Get a copy of “From Spahn Ranch” for Free*
* Actually I want this journal to generate interest for further issues. If you send the journal an article, review, etc then I will send you a copy of the first issue. The next issue will have as its theme the Hinman/Tate/Labianca murders and would like articles from all different perspectives.
Available Now: From Spahn Ranch: A Journal of Manson Studies Issue 1, Spring 2009
The Pro-Manson Issue
88 pages email from_spahn_ranch@yahoo.com for ordering information
Purpose statement…………………………………2
Killing Cults and Slaves (2008) by Charles Manson…3
The Meaning of X (1970) by C.M.…………………..9
Statement from Lynne Fromme (1989)…………….11
Manson/Shiva & the Age of Kali by Tim Madison…15
A Case Study of the Charles Manson Group
Marriage Commune (1969)………….……………..23
What Really Happened at TLB Murders?
An Alternative explanation…………………………35
The American Meaning of Charley Manson
…………………………..………………………………..48
Manson’s Supporters and the Media-St George……..83
Review of Manson Family Picnic ……………………86
Review of Horrible Workers: Max Stirner, Arthur Rimbaud, Robert Johnson, and the Charles Manson Circle by Donald A. Nielsen……………………………………………..87
Review of Riding On Your Fears by Curt Rowlett…………….87
ATWA by Michael Moynihan
from The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature by Bron R. Taylor (Editor)
ATWA (an acronym for both ‘’Air, Trees, Water, Animals’’ and ‘’All The Way Alive’’ ) represents the uncompromising ecological mandate propounded by the infamous American convict Charles Manson (b. 11 November 1934) and a number of his most loyal associates. The exact origins of ATWA are obscure, although related ecological beliefs appear to have been present among Manson and his associates during the late 1960′s. After having spent most of his early life behind bars for a string of criminal offenses ranging from auto theft to check fraud, Manson was paroled in 1967 and found a welcoming environment in the burgeoning counterculture. Together with a small retinue of disaffected young people, he took flight from the ‘’madness of the cities’’ and established a communal colony at a ranch in the Santa Susana mountains outside of Los Angeles, California. The group began to make survivalist forays into Death Valley in order to scout out more remote areas of the desert, and in September 1969 some members attempted to thwart nearby road developments by deliberately setting an expensive piece of Earth-moving equipment on fire. This early act of ‘’monkey wrenching’’ – occurring a number of years before the concept would be popularized by Edward Abbey, Dave Foreman, and other radical environmentalists – was a key factor that caused the encampment of Manson associates to come under scrutiny from local law-enforcement authorities. A study of contemporary testimonies reveals that Manson discouraged meat eating while advocating a primal understanding of the natural world which included totemistic identification with various animals. Speaking to Rolling Stone in 1970 after his arrest in connection with the Tate/LaBianca murders, he stated: ‘’Have you ever seen the coyote in the desert? Watching, Tuned in, completely aware. Christ on the cross, the coyote in the desert – it’s the same thing man. The coyote is beautiful … He hears every sound, smells every smell, sees everything that moves. He’s always in a state of total paranoia, and total paranoia is total awareness.” asked what he would do if released, Manson replied: ”I would go out into the desert. The desert is magic … nobody ever wanted me and nobody wants the desert … I’ll live in the desert, like a coyote. I know where every water hole is and every fruit that’s edible … the desert is God’s Kingdom.” In the years following Manson’s conviction and imprisonment with a life sentence, his close associates Lynette Fromme and Sandra Good became increasingly active in their efforts to raise awareness of the present systems failure to properly steward the Earth. In what was apparently a desperate attempt to draw attention to this message, Fromme was apprehended after pulling a 1914 military issue .45 handgun on president Gerald Ford in 1975 in Sacramento, California. Shortly afterwords Good was arrested for conspiracy to mail death threats to hundreds of corporate polluters under the aegis of IPCR, or “International People’s Court of Retribution,’’ which may have been a precursor to ATWA. Good served a ten year sentence and was released, while Fromme is currently serving a life sentence. By the early 1980′s Manson and his supporters were primarily using the term ATWA, which usually stood for ‘’Air, Trees, Water, Animals,’’ to represent their ecological-spiritual worldview. The name clearly