How I Met Manson
It began one night when I was driving out Sunset Boulevard toward the beach, heading home to Malibu. By then I'd sold my T-Bird and had an old 1935 Dodge pickup. Hitchhikers were pretty common on Sunset, and I pulled over to pick one up. When he told me his name was Dennis Wilson it didn't mean anything to me, but when he said he was one of the Beach Boys I was impressed. I remembered all those surfing songs banging out of my brother's room back in Copeville. I grinned to myself, wondering what he would think if he could see me now with Dennis Wilson taking a ride in my truck and explaining how he'd wrecked his Ferrari and his Rolls Royce so was having to use his thumb.
When we got to his house in Pacific Palisades he invited me in. Rolling up the long driveway to what had once been Will Rogers's mansion, I played with the idea of what it would be like to tell my brother about the time one of the Beach Boys had me in for coffee. When we went inside it was all I could do to keep my mouth closed. I'd never been in a place like this before. It was a long way from a three-bedroom frame house in Texas.
The first thing I saw when we came into the kitchen was a heavyset, bald-headed man with a big gray beard pouring down his chest, sitting at the table with a few girls. He introduced himself as Dean Moorehouse. Over the next few months Dean and I would become friends, despite the fact he was twice my age. I was to find out that he'd once been a Methodist minister, that up in Ukiah, California. After the Family left San Francisco, he'd gone after Charlie, ready to kill him for seducing his daughter Ruth (the one the Family came to call “Ouisch”). Instead of killing him though, he ended up worshiping Charlie as Christ, after Charlie turned him on to LSD. Since then, he'd given up whatever Christian beliefs he'd once held and became a kind of wandering guru, teaching a lot of people in the film and music industries that true “awareness” and real “religion” came through opening yourself up with acid.
When people became aware, according to Dean, they could be free to die to themselves, to die to their egos. Then they would understand that Charles Manson was the reincarnation of the Son of God. Finding out all this came later, though. That night in the kitchen he was just a fat old man with a greasy beard, trying to look like a hippie.
Almost as soon as I came in he said there was somebody I should meet in the living room. I followed him.
There he was — surrounded by five or six girls — on the floor next to the huge coffee table with a guitar in his hands. He looked up, and the first thing I felt was a sort of gentleness, an embracing kind of acceptance and love.
“This is Charlie,” Dean said. “Charlie Manson.”
There was a large ashtray full of Lebanese hash sitting in the middle of the coffee table. Pretty soon Charlie and Dean and Dennis and I were lounging back on the oversize sofas, smoking. Nobody said much. As we got stoned, Charlie started playing his music, softly, almost to himself.
Here I was, accepted in a world I'd never even dreamed about, mellow and at my ease. Charlie murmured in the background, something about love, finding love, letting yourself love. I suddenly realized that this was what I was looking for: love. Not that my parents and brother and sister hadn'tloved me, but somehow, now, that didn't count. I wanted the kind of love they talked about in the songs — the kind of love that didn't ask you to be anything, didn't judge what you were, didn't set up any rules or regulations — the kind of love that just accepted you, let you be yourself, do your thing whatever it was — the kind of love I seemed to be feeling right now, sitting around this coffee table getting zonked on some of the best hash I'd ever had, with a rock star and a fat old hippie and the little guy with the guitar who just kept singing softly, smiling to himself. It occurred to me that all the love in the room was coming from him, from his music.
Suddenly the girls came out of the kitchen and started serving us sandwiches they'd made — organic, full of sprouts and avocado and cheese. It was as if we were kings, just because we were men, and nothing could make them happier than waiting on us, making us happy. We all lay back and listened to Charlie sing to us about love — making love to us and for us with his music. I'd never known such peace.
Late that night at my truck as I was leaving, Dennis smiled and told me to come by anytime, take a swim in the pool, whatever I wanted. I drove out to Malibu, knowing that whatever had been going wrong in my life would be okay now. I'd found what really mattered: love between people, love that made all the old ideas about love as romance, or love as your parents pushing at you, just fade away. Charlie Manson was the first person I'd met who really knew what love was all about.
Angel of Light: Falsehood
We are warned that people will try to fool us by disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. We are told to not be surprised! Even Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:13,14).
On looking back, there was an invisible battle going on for my soul, during my first meeting with Manson; a battle I was not equipped to fight. Unbeknownst to me, I had come face to face with a modern day shaman, ready to deceive through his sorcery.
Briefly, let me explain how we can be deceived in this day and age through sorcery. You have seen many modern-day shamans, without recognizing them. In the old days, shamans would sometimes dress up as a buffalo, to deceive an entire herd. He would lead the herd in sort of a stampede over the cliff, only at the last minute, he would turn aside saving himself, not going over the cliff. Do you know a type of modern-day shaman? Does this sound familiar from what you have heard about Manson, leading a group of young people over a cliff in 1969?
To identify these shamans more clearly, they use drugs to manipulate and control others. This is where sorcery comes into play. Sorcery is the use of evil supernatural power over people --witchcraft. A sorcerer uses mind altering drugs in order to contact spiritual beings, to gain supernatural powers. Sorcery comes from the Greek word "pharmakia," where we get our word for pharmacy, or drugs.
Most people using mind altering drugs don't realize they are delving into an evil world, opening the doorway to the occult. Without realizing it, an evil spell was being cast over me. I was charmed, impressed with the mysterious powers of the sorcerer. Manson's music was being used as part of a ritual of magic, a formula of words, chants, recited for my deception. While smoking hash with Manson, unknowingly I chose to open my mind to evil and to give myself as the sacrifice. A coincidental meeting with the shaman that I will regret for the rest of my life.
Although we continue to pray for Charlie Manson to receive Christ, the Associated Press reported, on June 10,1997, that he was "...found guilty of trafficking drugs in prison," by the California Department of Corrections, as well as "...tested positive for drugs in prison at least twice." In 2018, he passed away.
God's Love Abounds: Truth
It was a false love that night with Charlie, a counterfeit love, a false sense of well being, experienced while high on hash. This false love comes from an evil world, with the intent to charm, persuade, entice, and then enslave its victims.
See, all of us have an emptiness that can only truly be filled with God's love, unlike the momentary euphoric experience with drugs. God's love would never suggest to exclude parents and family from our lives. In our rebellion against God, and sometimes parents, we refuse God's love, falling prey to chasing the next euphoric feeling, sexual feelings, and the things of life that seem to fill that emptiness for a season. But in no time, we find ourselves fooled, our lust never satisfied, and our life stolen from us. Some of us allowed the demonic powers within us to come out and destroy ourselves and others. Jesus says, "The thief 's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness" (John 10:10 NLT).
"Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God--for God is love.
"God showed how much He loved us by sending His only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins" (1 John 4:7-10 NLT).
"And God has given us (at Abounding Love Ministries) His Spirit as proof that we live in Him (Christ) and He is in us. Furthermore, we...testify that the Father (God) sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. All who proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in Him.
"God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we are like Christ here in this world" (1 John 4:13-17).
Our Web site presents to you the beauty of God's Word. We suggest, especially to those who are new Christians, to obtain a New Living Translation Bible (Tyndale House Publishers), at their local Bible book store. It is clear and precise in sharing the simplicity of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Won't you draw near to God today?