Haight Ashbury - Epicenter of The Summer of Love

"If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're going to meet some gentle people there"
- John Philips

Timothy Leary - The Man Behind the Counterculture

"Turn on, tune in, drop out."
- Timothy Leary

The Outlawing of LSD

"Although initial observations on the benefits of LSD were highly optimistic, empirical data developed subsequently proved less promising ... Its use in scientific research has been extensive and its use has been widespread. Although the study of LSD and other hallucinogens increased the awareness of how chemicals could affect the mind, its use in psychotherapy largely has been debunked. It produces no aphrodisiac effects, does not increase creativity, has no lasting positive effect in treating alcoholics or criminals, does not produce a 'model psychosis', and does not generate immediate personality change. However, drug studies have confirmed that the powerful hallucinogenic effects of this drug can produce profound adverse reactions, such as acute panic reactions, psychotic crises, and "flashbacks", especially in users ill-equipped to deal with such trauma."
- The Federal Drug Administration, 1965

The Counterculture Reacts - The Love Pageant - October 6, 1966

"SIXTH OF OCTOBER, 1966, Lunatic Protest Demonstration: a celebration to demonstrate opposition to legislative repression of chemical mysticism...

Six hundred to a thousand young souls (an educated guess) dancing with brave banners waving over their looney[sic] heads. Posters and placards in evidence. The one I loved best said: THE TRUELY INSANE ARE HELPLESS! I stood under that sign surrounded by the sanest people in San Francisco...

Young Beautifuls, young beggars and mummers, dancers and singers, laughing boys and girls -- soon to be outlawed -- that afternoon layed down their gentle message, loud and clear. LOVE.

For a few hours on October Sixth, they had their world their way."

-- The San Francisco Oracle, Vol. 1, Issue 2, p. 3

"Without confrontation, we wanted to create a celebration of innocence. We were not guilty of using illegal substances. We were celebrating transcendental consciousness. The beauty of the universe. The beauty of being."
- Allen Cohen, poet, founder of the San Francsico Oracle

Prelude to the Summer of Love - The Beginning of Haight Ashbury

"Haight Ashbury was a ghetto of bohemians who wanted to do anything - and we did but I don't think it has happened since. Yes there was LSD. But Haight Ashbury was not about drugs. It was about exploration, finding new ways of expression, being aware of one's existence."
- Bob Weir, guitarist for the Grateful Dead

The Human Be-In - January 21, 1967

"Well, it's a hell of a gathering. It's just being. Human being. Humans being. Being together. Yeah - it's a Human Be-In."
- Richard Alpert


"A union of love and activism previously separated by categorical dogma and label mongering will finally occur ecstatically when Berkeley political activists and hip community and San Francisco's spiritual generation and contingents from the emerging revolutionary generation all over California meet for a Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In. ...

Music will be played by all the Bay Area rock bands, including the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Co., Quicksilver Messenger Service, and many others. Everyone is invited to bring costumes, blankets, bells, flags, symbols, cymbals, drums, beads, feathers, flowers...

The Human Be-In is the joyful, face-to-face beginning of the new epoch."

-- The San Francisco Oracle, Vol. 1, Issue 5, p. 2

Council for the Summer of Love - April 5, 1967

"While America nightmares its military hells of the mind, Americans loving love and hoping peace and seeking wisdom and guidance have turned toward the Haight-Ashbury and are journeying here. Our best efforts have so far failed to gather civic support and material resources for the many thousand expected...

If you want to journey to San Francisco you should bring in addition to flowers and bananas:
1) Money for rents and food. 2) Sleeping bags and rucksacks (or packframes) 3) Extra food (brown rice and soysauce -- 100 lb. bags at rice mills for $12 4) Camping equipment for living in wilderness and national parks 5) Warm clothing for very cold foggy San Francisco summer climate 6) Proper identification."

-- The San Francisco Oracle, Vol. 1, Issue 8, p. 32