Peter Haining’s Anatomy of Witchcraft

**T’sandem – 1974 (Originally published 1972)**

I’ve read my fair share of books about the history and practice witchcraft. There’s a lot of them out there, and I’m generally more interested in the slightly trashy ones from the 60s and 70s that blur the line between fiction and reality. I don’t read much stuff like that anymore, but when I was reading about the Son of Sam killings last month, I discovered that David Berkowitz had sent an annotated copy of Peter Haining’s The Anatomy of Witchcraft to police officers who were investigating the case. I also deduced that this book was one of Maury Terry’s sources on the Satanic cults of California in the late 60s, so i thought I’d better give it a go.

Roughly half of the book is about white witchcraft/Wicca and that kind of stuff. I have little interest in this type of thing, but the rest of the book is about black magic and Satanism. It was entertaining enough. I’ve come across most of the information in here before, but some of it is presented in a slightly different light here. Haining basically splits the world up into different areas and then does chapters on the parts which contain the most witchery.

Haining isn’t known for being entirely reliable. He lists Dennis Wheatley as a source of much of his information, and he includes a lengthy letter from noted plagiarist Rollo Ahmed too. Other parts of the book are based on myths (the idea that Catherine De Medici was a Satanic witch), and others are thoroughly mixed up. Haining clearly has a bee in his bonnet about LSD, and at every given opportunity he tries to link it with Satanism. Parts of this book really reminded me of Satan Wants Me by Robert Irwin.

Joris Karl Huysmans wrote a novel called Là-bas, in which he describes a black mass. The main satanic character, one Canon Docre, is said to have been based on Joseph-Antoine Boullan, an occultist who was kicked out of the Catholic clergy. Boullan and Huysmans were friends until Boullan died (supposedly because of a magical attack) in 1893.

In Anatomy of Witchcraft, Peter Haining includes a rant from Huysmans that refers to Canon Docre as if he was a real person. I was very confused by this, as he wasn’t being very nice. Why would he shit-talk his dead friend? I did a bit of research though, and it turns out that he was actually referring to a Chaplain from Bruges named Louis Van Haecke. Von Haecke was said to have the cross tattooed on the soles of his feet so he could blaspheme whenever he walked, and it seems like Huysmans explicitly claimed he was the inspiration for Canon Docre elsewhere.

Haining claims that Huysmans wrote Là-Bas as a rejection of the horrors of Satanism. He also claims that Boullan crucified small children during black masses. It’s hard for me to believe that Huysmans, conscientious, reformed Catholic that he was, would be down to hang out with a person who crucified small children. It’s funny. I did a search for the name Boullan through my blog, and it turns out this is not the first post that I’ve written about his alleged misdeeds.

There’s a chapter in here on Satanism in California that discusses the links between Charles Manson, the Process, the Chingons and the mysterious Four Pi cult. I’m planning on writing a separate post on that stuff quite soon though, so I’ll leave it for now. Very curious indeed.

There was some other mildly interesting stuff in here. He discusses the Bernadette Hasler case and the Skoptci, a weird Russian sect who cut off their own dicks. I’ve defintely read about both cases before, but I can’t remember where. Also included in this book is a very questionable quote about voodoo.

Overall, this is a moderately entertaining read. It does not seem particularly reliable though, and I would do a bit of extra research before accepting anything in here as fact.

B.W. Battin’s Mary, Mary

I started reading this book because it has a creepy cover.

Mary suffers from blackouts, brief periods during which she loses control over what she is doing and retains no memories. Also, she can’t tell anyone about these blackouts or she gets sick and passes out. When a murderer tries to kill her, Mary’s blackouts become more frequent and bad stuff starts happening to the people around her.

That’s the set-up. It’s a bit silly, but it has potential. It turns out that Mary was orphaned and has barely any memories of the mysterious orphanage where she grew up. Pretty much the only thing she does remember about it is that it was run by a Satanic nun. These details are revealed early on in the text, and in context, they set up the story in such a way that one ending seems inevitable. The writing is competent, and there is one particularly effective scene in a closed hardware store, but I was hoping that the author would drop in some shocking twists to elevate this beyond the realm of predictable thrillers. He didn’t.

