Commune Origins

It’s the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine.   

A child stays within the mother until the time of birth.  When the time of birth

arrives, the child must be separated, or it will destroy  it’s mother and itself.” 

...I realized how very dangerous it is for people to hold any human being in

such esteem, especially to consider anyone some kind of ‘divinely guided’ and

‘protected’ person...I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda...I’m for

truth, no matter who tells it...I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction

and told to march...Well, I guess a man’s entitled to make a fool of himself if

he’s ready to pay the cost.  It cost me twelve years.”    Malcolm X

In  the late summer of 1971 I was a refugee from the sixties; a suddenly homeless

child,  uprooted both by choice and by the times I lived in and the earth below me

was gone.  I stood trembling before a council of about a dozen very  somber core

members of the Brotherhood of the Spirit out behind the rustic old New England Inn

which was now their home, and made a vow of lifetime commitment: “I am spirit.  I

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am vibrating creative energy.  I vow to do, obey, and be the will of creative energy.  I

vow to loose myself from my carnal self.  So be it.” Through my heart pounding with

the fear that goes back to the Junior High, I recall Randy looming before me with his

enormous afro and biblical Hebrew features; and Stephen, who was smaller and had

a  head of blond frizz with blue eyes as sharp as a bird’s.  And there was Dale who

doubted my sincerity.  I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. It was a raw, risky,

naked plunge into stormy waters. The commune consisted at that time of  over 300

kids  out of the frying pan and into the fire, run by a powerful, dynamic, psychically

tuned-in  kid.  They all took vows of poverty, signing over their cars, savings, and

even inheritances for Brotherhood.  I gladly disowned my turbulent past,  and turned-

on to a whole new set of values, beliefs and  behaviors, which were largely

influenced by  but misinterpreted from Buddhism.  We gave up books, worldly

pursuits and interests in order to clumsily attempt to face ourselves through

confronting each other with ruthless honesty.   

We were going to save the world but we didn’t know how to use a hammer or where

the water went after we flushed the toilet.  We stepped on each other to get close to

Michael, to be like him, to be “doing it”;  to be right on and real and truthful.  We

ravished each other’s eyes and tore into the soul with searchlights.  Eyeball to

eyeball, in gut wrenching honesty,  we believed that it was our time and our destiny

to plant the seeds of peace  for humanity.    

For many of us, psychedelics had revealed that we were all connected. We had seen

God.  And for those of us who hadn’t seen God, we knew that one man who had, and

he didn’t need drugs to maintain his direct line. He was Michael Metalica, later to

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become Michael Rapunzel, a name he chose to protect his family of origin.

In 1968  when Michael,  an energetic,  sixteen-year-old high school drop-out, had

decided to live outside the norm:

Beth Backman, a motherly, spiritually oriented, middle aged professor of sociology,

whose children had gone to school with Michael, had become a mentor to young

Michael.   One day in late spring of ‘67 he bounded up the stairs of her Northfield

home, (an old youth hostile and historical site which she later donated to the

community).  He threw himself on Beth’s bed and announced exuberantly, “Guess

what, ‘Ma,’ I’m leaving home.”  Beth, concerned about his impulsiveness, drew in a

breath and answered, “Just promise me two things Michael:  One, that you leave a

note for your parents and two, that you call me when you get to wherever you’re

going.  Within a week she received a collect call at 2 a.m. from California.  She

sighed and accepted the charges.  Michael announced that he was safe and sound

in L.A., and was all set to join the Hell’s angels.   He had seen an article in Life

magazine that he was taken by.

It was the hypocrisy that bothered me.  I got this feeling, like a hoodlum type—

nobody better get in my way.  Anybody that gave me grief I got back at them.  Finally

when I was 15, I packed a bag and went.  I didn’t tell my parents.  I went with a friend

down to Fort Lauderdale, and then out to California.  

Unlike what most people would see in a photo of the Angels , Michael perceived

brotherhood and commitment between them.  This intrigued him and believing that

friendships peaked between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, he began looking for a

way to create an environment that could sustain friendship.    He told Beth that he

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had just taken his first L.S.D. trip.  Beth, of course, was very concerned.  She warned

him that there were no short cuts to enlightenment if that was what he was seeking,

and that acid was a dangerous drug for someone as sensitive as he.

