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We Can All Break
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Charles Manson
"You can project it back at me, but I am only what lives inside each and every one of you... I am only what you made me. I am a reflection of you." Charles Manson
Susan Atkins was involved in the Charles Manson murders. Those murders, possibly the most sensational, infamous, and horrific of the twentieth century, were performed by several of Charles Manson’s devotees. These people all lived together on a ranch in Death Valley, referred to themselves as "The Family”, and followed the teachings and guidance of the charismatic Manson.
Manson used drugs and sex to lure in his followers, all young and aimless, and to control them and eventually break them down. While he says he never killed anyone himself and claims he never told anyone else to kill (completely untrue, if we are to believe statements from the others), he was clearly in charge, and his “family” was clearly manipulated.
The murdered included pregnant actress Sharon Tate, her visiting guests that evening, as well as the caretaker of her mansion and his friend, all stabbed and/or shot. Repeatedly stabbed at another location on the following night were Leno La Bianca, and his wife Rosemary La Bianca.
The killers, including Susan Atkins, were merciless and brutal. They laughed, not only during the crimes, but later in court, where they made daily headlines with bizarre antics and premeditated attention-seeking disruptions. They were convicted and imprisoned, then occasionally made the news throughout the past 38 years whenever they came up for parole, which they were always denied.
Susan Atkins, now suffering from brain cancer, has asked to be released from prison so she can go home to die.
The easy answer to her is no. She willingly murdered, and at the time expressed no remorse. No one who commits that kind of senseless crime deserves compassion. She is serving her punishment, and surely one lifetime in prison isn’t even enough to make up for what she did! Her request for release is an insult to the families of the victims.
However, she is no longer brainwashed, and is no longer a threat. She is sorry and ashamed. In her 2002 interview with Susan Atkins, Diane Sawyer said to her, “Then again, for the people who believe that in order to be able to do monstrous things, you must be a monster…” Susan Atkins replied, “That’s simply not true. That is simply not true.”
She has a point. Everyone is capable of anything. Given the right circumstances, the right motivation, and the right mental state, any one of us could murder, and even laugh while doing it. We can smugly deny this, and we can emotionally separate ourselves from people who have experienced mental states and motivations we ourselves escaped, but the reality is that we are all on the same road, following the same path, and subject to the same mental mirages. We can all break. We are all breakable.
Charles Manson is an accessible and recognizable symbol of evil. His rantings are hateful, paranoid, violent and remorseless. His eyes alone make you recoil and take a step backward. Yet he somehow persuaded one young person after another to follow him, to believe him, and to believe he was good (some were even convinced he was Jesus Christ), to do as he said, and to kill.
He created a cult. He had a gift for brainwashing his followers into compliance and obedience. Even their bodies were not their own. Manson orchestrated orgies, where he ordered both homosexual and heterosexual pairings; it is likely that everyone at the ranch had sex with every other person at that ranch. And he encouraged drug use with hallucinogens, which he never took himself (or never took to the extent that the others did) so that he could remain in control. He isolated his young followers, and pummeled them with lectures about a societal breakdown from which they alone would emerge unscathed and triumphant. He painted the murder victims as enemies of The Family, deserving of murder. His followers, including Susan Atkins, while willing participants, were also victims. Had they never crossed his path, they would never have murdered. Manson provided for them the mental state, the motivation and the circumstances they would not have found elsewhere.
Susan Atkins and the other “Manson Girls” were not visibly sane at the time of the trial hearings in 1970. Their crazed laughter, and their inappropriate comments and behaviors were shocking because they were NOT sane comments or sane behaviors. Susan was 20 years old, and had been with Charles Manson for a year or more – long enough, for someone that young to suffer psychological damage.
In interviews and documentaries in later years (see Related Viewing), the Manson Girls were now women who seemed to be remarkably…normal and sane (with the possible exception of Squeaky Fromm, who once attempted to assassinate President Ford). In fact, I was struck not only by their sanity, but by how similar they now were to every woman I knew. When they said they were sorry, I believed them. When they said they were so sorry they preferred to NOT be paroled because they needed and wanted to serve out their sentences, I teared up. Having seen the images of the crazed young women they once were, and being able to draw a comparison between that and what I saw now, I believed that they were responsible for their crimes, but that they were brainwashed, and not evil.
