DEVORE, Calif., Dec. 7 – Charles Miller Manson, 35, called “God” and “Jesus” by his followers, incarcerated, accused…

Is he a bearded leader of a hippie “black magic cult” which savagely killed actress Sharon Tate and six others?

Or is Charlie Manson the patriarch of a lost tribe of young people looking for their own society away from it all?

Emmett Harder, 37, a geologist and prospector since he was 9, knows Charles Manson. He hired Manson and his “family” to work around his Death Valley mine near Barker Ranch, home of the “family” for several months. He invited Charlie to dinner at his Devore home.

“I find it hard to accept the fact that Manson had anything to do with those brutal slayings,” Harder said yesterday.

“I found Charlie to be an intelligent, hard-working person dedicated to taking care of the young people camping with him.

“I never once heard Manson called anything but Charlie. No one called him Jesus or God. And he was clean-shaven with medium length hair, too.”

Harder said he remembered only first names (with the exception of Manson) of those in the group. But he said he recognized the faces of the four already in custody for the Tate murders.

“There were a couple of Chucks (Charles Watson) and a T. J. and a girl who appeared to be a bit retarded or at least abnormally naive (Susan Atkins).”

Harder admits it has been a year since he last saw the man now accused of using “hypnotic power” to order the ritualistic slayings of seven persons in Los Angeles last summer.

But his description of Manson and his followers is in direct and striking contrast to reports circulated by news media about the hippie band.

Harder said he first met Manson in June 1968 at his tungsten mine seven miles from the Barker Ranch. He said Manson and five or six young men walked into camp to ask for jobs.

“They were very interested in prospecting for profit. They asked me if they could help. I gave them a burro and a week. When I visited the Barker Ranch at that time, I found they had collected over 1,000 pounds of ore for me.”

Harder said he developed a respect for the young band “because I know what physical effort is and those young people were not afraid of physical effort.”

Harder said Manson asked him to speak to the group on prospecting. He said he took the young men on several field trips to acquaint them with rocks and formations.

The prospector voiced concern over newspaper stories and pictures which gave the impression the group lived in squalor.

“The Barker Ranch was never neater than when Charlie was there. He was a father-figure, organizing, directing, assigning duties. I think a lot of the mess shown in the photographs was a result of the raid — or perhaps it was made by another group. The ranch was always open to anyone who wanted to use it.”

Harder described the “family” as young people who appeared lost and hurt, as if society had slapped them in the face and turned them out alone.

“They didn’t feel that they were lost. They said they were trying to hide from society, trying to run away from its problems …”

Harder told of one of the many times he visited with them. He said they were sitting around a fire, drinking coffee, and remembered being impressed that they were familiar about passages from the Bible.

“We were talking about how lucky we all were … sitting in the desert darkness alone but together. Out there we felt closer to God and country. Charlie said ‘That shows you how true the Bible is’.”

Manson and his followers ran into a unique prejudice at Barker’s Ranch which apparently followed them from their beginning in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco.

“It was the word ‘hippie’,” Harder explained. “The prospectors in the area just assumed hippies were bad people. The local people were a bit afraid of Charlie and his group. Charlie said he didn’t like the stigma and moved out of Haight-Ashbury because of it.”

The last time Harder saw Manson was a chilly night in November 1968 after the Harders had spent a peaceful dinner with the suspected killer.

Manson and three of his followers had ridden to Harder’s house in Devore for dinner before catching a ride into Los Angeles.

“He talked about his music a lot. He said he had written some for the Beach Boys, a popular rock group, and the album was due for release.”

Said Mrs. Ruth Harder: “I remember he played the guitar and sang. The girl who was with them walked in the garden with me, discussing rocks and flowers. She was pretty and clean. They reminded me of the kids who used to sit the house when my daughter was going to school.”

Commenting on the picture of Manson circulated by the press last week, Mrs. Harder said Manson looked “frightened, puzzled by it all. He had a trapped look…”

Gerald Harder, 15, held up a mounted gold record album he said he received through Manson. The album was awarded the Beach Boys by Capitol Records indicating a million-seller. The record was “All Summer Long.”

“I got it from a man who once loaned Charlie a four-wheel drive vehicle,” Gerald said. “Charlie gave the gold record as sort of payment for the help he received.”

Harder said he and his son have thought about going up to Independence where Manson is being held to talk to him.

“I’d like to find out what it’s all about,” Harder explained. “But we don’t want to go up there with all the newsmen. We’d like to see him alone. Maybe when he is moved to more permanent confinement, we’ll see him and he can tell us what all this is about.”

If they are brought to trial in the Tate slayings, Linda Kasabian, 19, will plead innocent and Susan Atkins, 21, will plead diminished capacity, their attorneys said yesterday in Los Angeles.

Both Mrs. Kasabian, who is charged in the Tate murders, and Miss Atkins, who is charged with another murder but admits being at the scene of the macabre Tate slayings, belonged to the roving band of young people linked to the deaths of the actress and six others last August.

“If my client has to plead, she will plead not guilty because she is not guilty,” said Gary Fleishman, lawyer for Mrs. Kasabian.

Miss Atkins would plead some form of diminished capacity, her attorney, Richard Caballero, said. Whether it will take the form of temporary insanity, insanity, hypnotism or some other form of mental state will depend, he said, “on how she’s evaluated later on by doctors, if I decide to do that.”

Under California laws, a diminished capacity plea contends the accused did not have the mental capacity to reflect and deliberate on his act.

Both Caballero and another attorney for Mrs. Kasabian, Al Matthews, said their clients report being hypnotized and controlled by the will of Manson.

The county grand jury, which heard two hours of testimony by Miss Atkins Friday, is being asked by the district attorney’s office to indict Manson, Miss Atkins, Mrs. Kasabian and at least three other former members of Manson’s mostly female commune for the Tate slayings and those of a wealthy market owner and his wife the following night.

Shot and stabbed at the home of Miss Tate and her film director husband Roman Polanski were Miss Tate, 26; Abigail Folger, 26, San Francisco coffee heiress; Jay Sebring, 35, jet-set men’s hairdresser; Voityck Frokowsky, 37, Polish playboy, and Steven Parent, 18, a friend of Miss Tate’s caretaker.

The leader of the clan, Manson, who has not been charged, is jailed at Independence, with bond set at $25,000, awaiting arraignment on a charge of receiving stolen property. Los Angeles authorities are seeking the extradition of Charles Watson, now being held in McKinney, Tex., and Patricia Krenwinkel, in custody at Mobile, Ala., both of whom were served with murder warrants in the Tate slayings.

The grand jury, which heard testimony from six persons Friday, is expected to conclude its investigation tomorrow when 15 others are scheduled to testify.

Miss Atkins is charged with murder of a Malibu, Calif., musician, Gary Hinman, last summer.

By DAVID L. OTIS