(Process Media) www.processmediainc.com

Though nowadays most folks spell “youth cult” M-A-N-S-O-N, that’s kind of a bummer, because helter skelter wasn’t the mandate of most cults of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. In The Source, a firsthand account of one such sect’s social and spiritual journey, Isis Aquarian (nee Charlene Peters, a one-time D.C. beauty queen) chronicles the Source Family and its charismatic leader, Father Yod, aka Jim Baker, aka YaHoWa.

The author’s insider perspective—as a Family member she eventually became its archivist—provides a fascinating look at how cult-communes operated, from recruitment of members to functioning as utopian mini-societies to how a patriarch such as Father Yod could hold sway over his flock. The latter involved a combination of enlightened benevolence (though Yod conducted spiritual and meditation sessions, he was no ascetic, and the Family lived large on organic food and reefer), enthusiastic instruction in Tantric sex (the Family’s lithesome females were no strangers to Yod’s chambers), and proto-New Age mysticism (one startling tidbit: in 1974, a year before his death, Yod gave instructions that Family members were to make long-term plans for a summit on September 17, 2001 as that week held some deep cosmic significance).

The Family was initially based in L.A. and operated the famed Source health-food restaurant before relocating to the relative paradise of Hawaii, so the Sunset Strip connection provided a steady infusion of rock ‘n’ roll. (No less than Sky Saxon, of garage legends the Seeds, was a latterday Family member.) The house band, YaHoWa 13 (sometimes called YaHoWha 13), recorded a number of albums highly prized among collectors of psychedelia, all of which were reissued in 1998 by Japan’s Captain Trip label as part of a sprawling 13-disc box set titled God and Hair. More recently, digital label Anthology Recordings resurrected the YaHoWa 13’s album I’m Gonna Take You Home, while Cold Sweat has just reissued Penetration: An Aquarian Symphony, both from ’74. And the book at hand includes a CD containing YaHoWa 13 performances, Yod lectures and more. As journalist Erik Davis, who penned the introduction, puts it: “feel the vibration.”

Far more than reheated hippie gumbo, however, the Family’s trip was deeply meaningful for most members. “We took sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and infused them with spirit, transforming each into a sacred path of illumination,” writes Aquarian, adding with a flourish of conviction, “We traveled through worlds beyond our wildest dreams. For many of us, no other experience ever since has come close to matching it.” FRED MILLS