTube Channel: This Is Darkness

Date: May 28, 2022

Source: <www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Aj9IfRfEc>

In this interview, Nikolas Schreck discusses, at length, the intricacies of Charles Manson's mysticism as laid out in 'The Wizard' chapter of his new edition of 'The Manson File: Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman'. We cover his connections to Abraxas, Gnosticism, the Shamanism of Mexico, Hinduism, The Fountain of the World and many more related topics. This is a must-watch for those more interested in the spiritual aspects of Charles Manson than the 'true crime' angle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Aj9IfRfEc

> Manson: Good evening. This is from Vacaville, California Medical Facility. Captown in Spanish. And my name is Charles Millis Manson. Rasputin, Scott, Kilgore, Jr. Also gone with the names of Luther Maddox, Charles Dear, Charlie Dear, Lewis Cavender, Bill Thomas, William Sergeant Bartlett, Count von Bruno, and Riff Raff Rackus. But there's two of us in Riff Raff Rackus.

Michael: Hello, everybody. We are back with a new episode of This is Darkness. I'm very pleased to have Nicholas Schreck on the show again. We spoke with him a while back about his music, and today we are here to speak directly about the spiritual aspect of Charles Manson. Nicholas Schreck has covered the topic of Charles Manson many times in the past through interviews. There's a lot of amazing content on this topic out there, but he doesn't get asked nearly enough about the spiritual side of Charles Manson, which to me has always been the most interesting element. And we've been able to get little tidbits of this out of Nicholas over the years, but to have an interview that's focusing specifically on this concept with Charles Manson, I think, is going to be really nice and illuminating for people. And as the book is getting ready to drop, just as we are having this conversation, and it'll probably be even closer by the time it releases. So you guys will see that have purchased the book that this is certainly not the only thing covered, but it is the most central, I think, to both of us when related to the topic of Charles Manson. And you will see that Nicholas has put a lot of time and energy into really illuminating this for us in the book. So I wanted to say here at the beginning that for me, my interests with Charles Manson have really, as I said, started with the spiritual element. And I thought the crime element was interesting and I've looked into it, but some particular quotes of Charlie's have really stood out to me over the years. And as I have tried to get back into sort of more esoteric versions of religion after being an atheist for nearly 20 years, I really still couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of God. And some various quotes of Charlie's really brought that idea of God into perspective for me. And Nicholas really lays out in the book how Charlie went from... sort of a standard Christian upbringing to the esoteric ideas that he developed over the years. So that's a thing that I am really interested in talking about here today. And I'll go ahead and welcome you, Nicholas. Thank you so much for being here with us today.

Nikolas: Thank you for your hospitality. I didn't know everybody was watching it, but you said hello, everybody. So I will also give my salutations to everybody who's watching this. Thank you for inviting me, and I am indeed looking forward to discussing this with you.

Michael: Well, if everybody isn't watching, they indeed should be. So I guess I'd like for you to start today with talking a little bit about the groundwork that Charlie's spirituality was built upon, because As I said, people really, really know about Charles Manson through Helter Skelter, and things are becoming more clear over the years with the work that you've done and with the book Chaos, which sort of clarifies things in one direction and blurs them even further in another direction, but it's at least starting to dispel the Helter Skelter myth.

Nikolas: Well, and also George Stimpson with Goodbye, Helter Skelter.

Michael: Yes, absolutely.

Nikolas: Jeffrey Melnick with his book, Creepy Crawling, which is from a liberal academic, basically saying Bugliosi was a liar.

Michael: And Lynette's book, Reflection, which is probably my favorite read.

Nikolas: Yeah, Lynette Fromm's book doesn't really come right out and say that, but it makes it clear. And even James Buddy Day, who wrote this not very well-known book, Hippie Cult Leader, completely refutes Bugliosi. So I'm very happy to see that I'm not the only voice in the wilderness. As I wrote in the introduction to the Manson file, we are now in the post-Bugliosi era of Mansonology, and we can leave Bugliosi behind us. I mean, unfortunately, for years, you had to spend more time explaining why he was wrong than what actually happened. And now I think we finally, with intelligent people, of course, idiots are always going to go for Bugliosi's story. They need to, they can't let it go. But for those who have some objectivity, I think his reputation has been totally demolished by all those people. And I'm, you know, I certainly am not humble. I certainly help to destroy it too. But I mean, I have been declaring what happened in the court in 1970 and 71 to be a show trial since 1988. So it's nothing new to me, but I'm glad to see that other people are adding to it. And it's slowly changing the public opinion about that. But enough of Vincent, who really, like most people who wrote about Charlie, wouldn't know a mystical experience if it bit them on the ***. And yet, they have the audacity to say, he was just talking mumbo jumbo and he was a con man. And he, yes, he was a criminal and a con man, but the fact is he did have genuine mystical awareness. And that's perhaps one of the ambiguities and contradictions about this fascinating and almost impossible to fully understand person is that he was a absolutely a criminal, but he also had a high level of natural mystical understanding, not learned, not something he picked up from some cult or some teacher. And that's what mysticism is. It very often is something that naturally comes to you. And through the odd combination of trauma and isolation from society and karma, of course, you know, it has to come from karmic past lives. Who was this person? But he was a genuine mystic and he was a criminal. And I think people find it very hard to grasp how can that dichotomy be. And that's why the subtitle of my book, Outlaw Shaman, he's both and you can be both.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. So do you think you could start with talking a little bit about his heavily Christian upbringing?

Nikolas: Yeah, Charlie came particularly from a Christian organization called the Church of the Nazarene that was particularly focused on sinfulness, on that women need to behave with propriety. I think a big part of his religious upbringing was shame about sexuality, because the Church of the Nazarene is extremely prudish even more than other, and in the south, in Ashland, Kentucky, even more so than usual. And I think also you have to look at his mother, who was not this ***** of Babylon that he and other people represent her as, but she was, she wasn't living up to the standards of the church of the Nazarene. And so her family, you have to understand, he grew up as a child with the idea that his mother is this disgraceful scarlet woman and, you know, this sinner. And I think that had a big part of his identity of who he was. And she, also, Ben-Gurecki has discovered many real pictures of his mother. Previously, we had seen pictures that were represented as her that were not even her. and this is just a simple pragmatic fact of his life that's important psychologically he looked very much like her she looked like him and they had this very tense terrible dysfunctional relationship love-hate relationship and you know if you look like your mother and she's considered to be a sinner a ***** by her family, she wasn't really, but she was rejected as such in the small town, southern atmosphere of the Church of the Nazarene, his idea of sin was really drummed into him. And also as a little kid going to school to the very little extent that he was able to go to school or in his community, everyone would be whispering about him. He's the son of that ***** that criminal, that thief who you know, his first memories of her are her being sent to prison and him literally being traded in for a mug of beer, which did actually happen. That's not a folk tale. It's been recorded in police records in Kentucky. So that has nothing to do with his spirituality, but it has something to do with he had a yearning for truth, and he definitely felt an affinity with the Christ, with the Christ consciousness, which we'll get into. He had this particular concept of Christ that has been very much misunderstood, but he was dissatisfied with what he called, and other critics of traditional Christianity, churchianity, like this pious, goody-goody, version of Christianity that is basically like the handmaiden of society, rather than how he saw Jesus, which is this very radical mystic who's saying to reject the world as you know it. I mean, and, you know, I come not to bring peace, but I bring a sword. Far from extolling family virtues, even what little bit of the true Gnostic Jesus that speaks in the Old Testament, and most of it is edited out, he's a revolutionary, he's a radical, and he is telling people X themselves from society. And far from, as I was saying, far from encouraging family values, he says, get up and follow me out into the desert, you know, give up everything. So that was the Jesus that Charlie felt a connection to.

Michael: Yes, and so as you said there, his family is of the Church of the Nazarene, but then not too long after he left his family at nine years old, then he ended up in two different Catholic establishments. So can you talk a little bit about how that happened and how that further complicated and solidified his considerations of Christ and uh Christianity in general.

Nikolas: Right like a lot of or almost everything that happened to Charlie with his peculiar Destiny of everything getting ****** ** and upside down and backwards uh they considered because his name was Manson must be Irish therefore must be Irish Catholic when his mother basically abandoned him and you know, to get rid of him, to get him out of her life, because a particular boyfriend of hers found him annoying and objectionable and cramping his style. And she put him into the juvenile reform system. He ended up at the Gibald School for Boys, which was a Catholic, Roman Catholic institute. And anybody who's even seen some of Charlie's interviews will see that he was obsessed with the Pope, with the very concept of Roman Catholicism. And he connected it to the mafia, very often used it as even an analog or a synonym for the mafia. So he came from clan country of Ashland, Kentucky, the Church of the Nazarene. And maybe people who don't know the American South who are listening to this, in the environment of the Church of the Nazarene in the Deep South, or in Kentucky particularly, but that whole area, um the idea from Evangelicals and and Protestants is that the Roman Catholic Church is the Antichrist and that the Pope is you know the devil incarnate and Charlie grew up with that idea but then so imagine he is being raised by and he he made a point of saying at Gibaut boys school that was the first time he encountered a religious Brotherhood of monks which he You know, weirdly, for most people, seems counterintuitive. That's what he looked at as his commune of brotherhood and sisterhood of rebirth movement, as he called it. So I think this being raised by monks was very important in his spiritual development. He disliked their discipline and their severity, but he admired their religious dedication. So yeah, he grew up in this Roman Catholic environment. And then his deep connection to the mafia, which began very early with his dealings with the major mafioso figure Frank Costello when he was very young in the 50s, and continued with people like Frankie Carbo and other major mafia people, he looked at the, I mean, he called himself the Pope. He was obsessed with the papacy, with the Roman Catholic Church. And I mean, I hardly, an interview I did with him that I can think of where he didn't bring up Roman Catholicism in some way. And there's one conversation we had, which I have a tape of, in which he talks about how important it is to unite the Roman Catholic and Protestant wings of the church again and bring one. I mean, he was really, You know, people who think he was just a con man who used religious terminology to trick people to kill, he was obsessed with religious ideas of every kind, and not just Christianity, and he was very familiar with them. True, he was not well-educated, and he suffered from severe dyslexia, but he read very widely, and I would say, you know, he read about religion all the time, and that was something we discussed. Music and religion is what we talked about. Maybe people have the impression that I just interrogated him about crimes constantly. That was the exception, not the rule. So he was a mystic who was interested in and exploring. He was on a spiritual quest, and traditional Christianity did not fulfill that quest. And I think an important part of it is the Church of the Nazarene's rejection of sexuality, he very much saw sexuality as a sacred rite and saw the, you know, the alchemical union of male and female as being the ultimate mystical experience. So that was in complete contradiction to what he was raised with.

Michael: Yes, and just to touch a little bit there, one of the things that stood out to me and other people that I've sort of, in my personal life, sort of drawn into like, hey, look at a little bit of this interview, is the thing that stands out is that he'll go off on like a little tangent and he might just mention something for a second or two and then move on. And somebody will say, well, what do you mean by that, Charlie? And he'll just go into thorough detail. he'll mention something of just totally off the wall that usually has some relation to some other spirituality. And he really is just, you think like if you just listen to him on the surface, like, oh, he's just ************ about this and that and this and that. But every time, every time somebody stops and says, what do you mean by that, Charlie? There's the next half hour where he's telling you exactly what he meant by that one little half sentence.

Nikolas: Right. And of course, most of the mainstream hot seat interviews where they basically just had some moron representing traditional society coming to rattle his cage and to get the monster to say something frightening, he gave them that. But if you look at the full interviews, the unedited interviews, he's always getting back to spiritual concerns that, unfortunately, the dimwits that interviewed him, for the most part, not only have no interest in it, they have no knowledge. And I think that's why one of the many reasons that Charles is so misunderstood, and I don't say that like he was a poor little victim that, you know, was not a violent criminal, he certainly was. Yeah, it's very complicated. Yeah, but, you know, the people who have written about him were not mystics themselves, and most of them had a lot of skepticism. I mean, part of the whole Republican, conservative rejection of hippiedom in the 60s, of the Nixon regime, was stamping out any kind of alternative spirituality to traditional American-style Puritan Christianity. And a lot of people's biases and prejudices about communes, about ***** *** about the, well, the word guru, which is a perfectly noble word and a word of dignity and respect has become an insult. You know, you say, oh, someone's just a guru. And that really started to happen in the late 60s during the demonization of alternative spirituality of any kind, as if every guru or as if every spiritual authority is a manipulative predator.

Michael: Yeah, well, and it's even worse right now with the sort of the new Netflix craze where you have Wild Wild Country that talks about Osho and you have the... I can't remember the guy's name, but the hot yoga one from Los Angeles, where the worst examples always get a two-season documentary.

Nikolas: Right, absolutely. But the idea that by the fact that people spontaneously were drawn to Charles because he did have a natural wisdom and he did have a philosophy and he did inspire people for the better. And he inspired them for the worse, both, both. And that's Abraxis, which we have to understand his comprehension of Abraxis, this duality. But I can't tell you how many prisoners I've known through Charlie who spoke of him as somebody who transformed them, who changed them, who actually encouraged them to be less violent, less hateful, more at peace with themselves. And he was kind of, he took a sort of pastoral, role to other prisoners. And he had this very deep affinity to other prisoners, particularly in the underworld. And I mean, sure, some people hated him, too, or felt competition with him. But a lot of the convicts who I met through Charlie over the many years that we knew each other looked at him like their spiritual guide. So I mean, I know for most people, that's a horrifying idea, that he could have a benevolent effect on people. but I saw that he did.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. And speaking on the guru topic, one of the questions I wanted to ask is in relation to, the Beach Boys went to India and they met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. And, for people that don't know, he was the creator of transcendental, or at least the trademarker of transcendental meditation.

Nikolas: Actually, this is interesting, a digression, but an important one. Probably most people who don't know a lot about these subjects would say, well, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a legitimate, you know, master, and Charlie Manson was this con man pretending to be a guru. On the contrary, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a total con man running, you know, a pyramid scheme exactly like L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology, except using, you know, using Indian mysticism, he was actually the, bookkeeper, the accountant for a guru. And he saw that Westerners were so naive and so desperate for spiritual knowledge, and he packaged it and sold it. But you know, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was out and out con man. And as you say, the Beach Boys, actually, Mike Love went to Rishikesh with the Beatles and Mia Farrow. And all of that has a strange connection to the whole Manson mythos, which I get in to the book, that whole meeting. The Maharishi is kind of the anti-Manson. People don't realize it. First, the Beatles adopted him and rejected him. But the Beach Boys, much more than the Beatles, they actually went out and performed with him. They did this disastrous tour, which was half of him giving a lecture and them playing. And people walked out when the Maharishi spoke. No one was interested in it. It was a financial disaster. So Dennis Wilson had met the Maharishi in Wales, and Mike Love had met him at Rishikesh with the Beatles, and he became their guru. But the Beach Boys always, and Brian Wilson especially, and Dennis, always had some spiritual father figure. And we can get into how much the psychology of Murray Wilson, this horrible, dysfunctional, violent, abusive father of the Beach Boys, led to a certain extent to Dennis's fascination with Charlie as a father figure. But like people like Billy Hinch, a musician who knew Charlie and knew Dennis and knew the Beach Boys, he remembered when the Maharishi, Mahesh Yogi, was replaced by Charlie. I mean, that's the way it was, that was their guru, and then they replaced it with Charlie. And it wasn't just Dennis, Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, They also looked up to him, no matter how much Beach Boys white watchers and fans would like to.

Michael: Yeah, I was going to say that line has been definitely blurred between, you know, they really try to focus on it was just Dennis.

Nikolas: Oh yeah, no, they, I mean, from what Charlie said, and you know, this is over many years, and I don't think he was bragging, and I've said this before, you, I almost got the impression, and they did this with other people like Glen Campbell, and Billy Hinch and a few other musicians that they kind of wanted to make him part of the band for a while, which, you know, at that time, they were desperate for credibility and to be hip. But we don't want to veer too much into music. The point is, even though music too, of course, was incredibly spiritual to Charlie, and it was, as he said, it was a religion to him, sound and music making a joyful, noise onto the Lord was very important in his spiritual development and teaching. But, so you got to understand, that's good that you brought that up. Charlie's one of several gurus in the Beach Boys story. Then there was Eugene Landy, who became Brian Wilson's totally manipulative con man of a psychiatrist who just ruined his life. So, you know, Charlie is part of a larger process in the Beach Boys history of them looking for a guru or a spiritual father figure because of their very, you know, ****** ** relationship with Murray Wilson, this very brutal and insulting father who damaged all of his family. So that's important to understand. And in the context of the 60s, Charlie was absolutely seen as a teacher, and that was not uncommon. On every street corner, there was a messiah, a guru. He's been made to look unique, but he had plenty of competition in Haight-Ashbury and in Los Angeles in the music world.

Michael: Yeah, and on that, I wanted to take it sort of back into the Christianity direction for a little bit. directly related to what we're talking about here is his connection with, if you could speak a little bit about the film that he was advising on and what his role was in advising that film.

Nikolas: Yeah, I think if the, for those who are not, you know, au fait with the deeper saga of the Manson story, Most people's idea of Charlie is he must have frightened everyone immediately. And when you hear anecdotes from show business people who pretend they didn't know him, they'll say, oh yeah, I knew he was a creep and a liar and a manipulator right away. We didn't want anything to do with him. On the contrary, three months, he gets out of prison in March, and to tie into this Christian thing, which is deeply woven into his This three years, and of course, Christ had a three-year ministry, and Charlie was very aware of that. He had that three years out of freedom, and that was his ministry. I want to go back to the day he got out of prison, which was, it's also symbolic. It was the spring equinox that Charlie was released from prison in 1967. And he made a big deal of the fact that out in the parking lot of the prison, the only person there was the prison chaplain. And he took that as one of many signs that he had some sort of religious mission, which of course, rationalists will look at as some sort of delusion of grandeur. But I happen to believe it was sincere and that other people immediately picked up on that. He had some sort of vision. So he gets out of prison, he immediately sees a pastor, and Charlie was always interpreting everything symbolically. If people think interpreting a Beatles song, he interpreted, you know, every time I saw him, he interpreted what color shirt I wore, or what chair were we sitting on, or what music was playing, or, you know, he was a symbol interpreter constantly. So he looked at that as the beginning. of his spiritual journey with this pastor. And then three months after getting out of prison, far from being this wannabe loser who nobody took seriously, on the musical level, he's got Russ Regan, who is the head of Uni Records, paying this convict to go into Gold Star Studios, one of the best studios at the time, where Phil Spector and Sonny Bono and everyone in the music industry worked, to give Charlie money to make a demo. And they were very encouraging about it. And Gary Stromberg, who was a friend of Phil Kaufman, who Charlie met in prison and who was Charlie's connection at Uni Records, was writing a screenplay about the second coming of Jesus for Universal Pictures. And so Charlie ended up being a guest on the Universal lot, three months out of coming out of prison with no future, no money, no connections. He's informally a technical advisor who's parking in Cary Grant's parking place and giving technical advice. And how did people see him before they knew he was the evil cult leader, Charlie Manson? They saw him as this Christian, wise sage and So Gary Stromberg and his partner hired Charlie to help them put some authentic religiosity and spirituality into their script about the second coming of Jesus. So that was one of his first legitimate, you know, he's immediately in, and again, with Charlie's constantly symbolically interpreting everything, he told me when he brought the bus into universal Studios he said I then entered the universal mind and and he said he saw the corruption what what what is be what is what is you know the darkness there in the universal mind so this is how Charlie thought because that Studio is Universal he's in the universal mind and he saw these things like a symbolic mythical he saw his life like an epic like he was hired to talk about the second coming of Jesus, but then he rejected it because, of course, he didn't like Gary Stromberg's idea. And Gary Stromberg was married to a black actress, a woman who, a comedian who appeared on Laugh-In, who actually liked Charlie, and Charlie liked her, but Charlie didn't approve, as we know, of miscegenation at all. So, He rejected, he turned down this job. It wasn't that nobody wanted him. He turned down the job because he did not approve that they were going to make a black Jesus, woke before their time and diverse before their time. So he dropped out of it. So 2 important things there. How did people see him? And you can read Gary Stromberg's very favorable comments of Charlie's spiritual wisdom at that time. That's how he was seen, not as a satanic monster, on the contrary, as somebody who Universal Studios would hire to advise on a religious film. So I think that's very important to understand. That's the way people saw him. And as I pointed out before, a lot of the hip Hollywood crowd didn't see Charlie and his commune as dangerous and frightening. they saw them as a little bit square and goody-goody 'cause they're always talking about Jesus and love and Christ. And that's the last thing a lot of these hedonists wanted to hear about.

Michael: Yeah, and so this all sort of came together as this idea of Christ conscious. And then, so I want you to speak a little bit about what that means and also sort of either solidify or dispel the idea of Charlie thinking he was the return of Christ.

