We Chat With Nikolas Schreck – Musician, Writer, Buddhist, Occult Practitioner, and Filmmaker

Nikolas Schreck is a man of multiplicities – an internationally recognised authority on the occult & Buddhism; a worshiper of the divine feminine, a vegan; a musician who has worked solo, in groups, & as a producer for people such as actor Christopher Lee; an author; and a friend of, and expert on Charles Manson. To name but a few of the man’s many achievements!

Born during the early 1960s, Nikolas grew up in America where he was raised by liberal, well off parents who exposed him to travel, culture, and the finer things in life. Along with encouraging his diverse interests and creative leanings from a young age.
It was seeing media reports about Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s September 5, 1975 attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford that lead Nikolas to first question authority and the supposed objectivity of traditional media; and gave him his initial exposure to Charles Manson and the occult.

In the early 1980s, during his late teens Nikolas first came onto the scene publicly, via his first band Skull Culture. Before gaining greater notoriety with the first manifestation of his 2nd group, Radio Werewolf who formed in 1984. Performing a gothic tinged schlock rock, reminiscent of people such as Screaming Lord Sutch.
With Nikolas expanding upon his initial interest in Mansonology by reaching out to, and befriending Charles Manson in 1985. Becoming a key supporter of the man. Editing version one of ‘The Manson File’, which was released in 1988; directing the documentary ‘Charles Manson Superstar’ (released in 1989); and playing a pivotal role in organising the infamous 8/8/1988 rally at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco. An event and performance held on the 19th Anniversary of the Tate–LaBianca murders. Which also involved Boyd Rice, and Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan.
Also performing in the event was Zeena LaVey, Anton’s daughter; and Nikolas’ eventual lover, collaborator, and wife for over 25 years. With Nikolas and Zeena going on to form a new line up of Radio Werewolf. Who went on to tour Europe and develop a cult following in Germany.

During the 1990s, 2000’s, and 2010’s amongst other things, Nikolas continued to release music, delve further into the occult, discovered Buddhism, work closely with Zeena on various activities; and released his books ‘The Satanic Screen: An Illustrated Guide to the Devil in Cinema’; and ‘Flowers From Hell: A Satanic Reader.’

Currently residing in Germany, a country he has called home since 1999; Nikolas is currently making music, acting as a spiritual guide and teacher of Tantric Buddhist meditation, promoting his most recent book, ‘The Manson File: Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman – Ultimate Edition’; and working on various other projects.

Wanting to get to know him better we sent Nikolas some questions to answer over email.
Explore his world, below…

Getting Acquainted

Name & Current Country of Residence?

Nikolas Schreck
Berlin, Germany

Please describe some memories – such as art, music, writing, friendships, adventures, study, romance, politics, film, work, crime anything really – from the stages of your life noted below:

* Your childhood:

One of my earliest memories is looking around at the creatures inhabiting the strange world I’d somehow been hatched into and thinking, “How did I end up here? Who are these things? I’ve somehow come to the wrong place.”
As my mind coalesced, I slowly began to understand that such feelings could only emerge if I had experienced an earlier life in some other place with other beings. This sense of estrangement from contemporary mortalkind and dim memories of other lives is what encouraged me to seek answers to the metaphysical mysteries of reincarnation and the true nature of reality.

Simultaneously, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, an early encounter with the presence of the goddess Venus/Aphrodite placed me firmly on the path of the divine feminine. An intense fascination with ancient Hellenic religion ensued, in the pursuit of which I eventually re-learned the art of theurgic magic.

Growing up in the 1960s in a Bohemian family engaged in the counterculture and the psychedelic and sexual revolution, I was free to explore the then ubiquitous occult revival and soon become fully immersed in magical lore. I count myself fortunate to have had adventurous supportive non-conformist parents who allowed me maximum freedom.

Like many others of my generation, my childhood was enmeshed in the 1960s occult-tinged monstermania of the time, and my youthful years were spent transfixed by the supernatural and the macabre in literature, cinema, and music.
In retrospect, I see that genre was one of the few areas focused on the numinous in a secular society.

I drew and wrote constantly and began my first experimentation with music.

Encountering the ancient Mayan and Aztec temples of Mexico and the voodoo culture of Haiti in my childhood was a significant impetus to my initiation and relationship with deities.

