The founder of the notorious Family sect, Charles Manson, is 84 years old. The maniac, often called simply Charlie, was a true symbol of the decline of the frivolous and hopeful 60s. The most famous crime of the Family was the brutal murder of actress Sharon Tate and her friends. The massacre of the Hollywood elite shocked American society and exposed the underbelly of the psychedelic and sexual revolution. Seemingly innocent experiments with the expansion of consciousness and preaching of free love overnight turned out to be the basis for a cruel and senseless cult of violence. At the same time, Manson gained an army of fans who unexpectedly admired the demonic image of the killer. Songs, films, books and even operas are still dedicated to Charlie. And T-shirt sellers literally got rich on prints with Manson’s portrait. “WORLD 24” is about how a serial killer became a real icon of mass culture.

Before becoming the founder of the cult, Charlie dreamed of becoming a musician. Actually, in search of fame, Manson moved to California from his native Ohio. The future serial killer tried to play psychedelic folk that was more relevant at the time, but without much success. True, at some point he managed to make useful contacts and almost became a member of the Beach Boys. Fortunately for the latter, they managed to escape from the Manson commune in time, taking with them several demo recordings and a bouquet of sexually transmitted diseases.

Charlie didn’t understand why the producers didn’t like his songs, but he didn’t despair and continued to compose in his free time from preaching. He deified music in the literal sense of the word and in every possible way encouraged the creative experiences of his followers. But fame among music lovers came to the “Family”, of course, only after a series of brutal murders. Archives of those years, along with Manson's songs written in prison, are still published by independent labels and are in demand among cassette and vinyl collectors.

Just as for the European leftists of the 60s, Mao was not just a dictator, but a dictator who writes poetry, so for the counterculturalists, Manson became a radical killer with a guitar at the ready. In The Psychic Bible, Genesis P-Orridge, one of the fathers of industrial music and also the creator of his own quasi-religious cult, openly talks about the fact that young intellectuals of the time were interested in the “Family”. Founded by P-Orridge, the Throbbing Gristle group actively used recognizable images of militaristic Germany in their performances, chose the emblem of the British Union of Fascists as their logo, and turned to the occult and the revelations of Manson. Young musicians who announced the creation of a new direction, which they called industrial, were instantly labeled as Nazis. Of course, everything was much more complicated: the cult of personality, brainwashing, violence and leaderism became for TG and their successors a metaphor for total control over the collective consciousness. A striking example of clever manipulation, clearly referring to the experience of cults, was the song United, the first widely known single from Industrial Records. Its monotonous, measured rhythm is superimposed with innocent lyrics calling on people to unite. The naive listener has no idea that this hippie anthem is composed of quotes from Charlie Manson.

The figure of Manson is also invisibly present in dark folk - a direction that broke away from industrial. Charlie owes this genre to perhaps his most famous songs, perhaps the quintessence of the entire movement. This is All Pigs Must Die by Death In June. The word “pig” was written on the walls of the mansion in which the Manson family massacred the pregnant Sharon Tate and her acquaintances, and the lyrical hero of the song does not hide that he is going to punish the rich, as they did in August ’69. All Pigs Must Die has become somewhat of an internet meme these days. Indeed, if you don’t remember the context, a melancholic and brutal ode to hatred of artiodactyls can seem more than funny.