Michael was unconvinced.  As for the Hell’s angels, he was to soon meet a mentor of

sorts, an elder man who advised him against joining them.  It wasn’t too hard, since

Michael, at least then was not in to violence, and the Hell’s angels were.  

Michael had told the community the story many times: 

In L.A., I met this Hindu.  He just walked up to me on the street and said, ‘Come with

me.’  I went with him to his home.  By the end of two weeks I’d turned my whole

direction around.  He made me feel that I wasn’t really hostile., that my inside self

was peaceful and gentle.  In the end I found out that all the things I had thought were

real about me weren’t real at all.

Beth sent her daughter, who Michael adored, out to California to collect Michael.

Practically as soon as he came back he broke his leg after a fall from a tree that he’d

been climbing.  The story goes that he was thinking about how much power he felt,

being on his own, and that he could use that to get people to do what he wanted, 

when he fell out of the tree and as soon as he hit the ground, he realized that was not

the way. Nor were drugs.  In  Fall of ‘68 Michael broke his leg, recounting in

meetings:

When I came back I built the tree house.  It was just for  me.  Then other people

started coming and we’d sit up there and talk all night.  But a girl came, and she was

trying to get off drugs.  And I knew that if I helped her—well, then I had to stay with

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this. 

You know, I always see a man with a long white robe standing at the right of me. 

And my references come totally from myself, because I’ve had total revelation.  I’ve

read later, and it confirmed what I already knew.  Ever since Sunday School, for

instance, when I saw what the teacher was saying about Jesus, I’ve known I was the

reincarnation of Peter the Disciple.

...by knowing my past life, I’ve been able to recreate total emotional experiences, to

tap the universal spirit.”   [Cosmo?]

[ True Magazine:]  The second step was to build a house in a huge tree at the top of

a ridge overlooking miles of the countryside around Leyden.  “People need

something physical to center around.  The tree house was an eccentric idea and it

spread.  Almost as soon as I started it people began to show up to help.  It was

finished in four days.”

[ The Village Voice, Aug.12, 1971:]  He sat for days, sometimes fasting, sometimes

meditating, always knowing.  It was during this period, while he waited, that he

realized he was “special.”  He perceived a white light emanating from his head,

surrounding his presence, a light he admitted was “brighter than the sun, softer than

the moon.”  Candidly he suggest he has never asked for this...this power.  “I just

accept it; everyone notices it,” he explains resignedly.  Soon people came to see

Michael.  They came to the tree house and listened as Michael explained about

positive energy, a release of the spirit, and a death or the ego that was inevitable.  It

was peace.  It was love.  And Michael knew the way.  They came to listen and

realized they had come to stay.

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He read the “Bhagavad-Gita” and “The Prophet” by candlelight, contemplating the

stars and the universe, listening to crickets and peepers, and his own conscience. 

During the day he did much of the same, meditating, and visiting Beth, who he

interrogated with endless questions about life, death, and God.  When she couldn’t

answer his questions she introduced him to a local trance medium, Elwood Babbitt,

who’s “controls” spoke in high and lofty spiritual garble which sounded to our post-

drug minds like the words of God, overriding  its vague references, mixed metaphors,

and hair raising prophecies.  Babitt’s controls spoke at great length about “The God

Force, reincarnation, earth changes, the approaching axis shift at the turn of the

century, in which three quarters of the earths population would be wiped out (we, the

humble, of course would survive) positive thinking, the atomic structure of the

universe,” and “creative energy.”  We were sure that all of this was brand new and

radical classified information (for “those with ears to hear”) which we were privy to,

due to our expanded awareness and commitment to saving the world.  Babbit

recalled: When Mike first came to me, he felt like a freak where other people were

concerned, and he got a lot of  flak from the Establishment.  Now, I’m a spiritual

adviser to the commune, but I warn them that whatever they get into, they must get

into  by themselves.  I don’t want them using me as a crutch.  I  don’t want this idol

worship which defeated Jesus.  And this Jesus revival—that’s just a limp crutch for

people trying to get off drugs.