This book ends almost exactly the way I thought it would. I say “almost exactly” because I thought there would be a slightly cheesy horror twist ending. There wasn’t though. This horror novel has a neat, complete happy ending. Yuck. No fucking thanks. In light of the predictable ending, the other faults of the book seem less forgiveable too. Why didn’t Mary just write her thoughts down instead of having to struggle to verbalise them to every new person she encounters? Also, why was she so afraid to tell her caring husband that she was seeing a psychiatrist? Stupid.

There’s a bit of suspense towards the middle of the book, but there is no real supernatural horror, novel depictions of Satanism, or extreme violence. Mary, Mary was a big let down. A few more of B.W. Battin’s books have cool covers, but I don’t feel any desire to check them out now.

The Son of Sam a Satanic Assassin? Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil

The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation into America’s Most Dangerous Satanic Cult – Maury Terry

David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, was a lunatic who shot and killed a bunch of innocent people. When he was arrested, he admitted to all of the killings. After the arrest, a reporter named Maury Terry started researching the murders and became convinced that David Berkowitz was actually involved with a Satanic cult and that he did not commit the murders alone.

While on his killing spree, the killer (at least one of them) sent letters to the police and the press referring to himself as “the son of Sam”. Berkowitz later claimed that Sam was an ancient demon that had possessed his neighbour’s dog. The neighbour’s name was Sam Carr. Terry became convinced that Sam Carr’s actual sons had been Berkowitz’s accomplices.

I’m no expert on this case, but that idea doesn’t seem absolutely unfeasible to me. Berkowitz was well known to the Carr family, and both sons died unnatural deaths shortly after Berkowitz was arrested. Some people who know lots about the case also believe that Berkowitz did not act alone, and it seems impossible to prove that the Carr brothers were not involved.

I knew that the claims in The Ultimate Evil were controversial before I read it, and I went in assuming that most of it was complete bullshit. I knew that there was a Netlix documentary series about it, and I thought that this series was going to be an exposé on how Terry’s ideas were all nonsense. There’s some stuff in the book (Terry’s decoding of the Son of Sam letters and the Roy Radin stuff) that seemed like utter nonsense as I was reading them, but some of it was actually quite convincing. When I watched the Netflix documentary, I expected it to provide refutations of these ideas, but it doesn’t.

Berkowitz started off claiming he acted alone, but he changed his story after spending a bit of time in prison. To this day he claims that he had accomplices. He doesn’t seem like a particularly reliable person though. He clearly enjoys attention, and the Satanic cult claims were probably the most efficient source of attention for an incarcerated murderer in the early 1980s. Both the book and the Netflix documentary series make it seem like Berkowitz was merely telling Terry exactly what he wanted to hear. This muddies the water, but it doesn’t actually discredit all of Terry’s evidence.

Much of what Terry says is clearly conjecture, but I don’t think the idea that Berkowitz had accomplices should be immediately disregarded. Those Carr brothers were definitely weirdoes. Both were scientologists, and one supposedly had a thing for murdering animals.

The Netflix documentary alludes to the fact that this book fed into the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, and it features clips of Maury Terry being interviewed alongside my old friend Phil Phillips. I wanted to be able to write-off Terry’s theory about the role of Satanism in the murders, but if you look at the letters, the killer(s) clearly had some interest in occultism. I don’t buy any of the “large, organised network of powerful Satanists” nonsense or any of the crap about the links between the Son of Sam and Charles Manson, but Berkowitz did seem to have some connections to occultism. Nevertheless, Terry’s efforts to bring attention to his work by jumping on the Satanic Panic bandwagon seem to have backfired. There’s a couple of parts where he mistakes Iron Maiden lyrics written on walls for Satanic prayers. When he’s trying to decode the letters he does the old “reading it backwards” trick, and at one point he even references James Blish’s Black Easter. So much of this book is dumb that he interesting parts seemed pretty uninteresting.

