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Monday, February 22, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
141. My response to Brad Steiger's and Warren Smith's "Satan Assassins"
The following, which can be found at http://truthontatelabianca.com/index.php?topic=4929.0, is my response to a posted essay regarding Krishna Venta from Brad Steiger's and Warren Smith's Satan's Assassins.
___________________________________________________
In the 1987 film "Angel Heart," Harry Angel is a private detective hired to locate former big band crooner Johnny Favorite. In the course of the film, while hunting for the missing singer, Angel encounters several of Favorite’s former friends, including blues guitarist Toots Sweet. Mistaking Angel for a journalist because of his incessant questions, the uncooperative Sweet encourages Angel to leave him alone, have a few stiff drinks, and then manufacture the details he needs according to his own whim.
As I read Steiger’s and Smith’s pages about Krishna Venta, that scene from "Angel Heart" came to mind since what the two men offer is the equivalent of tall tales spun in a barroom (possibly with the help of co-authors Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and Johnny Walker) by someone who knows just enough about a given topic so as to offer a plethora of misinformation.
That said, folks, I have so many problems with Steiger’s and Smith’s Krishna Venta essay that I do not have time to address them all. Instead, in order to demonstrate just how little they know about their subject matter, I will address only a few points chosen largely at random.
* Peter Kamenoff and Ralph Muller were never known at the Fountain as "Brother Kamenoff" or "Brother Muller." Instead, they were known, respectively, as "Elzibah" and "Jeroham."
* Francis Pencovic did not get the idea to become Krishna Venta "in the 1950s, as a young theology student." By 1950, Pencovic was already 39 years old, and he was never a theology student – unless being an armchair enthusiast who studied various religions on his own counts.
* Venta’s "supplicants" did not have to come to him "bearing gifts." That is not to say that individuals endowed with worldly possessions were not particularly encouraged to join the Fountain of the World. Nevertheless, the majority of those persons who joined the Fountain were flat broke when they did so. Consequently, the Fountain often lost money on many of their members.
* Krishna Venta was never the president of the Fountain of the World. When the Fountain was incorporated, possibly because he was enduring child support issues at the time, Venta was not listed as one of the entity’s officers.
* The quotation "Some female cult members were selected by [Krishna Venta] to administer sexually to him on a regular basis what he termed 'therapeutic reasons'" is ludicrous. This is not to say that Venta being sexually active with his followers is impossible. However, as best as can be determined, such activities were never ritualistic or tantric. Instead, if such was happening, it was more akin to a "quickie" squeezed into his day when no one was looking than anything else.
* The conversation between Venta, Kamenoff, and Muller which the authors assert occurred on the last night of their lives is ridiculous. For one thing, the only statements which anyone can recall being audible that night were to the effect of "You know you’re not supposed to be here" and "What do you think I am? A hypocrite?" Both statements are believed to have been uttered by Cardinal Gene Shanafelt since there is a high probability that Krishna Venta was asleep during the entire incident and never even knew what hit him.
* Finally, the author’s statement that Kamenoff "flicked his cigarette lighter and touched its flame to the fuse on the bundle that Muller held in his arms" demonstrates both just how little time they spent researching their subject matter. Aside from sounding like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, this is completely incorrect factually. The triggering mechanism was a blasting cap, not a fuse.
Accordingly, based upon multiple issues with the facts the authors present regarding Krishna Venta, at least pp. 115-118 of their book must be dismissed and discredited as mostly erroneous and entirely unreliable.
___________________________________________________
In the 1987 film "Angel Heart," Harry Angel is a private detective hired to locate former big band crooner Johnny Favorite. In the course of the film, while hunting for the missing singer, Angel encounters several of Favorite’s former friends, including blues guitarist Toots Sweet. Mistaking Angel for a journalist because of his incessant questions, the uncooperative Sweet encourages Angel to leave him alone, have a few stiff drinks, and then manufacture the details he needs according to his own whim.
As I read Steiger’s and Smith’s pages about Krishna Venta, that scene from "Angel Heart" came to mind since what the two men offer is the equivalent of tall tales spun in a barroom (possibly with the help of co-authors Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and Johnny Walker) by someone who knows just enough about a given topic so as to offer a plethora of misinformation.
That said, folks, I have so many problems with Steiger’s and Smith’s Krishna Venta essay that I do not have time to address them all. Instead, in order to demonstrate just how little they know about their subject matter, I will address only a few points chosen largely at random.
