In a Manson interview at Vacaville in 1985 with KALX-FM, affiliated with the University of California system, Charlie said he was a student of yoga master Paramahansa Yogananda in the '40s and '50s
"I went to all the retreats. I've seen the light."
Some quotes from the yogi indicate his teachings may have been the source of some of Charlie's own beliefs:
"Remember that your children are not your own..."
"You are originally unlimited and perfect."
"The secret ... is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future... but to live in the present moment..."
"The delusion of egoism must be destroyed..."
"Death is really beautiful.."
If
Manson was attending the retreats in Southern California, when could
this have been? It would have been when Charlie was running free in
SoCal, from about August of '55 to February of '56 (7 months), and again
from Oct of '58 to about Dec of '59 (14 months). The fact that Manson
'went to all the retreats' indicates he was an enthusiastic disciple--at
least for a time. In the same way he was an enthusiastic student of
Scientology and an enthusiastic student of the guitar.
-------------------
LVH was also a student of the yogi. From Helter Skelter, pg545:
"[Leslie's
boyfriend Bobby] Mackey, in the meantime, had become a novitiate priest
in the Self Realization Fellowship[the Yogi's church]. In an attempt to
continue their relationship, Leslie became a novitiate nun, giving up
both drugs and sex. She lasted about eight months before breaking with
both Mackey and the yoga group."
Did Leslie's previous studies at the ashram make her more vulnerable to Charlie's own programming?
-----------------
But if Charlie was an adherent of the Yogi, why did none of the Family
speak of it? Why didn't Charlie show up at any of the 3-4
retreats/dwellings/ashrams where the faithful gathered in SoCal, trying
to secure housing for his brood in '68-'69? The way he did at Hinman's
house, the basement house, the hog farm, Dennis Wilson's house, the FOTW, Spahns, and Barker.
-----------------
What is it about Southern California, cults, and young loves?
When they call California "the land of the fruits and the nuts," they are not always referring to the state's bounteous agricultural output. Certain themes appear over and over.
That
every official in L.A. was not dazzled by the swami seems apparent from
a series of articles that appeared in the Times in 1928. “Cult
To Be Subject of New Inquiry,” announced one. It stated that although
the district attorney’s office some months before had looked into the
practices at the Mt. Washington center and had found “nothing criminal,”
another investigation was being launched “to establish if any juvenile laws are being violated....” A few days later, a longer article alluded to “accusations that a love-cult
is being conducted under the cloak of the Vedantic religion of India”
and elaborated, “The interest of the District Attorney’s office in the
asserted love-cult activity is said to be centered on whether young girls were included in the various classes in which love and sex theories are declared to be unfolded.”
