Talk:Helter Skelter (scenario)

message: The Beatles record refered to in this article is listed as The White Album, however, the actual title of the record is The Beatles the "white album" is just a nickname resulting from the record's packaging.
:The nickname should not have been used without explanation.  In the article's lead section and in the Timeline, I've inserted parenthetical indication of the album's formal name.JohnBonaccorsi 23:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Album name

message: The Wikipedia copyright policy says: If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry).  The tatelabianca blog states that it is carrying the contents of the book is copyright, and not of the blog author or owner.  It is, of course, highly unlikely that the blog will ever be sued, but per our policy we may not link to that external site unless and until it can demonstrate that the content is carried by permission of the rights holder.  The introduction rather seems to state the opposite, being rather an apologia for not having permission.  Removing the link to the blog does not impact on the article since the citations are to the book itself and their validity is independent of the ability to link to content of the book.  Many citations to print sources can't link to the source online, this is not a problem as long as sufficient detail is provided for independent verification.  In that respect, page numbers would be useful. Guy (Help!) 16:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links 

message: I am reluctantly going to undo the series of edits by 24.5.15.124.  At first, I simply undid his/her worst error, the alteration of the verb "pored" to "poured" in a context in which the former was correct; but now I am going to undo his/her elimination of bracketed substitutions that were necessary to make quoted passages accurate or intelligible.  (To put it bluntly:  he/she seems to have no knowledge of the function of brackets in quoted passages.)  When I do so, I will also be undoing his/her heading changes, whose importance, for better or worse, is not great.  In other words, I'm going to execute a mass-undo rather than attempt to undo the de-bracketing instance by instance.JohnBonaccorsi 23:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intent to undo 

message: At 04:51, 7 March 2008, the article’s opening sentence was revised as follows:
:The murders perpetrated by Charles Manson and members of his Family were inspired in part by Manson’s interpretation of Helter Skelter, as describing an apocalyptic war that would arise from tension over racial relations between blacks and whites.
Previously, the sentence was this:
:The murders perpetrated by Charles Manson and members of his Family were inspired in part by Manson’s prediction of Helter Skelter, an apocalyptic war he believed would arise from tension over racial relations between blacks and whites.
The revision is unclear and misconceived.  What is meant by "Manson’s interpretation of Helter Skelter," the phrase the revision employs to introduce the subject of the article?  Does it mean Manson’s interpretation of the everyday word helter-skelter?  It can’t mean that.  It apparently means Manson’s interpretation of the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter" — or, arguably, of the term helter skelter as used in the song; but neither the song nor the term (as used in the song) is the article's subject, although both certainly have to do with the subject.  The subject, as is indicated at the head of the article and as is clear throughout it, is "Charles Manson’s prophesied war" — the war that he predicted and that he took to be the subject of that song and, in fact, several other Beatles songs.
I am going to undo the revision.71.242.167.173 (talk) 02:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revision of 04:51, 7 March 2008 

message: At 06:00, 30 June 2009, an editor added the word "supposed" to the article’s first sentence:
:The murders perpetrated by members of Charles Manson’s "Family" were inspired in part by Manson’s supposed prediction of Helter Skelter....
I am going to delete "supposed."  Manson’s preaching of Helter Skelter is attested, in whole or in part, in the following:
:*Tex Watson’s autobiography, Will You Die for Me? — particularly, Chapter 11
:*My Life with Charles Manson — the autobiography of Paul Watkins — particularly Chapter 12
:*Child of Satan, Child of God — the autobiography of Susan Atkins — particularly the chapter entitled "Helter Skelter."  (Although Atkins argues that the triggering of Helter Skelter was not the motive for the murders, she says Manson "was convinced that he had some sort of apocalyptic connection with The Beatles" and that he "felt a black-white 'armageddon' was coming and then feared that [his shooting of Bernard Crowe] might trigger it.")
:*The trial testimony of Paul Watkins
:*Statements from Family members and associates such as Juan Flynn, Brooks Poston, and, I think, Dianne Lake.  These statements are quoted in Bugliosi and Gentry’s Helter Skelter, but I won’t attempt to track them down now.  (Somewhere in the Watkins autobiography, too, is a scene in which Lake fearfully tells Watkins that "Helter Skelter is coming down.")
:*Statements by Family associate "Juanita" (apparently the "Juanita Wildebush" referred to in the Watkins autobiography).  An interview that was presented in issue #31 (circa 2006) of an apparently-indie magazine called Tin House is transcribed in a  June 5, 2008 entry at a blog called "Official Tate-LaBianca Murders Blog."  It contains this exchange:
::Interviewer: Manson also talked a lot about race wars, didn't he? Wasn't that the foundation of his "Helter Skelter" ideology and ultimately what led the Family to murder?
::Juanita: What was going to happen in this backward world to make it right was that the black man, who had been oppressed for years, was going to become the superior race, and the blacks would rule the world. "Helter Skelter" was Charlie's plan for and name for their uprising and also, it turned out, apparently, for the murders which he hoped would provoke that. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Manson hoped that the murders would be thought to have been committed by blacks, bringing even further oppression down on them, in turn provoking them to rise up.] The reason we had to find a place in the desert was we had to have a place to run and hide, because as whites we were going to be killed or enslaved unless we were smart enough to find a place to live until - until it all balanced out. Eventually, the black man would ask Charlie and the Family to take over, because he wouldn't be able to rule on his own.
::We didn't call it "Helter Skelter" until the Beatles record came down, and then it was, "Aha, look at that - our prophets." It's only in the last two years that I've even been able to tolerate listening to The White Album.
::Interviewer: Was that really going on, what Helter Skelter describes as the mental preparation and buildup for the murders - playing the songs "Helter Skelter," "Piggies," "Revolution 9," and "Blackbird" from the album over and over? The line in "Blackbird" that goes, "All your life, you have only waited for this moment to arise," which supposedly referred to the rising up of the blacks?
::Juanita: All of that was going on.
:*A statement from California Highway Patrolman James Pursell, who arrested Manson at Barker Ranch in October 1969.  The statement is quoted, I think, in Bugliosi and Gentry’s Helter Skelter, but it also appears in a  July 2009 Los Angeles magazine article published to mark the Tate-LaBianca murders’ fortieth anniversary:
:::Pursell:  Charlie [who had just been arrested] told us that his group was out there looking for a place to hide because there was an impending race war.  He told us that the blacks were going to win.  He told us that because we were number one, cops, and number two, white, we should stop right there, let them loose, and flee for our lives.
::(This statement is particularly interesting, because it reveals that Manson’s Helter Skelter remarks were not made only to his intimates.)
:*Statements made by former Family member Catherine Share, as, for instance, in the July 2009 Los Angeles magazine article I’ve already cited.  (See also the statements of former Family member Barbara Hoyt in that article.)
  
