The Farm grows from hippie seminar to a society
Written by Jessica Bliss, The Tennessean 7/2013
The vision first evolved with psychedelic experiences and an ex-combat Marine named Stephen Gaskin.
In 1967, Gaskin initiated an informal philosophy seminar that would become known as Monday Night Class. The “hippie guru,” who spent 16 months in combat in Korea before earning a master’s degree in English, discussed religion, politics, sex and drugs. He believed in Tantric thought, telepathy and togetherness — and in an era when youth was disillusioned by the Vietnam War, disturbed by increasing injustice and encouraged by the successes of civil rights, he helped young people feel empowered Thousands seeking change attended his classes, and when the American Academy of Religion sent Gaskin on a 42-state speaking tour, many of his acolytes followed.
In a convoy of campers, VW vans, trucks and brightly decorated school buses, they crossed the country. When they returned to California, Gaskin says, the whole West Coast scene “had gone decadent.” Adrift and searching for something better, he suggested they all “go out to the middle and find some land.”
They found it just outside Summertown, where an independent-minded moonshiner sold them 1,000 acres at $70 per acre.
“The rednecks took to us good,” Gaskin says. “They liked us.”
They pooled their money and began making decisions by consensus. On a budget of $1 per person per day with no grants, food stamps or welfare, the 320 original settlers bought the land, erected buildings from salvaged wood, found water supplies and became agriculturally self-sufficient within four years.
They created a motor pool with a parts department, a welding shed and a couple of flatbeds made by torching caravan vehicles.
They communicated first by high-powered CB radio, then by a burgeoning system of interlocking phone lines powered by batteries and connected to about a dozen devices — a hippie party line. (Now: cellphones.)
Anyone who became a member of The Farm accepted Gaskin as his or her spiritual teacher, and a person’s inner business became everybody’s business.
Gaskin worked on community relations, helping the local community accept the “good hippies,” many who were college-educated suburban kids.
There were a few hitches.
Early in the years of The Farm, a few men were caught growing marijuana. Though Gaskin says he was not part of growing, he took equal responsibility.
“The cops said, ‘Whose pot is this?’ ” Gaskin recalls. “And I said, ‘We’re a collective. What’s here is part mine.’ ”
Gaskin appealed in court, but in 1974, he and several other men spent nearly a year in the Tennessee State Penitentiary.
By 1980, The Farm’s population swelled to more than 1,200. But a financial crisis led to a reorganization. The group made some bad investments. Members did not have insurance and faced large medical bills. With The Farm more than $400,000 in debt, a large corporate hospital placed a lien against the land.
In 1983, they took a vote and the communal life lost. In the once-cashless society, members started to pay monthly dues and only The Farm’s 1,750 acres were held in common. The debt was paid off in about four years, and the society survived in a new way of life. Gaskin transitioned from a spiritual leader to another resident of the cooperative. He and his wife, Ina May, remain on The Farm today.
“I’m just grateful the people around here had a big enough heart to take us in,” he says.