There have been numerous theories over the years about the CIA intentionally conspiring to create serial killers, often attributing famous examples like Charles Manson, Berkowitz, Dahmer, Gacy, Bundy and many others to a CIA conspiracy, possibly related to MK-ULTRA, or in other cases to cults, often with connections to people in high places, helping them get away with it, at least for a while. In most cases these theories come from sources with major credibility problems that few people would take seriously.
This may have begun to change with "Programmed to Kill" by David McGowan 2004 although he may not have done as good a job implicating the CIA for many cases, and, ironically he may have ignored some of the strongest evidence and misrepresented other beliefs. However, despite this books flaws, a large portion of his claims can be confirmed through independent sources. Furthermore, at least when it came to his claims that cults are involved in some of these murders, he provides better evidence, and cites at least a couple other sources, Maury Terry, author of "The Ultimate Evil," and Ed Sanders, author of "The Family," and both these authors had the impression that the CIA or other intelligence agencies were interested in several cases or might even have been involved in them although they could provide conclusive proof of this and didn't know why the CIA would be interested. Furthermore, some additional supporting evidence may have come out since McGowan wrote his book.
McGowan claims the CIA may have intentionally created cults or serial killers in order to justify draconian policies suppressing civil rights and to control the masses. The way the government responded to crime problems is a matter of public record, regardless of whether this theory is partly true; and, at times, the government has used crime as an excuse to clamp down on civil rights. However, they've been far more likely to use the War on Drugs as an excuse to militarize the police, and conduct no-knock raids by SWAT teams and asset forfeiture or other violations of civil rights. This is often far more common against minorities, especially African Americans.
Like many conspiracy theories, there are a significant number of flaws in McGowan's or other people's claims; however, they often have legitimate points as well; which means that contrary to how many high profile skeptics behave a true rational skeptic might try to sort out the truth from the exaggerations or lies instead of ridiculing the whole thing. Furthermore, when dealing with conspiracy theories like this, it helps to focus as much as possible on hard facts that can be confirmed through reliable sources; and in this case, this includes an enormous amount of credible research from the academic world that shows how to address all the root causes of violence and make it far less likely; yet this research is almost completely ignored by traditional media and the political establishment.
I mentioned the fact that we've had good research to reduce violence from reliable sources in numerous articles including Ten Ways To Reduce Violence, Backed Up By Research and Withholding solutions for mass shootings & all murders continues! These articles explain how there's good research about all leading causes of violence, including how early child abuse leads to more violence later in life, how abandoned inner cities cause much more violence, and many other contributing causes, and shows that if our political establishment based their decisions on good research they could have cut crime much more than they have, possibly leading to a reduction or murder rates and other crimes by 80% or more than they are right now, like many European countries that already address the root causes of violence.
We also have evidence showing that presidential administrations and the rest of the political establishment have reduced focus on the root causes of violence and most effective solutions since at least the Nixon administration. Both "The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV" by Robert Caro and Rise of the Warrior Cop" by Readley Balko report on how the Kennedy administration had good academic researchers that were trying to base their policy decisions on the best research available at that time; domestically, to some degree, the Johnson administration continued this, before the Nixon administration began their "tough on crime" policies that ignored the root causes and best research.
I don't remember the news media coverage of leading causes of violence ever being very good; but if anything, it's gotten worse with the consolidation of the media, which is now controlled by a fraction of one percent of the public, which is clearly far more concerned with maximizing profit for themselves than serving the public good. Research on preventing violence is much easier to find in libraries, and some books cite examples where they did get some media coverage, including some appearances in talk shows like Phil Donahue as early as the seventies, and Murray Straus wrote about how one of his books was abandoned as a result of mergers and he had to threaten to sue to get his own copyrights back so he could publish elsewhere, when there was little or no promotion for it. While he was alive he posted most of his work, including three books online for free, but after he passed away UNH took it down and now oligarchs are trying to charge outrageous amounts of money for educational material that can reduce violence. This is just a small fraction of the examples where oligarchs are more concerned with increasing profits than educating the public, even when this means withholding educational material that can save many lives. More recently a few authors wrote about their media appearances, but I have rarely ever seen them, except for the citations they mention while incompetent propaganda that is counterproductive is much much more common.
