A reader named Kabir left what I thought was a really excellent thought on my post about Manson:

There’s a lot of BS told about Manson’s ideas and philosophy, so I would be careful with believing all and anything said about the Family - especially the stuff that comes from Vincent Bugliosi who was the prosecutor in the case and later wrote some bestselling books about Manson.

This is something that’s definitely come up for me a lot in researching material of this nature. Conspiracy theorists like to use the word “disinformation” to describe misleading info that may have been released with specific not-so-nice ends in mind. Whether or not you believe that kind of thing happens, the fact of the matter is that there are certain personalities who are really hard to find good solid factual information on. And the weird part is that a lot of these people, like Manson, are still alive. For that reason, you’d tend to think that it’d be a pretty open and shut matter to really find out all that needs to be known about them. But it proves monumentally baffling - especially since many of these people like Manson are such freaking bizarre personalities. Crowley is another good example: people who intentionally wrap themselves in a cloud of mystery and misdirection to further some hidden agenda.

Thinking about this concept though, I realized: wait a minute! If it’s so impossibly hard to find out info about people who are alive, what about people who are dead? And even moreso, what about people who have been dead thousands of years. Take for example: Jesus Christ. If we wanted to, we could easily substitute in a few things into what Kabir so eloquently wrote above:

There’s a lot of BS told about Jesus’s ideas and philosophy, so I would be careful with believing all and anything said about Christianity - especially the stuff that comes from The Church who […] wrote some bestselling books about Jesus.

In this regard, the study of characters like Manson and Jesus is literally no different - except that one has been subjected to thousands more years of distortion, disinformation and outright profiteering by every group that has come along. It may or may not be a conspiracy, but it’s definitely something to watch for.