Summary of Max Cutler's Cults

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 The Manson Family, a group of followers led by Charles Manson, committed a series of murders in August 1969 that horrified the nation.

Manson's own background in youth homes and prison equipped him with a nearly complete tool kit of criminal psychology.#2 The 1960s were the television decade, and TV was a transformative force in American history.

It was used to broadcast the Vietnam War, which was dubbed the living room war due to its impact on society.

In 1965, state and local police routed civil rights marchers in Birmingham, Alabama, and ABC News broke into its scheduled broadcast with shocking coverage of law enforcement trampling, clubbing, and tear-gassing six hundred civilians.#3 The murders committed by the members of the Manson Family showed the country how quickly all those youthful impulses could go wrong.

They were all from the baby boom generation, and they proved to be highly susceptible to Manson's mix of LSD and psychological manipulation.#4 Before Manson, the word cult was often applied loosely to die-hard fans of a singer or a television show.

But after the murders, the word cult came to refer to what psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls destructive cults, which systematically harm and kill others or themselves.