I went into this much more in past articles, so I won't go into it much more here; except to say that many of the academic sources are much more credible and reliable than promoters of conspiracy theories, so this can be confirmed with public information, assuming people are willing to look at the research, which, unfortunately, most people aren't. Even if you're not familiar with the best research on preventing violence, a quick look at the Wikipedia: List of countries by intentional homicide rate shows that the United States has the highest murder rate among wealthy countries, and clearly there ahs to be a reason why, which is apparent to those who have checked on good research for causes of violence and the policies from these countries. The United States has the seventy fourth highest murder rate out of one hundred and ninety-five countries, and all the countries with higher homicide rates are poorer and have even more dysfunctional governments. Furthermore, about sixty percent of the countries with higher murder rates are in the America's, what is often referred to as America's Backyard, these are almost all countries that
America intervened in, often to overthrow popular governments that were much less violent than the ones they installed. Several of the other countries, outside of the Americas, with murder rates higher than the United States, are also countries that our government intervened in as well, including Iraq Afghanistan, the Philippines, Yemen, where we're providing the arms to bomb them to Saudi Arabia, and many more, which means that our foreign policy is a major contributing cause to their violence problems, which is far worse that creating a smaller number of serial killers, assuming they did that.
This means, based on good academic research, we can conclude that even if these theories don't hold up, the fall back explanation is that we're ignoring research that could cut our rates of violence by at least fifty to sixty percent, if not ninety percent in the longer run, which would save hundreds, if not over a thousand lives in the United States, and perhaps thousands more lives in Latin America, if we based political decisions on good science, which is far more that all serial killers combined, but most of these theories don't cover all of them. Serial killers have much more shock value, and if a small portion was inspired by MK-ULTRA that would be even more shocking, but the incredible volume of less dramatic murders is far worse.
Murray Straus pointed out that some good research went as far back as 1942 when he wrote the following in "The Primordial Violence":
Societal case studies. Seventy years ago, the anthropologist Ashley Montague argued that, "Spanking the baby may be the psychological seed of war" (Montague, 1941). He later invited eight anthropologists who had studied one of the relatively few nonviolent societies to contribute chapters to a book called Learning Non-Aggression: The Experience of Non-Literate Societies (Montague, 1978). Although those eight societies differed tremendously, one thing they had in common was nonviolent child rearing (i.e., spanking or smacking children was not part of their culturally prescribed method of child rearing).
Montague did not argue that non-spanking alone will produce a nonviolent society. On the contrary, the eight societies described in his book show that a great deal more is required, especially a high level of attention to a child's needs and safety, and positive rather than punitive modes of dealing with misbehavior. If spanking is a risk factor for societal violence, it is only one of many risk and protective factors.
This is just a small sample of the academic research over the decades that has shown numerous leading causes of all kinds of violence, but it has gotten very little media coverage, and with the consolidation of the media in the control of six corporations, all far more concerned with increasing profits than educating the public it has only gotten worse. According to Wikipedia: Ashley Montagu "he was 'Forced out of his Rutgers position after the McCarthy hearings.'" He was able to get some attention from the media, but not nearly as much as academics that adopt the fiscal ideology of the wealthy, whether it's related to preventing violence or not. This continues to this day, and sine economic inequality, which benefits the wealthy, is a major contributing cause of violence, it get's little or no coverage in traditional media. The same goes with child rearing tactics designed to control the working class instead of teaching them critical thinking skills, since the wealthy wants to keep them in their place. Evidence to prove this and much more doesn't rely on fringe conspiracy theories, but it's almost completely absent from mainstream media.
Even though I'm sure that a large portion of what many conspiracy theorists, including David McGowan, believe may not hold up, while other portions will; but many skeptics will dismiss even the portion that does hold up to scrutiny. Even if these skeptics are right, there would be no doubt that withholding educational material that could teach how to reduce levels of violence much more, like many European countries that have, including murder rates by eighty to ninety percent lower than ours, or our foriegn policy in Central or Southern America does far more to increase violence than intentionally creating a few serial killers or other MK-ULTRA projects, although this seems much more shocking. The problem is that few people will do the research to confirm this and the media refuses to cover it, making it easier to ridicule, even though there are hard facts to support this claim, which isn't a conspiracy theory, since it's based on good research that isn't secret.
David McGowan raises some major doubts about whether many serial killers, including Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Speck, David Berkowitz, and more, could have killed all their victims and gotten away with it. in at least three cases the convicted serial killers, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and David Berkowitz claimed they didn't act alone. When it comes to his claims that some of these serial killers, especially David Berkowitz and Charles Manson, who is actually classified as a mass murderer or spree killer, not a serial killer, are cult members not lone killers, both Ed Sanders, author of "The Family" and Maury Terry author of "The Ultimate Evil" do a much better job. David McGowan also claims that some of them at least, are a result of MK-ULTRA, however, he provides little evidence to support this conclusion instead writing:
Detailing all the techniques and procedures that have received attention from the Central Intelligence Agency and its brethren is, unfortunately, well beyond the scope of this book.2 It is possible, however, to provide a rough sketch of what mind control really is—a sketch that will, it is hoped, help to demystify a phenomenon that is not, as it turns out, nearly so esoteric as it may at first appear to be.