One of the main reasons I wanted to read this book was because I had read it contained information on the elusive Four Pi cult, an evil group of weirdos led by “The Great Chingon” that I previously came across in Ed Sanders’ The Family and Gavin Baddeley’s Lucifer Rising. The only information in here that Terry adds is that the group split up at the end of the 60s because some members were too horny. Rereading the passage in question, I realised that Terry’s source was actually Peter Haining’s The Anatomy of Witchcraft, a book which David Berkowitz annotated and sent to the Ward County Sheriff’s Department when they were investigating John Carr’s death. (Needless to say, I have already started reading that book for a future post!)

I actually read the revised edition of The Ultimate Evil. It has a little bit extra on Roy Radin’s death and a few other things. Both editions of this book are extremely long, extremely detailed and ultimately extremely boring. The Netflix documentary is a much clearer way to understand Terry’s ideas. There’s really no need for anyone to slog through this unenjoyable mess (that does, admittedly, make a few good points.)

A few more books by Stephen King: Misery, Different Seasons and Christine

Greetings freaks. I doubt many people have noticed, but I have been alternating between posts on fiction and non-fiction since the beginning of the year. I had a big non-fiction post planned for this week, but I’m on holidays at the moment, and I haven’t had time to finish it, so I’ve got to switch it up. I’ve had the following post on the backburner for a long time, and I figure now is a good time to unburden myself. I’ve got something really juicy for you next week, but for now, here’s some more books by Stephen King.

Misery

I have never seen the movie version of Misery, but my mom saw it when I was a kid and told me all about it. I had heard that this was one of King’s better books, and it did not disappoint. I knew that the author was going to be “hobbled”, but I didn’t realise the book was different to the movie. Jesus. I literally winced when I got to that part. This is one of the best books I’ve read by Stephen King. I didn’t like The Longest Walk because it felt like it stuck to one track (excuse the pun). Misery is even more confined, but it works a lot better in my opinion. This was a really good book.

Different Seasons

Different Seasons is known as King’s non-horror collection, but one of the tales, The Breathing Method, is very definitely a horror story. The way it’s framed, as a bunch of old men telling scary stories, reminded me a bit of Peter Straub’s Ghost Story. It’s not nearly as ambitious as that book, but it’s not a bad story at all. It’s the only of one the four stories in here that hasn’t yet been turned into a big Hollywood movie. I watched The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me many times as a kid, but the stories they are based on are excellent, and I quite enjoyed Apt Pupil too. I know some high brow literature snobs look down on King, but he really is a talented writer. I loved this book.

Christine

I read Pet Semetery a couple of years ago, and I didn’t really like it, so I gave King a break for a few years. I really enjoyed Misery and Different Seasons, but they contain little of the supernatural fiction that drew me to King in the first place. I thought I’d better read one more book for this post, and Christine, King’s evil haunted car book, was next on my list. (I’ve read nearly all of his novels and story collections up until 1983 so far. ) I found Christine unbearably drawn out and overwritten. I’d imagine it would have been a much better book if it was 200 pages shorter. Honestly, it could have been a short story or a novella. I know some people love this one, but I wasn’t that interested.

Just in case you’re interested, here’s a link to the many other Stephen King books I’ve written about.

Wrestling Splatterpunk: Edward Lee and John Pelan’s Goon

I’m on my holidays at the moment, and I actually seem to have less time for reading than I usually do. Here’s a quick review of a quick little book that I quite enjoyed.

**Overlook Collection – 2003 (First published 1996)**

I haven’t read anything by Edward Lee since I gave up on his Bullet Through Your Face collection in 2020. I don’t mind vulgarity, but the amount of cocksnot in that book was tiresome. I recently came across a free copy of Goon, a book he co-authored with John Pelan, and it was short enough to convince me to give Lee another chance.

This is a brief splatterpunk novel about a serial killer/professional wrestler. It actually contains less wrestling than I was expecting.

I read 2 of the 3 stories in Bullet Through Your Face, but I gave up when I got to The Refrigerator full of Sperm, a story that was taken from Lee’s Splatterspunk: The Micah Hays Stories collection. You can imagine my disappointment when Micah Hays showed up as a character in Goon. Fortunately, it’s only a brief cameo appearance.