Manson and his comrades unwittingly damaged the reputation of not only musical radicals, but also mainstream artists who did not even think of flirting with shocking themes. The beginning of the glorious tradition of delving into the musical preferences of maniacs was laid in the same house of Sharon Tate. After themselves, Manson’s students left not only a message about pigs, but also “decorated” the walls with the words Healter Skelter - the misspelled title of the Beatles song (the closest Russian translation in meaning and literacy is “Kovordak”). Journalists latched onto this detail with pleasure, accusing the Beatles of inspiring a whole gang of maniacs. The Fab Four never managed to rid the song of its ominous flair, so one of the most famous songs of The Beatles forever became known as “the one that got Roman Polanski’s wife killed.” Charlie himself happily confirmed in court that without Helter Skelter there would not have been that bloody night that put an end to the “summer of love.” Moreover, in honor of this song, Manson named his own ideology, which claimed to be a religious and political doctrine. It consisted in the fact that in the future there would be a war between whites and blacks, in which the latter would win, and only a select few would survive this interracial Armageddon. The “chosen ones,” of course, meant those who would accept the teachings of Helter Skelter and bring about the beginning of the great war. At least that’s how Manson believed the message of the four “horses of the Apocalypse” from England.

Charlie's confession caused mass hysteria that spread far beyond the United States. Concerned parents rushed to study their children's music libraries in search of encrypted messages. It was the same Beatles who got it first of all. There is still a popular myth that if you play Revolution 9 from the White Album backwards, you can hear a man's voice saying, “Let me make love to you, dead man.” What this means is anyone's guess, but it sounds ominous enough to prohibit a child from listening to rock music.

And it is very significant that the first serious report about Manson and his family appeared not on the pages of a crime chronicle, but in Rolling Stone magazine. At the same time, Charlie began to have his first fans outside the sect. Charlie was seen as something more than a killer with the aspirations of a messiah; for many, he became almost a symbol of revolution, a rebellion against a rotten system that imposes a cult of consumption and serves the benefit of a handful of rich people. Charlie himself, it seems, did not expect such a turn. He gave interviews extremely rarely and did not particularly comment on his popularity. Apparently, he liked that everyone put into his image what they wanted to see in him. A clear confirmation of this is the laconic answer he gave to the question: “Who is Charlie Manson?” "I am nobody".

Media success was secured by the book “Helter Skelter,” written by prosecutor Victor Bugliosi and which became a bestseller. The chronicle of the investigation and trial of the Manson Family sold seven million copies - an unprecedented result for non-fiction at that time. The book has been adapted for television twice, most recently in 2004. Its author, who acted as the main prosecutor at the trial, managed to unravel the tangle of a series of murders committed without an apparent motive, but still did not understand how Charlie won the love of his followers. With no special talents, the unattractive petty criminal led young men to destroy their own lives and take the lives of others. But how? In the pages of Helter Skelter, prosecutor Bugliosi admits that the only reason was Manson's inexplicable demonic charisma:

“He had a quality that only one in a thousand has. Aura. Wherever he went, everyone flocked to him. I couldn't get anyone to go to the store and buy me a milkshake. But this guy... I don’t know what he is.”

The figure of Manson still attracts not only marginalized people or simply lovers of specific black humor, but also quite successful and serious artists. So, for about six months now there have been rumors that the story of “Family” will become the basis for a new film by Quentin Tarantino. The details of the project are kept in the strictest confidence, but some things do leak to the press. It is known so far that Tarantino’s film will feature a bloody scene in Sharon Tate’s house, and the director has invited Samuel L. Jackson to play one of the main roles. Harvey Weinstein was supposed to help with the work on the film. However, one can only guess whether the recent film, in the very center of which was a famous producer, will affect the release of the film.

Manson's appeal for cinema is clear - Charlie's cult provides room for fantasy for every taste: it has the plot of a hastily filmed slasher film, to the professional commercial success of a product like American Horror Story. But what is even more surprising is that the cult maniac found a place not only in mass culture and kitsch, but also in the academic environment. Quite unexpectedly, the image of Charlie was revealed by composer John Moran, who dedicated an entire opera, The Manson Family, to the maniac. This might seem like a curiosity, a random experiment, or a gesture of desperation in an attempt to somehow surprise the jaded public, if not for one “but.” Not just anyone but Philip Glass himself, an undisputed authority in the world of academic music, had a hand in creating the opera, and the role of prosecutor Bugliosi in the original production was played by Iggy Pop.