:*An article by Rolling Stone writer David Dalton, whose quotation of statements Manson made directly to him about a black uprising, the Beatles, and the Book of Revelation is presented in the Wikipedia article.  This is another example of Manson’s talking about Helter Skelter, shortly after his arrest, with, essentially, a stranger.
:*Gregg Jakobson’s trial testimony — which includes, among other things, a description of a Helter Skelter mural that, as far as I can recall, Bugliosi and Gentry don’t even mention in Helter Skelter and that, accordingly, has not become part of Manson lore.  It is striking:
::Prosecutor Bugliosi: Did you ever see the words Helter Skelter written at Spahn Ranch?
::Jakobson: Yes.
::Bugliosi: Where?
::...
::Jakobson: There was a room called--it was an old saloon in one of the old sets.
::Bugliosi: Among the front buildings at the ranch?
::Jakobson: Right.
::Bugliosi: Right off Santa Susanna 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 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.
::...
::Bugliosi: And you say that on this mural there were the words Helter Skelter as coming down fast?
::Jakobson: Helter Skelter. Not coming down fast.  The picture was coming down out of the heavens, like rocks or objects. They were painted, in other words, the mountains and so on, were painted. Not with words.
::Bugliosi: At the bottom of the mural were there the words Goler Wash?
::Jakobson: Yes. I am a little fuzzy on that but--
::Bugliosi: Were the words Death Valley at the bottom of the mural?
::Jakobson: I seem to recollect that, yes.
::Bugliosi: You indicated that Mr. Manson used the term Helter Skelter fairly frequently in is every-day conversation; is that correct?
::Jakobson: Yes.
:*Leslie Van Houten’s statements such as this, from a 1977 interview with Barbara Walters:
::That — you know, that's what he said, that — that next summer there would be this big revolution and that the chosen people would live in a hole in the middle of the desert; and then after the crimes, we went out and looked for the hole.
I could present a few other items — and there might be yet others, which are not coming to my mind or with which I’m not familiar.  The above is enough.
Opposed to all of that, as far as I know, is nothing but mere gainsaying.  This, for instance, is from Manson himself, at about the one-fifth point of his 1992 parole hearing:
:[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.
That doesn’t justify the use of "supposed" in the article’s opening sentence; and, in fact, the use of "supposed" is irresponsible if it’s based on nothing more than that sort of thing.  It merely ratifies Manson’s self-serving denials.
Any editor who is aware of substantive statements that raise doubts that Manson preached Helter Skelter will kindly present them here before reinserting "supposed" — or an equivalent word — in the article.71.242.134.155 (talk) 07:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: With the exception of Watkins and possibly Watson years later, how much of this has to do with it being the motive for the murders? Samurai Kung fu Cowboy (talk) 19:56, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Supposed" 