2 All of the following books focus directly or indirectly on CIA-sponsored mind control research: Jose M.R. Delgado Physical Control of the Mind (Harper and Row, 1969); Donald Bain The Control of Candy Jones (Playboy Press, 1976); Walter Bowart Operation Mind Control (Dell Publishing, 1978); Peter Watson War on the Mind (Hutchinson, 1978); Peter Schrag Mind Control (Pantheon, 1978); John Marks The Search for the Manchurian Candidate (Times Books, 1979); Martin Lee and Bruce Schlain Acid Dreams (Grove Press, 1985); and Gordon Thomas Journey Into Madness (Bantam, 1989). All of these titles contain pieces of the puzzle, but all contain varying amounts of disinformation as well (as do more recent titles).
His claim that all these books "contain pieces of the puzzle, but all contain varying amounts of disinformation as well (as do more recent titles)," is certainly true; and anyone familiar with research into the CIA probably knows that this is routine for almost all books about it. Only the best researchers avoid potentially false claims, presumably since there's so much false information mixed in with the truth, and then only if they're overly cautious, which inevitably means they may avoid some of the most controversial aspects, since it's difficult if not impossible of being certain of everything, even when there's overwhelming evidence of a major unsolved mystery.
But, of course, there's little or no doubt that David McGowan himself follows this pattern. If he wanted to present his theory that the CIA was intentionally creating serial killers, or cults made to look like serial killers, then he certainly should have provided at least a few citations about how this came about from these books and tied it to serial killers. In a few cases some other sources may have done this, especially when it comes to several possible "Manchurian Candidates" or patsies, the most convincing who might be Sirhan Sirhan. Perhaps one of the most compelling cases raising doubts about the official explanation of the RFK assassination came from William Turner and Jon Christian authors of "The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" which was written long before David McGowan's book and showed that Sirhan Sirhan couldn't have killed Kennedy, since he was shot from behind and Sirhan was always in front of him, nor could he have been a lone shooter, since there were way too many bullets for his gun.
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Lisa Pease followed this up with another book, "A Lie To Big To Fail," adding to the evidence clearing Sirhan Sirhan and raising the possibility that they may have created other Manchurian Candidates that assasinated John Lennon and Allard Lowenstein, although she provides limited details on these two, but there are a couple other books going into more detail on the Lennon killing. These were all alleged Manchurian candidates, not serial killers though. I'm not aware of other solid evidence showing they intentionally created serial killers, but there is credible evidence showing they may have unintentionally created several other murderers, including a couple serial killers as I went into previously in Anti-violence social experiments could be part of a slippery slope, which covers MK-ULTRA and shows credible claims that John Stanley Faulder, Whitey Bulger and Ted Kaczynski were all experimented on under this program. The strongest evidence of a serial killer resulting from MK-ULTRA that I know of would be Bulger and Kaczynski, yet McGowan doesn't mention them. According to a more recent article, Inside the Archive of an LSD Researcher With Ties to the CIA’s MKUltra Mind Control Project, 11/24/2019 Jimmy Shaver, an airman, was also an MK-ULTRA subject. This article and the book it's excerpted from by Tom O’Neill came out after McGowan's book, but it provides credible research about the possibility that the Manson cult was being studied by the CIA as part of a project that might be related to MK-ULTRA, although it went by a different name.
At least two of the books McGowan cites, John Marks "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate" 1979 and Gordon Thomas "Journey Into Madness" 1989, provide limited credible evidence of of successful efforts and mind control and often imply that despite their efforts the CIA was grossly incompetent at this effort, although Marks does cite one example where an experiment allegedly successfully convinces a secretary to fire an unloaded gun, which she was led to believe was loaded at another person potentially killing her if it had been loaded and they both indicate that many more records were destroyed which could potentially include other more successful efforts at mind control. The more credible stories about at least four other murderers, including Bulger and Kaczynski, who were serial killers, is compatible with this research since there's little evidence to indicate the CIA intended to turn them into killers, but that it happened after they stopped tracking them.
Nevertheless, some of David McGowan's concerns are legitimate and may be good enough to show that others were involved in several of the serial killings, and even if they're not intentionally inspired by a CIA MK-ULTRA conspiracy there's a possibility that powerful people were still involved in some of them, and either this involved possible cover-ups or incompetence from numerous police departments that may have been more concerned with closing the case and getting credit that finding out the truth. At one point McGowan writes about this exchange, Where Ted Bundy allegedly claims he didn't act alone on tape:
Police Interrogator: Where’d you get the money [that you used after your escape to travel across the country] from?
Ted: “Well, man, there’s other people. Other people are in on it.”
For many of these serial killers, including Bundy, who allegedly killed at least thirty people, there's major doubts about how they could have gotten away with killing so many people before getting caught. However, there's even more questions about how he could have escaped twice before going to Florida, as indicated in this exchanged and pointed out in more detail in McGowan's book.
