![[Monday Night Class]](gaskin.jpg)
c1969
New: fanpage w/links
Official campaign site
RU Sirius interview
GASKIN, Stephen F. 1935-
1935: born February 16 in Denver, Colo. (father a builder) [family info]
1952-55: Marine Corps; Korea [pic!]
1957-59: married Carol Groves
1961-64: married Carol Ladas, daughter Dana
1964: MA from SF State College
1964-66: instructor in Creative Writing and General Semantics, SFSC
1967-75: married Margaret Nofziger
1967-70: Monday Night Class 'tripping classes' attract 1000/wk
196?: 'four marriage' with Ina May and Michael
1970: "Monday Night Class" book of talk transcripts
1970-71: The Caravan 50-schoolbus tour across US1971: founded The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee w/320
197?: six-marriage
1972: "The Caravan" book of transcripts
1972: Al Gore writes up the Farm for the Nashville Tennessean (missing) [Gore a pothead?]
1972-73: Lean winter living on wheatberries [clarification]
1974: "Hey Beatnick! This is the Farm Book" (ed)
1974: founded relief org Plenty-- Guatemala, Lesotho, Mexico, Bronx
1974-77: Tennessee State Penitentiary for growing pot
1976: married Ina May Middleton (midwife and writer)
1976: "This Season's People" transcripts197?: publishing co. scores hit w/ "Big Dummy's Guide to CB Radio"
1977: Ina May's revolutionary "Spiritual Midwifery" [links]
1977: "Volume One: Sunday Morning Services on The Farm" transcripts
1979: "Mind At Play" quotes and images
1979: Farm population peaks at 1500
1980: 1st Right Livelihood Award
1980: "Amazing Dope Tales and Haight Street Flashbacks" drug memoirs [excerpt]
1981: "Rendered Infamous" political memoirs198?: managing Birth Gazette (midwifery quarterly)
199?: founded Rocinante: birth center, midwifery training, and senior community living center [interview]
1995: officiated at Cannabis Cup
1996: opens for Moby Grape [account]
1998: "Cannabis Spirituality" [text]
1999: Presidental candidate for Green Party nomination
1999: Cannabis Cup
2000: Ina May on an experimental birthing drug [Salon]
Politics: "Beatnik" Religion: "Hippy."
Main source: http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/sg.html
Stephen aces Krishnamurti in 'Guru-Off': http://www.globalideasbank.org/BOV/BV-557.HTML
- Bhagwan (Osho) 17 (out of 100);
- Maharishi 23;
- Leonard Orr of the Rebirthing movement 53;
- Swami Bhaktivedanta of the Hare Krishna movement 60;
- Krishnamurti 73;
- Stephen Gaskin (from the Tennessee farm commune) 77
Raw etext!?! (270k)
http://ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/year1/Stephen.txt
new URL
Psychic energy:
"Attention is energy. What you put your attention into, you get more of.""How to get out of Hell? You have to plug up the holes in your bucket, then you get higher. Most people who are in Hell are complaining. They think they're complaining because they're in Hell... uh-uh. They're in Hell because they're complaining."
Stephen's model of energy was a prime inspiration for Anti-Math: http://www.robotwisdom.com/ai/antimath.html
Drugs
Heh: http://lists.village.virginia.edu/listservs/sixties-l/jan.18.96
"...Drieux's story above reminds me of the time Stephen Gaskin had about 50 of us hippies nude on Mount Tamalpais passing joints in a circle. The police came and leaned against a fence no more than 50 feet away, staring at us. "Don't move," said Stephen, "they can't break through our 'high'". They glared at us a few minutes - we were stark naked in public - and then left."
Stephen on 'Cannabis Spirituality' http://www.hightimes.com/ht/mag/9612/spiritu.html
- enlightenment is ordinary reality
- the gentle ritual
- cleaning the terminals
- the natural ceremony
- good loving
- stay straight with kids
- the politics of spirituality
On the legal argument: http://www.hightimes.com/ht/mag/9512/grassca.html
"Marijuana opens you up and leaves you compassionate. And mankind really needs to become compassionate if he's going to make it on this planet."
Saint Stephen
I was told at the Farm c1978 that the Grateful Dead song 'St Stephen' referred to a period when Stephen answered questions from the stage during their intermissions. Apparently this wasn't true: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/stephen.html
"...the tune is loaded with ambiguity and oblique references that lend credence to the theory that SG is part of who they mean.."
However, Stephen's working title for his new book of spiritual teachings is "Wherever He Go, The People All Complain."
The MNC book: http://www.spring.net/~wmmeyers/class.html (incl pix)
Monday Night Class, as it was published in 1970, was a loosely edited collection of eight talks, in the authentic hippie vernacular, printed entirely in purple, with no page numbers. The cover title was on the back, and the front cover was a wordless image of a pulsating mandala. Though highly unconventional in the publishing world at the time, it nevertheless found its audience as a kind of "tripper's guidebook," or a manual of "tripping instructions," and could be found for years in underground bookstores and the backpacks of spiritual seekers. It eventually sold over 100,000 copies.
Used as a corpus of colloquial English: http://ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/year1/textanalysis-2.html
Mentioned in a book about another commune: http://www.diggers.org/most/hfh_19.html
Stephen Gaskin's Monday Night Class was going strong in San Francisco. It had begun as a course in North America White Witchcraft at San Francisco State, becoming so popular that Stephen moved to a concert hall where he spoke to almost three thousand people every week from 1968 until 1970. These were fine, instructive occasions attended by the cream of the hip world. Many Ridgefolk made the effort to attend regularly and listened carefully to his message of love, honesty and understanding. Although he never visited the Ridge, he exerted a strong influence there.BILL: "Stephen's teachings had a wonderful effect upon us and we hated to see him and his people leave the Bay Area. But it was time for them to find their own land. Their caravan of buses travelled across America before finally settling in Tennessee on a thousand acres. There they continued setting a fine example of a closely knit fellowship that could get things done. Their own publishing company provided a good documentation of their message."
Midwifery on the Caravan: http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/06/01/gaskin/index1.html
Website index: http://www.thefarm.org/quikindx.html
Albert Bates: [source]
"When we first got here in 1971, the idea was to become farmers. We started with a pair of Belgian mares and a plow, growing sorghum and making molasses. We sold it under the brand name, "Old Beatnik Pure Lewis County Sorghum.""
Short account by a girl who grew up there: http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/cmnl.html
"Vegetarianism on the Farm was taken very seriously. For example, I remember the adults at "Seven Nations" (my house) having a meeting because my grandmother sent a gigantic block of Wisconsin cheddar cheese to us. The adults were deciding whether to give the cheese to the neighbors (off the Farm), or to just bury it! Meanwhile the kids, myself included, managed to finish off the entire block of cheese before the issue was resolved."
"If you're having sex, you're engaged," warned Stephen. "If you're having babies, you're married."
"We are three hundred people and three square miles of land"
"We currently have a seven person board that is elected for three year terms. I am not now and have never been a member of this board."
Offline books:
"Voices from The Farm" Edited by Rupert Fike http://www.bookpubco.com/cgi-bin/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=lifestyle.htm
"A Short History of the Farm" By Michael Traugot
http://www.thefarm.org/businesses/shorthistory.html
The crisis: http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/akbp2.html
"While Stephen Gaskin had voluntarily relinquished control of the Farm to an elected board as early as 1973, his influence in a wide range of policy matters was inordinately strong and a constant source of friction. Incompetence, mismanagement, secrecy and even dishonesty by elected representatives subverted many important projects and doomed them to waste and failure. ""Reorganization took the form of a community vote, in October of 1983, to decollectivize The Farm, and to turn it into a cooperative, with all members required to pay monthly dues assessments in order to remain."
Ex-Farm-folk started the WELL in 1984: http://www.hotwired.com/collections/virtual_communities/5.05_well_pr.html
Albert Bates interview: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC29/Bates.htm
1995 High Times article by Doctor-of-Rainbowology Mike Niman: http://www.thefarm.org/general/hightime.html
Detroit News update: http://detnews.com/1999/nation/9903/29/03290102.htm
Vegetarian Times overview: http://www.thefarm.org/general/vt95.html
Doctress Neutopia disses Albert Bates: http://csf.colorado.edu/lists/ecofem/nov97/0025.html
Current FAQ: http://www.thefarm.org/general/farmfaq.html
Christian cult-watchers' analysis: http://www.carm.org/c_farm.htm
"This is not a particularly dangerous group as far as size is concerned. It isn't Christian, encourages drug use -- not only of marijuana -- and is basically no different than any other belief system that hides a person from salvation in Jesus."
"In all fairness there is more than enough to go around...""We are this season's people, and if we don't do it, it won't get done. ...There are no other people this season. If we blow it, it's blown."
"Enlightenment is getting off your tail and doing something."
1974: founded
1976: sent carpenters after Guatemalan earthquake, built a Mayan soy dairy that is operating today, potable water systems, sanitation and communications technology
1980: Right Livelihood award
1986: "Kids to the Country" TN youth program
1991: 5-yr Soybean Utilization Training Assistance Program
1995: "From the Global Kitchen" (soy recipes)
Announcement: http://www.mcs.net/~jorn/html/flulf/gaskin.html
Interview: http://www.bestweb.net/~kali93/oct98/gaskin.htm
Political statement: http://www.bestweb.net/~kali93/oct98/sg2.htm
Reports: http://www.politics1.com/greens.htm http://www.hippy.com/gaskin.htm http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Stoners/Gaskin.html
A novel in progress, tentatively entitled Violet, The Frog Woman.
"My first eight books were spoken and edited. The book I have in progress now is a different matter entirely. It is a Novel that draws on my Hippy life with being about Hippies at all. To sit down at my Macintosh and be essentially alone with the creative process is both scary and comforting. I love my word processor and spelling checker which have become literary prostheses for me. I find myself very concerned with writers and the writing process."
A book of spiritual teachings tentatively entitled Wherever He Go, The People All Complain.