{"id":45443,"date":"2016-01-14T00:00:18","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=45443"},"modified":"2016-01-13T18:42:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T02:42:02","slug":"this-day-in-history-january-14th-the-human-be-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2016\/01\/this-day-in-history-january-14th-the-human-be-in\/","title":{"rendered":"This Day in History: January 14th- The Human Be-In"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Day In History<\/a>: January 14, 1967<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"human-be-in\"<\/a>The Human Be-In, or the Gathering of the Tribes, on January 14, 1967 in San Francisco\u2019s Golden Gate Park brought hippies, LSD and psychedelia to national attention. It was the harbinger of the celebrated Summer of Love, and made Haight-Ashbury the epicenter of a growing movement of young people ready to follow\u00a0acid-dropping Harvard professor Timothy Leary\u2019s advice at the Be-In to \u201cturn on, tune in, and drop out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leary later stated in his autobiography, Flashbacks<\/a><\/em>,<\/p>\n

“Turn on” meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. “Tune in” meant interact harmoniously with the world around you – externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. “Drop out” suggested an active, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. “Drop Out” meant self-reliance, a discovery of one’s singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean “Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Along with Tim Leary, many other leading figures of the counterculture were at the Be-In, including Allen Ginsberg, Dick Gregory, Jerry Ruben, and Michael Bowen, who masterminded and organized the event. Popular bands like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and the Quicksilver Messenger Service provided entertainment for the twenty to thirty thousand people estimated to be in attendance. The Diggers handed out free food, and Owsley \u201cBear\u201d Stanley brought massive amounts of \u201cWhite Lightning\u201d LSD to the party.<\/p>\n

Both the Human Be-In and the hippie movement as a whole was the passing of the torch from the beat poets to the disaffected generation of students living in the San Francisco area at the time. They all shared the same core values \u2013 environmental awareness, communal living, liberal political beliefs and the quest for higher consciousness. This transition was personified perfectly by Allen Ginsberg, the beat poet who attended the happening dressed head-to-toe in white, chanting mantras, and dancing with joyous abandon.<\/p>\n

Michael Bowen came up with the name \u201cHuman Be-In\u201d at another event, the Love Pageant Rally. It incorporated humanist values with the current strategy employed by political activists \u2013 sit-ins. The practice had been used throughout the 1960s to protest segregation and outmoded college and university policies. The Human-Be-In was conceptualized to protest the banning of LSD in California on October 6, 1966.<\/p>\n

Poet and novelist Michael McClure described the Be-In as:<\/p>\n

a spiritual occasion, culminating from the countless preceding events, dances, thoughts, breaths, lovemakings, illuminations. The Be-In was a blossom, it was a flower. It was out in the weather. It didn’t have all its petals. There were worms in the rose. It was perfect in its imperfections. It was what it was and there had never been anything like it before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Google Play Music<\/a>, Feed<\/a>), as well as:<\/p>\n