* Peter Kamenoff and Ralph Muller were never known at the Fountain as "Brother Kamenoff" or "Brother Muller." Instead, they were known, respectively, as "Elzibah" and "Jeroham."
* Francis Pencovic did not get the idea to become Krishna Venta "in the 1950s, as a young theology student." By 1950, Pencovic was already 39 years old, and he was never a theology student – unless being an armchair enthusiast who studied various religions on his own counts.
* Venta’s "supplicants" did not have to come to him "bearing gifts." That is not to say that individuals endowed with worldly possessions were not particularly encouraged to join the Fountain of the World. Nevertheless, the majority of those persons who joined the Fountain were flat broke when they did so. Consequently, the Fountain often lost money on many of their members.
* Krishna Venta was never the president of the Fountain of the World. When the Fountain was incorporated, possibly because he was enduring child support issues at the time, Venta was not listed as one of the entity’s officers.
* The quotation "Some female cult members were selected by [Krishna Venta] to administer sexually to him on a regular basis what he termed 'therapeutic reasons'" is ludicrous. This is not to say that Venta being sexually active with his followers is impossible. However, as best as can be determined, such activities were never ritualistic or tantric. Instead, if such was happening, it was more akin to a "quickie" squeezed into his day when no one was looking than anything else.
* The conversation between Venta, Kamenoff, and Muller which the authors assert occurred on the last night of their lives is ridiculous. For one thing, the only statements which anyone can recall being audible that night were to the effect of "You know you’re not supposed to be here" and "What do you think I am? A hypocrite?" Both statements are believed to have been uttered by Cardinal Gene Shanafelt since there is a high probability that Krishna Venta was asleep during the entire incident and never even knew what hit him.
* Finally, the author’s statement that Kamenoff "flicked his cigarette lighter and touched its flame to the fuse on the bundle that Muller held in his arms" demonstrates both just how little time they spent researching their subject matter. Aside from sounding like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, this is completely incorrect factually. The triggering mechanism was a blasting cap, not a fuse.
Accordingly, based upon multiple issues with the facts the authors present regarding Krishna Venta, at least pp. 115-118 of their book must be dismissed and discredited as mostly erroneous and entirely unreliable.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
140. Krishna Venta mentioned in Manson letter?
In a letter that is purportedly written by him (I have no clue whether it's authentic or not), Charles Manson mentions Krishna Venta by name. Refer to Page 6 of the above letter.
For more information, see
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
139. Krishna Venta related article published today
"My Name is David E.V. Smith, and I'm a Violent Revolutionary"
The Jonestown Report
October 13, 2009, Volume 11
The Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University:
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JonestownReport/Volume11/RememSmith.htm
No one who knew David and Gladys Smith could ever comprehend just what it was Gladys saw in her husband.
The Jonestown Report
October 13, 2009, Volume 11
The Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University:
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JonestownReport/Volume11/RememSmith.htm
No one who knew David and Gladys Smith could ever comprehend just what it was Gladys saw in her husband.
For openers, "Big David" – as David Elbert Vester Smith was known during his years with Krishna Venta’s WKFL (Wisdom Knowledge Faith Love) Fountain of the World cult[1] - was 20 years older than his wife was 20 years older than his wife and reportedly fairly self-centered.
When the couple belonged to the Fountain, where living arrangements were always sparse, Smith decided it would be healthier for Gladys if she slept on the floor while he took the one couch made available to them. It made no difference to him that his wife was pregnant. After all, the Fountain – where members had taken a Nazarite-like vow[2] to not cut their hair or trim their beards, and to wear robes but not shoes, until world peace had been achieved – was all about sacrifice. And Smith was all for Gladys learning to make sacrifices.
As if Smith’s ego was not enough of an irritant, he freely admitted that he did not like to work and tried to avoid it whenever possible. On one occasion, the man had actually gone to the Fountain’s nurse hoping some minor cuts and scrapes on his hands might get him out of washing dishes. Plus, the thought of keeping a full time job in society literally terrified him.
When Smith and his first wife Marilyn were contemplating joining the Fountain in the 1950s, his fear of responsibility was probably a factor in his decision. It may have also been one of the reasons he and second wife Gladys joined Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple a decade later.