But one of the most successful attempts to penetrate the dark mind of a serial killer was made by Truman Capote. The author of Breakfast at Tiffany's visited Robert Beausoleil, the most famous member of the Family after Manson, in prison. Capote conducted a short but extremely succinct interview with him, in which Charlie is practically not mentioned, but at the same time he does not seem to leave his student’s cell. The writer was interested in only one question: how could Bobby, a talented musician and a promising young actor with an angelic face, buy into Charlie’s fantasies, bordering on drug delirium? It seems that neither Bobby nor his spiritual leader really knew the answer.

"T. K: Did you view Manson as a leader? Did you immediately feel its influence?

R.B. What are you talking about? He had his people, I had mine. If anyone influenced anyone, it was me who influenced him.

T.K. Yes, he was interested in you. So he claims.

R.B. What happens, happens. And all this is good.

T.K. Do you think that killing innocent people is also good?

R.B. Who said they were innocent?

T.K. Okay, we'll get back to that. In the meantime, tell me: what is your morality? How do you distinguish good from bad?

R.B. Good from bad? Everything is good. If it happened, it means it’s good.”

Eduard Lukoyanov

He died at the age of 83

American murderer Charles Manson died of natural causes at 20:13 pm on November 19 (8:03, November 20 Kyiv time). It was previously reported that he was transferred to a hospital, but Manson’s condition could not be helped.

Manson was the leader of the Family commune, which committed a series of brutal murders in 1969. Among them is the murder of actress Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski. That same year, Manson was sentenced to death, but due to the abandonment of this type of punishment in California, his sentence was commuted to 9 life sentences. Manson regularly received denials of requests for parole.

Charles Manson had a major impact on popular culture through his horrific actions. Many films, books and songs have been dedicated to his story. We have collected all the most interesting things that the name Manson is associated with.

1. Song Helter Skelter by The Beatles. The first and one of the few British compositions written in the hard rock style.

Everyone started talking about it on August 9, 1969, when it turned out that the title of the song was written in blood on the walls of a mansion in Beverly Hills, where five people were killed, including actress Sharon Tate. Charles Manson later claimed that this track inspired his murder.

Later, Paul McCartney repeatedly tried to get rid of the negative popularity of their song and often performed it at his solo performances.

2. Marilyn Manson used the killer's last name in his pseudonym. The musician said he took the name Marilyn Monroe because she had a dark side, while Charles Manson had a light side.

3. English writer Neil Gaiman mentions Manson in the story “Goldfish Pond.” The main character of the story is a writer working on the script for a feature film about Manson's children, into whom his evil has moved.

4. American singer Lana Del Rey mentions the killer in her song Heroin, included in the album Lust for Life.

"Topanga"s hot today, Manson"s in the air. And all my friends have gone, "cause they still feel him here," the song goes. The singer uses the word "heroin" as a synonym for "fame" and describes its destructiveness influence.

5. Manson is mentioned twice in Natural Born Killers directed by Oliver Stone. The film tells the story of a couple of serial killers, Mickey and Mallory Knox, who traveled across the American South, committed dozens of brutal murders and became famous throughout the world.

6. In 1974, American lawyer Vincent Bugliosi published the book Helter Skelter, dedicated to the Manson case. He was the prosecutor in the murder trial. Two years later it was filmed.

7. Quentin Tarantino is working on a film dedicated to the story of Charles Manson. The film will be his ninth work. The plot will be built around Tate's murder. The director wants to cast actors Margot Robbie, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in the film.

8. Documentary film "Manson" (1973), which tells the story of Charles himself and the history of his group "The Family", was nominated for an Oscar.

He became no less popular a pop culture character than The Beatles. Charlie himself did not commit a single murder. Moreover, he is an animal activist, musician and author of some songs. At the same time - lifelong. For what?

"Nobody. I am nobody. I am a dream. I'm the bomb. I am a car trunk and wine jelly. And a straight razor if you come too close to me” - this is how Charles Manson Mills answered the question “Who are you?” in an interview.

