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The Merry Pranksters are a group of people who originally formed around American author Ken Kesey in the early 1960s and sometimes lived communally at his homes in California and Oregon. The group were proponents of the use of psychedelic drugs. Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters are noted chiefly for the sociological significance of a lengthy road trip they took in the summer of 1964, traveling across the United States in a psychedelic painted school bus enigmatically labeled "Furthur." Their early escapades were chronicled by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... Image File history File links Wikitext. ... For other uses, see Author (disambiguation). ... Kenneth Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American author, best known for his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and as a counter-cultural figure who, some consider, was a link between the beat generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. ... A Commune is a kind of intentional community where most resources are shared and there is little or no personal property. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... An assortment of psychoactive drugs A psychoactive drug or psychotropic substance is a chemical substance that acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it alters brain function, resulting in temporary changes in perception, mood, consciousness and behavior. ... Sociology (from Latin: socius, companion; and the suffix -ology, the study of, from Greek λόγος, lógos, knowledge [1]) is the scientific or systematic study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture[2]. Areas studied in sociology can range from the analysis of brief contacts between anonymous... This article is about the film Road Trip. ... Santanas Abraxas (album) cover by Mati Klarwein Psychedelic art is art inspired by the psychedelic experience induced by drugs such as LSD, Mescaline, and Psilocybin. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Inside the bus, psychedelic and trippy paintings Furthur was a 1939 International Harvester school bus purchased by author Ken Kesey in 1964, for $1,250 from Andre Hobson in Atherton, California. ... For the early 20th century American novelist, see Thomas Wolfe. ... The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a literary journalism novel written by Tom Wolfe early in his career in 1968. ...

Notable members include Kesey's best friend Ken Babbs and Neal Cassady, Carolyn Adams (also known as Mountain Girl, and for being Jerry Garcia's wife), Wavy Gravy, Paul Krassner, Stewart Brand, Del Close, Paul Foster, George Walker, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt, John Page Browning (also known as Rampage or the Cadaverous Cowboy) and others. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Cowboy Neal redirects here. ... Carolyn Adams, later known as Mountain Girl, was a Merry Prankster and the wife of Jerry Garcia. ... Jerome John Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician, songwriter, and artist best known for being the lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead. ... Wavy Gravy (born Hugh Romney on May 15, 1936) is a life-long activist for peace and personal empowerment, best known for his hippie appearance, personality, and beliefs. ... Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932) was the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958. ... Stewart Brand speaking September 5, 2004 Stewart Brand (born December 14, 1938 in Rockford, Illinois) is an author, editor, and creator of The Whole Earth Catalog and CoEvolution Quarterly. ... Del Close (March 9, 1934–March 4, 1999), along with Keith Johnstone and Viola Spolin, is considered one of the premier influences on modern improvisational theater. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

The Merry Pranksters as a social, intellectual, and artistic movement

The Merry Pranksters movement is centered around three acts. The first was the infamous Magic Bus Trip, from California to New York and back, in the summer of 1964. The second was the “ongoing communal life centered on aesthetic experience and experimentation” which happened at the Kesey homestead from 1964 to 1966. The third act consisted of the acid tests held around California from 1965 to 1966. These three acts are all part of the same reaction to the confines of the “neural lag” which hinders one from achieving self-actualization. Psychotropic drugs were viewed as a medium in which one could transcend the neural lag and reach a level of “NOW.” These goals correspond to those of other counter-culture movements; however, unlike the advocates of organic farming, or transcendence through meditation, the Merry Pranksters were “technological optimists”.^[1] Both of the primary media of transcendence -- the lab-engineered, C.I.A. tested, and chemically bottled LSD and the electronically amplified rock music^[2] -- were technological products through and through. This “technological texture” can’t help but stand in opposition to much of the rest of the counter-culture.^[3] For other uses, see Acid test. ... Organic farming is a form of agriculture which excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives, and genetically modified organisms. ...

The Bus Trip

On June 14, 1964, Kesey and 13 Merry Pranksters boarded "Furthur" at Kesey's ranch in La Honda, California, and set off eastward. Kesey wanted to see what would happen when hallucinogenic-inspired spontaneity confronted what he saw as the banality and conformity of American society. The bus trip reversed the historic American westward movement of the past centuries.^[4] is the 165th day of the year (166th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... Location of La Honda, California. ... Hallucinogenic drugs or hallucinogens are drugs that can alter sensory perceptions, elicit alternate states of consciousness, or cause hallucinations. ... Conformity is the act of consciously maintaining a certain degree of similarity (in clothing, manners, behaviors, etc. ...

