Scion said:
I was actually going to raise the spectre of the so-called Summer of Love, and the nascent Space Race as other things to consdier... both as a culturasl embrace of the nonempirical AND science's gradual embrace of the impossible. There is something larger at work underneath.
Here's a few more:
• Dark Shadows soap opera, where many of us first saw card readings, ran from 1966 to 71.
• Films of Bergman and Jodorowsky, plays by Albee, etc. that focused on dreams and archetypal symbolism
• Joseph Campbell, Eric Neumann, Jung.
• Encounter groups and Stanislavski's method acting (both using very similar techniques)
• Books like Bucke's "Cosmic Consciousness" and James Joyce's epiphanies.
• Psychadelics, Aldous Huxley, Tim Leary
• Discovering the possibilities of living synchronistically; tripping; "questing"
• Questioning authority (who do we turn to now?)
• Disenchantment with traditional religion; spiritual seeking; interest in oriental religions
• Living in a post-nuclear world (nuclear bomb drills, etc.—what future?)
• Anxiety over who would return from Viet Nam and who wouldn't
• Freedom (". . . is another word for nothing left to lose")
• The mixed unrest and hope of civil rights, the Democratic convention, the '68 Paris rebellion, sexual freedom.
• Findhorn & fairies.
• A mini-revival of interest in Theosophy (especially via Alice Bailey), spiritualism (Casadega & Lily Dale), channeling and astrology
• The incorporation of Jungian and transpersonal psychology into astrology and thence into tarot, ala Dane Rudyhar.
Not to mention the Hippie love of esoteric readings of children's-book-tropes (LOTR, Alice, Puff the Magic Dragon... etc) which would have made Smith's (deceptively simple) naif illustration style seem timeless, universal, and inclusive... when in fact it's representative of a specific moment in illustration, which the Boomer's associated with "classic" kid books.
As I mentioned before, I associate it even more with the interest in folksongs - early Joan Baez, the Incredible String Band, etc., etc. - which established a link with all kinds of folklore and folkmagic.
Then there's the Kaplan phenomenon, and the changes in publishing and marketing wrought by the "mallification" of America.
While the 1JJ deck added to the 1969 explosion, Kaplan wasn't in full swing until 1971 and after. He caught the perfect wave of something that was already underway and made it into a tsunami.
The gradual addiction to soundbites. Growth of televised cynicism.
None of us watched much television back then except for the news, Star Trek, Smothers Brothers, Laugh-In and Dark Shadows. Instead we rocked our hearts out, hung out at folkclubs or did street theatre (spontaneous "encounter" sessions).
The need for "folk magic" (is that what Camille Paglia calls it?)... a sort of grassroots kitchen witchery for the hoi polloi.
That was more of a 70s thing, though the roots were in the folkmusic of the 60s & 50s witchcraft—especially in England.
BTW, the Bio page on my blog has a picture at the bottom of the page of when I lived in London in 1970 and 71 - worked as a typsetter/graphic designer, studied theatre, attended meetings at the Astrological Lodge (Theosophical Society) and the Astrological Association, and went to the Society for Psychical Research.
