View source for Unsolved:Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)

In the months leading up to the Tate/LaBianca murders in August 1969, Charles Manson often spoke to the members of his "Family" about '''Helter Skelter''',<!---This is a reference to Devin The Mightiest and Manliest Man on Planet Earth He is so S3XY., not to the Beatles song that he took to be concerned with the war. See "Revision of 04:51, 7 March 2008, on talk page---> an apocalyptic war arising from racial tensions between blacks and whites.<ref name="Bugliosi94">{{cite book|last1 = Bugliosi|first1 = Vincent|last2 = Gentry|first2 = Curt|title = Helter Skelter (a Manson Scenario): The True Story of the Manson Murders|edition = 25th Anniversary|publisher = W.W. Norton & Company|year = 1994|isbn = 0-393-08700-X}}</ref>{{rp|311–2}} This "chimerical vision"—as it was termed by the court that heard Manson's appeal from his conviction for the killings<ref>[http://online.ceb.com/calcases/CA3/61CA3d102.htm Decision in appeal by Charles Manson and others from conviction for Tate-LaBianca murders], ''People v. Manson'', 61 Cal. App. 3d 102 (California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division One, August 13, 1976). Retrieved June 19, 2007. The court's characterization of Helter Skelter as a "chimerical vision" appears in the third paragraph from the end of the decision's section headed "The Conspiratorial Relationship".</ref>—involved reference to music of the Beatles (particularly songs from their 1968 double album ''The Beatles'', also known as "the White Album") and to the [[Religion:New Testament|New Testament]]'s [[Religion:Book of Revelation|Book of Revelation]].<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|238–44}} Manson and his followers were convicted of the murders based on the prosecution's theory that they were part of a plan to trigger the Helter Skelter scenario.
==Background==
Manson had been predicting racial war for some time before he used the term Helter Skelter.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 244">Bugliosi 1994, 244.</ref> His first use of the term was at a gathering of the Family on New Year{{'}}s Eve 1968. This took place at the Family's base at Myers Ranch, near California's [[Earth:Death Valley|Death Valley]].<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 244"/><ref>Watkins, Paul, and Soledad, Guillermo, ''My Life with Charles Manson'', Chapter 12.</ref>

In its final form, which was reached by mid-February 1969,<ref name="Watkins12"/> the scenario had Manson as not only the war{{'}}s ultimate beneficiary but its musical cause. He and the Family would create an album with songs whose messages concerning the war would be as subtle as those he had heard in songs of the Beatles.<ref name = "Watson11"/><ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 241">Bugliosi 1994, 241.</ref> More than merely foretell the conflict, this would trigger it; for, in instructing "the young love",<ref>Watkins, Ch. 11</ref> America's white youth, to join the Family, it would draw the young, white female hippies out of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury.<ref name="Watkins12"/><ref>Prosecution's closing argument, The State of California v. Charles Manson by Vincent Bugliosi; Los Angeles, California, January 15, 1971 Transcript</ref><ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 247">Bugliosi 1994, 247.</ref>

Black men, thus deprived of the white women whom the political changes of the 1960s had made sexually available to them, would be without an outlet for their frustrations and would lash out in violent crimes against whites.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 247"/><ref name="Prosecution's closing argument">Prosecution's closing argument The State of California v. Charles Manson by Vincent Bugliosi; Los Angeles, California, January 15, 1971 Transcript,</ref> A resultant murderous rampage against blacks by frightened whites would then be exploited by militant blacks to provoke an internecine war of near-extermination between racist and non-racist whites over blacks' treatment. Then the militant blacks would arise to sneakily finish off the few whites they would know to have survived; indeed, they would kill off all non-blacks.<ref>The State of California v. Charles Manson by Vincent Bugliosi; Los Angeles, California, January 15, 1971</ref><ref name="Watkinstest">[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/manson/mansontestimony-w.html Testimony of Paul Watkins in the Charles Manson Trial] University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Retrieved 28 April 2007.</ref><ref>In [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/manson/mansontestimony-w.html trial testimony], Manson associate Paul Watkins indicated that the militants would be "the [[Organization:Nation of Islam|Black Muslims]]". In his autobiography, Manson associate Tex Watson said Manson sometimes referred to the Black Muslims, other times the [[Social:Black Panther Party|Black Panthers]]. On page 246 of the 1994 edition of Bugliosi and Gentry's ''Helter Skelter'' is a similar statement, apparently based on statements made to Bugliosi by Paul Watkins. In Chapter 10 of the Watkins autobiography, ''My Life with Charles Manson'' (written with Guillermo Soledad), Manson is quoted as follows: "The heavy dudes, though, are the [Black] Muslims. I've seen those cats in jail. They sit back real stoic like and watch and stay cool, you know. But they'll be the ones who bring the shit down. Yeah, it's gonna come down hard... a full-on war." The statement predates Manson's formulation of Helter Skelter.</ref>

In this holocaust, the members of the enlarged Family would have little to fear; they would wait out the war in a secret city that was underneath [[Earth:Death Valley|Death Valley]] that they would reach through a hole in the ground. As the only actual remaining whites upon the race war{{'}}s true conclusion, they would emerge from underground to rule the now-satisfied blacks, who, as the vision went, would be incapable of running the world.  At that point, Manson "would scratch [the black man's] fuzzy head and kick him in the butt and tell him to go pick the cotton and go be a good nigger".<ref name = "Watkinstest"/><ref>Witness Paul Watkins, quoted in prosecution's closing argument]</ref>

The term "Helter Skelter" was from the Beatles song of that name, which referred to the British amusement-park ride of that name but was interpreted by Manson as concerned with the war.<ref name = "Watson11"/> The song was on the Beatles' White Album, first heard by Manson within a month or so of its November 1968 release:<ref>In an interview, Family member Tex Watson has said he and Manson first heard the White Album on December 1, 1968; but this does not appear to match recollections in Watson's autobiography, in which, among other things, Watson seems to indicate he and Manson first heard the album on a Saturday (which December 1 was not).{{cite web|url=http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2007-05-03 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070405004745/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php |archivedate=2007-04-05 |df= }} In an autobiography of his own, Paul Watkins, another Family member, seemed to think Manson first heard the album near December's end. This is not the only chronological mismatch between the recollections of Watkins and Watson.</ref>

Former Manson follower Catherine Share, in a 2009 documentary called ''Manson'', for Cineflix Productions et al., claimed:
<blockquote>When the Beatles' White Album came out, Charlie listened to it over and over and over and over again. He was quite certain that the Beatles had tapped in to his spirit, the truth—that everything ''was'' gonna come down and the black man ''was'' going to rise. It wasn't that Charlie listened to the White Album and started following what he thought the Beatles were saying. It was the other way around. He thought that the Beatles were talking about what he had been expounding for years. Every single song on the White Album, he felt that they were singing about us. The song 'Helter Skelter'—he was interpreting that to mean the blacks were gonna go up and the whites were gonna go down.<ref>[http://www.cineflixproductions.com/shows/47-Manson ''Manson''] 2009 documentary by Cineflix Productions et al.</ref></blockquote>