Additional evidence to support McGowan's doubts about John Wayne Gacy also emerged since his book was published as reported in Attorneys Believe Gacy Had Accomplices 02/10/2012 which says:
Gacy was in Pittsburgh during the period in September 1977 when victim Robert Gilroy, 18, of Chicago disappeared, the Sun-Times reported. And when John Mowery, 19 of Chicago disappeared later in September 1977, Gacy was at a job in Michigan, the attorneys told the Sun-Times. ..... The attorneys are also examining Gacy’s own questions to police when he was arrested. Among those questions were – “Who else do you have in the station? There are others involved,” and he said his “associates” were involved “directly,” the Sun-Times reported.
Both John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy had ties to politicians in both parties, and there's major doubts about why they were able to get away with murders for so long when they could have been caught much earlier. Even if the investigators didn't have solid evidence against them, is it possible they didn't look as close as they should have because of their political ties? This would fit a pattern of behavior for many people with political connections.
A convicted murder that committed murder approximately the same time McGowan't book went to press, Rhonda Glover, made a statement supporting his theory, although she may not be the most credible source, as reported in Fatal Beauty 2011
Rhonda called Joste twice while Officer Moore was at the Mission Oaks home. ... Officer Bubank dutifully searched the attic and any other part of the house where Rhonda Glover feared Jimmy Joste had stuffed the dead body of their son. “She also told me that Joste was not only a murderer, but worked for the CIA, and was connected to John Wayne Gacy and the John Lennon murder.”
Obviously this shouldn't be considered hard evidence without additional corroborating evidence from more reliable sources; however, since it adds to other evidence supporting McGowan's theory, adequate or not, it would also be inappropriate to completely rule out his theory without additional evidence as well.
Maury Terry author of "The Ultimate Evil" (1987), who was cited by McGowan, does a far better job raising doubts about whether or not David Berkowitz acted alone and tying the "Son of Sam" killings to a cult which began killing before the "Summer of Sam" and kept on killing years after David Berkowitz was arrested in 1977. He opens by describing the killing of Arlis Perry, who was killed in California before Berkowitz began his killing spree, far away from where he was at the time, yet he knew some of the details long before the case was allegedly solved. He also cited evidence showing that it's virtually guaranteed that Berkowitz didn't act alone, which Berkowitz agreed with in many cases, and that Berkowitz actually left the scene of the last murder before it happened.
His case is supported by many witnesses, some more credible than others, of course, including police officers, other reporters, and lawyers, as well as many potential cult members or criminals that communicated with either Berkowitz or other alleged cult members. Whenever possible he provided supporting evidence, especially when the claims came from cult members or criminals that may not be considered credible. To find out which sources and claims seem most credible, you'll have to read the book or trust someone else. He claims there was a person he nicknamed Charles Manson II who he never conclusively identified, and allegedly was involved in the "Son of Sam" killings as well as the Arlis Perry killings. He also makes a strong case that the two sons of Sam Carr, John and Michael, were both members of the cult and both died under mysterious circumstances. John Carr allegedly committed suicide, according to the police, but the evidence doesn't support this claim and it happened after investigators began looking for him, and he clearly could have exposed accomplices if he had lived and been captured. Another two alleged members of the cult were supposedly police officers, including one that was murdered, under suspicious circumstances, possibly to prevent him from talking as well.
Terry also makes an argument that seems compelling to many that Roy Radin, a wealthy show business promoter may have held parties that were attended by many cult members and filmed sadomasochist sex at his mansion, which was in the New York area. Some versions of this theory also include the belief that the cult was filming their murders, and in the last case changed their target because the original choice wasn't in the light for the film to catch. Other theories indicate that some of the targets were picked because they knew something about the cult. Whether this was true or not Roy Radin was killed in May 1983 in California. William Mentzer and Karen Greenberger were eventually convicted of his murder. Robert Evans an American film producer, studio executive, and actor, best known for his work on Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, and Chinatown, may have been implicated in connection to this murder and plead the fifth when asked if he knew Roy Radin. However, Karen Greenberger testified that he wasn't involved when she plead guilty, and the courts accepted this.
Skeptics claimed that when this case was solved, shortly after the first addition of Terry's book, in 1987, and DNA evidence related to the Arlis Perry murder implicated another suspect in 2018, that this proved Terry's theories were wrong; however, Terry's theories were compatible with the claim that William Mentzer killed Roy Radin and he addressed this in the second addition of his book within a year after that was allegedly solved. As for the alleged solving of the Arlis Perry murder when DNA evidence implicated Stephen Blake Crawford, this clearly doesn't address all the evidence and actually supports Terry's theory that she was killed by a cult, since the original evidence provided a partial palm print and semen that didn't match either Crawford or Bruce Perry, the other early suspect; which means the new DNA evidence supports the belief expressed by Terry that she was killed by at least two or probably more people. Bruce Perry went on to become a prominent American psychiatrist which is compatible with the theory that many high profile people were involved in cults and advanced because of it; although I'm not aware of evidence implicating him in his wife's murder or conclusively proving he was in the cult. Terry also provides significant evidence to indicate that the cult that caused the "Son or Sam" killings may also be tied to the Manson cult, or at least some of the people that were previously involved in it, although skeptics may not consider this evidence conclusive.
