I picked up Paul A. Verdier's (CIA links) "Brainwashing and Cults: An Expose on capturing the Human Mind" from 1977 which is of course 117 pages long, planning on doing some posts just copying chunks of it. Manson himself was probably controlled by the CIA, I go into Sharon Tate's murder a lot in my post up later today. This documentary is on torrent sites and is vaguely interesting.
Edit: I'll quickly post his thoughts on The Manson Murders.
"There are the grisly episodes involving Charles Manson, who apparently recruited weak-willed persons - mostly young women - and convinced them to commit the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders. Were these murders committed by inhuman robots programmed to kill? Was any system used to indoctrinate these mild-looking young women and make them commit these horrendous acts? According to the prosecuting attorney in the Manson case (Vincent Bugliosi, in his book Helter Skelter), Manson deliberately used the following techniques on his "family":
1. Fear. Fear was one of Manson's most effective tools; it is also one of the basic factors used in classical brainwashing.
2. Isolation. There were no clocks or newspapers at the Spahn ranch. Cut off from the rest of society, Manson created a tight little group with its own value system - his values.
3. Sex. Manson taught his little group that in sex there is no wrong, thereby gradually eradicating their inhibitions to the point where there was no act they would not commit.
4. Identification. Manson capitalized on the psychological needs of the family members and made himself a father surrogate.
5. Drugs. Manson considered drugs a useful tools. LSD was not a casual agent but a catalyst. Manson used drugs to make his followers more suggestible.
6. Repetition. By constantly preaching on an almost daily basis, Manson gradually erased many of the normal inhibitions his followers had been raised with. In addition, he taught his followers an amoral philosophy which both fulfilled many of their personal and psychological needs; this provided self-justification and release from guilt for their acts.
Charles Manson certainly employed some of the basic techniques of brainwashing. Fear, intimidation, fatigue, confinement, physical and sexual mistreatment - all have traditionally been used to secure obedience and sexual compliance amount young women who are embryonic prostitutes. Manson used many of these devices of domination on his "family." Mass acts of violence which brought about a collective sense of guilt strengthened the mutual bonds of the "family" members and increased group cohesiveness. Sex was also used to reinforce this bonding process. Interestingly, Manson seems to have had difficulty in obtaining the same willing subservience from the males in the group that he obtained from the females. To this day [1977] the females remain cohesive, as recently illustrated by the actions of Lynnette "Squeaky" Fromme, and other family members." Lynnette Alice "Spueaky" Fromme.