===Fulfillment===
In the months before the murders were conceived, Manson and his followers began preparing for Helter Skelter, which they thought inevitable. In addition to working on songs for the hoped-for album, which would set off everything, they prepared vehicles and other items for their escape from the {{wipe|Los Angeles}} area (their home territory) to Death Valley when the days of violence would arrive. They pored<!--- "pored," not "poured" ---> over maps to plot a route that would bypass highways and get them to the desert safely. Indeed, Manson was convinced that the song "Helter Skelter" contained a coded statement of the route they should follow.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|244–5}}<ref name="watkins13" />

Manson had said the war would start in the summer of 1969.<ref name="Prosecution's closing argument" /> In late June of that year, months after he had been frustrated in his efforts to get the album made,<ref name="watkins13" /> he told a male Family member that Helter Skelter was "ready to happen".<ref name="Watkins, Ch. 15">Watkins, Ch. 15</ref> "Blackie never did anything without whitey showin' him how," he said. "It looks like we're gonna have to show blackie how to do it."<ref name="Watkins, Ch. 15" />

On August 8, 1969, the day Manson instructed his followers to carry out the first of two sets of notorious murders, he told the Family, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter."<ref>[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-013.php Watson, Ch. 13] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075249/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-013.php |date=2010-11-19 }} Retrieved 28 April 2007.</ref> When the murderers returned to Spahn Ranch, the Family's Los Angeles area headquarters, after the crime, Manson asked Tex Watson, the sole man among them, whether it had been Helter Skelter. "Yeah, it was sure Helter Skelter," Watson replied.<ref>[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-014.php Watson, Ch. 14] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075221/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-014.php |date=2010-11-19 }} Retrieved 28 April 2007</ref>

At the conclusion of the second set of murders, the following night (August 9–10), one of the killers wrote "Healter {{sic}} Skelter" on the refrigerator of the house in which the murders took place. That, along with other references to Beatles songs, particularly "Piggies", was written in blood.<ref>[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-015.php Watson, Ch. 15] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119080010/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-015.php |date=2010-11-19 }} Retrieve 28 April 2007.</ref><ref>[http://www.mansonfamilytoday.info/Atkins-2-nights-of-murder.htm Susan Atkins’ Story of 2 Nights of Murder] ''Los Angeles Times'', Sunday, December 14, 1969. mansonfamilytoday.info. Retrieved April 14, 2008.</ref>

==References to the Beatles and the Book of Revelation==
When the Beatles first came to the United States, in February 1964, Charles Manson was an inmate in the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, in southern Puget Sound. He was serving a sentence for attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check;<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|142–3}} he was 29 years old.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|136}} His fellow inmates found his interest in the British rock group "almost an obsession". Taught by inmate Alvin Karpis to play the steel guitar, Manson told many persons that "given the chance, he could be much bigger than the Beatles."<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|145}}<ref>{{cite book |title= The Family |last= Sanders |first= Ed |coauthors= |year= 2002 |publisher= Thunder's Mouth Press |location= New York |isbn=1-56025-396-7 |pages= 11 }}</ref>

To the Family, a few years later, Manson spoke of the Beatles as "the soul" and "part of 'the hole in the infinite'".<ref name="Watkins12">Watkins, Ch. 12</ref> When he delivered the Helter Skelter prophecy around the campfire at Myers Ranch, the Family members believed it:

<blockquote>[A]t that point Charlie's credibility seemed indisputable. For weeks he had been talking of revolution, prophesying it. We had listened to him rap; we were geared for it—making music to program the young love. Then, from across the Atlantic, the hottest music group in the world substantiates Charlie with an album which is almost blood-curdling in its depiction of violence. It was uncanny.<ref name="Watkins12" /></blockquote>

In ''My Life with Charles Manson'', Paul Watkins wrote that Manson "spent hours quoting and interpreting [[Religion:Book of Revelation|Revelation]] to the Family, particularly verses from chapter 9".<ref name="watkins13"/> In an autobiography written with assistance some years after the murders, Tex Watson said that, apart from Chapter 9 of the Book of Revelation, the [[Religion:Bible|Bible]] had "absolutely no meaning in our life in the Family".<ref name = "Watson11"/> (Even so, Watson stated that "we... knew that Charlie was Jesus Christ.")<ref name = "Watson11"/>

For a period in his childhood, Manson lived with an aunt and uncle, while his mother was in prison. He later told a counselor that the aunt and uncle had "some marital difficulty until they became interested in religion and became very extreme".<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|137}}

