This book was a major disappointment. Somehow I found out about this book, which I had never heard of despite my not inconsiderable reading about fringe religious groups in general and the Manson family in particular. I ordered it from England hoping it was one of two things. Perhaps it was a profile of the occult underground in California that used the Manson murders as a marketing device -- something like Elliott O'Donnell's Strange Cults and Secret Societies of Modern London, or Mike Marinacci's California Jesus but focused on the darker aspects of California fringe religion in the 1960s. Alternatively, I hoped it would shed light on the Manson family in particular. Maybe it would offer a glimpse of life in California at about the time of the murders; maybe it would even interview people who spent time at places like Topanga Canyon in those days. I was disappointed in both hopes.

Despite the title, this book is specifically about the Manson family. I was never clear whether the Satan of Satan's Slaves was Manson or His Infernal Majesty. It doesn't really matter, because Taylor doesn't know anything about either. The author wrote the entire book sitting in England, apparently drawing on whatever newspaper articles he managed to get a hold of in 1969, after Manson was jailed but before the trials. Oddly, Taylor throws out everything written by those who claim to have known the family, deliberately "skipping those [newspaper accounts] which lean toward the 'sensational' and those which depend solely on the 'confession'" (pg 25). What's left? In 1969, not much.

Since Taylor doesn't really know anything about either Manson or cults or 1960s California for that matter, it's clear he had difficulty filling up even this 127-page book. He manages to do so mainly by ranting. He complains about the youth, about Hollywood, about freedom of the press, and about how easy it is to form a religion in the United States. He wastes page after page on petty moralizing. The last sentence of the book is, "Nobody witshes [sic] to dictate but neither can decent men and women overlook the cruel facts --
hippiedom must conform if only to salvage the off-spring of free-love depravity." Perhaps some of these topics are worth considering, but not in so sloppy a fashion and in a book with a photo of a naked woman on the cover. It's clear that Taylor's envisioned audience is an uptight British housewife who probably hides this book when her husband comes home, who wants the reassurance that she's made the right life choice but who secretly envies the wild and free life she imagines hippies lead.

Besides gleaning a small amount of information about Manson from the newspapers, Taylor does present a little information about fringe religious groups in California, but in a sensational manner. He spends a few pages on Krishna Venta, but of course was unaware of any link between his cult and the Family. Taylor was vaguely aware that Scientology and the Process Church of the Final Judgement were linked to the Family, but had no real information about either group, and clearly hadn't even bothered to look at their literature. For unknown reasons he writes at length about Aimee Semple McPherson, who had nothing to do with Manson and who died a quarter century before the murders. But he was mostly ignorant of "the bizarre 'underground' cults of California.

Taylor made up for his lack of knowledge by making stuff up. He spends three pages describing a Manson-led virgin sacrifice, only to end it with, "The above is conjecture." He spends a full 13 pages -- more than 10% of the book! -- giving us the story of Charles Irish, a hypothetical charlatan who takes over a cult in Pasadena and is then deposed. Taylor spends a great deal of his book complaining about the fact that anyone can start their own religion by paying $15 and filing incorporation papers, even though Manson never bothered to do this. It may be semi-autobiographical. According to the back cover, Taylor at one point "tried to found his own religion." Apparently he failed. He probably failed because his imagination is so limited and his vision so jaded.

While I was reading the book, I tried to find out more about the author. The back of the book describes him as "a writer who has lived and worked in the 'golden land' of California." He clearly didn't live and work here long, or he wouldn't get so much wrong. (I was particularly amused by the claim that most Angelenos are originally from Iowa.) It turns out his real name was James Moffatt, and he never let his own ignorance get in the way of writing a book. He wrote under many pseudonyms, and became famous for writing lurid tales of skinheads.

In short, if you want to read about Charles Manson and the Manson Family, I recommend reading Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, or Ed Sanders' The Family. (If the latter, make sure you get the first edition, before Sanders was sued and the material on the Process was excised.) Or read Jeff Guinn's Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson. If you want to read conjecture about nationwide cults of human sacrifice, read Maury Terry's The Ultimate Evil. If you want to read an entertaining and well-researched book about offbeat California religious groups, read Mike Maranacci's California Jesus. But whatever you do, don't waste your time and money on Satan's Slaves.… (meer)