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17.
A 7pp. interview with Gridley Wright, the mentor of the psychedelic tribe 'Strawberry Fields', in ORACLE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA #5 (LA: August 1967), illustrated with 31 b/w photographs.
Tabloid newspaper format. 32pp. Ed. Stan Russell.
A Yale graduate, Republican supporter and former stockbroker, Gridley Wright established the Strawberry Fields commune near Malibu in early 1967, envisioning it as "a place of accelerated evolutionary change" where anyone could smoke marijuana and drop LSD freely, "like a psychic vitamin". Several months later, after a pot bust and the destruction of the main commune house in a fire, Wright embarked on a nomadic existence, drifting through Asian ashrams and American communes, before forming the Shiva Lilas, a creepy polyamorous child-centric cult heavily influenced by LSD.
After their expulsion from the Black Bear 'Open Land' commune in Northern California in the late 1970s (he managed to convert many communards to his belief system while resident there), Wright and his followers returned to India, where an epidemic of measles and diphtheria claimed the lives of four of the group's children (Wright was an anti-vaxxer). In December 1979 he succumbed to injuries incurred when he was stabbed several times by a psychotic Australian hippie in Goa.
Also: STP ("apparently mescaline plus amphetamine… The dangers, while exaggerated, are sufficient to merit close attention"); George Harrison and Ravi Shankar meet the press in LA; The Traditional Indian Land and Life Committee; colour psychedelic centrespread; hippies in Hawaii; ads. for the Neo-American Church, 'The Turn-On Book', and hippie boutiques in LA; more.
Slight age-toning to newsprint, o/w Very Good plus, at least.
Price:
£55.00