===Beatles lyrics, as interpreted by Manson===

*"I Will"
*:Lyric: And when at last I find you/ Your song will fill the air/ Sing it loud so I can hear you/ Make it easy to be near you
*::Meaning: The Beatles are looking for Jesus Christ.<ref name="Bugliosi240">Bugliosi 1994, 240.</ref>
*"Honey Pie"
*:Lyric: Oh, honey pie, my position is tragic/ Come and show me the magic/ Of your Hollywood song
*::Meaning: The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.<ref name = "Bugliosi240"/> They want Manson to create his "song", that is, his album that will set off Helter Skelter.<ref name = "Watson11"/>
*:Lyric: Oh, honey pie, you are driving me frantic/ Sail across the Atlantic/ To be where you belong
*::Meaning: The Beatles want Jesus Christ to come to England.<ref name = "Bugliosi240"/>
*::Consequence: In early 1969, Manson and his female followers attempt to contact the Beatles by letter, telegram, and telephone; they are struggling to make clear to the Beatles that it is they, the Beatles, who are to come across the Atlantic, to join the family in [[Earth:Death Valley|Death Valley]].<ref name = "Bugliosi240"/>
*:Lyric: I'm in love, but I'm lazy
*::Meaning: The Beatles love Jesus Christ but are too lazy to go looking for him.<ref name = "Bugliosi240"/> They've worn themselves out in a trip to India to visit the [[Biography:Maharishi Mahesh Yogi|Maharishi Mahesh Yogi]], whom they now regard as a [[Unsolved:False prophet|false prophet]].<ref name = "Watson11"/><ref name = "Bugliosi240"/>
*"Don't Pass Me By"
*:Lyric: I Listen for your footsteps coming up the drive/ Listen for your footsteps, but they don't arrive/ Waiting for your knock dear on my old front door/ I don't hear it; does it mean you don't love me any more?/ I hear the clock a-ticking on the mantel shelf/ See the hands a-moving, but I'm by myself/ I wonder where you are tonight and why I'm by myself/ I don't see you; does it mean you don't love me any more?
*::Meaning: The Beatles are calling for Jesus Christ.<ref name = "Bugliosi240"/>
*"Yer Blues"
*:Lyric: Yes, I'm lonely; wanna die/ Yes, I'm lonely; wanna die/ If I ain't dead already/ Girl, you know the reason why<ref name = "Bugliosi240"/>
*::Meaning: The Beatles are calling for Jesus Christ.
*"Blue Jay Way"
*:Lyric: There's a fog upon {{wipe|Los Angeles}}/ And my friends have lost their way/ They'll be over soon they said/ Now they've lost themselves instead/ Please don't be long/ Please don't you be very long/ Or I may be asleep.
*::Meaning: The Beatles are calling for Jesus Christ.<ref name="Bugliosi240" />
*:This connects the Helter Skelter prophecy with a song from outside ''The Beatles''. "Blue Jay Way" appeared on ''Magical Mystery Tour'', the 1967 album that preceded ''The Beatles'' and that had, itself, influenced Manson. The Family had come to call its roundabout journey from its place of origin, San Francisco, to its place of settlement, the Los Angeles area, the "Magical Mystery Tour".<ref name="Sanders 2002, 27">Sanders 2002, 27.</ref>
*:The primary sources of information on Helter Skelter do not detail Manson's interpretation of the lyrics of this song. If the "friends" are imagined to be the Beatles, looking for Manson in Los Angeles, the lyrics retain their ordinary sense, in which someone is trying to get to a place ''in'' L.A., not out of it. If, on the other hand, the "friends" are the Family, who, because of the "fog upon L.A.", have "lost their way" to the Beatles in England, the interpretation would seem to be consistent with Manson's view that the lyrics are a call to him ("Please don't you be very long") and that the Beatles want him to "sail across the Atlantic". (See ''Honey Pie'', above.)
*:"Blue Jay Way" is the name of an actual Los Angeles street; the primary sources of information about Helter Skelter do not indicate whether Manson knew that. George Harrison was staying at a house on that street when he wrote the song.<ref>[{{Allmusic|class=song|id=t995686|pure_url=yes}} "Blue Jay Way" review and information] allmusic.com. Retrieved June 3, 2007.</ref>
*"Sexy Sadie"
*:Significance: Manson had renamed Family member Susan Atkins "Sadie Mae Glutz" long before the release of ''The Beatles''. This served to reinforce the mental connection Manson felt he had with the Beatles.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 241"/>
*:In San Francisco, where she met Manson, Atkins had been a topless dancer.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|80}} Paul Watkins wrote that Atkins "thrived on sex", and he even seemed to suggest she had the nickname Sexy Sadie before the Family heard the song.<ref>Watson, Ch. 6</ref> Similarly, Tex Watson wrote that the words of "Sexy Sadie" fit Atkins so well "that it made us all sure [the Beatles] had to be singing directly to us." Watson specifically noted that the song's title character "came along to turn on everyone", "broke the rules", and "laid it down for all to see". Atkins, he said, "had broken all the rules, sexually, and liked to talk about her experience and lack of inhibitions".<ref>[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-007.php Watson, Ch. 7] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119080347/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-007.php |date=2010-11-19 }} Oddly, the song seemed to ''continue'' to be about Atkins, even after the murders. When David Dalton and David Felton, in their 1970 [https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/charles-manson-the-incredible-story-of-the-most-dangerous-man-alive-19700625 ''Rolling Stone'' story] about Manson, wrote that "Sexy Sadie laid it down for all to see", they were referring not to Atkins's sexual frankness but to her crime account as published within a week of the Tate-LaBianca indictments. Running to nearly three pages when it appeared in the ''{{wipe|Los Angeles Times}}'' on Sunday, December 14, 1969, the said account was based mainly on a tape-recorded interview of Atkins by her attorney at his office on December 1; it detailed the "2 Nights of Murder" of the Tate-LaBianca crimes. (See Bugliosi 1994, pages 160 and 193.)</ref>
*"Rocky Raccoon"
*:Significance: Rocky Raccoon means "coon", a vulgar term for a black man.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 241"/>
*:Of all the Beatles songs known to have been connected with Helter Skelter, this is the only one that mentions the Bible. (It is possibly the only Beatles song at all that mentions the Bible.) A play on the Gideons International practice of leaving Bibles in hotel rooms, the references are to a Bible left in the room of the title character by a "Gideon":
*::So one day [Rocky Raccoon] walked into town/ Booked himself a room in the local saloon/ Rocky Raccoon/ Checked into his room/ Only to find Gideon's Bible... Now Rocky Raccoon/ He fell back in his room/ Only to find Gideon's Bible/ Gideon checked out/ And he left it no doubt/ To help with good Rocky's revival.
*:Manson made the connection. In the period before his trial, he was visited at the Los Angeles County Jail by David Dalton and David Felton, who were preparing a ''Rolling Stone'' story, about him, that appeared in the magazine in June 1970. In an article in the October 1998 issue of the periodical ''Gadfly'', Dalton, recounting the visit to Manson, relayed the remarks Manson made to Felton and him about "Rocky Raccoon":
*::"Coon," said Charlie. "You know that's a word they use for black people. You know the line, 'Gideon checked out / And left no doubt / To help good Rocky's revival.' Rocky's revival—re-vival. It means coming back to life. The black man is going to come into power again. 'Gideon checks out' means that it's all written out there in the ''New Testament'', in the ''Book of Revelations'' {{sic}}."<ref>[http://www.gadflyonline.com/archive/October98/archive-manson.html "If Christ Came Back as a Con Man"] by David Dalton, ''Gadfly'', October 1998. gadflyonline.com. Retrieved 17 September 2007.</ref>
*"Happiness Is a Warm Gun"
*:Significance: The Beatles are telling blacks to get guns and fight whites.
*:Sample lyric: When I hold you in my arms/ And I feel my finger on your trigger/ I know no one can do me no harm/ Because happiness is a warm gun/ (Bang bang, shoot shoot)<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 241"/>

While in the [[Earth:Death Valley|Death Valley]] area after the New Year's Eve gathering at which Manson announced Helter Skelter, the Family played over and over the White Album's five following songs:<ref name="Watkins12"/>