All of these interests were fanatical and obsessive, including a deep enchantment with military history and the mystique of the warrior encouraged by a family of combat veteran military officers on all sides.
All the seeds of what I’ve become were planted then.

* Your teenage years:

In the eventful summer of my thirteenth year, several major landmarks took place:
I learned to meditate from a hippie girl who had just returned from India. She taught me Advaita in the tradition of Ramana Maharshi.
In the same summer, I began to train in and perform musical theatre, and was initiated into the mysteries of Eros by a slightly older seductress in drama class.
I also was inspired by the news reports of Lynette Fromme‘s action in Sacramento to become involved in radical environmental activism and animal rights which led to me adopting a vegetarian diet from that year on.

My adolescence was completely dominated by music, moving to Los Angeles in 1976, I was one of the youngest habitues of the nascent punk rock scene, and for the remainder of the decade, after leaving High School early, I attended the concerts of just about every original punk, new wave and industrial act you can think of, including the magnificent Nico, Iggy Pop in his prime with Bowie on keyboards, the disappointing ultimate Sex Pistols concert and equally anti-climactic penultimate Throbbing Gristle gig.
That four-year period was my informal musical university and with the mentorship of older performers like Tomata du Plenty and Black Randy, I began writing songs in earnest, composing on an electric organ.
My first bands emerged, most notably the avant-garde duo Skull Kulture formed on the day John Lennon was shot. Three of the songs I wrote in that period, Sister Lucretia, Koko the Clown, and Triumph of the Will ended up a few years later in Radio Werewolf.

A series of tempestuous and melodramatic teenage romances taught me the ecstasy and agony of love.

The first film I ever appeared in was The Blues Brothers, as a rioting convict. In real life, I also fell in with the genuine underworld, and my first real job was working at a front for the Hungarian mob.

Around this time, my first undeniable results in conjuring spiritual beings to visible appearance took place.

* Your 20s:

I lived in three haunted Hollywood residences in those years, most dramatically Valentino Place, near Paramount Studios, one of the most bizarre portals to another world I’ve ever known, where I resided with an extravagant older woman with whom I engaged in my first effective sex magic operations and a period of systematic psychedelic experimentation.

I made my living doing bit parts in hundreds of films at that fecund time in Hollywood, including Valley Girl and Blade Runner, along with some modelling and graphic design for disreputable magazines and newspapers. I made my first attempt at forming an initiatory commune, which showed remarkable results at first but fizzled out.

The genesis of Radio Werewolf was already happening, but was interrupted by my pilgrimage to England, where I was first exposed to the Tantric Shaktiite cult of Kali, Germany, where I researched esotericism in the Third Reich, and Egypt, a turning point in my initiation I’ve immortalized in my song “Midnight in Cairo”.
The ominous year 1984 I returned to Los Angeles and founded Radio Werewolf, which dominated the next nine years. I befriended Charles Manson the next year.

A more successful magical commune was rudely interrupted by the first ugly signs of the Satanic Panic, which led to police harassment and surveillance that led to my move to San Francisco, where I fell in love with Zeena, and married her, which began our long and eventful creative partnership, and the most prolific phase of Radio Werewolf.
My first book, first album and first film were all released.
One year after our honeymoon in Berlin, we settled in Vienna, Austria where we led the Werewolf Order and supervised it’s myriad activities.

* Your 30s:

During our Austrian sojourn, Radio Werewolf toured throughout Europe and released Songs For The End of the World, Love Conquers All, Witchcraft/Boots and rereleased The Lightning and the Sun and Bring Me The Head of Geraldo Rivera.
I was temporarily optimistic that the fall of the Soviet Union and the liberation of the European nations from Marxist tyranny asking with the departure of most American troops from Germany would herald an end to US/Russia hegemony and a European Renaissance.
That didn’t happen.
My disenchantment with metapolitics and ideological solutions began then.

The rest of that decade was relentlessly difficult, chaotic, and stressful. Zeena’s late son Stanton then began to develop extreme violent mental illness which led to him hallucinating, committing arson, and threatening Zeena so often that he had to be treated in psychiatric institutes. He was diagnosed with hebephrenic schizophrenia, which can’t be cured.
His violence, thievery and mania became so extreme he had to be separated from Zeena for her own safety.
We moved back to the US to deal with this crisis which only ended with his very predictable death thirty years later.