Nikolas: Well, what I learned, I mean, I heard him, of course, we spoke about Gnosticism and Christianity all the time, and he would refer to Bible passages constantly. I mean, that was his frame of reference, was the, and he read the King James Bible and Shakespeare. He loved that kind of Elizabethan language. So the King James Bible was very important to him. It was referred to it. But Charlie's understanding of Jesus, and this is something I only came to understand in like the last ten years of our knowing each other. Charlie was very he was loathed to admit that he ever had a mentor or a teacher. He would admit it with crime. He would admit that Frankie Carbo was his mentor, Frank Costello. or Alvin Karpus. About crime, he was humble and said, I learned everything from these gangsters. But when it came to spiritual things, he was a little cagey about admitting that he ever had an influence. But as I got to know him better, he admitted that the yogi Parahamsa Yogananda was a very major influence on his spirituality. When he was a young man, he went to learn to meditate at this Self-Realization Center in Los Angeles when he was a beatnik. And there were a lot of bohemian beatnik types like Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard. Other people who eventually became figures in the later psychedelic movement were also involved with Yogananda's movement. So Yogananda, interestingly for an Indian guru, emphasized the Christ consciousness. He believed that that Christ was a spiritual master and a guru, but what he taught is that every man is Christ, or every human being, and he referred to it as the Christ, the Christ consciousness, not a person. You could compare it to the, in Tantric Buddhism, the spirit of the Bodhisattva. It's not in which every Buddhist can become the Buddha. We are all a Buddha. So, and very similar to Gnostic forms of Christianity, if we can misuse that word Gnostic, which the people who are called that actually didn't call themselves, but let's say esoteric Christianity. The idea that it's not about worshiping a particular person, And Jesus says it, become like me, be as I am. And that's what Charlie took seriously from Yogananda's teaching. And I looked into it after Charlie told me how much Yogananda influenced his... Actually, he was negative about Christianity from his youth when he got involved with this Yogananda Self-Realization Center. But their idea of Christ consciousness appealed to him, that it was, that the Christ consciousness is something within all of us. Like the gnosis, it's like the spark of infinite wisdom that is veiled by the... or obscurations of this material world. So when Charlie said that he is Jesus, he would also say that so are you. And he always did, but people ignored that part.

Michael: Yeah, this is the part that confuses people so much and why you said that people that don't understand spirituality and depth really shouldn't question him on these topics because he makes a statement like, I am the Christ. And they don't ever they either ignore or don't dig further in to find out that he means, no, so are you, so is that guy, the cameraman is, the person interviewing me is, I am, everybody is. They never let him get that far.

Nikolas: No, he always said that. But, and as I point out in the Manson file in the wizard chapter, this is also something in the esoteric form of Islam, in Sufism. You had many Sufi teachers who said, I am Allah. I am Muhammad. And they were considered heretics, but they were saying, we are all, you know, we are all the prophet. Yeah, in all, there is an esoteric side to all the forms of the Abrahamic religion, which is about God within you. The kingdom of heaven is within you. And that is what Charlie was talking about. And really, I've never seen an interview with him or when he's talking about, I am Jesus, where he doesn't say, and so are you, and you're also the devil, and you're also everything, which if you've even bothered to look into mysticism 101, this is just non-doing. We are potentially everything. We are divinity. is us. And that's what he was saying. Of course, because of Helter Skelter and Bugliosi's twisting of the narrative to turn everything about Charlie into a murder motive or a look how the manipulative cult leader convinced people to kill for him, which is not relevant to his spiritual and religious teaching. So, yeah, so he, and of course, he was also influenced without a doubt by Krishna Venta and who was also a criminal, who, and now I think he was a total fake. I don't think Krishna Venta, from what I've looked into, had any spiritual wisdom. He did seem like a total con man, a criminal, but he too was a, just like Charlie, ex-convict who started a group of women large. I think the Order of the Rainbow and Otwa were very influenced by founding the world of Krishna Venta. And that was For people who don't know, this Fountain of the World was a religious sect right next to the Spahn Ranch. And there was a certain fluidity and commonality between the two groups, between Charlie's commune and the Fountain of the World. So he wasn't trying to be Krishnaventa, but he did feel a karmic connection to him. And Krishnaventa was, in the '50s, already had long hair, a beard, barefoot, wearing robes. For all effects and purposes, the Fountain of the World were proto hippies, 10 years before there were, there was a counterculture. So I would say Yogananda had a much more important influence on Charlie's understanding of this Christ consciousness, not being this particular person, but that Jesus was a vehicle. And this is tying into the more gnostic idea that Christ is not the Son of Yahweh, or Ialdabaoth, who is a imposter god, but is a spirit that was sent by Abraxas, who is the true transcendent godhead above this imposter god, Ialdabaoth, who is known as Yahweh or Jehovah. And Charlie definitely had a Gnostic view of Christianity. So yeah, he was not a delusional psychopath who literally thought that he was Jesus. he understood he was Jesus-like, and that so are you. And he said it to me, you know, You would be God, you would be Satan. He said things like that all the time to everybody, to prison guards. And so that's the important thing to understand about it, is it's a very personal understanding. And now I have to add one other thing, is that to the degree that he did identify with Jesus is There is this idea in Christian mysticism of imitatio deus, or imitation of the god. And this is true even in Egyptian and Greek and Roman magic, or all magical pantheons. If you are a disciple of a particular deity, you try to make your life like that deity. And Charlie definitely believed that his trial and his long period of incarceration was a crucifixion. He did believe that he was suffering for humanity, as crazy as that may sound to other people. He absolutely believed that it wasn't a con because he was consistent about that. He did believe he was. He had to deal with this being this horrific scapegoat for everybody's projections of evil. I mean, imagine what that's like to wake up every day with these incredible cartoonish misconceptions of you as the most evil person who's ever existed and what that does to your mind. So an important part of his Christ consciousness was, I'm taking on the hatred for everybody. I'll take it on. I will be your scapegoat. You can be for everything. I did everything. And that too. He was being like Jesus. In that way, he was trying to be a good Christian and maybe more diligently than the average socially acceptable Christian who just goes to church on Sunday. He genuinely believed that part of the Christian spiritual experience is to suffer, to accept suffering. And as the Buddha said, All is suffering in this world of samsara. But because Charlie had so much grief you know, from his childhood on, this incredibly difficult life that he had, much of which he brought on himself, let's face it. But he had this, you know, but having the hatred of the entire world focused on him because of the media inflaming this myth about him, he turned that into an advantage for himself on an initiatory level. And kind of, if you look into, in Sufism, the way of Mallamat, of being deliberately disrespected, to be hated, is in a way to become spiritually redeemed. And this gets into the transgressions of the true left-hand path, not what people think the left-hand path is. I can't get into that in this conversation. We will another time for sure. And in this regard, in the Manson file you saw, I get into the idea of the holy fool, of someone who is deeply religious, but who flaunts the taboos of society. And there's a long tradition of that in every genuine spiritual tradition, like St. Francis of Assisi and many others more radical than him. And in Tantric Buddhism, we have this concept as well of transgressing the rules to demonstrate a spiritual wisdom that goes beyond social convention and that that's called crazy wisdom in tantric Buddhism and Charlie to an amazing degree though he wasn't book learned really reflected this idea of crazy wisdom in tantric Buddhism of being a mirror of just reflecting what is coming to you without judging it of of becoming it of of uh Also, you know, it's a cliche, but of not having ego. I think that's important to get into, too. But back to your questions.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you are getting directly into the next one I was going to ask here. So one of the quotes that's really resonated with me over the years from Charlie since the first time I heard it, The way out isn't through the door. So in the Manson file, you say, Charlie thought his cell was a platonic cave and that he got out of the world itself, that when he got out, the world itself was equally illusory. If you could explain that a little bit.

Nikolas: Well, he was very firm in this concept that he was always in prison, like he was prison, like even when he got out. He was still in prison, and it was his home. I mean, he didn't know anything else. It's hard for people to grasp a life in which that is your home. You don't know -- he just was institutionalized from, you know, from 9 and 12 years old, completely institutionalized. So he felt that he was -- well, the other important thing about it is that he -- and this is true. I have seen this to be true with other prisoners. As harsh and horrible as prison is, and I'm certainly not romanticizing it in any way, shape, or form, it's brutal and horrible and an awful, you know, desolate experience. But it is like a monastery to a certain extent in that you are forced to give up social convention. You have to give up your ego because you have lost all rights. You are nobody. You know, you have, and if you're a spiritual person, you can take even a terrible experience like prison and turn it into a humbling experience. You have to deal with people who you certainly may not like on a daily level. You have to maneuver. in a very difficult situation. And I get into this in The Manson File in that chapter, The Wizard, how, to a certain extent, prison was Charlie's monastery, and going into his cell was like a monk in retreat. And he was very aware of that. And then he saw, kind of like in the Superman, in the true Superman comics, bizarro world, he saw prison as the real world, and the outer world as a projection of things that began in the underworld. And on a deeper level, he believed that crime is what was the true root of the outer world that pretends to be good and law-abiding, but actually that underneath it all, it comes from the underworld, which is a very mystical concept. And, you know, to most people, that seems like mumbo jumbo, but he really believed it. He believed that the highest level of government had its roots that you couldn't see deep in the underworld. And I'm not going to make anyone angry, but as far as we can see now, that's become quite evident where you have criminals running governments quite blatantly and nobody minds. So I think that part of his understanding of reality is totally true. So Does that answer your question a bit, or does that get to what you were?

Michael: Yeah, I think so. And a little bit further, I guess, in this direction, can you talk about how Charlie cultivated a state of non-judgmental contentment for whatever this moment offers and how this connects to the tantric teacher, Chagyam Trongpa? Sorry if I mispronounced his name.

Nikolas: Yeah. No, no, that's good. Yeah, well, when I was fairly young, in my late 20s, Charlie had this very long two-part conversation with me in which he, I don't really talk about this in the book, but this chapter, The Wizard, is very much based on things that we had a conversation about. And I'll get into what the root of this wizard chapter is, was another book that Charlie proposed that we work on called The Mind of Charles Manson, and I'll get into that a bit. But There was a two-part conversation I had with Charlie on the phone from prison, where he was very urgently trying to get me to understand the idea of acceptance. And he wrote it in capitals, acceptance, like it's very important. Whatever, I mean, at the heart of Charlie's teaching was the idea that there is, I mean, and of course this is, the perennial philosophy of mysticism. It's not like he invented it or learned it from someone. He knew it. His inner wisdom that you get through mystical experience is that this moment now, coming to now, is all there is. The past, the second before of what we were saying is totally gone. It's completely gone. There's no trace of it. It may be recorded, but it's gone. There's only this moment And no matter what this moment brings us, we have to be totally in love with it. That was a very important part of his teaching. Even if it's horrible, like in one of his interviews, and he paraphrased this many times, like Jesus on the cross, he would say, Yes, put the nail in. I mean, that can seem like some kind of masochism, but it's basically acceptance was this thing he really pushed on me when he was, I mean, like he thought this was very crucial for me to understand whatever. And I did learn that lesson and I'd have found it useful, extremely useful. And Charlie's teaching is not useful to a conventional person who's a part of universities or the academy or society or corporations. It's fairly useless for that kind of person. But if you have yourself from society, as I did long before Arley, and which I think many people who find him of value, it is very useful. So acceptance means whatever is happening, it's the way it's supposed to be, and don't fight it. Don't try to get away from it. Don't try to change it. And he would often say, perfection as it is. Everything is perfect as it is. That's including being in prison in the miserable conditions he was in. And he did have genuine joy and bliss compared to most people. Now, of course, he had his dark moods. He had his bad, angry moods. He was a human being. But even in prison, I'd see that he, for the most part, practiced what he preached. Now, how many of us can say that we are totally accepting of what's happening to us in our life, that we understand it's our karma, and then just let it be without trying to change it, without trying to transform it. And that is very much, as you said, one of the teachings of this tantric Buddhist master, very controversial also, Chagyam Trungpa, who also taught just exactly like Charlie, and it's a teaching in Sufism, be a mirror, reflect what's happening, don't judge it, don't say this is good, bad, or indifferent. And that, again, is non-dualism, which is very hard for the conventional dualistic mind to understand, because the uninitiated person is constantly saying, this is good, this is bad, I like this, I don't like that. Not judging, letting it be, and a total acceptance of the moment is, that's, I would say, key to what Charlie taught and what he demonstrated to other people, that he could be joyful in chains, that he could be, on one hand, having no freedom whatsoever. You can't wear that, Manson. You can't do that. You can't have to stay here. I mean, think of how constrained his life was for 60 years and more of his life, not being able to decide what he could eat, where he could go, what he could wear, and yet he was free within. For the most part, he did have his flaws and he did have, there were elements of contradiction. And one that I'll bring up, like he taught everyone he knew to transcend the social conditioning of their family, of the mother mind, as he would call it. But I have to say, he himself didn't do that at all. That was a glaring inconsistency in that he was totally, when he was in his 70s, he was still a damaged little boy who had been very traumatized by his, negative relation with his mother, who he never forgave and always had very bitter, you know. So he taught people transcend the social conditioning of the mother mind. He himself, I don't think, succeeded in doing that.

Michael: Yeah. And then another thing I wanted you to talk about a little bit of while we're still on the topic of sort of the Eastern traditions being melded into what he was doing. So on my shirt here that people can sort of have a look at. red and blue both are holding this one-finger mudra that you talked a little bit about in the book. So if you could explain that mudra a little bit, because I think people have seen it a lot.

Nikolas: Right, well, basically this. And Charlie, okay, now remember, it's in the social context of the 1960s when everyone is doing the peace symbol. To Charlie's mind, he was, on one hand, he told people he was the real hippie, but on the other hand, he was an anti-hippie. Typical of him, he's a contradiction about everything. There's a yes and a no and a maybe about everything with him. So to a certain sense, think of, you know, 67 to 69, every long-haired person is, you know, peace. So his answer to that was all is one. Everything is one. And again, it's the basic core mystical teaching of the unity of all things. And I mean, In a letter he wrote to me, which I quote in The Manson File, which is quite simple but very profound, because it is the ultimate truth of emptiness and what is considered wisdom in the Eastern tradition, is there's only one. I mean, he said, There's no such thing as two, man. There's just one thing. And he totally understood that. He really did live it and see it. And also, he told me that when They experimented with these, the media would call it ******. He looked at it as like a Christian sexual agape. The point of these ****** was not merely hedonism. Not that he didn't enjoy sex, of course he did. But it was to try for the commune to reach a kind of unified mind through unified orgasm and becoming one completely. And doing that with psychedelic drugs is an extremely powerful thing that creates a group dynamic. And so he told me that when someone was going to have an orgasm, they would do the one and that everyone would try to match them. And he said they never did get to that point exactly. But certainly, you know, so that's what, and there were many, many other hand gestures, which he never explained to me. That was one that was quite clear, and he did, but he had all kinds of hidden hand gestures, which were somewhat influenced by criminal gangs that have ways of communicating with gesture, also the Freemasons. I mean, he used body to communicate as much as he did words. And when you were with him in person, he very much used body language and expression to say something deeper than what the words were saying. That's something you could only experience in person, I think. So that's what the one is. It just means the truth is one, all is one. And you know, again, that's not in contradiction with all the great mystical traditions of the world. The Pope wouldn't disagree with that. The Dalai Lama wouldn't disagree with that.

Michael: Yeah, and so I wanna come back on this all as one concept in a few moments, but I have to get this in. I'd like you to speak a little bit about the way of the bus and how that sort of connects into the magical mystery tour that they took from the Beatles. More, as you've said, more of the girls focused on the magical mystery tour aspect of it, but the way of the bus and that were, they were sort of the same thing.

Nikolas: Yeah, Charlie turned everything into a religious quest and a journey. So, just as he called the commune a rebirth movement when he talked to me about it and other people, that's how he saw it, was a movement for people to give up their social conditioning, which the Buliosian will say, right, to go kill people and commit crimes. Well, yes, that is true. And we do have to include that. Part of his His genuine belief, and I've said this before, it wasn't just a con. He believed it. Your property is not yours because if it's all one, it also belongs to me. Now, that's true on a universal level. It's not true on a legal level. You can arrest me if I... But he believed that. And therefore he thought, well, I can take whatever I want because I give it to you. And he would. he would definitely, he'd go, you can have that. And he even gave away the bus occasionally.

Michael: That was very powerful, finding out that he actually gave away the bus.

Nikolas: Right, and that's something that Gary Stromberg actually witnessed on a beach in Santa Monica, I think, that some envious guy said, oh, you know, you with your girls and your bus, and you're not anti-materialistic. And he said, you can have them, take them. And I know that's what he was like. He was greedy, and he was a criminal who thought he had every right to steal from you because society had ****** him over. I don't necessarily agree with that part of his thought, but that's, if you want to understand the man, that was his approach. Like, You have taken all my rights, and therefore you have no rights. I can take whatever from you. But he also believed, I'll give you anything, whatever you want, I'll give you. And he did. He gave money generously to many people. He offered it to me. So he had this idea that keeping everything in flow. So that was part of his oneness, including the criminality. Now, I didn't necessarily agree with that, but on a philosophical level, you can understand theoretically, he's saying, Nothing belongs to anyone. You don't even belong to yourself. I mean, this very simple line in one of his songs, You ain't Joe, you ain't Sam, you just am. That is very simple lyric, but it sums up his philosophy. We are, we are experiencing this mysterious phenomena of consciousness, and we are nobody. And he said that all the time, I'm nobody. But that wasn't self-abnegation. That's the same thing that a monk in deep meditation would feel, I don't exist because I am part of such a vast, infinite, divine mystery that I don't exist. The I doesn't really exist. And there's a conversation I have on my YouTube channel where he says in passing, something like, I'm paraphrasing, you know, it's really hard for people to understand. Nothing's real. Nothing's actually happening. And this is something that one of my... In my own spiritual lineage, the 16th Karmapa, who was the Karmapa, the leader of the Karmakaju Buddhist sect before this one, when he was dying of cancer, one of his disciples was crying. He was at a hospital in Chicago because his master was dying, and the Karmapa smiled and laughed, and the doctors were amazed. He felt no pain, even though he was suffering from fatal cancer, and he said to his disciple, Nothing happens. And if you think about the simple profundity of that, that is something Charlie was very aware of, that this, and again, his song lyrics are his teaching, The illusion has just been a dream. That's exactly what you will realize when your consciousness separates from your body when you die. This thing that we're experiencing that we think is reality is an illusion, and he knew that. He knew that this was a very fluid mirage. And that's why he had this impish playfulness about life and even about serious things, you know, because he knew it was a game. He knew that this is not actually happening.

Michael: Yeah, and so to elaborate on that a little bit further, You point out that with the death penalty hanging over his head, Charlie stated that he'd already died years ago. I've personally heard him make similar statements, and I always thought he was talking about being a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. But then you explained in your book about the day that he turned everything off in solitary confinement in 1951. So if you could elaborate a little bit on that, because that was really interesting to me.

Nikolas: Yeah, I believe I'm not completely correct. I may be wrong. I think it was in Lewisburg Penitentiary when he was a teenager, practically in the fifties. He said he had this mystical experience of everything turned off. He no longer cared. Now, I don't think that was always consistent because I saw him get angry about all kinds of petty ******** and get into feuds with people. But he wasn't perfect by any means, but for the most part, he really, I do think that happened. He had a mystical experience in solitary confinement. I believe it was in Louisburg Penitentiary when he was in solitary. And he said, and he always referred to it as a landmark in his initiation. And he was an initiate. I know that the average Bouliosian will think, oh, this guy's crazy, thinking this psychopath is an initiate, but he was. And if you are on the spiritual quest, you recognize another person who is on that quest. And if you're not, you can't see it. Unfortunately, that's the way it is. So he had this mystical experience, and he had three mystical experiences he described to me and to many others that I think shaped him. That was that, and then he said, I became dead. And he often used this, I'm dead. that the people in the commune were deadheads. He had their head, not like fans of the Grateful Dead. He meant literally. And he didn't mean in a bad way. He meant, and actually Muhammad in the Quran says, die before you die. It's very hard for the average person to understand what that really means. It does cease to exist. Of course, the Bouliosian literal-minded idiot will say, yeah, it's about killing and murder. No, he means the ego ceases to exist. The I ceases to exist. Nothing is actually happening. And so his songs, as seemingly simple folk songs that they are, his teaching is very much imbued in almost all of them. But to cease to exist, It doesn't mean to die, literally. It means to, as what Muhammad is saying, to die before you die, to give up your ego, to give up your grabbing and attachment to this material world, because we already are dead. We are the ghost. We are the reincarnated ghost of somebody who came before us. And Charlie was very aware of reincarnation. He was very clear that he believed He definitely believed that he was a World War I soldier. He remembered being killed in World War I and realizing that death is nothing. Like, oh, okay, that was nothing. And that was important. He believed himself to be the reincarnation of Giadorno Bruno. the Italian heretic and mystic who was killed as a heretic and for blasphemy. And he even called himself one of his criminal aliases. Cops would say, who are you? He'd say, Giadorno Bruno. You know, these are fascinating things about Charlie. Where did this, you know, very uneducated guy who had very little exposure to any kind of teaching come to believe that he was the reincarnation of Giadorno Bruno. And if your watchers will look into, you'll see there are certain parallels in their thought.

Michael: Yeah, I've spent a lot of time looking into those parallels. It's a, yeah, Bruno is a really interesting figure. And as I said, I was going to attach onto the beginning of this interview, the little excerpt from the A.K.A. Abraxas tape, where at the very start of the tape, Charlie introduces himself by like 15 different aliases, and Count von Bruno is one of them. So, Count, Count, Count.

