Source family

Charlene Peters left the D.C. social scene to become Isis Aquarian, a member of a California commune called the Source Family, where she became one of the 14 wives of a charismatic leader, Jim Baker (a.k.a. Father Yod and YaHoWha).

The only Hollywood-based cult of the 60s and 70s that comes to mind is the Manson Family, so when I happened upon this photograph of a secretive but wild group of beautiful young people who strolled around LA in the 1970s wearing colorful gowns, devoted to a Hollywood restauranteur-turned-spiritual

I’ve never been much of a joiner. Working in groups, team sports, board games even, have never really been the most appealing things to me. I’m fiercely independent and intentionally contrarian at times even to my own detriment, making me probably the least suitable candidate for communal living in the world (let alone religious cult membership). This does not mean I don’t find the whole phenomenon fascinating on some level, especially when we’re talking about the high level psychedelics of…

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Source: Family; A Portrait Of Gay And Lesbian America - by Nancy Andrews

"If you wanted to create an archetype of the ultimate early 70s, Southern California spiritual cult, you could do no better than the Source Family," says a historian in the opening minutes of the documentary "The Source Family."

What is this innate fascination we all seem to have with cults? Is it an interest and disbelief that so many people seem to fall into them? Do we find it impossible to imagine ourselves within a world…

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While a large family can garner strange looks from onlookers it continues to be a source of many blessings, some of them perhaps a bit surprising for its members.

Seven dwarfs from the Ovitz family (pictured) were selected by Nazi Josef Mengele for gruesome medical experiments. Mengele pulled out their teeth and eyelashes and poured boiling water in their ears.