Things get weird at end (as they usually seem to in Lee’s books), but most of the plot of Goon is pretty much what you’d expect. There’s an instance of race-baiting in here that dates the book. I don’t think the authors were espousing racial hatred, but I don’t see two (sane) white guys feeling comfortable putting the same words to paper in 2023.

If you like wrestling and gross stuff, you’ll probably like Goon. It was quite a silly book, but it was short enough that I enjoyed it. It contains just the right amount of cocksnot, not too much, not too little.

The Devil is an Irishman – Eddie Lenihan

Given my penchant for books about the Devil and my ever present longing for the land of my birth, it is a curious thing that I have not yet reviewed this book. Eddie Lenihan’s The Devil is an Irishman is a collection of folk stories about Satan’s exploits in Ireland.

5 years ago, I reviewed Lenihan’s Meeting the Other Crowd. (I loved it, but my review sees very little traffic.) In that book, each of the many stories is given a bit of an introduction with some background information on where the story came from. This one is different. There’s only 4 stories in here, and while they are folk tales, the telling is distinctively Lenihan’s. I heard his voice in my head as I was reading them. He doesn’t mention where the tales come from, but he mentions in the introduction that they were collected, so I assume they are actual folk tales.

The Devil doesn’t seem to fare well in folk tales. He seems surprisingly easy to deceive, and he repeatedly finds himself in rather uncomfortable situations. I was actually quite surprised at the level of violence in this book. One tale sees the Devil having his eyeball popped after he is brutally beaten with hammers.

I loved this book, and you should definitely read it. I’m actually back in Ireland at the moment, drinking lots of tea and talking lots of shite. I’ll keep an eye out for Satan while I’m here.

Evil Bunnies: David Anne’s The Folly

The Folly – David Anne

I’ve read books about evil lizards, evil flies, evil dogs, evil jellyfish, evil mantises, evil butterflies, evil trout, evil cockroaches and several about evil worms. I’ve long been meaning to get around to the evil rats, cats and crabs, but when I heard about a book about evil bunny rabbits, I bumped it to the front of the queue.

When you’ve read a few of these “animal attacks” books, you start to see patterns emerging. This is set in England, and the set up was very similar to the slimey, squelchy, slithery books by John Halkin (which I assume are very similar to James Herbert’s Rats.) Peaceful rural scenes are interrupted by brutal maulings at the hands of hitherto mild-mannered wildlife. The attacks in The Folly were quite bloody, but there was nothing else to note until the end of the book.

Spoilers ahead:

So it turns out that the bunnies are a laboratory experiment gone wrong. A lad who wanted to control the rabbit population in his neighbourhood hired a scientist to genetically engineer a disease that would kill rabbits. Once accomplished, this pair continued their genetic experiments, resulting in a chamber of freaks. The book ends with the protagonist stumbling into a secret room in the scientist’s laboratory which houses his half-human, half-chimpanzee lover (Maybe it’s his love-child: I read this a few weeks ago, and I can’t honestly remember.) The inclusion of this freak is needless and out of place in the story, but I thought it was a stroke of genius. It was like giving somebody a sneaky finger up the bum at the end of a blowjob – the reader’s not expecting it and probably doesn’t really want it, but they shan’t deny it makes things more exciting!

In truth, this is a ridiculous book, but if you’re the kind of person who is willing to read a book about evil bunny rabbits, I don’t think you’ll be terribly disappointed.

Robert Johnson’s The Satanic Warlock: A Pickup Manual for Fedora Goths

The Satanic Warlock – Robert Johnson

A few years ago, I tried read Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Witch. It was terrible nonsense, and I couldn’t bring myself to finish it. One of the reasons I wanted to read it was because I had heard of a ludicrously cringeworthy book that was basically its sequel, Robert Johnson’s The Satanic Warlock. The Satanic Warlock is a pick-up manual for Satanists, a book telling you how to attract women in a Satanic fashion. The idea is so ridiculous that I had to read it.

This book was atrocious. I am extremely unqualified to rate advice on flirting and seduction, but even I could tell that this was 90% awful. The only things that the author got right were the most basic rules of personal hygiene and composure (washy washy bumbum and no rapey).

