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There was also a spiritual side to the era. I recall the Children of God - Jesus Freaks, Hare Krishnas, Moonies. I fell in with a transcendental meditation group and found it to be helpful simply as a relaxation technique. Some of that still lingers today...with different names. I always seemed to attract the Hare Krishnas wherever I went.
I see these type of people today at the corner with cardboard signs they are very young
Way back then there was lots of fat to live off of
Not now
20 million illegals have snapped it up
Being on the streets today is not Disneyland
There was also a spiritual side to the era. I recall the Children of God - Jesus Freaks, Hare Krishnas, Moonies. I fell in with a transcendental meditation group and found it to be helpful simply as a relaxation technique. Some of that still lingers today...with different names. I always seemed to attract the Hare Krishnas wherever I went.
I remember the Hari Krishnas too, standing around in the parking lots asking for money. Oh, the Moonies, they were totally crazy. So many cults back then. But all of that came later on. I was in at the beginning and out when it got too weird and went too far. I was out by the time people were taking hard drugs, only in when people were experimenting with pot.
On a somber note, my first ex and I had a good friend who went to Viet Nam and came back depressed and lost. We tried to help but I found out with my next husband, a Viet Nam vet, that the ones who were most emotionally damaged could not be helped. My second husband never spoke about it except to tell me he had been there.
But he did seem to be bottling something up inside and it took decades to come out. His total breakdown and subsequent hospitalization and hopeless prognosis by the VA ended our marriage, 30 years after the war was over. I'm proud of him because of a few things he finally confided in me when we were trying to get him on VA disability and get him well again. We still keep in touch by email even though he wanted a divorce and lives alone in some hole in the wall place according to his wishes.
His condition reinforces in me that my anti war protests were appropriate. We did not dislike the soldiers, we were against sending them to a useless, confusing, impossible to win, war.
Not sure if it was an outgrowth of that era, more early 70's, another movement, largely forgotten, was the Men's Liberation Movement, set off by a book: The Hazards of Being a Male. This movement never got off the ground as did the Women's Liberation Movement of the same time frame. But I do hear the Men's Liberation Movement has been resurrected. I label myself a Men's Libber to this day, which confuses a lot of my co-workers, as they're completely unfamiliar with the term, until a female co-worker tells me: That's a man's job!
Gay Liberation also came out of the era, with the Stone Wall? protests in NYC in the late 60's, and there were Gay marches in other cities during that timeframe.
I also attribute the popularity of Group Therapy/Psychodrama to that era as well, as I partook in some intensive group therapy session, at the time, when I overdid it with drugs.
I look upon the 70's, largely, as a religious/spiritual revival era, one big influence was the Beatles trekking to India for spiritual influences.
And then there was Baghwan Rajneesh/Osho, with his mega commune up near Madrid, Oregon, with his Rolls Royce's. They took over that small town and immediately legalized nudism! But that's taking us into the early 80's.
So, no, the hippie/counter culture wasn't merely about drugs (although they were helpful in some people's awakening, particularly LSD) and some great everlasting movements arose during that period we can all be thankful for!
That was before AIDS came along. At that point, genital herpes was the most scary STD one could get, as the others were curable with antibiotic therapy.
I think AIDS was around long before it became known. In 1974 I was working in the title department of an oil/gas company. It was my job to process estates and distribute the oil/gas revenue to the heirs. I'll never forget reading the death certificate of a young man (early 30s) who died in San Francisco the previous year. The cause of death was listed as "pneumonia" but the physician had added that the actual cause of death was "probably unknown" and the deceased had "skin lesions, oral sores, fever, sweats and significant weight loss". The physician also added that he knew of "other young men in the area who had apparently died of the same mysterious affliction".
That death certificate and the physician's obvious concern has haunted me all these 40 years. I've read about Robert Rayford's dying of AIDS in New Orleans in 1969 but I suspect that there were others who pre-deceased him in San Francisco.
Bear in mind, Dave, worth repeating, the hippie culture was largely a middle class phenomena. Many of the poor were working, just to survive, and didn't have the luxury of running off to Europe and backpacking around for a month or 2.
The woman, mentioned, was a middle class woman who just wanted to spread her wings for 6 months and enjoy the party, influenced by all the publicity at the time. Have no idea what happened to her, but she may have just tired of it all quickly and returned home.
Way, way back there was a similar movement, out of Italy, centuries ago. I learned of that when I was visiting Meteora, in Greece, with all those hilltop monasteries. My guide compared that phenomena to the hippie movement, centuries later.
Rich kids, dropping out of upper class life in Italy at the time, and building all those hilltop monasteries, and who knows if they did any praying?
It will be interesting to see if a movement, like this, re-occurs at some point in time, started by disenchanted rich kids from Silicon Valley?
I'm not sure what income levels have to do with anything. Regardless of class she selfishly bailed on her family to party, leaving he husband to care for the child and wonder what his wife was doing and with whom.
Not sure if it was an outgrowth of that era, more early 70's, another movement, largely forgotten, was the Men's Liberation Movement, set off by a book: The Hazards of Being a Male. This movement never got off the ground as did the Women's Liberation Movement of the same time frame. But I do hear the Men's Liberation Movement has been resurrected. I label myself a Men's Libber to this day, which confuses a lot of my co-workers, as they're completely unfamiliar with the term, until a female co-worker tells me: That's a man's job!
Gay Liberation also came out of the era, with the Stone Wall? protests in NYC in the late 60's, and there were Gay marches in other cities during that timeframe.
I also attribute the popularity of Group Therapy/Psychodrama to that era as well, as I partook in some intensive group therapy session, at the time, when I overdid it with drugs.
I look upon the 70's, largely, as a religious/spiritual revival era, one big influence was the Beatles trekking to India for spiritual influences.
And then there was Baghwan Rajneesh/Osho, with his mega commune up near Madrid, Oregon, with his Rolls Royce's. They took over that small town and immediately legalized nudism! But that's taking us into the early 80's.
So, no, the hippie/counter culture wasn't merely about drugs (although they were helpful in some people's awakening, particularly LSD) and some great everlasting movements arose during that period we can all be thankful for!
And what will the Milennials's lasting legacy be?
Yeah. The birth of identity politics.
Don't forget the Black Panthers, SDS, Grey Panthers, "mother-rapers, father-stabbers. . . father-rapers!" A Movement!
Seemed like a good idea at the time. Everybody was going to have their say. Even Arlo.
There was also a spiritual side to the era. I recall the Children of God - Jesus Freaks, Hare Krishnas, Moonies. I fell in with a transcendental meditation group and found it to be helpful simply as a relaxation technique. Some of that still lingers today...with different names. I always seemed to attract the Hare Krishnas wherever I went.
Yes, experimenting with religions of different cultures was yet another segment of youth in that era. Yoga and meditation, Buddhism and Eastern thought, grew and actually got a foothold in our culture to this day. Back then it was, in the eyes of the mainstream, really crazy.
I think we suffer from a multitude of definitions of the word "hippie" on this forum. We might all be closer to agreement that a peaceful person who loves nature, is into healthful practices and doesn't do drugs can be a hippie that some could approve.
Depends on when and why we formed our own personal definition.
True. I was the above, well , still am 50 yrs. later.
One poster mentioned dirty people sleeping on dirty mattresses, doing drugs. I guess there were people like that, but not in my circle of friends.
This thread is bringing back so many fond memories.
Anybody remember head shops? We had one near me. I loved that place, it always smelled so nice.
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