I had always heard that Manson was a "Manchurian candidate" of sorts. He was selected (from prison iirc) because he fit a personality profile: charismatic, intelligent etc. He was part of an experimental program that the feds had where they tried to brainwash people. Over the course of several months they gave the subjects high doses of LSD and then convinced them that they were the messiah or whatever. This was back in the late 50s-early 60s: COINTELPRO stuff, so it's all fairly well documented.
From there I don't exactly remember the rest. I think this is the "right wing conspiracy theory" part: as far as whether he was turned lose on the civilian population with a "mission" and handlers and what-not; or if the experiment ended and they gave him a balogone sandwich and bus ticket, and he just lived out his messianic hallucinations while the government pretended to be oblivious.
I hadn't heard that. All of them were or just Charlie?
I had always heard that Manson was a "Manchurian candidate" of sorts. He was selected (from prison iirc) because he fit a personality profile: charismatic, intelligent etc. He was part of an experimental program that the feds had where they tried to brainwash people. Over the course of several months they gave the subjects high doses of LSD and then convinced them that they were the messiah or whatever. This was back in the late 50s-early 60s: COINTELPRO stuff, so it's all fairly well documented.
From there I don't exactly remember the rest. I think this is the "right wing conspiracy theory" part: as far as whether he was turned lose on the civilian population with a "mission" and handlers and what-not; or if the experiment ended and they gave him a balogone sandwich and bus ticket, and he just lived out his messianic hallucinations while the government pretended to be oblivious.