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Haight-Ashbury Snake Oil
MEMOIR PROJECT ROUGH DRAFT
Dr. Wierwille’s flock was small but devoted and in the tumultuous times of the Vietnam war and the counter-culture movement, he realized there were a lot of lost souls just waiting for someone with the truth to hand it to them like acorns to a squirrel. And once they trusted the hand that fed them, he would have them eating out of his hands forever. So, he left on a mission (most specifically on a motorcycle) to spread the “Word of God” to the hippies hanging around Haight-Ashbury and it was a smashing success. The Way denounced itself as a church or a religious affiliation, it was simply a research and teaching organization that used the Bible’s own interpretation to find the answers and guidance in life. There were no memberships. Anyone could join and anyone could leave at any time. God believed in freewill, and what you did in The Way, and how much you participated, and when you decided to leave where all your choice. It was your own freewill. The perfect ingredients on the bottle of snake oil to get the hippies to gobble it up. And as an extra bonus, it was orderly but open. No one was living in the mountains getting married wearing roller skates while a fat white man in a tie-die shirt pronounced you husband and wife. It had just enough structure to put order into a world gone mad, but just enough freedom to still wear your red knit sweater with mirrors sewn into the fabric with an Indian print pair of pants and a choker and headband and sit around in circles with guitars and sing songs about Jesus and love. It was comforting. It was a farce. It was the tin left behind by the pusher at the party, and everyone was taking 20 hits of the shit. Dr. Wierwille’s visit to San Francisco was smashing success and his following spread out of New Knoxville, Ohio, and into the counter-culture by word of mouth. A master marketing technique. The right place at the right time with the right product.
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