In Los Angeles, we opened the wax museum Hellhouse of Hollywood which served a magical function above and beyond its apparent operation. The return to the US was necessary to reveal human nature as unreliable and deceptive and to defeat our enemies.

The Radio Werewolf ritual concluded.
I recorded Christopher Lee‘s first album as a singer, and began to work with on a film which was unfortunately not completed. The same thing happened with a film I planned to make with Tiny Tim that had to be abandoned when he died.
Obstacles abounded at that time.

We made the gigantic mistake of joining the Temple of Set, an utter waste of time that was nevertheless a necessary lesson. It was in this inauspicious period that I started to move away from western occultism.
In my 30s, I saw the darkest depths of human behaviour, and it transformed me.

In 1999, we abandoned the USA permanently and moved to Berlin.

* Your 40s:

Settling in Berlin sparked a period of intense literary activity. My books The Satanic Screen, Flowers from Hell, Demons of the Flesh (co-written with Zeena), and the gigantic second edition of The Manson File were all released during that phase of my life.

Early in the 21st Century, Zeena, as High Priestess of the Temple of Set, led a schism from that group which led to the formation of The Storm, which later became The Sethian Liberation Movement, which she still leads.
That marked the end of my involvement in any kind of Western occultism.

Determined to harness my initiation to genuine tradition and lineage I took refuge in Tantric Buddhism, and spent those years engaged in study and practice, concentrating almost entirely on the Dharma under the tutelage of several Lamas. This was a period of deep inner work and transformation.

* Your 50s:

I returned to the crumbling dystopia of the US for the first time in 12 years to promote the Manson File, record the Kingdom of Heaven album, and teach US students.

After a moratorium on music, I returned to the concert stage in 2014 with my ritual concert “In Her Thrall” at the Tower Transmissions concert in Dresden with my late friend and colleague John Murphy.

My solo recording career commenced with the release of my song Lord Sutekh’s Dream at the Epicurean label’s festival in Berlin, followed by the same label’s release of my EP The Futura Model.
In 2019, Records Ad Nauseam released my album the Illusionist at my lecture on the 50th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca crimes in LA.

During the Pandemic, I recorded and released Berlinoir, I’m Afraid of America: Schreck 2020, O, A Weird Flower and after grave hindrances published the final updated version of ‘The Manson File’ in 2021.

* Your 60s:

Last year saw me able to travel again after the Covid crisis receded, and I returned to public appearances with a lecture on the left-hand path in Italy, the book launch of the British ‘Manson File’ in London under astoundingly deranged circumstances.
Since then, I’ve released my EP Destroy She Said/The Observer and recorded my next album Time Machine in between voyages, a preview of which you can hear in the single 21st Century.

Personal motto(s)?

Das Ewig Weibliche Zieht Uns Hinan
(The Eternal-Feminine draws us upward)

What are the top 3 items you own?
…and what is it about each of them that you so love?

I honestly don’t feel that much attachment to any material objects. In fact, after owning a few museums worth of antique oddities and rarities, I came to see them as an encumbrance.
But here are three objects that may be of interest since they’ve been with me through decades and are of personal significance:

My father’s LSD jar from Mexico, circa 1968.

Necklace containing ashes of Charles Manson, a gift from Derek Haze.

The power-charged book that guided me through my early 1983 voyage to Mexico in search of rare entheogens.

You cut an imposing & glorious visage sir!
There must be a tale for your partially missing ear?
… if you are willing, please share it for those reading at home.

I’ve discussed it many times in several interviews, here’s the most detailed written response from an interview with me conducted by my colleague Jerome Alexandre:

Nikolas Schreck believes there is a karmic curse attached to the study of the Manson phenomenon – which carried with it another equally strange moment when playing a prank turned into something albeit more terrifying.
Nikolas and another Manson aficionado, Nick Bougas, were playing a prank by posting pink flyers with an anti-gay message. They were drawn by Nick Bougas. (Also, if you Google him you, will see he does work under the name A. Wyatt Mann.)

