The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control And The Manson Family Mythos

by Adam Gorightly, Mike Marinacci (Foreword)

40 years after the infamous Tate-LaBianca murder case of August 1969, Creation Books presents a definitive account of those killings and their perpetrators, the Charles Manson Family.
In this revised and updated edition of The Shadow Over Santa Susana, investigative journalist Adam Gorightly takes his readers on a black magic carpet ride from the Hollywood "Beautiful People" scene of the late 60's through to the vast desert landscapes of a Death Valley gone mad - with all the love-ins and murderous creepy-crawls that happened along the way. The result is the most complete document published to date on Manson and his "Love and Terror Cult", an illustrated kill-bible for the coffee-tables of all self-respecting true crime buffs, counter-culture freaks and aspiring teenage satanists.
Foreword by Mike Marinacci, author, Mysterious California, and co-author, Weird California. Includes over 100 photographic illustrations.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime, Conspiracy Theories, History, Biography, Cults

200 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 2001

About the author

American author focussing on pananormal topics and conspiracy theories.

Gorightly has proclaimed himself to be a "crackpot historian" articles of him have been published in several underground magazines.

Reviews

[Matthew W · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly entertaining and informative book on Manson. The bibliography proves that author Adam Gorightly has also certainly done his Helter Skelter research.

Somehow this book is only about 1/3 the length of it's first pressing size. The original pressing was around 600 pages and the new edition is just under 200 pages. I am not sure whether or not things have been cutout or what. Either way, after reading the book it feels like nothing has been "left out."

The good folks at creation books took it upon themselves to release this definitive account of The Manson family and everything related to it. The book also features 200 photographs(including certain autopsy photos) that I certainly cannot complain about.

This book has actually inspired me to checkout the list of books in the bibliography.

For anyone that has a slight interest in The Manson Family, I recommend checking this book out FIRST!

[Tom Byron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any Manson enthusiast. Gorightly Knows what he is talking about as far as conspiracy and connections. They always say there are never more than 6 degrees of separation and in this case maybe 1 or 2.This book covers bits of interviews and quotes I have not ever come across in other material. There is quite a bit more about Dean Moorehouse and the Beach Boys. More Kenneth Anger, Anton La Vey, Bouseliel and Hollywood Connections get fleshed out.

[Cynde Moya]

Read this over the course of a day and a half when I was sick in bed. The author was open to and tried to express a different interpretation than Bugliosi's Helter Skelter motivation. Mysterious really what they were getting up to. The closing chapters on Mae Brussel and the MK-ULTRA mind control conspiracies made a number of connections for me. The experience of reading this book left me feeling high and paranoid.

A couple of chapters really needed an editor, and the author had an ongoing bad relationship with the apostrophe, that was distracting to my grammar cop. Some of the tale was nonlinear; we'd jump back and forth in years depending on whose story was being told. Not sure if this was an editing problem, a repurposing of extant articles, or a manifestation of the strangeness of the time.

[Read-n-Bloom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and knowledgeable book. I learned a lot about things that happened when I was just a small child, but would get whiffs of it from TV news. I never could believe or rather found it hard to believe someone or people would do these things, but it just goes to prove there is real evil in the world. I mean this book was full of everything evil you could think of and Charles Manson and "His Family" were all apart of it. Hollywood had it's hand in it as well. It's a hard book to read, very heavy reading, but I believe, truthful. You can tell the author did much research. He was very knowledgeable about who he was writing about and what he was writing about. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5, because there were more typos than I thought should be in a book written so well and that was so informing.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read, with over 200 photos. Without ever explicitly saying so, the author makes clear that the real shadow over the Santa Susana mountains was not the one cast by the Manson Family, but the one hanging over all of us during the late 1960s, including Charlie and his followers -- rumor, innuendo, and Cold War paranoia. The author treats every nutty theory out there as a proven fact. This book needed some serious copyediting before it was released; there are missing words in some setntences, extra words in others, and the punctuation borders on the purely random at times. Don't even get me started on the spelling and subject-verb agreement.

[Jeff Suwak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent exploration of different theories of the Manson case. My only problem with it, besides the occasional typos that are in the book, is that I feel like the author didn't work very hard at presenting his own, cohesive thesis. It's more of a collection of all the possible, non-mainstream-narrative theories, but without really tying them together. It almost reads more like a series of blog posts than a cohesive narrative. Still, very informative and interesting exploration.

