A research text dump on ‘The Manson File’

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 20^th 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.

A preview of the updated Manson File

The Manson File

MYTH AND REALITY OF AN OUTLAW SHAMAN

by Nikolas Schreck

SURREALIST RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

The Manton File; Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman
Text Copyright © Nikolas Schreck, 2014
Works by Charles Manson reproduced with permission
Chapter Illustrations © Zeena, 2009

Distributed worldwide by Cargo Records
2^nd Floor, 25 I Icathmans Road
London
SW6 4TJ

www.cargorecordsdirect.co.uk
www.themansonfile.com

ISBN 978-1-7385I95-O-7

SURREALIST RESEARCH PUBLICATION 01

Whatever merit this scroll may possess is dedicated to: I he seven-fold one who rules from behind the thigh over hours unlawful ami unmeasured: ABRES1OA PHOTHER THERTHONAX His faultless bride whose beauty shines shamelessly upon all from the morning star: d tndwpi St »tr bnb pt mjr n /< rdj n (• j) n-k qn • Hie first of his servants, the Hemet Neter Tepi Seth: Ankh! Uta! Semb! • The seventeenth to wear the black crown: dt nr jin gyi Lib tu toi — My revered teachers: tin wai Luna nanda tolu>a deb — My respected students who walked the way of the wolf and who now count among the two and seventy: nehent ret ent Apep! I hose who were killed, those who did the killing, their families and loved ones, those unjustly imprisoned, and (hose entangled souls burdened with the weight of the secrets they keep: May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering — And to all sentient beings in the six worlds and the three times:

Sonam di yi thamcht zig pa nyi

thop nay nye pc dra nam pham jc nay

bye ga “^,l d” ^ bib tbrtigpayi

“Take this, brother, may it serve you well.”

“The madness of desire, insane murders, the most unreasonable passions — all are wisdom since they are part of the order of nature. Everything that morality and religion, everything that a clumsy society has stifled in man, revives in the castle of murders. ‘I here man is finally attuned to his own nature.”
Michel Foucault. Madneu and Civilitatton

“’The Piscean Age will be crucified on the Cross of Pluto. Prediction: Sometime in the future Charles Manson will metamorphose into a major American folk hero.”
Wayne McGuire, An Aquarian Journal

“Sag ich Euch absurde Dinge,
Denke, dass ich Abraxas bringc.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wfit-ottliche Divan

Preface: Turn Me On, Dead Man

Beyond the Looking Glass

Introduction co the Ultimate Apocalypse Edition

0. My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult

I. How Did You Get Into This Thing Anyway?

II. So What Was Manson Really Like?

1. The Philosopher

2. The Minstrel

Look What I hey Done to My Song. Ma

Tex and Drugs anil Rock and Roll: Tex Lotsapoppa Burn

More Beat than Beaclc, More Hobo than Hippie

Ihc AntbElvis and I lis Jailhouse Rock

Old Creepy and Little Charlie

The Oakics Bring Down the House The Gardener

Ihe Sound of Free....

Universal Disorder: Ihc 9/11 Tapes

5. The Outlaw

I Deeper Than Everybody Thinks And Knows....

The Ventriloquist’s Dummy... Unknown Others..... Obstruction of Justice Buried In The Back Pages Fixed Gaines and Vested Interests Straight Shooter.....

It’s Witchcraft, Wicked Witchcraft ..... Cul-De-Sac Everyone Slept With Everyone Everybody’s Got Something to 1 Iide

Except Me And My Monkey.... The I louse On The Hill Conspirators in Conflict The Tex Watson Murders Hypno A Go Go: Chuck Summers Hits the Strip .. Rashomon

What A Milky Way lb Go: A Real < iood Time at the Roadhouse . 81

With a Bullet: Charlie I liu the Chaits I he l ost Album • ••• Awareness. ESP and After MY MUSIC

POETRY

For Whom The Bell Tolls: Ihc Beach Boys Murders?.... 213

Location, Location, Location:

Ihc Metaphysical Real Estate of Music and Murder ..... 214

Follow the Money..... 215

Early Evasions in the Eighties.... 2)5

“The Man Who Killed the Sixties”.... 221

Ihc Operator: Pardon Me. but Your Knife Is in My Neck..... 222

From Polanski to Khashoggi.... 226

Summit at Paramount..... 227

You’re So Vane (You Probably Ihlnk Ihis Murder’s About You) .. 233

Controlled Substances: How the Summer of h>vc

3. The Wizard 101

I. Ihc Illusion Has Been Just a Drcam..... 105

II. In the Eyesofa Dreamer.... 12)

4. The Beverly Hillbilly 151

In the Mind Control Center of the World.... 151

A Counroom Drama.... 153

Sleazy Sources.... 153

Charles Manson, President, 3-Star Enterprises..... 154

Setting the Psychic Stage: A Necessary Interruption..... 154

‘It s A Great Party”: Ihc Celebrity Skin Vldeodromc ’69..... 154

The Sharon and Charlie Show.... 161

Rough Trade.... 162

Cupid If You Will: Ihc Hinman Connection.... 164

Bad Vibrations: Skeletons in A Beach Boy’s Closet —

Celebrity Cover Story * I.... 166

On Cloud Number 9: Enter Tex..... 169

In the Court of the Virgin’s Son: Ihesc Crazy Kids Today ..... 171

Terry Covers I lis Tracks: Celebrity Cover Story * 2.... 175

Altobelll anti Hatami Cover Everyone’s Ass:

Celebrity (‘over Story * 3..... 179

Ext. Polanski House. Night..... 180

Manson’s Letter to Ihc Hollywood Star..... 182

Became the Summer of Blood..... 234

Jailbirdsofa Feather Flock Together.... 235

A T alc of I wo Leeches: Scenes from the Voytck lex Vortex.... 238

“It Turned To Some Horror” ..... 239

Enter Gibbic..... 242

I he Beginning of the End..... 243

“The Family” vs. The Family: lex Takes on the Mob.... 245

Why Rostan Had to Die..... 247

On the Horn of a Dilemma.... 248

A Made Man(son): First Violations and Ihc Costcllo/Genovcw Connection 249

Co-Conspirators: Hidden Trails Between Ihc Dcalcy Plaza and Cielo Drive Cover-Ups 256

Two 12:30s: Beloved American Fairy Talcs of the 20^th Century.. 256

The Bug Goes from “Death to Pigs’ To The Bay of Pigs .... 257

I lair Today, Gone Tomorrow..... 258

Schiller The Shill: The Grim Reaper’s Shutterbug .... 259

The Candyman Can: Keeping the Rat Pack Ring-A-ding-Dlnging

Famous Mobsters of Filmland..... 267

I low to Stage a Hollywood Murder, Take One: Ihc Ghosts of Harlows Flaunted Mansion 269

Hanging Out with Mister Jay..... 271

Summer Bummer with Bummer Bob, I’erry Marshmallow and

Ihc Blue-Eyed Oriental.... 272

Deadly Nightshade and Other Witchy Powders.... 274

Meanwhile Back at the Ranch: Fireworks in July.... 275

Yana Ihc Witch..... 276

“Lucifer Pays Back the Straight Satans.... 279

Ihe Ewinkic Truck Trek.... ••••a..... •••«•((•*282

Mixed Motives.... 283

Burn, Baby. Burn!..... 284

11. The Secret Life Of Ihe Dead.... 288

Ihe Whiz Kid/Juvcnilc Delinquent’s Double Lives.... 290

Ihe Peak of the Love I hat Was Running.... 293

Ihe Second Trip to Cielo..... 297

Toilets Hushing All over Beverly Hills: History Repeats Itself at Euston Drive 300

Mogul of a ‘I housand Paca..... 302

From Poland with l«wc: Ihe Cold War Comes to Cielo Drive.... 304

Gateway to the Underworld: Mystery on Waverly.... 307

Sleepless Nights al Oak fcnace..... 310

Rosemary’s Baby: An Inside Job?..... 514

Mr. Gray’s Little Black Book ..... 316

Bad Tuning ..... 317

I lore’s Another Clue For You All..... 320

It’s Hard in Prison

How It Stands.... 322

Manson’s 1986 Parole Hearing Statement..... 522

6. Ihe Revolutionary 325

“Radical politics? Is there any other kind?”

Ideological Indigestion in the Year of the Fork..... 329

Ihc Yippies meet the Slippia.... 329

Manson of the Year: Underground Icon.... 330

Manson (User Alles: < xrmrade Charlie and the (ierman Radical Left 331

Charlie and Che..... 333

Ihc Constitution in a Trashcan: Show Trial as Political Theater... 333

LSD: Leary in Solitary with the Devil.... 337

Red. White and Blue: All-American Terrorists, Wildlife Avengers.... 539

Revolutionary Writings.... 346

7. Ihe Soul For Sale 349

Ihe Bug ( Wishes In: You Saw the I’rial! Now Read the Book! And See the I V Movie! 350

Making a Killing: Sadie’s Story and the Schiller Seam

In the Library of Lies: A I itcrary Autopsy..... 360

Cinemanson..... 365

Epilogue 373

Appendix A 375

Appendix B 385

“God Bless Charles Manson” 389

Sources And Acknowledgments 393

Preface: Turn Me On, Dead Man

Mansonology in the Post-Bugliosi Era

“Now you’re lookin’ at a man that’s genin’ kind-a mad/ I had lots of luck but it's all been bad/ No matter how I struggle and strive/ I'll never get out of this world alive ... A lawyer proved I wasn’t born/I was only hatched/ Ever) thing’s against me and it’s got me down" Hank WiUiams. “I'll Never (let Out Of litis World Alive”

At 8:13 pm. on November 19. 2017, a frail 83-year-old patient in Bakersfield, California's Mercy Hospital succumbed to respiratory failure, colon cancer and a heart attack.

The white plastic I.D. tag wrapped around one tattooed arms wrist identified the wizened, bearded old man as Manuel Reyes. A name the dear departed, with his penchant for symbolic interpretation, would ve approved of. He’d developed an affinity for Spanish in his beloved Mexico during a life-changing sojourn there as a desperado on the run from a pimping charge in 1960. He espoused a passionate belief in the ancient divine right of monarchs to rule. So Immanuel ( God [w.th](http://w.th) us”) and Reyes (“kings” or “royalty”) suited the deceaseds spiritual aspirations perfectly.

Of course the medical staff, the five uniformed police officers guarding his room, and indeed anyone who noticed the ancient good luck svmbol of the swastika emblazoned over his third eye, knew that Patient Manuel Reyes was actually Inmate Charles Milles Manson.

But who was that?

True to his mystic’s understanding of identitys flexibility, Char le maintained that he was nobody and everybody, nothing and everything. How fitting then that an ever-changing being who officially entered this world as “No Name Maddox” before his mother gave him the name of a man not even his father, departed under yet another name not his own.

Within minutes, eager news hounds gleefully confirmed to their customers that the Wicked Witch of the West was dead. The divisive mass media machines of what passes for Right and Left in the USA were briefly united by a common enemy for once. A self-righteous orgy of demonizing denunciation of the monster who flamboyantly haunted the popular imagination for so long flooded airwaves, newsstands, and screens.

Charlie Manson may not have literally believed that he was the second coming of Christ, as his media-made mythos claimed. But his passage from this vale of tears inspired even customarily secular sources to temporarily find that Old Time Religion. Such supposedly objective journalistic enterprises as the New York Post screamed from its front page EVIL DEAD. Make room Satan, Charles Manson is finally going to Hell. The rival Daily News waxed no less theological in exulting that the “bloodthirsty cult leader” would BURN IN HELL.

