Adam Berger Phd Thesis
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?52 =/690;A 3/867B- /9 2?59;4=/<5B ;3 ><6=6?@/7 <;>?8;12=96>8 /FCN 0GRIGR / ?JGSKS >UDNKTTGF HPR TJG 1GIRGG PH <J1 CT TJG @OKVGRSKTY PH >T$ /OFRGWS (&&* 3UMM NGTCFCTC HPR TJKS KTGN KS CVCKMCDMG KO =GSGCREJ.>T/OFRGWS-3UMM?GXT CT- JTTQ-%%RGSGCREJ#RGQPSKTPRY$ST#COFRGWS$CE$UL% <MGCSG USG TJKS KFGOTKHKGR TP EKTG PR MKOL TP TJKS KTGN- JTTQ-%%JFM$JCOFMG$OGT%'&&()%(*+, ?JKS KTGN KS QRPTGETGF DY PRKIKOCM EPQYRKIJT THE RAINBOW FAMILY: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF SPIRITUAL POSTMODERNISM Adam Berger Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD University of St Andrews April 2006 DECLARATIONS I, Adam Berger, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 100.000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. IVtf'r'y i \ Zu:~\p Date. Signature of Candidate .... I was admitted as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1997, the higher study for which this is a record carried out in Britain, Scotland (UK), North America and the University of St Andrews between 1997 and 2006. jL\1I-'a \ \ 2-c~Ao Date... Signature of Candidate ..... I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit the thesis in application for this degree. Date Signature of Supervisor ..... In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews, I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker. i'V\~ l \ t-w\l Date Signature of Candidate ... ABSTRACT The Rainbow Family of Living Light is an intentional society devoted to achieving world peace through spiritual healing. A loose association of spiritual seekers that explicitly rejects all forms of leadership and imposed authority, it represents an interesting example of an anarchist and communal society. Rainbow Family events regularly draw thousands of people. These take place all over the world. While some participants may question the label, it can be described as one of the biggest and most geographically diverse New Age groups on the planet. As such, it is a very important factor in shaping the entire present day New Age movement. I conducted fieldwork with the Rainbow Family between the autumns of 1998 and 2002, traveling with the nomadic group throughout the United States. The Rainbow Family rejects any sort of official membership, accepting anyone who attends its events as an equal participant. Spending extended periods of time in the field, I became immersed in this alternative society. The distinction between ethnographic researcher and informants was highly problematic under such circumstances. This made me acutely aware of the issues surrounding fieldwork and anthropological authority. My own work began to seem quite similar to the spiritual seeking of other participants. As such, I began to consider the commonalities between anthropology and the spirituality encountered within the Rainbow Family. The spiritual discourses produced by Rainbow Family participants are uniquely eclectic and ludic in tone. In a setting explicitly championing individual freedom rather than coercion, there is no sense of spiritual orthodoxy. The ways in which spiritual discourses are treated by the Rainbow Family display interesting attitudes towards truth, authority, and reality. These attitudes are reminiscent of epistemological orientations within postmodernist anthropology. Rainbow Family participants find noteworthy solutions to the apparent ontological dilemmas postmodernism presents. It is my hope that looking at the Rainbow Family of Living Light will suggest a viable way for anthropology to productively deal with its current crisis of identity. CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION TO THE RAINBOW FAMILY OF LMNG LIGIIT 1 TI. RAINBOW GATHERING INFRAS1RUCTURE 19 m. RAINBOW PEOPLE AND THEIR NEIGHBORS 50 IV. IN1RODUCTION TO PROJECT 85 V. COMMON SPIRITUALITY 106 VI. RAINBOW ANARCHY 145 VII. RAINBOW MYSTICISM 181 VITI. SPIRITUAL HEALING 223 IX. POLmCAL IMPACT 248 X. CONCLUSIONS 269 BmLIOGRAPHY 282 1 I. INTRODUCTION TO THE RAINBOW FAMILY OF LMNG LIGHT The Rainbow Family of Living Light defies absolute description. In a sense, that is part of its mystique. There are many ways in which it could be described, none of which would be entirely satisfying to everyone familiar with the group. Inquiries made to those people actually involved with Rainbow, as the phenomenon is commonly called in casual speech, tend to result in responses highlighting its ephemeral nature. One seasoned participant admonishes inquirers to "be prepared for a different answer from each person who responds. Rainbow is different things to different people"!. Such an assertion is not necessarily the best way to begin an ethnographic text, however. In this capacity, it is important