In addition to the evidence provided by McGowan, Terry and Sanders, Tom O’Neill author of “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties,” and Inside the Archive of an LSD Researcher With Ties to the CIA’s MKUltra Mind Control Project, 11/24/2019 which is an excerpt from that book, provide more evidence that government officials may have enabled Manson and even that he might be tied directly to a mind control experiment, whether you call it Operation Chaos, MK-ULTRA or anything else. He was also allegedly being monitored by either the intelligence community or local police before committing the murders and for a couple months afterwards, until the final big raid in October 1969, and there's little doubt that at a minimum, they had plenty of justifiable reasons long before the murders to arrest Manson and several of his top followers, including Susan Adkins on numerous charges, including parole violation, which doesn't have a high burden of proof. Ed Sanders confirmed a significant portion of the claims made by O'Neill long before O'Neill wrote his book, although O'Neill provides numerous additional details, including the fact that the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic was funded by the CIA and it was used as part of their mind control research.
O'Neill reports on how Manson's probation officer, Roger Smith, helped him get out of trouble on several occasions while still officially responsible for him, then he kept in touch and helped him several other times even though he wasn't still responsible for him. He later worked with the Free clinic which was founded by David Smith (no relation), and there's good reason to believe that both of them might have had ties to the CIA, and that the CIA was funding the clinic. Louis Jolyon West, one of the most notorious contributors to MK-ULTRA or other mind control research, was also working at the clinic, however O'Neill couldn't provide solid evidence directly linking him with Manson. Ed Sanders also reported that Abigail Folger also had ties to the free clinic and raised money for them on several occasions. There has never been any doubt that Manson had ties to Terry Melcher, an American record producer, Dennis Wilson, one of the Beach Boys, and several other celebrities; however, Vincent Bugliosi and other mainstream sources claim that he had little or no ties to any of the victims, except that he had been to the Polanski home when Melcher was there and to a neighbors house of the LaBianca's. But both Ed Sanders and Tom O'Neill reported on numerous other connections or possible connections with both houses.
Both Sanders, O'Neill and at least one or two other authors indicated that there's more evidence that both households were involved in far more drug activity or other crimes than Vincent Bugliosi or other mainstream sources reported on and O'Neill also went so far as to claim that Bugliosi was trying to cover up for Melcher, Polanski and several other celebrities that were involved in crimes, which might include black mail and taking sex tapes of many celebrities. Some of this was also reported earlier by Sanders. Even if some of the more far-fetched theories don't hold up, or people simply refuse to consider them, there's plenty of evidence showing a brazen double standard giving preferential treatment to the rich and powerful.
Both Sanders and O'Neill also speculated about other possible motives for the murders and that they might have been targeted for undisclosed reasons. Is it possible that Manson and the girls were used for research purposes at the clinic and they at least suspected it? Is it possible that they knew that Folger was helping fund the clinic using them for this research?
If the CIA was conducting research on indoctrination could it have been used to indoctrinate troops in some of the foreign countries where they intervened like Latin America, including Guatemala and Nicaragua? We know they supported coups around the world including Guatemala, and trained both those controlling the military in these countries and the Contras that terrorized the Nicaraguans. Numerous books have reported on this and many of them are far more credible than David McGowan's including Aviva Chomsky's recent book "Central America's Forgotten History," which describes the indoctrination tactics used by governments that had their troops trained partly by the CIA in the following excerpt:
Many of the army troops were also Mayans, forced to attack villages similar to their own. Kidnapped or forcibly recruited as teenagers, they were brutalized and indoctrinated with anti-Indigenous racism. "The army kills part of your identity," explained one former recruit. "They want to break you and make you a new man. A savage man. They inspired me to kill."
In village after village, the army organized Civil Defense Patrols (PACs) that quite literally forced villages to attack and destroy themselves . p.94
.....
The Guardia's foot soldiers, like those in the Guatemalan army, were mostly poor campesino youth whose humiliating training indoctrinated them into a culture of cruelty. Their operations were small-scale and local: "centered on vice, quotidian violence, and criminal impunity." p.102
There's good reason to believe that if they were researching indoctrination tactics that they would do just that, as I pointed out in a couple other articles that show they were researching how to teach blind obedience to our own troop, Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, Stanford Prison Experiment and Eli Roth's Milgram/Obedience experiment much more extensive than most people realize. These articles show that while they were pretending to teach people to challenge authority they were also developing techniques to do the opposite when training our troops and another book by David Philipps, "Lethal Warriors," which started out as a series of newspaper articles, also shows how they encourage racism and bigotry with our own troops just like they do with the troops they force to fight for puppet regimes in Latin America or elsewhere.