If Charlie’s newly disembodied consciousness watched this world’s hostile farewell, he couldn’t have been surprised. After a lifetime of knee-jerk calumny and defamation, he often spoke of how happy his legions of haters would be to see him gone. And yet, keenly aware of how the power of legend functions, he also suspected that the day would come when he would become a revered, even venerated, figure.

Seeing both sides from his Abraxan perspective, he also condemned the posthumous sanctification he expected as being just as wrong-headed as the obligatory vilification. Nobody was more amused than Charlie to observe how the fictional character Charles Manson created by the media and his crooked prosecutor took on a life of its own, an alter ego bearing little resemblance to the actual person.

Charlie would say of his future admirers in a mocking tearful voice, “Once I’m gone, you watch, it will be a whole other game, they 11 say “oh, wasn’t he wonderful? . , , , ,

In whatever form the consciousness that once inhabited the body labeled Charlie Manson has taken rebirth, his former incarnations ega- cy in this world is probably of little concern. Even when he was obhged to bear the cross of his role as Public Scapegoat Number One. what the masses thought of him wasn’t a subject of burning mterest to Charhe.

In 1988, Lked him, “What would you tell the people out there who ... well, who don’t know you?”

“Fuck the people out there,” he replied. “1 dont give a fuck whethe they know ... anybody that don’t know themselves, dont know me don’t give a fuck about people. I’m looking out for this guy \[to self\],

%o,” I asked, “you’re not angry with how the media has portrayed you as this villainous monster?

“What does that mean?” Charlie asked. “It doesn’t mean anything. The media is a re-run. Public opinion is a little girl. Its toilet paper commercial. It’s got nothing to do with reality. Reality is HEKE. Reality is NOW - y’dig?”

Sure enough, most of what the media fed to the masses since his demise has truly been a re-run as far removed from Reality as possible. Number nine, number nine, number nine years have passed suite the publication of the 2011 edition of this book whose third and final permutation you hold in your hands. To leave space for the wealth of new information I uncovered since the previous edition, I decided not to waste time with a detailed update on the books and films the Manson myth inspired since Charlie’s passage. For the most part, they’re just the same old cut and paste threadbare tall tales, lies, halftruths, cover stories, urban myths and modern-day folklore reshuffled and regurgitated.

With only a handful of exceptions, the majority of books and films about the Manson You Love to Hate since the 2011 File focused on the notorious crimes associated with him rather than the man himself. Of necessity, this volume addresses the still mysterious Los Angeles killing spree that so drastically affected Manson’s life. And yet, the pages that follow are not primarily concerned with the crimes that misleadingly bear his name, focusing instead on the much larger scope of the real person.

A real person who despite ranking only one cloven footstep and jackboot below The Devil and Adolf Hitler on the short list of most widely hated beings still commands the respect of many who find wisdom in his worldview, beauty in his music, truth in his ecological message, and injustice in his undeserved reputation as a maniacal mass murderer.

A real person who despite having had no other platform to express himself in than hostile TV interviews designed not to enlighten but to terrify an audience tantalized by true crime, became something of a revered folk philosopher. The poetic observations Charlie managed to articulate in between his interviewers’ lazy and ill-informed questions continue to inspire open-minded souls to ponder essential philosophical questions about the mind, the nature of reality, good and evil, spirituality and other ontological riddles.

A real person who despite having his talent as a singer-songwriter denigrated by his former music industry friends and patrons who wished to distance themselves from him, enjoys ever more popularity as a musician on the basis of a few demo tapes and crudely recorded prison-made cassettes.

while in no way downplaying the harm he unified others as it dedi cateel career criminal, we place his role in the crimes in context, ddin eating these other essential aspects ol Manson that have gone tinder re ported, misinterpreted and hardy acknowledged in most previous lit erature purporting to be about him. More than ever, the scarecrow Charlie remains a despised figure, a perfect devil for out current era of performative politically correct outrage. I Ie willingly took this role on himself when on July 24, 1970, he appeared in court with a c ross carved into his forehead, issuing a statement to the press that "I have X’d myself from your world."

As with its earlier editions. Ihe Manson Bile breaks with the received party line on Charlie. Most Manson studies automatically denounce those who End anything admirable in Charlie as the deluded followers of a madman. I acknowledge that for similarly estranged kindred spirits who also proudly X’d themselves from this world, ( harlic’s philosophy, music and radical ecological mission remains a positive inspiration. Inis more balanced view of the man is currently only perceived by those who take the trouble to look beyond the media lies.

But even beyond that rarefied sphere, the Mansonsphcre's landscape, largely unchanged for decades, has recently undergone several seismic transformations which have already reshaped his legacy.

Manson's transition after decades of captivity to the potential freedom of his next incarnation was obviously the most significant event in the Mansonverse since the last edition. However, the death of his most ardent adversary has proven to be even more crucial in dramatically shifting public perception concerning Manson and the murders he's routinely blamed for.

“An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie."

Algous Huxley

On June 6, 2015, Charlie’s nemesis, attorney and author Vincent Bugliosi. the former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney who won the convictions of Manson and his fellow defendants in the Tate-LaBianca trial, died of cancer at the age of 80. Ever since that grand-standing self-aggrandizing blowhard's passage, indications show that we ve at long last entered the Post-Bugliosi era of Mansonology. From henceforth an examination of Manson can proceed without the ever-present media buzzing of the gnat his fellow lawyers derided behind his back as “The Bug."

Rarely has any generally admired public figure’s standing dwindled so rapidly only a few short years after they ceased to be. Casual readers may be surprised to learn how precipitously Bugliosi’s star has sunk. After all, the mass media uncritically lauded this liar for decades as the valiant legal genius whose supposed courtroom brilliance locked up a dangerous cult leader and his mind controlled robot disciples. One of Bugliosi’s most successful propaganda strategies was to convincingly impress upon the public the certainty that the small-time- crook Charles Manson was the most sinister creature to ever crawl out of Hell. Consequently, to question Bugliosi’s version of what happened was taboo, a secular heresy marking one as a sympathizer for Satan.