It starts with an unbearably wordy intro from Peter H. Gilmore, the current leader of the Church of Satan. This is followed by a prologue in which the author boasts about how he has had a lot of sex and how he is like Frank Sinatra. Oh, and apparently he worked with Hans Holzer.

Chapter 1
The intro chapter is where the incel vibes really get going. The author needlessly boasts about how much he hates political correctness and feminism. He goes on to boast about how being a warlock is so cool. He likes boasting. He also likes to make girls pee their pants. Being a warlock is all about believing in yourself and projecting confidence. The author claims you should make a confidence den where you hang pictures of the people you want to be like. When the author was making his confidence den, the doorbell rang. It was a female mail carrier. His vibes were so strong that she came in and sex with him. Sure…

There’s an attempt here to define what a warlock is. Realistically, the people who fit the descriptions here are not the kind of people who are reading the book. The people who fit the descriptions also seem like a bunch of assholes. I would be surprised if the author of this book doesn’t wear a fedora.

Chapter 2
This chapter is about the satanic warlock “archetypes”. There are a few that you can choose from: the occultist, the rake, the metal musician… Imagine and act like you are one of these, and you will be drowning in pussy. This chapter includes pictures of the various archetypes. These pictures are without a doubt the funniest part of the book, and they are what convinced me to read it in the first place. I would post them here, but the tumblr where I originally saw them has been taken down, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this happened due to copyright reasons. An entirely different author threatened to take me to court recently for posting images from his book and leaving a mean review, so I will not be posting any pictures from The Satanic Warlock. If you really want to see them, Internet Archive still has a capture of the original tumblr post. It also has the entire tumblr account in all its hilarious glory.

There’s a section at the end of this chapter providing a list of “cool” names that you can use to introduce yourself. One of them is “Mormo”.

Chapter 3
Confidence is important. Looks don’t matter much, and dick size is almost irrelevant. This was a bit of a relief to me, especially after the author used the phrase “the Irish curse”. I had never heard of this curse before. I am Irish, and most of the penises I have seen in real life have been Irish; I don’t have many points of comparison, and I honestly didn’t know our penises were infamously short. I always thought my 2.5 inches (while hard) was about average. Luckily for me, the author includes some excellent advice for those of us who weren’t blessed with perfectly masculine bodies:

“Why not forget looks entirely and publish a book of your love poetry or learn to play the lute?”
p. 54

Chapter 4 – Style tips
In this chapter, the author warns all warlocks to avoid wearing shorts unless they’re trying out for a part in the Little Rascals or live on the equator. Soon thereafter, he goes on to claim that “flowing silk pirate shirts and heavy leather boots create a sexy swashbuckling image.” Does anyone believe this is true? I am certain that at least 95% of all of the adult women I know would go for a guy in a pair of shorts over some wanker in a pirate shirt.

There is some good advice in this chapter. The author advises his readers to wash their willy and bum and to brush their teeth and cut their fingernails.

Chapter 5
Be powerful Challenge bullies “mano a mano”. Honestly, anyone who reads this book in earnest will get their ass kicked 100% of the time they follow this advice.

Chapter 6 – Seduction
This chapter features a diagram showing women’s priorities. It lists taste in music as number 3 and intelligence as number 8. Is anyone stupid enough to believe this nonsense? Did the author get this information by surveying a group of teenage girls outside of a Hot Topic?

This chapter also contains a section about how chicks dig sweaty dudes:

“In the throes of passion, some women have said that they can “release their inner slut” when their nose is in close contact with a man’s penis, testicles and anus, often taking deep breaths to amp up the lust.”
p. 118

Chapter 7 – Sex Magic
Sex magic is basically bullshit, but it works if it’s satanic enough and you have pentagrams and cool devilly shit around you. It probably works as well with a realdoll as it does with a person too, so that’ll be good news for most of the readers of this book.

Chapter 8 – The Gay Warlock
There’s a 10 page chapter on gay warlocks that says nothing of any interest. At least it’s not hateful.

