Monday Night Revisited with Stephen Gaskin

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This 1991 Archive Edition with Stephen Gaskin has significant historical content and continues to remain relevant in today’s world. Something happened in the 1960s in San Francisco that inspirited and affected the entire planet. Stephen Gaskin was part of what happened. He led the Monday Night Class at the Family Dog Ballroom in San Francisco at the end of the 60s. He and many others set off in a caravan of 150 hippie busses and founded The Farm in Tennessee, which became one of the best-known spiritual communities in North America, growing to over 1500 members. He was the production manager for the Birth Gazette, and the co-founder of Rocinante, which we'll be hearing about more in this conversation. His books include Monday Night Class, Hey Beatnik, Mind At Play, and Haight Ashbury Flashbacks. Join us as we flash back to the past, the present, and even flash a little forward with our guest, Steven Gaskin. (hosted by Michael Toms)

Bio

Stephen Gaskin (1935-2014) was an American counterculture teacher, author, and co‑founder of The Farm commune in Tennessee, and he wrote more than a dozen books on spirituality, community, politics, and cannabis. In the late 1960s his San Francisco “Monday Night Class” drew hundreds of people for wide-ranging discussions on spirituality, psychedelics, and social change. In 1970 he led a cross‑country bus caravan that settled in Tennessee and founded The Farm, which became one of the most influential intentional communities of the era. He went on to co‑found the relief and human-rights nonprofit Plenty International and received the first Right Livelihood Award in 1980 for this work. Gaskin remained active as a writer, speaker, and activist until his death in 2014.

Stephen Gaskin’s books include:

• Hey, Beatnik! This Is the Farm Book (The Book Publishing Company 1974)
• An Outlaw in My Heart: A Political Activist’s User Manual (Camino Books Inc. 2000)
• Monday Night Class (revised and annotated) (Book Publishing Company 2005)
• The Caravan (Book Publishing Company 2007)

To learn more about the work and legacy of Stephen Gaskin go to https://thefarmcommunity.com

Topics explored in this dialogue include:  

• What was Gaskin’s role in starting the “Monday Night Class”
• What is origin of “The Farm” in Tennessee and its influence in the local community
• What were The Farm’s foreign initiatives in Central America, Africa, and Guatemala
• What is Rocinante project to serve “elderly and fragile people” and support for aging for those without conventional security
• How the Mennonite Central Committee paid for 50,000 bushels of wheat shipped to Honduras for hurricane and tornado relief
• What is the state of elder care in America
• How soldiers are victims of wars not of their choosing
• What was the revolution of personal computers that democratized access to technology
• What was the major contribution of Timothy Leary who refused to let psychedelics be used by the CIA against citizens
• What were the spiritual roots of the hippy movement
• What was Gaskin’s view of the Middle east war of 1991, Operation Desert Storm and its historical context
• How the “war lords” Chiang Kai Shek and Joseph Stalin made under-the-table agreements.
• What is the result of the untenable positions of undeclared wars
• How to be an active participant in political events
• What is the relationship and history between the U.S. government and American indigenous peoples

Host: Michael Toms    Interview Date: 02/5/1991   Program Number: 2237