However, serious students of the Manson case passionately argued against both Bugliosi the man and his Helter Skelter scenario for decades. As long ago as 1974, attorney George Denny 111 already went public with irrefutable and damning evidence about Bugliosi’s moral failings, his lack of ethics, and his possible psychopathology when he released his document The Vincent Bugliosi Story to the press during the D.A’s unsuccessful run for political office. In the previous edition of this book, and in this one, I published newspaper accounts documenting some of the troubling actions Denny referred to.

Further damage to Bugliosi’s reputation was engendered when his mammoth 2007 book Reclaiming History: 7he Assassination of President John E Kennedy was rightly eviscerated by many informed researchers into the enigmas of the JFK murder. If Bugliosi got so much wrong about the many disturbing factors complicating the Dallas assassination, some began to wonder, could he also be wrong about the case that made him famous?

As one respected critic, the investigative journalist Gaeton Fonzi, an expert on the JFK caw, wrote in an article refuting Bugliosi’s spirited and devious defense of the Warren Commission:

“Vincent Bugliosi must be exhausted. J Ie not only churned out more than 1600 pages of tautologically strained contentions to support hix book's pretentious title, “Reclaiming History”, he must be weary from wrestling with the multitude of distortions and twisted conclusions he was forced to make to support his primary assertion. His primary assertion? Swallow that mouthful of Dr. Pepper before you read this: "... it has been established beyond all doubt that Oswald killed Kennedy.’' Fearful of endowing his abhorrent duplicity with any hint of legitimacy, I hesitate to take the time and effort to respond to all the ungrounded contentions he makes about my role as a federal investigator in the case and about certain areas of evidence with which I was Involved.”

Bugliosi, wrote Fonzi, "with clever distortion and selected omission of facts, defiles truth and history."

Bugliosi had already spun the fact, truth and history of the Manson case with similar distortions and omissions, but the first serious crack in Bugliosi’s facade only came with the barrage of informed criticism he faced for his blatantly mendacious cheerleading for the Oswald as Lone Nut Theory. As will be covered later, the celebrity attorney's murky history of collaboration with specific intelligence agents opposed to any suggestion that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy touches on deeper depths still.

Knowledge of this enduring critique of Bugliosi was previously limited to the relatively small circle of Manson researchers familiar with the details of his many decades of dubious personal behavior and deception. The casually informed public, blissful in their ignorance, went on believing that Bugliosi was an admirable apostle of justice who saved even more random strangers from being butchered for no reason by Manson’s death cult.

What’s changed the conversation recently is that since Bugliosi died, it’s slowly but surely starting to trickle down even to the Manson-hostile general public that they’ve been lied to for years.

Of all the many fabricators and fantasists on all sides of this drama, no other single individual was so responsible for creating the many complex deceptions and half-truths that pass for the Official Manson Narrative as Bugliosi. With his entire reputation riding on the preservation of his best-selling bullshit, Bugliosi was by far the loudest and most energetic blockade obstructing the truth about Manson from being known. And yet, for decades, lazy journalists and authors turned to this completely unreliable and biased source as the expert on all things Mansonian. And oh how Bugliosi delighted in playing the brave little piggie who defeated the Big Bad Wolf.

Since 1969, nobody who turned on a TV could avoid Bugliosi s pompous pontificating. Omnipresent and unavoidable in every book add documentary rehashing the case, he was there to do damage control, and make sure the truth of the case he prosecuted never leaked out. His self-appointed public job as the cover-up’s chief defender of deception was played out in the glare of the media. In private, away from the cameras, the pathologically vindictive attorney waged a war of smear campaigns, intimidation and litigious harassment against anyone who dared question his veracity. What was he so desperate to hide?

Die recent wave of too-little too-late Bugliosi bashing that abounds in post-2015 Manson media is a direct consequence of one simple fact. Authors, journalists, film companies, and the money men behind them can now breathe a sigh of relief. For Bugliosi can no longer resort to his life-long habit of waging time-consuming and ruinously expensive legal warfare on his critics and debunkers.

I first publicly denounced the corrupt Bugliosi’s character and legal malpractice when promoting the first edition of this book in print, radio and TV in 1988. When I told d Current Affairs hack pseudo-journalist Steve Dunleavy that Bugliosi’s prosecution of Manson was no more just or fair than a show trial in the then still operant Soviet Union, I was a lone voice of heresy in the wilderness. I'm pleased that in the past few years many other cries of dissent have joined the chorus of condemnation.

A Uriel examination of these works allows us to trace the swift tall of Bugliosi’s credibility.

During Bugliosi ‘ lifetime the only other work other than my own to directly challenge the D.A’» widely-believed Official Narrative was George Stimson’s 2014 book Goodbye Heltcr Shelter, published three years after /hr Mamou Hit. In the preface to his book. Stimson threw down the gauntlet by writing:

“The premise of this book is that the motive that Uss Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi presented at the trial (and ever since in his best-selling book and in countless media appearances) — I Idler Skelter is a fantasy. And a further premise of this book is that it is possible that Charles Manson had no legal culpability for the Tate-1 a Bianca murders...”

Stimsons worthy contribution to the Munson literature skillfully demolished the fabric of lies that is the Heltcr Skelter motive, ami with it Bugliosi’s standing as a reputable lawyer and expert on the case. His book is especially valuable for the wealth of illuminating firsthand quotes from Manson. However, as is the case with me ami my work, the author of GoodbyeHeller Skelter was a sympathetic friend of Manson for many years. I Ie’s also the partner of Sandra Good, one of Manson’s most publicly devoted advocates. Therefore, his conclusions, like mine before him. are often castigated by Mansonphobics as biased.

