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A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around the world. The word '' hippie'' came from '' hipster'' and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
, in San Francisco's
Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...
district, and Chicago's Old Town community. The term ''hippie'' was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier. The origins of the terms '' hip'' and ''hep'' are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
jive slang and meant "sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date". The Beats adopted the term ''hip'', and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation. Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic music, embraced the sexual revolution, and many used drugs such as marijuana and
LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
to explore
altered states of consciousness An altered state of consciousness (ASC), also called altered state of mind or mind alteration, is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking state. By 1892, the expression was in use in relation to hypnosis, though there ...
. In 1967, the
Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture a ...
in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, and Monterey Pop Festival popularized hippie culture, leading to the Summer of Love on the West Coast of the United States, and the 1969
Woodstock Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aq ...
Festival on the East Coast. Hippies in Mexico, known as ''
jipitecas The jipitecas (sometimes called "xipitecas") were the Mexican hippies of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The term was coined by scholar Enrique Marroquin in the late 1960s and used widely in the media afterwards. Other terms for referring Mexican ...
'', formed ''
La Onda ''La Onda'' (The Wave) was a multidisciplinary artistic movement created in Mexico by artists and intellectuals as part of the worldwide waves of the counterculture of the 1960s and the avant-garde. Pejoratively called as ''Literatura de la Onda' ...
'' and gathered at Avándaro, while in New Zealand, nomadic
housetrucker Housetruckers are individuals, families and groups who convert old trucks and school buses into portable homes called housetrucks and live in them, preferring an unattached and transient lifestyle to more conventional housing. These vehicles beg ...
s practiced alternative lifestyles and promoted sustainable energy at
Nambassa Nambassa was a series of hippie-conceived festivals held between 1976 and 1981 on large farms around Waihi and Waikino in New Zealand. They were music, arts and alternatives festivals that focused on peace, love, and an environmentally friendly ...
. In the United Kingdom in 1970, many gathered at the gigantic third
Isle of Wight Festival The Isle of Wight Festival is a British music festival which takes place annually in Newport on the Isle of Wight, England. It was originally a counterculture event held from 1968 to 1970. The 1970 event was by far the largest of these early ...
with a crowd of around 400,000 people. In later years, mobile "peace convoys" of
New Age travellers New Age travellers, not completely synonymous with but otherwise shortened to New Travellers (often referred to as "crusties"), are people in the United Kingdom generally espousing New Age beliefs along with the hippie culture of the 1960s (over ...
made summer
pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
s to free music festivals at Stonehenge and elsewhere. In Australia, hippies gathered at Nimbin for the 1973
Aquarius Festival The Nimbin Aquarius Festival was a counter-cultural arts and music festival organised by the Australian Union of Students. It was the fourth in a biannual series of festivals, first organised by the National Union of Australian University Stude ...
and the annual Cannabis Law Reform Rally or
MardiGrass MardiGrass is a cannabis law reform rally and festival held annually in the town of Nimbin, in north east New South Wales, Australia. History In March 1993, after a decade of raids and arrests, and a particularly intensive recent period of ...
. "'' Piedra Roja'' Festival", a major hippie event in Chile, was held in 1970. Hippie and psychedelic culture influenced 1960s and early 1970s youth culture in Iron Curtain countries in Eastern Europe (see ''
Mánička Mánička (in plural: máničky) is a Czech term used for young people with long hair, typically men, in Czechoslovakia through the 1960s and 1970s. Long hair for males during this time was considered an expression of political and social attitu ...
''). Hippie fashion and values had a major effect on culture, influencing
popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
, television, film, literature, and the arts. Since the 1960s, mainstream society has assimilated many aspects of hippie culture. The religious and
cultural diversity Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural evolution. The term "cultural diversity" can also refer to having different c ...
the hippies espoused has gained widespread acceptance, and their pop versions of Eastern philosophy and Asiatic spiritual concepts have reached a larger group. The vast majority of people who had participated in the golden age of the hippie movement were those born during the 1940s as well as the early 1950s. These included the oldest of the
Baby Boomers Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. ...
as well as the youngest of the Silent Generation; the latter who were the actual leaders of the movement as well as the pioneers of
rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
.


Etymology

Lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries. * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. * Theoretica ...
Jesse Sheidlower, the principal American editor of the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
'', argues that the terms ''hipster'' and ''hippie'' are derived from the word '' hip'', whose origins are unknown. The word ''hip'' in the sense of "aware, in the know" is first attested in a 1902 cartoon by
Tad Dorgan Thomas Aloysius Dorgan (April 29, 1877 – May 2, 1929), also known as Tad Dorgan, was an American cartoonist who signed his drawings as Tad. He is known for his cartoon panel ''Indoor Sports'' and comic strip '' Judge Rummy'', as well as the ma ...
, and first appeared in prose in a 1904 novel by
George Vere Hobart George Vere Hobart (1867 – 1926) was a Canadian-American humorist who authored more than 50 musical comedy librettos and plays as well as novels and songs. At the time of his death, Hobart was "one of America's most popular humorists and playwr ...
(1867–1926), ''Jim Hickey: A Story of the One-Night Stands'', where an African-American character uses the slang phrase "Are you hip?" The term ''hipster'' was coined by
Harry Gibson Harry "The Hipster" Gibson (June 27, 1915 – May 3, 1991), born Harry Raab, was an American jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter. He played New York style stride piano and boogie woogie while singing in a wild, unrestrained style. His music car ...
in 1944. By the 1940s, the terms ''hip'', ''hep'' and ''hepcat'' were popular in
Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
slang, although ''hep'' eventually came to denote an inferior status to ''hip''. In
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
in the early 1960s,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, young
counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
advocates were named ''hips'' because they were considered "in the know" or "cool", as opposed to being ''
square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...
'', meaning conventional and old-fashioned. In the April 27, 1961 issue of
The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
, "An open letter to JFK & Fidel Castro", Norman Mailer utilizes the term hippies, in questioning JFK's behavior. In a 1961 essay, Kenneth Rexroth used both the terms ''hipster'' and ''hippies'' to refer to young people participating in black American or Beatnik nightlife. According to
Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of I ...
's 1964 autobiography, the word ''hippie'' in 1940s Harlem had been used to describe a specific type of white man who "acted more
Negro In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
than Negroes".
Andrew Loog Oldham Andrew Loog Oldham (born 29 January 1944) is an English record producer, talent manager, impresario and author. He was manager and producer of the Rolling Stones from 1963 to 1967, and was noted for his flamboyant style. Early life Loog Oldha ...
refers to "all the Chicago hippies," seemingly about black blues/R&B musicians, in his rear
sleeve notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desc ...
to the 1965 LP ''
The Rolling Stones, Now! ''The Rolling Stones, Now!'' is the third American studio album by English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 13 February 1965 by their initial American distributor, London Records. Although it contains two previously unissued songs an ...
'' Although the word ''hippies'' made other isolated appearances in print during the early 1960s, the first use of the term on the West Coast appeared in the article "A New Paradise for
Beatniks Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the undergr ...
" (in the '' San Francisco Examiner'', issue of September 5, 1965) by San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon. In that article, Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn Cafe ( coffeehouse) (located at 1927 Hayes Street in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco), using the term ''hippie'' to refer to the new generation of beatniks who had moved from North Beach into the
Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...
district.