to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the subject at hand. In order to do this, I present an overview which, though borrowing from ernic terminology and commentary, will perhaps strike most Rainbow participants as being overly concerned with fixed definitions. Such a synopSis, however, is likely to be helpful for the reader not familiar with the Rainbow phenomenon. One favorite ethnographic technique for introducing a group, the historical overview, is especially problematic. The reasons for this complication are worth noting. Participants in the Rainbow Family are explicit about the subjective and ludic nature of their movement's history, and refrain from making sweeping statements about its past. This attitude is, indeed, expressed in the Rainbow dialect's term for history, 'Hipstory' . Hipstory, I have been told, is an 1 essay written by 'Carla', posted at www.we1comehome.org/rainbow.html 2 acknowledgement of the "personal and changing" character of history"2. Such an attitude is also a manifestation of the typical Rainbow abhorrence of things official, a libertarian spirit which tacitly informs many aspects of life within the group. Out of respect for this tradition, I must emphasize that my own account of Rainbow's origins should not be read as representing an authoritative, totalizing history. Instead, like Hipstorical accounts of participants, it should be taken as reflecting a particular and personal reading of Rainbow's roots. While I will save the details of these Rainbow legends for later pages, no explanation of the Rainbow Family can fail to mention the fact that Hipstory almost always mentions some grand, saving mission that empowers the movement. Rainbow is a spontaneous collection of old souls, coming together to prepare for Armageddon. Other stories suggest Rainbow is the spiritual descendant of the Native American Ghost Dances, an ecstatic reawakening meant to herald an era of peace and environmental harmony. Rainbow may even be construed as an anarchist commune, a collection of cultural insurgents focused on undoing the corrupt industrial capitalist system. Whatever the specific Hipstorical explanation, the Rainbow Family is always portrayed as destined to change history in some benevolent way. This is important to what it means to be Rainbow. Hipstorical accounts almost always include a description of the movement's first major event, which took place in the summer of 1972 , near the small town of Granby, Colorado. Though it was originally scheduled to be held on public land, at Table Mountain in the Rocky Mountain National Park, 2 Interview with Eagle Eyes, a man in his mid-thirties from southern California, January 1999, Kofa Wildlife Refuge 3 pressure from local authorities prevented this from happening. A local landowner allowed the hundreds of early Gatherers to move to a piece of private property nearby. The first Rainbow Gathering reportedly went on amidst a great deal of controversy and confusion. Local people were frightened by outlandish rumors that the event was planned to draw a million people3 to their sleepy rural area. Despite drastic efforts by the governor and the state authorities he controlled, law enforcement attempts to bar people from the area failed. Crowds, which people today estimate to have been between ten and twenty thousand, simply hiked to the new site along remote mountain trails the police roadblocks could not monitor. Hipstorical overviews always refer to the social climate surrounding this landmark event. In 1972, the year of the Rainbow Family's birth as a specific entity, an emergent counterculture was becoming apparent in American society. This counterculture is often equated with resistance to the U.S. war in Vietnam. Issues of peace and war certainly played an important role in the emergence of the counterculture. At some deeper level, however, it embodied a response to something much bigger. One scholar writes that fringe political movements of the 1960s ''broadened the zone of political activity in all directions- inward into 4 the personal and outward a critique of daily life" • The counterculture, then, was not merely engaged in political resistance in the traditional sense, but personal resistance to a corrupt cultural system. Described as 1/a variegated procession constantly in flux, acquiring and 3 Cahill, Tim. August 1972. 'Armageddon Postponed'. Rolling Stone 4 Damovsky, Marcy and Epstein, Barbara and Flacks, Richard. 1995. Cultural Politics and Social Movements. Philadelphia: Temple University Press: 71 4 5 losing members all along the route of the march" , the counterculture is even less simple to define than Rainbow. A perusal of the scholarship surrounding the phenomenon known as the counterculture [often spelled counter culture] reveals fairly clear intellectual trends, however.