Although I didn’t visit until the following summer I can imagine him in the  beginning;

a strong willed high-energy, outspoken teenager.  I met his parents when they visited

the community and had the impression that in the past his mother was very strict and

rather cold and his father was a hard working factory man, a salt-of-the earth good

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hearted man, but who drank too much.  Michael, a big a handsome boy with piercing

perceptive blue eyes, a lean strong body,  and long thin golden straight hair, would

have been a good actor or entertainer.  His facial expressions ranged from

exuberantly inspired, almost shimmering, to intensely pensive, grimacing, or

scowling.  Even his body seemed to change from month to month, sometimes

appearing incredibly skinny, at other times, pudgy, and other times perfect, as if

sculpted out of marble, with long limbs and angular lines. He had obviously been

brought up to be independent, and forced to find love and affection through his own

charisma and personal powers of manipulation, defiant and denying of ever needing

others.   Perhaps he was afraid of weakness or vulnerability, but that came out later

on in the story.   Back then he must have had an unusual drive and  self-reliance—I

don’t think he was afraid of much—not work, and not people.    

Although he was never employed, he put tremendous energy in to whatever he

chose to do.   The few times I had seen him work in the community garden he

worked fast and furiously, but it was clear that his thoughts were not confined to the

work.  He would joke, sing, holler, do or say anything to anyone—he was

irrepressible, irreverent of convention and unpredictable and he seemed to view the

physical plane as a joke, not to be entrenched in.

He expressed a free spirit, that was not without self-discipline:  Adopting a strict

monastic life-style, renouncing drugs, alcohol, and promiscuity, he worked for local

farmers, asking only for enough food to live on in exchange.  He meditated, read

about the lives of saints, and attempted to model his life similarly.

The beginnings of community began with visits to the tree house from high-school

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buddies and their friends, who, inspired both by Michael and the by the atmosphere

of love that was indicative of the times, were attracted to his lifestyle. 

Michael later told the community that he had never intended to start a community  but

to simply live a Godly life.  But when people kept showing up and wanting to stay that

his inner guidance told him to  allow this new way of life to expand and to grow.  He 

adopted an open door policy—accepting all people who came with the intention of

staying and abiding by his rules,  into a community.  He felt he was divinely protected

from attracting the lower strata of society. 

[June, ‘68.  True:]  The worst opposition has come from the local drinking crowd. 

One night when the group had gone off to Maine to visit a similar organization, some

of the drunks went to the ridge-top with cans of gasoline and burned down the tree

house.  The members of the commune returned to find only the blackened stub of the

huge tree.  “We know who did it.  “  Metalica says.  “We’re not going to do anything

about it.  

The tree house wasn’t a key to anything.”

The local farmers had been supportive and even protective of the group,  at times

even guarding against vandals and violence with shotguns, but they missed the

vandals this time. .  The old timers understood this thing better than the younger

generation.  Simple people saw the group’s good will and energy, which was put into

action through their willingness to work.  But harassment by the local people

continued, and once they  beat- up one of the members.  

Beth donated the bunk beds from the youth hostile to be fashioned a shed in the

woods of Leyden by Blueberry Hill. People kept coming.   Twenty to thirty kids

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needed food, showers, clothing, and money.  Many parents opened their home to

these overgrown children who raided their refrigerators, lectured and confronted them

for their shallow materiality and left an army of footprints behind.

All the while Michael, in a  policy of non- coercion, (through meditation, prayer, and

study of new-age doctrines) attempted to place the future of this small community in

the hands of this higher intelligence.

Fall,  ‘68:   The group began playing their own music at  churches and homes, Beth

or Michael talked “spirit”, and  Elwood went in to trance.  

