User:JohnBonaccorsi/Sandbox/Wells book

In May of this year, the British publishing house of Hodder & Stoughton released a book entitled Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast. According to the company’s webpage that touts the book, the date of release was May 21 (2009). Because the author of the book is Simon Wells, I will refer to it hereafter as "the Wells book."

Of Mr. Wells, the publisher’s website says this:

Simon Wells has written on film and music for numerous magazine and newspapers including the Guardian and The Times and is a regular contributor to Record Collector, Hotdog and Total Film. In addition to his writing credits, Simon has researched numerous projects for the likes of the BBC, Channel Four and Virgin, as well as broadcasting live on LBC and BBC radio on film and music.

I have encountered three online newspaper articles that have to do with the book. They are these:

— A June 18 review by Joan Smith in the Times Online (UK)

— A June 15 review by Christopher Hudson in the Mail Online (UK)

— An August 8 article by Annie Brown in the Daily Record (Scotland)

In a post dated August 2009 and entitled Charles Manson and the Beatles, a United Kingdom website called ZANI presented what it called an "exclusive excerpt" of the book. According to the post’s introduction, Simon Wells, in the excerpt, "reveals the background to Manson’s extraordinary interpretation on the Beatles’ White Album, and how it sparked the most sensational crimes of the 20th century."

Excerpt

Although the excerpt is long — and will thus make the present post very long — I am going to copy-and-paste all of it. To facilitate reference to it, I am going to make two modification:

1. I will number its fifty paragraphs by placing a bracketed numeral at the start of each of them.
2. I will place a handful of passages in boldface, so that I will easily be able to direct attention to them later.

As presented at ZANI, the excerpt — which I will continue to refer to simply as "the excerpt" — is this:

[1] Since 1967, the Manson Family had voraciously lapped up the Beatles’ catalogue, utilising the group’s psychedelic imagery as a soundtrack to their own lives. However by late 1968, no one, least of Charlie, was prepared for what was contained in the group’s forthcoming album release. Following the Family’s relocation to the Californian desert, Manson’s proclamations on an impending apocalypse had begun to gain heavy momentum. Although Charlie’s followers would consume anything that spilled from their leader’s mouth, he knew that aside from his well-thumbed biblical references, he had little current evidence to support his apocalyptic ravings. Dropping in seemingly by osmosis, the Beatles’ White Album went a huge way to endorse every atom of his frenzied discourses. To Charlie, this was ample proof that a two-way thought-line had been established between him and the minds of the Beatles. Heightened by their use of LSD, the bare anonymity of the desert landscape, and Manson’s own spiralling idolatry, the album’s release was nothing short of a major revelation. If elsewhere, the more erudite of music critics saw the Beatles redraw the narrow perimeters of “pop” music with the White Album, for Charles Manson it was the nothing less than a call to arms.

[2] With enough time to process the album’s chimera, Charlie revealed his findings at a party on New Year’s Eve, 1968, in Death Valley. In honour of his startling epiphany, Manson had purchased a battery operated record player to take to the desert to preview the album. Loyal foot soldier Susan Atkins, AKA Sadie Mae Glutz, at that point acquiescent to all of Charlie’s ever revolving philosophies, recalled the night Manson revealed his seismic convergence with the Beatles.

[3] Susan Atkins: “It had a tremendous impact on our lives, especially Charlie’s. One night, when many of us were playing records and listening to the album, Charlie said, “They’re speaking to me.” He was convinced that he had some sort of apocalyptic connection with the Beatles. I never fully understood it, but Charlie, our unchallenged leader, was deeply affected. And I and most of the others believed that, in some way, “Helter Skelter”, the end of the world, was “coming down fast.””

[4] Regardless of the sheer craziness of these associations, Manson had allegedly pinpointed thirteen tracks off the White Album that correlated in with his views. While a lot of the detail concerning Charlie’s interpretations arose during later murder trials (much of it, it must be said, from disaffected associates of Manson) these bizarre connections are worthy of investigation, even if just to give some verisimilitude to the receptive atmosphere surrounding Manson and his followers. Indeed, if Charlie truly believed what he’d deciphered in the recordings, it presents a vivid conduit into the eventual carnival of terror.

[5] To attempt to unravel this extraordinary conundrum, one has to look at where the Beatles’ heads were at this point, and equally, how their wholly unintentional ambivalence could draw in the likes of Manson. Many of the White Album’s compositions were constructed in India during their meditation stint with the Maharishi in early 1968. With little outside influence and an absence of stimulants, the lyrics drew heavily on the Beatles’ inner psyche. With a brief to present a starker canvas than the dense colours that had occupied Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour, the album presented the most disparate collection of songs the group had ever produced. Nonetheless, despite this more uncluttered approach, Beatlemanics swiftly honed in on the thirty tracks in search of greater symbolism; not least, one Charles Manson.

[6] While John Lennon’s material on the White Album provided Manson with considerable ammunition, he’d find some common ground with several of McCartney’s contributions. Although the tracks “Helter Skelter” and “Blackbird” would be referenced overtly, some of Paul’s sweeter tunes would also prompt a response from Manson. “I Will” was one fairly innocuous love song that McCartney had written in India. To Charlie though, he believed that the tune was seeking to elicit a clarion call for himself; the Beatles asking Manson to pitch his voice “loud” so that they could hear him over in the UK. Another McCartney track, the skittish and untamed, “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road”, was seen by Manson as the Beatles acknowledging the violent street theatre being displayed across America during 1968.

[7] Even McCartney’s most embarrassing offering to the collection; the pithy, music hall homage “Honey Pie,” didn’t escape Manson’s receptive ears. With references to a music career that had “hit the big time” in America, Charlie believed that the cute Beatle was relating his own recording ambitions. Later in the song, Manson would detect what he believed was a direct invitation from the Beatles for him to “sail” over to England to meet them. Later, the song speaks of this intention to meet up, but the protagonist is too “lazy” to make any overtures. As a seasoned Beatlemaniac, Manson knew that the group had long abandoned touring, and so were ostensibly keener for him to make the trip over the Atlantic.

[8] As the creative runt of the Beatles, the diminutive Ringo Starr would only produce four contributions to the group’s oeuvre during their entire career. While two were only co-writing credits, Ringo would carry with him a track from 1964 called “Don’t Pass Me By” for the White Album. While the song is at best, inane and elementary, Manson read far greater inference into the song than had ever been designed. With Starr’s lyrics talking about listening for approaching “footsteps,” Charlie believed that the Fab Four were anticipating his own advance towards them.

[9] The unobtrusive, yet nonetheless able George Harrison would contribute an unprecedented four songs to the White Album. Normally, he’d be allotted customary space for one, maybe two tracks to the band’s LP releases. However, for the White Album, Harrison would score a quartet of largely competent songs. The track “Piggies” was an allegorical, yet powerful swipe at the expense of the rich and ruling classes. The deeply sardonic Harrison would hang out his most sarcastic colours on this song, at one point suggesting that these so called “piggies” needed a right royal "whacking." While Harrison’s reference to the word “pig” was purely metaphorical, in America’s underground, the term held a far greater symbolism. Notably, the revolutionary Black movement had broadened the “pig” symbol beyond the slang for police towards all tiers of the white establishment. Black Panther party leader at time; Bobby Seale, frequently peppered his speeches with diatribes against the “Pigs”, unwittingly handing Manson’s Beatles association on a plate.

[10] Bobby Seale: “The only way that the world is ever going to be free is when the youth of this country moves with every principle of human respect and with every soft spot we have in our hearts for human life, in a fashion that lets the “Pig” power structure know that when people are racistly (sic) and fascistically attacked, the youth will put a foot in their butts and make their blood chill.”

[11] Cleary harbouring his own grievances, Manson would tailor the Panther’s manifesto towards the affluent of Hollywood, and pertinently, those who were denying him a shot at a recording career. While conceding the song’s allegorical status, Harrison would ultimately play down any wider inferences, however bold they may have seemed to others at the time.

