Finding Pepperland

OK, big subject this. I’ll lay it on the table: I wish my late teens and early twenties had taken place in the late 60s and early 70s. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that cost of living was fairer, house prices much cheaper, wages higher, more opportunities for the working class and my favourite Doctor Who stories are from this time. The most important one, however, is the culture of this time, and the counterculture. I wish I’d been part of the Summer of Love. I wish I could have gone to the Glastonbury Free Festival, Isle of Wight Festival, Woodstock, lived in Notting Hill Gate or Haight-Ashbury, taken the trail to Kathmandu, and retired to a commune to finish my days. But I was born in the late 80s, when all that was crushed by money money money loads a’money! Even my mother was too young to have been part of that, while her parents had been too old.

 

 

But that being said, the hippies found me anyway. My mother moved in all kinds of circles – one month it’d be bikers, the next Goths, then coppers in the local police station bar, but she’d always circulate back to the type she felt most at home with: New Agers, older men and women who’d been hippies in the 60s. Thinking back, I think she was drawn to them because they were incredibly accepting of her, coupled with the fact she loved 60s music, the freedom of that time, the energy, and, dare I say, because she loved Absolutely Fabulous which featured some aging ‘counterculturalists’ and their reluctance to give up the 60s lifestyle. These experiences as a kid laid the groundwork for me (add the radical left wing indoctrination of the Pertwee era) to be drawn to these types of people as I entered adulthood. Consequently I fell into hippy circles myself, always by chance: neighbours, colleagues, friends of friends. The world comes alive in their company. There’s no pretence, no hiding yourself like there is with more conservative, ‘normal’ social groups. In the company of these people, you can talk about anything, be anything, become anyone you want. They seriously don’t care if you’re an autistic, illegitimate geek with a liking for 70s British science fiction – they like you for who you are. Spend an evening in their company, and they show you a better, more progressive, and more expansive existence, and they get you closer to who you are. My friends throughout the years, you know who you are, have made me a better person. They freed me from my own holdbacks. My friends who go to India on pilgrimages, to free music festivals with their campervans, who live in narrowboats, who keep bees and have thousands of books, who spend time in peace camps and rescue trees and tortoises! You have shaped me, and here’s how...

 

 

Ethos of the Hippies

According to Wikipedia, the values and characteristics of hippies, originating in the 60s, are broadly:

Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly

Freedom from societal restrictions, dogmas, capitalism and consumerism

Environmentalism and anti-industrialisation

Altruism, joy, peace, love and honesty

Inclusiveness and equality; civil rights for disenfranchised groups – feminism and Women’s Lib, black and ethnic rights, Gay Liberation

Free Love – love and sex unshackled from the oppression of religion, traditions, and conservative values; sex outside of marriage, children outside of marriage, mixed race relations, recreational sex, same sex relations etc.

Agrarian, socialist utopian communal living aspirations

Spiritual consciousness – meditation, yoga, Neo-paganism, Eastern philosophies etc.

Comfortable and practical clothes

Longer hair that symbolised freedom of appearance

Social activism

Anti-war, anti-nuclear and non-violence

Exploration of altered states of consciousness; psychedelia

Travel and broadening of experiences

 

Turn on

Tune in

Drop out

 

I share this ethos as default, it hurts to drift from it – I cannot bear conservatism, traditions, dogmas, homogeneities of opinion strictly enforced, I need absolute freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of ideas, freedom of mind, freedom of soul.

 

 

 

Psychedelia

One of the things I live for is psychedelia, as in psychedelic consciousness raising. I don’t mean just dropping some acid, I mean altered states of consciousness reached by any means, even just being exposed to a work of art or piece of music, meditations, yoga, whatever. The outcome is a change in your perception, and opening of the doors of the mind, transcending to a higher realisation, a distortion of reality, an alchemical mixing of given forms, and a temporary loss of self-identity.

Without it I’d be lost. Doctor Who is a psychedelic show, and I think it lit the fuse on this. It has a psychedelic title sequence and music, a psychedelic hero travelling in a psychedelic time machine. The show mixes genres, styles, tropes, imageries and norms, to achieve brand new vistas.

The counterculture really put this consciousness front and centre. In the WISE Isles, it was maybe less political than it was in the USA, but what the counterculture here lost in activism it gained in fantastical rabbit-hole exploring. Directly inspired by childhood and children’s literature, and intertwined with the rural nature of the Isles, the UK counterculture really was a return to the garden. Psychedelia brought us Sgt Pepper, early prog rock, Pink Floyd, and from the USA The Byrds, and Jefferson Airplane. It blasted open access to true human potential.

I can go to work, can pass off as acceptable, well-behaved, but I live for coming home, relaxing, meditating, listening to psychedelic music and embarking on transcendental experiences.