This man with long hair, a graying beard and a swastika tattooed between his eyes turned his life into an endless horrific performance that began with savage ritual murders and continues to this day.

He has been serving a life sentence for almost 40 years, and the legend about him inspires biographers, directors, artists, musicians and poets.

The scandal with the arrest of Roman Polanski in Zurich has been in first place among the most discussed topics on Yandex for three days now. The retribution that overtook the director for a crime committed more than 30 years ago, apparently, deprived of peace not only those involved in the sensitive case.

Many books have been written about him, several films have been made and a huge number of television stories have been made. Songs are written and rock bands are named in his honor. He became no less a popular pop culture character than The Beatles...

At the same time, Manson’s actions have not yet found any rational explanation, and his case remains one of the most confusing and mysterious in US criminal history.

After all, Charlie himself did not commit a single murder. Moreover, he is an animal activist, a musician and the author of some pretty beautiful and famous songs. But at the same time - lifelong. For what?

In 1969, the talented hippie and loser Charlie Manson created a community that would later be called the Manson Family.

Young people who had become outcasts from American society joined this flock, each of them received a new name, and they really lived like one family - brothers, sisters and lovers. In a word, it was a kind of sect.

Manson wanted to make a career as a rock musician, and soon his community moved closer to the cultural center of Los Angeles. They settled on the Spahn Ranch, where Westerns had previously been filmed.

And they began to live a free life: drugs, songs, group sex. In general, we were happy.

Manson's influence on the members of the commune was limitless. He undoubtedly had a talent for charming people. In addition, he was filled with a strange energy that required an outlet.

Like artists of all times and peoples who cannot ignore the inspiration that captivates them and therefore create, Manson felt that he had to do something like this. And there simply weren’t enough songs for this...

Soon, members of the Manson Family committed several terrible murders. Their victims were the rich and famous inhabitants of the Hollywood Hills.

The most notorious murder occurred on August 9, 1969 in the house of film director Roman Polanski (who was recently arrested for).

Under the leadership of one of the “brothers,” student Tex Watson, several “sisters” shot and mutilated Polanski’s wife, movie star Sharon Tate, who was nine months pregnant, and several of her guests. The hostess and guests, like their killers, were heavily drugged.

Along with Tate, such “representatives of the bourgeois bohemians” as Jay Sebring (hairdresser of Jim Morrison and Bruce Lee) and Abigail Folger (heiress to a multimillion-dollar fortune, daughter of the founders of the coffee empire) died.

The next night, the raging hippies arrived at another villa (the owners of the La Bianca couple's chain of stores) and broke up even more. We will not give details of the massacre; they are even on Wikipedia.

What was it? Anti-bourgeois protest action? The whim of crazy drug addicts? Or a satanic ritual? Answers to these questions were never received during the investigation.

The circumstances of the murder were clearly ritual in nature. All this was more like some kind of terrible sacrifice than an ordinary crime.

Soon Charles Manson and several members of his group were arrested. First on suspicion of car theft, and then again for murder.

And this is where the fun begins...

Despite the fact that some members of the “Family” testified against the murderers, the personal presence of Charles Manson himself at any of the murders was never proven.

Many generally stubbornly refused to testify and covered up their leader in every possible way.

A few days before the trial, Manson's lawyer disappeared. His dismembered body was found five months later, but who exactly committed this murder remained unknown (there was even talk of police provocation).

What happens next? Guided by the testimony of deranged drug addicts from Charles Manson's entourage, prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi builds a case against Manson as the ideologist who planned this entire bloodbath, and, therefore, the main culprit. Without any obvious evidence or evidence against him.

Opponents of the prosecution still claim that the case was fabricated. They say that during the proceedings, Manson discovered in himself such a fierce opponent of the American government and the establishment that the authorities simply could not allow his release.