This book is bizarre. Despite it’s very specific nature, it is considered part of the official canon of Church of Satan literature. I suppose this isn’t too surprising. It’s not remotely hard to believe that most male members of the Church of Satan have a hard time attracting a mate. The author holds a Ph.D. in human sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. Sounds impressive, right? The IASHS was a non-accredited institution that was basically shut down because it was unable to meet the minimum requirements of the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. I don’t have a Ph.D. in human sexuality, but I can still give all you little frigids one excellent piece of advice if you want to get laid: don’t take this book seriously.

The Last Days of Christ the Vampire – J.G. Eccarius

**III Publishing – 1990 (First published 1988)**

I first heard of this book a long time ago. The title and extremely childish cover were alluring, but copies were always that little bit too expensive for something that was probably awful. None of the reviews I read made me want to splash out either. I got my hands on a cheap copy recently, and I was pretty excited to get going.

A quick glance through this blog will prove that I have read my share of terrible books. It’s quite a feat to truly disappoint me. In truth, I think that The Last Days of Christ the Vampire might deserve the title of the worst novel I have ever read.

This is anarchist fiction. I’m not an anarchist, but the fact that this book espouses anarchy is not what made me dislike it. The writing here is unreadably poor. It’s like J.G. Eccarius never once considered the fact that novels are supposed to be entertaining. There is a plot here, but the story is so poorly told that it made it very difficult to figure out what was going on. There’s no focus on any specific character, and cast of characters is huge. To make matters worse, some characters change their names throughout the story. The writing itself is bad, and the plot construction is pathetic. This book is unbearably boring.

So Jesus was actually a vampire, and he is still alive today. There are a gang of vampires (including Simon Magus and Aleister Crowley) who have a hand in controlling world affairs. Some MaximumRocknRoll reading punk-rockers decide to put an end to this, so they go to Jerusalem to go vampire hunting. This all ends in a massive attack against the Pentagon.

That summary makes this book sound pretty good. A barely competent writer could have made this into something enjoyable. Unfortunately, the above paragraph contains all of the interesting parts of the book. The author chooses to pass over everything cool about a vampire Jesus and spends his time trying to promote an incredibly naïve political agenda – there’s no chilling descriptions of Jesus drinking his victim’s blood, but there are many paragraphs about mailing anarchist zines. I bet the author wore a bumflap. The action sequences are excruciating. This is awful fiction. It stinks. I wanted to give up, but I forced myself to finish it. Piece of shit.

More Books about Charles Manson

I read Ed Sander’s The Family a few weeks ago, and it reignited my interest in the Manson Family. Charles Manson and his followers were horrible people, and I have little sympathy for them, but there is something fascinating about how they lived and what they did. Here’s another 3 books about them.

Helter Skelter – Vincent Bugliosi

I have understood the story behind Helter Skelter for most of my life. A few months ago, I read Ed Sander’s The Family, and I learned a lot about Charles Manson and the Tate-La Bianca murders. Sanders does mention the Helter Skelter stuff in there, but his book is not limited to the crimes and their motives. When I posted about The Family, a friend recommended that I read Chaos by Tom O’Neill. I put a hold on the audiobook version from my local library and waited 6 weeks. After listening to the first 20 minutes, I paused it and started reading Helter Skelter.

Chaos reveals O Neill’s findings after 20 years of researching the Manson case. The first thing it claims is point out that the “official” story as presented in Helter Skelter is based on lies and that O’Neill can prove this claim. Knowing this going in, it was a bit hard to swallow some of the stuff in Helter Skelter. Charles Manson and his followers were clearly a danger to society, and I don’t think anyone really believes that they were innocent, but the story that Bugliosi puts together to get them convicted does seem a bit sketchy. Manson was a dangerous, paranoid, psychotic criminal, but the race-war as foretold by the Beatles and subsequent escape to the Hollow Earth story actually seems a bit too cohesive for Charlie. It seems much more likely that the murders were drugs or revenge related.

As a book, I found Helter Skelter a bit tedious. I had read The Family just a few weeks before and was familiar with the story, and Helter Skelter’s focus is mostly on the court case. It’s an important book in Manson history, but it’s clearly not entirely accurate.