George Stimson and I have cordially agreed to disagree on the motive for the murders. His book argues that the sole motive was to commit killings resembling the unique crime scene police found at the slain Gary Hinman’s house in hopes that authorities would free Hinman’s killer Bobby Bcamolell. My research discovered that the freeing of Beausoleil was only one factor motivating the crimes, and not the primary motive. Nonetheless. Stimson’s rebuttal of Bugliosi was an important step towards truth, and there’s much to learn from Manson’s copious statements cited therein

The first mainstream media artifact to significantly question Bugliosi’s Heltcr Shelter fiction was the television documentary Charles Manson: the Final Worth, written and directed by lames Buddy Day. Released shortly after Manson’s death, Day’s flawed and often sensationalist film still accepts and regurgitates Bugliosi’s misinterpretation of Manson as a sociopathic fiend who manipulated others to kill for him. I lowcvei, I mai Won/t must be commended for making an earnest effort to dismantle the Heltcr Skelter fantasy. Several groundbreaking interviews included in the film decisively counter the Official Narrative. This representative review by Philip Brown for lit Honm View demonstrates that Day’s rebuttal of Bugliosi was convincing enough that even an apparently socially conventional Manson hater like Brown can finally begin to see through Bugliosi’s lies:

In the countless streams of Charlie Manson exposes and studies that have filled bookshelves, broadcast slots, and bandwidth lor decades, one stands out as the most famous. Hint would of course Ik Heltcr Shelter. Co written by attorney Vincent Bugliosi, the book present cd (he prosecutor’s case and hinged on the theory that Manson was trying to create a race war with hi* murders. It helped get him convicted and has since been questioned by everyone from nutball Manson supporters who believe he was framed to more thoughtful biographers who have no skin in that game. If James Buddy Day’s new Manson doc has any specific purpose, it’s to openly question the “I idler Skelter” theory and the ways in which the prosecution manufactured evidence to get a conviction. The film is rather convincing in this regard, even catching one interviewee in a lie at one point. Iniriguingly it doc* seem like the courts cheated Charlie Manson, which is certainly a new wrinkle in this wacky and horrifying tale.

To even express aloud the notion that Manson didn’t get a fair trial was previously to mark one as a fanatical beyond-the-pale follower. While the various explanations for the murder motives Day suggests as an al tentative to Helter Skelter are also not persuasive in my opinion. Final Worth definitely opened the eyes of a general audience to the possibility that what they thought they knew about the Manson ease was wrong.

Day’s admirably non-hysterical and open-minded 2019 book Hippie Cult Leader, while not especially remarkable in other respects, blasts Bugliosi in even more expansive detail, h’s noteworthy for realistically discounting the prevailing notion of Manson as an evil brainwashing cult leader, and is worth reading for the insightful interviews Day conducted with Mattson and other (ormer members of his commune. Day also reaches other novel conclusions about the case that have been borne out by my research, for instance the real story of (he Bernard Crowe shooting and the beneficiary role the motorcycle club The Straight Satan* played in the LaBianca robbery.

Unfortunately, whatever positives may come of Day” work was besmirched by hi* participation in the shameful 2019 reality I V atrocity Charles Mamou: Ihr Funeral, discusses! in this volume’s epilogue. Still, both Final Words and Hippie Cult Leader ate notable steps on the path to a more balanced view of the Manson phenomenon. Not least because Day actually allowed Charlie a voice, and treats him like a human being and not the crazed caricature so often portrayed. In my own discussions with Day in whkh I tried in vain to persuade him not to include footage of Charlie’s rotting corpse in the /unend documentary lie Inherited. I can say that he was at least not as prejudiced about the case and the man a* other* in the field of true crime entertainment tend to be.

On a more cerebral level ofhistoric.il analysis from (he halls of academe. University of Massachusetts Professor Jeffrey Melnick also efficiently dissected and dismissed Bugliosi’s character, ethics anil version of events in his 2018 study Creepy Crawling: Charles Manton and Ihr Many lives of America’s Most Infamous Family. Not a true crime book but a sweeping analysis of the Manson myth* impact on American culture, Melnick’s work marks a significant landmark In mainstream Manson Mudies in Its thorough critique of Bugliosi’s deceptive tactics. Melnick eloquently reveals the bogus theatrical nature of the (rial Bugliosi pro*ecu(ed and the fictional identity of Bugliosi’s horror novel Heller Shelter.

What is significant about Day and Melnick, both respectable member* of society, is that their critiques of Bugliosi and the false story he concocted arc not presented in any way th.it could be construed as a pm .Manson” perspective Ibis make* (hem unprecedented in the fifty previous year* of Manson reportage that almost universally accepted Bugliosi’s fiction a* fact.

The final knock-out blow to Bugliosi’s tottering posthumous reputation was delivered by Tom (J’NciH* 2019 book Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties. The first part of (he book chronicle* how O’Neill, originally sympathetic to Bugliosi. comes to unearth irrefutable documentation proving just how many lies, cov cr-up* and deceptions the lawyer perpetuated doting the Manson trial and in Heller Shelter. O’Neill repotted his conflicts with Bugliosi to me as it was happening during (he time from 1999 to 2008 when we were on friendly collegial term*.

As < TNelll and his co-author I Tan Piepenberg wrote in (he first page* of their book, describing a tense confrontation with Bugliosi,

“Bugliosi had made his name with the Manson trial, captivating the nation with stories of murderous hippies, brainwashing, race wars, and acid trips gone awry.... There arc big holes in Heller Shelter, contradictions, omissions, discrepancies with police report*. Ihe book amounts to an official narrative that few have even thought to question. But I’d found trove* of documents many of them unexamined for decades, and never reported on -that entangled Vince anil a host of other major player* ... (Man«on>| friend* in I lollywood. Ihe cops and lawyers and researchers and medical professionals surrounding him. Among many other thing*. I had evidence in Vince* own handwriting that one of hl* lead witnesses had lied under oath.”

