I Don't Always Lead A Cult, But When I Do...

The perfect embodiment of a hippie 70s spiritual, white robed, naked, yogi, Utopian, vegan cult is The Source Family. We have seen so many parodies of this style of cult in pop culture, on the first watch of their documentary The Source Family, it seems like a joke. While The Source Family weren't the first hippie cult, they were surely a huge cultural influence considering they originated in Hollywood, CA and made their living serving vegan foods to the rich and famous on the Sunset Strip.

The leader/father/god was James Baker, who's life reads like a Dos Equis commercial, or a Bill Bradsky skit (got to love Will Ferrell SNL circa 1999). He's a war hero, jujitsu champion, murderer, millionaire, restaurant tycoon, and self proclaimed god.

The Source Family (2012) by Maria Demopoulos and Jodi Wille, is an amazingly thorough documentary due in part to the member, Isis Aquarian. She is the family historian for the Source Family, and always had a camera or a tape recorder in her hand. This cult wanted everything documented. You've got weddings, home births, meditations, musical performances, outings, shifts at the Source Restaurant... even death...

But on the topic of birth, something I've noticed about these types of cults is that the women members are always pumping out kids like nobody's business. It comes from an Adam and Eve complex where women, as individuals who can make more people appear out of their vaginas, are expected to help increase the population of believers. These children are only going to know the reality that you make for them in the first few years, so that will totally prime them for becoming built-in loyal followers.

No matter how "progressive" a cult of this nature appears to be, the birthing and the isolation appears completely anti-feminist. It's the idea that:

1. It's convenient that the female members are ladies, so they can give birth. So why don't you already?

and

2. Since we're so into ancient religions and practices, dressing like druids, and going back to nature, shouldn't we just throw away decades of advances in a woman's right over her body? Did ancient women take the pill? I didn't think so. So why don't we just do it and let's not worry about who's kid it is or who's going to take care of it, because we'll all "take care" of it. You've got so many hang ups man. I mean worrying about controlling the ability to not be pregnant is just a jail you put yourself in.  Think about it.

It is still an odd concept to grasp that these children were born into this; that they didn't have a choice and, at least till the cult disbanded, knew this as their way of life. There are so many horror stories about the children of cults, however many of those come from the more subversive ones . The Source Family never had any real serious issues with child welfare in comparison to, let's say, Jonestown. It looked like everyone in the Source Family had a healthy relationship with the nude form, which you can twist into sexual perversion if you want to, but it was the 70s and hippie parents outside of cults were trying to establish a healthy body image that was removed from shame and dirty fifthly sex too.

The one thing that happened in the Source Family that would be considered the endangerment of a child, is the lack of conventional medicine. Of course. One member left the group because his young son was very sick with an infection and they strongly disagreed with him going to a hospital or being treated with antibiotics. Of course.

Oh - and then there was the statutory rape. The Source Family attracted under aged women, and the first birth in the Source Family mansion was from a 16 year-old girl. Which you get to watch in the documentary! 

There's footage of the Source Family band, YaHoWha 13, recruiting - err a - performing at a high school. While James Baker paced around the stage talking about how great his cult is, I knew that Will Ferrell should play him in a movie. Or even just a Funny or Die short. As it happened I could picture him with long grey hair and beard doing a combination of Terrence Maddox the inappropriate nude model and Prof. Roger Clarvin the sexually open professor inclined to call his wife "la-vah."

Will Ferrell era SNL FTW!

During that whole scene I couldn't understand how they were allowed to perform at high schools. Can you even imagine being told that there was a special treat for everyone at 1:30, and that was a cult playing improvisational psychedelic music? And it was a cult? The Source was well known in California. Actually at that time in the 1970s the idea of a group of young people lead by a creepy guy who was pursuing a music career should have reeked of Manson. And I don't believe attendance was completely voluntarily. If you look at the number of kids there, and the looks on their faces, the principle probably ordered them into the court yard, made them sit Indian style, and said you're gonna listen to these damn hippies and their music and you're going to like it!

This involves a kind of lack of insecurity that can never reach high school kids.

Aside from making a bunch of hippies say "what was I thinking" or creating more kids that have embarrassing stories about open nudity in their households, The Source Family as a cult was pretty harmless. People who chose to leave weren't hounded or threatened, or even damned to hellfire. No one was murdered, just hearts broken, because sharing a man/god with 12 other women sucks.