ABSTRACT
Charles Manson led a hippie cult in California called the Manson Family in the late 1960s. In 1969, they committed a number of gruesome murders; their victims included actress Sharon Tate. Serving life in prison, Manson became a popular figure among certain disenchanted youth, and there was a revival of interest in him starting in the 1980s. Sometimes overlooked was that he was a racist, antisemite misogynist who carved a swastika in his forehead. Mason originally contacted two Manson Family members, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sandra Good, but eventually corresponded with Manson himself. Mason quickly decided the prisoner should be a leader for neo-Nazis and used SIEGE to promote this idea. Under Manson’s influence, Mason took some of the cult leader’s idea and translated them into a new kind of neo-Nazism, called Universal Order. But the idea of Manson as a guru was too much for the neo-Nazis of the day, and even Mason’s allies rejected this idea. But this approach would eventually attract a new audience.