Nikolas: Count von Bruno, the Black Pirate, was the official name of who he was. But, and also see he, like, people don't understand the names that he gave Sadie Mae Glutz. All these names, it's like he, this was, now I understand, I mean, I can put on the hat of the Manson hater who says, yeah, he was destroying their ego so he could hypnotize them to kill. I understand, that's your simple-minded view of it. He was genuinely trying to get them to give up their identities to become something divine. And that was, we didn't get further enough into the way of the bus and the magical mystery tour as Charlie saw it. And the girls were as much his teachers as he was theirs. It was a playful, you know, I do agree with this group marriage idea, that's what it was. And they brought stuff to him, and it was like a constant role-playing to keep the fluidity of identity from stagnating and solidifying so that they were always somebody else. You know, one day they were this, one day they were that, different names, you know, and that confused people. And of course, and I never deny this with everything, there's the underworld criminal aspect of it. They were criminal aliases. If the cop asked who you are, you say Sadie Mae Glutz, not Susan Denise Adkins, that's a criminal reason, but it also had a spiritual purpose, is you are not you. You are not only you, are more than that. And so this magical mystery tour, this playfulness, this fluidity of identity, that's a very important part of any mystical initiation.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. And just a little bit on what you were saying there with him, it being sort of a reciprocal thing between him and the girls. In Lynette's book, Reflection, she made a, there was a really powerful moment that she talked about when I think they were having a, they were on a trip and somebody sort of said something about Charlie being the leader of the group. And Charlie's like, no, Lynette's the leader of the group. And then Lynette like freaked out.

Nikolas: Right.

Michael: Because she's like, I'm not the leader, you're the leader. He's like, no, you're the leader. And yeah, so, and you know, she knew he meant it.

Nikolas: He did. And I actually believe, I remember once he had, for a few years, he had these party line phone conversations that were difficult to arrange, where a bunch of people he knew would talk to him and he would give sort of a sermon and he would call it the riverboat. Like we were all on a riverboat. That's cool. And he, I remember him saying in one of them that he was, and I believe this, it wasn't mock humble or mock bragging. He said, I'm not comfortable being the leader. I don't know why you're looking at me. I don't know anything. I'm an idiot. And he often said that, Don't look at me. I don't know anything. I didn't get beyond third grade. Don't ask me. Yes, there were elements of megalomania, but you can't ignore how often he said, I'm nobody. I'm just a hobo. I'm a bum in the street with a bottle of wine. I'm nobody. I think he was uncomfortable with being a teacher. And that is the sign of a true teacher. Nobody would want it, because it's a burden. It's a task to have people come to you for help and for wisdom, and they always did. So I think that's an important part of it, too. It isn't like he embraced it. Yes, he sure liked to hear himself talk. He liked to ramble and philosophize, and he... He did give these sermons, but I think he was a bit uncomfortable with that. And he always wanted to say, Well, you're my teacher. And actually, it's something I think he picked up partially from the Diggers, which I mentioned in the Manson File, this counterculture group in the early days of the hippie movement in Haight-Ashbury. There's a famous story that's much told, an anecdote about it, where these journalists go in to interview this radical group, the Diggers, And it turns-- and they think they're talking to the leader of the Diggers. And what they did was to go tell them to talk to other journalists. So they were tricking them that they thought, that's the leader of the Diggers. And the two journalists are interviewing each other, neither of them are even part of the Diggers. That's the kind of hippie guerrilla theater that Charlie played. And if you don't know the hippie movement, a lot of what the commune did seems bizarre. But this kind of guerrilla St. theater, the way they, what they did in the courtroom was very much like what hippie street theater did, like subverting social relationships and the normal dynamic. of how things are. But I mean, he also said to Danny DiCarlo that Michael Brunner, Pooh Bear, was the leader, and he believed it. He said his little kid, his child, was the leader of the group. And many people said that. He said, this is something that I believe was influenced by Scientology, because L. Ron Hubbard, for some reason, was very obsessed with that idea too. I think Charlie picked it up from Dianetics that look at the purity of children to learn how to be a better human being. I don't know that I necessarily agree with that part of Charlie's idea, and I don't agree with many parts of what he taught, but they are, they're not madness. There is a method to what he believed. There is a coherent philosophy there.

Michael: I think, I don't want to get too far into this, but just since you mentioned him, I think Michael Bruner is a really sort of interesting and also slightly tragic element to the whole thing, because, I think for years he either was kept away from knowing about Charlie and or was caught up in the helter skelter narrative to the point that he just didn't want to find out more. But it really seems like in, you know, very recent years, the more he's learned, the more he's really sort of felt a connection to the the saner, the saner people attached to Charlie and your narrative of what happened with Charlie. And I think he's, he seems like a really genuine guy, especially when, you go to YouTube and you look in the comment sections and instead of people saying all the horrible stuff that they say every time somebody related to Charlie comes up with him, it's like, just, everybody seems sympathetic to Michael Bruner in comments.

Nikolas: Right. And he, I mean, he of course is his own person and he's very different than Charlie, but I see in him many of Charlie's positive attributes and none of the negative ones.

Michael: Yeah.

Nikolas: And, you know, people who think I'm this great, you know, fan of Charlie, he had lots of negative traits that made his pretty much his own worst enemy. He had a lot of self-destructive, violent and moody temperamental traits. Michael has none of that, but he does have a lot of his playfulness and wit and intelligence that, you know, and there's a lot that even though Charlie only raised him for a very brief time, he is definitely Charlie's son, but in a good way. And Charlie even said that to me. and a few others. I mean, because he did always talk of Michael with great affection. For Charlie, who really was quite bitter about almost everyone, he spoke very fondly and lovingly of him and said, he's better than I am.

Michael: Yeah, and so now I guess I'd like to talk a little bit specifically about the sort of the word shamanism being connected with Charlie and also his I believe this was his first contact with psychedelics while he was in Mexico. So if you could sort of speak a little bit in that direction for a few minutes.

Nikolas: Right. Well, in 1960, during this sojourn in Mexico, when for people who may not know the whole ins and outs of the story, he was pimping some girls in Texas. and New Mexico, and then he fled. He was a wanted man, and he crossed the border into Mexico. And he loved Mexico. I mean, he always said that. He said two things through the beginning of his spiritual initiation, this experience in the cell where he became dead, And he said the spiritual trip began in Mexico. And that was his favorite experience in his life. He kept referring to the Mexican sojourn that was very brief. I think it was very important to him. And one of the things he encountered was in a part of Mexico where the Yaqui Indians, who also wander into Arizona and New Mexico and other parts of North America, the Yaqui Indians. Now, he clearly had probably been influenced by a famous article in Life magazine at that time about the wonderful properties of psilocybin, because before the hippie movement, people forget, the mainstream media was pushing psychedelics as a miracle drug. And at that moment, I believe the timing of that trip, he had read this article, so he was looking for psilocybin. And supposedly, the Yaquis had it. And his Mexican gangster friends, these cholos that Charlie was hanging around, they were frightened of the Yaqui Indians and their fierceness. They said, Oh, no, don't go near them. And Charlie recklessly entered Yaqui land with a gun, with a magnum. And you can read about the whole incident that happened in the book, but he wanted to get this psychedelic experience from them, and he did. And according to what a Mexican police official told me, he was, the Yaquis never let a gringo or a white man enter into their tribal world at all. And so these gangsters were shocked that Charlie managed to ingratiate himself with the Yaquis, who were feared by Mexican gangsters, who were tough then, even before the very formidable drug syndicates of today. But they were, you know, these were brutal banditos that Charlie was hanging around. They were frightened and they respected Charlie that he would go there and become part of it. But what happened, he apparently freaked out during one of these mushroom trips. And the Yaqui Indians hated the government, hated the Mexican government and considered it a colonial oppression, they called the police, the federalis, and said, you've got to get this maniac out of here. And they were holding him down. And so that's how extreme, whatever he did, I don't really know the details. I wish I could get the actual records. they delivered him to the Federales because he was just being, you can imagine what would Charlie Manson's first mushroom trip be like if I think you can picture it. So that was too much for the Yaqui Indians. But he also connected very much to the Aztec. I mean, he went to Tehuetecan, the city of the gods, where this pyramid of the sun and the moon are. He very much connected to the shamanic tradition. And you were getting into how is Charlie a shaman, I think, in a very Mexican way, a curandero, a healer, and deeply connected to nature.

Michael: Yeah.

Nikolas: And in the book, I say that he's seeing himself as a mirror. Anyone who knows anything about Charlie's mystical ideas knows he constantly said, I'm just a mirror. And he really was, he really did reflect what was around him. But the important thing to Mexico there is that the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca is called Smoking Mirror, and he is a mirror. And actually, that's the black scrying tool that occultists connect to John Dee that was actually an Aztec scrying mirror connected to the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca.

Michael: That's an interesting connection, yeah.

Nikolas: Yeah, so I believe Charlie picked a lot of this Aztec-- I think he had it in him karmically. He really responded to it. And people who think of him as purely this white supremacist racist might be surprised to know how much he admired Mexico and Mexican culture very, very deeply.

Michael: Yeah, before I want to keep talking about the shamanism element, but I want to read a little excerpt here from the book that apparently this was a letter that Charlie wrote to you. Mother Tree knows my feelings, for I can feel her branches, and I know my own life in and out, around, up and down, through, with, and through, and without. Yes, Sister C feels me as I feel her waves, and I hear the cries of the wildlife. A perfect mother knows I feel the wood being cut, and I hurt, and die with the trees falling. How much a beast must I be to defeat the beast that destroys my mother? The North Sea is dying, the ice caps are melting faster than ever. A lichen is dying on the rock, and I feel it all as my life. I can't help it. I was bound to feel it, and I feel it all, and she cries out at me, and I love the snake, bird, trees, and wolves, atwa. But humans bore me, and are as aware as a slug, and slow as a snail, and under it all. Can you speak a little bit about the word a lichen, and how this passage would resonate with a shaman?

Nikolas: I mean, that was just in the midst of a standard letter, which he sent me many. I mean, that wasn't like he sat down to write a prose piece. That's what came out of his mind.

Michael: I thought that was incredible.

Nikolas: No, it's beautiful. I mean, if you didn't know, if you quoted that to any group of esoteric people, they would like it and they would respond to it. And then if you told them who wrote it, they'd be horrified. But they wouldn't make the connection, well, wait, if he wrote this, maybe he's not the person you think he is. They wouldn't go that far. But that was a very admirable thing about Charlie, his natural poetry, his way with words and language, even though he was not educated and not well-read. I mean, to me, that's just, I mean, I could have filled the book with thousands of examples like that. And again, I hear a lot of people say, Well, that was just ******** to whitewash that he's a criminal, and he tried to sound like an environmentalist, but he wasn't really. Believe me, he was obsessed with ecology and environmentalism and animal rights, and he felt the misery of animals being killed for meat. He thought about it all the time. Even though, again, and I always point out, he was a little hypocritical. Occasionally in prison, where you have a terrible choice of food, he would occasionally eat a little chicken or meat, even though he was very strict with others about vegetarianism. And we quarreled about that a bit. Like I said, you have to stick to it completely. And he, you know, he wasn't raised that way. So occasion, and also very, very limited choice in prison. But he, I mean, I can't stress how much This was important to him. And people who think he was just a con man who told people what they wanna hear, no, he bored people to death who could care less about hearing about saving trees and the ocean and animals. And I saw, I mean, humorously, I saw a lot of people who were just attracted to him because of the most sensational, stupid reasons, 'cause oh, he's this notorious mass murderer, pretend that they were interested in environmentalism, which you know is that they weren't. to get along with him because it was crucial to him. I mean, and that is very shamanic. Also, well, how was he a shaman in that he... I mean, this is another thing, the cliche, he didn't take LSD as much as the girls so that he could manipulate them. Well, in fact, that was something that even the leading psychedelic psychologist of the time said, there needs to be someone there to be the guide to help people into the other world. You know, you can't all be on the same level. And that's what he did. And that's what a curandero or a shaman helps to introduce people into the spiritual world through the use of these power medicines or entheogens, as they would call them. And that's what he did. He was a guide into the spiritual world at a time when many people were interested in the spiritual world. Now we live, I mean, it's unimaginable for people who didn't experience the '60s how society really changed, not in this new age superficial way that you see people interested in esotericism, but people really had a desperate yearning for a deeper truth. And whether you want to believe it or not, whether he was a criminal or not, and whether he did horrible things by most ethical standards or not, he was a very effective and wise guide into the spiritual world. And like shamans, he was totally terrible at dealing with the practical world, with the world of contracts and, you know, human dynamics and all of that. He was, you know, how do things work? He was like a wild animal, like a feral being who had never been exposed to society. So he was impractical on that level, but when it came to spiritual things, he was a guide and he was very wise. So those are aspects of shamanism, his total connection to the animal kingdom. And he said it over and over again, I'm a coyote, I'm a wolf, I'm a lizard, I'm a scorpion, I'm not a human being. And he wasn't. And I know that most people will think that's crazy, but he wasn't, there was something. And when I say inhuman, I don't mean it in an insulting way. When you were with him in person, there was something, as I describe in the book, of the fairy realm, of an elf, a leprechaun, something like that, which in the ancient world, people understood that there are people who are not wholly of this world, and he was certainly one of them. And he himself was baffled by what he is and how to deal with it. And that's what a shaman is too, a bridge for humans, for the tribe between the spiritual world and the human world. Another thing about him that's controversial, but his ambiguous sexuality is very typical. To become a shaman, a man has to become a woman in a strange way. And I'm not talking about it in a woke, trans way, which totally would pervert what we're talking about. It is that you have to connect to your feminine side, which is what makes magic happen. which is something you see in the tantric left-hand path as well. Charlie was an ambisexual being. He didn't, even though he was weirdly very much about being a man and how a man is, he also had this feminine side, which many people pointed out is what made him attractive to women, because he could, and even though he was weirdly misogynistic, like everything I say about him could be contradicted with another facet of him, but he had this feminine side, which he was the first to admit. And that too is very typical of when you become a shaman, you partially become the other gender, because women are the sorceress, the witch, and you know his fascination with witchery and the whole idea of a witch. So those are standard degrees of being a shaman. And as I point out in the book, if you don't get the training, this is true in traditional societies too, If you're born to be a shaman, but you don't get the training to actually become one, if you don't live your destiny to be the tribal shaman, then you get sick, you get kind of mentally ill. And I believe that some of Charlie's disturbances and anger and problems with the world came from because he could not fully develop his spiritual potential. I think that's been, they call that the shamanic sickness. And very often when you become a shaman, you become very ill, and you have to go through this long, dark night of the soul in which you're purified, and then you come out of it like a phoenix from the ashes reborn. And I think that process didn't work totally for Charlie, because how could it in prison and in the criminal underworld is not the ideal place for that.

Michael: Yeah. And so the second to the last thing that I'd like to talk with you about here today is what is Abraxas? What are Charlie's connections to it? And then if you would also like to add in there a little bit, talk about what your project is in relation to that, if you have anything to say on that at this time.

Nikolas: Just so I was going to say, now, how have we gone this far without mentioning Abraxis? So I'm glad that you did. I mean, Abraxis.

Michael: Speaking of wrong shoulder, Abraxis, this is the image right here over my shoulder of Abraxis that people can see.

Nikolas: Right. Well, one of the reasons that I got in touch with Charlie, part of it was just a pragmatic desire to put out one of his recordings as a musician. I noticed his references to Abraxas long ago, you know, a very long time ago. And I believe I'm the first person to even have mentioned them or write about them in the first Manson file in 1988. Other than his music and our connection to lycanthropy and the wolf, I mean, we have a very strong bond about our connection to the wolf that were things that brought us together right away he wrote this letter to me the way of the wolf which I include in the book which like that shamanic poetic writing you read is very is very much in that spirit I would recommend I think a lot of people skip the parts of my book in which I'm quoting long passages of Charlie because I think well that's just Charlie's mumbo jumbo they're very important to understanding him so the way of the wolf was one thing that connected to us, this weird connection that we have of the animal totem, the wolf. But I was always fascinated with Abraxas, and I get into that in my forthcoming book, which I hope to be the definitive book about Abraxas. So from my childhood, I had this unexplainable obsession with Abraxas, and I was very surprised as I started looking into Charlie's ideas right after the Squeaky Fromm incident with Gerald Ford is when I seriously, as a teenager, started trying to figure out, well, what are these people? I never knew they were interested in environmentalism or animal rights or things that I was deeply concerned with at the time. So I looked into it and saw his mentions of Abraxis and thought, well, where the hell does this come from? And so that was what I would say above all, that was our connection. That's what I really wanted to know about, and he was very mysterious about it. I'm not at all satisfied that he ever explained where he got that from. And if you read my book, of course, I do get into what his story was, that he had written to Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy in Spandau prison, and said, How do you survive in prison? And according to Charlie, he got a letter with only one word back, Abraxis. Now, I believed that when he said that in 2009 or something, I think, and he told a few other people basically that story. But then I checked into Spandau Prison's rules and protocol, and actually Hess wasn't allowed to write to another prisoner or to anyone. So I think that was probably a metaphoric explanation Abraxis, and I think it's connected to, and this is how Charlie thought, if you knew him, you'd see these poetic wordplay parallels. I think he was referring to Hermann Hesse, who wrote the novel Demian about Abraxis, and like merging him with Rudolf Hesse. And he was very much into word, like a word means the same thing, like the magical correspondences of sound. So that's my theory. I do think that his His particular concept of Abraxis came from Hermann Hesse's novel Demian, which he may or may not have read. He may have heard about it from some of the more educated girls in the commune or somebody, because his ideas are definitely the Jungian ideas that Hermann Hesse has about Abraxis. But Abraxis was central to his understanding. He says during the court, there's another father that you don't know about, and that's a very Gnostic idea. And I'm not gonna get into the entire Gnostic cosmology here, but the idea that Yahweh is a false god, Ealdeboth, and that there is a transcendent Godhead of Braxos, who is the true God and ruler of this world system that we're in. He believed that completely. Now, where he learned the basics of Gnosticism remains a mystery to me, but that is really the way he saw the world. And crucial to his understanding was everything is its opposite. And that is very much a part of Carl Jung's teaching about Abraxas, which comes from his Red Book. And it's in the seventh sermon of the dead. if you're familiar with Jung, which I'm sure you are. So Charlie's ideas are not completely accurate to what the ancient Gnostics believed, but they are totally a reflection of Carl Jung and Hermann Hesse's understanding, which is that Abraxas is the unity of all things. Now, that's simplified into God and the devil, which he definitely said they're the same thing, but he would have say everything is the same thing. So from the Abraxon point of view that Charlie had, all opposites are each other. Love is hate. Hate is love. That sounds like hippie mumbo jumbo to somebody who hasn't experienced it from within, but he meant it. He meant your enemy is your best friend. Your best friend is your enemy. Whatever you can think of, the opposite is true. And this gets back to non-dualism and seeing to ambiguity and the fluidity of reality, that nothing is firm and fixed, that everything could be its opposite. And frankly, even that he could think murder could be love, which sounds like madness. And actually, this author, Zaehner, who wrote the one book that tried to take Charlie seriously as a mystic, our savage God, that's really the only book before the Manson file that even took him seriously as a spiritual thinker at all, even though it's wrong. Zaehner, who was a professor of religious studies and theology and Eastern mysticism and Greek philosophy, he understood Charlie was basically a mystic, saying all things are one. But, you know, the linear mind says, Oh, God and devil. Well, that must have come from the Process Church, and that's he taught people to murder with these cult techniques and you know it gets reduced to the stupidest Sensational level but if you look at the jungian concept of abraxis it is all opposites combined into this Unity so yeah well and as far as my project I won't you know there's no use talking about what will be in it but it's been a lifelong obsession of mine, Abraxas, long before I met Charlie. And as I say, most people's interest in Charlie is what happened on those nights that made him infamous. That was not my main interest, and it still isn't. I'm very happy not to talk about that for a change. How did this, you know, uneducated prisoner become so much an avatar of Abraxas? That's what interested me.

Michael: Yeah. And if people are, really digging this conversation, they're going to love these sections of your book because we are barely scratching the surface, There's, and that's why I wanted to sort of save Abraxis for towards the end of the interview, because it really to me seems like Abraxis is kind of the culmination of all of his different life experiences and religious experiences. And on top of that, it's a very, still a very elusive concept. That's why I'm looking forward to your book because Even the mentions of this god are few and far between, even to this day.

Nikolas: Well, there's a Sufi saying, the secret protects itself.

Michael: Yes.

Nikolas: And because I think Abrax is so infinitely important to our cosmos and our reality, it's very strange that there's very little written about him that's real, that's really well researched or solid. And people don't quite grasp it. It's there. And one thing I point out in my book, it's very prevalent in German culture. It is extremely mainstream here in Germany. Goethe mentioned Debraxis early on. Of course, Hermann Hesse, one of German language's major novelists, is very well-known to have mentioned Debraxis in great depth in his novel Demien, and Carl Jung, one of the great German psychologists, or maybe more philosopher and mystic than psychologist, you know. So it's in Germany, and also a lot of ancient research into the ancient gems of Abraxis were German scholars. So there's a weird karmic connection to Germany and Abraxis, which I can't explain. And actually, the reason I wrote this book about Abraxis, I was gonna give a lecture at the World Gothic Treffin. This was the third time I was gonna give a lecture about Abraxis that was canceled by some weird circumstance. Once the place I was gonna give the lecture actually started crumbling, like some Lovecraftian mold destroyed it. We couldn't do that. And then, so I was gonna give a lecture when I gave a concert at the Wave Gothic Treffin in 2020, and then this little thing called the pandemic came along and canceled it. So after three cancellations, I said, you know, let me just write everything I've learned about Abraxis in a book, which is what most of my books are, is I think, all right, people ask about this so much, I better define it exhaustively. So, I mean, people who only know me through the Manson world, you know that I do many more things than that, but far more interesting to me is who is God? And I'm answering that question. It is Abraxis from a certain point of view, if you really wanna understand it in depth. That's more important to me than how many stab wounds at Cielo Drive, you know?