There may also be some aspects that were almost certainly beyond the capabilities of the CIA, who became famous as "the gang who couldn't spray straight," when they tried to spray chemicals into parties and they blew out the windows and other absurd blunders during their mind control experiments. Even if they were able to create Manchurian candidates or patsies like Sirhan Sirhan and Dennis Sweeney who killed Allard Lowenstein, it's unlikely that they could have controlled cults as bizarre as the Manson cult or many others, although it's virtually guaranteed that they would have studied them to learn how to improve their own indoctrination tactics.
Furthermore, there may have been some other evidence of more far-fetched abilities which the CIA are even less likely to have been responsible for, and there are similar precedents for some of these bizarre events going back long before the CIA was even created. Many of these cults and a few serial killers not necessarily involved in cults believe they're acting on behalf of "God," "the Devil," or some other supernatural being and that they might be receiving protection from them, although this protection, assuming it ever existed, eventually comes to an end when they get caught.
Richard Ramirez claimed he was protected by the Devil, and he managed to get away with fourteen brazen and brutal murders as well as over a dozen survivors of his attacks. This isn't the highest number of people being killed by serial killers, by far but it's truly stunning that he was able to get away with it for so long, since it was much more brazen than other serial killers with higher death tolls with or without protection from Satan, assuming such a thing is possible. Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite both convinced their followers to commit suicide claiming they were messengers from God or aliens; Adolfo Constanzo claimed to be guided by Kadiempembe, a West African trickster god, and there are many more that allegedly held Satanic rituals or had other extremely bizarre beliefs, including, of course, Charles Manson. However, beliefs from fanatics wouldn't be considered strong evidence of anything, with the possible exception of mental illness.
In most, if not all cases there's little or no solid evidence that there's anything supernatural about these cult leaders or serial killers; however there might be a couple exceptions, and there may be evidence of other mystics that weren't serial killers and often adamantly opposed violence were involved in unexplained phenomena similar to these alleged claims. An even Vincent Bugliosi admits that they believed it and may have described some evidence of something unexplained as he wrote in Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders 1974/2001 p.191/259 in the following excerpt:
In Independence, Sandra Good had told me once, in the desert, Charlie had picked up a dead bird, breathed on it, and the bird had flown away. Sure, Sandy, sure, I replied. Since then I'd heard a great deal about Manson's alleged "powers"; Susan Atkins, for example, felt he could see and hear everything she did or said.
Midway through the arraignment I looked at my watch. It had stopped. Odd. It was the first time I could remember that happening. Then I noticed that Manson was staring at me, a slight grin on his face.
It was, I told myself, simply a coincidence.
The 1976 movie based on this book goes one step further and shows Manson laughing when Bugliosi looked at him staring and provides dramatic music making it seem ominous, as if Manson did stop the watch. By this time Uri Geller was famous for his alleged ability to bend spoons or stop watches, possibly showing some unexplained activities are possible. Many researchers, including Jacques Vallee found that there were unexplained phenomena surrounding Uri Geller, but he didn't seem to be in complete control of the. Other skeptics, like James Randi, get far more media attention, and claim he's a total fraud, but a closer look indicates they may not be able to explain everything he did.
Skeptics will understandably require more evidence than this, of course; however, whether Manson was able to do these things or not his followers thought he could, and his ability to convince them he could do these things is almost certainly part of the reason he was able to develop such a loyal following in less than two and a half years, which is far quicker than any cult following that I've ever heard of, especially so fanatical a cult. The description of his alleged "powers" go well beyond what Bugliosi describes according to several other accounts, including Ed Sanders book, including an alleged incident similar to an exorcism on a biker that was on drugs. Furthermore, he was able to control people that were much bigger than him, and convince them to let him beat them in many cases.
However, perhaps the strongest evidence that something unexplained happened with the Manson cult that can't be explained by fanatical beliefs is how he got the school bus, which was not made for off road driving, up to the Barker Ranch. Numerous sources, including Vincent Bugliosi express amazement that he could do this since even most four wheel drives can't make it up there and most people were only able to get up there with Dune Buggies, or helicopters, and even some of the Dune Buggies couldn't make it an constantly broke down. Ed Sanders points out that the school bus did break down once it got there, but other vehicles that were supposedly better able to handle off road driving couldn't even do that. In Ed Sanders book he claims that Steve Grogan, one of the least reliable sources, told him Manson levitated it; and in the movie one of the girls told the detectives that Manson "flew it," and they rolled their eyes and dismissed this explanation, but they never came up with another explanation and simply ignored this unsolved mystery.
