Psychedelia, p.53
Psychedelia, page 53
As a socio-cultural concept, 'the sixties' didn't really begin to take shape until 1964. This was the year the Beatles broke through in America, the first year of Lyndon Johnson's presidency and the first serious escalation of the Vietnam war. It was also the year of the Merry Prankster's psychedelic bus tour across America, and the footage they assembled shows a country that still looks to be living in the 1950s. Except for Ken Kesey's Pranksters and Leary-Alpert's Millbrook on the opposite coast, 1964 was an atypically calm year for Psychedelia; the quiet before the storm one might say. Exotica culture had run its course, and the Village and North Beach haunts of the '50s Beats had become tourist traps and strip clubs. Yet it was not a year of passivity among the young, many of whom displayed a commitment to socio-political topics that gave a clear indication of what would follow. In '64, the Civil Rights movement topped the headlines with a series of watershed events, while high school graduates enrolled with JFK's newly launched Peace Corps to do good abroad. Those old enough for college might find themselves involved in the Free Speech Movement, which expanded rapidly from its ground zero at Berkeley University. These conflicts were clearly defined in terms of theme and partisans, and they set a precedent for youthful commitment which soon would develop into a counterculture less clearly defined in purpose, but significantly larger in scale.
Except for a minor bicoastal interest in LSD and mescaline within the American post-Beat and folk-boom scenes, the Western socio-cultural landscape of 1964 displayed very little overlap between the enclaves of psychedelic culture on one hand, and the embryonic stirrings of a political counterculture on the other hand. Soon this would all change, and the latter part of the decade – what later became known as 'the sixties' – could be described as a long-running tug of war between psychedelic culture and political activism. The term 'counterculture' is convenient in many ways, but needs to be augmented with the understanding that some vital elements that helped shape the era, such as illicit drug manufacturing, is usually not considered part of the counterculture, while some aspects of the counterculture, such as aggressive-dogmatic politics, go against the spiritual tone of Psychedelia. The relationship is complex, and historians have usually preferred to put the political activism at the center of the developments, and treat everything else (such as Psychedelia) as secondary attributes. A reflex for the psychedelicist would be to reverse the perspective, but the most fruitful way ahead is probably to view the developments of 'the sixties' as a symbiotic-catalytic confrontation between Psychedelia and radical counterculture.
In a 1967 interview with Chicago's underground paper The Seed, Ralph Metzner expressed a psychedelic standpoint on political radicalism with typical precision:
From what I can gather, people who take LSD tend to become less politically active. Some people are very upset about this'Allen Ginsberg is forever urging Tim, Dick and myself to get together with the Berkeley activists. However, there's a certain lesson that emerges out of LSD experiences which, I think, explains why this trend happens' you don't overcome a negative force by opposing it directly on the level of the force itself. That is, by struggling with certain political activities on the level of political activities, you're simply perpetuating that particular game level of interaction' you increase the force you are opposing by opposing it.
This isn't quite Gandhian non-violence, but a metaphysical perspective which, like Metzner suggests, comes from putting political activism under scrutiny in the psychedelic microscope.
Out on the West Coast, in the immediate vicinity of those Berkeley activists, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters had reached a conclusion similar to Metzner's. Their agenda, loose as it was, followed a progressive but deliberately non-partisan principle which in time would help them seem relevant long after their '60s counterculture contemporaries had turned into social science foot- notes. Compressed into Prankster-speak, this philosophy of no commitment became a warning admonition: 'if you label it this, it can't be that'. Any such restriction upon ontological freedom violated their psychedelically unfettered world-view. Of course, having no fixed position is a fixed position in itself, and the Prankster approach to socio-political matters is perhaps best described as experimental rather than consistent. Simply put, Ken Kesey changed his politics now and then, and maintained the artist's privilege to do so throughout his life. While the apolitical (or post-political) stance served the Pranksters' timeless status well, such a vagueness upon contemporary matters did not fit well in the emerging hippie counterculture, and it contributed to the skeptical attitude that the Haight-Ashbury crowd carried regarding the Prankster crew.