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, and the same here.

Nikolas: Right, now the final, I did wanna bring up one thing that I mentioned in the book, if we have time, it's just that we didn't get into is, and I pointed out in the introduction, if you get into the world of Mansonism, this amazing amount of synchronicities that occur, which I call in the book element X, because I don't have any explanation for it. I think that's a very important part of describing the Manson phenomenon in the Manson file that I don't really think anyone else has covered. So I just wanted to add that for people that have noticed that. I know that many people who get into this field or even start looking at it, it starts looking back at you, by sending you symbols and signals from what Charlie would call the universal mind. So that I think is an important part of my spiritual understanding of, and that's even beyond Charlie. I think Charlie himself was baffled by it. He knew it, he saw it, and he was mystified by why it was. And I think you see from reading the part of the book that you read, he himself didn't have a clear explanation of why he was who he was. He struggled with that. He often asked, you know, how did this happen to me? Why am I this person? He didn't know any more than anyone else does. So there was that element of mystery to him.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. And so I think the last thing I'd like to ask you about today is the hallways of always. I thought that would be an appropriate way to sort of play out our interview.

Nikolas: Well, Charlie's particular concept of his life in prison is that he was out of time. He didn't have to get up. I mean, he had to get up, but he didn't have any responsibilities for most of his life. And so prison is like a no time, it's like eternity. And he often mentioned many times how it totally ***** with your mind. I mean, he was aware enough of the outside world to know what it would be like to be a non-criminal, non-convict civilian. But he'd point out, for instance, you see a guard one day and he's a young man, then you realize, wait, he's middle-aged now. How did I miss that? Because years go by in this. And so again, that was like, he saw that as an advantage. You know, people say they were crazy. They didn't have watches on the spawn ranch. Well, that's a very typical mystical approach that there is no time. So the hallways of the always, he felt like this weird condition of timelessness that happens when you're incarcerated, because every day is pretty much exactly the same day you had before, and you lose track of time. And he saw that as an advantage. And he saw that as something that taught him how to deal with the outer world, because he felt he was truly exed from this world because of his prison experience, but also that there was no time for him. Now, of course, as a human being, he was completely irresponsible because of that. If the Beach Boys wanted him to show up at this time for a session, he wouldn't and didn't, and ****** ** any possibility of a normal musical career. because of that. But he was tuned in to the timelessness of the universe, and he was very much not on a clock, not an employee who would, you know, and then that was very important to him. So that's the hallways of the always. It was like prison is eternity forever. It could seem like hell to someone who resists this and hates it, but to him, it was a kind of heaven.

Michael: Yeah, definitely. Well, I think this will pretty much wrap our interview up then. I really appreciate your time speaking with me again here today, this time about, you know, this whole Charles Manson topic aside from the crime elements, which are just, you've been through so much detail with that. So I really appreciate your time today.

Nikolas: I mean, I've said so much about that. I don't have a hell of a lot more to say. As you see, it's all in the book. I mean, I could have written nine more volumes, but the essence of what you need to know is in the book. And like this interview that concentrates on mysticism, the other interviews I'm going to give will be about his political ideas and environmental ideas, his music, all the other aspects of Charlie that are not covered in most of these books about him, because I'm constantly asked about the crimes, but it's certainly not my primary interest. And I'm happy to discuss them. And I think it's important for history to understand what really happened, but it's not my principal understanding. And I am, I mean, I am a spiritual person. I am primarily a mystic and an initiate. And this part of my work is a part of my initiation. It's not true crime in any ordinary sense. And I understand people think that's crazy too. They think any kind of spiritual awareness is some sort of pretentious, pompous act. But and many people out there know it's what matters. It's what's real.

Michael: Yes. Yeah, definitely. So I will include any appropriate links into the description below the YouTube video when this goes up, but if there's anything specifically that you'd like to mention of anything upcoming that you want to talk about or particular places for people to go, go ahead.

Nikolas: Right. Well, actually, the Manson File finally coming out after these many delays of the pandemic and lockdowns and all of these various nightmare obstacles that occurred, In general, it's part of a larger program of all of my books being re-released in new editions. So for instance, The Satanic Screen is coming out in a revised, updated edition in many languages. It already came out in a German edition a few years ago. Now there's going to be a French, an Italian, a Spanish edition of The Satanic Screen, which for some people, that's the book that they're interested in, and they could care less about Charlie Manson. I mean, another book that I did in 2001, Flowers from Hell, is coming out in a new deluxe, expanded, beautifully made, aesthetic, illustrated edition. And I've got many other books that I'm working on, new books. One of them that's been announced is this book about Abraxis that will come out on Anya Bound, and also editions Pansilf in France and other editions. All of my work has been revised, updated to put out the final ultimate editions of them. And then I'm moving into a new phase of other non-fiction, which will end with this novel that I've been working on. And then of course, my music is really probably the most important part of my life other than my spiritual initiation. So I will be going back into the studio finally after about a year of hiatus and will be recording a new album very soon. And most of what I'm doing, I am a total workaholic. I don't have a life other than my work. So if you look in my social media or anti-social media, you'll see what I'm doing. It's what I am. So it's all there.

Michael: Yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, I'm really personally looking forward to all of these things that you mentioned. So Thank you for your time today. Thanks to everybody that's watched this, and have a great one. We'll talk to you soon.

Nikolas: Okay, thank you very much for inviting me, and many blessings to all of your watchers.

#### Nikolas Schreck Interviewed by David Flint on The Manson File, Magic, Music & Forthcoming Books (2022)

YouTube Channel: The Nikolas Schreck Channel

Date: Sep 18, 2022

Source: <www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG7aNlqW0Ms>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG7aNlqW0Ms

David: So, I’m here with Nicholas Schreck, who is overhead promoting the new edition of the Manson File.

Nikolas: Correct.

David: And we’re going to talk a little bit about that and about some other projects as well. Quite a lot to get through, I guess.

Nikolas: Yes.

David: So let’s begin.

Nikolas: Yep, pleasure to see you again.

David: Here’s the book. Quite an extraordinary piece of work.

Nikolas: Yeah, so this is the... This is the special edition that was printed, and I’m here in London to promote the UK edition, and this is the cover for it that will be coming out in August and/or September of this year. And there will be a new softcover, hardcover, and eventually a quite extravagant deluxe edition that will be like an unprecedented artifact of Mansonia And my UK publisher, Crossbank Publishing, is publishing these. And we will be doing an event September 24th, Saturday, September 24th, in which I will be showing my film, Charles Manson Superstar, giving a lecture on the British connection to the whole Manson case, which there are quite a few that people tend to think of it as a Los Angeles story, but actually it’s genesis and a lot of what happened started right here in London. So I’ll be giving a lecture on that, showing my film, and we will be having a book launch on September 24th here in London.

David: I think everyone can look forward to that. This is a work of how many years in progress? Oh, I guess it’s finished now.

Nikolas: Right, hopefully finished now, and I’ve, famous last words, I’ve said that a hundred times, but this time it really does have to be the final nail in the coffin of this part of my life. I began, it hasn’t been 33 years straight of work on it, but since I met Charlie, and it really, as you’ll see in the book, I have a chapter called My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult, which goes back to how deeply Even into my childhood, this thing has haunted me and followed me and obsessed me. But 33 years, more or less, since I knew Charlie, from the beginning of our friendship to his death, and three, well really perhaps four, perombations of it, four mutations of it. In 1988, the first Manson file came out on the Muck Books. in America, and then in 2011, the second edition, which was a thousand-page mammoth re-looking at the true motives of the crime, which the first Manson file didn’t really get into. That was more the first exploration of Charlie as a musician, philosopher, spiritual thinker, revolutionary. And then in 2012, I visited Charles in Corcoran State Prison and he opened, after having read the 2011 edition, he opened up a great deal about it and he condoned it, he approved of it, which is unheard of, really. And he opened up about aspects of his life and the crimes that he never had before. And now this 2022 edition is the final and third version of this Book of Revelations.

David: I mean, I guess there’s, again, famous last words, but there’s probably not that much more that can come out now from the various people involved. More and more of them are dying gone.

Nikolas: Right. Well, it’s a fact that almost all of the central figures have died. Some of them still survive, but the ones who survive will never say anything. For instance, I would be shocked if Charles Tex Watson ever says anything true. or Patricia Krenwigle or Leslie Van Houten, et cetera. But yeah, the generation that was involved with that whole phenomenon from the ‘60s, and Charles, you know, was 83 when he died, and so the older people that were older than him then are gone. For instance, Bob Evans, who was very much involved, the head of Paramount who was involved in the whole cover-up of what happened at Cielo Drive, died recently, but yeah, that generation is gone. But I don’t believe that... I believe more truths will continue to emerge. They do every day. And even though I’m done with my work on it, like even since I finished the book, one of the major, and perhaps to some people who haven’t studied this thing, that would be one of the most shocking revelations, for instance, was that John Phillips, the lead singer in front, or the founder of the Mamas and the Papas, this very winsome, cheerful, good vibrations-oriented psychedelic band, not only knew Charlie very well, which he always denied, but was present at the crime scene after the murders. He actually went to the crime scene to buy drugs after the murders, thinking Sebring and Furkowski would be there and stumbled on. to the crime scene, and I described it in my book, Freaked Out, went to another showbiz personality in a total state of panic, and that began this cover-up that was at the center of the, you know, the skullguggery behind the crime. And this, so that is a revelation in my book, and just only recently I spoke to an authoritative person who’s familiar with everyone involved in John Phillips’ life, and he independently corroborated that story exactly as I heard it. So that’s the degree to which what you have been told, what the official narrative is, you know, people think, well, we’ve heard this story, but no, you don’t, you have not heard what really happened.

David: Yeah, I think it’s always interesting with these cases that people, they want to believe the official version, no matter how many holes that clearly are in those official versions.

Nikolas: Right. That’s something I’ve encountered all my life with this is that, I mean, it’s like children believing in Santa Claus. They want to hang on to the whole sensational horror movie aspect of helter-skelter, of hypnotized teenage girls under the spell of this Slingali, and none of that happened. I mean, what happened is Actually, just a quite typical sordid underworld crime.

David: Yeah, that’s the interesting thing, isn’t it? That in a way, the true story is less sensational than the fake story.

Nikolas: Right, right. Well, authors are supposed to embellish and lie and make a compelling story. The fact is, I haven’t done that. I’m... I’m kind of like a party pooper. I’m saying, you know, you may want to believe in this extravagant horror story about a maniacal guru who was a mind control master and who made these innocent children kill random strangers, but that never happened. And what did happen, and that’s not the most important part of my book, but obviously it’s the one that attracts the most attention. The Manson File is separated into seven different sections that looks at the entire Manson phenomenon. Charlie, as a musician, is taken seriously for the first time as a spiritual thinker in the chapter The Wizard, as a revolutionary, and as an outlaw, that’s one chapter. And it also gets into how the media has dealt with this character, Charles Manson, this demonic being that the media created. So it covers all dimensions of the Manson story. And I want to make it clear to potential readers, it’s not only a true crime book. In fact, it’s not really a true crime book at all. So it’s a look at this whole very strange phenomenon.

David: Yeah, it seems that the crime is almost a small part of the overall story.

Nikolas: Well, it’s important, obviously. And because it’s so misunderstood, I go into forensic, exhaustive detail on explaining things about the Cielo Drive and La Bianca murders that have never been known before. I mean, it’s a much deeper, more complex story involving all kinds of underworld figures who are very obscure to the general public. And this is the first book to really get into all that in great detail.

David: But this isn’t your only book project for the year, is it? You seem to be very busy.

Nikolas: Yeah, well, the pandemic allowed me to be very busy. I always have been something of a workaholic, honestly. But the total lockdown in Germany that we had a very strict lockdown and the cessation of all outer activity allowed me to concentrate on a project I wanted to do for quite some time, which is to get all of my books back into, so not only The Manson File, Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman, this is the final, third, and revised, and expanded, and updated version of it. The Satanic Screen, which was published here in Britain by Creation Books in 2001, A revised version came out in 2017 as Lucifer’s Linebond in Germany, but now there will be a French edition from Edition Pransof in France, there will be an Italian edition from Edizione Hakate in Italy, and a totally updated and revised British edition or English language edition coming out from Head Press. And like The Manson File not being merely about the crimes, The Satanic Screen is not just about the films in which the devil features, but it has a new introduction which explains from my point of view, as a former devil worshipper, and frankly, probably have looked more deeply into that subject than anyone I know, my final report on who is the devil. Because before you can look at what these films about him are, you have to understand, well, who is he actually? So it begins with an introduction that gets into the, you know, defining and probably in a very surprising way because the devil is not what people think it is, not what Christians or Satans think he is. So that’s one major feature of the Satanic Screen and in correlation with the publication in France, Italy, and England. And oh, and there’s a Spanish version of The Satanic Screen coming up from Manus Semistra, another publisher, a very deluxe, beautifully made aesthetic version that does credit to the material. And so these versions will, there will be a film festival in each of those countries dedicated to some of the highlights of The Satanic Screen. and hopefully I will perform a live soundtrack to one of the silent satanic films that I deal with.

David: Right.

Nikolas: So that’s one book.

David: Do you think, by the way, is there any movie that gets it right? Any movie that comes close to...

Nikolas: Well, when you see what I define the devil as, no, not actually, not really. I mean, essentially the devil that we know is a folkloric figure there is no such metaphysical being as an adversary to the god Yahweh who is the ruler of hell who is the Prince of Darkness who is a counterweight to God there is no such being the Satan is a real being who I believe I have encountered through using ceremonial magic and he exists or it exists but he’s not what you think it is. And I get into that in the Satanic stream. So the figure of the devil, Satan, or Lucifer as we know it in cinema and literature is largely a literary invention. But the real being is not really anything that any film has ever presented.

David: Right. So, you were about to tell me about the next project.

Nikolas: Oh, okay, yeah, there are many. So, also Flowers from Hell, which was also printed by Creation, and then Flowers from Hell, which was also published by Creation Books in 2001, which was a literary anthology of the devil in literature, showing how the character of the devil, Satan, or Lucifer, is really a literary creation, particularly that comes from Goethe’s Faust, the figure of Mephistopheles, Dante’s Inferno, which is really the only reason why in the Western world we consider the devil to be the ruler over hell. There’s no scriptural support for that. And the romantic idea of the devil as this great anti-hero and rebel who fought against the tyrant Yahweh which comes based almost entirely from John Milton’s Paradise Lost and then it gets into other more obscure lesser known satanic literature but it’s an anthology that will be coming out on Manis Sinistra Press and it will be a beautiful deluxe edition with color plates and expanding on the original Flowers from Hell. Then, new books, those are The Manson Files, Satanic Stream, and Files from Hell are revised, expanded, and updated editions. New books will include a definitive study of Abraxas, the Gnostic god. Then, strangely, no one’s ever really written a definitive study of who and what this god is, this Gnostic deity, that will be coming out from Anya Press in English. and Edition Pain Sauf, which is my French publisher. Actually, at this point, they exclusively publish my work in French and the work of Kenneth Grant. So that will be coming out through those two companies. I won’t get into it too much because this is still a work in progress, but a general guide to magic, to the art and science of magic, because as I was saying earlier, most of what’s available on that subject is rehashed regurgitation of old garbage that’s really not very pragmatic, practical, or applicable. So it’s my personal guide coming from my own personal experience, not only to what magic is, but how to actually do it. And I think that’s a very much needed volume, even though the bookshelves are blooded with books that claim to be that.

David: Yeah, I was just going to say that it seems to be one of those subjects that, it’s the subject of choice these days and there’s so much stuff out there, so I imagine that most of the stuff that’s out there, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve actually read anything of it, but it all, it just looks disposable.

Nikolas: Right, it’s just appealing to a market, but it is almost totally, and I admit I’m a snob, about this subject because I take it very seriously. I am a magician. And it’s just dealt with in a very superficial, shallow, and I get the impression a lot of these studies and books about magic are not coming from a real place of initiatory knowledge and practice. A lot of it is fantasy, a lot of it is just appealing to a market. So I hope that it will be if not the definitive guide to magic, you know, at least show that this is a real subject, not a fantasy or an escapism, but that it’s an intrinsic part of the human mind and a deep part of human culture.

David: So you’re doing something that’s the polar opposite, I guess, to the witches of Instagram.

Nikolas: I was going to say that, the witches of Instagram or TikTok witches, I mean, it’s become You know, even in the 60s, when I first, as a child, got dragged into the occult revival, there was already a certain shallowness and superficial faddishness, though there was something much more authentic going on too, as we’ve discussed before. Something uncanny happened in the 60s. Some door opened to other worlds, and then it shut. But now it’s, I mean, and like everything, every subject you can care to name has been dumbed down. the idiocracy has infected almost every subject you can name. So, you know, the field of magic used to be something that fairly cerebral, intellectual people, even to understand it, looked into. Now, it’s, a lot of it has to do with what t-shirt, what tattoo, you know, it’s almost become like a brand. And that’s a kind of blasphemy to something that I take seriously. So, I hope that this guide to magic will be an antidote to all of that. And then there are several other books that are in the planning stages, Crossbank Books that’s printing the British edition of The Manson File. We’ll also be publishing a book I’m working on that is a study of the evolution of the particular femme fatale character, of this black-haired, pale-skinned, vampire, demonic, witchy female throughout history and throughout pop culture, going from, you know, into ancient lore of religions, Lilith and that kind of thing, and then into pre-Raphaelite paintings of the femme fatale, European symbolist art, and how this figure then went into silent movies as the vamp of the 1920s, Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and you know, everyone knows this figure. You see, you know, every Gothic chick tries to embody her, like to be the avatar of her, but the real egregore of this thing, where did it come from? What was the evolution of it? So, I get into like, where did Charles Adams even come up with the figure of Morticia? How did Vampyra adapt that into her persona. And I get into the lives of women who actually play these characters and how playing the characters sort of ****** ** their lives. That was a kind of curse. So I get into Ingrid Pitt, Barbara Steele, and other more obscure actresses that sort of became this icon, sort of like in Nepal where these girls become goddess for a day and then are forgotten. So I get into the spiritual dimension of this iconic vampiric femme fatale. So that’s another book that we’ll be working on.

David: Yeah, because I guess that image is one of those things that is so powerful and so iconic that the minute you become associated with it, it’s hard to escape from.

Nikolas: Yeah, yeah. And that was something I discussed with Barbara Steele, who maybe your younger listeners may not know what’s like.

David: I’m sure I don’t have younger listeners.

Nikolas: If you do, you know, she was like the gothic queen of the 60s, particularly for her Italian horror films. And she resented, she did it perfectly. She was that being so perfectly that people fell in love fetishistically with that character she personified, but she herself hated being limited to being that. And so I discussed that with her. with Ingrid Pitt, who was associated with the Hammer film’s attempt at creating a more ****** vampire, the vampire lovers. I knew Vampira Myla Nermi was a kind of mentor to me in the 90s. I got to know her very well, and her life too was in many ways cursed. I mean, now it’s a popular icon, but it didn’t do any good for her in her lifetime. So, this is not a romantic puff piece about Gothic imagery. It’s getting into the darker side of what is it for a human being to take on this goddess-like weight and burden of this femme fatale figure.

David: And I guess you’re talking about someone like Ingrid Pitts being made into this kind of Gothic vampire figure through her work with Hammer films. obviously Christopher Lee had much the same problem throughout his life. And you’ve worked with Christopher Lee quite extensively.

Nikolas: Yeah, and that’s the final book I’ll talk about because these are all in the pretty much, you know, finished polishing stages and that too will be printed in Britain because it’s a very British subject. So, that’s a book called The Curse of the Vampire, which is about I worked with Christopher on his first recording, Christopher Lee Sings, and in the process got to know him quite well. I knew him from 1995 for about 20 years. till his demise. And in the process of that, on the 100th anniversary of Dracula, I got financing for pre-production of a film that would have been a biography film of Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. And he agreed, Christopher, to play Sir Henry Irving, who was this very famous theatrical figure in Victorian times. And he was the prototype for Count Dracula. He was this very commanding, arrogant figure, very much looked like and acted like Christopher Lee. And to my surprise, because as many people know, Lee was dead set, no pun intended, to not be typecast as what he called that character. So he agreed enthusiastically to play Sir Henry Irving in this film, and in scenes that, kind of like surreal scenes of Bram Stoker envisioning his novel, he agreed a final time to play Count Dracula as Stoker wrote it, saying the very lines that Stoker wrote, and playing him as Stoker presented the character as an old man, which Lee was then in his 70s. So in the process of that, we talked about all the other productions and a lot of unknown background material about his love-hate relationship with that character. So this book is about all of the times he not only played Dracula, but played a vampire, and his struggle as a creative artist, and he was an intelligent man compared to most actors who were frankly quite shallow and superficial. He was, you know, a well-read intellectual struggling with typecasting. And so it gets into personal things about Christopher that really haven’t been discussed before.

David: I think that’s interesting because there are so many books and they all concentrate essentially on the films. and the stories that we all know, whether they’re true or not.

Nikolas: Right. Well, he created a lot of his own folklore about these things, frankly.