Schreck: “So I say that – (the karmic curse) – because that night was the first night there was an AIDS TV movie shown on national television. I don’t remember what it was called.
He (Nick) was very much into popular culture. So, we were going to go to a comedy store that night to see a fairly well-known comedian who was also a friend of his who I knew.
Bougas did these cartoons and he later became the sort of ‘court photographer’ for Anton LaVey. He made a film about Anton LaVey.
I had introduced him to LaVey and the Church of Satan.
He had the idea, Nick Bougas or A. Wyatt Mann, to go to this comedy club, but before we go, he wanted to leave these gay fliers printed on pink paper that had a kind of anti-gay anti-AIDS message, in the gayest area of West Hollywood. So, it was just like a prank basically.

I have to set the context of this up: That day I was working on the Manson File and I had been working trying to Xerox a picture of Gary Hinman. I’m sure that people who know the case have seen the court drawing from the coroner of the wounds of Gary Hinman, whose ear was sliced.
So, for some reason the Xerox machine kept malfunctioning. So, there I am August of ’87 looking at this picture of Gary Hinman’s ear wound.
For people who don’t know the case, basically Manson went to the music teacher Gary Hinman’s house and cut his ear. You can read exactly what happened in my book. He cut Hinman with a knife that came from The Straight Satan’s motorcycle gang.
It was like a cutlass, a pirate’s cutlass. He slashed his ear, nearly cut it off and Susan Atkins later famously said she tried to sew it back on with dental floss. For people that don’t know the Manson legend basically inside out, that is the background.
So, l was focusing on this image of Gary Hinman’s slashed ear all day before this incident.
Anyway, I went along with this guy Nick Bougas to do this stupid prank. Of course, I’ve been blamed for it in a sort of Manson-esque manner. I just went along for the ride. It was stupid. And you will hear why it was stupid – but it wasn’t my conception to do it.
So, we left these anti-gay fliers that were deliberately provocative.
Of course, the implication has been that I must be anti-gay, which I’m sure you’ve heard these rumours – but anyone that knows me would think is ridiculous and secondly. Manson himself is a bisexual who has probably had more sex with men than women right?
Anyway, I did this incident with Bougas and when we got back into the car, there was a second in which I left the car door halfway opened. Some people, I could hardly see them… one of them was like a body-builder type guy, and two other people started shaking the car. They had obviously seen these flyers and we thought for sure we were going to be killed.
You know, you look at someone and you think, ‘this is our last moment.’ So, in the second in which it took to close the car door, finally he (Nick) pushes the gas. He was driving and somehow, we got out of it.
Then I went into shock.
I was like laughing.
When you have a severe trauma to your body you actually think it’s funny because your mind is trying to deal with the trauma. So, I went into shock and he looked at me and there was blood all over my shirt. I had a black shirt on but you could see it was drenched with shining blood.
I felt for my ear and it was gone.
There was no pain because shock had set in. I said, “Take me to the hospital immediately.”
I was in a strangely giddy mood, because when you’re wounded that’s what your mind does.

If that isn’t the Manson curse or black hole…
You’re looking at a picture of Gary Hinman’s wound all day because the Xerox machine taking the picture keeps malfunctioning and then your ear is cut off because you are doing some stupid prank with a Manson admirer.
That seemed to me to be some kind of karmic reaction exactly to the research I was doing.
I could get into it more and I will tell this story more fully in my memoirs which I’m writing now.

The interesting thing from the Manson point of view; I go into the hospital emergency room bleeding all over the place and the police are called and somebody approaches me and says, “I’m from the Doris Tate Committee for Victims of Violent Crime, and you are eligible for a certain amount of money from the state.” Because of Sharon Tate‘s murder, anyone who is involved in a violent crime is eligible and I actually felt like I couldn’t take that because of what I’m doing and my support of Manson, I felt it wasn’t ethical to do it.
But you know what are the chances of that happening on the night I’m looking at the Gary Hinman ear wound and then being approached by someone involved with Sharon Tate’s mother?”

Without meaning to impose on your or your families’ privacy – We were wondering…
What is your current relationship like with Zeena – your ex-collaborator, muse, & partner?

After our amicable divorce in 2015 we remain close friends and Vajra siblings, our spiritual bond, tested through war, endures despite the transformation of our relationship.

How did the death of Stanton – Zeena’s son & your step-son impact you?