When Tom Wolfe in his 1968 book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test attempted to draw a circle around what Kesey's Pranksters truly believed in, he ended up with an obscure theory on how delays in the human nervous system mean that we're always watching the 'movie of our lives'. While undoubtedly an interesting psychedelic observation that tied in with the focus on spontaneity in the Absolute Now that the Acid Tests encouraged, it is hardly a sufficient intellectual base for the complete lifestyle that Kesey & co developed. A more credible description of the Merry Prankster agenda was offered by Kesey in the obviously lysergicized interview that opens the Acid Test record:
I figure that our function upon this Earth is to reflect the other fellow' If I can reflect you, and the places where I see you bothered by hang-ups, and I can do this with some amount of love and not with hostility, so there's as little pain as possible, it means that you can move on.
(Ken Kesey, January 1966)
This aligns well with Metzner's observation above, and offers some insight into the Prankster program at its fullest. The crucial turn is 'with love', and it is not surprising that the criticism the Pranksters drew, not least after Ken Babbs stepped in to replace the fugitive Kesey, was that their pranks and hijinx sometimes resembled brusque sarcasm rather than gentle parody. It was a delicate balancing act to perform under psychedelics, and like Leary's post-academic propaganda there is a streak of recklessness or destructivity in the Prankster chronicles, undoubtedly (and again like Leary) acerbated by the frequent legal harassment.
The psychedelic trips had shown to Kesey, like they did for Ralph Metzner, that opposing a negative force on the level of the force itself was a losing strategy that would only strengthen that which one opposed. The proper solution is to step outside the entire playing field in order to gain a detached perspective. By viewing what Leary called 'the game' and what the Merry Pranksters called 'the movie' from a higher level of abstraction, a right course of action would emerge. It is enti rely logical that the I-Ching and its accompanying oracular function was the one ancient text that the Pranksters cared for (as did the Diggers), assisting as it does in removing prejudice and wishful thinking from one's decisions. The proper course of action may entail the simple act of pulling the opposing force – such as a policeman – into a 'movie' of one's own design, through the combined use of charm and creative excuses. In grander cases, the situation may call for a full-blown Prank; a preplanned action to deliver the pedagogic message of irony that Kesey describes in his interview.
The psychedelic guerilla tactics of the Merry Pranksters were employed in full scale during the Berkeley Vietnam Day Rally in the Autumn 1965. Invited to participate in an anti-war demonstration by unsuspecting activists, Kesey and the Pranksters found the idea and the tone of this rally counter-productive, and decided to respond in their own trademarked way; via an Acid Prank. Abandoning their regular patriotic red, white and blue color theme, the 'Further' bus was painted blood-red and decorated with pro-war slogans, and the tripping Pranksters arrived in Berkeley chanting support for the US military effort via the bus' outside speakers. In spite of this unexpected interruption, the Vietnam demonstration continued as planned, with fiery anti-war speeches and supportive cheers from a Berkeley crowd well-versed in public manifestations since the recent Free Speech events.
Ken Kesey, sitting on the side of the pulpit waiting his turn, looked up at leading activist Paul Jacobs' expressive outbursts and was struck by a psychedelic vision: Jacobs looked just like Mussolini. This was the final proof Kesey needed, as he explained to the rallyers; making speeches and holding marches is what they do, the people who start wars. Kesey suggested that the only real solution was to turn one's back to the war and say 'fuck it'. The radical crowd was confused by this break in the dogmatic flow of the afternoon, and did not respond favorably to Keseys's closing harmonica interpretation of 'Home On The Range'. Just to prove Kesey's point, the rally ended in a three-way fight between policemen, demonstrators, and pro-war Hell's Angels. The Pranksters returned to their psychedelic abode in La Honda and restored Further's hallucinogenic exterior.