As with Day and Melnick, the fact that O’Neill I* not in (he least a Manson supporter, bur a confit med Manson hater who subscribe* to all the usual commonly believed negative stereotypes about Charlie a* a brainwashing cult leader, allows the average socially indoctrinated reader to accept hi* demolition of Bugliosi without being branded with the pariah status of “Manson apologist.” As he is at pains to emphasize. lest there be contusion, O’Neill state* of Charlie, “I think he was every bit of evil as the media nude him out to be.”

Por all of his solid ami valuable investigative reporting on other aspects of the case, Chaos singularly fails to “get Manson, as the clueless account of Charlie sincerely trying but failing to communicate with O’Neill in their one conversation makes clear.

In Chaos, we learn how an outraged Bugliosi declared the author his adversary and sellout to sue him, smear him. and thwart any research into the discrepancies between the case he presented in court and the facts the attorney deliberately concealed. Detailing the misdeeds oi Bugliosi that George Denny first brought to public attention years earlier, O’Neills damning portrait of Bugliosi as a vindictive mentally ill pathological liar who deliberately misrepresented ami distorted the evidence he presented in court leaves licker Skelter in tatters,

Chaos proves, as I had long argued, that one of Bugliosi* key roles was to protect the reputation of record producer lerry Melcher and other celebrities who sought to erase their close connection to and support of Manson. I here’s no doubt that any serious student of the case should read Chaos, since it proves without a doubt the many questionable actions of Bugliosi and other lawyers involved in the case, among them Susan Atkins’s lawyers Paul Caruso and Richard Caballero, and Linda Kasabian’s defense attorney Gary Fleischman.

Unfortunately the thorough research O’Neill uses to drive the last nails in the coBin of Bugliosi s tainted legacy falters badly in the second section of the book. I hat wrong turn drives recklessly into a dead end of unpersuasivc conspiracy theory postulating that Manson was the subject of a CIA mind control experiment facilitated in part by hi* San Francisco-based parole officer Roger Smith. While O’Neill discovered important data about the reckless criminality of the CIA’s MK-Ultra program, none of the tenuous scenarios sketched in Cham prove that anyone in the Manson commune was ever a part of these experiments.

I reference the useful and legitimate aspects of Chaos throughout this book, as they serve to corroborate many of the statements Manson made to me that were incorporated in the 2011 edition of the hie. My more exhaustive critique of Chaos can be heard in a 2019 interview I granted to S.T Patrick on his Midnight Writer podcast, audible on my YouTube channel: youtu.lx-/DRYc lbGsJ5k, so I will not be redundant here.

Chaos marks a crucial turning point in the field of Manson studies for offering a widely available mainstream publication that finally refute* Bugliosi and Heller Shelter. But despite the many salient and important earlier passages in Cham, the less sea-worthy CIA speculation in the latter pan of the book has already misled many sincere seekers of truth, and indeed is in danger of replacing Bugliosi’* Melter Skelter with a new but equally untrue .scenario to explain the crimes of’69.

Despite its fatal plunge into the kind of fanciful CIA Conspiranoid speculation Mac Brusscll, Dave McGowan, and Carol Greene, author of the ludicrous Lyndon Urouche-inspired propaganda screed Der Fall Charlo Mamou. Marder am dcr Ketone ( Tot-iubr Murders, the Case of Charles Manson), already tried to drag the Manson case into year* ago, there i* a wealth of solid information in its pages that at the very least makes it clear that there remain many unsolved mysteries. Por those who find (I’Ncill* claims of a ( JA mind control influence on Manson or his commune credible, it’s only fair to mention that I don’t address them again, for the simple reason that I don’t consider them to be true in the least.

As I mentioned in the earlier edition of this book, it always irritated me that to write accurately about Manson, one was constantly forced to take time to dispel the many untruths Bugliosi spread about him. I hank* to O’Neill’s book clearing the path, its possible at last to contemplate a Bugliosi-free understanding of Manson. It’s too early to predict how the surprisingly swift extermination of Bugliosi as a reliable source on the Manson phenomenon will effect future understanding of the subject, but we can lie sure that the tide has tinned. I suspect further revelations about Bugliosi will be forthcoming, a development that will continue to reshape public understanding of the Manson story as the much larger socially relevant story of corruption and cover-up in high places that it actually is.

If the quashing of “ Ihe Bug” can be heartily applauded by anyone seeking the truth about the Manson enigma as a positive step forward, the post-Bugliosi era has also already manifested new challenges to Mansonologists. Most noticeable in this post-truth era, when ground less internet-borne conspiracy theories have never had so much purchase on the general publics imagination is the increasingly common belief that Manson was some sort of CIA tool, and that the murders’lex Watson committed were actually part of a nefarious government plot. Ihi* Is so far from the truth that it makes the already absuid I Idler Skelter covei story it is rapidly replacing .seem reasonable by comparison.

Even with Bugliosi debunked and banished, the basic foundation of hi* lie is so entrenched it continues to hold fast. Ihe influx of new information from mainstream sources erodes the once common belief in the Bugliosi fiction positing that the l’aie-1 aBianca killing* were intended to trigger a race war inspired by a delusional interpretation of Beatles lyrics. But if the media and the public are willing to dispose of Bugliosi, his lies maintaining that there was something called “Ihe Manson Family* who were robots under the- spell of a homicidal cult leader, and that the victim* of the crime* were random strangers who didn’t know their killer* has proven much more resistant to change.

The media has insisted for more than fifty years (hat one of the most terrifying aspect* of the crimes was that a troupe of brainwashed remote control killers slaughtered totally unknown strangers. Ihe more likely possibility that the murderers not only knew thcii victims, but that they were involved in a drug dealing dispute with them, still largely remain* a taboo. Io suggest that at least some of the victim* were killed because of their involvement in the narcotic* trade often leads to outraged accusations of “victim blaming.”

