24. Manson subjected his brainwashed followers to horrific abuse and control
Manson recruited only the most vulnerable and credulous people into the Family, and exercised a terrifying level of control over them. He convinced them that they were reincarnations of the original Christians, with himself as Christ, and that the authorities were the Romans who persecuted them first-time around. He forbade members from owning anything, including prescription glasses, and dosed them with LSD while he gave his lectures on the future. He forced female members to have sex with each other and forage for food in bins. Even after Charles’s life sentence, one Manson Family member tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