History


Origins

A July 1968 ''Time'' magazine study on hippie philosophy credited the foundation of the hippie movement with historical precedent as far back as the
sadhu ''Sadhu'' ( sa, साधु, IAST: ' (male), ''sādhvī'' or ''sādhvīne'' (female)), also spelled ''saddhu'', is a religious ascetic, mendicant or any holy person in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism who has renounced the worldly life. ...
of India, the spiritual seekers who had renounced the world and materialistic pursuits by taking " Sannyas". Even the counterculture of the Ancient Greeks, espoused by philosophers like
Diogenes of Sinope Diogenes ( ; grc, Διογένης, Diogénēs ), also known as Diogenes the Cynic (, ) or Diogenes of Sinope, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism (philosophy). He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea ...
and the cynics were also early forms of hippie culture. It also named as notable influences the religious and spiritual teachings of
Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...
, Hillel the Elder,
Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...
,
St. Francis of Assisi Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christianit ...
, Henry David Thoreau,
Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
and J.R.R. Tolkien. The first signs of modern "proto-hippies" emerged at turn of the 19th century in Europe. Late 1890s to early 1900s, a German youth movement arose as a countercultural reaction to the organized social and cultural clubs that centered around "German folk music". Known as '' Der Wandervogel'' ("wandering bird"), this hippie movement opposed the formality of traditional German clubs, instead emphasizing folk music and singing, creative dress, and outdoor life involving hiking and camping. Inspired by the works of
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
,
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
, and
Hermann Hesse Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include ''Demian'', '' Steppenwolf'', '' Siddhartha'', and ''The Glass Bead Game'', each of which explores an individual's ...
, Wandervogel attracted thousands of young Germans who rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and yearned for the pagan, back-to-nature spiritual life of their ancestors.. See also: . During the first several decades of the 20th century, Germans settled around the United States, bringing the values of this German youth culture. Some opened the first health food stores, and many moved to
southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...
where they introduced an alternative lifestyle. One group, called the "Nature Boys", took to the California desert and raised organic food, espousing a back-to-nature lifestyle like the Wandervogel.Elaine Woo
Gypsy Boots, 89; Colorful Promoter of Healthy Food and Lifestyles
''Los Angeles Times'', August 10, 2004, Accessed December 22, 2008.
Songwriter
eden ahbez George Alexander Aberle (April 15, 1908 – March 4, 1995), known as eden ahbez, was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s to 1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential in the hippie movement. He was known to frien ...
wrote a hit song called ''
Nature Boy "Nature Boy" is a song first recorded by American jazz singer Nat King Cole. It was released on March 29, 1948, as a single by Capitol Records, and later appeared on the album, ''The Nat King Cole Story''. It was written by eden ahbez as a tri ...
'' inspired by Robert Bootzin (
Gypsy Boots Gypsy Boots (August 19, 1915 – August 8, 2004), born Robert Bootzin (also known as Boots Bootzin), was an American fitness pioneer, actor and writer. He is credited with laying the foundation for the acceptance by mainstream America of "alter ...
), who helped popularize health-consciousness,
yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...
, and
organic food Organic food, ecological food or biological food are food and drinks produced by methods complying with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming features practices that cycle resources, promote ecological ...
in the United States. The hippie movement in the United States began as a youth movement. Composed mostly of white teenagers and young adults between 15 and 25 years old,. hippies inherited a tradition of cultural dissent from bohemians and
beatniks Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the undergr ...
of the Beat Generation in the late 1950s. Beats like
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
crossed over from the beat movement and became fixtures of the burgeoning hippie and
anti-war movement An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to p ...
s. By 1965, hippies had become an established
social group In the social sciences, a social group can be defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties ...
in the U.S., and the movement eventually expanded to other countries,. Hirsch describes hippies as: "Members of a cultural protest that began in the U.S. in the 1960s and affected Europe before fading in the 1970s...fundamentally a cultural rather than a political protest.". Pendergast writes: "The Hippies made up the...nonpolitical subgroup of a larger group known as the counterculture...the counterculture included several distinct groups...One group, called the New Left...Another broad group called...the Civil Rights Movement...did not become a recognizable social group until after 1965...according to John C. McWilliams, author of ''The 1960s Cultural Revolution''." extending as far as the United Kingdom and Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan,
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, and Brazil. The hippie ethos influenced
The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
and others in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, and they in turn influenced their American counterparts. Hippie culture spread worldwide through a fusion of
rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
,
folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fo ...
, blues, and psychedelic rock; it also found expression in literature, the dramatic arts,
fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion i ...
, and the visual arts, including film, posters advertising rock concerts, and
album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...
covers. In 1968, self-described hippies represented just under 0.2% of the U.S. population. and dwindled away by mid-1970s. Along with the New Left and the
Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
, the hippie movement was one of three dissenting groups of the 1960s counterculture. Hippies rejected established institutions, criticized
middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Com ...
values, opposed nuclear weapons and the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
, embraced aspects of Eastern philosophy,. championed
sexual liberation The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the ...
, were often
vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetariani ...
and
eco-friendly Environment friendly processes, or environmental-friendly processes (also referred to as eco-friendly, nature-friendly, and green), are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that clai ...
, promoted the use of psychedelic drugs which they believed expanded one's consciousness, and created
intentional communities An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
or communes. They used alternative arts, street theatre,
folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
, and psychedelic rock as a part of their lifestyle and as a way of expressing their feelings, their protests, and their vision of the world and life. Hippies opposed political and social orthodoxy, choosing a gentle and nondoctrinaire ideology that favored peace, love, and personal freedom,. expressed for example in
The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
' song "
All You Need is Love "All You Need Is Love" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a non-album single in July 1967. It was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The song was Britain's contribution t ...
". Hippies perceived the dominant culture as a corrupt, monolithic entity that exercised undue power over their lives, calling this culture "
The Establishment ''The Establishment'' is a term used to describe a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization. It may comprise a closed social group that selects its own members, or entrenched elite structures in specific institution ...
", " Big Brother", or " The Man"... Noting that they were "seekers of meaning and value", scholars like Timothy Miller have described hippies as a
new religious movement A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or th ...
.. Timothy Miller notes that the counterculture was a "movement of seekers of meaning and value...the historic quest of any religion." Miller quotes
Harvey Cox Harvey Gallagher Cox Jr. (born May 19, 1929) is an American theologian who served as the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, until his retirement in October 2009. Cox's research and teaching focus on theological developments in ...
, William C. Shepard, Jefferson Poland, and Ralph J. Gleason in support of the view of the hippie movement as a new religion. See also Wes Nisker's ''The Big Bang, The Buddha, and the Baby Boom'': "At its core, however, hippie was a spiritual phenomenon, a big, unfocused, revival meeting." Nisker cites the ''San Francisco Oracle'', which described the Human Be-In as a "spiritual revolution".
There are echoes of the term "hippie" in " preppy" (with particular cultural currency as a 1950s fashion trend) and "
yuppie Yuppie, short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional", is a term coined in the early 1980s for a young professional person working in a city. The term is first attested in 1980, when it was used as a fairly neu ...
" (1980s), both of which embraced rather than rejected establishment culture.