[12] George Harrison: 'Piggies' is a social comment. I was stuck for one line in the middle until my mother came up with the lyric, 'What they need is a damn good whacking' which is a nice simple way of saying they need a good hiding. It needed to rhyme with 'backing,' 'lacking,' and had absolutely nothing to do with American policemen or Californian shagnasties!"

[13] Despite these nebulous associations, other tracks on the album would appear strangely coincidental to Manson and his followers. Not least, was the licentious track, “Sexy Sadie.” Not that the wider public would have known it at the time, but John Lennon’s oblique paean to a shunned lover was heavily coded. Written in a fit of pique following his trip to India, Lennon hoped that signals from the song would travel towards the Maharishi, who he’d had fallen out with following some (unsubstantiated, as it turned out) sexual allegations.

[14] Months before the White Album’s release, Manson had christened the sex and drug crazed Susan Atkins, Sadie Mae Glutz. She’d enjoyed the dubious moniker, regardless of anyone, least of all Charlie, attributing any verifiable origin to it. However, no one within the Family unit was prepared for the Beatles seemingly rubber stamping her vibrant presence onto vinyl. This alleged synchronicity contributed hugely in validating Charlie’s observations to his followers; especially as the frazzled Sadie was adept in turning on all and sundry, while breaking all the known rules. Not surprisingly, the loquacious Sadie was characteristically cock-a-hoop with the inference, and would go into an orgasmic dance routine every time the track was played.

[15] In “Rocky Racoon,” Paul McCartney’s capricious paean to the vaudeville of the Wild West, Manson drew a racial inference with the syllable “coon.” Further references in the song would relate to gun battles and Bibles which to Charlie verified his prediction of an impending black uprising. During a Rolling Stone magazine interview with Manson in 1970, Charlie elucidated on his “Rocky Racoon” theory, even giving credence to the McCartney’s line concerning “Rocky’s revival,” which he saw as the black community’s bloody resurgence.

[16] Charles Manson: " ‘Coon’. You know that's a word they use for black people... ‘Revival’ ‘Re-Vival’. It means coming back to life. The black man is going to come into power again. 'Gideon checks out' means that it's all written out there in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelations.”

[17] John Lennon’s quasi-junkie song, the fractured, “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”, was said by Manson to further signify further race insurgency. Lennon’s gung-ho lyrics, originally inspired by a hunter he’d come across in India, were seen by Manson to be encouraging blacks to take up arms in their struggle.

[18] Less coded was “Blackbird”, Paul McCartney’s poignant metaphor for the civil rights struggle in America. Within the bare acoustic delivery, the simple lyrics needed little embellishment to reveal a call for racial freedom. It was a rare political statement from McCartney, who’d rarely left the safety of the political fence up to that point. Not surprisingly, Manson’s receptive ears would cite the song’s challenge to "arise" as a clarion call for the blacks to move towards seizing power.

[19] John Lennon’s intrepid “Revolution 1”, would find itself as the opener to side four of the album. The track that had been previewed some months earlier as the B-Side of the “Hey Jude” single, but given Lennon’s mercurial persona, the musical structure would be given a heavy rework for the White Album. During “Revolution 1,” Lennon writes about seeing the counterculture’s proposed “plans”. As Manson had formulated his own highly ambitious ideas, he interpreted that the Beatles wanted to see these strategies.

[20] Ever receptive to even the slightest amendment, Manson would note the addition of the word “in” following Lennon’s counting himself “out” of destructive acts. Initially, the first cut of “Revolution” had Lennon’s overt pacifism turning on tin-pot revolutionaries. Some months later, his stance had shifted to a more ambivalent stance, this detachment possibly having more to do with his (then) flirtation with Heroin. He’d elucidate on “Revolution 1’s” uncertainty towards violence during the filming of “Let it Be” in January 1969.

[21] John Lennon: “That means I am not sure. I really think if it gets to destruction you can count me out, but I’m not sure. I’m human and I’m liable to change, or depending on the situation, I prefer non-violence.”

[22] Manson on the other hand, would assume that this subtle change was saying that the Beatles were aware that any peaceable approach would collapse as the apocalypse took hold. With his ears finally tuned for more rebellious frisson, Charlie would find an abundance of imagery on “Revolution 1’s” hugely idiosyncratic sister track, “Revolution 9.”

[23] If indeed Manson or any of his acolytes had any stamina left following these stratospheric interpretations, the penultimate track on the White Album would send their frazzled senses towards oblivion. Without doubt, “Revolution 9” is the most complex “track” the Beatles ever put to tape, and certainly the most ambitious recording undertaken by a 1960’s “pop” group. Forty years on, it is still a remarkable and terrifying anthology of fragmented sounds, bound only by a nightmarish, disembodied voice chanting repeatedly, “number nine, number nine.”

[24] This excursion into the unknown wasn’t exactly virgin territory for the group. The Beatles had dabbled with avant-garde noises over the previous two years, although they’d worked them into the metre and structure of a conventional framework. Whilst McCartney had first meddled with these sounds back in 1966, it was Lennon who jumped headfirst into the audio mêlée. As a result of his fascination, he’d begun feverishly assembling a library of twisted sounds at home and in the studio. Lennon’s convergence with Yoko Ono in early 1968 would elevate the importance of his avant- garde obsessions, and they would start to take a greater prominence on the White Album. With McCartney noticeable absent for the recording of “Revolution 9,” Lennon, George Harrison and Yoko Ono began to assemble the college of sounds during May of 1968. Ono’s intimate knowledge of sonic, left-field pioneers such as John Cage and Stockhausen would be an important link in the construction of the piece.

[25] If the lyrics on the White Album tracks gave credence to Manson’s apocalyptic logic, then the aural vibrations on “Revolution 9” would be its soundtrack. With gunfire, screaming, mob chanting and other jarring sound-bites charging in and out of the mix, it’s a believable, auditory reflection of Armageddon. Not surprisingly, magnified by LSD, it added considerable verisimilitude to Manson’s rantings. Aligned with Charlie’s favourite biblical tract-section nine from the book of Revelation- it’s not that difficult to see how Manson came to derive his own association. While the Beatles blew many minds across the world with “Revolution 9’s” melange of nebulous sounds, it succeeded heavily in blurring Manson and his followers’ imagination and reality into one.

[26] While mono versions of the original pressing would lose all of the sequencing from channel to channel, the repetition of the phrase “all right,” (itself clipped from the vocal track from the “Revolution 1”) would be easily perceptible to the ears. Manson, perhaps too far into his stride at that moment, erroneously thought that Lennon was shouting “rise!” to the black populous to get off their knees. To Charlie, this was an echo from McCartney’s “Blackbird,” and a further indication that the Beatles were predicting the black community’s forthcoming insurrection.

[27] Save for a few passages of nonsensical gibberish at the start of the track, most of the words spoken in “Revolution 9” are totally indecipherable. During later court trials when the mass of this information was presented, it was claimed that Manson had heard the words “Charlie, Charlie, send us a telegram” somewhere in the mix. Although George Harrison does indeed mutter the word “telegram” at some point, it’s difficult to ascertain whether “Charlie” is mentioned at any point. The chief prosecutor would also claim that the phrase, "lots of stab wounds" was also detected by the Manson Family, although there is not even a hint of that anyway. Even more bizarre were the later claims that embedded in the track was the Beatles chanting, "Charlie, can you hear us? Charlie can you hear us? Call us in London. Call us in London.”

[28] Supporting these claims of Manson’s proposed alliance with the Beatles, Squeaky and other Family members most definitely bombarded the group’s Apple offices in London with telegrams, letters and phone calls alerting the Fab Four of their presence. As Apple Records had to endure a daily litany of freaks and other incongruent parties attempting to contact the group, the Manson Family’s approaches were flatly ignored. Undeterred, Charlie would later send an emissary over to England in an attempt to meet the Beatles to discuss matters further.

