Obviously the show is grade A copaganda. Fincher has always really loved the idea of a bunch of unhinged psychos lurking behind every corner to get you. Really plays into the thesis of Programmed to Kill, which is that the feds/CIA created the idea of the serial killer to cause fear and chaos in the public so that we would welcome the police state we currently live in.
McGowan was cool (rip👁️), I don't know what to tell ya. His books are fringe, they are funny, very grim and obsessively researched. They can lead to a lot of other shit. You basically have the case for CIA programmed killers laid out in the book Chaos, don't know if you've read that, it's a popular one. There is also a ton of fishy stuff around Sirhan Sirhan, some of which is covered in A Lie Too Big to Fail.
Also, quite a few of the cases revolve around vets (some having been involved with operation phoenix etc) who were literally programmed to kill and terrorize and they simply brought that home with them.
As far as I'm concerned the purpose of much of the occult/satanic stuff is precisely to make people go "damn, this is too insane and ridiculous to be true". Like, child abuse and trafficking, people can believe that. Satanic child abuse and trafficking, nah that's crazy. I think it works as a very effective cover.
I mean the reason people think its not true is that there has never been any significant evidence of large scale cult murders like that, the closest thing are small scale stuff run by a single personality like Manson, Adolfo Constanzo etc. Like the case being made is essentially nationwide cohesive satanist organizations that murder people in rituals, which ritual killings are rare enough in most of the killer cults, where the murders are usually for profit or for safety. And if someone was trained for military purposes and then brought that home thats a significantly different claim than the idea that people are programmed to become serial killers inside of the US for the sole purpose of being serial killers.
And I cant comment on all of the research but I was quite dissapointed with a ton of the serial killer research for those that I know particularly much about, and even a lot of those where I am less aware of details he makes ridiculous statements and conclusions that dont mesh with any real psychology studies of serial killers.
"single personality like Manson"
This is the point. Manson was not a single personality. He was connected to various spooks (see SF Free clinic and Jolly West, etc etc)
I frankly did not see what concrete connections were made and I tried about as well as I could, most of those I could find were either shakey or "reportedly"s again.
Cool , you spent 5 minutes analyzing tom oneils 20 years of research. Yr probably right
Sounds like he should have been able to write a better book with less filler if he spent 20 years on it. Its his fault if people get mentally exhausted cause every claim somewhat backed with evidence is surrounded by describing what 3 people "reportedly" were doing or involved in, 5 occult dates that the event happened close to and a short description of what Anton LaVey was up to at the time. If its bad writing its bad writing no matter if its for style or tongue in cheek, though I lean on the side of "was not confident in his actual facts and evidence" than doing it for a laugh.
Are you talking about the Manson CIA connections? That's in a different book called Chaos by Tom Oneil, which he spent 20 years writing.
Anyway, this stuff is fun. Go listen to the Death is Just Around the Corner podcast if you haven't.
Sure it may be fun but Qanon can also be fun to read and I wouldnt want people to sincerely believe in that, especially if it essentially ends up slandering people without concrete evidence. I didnt have time to check out the Oneil book but frankly having to slog through Terry and Mcgowen I have no desire to.