May 15, 2023 04:04 PM
(This post was last modified: May 15, 2023 04:10 PM by C C.)
https://bigthink.com/the-past/the-source...alth-food/
EXCERPTS: . . . Isis is an original member of the Source Family, a 1970s utopian commune of roughly 140 hippies who lived in a Georgian-style mansion in Los Feliz known as the Mother House...
As a narrator in The Source Family, the 2012 documentary [...] says, “If you wanted to create an archetype of the ultimate early 70s, Southern California spiritual cult, you could do no better than the Source Family.”
Part of the enduring fascination around the Source Family, like other cults of the time period, is that their history is the stuff of American myth-making, full of details far wilder than any tall tale. Members of the Source Family believed they were part of a tradition of “white magic” stretching back to Renaissance times...
Then there was the founder, Jim Baker, better known as Father Yod (pronounced “yode”) or YaHoWha, a literal and figurative giant of a man who once declared himself a god. Born on Independence Day 1922, he was a psychedelic rock band frontman, a convicted killer, an alleged bank robber, and a decorated ex-Marine with a predilection for purple Rolls-Royces. Oh, and he had 14 spiritual wives and his fists were registered as lethal weapons.
[...] To this day, the family lives by the tenets of the Source Family and holds to its belief system, which combines disparate mystical and religious elements ranging from Zen Buddhism to Freemasonry. Unlike some of its 70s cult contemporaries ... most former members of the Source Family still describe it as a transformative, largely positive experience.
The cult/commune is remembered for a number of things, among them their jam band, Ya Ho Wha 13, whose albums are still highly sought-after by collectors of psychedelic rock, but their most enduring legacy is food,
[...] In 1969, after losing his once-successful restaurants, Baker transformed an old hamburger joint on Sunset Strip into the Source restaurant. This new venture quickly eclipsed his other restaurants. To diners today, the menu of salads and veggie sandwiches is unremarkable, but in the 1970s it was revolutionary.
Before long, Baker began attracting young acolytes through the daily public meditation sessions he held at the restaurant. As teenagers, feeling disenfranchised by the war in Vietnam and betrayed by their parents’ generation, left their homes in droves, the Source offered them refuge and an alternative path. They came for the salads and spiritual guidance, and stayed for the cult.
[...] The Source restaurant was all about vibes. Word spread early on about the unusually attractive young long-hairs who staffed the place, all smiles and flowing hair and white robes. Everyone was in excellent physical shape, thanks to a daily exercise regimen that began with cold-water plunges and what Isis refers to as “Marine training” before dawn, strict abstention from alcohol, and a diet of mostly raw vegetarian food.
“Everybody ate there—everybody,” Isis says. “It was more than the food. It was the food, but it was also the energy and vibration of the waiters and the waitresses. Because we were all family, we all stayed in a certain energy. It’s how the food was bought, how it was cut, how it was handled. It was an energy transference.”
[...] “We were [one of the first restaurants] supporting the organic growers,” Venus says. “The ones that were really conscious about what food they were producing and making sure that it was of the highest quality, and the amount of money going to them was supporting their efforts also in that field.”
[...] Divisions began mounting within the commune. Not all members approved of Father Yod’s polygamy, particularly his former wife Robin Popper ... who would later call him a “dirty old man on a lust trip.” The day after Christmas 1974, at the height of the restaurant’s popularity, Father Yod sold it and took his followers to Hawaiʻi.
[...] Life there was considerably harder than it had been in Los Angeles, as money and resources dwindled. Then, in 1975, Father Yod decided to go hang gliding, unassisted, for the first time in his life. He, perhaps predictably, came crashing to earth, where he lay, injured and refusing medical attention. He died within hours, at the age of 53... (MORE - missing details)
The Source Family - Official Trailer ... https://youtu.be/F3f4aleOAxo
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/F3f4aleOAxo
EXCERPTS: . . . Isis is an original member of the Source Family, a 1970s utopian commune of roughly 140 hippies who lived in a Georgian-style mansion in Los Feliz known as the Mother House...
As a narrator in The Source Family, the 2012 documentary [...] says, “If you wanted to create an archetype of the ultimate early 70s, Southern California spiritual cult, you could do no better than the Source Family.”
Part of the enduring fascination around the Source Family, like other cults of the time period, is that their history is the stuff of American myth-making, full of details far wilder than any tall tale. Members of the Source Family believed they were part of a tradition of “white magic” stretching back to Renaissance times...
Then there was the founder, Jim Baker, better known as Father Yod (pronounced “yode”) or YaHoWha, a literal and figurative giant of a man who once declared himself a god. Born on Independence Day 1922, he was a psychedelic rock band frontman, a convicted killer, an alleged bank robber, and a decorated ex-Marine with a predilection for purple Rolls-Royces. Oh, and he had 14 spiritual wives and his fists were registered as lethal weapons.
[...] To this day, the family lives by the tenets of the Source Family and holds to its belief system, which combines disparate mystical and religious elements ranging from Zen Buddhism to Freemasonry. Unlike some of its 70s cult contemporaries ... most former members of the Source Family still describe it as a transformative, largely positive experience.
The cult/commune is remembered for a number of things, among them their jam band, Ya Ho Wha 13, whose albums are still highly sought-after by collectors of psychedelic rock, but their most enduring legacy is food,
[...] In 1969, after losing his once-successful restaurants, Baker transformed an old hamburger joint on Sunset Strip into the Source restaurant. This new venture quickly eclipsed his other restaurants. To diners today, the menu of salads and veggie sandwiches is unremarkable, but in the 1970s it was revolutionary.
Before long, Baker began attracting young acolytes through the daily public meditation sessions he held at the restaurant. As teenagers, feeling disenfranchised by the war in Vietnam and betrayed by their parents’ generation, left their homes in droves, the Source offered them refuge and an alternative path. They came for the salads and spiritual guidance, and stayed for the cult.
[...] The Source restaurant was all about vibes. Word spread early on about the unusually attractive young long-hairs who staffed the place, all smiles and flowing hair and white robes. Everyone was in excellent physical shape, thanks to a daily exercise regimen that began with cold-water plunges and what Isis refers to as “Marine training” before dawn, strict abstention from alcohol, and a diet of mostly raw vegetarian food.
“Everybody ate there—everybody,” Isis says. “It was more than the food. It was the food, but it was also the energy and vibration of the waiters and the waitresses. Because we were all family, we all stayed in a certain energy. It’s how the food was bought, how it was cut, how it was handled. It was an energy transference.”
[...] “We were [one of the first restaurants] supporting the organic growers,” Venus says. “The ones that were really conscious about what food they were producing and making sure that it was of the highest quality, and the amount of money going to them was supporting their efforts also in that field.”
[...] Divisions began mounting within the commune. Not all members approved of Father Yod’s polygamy, particularly his former wife Robin Popper ... who would later call him a “dirty old man on a lust trip.” The day after Christmas 1974, at the height of the restaurant’s popularity, Father Yod sold it and took his followers to Hawaiʻi.
[...] Life there was considerably harder than it had been in Los Angeles, as money and resources dwindled. Then, in 1975, Father Yod decided to go hang gliding, unassisted, for the first time in his life. He, perhaps predictably, came crashing to earth, where he lay, injured and refusing medical attention. He died within hours, at the age of 53... (MORE - missing details)
The Source Family - Official Trailer ... https://youtu.be/F3f4aleOAxo