Stephen Gaskin



Stephen Gaskin is a 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 is the author of over a dozen books, a teacher, a musician (drummer), a semantic rapper, a public speaker, a political activist, and a philanthropic organizer.

Life
Gaskin was born on February 16, 1935 in Denver, Colorado and served in the United States Marines 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. His writing class became an open discussion known as Monday Night Class, which involved up to 1500 students. 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. He went to prison in 1974 for marijuana possession. He served one year of a three-year sentence.

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 Services which were published by 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 (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1980 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 works as an international activist and speaker, and he continues to write. His topics range from advice on all aspects of communal life and farming to CB radio, the counter-culture, spirituality, drug law reform, and social and spiritual issues. He was a drummer in The Farm Band, an early Jam Band which toured in the seventies and eighties. His most recent books are revised and annotated versions of Monday Night Class and The Caravan.