Editing Hippie (section)

===Spirituality and religion===
{{See also|New Age|Jesus movement|Zen boom}}
Many hippies rejected mainstream organized religion in favor of a more personal spiritual experience.  Buddhism and Hinduism often resonated with hippies, as they were seen as less rule-bound, and less likely to be associated with existing baggage.<ref name="hare">{{citation |url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/in-defense-of-hippies |date=October 23, 2011 |title=In Defense of Hippies |first=Danny |last=Goldberg |work=Dissent Magazine Online }}</ref> Some hippies embraced [[neo-paganism]], especially [[Wicca]]. Others were involved with the occult, with people like [[Timothy Leary]] citing [[Aleister Crowley]] as influences. By the 1960s, western interest in Hindu spirituality and [[yoga]] reached its peak, giving rise to a great number of [[Hindu revivalism|Neo-Hindu]] schools specifically advocated to a western public.<ref>Bryant 2009, p. xviii.</ref>

In his 1991 book, "Hippies and American Values", [[Timothy Miller]] described the hippie ethos as essentially a "religious movement" whose goal was to transcend the limitations of mainstream religious institutions. "Like many dissenting religions, the hippies were enormously hostile to the religious institutions of the dominant culture, and they tried to find new and adequate ways to do the tasks the dominant religions failed to perform."<ref>{{citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e7F31yYxOMAC&q=hippie+as+a+religious+movements&pg=PA16 |title=Timothy Miller. ''Hippies and American Values''. Univ Tennessee Press; 1st edition|page=16 |access-date=2014-02-03|isbn=9780870496943 |year=1991 |last1=Miller|first1=Timothy|publisher=Univ. of Tennessee Press }}</ref> In his seminal, contemporaneous work, "The Hippie Trip", author Lewis Yablonsky notes that those who were most respected in hippie settings were the spiritual leaders, the so-called "high priests" who emerged during that era.<ref>{{harvnb|Yablonsky|1968|p=298}}</ref>
[[File:TimothyLeary-LectureTour-SUNYAB-1969.jpg|thumb|[[Timothy Leary]], family and band on a lecture tour at State University of New York at Buffalo in 1969]]

One such hippie "high priest" was San Francisco State University Professor [[Stephen Gaskin]].  Beginning in 1966, Gaskin's "Monday Night Class" eventually outgrew the lecture hall, and attracted 1,500 hippie followers in an open discussion of spiritual values, drawing from Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu teachings.  In 1970 Gaskin founded a Tennessee community called [[The Farm (Tennessee)|The Farm]], and even late in life he still listed his religion as "Hippie."<ref>{{citation|url=http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/miller.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990210081737/http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/miller.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=1999-02-10 |title=Communal Religions |website=Thefarm.org |date=October 6, 1966 |access-date=2012-11-21 }}</ref><ref>{{citation|url=http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2010/12/new_book_tells_inside_story_of_biggest_hippie_comm.php |title=New Book Tells Inside Story Of Biggest Hippie Commune In U.S. - Toke of the Town - cannabis news, views, rumor and humor |publisher=Toke of the Town |date=December 23, 2010 |access-date=2012-11-21}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|isbn=9781570671814|title=Monday Night Class|author=Stephen Gaskin  |year=2005|publisher=Book Publishing Company }}</ref>

[[Timothy Leary]] was an American [[psychologist]] and writer, known for his advocacy of [[psychedelic drugs]]. On September 19, 1966, Leary founded the [[League for Spiritual Discovery]], a religion declaring LSD as its holy sacrament, in part as an unsuccessful attempt to maintain legal status for the use of LSD and other psychedelics for the religion's adherents based on a "freedom of religion" argument. ''[[The Psychedelic Experience]]'' was the inspiration for [[John Lennon]]'s song "[[Tomorrow Never Knows]]" in [[the Beatles]]' album ''[[Revolver (The Beatles album)|Revolver]]''.<ref name="Sante">{{citation| last = Sante| first = Luc| title = The Nutty Professor| series = 'Timothy Leary: A Biography,' by Robert Greenfield| work=[[The New York Times Book Review]]| date = June 26, 2006| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/books/review/25sante.html?pagewanted=all| access-date = 2008-07-12}}</ref> Leary published a pamphlet in 1967 called ''Start Your Own Religion'' to encourage just that<ref>Start Your Own Religion. Leary, Timothy. Millbrook, New York: Kriya Press. 1967. (The original 1967 version was privately published; it is not to be confused with a compilation of Leary's writings compiled, edited, and published posthumously under the same title.)</ref> and was invited to attend the January 14, 1967 [[Human Be-In]], a gathering of 20,000 to 30,000 hippies in San Francisco's [[Golden Gate Park]]. In speaking to the group, he coined the famous phrase "[[Turn on, tune in, drop out]]".<ref>{{citation|url=https://archive.org/details/timothylearybiog00gree |url-access=registration |title=Timothy Leary: A Biography|first=Robert|last= Greenfield|page=[https://archive.org/details/timothylearybiog00gree/page/64 64] |access-date=2013-10-11|isbn=9780151005000|year=2006|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt }}</ref>

