I Don't Always Lead A Cult, But When I Do...

The perfect embodiment of a hippie 70s spiritual, white robed, naked, yogi, Utopian, vegan cult is The Source Family. We have seen so many parodies of this style of cult in pop culture, on the first watch of their documentary The Source Family, it seems like a joke. While The Source Family weren't the first hippie cult, they were surely a huge cultural influence considering they originated in Hollywood, CA and made their living serving vegan foods to the rich and famous on the Sunset Strip.

The leader/father/god was James Baker, who's life reads like a Dos Equis commercial, or a Bill Bradsky skit (got to love Will Ferrell SNL circa 1999). He's a war hero, jujitsu champion, murderer, millionaire, restaurant tycoon, and self proclaimed god.

The Source Family (2012) by Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille, is an amazingly thorough documentary due in part to the member, Isis Aquarian. She is the family historian for the Source Family, and always had a camera or a tape recorder in her hand. This cult wanted everything documented. You've got weddings, home births, meditations, musical performances, outings, shifts at the Source Restaurant... even death...

But on the topic of birth, something I've noticed about these types of cults is that the women members are always pumping out kids like nobody's business. It comes from an Adam and Eve complex where women, as individuals who can make more people appear out of their vaginas, are expected to help increase the population of believers. These children are only going to know the reality that you make for them in the first few years, so that will totally prime them for becoming built-in loyal followers.

No matter how "progressive" a cult of this nature appears to be, the birthing and the isolation appears completely anti-feminist. It's the idea that:

1. It's convenient that the female members are ladies, so they can give birth. So why don't you already?

and

2. Since we're so into ancient religions and practices, dressing like druids, and going back to nature, shouldn't we just throw away decades of advances in a woman's right over her body? Did ancient women take the pill? I didn't think so. So why don't we just do it and let's not worry about who's kid it is or who's going to take care of it, because we'll all "take care" of it. You've got so many hang ups man. I mean worrying about controlling the ability to not be pregnant is just a jail you put yourself in.  Think about it.

It is still an odd concept to grasp that these children were born into this; that they didn't have a choice and, at least till the cult disbanded, knew this as their way of life. There are so many horror stories about the children of cults, however many of those come from the more subversive ones . The Source Family never had any real serious issues with child welfare in comparison to, let's say, Jonestown. It looked like everyone in the Source Family had a healthy relationship with the nude form, which you can twist into sexual perversion if you want to, but it was the 70s and hippie parents outside of cults were trying to establish a healthy body image that was removed from shame and dirty fifthly sex too.

The one thing that happened in the Source Family that would be considered the endangerment of a child, is the lack of conventional medicine. Of course. One member left the group because his young son was very sick with an infection and they strongly disagreed with him going to a hospital or being treated with antibiotics. Of course.

Oh - and then there was the statutory rape. The Source Family attracted under aged women, and the first birth in the Source Family mansion was from a 16 year-old girl. Which you get to watch in the documentary! 

There's footage of the Source Family band, YaHoWha 13, recruiting - err a - performing at a high school. While James Baker paced around the stage talking about how great his cult is, I knew that Will Ferrell should play him in a movie. Or even just a Funny or Die short. As it happened I could picture him with long grey hair and beard doing a combination of Terrence Maddox the inappropriate nude model and Prof. Roger Clarvin the sexually open professor inclined to call his wife "la-vah."

Will Ferrell era SNL FTW!

During that whole scene I couldn't understand how they were allowed to perform at high schools. Can you even imagine being told that there was a special treat for everyone at 1:30, and that was a cult playing improvisational psychedelic music? And it was a cult? The Source was well known in California. Actually at that time in the 1970s the idea of a group of young people lead by a creepy guy who was pursuing a music career should have reeked of Manson. And I don't believe attendance was completely voluntarily. If you look at the number of kids there, and the looks on their faces, the principle probably ordered them into the court yard, made them sit Indian style, and said you're gonna listen to these damn hippies and their music and you're going to like it!

This involves a kind of lack of insecurity that can never reach high school kids.

Aside from making a bunch of hippies say "what was I thinking" or creating more kids that have embarrassing stories about open nudity in their households, The Source Family as a cult was pretty harmless. People who chose to leave weren't hounded or threatened, or even damned to hellfire. No one was murdered, just hearts broken, because sharing a man/god with 12 other women sucks.

 

Guided Tour as Documentary: Six Degrees of Helter Skelter

Helter Skelter: The True Story of The Mason Murders  has the best opening line in a book I've ever read:

"It was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon."

This is the kind of opening line that lets you know you're not going to put the book down. Written by Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor during the Manson trials, the novel follows the Manson Family and their victims in exquisite detail, leading them into their final collisions.

Though, this isn't about the book, Helter Skelter. This is about the 2009 documentary Six Degrees of Helter Skelter, which explores the actual sites of the crimes committed by, and residences of the Manson Family.

The film starts unfortunately, with an opening line that let me know I was going to be disappointed. The dictionary definition of helter skelter is cited, and then juxtaposed this with what the narrator deemed would be Charles Manson's definition: "The end of the world brought on by the Beatles."

I could not believe that within the first 7 minutes of a documentary there would be such blatant misrepresentation of facts. In a nutshell, Manson did believe the Beatles knew about the end of the world, which he called "Helter Skeleter," but he did not believe that they were the ones "bringing it down." Helter Skelter was what Manson believed to be an inevitable race war.  For an unabridged explanation of Manson's interpretation of Helter Skelter, click here.
 



The whole documentary is lead like a Hollywood tour. That is because Six Degrees of Helter Skelter was directed by and stars a Hollywood tour guide, Dearly Departed Tours owner, Scott Michaels. This fact is made abundantly clear during the first 15 minutes of the film, which are devoted to Michaels' life story and proud show-and-tell of his morbid Hollywood memorabilia collection.

Michaels claims his legitimacy in the film by taking some time to besmirch other tour guides with his concept that a guide's own desire to be a famous actor is inversely proportional to how many facts they get right. Not a good argument to start with considering the evidence of Michaels' ego so far. The constant flow of hearsay, was irksome. Even facts that matched up to Bugliosi's novel were peppered with lines like, "I knew a guy who," and "I heard [insert famous actor] claims this."

Overall it was amateurish and masturbatory. Michaels didn't bother to re-record or cut out any of his stammering, or cute lines like, "I got my GPS bitch in the box thing." Most shots were of him walking to and fro the alleged crime scenes.  He was name-dropping like crazy, and only two people were interviewed. So much for all those guys he knows.

There are a few positive moments to note. Michaels used full color uncensored crime scene photos, and had video footage from Trent Reznor's stay at the Cielo Drive house. Recordings of Manson's songs were also played during the film, which were haunting, especially a song sung by the women of the Manson Family.

If you don't know much about the Manson Family murders, watch this film, but be forewarned that there is much more to know than what is presented. If you have ever read Helter Skelter, any other Manson related books, or seen any other Manson documentaries, watch Six Degrees of Helter Skelter for the crime photos, Reznor footage, and Manson music, but that's all that you will gain.

It is a neat concept to be taken to these crime scenes as a true to life alternative to a classic stuffy documentary. However, the novelty wears thin when you realize you aren't really there; you're watching a documentary. As tours go, it's pretty enthralling, but as documentaries go, it's a C+ at best.