Another cult leader, Shoko Asahara, later responsible for the Tokyo sarin attack in 1995 could allegedly levitate himself and convinced some supposedly rational people to believe it; according to an excerpt from Aum's Shoko Asahara and the Cult at the End of the World 07/01/1996:
The next man, 30-year-old Kenichi Hirose, had graduated at the top of his class in applied physics from Waseda University in 1987. He turned down a job at a big electronics firm to join the cult, but often returned to the university to question his professor about laser research. The professor was baffled by Hirose's choice. "Floating in the air violates the law of inertia," the professor once said, referring to Asahara's trick of appearing to levitate. "Why would a student of physics believe such an outrageous thing?" Hirose replied: "Because I saw it."
In addition to numerous other cult members that should have been too well educated to fall for such a scam testifying to the same thing, there's a photo of him allegedly levitating. Whether or not there is anything to these alleged mystical experiences there are an enormous number of people that believe there is and they've been taught to blindly follow cult leaders that have these alleged abilities, no matter how fanatical those cult leaders. Of course, with or without these alleged mystical experiences there's also additional evidence of more traditional cult indoctrination tactics, including peer pressure, intimidation and charismatic cult leaders.
In addition to these possible unexplained mysteries, there are also dozens, if not hundreds of people that claim they received messages in their head telling them to kill people, which is typically dismissed as schizophrenia, and is virtually always accompanied by severe abuse as a child which has been proven to teach violence later in life. However, there are some other major unsolved mysteries surrounding many people that were not violent and had certain unexplained abilities, including Uri Geller, and others that may have demonstrated stronger evidence of unexplained phenomena including Padre Pio, Helena Blavatsky, Andrew Jackson Davis, Joseph Smith Jr., Edgar Cayce, Edward Leedskalnin and Joan of Arc. In some of my previous articles about these unexplained mystics I showed how there was something unexplained about them and speculated about the possibility they might be related to UFOs even though there's little direct evidence of this for them, but there may be indirect evidence.
The other articles about mystics all had stronger evidence of something paranormal than this speculation that they may also have influenced serial killers; other articles I've written provide stronger evidence of a connection to aliens; and stronger evidence would be required to make a compelling case. Nevertheless Ancient Aliens did speculate about this possibility in Season 3 Episode 12 Aliens and Deadly Cults 10/12/2011 The evidence they provide isn't much if any more compelling than the evidence provided by David McGowan for some of his theories tying mass murderers or serial killers to MK-ULTRA, although the evidence tying them to cults is more convincing and the CIA has no doubt been studying them.
There may not be enough evidence to show that either the theory that MK-ULTRA or aliens are involved in inspiring serial killers; however there is enough evidence to show that there are many unsolved mysteries that aren't explained by traditional beliefs. There's also enough evidence to show that the government and CIA are keeping secrets about both aliens and their mind control research and methods to use propaganda to manipulate the public. Evidence to prove some of this is already public in books or alternative media outlets, but we need to get this information about how the public is being manipulated to the majority of the public that relies on traditional media and demand full disclosure about secret activities from our government, the CIA, and any other organizations conspiring against the public, including multinational corporations.
Furthermore, even if there is something to some of these theories, traditional research does far more to show the leading causes of violence and how to prevent it than these theories do, so this should be the fall back position which we should focus more on, even if it's less dramatic or has less appeal to emotion, yet they're not even doing that in the mainstream media, although the quality of good research in the academic world and alternative media continues to improve, and there are some people at local levels doing a far better job addressing the root causes of violence. There's no doubt that one of the most important root causes of violence is early child abuse leading to escalating violence later in life, and if you look at the history of all these serial killers this confirms this. There's also no doubt that by abandoning inner cities and not providing adequate educational or economic opportunities our own government is contributing to high rates of violence in those cities, although the majority of mass murderers or serial killers aren't from these abandoned inner cities.
This is almost certainly a major part of the reason why serial killers are far less common than they were in the seventies and eighties. According to Wikipedia: List of serial killers in the United States the number of new serial killers surged in the 1970s peaked in the 1980s and has been dropping sharply since then. (30 started in the 60s; 112 in 70s; 134 in 80s; 61 in 90s; 29 in 2000s; 6 in 2010s) Not only has the total number of serial killers dropped sharply, but almost all the serial killers with the highest death tolls ended decades ago. There are very few serial killers that killed more than ten people that were active after 2000 and only one that killed more than twenty and he was caught in 2006. There's no guarantee that this is a complete record of serial killers; however, even if it's incomplete, there's still good reason to believe that they rose in the seventies and eighties and plummeted after that, since the differences are so large. Part of the reason for the sudden surge in the seventies could be that the records for serial killers simply weren't complete before that; and part of the reason for the dramatic drop after 2000 could be some of the serial killers haven't been caught yet, especially after 2010. However, as I've reported in numerous previous articles, another important part of the reason for the sharp drop in serial killers is the same reason for the sharp drop in all murders over the same time period, the fact that early child abuse, including corporal punishment has been dropping sharply during that same time period.
