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All morning he organized the silver polishers and cake decorators, the oilers of trolley wheels and lift gates, the lint and vomit removers, the replacers of soap at each sink, the replacers of chlorine medallions in the urinals, and the men hosing the pavement outside the entrance, as well as immigrants who squeezed out English names they had never spelled before onto birthday cakes, diced up onions, slashed open pigs with terrible knives, or prepared whatever else would be desired twelve hours later in the Ivor Novello Room or the Miguel Invernio Room.

Toss me one of your pencils!" "Have you gone mad?" I cried even as I removed the pencil from my cloak pocket and threw it at his head. It began to transform before it even reached him, elongating and flashing through the shadows--- a sword. I regretted aiming for his head then, but Wendell caught it with the grace of a trained swordsman, which of course he was. Watching Wendell with a sword is like watching a bird leap from a branch--- there is something thoughtless about it, innate. One has the sense that he is less himself without a sword, that wielding it returns him to the element most natural to him. He drove the sword into the nearest sheerie, and before it had fallen he had spun round to slash at the one behind him, slicing it open like overripe fruit. The other three fell just as easily.

I noticed some scratch marks and faded blood stains high up on a wall. “What happened there?” “An inmate must have tried to escape. I saw a guy use two suction devices like the ones used to carry glass sheets to help lever himself up. He reached half way before being spotted by a blue shirt.” “What happened to him?” “The blue shirt called a guard. He was ordered to come down, but didn’t. They shot him in the leg, he fell and later in the cell, he removed a blade from a disposable razor, slashed his left wrist then wrote a suicide note on the wall with his right hand – in his own blood. Suicide is really common in here and nobody bats an eyelid.

The demon is the mental shadow-side archetype. What it shows is that the lifeblood of Raktabija has the power to give birth to thousands of Raktabijas, just like the thinking of the soul. Similarly, thoughts from the mind seem to sprout more and more thoughts as soon as they appear to land. Even if one in meditation cuts them off, more will sprout. It requires the power of Shakti Kundalini to spring the mind, dispatch the demon. Kali comes in in this great mythical tale and cuts the demon's head off. Before it could hit the fertile ground of existence she drank all her blood. In other words, out of all the thoughts, desires, and delusions that plague the seeker and prevent the seeker from knowing pure union, Kali Kundalini takes the life energy. Kali, as She's chopping the heads off, is symbolically slashing through the soul, removing all the emotions that will give birth to slavery and illusion over and over again. She absorbs them into herself; in other words, She frees from those bound forms the life-force, the Shakti. The formation is all forms. She alone has the power to dissolve all forms, to free from them the soul, the life. Kali wears a fifty-skull garland all around her neck. In addition, these fifty skulls reflect the Sanskrit alphabet's fifty letters— the sounds and forms that make up thought, which are the basis of all life. She's the one who sucks the life-force out of them so we can be safe from them, as well as the one who gave them birth to begin with. Taking refuge in Kali takes refuge in that inherent ability to cut off the heads of the very modes of thought, behaviors, values and all of the mind's restricting mechanisms that trap us in illusion. When free, She brings us back into unity with the Infinite — as does Kali with her husband Shiva. Even a myth of this kind, which may seem so bizarre and gruesome to the ignorant, has profound significance for our sadhana, revealing moment by moment what is involved in our spiritual practice. When you do japa, the ritual of mantra repeating, of Om Kali Ma, her mantra, you bring your mind back to Kali again and again. You can do this practice right now, or you can sit for meditation the next time. Close your eyes and dissolve Om Kali Ma, Om Kali Ma, Om Kali Ma with every thought. Kali's story shows that with every repeat of Om Kali Ma, this glorious phenomenon occurs. She cuts off all the emotions, all the deluded ideas, all the bound behaviors and perceptions that might have filled the mind as the pulse of mantra. Keeping the mind in the mantra refuge means holding the mind in a sacred place that is safe from all the modes of thought with which the mind might have developed its own slavery. Every repetition of mantra is a movement of Kali's sword clearing and opening that spaciousness of awareness, freeing our energy and consciousness so we can experience the fullness of who and what we are in each moment.

At the same time, Beausoleil got into trouble with a biker gang who hung out at Spahn Ranch. Beausoleil had sold mescaline manufactured by Gary Hinman to the bikers, who reported that the drugs were actually poison. They wanted their money back. Manson convinced Beausoleil to confront Hinman and demand from him not only the drug money but anything else of value he possessed. Beausoleil drove with Bruce Davis, Susan Atkins, and Mary Brunner to Hinman’s house on July 25, 1969. At the house, Beausoleil pulled a gun on Hinman when he refused to give back the money. There was nothing wrong with the mescaline, Hinman said. Susan kept the gun on Hinman while Beausoleil searched the house, but Hinman managed to overpower her, causing Beausoleil to beat him. Eventually, Davis drove back to Spahn Ranch to pick up Manson, who wanted to take part in what was to follow. Manson brought a sword and used it to slash Hinman’s face and cut off part of his ear. After Manson left, Beausoleil continued to beat Hinman over the course of the night and into the next day, with Susan and Mary still present. Hinman maintained that he had no money and threatened to call the police as soon as they left. Beausoleil called Manson to tell him about Hinman’s threat, and Manson ordered him to kill Hinman, making the murder look as though the Black Panthers did it in retaliation for the murder of Lotsa Poppa. Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death and used his blood to write the phrase “political piggy” on the wall. Beausoleil, Susan, and Mary tried to remove their fingerprints from Hinman’s home before they drove away in his cars. It took two weeks before anyone found Hinman’s body.