As a result of a lengthy trial, Manson and several members of the Family were sentenced to death in the gas chamber. In 1972, the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty and sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.

The controversy surrounding this story has not subsided to this day. Almost every year some new high-profile artifact dedicated to Manson appears.

For example, in 2008, Robert Hendrickson’s re-edited and digitized film “Inside the Manson Gang,” which depicted the trial, was released on DVD and was a huge success.

And the feature film “Manson’s Girls” with Lindsay Lohan in the role of Manson’s mistress is scheduled for release in 2010.

Regarding the concept of “Charlie girls,” one of his “sisters” said: “We all thought we belonged to him and called ourselves Charlie’s Girls. However, Charlie himself always, almost every day, told us that we are people and belong only to ourselves and no one else. But still I thought that I belonged to him.

Charlie had sexual contact with each of us, I was jealous of him until I realized that Charlie made love only for the sake of love. This is how he gave us his all.

We - Charlie's girls - also made love to each other. There's nothing I wouldn't do for him. I love reflection, and the reflection I'm talking about is Charles Manson..."

The beginning of the creative rethinking and formation of the “Manson myth” was given by the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi himself. The case received such a public outcry that he - either deciding to earn extra money, or to explain himself - published a 500-page work, Helter Skelter, in which he meticulously and in all (even the bloodiest) details spoke about the crime of the Manson Family.

Researcher of the Charles Manson phenomenon, artist Dima Mishenin, in his essay “Change of Weather and Orange Light,” drew attention to one seemingly insignificant episode of this book. An episode that really allows you to get closer to the mystery of the attractiveness of Manson’s figure and understand why he inspires so many artists who put him on a par with the greatest representatives of the human race.

An accomplice to the crime, a girl named Linda Kasabian (almost the only one who actually testified against Manson during the trial), when asked by the prosecutor if she remembered “anything specific about the service station where she and Charles Manson stopped at the time of the crime” , answered: “There was a house that emitted an orange glow, immersing everything around in this warm orange light.”.

The police searched for this place for a long time. And... finally found it.

Next to the Standard gas station is Danny's Diner with a large neon sign above it. Orange color. And there is nothing orange anywhere else.

The diner's waiter identified Manson and his girlfriend from photographs. “Yes, they sat here with us and drank milkshakes and talked very nicely about something,- said the waiter. - And they also ordered sweet peanuts.".

Everything was peaceful and very cozy. Quiet music was playing, Charles Manson was talking about love.

Meanwhile, in one of the mansions nearby, other members of the “Family” wrote the words “Helter Skelter”, “pigs” and “war” in the blood of their victims.

“I felt unusually good,- said Kasabian. - Manson turned into love itself, I said that I was pregnant from him, and he took me by the hand and made me forget about everything. There was this amazing bright orange light everywhere and I was really happy."

All she saw was Manson, his love and the orange light.

And the investigators saw only a gas station and an orange sign above the entrance to the fast food restaurant where the accomplices in the bloody murders were holed up.

Same events, same place, same time. And such different views... “Some people see orange light, and others see orange signs,” writes Mishenin. - And the one who sees the orange light cannot resist and not do what the people ask of him, thanks to whom this light pours, twists and radiates, no matter how scary, monstrous or difficult it is... And those who do not sees, comes up with explanations for the Orange Light, such as the use of potent hallucinogens or states of hypnosis.”

That makes all the difference. This is the whole secret.

Giorgi Natsvlishvili

Clinical psychologist

Was Charles Manson a maniac and serial killer?

