Manson’s plan was for the Manson family to hide in Death Valley and wait out the race war in a secret underground city.
In his view, the white community’s infighting combined with its alleged war against Black people would lead to white annihilation and consequent Black victory. Simultaneously, he theorized racist white people would turn against their anti-racist neighbors. It was Manson’s belief that escalating tensions between races would end in violent murders of whites by Black people and vice versa, leading to an eventual eruption of a full-scale war. Manson’s perception that the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” represented the fall of man was fueled in part by his belief that growing tensions between Black and white people in the 1960s would erupt into a cataclysmic race war, resulting in the slaughter of nearly all white people. These catastrophic prophecies were allegedly confirmed through the lyrics of Helter Skelter. Furthermore, Manson represented the Beatles as being the “ Four Horseman of the Apocalypse” – biblical figures who appear following the unsealing of the first four of the seven seals, with each representing a different facet of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine, and death. Manson re-interpreted this meaning, drawing parallels between the lyrics to verses in the ninth chapter of the Book of Revelation, which tells of a hellish bottomless pit opening up in the world and a plague of anthropomorphic locusts coming to torture the unfaithful until an angel blows a trumpet to God. Paul McCartney used the image of a Helter Skelter as a metaphor for the decline of the Roman Empire – a descent from top to bottom. It was Manson’s hope that laying the blame at the feet of Black organizations would kickstart the race war of Helter Skelter. This was paired with other anti-police imagery and terminology, demonstrating Manson’s goal to make the police and media believe that Black organizations fighting police brutality, such as the Black Panther Party, were responsible for the murders. Moreover, human blood was used to smear “ Political Piggy” on the walls.
During the Tate-LaBianca murders, knives and forks were used to stab the victims these were the items mentioned in the song. Similarly, “Piggies” - originally intended by George Harrison to be a social commentary - was interpreted by many to be an anti-police anthem Manson specifically thought that the line in the lyrics, “what they need’s a damn good whackin’” applied to the American police. Paul McCartney’s song “Blackbird,” composed in support of Black women involved in the Civil Rights Movement, was perceived by Manson to portray Black Americans as viciously fighting the establishment. When the Beatles released their White Album in 1968, it was inconceivable that the songs “ Blackbird,” “ Piggies,” and “ Helter Skelter” would be interpreted as cryptic messages informing Manson of an apocalyptic prophecy. This article considers why accelerationists continue to use this terminology in their propaganda today. This imagery was subsequently recycled on Gab and Telegram in the aftermath of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd.
These murders were part of Manson’s apocalyptic prophecy – a race war he termed “Helter Skelter.” Accelerationist propaganda featuring the code words “Helter Skelter” was a common staple on the now-defunct platforms of IronMarch and Fascist Forge. The group was led by notorious criminal Charles Manson and is perhaps best known for the Tate-LaBianca murders in which seven people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, were murdered in August of 1969. The Manson family was a messianic counterculture cult and commune, fueled by sex and drugs and set in the backdrop of the “ Summer of Love,” boasting approximately 100 members at its peak.
An Analysis of the Relationship between Charles Manson and Accelerationist Propaganda