 

 

The New Age

Now when I was growing up, the ideals and aesthetics of New Age thinking permeated popular culture, and culture in general, everywhere you looked. It really felt like we were heading toward a post-historical golden age where all races, cultures and religions mix and blend into One People of a United Earth. Look at Star Trek: First Contact and the whole “we don’t work for money, we work for the betterment of humankind” stuff, or the remake of The Time Machine with the mixed-raced Eloi. Perhaps the biggest proponent of New Agey-ness-y is The Fifth Element, with its pluralist spirituality. How can I explain it to people who are now too young to have known this world? Differences were falling away, history was just that: history.

 

 

Fast-forward to 2022 and look what’s going in cyberspace. I remember when cyberspace was the New Age ideal, a jack-in paradise, a virtual reality ashram (remember Jenny ‘techno pagan’ Calendar anyone? Neo? Morpheus? Timothy Leary?). Now it’s a place of constant arguing and belittling. In this new cyberspace,  to be New Age is a black mark. The general gist is that New Agers are deluded, idiotic and self-absorbed, vile appropriators of indigenous cultural practices, anti-science, anti-reason, ableist, capitalistic, materialistic and blinded by consumerism, with all their beliefs predicated on theft, misunderstanding or, worse, originates in white supremacy and Nazi-ism. And that's not including what the fundamental Christians have to say about us.

But I’m trying not to be affected by those vibes. The world we are in, it’s just ‘of its time’, and like everything before it, and everything to come, it’s transient and impermanent. The internet once offered freedom, now it’s just Babylon’s amplifier. But that’s fine. None of that matters now. I have got myself to the point where I have simplified my internet use to the minimum, and when the time comes I’ll leave Twitter and say goodbye to social media for the final time.

 

 

What can I say to defend New Age beliefs? First, here’s three articles I think can do a better job of reflecting positively on the New Age Movement than I could, the first is about New Age Travellers, another from Medium and the last from the Patheos website. I’m maybe not quite as involved with the more far-out beliefs that many of my brothers and sisters have, but I am a fairly well-read young buck and approach all claims with a critical, Jungian mind. I recognise my spirituality’s tenet is that all faiths, all cultures past and present, all peoples, are different aspects of one unified human spiritual journey.

That’s the New Age – the current world is dying. A new one will emerge, and all differences will give way to togetherness and the pursuit of enlightenment, reason, wholeness and balance. The New Age embodies total equality, total diversity, a Rainbow of many colours emerging from one Light, to see in an age of learning, love, peace and harmony. That’s not dumb, or misguided. It’s... it’s... well, it’s Sesame Street with added mystic crystal revelations.

The spirituality I have inherited came from the 60s counterculture and it seeks unity and understanding.

To be New Age, is to be free and full of love for others. And if there are New Agers out there who refute autism, who are anti-vaxxers, anti-science woo merchants, then they need to rethink why they’re in this game at all.

 

 

Tomorrow’s People

I used to have long hair, I used to spend all my time with intellectual drop-outs, peace-loving pot smokers, artists, people who lived in shacks or vans or tents, people who went on protests, to the Solstice, went abruptly off-grid never to be seen again. Somewhere along the line, in my late twenties I cut my hair, started wearing more modest, acceptable clothing, got a steady job and began to behave in a filtered, censored version of myself. I never meant for that to happen, it’s just that I realise it now when I look back. Being exposed to the System massively neutralised me, took the light out of my eyes. Last year, I became seriously depressed, but synchronicity suddenly worked to my favour, and I changed my job to something better and more fulfilling, and made interventions to get my house in order. I began reaching out to the Self, reconnecting the threads, exploring the depths of my psyche. My wellbeing is increasing, I generally feel more confident, more relaxed (I’d got very anxious and uptight about everything), more aware, more focused, meaningful, fulfilled, loving to my family and friends and colleagues, open and understanding and tolerant – my bracelets are back on, my pendants are around my neck again and I am unapologetically left-wing, culturally liberal, no matter how much derision I receive. Now, at this age, I am mature enough to recognise the System for what it is: a pile of shit. Capitalist, freedom-sapping, hierarchical, feudal and oppressive.

 

 

 

 

The book that has had a most profound effect on me, and that has offered me the most enduring spark of inspiration to prepare me for the New Age, is Jeremy Sandford’s Tomorrow’s People, published in 1974, which captures recollections and reflections from people who attended various free festivals in Britain in the 60s and 70s, such as Phun City, Glastonbury Fayre, and the Isle of Wight Festival, alongside pages and pages of photography, both in B&W and colour, capturing moments from these festivals. The book’s an inspiring and profound snapshot of Britain’s counterculture movement and its particular strong relationship with the land. Of the many notes I have taken from this book, two really stand out for me: the first is someone talking about the way festivals attendees were camping in the nearby woods, as if it were a rehearsal for the breakdown of society through nuclear war. For me, this is the greatest gift a New Age, hippy outlook on life can give. Not only could it provide us the skills, knowledge and confidence to survive off-grid and without state resources, but it does so by bestowing you the peace of mind that others who have joined you in the creation of this new society will be united in a purpose of love and harmony. The other major note occurs at the end of the book, when someone is recounting how they arrived at a festival, a night looking out over all the lit tents and circles of happy people, contemplating his family’s rejection of him, and how he now felt happier and more free than at any other time in his life. This is something I can relate to. I escaped a very bad, bad home life with the help of my hippie friends, and relocated to another part of the country. Arriving in my new life, without anyone to answer to, no-one trying to control me, blackmailing me, threatening me, I felt true freedom for the first time. I can’t begin to explain the euphoria. No-one, and I mean no-one should have their freedom crushed by someone else. I swore that now I knew what true freedom was, I’d never allow it to be taken away. Even if my body is incarcerated, my soul will always be free.