On Sunday, November 19, one of the most famous criminals of the 20th century, Charles Manson, died in a hospital in Bakersfield, California, at the age of 83. He is known primarily for the activities of his commune “The Manson Family”. It was an association of, at first glance, quite harmless hippies, of which there were quite a lot in the 70s. But in fact it turned out that this was not exactly a commune, but rather a kind of cult, whose members committed several brutal murders. Manson was the inspirer, ideologist and permanent leader of this cult. But was he, as is commonly believed, a maniac and serial killer?

rising70 / flickr.com

Charles Manson is a versatile personality, and the closer you get to know the history of his activities, the more amazing it seems what he did with the people involved in the “Family”. One of the most famous crimes committed by his commune is undoubtedly the attack on the home of director Roman Polanski and the murder of everyone there, including the director's pregnant wife Sharon Tate. It makes no sense to retell the story of Charles Manson verbatim here. There are many books, articles and documentaries about him and his sect. However, I would like to dispel the myth about Charles Manson, who is often called a maniac and serial killer.

The fact is that the term “maniac” is exclusively literary and journalistic. It's a hodgepodge of many other terms, including "serial killer" and "psychopath." Therefore, I propose to abandon this term and move on to discussing the remaining two.

Who are serial killers

The description of the phenomenon of serial murders is very controversial. If we turn to legal sources, we will inevitably encounter a reliance on the quantitative factor. If a person has committed three or more crimes with approximately the same modus operandi, then these are undoubtedly serial murders.

But it's not that simple. Let's take, for example, an ordinary killer. He commits murders at different time intervals with approximately the same modus operandi. Does this mean that his murders can be called serial, and that he himself can be called a serial killer? No.

Serial killers are distinguished by the fact that they commit all the crimes themselves; their modus operandi, with increasing experience in this matter, gradually develops; there is undoubtedly a component of sexual gratification in murder, and it does not necessarily involve sexual contact; they cannot stop on their own; Between kills there is a rest period that is constantly shortening. And the killer’s handwriting may also appear - a certain detail left at the crime scene, which at first glance makes absolutely no sense, for example a flower on a corpse, but allows you to say for sure: “Yes, these crimes were committed by the same person.”

There are many myths about serial killers in the public imagination. They allegedly come from dysfunctional families, they have a high level of intelligence, which allows them to deceive the investigation and lead everyone by the nose, moreover, they are necessarily insane, irrational, unaware of their actions, and the like. Here it is easier to refer to the classic - Hannibal Lecter, a character from Jonathan Demme's film The Silence of the Lambs, played by the brilliant actor Anthony Hopkins.

This is exactly how ordinary people see all serial killers. But this is nothing more than a delusion. The majority of real serial killers are not geniuses, they can grow up in the most ordinary families (not always prosperous, but the same ones that ordinary people who do not commit such crimes come from), and the vast majority of them do not suffer from psychotic disorders.

Basically, serial killers are boring characters, often with paraphilias, increased anxiety, self-doubt and mistrust of others. And all this does not in any way interfere with their rationality, ability to hide evidence and plan their actions (it is important to note here that schizophrenic criminals who do not plan anything also exist, and a striking example is Richard Chase). They in no way correspond to those mysterious underworld geniuses that we see in the movies. Basically, they cannot be brought to justice for a long time due to the unprofessionalism of the police and witnesses who found the body and trampled on the evidence. Based on the above, we can draw the following conclusion: serial murders are not the simplest phenomenon and each case requires a separate detailed study.

Who are psychopaths

As for the term "psychopath", it also contains many different meanings that need to be clarified.

The doctrine of psychopathy was developed by the domestic psychiatrist P.B. Gannushkin. He identified many different psychopathy and wrote the following: “Psychopathic are individuals who, from the moment of formation, present a number of features that distinguish them from so-called normal people and prevent them from adapting to the environment painlessly for themselves and for others. The pathological properties inherent in them are permanent, innate personality properties, which, although they can intensify during life or develop in a certain direction, usually do not undergo any drastic changes.<…>We are talking about such traits and characteristics that more or less determine the entire mental appearance of an individual, leaving their imperious imprint on his entire mental structure.”