The Berkeley Prank and its anti-political display of psychedelic defiance was as close to making a political statement as the Merry Pranksters ever came. Perhaps its atypical nature was the reason why Kesey & co withheld the elaborate audio collage they had created to commemorate the event for many years, until it was finally released on CD in 1998. Shortly after the Berkeley Prank and the risky but successful three-day LSD party with the Hell's Angels (described in detail by Hunter Thompson and memorized in a poem by Allen Ginsberg) the Pranksters brought their maverick creativity public with the launch of the first Acid Test. The fullest expression of what Kesey's group represented, and did not represent, the eight Bay Area Acid Tests held in late 1965 were wholly apolitical multimedia celebrations of spiritual freedom, hedonism and spontane ous creativity. Unique to the era in putting the drug experience at the center of the activities (unlike the East Coast 'Happenings'), the Acid Tests were also free-form enough to inspire comparisons both to the Greater Mysteries at Eleusis and the all-night 'rave' gatherings of the 1990s.
The year that followed saw a rapid psychedelization of the bohemian underground that rippled all the way to London and Amsterdam. The significant socio-cultural events that followed; the Trips Festival in January 1966, the Human Be-In a year later, and the Monterey Festival and 14 Hour Technicolor Dream in the Summer '67, were all explicitly non-radical and non-antagonistic events, taking their cue from The Psychedelic Experience to project a holistic message of love on a higher level than mere political confrontation. Around Ground Zero of the San Francisco Bay Area, the New Left's leading lights such as the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and Free Speech activists like Mario Savio went from being headline heroes of 1964-65 to 'not even being able to get arrested' in 1966-67. Round 1 in the tug of war between radicals and psychedelicists ended with a resounding hallucinogenic victory, a fact that infiltrating government agencies such as the FBI observed with some delight. In the pre-hippie era, Communists were considered substantially more threatening to society than Acidheads. For a short but glorious moment, perhaps no more than a year, it looked like The Psychedelic Experience would effectuate the massive utopian change its advocates spoke of, not via the influenced elite of Huxley's and Heard's plan, but due to LSD's massive impact on the young counterculture.
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It would be inaccurate to reduce this eventful era to a countercultural struggle between psychedelic and political influences. Many strange mutations took place in the underground as Tim Leary, the Beatles and Owsley propagated the lysergic message to millions of heads, not least so in the field of music. Unpredictable powers were set in motion, many of which did not conform to the standard, upbeat 'sixties' image at all, but offered ample proof of the dynamite potential of hallucinogenic drugs upon creative minds. The darker side of '60s Psychedelia, such as the flamboyantly sinister Process Church2, was for decades deliberately omitted from period chronicles, as their nihilistic program and ominous, gothic appearance did not fit the conventional notions of 'Swinging London'. Scientology was expanding its reach, and classic esotericism saw the upswing of interest that always accompanies it in times of spiritual freedom. Anton Lavey's Church Of Satan was as much a p art of the Los Angeles' '60s scene as were the Love-Ins in Griffith Park, while Kenneth Anger staged occult magick rituals right among the starry-eyed hippies of Haight-Ashbury. These groups cast light upon a zeitgeist more multifaceted than is usually recognized, yet most of them were only indirectly related to hallucinogenic drugs, usually by way of attracting burnt out acidheads seeking new footing.
Given the prevalence of psychedelic drugs on the urban folk scene, and the dominance of ex - folkies in the new psychedelic rock bands, it is appropriate that the most notable dark acid cult of the pre-Manson era – the Lyman Family in Boston – originated among folk musicians. Although the traditional, acoustic folk movement had been given the kiss of death by Dylan at Newport '65, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band's star was still rising. Undisturbed by the developments within the band, where an acid-fried Kweskin viewed his former backing musician Mel Lyman as nothing less than Christ, they climbed great heights until at a certain point they could be considered a household word across turned-on America, with successful West Coast tours and TV appearances. Despite Lyman's misgivings about the rock scene, Kweskin's men were branded 'hip' by the mid-1960s underground much like the Holy Modal Rounders and the Fugs, and thereby they managed the crucial transition into folkrock and emerging Psychedelia. Cutting edge rock bands such as the 13th Floor Elevators mentioned the Jug Band as an influence, and they even got to play the San Francisco ballrooms alongside Janis Joplin, the Doors, and others.