Furthermore, whether these bizarre theories are right or not, we have evidence showing that the highest controlling authority, with the ability to get messages across to the public, which includes mainstream media, the government, and if there is such a thing as God or aliens or any other unknown advanced intelligence that has been influencing our culture for thousands of years, has been negligent when it comes to teaching the public about how to reduce violence. If there is no unknown advanced intelligence that has been influencing our society then the government and mainstream media has still been withholding education that can save thousands of lives every year. But if there is an advanced intelligence that has been influencing our society for thousands of years, as a significant amount of evidence shows, assuming people are willing to look at this evidence, then they've been withholding education about the most effective solutions to many problems including the reduction of violence for much longer. This means that this unknown advanced advance intelligence, whether you call it God, aliens or anything else, must have an undisclosed motive and shouldn't be trusted completely. we certainly should assume that God or aliens are benevolent.
If there is an advanced intelligence known as "God" it's hard to tell what the most compelling evidence to prove it is, especially to skeptics; or if you want to recognize his true characteristics, possibly to the faithful as well. But one good example that might prove it is Joan of Arc who clearly doesn't fit the typical characteristics of a peasant girl from that time, and she was able to convince people she received messages from God, Saints, or the archangel Michael, whether she did or not. It's extremely hard to believe that any woman of that time, especially a seventeen year old peasant woman could convince large numbers of people to follow he into war and win. There's also strong evidence supporting this story thanks to transcripts from two trials, one before she was burned at the stake, the other to restore her image a couple decades later.
Oddly enough few if any people question whether this would have been an effective way for God to look out for the best interests of his worshipers. Believers don't want to consider this because it might raise doubts about how good the God they worship is; atheists may not question this because they're committed to the belief that God doesn't exist at all. Regardless of why people don't question the behavior of this alleged God, if he was as benevolent as religious people think, don't you think he would have taught the faithful to get along and rule themselves without constant wars, genocide, torture or other atrocities? If God was an advanced intelligence as religious people believe, don't you think he would have access to research as good, if not better than modern academics thousands of years ago? If so, God could have set up a society thousands of years before Joan of Arc was born and there would have been no reason for him to inspire her to fight a cruel war, then abandon her while she was burned at the stake.
Once you consider this, it's clear that if there's an advanced intelligence known as God, he can't possibly be as benevolent or all-powerful as religious people believe. If there were also aliens visiting thousands of years ago, could they have been mistaken for this God? If so some people might be willing to consider that they might have an undisclosed motive and at least try to figure it out without worshiping God or blindly obeying irrational leaders. Even if God has a different nature, assuming he exists, surely he must have another motive, and we should consider it no matter what we call him. And while sorting this out, there's still plenty of good research in the academic world showing how to reduce violence.
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The following are some additional sources or related articles:
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Limbs of another woman were found in a freezer and a female corpse was discovered in a New Jersey forest.
Defence lawyer Charles Peruto said he plans to argue during the trial, set to begin April 4, that Heidnik was insane and that the hallucinogen LSD had aggravated his schizophrenia. Peruto said that army and Veterans Administration docu- ments show Heidnik was the subject of LSD tests between 1961 and 1963 -although an army spokesman said records did not show such testing.
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John Lennon — Life, Times And Assassination, by Phil Strongman 2010: Millions of us suffered a little death on 8 December 1980. The Beatles had been part of our childhood, our adolescence, our youth, our lives. To almost every young man and woman The lights in the screening room go down and we find ourselves in cosy, womb-like darkness. A switch is clicked behind us and a projector splutters into life; uneven at first, its jerky start soon Martin Bormann, Hitler’s deputy and keeper of the Nazi’s Swiss bank account codes, was saved by the loot factor. Although he was supposed to have died in Berlin in May 1945 as Nazi Germany collapsed, the actual body belonged to an unfortunate lookalike, for Bormann himself had been whisked off to Britain in a joint OSS/MI action (the action’s code name, according to former Royal Navy spy John Ainsworth-Davis, was OPJB). Through Bormann the Allies got most of the Nazi cash out of Switzerland and he was then allowed to flee to Paraguay and a life of luxurt. He died some 14 years later, The 1960 Communist guerrillas known as the Viet Cong started the National Liberation Front. From the start the NLF were clever enough to court the favour of the southern peasantry. Popular priests were … And by then, several thousand …. By the end of 1959 Lennon’s men were known as Johnny & The Moondogs - and this was the name under which they failed the audition to joint the talent stable of
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