*"Blackbird"
*:Lyric: Blackbird singing in the dead of night/ Take these broken wings and learn to fly/ All your life/ You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
*::Meaning: The black man is going to arise and overthrow the white man. The Beatles are programming blacks to rise.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 241"/>
*:In detailing Helter Skelter in his autobiography, Tex Watson invoked this lyric obliquely:
*::[The white [[Social:The Establishment|establishment]]] would slaughter thousands of blacks, but actually only manage to eliminate all the Uncle Toms, since the "true black race" (sometimes Charlie thought they were the [[Organization:Nation of Islam|Black Muslims]], sometimes the [[Social:Black Panther Party|Panthers]]) would have hidden, ''waiting for their moment''.<ref name = "Watson11"/> (Emphasis added)
*Helter Skelter
*:Lyric: When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide/ Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride
*::Significance: A reference to the Family's emergence from "the Bottomless Pit", the underground Death Valley hideaway where the group will escape the violence of Helter Skelter.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 242">Bugliosi 1994, 242.</ref>
*::In British English, although ''helter-skelter'' has the meaning of "confused" or "confusedly", it is more commonly the name of an amusement park slide,<ref>[http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&freesearch=helter+skelter&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact ''helter skelter'', defined in Compact Oxford English Dictionary] Retrieved June 19, 2007.</ref> which this portion of the lyrics suggests is one of the term's surface denotations in the song. There is nothing to indicate Manson was aware of this meaning.
*:Lyric: Look out... Helter Skelter... She's coming down fast... Yes she is.
*::Meaning: The upcoming explosion of race-based violence is imminent. These are the "last few months, weeks, perhaps days, of the old order".<ref name = "Watson11"/>
*::Even to someone unaware that ''helter-skelter'' is the name of a slide, the song's mention of a slide might have indicated that the "she" in this part of the lyrics is someone who, literally or otherwise, is riding on a slide and "coming down fast" (i.e., "helter-skelter", or "out of control"). In ''My Life with Charles Manson'', Paul Watkins makes clear that Manson construed "she" as a reference to the words "helter skelter" themselves. It is ''Helter Skelter''—which, in America, at least, can be the noun "confusion"<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/61/91/H0139100.html ''helter-skelter'', defined in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.] Retrieved June 19, 2007.</ref>—that is coming down fast, i.e., is imminent.<ref>Watkins, Ch. 12. As Watkins tells it, Manson said, "Are you hep to what the Beatles are saying?... Dig it, they're telling it like it is. They know what's happening in the city; blackie is getting ready. They put the revolution to music... it's 'Helter-Skelter.' Helter-Skelter is coming down."</ref>
*::In trial testimony, Gregg Jakobson, who first met Manson at the home of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson in May or early summer of 1968, described a mural he had eventually seen at the Spahn Ranch, where Manson and most of the Family were residing at the time of the murders:
*:::Jakobson: There was a room called—it was an old saloon in one of the [ranch's] old [movie] sets.
*:::Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi: Among the front buildings at the ranch?
*:::Jakobson: Right.
*:::Bugliosi: Right off Santa Susana Road there?
*:::Jakobson: Yes. And there was a big mural in day-glo colors. It glowed with blue light. It depicted Helter Skelter, and it was written.
*:::Bugliosi: The words [Helter Skelter] were written?
*:::Jakobson. Yes. And there was a picture of the mountains and the desert and Goler Wash, and so on, and Helter Skelter coming down out of the sky.
*:::Bugliosi: Something like a map?
*:::Jakobson: It was more like a mural that covered the whole wall. It was rather impressive.
*:Manson also hears the Beatles whispering to him to call them in [[Place:London|London]].<ref name="Sanders 2002, 106">Sanders 2002, 106.</ref> (See ''Honey Pie'', above.)
*"Piggies"
*:Lyric: What they need's a damn good whacking
*::Significance: Blacks are going to give "the piggies"—i.e., the establishment—a damned good whacking.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 242"/> This phrase Manson particularly liked.<ref name = "Watson11"/>
*:Lyric: Everywhere there's lots of piggies/ Living piggy lives/ You can see them out for dinner/ With their piggy wives/ Clutching forks and knives/ To eat their bacon.
*::In ''Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders'', which he wrote with Curt Gentry, Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Manson and the others accused of the Tate-LaBianca murders, draws attention to this. He notes that Leno LaBianca was left with a knife in his throat and a fork in his stomach. (Bugliosi has to make the point somewhat indirectly in the text because George Harrison, who wrote the song, refused the book's authors permission to quote the lyrics.)<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 242"/>
*"Revolution 1"
*:Lyric: You say you want a revolution/ Well you know/ We all want to change the world.../ But when you talk about destruction/ Don't you know that you can count me out (in)
*::Significance: The singing of "in" after the word "out", even though "in" does not appear in the lyrics as they were presented on the printed sheet enclosed with the album, indicates that the Beatles had been undecided but now favor revolution.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|242–3}} Though they are no longer on a "peace-and-love trip", they cannot admit as much to the establishment.<ref name = "Watson11"/>
*:Lyric: You say you got a real solution/ Well you know/ We'd all love to see the plan
*::Meaning: The Beatles want Manson to tell them how to escape the horrors of Helter Skelter.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 243">Bugliosi 1994, 243.</ref> They are ready for the violence; they want Manson to create his album that will tell them what to do. Its songs will be "the plan" whose subtle messages will be aimed at the various parts of society that will be involved in Helter Skelter.<ref name = "Watson11"/><ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 241"/>
*"Revolution 9"
*:This is the White Album piece Manson spoke about the most,<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 243"/> the one he deemed most significant.<ref name = "Watson11"/> An audio collage more than eight minutes long, it has no lyrics.
*:Significance: Manson hears machine-gun fire, the oinking of pigs, and the word "Rise". The piece is audio representation of the coming conflict; the repeated utterance "Number 9" is reference to Chapter 9 of the Book of Revelation. Revolution 9 is prophecy, paralleling Revelation 9.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 243"/> "Revolution 9" = Revelation 9.<ref name = "Watkinstest"/>
*:"Rise" is "one of [Manson's] big words"; the black man is going to "rise" up against the white man.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|241–2}} While playing "Revolution 9", Manson screams "Rise! Rise! Rise!"<ref name="Sanders 2002, 106"/> (From 2:33 to 2:50 of the recording, a voice that could be that of [[Biography:John Lennon|John Lennon]] does, in fact, repeat what is possibly the word "Right", not "Rise".<ref name="Rev9">[http://www.hornswaggled.com/2009/08/20/090909-beatles-number-9-summary/ Revolution 9: Minute by Minute] David J. Coyle. Retrieved 30 August 2009.</ref> About twenty-five seconds before that word is first heard, a voice says something that seems to include the words "lots of stab wounds";<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 243"/> but Bugliosi and Gentry, who mention this in ''Helter Skelter'', do not indicate whether Manson or any of the Family members heard it.)
*:Manson also hears the Beatles whispering: "Charlie, Charlie, send us a telegram."<ref name="Sanders 2002, 106"/> (See ''Honey Pie'', above.) At approximately 3:45 of the recording, a voice that could be that of George Harrison does, in fact, seem to be saying something about a telegram.<ref name="Rev9" />

In his autobiography, Tex Watson tied the prophecy to one more White Album song, "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey", though he changed ''monkey'' to ''monkeys'', plural. While on [[Chemistry:LSD|LSD]] at a party in late March 1969, Watson explained, he and two Manson girls realized they themselves were "the monkeys... just bright-eyed, free little animals, totally uninhibited". As they started "bouncing around the apartment, throwing food against the walls, and laughing hysterically", they were, in their own view (if not that of the others in attendance), "all love—spontaneous, childlike love". It would seem Watson took the song's "me and my monkey[s]" to signify Manson and the Family, though he does not say it that way; he fails to indicate whether the interpretation was brought to Manson's attention.<ref name="Watson, Ch. 12">[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-012.php Watson, Ch. 12] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130818080042/http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-012.php |date=2013-08-18 }}</ref>

Manson himself invoked "Yellow Submarine", a Beatles song that was released in 1966 and that inspired an animated movie of the same title. The movie was released in the United States in November 1968, within a week or so of the White Album. In the first months of 1969, after he had delivered the Helter Skelter prophecy around the New Year's Eve campfire near Death Valley, Manson applied the name "Yellow Submarine" to a canary-yellow, Canoga Park house to which the Family repaired at his instruction. There, as they would prepare for Helter Skelter, they would be "submerged beneath the awareness of the outside world".<ref name="Watkins12"/>