message: In a pair of edits at 05:58 and 06:11, 13 September 2009, I removed the article’s statement that Manson construed "Glass Onion’s" reference to "the fool on the hill" as a reference to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.  The statement was based on the following, which is from Chapter 11 of the Tex Watson autobiography, Will You Die for Me?:
:And there was more, much more. The proof that the Beatles knew about Charlie, knew that he was in Los Angeles and were urging him to speak out, to sing the truth to the world, was in their song "Honey Pie":
::Oh honey pie my position is tragic Come and show me the magic Of your Hollywood song....
:Obviously they wanted Charlie to make his album. And if they weren't so exhausted from their fruitless trip to find the true Jesus (Charlie) in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India (whom they had written off as "the fool on the hill" in an earlier song that was referred to in the White Album's song "Glass Onion"), they would come looking for him in California - they'd join him. After all, didn't they say as much when in "Honey Pie" they sang: "I'm in love but I'm lazy"?
I’d recently been struck that it’s not quite clear there that Watson is saying Manson himself had something to say about "Glass Onion."  After another editor entered a revision (at 22:06, 11 September 2009) that revealed that this whole subject is complicated by the reference to the earlier song "The Fool on the Hill," I decided to delete the article’s references to both songs ("Glass Onion" and "The Fool on the Hill").JohnBonaccorsi (talk) 06:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  References to "Glass Onion" and "Fool on the Hill" 

message: I recently became aware of an excerpt from Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast, a recently-published book about Manson.  After reading the excerpt, I had copyright questions that I have formulated and addressed in a long document that I have prepared in my Wikipedia “sandbox.”  One of the reasons the said sandbox page is long is that it includes the entire excerpt of which I’ve just spoken.  If the page were shorter, I would post it here, on the talk-page of the Wikipedia article entitled "Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)"; but because it is so long, I will keep it in my "sandbox."  The page is hereby "published," and I ask Wikipedia editors and administrators to read it.  In it, I request the assistance of Wikipedia editors and administrators in bringing its copyright questions to the attention of the legal department of Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.  The page is this:
:::User:JohnBonaccorsi/Sandbox/Wells bookJohnBonaccorsi (talk) 20:01, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wells book 

message: Interesting stuff, but should the wikipedia article be so huge for sth that is basically just a bucketload full of shit  88.72.192.123 (talk) 14:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with the above; this article is significantly longer than it should be. The information is hardly encyclopedic and would probably fall under trivia. 68.5.161.143 (talk) 02:20, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Then you are free to do what is necessary... -- megA (talk) 22:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hmmm 

message: This article basically a long treatise on a murderer's insane fantasy. Not sire if it fits wikipedia guideline. --222.255.193.81 (talk) 09:40, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's the point 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 12 external links on Helter Skelter (Manson scenario). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070405004745/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130818080042/http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-012.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-012.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075249/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-013.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-013.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075221/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-014.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-014.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119080010/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-015.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-015.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119080347/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-007.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-007.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130818080042/http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-012.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-012.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070405004745/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070405004745/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-009.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075249/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-013.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-013.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075221/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-014.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-014.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119080010/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-015.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-015.php
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:14, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Personally, I thought this was fascinating and well structured. If I think a portion is too wordy I can skim.PurpleChez (talk) 12:48, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I know you added your comment four years ago but I'm just reading it now so please forgive the late response. I definitely think this article could use a trim amongst many other things. I don't agree it's well structured. However, I don't know if you worked on it but I personally definitely support a trim. As far as other things to take into consideration please read the comment I added about neutrality on the talk page. Thank you. If you notice misattributed quotes please correct them. This article frequently quoted other people and attributed them to Manson. Also, I've done my best on this already but when someone makes a claim, Wikipedia should note who it was and not present it as objective truth, especially on an article like this. Anything without a verifiable citation can be removed outright. This includes a lot of info on here. That means if it has no isbn or URL. These are mostly ref that say Watson or Watkins Ch. and then different numbers. Also blog sites like Abounding Love probably don't cut it. Some things to keep in mind if you still have any desire to work on this. Thank you. Samurai Kung fu Cowboy (talk) 20:10, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Sadly I don't remember the specifics that I had in mind, so I'll have to rethink it. Thanks for the message!!PurpleChez (talk) 16:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  too long?? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Helter Skelter (Manson scenario). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075303/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-011.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-011.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101119075303/http://aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-011.php to http://www.aboundinglove.org/sensational/wydfm/wydfm-011.php
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 21:56, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The lede mentions that there are alternative (credible) theories, which means that a number of people don't buy into the Helter Skelter narrative. If "Helter Skelter" weren't inherited wisdom due to the best-selling book, I think pretty much anyone would admit it sounds like prosecutorial fantasy. So a criticism section is certainly warranted. The page on the Manson Family for example, says: Mike McGann, an LAPD investigator on the Tate–LaBianca murders, later said, "Everything in Vince Bugliosi's book (Helter Skelter) is wrong. I was the lead investigator on the case. Bugliosi didn't solve it. Nobody trusted him." Bueller 007 (talk) 19:24, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: "If 'Helter Skelter' weren't inherited wisdom due to the best-selling book, I think pretty much anyone would admit it sounds like prosecutorial fantasy."  Spare me.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxRiawiq2dI ("Leslie Van Houten, December 29, 1969, interviewed by Marvin L. Part") 98.114.190.60 (talk) 04:48, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs a section on criticism of the theory