What is interesting, if not ironic, about Smith belonging to first the Fountain and then Peoples Temple is that, in November 1958, advertisements in the Los Angeles Times referring to Krishna Venta as “The World’s Greatest Living Prophet” and Jim Jones (or "James Jones") as "A dynamic, thought-provoking preacher" had literally been positioned one atop the other in that newspaper.[3]
The paradox of Smith joining the Fountain and then Peoples Temple is that, by doing so, he unwittingly placed himself in environments where he would wind up laboring twice as hard as he would have, had he just taken a job in mainstream society.
Utopias do not build themselves, and Smith would find himself helping to construct two in his lifetime. In the 1950s, he was a part of developing the Fount, an offshoot of the Fountain, which Krishna Venta had opted to erect in the frozen backwoods of Homer, Alaska. Long hours of oftentimes grueling work were an unavoidable part of those homesteading efforts. Twenty years later, Smith must have known instinctively what lay in store for him when he learned of Jim Jones’ plans to relocate Peoples Temple to the wilds of Guyana.
In fact, Smith, of all people, should have seen Jones’ move coming before it happened.
In the 1950s, Smith had followed Krishna Venta – whose real name was Francis Pencovic – a man possessed of what psychologist Len Oakes refers to as “prophetic charisma” (i.e., the magnetic personality one would expect to find in a prophet).[4] Within the framework of a complex and sometimes convoluted message, Venta preached a social gospel of equality, emphasized the dangers of nuclear weaponry in the Cold War era, and predicted an eventual American civil war divided along racial lines. The culmination of Venta’s intricate theology had been the construction of the Alaskan compound to complement the Fountain’s California headquarters.
But Krishna Venta had been assassinated in December 1958 in a suicide bombing that had left a total of ten dead, a number of wounded, and much of the group’s California command center in ruins. With Venta’s death, the spark that had ignited the Fountain was gone, and the group began to steadily lose both its enthusiasm and its members. Also among the casualties was the group’s vision of an Alaskan heaven on Earth. Within a few years, the project was forsaken and the land donated back to the State to Alaska as a wild life preserve.[5] The California outpost was all that remained of the Fountain.
Following Krishna Venta’s death, Smith would come and go from the Fountain more than once. The first exit had been in a doomed attempt to save his marriage with Marilyn. When he returned to the Fountain again in the 1960s, it was with new wife Gladys. A few years later, they would both leave the Fountain forever when they realized the group could not long survive
Venta’s death.
No one knows the details of the Smith family’s enlistment with Peoples Temple. But in following Jim Jones, a man also endowed with prophetic charisma, Smith may have recognized bits and pieces of the message he had heard years before from Krishna Venta. Present also was the emphasis on bridging the racial divide and evils of nuclear weapons.
However, Venta and Jones were more different than they were alike. For one thing, in place of Venta’s social gospel, Jones preached pure Communism.
In addition, Jones’ sermons and personality both were dramatically darker, far more paranoid and radically more sinister than anything Fountain members ever saw under Venta. Ironically, on its best day, the Fountain’s membership barely totaled one-third of the number of people who died in Jonestown.
Nevertheless, having been a part of Krishna Venta’s vision, Smith should have known that a mass relocation to the backwoods of some desolate part of the world would be an inevitable part of the Jones equation.
What Smith, and everyone else associated with Jonestown, chose to ignore was Jones’ rhetoric about mass suicide, and the tragedy in November 1978 at the small outpost in the Guyanese jungle now seems inevitable in retrospect. The same day that Smith declared himself to be a violent revolutionary during a session of short taped statements, other Temple members pledged their willingness to die for the cause. It was language all of them had heard for years from the pulpit and the rest of the Temple leadership.
On that fateful day, David and Gladys Smith, along with their five children, would all perish. Smith and his wife were 52 and 32, respectively, and their children ranged in age from seven to 13.[6]
Others, meanwhile, had seen hints of what was coming.
A former member of the Fountain reports that, prior to the establishment of Jonestown in Guyana, she and her husband traveled to San Francisco to visit with David and Gladys Smith at Peoples Temple. There, the two couples were forced to visit in a space that bore the atmosphere of a police interrogation room. The Smiths – who seemed petrified of inadvertently veering from some scripted dialogue – were never out of the watchful gaze of an observer who monitored everything they said.
Because of this episode, says the former Fountain member, she was not surprised to hear of the death of her friends in Guyana.
And her friends included not only the Smiths.
