Editing Leslie Van Houten (section)

===Joining the Manson Family===
After a few months in a commune in Northern California, Van Houten met Catherine Share and [[Bobby Beausoleil]] and moved in with them and another woman during the summer of 1968. The four broke up after jealous arguments, and Share left to join Charles Manson's commune. Van Houten, then aged 19, followed Share. At this time, she phoned her mother to say she was dropping out and would not be making contact again. Manson decided when they would eat, sleep, and have sex, and with whom they would have sex. He also controlled the taking of LSD, giving followers larger doses than he himself took. According to Manson, When you take LSD enough times, you reach a state of nothing, of no thought. According to Van Houten, she became "saturated in acid" and could not grasp the existence of those living a non-psychedelic reality.

From August 1968, Manson and his followers were based at the Spahn Ranch. Manson ostensibly ran his Family based on hippie-style principles of acceptance and free love. At the remote ranch, where they were isolated from any other influences, Manson's was the only opinion heard. At every meal he would lecture repetitively. Van Houten said Manson's attitude was that she belonged to Bobby. According to Van Houten, she and other Manson followers looked to 14 year old Family member Dianne Lake as the empty vessel, the epitome of what women were supposed to be in the Manson system of values. When Barbara Hoyt spoke at Van Houten's parole hearing in 2013, she said that Van Houten was considered a leader in The Manson Family.

Manson was preoccupied with becoming a pop star. From June 1967 to August 8, 1968, he had a number of recording sessions but was not thought promising enough for a contract. Manson, however, saw himself as a musical genius who would transform mainstream society. He identified with the subject of the Beatles song Piggies, through a world shaking pop album he would record. Influenced by the Bible, Manson taught the Family that they would be joined by the Beatles and escape to a bottomless pit, which they could enter through a hole in the ground. They would emerge and be acknowledged as the rightful rulers after 150 years at the center of the Earth, where the Family would have grown in number to 144,000 and their bodies taken on new forms.

By April 1969, Manson had involved followers in criminal activity such as auto theft and residential burglaries, and Van Houten who burglarized her father's home twice had been arrested and spent a few days in jail. That same month, in a dispute over drugs, Manson confronted and shot a man named Bernard Lotsapapa Crowe. Although Crowe survived, Manson believed that he had killed him. He also falsely believed that Crowe, an African American, was a member of the Black Panther Party. This incident led Manson to become increasingly paranoid, and to imagine that Black Panthers were intent on exacting vengeance against him. Preparations for what he saw as a coming attack by the Black Panthers included Tex Watson demonstrating how to kill with a knife.