Summarizing what has been said and again referring to P.B. Gannushkin, let us repeat after him three important criteria of psychopathy: their influence is total (they leave an imprint on the entire personality), static (the pathological properties of the personality do not change during her life) and cause social maladjustment. Undoubtedly, the doctrine of psychopathy has developed greatly since P.B. described it. Gannushkin, but here, unfortunately, it makes no sense to do a detailed analysis of each author and his approach. It is enough to know about these three important criteria described by the author - they will be useful to us in the future.

Charles Manson's Family

Let's return to Charles Manson. He cannot be called either a maniac or a serial killer. He did not commit crimes with his own hands, modus operandi he didn’t have one - although, let’s note in fairness, he had his own handwriting. All this does not allow us to call Charles a serial killer in the classical sense of the word.

But it is quite possible to call him a psychopath. True, to make an accurate diagnosis, a personal conversation is necessary, which, alas, is impossible. The story of Charles Manson itself is full of various difficulties, both family (an unwanted child, born to a thief mother who tried to exchange him for a pint of beer) and social (almost two decades, even before “Family,” Charles spent in prison), which , undoubtedly left their mark on his personality. Here, with a certain degree of confidence, we can talk about social maladjustment.

But despite this, Manson skillfully manipulated people, adjusted to different people, from schoolgirls to bikers (which, of course, was influenced by his personal experience of encountering an absolutely unstable social environment), understood how it was necessary to arrange interaction with his commune in order to force her members to do whatever he needs. How did he do this?

The fact is that Manson found and invited so-called “lost” teenagers and young adults into the family, who were easily influenced by charismatic leaders. His cult was a fairly closed system; the commune lived separately, on a ranch, where no one disturbed them. Manson introduced various rituals into the practice of the commune members, which cemented the commune even stronger.

According to the theory of social systems (which is actively used in systemic family psychotherapy), there are two extremes - open and closed systems. An open system interacts with the outside world; its participants are bearers of the foundations of not only this system, but also society as a whole. Society has maximum influence on this system, and forcing its members to do something deviant is much more difficult than in the case of representatives of a closed system.

In a closed system, contact with society is minimal, the boundaries of “normality” are blurred, and you can create your own rules and norms within it. To enhance this effect, as Philip Zimbardo showed with his Stanford prison experiment, one can depersonalize the participants in the system. In Zimbardo's experiment, this was done by assigning identification numbers to prisoner subjects and dressing them in identical clothing. In the Manson Family, all its members, except Manson, had short hair. This further distinguished the commune leader from the rest, and his wards increasingly lost the ability to be critical of what was happening and agreed to more and more sophisticated crimes.

Undoubtedly, Manson had no need to specifically become acquainted with the Zimbardo prison experiment, encounter the history of the Abu Ghraib prison, or study the theories of open and closed social systems. He understood their laws, so to speak, on an intuitive level.

Manson was an intelligent, well-read man who did not hesitate to express his position on various social issues, politics and the like. He inspired many artists, such as Marilyn Manson (who made his surname part of his pseudonym), the rock group System of A Down (their composition A.T.W.A is dedicated to Manson), the group Kasabian (its name coincides with the surname of one of the girls - members of the “Family” ) and others.

Despite all that has been said, Charles Manson should not be overestimated. He was, of course, a criminal and unworthy of the admiration that serial killer fans bestowed upon him. They saw Manson as a leader whose ideas would lead them to a new, wonderful world, while he was an excellent manipulator, a cult leader, but not a new messiah and savior.

Drugs, devil worship, a cult, brutal murders and nine life sentences. At the age of eighty-three, in a prison hospital in the United States - Charles Manson.

His name was used to scare naughty children in the United States; rock stars used fragments of his speeches and ideology, sometimes even his last name, in their compositions for greater effect. And a documentary about his life and family was nominated for an Oscar. The rule that it’s either good or not good about the dead is not about Charles Manson. We are talking about one of the most shocking, terrible and cruel maniac killers in modern history.