Winter ‘69:   The community was covered by local newspapers and people came to

visit from all stations of life.  New hope was sparked in the hearts of well-intentioned

people who donated to the community over the years. A college professor donated

enough money to build a 15’ by 30’ two-storey cabin.  It was built on Michael’s

uncle’s land in the woods in Leyden.  There were about 16 members by then. The

twelve young men lived in the cabin and the four young women lived at one of their

mothers’ houses in Riverside; a town about 10 miles away.  Every day they would

convene in Leyden for meetings in the morning and at night, and continued to work

for the farmers.  There had been an article out in Fate Magazine about the tree

house.  It was the  first national publication to write about the fast-growing

phenomena.  In Northfield, where the group was visiting (using) Beth’s home, a  short

stocky photographer, amidst an array of hippies, nervously bustled around the

industrial kitchen.  “What’s going to happen?” he queried her.  “Where should I set up

my cameras?”

“Who knows?” she replied.   Then Michael  walked in, went purposefully over to the

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kitchen table, put his hands and head down, and spontaneously and without words,

every one put their hands on top of his and meditated. Without words, an impulse

shot telepathically through the group and they were suddenly outside throwing

snowballs.

Excitement and newness was in the air.  The atmosphere was  charged with

electricity and possibility.  People read about  it, felt it, dreamed about it.  Everyone

had an amazing story  of how they arrived. Ken Krishna, a long time member who 

started a community company which did electrical work, told me a story which typified

the tone:  He’d just come from meditating for 3 months after realizing in an acid trip

that he “had to get there [high] without drugs.” He was meditating up in woods, one

day and realized that “this is great but I’ve got to share it with others.”  He hit the road

with only his clothes and blanket and got picked up and dropped off at the

Brotherhood in 1970.  “It felt like I’d just got home.  I was sitting in the meeting room,

drinking water and it flashed on me that I’d had a dream while I was in the Virgin Isles

where I ended up in this exact meeting room with a bunch of people and this guru....

They came from all over the country to visit or to stay. In  the cabin in Leyden  there

was a loft in which people slept  in sleeping bags, packed in like sardines. There

were open  slats in places in the walls. Michael didn’t want to insulate  because he

received in  meditations that they would be moving soon.   The cabin was heated

with smoky green wood.  As winter continued to encroach upon them, they huddled

together at night for warmth, awaking in the morning to brush off the first early snow

from their sleeping bags. For a bathroom they made use of a hole in the ground,

which they covered with a board.  

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A lot of the parents were hospitable to the kids, feeding 

them and allowing them to bathe  in their homes.  In spite of  the physical discomfort,

the morale was high.  Michael appeared  to be in  a positive, clear state of constant

inspiration and  people felt rejuvenated and moved, being part of his vision  of

“brotherhood”.

Spring ’69

The group was offered a place to live in the hills  of Claremont, Mass. by a Molly

Scott, a local folk singer-songwriter, who took a liking to Michael and the idea of

community.  The community was to help out with the maple sugaring in exchange for

a good sized farmhouse and chicken coops in which people would live.  There was

160 acres of land on which they were permitted to build on and to garden. She was 

unprepared, however, for 30 wild young sages moving in on her and  her two

children.  Being the chosen few, they felt justified  in leaving messes for her; after all,

she could receive a  “spiritual rap” in exchange. Molly had enough children of her

own.

Michael and the group put pressure on her to donate her house to the community.

Fed up with their inconsideration and arrogance, the last straw was  Michael’s

increasing authoritarianism.  At the point when he began dictating who could sleep

with who, she asked him to leave, while she said that the group was welcomed to

stay.  Michael called a meeting and said he’d been asked to leave and that he had no

place to go. he asked that everyone that was willing to venture out with him stand up. 

Everyone except two people stood up.

Summer ‘69.  

A few days later he was offered  “Johnson’s  pasture,” a pasture in nearby Guilford,

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Vt., to camp out on.  At  that point there were about 20 people.  They stayed there 

until late fall and were “freezing their butts off” because  Michael had received in his

meditations the impression that they wouldn’t be staying there.  Amazing

synchronicity continued to provide the group with places to live:  One of the

members, Tom H., knew a man who owned a summer camp in Heath who agreed to

rent it for the winter (from donated money from members) and allowed them to put in

wood stoves.  There were about 30 people at that time.  When they moved out of

Heath in May ‘70 there were 80 people who managed to scrounge up about $40,000

to buy their first owned property-a large farmhouse and 27 gorgeous wooded and

hilly acres in Warwick, Mass. which had been an inn and a restaurant. That was

when I arrived.