A Fittingly Strange Animation of What’s Going On Inside Charles Manson’s Mind

In 1968, Charles Man­son lis­tened to The Bea­t­les’ White Album and came away think­ing that Amer­i­ca was on the verge of an apoc­a­lyp­tic race war between whites and blacks. As Man­son imag­ined it, the race war would be trig­gered by a shock­ing, chaot­ic event called “Hel­ter Skel­ter” — a named bor­rowed from a song on the White Album. And, like most mega­lo­ma­ni­acs, Man­son put him­self at the cen­ter of the dra­ma. In the sum­mer of 1969, Man­son had mem­bers of his cult com­mit a series of infa­mous mur­ders in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, hop­ing that African-Amer­i­cans would be blamed and the race war would begin. Instead, a lengthy police inves­ti­ga­tion led to Man­son’s arrest on Decem­ber 2, 1969 and his con­vic­tion soon there­after, mak­ing him then, and now, one of Amer­i­ca’s noto­ri­ous inmates.

Through the 1980s, Man­son, even though behind bars, remained a very pub­lic fig­ure, giv­ing high pro­file inter­views to Tom Sny­der, Char­lie Rose, and Ger­al­do Rivera. But then, he began to fade from view, for what­ev­er rea­sons. For the past 20 years, we haven’t heard much from him. Until this came along. Above, you can watch Leah Shore’s ani­ma­tion of nev­er-before-heard phone con­ver­sa­tions between Charles Man­son and Mar­lin Maryn­ick (who lat­er pub­lished a best-sell­ing biog­ra­phy called Charles Man­son Now). Fit­ting­ly strange, the ani­ma­tion reminds us of the very odd things going on inside Man­son’s mind. Off kil­ter as ever, he goes in all kinds of unex­pect­ed direc­tions.

via Vice

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Time Neil Young Met Charles Man­son, Liked His Music, and Tried to Score Him a Record Deal

Tim­o­thy Leary’s Wild Ride and the Fol­som Prison Inter­view

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