Well, i have had very long hair several times in my life, am fond of the grass of the Arabs, and am indubitably middle-aged at 59, but was never a "hippie" per se (and certainly have never been near a Dead show!)- so at least one "aging punk-rock skinhead with a fondness for AC and the occult" here among the hippies.

I'll take that. Maybe "counter-culture types" is more like it, although it doesn't have the snappiness of "ageing hippies".

All of Us are lying in the Gutter, but some of Us are looking at The Star (ATU XVII)

Apologies for the double post

Is anyone familiar with Crumb and the other crazy artists that emerged that time?

What is a "hippy"? Did they exist before and after the 60s?

"Ageing hippies..."

The first hippies surfaced around '65 as the psychoactive spawn of the beatniks: one of the celebrated credos attributed to them was "Never Trust Anyone Over 30", which in effect meant anyone older than Elvis (who turned 30 in January that year). Now he'd be 83 & all the original baby-boomers retired and drawing their pensions. Most --- went straight.

"...never got it off on that Revolution stuff... too many snags"
Norma N Joy Conquest

What about indigenous peoples who were getting "psychoactive" centuries ago? You wouldn't classify them as "hippies"?

I think the best way to get a definition of "hippy" is from the man who was literally at the centre of it all, Prof Leary.

What about indigenous peoples who were getting “psychoactive” centuries ago? You wouldn’t classify them as “hippies”?
I wasn't talking about them as the "psychoactive spawn of the beatniks", though... it was "cultural-specific".

I think the best way to get a definition of “hippy” is from the man who was literally at the centre of it all, Prof Leary.
Are you referring to someone who has "turned on, tuned in and dropped off" --- sorry, I meant "out" there?

"... But you won't fool the Children of the Revolution" (Bolan)
N Joy

The hippie witches used to come out to the concerts
and ask
hey did ya hear about the age of aquarius ?
it’s the age of freedom, love and magic
what’s your sign ?
lets tune in turn on and drop out .

The Establishment got concerned
and herded everyone to VR and AR ; instead .

And I forgot to mention, the original hippies were also recognizable by their being very anti-war (specifically the Vietnam war - the one about which Geezer Butler says Satan laughing spreads his wings): fucking the draft, burning their call-up papers, popping flowers inside the barrels of National Guardsmen's rifles, and - er, attempting to levitate the Pentagon by means of sheer willpower alone.

"...No way?!"
J Noy

The"hippy movement" gets put under the umbrella of "the left", the "far left" more like the far out left.

Are the two inherently linked? I heard that feminism for example emerged from the mistreatment of the ladies in the hippy communes. Imagine that.

As for Manson haha basically a nazi. This is why Leary's definitions clears things up as he looked at it from his neurocircuit theory perspective.

Leary classed "hippies" in a purely biological Darwinian sense. He classified them as people who had turned on their neurosomatic circuit (via marijuana and yoga and karezza). He later went on to say that there was a territorial type of hippie species prone to lower circuit behaviour such as looking for a fight. You know the type I'm sure.

Where does Crowley come into this? This "hippy" notion of pushing off to "do one's thing" where no uptight status-driven commercial "square" can ruin your plans was surely his impetus to buy the Abbey of Thelema. I assume that he planned to stay there indefinitely but he planned to live off profits from his spiritual tutelage and book-selling so it could never have been a complete hermit colony.

"ye are against the people" "we are not for the outcast and the unfit".

@dom :

[Leary] later went on to say that there was a territorial type of hippie species prone to lower circuit behaviour such as looking for a fight.
Hmm... very Peace, Love & Understanding - I don't think! Where did Leary say this exactly?

You know the type I’m sure.
Ah yes --- the hippies that were into War, Hate & Confusion!

[...] surely his impetus to buy the Abbey of Thelema.
Except that he never bought it or was going to buy it, he was a tenant. Maybe if he had, his 'territorial' rights may have been such that he could have continued to stay there. And then again maybe not.

I assume that he planned to stay there indefinitely but he planned to live off profits from his spiritual tutelage
Which would have completely run counter to the ethics and policy of the A.'. A.'. however.

so it could never have been a complete hermit colony.
Some form of a proto-commune, perhaps, but wherever does it say that the Abbey was ever meant to be a "complete hermit colony"?

“we are not for the outcast and the unfit“.
Are you suggesting that (ageing) hippies are amongst the outcast and unfit? If so, why would that be but if not, what is meant by the inclusion of this extract here?

Hairsplittingly yours, as ever 🙂
Joy N

.
Hmm… very Peace, Love & Understanding – I don’t think! Where did Leary say this exactly?

Quoted from What does WoMan want? a quote from another one of his books.

so it could never have been a complete hermit colony.
Some form of a proto-commune, perhaps, but wherever does it say that the Abbey was ever meant to be a “complete hermit colony”?

Where does it say? It's my own words about pushing off and doing one's own thing.

“we are not for the outcast and the unfit“.
Are you suggesting that (ageing) hippies are amongst the outcast and unfit? If so, why would that be but if not, what is meant by the inclusion of this extract here?

I'm not telling you I am asking you. Polarities reversed. Rule by the absolute aristocratic status of each individual. Didn't AC say something like that about Thelema? French Revolutionary "rights"? You have no rights but to do your will. What about the kid in teh Abbey who was allowed to smoke like a chimney? Did he eventually have his lungs surgically removed?

Hi ignant666,
silly question but how do you upload a photo from your computer to the forum? It's not a link and does not have a https address.
Brain turned into mulch by night shifts here.
Thanks.

I don't think you can do this any more, though it used to be possible. Maybe someone more versed in html than i can help?

The "Hippies Use Side Door" sign is an online pic of a door in a town near where i live.

Ten years ago, when I wanted to upload a pic, the Moderator informed me that "It must already be online somewhere." I haven't noticed that this requirement has changed. So you'll need an account at some "posting site," and there are several that are free.

Who are these ageing hippies? Caramba and the 30 Aethyrs! I'm 78 and I was on the leading edge of the hippie movement ... timewise and agewise, but I never became one. I and my associates had no long hair or mandala shirts. The dames did not wear flowery dresses. We were too busy building businesses, taking legal LSD, and doing A.'.A.'. practices to get caught up in that cultural subdivision. I was actually under 30 until 1969. After that, I resented the twerps who continued to blabber, "Don't Trust Anyone over 30. Then I left for a while on international adventures. By the time I returned to civilization (1972), there were only a few holdout hippies around. Hollywood Blvd was populated with Beatle-haired heads, and they often wore ties.

@dom :

---Hmm… very Peace, Love & Understanding – I don’t think! Where did Leary say this exactly?
---Quoted from What does WoMan want? a quote from another one of his books.
As ever, it would have been nice to have had an exact page reference (or verbatim quote) from you here, particularly as it seems rather an odd thing for him to have said.

---Some form of a proto-commune, perhaps, but wherever does it say that the Abbey was ever meant to be a “complete hermit colony”?
---Where does it say? It’s my own words about pushing off and doing one’s own thing.
The only parallel with a hermit colony here would have been the short periods of 'solitary confinement' in isolation undergone by C F Russell and Jane Wolfe

I’m not telling you I am asking you.
I don't understand --- it was a simple question, or so I thought: do you consider (ageing) hippies to be among the outcast and unfit? If not so, then why the quote? If so, why then is this?

What about the kid in the Abbey who was allowed to smoke like a chimney?
Some would say that it was obviously down to Big Lion to have smacked his bottom. For the 'greater good'...

Did he eventually have his lungs surgically removed?
Not while he was at the Abbey, no.

N Joy

—Quoted from What does WoMan want? a quote from another one of his books.
As ever, it would have been nice to have had an exact page reference (or verbatim quote) from you here, particularly as it seems rather an odd thing for him to have said.

I donated my copy to charity. Sorry.

………………...

— it was a simple question, or so I thought: do you consider (ageing) hippies to be among the outcast and unfit? If not so, then why the quote? If so, why then is this?

I don't pigeon-hole people I don't use the term "hippy". You'd have to define "hippy" for me. What is a "hippy"? Who gets to define these categories?

I'd say that one is what one thinks one is, right? If one feels "outcast and unfit" in some situation then it's a given that one is thereby "outcast and unfit" whether one is a "hippy" or not.

OK, so I consider myself a hippy. OK, so I'm an aging hippy, my first flush of youth having departed a while back. OK, so I don't consider myself on that account amongst the ranks of the "outcast and unfit".

OK?

Michael 'cowbells' Staley.

@Michael Staley :

OK!

@dom :

I donated my copy to charity. Sorry.
How very conven --- er, unfortunate, dom/ david. It can't have been a book you very much valued, then? But it seems such a self-contradictory thing for Leary to say that I don't feel I can attribute any validity to your suggestion in the marked absence of further information. Perhaps Shiva, who I think has made a study of these matters of neuro-circuitry, might be able to offer you some sort of back-up (or, not).

I don’t pigeon-hole people
But seemingly you can pigeonhole those who are outcast and/or unfit, right? E.g., those darn hippies.

I’d say that one is what one thinks one is, right?
I also don't agree with this --- one might think oneself healthy but actually be diabetic or suffering from some other lurgy without knowing it, say.

Your reply seems rather evasive and disingenuous to my way of thinking and not giving a proper answer at all. If (as is not unusual from previous postings) you've simply changed your mind over it & want to backpedal, why not just say so!?

N Joy

jb: Perhaps Shiva, who I think has made a study of these matters of neuro-circuitry, might be able to offer you some sort of back-up (or, not).

"Peace, Love & Understanding" - THAT'S ALL i CAN FIND OF SOME ORIGINAL QUUOTE FROM SOME OFF-TOPIC PREVIOUS POST ON SOME PREVIOUS PAGE - SO i HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE CONTEXT IS, AND i'M NOT GOING TO DO "PREVIOUS PAGE RESEACH (Caps Lock Button engaged in error ... now unlocked).

The TOPIC is Ageing Hippies. Leary is the dead High Priest of LSD, so named during the Grand Hippie era (1965-72. By '72, most of the hippies had been shot dead by the National Guard, or had cut their hair to a milder Beatles' style and put on a tie.

As far as I can tell, Peace, Love and Understanding are individual internal qualities to be developed. We certainly don;t see much of it in the outer world of War, Hate and Ignorance ... usually based on cultural/racial/ geographic/religious bias ... or maybe just GREED (The keyword of Kali Yuga).

Thank you for the Research Appointment (no grant funds available), but I'll pass ... unless somebody can provide the full alleged quote and its context.

@shiva :

unless somebody can provide the full alleged quote and its context.

This is simply enough done, since it's only on the previous page and doesn't exactly entail wading back through forty or fifty pages of thread:

Leary classed “hippies” in a purely biological Darwinian sense. He classified them as people who had turned on their neurosomatic circuit (via marijuana and yoga and karezza). He later went on to say that there was a territorial type of hippie species prone to lower circuit behaviour such as looking for a fight. You know the type I’m sure.

I therefore ask again: can you (or anyone else) find any evidence for this from Leary where he claims there is a "territorial" subset of this normally "into Peace and Love, man" hippie genre which is spoiling for violence?

Maybe they shouldda all joined the U.S. Army? 🙂

By ’72, most of the hippies had been shot dead by the National Guard, or had cut their hair to a milder Beatles’ style and put on a tie.
By then the hippie had also become a dirty word and far from being regarded as a harmless freak was looked upon as an object of fear in the wake of the Manson murders. Didn't they also hold a funeral for "the death of the Hippie" way back in '67 in Haight-Ashbury.

N Joy

I therefore ask again: can you (or anyone else) find any evidence for this from Leary where he claims there is a “territorial” subset of this normally “into Peace and Love, man” hippie genre which is spoiling for violence?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Does-WoMan-Timothy-Leary/dp/1561842044

" Product details
Paperback: 366 pages"

Here is a 296-page pdf of the full text of What Does WoMan Want?:

https://archive.org/details/whatdoeswomanwan00learrich

Feel free to peruse and find your citation, david. You may recall once calling me either a "hippie redneck", or else perhaps a "redneck hippie", years ago, an epithet that i think refers to the same Leary passage, one i also vaguely recall.

These "territorial hippies prone to violence" sound like punks.

JB: I therefore ask again: can you find any evidence for this from Leary where he claims there is a “territorial” subset of this normally “into Peace and Love, man” hippie genre which is spoiling for violence?

NO.

But the second, territorial, circuit is imprinted in everyone ... of any subculture. How that circuit is imprinted depends on what happened to any person around 9 months of age. The BEST way to determine any given person's territorial leanings is to give them a lot of alcohol. This may be difficult, because hippies prefer(red) weed and LSD. But some hippies drank, yet it wasn't widespread.

Alcohol stimulates/triggers the 2nd circuit. At any bar or party where alc is circulated, most people get loud and happy. Some people withdraw into silence at a corner table or out on the back porch. And SOME twisted types get angry and argumentative, and will actually ATTACK physically. I never knew a hippie who did this. Frater Taurus, executive officer of Solar Lodge in the earliest days, left the Order. A couple years later, he (being a violent type), said to himself, "If I keep on this way, the police will come to get me ..." (he was making nitroglycerine in his garage at the time). So he joined the Police. rose up to Division Commander before he retired. He simply re-routed his aggressive nature, and ended up setting a record as the only LAPD cop who essentially made one arrest EVERY DAY he was in the field. He's the one who brought down Heidi Fleiss [sic?], the "untouchable" madam. He's the ONLY one who ever successfully drove ALL the prostitutes out of Hollywood (previous efforts by others were only limited political gestures) - I'm sure they came back after his tenure. He's the one who was the liaison with Scientology.

He did not drink much (maybe a beer or two), he took LSD once, he smoked pot before LAPD, then abstained for 28 years, then got back on the bandwagon after his retirement.

He was not a hippie. I once described the mentality of cops who broke down doors and held drug users at gunpoint. He said, "Yeah. But I LIKE that stuff. So, Jamie, you see how your "Join the Army" suggestion is appropriate.

No, I've not confirmed a Leary quote, but I support the idea as expressed by Dom. He said, "You know the type." Yeah, most of us do. It (this aggressiveness) exists in SOME people, without Leary, without Hippidom, and without alcohol.

Ig: These “territorial hippies prone to violence” sound like punks.

Hippies smoked Pot. Pot rarely, if ever, promotes violence. It goes up to the 5th, holistic, circuit (Tiphareth) where it TEMPORARILY over-rides all lever circuits.

Let's look closer into subcultures that specialized in coke or meth. Now THERE'S a bunch of trouble waiting to explode. Did "punks" prefer stimulants?

No, I’ve not confirmed a Leary quote, but I support the idea as expressed by Dom. He said, “You know the type.” Yeah, most of us do. It (this aggressiveness) exists in SOME people, without Leary, without Hippidom, and without alcohol.
I'm sure this basic aggression exists not only in SOME but MOST ALL people, repressed or not. I'm also aware that the first four circuits exist in everybody, but my understanding of dom's contention was that this territorial/2nd circuit was in some way dominant and overrode the other "neurosomatic" circuit displayed by the "hippie". Yeah, "I know the type" too, but not specifically as a hippie, though. Perhaps he's getting the subculture of hippiedom mixed up with the Hell's Angels? and will now again "adequately" clarify his original intended meaning and/or provide the back-up citation, with or without any concomitant backpedalling...

By the way this Frater Taurus sounds like he was a real loose cannon. Do you have any idea what he was proposing to do with his garage-cooked nitro?

Fight Club!?
N Joy

Yes, punks, as an anti-hippie backlash, would be most identified with alcohol, speed, and heroin as far as drugs. Within punk, there is the "straight edge" (no drugs/alcohol/promiscuity) movement post-80s.

Actually, contrary to stereotype, most of the NYC punks/skinheads i used to hang out with were prolific smokers of ganja, due to the influence of the Bad Brains, a Rasta hardcore band.

Some of the most violent folks i knew were Krishna-core skinheads. They lived at the Hare Krishna temple in Brooklyn, were strict vegetarians, celibate, smoked tons of weed, and got in fights constantly.

the “straight edge” (no drugs/alcohol/promiscuity) movement post-80s.

I'm not very familiar with this bizarre subculture. Sounds like a lotta fun --- not! It's got to a grim state of affairs when there's nothing left to actively rebel against except rebellion itself! (Were they the ones that had as their anthem "It's hip to be square" by Huey Lewis and the News, by any chance?)

Wondering what now!
N Joy

No, their anthems were "Straight Edge", and "Out Of Step" by DC band hardcore punk Minor Threat:

https://youtu.be/gsAu-nOg3Tw

https://youtu.be/JUaEPQ_hvUw

Lyrics to the latter song:

I don't smoke
I don't drink
I don't fuck
At least I can fucking think

I can't keep up!
Can't keep up!
Can't keep up!
Out of step, with the world!

[spoken] Listen, this is no set of rules, I'm not telling you what to do. All i'm saying, is i'm bringing up three things, that are like so important to the whole world, that i don't happen to find much importance in. Because of these things, whether they're, whether they're fucking, or whether it's playing golf, because of that, I feel that...

I can't keep up!
Can't keep up!
Can't keep up!
Out of step, with the world!

SE was a reaction against the rampant drug use of hippie stoners, metalheads, and Deadheads, who were the main social group of white kids in the Washington DC high schools where straight edge got started in the early 1980s. Having hung out in the DC suburbs in the mid-'70s with the kind of kids they were reacting against, they had a point.

Straight edge kids were/are often very violent, and often super-judgemental towards those who indulge in what they avoid. On the positive side, they are equally famous for "do it yourself" attitudes and practices, and did an enormous amount to create the international network of punk venues, media (fanzines and then websites), etc, that has grown up over the several decades of punk. They tend towards far-left politics, anti-sexism/homophobia, and militant vegetarianism and environmentalism.

Like Alcoholics Anonymous (the other AA) and Hare Krishna, another belief-system i do not share that i have seen do a lot of good for a lot of people. I have a couple dozen friends dead from heroin overdoses (the latest about a month ago), and straight-edge arose in the environment in which most of those people were getting strung out for the first time.

Yes, there's obviously quite a lot more to this than might at first glance seem.

I particularly liked the compression of the 2 tracks you included - especially the first... at 43 seconds! (That's only slightly longer than some Pussy Galore gigs!)

N Joy

JB: Frater Taurus sounds like he was a real loose cannon. Do you have any idea what he was proposing to do with his garage-cooked nitro?

He was "Loose" before the LAPD. After that, he was a very tight, very accurate cannon.

When he was a young adolescent, he was assigned the task of splitting huge logs for firewood and fence rails. Being of superior intelligence, he consulted his chemistry text and devised an unique mixture of 4 chemicals. I will sell you the formula. He put a small amount of this explosive into a crack in the log and ignited it. Bang. One split log.

In 1960 (as a lab assistant in college) I obtained the ingreients. Since sugar was one ingredient, I only needed to supply 3 of the items. So we mixed it up and sequentially made small bombs and then tiny rockets. One had to slow the explosion down for rockets or they would simply be a bomb. Finally, we loaded the tiny rockets into a pipe and had a recoil-less cannon. Not loose. Very tight. It would blow a hople in a 55-gal oil drum from a distance.

We never terrorized anyone or aimed our devices at contemporary houses, cars, or people (or animals). We went out into the desert and blew up old, falling-down,, homestead houses.

Then a 5th item was added (item X), which changed the mixture from an explosion (like gunpowder, which EXPANDS), to a detonation (wherein the entire mixed goes of simultaneously). It was a tiny amount of this stuff that went off in my hands, and as a result, I am today virtually deaf. My hearing was merely bad for my entire vocational career (much of it teaching in a classroom). Since retirement, my hearing has gone steeply downhill, so don't call me on the phone 'cause I can hear you, but can't understand a word. Otherwise, all I received was a split fingernail (right hand, little finger).

Shortly after that, Taurus was mixing this 5-item firecraker on a newspaper in my family's garage. He preferred a feath to mix it, but this time used a badminton birdies (feathers). They were too stiff and the whole deal blew up, burning him rather severely.

So we retired.

A couple years later, he was making nitro in his garage, a very dangerous operation. I helped him to test it.

Note: This was all Jack Parsons’, scientific experimentation. No violence, no aggression.

Then he gave it all up and joined the LAPD. At one point in his early (uniformed) police career, he had eight (8) lawsuits against him and the Dept for “excessive force” or whatever they called it. But he never made the first move. Everything was self-defense, and NO suit went against him.

Around 1968, he had long hair and a long mustache. He had become a hippie (in appearance) as he worked undercover to bring down the pimps and madams of Hollywood.

When he was a lieutenant, second-in-command to a Deputy Chief (essentially his secretary), he found detailed documents showing that the Chief was selling rocket-guidance systems to Iran. He called me and gave me the details, saying, “I don’t know how high this goes. So if you hear that I’ve been shot dead in an alley, you’ll know why.” Holy deep-intrigue! He bypassed LAPD and went to the FBI, who haueled the Derp. Cief away. The real Chief of Police was furious that he went to the FBI. So he thought he’d never get promoted. But Chiefs come and go, and Taurus got back on the promotion ladder.

He retired with all sorts of records and honors. So, you see, he recognized his tendencies and channeled them into constructive avenues that left a lot of people bleeding and broken or in jail, but he saved civilization from from the “low” men (& women).

He never threw te first punch, but he encouraged his opponents to rush right in … to their destruction. He died last November.

So, you see, he recognized his tendencies and channeled them into constructive avenues that left a lot of people bleeding and broken or in jail, but he saved civilization from from the “low” men (& women).
Like some superhero following his true will, it seems like he properly "trampled" them; in the fierce lust of his pride and day of his wrath!

He never threw te first punch, but he encouraged his opponents to rush right in … to their destruction.
Tsk! The fucking idiots! (excuse my French there)

I'm glad that he wasn't just into the idea of causing mayhem! He sounds liked the sort of larger-than-life character you would only really get to know if you'd come across him in person (for better or worse!) In another reality, Hollywood action films would have been made about him.

N Joy

(That’s only slightly longer than some Pussy Galore gigs!)

Perhaps I should explain a little further in case there's anyone wondering what I'm chuntering on about. I was fortunate enough to see Pussy Galore, in one of the best gigs I have ever been to in my life (well in the top ten anyway) when they came over to London in the late 80s and played The Mean Fiddler I think it was? some small club venue anyway. It might have been when they were touring their album Make Them All East Shit Slowly or Dial M for Motherfucker.* Their entire set lasted less than half a minute. Such was the extraordinary degree of compression though they managed to encapsulate a whole gigsworth of sound into that twenty eight seconds or whatever it was, building up to an incredible climax --- and then left the stage. They might have tossed their instruments contemptuously aside as they left, or it may be my revisionist memory. It would have been appropriate, anyway. ONLY after about at least five minutes or so of entreaties for an encore (not pised-off complaints about being swindled but enthusiastic Encouragement - this is what has convinced me it wasn't just my own altered state of mind at the time that made them sound so good) did they consider that the audience had grovelled for them sufficiently they came back and did a more regular sort of set (i.e. composed of what were more like songs by way of an "encore"). But make no mistake about it --- they had no original intention of coming back... believe me, that 28 seconds would have been IT. (I suppose in retrospect there might eventually have been a riot, but it never came to that...)

(Just thought I'd clarify that. I suppose we'd better get back to the OT now....)

Micro-reviewishly yours
N Joy

* Actually I have no idea. I just wanted an excuse to get those excellent titles in.