I also saw in them the potential we all have to be responsible for nightmarish things for which we think we are wholly incapable. All it takes are the proper circumstances, the proper motivation, and the proper mental state.
If you cannot imagine yourself performing the murderous acts of a Manson Girl, imagine yourself living in Nazi Germany, and being inducted into the Nazi party as a youth. You have patriotism and zeal, and have been told who your enemies are, and what they deserve. Imagine yourself receiving orders to oversee Jews in a concentration camp, or to perform experiments on them. What decisions would you make? What would you believe was right and wrong? Most importantly, what would you do?
Nazis were not monstrous people; they were you and me making daily choices under monstrous circumstances. You can tell yourself that you would be heroic and risk your own life to save the Jews, but the truth is that you would probably not. You would have reasons not to, and rationalizations: the people who depended on you, your ambitions, your personal fears or your personal prejudices, perhaps. But you would probably not place yourself at risk for someone else because most people won’t. You would probably not have been different from anyone else who seems guilty, misguided, and tainted in retrospect.
We can condemn the people who perform heinous acts. We can blame the circumstances and the influences that make a person perform them. We can sometimes relate to, or even applaud their reasons. We can make excuses. We can even celebrate them and call them heroes. Most importantly, we can BE the people who perform the heinous acts.
However, when we take action the choice is always ours – our own choices are ours, and we own them. If we choose any action (or choose inaction) that harms someone else, we are culpable. If we are guilty of a crime, we deserve the appropriate punishment.
So, should Susan Atkins be released and allowed to go home to die?
It’s a tough call that begins with an examination of forgiveness. Choosing to not forgive Susan Atkins, and choosing to force her to serve out the last weeks of her life in prison satisfies the law and the gravity of her crime. It satisfies the families of her victims. No one expects those families to forgive her. The crime she committed was unforgivable, even if she rehabilitated herself and apologized a thousand times. The families and their feelings must take precedence. They do not deserve to be wounded twice.
I have a personal problem with forgiveness, which is why I chose it as the primary theme in Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn. It’s a struggle, and it’s an uphill climb for me. I cannot tell the families of the Manson murder victims to forgive Susan Atkins and let her go home to die if I suspect that I might not be able to do that myself. I can only marvel at what I’ve seen, and what I strive to be.
You occasionally see people who do forgive the unforgivable. Most recently, I saw a news story about a group of beautiful young teenaged girls killed by a drunk driver. Almost all of the parents deeply hated the driver and could not even begin to take steps to forgive him. However, one mother embraced him, befriended him, and speaks with him against drunk driving on the lecture circuit. In the clip I saw, they stood onstage holding hands, both working toward the same goal of saving lives.
A casual observation of the parents reveals that the woman who forgave was happier than the other parents, and at peace when the others were not. Her loss was no less than the others’ losses, but she coped with it by letting go of her anger and by giving her daughter's death purpose. She also gave a miraculous gift to a young man who made a mistake for which he did not expect to ever be forgiven, thereby enriching herself by giving, while healing both of them.
The Bible tells us to forgive. It’s good advice, not only for the sake of the people who hurt us, but for our own sakes. Having a forgiving spirit is something we’re all evolving toward, but forgiving is not something we can necessarily do each time we’re asked. It’s a struggle, and it’s painful.
But once we push past it, we’re psychologically free, as well as karmically free. We let go of our leg irons, and soar. If you study anyone who has forgiven, you’ll see that forgiveness is nourishment and freedom, whereas bitterness is poison and imprisonment. We can choose either one. We are not bound to bitterness.
In thinking about Susan Atkins, I would hope that I could let her go home. I would even hope that I could wish her less pain in her dying, rather than more. I would hope that I could say something to her that might be a salve to her spirit, and in so doing help heal my own. I don’t know that I could, but I would hope that I would.
Related Links:
Related Viewing:
- The Manson Women: American Nightmare Part 1
- The Manson Women: American Nightmare Part 2
- The Manson Women: American Nightmare Part 3
- The Manson Women: American Nightmare Part 4
- 2002 Diane Sawyer/Susan Atkins Interview
Related Reading:
