Book Description

THE SOURCE FAMILY SCRAPBOOK provides an intimate view into the world of California's most iconic utopian commune, The Source Family. This lavishly illustrated book will act as an immersive historical artifact, a facsimile of the original scrapbook assembled by family historian Isis Aquarian. Devoid of essays, the vivid life size scrapbook page reproductions are presented as they were originally assembled and laid on the page. Edited only for brevity and flow, these pages illuminate the group's private world in a way never before seen. Hundreds of unpublished photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, manifestos, and flyers comprise these richly textured pages, guiding the reader through the group's daily activities, secret rituals, triumphs, and eventual downfall. The book tells the Source Family story as it unfolded, from controversial leader Jim Baker/Father Yod's spiritual awakening under the tutelage of Yogi Bhajan and the founding of Baker's Source Restaurant to their meteoric rise, wild experimentation, and public and private provocations that led to the group's paradise lost in Hawaii. These collaged images and ephemera provide a visceral immersion into the complex and widely misunderstood phenomenon of communal and cultic groups of the 60s and 70s, at a time when hundreds of thousands of disaffected people across the country joined together to create their own visions of utopia.