Manson preyed on all aspects of the hippie zeitgeist to serve his purposes, from the Beatles to the commune—where he would “isolate [his followers] from their family and friends,” Ross says—to LSD. “Manson would give them hallucinogenic drugs and he would pretend he was also taking a drug, but in reality, he wouldn’t,” Ross goes on. “Then he would manipulate their trip and suggest things to them in a vulnerable state, guiding them through a journey where, at the end, they believed completely in him.”

…The late-60s counterculture stripped away old systems of control and opened up a blank space in society, but they weren’t sure what would fill that space. And Manson preyed on that ambiguity.

Manson twisted the hippies’ anti-establishment beliefs as a way to isolate his followers as well. “He laid out a world that was, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ and in that sense, he played into the counterculture and appealed to that sense of idealism,” Ross says. “He worked that one over, but not because he believed in it—because it served his purpose.”

How Charles Manson Put an End to the Hippie Movement – VICE

hmmm