[29] While there were snippets of other tracks on the album that held some passing significance to Charlie, “Helter Skelter” would become his most foremost correlation with the apocalypse. Arguably, Paul McCartney’s most acerbic contribution to the Beatles songbook, “Helter Skelter” still to this day remains a heavy enigma. While the cute Beatle had to fight off numerous brickbats regarding his occasionally saccharine lyrics, during 1968, he was looking to prove any critics otherwise. The previous year, McCartney had read an interview with the Who’s Pete Townshend, concerning their single release entitled, “I Can See for Miles”. During the feature, Townshend described the song as the “the loudest, nastiest, sweatiest rock number” the Who had ever put to tape. The quote stuck with McCartney, and never one to be outdone by his peers, set about to compete with a similarly raw and unfiltered piece of work. Most recently McCartney elucidated on the track for Mojo magazine in 2008.

[30] Paul McCartney: “Just reading those lines (of the Townshend interview) fired my imagination. I thought, Right, they've done what they think was the loudest and dirtiest; we'll do what we think. I went into the studio and told the guys, 'Look, I've got this song, but Pete said this and I want to do it even dirtier.' It was a great brief for the engineers, for everyone- just as fuzzy and as dirty and as loud and as filthy as you can... I was happy to have Pete's quote to get me there."

[31] The Beatles dabbled with the bones of the song during session for the White Album. On 18th July 1968, they began to record the track in earnest. That night was a particular potty one in all respects, and unusually for them, they abandoned their usual deference for EMI’s stuffy protocol. One memorable take lasted 27 minutes and 11 seconds, culminating in an almighty jam. Harrison had seemingly lost the plot that night, and at one point, he’d ignited a fire in an ashtray, and ran around the studio with it held on his head; a spirited homage to psychedelic prankster Arthur Brown. At the end of the recording, Ringo, whacked out by the interminable madness, screamed, “I’ve got blisters on my fingers”; a caveat duly tagged onto the stereo version of the track.

[32] After coming down from the high-jinx that engulfed the July 18th session, the group decided there was little worthy of salvaging. Nearly two months passed before they decided to tackle “Helter Skelter” again. On the night of September 9th 1968, they taped a more cohesive version of the song. Again, it took a large amount of time to capture something credible. Eventually, take number eighteen was secured as the most competent, and was duly signed off as finished.

[33] The finally completed “Helter Skelter” made its way onto side three of the White Album, wedged in between John Lennon’s “Sexy Sadie” and George Harrison’s highly under-rated, “Long, Long, Long.” Without doubt, sonically, “Helter Skelter” is the most ruthless track in the Beatles oeuvre, and a template for later punk bands to emulate. While McCartney has always been at pains to step back from any revolutionary stance that lyrics might have implied, the electric frisson that pours out from the track is undoubtedly explosive.

[34] With the White Album crammed with an array of hugely disparate sounds, “Helter Skelter” was largely passed over by both critics and fans on its release. For Charlie however, it was the band’s fiercest stake; the strongest conduit between the group and the apocalypse he’d begun referring to with an alarming regularity. Within “Helter Skelter’s” scatter burst of lyrics, the coda’s repetitive chant of “Coming down fast” was to Manson, the sign that the Beatles knew that an end was evidently nigh. The song’s references to going down to the “bottom” from the “top” were confirmation to Manson that the group, like him, were aware of the “Bottomless pit” as foretold in the section nine of the Book of Revelation.

[35] Such was the powerful intensions that Manson saw in “Helter Skelter,” Charlie christened his anticipated uprising after the song. Soon, his obedient followers would be rattling off the phrase during their preparations for the impending apocalypse. When later asked by Rolling Stone magazine to define his own interpretations of “Helter Skelter”, Manson had slightly neutered his initial premise, although he still maintained that the song held some significance towards violence.

[36] Charles Manson: “Helter Skelter means confusion... Confusion is coming down fast. If you don't see the confusion coming down fast, you can call it what you wish. It's not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says, 'Rise!' It says 'Kill!' Why blame it on me? I didn't write the music. I am not the person who projected it into your social consciousness.”

[37] While Charlie had (obviously) absolutely no insider information of the circumstances behind the writing of “Helter Skelter” he was in little doubt that its semantics were wholly in line with his own interpretations from the Book of Revelation; particularly sections seven through to nine. As has been documented, Manson fascination with the Bible went back to his youth whilst sitting in the pews of McMechen, West Virginia. Despite being on the sharp end of his guardian’s Christian admonishments, he’d revisit the texts while serving time in the numerous institutions he’d been incarcerated in over the years, and they had remained something of a constant with him.

[38] Manson had this to say of the Book of Revelation, and its connotations with the Beatles’ White Album, when drawn on the inference during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 1970.

[39] Charles Manson: “What do you think it means? It's the battle of Armageddon. It's the end of the world. It was the Beatles' “Revolution 9” that turned me on to it. It predicts the overthrow of the establishment. The pit will be opened, and that’s when it will all come down. A third of mankind will die. The only people who will escape will be those who have the seal of God on their foreheads.”

[40] As the only book in the Bible to overtly cite apocalyptic themes, The Book of Revelation has confused and enraged scholars throughout the centuries. Furthermore, its nebulous and occasionally impenetrable text has provoked numerous interpretations. Given his mania, Charlie had clearly associated the passages with what was occurring across America in 1969, and similarly, in detailing his own relationship with the Beatles and their White Album collection. If nothing else, the following explanations reveal Manson’s sheer ingenuity in establishing a triumvirate between himself, the Beatles and the Book of Revelation.

[41] In verse one of Revelation 9 it states, “And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven fallen unto the earth: and there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss.” Manson was convinced that the Beatles were heavenly deities, and as he had allied himself so closely to the group, he evidently saw himself as the “Fifth” angel. To Charlie, the “key of the pit of the abyss”, related to the “bottomless pit” which Manson had already drawn a connection with from “Helter Skelter’s” lyrics. Additionally, in information he’d sourced from Revelation Seven, Charlie believed that with his Family safely ensconced in the desert underworld, they would sit out the bloodbath occurring in the city. This apparently would take many years until their numbers reached 144,000; a figure Manson had again derived from Revelation Seven, which talked of the twelve tribes of 12,000. With the blacks assuming power following the revolution, in what Charlie assumed would be an inept and haphazard fashion, his followers would merge back into society and then have to clean up the mess, before ultimately taking over. Privy to most of Manson bizarre proselytising was young Family member, Paul Watkins.

[42] Paul Watkins: “Blackie then would come to Charlie and say, you know, 'I did my thing, I killed them all and, you know, I am tired of killing now. It is all over.' And Charlie would scratch his fuzzy head and kick him in the butt and tell him to go pick the cotton and go be a good nigger, and he would live happily ever after."

[43] Further in Revelation Nine it says, "And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth; and power was given them as the scorpions of the earth have power.” Naturally, Manson’s broad entomology dictated that these bugs were naturally in kin with The Beatles. Additionally, Manson’s birth sign was Scorpio.

[44] In section four it reads; “They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” Manson had previously berated any member of the Family for killing bugs, snakes or any other animals. For the most part, they themselves were vegetarians, and any pets they kept were afforded greater rights than they themselves had. Whether Charlie knew it or not, in 1968 the Beatles were avid vegetarians, but there again, so was much of the hippie populous around that time.

[45] Manson’s most intimate alignment with the Beatles occurred later within Revelation 9. “The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.”

[46] Manson had already deduced that the “locusts” were in fact the Beatles, and that their “crowns of gold” signified their dominance as world leaders in the pop world. The line, “Their hair was like women's hair” was true in as much as the Fab Four were the first to push the folic length of the male since Edwardian times. The “breastplates like breastplates of iron” passage was meant to signify the Beatles’ electric guitars, strapped, as they were, to their chests. The part reading, “The sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle,” was a direct reference to the chaotic sounds heard during the Beatles, “Revolution 9”. Adding to the desert transport issue, Charlie apparently drew a connection with the chariots and his own preferred battle vehicles, Dune Buggies.