Also among the dead was shy and retiring septuagenarian Erma Winfrey who literally bore the scars of having been a part of the Fountain before joining Peoples Temple. Winfrey had been at the Fountain on the night of the 1958 explosion and fire that ended Krishna Venta’s life. She had suffered second and third degree burns on much of her body.
In the years after she joined Peoples Temple, Winfrey sent glowing letters to her former Fountain brothers and sisters about how wonderful life with Jim Jones was. Since all outgoing correspondence – especially from Jonestown – was screened by a letter-writing committee, it is unknown if those comments reflected her true, or at least complete, feelings about her life in the Temple. In fact, she was publicly scolded by Jim Jones on at least one occasion: her infraction, according to Jones, was "taking advantage of the new special diet server" and obtaining sugar for her tea.
She had also been classified as having a "very negative" attitude because she had complained when Peoples Temple "didn’t give her money to buy anything in the States."[7]
Winfrey and Smith went to Guyana seeking deliverance from the United States, a nation Jones had convinced them no longer understood them. In the end, Winfrey, the Smith family, and more than 900 others who’d represented the dream of Jonestown, all lay dead on a tract of land far removed from anything that any one of them would have called home. [8]
[1] Please note that, while "new religious movement" is the preferred academic term in 2009, “cult” was the word used in the newspapers of the 1940s and 1950s to describe the WKFL Fountain of the World. Therefore, it is incorporated here.
[2] See Numbers 6.
[2] See Numbers 6.
[3] Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1958, Advertising Section, p. 15.
[4] "Prophetic charisma occurs in more complex societies and adheres to the prophet who proclaims a divine mission or radical political doctrine. This form of charisma leads to revolution and social change." Oakes, Len. 1997. Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Leader. Syracuse University, p. 28.
[5] http://homernews.com/stories/110806/arts_2b_3b001.shtml
[6]http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=718;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=720;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=722;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=725;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=729;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=730;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=724.
[7] http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JTResearch/eRollerJournals/Trns/ER7803MarB1.html
[4] "Prophetic charisma occurs in more complex societies and adheres to the prophet who proclaims a divine mission or radical political doctrine. This form of charisma leads to revolution and social change." Oakes, Len. 1997. Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Leader. Syracuse University, p. 28.
[5] http://homernews.com/stories/110806/arts_2b_3b001.shtml
[6]http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=718;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=720;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=722;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=725;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=729;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=730;
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/WhoDied/bio.php?Id=724.
[7] http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JTResearch/eRollerJournals/Trns/ER7803MarB1.html
Friday, September 25, 2009
138. I guess she really was sick....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090925/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_manson_follower
Charles Manson follower Susan Atkins dies
By LINDA DEUTSCH
28 mins ago
LOS ANGELES – Susan Atkins, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson whose remorseless witness stand confession to killing pregnant actress Sharon Tate in 1969 shocked the world, has died. She was 61 and had been suffering from brain cancer...
Thursday, September 3, 2009
137. Posers, fakes, phonies, et al.
All I can say is that there's apparently just something about the Krishna Venta/Fountain of the World story that brings out the posers, fakers, phonies, et al. in our society.
I can only presume that it has something to do with the fact that the whole story is just weird enough to where people think they can make all kinds of wild claims about things under the presumption that there's no way to prove whether or not they're telling the truth.
The ultimate phony approached me today claiming their parents had been members of the Fountain once upon a time. I was intrigued to hear that they supposedly had Fountain-related artifacts in their possession. However, I was immediately turned-off when - on top of sending their emails to me via an anonymizer of an email system - they stated upfront they were not willing to provide me with their name, the names of their parents (so I could verify their story with the Fountain members with whom I maintain contact), or to mail anything to me.
Sheesh! Again, there's just something about this story, I guess, that attracts all the internet's lurkers and phonies.
Today's email exchange goes into the "poser" folder along with the people I've encountered while writing my book such as:
1. A person who told my friend/a documentarian that they'd found Krishna Venta's driver's license in a tunnel under the Fountain. I told my friend to ask this person what the expiration date on the driver's license was. Six months later, they've yet to answer that question.
2. The person who emailed me to say they'd purchased photos of Krishna Venta at a garage sale. My suggestion that he was more than welcome to scan them and email them to me so I could verify that it was KV in the pictures apparently scared him off.
3. The girl who emailed me claiming she grew up across the street from the Fountain of the World's old facility and possessed Fountain-related documents she was eager to mail to me. Funny but the mail system out there apparently doesn't work.