1958–1967: Early hippies

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, novelist
Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...
and the
Merry Pranksters The Merry Pranksters were comrades and followers of American author Ken Kesey in 1964. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally at Kesey's homes in California and Oregon, and are noted for the sociological significance of a lengthy roa ...
lived communally in California. Members included Beat Generation hero Neal Cassady, Ken Babbs, Carolyn Adams (aka Mountain Girl/Carolyn Garcia), Stewart Brand,
Del Close Del Close (March 9, 1934 – March 4, 1999) was an American actor, writer, and teacher who coached many of the best-known comedians and comic actors of the late twentieth century. In addition to an acting career in television and film, he was ...
, Paul Foster,
George Walker George Walker may refer to: Arts and letters * George Walker (chess player) (1803–1879), English chess player and writer *George Walker (composer) (1922–2018), American composer * George Walker (illustrator) (1781–1856), author of ''The Co ...
, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt and others. Their early escapades were documented in
Tom Wolfe Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...
's book ''
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test ''The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'' is a 1968 nonfiction book by Tom Wolfe. The book is a popular example of the New Journalism literary style. Wolfe presents a firsthand account of the experiences of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, ...
''. With Cassady at the wheel of a school bus named
Further Further or Furthur may refer to: * ''Furthur'' (bus), the Merry Pranksters' psychedelic bus * Further (band), a 1990s American indie rock band * Furthur (band), a band formed in 2009 by Bob Weir and Phil Lesh * ''Further'' (The Chemical Brothers a ...
, the Merry Pranksters traveled across the United States to celebrate the publication of Kesey's novel ''
Sometimes a Great Notion ''Sometimes a Great Notion'' is the second novel by American author Ken Kesey, published in 1964. While ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1962) is more famous, many critics consider ''Sometimes a Great Notion'' Kesey's magnum opus. The story i ...
'' and to visit the 1964
World's Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
in New York City. The Merry Pranksters were known for using
cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: '' Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...
, amphetamine, and
LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
, and during their journey they "turned on" many people to these drugs. The Merry Pranksters filmed and audio-taped their bus trips, creating an immersive
multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...
experience that would later be presented to the public in the form of festivals and concerts. The Grateful Dead wrote a song about the Merry Pranksters' bus trips called "That's It for the Other One". In 1961, Vito Paulekas and his wife Szou established in Hollywood a clothing boutique which was credited with being one of the first to introduce "hippie" fashions. During this period
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
in New York City and
Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...
, California anchored the American folk music circuit. Berkeley's two coffee houses, the Cabale Creamery and the Jabberwock, sponsored performances by folk music artists in a beat setting. In April 1963, Chandler A. Laughlin III, co-founder of the Cabale Creamery, established a kind of tribal, family identity among approximately fifty people who attended a traditional, all-night Native American peyote ceremony in a rural setting. This ceremony combined a psychedelic experience with traditional Native American spiritual values; these people went on to sponsor a unique genre of musical expression and performance at the Red Dog Saloon in the isolated, old-time mining town of
Virginia City Virginia City is a census-designated place (CDP) that is the county seat of Storey County, Nevada, and the largest community in the county. The city is a part of the Reno– Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area. Virginia City developed as a boom ...
, Nevada. During the summer of 1965, Laughlin recruited much of the original talent that led to a unique amalgam of traditional folk music and the developing psychedelic rock scene. He and his cohorts created what became known as " The Red Dog Experience", featuring previously unknown musical acts— Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane,
Big Brother and the Holding Company Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After som ...
,
Quicksilver Messenger Service Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. The band achieved wide popularity in the San Francisco Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe, ...
, The Charlatans, and others—who played in the completely refurbished, intimate setting of Virginia City's Red Dog Saloon. There was no clear delineation between "performers" and "audience" in "The Red Dog Experience", during which music, psychedelic experimentation, a unique sense of personal style, and Bill Ham's first primitive light shows combined to create a new sense of community. Laughlin and George Hunter of the Charlatans were true "proto-hippies", with their
long hair Long hair is a hairstyle where the head hair is allowed to grow to a considerable length. Exactly what constitutes long hair can change from culture to culture, or even within cultures. For example, a woman with chin-length hair in some cultures ...
, boots, and outrageous clothing of 19th-century American (and Native American) heritage. LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley lived in Berkeley during 1965 and provided much of the LSD that became a seminal part of the "Red Dog Experience", the early evolution of psychedelic rock and budding hippie culture. At the Red Dog Saloon, The Charlatans were the first psychedelic rock band to play live (albeit unintentionally) loaded on LSD. When they returned to San Francisco, Red Dog participants Luria Castell, Ellen Harman and
Alton Kelley Alton Kelley (June 17, 1940 – June 1, 2008) was an American artist known for his psychedelic art, in particular his designs for 1960s rock concert posters and album covers. Along with artists Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso ...
created a collective called "The Family Dog." Modeled on their Red Dog experiences, on October 16, 1965, the Family Dog hosted " A Tribute to Dr. Strange" at Longshoreman's Hall.. Attended by approximately 1,000 of the Bay Area's original "hippies", this was San Francisco's first psychedelic rock performance, costumed dance and light show, featuring Jefferson Airplane, The Great Society and The Marbles. Two other events followed before year's end, one at California Hall and one at the Matrix. After the first three Family Dog events, a much larger psychedelic event occurred at San Francisco's Longshoreman's Hall. Called "The Trips Festival", it took place on January 21 – 23, 1966, and was organized by Stewart Brand,
Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...
, Owsley Stanley and others. 10,000 people attended this sold-out event, with a thousand more turned away each night.. On Saturday January 22, the Grateful Dead and
Big Brother and the Holding Company Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After som ...
came on stage, and 6,000 people arrived to imbibe punch spiked with LSD and to witness one of the first fully developed light shows of the era. By February 1966, the Family Dog became Family Dog Productions under organizer
Chet Helms Chester Leo "Chet" Helms (August 2, 1942 – June 25, 2005), often called the father of San Francisco's 1967 " Summer of Love," was a music promoter and a counterculture figure in San Francisco during its hippie period in the mid- to-late 196 ...
, promoting happenings at the
Avalon Ballroom The Avalon Ballroom was a music venue in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, at 1244 Sutter Street (or 1268 Sutter, depending on the entrance). The space is known as the location of many concerts of the counterculture move ...
and the Fillmore Auditorium in initial cooperation with Bill Graham. The Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore Auditorium, and other venues provided settings where participants could partake of the full psychedelic music experience. Bill Ham, who had pioneered the original Red Dog light shows, perfected his art of liquid light projection, which combined light shows and film projection and became synonymous with the San Francisco ballroom experience.. The sense of style and costume that began at the Red Dog Saloon flourished when San Francisco's Fox Theater went out of business and hippies bought up its costume stock, reveling in the freedom to dress up for weekly musical performances at their favorite ballrooms. As ''San Francisco Chronicle'' music columnist Ralph J. Gleason put it, "They danced all night long, orgiastic, spontaneous and completely free form." Some of the earliest San Francisco hippies were former students at
San Francisco State College San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
who became intrigued by the developing psychedelic hippie music scene. These students joined the bands they loved, living communally in the large, inexpensive Victorian apartments in the
Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...
.. Perry writes that SFSC students rented cheap, Edwardian-Victorians in the Haight. Young Americans around the country began moving to San Francisco, and by June 1966, around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight. The Charlatans, Jefferson Airplane,
Big Brother and the Holding Company Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After som ...
, and the Grateful Dead all moved to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood during this period. Activity centered around the
Diggers The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...
, a guerrilla street
theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
group that combined spontaneous street theatre, anarchistic action, and art happenings in their agenda to create a "free city". By late 1966, the Diggers opened
free stores Give-away shops, freeshops, free stores or swap shops are stores where all goods are free. They are similar to charity shops, with mostly second-hand items—only everything is available at no cost. Whether it is a book, a piece of furniture, a ...
which simply gave away their stock, provided free food, distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized free music concerts, and performed works of political art.. On October 6, 1966, the state of California declared LSD a controlled substance, which made the drug illegal. In response to the criminalization of psychedelics, San Francisco hippies staged a gathering in the Golden Gate Park panhandle, called the Love Pageant Rally, attracting an estimated 700–800 people. As explained by Allan Cohen, co-founder of the '' San Francisco Oracle'', the purpose of the rally was twofold: to draw attention to the fact that LSD had just been made illegal—and to demonstrate that people who used LSD were not criminals, nor were they mentally ill. The Grateful Dead played, and some sources claim that LSD was consumed at the rally. According to Cohen, those who took LSD "were not guilty of using illegal substances...We were celebrating transcendental consciousness, the beauty of the universe, the beauty of being.". The Sunset Strip curfew riots, also known as the "hippie riots", were a series of early
counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
-era clashes that took place between police and young people on the Sunset Strip in
West Hollywood West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most prominent gay villages ...
,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, in 1966 and continuing on and off through the early 1970s. In 1966, annoyed residents and business owners in the district had encouraged the passage of strict (10:00 p.m.)
curfew A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...
and
loitering Loitering is the act of remaining in a particular public place for a prolonged amount of time without any apparent purpose. While the laws regarding loitering have been challenged and changed over time, loitering is still illegal in various j ...
laws to reduce the traffic congestion resulting from crowds of young club patrons. This was perceived by young, local rock music fans as an infringement on their
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...
, and on Saturday, November 12, 1966, fliers were distributed along the Strip inviting people to demonstrate later that day. Hours before the protest one of the rock 'n' roll radio stations in L.A. announced there would be a rally at
Pandora's Box Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod's c. 700 B.C. poem ''Works and Days''. Hesiod reported that curiosity led her to open a container left in the care of her husband, thus releasing physi ...
, a club at the corner of
Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in ...
and Crescent Heights, and cautioned people to tread carefully. The ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' reported that as many as 1,000 youthful demonstrators, including such celebrities as
Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...
and Peter Fonda (who was afterward handcuffed by police), erupted in protest against the perceived repressive enforcement of these recently invoked curfew laws. This incident provided the basis for the 1967 low-budget teen
exploitation film An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become hi ...
''
Riot on Sunset Strip ''Riot on Sunset Strip'' is a 1967 counterculture-era exploitation movie, released by American International Pictures. It was filmed and released within four months of the late-1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots. The film stars Frank Alesia, Aldo Ra ...
'', and inspired multiple songs including the famous
Buffalo Springfield Buffalo Springfield was a rock band formed in Los Angeles by Canadian musicians Neil Young, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin and American musicians Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. The group, widely known for the song "For What It's Worth", rele ...
song "
For What It's Worth "For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)" (often referred to as simply "For What It's Worth") is a song written by Stephen Stills. Performed by Buffalo Springfield, it was recorded on December 5, 1966, released as a single on Atco Reco ...
".