David: Yeah, he invented Christopher Lee, in a way, as a character.

Nikolas: Right, as every actor must, you know, yeah. So this gets into the human being. What is it? It’s a little bit of a companion piece to the other book about the female vampire Femme Fatale, but that’s more general. of the icon rather than the person, but this is about one human being’s struggle with the weight of being this iconic character.

David: Yeah, because I guess, you know, he had the same problem, as I said, you know, Dracula is such a powerful role that it follows you throughout. And of course, you know, he made quite a lot of films. If he’d just done the one, maybe he would have got away with it, but I mean, he did, what, six for Hammer?

Nikolas: Well, he did many, many obscure vampire films, and I said to him, you know, Well, you could have said no. I mean, the odd thing is, he immediately after he did the first Hammer film, he said, I don’t want to be typecast, but it doesn’t quite make sense, because he immediately went to Italy the next year, and played... It’s a very good performance, he’s actually quite sinister. performance in an Italian comedy called, in English, Hard Times for Vampires. So he was more than willing to exploit that role. So I explore the contradictions and ambiguities of this legend he created.

David: Yeah, I guess it’s a strange thing of him going to Europe to make a film about a vampire. that looks just like Dracula.

Nikolas: Right.

David: And then being surprised when they retitled the film Dracula.

Nikolas: Right. Right, yeah, that I get into all of that. And maybe a lot of English and American readers don’t know, because he was multilingual and well-traveled, I think he thought he could get away with like, well, nobody in America and England will see this, so... But, yeah. And also not only that, he wrote a lot for anthologies, he took horror seriously, and wrote a lot about the vampire and about macabre literature. He did several recordings. He did, in 1966, a very ambitious LP record in which he played all the parts of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He did another one in the ‘70s. So, I mean, he was more deeply associated even than you think he was.

David: Yeah, I mean, you think it was almost like one of those roles that he hated, but he couldn’t let go off.

Nikolas: Yeah, yeah. He had very... And I think it’s a little bit like his predecessor, who he was very aware of, Bela Lugosi. And actually, I had a very surreal experience with... I knew in the 90s Bela Lugosi Jr., who was a lawyer, who actually was the first person to make the precedent of the law that a deceased celebrity’s image belongs to their estate and to their family. He sued Universal Studios for the Bela Lugosi Dracula and said that belongs to the Bela Lugosi estate, not to Universal. So Christopher wanted to meet him to get the rights for his estate, eventually, of his iconic image. And so we met at a hotel in Beverly Hills, me and Christopher and Bela Lugosi, And Bela Lugosi Jr. is the spitting image of his father. So seeing Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi’s son together, people were, you know, double takes. So that’s the literary work that I’ve done. And then musically, as of last week, I went back into the recording studio for the first time since March of 2021, when I did my album, Oh, A Weird Flower and began a new album, which I’m in the process of working with the British guitarist and bassist Jerome Alexander, Adam Mahabach in Berlin, and Heathen Ray in Berlin. So we are working on my next album now. And yeah, and as you’re as the reprobate very kindly helped to preview some of the videos we did for our former album, we’ll be releasing new music this year.

David: Excellent, I’ve looked forward to that. So, you’ve been keeping yourself quite busy during lockdown. You haven’t gone stir crazy.

Nikolas: I have gone stir crazy, but it has helped. I mean, the first year of lockdown, I actually found a kind of relief, strangely. I thought, well, I didn’t really like the way the world was going anyway, so I didn’t mind that it gave me a breather. And I recorded two albums, one EP, finished The Manson File, began work on all these other books, and got a lot done. The second year, 2021, was catastrophic for me, psychically, and yeah, and it was much more difficult than I thought. The first year was easy to deal with, and I found it almost like giving me carte blanche to finish whatever creative work I needed without any pressure.

David: Yeah.

Nikolas: Yeah, but the thing that was disturbing, and we’ve discussed this a bit, not so much the pandemic, but watching friends of mine and lovers and, you know, business associates and people who I trusted and really thought were basically grounded and sane to the degree that anyone who would know me would be sane, going out of their mind. Yeah. Getting sucked into conspiracy theories of the most ludicrous, ridiculous, unbelievable, kind and that I think is the most disturbing thing that I witnessed during and I put some of that into my work for instance this song that you premiered on the reprobate They and the Nice People was sort of a critique of the extreme right and extreme woke left ideological hysteria which I see as pretty much flip side of the same coin.

David: Well it’s not a word quite when They’ve so come apart that they just meet again.

Nikolas: Yeah, well, they’re similar in their intense victimization. I am a victim and powerful forces are conspiring against me. Well, they have a different idea of what those forces are, but the basic fallacy of their thinking is that there is a master plan, and I’m quite convinced, on the contrary, the worst thing is there isn’t any and we are driving over a cliff with no driver.

David: Yeah, I mean, that’s the strange thing, the idea that we have leaders who are smart enough and powerful enough to pull all this off.

Nikolas: That’s...

David: They clearly see that.

Nikolas: They can’t operate the infrastructure of how the most basic needs of a country. So, yeah, that’s the point I make. How can you possibly assume that the incompetent clowns who are running the world would even be capable of the kind of, you know, super specter diabolical schemes that these people are fantasizing about.

David: And also it just... Most of those schemes seem to make no sense. Like, why do they even want to do this? What power does it really get?

Nikolas: Exactly. The old question, ki bono, who benefits from it? I mean, there are real conspiracies. Of course, powerful people have conspired together to cover up very hideous and ugly things, but not on the scale that these people are imagining, and for very mundane, grubby, Machiavellian human purposes, not for these gigantic, idealistic, utopian, you know, social engineering dreams that these people fantasize about.

David: I mean, what do you think makes people tip over the edge? Is it literally just boredom that they go online and they’re looking for some kind of explanation for things that can’t be explained? then somebody’s going to be there to give it to them.

Nikolas: Right, I wish I had a glib and easy answer to that, but I, and you were mentioning this too, earlier, I have seen very intelligent, well-educated, sane people fall into that rabbit hole and abyss, and they had fulfilling busy lives, but they still, I mean like a very well-known British journalist I know who was a prominent person in the rock and roll world he would never think in a million years would believe this kind of nonsense he’s just fallen for hook line and sinker so it’s it isn’t just boredom it’s it’s I believe it’s it’s a kind of psychic pandemic that that’s what we really need to worry about is not so much the virus but this yeah spiritual intellectual virus that that’s really reducing humanity to a very low level and a total lack of critical thinking. So that is... I’m not going to whitewash it, I find that extremely disturbing and extremely troubling for what kind of world are we moving into?

David: I mean, I see it every day and I get quite sensibly told off for like, Why are you looking at this stuff? It’s just there, it just... comes at me constantly whenever I go online, it’s just there.

Nikolas: Right, right. Well, I think I am sensitive to it and maybe a bit traumatized by it because in the 80s, having gone through the Satanic Panic in America and very much being a target of the same kind of witch-hunting hysterical madness that is all too similar to this, but this is actually worse. It’s actually more widespread. That was relatively limited to religious fanatics and law enforcement and the Reagan administration. This is so widespread and is seeping into so many areas of life.

David: And Satanic Panic is a part of this as well. You know, Satanic Panic is back again with the whole idea of, you know, protect the children.

Nikolas: Oh yeah, that people are drinking children. See, these are ancient, you know, as you well know with your familiarity with the history of occultism, These are ancient conspiracy theories. I mean, they were going on in Paris in the so-called Paladin affair. The same thing with drinking blood and children being abused. Not, again, not that children are not being abused, but, and are there, you know, Jeffrey Epsteins and Harvey Weinsteins exploiting women and children? Absolutely they are. But they are not doing it for some esoteric New World Order Illuminati scheme. And I have been accused in the past years, I’ve always been accused of all kinds of nonsense, but in the past years, more than ever, being part of the Illuminati, being part of the global elite, I mean laughable nonsense. So, if I take it seriously, it’s because it hits home.

David: Yeah, I mean, I’ve had similar things where Even if you dare to question some of this, that makes you the enemy, that makes you part of the people. If you question it, it must be because you’re doing it.

Nikolas: Right, absolutely. I’ve had that happen. Like, I criticized Brexit mildly on my Facebook page and got more hate mail in that day than I have in my entire long history of hate mail receiving, which is impressive. But that topic got more... I said something mildly critical of the great Donald J. Trump, and that got, you know, vicious hate mail. And then the ridiculous accusation that I must now be a communist or a liberal, which I am certainly not either, because I dare to criticize this sacred cow. So that kind of ideological extremism I’ve never seen in my life.

David: It’s the odd side of this where just the smallest things set people off and they cling to stuff that isn’t important. I mean I think the most hate mail that I got, certainly in the last couple of years, was when I dare to say that maybe people should be allowed to work from home. And that caused absolute outrage. One person accuse me of trying to put shoe manufacturers out of business.

Nikolas: Right.

David: Because if people work at home, then they won’t be wearing shoes.

Nikolas: Yeah, so you’re, you know, even to express the most mild, reasonable opinion such as that, you become the enemy. And that’s a very dangerous place where this divisive, hateful attitude, which in America, which I recently visited and saw firsthand, is, you know, on the brink of a civil war.

David: Yeah. That’s what I was just going to ask you about. America seems to just be spiraling. I think we are too here in slightly different ways, but America is just...

Nikolas: I mean, for whatever it’s worth, from my own anecdotal subjective opinion, Britain definitely is sick post-Brexit, but it’s not mortally ill. America is an empire on its last leg. It’s like Rome during the fall. I think England still has some cultural vitality and some hope that America seems in utter decline.

David: Yeah, I mean, what do you think caused that? I mean, do you think this was something that was pre-pandemic?

Nikolas: Yeah.

David: I mean, Trump was pre-pandemic, I guess, and he, you know, that’s where the division seems to really go.

Nikolas: Yeah, actually, the first time I hadn’t been to America from 1999 until 2012, and that was before you ever even heard of Donald Trump, or in terms of political ambition. You knew him as a reality TV entertainer and fake millionaire. But in 2012, in California, I went out to rural California and saw that there already was a lot of hatred and a lot of brewing paranoia and conspiracy theories among people out, not in the urban centers, but a lot of fear, a lot of totally insane, maniacal, as you said, but childishly inconceivable conspiracy theories going on. And that left a bad taste in my mouth. And what I saw basically happened Like many historical movements, there was already something... It’s like a disease was already under the surface, and things like Brexit and Trump were just the manifestation of a long simmering illness.

David: Yeah, they don’t come out of nowhere.

Nikolas: No, they don’t come out of the blue, like many other historical precedents. So I saw in 2012, and even in the ‘90s, you could see it. you could see this sort of thing coming, but now it’s reached, and I don’t want to make it sound like I’m only criticizing the so-called right, which I don’t even think is really right. I’m also criticizing the woke left just as equally, as in the song I mentioned, they and the nice people. Both of them are detached from reality now.

David: Yeah.

Nikolas: And I, you know, are we moving into a new, you know, are we moving back to normal? I don’t think so. I think we have entered another dimension of reality, and I think it’s going to be very challenging for artists, particularly, to navigate this new world that we’re in.

David: Yeah, I think so, because now, more than ever, every time you do something, there’s an awareness of how people will react to it. just the one wrong word.

Nikolas: Right.

David: One wrong description.

Nikolas: Right.

David: And that can shift from the time you wrote something to the time that it appears.

Nikolas: Absolutely. Yeah, and I’ve had that all my life. I mean, I’ve had my concerts banned, I’ve had my, you know, I’ve constantly, and I’m not complaining.

David: You were cancelled before it was fashionable.

Nikolas: Yes, I started, I started cancel culture. Yeah, I mean, I have had, so I’m very used to it and familiar with it, but now the world has caught up with that. And it’s on both sides. Both of them hypocritically pretend it’s only the other side that’s hysterical and overreacting, but they both are in different ways.

David: I definitely saw the whole kind of the right-wing support for free speech was interesting, but then of course, the minute anybody said something that upset them, the speech was out of the window.

Nikolas: Absolutely. The 1984-like hypocrisy and manipulate, and the misuse of the left calling anybody that disagrees with them a fascist and a Nazi, which they are not, those are real classifiable political ideas. These people are not Nazis or fascists, for the most part. A lot of it has to do with just simply a lack of education, a lack of understanding of what these political terms even mean. It’s a dumbing down, and as I’ve said, the idiocracy that’s infected everything.

David: What I see at the moment is that both sides kind of shouting fascist at each other.

Nikolas: Right, yes, that’s become popular too.

David: You’re the fascist. No, I’m, you’re the fascist.

Nikolas: Right, and, you know, I was just in Italy and just looked at some real fascist buildings and was thinking that was an actual ideology. It has nothing, whether you hate it or love it, it had nothing to do with the word that’s being screened in 2022.

David: Yeah, it’s a word that’s lost all meaning now.

Nikolas: Right, it completely means nothing. And so it should be retired and the only people who should talk about it should be talking about these ideas of Giovanni Gentile, this forgotten Italian philosopher who defined Venido Mussolini’s fascism, which is a particular economic and political system that is There’s nobody at the moment. None of those people are advocating that. So, yeah, we have to... It is part of a magical understanding. You have to use words correctly. If you don’t use words correctly, you breed chaos and stupidity and disorder. So, on that cheerful note... On that cheerful note, yes.

David: Yeah, we should probably... wrap things up.

Nikolas: Okay.

David: I’m sure we’re going to do this again at some point.

Nikolas: Yes, it was a pleasure.

David: Maybe in September when you’re over for... So remind us of the date when the book launched.

Nikolas: Yeah, at the end you can show a title card of exactly where it will be, but it will be September 24th on a Saturday, and I will be showing my film, Charles Menson Superstar. Lucky Britons will be the first to get the new softcover and hardcover British edition of the Manson File, with the Reality of an Outlaw Shaman. I will be giving an extensive lecture about the London and British connections to the whole Manson phenomenon, which are quite extensive, a Q&A and, you know, a festive book launch in the old tradition as one used to have at Foyles or something, that kind of thing.

David: Yeah, and I think after you’ve done that, when that’s out, so that we’re not spoiling any surprises.

Nikolas: Right.

David: I’m sure people might have a slight idea where you’re going with this anyway, but we can talk more maybe about the whole British connection there.

Nikolas: Absolutely. Yeah, we can do that in September. So thank you for inviting me. Wonderful to see you again after this unwanted hiatus of the pandemic, and hope the best to you and your viewers.

David: Thank you very much, and see you again soon.

Nikolas: Okay, thank you.

#### Nik Schreck Reveals New Perspectives on Charles Manson (2024)

YouTube Channel: Eric Hunley

Date: 24 Apr 2024

Join Eric Hunley in this compelling interview with Nikolas Schreck, an esteemed author who has dedicated over 30 years to studying Charles Manson and his notorious activities. In this enlightening discussion, Nik shares unique insights and little-known facts about Manson, debunking widespread myths and offering a fresh perspective on the infamous figure. Dive deep into the contents of “The Manson File,” a comprehensive tome that sheds light on Manson’s relationships, his actions, and the media’s portrayal of him. Whether you’re a true crime enthusiast or just curious about one of history’s most enigmatic figures, this interview promises to reveal truths that challenge conventional narratives. Don’t miss out on this exclusive look at Charles Manson through the eyes of someone who knew him personally and has studied him extensively.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLqO903c6LY

##### Preview

Nikolas: A lot of the other interviews with him are about the interviewer showing basically I am I’m representing society and I’m going to condemn you, Charles Manson. And it’s like a little ritual hate moment, like in 1984. Let me show you how terrible you are. Do all your greatest hits of being evil and I’ll pretend to be good. And I didn’t want to do that.

##### Introduction

Eric: All right, we are being joined today by Nicholas Schreck, who had the distinct, I guess it’s privilege, I don’t know what you want to call it, but has had a relationship with Charles Manson and is a very well-respected author about the events of that night, but overall, who and what Charles Manson is, was. How are you doing today?

Nikolas: Pleasure to be here. Thank you, Eric, for inviting me.

Eric: Well, thank you very much for coming in. I’m going to open with the two questions that I know are so common. You actually addressed them in your book, The Manson File, which is not a lightweight volume, folks.

Nikolas: No, I don’t tend to do lightweight volumes. I approach things exhaustively and in infinite detail, because especially with a subject like this that has been obfuscated and lied about so much, it’s crucial to debunk the lies and the myths and explain exactly what happened. So yeah, this is not light reading. It’s not a page-turning true crime book. It’s an exhaustive encyclopedia of this subject.

Eric: Which… and it is, there’s so many details, so much information, photographs, everything is all All tied up in here. I noticed a chapter where you discussed this was called ‘My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult’, who happens to be a band that I am a huge fan of back in the nineties. They haven’t really followed themselves.

Nikolas: They took their name from an article which was called My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult. So that’s what I’m, you know, I’m aware of the band, but I was actually citing the sensational article which came out early on in the media frenzy about the murders. And of course, the idea that they were a thrill kill cult is already inherently wrong, implying that there was no motive when in fact there was a motive.

Eric: Oh, excellent. So we’re, and I want to get into that and clear it up because there’s so many different ways this has been documented. Obviously, Helter Skelter being the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

Nikolas: Right.

Eric: But lately, Tom O’Neill’s chaos has really made a lot of waves itself.

Nikolas: Right.

Eric: From what, 2018 on or something like that?

Nikolas: Yeah.

Eric: But how did you actually meet Charles Manson?

Nikolas: Right. Well, as I explain in that chapter, because they are such commonly asked questions, I tried to to be very detailed in answering that. I the way that I met him was in 1985. You may recall that Henry Rollins of SST Records was going to put out a recording of Manson, an actual album on SST Records, which would have been vaguely mainstream release of Charlie’s music. And SST got so many death threats and problems about it, so much bad publicity, they got cold feet and backed off. Radio Werewolf, my band, had just started that year. And I wrote to Charles, you know, saying, I’m a musician. I have nothing to lose and nothing to fear, and I’d be happy to put out the album if Rollins can. And from there, we connected as fellow musicians, really. And I think if we developed a rapport, it’s because I didn’t approach him based on the criminal background. That is the main thing people spoke about. as a musician who respected and actually admired his music and wanted to put out that album. As it came out, we never did put out that album, but he sent me immediately on a wild goose chase all around California, looking for other obscure cassettes that he’d smuggled out of prison and little snippets of tape that he thought were superior to the album because he wanted to put out his music. And in the process, I met a lot of people I should say, not in the process, the church, but in the process.

Eric: Oh, good point.

Nikolas: Because people accused me of being in the process. So in the process of doing that, I met many of his former Confederates and associates and got, you know, ex-cons people, survivors from his commune, friends of his, and got to understand his life. And then very quickly we developed a rapport. I visited him behind glass. at San Quentin. And then we set up, we, what happened is that, you know, the book Manson in His Own Words by Newell Emmons, which came out in ’86, I think, or maybe ’87. He had been anticipating that he would like that book. He’d been cooperating with Emmons for some time. Emmons had been interviewing him for like seven, eight years. And when it came out, he, Charlie absolutely detested it because The editors, Grove Press, had mangled what he said and smoothed it out to the point that it didn’t even sound like him. And according to Charlie, Emmons had included a lot of sensational information from other books that Charlie didn’t say. It was complicated. And I’ve explained this before and I explain it in the book. And this is very Charlie Manson. Not only shortly after getting to know him in a phone call, He said to me, he knew exactly where Newell Emmons was going to be appearing in an interview in Channel 5 here in Los Angeles, where I happen to be at the moment. And he said, you go down there to Channel 5 and you tell Newell Emmons Charlie Manson’s angry at him. And you do this and you do that. And not that he was immediately being Manson-esque. And I went down there and Newell was very affable and said, oh, Charlie’s always been like that since I know him. He’s always threatening things. And we got along fine. And I got to know Newell. But Charlie wanted to do an antidote to Manson in his own words. And so he said, you’re a writer, because I had sent him a pamphlet that I’d made for the Werewolf Order or Radio Werewolf, which was like a culling of some of his philosophical insights. And he liked that and he said, well, why don’t you make really Manson in his own words? Why don’t you write a book that is that? And that turned into the first Manson file in 1988. Then we got the idea of doing a interview with him that would also have an impromptu concert where he would take his guitar. Again, my main focus with him was his music and his creative side. And as I’ve said to him in a tape you can hear on my YouTube channel, I said I was drawn to his creativity, not his destruction. So what I want to do here is I don’t really want to sit and ask you questions that you’ve probably heard many times before. I just want to talk about a few topics and what you reflect on.

> Nikolas: So what I want to do here is I don’t really want to sit and ask you questions that you’ve probably heard a million times before. I just want to talk about a few topics and let you reflect on them.

> Manson: Well, see, the way I communicate is... The way I communicate is in music. It’s like to know someone, you start in the fingertips. You can know me in my fingers, you can know me in my hands. You can know me in my arms. You know, in other words, I’m something inside that goes beyond words. Words don’t, words, you know, they’re a bunch of biscuit. That’s what they teach you in school.

Nikolas: So we, the Manson file, he cooperated with me, giving me obscure writings he had done to print, to show what he really believed, as opposed to the sensational way he had been reported in the media. And then, and that was very successful. So on the 20th anniversary of the murders, which was 1989, I released my film, Charles Manson Superstar, which included an interview with him, in which he comes as close to being the person I actually knew, the actual person who’s not playing this Charles Manson character that Charlie tended to play. I’m still playing it up a bit. But I think it does a pretty admirable job of showing who he was rather than the way the media presented him.