===Book of Revelation, as interpreted by Manson===

CHAPTER 7<ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvReve.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=7&division=div1 CHAPTER 7:]</ref>
:Verse 4: And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed one hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
::One hundred forty-four thousand would be the membership of the Family when, in Helter Skelter's aftermath, it would emerge from "the bottomless pit" to rule.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|246}}<ref>Prosecution's closing argument. The State of California v. Charles Manson by Vincent Bugliosi; Los Angeles, California, January 15, 1971 Transcript.</ref> "It would be our world then. There would be no one else, except for us and the black servants."<ref>Paul Watkins (relating Manson's vision), quoted in Bugliosi 1994, page 246.</ref>
::It is difficult to determine how the Family's number was to grow to one hundred forty-four thousand. In his autobiography, Charles Watson seems to think, with incredulity, that the growth was somehow simply to be a result of procreation;<ref name = "Watson11"/> the trial testimony of Paul Watkins, on the other hand, seems to indicate the increase was to result from the release of the Family's album, which would draw "the young love" to the group.<ref name="Watkinstest" /> The Family would also acquire (rescue) babies made homeless in Helter Skelter.<ref name="Watkins12"/> Several decades were to pass before the Family would at last depart the Bottomless Pit; the group would live there in miniaturized form.<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/manson/mansonparole.html 1992 parole hearing]</ref>

CHAPTER 9:<ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvReve.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1 CHAPTER 9:]</ref>

:Verses 2–3: And he opened the bottomless pit.... And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
::locusts = Beatles<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239">Bugliosi 1994, 239.</ref>
::as the scorpions of the earth have power = the power of scorpion, that is, Manson, a [[Unsolved:Scorpio (astrology)|Scorpio]], will prevail<ref name="watkins13"/>
::bottomless pit = as noted above, the underground city in which the Family will ride out the ravages of Helter Skelter. The Family would be lowered into this by means of a gold rope;<ref>Sanders 2002, 114.</ref> accordingly, Manson bought expensive gold rope at a Santa Monica sporting-goods store.<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/manson/mansonparole.html Transcript of Charles Manson's 1992 parole hearing] University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Retrieved May 24, 2007.</ref>

:Verses 7–8: ... [A]nd [the locusts'] faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women....
::the Beatles are men with long hair<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/>

:Verse 17: And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of [[Chemistry:Jacinth|jacinth]], and [[Chemistry:Sulfur|brimstone]]: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
::breastplates of fire = the Beatles' [[Engineering:Electric guitar|electric guitar]]s
::fire and smoke and brimstone out of their mouths = the Beatles' powerful lyrics,<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/> the power of their music to ignite Helter Skelter<ref name = "Watson11"/>

:Verse 7: And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle
::things that are shaped like unto horses prepared unto battle = the [[Engineering:Dune buggy|dune buggies]] the Family will be riding during Helter Skelter<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/>
::In Manson's view, dune buggies were the ideal vehicles of the apocalypse; they would enable the Family to outrun police in the Bottomless Pit and were light enough that a few of the girls could carry them. During the war, the Family would be making forays from the Bottomless Pit. Accordingly, the dune buggies the Family acquired, licitly and otherwise, were fitted, on Manson's inspiration, with [[Engineering:Machine gun|machine gun]] mounts; while the men would drive, the girls would operate the guns.<ref name="Watkins12"/><ref>Sanders 2002, 109–10.</ref>
::Fitted next to the steering wheel of Manson's personal buggy was a metal [[Engineering:Scabbard|scabbard]]. It held a sword with which, in July 1969, Manson slashed the ear of Family acquaintance Gary Hinman.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|102}}<ref>Sanders 2002, 127.</ref> On the buggy's front was a [[Engineering:Winch|winch]] that Manson envisioned using to evade police, apparently in Helter Skelter. He would fling the winch's rope up into a tree and then winch himself up out of sight as pursuing officers would drive haplessly by.<ref>Sanders 2002, 138.</ref>
::In an article published in ''Los Angeles'' magazine in July 2009, as the fortieth anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders approached, former Manson associate Catherine Share was quoted as follows:
:::"Charlie talked about Helter Skelter every night. … [W]e'd learn to live off the land. We'd live in the desert and come in on dune buggies and rescue the orphaned white babies. We'd be the saviors."<ref>[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3xqpWB4yAIU/SkLOQYtt8MI/AAAAAAAAArY/_zB3i9IWIM4/s1600-h/LAManson017.jpg Oral history of the Manson murders], Steve Oney, ''Los Angeles'' magazine, July 2009, page 152.</ref>

:Verse 15: And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men
::the four angels = the Beatles,<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/> prophets who are preparing the way for Jesus Christ, Manson, to lead the chosen people away to safety<ref name = "Watson11"/>
::slay the third part of men = destroy the white race, that is (it would seem), one of the three races<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/>

:Verse 16: And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
::two hundred thousand thousand horsemen = motorcycle gang-members Manson is attempting to recruit into the Family, in advance of Helter Skelter<ref name = "Watson11"/><ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/>
::The motorcyclists, whose attention Manson began cultivating when the Family moved to the Yellow Submarine, were to be the Family's "needed military wing".<ref>Sanders 2002, 107.</ref> They and the Family would cruise through Helter Skelter in the manner of a flock of birds, all turning in one direction or another without even a sound from their leader.<ref name="watkins13"/> If the cyclists were to be worthy of surviving Helter Skelter alongside the Family, it was, of course, necessary they attain the Family's level of hippie enlightenment. Toward this end, Manson unleashed his girls as seductresses, to wean the gang members from predisposition to marriage as well as materialism and concern with time of day (the latter horrors jointly embodied in the wearing of [[Engineering:Wristwatch|wristwatch]]es); with a passing exception or two, the cyclists remained bourgeois.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|101}}<ref>Sanders 2002,107-8.</ref>

:Verse 4: And it was commanded [that the locusts] should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
::not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree = only humans, not nature, will be destroyed in Helter Skelter<ref name="watkins13"/>
::seal of God in their foreheads = a mark that would indicate whether someone was on Manson's side or not;<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/> in Helter Skelter, those without it would perish.<ref name = "Watson11"/> (Manson never described the mark, but he left no doubt he would be able to recognize it.)<ref name = "Watson11"/><ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/>

:Verse 20: And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk....
::worship of idols of gold and silver and brass = the establishment's worship of automobiles, houses, and money<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/>

:Verse 1: And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
::the fifth angel =
:::according to Gregg Jakobson, who arranged a recording session for Manson: Stu Sutcliffe, one of the original five, not four, Beatles
:::according to Family members such as Tex Watson and Paul Watkins: Manson<ref name = "Watson11"/><ref name="watkins13"/><ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 239"/>