1967: Human Be-In, Summer of Love, and rise to prevalence

On January 14, 1967, the outdoor
Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture a ...
organized by Michael Bowen helped to popularize hippie culture across the United States, with 20,000 to 30,000 hippies gathering in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. On March 26, Lou Reed,
Edie Sedgwick Edith Minturn Sedgwick Post (April 20, 1943 – November 16, 1971) was an American actress and fashion model, known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars.Watson, Steven (2003), "Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties" Pantheon Books, pp. 210& ...
and 10,000 hippies came together in Manhattan for the Central Park Be-In on Easter Sunday. The Monterey Pop Festival from June 16 to June 18 introduced the rock music of the counterculture to a wide audience and marked the start of the "Summer of Love".. Scott McKenzie's rendition of John Phillips (musician), John Phillips' song, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair), San Francisco", became a hit in the United States and Europe. The lyrics, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair", inspired thousands of young people from all over the world to travel to San Francisco, sometimes wearing flowers in their hair and distributing flowers to passersby, earning them the name, "flower child, Flower Children". Bands like the Grateful Dead,
Big Brother and the Holding Company Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After som ...
(with Janis Joplin), and Jefferson Airplane lived in the Haight. In June 1967, Herb Caen was approached by "a distinguished magazine" to write about why hippies were attracted to San Francisco. He declined the assignment but interviewed hippies in the Haight for his own newspaper column in the ''San Francisco Chronicle''. Caen determined that, "Except in their music, they couldn't care less about the approval of the straight world." Caen himself felt that the city of San Francisco was so straight that it provided a visible contrast with hippie culture.SFGate.com. Archive. Herb Caen, June 25, 1967
''Small thoughts at large''
Retrieved on June 4, 2009.
On July 7, ''Time (magazine), Time'' magazine featured a cover story entitled, "The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture." The article described the guidelines of the hippie code: "Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun.". It is estimated that around 100,000 people traveled to San Francisco in the summer of 1967. The media was right behind them, casting a spotlight on the Haight-Ashbury district and popularizing the "hippie" label. With this increased attention, hippies found support for their ideals of love and peace but were also criticized for their anti-work, pro-drug, and permissive ethos. At this point,
The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
had released their groundbreaking album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' which was quickly embraced by the hippie movement with its colorful psychedelic sonic imagery. In 1967
Chet Helms Chester Leo "Chet" Helms (August 2, 1942 – June 25, 2005), often called the father of San Francisco's 1967 " Summer of Love," was a music promoter and a counterculture figure in San Francisco during its hippie period in the mid- to-late 196 ...
brought the Haight Ashbury hippie and psychedelic scene to Denver, when he opened the The Family Dog Denver, Family Dog Denver, modeled on his
Avalon Ballroom The Avalon Ballroom was a music venue in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, at 1244 Sutter Street (or 1268 Sutter, depending on the entrance). The space is known as the location of many concerts of the counterculture move ...
in San Francisco. The music venue created a nexus for the hippie movement in the western-minded Denver, which led to serious conflicts with city leaders, parents and the police, who saw the hippie movement as dangerous. The resulting legal actions and pressure caused Helms and Bob Cohen to close the venue at the end of that year. By the end of the summer, the Haight-Ashbury scene had deteriorated. The incessant media coverage led the Diggers to declare the "death" of the hippie with a parade. According to poet Susan 'Stormi' Chambless, the hippies buried an effigy of a hippie in the Panhandle (San Francisco), Panhandle to demonstrate the end of his/her reign. Haight-Ashbury could not accommodate the influx of crowds (mostly naive youngsters) with no place to live. Many took to living on the street, panhandling and drug-dealing. There were problems with malnourishment, disease, and drug addiction. Crime and violence skyrocketed. None of these trends reflected what the hippies had envisioned. By the end of 1967, many of the hippies and musicians who initiated the Summer of Love had moved on. Beatle George Harrison had once visited Haight-Ashbury and found it to be just a haven for dropouts, inspiring him to give up LSD. Misgivings about the hippie culture, particularly with regard to substance use and lenient morality, fueled the moral panics of the late 1960s.


1967–1969: Revolution and peak of influence

By 1968, hippie-influenced fashions were beginning to take off in the mainstream, especially for youths and younger adults of the populous baby boomer generation, many of whom may have aspired to emulate the hardcore movements now living in tribalistic communes, but had no overt connections to them. This was noticed not only in terms of clothes and also longer hair for men, but also in music, film, art, and literature, and not just in the US, but around the world. Eugene McCarthy's brief presidential campaign successfully persuaded a significant minority of young adults to "get clean for Gene" by shaving their beards or wearing longer skirts; however the "Clean Genes" had little impact on the popular image in the media spotlight, of the hirsute hippy adorned in beads, feathers, flowers and bells. A sign of this was the visibility that the hippie subculture gained in various mainstream and underground media. Hippie exploitation films are 1960s exploitation films about the hippie counterculture with stereotypical situations associated with the movement such as
cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: '' Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...
and
LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
use, sex and wild psychedelic parties. Examples include ''The Love-ins'', ''Psych-Out'', ''The Trip (1967 film), The Trip'', and ''Wild in the Streets''. Other more serious and more critically acclaimed films about the hippie counterculture also appeared such as ''Easy Rider'' and ''Alice's Restaurant (film), Alice's Restaurant''. (See also: List of films related to the hippie subculture.) Documentaries and television programs have also been produced until today as well as List of books and publications related to the hippie subculture, fiction and nonfiction books. The popular Broadway musical ''Hair (musical), Hair'' was presented in 1967. People commonly label other cultural movements of that period as hippie, however there are differences. For example, hippies were often not directly engaged in politics, as contrasted with "Yippies" (Youth International Party), an activist organization. The Yippies came to national attention during their celebration of the 1968 spring equinox, when some 3,000 of them took over Grand Central Terminal in New York—eventually resulting in 61 arrests. The Yippies, especially their leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, became notorious for their theatrics, such as trying to levitate the Pentagon at the October 1967 war protest, and such slogans as "Rise up and abandon the creeping meatball!" Their stated intention to protest the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, including nominating their own candidate, "Pigasus (politics), Lyndon Pigasus Pig" (an actual pig), was also widely publicized in the media at this time. In Cambridge, hippies congregated each Sunday for a large "be-in" at Cambridge Common with swarms of drummers and those beginning the Women's Movement. In the US the Hippie movement started to be seen as part of the " New Left" which was associated with anti-war college campus protest movements. The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to social activism, activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms on issues such as gay rights, abortion, gender roles and drugsCarmines, Edward G., and Geoffrey C. Layman. 1997. "Issue Evolution in Postwar American Politics". In Byron Shafer, ed., ''Present Discontents''. NJ: Chatham House Publishers. in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist approach to social justice and focused mostly on labor movement, labor unionization and questions of social class. In April 1969, the building of People's Park (Berkeley), People's Park in Berkeley, California received international attention. The University of California, Berkeley had demolished all the buildings on a parcel near campus, intending to use the land to build playing fields and a parking lot. After a long delay, during which the site became a dangerous eyesore, thousands of ordinary Berkeley citizens, merchants, students, and hippies took matters into their own hands, planting trees, shrubs, flowers and grass to convert the land into a park. A major confrontation ensued on May 15, 1969, when Governor Ronald Reagan ordered the park destroyed, which led to a two-week occupation of the city of Berkeley by the California National Guard. Flower power came into its own during this occupation as hippies engaged in acts of civil disobedience to plant flowers in empty lots all over Berkeley under the slogan "Let a Thousand Parks Bloom". In August 1969, the Woodstock Festival, Woodstock Music and Art Fair took place in Bethel, New York, Bethel, New York, which for many, exemplified the best of hippie counterculture. Over 500,000 people arrived to hear some of the most notable musicians and bands of the era, among them Canned Heat, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Carlos Santana, Sly & The Family Stone, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Jimi Hendrix. Wavy Gravy's Hog Farm provided security and attended to practical needs, and the hippie ideals of love and human fellowship seemed to have gained real-world expression. Similar rock festivals occurred in other parts of the country, which played a significant role in spreading hippie ideals throughout America. In December 1969, a rock festival took place in Altamont, California, Altamont, California, about 45 km (30 miles ) east of San Francisco. Initially billed as "Woodstock West", its official name was Altamont Music Festival, The Altamont Free Concert. About 300,000 people gathered to hear The Rolling Stones; Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Jefferson Airplane and other bands. The Hells Angels provided security that proved far less benevolent than the security provided at the Woodstock event: 18-year-old Meredith Curly Hunter, Jr., Meredith Hunter was stabbed and killed by one of the Hells Angels during The Rolling Stones' performance after he brandished a gun and waved it toward the stage.