I am a child of the streets, a little homeless tomboy. My mother is a 15-year-old girl from Kentucky who didn't have a husband. All she knows is that his name is Scott, that he married someone else, and that he fathered Charlie.

Charles Manson was born on November 12, 1934 in Ohio. His mother Kathleen Maddox was 16 years old at the time, she was not married, and to this day there is no reliable information about who exactly the child’s father was. At birth, the boy was named "nameless" or "some" Maddox. A week later he was given the name Charles, and later, when Kathleen got married, he received the surname Manson.

In fact, no one raised the child: the mother abused alcohol and was engaged in prostitution. And when Charlie was six years old, she was convicted of armed robbery. The boy was sent to relatives. Manson immediately had problems with his studies: he began to break the regime, and then the law, at a very young age.

- My uncle said: we don’t give up and always fight to the end. He couldn't stand Yankee schools. When I was nine, I set fire to the school, I wanted to change it.

In '42, Kathleen was released early. The moment when she hugged her son upon returning from prison, Charles later called the only happy memory from childhood. The family idyll did not last long: his mother tried to place Charles in a foster family, and then placed him under the care of the state. Since then, the child was in special institutions for boys, from which he constantly ran away and tried to hide, stealing cars and bicycles. Manson spent eight of the first 19 years of his life behind bars.

In between prison terms, Manson managed to marry twice, and had a child in each marriage. While in prison, Charles became seriously interested in music and became obsessed with the idea of ​​conquering Hollywood. After leaving prison in 1967, Manson began to gather like-minded people around him. Mostly those whom life, like him, threw to the sidelines. At that time, hippie culture was flourishing in the United States: drugs and open relationships helped Charles convince. For example, in the fact that a war was coming between blacks and whites, he called it “Helter Skelter” (chaos, turmoil) after the Beatles song and said that we need to take blacks by the hand and teach them to kill.

“I told them: if you want to do something, leave something sinister behind.” I’ll tell you the same thing now: if you’re going to do something, do it well and leave something sinister for last. Leave the world a sign that you were here. Have a nice day!

By 1970, the Manson family numbered more than 30 people. Among them is musician Dennis Wilson from The Beach Boys. It was his help in Hollywood that Charles hoped for. But the show business story didn’t work out. The main source of income for the commune was robbery and drug trafficking. The group has a conflict with a black dealer, and he becomes the first victim of the Manson family. Musician Harry Hinman was next. He dies from torture; on the wall of his house the killers write in blood “Political Pig.” Cruel and perverted methods become the signature style of the group.

The most famous was the massacre in the house of director Roman Polanski. Charles Watson, accompanied by three girls, brutally killed 5 people, including the filmmaker’s wife, who was nine months pregnant. The next day, the criminals go on a new case and deal with the family of the owner of a supermarket chain. They will again leave slogans written in blood on the walls.

“I see blood every day: every day someone is shot, someone is beaten to death, someone is stabbed to death.” My whole life has been filled with this. And it doesn't make me emotional. Put a mountain of hundreds of corpses in front of me - there will be no reaction.

The trial of members of the Manson family received widespread publicity. Manson's outrageous performances appeared on the front pages of newspapers, and this only added to his popularity. Fans of the maniac went out on pickets calling for the release of their idol. They considered him innocent and called him a fighter for justice.

As a result of the trial, seven members of the Manson family were sentenced to death in the gas chamber. In 1972, the measure was replaced with life imprisonment. Manson spent most of his sentence in the California state prison in Corcoran. There he studied music, painting and wrote books. He was even allowed to marry 26-year-old fan Afton Burton, but thanks to a journalistic investigation that proved that she was motivated not by love, but by selfish motives, the wedding did not take place. Manson also gave interviews - in his characteristic informal form. He got confused in his testimony, contradicted himself, and sometimes the reporters themselves lost the thread of the conversation. But not once did the cruel killer repent or regret what he had done.