The book over and over again comes to the assertion that freak culture requires absolute freedom, and that freedom comes in temporary zones around festival events, and those zones must be in rural locations. It asserts that all young people in Britain have a birthright to be out in the country, in tents, in yurts, tipis, treehouses, shelters, or just plain sleeping on the grass under the night sky. But what is this temporary utopia? It’s given as a testbed for a new society, but what does that consist of? Here are some notes and lessons I have picked up from this book, that I take into my heart, soul and practice:

 

To drop out, to be a hippy, to attend festivals and gatherings, is to confront the crisis the planet is heading toward and learn to live together and love together

 

That having this state of mind allows us to be united in action, positive, direct and firm

 

That those who throw themselves into this anarchist utopia are an elite, because they are truly free and truly capable – and that it’s not an exclusive club, everyone is invited. Everyone on Earth can be elite if they let themselves be

 

Communication in these places in on another level, mostly non-verbal

 

Bikers will find their way there too (like they did at the May Day Hastings Jack-in-the-Green procession). It seems there is an odd synchronicity between hippies and bikers

 

The night-time there is one of peace and energy, with the glow of fires and lamps (like the feeling in that old Orange advert about the New York blackouts, you know the one: ‘Svetlana sucks lemons across from me’)

 

There’s an extreme tolerance there and of sharing everything. The only thing that isn’t tolerated are people who are themselves intolerant

 

Police will be there, in plain clothes, infiltrating

 

There will be drums and drumbeats, the primal vibrations of humankind. There will also be guitars, recorders and ocarinas (I love ocarinas!)

 

The Glastonbury ethic is – caring for ourselves in conjunction with the environment, consciousness of our affect on the environment , and its effect on us: we are the earth, the earth is us

 

Glastonbury Fayre was what society could have become – beautiful... too beautiful that people couldn’t easily return to their normal lives

 

Glastonbury is a sacred place, impregnated with quintessence. It’s the very heart of Albion from which a new spirit, the Age of Aquarius, will emerge on the WISE Isles

 

Quote from page 105: ‘The idea of the fayre is to bring together as many people as possible that are involved in living alternative life-styles, in one place, to do their thing. To build an alternative campsite, as far as possible, that is ecologically sound, existing in harmony with the environment’, contacting organisations and charities to bring help and ideas-

1.To utilise natural sources of energy (e.g. windmills, water wheels, solar stills, methane gas from recycled sewage) [bear in mind this is 1974!]

2.To recycle waste products where practical (e.g. sewage paper, grease, glass, etc.)

3.To provide cheap alternative structures for shelter, living, working, etc. (e.g. domes, teepees and other tent forms, paper or card houses, earth structures)

4.To make whole food available in free food kitchens, and for personal preparation (e.g. organically grown vegetables, local market garden produce, bulk whole grains and flour, untreated local milk, scrumpy, and spring water)

With the following sorts of activities-

1.  Music – buskers, minstrels, flamencos, sitar, drummers etc.

2.  Theatre – natural theatre, mime, children’s pantomimes, Cornish folk theatre

3.  Morris dancing

4.  Children’s adventure playground, kites, pot-holing, swimming, walking, exploring

5.  Yoga and metaphysics

6.Environmental experiment, e.g. plant-human, animal-human relationships, monitoring plant and natural cycle reactions

7.    Communications – e.g. free discussion, site news-sheet, information centre [and I’d add – a library], free surplus exchange centres

[8.  And I’d also add – scientific endeavour, labs and scientific research]

At night-time – stage and entertainment, four performances a night, light shows, DJs, films, star-gazing, telescopes and star charting

 

Rent and landlords are a form of feudalism, from the time of William the Conqueror

 

Message from Ron Reid, the photographer –

‘To a million faces I wish to express my gratitude, for you have reflected an image of love and courage. Our fathers’ path has led them to the edge of extinction in a senseless race for material growth; you their children, free from the confines of a confused society, have found a new tranquillity, a togetherness that can be cradled in one everlasting word – ‘love’. The last hours of darkness are the longest and you are the light that creases the dawn of Aquarius.

 

Let Reid’s words be the rallying cry for every generation.