Eric: And himself, in fairness, he was playing a character too. So he kind of, didn’t he feed into that a little bit.

Nikolas: Oh, he was absolutely playing a character. But I’m saying, I think because of our rapport and because I wasn’t going in there a hot seat interviewer to shake the bear’s cage, which is what most you know, journalist, so-called, did with him, and we spoke to each other with mutual respect. I think it showed much more of the actual personality of Charlie.

Eric: And yeah, I’m an interviewer myself, and I’m curious, I actually like the process angle of it. Like one, it sounds like you built a friendship, so it wasn’t a straight out interview, but stylistically, when you went in to interview him, did you just kind of just go in, like, ears open, no judgment, if you will, and let him talk it out to maybe develop or find more of the real Charlie Manson over time.

Nikolas: Absolutely. No, I had some questions loosely in mind, but I wanted to have a conversation and I really didn’t want to make it. A lot of the other interviews with him are about the interviewer showing basically I’m representing society, and I’m going to condemn you, Charles Manson. And it’s like a little ritual hate moment, like in 1984. Let me show you how terrible you are. Do all your greatest hits of being evil, and I’ll pretend to be good. And I didn’t want to do that. So I just wanted to give him room to speak once and for all, uncensored, you know, not editing what he said, not twisting it. And I sort of receded to the background and just gave him you know, show that I, you know, that he can trust me to try to report what he said accurately. And that’s why we continued to work together for years. And in the final version of The Manson File, which there have now been three copies of and actually five publications of, because of its troubled and very bizarre history, which I can talk to you a bit about, he trusted me and opened up in a way that I don’t really think he did with many people. And I never was a yes man to him, but I also was never, you know, I never really challenged him like other journalists did. So I gave him room to be himself. And over time, then he had trust issues galore. You know, winning that over was difficult, but he opened up about things he’d never spoken about because I think he saw I was not judging, but really was trying to get the facts. Right. And that was sometimes difficult for him to grasp because I’d asked very detailed, specific questions, which I’m sure reminded him of a cop or a prosecutor. But I think he eventually understood my goal was truth and not judgment.

Eric: Now, one of the weird things about the Manson case is this is literally a guy known as the worst mass murderer, you know, biggest name out there. But I don’t know that he actually killed anybody himself or with his own hand.

Nikolas: Right.

Eric: Correct me if I’m wrong on that.

Nikolas: Well, yeah, I think the average person on the street, I mean, one of the enigmas of the case is the actual killer, Charles Tex Watson, is a name that is practically unknown. The guy who did all the stabbing, and as far as I’m concerned, the guy who had the motive to do these killings is unknown. In popular culture imagines Charlie and the three girls went up there. And of course, he wasn’t there during the murders that he is famous for. Charlie said to me that he had killed people, but not those people. And I point out in the book, a very important part of his early history. In 1960, he was on the lam for a prostitution charge in Laredo, Texas. He crossed the border into Mexico and hid out there. And he claimed there- He was the prostitute? No, no, no. No, he was pimping. Oh, okay, okay, okay, thank you. He had a false stable of two ****** and he brought them to Laredo and New Mexico. And so he skipped the border and he went into Mexico City, which I relate this whole adventure in my book, and he claimed several times that he got involved in narcotics trafficking there, something to do with cocaine from Miami into Mexico, I’m not quite sure, something to do with Cuba, but specific enough, he clearly was involved in some sort of drug dealing activity in Mexico. And he said a few times, he left a few people dead on the beach, shot them, and he also claimed to have been arrested in Mexico for suspected murder of a French national. Now, I don’t know any further details about that. I’d got in touch with the very chaotic Mexican police whose styles, you can imagine, are just as immaculate as you would suspect. Yeah, but I would like to know more about that. But I don’t think he was bragging or anything because he was very matter of fact. So it’s not that he was a nice guy and he wasn’t capable. of killing people, but he wasn’t a serial killer. He was a criminal who, according to him, had shot or killed some people in a drug-related thing. And he also admitted to me that he had done what is called the institutional killing, which means in prison, there are certain protocols and rules. If you catch someone alone who’s a snitch, a child and various other infractions to the criminal code, you are obliged to kill them, or so he claimed. And so he said he killed some other prisoner at some point in his prison career. I don’t know when exactly. And he told other people I know that too. Now, when we get to the Tate LaBianca thing, what did he do exactly? If we get to the specifics of the crimes.

Eric: Let’s step back then and go, well, let’s just talk about what actually happened, what led up to the events? and then what actually happened in the events, and back up a step and do that.

Nikolas: The Bernard Crowe incident is when Tech Watson ripped off this black drug dealer named Lots of Papa, or Bernard Crowe, who happened to be well known to the music and movie community that Charlie was involved with. And so to make a long story short, he was lured into Rosina Croner, who was the girlfriend of Tex Watson, who was the crime partner of Bernard Crowe, he was lured into her apartment by a threat. Bernard Crowe had called the ranch and said, If I don’t get my money back, which is about 2,000 bucks or 2,500 bucks that Tex Watson had stolen from him, had claimed-?

Eric: That’s a lot of money back then.

Nikolas: Oh, a lot, give me that money and I’ll go bring you some weed, and Tex just disappeared. which is almost suicidally crazy. But he did that and he got away with it. And Charlie went back, had a confrontation with Bernard Crowe and shot him and left him for dead. And that was the beginning, though there were other crimes before that, which I get into in the book that were sort of part of this succession of crimes that really set the ball rolling because then Charlie then felt that he didn’t know that the guy survived. So he shot him and left him for dead. And he, you know, he believed and became harrowed by the idea that he had shot someone. And that led to a lot of the complications that came later. So the idea that Charlie, you know, was a coward who would not, you know, who sent girls in to do the dirty work is not true. He was a dangerous person who was willing to go over and shoot someone. he did that immediately. The other interesting thing about that is this was in summer of 69. According to Bugliosi and the public legend, Manson was, you know, giving assassin training and the commune was ready to kill. And, you know, they had been turned into, you know, highly trained zombie commando assassins going out to start. And yet, on a night when he’s going to confront a black drug dealer, he can only find one guy to go with him. Why didn’t he send out his kill squad to do that? It kind of already begins to debunk this idea that this commune was you know murder Incorporated for hippies it really wasn’t so.

Eric: What what was it and not to sidetrack what would you call that commune what was there was he a cult leader with people under sway or or not?

Nikolas: No I I would not say by any standard that it was a cult it was a very disorganized it was it was like a billion other communes in the 60s there are many others that were exactly like that. Was he a charismatic individual? Was he manipulative? Absolutely. But, you know, so were many other commune leaders, but it was much less organized. It didn’t have a particular ideology. People came and went. There was freedom to it. You know, it was not Jonestown in California. It was nothing like that. And I would say the most accurate description of it was in one of the few scholarly studies of the commune that happened before the murders, before people had any real idea of what hadn’t been telegraphed, what they should believe about this thing, was an article that characterized the commune as a group marriage. And I would say that’s the most accurate thing. It was a relationship between Charlie and his girlfriend, and these girls in the commune with a few male hangers on. That’s really what it was. It was a group marriage, I think is accurate to say. Was Charlie domineering and manipulative and obviously the oldest person there? And was he a control freak who liked things done the way he liked? Yes. But was it a cult? Not by any... true standard. It was a commune and also it was a gang. I mean, they were stealing. They were auto theft and credit card theft, petty crimes like that. And of course, drug dealing.

Eric: Now, did it? Is it possible? And I’m projecting into this. I’m not going to make a judgment per se, but could it be that after the arrests and everything and going into the trial that Maybe they played it up a bit. Then it was like it became the cult after the fact. Like it wasn’t necessarily, but they’re like, oh, we get more attention if we sing together and do mark ourselves up and things like that.

Nikolas: No. Well, I think that’s very astute. This whole thing is very much a Hollywood Los Angeles story about you have to look at this in the proper context. I do want to get it back to the crimes. Oh, absolutely. We’ll take a digression over here and then we’ll go back.

Eric: Thank you.

Nikolas: So Charlie was a musician and the commune was drawn to him because of his music. These girls- Groupies almost? Yeah, it’s an entourage. There are plenty of guys in Los Angeles right now that have an entourage of women around them because they assume they’re gonna be, you know, the next big thing tomorrow. And that’s very much what Charlie, Charlie was not that different. than a lot of other people in Los Angeles at that time. Frank Zappa had a bunch of people around him. You know, there were many entourage groups. In fact, it’s a phenomenon of the sixties, the group of people around Andy Warhol in New York. If they’re, let’s say if, uh, Joe D’Alessandro had killed Lou Reed over a heroin deal, it would become the Warhol murders. You know, uh, he, he, he was part of a phenomenon of the male, um, with his male musician with an entourage of young admirers. And I think it’s really exaggerated to say that it was a hell of a lot. There was deep, did they have spiritual beliefs? Were they sincere about their spiritual beliefs? Yes, but they weren’t 3 million miles away from what thousands of other hippies were doing at that time. They weren’t so tremendously unique. But to answer your question, when they got this media attention, A lot of these were naive young women with not a hell of a lot of identity or substance. And I think they, to suddenly be thrown into the media spotlight, I think they sort of became what the media presented themselves as. And certainly, and I’ve said this to Charlie, his behavior during the court and all this, the singing together, the going out on the sidewalk, the exes on their head, fit into what Bugliosi was saying perfectly, even if Bugliosi was applying and holding this kangaroo court, the jury would have every reason to think, well, this looks like a dangerous cult. And they played it up, absolutely. And they continued to for years to come. I mean, but they weren’t that. They sort of, they became that. And sort of minor sub-issue to that, Really, in the mid-70s, Charlie formed a group in prison called the Order of the Rainbow, which was with Lynette Fromm and...

Eric: But after Gerald Ford.

Nikolas: Yes, and that was really a cult. I mean, people ignore this. You know, the group, the commune wasn’t even called the family. That’s a media construct. They didn’t really call themselves anything. It was a loose...

Eric: It wasn’t even a compound. It was a ranch. That’s another one.

Nikolas: It was a bunch of people foraging on the ranch and living at various places, you know, and they came and went. It wasn’t it wasn’t a strict. It wasn’t even really as much of A commune as other communes were. But yeah, the thing is that it wasn’t that different than everything else that was going on in the 60s, I think. But.

Eric: So I just wanted to cover that because I think that the fabric and the mentality of the people involved is very relevant, especially like when they were this way, when they weren’t that way, because of all the narratives. So now we’ll jump back to.

Nikolas: I mean, they did have rhetoric, like Charlie was their father. They certainly believed he was a Christ-like figure and all of that. But it just was too loose and ragtag and unorganized to be considered a cult. per se. And the fact is one of the 3,000 distortions of these things, that these murders had something to do with cult-like or ritual activity, whereas they were simply criminal actions of criminals doing what criminals do. And this is very hard to clear up the myth that they acted in some bizarre cult-like way. They didn’t, they were doing what criminals do, and I wanna get into that. But to return this way to your question about his guilt or lack thereof for the murders, so he did shoot Bernard Crowe. He was more than capable of shooting someone. Then Bobby Boatsele, an associate of his, who was not really part of the commune per se, but who was a close associate, about another drug deal because the Straight Satan Motorcycle Club in Venice, California, were having a 10th anniversary celebration, and they wanted to get mescaline, which was at that time legal, by the way. It was not yet a class A narcotic. Right. Bobby Beausoleil went to Gary Hinman, who was a former roommate and friend of his, an amateur maker of mescaline and other drugs. And he bought a pretty large amount, and something was wrong with this mix of mescaline. And he was not he was not a professional chemist. He was doing it, you know, like a hobby, practically. He wasn’t a major drug dealer, as we will get to, like with Jay Sebring and Wojtek Furkowski. He was just, you know, a sincere hippie making a little extra money with with doing something he thought was enlightening people with psychedelics. You know, it wasn’t he wasn’t really a criminal, I would say. And so Bobby Beausoleil killed him about a dispute about getting the money back that the bikers wanted for these drugs that were in the terminology of the Times bunk. And so now, Charlie went over there during the crime, and he mistakenly believed that Hinman was threatening Mary Brenner and Sadie Susan Atkins, who were there. And when Hinman opened the door, Charlie cut his ear and face with a cutlass, you know, like one of these pirate cutlasses that was from the Straight Satan Biker Club. So again, he didn’t murder anyone, but again, he acted violently, and he gave Gary Hinman what could have been a fatal wound, and Bobby Beausoleil killed him. But that, now technically, in California law at that time, if Charlie had a better lawyer, he still probably could have gotten off. for that, but technically, if you wound someone and are at their home right before they get murdered, you are involved with their murder. Even if you were present.

Eric: And Bosalay wasn’t alone, right? It wasn’t Atkins or anything.

Nikolas: Mary Brenner and Susan Atkins were there with him, and to a certain extent, they participated in smothering Gary Hinman while he was dying. So they...

Eric: And it was brutal. I mean, I can’t go into details because I see YouTube, but it was a brutal murder. They’re not nice people.

Nikolas: No, nobody should ever say that these were nice people. That’s for damn sure. But you know, it’s a typical drug murder. It had to do with drug dealing. And all of this is about money. Oh, it’s very... banal and typically...

Eric: Sorry, pedestrian.

Nikolas: It’s extremely pedestrian. It’s actually, if the real case was known at the time, I think it would not have become headline news. It’s the lies about it that the media and Bugliosi and various other people spread to cover up what really happened that even made it a sensational... news story. It’s, some drug dealers killed some other drug dealers about money. It’s boring, the fact. It’s fascinating.

Eric: A lot of those, a lot of those I think are, and I’m not trying to segue on it, but okay, I want to ask one question just to clear it up with everybody. In your opinion, then, Charles Manson is where he should have been. Is that a fair statement?

Nikolas: Okay, by his own admission, He never denied shooting Crow, which he was never charged for, strangely, which is kind of bizarrely a racist thing. A Black guy was actually shot by him, but they treated that like, well, he never was charged for a crime he would’ve served many years for. He admitted cutting Gary Hinman, and he admitted he should have served time for that. He was at, now, we’ll get into this Cielo Drive thing. he wasn’t present there. And as far as I’m concerned, he had almost nothing to do with the most famous crime he’s known for. That was Tex Watson and Linda Kasabian’s crime that Charlie got dragged into because he was this father figure of this loose-linked group. And we’ll get into this a bit, make himself uncompable by going back to the crime scene and covering up what happened. Now, That wasn’t revealed in court. But if they had known that, would have made him guilty. If you go back to a crime scene and help your friends cover up the murder, you become.

Eric: Accessory after the fact, accessory after the murder.

Nikolas: Yeah, so if it were known that Manson had returned back to the crime scene at Cielo Drive, that would have made him genuinely culpable. But according to the evidence presented in court, which is extremely flimsy, and Linda Kasabian’s lawyer, Gary Fleishman, even said that Charlie would have walked and he had a proper lawyer because there was so little incriminating evidence to connect him to the crime. I mean, that was Bugliosi’s bizarre genius to invent this way of connecting him, even though he wasn’t, as you mentioned early on, not really, not present and not involved, and it wasn’t even his crime. But now with the LaBiancas, the next night, he did enter the house, according to what he told me, he took money from them, which he knew they would have, and brought the money to pay off the straight Satans who were extorting him. in Venice, California, and that that crime was a robbery, as CLO Drive 2 was intended to be a robbery, but it went awry. Did he know the LaBiancas? He did not personally, but he walked in the house and he left very quickly. However, Susan Atkins was given first-degree murder for being in the car outside at that crime, but she never even entered. So if you enter the house of somebody and they end up getting killed, you are culpable, but that’s a technicality. He certainly didn’t commit any murder that night. Now, the other, so he admitted that he shot Bernard Crowe to me and many others. He never hid that. He admitted that he cut Gary Hinman near fatally. He admitted that he went back to the Cielo Drive crime scene. He certainly admitted that he went into the La Biancas and took money from them, which makes you culpable. Now with Shorty Shea, who never gets as much attention, who was a guy who lived on the Spahn Ranch, who people remember as a stuntman, but really he was less of a stuntman than he too is a kind of shady criminal character involved in *********** which is a deep, aspect of what these crimes are all about, which I get into in the book, is ***** ring, an illegal mob manufacture and sales of *********** was a big part of the criminal activity behind all this. Anyway, Shorty Shay, kind of like Wojtek Furkowski in the literature, gets called a writer, although there’s no proof that he ever wrote anything. Shorty Shay gets called a stuntman. He was killed at the spawn ranch the last of the this series of murders and Charlie admitted it was it was like a gang killing they uh Tex Watson actually stabbed him to death and was never charged for that crime but Charlie admitted he cut shorty Shea they all cut him and that too makes you culpable of murder and in fact years later when I was trying to get him a new trial uh and we were making some progress with a lawyer Charlie backed out of it because he feared that the Shorty Shea thing could get him a new death penalty because he did, you know, so he sort of backed off from that. So when a lot of his fans and overly naive admirers try to make it sound like he was, you know, totally innocent, that’s certainly not true. He was a violent person who was more than capable of cutting, shooting, but he did not murder the people whose names he’s associated with, nor you know so well yeah and he did believe he should have served time he himself said I should have served a certain amount of years but not life imprisonment and that is true by by any legal precedent nobody would spend life imprisonment for for what he actually did as opposed to what he was falsely accused of doing which is being the mastermind of a conspiracy to kill.

Eric: Is it true that he begged or asked not to be released from prison back in the 60s?

Nikolas: Yeah, in 1967 he was released from Terminal Island. He admitted that, yeah, he said things like, I can’t make it on the world outside. I don’t want to be out in that madhouse. He definitely, it’s in the official records that he asked not to be let go. But a sort of mitigating factor there was that he later clarified that it was mostly he didn’t want to be let out on probation. He wanted to be let out as a free man with no conditions. So I think He tended to exaggerate things a bit and make things a bit more dramatic than they are. But I think the truth is somewhere between those two, that he did genuinely have some apprehension of not wanting to be let out. He certainly was completely institutionalized after spending a whole life in prison. But there’s that other factor that he explained in a little more sober conversation that he wanted to be let out, under total freedom and not with these having to report to a probation officer, which was, which he did, he did report to a probation officer throughout the entire three-year period of his freedom. So I think that...

Eric: And while we’re on that, and I hate to hijack it further, but it’s like it’s going with the flow, there are, you know, questions like Tom O’Neill specifically brought a lot of these up, like, Why was he a snitch during that time? Did he have connections with the CIA or anything else? And Tom O’Neill also described a very large bust that happened. It was like a whole stolen car ring deal. The whole SWAT team went down, very dramatic thing, and he was out the next day and it just disappeared. Can we look at any of those?

Nikolas: Yeah, well, I think maybe what reminded you that when I said probation and that Charlie diligently. Okay, a guy named Roger Smith was Charlie’s probation officer in San Francisco in 1967. O’Neill claims falsely that Smith only had one client, Charlie. He also implies a sinister connection because this guy, Jolian West, was connected to the Haight Street Clinic. There is absolutely zero proof that Charlie Manson ever met Jolian West. None. And yet, Tom spuriously makes this suggestion, insinuation that because Julian West had a connection to the Haight Street Clinic and Roger Smith had a connection to it, that means that Charlie was part of some CIA MK Ultra brainwashing experiment. I say that is total 100% unmitigated ********. It’s nonsense. It’s a lie. Roger Smith a very close friend of mine, and I will be including some of this information in my documentary, which I’m here filming in Los Angeles, that expands on the Manson file. And for people who can’t read, we’ll give them pictures that will help them to understand what’s happening.

Eric: Hey, stop picking on me.

Nikolas: Right. I wasn’t directing that to you personally, but so Yeah, the thing is, Roger Smith absolutely denied what Tom O’Neill said. And he felt used and exploited by Tom O’Neill, as many people did. because Tom O’Neill took little bits of things and insinuated and applied and didn’t give proper information. Charlie was not Roger Smith’s only client. Roger Smith was not involved in the CIA MK Ultra brainwashing experiment. And O’Neill doesn’t understand Manson. And I’ve said this before, I spoke to Charlie for 30 years, O’Neill talked to him for 30 minutes. The main thing you get from reading Chaos, he does not know who the main subject of his book is, and therefore he extrapolates utter nonsense that has nothing to do with Charlie or these other people. I don’t know why, but he, you know, if you want to be polite, he filled in gaps with his own imagination. If you want to be not polite, he lied. Charlie was not involved in any MKUltra anything. And there is zero proof that he was. So Roger Smith has denied that completely, completely and furiously, angrily said, Tom O’Neill lied. I was not involved. And of course, in our conspiracy theory world, and Tom O’Neill has done this well, of course he’s going to deny it because he was a CIA mind control expert. So you can’t win once these conspiracies sink into people’s minds. And I have given other detailed interviews in which I have refuted that the second part of chaos. Now, I want to say, in fairness, the first part of chaos has a lot of genuinely great research and information that Tom found. But what was it about? It was proving what I have always said. that Bugliosi was covering up the involvement of celebrities like Terry Melcher and others in the crimes. That he proved that Rudy Altobelli, the guy that owned Cielo Drive and Bugliosi and these people were cajoled to lie in court, to perjure themselves, to present a different version of things. But it doesn’t in any way support this, the later part of the book is sheer speculative nonsense. I don’t think there’s any CIA connection. And in fact, in my book, I make it clear, if there was a CIA connection, it was not to Charlie and the commune, but to the Polish ex-path, Roman Polanski, Jerzy Kaczynski, you know, and for good reason, again, not some sinister mind control thing. The CIA is, you know, again, banality and pedestrian business. It’s not like they only concentrated on mind control. The involvement of the CIA in this case was simply keeping an eye on communist expats at the time during the Cold War. You had these Polish expatriates at Cielo Drive around Polanski. And definitely the CIA kept an eye on them. And in the case of Jerzy Kosinski, a friend of Polanski, who introduced Wojtek Furkowski to Abigail Folger, two of the victims, he was definitely a CIA asset. But a lot of Iron Curtain expatriates were happy to cooperate with the CIA, and the CIA used them to get information about the Soviet bloc. There’s, again, nothing sinister about it.

