In the City of God Issue, Oracle 11, we wanted to explore how humanity could live with each other more harmoniously. The cover is by Steve Schafer.
INTERVIEW WITH BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Buckminster Fuller came to the Haight, spoke at Hippie Hill and did an interview with Oracle staff. The design is by Mike Ferar. Fuller declares,
"I would suggest that all humanity is about to be born in an entirely new relationship with the universe... I've discovered that it takes 22 years to go through weaponry and to fall out into what we finally call "livingry". We can save 22 years by simply redesigning the use of the world's resources to take care of 100% of the world's population."
INSTRUMENT OF THE WOMB BY HARRY MONROE
Instrument of the Womb by Harry Monroe is an anthropological study of the Earth Goddess and Matriarchal Society. The illustration is by Bryden. Harry writes,
"She had many names as many as there are peoples over whom she reigned and who worshipped her - Great Goddess, Divine Goddess, White Goddess, Earth Goddess, Moon Goddess, a triple goddess always.. whose three aspects of maiden, matron and crone are the anthropomorphisms comprehensible as beauty, birth and death. Her influence was absolute over peoples whose concerns remained the simple ones of agriculture, grazing and hunting... All the totem societies of ancient Europe were under the aegis of the Great Goddess."
CENTERFOLD - ORACLE #11 - CITY OF GOD BY BRYDEN
The centerfold of Oracle #11 was the visionary city of Jerusalem from the Book of Revelations as envisioned by Bryden.
FOOD IS GOD - BY ALAN WATTS
Food is God, by Alan Watts conveys the practical aspects of Watt's Zen Buddhism. The illustration is by Mark DeVries.
"When people do the most appalling things people can do, it is always in the names of the highest ideals, like the purely unselfish ideological war in Vietnam... This is why the U.S. is such a danger to the rest of the world... Scratch an American and find a Christian Scientist because we have a national belief in the virtue of being above mere materiality."
Alan talks about the wonders of Chinese cooking and continues, "Make your chopping board and stove your altar at which you celebrate divine mysteries with the utmost devotion. But because you must kill to eat, always remember that to some extent you are an irremediable rascal... Do not try to be saints; be content with being completely human."
MANDALA BY STONED WOMAN
One day a lovely young woman glided into the Oracle office. She was glowing and vibrating. She asked if she could do a drawing for us. She worked for a couple of hours and gave us this drawing of herself in the midst of a mandallic universe and, silently slipped away. She wrote beneath it,
"Float Beyond Time: We are ageless, timeless
We have been here always and will be
here always in one form or another.
We created ourselves to be ourselves."
BACK COVER - WAR
The back cover is a cautionary vision of the earth engulfed in the fires of war.
