The group’s values claimed to be noble, aimed at creating a better society and contributing to world peace. Of course, attendees would also smoke marijuana and dabble with psychedelic drugs. Costs were covered by donations and days were spent going to workshops, sitting in women’s circles or drum circles, going for walks, and practicing yoga or tantra. Initially, the participants were meant to get together and pray or meditate for world peace. While the gatherings are meant to represent peace, with music, dancing, and love, they have continuously been met with controversy. “By the middle of May, all 800 or so people in Granby expected to be overrun – by an estimated one million fanatic Christ and dope addicts coming to a blasphemous festival at Table Mountain, right smack in the middle of their park.”Ī court order was issued against the Rainbow Gathering at its initial location, but a local developer named Paul Geisendorfer offered the group his nearby site at Strawberry Lake. A Rolling Stone article with the headline “Acid Crawlback Fest: Armageddon Postponed” and published Aug. The first official Rainbow Gathering was held in Granby, Colorado in 1972 at Strawbery Lake. Of course, to have the Rainbow Gatherings, there would have to be a space to accommodate all the like-minded individuals. Since the foundation of the Rainbow Family included no formalized membership or officials leaders of any kind, anybody was invited to what would become known as Rainbow Gatherings. Wikimedia Commons Rainbow Gathering welcome sign at Cranberry, WV. Rainbow Gatherings Aren’t Always So Bright Once the Rainbow Family of Living Light was established, the next step was to put together a gathering. Eventually, after enough members joined, they set up a community of about 40 tribespeople just outside Eugene, Oregon and became a legal corporation. Plunker and Garrick, who called themselves prophets, peddled leaflets and newsletters around. For instance, he’d mention Tao or the Book of Revelation, quoting sections like “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three-score days, clothed in sackcloth.” He’d even use Native American folklore to say that the Rainbow Family was, in a way, a reincarnation of dead warriors reclaiming the earth. Plunker, who had previously lived in a commune on Haight Street in San Francisco, used various Eastern and Western philosophies to attract members to the Rainbow Family. Their goal was to create, as one later member described it, “the largest best coordinated nonpolitical nondenominational nonorganization of like-minded individuals on the planet.” Barry Plunker and Garrick Beck were in their late 20s when they had a prophetic vision.Īfter attending another music festival in Portland, Oregon called Vortex I in August of 1970, they decided that all the small communes, nomadic groups, and stray hippies could merge together. Though the Rainbow Family boasts that it has no leader, there were two men largely credited for starting it. Wikimedia Commons A Rainbow Gathering trader circle
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