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In Reply to: Reductive? posted by For a historical perspective on January 18, 2006 at 14:30:53:
Perhaps some Manson Family members knew
that he was murderous from the beginning, however not all did. Some were very young, some came from troubled homes, some joined up rather impulsively without having done much research.
A great book on the Manson Family is "Helter Skelter," by Vincent Bulgliosi (who prosecuted the perps). He recalls how the lawyer for one of the young women closed with an impassioned plea...on Manson's behalf (rather than the young woman he was representing). He recalls the looks, behaviour and language of the youth with each other, and sometimes it is a spitting image of aspects of The Family International.
Manson was also adept at weaving together bits & fragments of information here and there that made him sound like he had an encyclopedic knowledge, and issuing crazy statements that he invited listeners to interpret (and followers took as) utterances of profound wisdom.
Something very interesting is what they did with language, specifically the word "love."