1969–present: Aftershocks, absorption into the mainstream, and new developments

By the 1970s, the 1960s zeitgeist that had spawned hippie culture seemed to be on the wane.. The events at Altamont Free Concert shocked many Americans, including those who had strongly identified with hippie culture. Another shock came in the form of the Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca murders committed in August 1969 by Charles Manson and his "family" of followers. Nevertheless, the turbulent political atmosphere that featured the bombing of Cambodia and shootings by National Guard of the United States, National Guardsmen at Jackson State killings, Jackson State University and Kent State shootings, Kent State University still brought people together. These shootings inspired the May 1970 song by
Quicksilver Messenger Service Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. The band achieved wide popularity in the San Francisco Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe, ...
"What About Me?", where they sang, "You keep adding to my numbers as you shoot my people down", as well as Neil Young's "Ohio (CSNY song), Ohio", a song that protested the Kent State shootings, Kent State massacre, recorded by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Much of hippie style had been integrated into mainstream American society by the early 1970s.. Large rock concerts that originated with the 1967 KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival and Monterey Pop Festival and the British Isle of Wight Festival in 1968 became the norm, evolving into Arena rock, stadium rock in the process. The anti-war movement reached its peak at the 1971 May Day Protests as over 12,000 protesters were arrested in Washington, D.C.; President Nixon himself actually ventured out of the White House and chatted with a group of the hippie protesters. The draft was ended soon thereafter, in January 1973. During the mid-late 1970s, with the Fall of Saigon, end of the draft and the Vietnam War, a renewal of patriotism, patriotic sentiment associated with the approach of the United States Bicentennial, the decline in popularity of psychedelic rock, and the emergence of new genres such as prog rock, Heavy metal music, heavy metal, disco, and punk rock, the mainstream media lost interest in the hippie counterculture. At the same time there was Mod revival, a revival of the Mod subculture, skinheads, Teddy Boy, teddy boys and the emergence of new youth cultures, like the punk movement, punks, goth subculture, goths (an arty offshoot of punk), and football casuals; starting in the late 1960s in Britain, hippies had begun to come under attack by skinheads. Many hippies would adapt and become members of the growing countercultural New Age movement of the 1970s. While many hippies made a long-term commitment to the lifestyle, some people argue that hippies "sold out" during the 1980s and became part of the materialist, self-centered consumer
yuppie Yuppie, short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional", is a term coined in the early 1980s for a young professional person working in a city. The term is first attested in 1980, when it was used as a fairly neu ...
culture... Although not as visible as it once was, hippie culture has never died out completely: hippies and neo-hippies can still be found on college campuses, on communes, and at gatherings and festivals. Many embrace the hippie values of peace, love, and community, and hippies may still be found in Bohemianism, bohemian enclaves around the world. Hippie communes, where members tried to live the ideals of the hippie movement, continued to flourish. On the west coast, Oregon had quite a few. Around 1994, a new term "Zippie" was being used to describe hippies that had embraced New Age beliefs, new technology, and a love for electronic music.


Ethos and characteristics

The bohemian predecessor of the hippie culture in San Francisco was the " Beat Generation" style of coffee houses and bars, whose clientele appreciated literature, a game of chess, music (in the forms of jazz and folk style), modern dance, and traditional crafts and arts like pottery and painting." The entire tone of the ''new'' subculture was different. Jon McIntire, manager of the Grateful Dead from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, points out that the great contribution of the hippie culture was this projection of joy. "The beatnik thing was black, cynical, and cold." Hippies sought to free themselves from societal restrictions, choose their own way, and find new meaning of life, meaning in life. One expression of hippie independence from societal norms was found in their standard of dress and grooming, which made hippies instantly recognizable to one another, and served as a visual symbol of their respect for individual rights. Through their appearance, hippies declared their willingness to question authority, and distanced themselves from the "straight" and "square (slang), square" (i.e., conformist) segments of society.. Personality traits and values that hippies tend to be associated with are "altruism and mysticism, honesty, joy and nonviolence". At the same time, many thoughtful hippies distanced themselves from the very idea that the way a person dresses could be a reliable signal of who he or she was—especially after outright criminals such as Charles Manson began to adopt superficial hippie characteristics, and also after plainclothes policemen started to "dress like hippies" to divide and rule, divide and conquer legitimate members of the counterculture. Frank Zappa, known for lampooning hippie ethos, particularly with songs like "Who Needs the Peace Corps?" (1968), admonished his audience that "we all wear a uniform". The San Francisco clown/hippie Wavy Gravy said in 1987 that he could still see fellow-feeling in the eyes of Market Street (San Francisco), Market Street businessmen who had dressed conventionally to survive.


Art and fashion

Leading proponents of the 1960s Psychedelic Art movement were San Francisco poster artists such as: Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Bonnie MacLean, Stanley Mouse &
Alton Kelley Alton Kelley (June 17, 1940 – June 1, 2008) was an American artist known for his psychedelic art, in particular his designs for 1960s rock concert posters and album covers. Along with artists Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso ...
, and Wes Wilson. Their Psychedelic Rock concert posters were inspired by Art Nouveau, Victoriana, Dada, and Pop Art. Posters for concerts in the Fillmore West, a concert auditorium in San Francisco, popular with Hippie audiences, were among the most notable of the time. Richly saturated colors in glaring contrast, elaborately ornate lettering, strongly symmetrical composition, collage elements, rubber-like distortions, and bizarre iconography are all hallmarks of the San Francisco psychedelic poster art style. The style flourished from roughly the years 1966 until 1972. Their work was immediately influential to album cover art, and indeed all of the aforementioned artists also created album covers. Psychedelic light-shows were a new art-form developed for rock concerts. Using oil and dye in an emulsion that was set between large convex lenses upon overhead projectors, the lightshow artists created bubbling liquid visuals that pulsed in rhythm to the music. This was mixed with slide shows and film loops to create an improvisational motion picture art form, and to give visual representation to the improvisational jams of the rock bands and create a completely "trippy" atmosphere for the audience. The Brotherhood of Light were responsible for many of the light-shows in San Francisco psychedelic rock concerts. Out of the psychedelic counterculture there also arose a new genre of comic books: underground comix. ''Zap Comix'' was among the original underground comics, and featured the work of Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, and Robert Williams (artist), Robert Williams among others. Underground comix were ribald, intensely satirical, and seemed to pursue weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Gilbert Shelton created perhaps the most enduring of underground cartoon characters, ''The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers'', whose drugged-out exploits held a mirror up to the hippie lifestyle of the 1960s. As in the beat movement preceding them, and the punk movement that followed soon after, hippie symbols and iconography were purposely borrowed from either "low" or "primitive" cultures, with hippie fashion reflecting a disorderly, often Vagrancy (people), vagrant style.. As with other adolescent, whitebread middle-class movements, deviance (sociology), deviant behavior of the hippies involved challenging the prevailing gender differences of their time: both men and women in the hippie movement wore jeans and maintained long hair,. and both genders wore sandals, moccasins or went barefoot. Men often wore beards, while women wore little or no makeup, with many going braless. Hippies often chose brightly colored clothing and wore unusual Styles of clothing, styles, such as Bell-bottoms, bell-bottom pants, vests, tie-dyed garments, dashikis, peasant blouses, and long, full skirts; non-Western inspired clothing with Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native American, Latin American, African and Asiatic motifs were also popular. Much hippie clothing was self-made in defiance of corporate culture, and hippies often purchased their clothes from flea markets and second-hand shops. Favored accessories for both men and women included Native American jewelry, head scarves, headbands and Love beads, long beaded necklaces. Hippie homes, vehicles and other possessions were often decorated with psychedelic art. The bold colors, hand-made clothing and loose fitting clothes opposed the tight and uniform clothing of the 1940s and 1950s. It also rejected consumerism in that the hand-production of clothing called for self-efficiency and individuality.