Eric: You grew up in Germany, right?

Nikolas: No, I’ve lived in Germany most of my adult life, but I didn’t grow up here. I grew up here.

Eric: Oh, okay, because I was going to say that there was an East-West German aspect of it, and I mean the Cold War.

Nikolas: Oh, yeah. Well, I’m very intimate with the whole details of the Cold War and espionage and... and I go into detail in the Manson file, if you want to find a CIA connection, it’s with the Polish expatriates. Wojtek Furkowski, who I believe is responsible for why these people got killed, Polanski’s friend, he definitely had some sort of intelligence involvement. He had a very shady past, but you know, that’s not surprising. Anyone At the height of the Cold War, if you left an Iron Curtain country and came here, you could be suspected to be a defector, you could be a double agent. So it was completely in order that the intelligence community would keep an eye on you. But Charlie had absolutely nothing to do with the CIA. And I think this is the important point. To believe that nonsense that Tom O’Neill pushes, you have to think that there was some brainwashing involved in this case. You have to accept the idea that these kids were mind controlled by the evil hypnotist Manson. Well, I’m saying no such thing happened. They were criminals who of their own volition committed these crimes. Nobody was, you know, this is accepting Bugliosi’s ******** that it was a cult and that Charlie had some kind of power over their minds. He was an ex-pimp. He was a very charming, charismatic pimp who knew how, you know, how hard is it to control teenage girls to do anything, you know?

Eric: On that note, though, did he know how to hypnotize? Did he do that? Was Danny Trejo telling the truth about it?

Nikolas: Danny Trejo is talking sheer ********. I don’t, I, that story sounds completely nonsensical.

> Danny Trejo: And, and so the, Some of the prisoners were going to take advantage of him because they’d take advantage of anybody that’s small. And we found out that he could hypnotize you. So we let him sleep in front of our cell to make sure that nobody had hurt him. And he got us loaded on weed.

Nikolas: I am doing an interview in this upcoming week for my documentary with a woman who was the daughter of a hypnotist, a very well-respected hypnotist and criminal, by the way, fascinating individual who Charlie told me was one of his best friends and one of the few people he sort of described as a mentor. I’m gonna be interviewing her this, and I do get into some of this. He had a friend who was a hypnotist, but the thing is, he asked this friend to teach him hypnotism. You know, he didn’t, he was a charming, charismatic, manipulative person. He didn’t need CIA to tell him how to get, you know, and what, but did you understand what I’m saying is to accept the CIA MK Ultra thing, you have to believe there was brainwashing here. I’m saying there was no brainwashing. There was no, these crimes were committed by people of their own free will for typical criminal purposes. So I refute the idea that there was brainwashing. Therefore, MK Ultra... Now, was MK Ultra a real thing? Was it a horrible, sinister activity? Absolutely. Totally. But it had nothing to do with this case. And I think Tom O’Neill’s trick is to insinuate and imply. If you really read that last section of chaos carefully, there’s not a scintilla of proof to connect it. You know, it’s all speculation. And I’m A problem with our conspiracy frenzied world, which I very much oppose these unfounded conspiracy theories, because there are real conspiracies, but they’re limited. They’re about powerful people covering up their crimes. They’re not these huge social engineering plans that... that populist conspiracy theories imagine.

Eric: While we’re on the conspiracy front, can we clear up another one? And this is one that actually brought us together. You were introduced to me from a friend of mine, Manny Grossman, who has covered the son of Sam, son of Sam extensively, who I always thought was essentially a thug and a serial killer who, again, pedestrian.

Nikolas: Right.

Eric: And he’s gone through a journey going from a Maury Terry, which is the Beyond Evil speculation. I’m very aware of Maury Terry. To this.

Nikolas: Now, okay.

Eric: The Maury Terry, and if I’m not describing it accurately, please let me know. But essentially, he was stating that Berkowitz was part of a cult that was spun out of the process church, somehow in England, and it all circles around to Manson. And it sounds completely exaggerated, in my opinion. Can you clear that up too? Is Manson tied to him in any way?

Nikolas: No, not in any way, shape, or form. I get into in great detail in my chapter, The Wizard in the Manson File. I refute any connection with the processed church of the final judgment and Charlie. The only connection that there was, was that after when the trial was going on, Two members of the Process Church visited Charlie to interview him for their magazine, The Process. That’s it. And Charlie did it. Of course, for conspiracy theorists, that’s enough to prove their idea. But no, there was, in fact, the Process Church of the Final Judgment was connected to these crimes and to Manson by L. Ron Hubbard personally, who hated the process church because they were former the the leaders of them the de grimstons were former Scientologists who in the terminology of Scientology were squirrels which meant they broke away from Scientology and used Scientology techniques to create their own rival group the process Church of the final judgment so what Hubbard and his wife did because It was known in the newspapers in like 1970 that Charlie had some unofficial Scientology training in prison by a guy named Rainer Lamer, or Lamer Rainer, I forget which one. And so the media tried to connect Charlie to Scientology. And another member of the commune, Bruce Davis, was a Scientologist. L. Ron Hubbard wanted to deflect any bad reputation vibes that would come from being connected to the Manson case. So what he did was hubbard his ethics committee, which was like his private secret police, smeared the process church with the final judgment by sending to the two London and Los Angeles newspapers, oh look, they have the same philosophy. Manson’s definitely connected to the process church. And Scientology, this is typical Scientology. tactics to go after an enemy and destroy them with character assassination. So if people believe, like Maury Terry, that there was a process connection to Manson, which I’m saying there was absolutely none. Nobody, I’ve talked to so many people involved with this thing in the group, not a single person even remembered who the process were. Bobby Beausoleil denied it, you know, Many, many people involved have said there was no connection. We never met these people. And, you know, and there are so many ridiculous, really, frankly, this MK Ultra brainwashing thing is as ludicrous and stupid as Maury Terry’s process connection. I want to just underscore this. It was banal, and to use your word, pedestrian, criminal activity. It was involving criminals, fighting criminals, and as Charlie said, You know, gangsters are always killing other gangsters. And a statement that he made that I think is very germane, which I quote in the book twice, because I think it is so important, that sums up the whole thing. He said, Man, if that broad wasn’t an actor, nobody would have been arrested, nobody would have busted, and you never would have heard of this thing. Because it was just an ordinary crime that was covered up with ridiculous hyperbole, and because of that hyperbole, other fantasists like O’Neill, like Maury Terry, and Ed Sanders certainly contributed to this nonsense with his book, The Family, which is the first one to introduce the occult factor to this, which is absolutely zero. He really began this connection with the Process Church, and Maury Terry took it off into a new, inane, absurd direction. But I want to say that, a lot of people that look at this case act like, well, we have to consider every option and all of these things are possible. No, some things are just sheerly easy to disprove and impossible. And there’s a tendency to sort of naively accept, well, it could be the Process Church and MK-Ultra and maybe the aliens. And, you know, where do you end with this nonsense? So I have to be pretty severe and dogmatic. I believe that the research I have done and I think it will continue to show conclusively what we’re dealing with here is on one level, Los Angeles underworld, the mafia, which was never very cohesive here in L.A., never had the kind of cohesive organization that you would find in the East Coast or other American cities. The underworld here was conducting illegal *********** narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and Charlie was at the bottom of the rung of this criminal activity. And what happened at Cielo Drive and at Waverly with the La Biancas, as I’ve said before, it was like a little curtain open that you could see into this criminal underworld. And the mafia themselves through the agency of Sidney Korshak, who you will see is a prominent player in my book and who was one of the main mafia fixers in Hollywood. He was a guy who is said could make one phone call and cover up a scandal completely or make your career. You know, he was a very powerful mafia player in Hollywood. The mafia themselves helped to cover up the crimes. The prosecution through Bugliosi, Caballero, and Paul Caruso, the lawyers in the case, helped to cover up the crimes. The celebrities in Hollywood involved with this helped to cover up the crime. So this is a banal underworld series of killings that have to do with money and drugs that were then distorted by way of misdirection and deception to turn it into something completely different and to focus the attention on Manson and the commune Rather, as I do in my book, in which I’m continuing to do in my documentary, what were these nice, innocent people at CLO and Waverly doing that they got killed? Now, of course, then that, because of the cult of the victim that comes with this, then I am victim shaming or I’m somehow maligning the memories of, and that sort of, that’s an easy way for people to avoid the uncomfortable conversation. Jay Sebring, one of the people killed at Cielo Drive, was a major drug dealer to the stars. He was the hairdresser to the stars, but that was the front for a very sophisticated drug dealing operation. Wojtek Frakowski, Roman Polensky’s friend, who most people, that’s like the, least remembered footnote of if anyone even remembers his name. He was trying to corner the market on what was an early version of MDA, ecstasy, MDMA. And he would have been the first distributor of it in Hollywood through a series of Canadian criminals who gave him this. Abigail Folger, the heiress to the Folger coffee fortune, Furkowski was just like a leech and a layabout, a guy who couldn’t get a job in Hollywood, who really just a total **** **. And his girlfriend basically financed his drug dealing operation. And it comes down again to sheer banality. Wojtek Furkowski made a deal with Tex Watson and Linda Kasabian. who Linda Kasabian had stolen some money from her ex-husband’s friend, Charlie Melton, like 5,000 bucks. And they put some of that money into buying or ordering MDA from Wojtek Furkowski, who was at Cielo Drive. These people knew each other. Charlie Manson knew Sharon Tate for two years, or I’m sorry, from April ’68 to August 69. He knew her. He was part of her social circle. These were not strangers to each other. Jay Sebring was the hairdresser for many of Charlie’s friends, Jim Morrison, the Beach Boys. There’s no way in the world that these people did not.

Eric: Charlie knew Jim Morrison.

Nikolas: Yes, Charlie knew Jim Morrison, and Jim Morrison looked up to him as a bit of a mentor, actually, and hard to believe. But Charlie actually tried to to sober him up because he was pretty horrified by how drunk he would get and how ****** ** he would get. And yeah, Chuck Morrison looked up to Charlie as kind of an elder beatnik guide to being a true dissident and counterculture figure. So yeah, they knew each other. And Morrison was interviewed by the LAPD early on right after the crimes. And I’ve not been able to find that um report but but they knew each other at the Topanga Chorale they knew each other from Venice they had a lot of connections so I mean Charlie knew many people in the rock world that he’d be amaz he he I only found out a few years ago he this is surreal that he he collaborated with Paul Williams you know the pop singer-songwriter on writing songs even before he was involved with the Beach Boys so yeah.

Eric: You know, it’s funny, we were talking about the underground, LA, things like that. And I’m not saying that’s related, but I’m just saying it makes, it reminds me of a later murder series, the Wonderland Murders. Is this a similar scenario?

Nikolas: I make that very clear early on in the book. Interestingly, Tex Watson, the main, I will remind people, the main person who did these killings lived on Wonderland at one point, which there’s many things in this case where synchronicities and coincidences kind of point you to the truth. By the ‘80s, people weren’t thinking about witches and occultism and cults. And it was reported as what it was. Was it the four on the floor murders, as it was also called, the Wonderland murders. involved basically to do with Eddie Nash or Nasrula, who was a nightclub impresario here in Hollywood, and a drug dealing retribution. They went in and killed a bunch of people about drugs. That’s exactly what happened at Cielo Drive. They’re so amazingly similar that, of course, anyone with half a brain would see this is the same. This is a typical Los Angeles drug killing, and it happens all the time. everywhere, and it’s just in the weird constellation of things in the 60s, it was easy. And with the media being very limited with just a handful of newspapers, a few TV stations, it was easy to cover up. But by the 80s with the, you know, with the John Holmes involvement in the Wonderland murders.

Eric: **** all that aspect.

Nikolas: Yeah, it’s the same thing. It’s about *********** it’s about drugs. And that’s the, blood of the city that I’m in at the moment, Los Angeles. *********** drugs, corruption, has been celebrities and trying to make money with drugs. I mean, that’s the everyday bread and butter of Los Angeles. And that’s both of these crimes should be seen as very similar. Also, you know the Cotton Club murders that Robert Evans was involved with? Are you aware of that?

Eric: I’ve heard of them, but I haven’t really researched them.

Nikolas: Right, if you look up that, that too was a cocaine-dealing movie-making murder of a guy named Roy Radon, and Bob Evans, who was directly involved in the cover-up of the Cielo Drive murders, a close friend of Polanski and the head of Paramount, was also a cocaine dealer. If you look at the Cotton Club and the Wonderland murders, that the milieu, which the Cielo Drive murders occurred in. Another thing which is tangentially related, the Bob Crane murder.

Eric: Oh, really?

Nikolas: Bob Crane had a direct, through his associate, had a direct connection to the store, the the audio, high-class audio place that Steve Parent, one of the victims of Cielo Drive, and this, as you know, and maybe your viewers know, Bob Crane had this private *****.

Eric: Yeah, autofocus.

Nikolas: Yeah, where he made privately made video ***********. Well, that’s what Polanski and the people at Cielo Drive were doing. That’s what Charlie was doing. There’s a connection there. And this is part of the secret underworld of Hollywood. So those are murders that are closer to what happened. And the discovery by the police of many *********** videos in Rudy Altobelli’s guest house and at Cielo Drive is a big part of what was covered up here.

Eric: And I think Sharon Tate, was she involved in that too or not?

Nikolas: Yeah, Sharon Polanski had a thing of filming her with other men and many famous men were involved in this. And Hugh Hefner was involved with this. Hugh Hefner and his right-hand man in England, they... collected what is called fame ****. They like to, they even went back to the 1920s and found *********** with Joan Crawford in it. So they went out of their way to collect **** all kinds of salacious *********** of celebrities. Hugh Hefner had a relationship with Sharon Tate even before she met Polanski. So this is, you know, it gets into all of the underbelly of Hollywood’s dark side. That’s what this case is really about. There is a major ***** ring run by the mafia. This involves blackmail, extortion, all kinds of things that people are not aware of that were covered up by the whole helter skelter fantasy.

Eric: Now, I don’t want to speculate, but I believe he said that he was in Rosemary’s Baby or something. Does your father-in-law mix into any of this?

Nikolas: No, only in Anton LaVey, who was the father of my ex-wife, Zina. He made-up the lie, which actually backfired on him, that he had been hired to play the devil in Rosemary’s Baby by Roman Polanski. We interviewed Jean Kutowski, the best friend of Polanski. He totally denied that LaVey had anything to do with Rosemary’s Baby. In fact, I proved that an actor named Clay Tanner, a Western actor, played the devil in Rosemary’s Baby and is even credited as such. Anton LaVey was a habitual pathological liar who inserted himself into history wherever he could for publicity. So he Now, however, because he spread that lie when the murders happened, a lot of idiots believed, oh, maybe these have something to do with Satanism or Rosemary’s baby.

##### Shrek’s supernatural beliefs

Nikolas: Now, on a spiritual and metaphysical level, there are weird things about Rosemary’s baby sort of prophesying the crimes, but that gets into the supernatural level, not human associations and connections. Definitely, I believe that Roman Polanski’s films, in some bizarre way, presaged and even predicted these crimes. And I get into that a bit in the book, but that’s a complicated, abstract, and metaphysical consideration that leads us astray. But was there an actual connection of Satanism or occultism to these crimes? No.

And I want to say, in case anyone out there, there’s so much misinformation You’d have to spend more time debunking it than even getting into the truth. A lot of people think Polanski was personally into occultism. He was not. Complete atheist, existentialist with absolutely zero interest in black magic or occultism.

Eric: But he was very much into drugs, and porn and women.

Nikolas: Well, not really into drugs, although, you know, I print, well, actually, I can show you in the Manson file, this is one of many things that you have to wonder. Why is this not more widely known? And I’ve distributed this at lectures I’ve given. This is the FBI report saying that drugs were suspected of being sent from Southampton in England to Roman Polanski and Wojtek Forkowski at Cielo Drive. This is the FBI report saying that. This is the first time this has been printed. Why? Why are, you know, this is a blatant indication that the authorities knew very well what was going on. These kind of things are covered up. And so Polanski wasn’t really that much into drugs, but definitely ***********. His associate, Wojtek Furkowski, and his wife’s former and probably ongoing lover, Jay Sebring, were very much involved in narcotics trafficking. And as I point out in the book, there was a party at Roman Polanski’s house housewarming when they moved in after Terry Melcher moved out, at which a drug dealer named Billy Doyle was present at the at this party. And Billy Doyle later was by Wojtek Furkowski at Cielo Drive as revenge for another drug deal burning. And this plays a part in the crimes in a way that people don’t seem quite to grasp. So a month before August 69 and the Cielo Drive slaying, this Canadian drug dealer was raped in front of other people by Wojtek Forkowski as retaliation for a drug burn, humiliated. And then he was brought to Mama Cass’s house. Mama Cass Mamas and papas, right? Of the mamas and the papas. She’s very much involved in the milieu. She was a friend of Charlie Manson, of Furkowski, of Folger, of Tate. She is a major connection between the victims and the criminals. And so this guy, Billy Doyle, was at a Polanski party. He was thrown out. But why were these drug dealers hanging around with Polanski? People act like these were two different worlds. They were not. They absolutely weren’t. So the important point about this Billy Doyle by Wojtek Furkowski, the way that the crime scene at Cielo Drive was set up was to make it look like Billy Doyle and his drug dealing Confederates had gone back to seek revenge and kill the people. But that shows you how much the Manson commune knew about the workings of the criminal underworld that was involved. with CLO Drive. So they were actually trying to frame Billy Doyle and pick Dawson, one of his confederates, to the point where the police even thought that the famous word pig written in blood on the door of the Polanski said pick, P-I-C, pick Dawson, was an associate of Billy Doyle. So you need to understand that there was You know, drug dealing was surrounding these people all the time. But that was a major part of the crime that people just don’t seem to grasp. But what they were doing was trying to frame rival drug dealers. When the CLO Drive robbery turned into murder, they sort of desperately tried to cover it up and make it look like that, Billy. And the police actually believed that. They, for a while, did pursue that, so it was almost a successful framing of them.

Eric: Okay, so just so I’m clear on it, what you’re saying is that essentially it was Tex Watson’s operation. And I guess my big question is, did Charles Menson have anything to do with it before the fact or only after the fact? So was it a case that Tex Watson and the girls got into this dispute, this drug deal gone bad, and then Charlie found out after it happened? Or did he have some sort of preceding involvement? Like, did he send them to go?

Nikolas: Yeah. Yeah. Let me put that in context. Charles Watson Tech or known as Tech, his M.O. as a criminal, even before he met Charlie, was robbing other drug dealers. That’s what he did. I’d go over and rob drug dealers, and as Susan Atkins pointed out in one of her books, you know, a drug dealer can’t report you to the Better Business Bureau, or you can’t call the cops and say, someone robbed me of my drugs.

Eric: It’s like Omar from The Wire, that claims character.

Nikolas: Yeah, exactly. It’s a very typical criminal profile, a guy who robs drug dealers, and he himself was a drug dealer. So he did this many times. And What happened at Cielo Drive, as I pointed out, Wojtek Frakowski, Polanski’s friend, he had moved in to the Polanski residence on April Fool’s Day of 1969. Polanski was in England making a film, Sharon Tate was in Italy making a film, and Polanski let Furkowski and his girlfriend, Abigail Folger, moved into a guest bedroom there. And Jay Sebring was always hanging around as well. And Furkowski turned his friend’s house into an open door drug dealing hangout and was inviting, you know, random people from the street were showing up to buy drugs there and from Sebring too. So, you know, that was the background of it. And what happened is Kasabian and Watson were burnt as the terminology has it, by Wojtek Furkowski for $1,000 of MDA, very specific amount. I used to not be clear on whether the drugs that he bought were bad or if they never delivered. And I recently ascertained that Furkowski, for some reason, never delivered this big amount to them. And when the Bobby Beausoleil crime occurred, and Bobby Beausoleil was arrested on August 6th, Charlie was away driving around Pacific Post Highway on some mysterious errand, right? He was not even around as this was all developing. And Susan Atkins, who was involved with the Beausoleil murder, wanted to be sure that Beausoleil would not stitch on her. So she wanted to hire a lawyer, not because she cared so much about him, but to show Beausoleil, who’s now in prison, Look, we’re trying to help you. Don’t snitch on me. And, and so she said, we need to get money. And Linda Kasabian said, in essence, I know some rich pigs up in Beverly Hills that owe us some money. They’ve got money. That’s where we should go. So these girls devised this plan with Tex Watson, who was also burnt with his crime partner, Linda Kasabian, to go there and to get money and drug. And that that was what they were doing. And it was known that there had been a big drug delivery. This was Friday night in Los Angeles, and J. Sebring and Furkowski, and there were many drug dealers up at Cielo Drive that night, which I explain in my book. I try to explain as much. There’s a mysterious Canadian drug dealer named Ian Quarrier who has been sort of whitewashed and erased from this case, who was very involved with it. But I get into all these complicated details in my book. What it comes down to is they went to avenge a drug burn. It went from what was intended to be a robbery and turned into a murder when Jay Sebring thought back and various other complications occurred.

