The Issue of Cults The 1969 Labianca-Tate murder, the 1978 Jonestown mass murder-suicide, the 1993 Branch of Davidians fire, and so many more incidents occurred because of dangerous apocalyptic cults. Thousands of men, women, and even children have died because of hazing, manipulation, and as strange as this may sound, mind control. Putting more laws to prevent cults from having unlimited amounts of freedom has been a controversy in the United States since the 1950s and is still carried on today. Some people think that having more laws would protect people from mind control that people endure when living in a cult. But others argue that creating laws would be going against the first amendment which guarantees the freedom of religion. In addition, …show more content…
The Tate-Labianca murders was the close of an era. Pregnant actress, Sharon Tate and four others were murdered on the night of August 9th, 1969 and two more murders occurred the very next night. The murders were vicious with a total of 169 stab wounds and seven gunshot wounds. The police eventually connected the murders to the Manson Family, an infamous cult run by charismatic Charles Manson. Manson was determined to create a race war between blacks and whites in which the blacks would win and him and his followers would come out and lead them. Because Manson was so determined to start this war he and a few of his followers killed these innocent people. Leslie Van Houten was sentenced to life in prison for two counts of murder and conspiracy to murder in correlation to the Tate-Labianca murders. She remembers that at the ranch where the cult lived that she, “became saturated in acid and had no sense of where those who were not part of the psychedelic reality came from. I had no perspective or sense that I was no longer in control of my mind." On the ranch where Manson and his followers were living, he convinced his followers to participate in sex orgies and LSD trips. Chief prosecutor in the case Vincent Bugliosi, thinks that the reason Manson was able to convince young people to join or even do something as bizarre as murder was because of mind control and fear of