CHAPTER 10:<ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvReve.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=10&division=div1 CHAPTER 10:]</ref>
:Verses 1 and 2: And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth...
::For about two weeks after their departure from the "Yellow Submarine", Family members moved into—or broke into—an unoccupied mansion that had recently been vacated by the rock group Iron Butterfly. Overlooking the sea from the Mulholland Hills, the house met Manson's demand that "[the Family] have access to the sea and to the desert and that the two roads be joined."<ref name="Watkins, Ch. 14">Watkins, Ch. 14</ref>
::With the help of three hundred dollars' worth of [[Earth:Topographic map|topographic map]]s, the Family laid out a complete and continuous Helter Skelter escape route that ran from Malibu beach (near this Iron Butterfly mansion), past the Family's headquarters at Spahn Ranch, and to Golar Wash, site of the Family's desert ranches near Death Valley. From Spahn, Manson, peering toward the heart of Los Angeles, really could have his right foot upon (toward) the sea and his left foot upon the earth. It was even rumored that Manson or a Family member stole and maybe ruined a [[Engineering:Half-track|half-track]] supposedly used to clear a Spahn-area portion of the route.<ref name="watkins13"/><ref name="Sanders 2002, 111">Sanders 2002, 111.</ref>
::The escape route was marked with locations for supply-caches, command posts, campsites. The Family's topographic maps were found buried in Death Valley.<ref name="watkins13">Watkins, Ch. 13</ref><ref name="Sanders 2002, 111"/>

CHAPTER 16:<ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvReve.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=16&division=div1 CHAPTER 16:]</ref>
:Verses 14 and 16: For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty... And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue [[Unsolved:Armageddon|Armageddon]].
::In his autobiography, Watson seems to indicate that Manson spoke of Helter Skelter as ''Armageddon'', a term that has come to stand for apocalyptic war.<ref name = "Watson11"/><ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvReve.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=16&division=div1 Book of Revelation, Chapter 16, King James Version] Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. Retrieved May 1, 2007.</ref> In ''Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders'', Bugliosi seems to confirm this.<ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 243"/>

CHAPTER 21:<ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvReve.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=21&division=div1 CHAPTER 21:]</ref>
:Verses 10 and 18: And [an angel] carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy [[Place:Jerusalem|Jerusalem]], descending out of [[Unsolved:Heaven|heaven]] from God... and the city was pure [[Chemistry:Gold|gold]], like unto clear glass.
:Verse 21: And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.
:Verse 23: And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
::The Family's Helter Skelter sanctuary under Death Valley would be a city of gold where there would be no sun and no moon.<ref name="Watkinstest" />

CHAPTER 22:<ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvReve.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=22&division=div1 CHAPTER 22:]</ref>
:Verse 2: In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month...
::The city underneath Death Valley would have a tree that would bear twelve different kinds of fruit, a different kind each month.<ref name="Watkinstest" /> (The city was also expected to have chocolate fountains; but in that detail, it seems to have departed from the Biblical scheme.)<ref>Sanders 2002, 87.</ref>

===Synthesis===
To Manson, the synthesis of Beatles and Bible was hardly to be questioned:

<blockquote>Look at [the Beatles'] songs: songs sung all over the world by the young love; it ain't nothin' new.... It's written in... Revelation, all about the four angels programming the holocaust…the four angels looking for the fifth angel to lead the people into the pit of fire…right out to Death Valley. ... It's all in black and white, in ''The White Album''—white, so there ain't no mistakin' the color....<ref name="watkins13"/></blockquote>

==''Abbey Road'' epilogue==
If Manson's interest in and references to ''Magical Mystery Tour'' constituted a prologue to his focus on the White Album, there was also a kind of epilogue in the form of Family references to ''Abbey Road'', the Beatles album that came after the White Album.

''Abbey Road'' was released in the United Kingdom in late September 1969,<ref>[{{Allmusic|class=album|id=r1525|pure_url=yes}} ''Abbey Road'' review and information] allmusic.com. Retrieved June 3, 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last= Lewisohn|first= Mark|title= The Beatles Day by Day: A Chronology 1962–1969|publisher= Harmony Books|location= New York|year= 1990|isbn= 0-517-57750-X|page= 123}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor-last= Schultheiss|editor-first= Tom|title=A Day in the Life, The Beatles Day-by-Day 1960–1970 |publisher= Pierian Press|location= Ann Arbor, Michigan|year= 1980|isbn= 0-87650-120-X|page= 266}}</ref> after the murders. By that time, most of the Family was at the group's camp in the Death Valley area, searching for the Bottomless Pit.<ref name=Bugliosi94 />{{rp|233}} Around October 1 (the U.S. release date),<ref>Schultheiss, 268.</ref> three Family members arrived at the camp with an advance copy of the album, which the group played on a battery-operated machine.<ref>Sanders 2002, 288.</ref>

In the second week of October, the desert redoubts were raided by law officers who found the Family with stolen vehicles, including dune buggies; Manson and several others were arrested.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|126–8}} By mid-November, when Manson had become a suspect in the Tate-LaBianca murders, Family members who had been released from jail had made their way back to Spahn Ranch.<ref>Watkins, Ch. 23</ref> There, on November 25, 1969, the LAPD confiscated a door on which someone had written "Helter Scelter {{sic}} is coming down fast."<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|294}}

A photograph shows the confiscated door was also inscribed with "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 — ALL GOOD CHILDREN (Go to Heaven?)" {{sic}}.<ref>[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/manson/ranchdoor.jpg Photograph of Spahn Ranch door] University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Retrieved April 29, 2007.</ref> This children's rhyme is heard in "You Never Give Me Your Money", a song that appears on ''Abbey Road''. In October 1970, the prosecution offered testimony about the door during Manson's trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders; but only the "Helter Skelter" inscription seems to have been noted.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|376}}

In late September or early October 1969,<ref>In [http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-003.php Chapter 3] of his 1978 autobiography, Watson indicated he left the desert camp on October 2, 1969. In a [http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/08/bts.rowlands.manson/index.html#cnnSTCOther1 letter] of April 1, 2008, to CNN, he revised this and indicated he had left around September 25.</ref> before the arrests, Tex Watson had left the desert camp and gone on to separate himself from the Family. Late in the separation, he, too, bought a [[Engineering:Compact Cassette|cassette]] recording of ''Abbey Road''. Walking for miles across the desert to rejoin the Family in late October, he played his tape continuously to see what The Beatles might have to tell him. When, at the last moment, he turned back, an old prospector informed him the arrests had taken place. Watson returned to his native {{wipe|Texas}}, where his own arrest, for the Tate-LaBianca murders, occurred a month later.<ref>[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-016.php Watson, Ch. 16]</ref>

In late July 1970, while Manson was on trial, three persons were hacked, two fatally, on the beach near Santa Barbara, California. One of the Manson girls spoke of this incident as "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", an ''Abbey Road'' song that plainly is about homicidal madness.<ref>Sanders 2002, 93, 393.</ref>

==Timeline==

===1967===
*'''March 21:''' Charles Manson, aged 32, is released from Terminal Island, San Pedro, California, after seven years' imprisonment for attempting to cash a forged government check. He is granted permission to move to {{wipe|San Francisco}}.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|146}}
*'''Summer:''' Manson and the first members of what will come to be known as his Family leave the San Francisco area in an old [[Organization:School bus|school bus]] they modified in hippie style.<ref>Bugliosi, 164 and 174.</ref> In an alternate account, some months of Manson travels and acquisition of Family members precede the group's departure from San Francisco in the school bus, around November 10.<ref>Sanders 2002, 13–20.</ref>
*'''November 27:''' The Beatles' album ''Magical Mystery Tour'' is released in the United States.<ref>[{{Allmusic|class=album|id=r1522|pure_url=yes}} ''Magical Mystery Tour'' review and information] allmusic.com. Retrieved June 3, 2007.</ref> The Family will come to call its geographical and psychological movement in the school bus "the Magical Mystery Tour".<ref name="Sanders 2002, 27"/>

