As Oracle #3 was being laid out, the old guard of ex-newspapermen deserted and Gabe Katz and I designed and edited issue #3. Gabe was a dropped out advertising artist from New York, who had taken LSD, and had beatific visions of Tim Leary.
Ken Kesey had been busted a few months before for smoking marijuana on a San Francisco rooftop. Instead of standing trial, he jumped bail, feigned suicide and escaped with Neal Cassady to Mexico. But America beckoned and Ken devised a plan for his return. He would have a gigantic party like the Acid Tests but tell everyone to graduate from using LSD. After much debate and chagrin Bill Graham decided not to assist him with the use of Winterland or the Fillmore. Graham feared that Ken would dose the world again and in particular the Democratic party which was due to use Winterland the next week for a State convention. Kesey held the graduation in the spontaneously decorated Calliope Warehouse. LSD seemed to be in every hand and body. Everyone wore Halloween costumes. The first Moog Synthesizer used in a rock n' roll band vibrated through the mind. The Hell's Angels guarded the doors and Neal Cassady rapped his ambiguous rhapsodies.
GARY SNYDER - BUDDHISM AND THE COMING REVOLUTION
The centerfold of Oracle #3 was Buddhism and the Coming Revolution by Gary Snyder illustrated with a collage by Michael Bowen. Snyder criticizes traditional Buddhism because it has no analysis of how suffering and ignorance are caused by social factors and because it has ignored and accepted whatever political tyrannies it found itself under. Once a person has insight from meditation and/or faith, he writes, "he must be led to a deep concern with the need for radical social change, through a variety of hopefully non-violent means....The mercy of the West has been social revolution. The mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self-void. We need both."
ALLAN WILLIAMS
During the martial law many hippies decided to hit the streets and denounce the "fascist" curfew. One of our staff artists, Allan Williams, blithely unaware of the curfew was busted by the police and beaten up in the police station. He is shown here demonstrating the yogic posture he used to withstand the police beating. I ran into the Captain of the Park Police Station on the street and asked him how he liked the new Oracle. He said it was fine except for that article alleging police brutality. A week later I would be busted for selling the Love Book.
