Charles Manson: An Inside Look into a Cult Leader

Charles Manson is an American cult leader around the 1960s who led his followers to commit nine gruesome murders over a period of 5 weeks. He is now serving a life sentence in a prison in California.

Charles Manson is terrifying, not just because he was a cult leader, or that he is serving a lifetime in jail, but because he is a master of manipulation. He can get other people to do things that he wants, not because he physically hurts or forces them, but because he knows how to convince them without making it seem like it was his idea.
I'd never heard about him until I picked up a historical fiction book from the library one day and started researching a little bit about the characters. While I had never heard about him before, I read about what a powerful figure he was in California during the 60s, how much chaos and pandemonium and loss he caused. How could one person have control over so many people- innocent people? Curious, I started reading more about him and his Family, a loyal group who stood by Manson's side and treated him like a god.

It seems as though Charles Manson had a very rough childhood, however, we don’t know for sure because he lied in many interviews and gave conflicting stories. While he says that he was born to a 16 year old woman who was both a prostitute and a drunk, his sister said that their mother went to jail for a couple years for a messed up robbery, but she loved and tried to help Charles as much as she could. I think that his mother going to jail at such a young and impressionable age really hurt Manson, and while she tried to make it up to him and take care of him, his walls had already been put up. Without any trusted guardian figure, Manson lashed out in the only ways he knew how. Out of his first 32 years of life, Charles Manson spent about half of it in prison for petty crime and theft.  

After his second stint in jail, his cult started to slowly emerge. He attracted broken women and enthralled them with his free-loving facade. He opened the doors to a new world for all the women that joined him, giving them a sense of family and loyalty and happiness.

To get into this group, you had to completely give up your ego so you could tend to Manson, but as humans, I don’t think we can really do that. Instead, these women handed their ego and pride over to Charles, giving him a piece of their vulnerability.

Charles Manson did not preach to his Family, nor force them into killing. Instead, he indoctrinated his theory, named Helter Skelter (after the Beatles’ song). He slowly and systematically said that the Beatles had predicted in their songs that a race would rise up (African Americans). I think that this slow and steady method made the women feel as though they were getting to be part of something unique and fun; after being treated badly by their families, they felt like intelligent and trustworthy people.

He was a very charismatic and street-smart man; he made his Family feel as though it was all their ideas and that they murdered of their own free will. Just like Hitler, whom Manson idolized, he took control of the situation and became an authority figure.

I think that these women thought they had no other choice: they listened and followed and believed everything that Charles Manson told them. When they felt like they were at their worst and no one was there to support them, he caught them and took good care of them and never pressured them into anything. His methodical ways of ingraining his thoughts into his Family made the women feel almost as though they came to the conclusion themselves. Regardless, killing people should have rung some warning bells, but I think that the calm and strong authoritarian figure that condoned these behaviors made it seem to these vulnerable and deceived individuals that it was okay.

The power of a strong authority figure is proven to have an impact of people, and they feel like they have no choice when in reality they do. Charles Manson actually did not force anyone to do anything, but the women must have felt like there was no other choice and feared the consequences that inevitably occurred anyway.

Of course, authorities started looking into all these crimes and Manson was first caught in a remote location on suspicion of auto theft. It took a while, until Susan Atkins, who was already in jail, admitted she killed Sharon Tate. Police connected the dots, and Manson was soon in trouble of a lot more than just stealing a car. He and some of his friends were sentenced to the death penalty, but then California voted to remove it, resulting in a lifetime sentence of jail for Charles Manson.

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My English teacher recommended a book called The Girls to me and explained the back story of how it was about this cult leader. I was very curious and came back and did lots of research at home. I wrote an essay because I was already interested in this topic and my mom gave me $50.