An update of their sound in 1967 could have prepared Kweskin's band for the expanding musical landscape of the late 1960s, but Mel Lyman's messianic grip on the leader sent them in another direction. Their live shows took on a bizarre, sermonizing nature, with Kweskin reciting the teachings of his ex-banjo player before hostile audiences. While Lyman himself undoubtedly had plenty of sardonic explanations for the poor crowd response, the non-musical evolvement led to the Jug Band falling apart. Lyman is unlikely to have cared much about losing his most famous channel, given as he was to abandon ideas at the drop of a hat, even such that had taken years to develop. In fact, willful destruction of carefully built structures for seemingly no reason at all was one of Lyman's trademarks. This would teach whoever was the victim to experience pain, which was an important step towards understanding the truth.
People from all-over the Northeast gravitated towards the Mel Lyman Family, who had settled in a ghetto slum of Boston where they had repaired and refurnished a few abandoned houses in the shadow of the tall, ominous silhouette of the 18th Century Fort Hill tower. New arrivals who were deemed worthy to enter the Family were given an introduction via a massive dose of LSD and a talk with Lyman. San Francisco Oracle co-editor Michael Bowen recalled meeting the Mel Lyman Family during one of their West Coast visits:
After a while, they told me that I was going to see 'Mel', and the way they said it made it sound like a royal title or something. Lyman showed me some home footage from his psychedelic sessions. I could tell right away what he was doing, he was using LSD to turn these people into zombies, reprogramming them' we wanted none of that.
(private communication, 2007)
The number of people who fell under Mel Lyman's spell is as surprising as their background; some of them of the lost seeker kind typical of the era, but many well-educated and from a wealthy background. A number were skilled builders, craftsmen and architects, something that came in handy for the various projects that Lyman thought up, such as 'The Vault'; a windowless isolation room where wayward family members were occasionally put in order to learn how to truly Feel. As was reported by a visiting journalist, there were many young women in the Family and both the men and women were handsome and strangely charismatic.
In 1967-68 thousands of people were introduced to Lyman via The Avatar, an independent Boston newspaper a la San Francisco's The Oracle and Chicago's The Seed, and in fact one of the more successful papers of the underground, reaching a circulation of 35.000 at its peak. Founded in mid-1967 as a joint effort between various progressive forces in Boston, the Mel Lyman Family soon armwrestled themselves into control of the paper and began filling it with Lyman ramblings, Lyman columns and Lyman photos. At one point, the magazine consisted of two parts, the regular Avatar, and the 'Lyman' inlay, which was a whole section of nothing but Mel. Even the regular Avatar wasn't all it seemed – the name 'Avatar' itself had been invented by Lyman's crew and referred directly to his person. The local hippies behind the paper soon came to regret collaborating with the Lyman Family, but maybe they should have seen the writing on the wall, considering Lyman's first introduction of himself:
To those of you who are unfamiliar with me let me introduce myself by saying that I am not a man, not a personality, not a tormented struggling individual. I am all those things but much more. I am the truth and I speak the truth.... In all humility I tell you that I am the greatest man in the world and it doesn't trouble me in the least.
(The Avatar #1, June 1967)
After a power struggle with amusing and eerie aspects, Lyman and his crew from Fort Hill launched a new magazine called American Avatar, which needless to say was 100% what they wanted. In the third issue Lyman went all-out and declared himself to be Christ, and 'about to turn this foolish world upside down'. This new project didn't include magazines, however, and after the Christ Issue there was only one more. Instead Lyman turned his focus towards television and the cinema, and envisioned a massive spiritual revolution within that field. As part of the revolution some of the manually skilled disciples were instructed to build a sort of multimedia chamber in the Fort Hill house where Lyman lived; a huge undertaking which when almost finished he ordered to be destroyed. The lesson, as always, was the value of pain and loss.