[47] A passage reading that “four angels” would be prepared for the killing of “a third part of men.” was, to Charlie, a direct reference that the black community overthrowing civilisation and culling a third of mankind in its wake. Given that Revelation Nine was explicit in its timeline of “five months” when this would occur, Manson had projected that this would take place in the summer of 1969.

[48] Despite the nebulous connotations Manson would apparently draw from the text, what made his correlations that more believable to his followers, were the collaborative influences of the White Album, and the activities of the black resistance movement; at its height during 1968-9. Add into the mix the desert landscape of Death Valley, strong LSD and not least, Charlie’s escalating paranoia, and it offers a terrifying insight to the horror that unfolded.

[49] With ostensibly the Beatles full patronage, Charlie took his followers to unimaginable heights by these extraordinary interpretations. Following its preview, the White Album was played almost continuously, with Manson driving his revolutionary predictions into his followers’ malleable subconscious. For Paul Watkins, and every other component part of the Family, it was vindication of everything Manson had been pointing at for months. Watkins would later articulate this uncanny realisation following Charlie’s preview of the White Album to his followers.

[50] Paul Watkins “Things were never the same...At that point Charlie’s credibility seemed indisputable. For weeks he had been talking of revolution, prophesying it. We had listened to him rap; we were geared for it – making music to program the young love. Then, from across the Atlantic, the hottest music group in the world substantiates Charlie with an album that is almost blood curdling in its depiction of violence. It was uncanny.”

Copyright questions

I happened upon the above-presented excerpt on, I think, August 15 (2009) — maybe the day before. I was struck by its similarity to Helter Skelter (Manson scenario), the Wikipedia article at whose talk page I am announcing the present statements. Because the said Wikipedia article happens to be virtually entirely my work, I am very familiar with its contents.

Naturally, the excerpt's similarity to the Wikipedia article raised in my mind copyright questions. Although I know very little about the subject, my understanding is that Wikipedia's articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. My very-rough understanding of the operation of that license is as follows:

Wikipedia content may be republished, by other parties, as long as:

1. Wikipedia is acknowledged as the source of the material
2. The same Creative Commons License is attached to the republished material, including additions to or modifications of the Wikipedia material

To repeat: That is my very-rough understanding of the operation of the Creative Commons License. I am posting the present statements with the very purpose of finding out how the license works and, specifically, how, if at all, it bears on the Wells book.

Attempt at contact

Stated specifically, the copyright questions that occurred to me were these:

QUESTION 1: Does the excerpt constitute republication of Wikipedia material, namely, Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)?

QUESTION 2: If so, then

A. Does the Creative Commons License require the Wells book to include an acknowledgment of the Wikipedia material?

B. Does the Creative Commons License attach to the Well book, with the effect that Hodder & Stoughton lacks copyright to the Wells book — or, at least, to part of it?

Because these questions struck me as worth pursuing, I decided to contact Hodder & Stoughton about them. At the company's website, I found a "Contact Us" page that included the following:

For editorial inquiries:

editorialwebqueries@hodder.co.uk

Naturally, my first thought was that such an e-mail address — made available to the general public — was not to be taken very seriously as a means of contacting anyone at Hodder & Stoughton. (To be honest, I doubted whether anyone on the receiving end of mail sent to that address would be able to read.) That thought notwithstanding, I decided to contact Hodder & Stoughton through that address, for two reasons:

Reason 1: The address is, in fact, the address that Hodder & Stoughton presents to the world for "editorial inquiries."

Reason 2: I can't afford stationery.

Because I anticipated that the e-mail to Hodder & Stoughton would be ignored, I decided to send carbon-copies of the e-mail to four other parties:

Carbon-copy party 1: The Times Online (UK)

Carbon-copy party 2: The Mail Online (UK)

Carbon-copy party 3: The Daily Record (Scotland)

Carbon-copy party 4: The Wikimedia Foundation

As you see, those four parties are (a) the three newspapers in which I'd encountered articles about the Wells book and (b)Wikimedia, presumably the holder of copyright to Helter Skelter (Manson scenario) under the Creative Commons License.

Again — I was able to locate only publicly-available, presumably-worthless e-mail addresses. They were these:

The Times Online: books@thetimes.co.uk

The Mail Online: editorial@dailymailonline.co.uk

The Daily Record: webeditor@dailyrecord.co.uk

Wikimedia Foundation: info@wikimedia.org

E-mail of August 15 (2009)

On August 15 (2009), via the above-indicated e-addresses, I sent e-mail to the above-identified five parties, namely, Hodder & Stoughton and the four carbon-copy parties (Times Online, Mail Online, Daily Record, and Wikimedia Foundation).

The e-mail, including links, read as follows:

To whom it may concern:

I have recently encountered online articles that are about -- or that refer to -- Charles Manson: Coming Down Fast, your recently-published book by Simon Wells. These include:

1 -- A June 18 review in the Times Online (UK)

2 -- A June 15 review in the Mail Online (UK)

3 -- An August 8 article in the Daily Record (Scotland)

Although I do not own the book and have not read it, I have also encountered what is apparently an excerpt of it. You will find this in an undated entry headed "Charles Manson and the Beatles," at a blog called The Beatles Virtual Museum.

I am struck by the said excerpt's similarity to Helter Skelter (Manson scenario), a Wikipedia article that happens to be largely my work. As you undoubtedly know, Wikipedia's articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. The similarity raises, in my mind, the question whether Mr. Wells or Hodder & Stoughton have copyright to the book's whole.

Lest I be misunderstood: I myself am certainly not claiming copyright -- which is voided ab initio by the Creative Commons License. I am simply raising the question whether Hodder & Stoughton can prevent anyone from printing and publishing the book -- or, at any rate, parts of it.

As you see, I am sending copies of the present e-mail to the Times Online, the Mail Online, and the Daily Record. It is my hope that they, too -- in addition to you -- will examine the book and the above-named Wikipedia article to consider this very-new sort of copyright question. In considering it, you and those newspapers might also want to examine the contents of Charles Manson and Paul Watkins (Manson Family), two other Wikipedia articles on which I happen to have worked.

Not having seen the entire book, I do not know what attributions, if any, it contains. If, of course, Wikipedia material has been acknowledged in the way that the Creative Commons License requires it be, then Mr. Wells and Hodder & Stoughton have made clear that they do not hold or claim copyright to such material. If, on the other hand, there is no acknowledgment, there is the second legal question whether the terms of the said license have been violated. Accordingly, I have sent a copy of the present e-mail to the Wikimedia Foundation also.

In signing the e-mail, I provided my street address and telephone number. You will note that the e-mail's link to the excerpt from the Wells book is to a website called The Beatles Virtual Museum. That website republished the excerpt from ZANI. At the time I sent the e-mail, I'd not yet seen the original post — the ZANI post, but I have checked to make sure the two posts are identical.

Non-echo

As I have already indicated, I expected little to come of that e-mail. I figured that such a message, sent to such publicly-available e-addresses, would be like shouting into a void. I expected no echo.

Accordingly, I decided that I would wait one month. Were I to have received no reply from any of the five parties — i.e., either Hodder & Stoughton or the carbon-copy parties — I would post an entry about the subject at Wikipedia. In fact, I began preparing the entry — first on my home computer and then in my Wikipedia "sandbox." I figured it would be easiest simply to have the entry ready to be posted circa September 15 (i.e., one month after the sending of the e-mail).

Purpose of the present entry

Sure enough — today is September 16 (2009), and I have not received a reply from any of the five parties to whom I sent the above-presented e-mail of August 15. I hereby "publish" the present sandbox page. I do so with only one purpose:

To obtain answers to the above-indicated copyright questions from an appropriate person in the legal department of Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.