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties – Tom O’Neill

**Back Bay Books – 2020 (First published 2019)**

Chaos is a very captivating read. Its main claim is that the narrative in Helter Skelter is inaccurate. O’Neill shows that the relationship between the Family and the Polanski household was far less tenuous than Bugliosi wanted it to appear. Apparently Bugliosi told O’Neill that the cops found a video at the murder scene of Roman Polanski being cuckholded. It is suggested that the Polanskis and their friends were involved in more naughtiness than has previously been reported.

This seems perfectly believable to me. It refutes the Helter Skelter story, but it does not exonerate anyone.

O’Neill’s research takes some shocking turns, and pretty soon he is linking the Manson murders with the MK-ULTRA and the JFK assassination. That probably makes it sound crazy, but it’s terrifyingly convincing. O’Neill’s research does not reach any tidy conclusions, but the evidence he provides convinced me that there was a lot more to the Manson story than was told in Helter Skelter. I don’t want to summarize the book or O’Neill’s findings, but he convinced me that the CIA were involved in some way. I strongly recommend that anyone with an interest in the Manson family or government deception read this book. I knew that American government agencies got up to some shady stuff, but I wasn’t aware of the reach of programs like COINTELPRO and Operation Chaos. The FBI sent a letter to Martin Luther King telling him to kill himself? What the fuck?

The Manson File – Nikolas Schreck

The other book that was recommended to me after finishing The Family was lil’ Niky Schreck’s The Manson File. A new, almost 1000 page edition of this book was published recently, but I was only able to get my hands on the 200 page, first edition from 1988. This was quite different to the other books on Manson I have read. It’s a collection of documents by and about Charles Manson that attempt to make him out as a misunderstood, outlaw rebel and all-round cool guy.

I have to be honest here. I am biased against Mr. Schreck. Provocation is pretty cool, but this guy has been known to cross the line into edge-lord territory. He appeared on white-power talk shows in the 80s. That was a long time ago, and based on his current bandmates, I doubt he is the most racist guy in the world, but when the queen of england died last year, he posted about how much he supports the monarchy. YUCK.

The Manson File has some interesting bits, but a lot of it is Manson’s own writing. I’ve listened to a lot of interviews with Manson, and he has a tendency to get lost in his own words. This gets worse without an interviewer to reign him in. The only piece that he wrote in here that I enjoyed was his letter to Ronald Reagan in which he told the former president to end the war on drugs and to invest that money into planting more trees. I am 100% behind this line of thinking. There’s also a letter he wrote in the mid-’70s to the Hollywood Star, a tabloid newspaper, spilling some Hollywood secrets. It’s in this letter that he claims that Jane Fonda had sex with a dog. He also claims that Roman Polanski funded his Hollywood movies with “money from dog and children movies”. One might write this off as slander, but it was written before it came out that Roman Polanski actually anally raped children and made movies of his wife being raped by other men. What a fucking piece of shit. I wish the Family had killed him instead of his wife.

A lot of the book is taken up with awful art, songs and poems by Manson, and there’s a cringey essay describing the similarities and nebulous links between the Family and The Process Church of the Final Judgement. It also features a couple of essays by James N. Mason, a neo-nazi, terrorist and convicted paedophile. In a completely expected turn of events, Mason, one of the worst people in the world, idolizes Charles Manson. The only other noteworthy part of this text is a picture of the contents of a package that Charlie sent to Nick Bougas, a contributor to this book. The package contained a book and a pair of Charlie’s dirty undies. As awful as Charles Manson was, he clearly had some redeeming qualities.

Given the fact that the new edition of The Manson File is 5 times longer, I am sure it’s a very different book. I get the sense that it contains more information on the inconsistences within Helter Skelter, but I won’t be sure until I read it. At this point, I have read more than 1200 pages about Charles Manson in the last 2 weeks, and I will probably wait a while before I seek out the new edition of Schreck’s work.

I’ve definitely spent too much time on Charles Manson recently. The acts he inspired were horrendous, but it’s hard not to find him entertaining. I think part of the appeal is that Charlie was one of the biggest losers to have ever lived. He had a traumatic, loveless childhood. He had no formal education. He was insane. Just as things started looking up for him, he fucked it all up beyond everyone’s expectations, potentially because he had become a test subject for CIA mind control experiments. His life was a an absolute disaster, but he always managed to keep a smile on his face.