Love and sex

The common stereotype on the issues of love and sex had it that the hippies were "promiscuous, having wild sex orgies, seducing innocent teenagers and every manner of sexual perversion." The hippie movement appeared concurrently in the midst of a rising sexual revolution, in which many views of the ''status quo'' on this subject were being challenged. The clinical study ''Human Sexual Response (book), Human Sexual Response'' was published by Masters and Johnson in 1966, and the topic suddenly became more commonplace in America. The 1969 book ''Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (book), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)'' by psychiatrist David Reuben (sex author), David Reuben was a more popular attempt at answering the public's curiosity regarding such matters. Then in 1972 appeared ''The Joy of Sex'' by Alex Comfort, reflecting an even more candid perception of love-making. By this time, the recreational or 'fun' aspects of sexual behavior were being discussed more openly than ever before, and this more 'enlightened' outlook resulted not just from the publication of such new books as these, but from a more pervasive sexual revolution that had already been well underway for some time. The hippies inherited various countercultural views and practices regarding sex and love from the Beat Generation; "their writings influenced the hippies to open up when it came to sex, and to experiment without guilt or jealousy.", "Again the Beat generation must be credited with living and writing about sexual freedom. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and others lived unusually free, sexually expressive lives." One popular hippie slogan that appeared was "If it feels good, do it!" which for many meant "you are free to love whomever you please, whenever you please, however you please". This encouraged spontaneous sexual activity and experimentation. Group sex, public sex, homosexuality; under the influence of drugs, all the taboos went out the window. This doesn't mean that straight sex or monogamy were unknown, quite the contrary. Nevertheless, the open relationship became an accepted part of the hippie lifestyle. This meant that you might have a primary relationship with one person, but if another attracted you, you could explore that relationship without rancor or jealousy." Hippies embraced the old slogan of free love of the radical social reformers of other eras; it was accordingly observed that "Free love made the whole love, marriage, sex, baby package obsolete. Love was no longer limited to one person, you could love anyone you chose. In fact love was something you shared with everyone, not just your sex partners. Love exists to be shared freely. We also discovered the more you share, the more you get! So why reserve your love for a select few? This profound truth was one of the great hippie revelations." Sexual experimentation alongside psychedelics also occurred, due to the perception of their being uninhibitors., "But the biggest release of inhibitions came about through the use of drugs, particularly marijuana and the psychedelics. Marijuana is one of the best aphrodisiacs known to man. It enhances the senses, unlike alcohol, which dulls them. As any hippie can tell you, sex is a great high, but sex on pot is fuckin' far out![...] More importantly, the use of psychedelic drugs, especially LSD was directly responsible for liberating hippies from their sexual hang-ups. The LSD trip is an intimate soul wrenching experience that shatters the ego's defenses, leaving the tripper in a very poignant and sensitive state. At this point, a sexual encounter is quite possible if conditions are right. After an LSD trip, one is much more likely to explore one's own sexual nature without inhibitions." Others explored Religion and sexuality, the spiritual aspects of sex., "Many hippies on the spiritual path found enlightenment through sex. The ''Kama Sutra'', the Tantric sexual manual from ancient India is a way to cosmic union through sex. Some gurus like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) formed cults that focused on liberation through the release of sexual inhibitions"


Travel

Hippies tended to travel light, and could pick up and go wherever the action was at any time. Whether at a "love-in" on Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco, a demonstration against the Vietnam War in Berkeley, or one of
Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...
's "Acid Tests", if the "vibe" was not right and a change of scene was desired, hippies were mobile at a moment's notice. Planning was eschewed, as hippies were happy to put a few clothes in a backpack, stick out their thumbs and hitchhike anywhere. Hippies seldom worried whether they had money, hotel reservations or any of the other standard accoutrements of travel. Hippie households welcomed overnight guests on an ''impromptu'' basis, and the reciprocal nature of the lifestyle permitted greater freedom of movement. People generally cooperated to meet each other's needs in ways that became less common after the early 1970s. This way of life is still seen among Rainbow Family groups, new age travellers and New Zealand's
housetrucker Housetruckers are individuals, families and groups who convert old trucks and school buses into portable homes called housetrucks and live in them, preferring an unattached and transient lifestyle to more conventional housing. These vehicles beg ...
s. A derivative of this free-flow style of travel were the hippie trucks and buses, hand-crafted mobile houses built on a truck or bus chassis to facilitate a nomadic lifestyle, as documented in the 1974 book ''Roll Your Own''. Some of these mobile houses were quite elaborate, with beds, toilets, showers and cooking facilities. On the West Coast, a unique lifestyle developed around the Renaissance Faires that Phyllis and Ron Patterson first organized in 1963. During the summer and fall months, entire families traveled together in their trucks and buses, parked at Renaissance Pleasure Faire sites in Southern and Northern California, worked their crafts during the week, and donned Elizabethan costume for weekend performances, and attended booths where handmade goods were sold to the public. The sheer number of young people living at the time made for unprecedented travel opportunities to special happenings. The peak experience of this type was the Woodstock Festival near Bethel, New York, Bethel, New York, from August 15 to 18, 1969, which drew between 400,000 and 500,000 people.


Hippie trail

One travel experience, undertaken by hundreds of thousands of hippies between 1969 and 1971, was the Hippie trail overland route to India. Carrying little or no luggage, and with small amounts of cash, almost all followed the same route, hitch-hiking across Europe to Athens and on to Istanbul, then by train through central Turkey via Erzurum, continuing by bus into Iran, via Tabriz and Tehran to Mashhad, across the Afghan border into Herat, through southern Afghanistan via Kandahar to Kabul, over the Khyber Pass into Pakistan, via Rawalpindi and Lahore to the Indian frontier. Once in India, hippies went to many different destinations, but gathered in large numbers on the beaches of Goa and Kovalam in Trivandrum (Kerala), or crossed the border into Nepal to spend months in Kathmandu. In Kathmandu, most of the hippies hung out in the tranquil surroundings of a place called Freak Street, (Nepal Bhasa: Jhoo Chhen) which still exists near Kathmandu Durbar Square.


Spirituality and religion

Many hippies rejected mainstream organized religion in favor of a more personal spiritual experience. Buddhism and Hinduism often resonated with hippies, as they were seen as less rule-bound, and less likely to be associated with existing baggage. Some hippies embraced neo-paganism, especially Wicca. Others were involved with the occult, with people like Timothy Leary citing Aleister Crowley as influences. By the 1960s, western interest in Hindu spirituality and
yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...
reached its peak, giving rise to a great number of Hindu revivalism, Neo-Hindu schools specifically advocated to a western public. In his 1991 book, "Hippies and American Values", Timothy Miller described the hippie ethos as essentially a "religious movement" whose goal was to transcend the limitations of mainstream religious institutions. "Like many dissenting religions, the hippies were enormously hostile to the religious institutions of the dominant culture, and they tried to find new and adequate ways to do the tasks the dominant religions failed to perform." In his seminal, contemporaneous work, "The Hippie Trip", author Lewis Yablonsky notes that those who were most respected in hippie settings were the spiritual leaders, the so-called "high priests" who emerged during that era. One such hippie "high priest" was San Francisco State University Professor Stephen Gaskin. Beginning in 1966, Gaskin's "Monday Night Class" eventually outgrew the lecture hall, and attracted 1,500 hippie followers in an open discussion of spiritual values, drawing from Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu teachings. In 1970 Gaskin founded a Tennessee community called The Farm (Tennessee), The Farm, and even late in life he still listed his religion as "Hippie." Timothy Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. On September 19, 1966, Leary founded the League for Spiritual Discovery, a religion declaring LSD as its holy sacrament, in part as an unsuccessful attempt to maintain legal status for the use of LSD and other psychedelics for the religion's adherents based on a "freedom of religion" argument. ''The Psychedelic Experience'' was the inspiration for John Lennon's song "Tomorrow Never Knows" in
The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
' album ''Revolver (The Beatles album), Revolver''. Leary published a pamphlet in 1967 called ''Start Your Own Religion'' to encourage just that and was invited to attend the January 14, 1967
Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture a ...
a gathering of 20,000 to 30,000 hippies in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park In speaking to the group, he coined the famous phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out". The English magician Aleister Crowley became an influential icon to the new alternative spiritual movements of the decade as well as for rock musicians.
The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...
included him as one of List of images on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the many figures on the cover sleeve of their 1967 album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' while Jimmy Page, the guitarist of The Yardbirds and co-founder of 1970s rock band Led Zeppelin was fascinated by Crowley, and owned some of his clothing, manuscripts and ritual objects, and during the 1970s bought Boleskine House, which also appears in the band's movie ''The Song Remains the Same (film), The Song Remains the Same''. On the back cover of the Doors compilation album ''13 (The Doors album), 13'', Jim Morrison and the other members of the Doors are shown posing with a bust of Aleister Crowley. Timothy Leary also openly acknowledged Crowley's inspiration. After the hippie era, the Dudeist philosophy and lifestyle developed. Inspired by "The Dude", the neo-hippie protagonist of the Coen Brothers' 1998 film ''The Big Lebowski'', Dudeism's stated primary objective is to promote a modern form of Chinese Taoism, outlined in ''Tao Te Ching'' by Laozi (6th century BC), blended with concepts by the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC), and presented in a style as personified by the character of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, a fictional hippie character portrayed by Jeff Bridges in the film. Dudeism has sometimes been regarded as a mock religion, though its founder and many adherents regard it seriously.