Allow me to restate that: I am aware that anyone can post any sort of comment in response to the present entry. I am not interested in other Wikipedia editors' answers to the above-indicated copyright questions. Should any such opinions be posted here, in response to this entry, I will regard tham as inexpert, i.e., worth no more than my own opinion. I am posting the present entry simply in the hope that administrators — or other persons who are more familiar than I am with the operation and organization of Wikipedia — will take whatever steps are necessary to bring this question to the attention of the legal department of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Excerpt's similarities to the Wikipedia article

As I have indicated, I really have no way of knowing whether the material in the excerpt from the Wells book qualifies as republished Wikipedia material. On the one hand, there are certainly similarities. As I will demonstrate, below, there can be no doubt that, as he was composing the material in the excerpt, Mr. Wells was familiar with the Wikipedia article. On the other hand, the material in the Wikipedia article itself is, of course, taken from other published works; in fact, in assembling the article's section re Manson's interpretations of specific Beatle songs and Biblical passages, I presented those songs and those passages in the order in which they are treated in Helter Skelter, Bugliosi and Gentry's book that is arguably the main source of the material in the Wikipedia article.

Before I detail the similarities between the Wikipedia article and the excerpt from the Wells book, I will note the following, which is revealed in the Wikipedia article's log:

—Creation of the Wikipedia article began at 02:38, 28 April 2007

—Shortly after creation of the article began, a Wikipedia editor who apparently thought the article was a bit of Manson madness deleted the article; but another editor quickly restored it. In resuming the article's creation, after that brief mix-up, I posted the following edit summary (at 05:47, 28 April 2007):

Am establishing this page because there is no room for all this detail at [Wikipedia's] "Charles Manson" entry and because there is no comprehensive, intelligible description of Helter Skelter anywhere

Eventually, at Wikipedia's Charles Manson entry and Wikipedia's entry about the Beatle song Helter Skelter, I established a "See Main article" link to Helter Skelter (Manson scenario). In roughly the same period, I began revising the Charles Manson entry, where other editors soon also began working. At the same time, I created a related article, Paul Watkins (Manson Family).

Faulty borrowing

The excerpt's paragraph 4 includes the following:

Regardless of the sheer craziness of these associations, Manson had allegedly pinpointed thirteen tracks off the White Album that correlated in with his views.

The first thing one notices about that sentence is that it is not really correct. As the Wikipedia article indicates, Bugliosi and Gentry state (in Helter Skelter) that Manson saw a meaning in almost every one of the White Album’s tracks, which total thirty. The following is the exact statement, from page 241 of Helter Skelter’s 1994 edition, published to mark the murders’ 25th anniversary:

Almost every song in the album had a hidden meaning, which Manson interpreted for his followers.

This is corroborated, incidentally, by a recent Catherine Share statement that I have recently added to the "Background" section of the Wikipedia article. (Per Ms. Share: "Every single song on the White Album, he [Manson] felt that they were talking about us.")

Then where did Mr. Wells get the number "thirteen"? He got it from the Wikipedia article — which is the only place it has ever appeared. In the article’s "Background" section is this:

Although Manson thought almost every song on the album had a meaning connected with the events he and, in his view, The Beatles were foreseeing, he had to lay out the supposedly-coded meanings for his followers. White Album songs specifically known to have been connected with the vision are:

Until just a few days ago (see Note 1, immediately below), that was followed, in the Wikipedia article, by a list of thirteen Manson-interpreted White Album songs, plus a fourteenth one that, as the article indicated, was given a Helter Skelter interpretation by Tex Watson — i.e., not Manson.

Having written that passage, I know that, in constructing it, I simply listed and numbered the songs that the sources mentioned. No source itself ever numbered them; and, as you can see, the Wikipedia article identified the thirteen songs merely as those "specifically known" to have been interpreted by Manson. By writing that, I meant simply to indicate that those were the only ones specifically mentioned in the sources. Not only did Mr. Wells rely on the Wikipedia article; he seems not to have relied on it very carefully.

Note 1: Recently, I began to think that the list presented in the article should have included only twelve Manson-interpreted songs — not thirteen. "Glass Onion," which was on the list at number 3, was included only because it is mentioned in Chapter 11 of Tex Watson’s autobiographical Will You Die for Me? (as told to Ray Hoekstra). The pertinent passage from that chapter is this:

And if the Beatles weren’t so exhausted from their fruitless trip to find the true Jesus (Charlie) in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India (whom they had written off as "the fool on the hill" in an earlier song that was referred to in the White Album’s song "Glass Onion"), they would come looking for him in California — they’d join him. After all, didn’t they say as much when in "Honey Pie" they sang: "I’m in love but I’m lazy"?

As can be seen, Watson, there, is talking about Manson’s interpretation of the song "Honey Pie." According to Bugliosi and Gentry, that song’s statement "I’m in love but I’m lazy" was, indeed, interpreted by Manson to mean that the Beatles were worn out after going to India and deciding the Maharishi was a false prophet — but in mentioning that "the fool on the hill" referred to in "Glass Onion" is (supposedly) the Maharishi, Watson and Hoekstra might simply be circulating a supposedly-well-known interpretation of "Glass Onion," not necessarily a Manson interpretation. Accordingly, at 05:58, 13 September 2009, I revised the Wikipedia article to elminate its references to "Glass Onion" (and to "Fool on the Hill"). I explained the revision in a talk-page entry headed "References to 'Glass Onion' and 'Fool on the Hill.'"

Note 2: The list’s final song — Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey — is not mentioned by Bugliosi and Gentry. I added it to the Wikipedia article’s list only after another editor added it without explanation. At first, I deleted it; but then, when I saw that Watson mentioned his own interpretation of it — not Manson’s — in his Chapter 11, I reinserted it, with the parenthetical explanation that it was a Watson-interpreted track, not a Manson one. My guess was that the other editor had been led to Watson's Chapter 11 via a footnote-link I'd place in the article and he or she, having seen Watson's reference to that song, added it to the article without taking any trouble to explain the inclusion of it.

To repeat: Wells’s (erroneous) statement that Manson had ascribed Helter-Skelter-related meanings to thirteen of the album’s tracks is indisputable evidence that he (Wells) was familiar with the Wikipedia article when he wrote his book’s portion that was excerpted at ZANI.

Other borrowing — 1

The excerpt's paragraph 15 is this:

In “Rocky Racoon,” Paul McCartney’s capricious paean to the vaudeville of the Wild West, Manson drew a racial inference with the syllable “coon.” Further references in the song would relate to gun battles and Bibles which to Charlie verified his prediction of an impending black uprising. During a Rolling Stone magazine interview with Manson in 1970, Charlie elucidated on his “Rocky Racoon” theory, even giving credence to the McCartney’s line concerning “Rocky’s revival,” which he saw as the black community’s bloody resurgence.

The Wikipedia article's treatment of Manson's interpretation of "Rocky Raccoon" is in the subsection headed "Beatle lyrics, as interpreted by Manson." With its footnotes omitted, it is this:

[According to Manson,] Rocky Raccoon means "coon," vulgar term for a black man

Of all the Beatles songs known to have been connected with Helter Skelter, this is the only one that mentions the Bible. (It is possibly the only Beatles song at all that mentions the Bible.) A play on the Gideons International practice of leaving Bibles in hotel rooms, the references are to a Bible left in the room of the title character by a "Gideon":

So one day [Rocky Raccoon] walked into town/ Booked himself a room in the local saloon/ Rocky Raccoon/ Checked into his room/ Only to find Gideon's Bible... Now Rocky Raccoon/ He fell back in his room/ Only to find Gideon's Bible/ Gideon checked out/ And he left it no doubt/ To help with good Rocky's revival.

Manson made the connection. In the period before his trial, he was visited at the Los Angeles County Jail by David Dalton and David Felton, who were preparing a Rolling Stone story, about him, that appeared in the magazine in June 1970. In an article in the October 1998 issue of the periodical Gadfly, Dalton, recounting the visit to Manson, relayed the remarks Manson made to Felton and him about "Rocky Raccoon":

"Coon," said Charlie. "You know that's a word they use for black people. You know the line, 'Gideon checked out/ And left no doubt/ To help good Rocky's revival.' Rocky's revival -- re-vival. It means coming back to life. The black man is going to come into power again. 'Gideon checks out' means that it's all written out there in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelations [sic]."