We broke all contact with him in 1995 after his ceaseless thievery, violent threats, his armed robbery of an old man and general psychotic behaviour. He was an entirely parasitic drug addict, molester, liar, beater of women, and worse.
I’ve given almost no thought to him since his welcome and entirely expected demise. Zeena did absolutely everything to support and help him since his birth, and he repaid her with death threats, slander, libel, theft and betrayal of the most unforgivable kind. He’s in the Hell he didn’t believe in with his equally despicable grandfather and grandmother.

After many years have passed since his death – What are your current thoughts on the life, work, & personality of Anton Lavey?

I think I’ve made that abundantly clear in many forums and in my books since I broke with him on April 1990 so I won’t be redundant.
His life brought nothing beneficial to this world, his work is mostly plagiarized filler and what isn’t is just pompous sophomoric atheistic bombast of no value, and as for his personality, it’s accurately diagnosed here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556001/
“Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5).
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration, and with lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood, as indicated by at least five of the following:
Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements, expects to be recognized as superior without actually completing the achievements)
Is preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, brilliance, beauty, or perfect love.
Believes that they are “special” and can only be understood by or should only associate with other special people (or institutions).
Requires excessive admiration.
Has a sense of entitlement, such as an unreasonable expectation of favourable treatment or compliance with his or her expectations).
Is exploitative and takes advantage of others to achieve their own ends.
Lacks empathy and is unwilling to identify with the needs of others.
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of them.
Shows arrogant, haughty behaviours and attitudes.“

Furthermore, anyone who inexplicably respects that cowardly fraud should read this, which documents one of the most loathsome things about him: https://setemheb.com/2023/06/02/who-anton-lavey-was-as-a-person/

Please describe your last dream in detail.

What seemed to be a vivid memory of an alternate self in what I took to be the other dimension or planet I actually come from…

I lived in a stark black stone expressionist fortress built into a rugged coastal mountain overlooking an ocean. A much larger moon than ours loomed in a foggy purple sky. It reminded me of an exaggerated version of Iceland which I once visited briefly.
My library was book like documents that filled a whole table because the pages were so large.
I played music on an organic electronic synthesizer of some kind.
A vast black ocean spread out to the horizon.

Creativity

When & why did you first become interested in art, writing, music, & the esoteric?
…and any pivotal moments / influences regarding each of them?

Art, writing, music and the esoteric were all integral central aspects of my life from my earliest childhood, so much so that I have no doubt that I’m simply picking up from where I left off on creative and initiatory pursuits from many previous lives.

When I was a child and teenager, I drew obsessively and constantly and was a fairly competent artist though I ultimately didn’t pursue that medium of expression. I can recall pivotal moments with each.
What inspired me to draw was the art on display in the Warren Publishing horror magazines of the 60s, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella.

A key moment in my drawing development occurred when I was about 5 when I managed to draw a bat hanging from the branches of a dead tree and a fairly accurate upside-down reflection of the bat and tree reflected in a body of water.
It was at that moment that I instinctively understood (or remembered?) that creating an alternate universe by drawing an image is a microcosmic magical act that influences the macrocosmic material realm.
So, I saw a connection between magic and the arts early on.

My earliest reading was in Greek, Northern and Egyptian mythology, demonology, the lore of lycanthropy and vampirism, and military history so the first texts I ever wrote focused on those themes. I became aware early on of William S Burroughs‘ ideas of using writing as sorcery. My father knew Maurice Girodias, the publisher of the Olympia Press, so the avant-garde, experimental and erotic novels they published in Paris exerted a great influence on my writing.

I wrote brief surreal songs when I was very young around the time my father, during a brief beatnik folk period, taught me the rudiments of acoustic guitar. The first song I ever played and sang of the tunes my father taught me was the old folk song “Tom Dooley“, followed by the James Bond and Batman Themes. Of my earliest juvenilia one song I composed was called “Lassie In The Army”.
A pivotal moment was accidentally tuning a radio in between a classical music and a barely audible other station of barely audible voices and static. I liked how it sounded, and developed a taste for songs based on melody and structure interfered with by noise and dissonance.
Peter Noone, the lead singer of Herman’s Hermits, taught me how to sing into a microphone during a sound check for his band. The keyboard became the instrument I composed on, I had an electronic organ as a kid, inspired by Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera, a story I loved. Soundtrack music was the most powerful influence on my own work, especially the film scores of John Barry, James Bernard, Nino Rota, Bernard Hermann, Jerry Goldsmith and Krystzof Komeda. I sang a lot of musical theatre in school so singing a narrative in character clearly continued in my own songs.