Politics

For the historian of the anarchist movement Ronald Creagh, the hippie movement could be considered as the last spectacular resurgence of utopian socialism. For Creagh, a characteristic of this is the desire for the transformation of society not through political revolution, or through reformist action pushed forward by the state, but through the creation of a counter-society of a Libertarian socialism, socialist character in the midst of the current system, which will be made up of ideal communities of a more or less Libertarianism, libertarian social form. The Peace symbols, peace symbol was developed in the UK as a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and was embraced by U.S. anti-war protesters during the 1960s. Hippies were often pacifism, pacifists, and participated in non-violent political demonstrations, such as
Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
, the protest, marches on Washington D.C., and Opposition to the Vietnam War, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, including draft-card burnings and the 1968 Democratic National Convention protest activity, 1968 Democratic National Convention protests. The degree of political involvement varied widely among hippies, from those who were active in peace demonstrations, to the more anti-authority street theater and demonstrations of the Youth International Party, Yippies, the most politically active hippie sub-group. Bobby Seale discussed the differences between Yippies and hippies with Jerry Rubin, who told him that Yippies were the political wing of the hippie movement, as hippies have not "necessarily become political yet". Regarding the political activity of hippies, Rubin said, "They mostly prefer to be stoned, but most of them want peace, and they want an end to this stuff.". In addition to non-violent political demonstrations, hippie opposition to the Vietnam War included organizing political action groups to oppose the war, refusal to serve in the military and conducting "teach-ins" on college campuses that covered Vietnamese history and the larger political context of the war. Scott McKenzie's 1967 rendition of John Phillips' song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)", which helped to inspire the hippie Summer of Love, became a homecoming song for all Vietnam veterans arriving in San Francisco from 1967 onward. McKenzie has dedicated every American performance of "San Francisco" to Vietnam veterans, and he sang in 2002 at the 20th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Hippie political expression often took the form of "dropping out" of society to implement the changes they sought. Politically motivated movements aided by hippies include the back to the land movement of the 1960s, cooperative, cooperative business enterprises, alternative energy, the Freedom of the press, free press movement, and organic farming.. The San Francisco group known as the Diggers articulated an influential radical criticism of contemporary mass consumer society, and so they opened
free stores Give-away shops, freeshops, free stores or swap shops are stores where all goods are free. They are similar to charity shops, with mostly second-hand items—only everything is available at no cost. Whether it is a book, a piece of furniture, a ...
which simply gave away their stock, provided free food, distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized free music concerts, and performed works of political art. The Diggers took their name from the original Diggers, English Diggers (1649–50) led by Gerrard Winstanley, and they sought to create a mini-society Criticism of capitalism, free of money and capitalism. Such activism was ideally carried through anti-authoritarian and non-violent means; thus it was observed that "The way of the hippie is antithetical to all repressive hierarchical power structures since they are adverse to the hippie goals of peace, love and freedom... Hippies don't impose their beliefs on others. Instead, hippies seek to change the world through reason and by living what they believe." The political ideals of hippies influenced other movements, such as anarcho-punk, rave culture, green politics, stoner culture and the New Age movement. Arguments can be made that being "woke" is only the latest natural offshoot of hipness, since both seek heightened "awareness" of one's surroundings (social, political, sexual etc). For example, John Leland elaborates on the origins of coded language from African American slaves as a type of aware hipness and documents connections to downtrodden Jews and other minorities in American society in Hip: The History. Penny Rimbaud of the English anarcho-punk band Crass said in interviews, and in an essay called ''The Last Of The Hippies'', that Crass was formed in memory of his friend, Wally Hope. Crass had its roots in Dial House, Essex, Dial House, which was established in 1967 as a commune. Some punk subculture, punks were often critical of Crass for their involvement in the hippie movement. Like Crass, Jello Biafra was influenced by the hippie movement, and cited the yippies as a key influence on his political activism and thinking, though he also wrote songs critical of hippies.


Drugs

Following in the footsteps of the Beats, many hippies used Cannabis (drug), cannabis (marijuana), considering it pleasurable and benign. They used drugs such as marijuana,
LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
, magic mushrooms, and mescaline ( peyote) to gain spiritual awakening. On the East Coast of the United States, Harvard University professors Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Ram Dass, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) advocated psychotropic drugs for psychotherapy, self-exploration, Religion and drugs, religious and Entheogen, spiritual use. Regarding LSD, Leary said, "Expand your consciousness and find ecstasy and revelation within.". On the West Coast of the United States,
Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...
was an important figure in promoting the recreational use of psychotropic drugs, especially LSD, also known as "acid." By holding what he called "Acid Tests", and touring the country with his band of
Merry Pranksters The Merry Pranksters were comrades and followers of American author Ken Kesey in 1964. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally at Kesey's homes in California and Oregon, and are noted for the sociological significance of a lengthy roa ...
, Kesey became a magnet for media attention that drew many young people to the fledgling movement. The Grateful Dead (originally billed as "The Warlocks") played some of their first shows at the Acid Tests, often as high on LSD as their audiences. Kesey and the Pranksters had a "vision of turning on the world." Harder drugs, such as cocaine, amphetamines and heroin, were also sometimes used in hippie settings; however, these drugs were often disdained, even among those who used them, because they were recognized as harmful and addictive.


Legacy


Culture

The legacy of the hippie movement continues to permeate Western society. In general, unmarried couples of all ages feel free to travel and live together without societal disapproval. Frankness regarding sexual matters has become more common, and the rights of Homosexuality, homosexual, bisexual and transgender people, as well as people who choose not to categorize themselves at all, have expanded. Religious and cultural diversity has gained greater acceptance. Co-operative business enterprises and creative community living arrangements are more accepted than before. Some of the little hippie health food stores of the 1960s and 1970s are now large-scale, profitable businesses, due to greater interest in natural foods, herbal remedies, vitamins and other nutritional supplements. It has been suggested that 1960s and 1970s counterculture embraced certain types of "groovy" science and technology. Examples include surfboard design, renewable energy, aquaculture and client-centered approaches to midwifery, childbirth, and women's health. Authors Stewart Brand and John Markoff argue that the development and popularization of personal computers and the Internet find one of their primary roots in the anti-authoritarian ethos promoted by hippie culture. Distinct appearance and clothing was one of the immediate legacies of hippies worldwide.Pendergast, Sara. (2004) ''Fashion, Costume, and Culture''. Volume 5. Modern World Part II: 1946-2003. Thomson Gale. Connikie, Yvonne. (1990). ''Fashions of a Decade: The 1960s''. Facts on File. During the 1960s and 1970s, mustaches, beards and long hair became more commonplace and colorful, while multi-ethnic clothing dominated the fashion world. Since that time, a wide range of personal appearance options and clothing styles, including nudity, have become more widely acceptable, all of which was uncommon before the hippie era.Pendergast, Sara. (2004) ''Fashion, Costume, and Culture''. Volume 5. Modern World Part II: 1946–2003. Thomson Gale. Hippies also inspired the decline in popularity of the necktie and other ''business'' clothing, which had been unavoidable for men during the 1950s and early 1960s. Additionally, hippie fashion itself has been commonplace in the years since the 1960s in clothing and accessories, particularly the peace symbol. Astrology, including everything from serious study to whimsical amusement regarding personal traits, was integral to hippie culture. The generation of the 1970s became influenced by the hippie and the 1960s countercultural legacy. As such in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
musicians and audiences from the female, homosexual, Black, and Latino communities adopted several traits from the hippies and psychedelia. They included overpowering sound, free-form dancing, multi-colored, pulsating lighting, colorful costumes, and hallucinogens.Disco Double Take: New York Parties Like It's 1975
Village Voice.com. ''Retrieved on August 9, 2009''.
(1998) "The Cambridge History of American Music", , , p.372: "Initially, disco musicians and audiences alike belonged to marginalized communities: women, gay, black, and Latinos"(2002) "Traces of the Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music", , , p.117: "New York City was the primary center of disco, and the original audience was primarily gay African Americans and Latinos." 1960s Psychedelic soul groups like the Chambers Brothers and especially Sly and The Family Stone influenced George Clinton, P-funk and the Temptations. In addition, the perceived positivity, lack of irony, and earnestness of the hippies informed proto-disco music like M.F.S.B.'s album ''Love Is the Message (MFSB album), Love Is the Message''. Disco music supported 70s LGBT movement. The hippie legacy in literature includes the lasting popularity of books reflecting the hippie experience, such as ''
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test ''The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'' is a 1968 nonfiction book by Tom Wolfe. The book is a popular example of the New Journalism literary style. Wolfe presents a firsthand account of the experiences of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, ...
''.