However, even on that perhaps most controversial Aspect of the Manson cover-up. there has been one major breakthrough since the previous edition of my book. Indeed, it’s so significant. I place it at the beginning of our journey to set the stage lor what is to come.

On July 30, 2019, journalist Tatiana Siegel published her article Al tentative Motive: “I Never Bought Into the Race War Ihcory” in the Hollywood Reporter, a Los Angeles-based trade journal second only to Variety a* the movie industry trade journal of choice. Ihe article features an interview with Jim Markham, a close friend and business associate of hair stylist Jay Sebring who inherited the murdered barltcr* business Sebring International. Rather than paraphrase, I will quote Siegel’s article at length:

Six months alter the infamous murders. Jim Markham — a hairstylist turned mogul whose clients included Paul Newman and Steve McQueen and wa* a protege to victim Jay Sebring hosted a federal sting to uncover the cult leader’s motive.

<quote>Jim Markham remembers vividly the days following the grisly Manson murders of Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife. Sharon Tate, her former boyfriend and hairstylist Jay Sebring and three others at the director’s Benedict Canyon residence in August 1969. At the time, .Markhum wav Sebring’s protege and business partner in a budding franchise of mens hair salons that stretched from a star- packed outpost on the corner of LA.’s Melrose and Fairfax to Miami. Sebring became the second person to die at the hands of the Manson Family members during an infamous killing spree that claimed seven lives, including coffee heiress Abigail Folger and her lover, Polish screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski.

Markham, then 25 and splitting his time between his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I..A., was the heir apparent to Sebring’s 400-plus clientele, which included Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen. Markham heard the news on the radio and got on the phone with Sebring International president John Madden. “Jay and I had talked many times ... that I’d Ise his successor if anything ever happened to him,” Markham recall*. “I just took right over out of necessity.” ... Revisiting the weeks that followed the killings is both painful and cathartic for Markham, now 75 ... Markham has never talked in detail about his entanglement in the infamous investigation that captured headline* worldwide and continues to fascinate new generations. I lis talc reveals his previously unknown role n the critical months after the murders, as law enforcement attempted to identify the killers and decipher their motive* with no break in the eave.

Day* after the murder*, and .it the behest of Sebrings father. Markham began living at the house where he had been a frequent guest: Sebrings Bavarian-style home, once owned by Jean I {arlow and located on Easton Drive in Beverly Hills — just one mile away from the Polanski-fate residence on Cielo Drive. “I’m living in Jay’s house with raccoons on the roof — it would sound like somebody walking on the top of the house,” he says. “I finally had to move out. I thought I was going to be next. Ihcy hadn’t caught Manson. Nobody knew why it happened.”

As Markham remembers, late’s father, a colonel in Army intelligence, began working with federal agents on the investigation. Ihc agents told Markham that they believed the killers were connected to the salon (murder victim Folger also had a connection to the hair enterprise given that she was an investor in Sebring International). Ihc salon svas bugged, but ultimately that line of inquiry lost steam. Once the Manson Family became suspects, however, about six months after the murders, the feds enlisted a willing Markham to set up a sting al his rented Brentwood home. I Ie svas to host a meeting between a woman and a man she had met at a bar, someone who had recounted to her at length how he had met Manson In jail. Ihc former inmate svas thought to have information pertaining to the cult leader’s motive for the murders. But Markham doesn’t believe any of the taped conversation from the sting was used in the trial that took place in 1970 and 1971. “Ihis guy looked spooked, really scared,” he says of the meeting.

Five decades later, Markham floats his own theory, one that deviates from the official “I Idler Skelter” scenario put forth by Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi: that the cult leader ordered the late murders in hopes that it would spark an apocalyptic race war as foretold to him in svhat he believed were sorted lyric* on I he Beatles’ White Album.

Though Markham is reluctant to denigrate the memory of Sebring, who was his mentor and after whom he named his son, he claims that the late hairdresser knew Manson and suggests that the murders were the result of a drug deal gone bad — an account (hat aligns with a oncc-popular explanation that fell out of favor as the Hcltcr Skelter narrative became dominant. Back in 1969, Sebring was nicknamed ’Ihc Candyman ansi was said to have used his salon to peddle drugs to the stars.

“I don’t svant to get into the drugs, but I never bought into the race war theory. I believe Manson had gone up to the house’ Polanski was away shooting a movie “and Manson wanted to sell cocaine ami marijuana,” he says. “He showed Jay and Wojciech the product. Ihcy were going to buy some of it, but the two of them beat him up at the gate. Ihc next night. Manson sent the Family up |to kill them).” Markham adds. “I’ve lived with that for 50 years. I still believe that.” I Ie declines to elaborate further given that he is still in touch with Sebring’s nephew Anthony DiMaria, who is planning a movie about his uncle.

A few points of clarification are needed here.

Nothing uncovered by my own research into the drug dealing conflict that led to the Cielo Drive massacre indicated that a Sebring and Frykowski assault on Manson spurred the murders. In fact, while there may have been such a confrontation at some point, the timing is wrong. Ihis contretemps couldn’t have been the night before. As will be explained. Charlie was still on a road trip that brought him to San Diego at that time.

However, Markhams admission that Sebring was indeed a drug dealer known as Ihc Candyman, as I already stated in the previous edition of this book — is remarkable. Sebring’s side business has been common knowledge in the movie and music industry for decades Even Sharon Fate’s father, military intelligence officer Paul Fate, who was nearly Sebring’s father-in-law, told homicide detective Earl Deem- er that “lay was the candyman of Hollywood.” While many spoke of this open secret off the record to me. the Markham interview is the first time any dose associate of the victims has gone public about Sebring’s criminal operation.

