The Green RebellionNotes on the Life and Times of American Hippies

By Louis Jolyon West, M. D.

and

James R. Allen, M. D.

(n 399 B .(' . Socrates was prat to death by the order of theAthenian government . His crime? Corrupting the youth

of the city . The proof? Why, no proof was needed . Theyoung people of Athens were behaving disgracefully .They were questioning the old ways, doubting the old

mores : even the nature of the Gods was being debatedin the streets . They questioned the basis for the ongoingPeloponnesian war. Many were neglecting their habits ofdress and grooming in emulation of the aging scholar, andsome were even scornful of the finery of the time . Manywere defiant of their parents and their teachers . quotingall manner of foolishness that they called "philosophy,"and pruning questions about life, human nature, and Greeksociety that would have been embarrassing if they werenot so obviously impertinent .

In short, among a growing group of young people(many of them from good families too) a most improperrebelliousness was to be found--and this in wartime, whenpatriotism was of the essence if Athens was to prevailagainst her enemies . And who was to blame? Obviously,the progressive educator . And so it was that Socrates wasforced to drink the hemlock. There have been those whohave wanted to exterminate Socratic educators ever since,because they seem to foment rebelliousness among theyouth of the day pry teaching them to question everything .

Regardless of when is to be blamed (the returns arestill coming in) it is clear that rebellion is astir among theyounger generation in America today, just as it has beenin every generation since and before the Golden Age ofPericles . As always, the rebels represent a minority whoseinfluence transcends its size or its political and materialpower. And, as always, the rebellion embraces elementsthat are timeless, and other elements that reflect the greatissues of the day.A society as complex, variegated, and transitional as

the United States in 1967 could hardly expect the archi-tecture of its current rebellion to show a monolithic same-ness . Rather, there are several rebellions going cm at once .Three of them are having a shocking impact on the Ameri-can consciousness . These three rebellions here are calledthe Red, the Black, and the Green.The Red Rebellion refers to what has been called the

New Left. This is a loose confederation of individuals andorganizations that have in common a militantly activistdrive to institute sweeping if not revolutionary reformsand changes in the government . The movement is labelled"Red" only because of the halo effect from the traditionalcolor of bolshevism and the Internationale as seen by mygeneration Actually . the voice of today's UndergroundPress reveals that the New Left has little use for ancientorganizations like the American Communist Party (mostof whose members are over 30 if not over 60) . However.since their foes will inevitably call them Red, they may

Dr . West is professor and head, Department of Psychiatry Nenrol-ogy, and Behavioral Sciences, OU School of Medicine . Dr. Allenis assistant professor of child psychiatry, OU School of Medicine,on leave of absence and presently Fellow, Laboratory of Commun-ity Psychiatry, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mars .This article is based on studies supported in part from a grantfront the Foundations- Fund for Research in Psychiatry, Inc., byDr . West's Fellowship Award at the Center for Advanced Studyin the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Calif., and by NIMH SeniorStipend 1-F:3-35o6.3-01 .

adopt the color out of sheer defiance ; that we assign itto them here is less a matter of political euphemism thanof poetic license .The Black Rebellion refers to what the community at

large discerns as the Negro Revolt in its more strenuousmanifestations . Actually it is a sweeping change in theorientation and behavior of the Negro younger generation,representing as much a rebellion against the compromisesand traditions of the Negro older generation as againstthe white world. Here no poetry is required : the move-ment calls itself Black with great pride.The Hippies make up the Green Rebellion. The color,

from our brush, symbolizes its love of nature ("flowerchildren"), its verdantly ingenuous ideals, and, of course .its "grass ."The similiarities among the three rebellions are super-

ficial ; the differences run deep and are immensely signi-ficant . The Red Rebellion is political, theoretical, intellec-tual, and radical. The Black Rebellion is economic, social,racial, and activist . The Green Rebellion is cultural, re-ligious, mystical . and (of all things) pharmacological .The participants in all three groups don costumes quite

different from the accepted garb of their parents: oldclothes, quaint garments, colorful motley, or the raimentof far-off lands and times ; battered sandals, outlandishboots, or nothing at all on their feet . They sport strangedecorations, cabalistic artefacts, beads, bells, pins, labels .signs and badges with messages bearing many meanings .And withall they favor a hirsute atavism that suggestsat best the elegantly bearded Renaissance, at most beatificthe unbarbered Bible, and at worst the hairy Pleistocene .

All three rebellions scorn the appurtenances of affluencebut for different reasons. The Red Rebels seem to pledge

sartorial allegiance to an historical and political symbol :the masses of the proletariat (now more often simplycalled the poor and underprivileged) : button-down collarsare for the bourgeois. Some Black Rebels wear old clothesbecause that's all they possess : others, who enjoy bettereconomic fortune, wear overalls as a socio-economic sym-bol of racial solidaritv . But the dress of the Green Repelsis symbolically spiritual : old for the rejection of material-ism and Of selfish affluence : colorful for the joy of psy-chedelic self-realization ; and exotically trans-cultural forthe oneness of mankind and the appreciation of truthsand insights to be found in a variety of religions all aroundthe world.

Again, all three rebellions oppose the military involve-ment of the United States in Vietnam. The Reds areagainst it for historically political reasons ("Imperialism,colonialism") . The Blacks are against it for socio-economicreasons ("A white racist war that squanders resourcesneeded to correct ghetto conditions at home") . The Greensare against it, as they are against all strife and violence,for spiritual reasons ("Love is what's happening, man :like, it's nowhere to go around killing people'. ") .

Today's Black Rebellion of the New Left has comemore clearly into focus recently as groups such as theStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) have emergedas distinct from the civil rights movement and also fromthe old socialist, communist, and radical labor groups

(n 399 B .(' . Socrates was put to death by the order of theAthenian government . His crime? Corrupting the youth

of the city . The proof? Why, no proof was needed . Theyoung people of Athens were behaving disgracefully .They were questioning the old ways, doubting the old

mores : even the nature of the Gods was being debatedin the streets . They questioned the basis for the ongoingPeloponnesian war. Many were neglecting their habits ofdress and grooming in emulation of the aging scholar, andsome were even scornful of the finery of the time . Manywere defiant of their parents and their teachers, quotingall manner of foolishness that they called "philosophy,"and posing questions about life, human nature, and Greeksociety that would have been embarrassing if they werenot so obviously impertinent .

In short, among a growing group of young people(many of them from good families too) a most improperrebelliousness was to be found--and this in wartime, whenpatriotism was of the essence if Athens was to prevailagainst her enemies . And who was to blame? Obviously,the progressive educator . And so it was that Socrates wasforced to drink the hemlock. There have been those whohave wanted to exterminate Socratic educators ever since,because they seem to foment rebelliousness among theyouth of the day by teaching them to question everything .

Regardless of who is to he blamed (the returns arestill conning in) it is clear that rebellion is astir among theyounger generation in America today, just as it has beenin every generation since and before the Golden Age ofPericles . As always, the rebels represent a minority whoseinfluence transcends its size or its political and materialpower. And, as always, the rebellion embraces elementsthat are timeless, and other elements that reflect the greatissues of the day.A society as complex, variegated, and transitional as

the United States in 1967 could hardly expect the archi-tecture of its current rebellion for show a monolithic same-ness . Rather, there are several rebellions going on at once .Three of them are having a shocking impact on the Ameri-can Consciou sness. These three rebellions here are calledthe Red, the Black, and the Green.The Red Rebellion refers to what has been called the

New Left. This is a loose confederation of individuals andorganizations that have in common a militantly activistdrive to institute sweeping if not revolutionary reformsand changes in the government . The movement is labelled"Red" only because of the halo effect from the traditionalcolor of bolshevism and the Internationale as seen by mygeneration Actually . the voice of today's UndergroundPress reveals that the New Left has little use for ancientorganizations like the American Communist Party (mostof whose members are over 30 if not over 60) . However,since their foes will inevitablv call them Red, thev may

Dr . West is professor anti head, Department of Ps ychiatry Neurol-ogy, and Behavioral Sciences, 01' School of M edit ine . Dr. Allenis assistant professor of child psychiatry UL' School of Medicine,on leave of absence and presently Fellow, Laboratory of Commun-ity Psychiatry Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass .This article is based on studies supported in part from a grantfrom the Foundations- Fund for Research in Psvchiatry, Inc ., byDr . West's Fellowship :(ward at the Center for Advanced Staffyin the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Calif ., and by NIMH SeniorStipend 1-F,3-3506 .;-01 .

adopt the color out of sheer defiance ; that we assign itto them here is less a matter of political euphemism thanof poetic license .The Black Rebellion refers to what the community at

large discerns as the Negro Revolt in its more strenuousmanifestations . Actually it is a sweeping change in theorientation and behavior of the Negro younger generation,representing as much a rebellion against the compromisesand traditions of the Negro older generation as againstthe white world. Here no poetry is required ; the move-ment calls itself Black with great pride.The Hippies make up the Green Rebellion. The color,

from our brush, symbolizes its love of nature ("flowerchildren"), its verdantly ingenuous ideals, and, of course,its "grass ."The similiarities among the three rebellions are super-

ficial ; the differences run deep and are immensely signi-ficant . The Red Rebellion is political, theoretical, intellec-tual, and radical. The Black Rebellion is economic, social,racial, and activist . The Green Rebellion is cultural, re-ligious, mystical, and (of all things) pharmacological .The participants in all three groups don costumes quite

different from the accepted garb of their parents : oldclothes, quaint garments, colorful motley, or the raimentof far-off lands and times : battered sandals, outlandishboots, or nothing at all on their feet . They sport strangedecorations, cabalistic artefacts, beads, bells, pins, labels .signs and badges with messages bearing many meanings .And withall they favor a hirsute atavism that suggestsat best the elegantly bearded Renaissance, at most beatificthe unbarbered Bible, and at worst the hairy Pleistocene .

A11 three rebellions scorn the appurtenances of affluencebut for different reasons. The Red Rebels seem to pledge

sartorial allegiance to an historical and political symbol :the masses of the proletariat (now more often simplycalled the poor and underprivileged) : button-down collarsare for the bourgeois. Some Black Rebels wear old clothesbecause that's all they possess : others, who enjoy bettereconomic fortune, wear overalls as a socio-economic sym-bol of racial solidaritv . But the dress of the Green Rebelsis symbolically spiritual : old for the rejection of material-ism and of selfish affluence : colorful for the joy of psy-chedelic self-realization : and exotically trans-cultural forthe oneness of mankind and the appreciation of truthsand insights to be found in a variety of religions all aroundthe world.

Again, all three rebellions oppose the military involve-ment of the United States in Vietnam. The Reds areagainst it for historically political reasons ("Imperialism,colonialism") . The Blacks are against it for socio-economicreasons ("A white racist war that squanders resourcesneeded to correct ghetto conditions at home") . The Greensare against it, as they are against all strife and violence,for spiritual reasons ("Love is what's happening, man :like, it's nowhere to go around killing people!") .

Today's Black Rebellion of the New Left has comemore clearly into focus recently as groups such as theStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) have emergedas distinct from the civil rights movement and also fromthe old socialist . communist, and radical labor groups

that formerly constituted the American political Left .But the hippies are something new, and something else .The Green Rebellion is a fast-growing new species of hy-brid flowering plant, with shallow but numerous rootsamong the older Bohemias, the beatniks, the surf set, theshadow campuses, the folk-rock followers, the God-is-deadmourners, the school dropouts and college dropouts andchurch dropouts and establishment dropouts, and thelotus eaters-users of hash, speed, mescaline, STP, LSD,and pot.The upsurge of hippiedom achieved sufficient direction,

identity, and phenomenological consistency to be termeda rebellion about three years ago . The "hippie" label wasthen just beginning to be differentially applied. "There wereonly a few gathering-places : New York City's lower sideslum neighborhood called The East Village (because ofits latitudinal relationship to the older Bohemia of Green-wich Village) ; the Sunset Strip area of Los Angeles withits special non-alcoholic hangouts for teen-alters ; and theHaight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. In thesummer and fall of 1966 it was "The Hashbury" thatemerged as the fountainhead of hippiedom . In twelveshort months, the Green Rebellion spread like the pollenof its own grass, borne on the bosom of the prevailingwesterly winds from San Francisco Bay across the landand even across the Atlantic, and fertilized by the ubi-quitous media, hot and cool .When the senior author went to the San Francisco Bay

area on a year's fellowship at Stanford's ('enter for Ad-vanced Studv in the Behavioral Sciences beginning Sep-tember 1966, one of his first extracurricular activitiesinvolved going into the Haight-Ashbury district to finda fifteen-year-old runaway upper-class boy. Living in ahippie pad, the boy was already deeply identified withthe movement . This and subsequent expeditions led toan understanding of, and interest in, the remarkable sub-culture that was rapidly developing there, and in themonths that followed a number of phenomena were oh-served at first hand .The Diggers, an anonymous group of service-motivated

hippies primarily concerned with feeding the hungry, wasestablished . A hippie organization called The Switch-board came into being as a communications center to en-able outsiders to contact people living in the Haight-Ash-bury who could not otherwise be located . The Flame, ahippie-run employment agency, was organized to makeit easier for them and others in the Haight-Ashbury dis-trict to find paid work that might suit them . And the FreeMedical Clinic opened . The clinic was organized and fora time largely staffed by hippies and hippie sympathizersaware of the high rate of illness in the Haight-Ashbury .Venereal disease, hepatitis, malnutrition, bronchitis, anddrug reactions were endemic, while the sufferers-especial-IN , newcomers-often avoided the usual medical channelsfor fear of bringing their illegal use of drugs to the at-tention off the authorities .

Aeries of extraordinary hippie-sponsored gatherings be-gan with the First Human Be-In at the Golden (late

Park in January 1967 . This and its successors were charac-terized by widespread expressions of love and brother-hood, the sharing of appreciation for the beautiful setting,the music (often provided free by hippie-sympathizing

rock and roll groups), and the gleeful delight of smokingmarijuana in the company of thousands doing the samething under circumstances that virtually ensured safetyfrom police harassment or arrest .

In June of 1967, it became clear that if more detailedobservations were to be made it would be necessary toestablish a semi-permanent observation post within theHaight-Ashbury district . A typical large apartment, orpad, was obtained, cleaned, disinfected, and humbly butsuitably furnished and decorated with posters, flowers,and paint. For the next six months an ongoing programof intensive interdisciplinary study into the life and timesof the hippies was undertaken .

At full strength during the summer months, when asubstantial influx of young people (some 30,000 from allover the country) inundated the Haight-Ashbury, theteam consisted of a program director (Dr. West) a childpsychiatrist and co-director who was on the scene full-time (Dr. Allen), a graduate student in cultural anthro-pology (Reed College and Oxford), a graduate student inpsychology (Stanford), a recent college graduate in hu-manities (Goddard), a pre-medical student ( Brandeis),an undergraduate in photography and graphic arts (SanFrancisco State College), and an undergraduate in be-havioral sciences (Stanford) .The group addressed itself particularly

to

( 1 )

thestructure of the hippie subculture ; (2) patterns of druguse and abuse ;

(3 )

acute drug intoxications(deliriousreactions, dissociative reactions. "bad trips," etc.) ; (4)long term complications of drug use including subtle per-sonality changes, habit deterioration, and alterations ofintellectual capability ; (5) teen-age runaways and "teenyboppers" ; (6) sexual problems including promiscuity .venereal disease, perversions . and illegitimacy : and (7)intergroup conflict and violence . This work involved thecooperation of health agencies, the chief of police, the firecommissioner, the housing commissioner, and social andbehavioral scientists from other institutions includingStanford University . the University of California Medical('enter, and Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco .The Haight-Ashbury district proved to be an

interestinglaboratoryforobservations concerning a wide variety Of

phenomena. It is a neighborhood in flux, comprising about70 percent Negro inhabitants . Like many other metropoli-tan neighborhoods it has been changing rapidly. Land-lords have been functioning more and more on an absenteebasis and neglecting their property . As the desirability ofthe neighborhood for white middle-class dwellers dim-inished, relatively large houses ( more or less dilapidated )became available at reasonable rents.The first hippies moving into this area were a small

group off people (not all of them young) who were deeplyphilosophical and pursued eccentric religious ideals . Somehad evolved out of the beatnik group of San Francisco'sNorth Beach which, like Greenwich Village. had becomeless desirable for the new Bohemians. Tourists had cometo consider North Beach a must . Hard on the heels of thetourists came the petty crooks, hawkers, pitchmen, pros-titutes, topless entertainers, bars, dance halls, restaurants,and other commercial enterprises, all of which made NorthBeach progressively less desirable for the bearded think-ers, their friends, and their families . The same processis already at work on Haight Street .

The Negroes already in the Haight-Ashlnn-y neighbor-hood were initially surprised, then amused, then annoyed,and finally deeply alarmed and concerned with the rapidhippie influx . It was hard for them to understand why agroup of middle-class and upper-class young white menand women should be drawn to their shabby neighbor-hood . The threat to the Negroes increased as the ranksof the hippies swelled with converts and sympathizersfrom nearbv San Francisco State College, and a growingnumber of Bay area dropouts of all ages (many of whombecame hippies virtually as a matter of religious conver-sion) . There was a greater competition for housing. Thecolorful world of psychedelphia was turning their neigh-borhood into a round-the-clock street carnival . Growingnumbers of curious tourists and gawkers created trafficjams . prices began to rise . Furthermore, the flamboyantuse of illegal drugs (particularly marijuana and lysergicacid diethylamide or LSD) was attracting a steady in-crease of police activity .

Racially mixed couples in the neighborhood (mostlyNegro men with white wives) found that the uneasystability of their situation was being shaken by the easyand loving ways of the hippies, with whom these couplesin fact had nothing whatsoever in common . But it was theNegro youth, especially those participating in the BlackRebellion, who became particularly antagonistic towardthe hippies . These young people are espousing a blackracism based in part upon their own stereotypes of thewhite establishment . Along come the hippies who don'tfit such stereotypes and who greet the suspiciousness andrejection by the young Negroes with insufferable loving-kindness .

The Negroes do not view the willingness by hippies to livein their neighborhood as a sign of egalitarian accept-

ance . As one young militant Negro leader put it, ""Thesecats come down here and live like they are poor--maybeeven panhandle on the streets-and act like they've goteven less than we have ; but man, any time they get tiredof it they can shave and shower and hop a bus and beforeyou know it there is `welcome home, baby' out in the lilywhite suburbs, and then they can talk about how theylived for a while in a slum ."

Most important, perhaps, is the conflict in directionof movement between the two rebellions, Black and Green.The Blacks see a world of affluence and material posses-sions that are the desiderata of the culture. Basically theyaccept the values of that culture. What they want is theirfair share of it, and an opportunity to become truly a partof it . They want to get out of the Haight-Ashbury and intoWoodside, and Mill Vallev, and Nob Hill . But along comethe hippies, in the opposite direction, saying, "Like, man .we've been there, and it's nowhere ."

Here then are whites who are turning their backs on thevery things the Negroes are striving to obtain . This isa deeper threat than simple racial prejudice, because itallies these strange whites with many of the attitudes ofthe Black Rebels' parental generation --a gentle, patient,loving . accepting, and basically religious adjustment touncomfortable and deprived circumstances .

It is primarily on this basis that there are practicallyno Negro hippies, although many Negro boys prowl the

Haight seeking hithertoofoore unavailable and taboo sexualopportunities with white girls. But such liaisons can betroublesome . A Negro boy from Chicago said, "All theseother spade cats looking for white chicks turned me off,man, until I met this hippie chick and she just flashedon me and took me over . It blew my mind, man, and I'vegot to split ; because if I hang around her and her friendsI won't be able to tell who whitev is any more . And ifI don't know who's an ofay I may not even know who 1am myself ." The rare Negro who turns hippie nearly al-ways proves to be from the Black Bourgeoisie in Clevelandor Beverly Hills -not from Harlem, Hunters Point, or theHaight-Ashbury .The lower middle-class Negro family . struggling to

rise into the middle class, has looked upon this peculiarwhite influx into the Haight-Ashbury as a homogeneousmovement . Many newspapermen, police officers, narcoticagents, underworld predators, and establishment com-mentators have made the same mistake. While it has beenestimated that there are ten thousand hippies in the Bayarea (with perhaps half this number in the Haight-Ash-bury district) only a fraction could be considered "true"or "hard core" hippies. Others, often mistaken for hippies,have come searching for excitement, mystic revelation,free sex, escape, acceptance, drugs, or sanity . Most ofthem dress and talk like hippies . and use drugs, but realizethe difference . They will say, sadly, "I'd like to be a hippiebut I can't make it," or "I'm not good enough," or "I'mreally a speed freak," or "I've got too many hang-ups toreally make the scene ; when I turn on I just freak-outeverybody else ."What is a true hippie? He appears to be a rebel against

what he sees as a world and a society gone mad . Unlikeparticipants in the Red and the Black Rebellions he isnot an activist . The New Left, and "active" pacifists likesinger Joan Baez, are openly critical of the hippie for hispassivity . Rather than to war against the establishment,or to struggle to change it, he has dropped out of society.turned his pact: on it, dissociated himself from it, and isattempting to create an entirely new way of life . He ispeaceful, nom-violent, and committed to an ideal of uni-versal brotherhood, love, and sharing. His expectation isthat in time more and more people will see the wisdomof his course and follow it for themselves .

While many hippies are highly intelligent . i t is not anintellectual movement . Basically it is a spiritual move-ment . A sense of oneness exists among the members of ahippie commune, tribe, or "family ." This communionderives from the mutual experience of revelation throughpsychedelic delirium . At the same time, strong permanentinterpersonal commitments are few ; nobody wants to re-linquish freedom or mobility . Repeated episodes of LSDintoxication ("trips") have induced in these people sen-sations of transformation, insight, oneness with all livingthings, and beatitude. There are other intoxicants (opiumfor instance) that can effect similiar subjective experi-ences, but most of them do it while obtunding conscious-ness at the same time . LSD paradoxically heightens aware-ness . It temporarily alters the nervous system in such away that information processing seems to be increased .The well established automatic screening processes thatprevent us normally from being flood°d by sensations

Continual on page 28

The Green RebellionContinued from page, 7

from without, or swamped by exces-sive awareness of the ongoing infor-mation processing within our ownbrains, is substantially altered. Atthe height of the LSD reactions thenet result is a "jamming of the cir-cuits" resulting from "information in-put overload," accompanied by asense of extraordinary contact withboth the world within and the worldaround . Ideas may tumble over eachother chaotically, while gales of in-tense feeling sweep the sensibilitiesand dominate awareness. When thesurroundings include other people go-ing through the same experience, thecharacteristic sense of interpersonalcommunion and sharing occurs. Mostof the hippie mystique stems from thisset of phenomena.

Virtually all of the true hippieshave had this experience repeatedly,many feeling that through it theyhave reached a state of mind thatconstitutes complete self-awareness sothat no further trips are needed . Someshow personality changes that, to theobserver, seem schizoid or similar tocertain organic syndromes (e .g . post-lobotomy) that leave the individualmore comfortable but less able tocarry out complex long-term plans,endure frustration, concentrate for ex-tended periods, follow routines, orsuccessfully master new material(learning) with the same ease as be-fore .The group LSD trip is approxi-

mated by ceremonial group intoxica-tions with other drugs such as mesca-line, bufotamine, and psylocibin . Thefellowship of drinking companions isnot of the same order. More closelyrelated is the camaraderie of mari-juana smokers.

Without doubt the smoking ofmarijuana is the cement that holdsthe hippies together, along with thesocial dynamics of guiltless lawbreak-ing. One might call Haight-Ashbury"The Asphalt Sherwood Forest" be-cause of this state of affairs ; hereare the merry men of Sherwood For-est ((olden Gate park) gathered to-gether under the greenwood tree ; out-laws all . In California possession ofLSD is a misdemeanor, of marijuana

a felony ; but one 15-year-old ladblithely confessed (when "busted" by"the fuzz" and found to "holding"marijuana), "Oh, 1 don't smoke potmyself, T just carry it for a statussymbol."The use and abuse of marijuana is

a subject of great interest, which can-not be reviewed here in detail . But theproponents and opponents of pot-smoking are severly handicapped bylack of scientific information aboutthe effects of tetrahydrocannabinol(the psycho-active component ofhemp) upon the brain. The next fewyears will bring a flood of new dataabout marijuana (pot, grass, weed,boo, reefers, :Mary Jane, kif bhang,hashish, etc.) . Today one's best ad-vice might be, "just because alcoholis bad, marijuana isn't necessarilygood ; just because the present law isabsurd, marijuana shouldn't necessar-ily be uncontrolled by law ; just. be-cause you've been lied to about itsdangers, marijuana isn't necessarilyharmless." But it is doubtful whetherany warnings or ominous laboratory

findings would turn many of the hip-pies from their grass-using ways .

If marijuana is the glue of hip-piedom, LSD is its sacrament. It pro-vides an incandescent affective ex-perience, the very fragmenting natureof which contributes to the subse-quent sense of being reborn after hav-ing transported, as Aldous Huxleyput it, to "the Antipodes of themind." Thus the intensely individualand personal experience of the LSDtrip binds hippies to a common mysti-que, a sense of having seen the samelight . For the true hippie, like Saulof Tarsus who saw the light on theroad to Damascus and became St .Paul, the transformation is globaland results in a commitment to anentirely new way of life . He believesthis is to be worth all the risks in-volved .

In the pads along Telegraph Ave-nue in Berkeley, where many of theNew Left students and shadow-cam-pus types collect, a. superficial re-semblance to the hippies may be seen .Old clothes, beards, beads . buttons,and bare feet abound . The aroma ofmarijuana can be discerned in theambient air . But in the pads there isa ferment of talk, quotation andcounter-quotation, disputations adhominem, and generally noisy but

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perceptual and emotional rather thanverbal and intellectual, the hippietends to reject semantic approachesto the discovery of truth. Thus hip-pies keep very few books. Most ofthem are for laughs (like comichooks) . Books on prophecy and as-trology are often found in their pads .

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Large numbers (if not a majority) ofhippies believe in one or another man-ifestation of magic, ESP, reincarna-tion, astrological prophecy, and orien-tal augering of the I Chin- variety .

Music in the hippie pad is oftendeafening and precludes conversation .Heavily favored are "acid rock,"group recordings by hippie favoritessuch as the Jefferson Airplane andThe Grateful Dead . and Orientalrenderings on such instruments as thekoto or the sitar .

Hippies engage very little in argu-mentation or protracted discourse ona single topic. In fact, there oftenseems to be an attempt to communi-cate the most possible in the fewestwords, and even to restrict the vocab-ulary so that a small number of wordsand phrases (constituting a mixtureof argot and patois) will suffice bothto transmit whatever digital informa-tion is necessary in the form of wordsand at the same time to constituterecognition of the fact that analo-communication of affect is of muchgreater significance and value.

Thus the hippie is unlikely to for-mulate his credo in words . If he did,

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it might be something like the follow-ing: "We believe that the entire de-velopment of human society up tothis point represents a one-way roadto catastrophe . We think that the onlyhope for humankind is to go back toNature and start over . The worldhas gone crazy with selfishness, witharmaments, and with violent destruc-tion of individuals by one and two'sand millions . We see no point instoring up all the material goodswhich everybody seems so viciouslyto covet . THe terrible competitionamong and within the major socie-ties of the world today is not onlyunhealthy but is so destructive thatit is going to bring down what littlecivilization exists ."We reject most of the values that

are exemplified by the establishmentsof all the major powers . The very useof the word `power' describes what iswrong with the whole system . We re-ject the formal structures that existwithin the establishment, rangingfrom assembly-line educational in-stitutions to all of the organizedforms of religion, which as soon asthey build themselves a church havealready defined themselves out of thespiritual and into the materialworld ."What we seek is the opportunity

for human beings to find themselvesas individuals, and to live with eachother in love, dignity, and joy. Welook for examples among AmericanIndians, Polynesian natives, Africantribes, Oriental cultures . There arepotentialities in each individual thathe may not even suspect, automatedas he is by all the different systemsthat our society presses upon him andbulls him through . He must get outof all this ponderous regimentation,be liberated from all of these sterileand destructive values, and be givena chance for the first time in his life tobreathe free and to become himself .Let him find out (through drugs) thepossibilities that lie within his ownmind, and actually do day by daythat which he enjoys, is really bestsuited for, and fords fulfilling ."We believe that people should live

this way, share with each other, dwellin harmony, appreciate the bountiesof nature, and, being closer to it, be-come more respectful of it . Not poi-soning the food with chemicals. Notcontaminating the waters . Not pollut-ing the very air . In the love of nature,

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of life, and of each other, seeking theultimate of freedom, individualitv,self-fulfillment, and generosity, letus live together with others under con-ditions that make it possible for peo-ple to give fully of themselves andthus achieve total self-realization ."That would be a long speech . No

hippie would transmit in few wordsthe entire meaning of it . He wouldsay, "Man, like everybody just oughtto do their own thing." The listenerswould say, "Yeah ." For this is thehippie credo .How does a hippie achieve his

identity if learning through verbaltransaction is limited? The philoso-phy apparently comes only with pas-sage through certain phases thatmight be listed as follows :

1 . Despair or disgust with theworld as it is (often identi-fied with one's own middle-class parents) ;

2 . A search for meaning, forself, and for a good way oflife ;

3.

Association with other search-ers, some of whom seem tohave discovered a Way ;

4. Enhancement of camerader-ie with these fellow-pilgrimsthrough marijuana smokingwhich (a) usually generatesa state of closeness throughheightened awareness and

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sensory stimulation (fol-lowed of course by lethargy)and (b) creates a cabal out-side the law, with all of thedynamics of persecuted mi-nority groups coming intoplay :"Turning on ." While thisterra is used to describe manvtypes of stimulation, "blow-ing the mind" with LSD isthe ultimate "turn on" ex-perience . Its mind-expandingsensations lead to a feelingof cosmic consciousness, of-ten followed by a "rebirth"including the characteristicsense of oneness with man-kind and universal love ;"Tuning in." Here the newhippies really begin to ap-preciate the mutuality oftheir experiences . Often whilecoming down from highs ortrips they "rap" to eachother (i .e . converse excitedlywhile strongly en rapport, re-vealing and sharing all man-ner of thoughts, feelings, andpersonal history) . Quickly,by observation and word ofmouth, they learn ("tune inon") what's happening thetrue nature of "the scene.""Dropping out ." This im-plies a major break with "the

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straight world" and the as-sumption of a new way oflife and a new set of values .

It is of interest that Dr . TimothyLeary, who formulated "Turn on,tune in, drop out" and is oftenblamed for what has transpired sub-sequently, was really using termsfrom the new slang to describe whatwas already happening. His influenceamong the hippies today is negligible ."Their anarchistic tendencies makethem deeply suspicious of organizers,generals, governors, and messiahs . Dr .Leary is usually dismissed rathercasually : "'That cat was with it oncebut, man, now he's on this big egotrip all the time ."Once the hippie has "dropped out,"

he is likely to enter into some sort ofnon-demanding, loosely organized li-aison with others in a "commune,"or "tribe ." There is great varietyamong these groups and their pads .Some are dirty, others clean ; some areaffluent, others broke; some are weird,others actually mimic the straightworld . By and large, the more com-pletely the pad is able to function inkeeping with the unspoken credo, themore admirable or "cool" it is con-sidered to be .

Sexual practices among the hippiesare strictly up to the individuals in-volved . They vary from monogamousmarriages to genuine group marriages.The promiscuous and the virginal are

both accepted without question . Pri-vacy is a matter of taste. There is adefinite trend toward nudism whenconditions permit .Work habits are studiously individ-

ualized . If a pad is really cool therewill always be money coming in fromsome source or other-enough for theessentials of life such as spaghetti,dope (the hippie's campy term for alldesirable drugs), milk, and matches.People come and go, bringing andsending greetings, seeking pleasure inlistening to music, walking in thepark, dancing, strolling on HaightStreet, rapping to their friends. Forhippies work is each person's thing,from part-time housepainting or car-rying the mail to regular employment(teaching, performing, handicrafts,graphic arts, etc.) . Work is acceptableif it's not a sell-out-if it's truly en-joyable-if everyone is in fact "doinghis own thing."

It is remarkable how well the truehippies have been able to survive andfind a measure of contentment inplaces like the East Village or theHaight . This survival capability maybe diminishing . Our studies show thathippies are increasingly menaced byforces emanating from the establish-ment, the underworld, other rebelgroups (e .g . the motorcycle gangs),and perhaps most of all from the on-slaught of newcomers. The majorityof these seekers are not what might

be called bona fade hippie material,but toward them the hippie obliga-tions of kindliness, sharing, and ac-ceptance must be manifested . Thenewcomers swamp the hippies : theycrash (sleep) in their pads, consumetheir food, plead, "Lay some breadon me" (give me some money) whenthey are broke, attract the police(who are always looking for

runa-ways), havebad trips on good dope,and bum-trip other people (i .e . upsetthem while they are particularly vul-nerable during a trip) out of ignor-ance of proper procedure. Further-more the numerous would-be hippies,pseudo-hippies, plastic hippies, andteeny-hoppers are highly vulnerableto disease, attack, arrest, and otherforms of disaster . Before the greatinflux during the summer of 1967,life was already sufficiently hard inthe Haight-Ashbury to challenge allthe hippies' resources of beautifulphilosophy, denial of reality, andchemical self-treatment of untowardemotions with various forms of dope .Now, the fuzz is cracking down, thefool kids are shooting speed (dan-gerous intravenous injections of meth-amphetamine), dope is harder tocome by and the Mafia are moving inon the amateur sources of supply . Arougher white element is starting totake over the hangouts on HaightStreet and is fomenting trouble withthe already truculent Negroes.Under these pressures, in small

groups, many hippies are resettlingthemselves along the West Coast, invillages, farms, parks, woods, evencaves. New hippie-style enclaves arespringing up all across the country,although it is not possible to say justhow many are deserving of the generic

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label . Even in Europe there are now growing numbersof American-style hippies (who must be distinguishedfrom the more activist New Left-type "Provos") .One of the most interesting things about the hippie

scene has been the reaction of our society to it. Somepeople have been violently offended by the very appear-ance of hippies, or anyone resembling them . The longhair is a case in point. For example, it is amazing withall we have learned about human behavior and all thathas transpired in the development of modern educationalinstitutions, that so many school administrators permitthemselves to be drawn into confrontations with studentson the subject of haircuts . It is as though the risk ofhippiedom intrudes along with the styles thereof. Thisrisk is seen by many people as a deeply corrupt and dan-gerously contaminating influence . They view the hippiesas the vanguard of evil, the quintessence of all thingsparasitic and degenerate in our society, an infiltratingtribe of useless, filthy gypsies who should not be permittedto remain in any respectable community.

Others have taken a completely opposite viewpoint,seeing the hippies as a joyous and even saintly band ofspiritual truth-seekers and karma-stagers . They have beencompared to the early Christians in Rome . Toynbee hassuggested that the last best hope for survival of the humanrace may lie in the Green Rebellion and its sublimelysimple return to Nature . This romantic view, no less thanthe paranoid view, reflects the degree to which people readinto the hippies their own hopes, fears, preoccupations,and perhaps unconscious wishes .One cannot help considering whether those who are so

threatened by the hippies may not in fact be strugglingwith whatever is stirred up inside themselves by theirprojected fantasies of freedom from responsibility, escapefrom the frustrations of their own rigid life situations,chemicals that will provide both surcease from unpleasantemotions and miraculous generation of unbounded libidin-ous capabilities, and uninhibited sexuality without the nec-essity for interpersonal commitments. Thus the Haight-Ashbury constitutes an enormous, colorful Rorschach card,the reactions to it. emerging like the results of a projectivetesting maneuver .

In the light of our studies, however, the hippies can beseen in quite another way. Here is a group of people, ob-viously sensitive to aspects of our civilization that areso dreadful that most of us avoid thinking about them asmuch as possible : war, violence, cut-throat competition,grasping materialism, sexual hypocrisy, interpersonal iso-lation, pollution of the elements, loss of contact withnature, loss of individual identity in the massive treadmillsof the modern megalopolis . The hippies (ugly, dirty, orgrotesque though they may seem) seek beauty, freedom,creativity, individuality, self-expression, mutual respect,and the ascendence of spiritual over material values .These goals and aspirations are clearly derived from

the traditions of great religions and ethical systems. Theineffable tragedy of the hippies is that their Green Rebel-lion is doomed to fail : that individuals capable of formu-lating such lofty ideals are being driven to self-intoxica-tion with powerful drugs in order to imagine their fulfill-ment : and that the very chemicals they use will inevitablyenervate them as individuals and bleed the energies ofthe hippie movement to its death .

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