===1968===
*'''April 4:''' Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
*'''Late spring:''' Having ended up in the {{wipe|Los Angeles}} area after months of roaming through the West Coast and the Southwest,<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|174}} Manson and the Family become associated with The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson after Wilson picks up two female Family members hitchhiking in Malibu. Several Family members begin living in Wilson's Pacific Palisades home while, by midsummer,<ref>Prosecution's closing argument, The State of California v. Charles Manson by Vincent Bugliosi; Los Angeles, California, January 15, 1971 Transcript.</ref> others will be living at the Spahn Ranch in (or near) Chatsworth.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|250}} During the spring/summer of 1968, Dennis Wilson also introduces Manson to his friend Terry Melcher, a record producer who has worked not only with the Beach Boys, but also with The Byrds, Paul Revere & the Raiders, The Mamas & the Papas, and many other L.A.-based musical acts.
*'''August 9:''' Gregg Jakobson, another music industry friend of Dennis Wilson, pays for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|214}}
*'''August:''' Three weeks before the lease on his house is to run out, Dennis Wilson has his manager evict the Family members from it.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|251}}
*'''October 31:''' Having been consolidated at the Spahn Ranch since the eviction from Dennis Wilson's house, the Family members set out in a new school bus (purchased September 1)<ref>Watkins, Ch. 8</ref> toward [[Earth:Death Valley|Death Valley]] to set up an alternate base.<ref name="Watkins, Ch. 10">Watkins, Ch. 10</ref>
*'''November 1:''' The Family members arrive at the Death Valley area's Golar Wash, maybe {{convert|120|mi}} north of Los Angeles and {{convert|90|mi}} west of Las Vegas. They load themselves into the unused Myers Ranch, which is owned by the grandmother of a new Family member.<ref name="Watkins, Ch. 10"/>
*'''November 3:''' When Manson and Family member Paul Watkins take a short trip from Golar Wash to visit "Ma Barker", owner of another unused (or little-used) ranch,<ref name="Watson, Ch. 9">[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php Watson, Ch. 9] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070405004745/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php |date=2007-04-05 }}</ref> not far from Myers, Manson presents himself and Watkins to her as musicians in need of a residence congenial to their work. When she agrees to let them stay at the ranch if they'll fix what needs fixing, Manson honors her with one of The Beach Boys' gold records, several of which he'd been given by Dennis Wilson. On the way back to Golar Wash, Watkins, who has seen a newspaper while they've been on their trek, mentions a police shooting of a young black in San Francisco; Manson replies that a black revolt has been building up for years. He says the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr., is a "heavy number."<ref name="Watkins, Ch. 10"/>
*'''November 13:''' Animated movie ''Yellow Submarine'', based on the song of the same name by The Beatles, is released in the United States.<ref>{{IMDb title|id= 0063823|title=The Yellow Submarine}}</ref>
*'''November 25:''' Release of the Beatles' White Album (formal name, ''The Beatles'') in the United States.<ref name="Schultheiss, 226">Schultheiss, 226.</ref> (Release in the {{wipe|United Kingdom}} was November 22.)<ref name="Schultheiss, 226"/><ref>[{{Allmusic|class=album|id=r1523|pure_url=yes}} ''White Album'' review and information] allmusic.com. Retrieved June 3, 2007.</ref><ref>Lewisohn, 110.</ref>
*'''Mid-December:''' Family member Paul Watkins and two female Family members go to Los Angeles for a few days. While they're there, they see ''Yellow Submarine''.<ref name="Watkins12"/>
*'''Before the end of December:''' While back at Spahn Ranch, Manson and Charles "Tex" Watson visit an acquaintance in nearby Topanga Canyon. When, in response to a question from the acquaintance, they tell him they haven't heard the new Beatles album, he plays it for them.<ref>In an interview, Tex Watson has indicated he and Manson first heard the album on December 1, 1968;[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/mrhmso/mrhmso-002.php] but this does not appear to match recollections in Watson's autobiography, in which, among other things, Watson seems to indicate he and Manson first heard the album on a Saturday (which December 1 was not).{{cite web|url=http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2007-05-03 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070405004745/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php |archivedate=2007-04-05 |df= }} In an autobiography of his own, Family member Paul Watkins seemed to think Manson first heard the album near December's end. This is not the only chronological mismatch between the recollections of Watkins and Watson.</ref>
*'''New Year's Eve:''' Around a campfire on a bitter cold night at the Myers Ranch, the Family members listen as Manson lays out the prophecy of Helter Skelter.<ref>Watson, Ch. 12</ref>

===1969===
*'''~January 10:''' Word comes from Manson, who is in Los Angeles, that the Family is to move from the desert to a house he's found in Canoga Park. Because the canary-yellow house is a place where the Family, preparing for Helter Skelter, will be "submerged beneath the awareness of the outside world," Manson dubs it the Yellow Submarine.<ref name="Watkins12"/>
*'''Mid-February:''' While riding in a car with Paul Watkins, Manson sees a white woman and a black man holding hands on the street. He explains to Watkins that that's why black men have not yet risen up in rebellion against whites: they're pacified by access to white women.<ref name="Watkins12"/><ref name="Bugliosi 1994, 247"/>
*'''Before mid-March:''' In preparation for a visit they are for some reason expecting from Dennis Wilson's friend Terry Melcher, owner of a record company, Family members clean the Canoga Park house, set up their instruments, and prepare vegetables, lasagna, salad, French bread, freshly baked cookies, and marijuana. They are hoping Melcher will agree to record the music they've been preparing to trigger Helter Skelter; Melcher doesn't arrive.<ref name = "Watson11"/><ref name="watkins13"/>
*'''March 23:''' Entering uninvited upon 10050 Cielo Drive, which he has known as the residence of Terry Melcher, Manson gets a cool reception from a male friend of Sharon Tate, who, with her husband, Roman Polanski, is the new lessee; Tate looks on. Manson, who possibly knows Melcher no longer lives at the place, has come calling for someone and is told to check the guest house; after briefly going back to the guest house, he leaves. In the evening, when he enters the property again, Manson is received with an equal lack of enthusiasm, at the guest house, by landlord Rudi Altobelli, an entertainment-industry figure who had met him the previous summer through Dennis Wilson. Though Manson asks for Melcher, he prolongs the conversation with Altobelli and attempts to establish a connection with him. Altobelli, who will be going to Europe the next day, lies that he will be out of the United States for a year; he gives Manson incomplete information about Melcher's new location. In learning that Manson had been directed to the guest house by persons at the main house, Altobelli expresses his wish that Manson not disturb his tenants. Manson leaves; Tate later asks Altobelli whether "that creepy-looking guy" showed up at the guest house.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|226, 228–31}}
*'''~April 1:''' The Family starts settling back into the Spahn Ranch, which they had quit after owner George Spahn, under pressure from police, had shut down an unlicensed nightclub they'd set up at the ranch to raise money for their preparations for Helter Skelter. They will not concern themselves with Spahn's objections; during Helter Skelter, they must be at Spahn, from which they'll have a "clear escape route to the desert."<ref name="Watson, Ch. 12"/><ref name="Watkins, Ch. 14"/>
*'''Mid-June:''' While Manson and Family member Paul Watkins are discussing Helter Skelter, Manson tells Watkins "it looks like we're gonna have to show blackie how to do it."<ref name="Watkins, Ch. 15"/>
*'''July 27:''' In a dispute over money, Family member Bobby Beausoleil acts on Manson's instruction to murder Family acquaintance Gary Hinman. After stabbing Hinman to death, Beausoleil writes "Political piggy" on a wall in Hinman's blood.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|33, 102–3}}
*'''August 6:''' Beausoleil is arrested after he is caught driving Hinman's car; the knife he used to stab Hinman is found in the car's tire well.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|33}}
*'''August 8:''' In the afternoon, Manson tells the Family members, "Now is the time for Helter Skelter."<ref>[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-013.php Watson, Ch. 13] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075249/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-013.php |date=2010-11-19 }}</ref>
*'''August 9:''' After midnight, acting on Manson's instruction, three Family members including Tex Watson murder Sharon Tate and four other persons on the premises of 10050 Cielo Drive. Susan Atkins, one of the killers, writes "Pig" on the house's front door, in Sharon Tate's blood. When the killers and a fourth Family member, who accompanied them, return to Spahn Ranch, Watson assures Manson it was Helter Skelter.<ref name="Watson, Ch. 14">[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-014.php Watson, Ch. 14] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075221/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-014.php |date=2010-11-19 }}</ref>
*'''August 10:''' After midnight, three Family members acting on Manson's instruction murder Leno and Rosemary LaBianca at their Los Feliz home, next door to a house at which Manson and Family members had attended a party the previous year.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|182, 207}} Using LaBianca blood, one of the killers writes "Rise" and "Death to Pigs" on the living room walls. She writes "Healter {{sic}} Skelter" on the refrigerator.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|39}}<ref name="Watson, Ch. 15">[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-015.php Watson, Ch. 15] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119080010/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-015.php |date=2010-11-19 }}</ref>