Music

In music, the folk rock and psychedelic rock popular among hippies evolved into genres such as acid rock, World music, world beat and heavy metal music. Psychedelic trance (also known as psytrance) is a type of electronic music influenced by 1960s psychedelic rock. The tradition of hippie music festivals began in the United States in 1965 with Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, where the Grateful Dead played tripping on
LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
and initiated psychedelic jamming. For the next several decades, many hippies and neo-hippies became part of the Deadhead community, attending music and art festivals held around the country. The Grateful Dead toured continuously, with few interruptions between 1965 and 1995. Phish and their fans (called ''Phish Heads'') operated in the same manner, with the band touring continuously between 1983 and 2004. Many contemporary bands performing at hippie festivals and their derivatives are called jam bands, since they play songs that contain long instrumentals similar to the original hippie bands of the 1960s. With the demise of Grateful Dead and Phish, nomadic touring hippies attend a growing series of summer festivals, the largest of which is called the Bonnaroo Music Festival, Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, which premiered in 2002. The Oregon Country Fair is a three-day festival featuring handmade crafts, educational displays and costumed entertainment. The annual Starwood Festival, founded in 1981, is a seven-day event indicative of the spiritual quest of hippies through an exploration of non-mainstream religions and world-views, and has offered performances and classes by a variety of hippie and counter-culture icons. The Burning Man festival began in 1986 at a San Francisco beach party and is now held in the Black Rock Desert northeast of Reno, Nevada, Reno, Nevada. Although few participants would accept the ''hippie'' label, Burning Man is a contemporary expression of alternative community in the same spirit as early hippie events. The gathering becomes a temporary city (36,500 occupants in 2005, 50,000+ in 2011), with elaborate encampments, displays, and many art cars. Other events that enjoy a large attendance include the Rainbow Family Gatherings, The Gathering of the Vibes, Community Peace Festivals, and the Woodstock Festivals.


United Kingdom

In the UK, there are many new age travellers who are known as hippies to outsiders, but prefer to call themselves the Peace Convoy. They started the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1974, but English Heritage later banned the festival in 1985, resulting in the Battle of the Beanfield. With Stonehenge banned as a festival site, new age travellers gather at the annual Glastonbury Festival. Today, hippies in the UK can be found in parts of South West England, such as Bristol (particularly the neighborhoods of Montpelier, Bristol, Montpelier, Stokes Croft, St Werburghs, Bishopston, Bristol, Bishopston, Easton, Bristol, Easton and Totterdown), Glastonbury in Somerset, Totnes in Devon, and Stroud in Gloucestershire, as well as in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, and in areas of London and Cornwall. In the summer, many hippies and those of similar subcultures gather at numerous outdoor festivals in the countryside. In New Zealand, between 1976 and 1981, tens of thousands of hippies gathered from around the world on large farms around Waihi and Waikino for music and alternatives festivals. Named ''
Nambassa Nambassa was a series of hippie-conceived festivals held between 1976 and 1981 on large farms around Waihi and Waikino in New Zealand. They were music, arts and alternatives festivals that focused on peace, love, and an environmentally friendly ...
'', the festivals focused on peace, love, and a balanced lifestyle. The events featured practical workshops and displays advocating alternative lifestyles, self sufficiency, clean and sustainable energy and sustainable living. In the UK and Europe, the years 1987 until 1989 were marked by a large-scale revival of many characteristics of the hippie movement. This later movement, composed mostly of people aged 18 to 25, adopted much of the original hippie philosophy of love, peace and freedom. In the summer of 1988 became known as the Second Summer of Love. Although the music favored by this movement was modern electronic music, especially house music and acid house, one could often hear songs from the original hippie era in the ''chill out rooms'' at raves. Also, there was a trend towards psychedelic indie rock in the form of Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Madchester and Neo-psychedelia, neo-Psychedelic bands like Jesus And Mary Chain, The Sundays, Spacemen 3, Loop (band), Loop, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and Ride (band), Ride. This was effectively a parallel soundtrack to the rave scene that was rooted as much in 1960s psychedelic rock as it was in post-punk, though Madchester was more directly influenced by Acid House, funk and northern soul. Interestingly, many ravers were originally soul boys and football casuals, and football hooliganism declined after the Second Summer of Love. In the UK, many of the well-known figures of this movement first lived communally in Stroud Green, London, Stroud Green, an area of north London located in Finsbury Park. In 1995, The Sekhmet Hypothesis attempted to link both hippie and rave culture together in relation to transactional analysis, suggesting that rave culture was a social archetype based on the mood of friendly strength, compared to the gentle hippie archetype, based on friendly weakness. The later electronic dance genres known as goa trance and psychedelic trance and its related events and culture have important hippie legacies and neo hippie elements. The popular DJ of the genre Goa Gil, like other hippies from the 1960s, decided to leave the US and Western Europe to travel on the hippie trail and later developing psychedelic parties and music in the Indian island of Goa in which the goa and psytrance genres were born and exported around the world in the 1990s and 2000s.


Media

Popular films depicting the hippie ethos and lifestyle include ''Woodstock (film), Woodstock'', ''Easy Rider'', ''Hair (film), Hair'', ''The Doors (film), The Doors'', ''Across the Universe (film), Across the Universe'', ''Taking Woodstock'', and ''Crumb (film), Crumb''. In 2002, photojournalist John Bassett McCleary published a 650-page, 6,000-entry unabridged slang dictionary devoted to the language of the hippies titled ''The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the 1960s and 1970s''. The book was revised and expanded to 700 pages in 2004. McCleary believes that the hippie counterculture added a significant number of words to the English language by borrowing from the lexicon of the Beat Generation, through the hippies' shortening of beatnik words and then popularizing their usage. File:Ken Westerfield 1977.jpg, As a hippie, Ken Westerfield helped to popularize the alternative sport of Frisbee in the 1960s–70s, that has become today's Flying disc games, disc sports File:1981 People Pix.jpg, Hippies at the
Nambassa Nambassa was a series of hippie-conceived festivals held between 1976 and 1981 on large farms around Waihi and Waikino in New Zealand. They were music, arts and alternatives festivals that focused on peace, love, and an environmentally friendly ...
1981 Festival in New Zealand File:Goa Gil LHS.jpg, Goa Gil, original 1960s hippie who later became a pioneering electronic dance music DJ and party organizer, here appearing in the 2001 film ''Last Hippie Standing''


See also

* Afghan coat * Anti-globalization movement * Baby boomers * Beat generation, Beat Generation * Beatnik * Black Bear Ranch * Blue Movie * Cannabis culture * Communes, Communal living * Counterculture of the 1960s * Flower power * Food Not Bombs * Freak scene * Generation gap * Generation X * Love-in * Indomania * Jesus freak * Jesus movement * List of historic rock festivals * Mod (subculture) * Pacifism * Rastafari * Sexual revolution * Silent Generation * Simple living * Summer of Love * Vocal minority, Vocal Minority * Zippie


References


Works cited

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Further reading

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External links


''Summer of Love''
. A film part of Public Broadcasting Service, PBS´s ''American Experience'' series. Includes th
film available to watch online
and other information on the San Francisco event known as the Summer of Love as well as other material related to the hippie subculture.
''Hippie Society: The Youth Rebellion''
A Canadian program by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC public network on the hippie rebellion including videos to watch.
Origin''
. Seventies Origin History.
Sixtiespix
An archive with photographs of hippie culture.
Hippie Movies & TV Shows
1960s and early 1970s hippie and youth culture on film and TV.
Hippie Quotes
. Hippie Quotes from all times.
UKHippy
UK Based Hippy & New Age Traveller website; online since 2005 with historical links to the original UK hippy community. {{Authority control Hippie movement, 1960s fashion 1960s in music 1970s fashion 1970s in music Articles containing video clips California culture Cannabis culture Counterculture of the 1960s Free love advocates Lifestyles Sexual revolution Socioeconomic stereotypes Subcultures