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195.
The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 and the Source Family.
LA: Process, 2007. First edition. Sm. 4to. Wrps., 288pp. + 16pp. colour photo-insert. Profusely illustrated with 200+ colour and b/w photographs. Contains a CD of previously unreleased Source Family music, interviews and chants. Introduction by Erik Davis.
The spiritual commune known as the Source Family was founded by Father Yod (James Baker) in the Hollywood Hills in the late 1960s, financed in part by his health food restaurant, the Source, on Sunset Strip (one of the country's first, it was patronised by John Lennon, Julie Christie and Marlon Brando, among others). Influenced early on by the Nature Boys, a Los Angeles-based group of beats who lived a natural lifestyle, and then by Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader, Baker subsequently changed his name to Father Yod and Ya Ho Wha, and became the patriarch of a commune of young people, promoting organic vegetarian diets, communal living and utopian ideals.
He also fronted Ya Ho Wha 13, an improvisational psychedelic rock band made up from his musician followers (Sky Saxon of The Seeds among them), and records of their jam sessions were sold at his restaurant for $10 each (in its heyday, the restaurant was grossing $10,000 a day, and, as gurus are wont to do, he took to driving a Rolls-Royce, accompanied by a coterie of young women). The Source Family closed the restaurant in late 1974 and moved to Hawaii, where Father Yod died in August the following year after a hang-gliding accident.
Near Fine.