As you see, the passage from the Wells excerpt begins — as does the Wikipedia passage — with the fact, taken from Bugliosi and Gentry's Helter Skelter, that Manson took "raccoon" to mean "coon," a racial term. The Wikipedia article goes on to mention that "Rocky Raccon" mentions the Bible, Manson's other source of Helter Skelter prophecy. As I recall, I noticed that fact — and placed it in the Wikipedia article — before I'd encountered the Dalton article that included Manson's remarks on the song's reference to the Bible. When I encountered the Dalton article, I added its "Rocky Raccon" segment, including the Manson quote, to the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article, in other words, was the first place that Manson's statement to Dalton and Felton was included in an overall treatment of Manson's interpretation of the Beatles and the Bible. The wording of the Wells passage about "Rocky Raccoon" is, in other words, one more indication that, in structuring his chapter — if that's what it was — about Manson's Helter Skelter vision, Wells is following the pattern of the Wikipedia article.

Note: The Wikipedia article quotes David Dalton's 1998 article about the visit he (Dalton) and David Felton made to Manson in the period before Manson's trial. Dalton's segment about "Rocky Raccoon" is actually simply a repeat of a passage that Felton and he included in the Manson Rolling Stone interview that they wrote in 1970 — i.e., at the time of the visit, although I didn't know that at the time I encountered the 1998 article and included its information in the Wikipedia article. At a later point, as I recall, I did discover the 1970 Rolling Stone interview (which may be found here); but because I was then in a period in which I was disinclined to disturb the Wikipedia article, I left the reference to the 1998 article, instead of changing it to a reference to the 1970 piece. With respect to that, Wells has actually improved on the Wikipedia material: He has referred directly to the 1970 piece, which, as I say, is where Manson's statement appeared originally.

Other borrowing — 2

The excerpt's paragraph 27 begins with this:

Save for a few passages of nonsensical gibberish at the start of the track, most of the words spoken in “Revolution 9” are totally indecipherable. During later court trials when the mass of this information was presented, it was claimed that Manson had heard the words “Charlie, Charlie, send us a telegram” somewhere in the mix. Although George Harrison does indeed mutter the word “telegram” at some point, it’s difficult to ascertain whether “Charlie” is mentioned at any point.

The Wikipedia article's treatment of Manson's interpretation of "Revolution 9" occurs in the article's subsection headed "Beatles lyrics, as interpreted by Manson." It contains this:

Manson also hears the Beatles whispering: "Charlie, Charlie, send us a telegram." (See Honey Pie, above.) At approximately 3:45 of the recording, a voice that could be that of George Harrison does, in fact, seem to be saying something about a telegram.

As the footnotes in the Wikipedia article indicate, that first statement — that Manson heard "Charlie, Charlie, send us a telegram" — is from page 106 of the 2002 edition of the Ed Sanders book The Family, which is where I found it before I placed it in the Wikipedia article. The second fact — that, in "Revolution 9," George Harrison can be heard saying "telegram" — was not in any of the Manson sources before I placed it in the article; to my knowledge, it had not been connected with the Manson story anywhere before I connected it in the article. While working on the article, I came across a detailed breakdown of the makeup of "Revolution 9." (Maybe I encountered a link to it at Wikipedia's Revolution 9 article.) In reading it, I encountered the reference to Harrison's saying something about a telegram. In fact, the breakdown indicated — or maybe merely raised the possibility — that Harrison uttered a complete sentence: "I found a telegram." After reading that, I listened to the recording to see if the breakdown had it right; and sure enough, at the time-point that the breakdown had indicated, a voice that seemed to be Harrison's said something about a telegram — although I personally couldn't make out the entire sentence. Accordingly, I worded the Wikipedia article carefully, to indicate that the voice seemed to be that of Harrison and that he had said something about a telegram. As you can see, the Wells excerpt basically follows this — and as I have said, that specific moment in "Revolution 9" was, as far as I know, never connected to the Manson story before I connected it in the Wikipedia article. Again: Wells is clearly relying on the Wikipedia article.

Other borrowing — 3

The excerpt's paragraph 37 marks the beginning of Wells's treatment of Manson's interpretation of the Bible. The paragraph opens as follows:

While Charlie had (obviously) absolutely no insider information of the circumstances behind the writing of “Helter Skelter” he was in little doubt that its semantics were wholly in line with his own interpretations from the Book of Revelation; particularly sections seven through to nine.

That last part — "particularly sections seven through nine" — is worthy of attention. In the first place, it would seem to be incorrect. As is indicated in the Wikipedia article — and as no specific information in the Wells excerpt contradicts — Manson is known to have referred to only one verse of Revelation's Chapter 7 and to no verses of Chapter 8. Manson is known to have referred to at least one verse each of Chapters 10, 16, 21, and 22.

How do I know this — and what is the significance of it? I know it because as I consulted Bugliosi and Gentry's Helter Skelter and other sources that indicated specific Bible references made by Manson, I went through an online transcript of the Book of Revelation and located each reference. The significance is that Wells is again patterning his remarks on the contents of the Wikipedia article, which is the only place where where Manson is connected with Revelation's Chapter 7.

To be a bit more specific:

On page 239 of the 1994 edition of Bugliosi and Gentry's Helter Skelter is this:

Several persons had told me Manson was fond of quoting from the Bible, particularly the ninth chapter of Revelation.

As they continue — and present Manson's interpretation of specific Bible passages — Bugliosi and Gentry sometimes — but not always — provide the numbers of the specific verses; but all of those whose numbers they do provide are from verse 9. As far as I know, no reference to a Revelation verse that is outside Chapter 9 and is identified as such is to be found in any Manson source except the Paul Watkins autobiography My Life with Charles Manson (whose fourteenth chapter refers to Revelation Chapter 10 Verse 2).

The one Manson reference to Revelation's Chapter 7 is to that chapter's verse 4:

And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

In speaking of Manson's interpretation of that verse, Bugliosi and Gentry do not provide either the chapter number or the verse number. They simply write (on page 246 of Helter Skelter's 1994 edition):

The Family [according to Manson], now grown to 144,000, as predicted in the Bible — a pure, white master race — would emerge from the bottomless pit.

Manson Family member Paul Watkins's trial testimony — as quoted in Bugliosi's closing statement to the jury — includes a reference to this "144,000"; but again — the chapter and verse are not identified:

"Did [Manson] talk about the twelve tribes of Israel?"

"Yes. That was in there, too. It was supposed to get back to the 144,000 people. The Family was to grow to this number."

"The twelve tribes of Israel being 144,000 people?"

"Yes."

"And Manson said that the Family would eventually increase to 144,000 people?"

"Yes."

Despite this lack of specificity in the sources — unless there is something in the complete Watkins testimony transcript, which, I suppose, Wells could have consulted — the excerpt from the Wells book includes this:

Additionally, in information he’d sourced from Revelation Seven, Charlie believed that with his Family safely ensconced in the desert underworld, they would sit out the bloodbath occurring in the city. This apparently would take many years until their numbers reached 144,000; a figure Manson had again derived from Revelation Seven, which talked of the twelve tribes of 12,000.

Wells's specific mention of "Revelation Seven" is, again, an indication that the excerpt is patterned on the Wikipedia article — though, as I say, Wells seems to have embellished the material with a dubious assertion that Manson was focused on "sections seven through nine" of Revelation.

Note: The Paul Watkins trial testimony, as quoted in Bugliosi's closing argument, includes this:

"Then we started from the 'Revolution 9' song on the Beatles album which was interpreted by Charlie to mean the Revelation 9. So-"

"The last book of the New Testament?"

"Just the book of Revelation and the song would be 'Revelations 9: So, in this book it says, there is a part about, in Revelations 9, it talks of the bottomless pit. Then later on, I believe it is in 10."

"Revelation 10?"

"Yes. It talks about there will be a city where there will be no sun and there will be no moon."

"Manson spoke about this?"