[Ruthie · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. There are easily over 200 typos in this book. It's mind boggling how spell check was not used in the creation of this masterpiece. It could drive you to distraction. He'll spell someone's name correctly and then incorrectly in the same sentence. A comma will appear next to a period. You'll find yourself asking, "What the hell happened here?"

2. Breaking it down, at least 12 of the 186 pages would be commas and hyphens. The man loves to separate his sentences into parts. I have never seen so many mismatching and awkward clauses in my life. I have heard Adam Gorightly on radio interviews and he is a good speaker, so perhaps he writes the way he would speak. I am being generous here.

3. All this is to say, there is some great information here, but it needs a new edition.

[Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is packed full of information and stories which do not appear in other, more familiar books on the Manson Family. Having watched most of the films and documentaries available, and read some of the books on the subject, I was getting tired of re-reading the same old tales over and over. This book, however, offers up far more information and detail than is found in the other sources. It is also well written.

My only gripe is that the last few chapters of this book feel disjointed. It is like they have been added in afterwards, as an afterthought, having been written with a different focus in mind. They also delve into the conspiratorial, which I realise some will love, and even believe, but I was more interested in what can be established as fact.

I think I'm going to take a break from my interest in Manson for a while, then maybe try some of the autobiographies written by family members. Can any 'Mansonologists' recommend one?

[John McConnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Cliff's Notes did a book on Charlie this would be it. Gorightly takes the other well known books on the subject out there and kind of condenses them into this small, overpriced Manson remix. I'm not sure any new information is revealed. But that's most Manson books.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Manson is one interesting bastard.

This book is amazing. It's packed full with so much information about the connections Manson had throughout Hollywood and Southern California in the 1960s - The Beach Boys, Kenneth Anger, Anton La Vey, Terry Melcher (Doris Day's son), various recording artists, movie stars, producers, filmmakers, etc. The number of people Manson touched (probably literally) is astounding.

The book contains graphic photos from the Tate/LaBianca crime scenes and also some graphic information about what happened at Manson Family parties/orgies, and that would be my one caution. But if you're reading a book about Charles Manson, something tells me you're not squeamish to begin with.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

You could read all of the dozen+ books of the subject of the Manson family or could just read this. Not only is this book probably the most comprehensive of the genre it also has the benefit of addressing every wacko conspiracy theory relating to Manson, from CIA mind control to COINTEL PRO and Satanic cults. While I found Gorightly's theory on the subject a little far fetched he thankfully saves this for the end and handles all of the information objectively.

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best one yet:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-83...

[sunday girl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but not exhaustive.

[Nate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really badly edited. Never met a conspiracy theory or slander of the victims it didn't like. Nevertheless is a fun read for Manson groupies who can't get enough tales of Spahn Ranch.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely the best book about the Manson cult there is.

[F.J. Lennon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprehensive and wickedly disturbing. A bit fragmented, but a vital read for Manson murder researchers.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! Okay, so maybe it's a bit fantastical, but it's a great read for those who are curious about the Family.

[Haylee Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read. A lot of in depth details. Interesting to learn how people can so easily get wrapped up in something like this. This book covers it all!

[Matthew Brockmeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unfortunately I was only able to get my hands on the reprint which is less than half the size of the original (which I am now on a mission to find), but nevertheless this is a fantastic, albeit brief, collection of all things Manson. From L. Ron Hubbard to The Process to ATWA it's in here with rare photos. Cool book.

[Debi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmmmmm I am still deciding about this one....to be continued....

[Robert Lawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book that I was happy to help out with .

[Denise Cimpko-Beller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always learning something new about this case. I would guess that we STILL only have 1/2 the story..

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creepy per usual. In depth not so widely understood concepts of regional religions and practices.

Informative. Probably wouldn't read in depth often though

[kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

chockful of conspiracy and supposition, just as any review of the Manson myth as the brutally tragic end of the annoying free-wheeling 1960s ought to be.

it's a quick read if you can get around or get over the endless typos, my favorite being the consistent use of the word "ALTER" for altar ...

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not real into the "conspriracy theory" thing...I believe a person can make almost anything seem related to something else if you dissect it, examine it and break it down far enough into tiny pieces of the whole. It had some interesting tidbits about Manson, the family and murders though.

[Stacey Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I dont remember much about this book. It wasnt great but had some basic info.