4. The person who claimed they were a driver for the Fountain of the World in the 1950s and that they'd driven a bunch of Fountain members into town to watch "The Ten Commandments." They lived at the Fountain for months, supposedly, but couldn't recall the names of anyone there.
Of all the things in the world to make phony claims about, what's so attractive about the Fountain story that it brings out every faker in the world?
I can only presume that it has something to do with the fact that the whole story is just weird enough to where people think they can make all kinds of wild claims about things under the presumption that there's no way to prove whether or not they're telling the truth.
The ultimate phony approached me today claiming their parents had been members of the Fountain once upon a time. I was intrigued to hear that they supposedly had Fountain-related artifacts in their possession. However, I was immediately turned-off when - on top of sending their emails to me via an anonymizer of an email system - they stated upfront they were not willing to provide me with their name, the names of their parents (so I could verify their story with the Fountain members with whom I maintain contact), or to mail anything to me.
Sheesh! Again, there's just something about this story, I guess, that attracts all the internet's lurkers and phonies.
Today's email exchange goes into the "poser" folder along with the people I've encountered while writing my book such as:
1. A person who told my friend/a documentarian that they'd found Krishna Venta's driver's license in a tunnel under the Fountain. I told my friend to ask this person what the expiration date on the driver's license was. Six months later, they've yet to answer that question.
2. The person who emailed me to say they'd purchased photos of Krishna Venta at a garage sale. My suggestion that he was more than welcome to scan them and email them to me so I could verify that it was KV in the pictures apparently scared him off.
3. The girl who emailed me claiming she grew up across the street from the Fountain of the World's old facility and possessed Fountain-related documents she was eager to mail to me. Funny but the mail system out there apparently doesn't work.
4. The person who claimed they were a driver for the Fountain of the World in the 1950s and that they'd driven a bunch of Fountain members into town to watch "The Ten Commandments." They lived at the Fountain for months, supposedly, but couldn't recall the names of anyone there.
Of all the things in the world to make phony claims about, what's so attractive about the Fountain story that it brings out every faker in the world?
Again, I guess there's just something about this story...
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
136. Krishna Venta lectures for sale on eBay!
If you have an extra $74.95 laying around, three of Krishna Venta's lectures are on sale at eBay. See http://cgi.ebay.com/3-Scarce-publications-by-Krishna-Venta-aka-The-Voice_W0QQitemZ300326616172QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAntiquarian_Collectible?hash=item45ecdc7c6c&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116I'm in possession of more than half of the lectures Krishna Venta delivered in his lifetime, and I didn't pay a dime for any of them!
Friday, August 14, 2009
135. Video footage of the Fountain of the World
See footage at YouTube entitled "Manson Family attended Fountain Of The World" at
Thanks to "Cats Cradle" at Truth on Tate LaBianca - http://truthontatelabianca.com/ - for alerting me to this.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
134. Tate/LaBianca...40 years later
This coming Sunday (the 9th) and Monday (the 10th) mark the 40th "anniversary" of the Tate/LaBianca murders.
I mention this here for two reasons:
(1) Although the two men are worlds apart, books about Charles Manson do seem to be the window via which most people learn about Krishna Venta.
(2) Seven people died on those two night for no justifiable reason whatsoever, so they're acknowledged here:
I mention this here for two reasons:
(1) Although the two men are worlds apart, books about Charles Manson do seem to be the window via which most people learn about Krishna Venta.
(2) Seven people died on those two night for no justifiable reason whatsoever, so they're acknowledged here:
IN MEMORIAM:
Abigail Folger
Voytek Frykowski
Leno LaBianca
Rosemary LaBianca
Steven Parent
Jay Sebring
Sharon Tate
For those interested in obtaining more information (especially primary source documents), http://truthontatelabianca.com/ is one of the more trustworthy websites out there on the subject.
For those interested in obtaining more information (especially primary source documents), http://truthontatelabianca.com/ is one of the more trustworthy websites out there on the subject.
Friday, July 31, 2009
133. Santa Susana (Images of America series) by Bill Appleton
I just wanted to make everyone aware of a book due out on August 10, 2009 by my good friend Bill Appleton. The book, which is part of Arcadia Publishing's "Images of America" series is entitled simply Santa Susana.
Bill Appleton, a professional photographer and member of the Simi Valley Historical Society, has the most amazing collection of photographs of Krishna Venta and the Fountain of the World I have ever seen. A select handful of those photographs, many of which have never been seen by the general public, are included in this new book.
