PSYCHEDELIC SATURDAY

Not all underground newspapers were screeds for antiestablishment political views. The Oracle of the City of San Francisco, aka the San Francisco Oracle was founded on 9-Sep-1966 with Allen Cohen as Editor-in-chief, who got the idea for the paper in a dream. It lasted 12 issues and ceased publication in 1968. At about mid-point of its run, it is estimated that circulation was 125,000.

You've probably heard the terms, mind-expanding, mind-blowing, mind-bending, trippy, freaky and more to describe the panoply of visual aspects particular to flower children of the time, but the one term that encapsulated the hippies unique style was "psychedelic", meaning "mind-manifesting".

The Oracle was distinguished by its quasi-art noveau, and yes, psychedelic page design, with content centered on spiritual, metaphysical and literary topics that aligned themselves with the Haight-Ashbury counterculture where the paper was centered, and left the political rants to papers like the Berkeley Barb. Various individuals took to the streets of The Haight and supported themselves by hawking the paper.

Contributors to The Oracle included Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Artwork was provided by Bruce Conner and the born-again stoner surfer, Rick Griffin.

The sample issue shown here today (Vol. 1 No. 7, February 1967) has a long forum-style discussion with leading "heads" of the day, Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg. The graphics include a full-page illustration by Rick Griffin of a Mexican curandero dubbed "Sam Mescalito", and "American Tantric #2 (photo by Paul Kagan), both of which were popular wall posters of the day. There is also an ad for a Grateful Dead concert and a full-page ad for the legendary Big Brother & the Holding Company with Janis Joplin (with the "Zig Zag Man" cigarette/joint paper logo), as well as an ad for 60's mystic and filmmaker Kenneth Anger's LUCIFER RISING.

American Experience: The San Francisco Oracle
PBS.org

Every movement creates its own primary sources, and the hippies of 1967 San Francisco had a psychedelic one: The San Francisco Oracle. Published in 12 fantastic issues from 1966 to 1968, the Oracle is a fascinating artifact of the times.

With theme issues like "Youth Quake," "The Aquarian Age," "Psychedelics, Flowers, and War," and "The Politics of Ecstasy," the newspaper spoke directly to young people's imaginations and concerns. Whimsical, hand-drawn ads touted bookstores, concerts, health food stores, coffeehouses, shops selling hippie fashions, and music sellers. And the publication's wild page layouts, drawings, photo-collages and other graphics became icons of hippie culture.

Hippies sold the Oracle on Bay Area streets to support themselves, and the newspaper made its way around the world by subscription. Print runs grew to nearly 125,000 by issue #7. The editors estimated their circulation topped half a million when taking into account the number of people who shared each copy.

The Oracle's articles, interviews, letters, commentary, and poems explored hippie consciousness in a variety of ways. For example, in issue #6, Tom Law wrote a piece called "The Community of the Tribe" that obliquely referred to Fifties consumer culture, the Cold War and the war in Vietnam, contexts in which hippie attitudes had emerged:

"We are all — squares and the psychedelically enlightened alike — involved in our world of now. To take up the call, to respond to the cosmic forces, we must be the hard--working, harmonious, respectful, honest, diligent, co-operative family of man. Our words are inspired. Our feeling is deep and complete. Our devotion is strong. The precious revelations which have come through us with increasing magnitude must be fathomed until we are one with each other and can extend our awareness beyond the tribe to our entire planet.

What is the natural karmic duty of a generation whose brothers, neighbors, and childhood friends now promote hate by killing innocent human beings around the world? It is to balance their jive and immature actions with the light of intelligent goodness; fearlessly to deal with the money-mad machine in order to release its hold on our bowels — the bowels of mankind.

Practically, this means that all excess profit is turned back into the community. That means all money, material things, food, etc., which are beyond the basic necessities of a happy, healthy, human existence..."

BONUS! Haight-Ashbury in the Sixties

From 1964 to 1968, there swelled a gigantic wave of cultural and political change that swept first San Francisco, then the whole United States, and then the world. What was fermenting in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco was a powerful brew that would ultimately stop a war.

As any history book will tell you, the Haight’s popularity grew as the Beat Generation in San Francisco was dying out. Many of the Beats, such as Allen Ginsberg, crossed over, but a younger generation gravitated to the Haight-Ashbury district, where the rents were cheap. Many were students at nearby University of San Francisco, UCSF, and S.F. State University. Others were musicians (such as the Grateful Dead), philosophers, artists (such as Alton Kelley), poets (such as Allen Cohen), apartment-dwellers, panhandlers, and even future CEOs of companies such as Pepsi, the Gap, Smith-Hawken, Lotus, and Rolling Stone magazine.

“The Summer of Love [1967] was the peak of the Haight Ashbury experience,” wrote founding editor Allen Cohen in his essay on the Summer of Love. “Over 100,000 youth came to the Haight. Hoards of reporters, movie makers, FBI agents, undercover police, drug addicts, provocateurs, Mafioso and about 100,000 more tourists to watch them all followed in their wake.”

The efforts of the pioneers in the Haight-Ashbury to create an enlightened community took about two years, from 1964-66, to reach the flashpoint, and during those years the music reached an artistic high point. By the end, two years before Woodstock and Altamont, overcrowding and the negative reaction of police and the San Francisco city government combined to make life in the Haight miserable for everyone.

Still, the experience of enlightenment had left a lasting impression on the minds and hearts of those who participated in the “hippie scene” either in the Haight or in far-flung communities that sprouted from Be-Ins and the acid-tinged philosophers such as Dr. Timothy Leary. The experience, like acid, reached a peak, then subsided, leaving everyone bewildered and changed for life.

The music of the Haight-Ashbury is special for me. I grew up in the Sixties, and some of these artists and musicians were my heroes, in the true meaning of the term. They stuck their necks out and risked everything to bring us this music.

The Haight-Ashbury’s music scene thrived and continues to shine like a beacon of the psychedelic age, as everyone now knows the music of the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, Quicksilver, the Steve Miller Band, and friends from Berkeley including Creedence Clearwater Revival and Country Joe and the Fish, and many other lesser-known but amazingly talented bands. And just about all of them owe their existence to the legendary, nearly-forgotten, first acid-rock-western band, the Charlatans. The first rock poster was drawn by George Hunter and Mike Ferguson of the Charlatans for their shows at the Red Dog Saloon. Wes Wilson, a printer and artist, developed many of the motifs of the early posters along with Alton Kelley, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin.

Many of the poster artists cranked out poster and handbill designs quickly for hastily-scheduled concerts at the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms. And yet, despite (or perhaps due to) the quick work and druggy atmosphere, the poster art of this period represented the pinnacle of 20th Century poster art, and the innovations inspired a cascade of rock posters and concert handbills produced all over the country by many brilliant artists.

[SOURCE: rockument.com.]