==Impact==
Manson entranced youths of the 1960s, and at first he and his Family represented a peaceful, harmonious, and loving revolution to strive for a better world than they inherited. To Tex Watson, Manson had exactly the type of love that he needed.<ref>[http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/55/5/771.full.pdf+html]</ref> Through this convincing love that Manson put out, he was able to create murderers for his plan to start a race war.<ref name="Atchinson, Heide pg 23">[http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/55/5/771.full.pdf+html Atchison, Heide pg 23]</ref>

Watson, who, as noted above, was with Manson when Manson first heard the White Album, took part in both the Tate murders and the LaBianca murders. Indeed, in his own recounting of the crimes, he is the only killer to participate directly in every one of the seven homicides and is the sole killer of at least three of the victims.<ref name="Watson, Ch. 14"/><ref name="Watson, Ch. 15"/> While awaiting trial, he told other Family members, "It seemed like I had to do everything."<ref>Watkins, Ch. 25</ref>

On the late 1968 day he and Manson first heard the album, Watson separated himself from the Family,<ref name="Watson, Ch. 9"/> which he did not rejoin until the following March (1969). By that time, Manson's prophecy had captured the group's imagination, but Watson would be a while in grasping its details. In his 1978 autobiography (as told to Ray Hoekstra), he wrote as follows:

<blockquote>
Although I got it in bits and pieces, some from the women and some from Manson himself, it turned out to be a remarkably complicated yet consistent thing that he [Manson] had discovered and developed in the three months we'd been apart.

...

It was exciting, amazing stuff Charlie was teaching, and we'd sit around him for hours as he told us about the land of milk and honey we'd find underneath the desert and enjoy while the world above us was soaked in blood.<ref name="Watson11" /></blockquote>

==Manson's testimony==
At his 1970 trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders, Manson was permitted to testify, after the attorneys for the other defendants and him had attempted to rest their case, without calling a single witness. Lest he violate the California Supreme Court's decision in ''People v. Aranda'' by implicating his co-defendants, the jury was removed from the courtroom.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|388}} He spoke for over an hour.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|388}} As for Helter Skelter, he said the following:

<blockquote>It means confusion, literally. It doesn't mean any war with anyone. It doesn't mean that some people are going to kill other people ... Helter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down around you fast. If you can't see the confusion coming down around you fast, you can call it what you wish.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|390–1}}</blockquote>

As to there having been a conspiracy, of which he was alleged to have been a part, to commit the murders, Manson said this:

<blockquote>Is it a conspiracy that the music is telling the youth to rise up against the establishment because the establishment is rapidly destroying things? Is that a conspiracy?

The music speaks to you every day, but you are too deaf, dumb, and blind to even listen to the music ...

It is not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says 'Rise,' it says 'Kill.'

Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|391}}</blockquote>

In various press and parole board interviews, Manson has dismissed the Helter Skelter conspiracy as an invention by the trial prosecutor to tie him to the murders. At about the one-fifth point of his 1992 parole hearing, Manson said the following:

<blockquote>[A]s far as lining up someone for some kind of helter skelter trip, you know, that's the District Attorney's motive. That's the only thing he could find for a motive to throw up on top of all that confusion he had. There was no such thing in my mind as helter skelter.<ref>
[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/manson/mansonparole.html Transcript of Charles Manson's 1992 parole hearing] Retrieved 2 February 2012.</ref></blockquote>

==Primary sources==
More detail about Helter Skelter is found in the following:
[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/manson/mansontestimony-w.html testimony of Paul Watkins].
*''Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders'' by Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry
*''Will You Die for Me?'' by Charles Watson as told to Ray Hoekstra
*''My Life with Charles Manson'' by Paul Watkins and Guillermo Soledad

As has been noted, Bugliosi led the prosecution in the Tate-LaBianca trials; at the time of the trials, he was a Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|''xiv'', 117}} Charles Watson is the above-mentioned Family member who took part in the murders. Watkins was an above-mentioned Family member who was not involved in the murders.

See also the trial testimony of Gregg Jakobson, who met Manson at the home of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson in May or early summer of 1968 and who arranged a recording session for Manson in August of that year.<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|155, 214}} Jakobson indicated that Manson and he had talked about Manson's "philosophy on life" in various settings "innumerable times" – "Maybe 100."<ref name="Bugliosi94" />{{rp|223}}<ref>Also Jakobson's trial testimony.</ref>

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name="Watson11">[http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-011.php Watson, Charles as told to Hoekstra, Ray, ''Will You Die for Me?'', Chapter 11] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075303/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-011.php |date=2010-11-19 }} Watson website. Retrieved 28 April 2007.</ref>
}}

==External links==
*[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvReve.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=9&division=div1 Book of Revelation, Chapter 9, King James Version] Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
*[http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/55/5/771.full.pdf+html Charles Manson and the Family: The Application of Sociological Theories to Multiple Murder] Retrieved October 13, 2014.

[[Category:Apocalypticism]]
[[Category:Book of Revelation]]

{{Sourceattribution|Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)|1}}