The esoteric is a pattern of my creative work, but I’d rather address that separately as it’s much more than an art form.

Who are some of your favourite musicians, artists, writers, & filmmakers?

Music: Nico, Blondie, Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk, Ligeti, Messiaen, Penderecki, James Bernard, Nino Rota, John Barry, and Bernard Hermann, Sinatra, Julie London, Psychedelia, Doors, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Manson, Roky Erickson, Beach Boys, Bach, Satanic Majesties Request, Syd Barrett, Liszt, Krautrock, Neu, Kraftwerk, Pere Ubu, Screamers, Magazine, Bartok, Wire, Elvis, Bowie, Scott Walker, Ferry, Eno, Sun Ra, Tiny Tim, Sparks, Kevin Ayers and a thousand more.

Art: Jean Delville, Khnopf, Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolists, Breker, Ernst, and a few thousand more.

Writers: Nabokov, Pound, Celine, Poe, Dick, Francis Stuart, Burgess, Artaud, Shakespeare, Burroughs, Robbe-Grillette, Lautreamont, Nin, Pierre Louys, and a few thousand more.

Films: Kubrick, Fellini, Terence Fisher, James Whale, Mario Bava, Stroheim, Murnau, Roger Corman, Curtis Harrington, Hans Jurgen Syberberg, Godard, Polanski, and a few thousand more.

If people wanted to check out your stuff, work with you, or buy some of your wares – Where should they visit & how should they get in touch?

Bandcamp has all my music, links to the various publishers selling my books are easily found online, if any if your readers seek spiritual consultation, they can write to schreckworx@gmail.com for information.

Of everything you have done so far, what would you most like to be remembered for?

I’ve never given any thought to that, what we’re remembered for is completely out of our control. The way humanity’s going, who will be left to do the remembering?
My music, books, films, and teaching are all messages in bottles tossed into the ocean of ignorance, if anyone gets something from them, it’s a matter of chance.

Any upcoming news, projects, or releases you would like to share?

My entire life is devoted to my work so there are several books, recordings, and films in the process of production.
When they manifest, they will all be clearly visible.

Music

Your new track ‘21st Century’ is lotsa fun. A proggy, psych jam, with your unmistakable vocals – How did that come to fruition?

It’s the sonic distillation of my feelings about the last 23 years, the aim was to create the sonic equivalent of the anxiety, dread and runaway train velocity of catastrophic events typifying our time.

We note it contains many of the same musicians from your 2021 LP “O, A Weird Flower”…
Was it a track from those recording sessions?

No, it’s the first track on my upcoming album Time Machine, recorded with the same band.

Can you please share your memories from your group Radio Werewolf’s appearance in the trashtastic 1988 film Mortuary Academy?

There are many but the first that comes to mind is that when we were given our dressing room for the shoot, we were led into the gigantic ceremonial chamber of the Scottish Rite Masonic Temple.
That kind of thing was always happening with Radio Werewolf.

What was it like working with Christopher Lee on his 1996 album ‘Sings Devils, Rogues & Other Villains (From Broadway To Bayreuth And Beyond)’?
… did you continue a relationship with Mr Lee beyond that album?
… if so, please tell us all about it!

I first met Christopher in the late 70s when he came to LA to present his film The Wicker Man, but only befriended him in 1995, when I collaborated on his first album as a singer. We got along very well, and I met with him often at his home in London’s Cadogan Square, and up until his undeath in 2015, also met up whenever he visited Berlin’s yearly film festival.

One of my few regrets is that based on the screenplay I wrote, he’d formally agreed to play Count Dracula one more time in a surreal biopic about Bram Stoker and Sir Henry Irving in a film I was going to direct, but it never materialized.
He was a charming gentleman of the old school, a great raconteur, very funny in a cynical way (he specialized in cruel impersonations of people he disliked) but as I got to know him better, I saw a certain irrationality, paranoia, and hint of egotistical madness I’ll say more about in my memoirs.

Religion & The Occult

Can you please outline what your current religious practice involves?