Even if Markham got some of the specific details blurred, the gist of what he said is in keeping with what another Frykowski and Sebring friend, film producer Gene Gutowski, assured me svas true: the mur ders were sparked by Sebring and Frykowski* drug dealing negotiations with their killers, who they knew from previous exchanges.

Despite the explosive revelation from a credible source like Markham appearing in as mainstream a source as possible during the massive media coverage of the S0^,h anniversary til the Tate-LaBianca murder, no other magazine, newspaper or other media outlet followed up on the story. While the now discredited fiction about race wars. Beatles songs, and brainwashing were rehashed for the millionth time in 2019. the first real piece of news about the crimes then commanding so much renewed attention was totally ignored.

This deafening silence about the killers’ criminal connection to the victims is nothing new.

In 1969, only days after his wife Sharon Fate and her ex-fiance Jay Sebring were killed at his home, Roman Polanski, then a prime mis peer, was formally interrogated by Los Angeles Police Department Lieutenant Earl Deemer.

Polanski mentions to the detective that Sebring was in debt, suggesting that this may have been a factor in his death.

Deemer responds. “You know. I hat’s no ordinary bill collector that goes up there and kills five people.”

Polanski, well aware of his friend Sebring’s dangerous secondary occupation, euphemistically answered, “No, no, no. What I was talking about for this reason he might have uh, um, urn, got into some dangerous area to make money. You know what I mean .. In desperation he may have, um, got mixes! up with lethal people, you know?”

As we shall see, this was precisely the conclusion that the Second I lomicldc Report files! by the I API) came to upon initial examination of the crime scene. Atul this scenario was what Los Angeles journalists first assigned to cover the Cielo Drive butchery were reporting at length for several months after the unsolved crimes.

What’s more, as you will see illustrated on the last page of this pref ace. shortly alter the killings, the FBI were looking into a report that Frykowski and his friend Polanski may have been expecting A shipment of narcotics to be sent to Cielo Drive from England. When I handed copies of the FBI document on this Mill unexplained shipment suspicion to the audience at a 2018 lecture I delivered in London shortly after Charlie’s death, several in attendance asked me why this damning official report wasn’t well known? Why, indeed?

And why, on December 8, 1969. when a 33-year-old ex-con recently embroiled in the top tier of the law Angeles music industry was indicted as the alleged mastermind of I he murders, did all discussion of the drug dealing angle suddenly cease?

Since the last edition of this book, we’ve entered an age of disinfor ination and “alternative facts run rampant. Even the most groundless conspiracy theories — many more accurately defined as conspiracy fantasies — flourish unhindered and unchallenged in their own delusive bubbles of DIY reality. With so much nonsensical paranoid noise gen crated by the David Ickes, Alex Joneses, and QAnons of the world, some may Ik understandably skeptical about the signal that there was a very real conspiracy to prevent the public from learning the truth about the Tate-LaBianca murders.

No, not a sinister plot hatched by the Illuminati, aliens, the CIA, the Reptile People or some Satanic secret society. Rather, the grubby and ordinary crooked collusion of many well-known entertainers ami executives in the movie and music industry with powerful organized crime figures and their puppets in the judiciary. Bourn! by a mutual self-serving desperation to keep their secret lives and association with Manson and his commune from leaking into public awareness, these factions closed ranks to use the tried and true trick of misdirection to steer attention away from their own complicity and the criminal activities of the victims. And it served the vested interests of the lower level criminal guilty of the murders and the embarrassed friends and families of the victims alike to play along with this charade.

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein scandals, the general public may find it easier to believe that Hollywood protects the powerful from prosecution for decades, even when their abuses are an open secret.

Predictably, even alter Markham’s revelation, a hardcore contingent of stubborn Bughosians still angrily retuse to accept that the sainted victims of the crimes could’ve possibly incurred their own deaths due to their getting “mixed up with lethal people’ as Polanski so delicately phrased it. With that exception, most of the outraged opposition I faced tn the 80s and 90s when I more tentatively aired these then hidden truths has all but melted away.

This was vividly apparent when the appropriately named Lethal Amounts invited me to hold a film screening and talk explaining the Manson mysteries on the SO anniversary of the murders in Los Angeles. Even in the city that served as the scene of (he crime and the epicenter of the show biz-sponsored Cielo cover-up. none of the indignant protest and censorship I’d been regularly confronted with during my Manson-related public appearances there in the 1980s reared its head. Nothing could’ve made this drastic change more explicit than the Lot Angela Timet recommending my screening and lecture in their front page article published on the grim anniversary of the murders. In 1969, as will Ite explained, 71* ‘lime/ was directly complicit with the crooked legal team of BugHod. Caruso and Caballero in spreading the cover story they concocted for Susan Atkins to conceal the true circumstances of the Tatc-UBianca killings.

Hod the Zeitgeist changed? Or was this seeming normalization after so many years of hysteria simply due to the fact that the polarizing person at the center of the saga was gone?

Similarly, when I was hired in November 2019 to deliver a scries of lectures entitled 71* Owlet Manton Omiftraty during a UK ipcak* Ing tour in London. Bristol, ami Manchester, an eclectic demographic of audiences were receptive in a way that only the most anient Mansonphiles were once willing to contemplate.

Whatever the cause, this slowly dawning day of reckoning came too late for Charlie to sec his undeserved status as murder mastermind monster shift. And too late for Bugliosi to face any consequences for his half-century of lies. Nonetheless, the truth is its own reward. As ihe most manufactured of fake news stories gradually withers away, many others will investigate the glaring contradictions and discrepancies of the Official Narrative. With time. It will become apparent that this (Greatest Story Never fold was not simply a sensationally gruesome true crime talc. As the facts behind the cover-up emerge, even the most gullible among us will Im- forced to ask the question: who decides what version of reality Ik true?

[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, 8^th 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, 8^th 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, 2^nd ed., p.xxx; Siege, 1^st. 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