refers to the elements of of the biosphere that are crucial to humans survival; these can also be closely equated to the four cardinal elements in ancient hermetic philosophy: Air, Earth, Water and Fire. ATWA is not represented by any formal organization or membership. In contrast to mainstream environmental groups with bureaucratic structures and tendencies toward compromise, ATWA is a state of radical consciousness, a way of thought and action that seeks to completely redress not just worldwide industrial pollution and ecological imbalance, but also the perceived unnatural evils of media control, consumerism, feminism and matriarchy, overpopulation and racial intermixing. In blunt language, ATWA’s proponents emphasize the unity of life on Earth, which is often spoken of in religious terms. Manson has stated that ‘’Ecology is God, for without it we are dead forever.” This perspective informs both the urgency and the moral fervor of statements such as the following from Sandra Good: ‘’ATWA is your survival on earth. It’s a revolution against pollution. ATWA is ATWAR with pollution — a holy war. You are either working for ATWA — life — or you’re working for death. Fix it and live or run from it and die.” The Representatives of ATWA believe that the devastation of the Earth can only be halted and reversed by a one-world government with the vision and military power to enforce this goal. It is further implied that Manson is one of the few people possessed of the necessary degree of understanding and insight to articulate the course for such solutions. Despite the passage of time, Charles Manson maintains his status in American popular culture as a perennial outsider to the ‘’Establishment’’ and continues to attract interest from new generations of young people. Over the years, aspects of his philosophy have been adopted by radical enterprises ranging from the ultra-left June 2nd movement to revolutionary National Socialists. While Manson’s ideas often reach a wide audience through various websites, music releases, and occasional media interviews, only a few outside of his immediate circle appear to have understood the centrality of ATWA to his worldview.
Manson’s First Communique to the People (1970)
I am not allowed to be a man in your society. I am considered inadequate and incompetent to speak or defend myself in your court. You have created a monster. I am not of you, from you nor do I condone your wars or your unjust attitudes towards things, animals and people that you won’t try to understand. I have X’d myself from your world. I stand in the opposite to what you do and what you have done in the past. You have never given me the consititution you speak of. The words you have used to trick the people are not mine. I do not accept what you call justice. The lie you live in is falling and I am not part of it. You use the word God to make money.
You! Look at what you have done and what you are doing. You make fun of God and have murdered the world in the name of Jesus Christ. I stand with my X with my love, with my God and by myself. My faith in me is stronger than all your armies, governments, gas chambers or anything you may want to do to me. I know what I have done and your courtroom is man’s game. Love is my judge. I have my own constitution; it’s inside me.
No man or lawyer is speaking for me, I speak for myself. I am not allowed to speak with words so I have spoken with the mark I will be wearing on my forehead. Many U.S. citizens are marked and don’t know it. You won’t let them come from under your foot. But God is moving. Moving and I am a witness.
I have tried to stand on the consititution but I am not afforded the rights another citizen may enjoy. I am forced to contend with communicating to the mass without words. I feel no man can represent another man because each man is different and has his own world, his own kingdom, his own reality. It is impossible to communicate one reality through another into another reality.
Charles Manson
From Spahn Ranch: A Zine for Manson Studies
From Spahn Ranch:
A Zine for Manson Studies
Pp. 48
semi-annual
This zine is to collect articles, book and DVD, essays, and poems concerning the Charles Manson Circle (ideas, music and practices).
It is open to material from both a Pro- and Anti-Manson perspective. The main editorial perspective is against Helter-Skelter motive, tho open to other perspectives in its pages.
Contributions should be in word doc. format and sent as an attachment to your email (small reviews and poems could be sent within email). A brief bio would be nice tho not mandatory. Pseudonyms are acceptable. Also state whether or not you want you email included with your submission if accepted for publication.