Eric: Okay, okay. Definitely, I’m going to probably want to have you back if you are available to go into even more detail and talk about your documentary coming up. But I like to always wrap up with, what is the one question that I should have asked you and that didn’t, or as a variant, what is the one question that you’ve been dealing with this for 30 years and you’re waiting for somebody to actually ask you, but they never have?

Nikolas: I would say generally that the thing that I think people don’t get, the disturbing thing about this is not the crimes themselves. And what I try to get across in The Manson File, and I will even more so in this documentary I’m filming now, the comprehension that the legal establishment, the police, your favorite movie stars, and I mean the top movie stars of the time, including, as I will get into, Cary Grant even is involved in this, your favorite rock stars of the ‘60s. They lied to you. for 50-something years about what happened. And you have been presented with a tissue of fabrications. I think people don’t ask enough about the cover-up of this, and what does that say about our society and our journalism and our legal establishment that this most famous of crimes that mentioned every day and has become this legendary icon has been completely misreported as something that it is not. And I think that’s the important social phenomenon here is the mafia and the legal establishment and Hollywood colluded to cover up these crimes. And even President Nixon, as I get into in the book, helped to cover up these crimes. Governor Reagan was involved with it. we didn’t even get into the mysteries of the La Bianca murders and what that gets into, which we, I certainly am happy to come back to go. I mean, it’s just so complicated.

Eric: Right, right.

Nikolas: It requires a great deal of detail, but yeah, I mean, you did touch on that, but I think in general, maybe when people interview me, they focus more on the crimes, which are rather clear cut. To me, the very disturbing thing is, Hollywood, the legal establishment, and the mafia work together to cover this up, and that it is a successful cover-up, and that people like Bugliosi and Tom O’Neill continue to spread misinformation. And it’s almost like a deliberate effort to mislead people and misdirect them from the truth about this thing. That is what I find far more alarming. and concerning a social issue, you’ve been lied to by the people you’re supposed to trust about this thing. The big criminals lied about the little criminals to hide their collusion and involvement in this thing. So that to me is the burning issue that maybe we didn’t address enough.

Eric: Okay, and I definitely want to get back to that. Now, the book is The Manson File, and there’s a link in the description.

Nikolas: Copy, which you have.

Eric: Yep, right here.

Nikolas: And again, it’s a total to each other.

Eric: But yeah, so there’s a link in the description so you can go purchase it yourself. It’s not light reading. And I definitely want to follow up on more of this. I am extremely interested in the cover up in Bob Evans.

Nikolas: Yeah, we hardly got into the Hollywood connection, the mafia connection there. There’s so much. I mean, this is more than just the Manson page. The book is, it gets deep into the shadow side of what American society and Hollywood is really all about. I think that’s the important thing. So anyway, it was a pleasure to talk to you.

[1] Asbjørn Dyrendal, James R Lewis, and Jesper Aagaard Petersen, The Invention of Satanism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp.137, 173.

[2] “History of the Church of Satan,” Church of Satan, www.churchofsatan.com/history. Time is important to the Far Right, and in three different milieus in this study calendar dates are rendered differently than the standard calendar. Moynihan used a system of months taken from Wiligut and based on medieval German. In 1970s NSWPP correspondence, it was common to date years based on Hitler’s birth year, 1889. And Gilmore’s correspondence was similarly based on 1966—the year the Church of Satan went public. For more on time and the Far Right, see Alexandra Minna Stern, Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate: How the Alt-Right Is Warping the American Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press, 2019), chapter 3.

[3] Zeena and Nikolas Schreck, compilers, “Anton LaVey: Legend and Reality,” February 2, 1998, https://web.archive.org/web/20110716005836, http://satanism central.com/aslv.html. As befitting the insular nature of the reactionary countercultural elements in San Francisco, two Manson Family members, Susan Atkins and Bobby Beausoleil, had passing associations with the Church of Satan.

[4] Starting in the ’00s, academic literature about modern Satanism has proliferated. For general texts, see Chris Mathews, Modern Satanism; Jesper Aagaard Petersen, ed., Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology (London: Routledge, 2009); and Dyrendal, Lewis, and Petersen, eds., The Invention of Satanism.

[5] “Evil Anyone?,” Newsweek, August 16, 1971, p.56; Donald Nugent, “Satan Is a Fascist,” [The Month, April 1972], p.119. At the end of his life, LaVey said, “I’m all for a police state; no messing around. There should be an armed guard on every street corner. The Israelis have the right idea: school bus drivers and MacDonalds managers carrying Uzis”; Shane & Amy Bugbee, “The Doctor Is in…” (interview with LaVey), Church of Satan, www.churchofsatan.com/interview-mf-magazine (originally in MF Magazine #3 [1997]). Other claims about an affection for Nazi and Klan imagery in the early Church of Satan are cited in Mathews, Modern Satanism, p.140.

[6] Michael Aquino, The Church of Satan, vol. 1, 8th ed. (San Francisco: Michael A. Aquino, 2013), ebook, chapter 32; Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, p.83; Anton LaVey, The Satanic Mass (Murgenstrumm, 1968), www.discogs.com/release/1166426-Anton-LaVey-The-Satanic-Mass

[7] Goodrick-Clark, Black Sun, p.83. At the time, Aquino did not know that Kliphoth was a member of his organization. Grumboski, who had resigned as a priest, returned in December 1974 as an active Church member; Aquino, The Church of Satan, vol. 1, chapter 32.
In 1977, Kliphoth led the Detroit NSLF. In 1980 he claimed he was Grand Dragon of the Michigan Klan, and worked with the NSM’s Bill Russell to get a permit for a rally that August. National Socialist 2(1) Fall 1977, p.40; Ken Fireman and Luther Jackson, “Klan and Nazis want to rally in downtown Detroit Aug. 23,” Detroit Free Press, June 5, 1980, p.19A, www.newspapers.com/image/98503976

[8] Aquino, The Church of Satan, vol. 1, chapter 32. Rice had written Mason in 1988 that, “Anton was very close to many right wing types in the early ‘60s—he knew Frankhauser [sic], Burros, Midole [sic] & even claims Robert Shelton wanted the Klan to join forces with the Church of Satan!”; Rice to Mason, [between May 2 and 7], 1988 [Box 9, Folder 20]. Roy Frankhouser and Daniel Burros had both been in the American Nazi Party and the Klan, Madole led the National Renaissance Party, and Shelton was an important Klan leader who opposed the Civil Rights Movement. Other than Madole, who unquestionably knew LaVey, claims about the others should be taken with a grain of salt.

[9] Aquino, The Church of Satan, vol. 1, chapter 32.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Aquino, The Church of Satan, vol. II, 8th ed. (San Francisco: Michael Aquino, 2013), ebook, Appendix 44; Tim Maroney, “The Nazi Trapezoid,” Temple of the Screaming Electron, November 11, 1990, https://newtotse.com/oldtotse/en/religion/the_occult/trapezoi.html

[12] Baddeley, Lucifer Rising, pp.213–14.

[13] Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Bible (New York: Avon Books, 1969), pp.67– 68; Speak of the Devil: The Canon of Anton LaVey, dir. Nick Bougas, 1993, www.imdb.com/title/tt0183811. The outtake is at https://queersatanic.tumblr.com/post/667533119913689088/i-enjoy-the-implication-that-the-political-stance

[14] Peter Gilmore and Peggy Nadramia, “Interview with Anton LaVey,” Black Flame 4(3–4) 1993, p.7. Although not nearly to the extent common in the Abraxas Circle, LaVey made other misogynistic statements. This includes a bizarre passage in chapter 3 of The Satanic Witch, where he claimed that dominant men and women, as well as lesbians, “prefer sweet dressings, such as French, Russian, Thousand Island.” Gay men, and women who are passive and submissive, “prefer Roquefort, bleu cheese, and oil and vinegar”. But,
The taste of sweet dressing, with its minty, tomato, spicy taste (plus the fact that it is most often used when seafood is incorporated in the salad) resembles the odor of a woman’s sexual parts and is therefore agreeable to the archetypical male. Conversely, the aroma and taste of the strong, cheesy Roqueforts, blue cheese, oil, and vinegar, etc. is similar to the male scrotal odor and reminiscent of a locker full of well-worn jock straps. This is naturally subliminally appealing to predominantly heterosexual females, passive males and males with homophile tendencies.
Elsewhere, LaVey wrote that “Satanically speaking, I am against abortion. Yet I do consider a problem of overpopulation. Therefore, I advocate compulsory birth control” for parents deemed unfit. (Who was to do the deeming was not specified.) LaVey, “The Third Side: The Uncomfortable Alternative,” Satan Speaks! (Port Townsend, Washington: Feral House, 1998), p.30.

[15] “Anton LaVey” (interview by Michael Moynihan), Seconds #27, 1994 (.45 Dangerous Minds, p.183).

[16] Moynihan and Søderlind, Lords of Chaos, pp.233, 236–37; the interviews were conducted between 1994 and 1996. For Aquino’s comments, see The Church of Satan, vol. II, “Appendix 44: That Other Black Order.”

[17] LaVey, “A Plan,” Satan Speaks!, p.20.

[18] Ibid, p.22; see also, “The Jewish Question? Or Things My Mother Never Taught Me,” pp.69–72. Later in life, some of LaVey’s beliefs would be close to, if not cross into, conspiratorial thinking, such as his belief in “secret wars”; Dyrendal, “Hidden Persuaders and Invisible Wars: Anton LaVey and Conspiracy Culture,” in Faxneld and Petersen, eds., The Devil’s Party, pp.123–40.
Moynihan also told another story, true or not, about LaVey and Jews. In an interview, he talked about Hennecke Kardel’s Hitler: Founder of Israel which, in his summary, “reveals that all of the main Nazi leaders of Germany in the 30s were actually Jews” who “had to commit the Holocaust” in order to establish Israel. (To add to the book’s legitimacy, Moynihan ordered it from Metzger.) Moynihan said it was “one of the strangest conspiracy theories I’ve come across,” although “maybe it’s even true.” Moynihan ordered multiple copies and sent one to LaVey, who was said to have “quite enjoyed it”; White and Moynihan dialogue on Overthrow.com

[19] Schuster, “Introduction,” Siege, p.32; “Black Arts Gaining Popularity,” Liberator #6, April 1970, p.3. The epigraph is in SIEGE 12(9) September 1983, p.1, and is based on lines in The Satanic Bible; see “Book of Satan,” III–IV, pp.32–34.

[20] Most famous as the author of The Poor Man’s James Bond, Saxon made a special amulet for Zeena LaVey’s baptism and dedicated a book to her son Stanton. Blanche Barton, The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton Szandor LaVey (Los Angeles: Feral House, 1992), ebook, chapter Seven; Kurt Saxon, Classic Ghosts and Vampires (1978), https://archive.org/details/CLASSICGHOSTSTORIESANDVAMPIRES

[21] Tommasi to [Baetter], November [13], 1970 [Box 21, Folder 30]. In 2008, Conflict—a British fascist magazine close to the International Third Position— published the booklet Satanism and Its Allies: The Nationalist Movement Under Attack. Named and shamed were Madole, Mason, Manson, Myatt, Bolton, the Church of Satan, the Abraxas Clique, and the American Front.

[22] Mason interview with AAC (Articles, p.243); Burns/Mason, “Three Faces of Satanism.” A longer version of the same argument appears as “1-800-HELLYES” in Out of the Dust, vol. 2, pp.60–65 (written May 1996).

[23] Rice to Mason, [between May 2 and 7] 1988 [Box 9, Folder 20].

[24] Moynihan to Mason, March 8, 1991; Moynihan to Mason, May 1, 1991 [both Folder 11, Folders 1–4].

[25] Mason said he received the autographed copy via Moynihan “around 1990.” Mason, “Regarding the Church of Satan,” Siegeculture, [fall 2017?], https://web. archive.org/web/20180104233010, https://www.siegeculture.com/regarding-thechurch-of-satan; Siege, 2nd ed., p.xxx; Siege, 1st. ed., p.362. The third mention was a line that was anonymous in the original SIEGE, but credit was restored in the book; SIEGE 12(9) September 1984, p.4 (Siege, pp.488–89).

[26] Burns/Mason, “Three Faces of Satanism”; Articles, pp.193–94; Art That Kills, p.191.

[27] Mason interview in Ohm Clock, p.9 (Articles, pp.92, 97); Mason, “Universal Order,” Rise (Articles, p.84).

[28] Burns/Mason, “Three Faces of Satanism”; “Two Definitions of Freedom” and “Prophecy or Physics?,” Out of the Dust vol. 2, pp.226, 243 (both written March 1997). See also Mason, Revisiting Revelation, pp.35, 79, 82.

[29] Mason, “Regarding the Church of Satan.”

[30] “Radio Werewolf 1984–1988,” Nikolas Schreck, www.nikolasschreck.world/discography/radio-werewolf-1984-1988; Schreck interview with Metzger/Race and Reason (video).

[31] Art That Kills, p.123; “RADIO WEREWOLF — TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (EDIT) | Nikolas Schreck Zeena” (video), uploaded by SonOvBeherit, October 17, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnJl60SMWKg

[32] Art That Kills, pp.150–51; Schreck interview with Metzger/Race and Reason (video).

[33] Parfrey to Mason, November 3, 1986 [Box 17, Folder 4]; Mason interview with Swezey and King (video).

[34] “Radio Werewolf 1984–1988”; Parfrey to Mason, [February] 1987 [Box 17, Folder 4].

[35] “Nikolas Schreck & Radio Werewolf’s First Wally George’s Hot Seat, 1987 (High Quality)” (video), uploaded by The Nikolas Schreck Channel, September 20, 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8eSWcQY2OE; “‘80s ‘Sicko, Freako’ Goth Band Hilariously Hardtrolls This Kooky Conservative TV Host,” Dangerous Minds, March 4, 2015, https://dangerousminds.net/comments/80s_sicko_freako_ goth_band_hilariously_hardtrolls

[36] “Radio Werewolf interviewed by Tom Metzger” (video), [1987], uploaded by Radio Werewolf Unofficial on April 18, 2018, https://altcensored.com/watch?v=SCwYTszhvNs; Metzger to Mason, [July to September] 1987 [Box 7, Folder 21].

[37] Schreck, ed., The Manson File, pp.13, 29, 32, 33, 59, 90, 139–47.

[38] “‘80s ‘Sicko, Freako’ Goth Band”; Schreck interview with Metzger/Race and Reason (video).

[39] Schreck interview with Metzger/Race and Reason (video).

[40] Ibid; “Might Is Right 24-Hour Radio Special”.

[41] Schreck interview with Metzger/Race and Reason (video).

[42] “8-8-88 Rally plus Interviews” (video).

[43] “Interview with Nikolas and Zeena Schreck in Obsküre Magazine by Maxime Lachaud, September 2011,” Nikolas Schreck, https://web.archive.org/web/20111104084231, http://www.nikolasschreck.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88%3Ainterview-with-nikolas-and-zeena-schreck-from-obskuere-magazine-by-maxime-lachaud-september-2011&catid=38&Itemid=57

[44] Larson gave the title “First Family of Satanism” to his interview with Schreck and Zeena LaVey; “Bob Larson interviews Nikolas and Zeena Schreck” (video), uploaded by VMFA 312, August 4, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BqAz27fx-8

[45] @nikolas_schreck_official, Instagram, August 1, 2021, www.instagram.com/p/CSClkNziFsl; Art That Kills, p.149.

[46] Charles Manson Superstar (video); Brian King to author, email, March 16, 2023; Nikolas and Zeena Schreck interview in Obsküre Magazine.

[47] Radio Werewolf, The Fiery Summons (Gymnastic, 1989) and The Lightning and the Sun (Unclean Production, 1989), www.discogs.com/Radio-Werewolf-TheFiery-Summons/master/291456, www.discogs.com/Radio-Werewolf-TheLightning-And-The-Sun/release/188982

[48] Rice interview in Fifth Path, p.11; Moynihan to Mason, March 7, 1990 [Box 5, Folder 9].

[49] “Death in June: Douglas P. Interview by Robert Ward,” Fifth Path #1, Spring 1991, p.10; Death in June, Thè Wäll Öf Säcrificè (New European Recordings, 1989), www.discogs.com/Dèäth-In-Jünè-Thè-Wäll-Öf-Säcrificè/release/255098

[50] Art That Kills, p.143; “Radio Werewolf 1984–1988”; “New General Info Page on Zeena’s Website,” Zeena, www.zeenaschreck.com/general-info.html

[51] Burns/Mason, “Three Faces of Satanism.”

[52] Coogan, “How ‘Black’ Is Black Metal?,” p.48n43. For Parfrey’s take on what happened between LaVey and RE/Search, see Parfrey, “If We’re So Wrong.” As he pointed out, LaVey did appear in a later RE/Search publication, however; V. Vale, ed., Modern Primitives: An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual (San Francisco: RE/Search, 1995).

[53] Parfrey interview in Fifth Path #4, p.24; Parfrey, “Introduction,” LaVey, Devil’s Notebook (Venice, California: Feral House, 1992). In 1994, LaVey also appeared on the S.W.A.T. album Deep Inside a Cop’s Mind alongside Parfrey, Rice, Bougas, and Goad; S.W.A.T., Deep Inside a Cop’s Mind (Amphetamine Reptile, 1994), www.discogs.com/release/818687-SWAT-Deep-Inside-A-Cops-Mind

[54] Black Flame 3 (1–2) Summer 1991, p.12.

[55] Gilmore to Moynihan, May 17, 1993 [Box 11, Folder 2].

[56] Ibid.

[57] Gilmore, review of Siege, Black Flame 4 (3–4) 1993, p.27.

[58] A group picture of the four appears in Art That Kills, although it is incorrectly dated 1992. Art That Kills, p.235; Mason to author, January 1, 2023; Gilmore to Mason, March 8, 1994 [Box 18, Folder 34].

[59] Gilmore to Moynihan, June 2, 1993 [Box 11, Folder 2]; “The Faustian Spirit of Fascism,” Black Flame, p.13; Moynihan interview with Heretic.

[60] EXIT #5; Rice interview in Fifth Path, p.8; Gilmore to Moynihan, June 2, 1993 [Box 11, Folder 2].

[61] Coogan, “How Black,” p.48n48.

[62] Gilmore, “Pervasive Pantywaistism,” The Satanic Scriptures (Baltimore: Scapegoat, 2007).

[63] LaVey interview with Moynihan in Seconds, pp.56–61 (.45 Dangerous Minds, pp.178–83); LaVey interview with Moynihan in Black Flame, pp.4–7; Moynihan and Søderlind, Lords of Chaos, pp.232–40.

[64] Gilmore, “LaVey Memorial” and “Anton LaVey: The Dr’s Final Interview” (with Rice), Seconds #45, 1997, pp.62–71 (.45 Dangerous Minds, pp.184–89); Rice, “Remembering LaVey”; Parfrey, “The Tragedy of Anton LaVey”; Thorn, “Diabolical Machinations,” Black Flame #15, 6(3–4), 2000, pp.6–10, 12–13, 18–19.

[65] Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, pp.226–31; Bolton quote cited in a review of The Heretic in Black Flame 5 (1–2), 1994, pp.18–19.

[66] K.R. Bolton, “Eugenics and Dysgenics,” Black Flame 4 (3–4), 1993, p.43; “Satanic Dialectics,” Black Flame 5 (1–2) 1994, pp.31–32; Moynihan and Søderlind, Lords of Chaos, p.313.

[67] Alexander Zaitchik, “The National Socialist Movement Implodes,” SPLC, Intelligence Report, Fall 2006, online October 19, 2006, www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2006/national-socialist-movement-implodes; The National Socialist Freedom Movement: Complete PDF of the Website, p.47; “Bill White,” SPLC, www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/bill-white

[68] See Appendix 11, “The Satanic Temple.”

[69] Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, pp.216–24, 226.

[70] Schuster to Mason, February 10, 2002 [Box 32, Folder 31].

[71] Ariel Koch, “The Nazi Satanists Promoting Extreme Violence and Terrorism,” Open Democracy, February 4, 2021, www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/nazi-satanists-promoting-extreme-violence-and-terrorism; Kelly Weill, “Satanism Drama Is Tearing Apart the Murderous Neo-Nazi Group Atomwaffen,” Daily Beast, March 21, 2018, www.thedailybeast.com/satanism-drama-is-tearing-apart-the-murderous-neo-nazi-group-atomwaffen

[72] Matthew Gault, “FBI Bankrolled Publisher of Occult Neo-Nazi Books, Feds Claim,” Vice, August 25, 2021, www.vice.com/en/article/dyv9zk/fbi-bankrolled-publisher-of-occult-neo-nazi-books-feds-claim

[73] Mack Lamoureux, “The Grandfather of Modern Neo-Nazism Is Fighting with Satanic Neo-Nazis Now,” Vice, July 28, 2023, www.vice.com/en/article/3akvj9/neo-nazis-james-mason-fighting; “Satanic Exposé” (video), posted by SiegeKultur, May 3, 2023, https://odysee.com/@siegekultur:b/Satanic-Expos%C3%A9:6