"Yes, many times. That there would be a city of gold, but there would be no life, and there would be a tree there that bears twelve different kinds of fruit that changed every month. And this was interpreted to mean-this was the hole down under Death Valley.

Watkins has the chapter number wrong. Nothing he is mentioning there is from Chapter 10. As the Wikipedia article makes clear, the city "with no sun and no moon" is from Chapter 21, as is the "city of gold." The tree with twelve kinds of fruit is from Chapter 22.

I mention this simply to demonstrate that, as I have said, the Wikipedia article's mentions of specific chapters and verses are not simply copied from the sources. Some are from the sources; others I had to track down. I'm pretty sure Wells would not have found a reference to Chapter 7 anywhere if he'd not come to the Wikipedia article.

The Wikipedia article's treats Manson's interpretation of Chapter 9, verse 4:

And it was commanded [that the locusts] should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

Although Bugliosi and Gentry mention that verse in Helter Skelter, they do not identify it by number; and they mention only Manson's interpretation of the latter part (about the seal on the forehead), not the former part (about the grass and green things and trees). In Chapter 11 of Tex Watson's autobiography (as told to Ray Hoekstra), there is a specific reference to "verse 4," but only Manson's interest in the "seal of God" on foreheads is mentioned. The verse's part about grass, green things, and trees does not even appear.

In the Wikipedia article, on the other hand, the verse is identified by number; and Manson's interpretation of it is said to have included this:

not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree = only humans, not nature, will be destroyed in Helter Skelter

As the Wikipedia article indicates (by footnote), that particular piece of information is from Chapter 13 of the Paul Watkins autobiography (as told to Guillermo Soledad), My Life with Charles Manson; but the Watkins autobiography does not provide the verse number. Paragraph 44 of the excerpt from the Wells book begins with this:

In section four [of Revelation's Chapter 9] it reads; “They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” Manson had previously berated any member of the Family for killing bugs, snakes or any other animals.

Naturally, Wells might have troubled himself to look up the verse number -- or to have connected the information from Helter Skelter and the Watson autobiography to arrive at it; but in the context of the other borrowings I've identified, his specification of verse four seems another indication that he's tracking the Wikipedia article.

Other borrowing — 4

The excerpt's final paragraph — paragraph 50, as I have numbered it above — is a quote from My Life with Charles Manson, Paul Watkins's autobiography writeen with Guillermo Soledad:

Paul Watkins “Things were never the same...At that point Charlie’s credibility seemed indisputable. For weeks he had been talking of revolution, prophesying it. We had listened to him rap; we were geared for it – making music to program the young love. Then, from across the Atlantic, the hottest music group in the world substantiates Charlie with an album that is almost blood curdling in its depiction of violence. It was uncanny.”

That same passage — minus the first sentence, which comes before the ellipsis — appears in the Wikipedia article's section headed "References to the Beatles and the Book of Revelation." Obviously, Wikipedia doesn't own that passage, which, as I say, is a quotation from a book; but what I am attempting to learn — what I wish to learn from a member of the legal department of the Wikimedia Foundation — is whether the Wells excerpt's overall structure and tone — in addition to its specific elements — are such that the excerpt may be regarded as use of Wikipedia material. I had never seen the Watkins passage quoted or linked anywhere before I encountered it in the Watkins autobiography and placed it in the Wikipedia article.

Minor points

1 — The excerpt's opening sentence (paragraph 1) is this:

Since 1967, the Manson Family had voraciously lapped up the Beatles’ catalogue, utilising the group’s psychedelic imagery as a soundtrack to their own lives.

Considered in connection with the excerpt's known borrowings from the Wikipedia article, this, too, seems to be informed by the Wikipedia article, which, in three of its sections — "Beatle lyrics, as interpreted by Manson," "Timeline," and "Abbey Road epilogue" — indicates that Manson's interest in the Beatles went back to the 1967 album Magical Mystery Tour.

This is not to say that Wells, in constructing his material, would not have seen that information in sources. Page 27 of the 2002 edition of The Family by Ed Sanders includes this:

In December of 1967 the Beatles released their album Magical Mystery Tour and their corresponding movie, based on a psychedelic bus tour through the English countryside late in the Summer of Love. The Beatles to the rescue. This seems to be the first Beatles album from which Manson drew philosophical guidance.

That paragraph goes on to say that the Manson Family dubbed its travels in its bus the "Magical Mystery Tour"; and accordingly, the paragraph is cited in two separate footnotes in the Wikipedia article. In context, in other words, the opening sentence of the excerpt from the Wells book gives the impression that the excerpt is tracking the Wikipedia article.

2 — This is a strange one to mention — but I'll mention it. The excerpt's paragraphs 2 and 3 are as follows:

With enough time to process the album’s chimera, Charlie revealed his findings at a party on New Year’s Eve, 1968, in Death Valley. In honour of his startling epiphany, Manson had purchased a battery operated record player to take to the desert to preview the album. Loyal foot soldier Susan Atkins, AKA Sadie Mae Glutz, at that point acquiescent to all of Charlie’s ever revolving philosophies, recalled the night Manson revealed his seismic convergence with the Beatles.

Susan Atkins: “It had a tremendous impact on our lives, especially Charlie’s. One night, when many of us were playing records and listening to the album, Charlie said, “They’re speaking to me.” He was convinced that he had some sort of apocalyptic connection with the Beatles. I never fully understood it, but Charlie, our unchallenged leader, was deeply affected. And I and most of the others believed that, in some way, “Helter Skelter”, the end of the world, was “coming down fast.””

I'm struck by three things:

—The use of the word "chimera" seems a little off and seems to me be an indication that Wells's mind was on the Wikipedia article, whose opening paragraph refers to a judge's characterization of Helter Skelter as Manson's "chimerical vision."

—I'm pretty sure that none of the sources I consulted during the construction of the Wikipedia article indicates that Manson used a battery-operated record player in the desert on the 1968 New Year's Eve that he presented the Family with the Helter Skelter prophecy. Maybe Wells has encountered such a reference — but the only mention I've encountered of a battery-operated record player is on page 288 of the 2002 edition of the Ed Sanders book The Family. There — as is mentioned in the Wikipedia article's section headed "Abbey Road epilogue" — Sanders indicates that the Family used such a record player in the desert to listen to the Beatles' Abbey Road album in late 1969, after the murders. Again — I'm getting the feeling Wells is tracking the Wikipedia article, albeit somewhat fracturedly.

—The quote from Susan Atkins is strange. In the first place, there's no indication in the Atkins autobiography, from which the quote is taken (page 112, 1977 edition, Child of Satan, Child of God), that, in speaking of the night Manson first talked about the White Album, Atkins is speaking of the New Year's Eve get together — although Wells, maybe in an attempt to reconcile disparate recollections by different Family members, semi-suggests as much. More importantly — the quote strikes me as strange because I myself employed it as the epigraph of the Helter Skelter section of a Manson-related website that I constructed from the three Wikipedia articles — Charles Manson, Helter Skelter (Manson scenario), and Paul Watkins (Manson Family) — I'd worked on. (The website is under the Creative Commons License.) As early as 04:50 9 May 2008, a comment that I posted on the talk page of Wikipedia's "Charles Manson" entry included a link to that website. Even though I've since seen the quote elsewhere on the internet and have thus concluded it might not be obscure, I can't help wondering whether Mr. Wells had visited Wikipedia's "Charles Manson" talk page, encountered the link, visited the website, and patterned his work on Creative Commons material derived from Wikipedia. (This particular point might be minor — if it has any importance at all; but I thought I'd mention it.)

Sidenote

In its paragraph 6, the Wells excerpt does mention one Manson Beatle-song-interpretation that does not appear in the Wikipedia article. That is the interpretation of “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?" I don't know Wells's source for that information. I don't recall encountering it in any of the sources that I used in constructing the Wikipedia article.

