Charles Manson

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Charles Manson was an American criminal and cult leader whose ideology drove others to murder. Born on 12 November 1934, he spent more than half his life in correctional institutions before assembling the Manson Family in California in the late 1960s. In July and August 1969 his followers committed nine murders across four locations, among them the actress Sharon Tate; in 1971 Manson was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the deaths of seven people. He denied ordering the killings, yet prosecutors held that his ideology itself constituted the overt act of conspiracy. Astrologically his chart can be described only analytically, and never as excuse. The Sun in Scorpio marks a temperament drawn to power, secrecy and the psychology of others, its magnetism turned, in his case, toward manipulation and control. That Sun in the seventh house wired his identity into his hold over other people; the tenth-house Aquarian Moon fused his psyche to a group and a self-styled apocalyptic mission, the shadow of the collective sign curdled into dictatorial certainty. Taurus rising lent a quiet, immovable stubbornness. A natal signature describes disposition, not destiny; the harm Manson caused was the product of his own choices, for which he alone bore responsibility. He died in prison in 2017.