Stephen Gaskin

Stephen Gaskin (February 16, 1935 – July 1, 2014) was an American counterculture Hippie icon best known for his presence in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 1960s and for co-founding "The Farm", a famous spiritual intentional community in Summertown, Tennessee. He was a Green Party presidential primary candidate in 2000 on a platform which included campaign finance reform, universal health care, and decriminalization of marijuana. He was the author of over a dozen books, political activist, a philanthropic organizer and a self-proclaimed professional Hippie.

Life
Gaskin was born in Denver, Colorado and served in the US Marine Corps from 1952 to 1955. In the 1960s, he moved to San Francisco and taught English, creative writing, and general semantics at San Francisco State College, where he was a student of S. I. Hayakawa.

Stephen Gaskin's writing class evolved into an open discussion group known as Monday Night Class, which involved up to 1500 students. The Monday Night Class was held in "The Family Dog", an auditorium on the Great Highway on the land side of Ocean Beach on the shore of the Pacific Ocean in the Outer Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco. Stephen Gaskin spoke about his experiences with psychedelic drugs and paranormal experiences, as well as lecturing on the importance of ecological awareness. This popular weekly gathering was attended by hippies from all over the San Francisco Bay Area during the years 1969 and 1970. Stephen became known as San Francisco's acid guru.

In 1970, Gaskin was part of a caravan of 60 vehicles that crossed the United States to settle 60 miles south-west of Nashville, Tennessee, forming a community called "The Farm", which the Wall Street Journal came to call "the General Motors of American Communes". This community was "a platform from which to launch efforts to improve the lot of poor and indigenous peoples, whales, and old growth trees" For example, raising 1,200 earthquake-resistant homes in Guatemala as well as several public buildings and water lines to 5 villages, sending independent dosimetry teams after the Three Mile Island accident and the Chernobyl disaster, or giving the Rainbow Warrior equipment to escape from a Spanish harbor.

He went to prison in 1974 for marijuana possession, as members of the community had, against his recommendation, planted several marijuana plants on the property. He served one year of a three-year sentence. Following his release, his voting rights were rescinded. He brought a lawsuit challenging the legality of mass retroactive disenfranchisement under the Tennessee Constitution, Gaskin v. Collins. After winning in lower courts, the case went to the Tennessee Supreme Court and in 1981 returned voting rights to more than a quarter of a million convicts.

In Volume One: Sunday Morning Services on the Farm and earlier talks, Stephen Gaskin produced a substantial body of spiritual teaching. His ideas are now contained in books and tapes of the Sunday Morning Services which were published by the Book Publishing Company on The Farm. They speak of magic, energy and life in community as well as of service to humanity.

Gaskin was recipient of the first Right Livelihood Award in 1980 (listed as Plenty International) and an inductee into the Counterculture Hall of Fame in 2004. He was awarded the Golden Bolt Award by The Farm Motor Pool (for helping buy a lemon semi), and won the Guru-Off (without even entering), racking up 77 points to Krishnamurti’s 73.

Gaskin continued to work as an international activist, writer and speaker until a few months before his death from natural causes, in his home, surrounded by family. His topics ranged from humorous advice on all aspects of communal life and farming to modern communications, the counter-culture, spirituality, drug law reform, and social and ecological issues. He was a drummer in The Farm Band, an early Jam Band which toured in the seventies and eighties. His last published works were revised and annotated versions of Monday Night Class and The Caravan. He died on July 1, 2014 from natural causes at the age of 79.