Digressions

1 — In the excerpt’s paragraph 14, Wells says that noboby, "least of all Charlie," could provide "any verifiable origin" of Atkins’s nickname, Sadie Mae Glutz. Putting aside the question whether any "verifiable origin" of the name would be required — or expected — I'll mention that the Atkins autobiography — Child of God, Child of Satan — provides an origin that, if not "verifiable," should at least have been mentioned by Wells if he were going to bring the subject up. From pages 94 and 95 of the autobiography's 1977 edition (published by Logos International):

Even in Topanga Canyon days, most of us had been busted by the police several times and were on parole. We were always in danger of being picked up for anything from vagrancy to drug possession – and more.

"We need new I.D.s," Charlie said, and before long who should arrive, fresh from prison, but Randy, a master counterfeiter. Seeing our problem, he agreed to make new driver’s licenses for everyone.

When he got to me, he asked what name I wanted on it.

"I don’t know," I said. "But don’t make it Sharon. I’ve worn that one out."

Suddenly Charlie said, "She’s Sadie Mae."

"Sadie Mae?" I exclaimed.

"That’s right," he said persuasively. "That’s the perfect name for you."

'Sadie Mae what?" I pressed on.

But Charlie was silent. After a moment, Randy said, "Glutz."

He and Charlie roared with laughter.

"That’s it," Charlie said excitedly, still laughing. "Sadie Mae Glutz."

"What are you guys laughing about? What is Glutz?"

After a pause, Randy explained. "It’s a prison term, Susan. You know, Joe Glutz, like Joe Smith. We used to call the guards 'Glutz'."

So there was born Sadie Mae Glutz, a name I could rattle off in perfect Arkansas accents when questioned by the police. "I’m Sadie Mae Glutz from Arkansas, and I’m just thrilled with your California." Strangely, it seemed to work.

2 — Wells is probably incorrect — and just plain careless — to state that "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was inspired by a hunter Lennon met in India. My own vague recollection — supported by Wikipedia — is that the encounter with the hunter inspired a different White Album song, "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill." "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was, I think, a phrase Lennon encountered in a gun advertisement.

Non-Wikpedia borrowing

Paragraph 40 of the Wells excerpt begins with this:

As the only book in the Bible to overtly cite apocalyptic themes, The Book of Revelation has confused and enraged scholars throughout the centuries. Furthermore, its nebulous and occasionally impenetrable text has provoked numerous interpretations.

Compare the following, which is from Chapter 11 of Tex Watson’s Will You Die for Me? (as told to Ray Hoekstra):

I don’t know how Charlie happened to discover the ninth chapter of the Apocalypse of John, but its florid imagery and graphic symbols of death and destruction fit both his purposes and his style only too well. Christian scholars are divided over the exact meaning of this strange picture of death and destruction let loose on the world in the form of avenging angels sent to punish the evils of mankind.

I point out the similarity not only as an additional indication of Wells's tendency to borrow but as, in a way, further evidence of the influence of Wikipedia on Wells. Wikipedia articles including not only Helter Skelter (Manson scenario) but Charles Manson and Paul Watkins (Manson Family) include a number of links to Chapter 11 and other chapters of the Watson autobiography. I don't think I saw the Watson autobiography linked anywhere on the internet before I began linking it at Wikipedia, so I'm inclined to think that Wells became familiar with it via the Wikipedia articles.

Power of Wikipedia

I personally first became familiar with the details of Manson's Helter Skelter vision in the late 1990s, when I encountered Vincent Bugliosi's closing argument in a book of famous closing arguments. At the time, I thought the subject would make a good monograph, but I had no real interest in writing up such a document and attempting to get it published. At that time, I was not really acquainted with the internet and knew nothing of Wikipedia (which might not even then have existed).

Years later, when I discovered that that closing argument had been transcribed by some unknown person at a website called 2violent.com, I really began to be impressed by the power of the internet to enable persons with a sufficient level of interest in a subject to bring important material about it to world attention. Eventually, as I considered that I'd also encountered the Watson autobiography and other primary material online, I began thinking about contributing to Wikipedia's Manson article and linking the online material. As I began contributing material to the Charles Manson article, I decided to create the spinoff articles, Helter Skelter (Manson scenario) and Paul Watkins (Manson Family). I was impressed by the idea of Wikipedia — the idea that a Wikipedia article could be that very thing: a sort of hub to which primary sources on a subject could be connected.

In August 2009, as the Manson murders' fortieth anniversary approached, the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph ran an article that included the following gracious remark:

First, here’s a recap of the Manson story. For more detail I direct readers to the book by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter (1974), and the thorough Wikipedia articles. (Emphasis added.)

A few details in that Daily Telegraph article made clear that Helter Skelter (Manson scenario) was among the Wikipedia articles to which that author (one Andrew M. Brown) was referring. The Daily Telegraph article even included a link to Bugliosi's closing argument at 2violent.com, a somewhat-lurid website with which, I imagine, Mr. Brown became familiar via the Wikipedia articles.

All of this is to say that I'm not surprised that the Wells book shows the influence of Wikipedia. For all of the jokes that are made about it, Wikipedia functions pretty well, I think, as, at least, a first stop for information on just about any subject. Even though some remarks on the talk page of Helter Skelter (Manson scenario) make clear that some Wikipedia editors have regarded that article as an unnecessary addition to Wikipedia, I'm not surprised the Wells book shows influence of it. In fact, when I began constructing the article, I semi-imagined that someone might make use of it in a book. In the first place, I thought it a very-interesting subject; in the second place, I knew the murders' fortieth anniversary was near.

Anyway — the evidence above makes clear that Simon Wells was drawing on Helter Skelter (Manson scenario). Considering that the Helter Skelter material is what Hodder & Stoughton chose to release to the ZANI website as an excerpt, I'm even inclined to think that the Wikipedia article inspired the creation of the book.

Be that as it may, I would like to hear — as I have said — from the Wikimedia Foundation's legal department:

Does the excerpt from the Wells book constitute use of Wikipedia material?

As I have already said: I myself don't know enough about copyright to say what the similarities between the Wikipedia article and the Wells book amount to, legally. As I have also said — bluntly: I am not interested in the opinions of Wikipedia editors who don't really know any more than I do about the subject. To repeat:

The present talk-page entry is intended to obtain answers to the above-indicated copyright questions from an appropriate person in the legal department of Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.

As I understand it, Wikipedia material is not quite "free for the using." Every person who contributes to a Wikipedia article does so with the understanding that the material is on offer to the world via the Creative Commons License. If a party makes use of the material in violation of that license's terms, the Wikimedia Foundation has an obligation — I should think — to pursue the party's compliance with the license.

According to the Hodder & Stoughton webpage, the Wells book is currently priced at about Thirteen Pounds. I don't know how much that is in U.S. dollars; but inasmuch as I don't have any money anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm simply not in a position to order the book and look through it to see whether it includes any mention of the use of Wikipedia material. Because my e-mail to Hodder & Stoughton has won no reply, I simply do not know the answer to that question.

So — again and finally:

QUESTION 1: Does the excerpt constitute republication of Wikipedia material, namely, Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)?

QUESTION 2: If so, then

A. Does the Creative Commons License require the Wells book to include an acknowledgment of the Wikipedia material?

B. Does the Creative Commons License attach to the Well book, with the effect that Hodder & Stoughton lacks copyright to the Wells book — or, at least, to part of it?

Anything that any Wikipedia editor or administrator can do to help me get answers to those questions from the legal department of Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation will be appreciated.

BEFORE I SIGN OFF: When I constructed Helter Skelter (Manson scenario), I presented each footnote individually. At some point, another editor simplified the article by reformatting the footnotes via Wikipedia's "name=whatever" code, which transforms multiple appearances of the same footnote into a single footnote. The problem with that, in my view, is that use of the "name=whatever" code can sometimes mix the footnotes up. Accordingly, I am no longer as sure as I once was that the article's footnotes are in good order.

Anyway — I will appreciate it if Wikipedia editors who take measures to bring the present page to the attention of the legal department of the Wikimedia Foundation will indicate as much below.JohnBonaccorsi (talk) 19:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)