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111.
An original handbill printing an anonymously written polemic by Chester Anderson,
beginning: “Every time somebody has turned on a whole crowd…”. SF: Communication Company, January 28, 1967. Printed in black on white stock. 27.8x21.6cm.
Anderson's controversial leaflet was issued the day after Timothy Leary's Psychedelic Celebration at the Berkeley Community Theatre. In it, he implicitly denounces Leary's self-appointed status as a psychedelic leader and urges acid-heads to commit “psychedelic rape” by surreptitiously introducing non-users to LSD, forcing “them to be free” in order to promote “social evolution”.
Adopting a similar approach to that of the Merry Pranksters, Anderson calls for a crusade, “an explosion of Psychedelic Muslims. I am calling on the cats who can make it happen to Do it. Make it happen. Pass it out. Give it away… Without organization or plans or leaders or any of the rest of their dead weight shit. And do it because it's fun.”
A Fine copy of an early Com/co handbill, printing an important and notorious exposition of Anderson's anarcho-psychedelic philosophy.
Provenance: Ralph Gleason Archive.