No monetary payment. Accepted submission authors will get a hard copy of the zine and all contributors will get a pdf zine even if their material is not accepted.
send submissions to:
from_spahn_ranch@yahoo.com
Death by Charles Manson (Jan 1972)
Pseudoprofundity in Death in one’s eye, so insignificant as I. To fall off into endless dream, becoming the dream of total self. Death goes to where life comes from. Total awareness, closing the circle, bringing the soul to now. Ceasing to be, to become a world within yourself. Locked in your own totalness. Oh, fear my GOD, giving all to life as life falls into no thought pattern. Bvecoming the sun, moon and my mountains have breath, my oceans have feeling, my eyes cry rivers and blinking stars reflecting other suns, other worlds at peace in my calm night, becoming the wind and knowing all in my world is death.
He who lives and only thinks he lives. Can a bird fly in fear of height? Youth march on tombstones of old thought calling to the teacher’s grave in the name of the living. Callto evil and sin by the preacher, father, priest, mother church. Calling off into maddness. Working off and acting out mother and father lie game of “honor thy parents.” Looking to the old.
Death is peace from this world’s maddess and paradise in my own self. Death as I lay in my grave of constant vibration, endless now.
Prison has always been my tomb. I love myself as I love my death as being alone with self the words I send you bore me and bring me from my death onel to play in your illusion and bring down the Christian thought placeing new value on life being death and death being life. Your world is not your world as you may think.
I owe it nothing. It owes me all, for this is what I gave and this is what I receive. For I am dead to your thinking. Dead to time, dead to death, seeing no death. The way out of my cell is not through the door. I have hidden from your opinions and livied in your prison heall with death looking at mee through the eyes of the dying. Life is death, death is life. Meanings are yours to place.
Now is and will be as it has always been, indestructible, indescribable. In your heart is a part of my life’s heart in death. Die.
Why ask about something that moves within your soul? Casting off fear is only to become one with self-death. Total negative becomes total positive and then you see that all your life your have lived with fear of death.
“The Process” (magazine)
(Jan. 1972)
A Classification system of Charles manson’s idea history (a first draft)
On of the commentators to this blog (Frank) brought up the questions of how to classify and sort through Manson’s ideas and he offered a simple breakdown. Thinking about Frank’s ideas and wishing to expand on the a bit I have come up with this:
I. Pre-Release but while in Federal Prison until 1967
II. Building the Circle (pre-H.S.) 67-68 (maybe even early 69)
III. The game of H.S. and descent into paranioa (1969 until the arrests)
iV. The Trials (1970-72)
V. Pre-ATWA Prison period (1972-86
VI. ATWA (1986 til the present) not sure when ATWA was first documented in CM’s writing but this year he made his formal announcement during a parolehearing.
Comments on the ATWA Concept (2000)
How can the social system be improved? It’s a crime to smoke marijuana, a plant, but poisoning millions of people through toxic wastes is business as usual. How much will you give for the lives of your children’s children, which is your self? How much are people willing to give up for air, earth, water, animals, and the coming generations? I think the answer to that is pretty clear.
Almost everything you eat or drink has water in it. No matter where it’s from, most of it’s polluted. Most of it’s got a lot of chemicals that we have to stop producing, It’s a simple thing. We don’t transfer it. We don’t move the poisons somewhere else. We stop producing them. We use our brains.
I want clean water. I want water I could take a newborn baby down to and… you’re not interested in air and water and you’re gonna need it! And as it disappears from the earth, if you don’t do anything about it… if you do not participate in doing whatever you can to protect your mother, your nurturer that keeps you alive, you don’t get life.
Rattlesnakes eat the animals that reproduce in quantity. They all have a purpose, so we need them. Since we don’t know or understand the overall purpose of so many animals, it’s to our advantage to let them enlighten us. Snakes serve to keep people from being unaware oafs (ln the wild). If not for the need to look out for dangers around us we’d all be blundering plundering pigs. If animals didn’t have a survival instinct, many more would be food to a few who’d get fat, flounder and die. End of story. Finito. No more life. Women holler and bitch to the contrary but we all live in a matriarchy and have for many many years. Women’s needs have been the reason for work, war, religion and death. When in balance with the needs of the soul or patriarch (father, God, spirit, universe) this works well because the women’s role has always been to make sure the young survive. When out of balance it destroys life.