Order your copy of this book today from http://www.amazon.com/Santa-Susana-Images-America-Appleton/dp/0738570494/ or http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Santa-Susana-California/Bill-Appleton/e/9780738570495/ or http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/index.html
Bill Appleton's other book - see http://krishnaventa.blogspot.com/2008/11/24-simi-valley-journey-through-time.html - usually sells for a small fortune on Amazon.
Here's what Arcadia Publishing has to say about their new title:
Book Description:Santa Susana is one of three rural towns in Simi Valley that began at the turn of the 20th century. The town derives its name from the surrounding mountains, Sierra de Santa Susanna, and grew up alongside the railroad depot built by the Southern Pacific Company in 1903. The history of Santa Susana can be traced back to the Chumash Indian village of Ta’apu and a Spanish land grant, El Rancho Simi. The area was first surveyed by the Simi Valley Land and Water Company in 1887 for the sale of ranches. By the mid-1950s, Santa Susana had become a recognized agricultural center, noted for citrus and walnut production. Corriganville and Bottle Village are unique tourist destinations that originated near the Santa Susana Airport. In the surrounding mountains, quirky religious groups established communes away from the public with strange names and stories: Pisgah Grande, The Great Eleven Club, and WKFL Fountain of the World.
Author Bio:
Bill Appleton is a fourth-generation descendent of a Simi family and is actively involved with the Simi Valley Historical Society at the Strathearn Historical Park and Museum. The images used in this volume have been selected from his personal collection, the historical society files, and numerous other private collections and historical archives.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
131. More on the Process Church
Following up on Post No. 130, a friend has informed me that a free collection of Process Church literature is available for download at http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/process-church-of-the-final-judgment-documents/4743458
Enjoy...zzzzz...
Enjoy...zzzzz...
Sunday, June 7, 2009
130. New book on the Process Church by Timothy Wylie
Feral House’s Love Sex Fear Death: The Inside Story of the Process Church of the Final Judgment by Timothy Wylie, et al. has finally been published in the U.S. See http://www.amazon.com/Love-Sex-Fear-Death-Judgment/dp/1932595376/ or http://feralhouse.com/titles/new_releases/love_sex_fear_death_the_inside_story_of_the_process_church_of_the_final_judgment.php
For me the book was an overall disappointment. Granted, since I am working on a book about Krishna Venta, and since my book includes a section exploring the question of whether Charles Manson’s “Helter Skelter” (if indeed such was really his) was influenced by the Process, Krishna Venta, or neither, I read the book with an agenda. Namely, I read it hoping it might offer some insight into this question.
All I can say is that I was disappointed to see that, even forty years after the fact, Wylie (who offers the lengthiest essay in Love Sex Fear Death) sticks so firmly to the official Process party line. (I was also disappointed to see that the big “revelation” of this book is that Mary Ann MacLean, and not her husband Robert De Grimston, was the leader of Process. It’s fun, though, to read about how MacLean was such a manipulative and egotistical psycho bitch.)
In any event, since the Process is remembered solely because of the Manson allegations, this “review” of the book focuses on Manson’s appearances in it:
1. The "Images" section of the book, which covers 82 pages, includes “From Manson to Muggeridge” – the infamous article from the Process’ magazine which contains original quotations from Manson.
2. pp. 56-57 - "We lauded the extremes of human experience and were exploring the often taboo aspects of subjects like death, fear and sex. We had little thought for the long-term effects of what we were promoting. So much so that when the Ed Sanders book and the articles associating us with the Manson killings started appearing, we were baffled and appalled. How could anyone have thought we would have anything to do with Manson, or the murders? We had never met the man, nor to our knowledge did he ever visit our Coffee House in San Francisco even though, as is frequently trotted out in the conspiracy theory books, he lived several blocks away from Cole Street, and reputedly in the same time frame as we were there. But this was all purely guilt by tenuous association. Yet, had we applied the same harsh rules of responsibility to ourselves as we were preaching to the world, we might well have asked ourselves what we had done to magnetize these terrible lies to us? Or why we took it upon ourselves to interview Manson for the Death issue of the Process magazine? I don’t believe this was ever discussed."
