the totally insane true story behind the 1970s film and book Sybil

Moderation in all things, including Mansonology

bugliosi definitely has OPINIONS but they mainly seem to be about the judge and other lawyers, i feel like he's pretty charitable towards everyone else (even manson) but i'm not done with the book yet

hmm okay now I want to reread

yeah I don't think he's a scaremongering anti-hippie/pro-establishment type in the book at all

he's pretty critical of LAPD too

yeah he is absolutely brutal towards some of the detectives/police for losing evidence, not following up leads etc.

Anyone have an opinion on The Garbage People by John Gilmore? I bought this at a garage sale many years ago but haven't read it. Reading amazon I see it was re-released as Manson: the unholy trail of... and gets mostly negative reviews.

I still haven't read that one yet. I do like The Shadow Over Santa Susana by Adam Gorightly which is probably the first book I'd hand to someone if they weren't familiar with all the details about the case, The Family, the occult symbology they lifted from, and the whole weird environment around LA in 1969. Worth checking out.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q1r6WUp0yrU/The5ttCOusI/AAAAAAAAAZI/mDemGu_-Oew/s1600/005.JPG

The late '80s were the golden age of Satanic panic, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the woman known as Lauren Stratford launched that panic to a whole new level.

I guess above link is part of a series on related stuffs: http://swallowingthecamel.blogspot.ca/2012/06/prodigal-witch.html

Susan Atkins' husband (a friend of mine) just self-published her memoirs, which are available on Amazon. I have only read brief excerpts, but I believe her version of stuff more than others'.

Update from Satan's Silence:

Just read an entire chapter about the unusual nature of hymens, a short but detailed historical look at the implications of anal winking, and stories of children whose parents agreed to let their genitals be photographed for Medicine and what those photos were used for.

anal winking? I feel like DJP should know about this.

wait everyone doesn't know what that is? by the time i got done reading this chapter, it was like well yeah, anal winking. it was no big deal.

oh god this thread is an out-of-context gold mine

I do not know what it is.

ok do not read this if you are sensitive about anatomy:

it's just a physical reaction -- when you poke someone's anus with a qtip, it will react. the degree to which it reacts was used to determine a variety of things historically, including whether or not the poked person has engaged in sodomy or was abused sexually. unfortunately, it's just a frequently occurring physical reaction to having a qtip poking your anus -- not a taboo thing, just like a reflex. it just sounds funny, like the glory hole in glassblowing.

at least that is what i learned from reading this chapter. i am not an expert in this field nor am i medical professional. i am writing a book report.

That's so bizarre. Whose butthole wouldn't wink if you poked it?

I'm going to punch you in the mouth and if you wince, it means you love sucking dick.

basically
also imagine that you are a 2-4 year old

:(

wait, a reaction was seen as an indicator of weird things happening, not vice-versa?

this is serious "if it floats it's a witch" territory

correct
it is exactly that

the more you deny it, the more they think it's true

i searched my school's academic databases looking for some of the articles referenced as the scientific foundation of the SRA panic, but i didn't search very hard. i found a few things but not exactly what i was looking for. anyway, there was a huge movement to institutionalize/basically codify the research so that the court cases could proceed.

i'll also repeat -- there were obvious class issues at play here as well. also, this was the USA in the mid-late 1980s.

i mean.

anyone who is across-the-board nostalgic for the 80s either wasn't born yet or wasn't paying attention, at all

1986 Meese Report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meese_Report
It was a fertile climate for total nonsense.

that was some hard work, researching all that porn

tax dollars at work

And there weren't even internets for people to mutually reinforce their nonsense on!

meanwhile, in Central America...

It really was terrifying. When Reagan was elected, I was 12 and I knew in my 12 yo bones that he was going to start a nuclear armageddon v the USSR. By the time I was old enough to realize why that prob wasn't gonna happen I was old enough to understand what he and his coven were up to in yes Central America and elsewhere

yah the eighties were creepy.

i went to public schools and a couple of times they let this cultic christian "campus cruasade"-type group come in and show these dumb multi-media presentations to the entire school-- basically multiple slide projectors running along with (presumably) unlicensed pop music... so there'd be some outfield or mike and the mechanics song playing while a narrator asked a lot of vague rhetorical questions about "making the right decisions" and "fitting in". then at the end some guy got up and invited everyone to come to a "pizza party" that night. i remember some kids who went reporting that it was held in a barn(!) and yeah, it was this bait-and-switch where the teen meetup pizza party turned out to be all about jesus.

it still kind of pisses me off that a public high school would let these people roll through and try to sneakily recruit for their cult. and it WAS basically a cult, b/c a girl i knew stuck with it and a couple of years later she was at my college and still participating with the group. they eventually got banned from campus after they started getting media attention for trying to isolate students from their families, etc. it was one of those ones that would come up to you while you were innocently eating lunch or studying in the library or whatever and would start asking you if you knew for certain that you were going to heaven...

I was 5 in 1980 and I remember crying when I heard that Teeth wasn't going to be our president anymore.

xp - omg that story is terrifying

xps lol "he and his coven"

as my friend, who grew up in a pretty church-oriented family just said to me:
"times were simpler, we absolutely knew that the enemy was living among us
pretending to be god-fearing, church-going Christians, and killing babies under the full moon"

Teeth!

Thing is it's so much worse now, just without the nukes.

ugh, don't remind me

It really was terrifying. When Reagan was elected, I was 12 and I knew in my 12 yo bones that he was going to start a nuclear armageddon v the USSR. By the time I was old enough to realize why that prob wasn't gonna happen I was old enough to understand what he and his coven were up to in yes Central America and elsewhere

I was 9 when he was first elected but had out of control nuclear Armageddon phobia no thanks to this bozo. In 1984, my jagoff social studies teacher had a mock election and I was the only one to vote for Mondale. (The teach said we all voted like our parents were planning to and accused me of fibbing when I said my parents were staunch Reaganites. He also gave me more detentions than any other teacher ever.)

Also holy shit your user name.

Yeah I was in St Paul MN where it was possible for a high school freshman to think Mondale might win, lol. Was crushed by the results.

lol thx xp

My paranoid kids' group failed to attract membership in NEOH, but I bet if you guys had been nearby and had seen my flyers for the Children's Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament, you would have considered attending my meetings. There were only three before my two friends gave up. (We also took a bus to DC and camped out in the mall for the homeless. On that bus ride I learned about The Cure!)

Girl you know I would have been at your meeting.

I was 9 when he was first elected but had out of control nuclear Armageddon phobia no thanks to this bozo

I was 15, but was already well down this path of fear. I remember just fuming at everything when news leaked out that Nancy Reagan had a personal astrologer visit her in the White House.

Girl you know I would have been at your meeting.

― carl agatha, Wednesday, October 24, 2012 1:01 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:D

finally, our membership flourishes! 25 years later better than not at all.