I formally converted to the Karma Kagyu school of Tantric Buddhism (Vajrayana) in the early 21st century but remain a devotee of the God Seth, those are the two central poles of my daily religious practice.
I also am theurgically devoted to other deities, including Kali, Aphrodite, Innana/Ishtar, Tezcatlipoca, all of whom have been significant presences in my life for decades.

Like many fellow explorers you have settled into Buddhism later in life.
… and we were wondering:
Why do you think Buddhism attracts people who have previously studied the occult?

I can’t speak for them, for me it’s because it’s the exact opposite of Occultism’s vague subjective practices and cloudy origins in that it offers precise, time-proven instructions for how to attain liberation based on a verifiable lineage of masters.
It works.

How did you come to find Buddhism yourself?
… and what led you to take the plunge deeper into it?

I had always studied it, was instructed in Zen meditation in my early 20s, but did not formally convert to it until the goddess Kali appeared to me and advised me to take refuge in Buddhism.
When a goddess you worship tells you something, you do it.

What does God mean to you?

There are millions of gods, not one. If you mean the minor but destructive supernatural being called Yahweh, He is the demiurge Ialdabaoth, a malevolent creature who feeds on blood.

Charles Manson

Vincent Bugliosi’s “Helter-Skelter” narrative as an exploration of The Family’s slayings have pretty much been debunked – Even if the actual motivations haven’t been settled quite yet…

I’ve known the actual motivations since the mid-90s, and they are discussed in detail in The Manson File.

As someone who knew him well, what do you understand Charles’ religious & societal beliefs to have been?

That’s also covered at length in The Manson File, and far too complex for a brief answer.
I address his spiritual beliefs here in some detail: https://youtu.be/X3Aj9IfRfEc?feature=shared

What, do you think, Charles was ultimately trying to accomplish through his beliefs, & actions?
… for himself?
… the Family?
… and society as a whole?

I don’t believe he was “trying” to do anything, like his improvisatory music, he was just being, and as he would say “going along with what’s coming along”. Others were drawn to him and projected on to him their own distorted understanding.
He had no plan but survival. He once wrote to me, about music, “peasants try.”

He didn’t try. He just was.

When the dust finally settles, how do you think Charles will ultimately be remembered?

As the accuracy of his ATWA vision becomes painfully clear, as a martyr and prophet.

The extreme demonization is guaranteed to lead to an equally extreme sanctification.
That’s how religions are born.

Your book, The Manson File: The Manson File: Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman, has recently been republished in a final definitive edition.
How does the current version to compare to previous?
… what has been added or omitted to it?
… and why were the changes made?

In 1987, I sent Charles a compendium of his philosophical musings and he suggested I expand into a book which became the 1988 Manson File. That version was Charlie’s idea of an antidote to Nuel Emmons’ Manson In His Own Words, which were not in fact his own words at all.
The 2011 edition was a vastly expanded Mansoncyclopedia that distilled all that I had learned about the phenomenon in the decades since the first edition.
The most recent came about when I last visited Charles in 2012 and he opened up even more on the true nature of the crimes so it had to be updated and corrected.

It’s the only book about him that he publicly condoned and encouraged people to read, and it contains information about the enigma of the man and the crimes associated with him available nowhere else.

Were can people grab a copy of the new edition?

As of this writing only from my company World Operations, but by the time this article appears we win have a US distributor handling it, a solution to a series of obstacles created by the incompetence of the US post office.

Links

• Nikolas Schreck – email: schreckworx@gmail.com
• Nikolas Schreck – Instagram
• Nikolas Schreck – Facebook
• Nikolas Schreck – YouTube
• Nikolas Schreck – Bandcamp
• Nikolas Schreck – Goodreads Page
• Nikolas Schreck – Discogs Entry
• Nikolas Schreck – Link to Watch his 1988 interview with Charles Manson (via YouTube)
• The Manson File [v2] Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman (Ultimate Edition, 2023) – Link to Buy (via Cross Bank Publishing)
• The Manson File [v2] Myth and Reality of an Outlaw Shaman (First Edition, 2011) – Review (via Compulsion Online)
• The Manson File [v1] (Amok Press, 1988) – Link to Read Online (via Internet Archive)

Header photo of Nikolas in Vienna, circa 2015, by Zeena Schreck
All images supplied by Nikolas or sourced online.