3. p. 63 - "Possibly the rot set in when we lost the English court case against the Ed Sanders book. It was Mary Ann’s idea not to demand a substantial sum in damages when we settled the American case. She would have wanted to impress people with how decent we were and how it wasn’t about the money, but just about clearing the name of The Process. Presumably it was this miscalculation that encouraged the publisher in England to think we were rollovers – which turned out to be perfectly true. The English publisher won the case."
4. pp. 77-78 - "What none of us knew at the time, however, was that Charles Manson was also living with his coterie on Cole Avenue, a few blocks down from where our Chapter was located. Although we didn’t know him or his Family, and had never seen any of them in the Chapter, this unhappy coincidence has long fed the conspiracy theorists intent on proving that we had directly influenced Manson’s paranoid ramblings."
5. p. 79 - "In spite of meeting a wide variety of celebrities I tend to associate Los Angeles with Charles Manson, although the murders occurred in 1969, two years after we’d left the city. And it was 1971 when The Family came out and caused us such grief. With our dark cloaks and apocalyptic rhetoric, we were just too tempting a target. Vincent Bugliosi, the L.A. prosecutor who made his name on the case, thoroughly researched all possible influences on Manson and had completely absolved the Process Church of any association. What has come to be known is that Manson himself told Bugliosi that he’d first encountered Scientology in 1961 and had studied it, maintaining he was a ‘clear.’ Scientology material was also found at the Spahn Ranch when Manson was arrested. Understandably, this was not something Scientology would have wanted known...It took several more years for the Manson tar baby to indelibly stain The Process Church, when The Family hit the shelves. The time delay made this all the more of a shock since we thought the Manson accusations were behind us."
FACT CHECK # 1: Regarding Wylie’s statement about Vincent Bugliosi "completely absolv[ing] the Process of any association [with Manson]," Wylie must own a different edition of Helter Skelter than me; in my copy of the book, Bugliosi writes, "In view of Manson’s curiosity, it appears very likely that he [Manson] at least investigated the Satanists [the Process], and there is fairly persuasive evidence that he 'borrowed' some of their teachings." (p. 636) Bugliosi also writes, "I believe there was at least some contact, in view of the many parallels between Mansons’ teachings and those of the Process, as revealed in their literature." (p. 637)
For those interested, the "many parallels" to which Bugliosi refers is explored by Curt Rowlett in the "Charles Manson, Son of Sam and the Process Church of the Final Judgment" chapter of his book Labyrinth13. Rowlett offers the thesis that, "There is a body of strong circumstantial evidence that tends to show Manson was heavily influenced by the Process." (p. 92), and makes a first rate argument for his case. See http://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth13-Tales-Occult-Crime-Conspiracy/dp/1411660838/ or http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/labyrinth13-true-tales-of-the-occult-crime-conspiracy/156897
FACT CHECK # 2: Regarding Wylie’s comment about how Bugliosi "thoroughly researched all possible influences on Manson," I contacted Bugliosi in this regard in order to see if the names Krishna Venta and/or the Fountain of the World were to be found anywhere in his notes circa the Manson trial. Bugliosi could think of no instance of the Fountain being mentioned beyond Paul Watkins testifying at trial that Manson asked Watkins "if he would consent to be crucified on a cross at the Fountain of the World." (see p. 356 of George Bishop’s Witness to Evil) I provided Bugliosi with that reference up front, and beyond that he acted as though the Fountain and Krishna Venta were both heretofore unheard of entities. (This was two about years ago.) So, it’s a stretch to say Bugliosi "thoroughly researched all possible influences on Manson."
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
129. "Coming Down Fast" by Simon Wells
I'm in possession of the pages from Coming Down Fast (the latest work out on Charles Manson) that reference Krishna Venta. (See http://www.amazon.co.uk/Charles-Manson-Chilling-Biography-Coming/dp/0340977019/) For whatever reason, this book is currently available only in the U.K.
Not surprisingly, what Wells offers is yet another tired retread of the (mostly erroneous) Krishna Venta material that's already been knocked around for decades by other authors post-Tate/LaBianca (e.g., Gorightly, Sanders, Watkins, et al.)
As stated previously on this blog, the problem with these authors who keep rehashing the same old misinformation is that Sanders presented a bunch of unsubstantiated claims about Krishna Venta in his book The Family, and subsequent writers have accepted his "facts" as gospel (no matter how stupid they might sound) without double-checking them.
What cracks me up about Coming Down Fast is that its subtitle describes it as a "chilling biography." Gee, is that to differentiate it from the "charming" and "uplifting" stuff that may already be out there about Manson?
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