The English magician [[Aleister Crowley]] became an influential icon to the new alternative spiritual movements of the decade as well as for rock musicians. The Beatles included him as one of [[List of images on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band|the many figures]] on the cover sleeve of their 1967 album ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'', while [[Jimmy Page]], the guitarist of [[the Yardbirds]] and co-founder of 1970s rock band [[Led Zeppelin]], was fascinated by Crowley, and owned some of his clothing, manuscripts and ritual objects, and during the 1970s bought [[Boleskine House]], which appears in the band's 1976 film ''[[The Song Remains the Same (film)|The Song Remains the Same]]''. On the back cover of [[the Doors]] 1970 compilation album ''[[13 (The Doors album)|13]]'', Jim Morrison and the other members of the Doors are shown posing with a bust of Aleister Crowley. [[Timothy Leary]] also openly acknowledged Crowley's inspiration.<ref>{{citation|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gY3dSqs68A| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211030/2gY3dSqs68A| archive-date=2021-10-30|title=Timothy Leary: I carried on Aleister Crowley's work|last=chellow2|date=1 May 2008|publisher=[[YouTube]]}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

After the hippie era, the Dudeist [[philosophy]] and lifestyle developed.  Inspired by "the Dude", the neo-hippie protagonist of the [[Coen Brothers]]' 1998 film ''[[The Big Lebowski]]'', Dudeism's stated primary objective is to promote a modern form of Chinese [[Taoism]], outlined in ''[[Tao Te Ching]]'' by [[Laozi]] (6th century BC), blended with concepts by the Ancient Greek philosopher [[Epicurus]] (341–270 BC), and presented in a style as personified by the character of Jeffrey "the Dude" Lebowski, a fictional hippie character portrayed by [[Jeff Bridges]] in the film.<ref>{{citation|last=Ehrlich|first=Richard|title=The man who founded a religion based on 'The Big Lebowski'|url=http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/life/doctrine-chiang-mais-church-latter-day-dude-explained-206793|work=[[CNN]]|publisher=Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc.|access-date=March 22, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120405065606/http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/life/doctrine-chiang-mais-church-latter-day-dude-explained-206793|archive-date=April 5, 2012|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Dudeism has sometimes been regarded as a [[mock religion]],<ref>{{citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uPtuaV7IAt0C&q=dudeism+mock+religion&pg=PT78|title=Cult Cinema by Ernest Mathlijs, Jamie Sexton |page=78|isbn=9781444396430 |last1=Mathijs |first1=Ernest |last2=Sexton |first2=Jamie |date=2012-03-30 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons }}</ref><ref>{{citation|url=http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/big-lebowski-bungalow-jeff-bridges-abide-guide-oliver-benjamin-dwayne-eutsey_b34556|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110810001531/http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlla/big-lebowski-bungalow-jeff-bridges-abide-guide-oliver-benjamin-dwayne-eutsey_b34556|url-status=dead|archive-date=2011-08-10|title=Behold The Big Lebowski Bungalow, Bible|website=www.mediabistro.com}}</ref> though its founder and many adherents regard it seriously.<ref>{{citation|url=http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/radar/big-lebowski-spawns-religion|title=Big Lebowski Spawns Religion|website=Dontpaniconline.com|access-date=2015-12-12|archive-date=2014-10-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008160143/http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/radar/big-lebowski-spawns-religion|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{citation |url=http://www.welovecult.com/2011/featured/dudely-lama-dudeism-interview/ |title=The Dudely Lama Discusses Dudeism |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110155253/http://www.welovecult.com/2011/featured/dudely-lama-dudeism-interview/ |archive-date=November 10, 2013 |work=We Love Cult |access-date=September 19, 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{citation|title=Cathleen Falsani Interview|url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/october-9-2009/cathleen-falsani-interview/4520/|work=[[Religion and Ethics Newsweekly]]|publisher=[[PBS]]|access-date=September 19, 2012|date=2009-10-09}}</ref>