The trip's original purpose was to celebrate the publication of Kesey's novel Sometimes a Great Notion and to visit the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. The Pranksters were enthusiastic users of marijuana, amphetamines, and LSD, and in the process of their journey they are said to have "turned on" many people by introducing them to these drugs. The psychedelically painted bus had its stated destination as being, “furthur.” This was the goal of the Merry Pranksters, a destination that could only be obtained through the expansion of one’s own perceptions of reality. They traveled cross-country giving LSD to anyone who was willing to try it; LSD was legal in the United States until October 6, 1966. Sometimes a Great Notion is a 1964 novel by Ken Kesey. ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... View of the New York Worlds Fair 1964/1965 as seen from the observation towers of the New York State pavilion. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Cannabis, also known as marijuana[1] or ganja (Hindi: गांजा),[2] is a psychoactive product of the plant Cannabis sativa. ... Amphetamine or Amfetamine(Alpha-Methyl-PHenEThylAMINE), also known as beta-phenyl-isopropylamine and benzedrine, is a prescription stimulant commonly used to treat Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults and children. ... LSD redirects here. ... is the 279th day of the year (280th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. ...

Novelist Robert Stone, who met the bus on its arrival in New York, has written that those accompanying Kesey on the trip were Neal Cassady (described by Stone as “the world’s greatest driver, who could roll a joint while backing a 1937 Packard onto the lip of the Grand Canyon”), Ken Babbs (“fresh from the Nam, full of radio nomenclature, and with a command voice that put cops to flight”), Jane Burton (“a pregnant young philosophy professor who declined no challenges"), Page Browning (“a Hell's Angel candidate”), George Walker, Sandy Lehman-Haupt ("dis-MOUNT"), Mike Hagen ("Mal Function"), Ron Bevirt (“Hassler”), Chuck Kesey, Dale Kesey, John Babbs, Steve Lambrecht and Paula Sundstren (“aka Gretchin Fetchin, Slime Queen”).^[5] Photo of Robert Stone by Robert Birnbaum Robert Stone (born August 21, 1937) is a critically well regarded American novelist, whose work is typically characterized by psychological complexity, political concerns, and dark humor. ...

Summit meeting with Leary

While Tom Wolfe says the attempted meeting with Leary was un-successful, photographic evidence points to the fact that Leary actually met up with the pranksters and a blast.>During this voyage they unsuccessfully attempted to meet Dr. Timothy Leary at his Millbrook estate in New York, where they had hoped to hold a summit meeting between the two major leaders of the psychedelic movement. For the American baseball player, see Tim Leary (baseball player). ... Millbrook is a village in Dutchess County, New York, United States. ... This article is about the state. ...

There was disagreement between Kesey and the Pranksters and Leary and his followers over the direction of the psychedelic movement. Dr. Leary initially argued that psychedelic drugs should be approached in a serious, scientific manner for psychological and spiritual enlightenment. The Leary camp originally opposed giving people psychedelics outside of a controlled setting and especially denounced giving the drugs to people without their knowledge. Kesey, however, believed that psychedelics were best used as a tool for transforming society as a whole, and that if a sufficient percentage of the population had the psychedelic experience, revolutionary social and political changes would follow. Therefore they made LSD available to anyone interested in partaking - most famously through the "electric kool-aid" made available at the Acid Test events they would sponsor in the years following the bus trip. As the use of LSD spread widely through the Western world, Leary ultimately joined the bandwagon of "acid populism" as well. For other uses, see Acid test. ... The bandwagon effect, also known as social proof and closely related to opportunism, is the observation that people often do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. ...

It was hoped that the attempted 1964 meeting between Kesey and Leary would resolve this disagreement in a way that would draw on the strengths of both approaches. However, when Kesey and the Pranksters arrived at Millbrook they discovered that Leary had just crashed from a three-day acid binge and could not be revived sufficiently to greet his guests. Plans for a subsequent summit became impossible when both Kesey and Leary were imprisoned on drug charges. Ken Babbs and Wavy Gravy assumed the leadership of the Pranksters while Kesey was incarcerated. Wavy Gravy would eventually leave the Pranksters to establish his own group, The Hog Farm. The Hog Farm is an organization considered to be Americas longest running hippie commune. ...

Acid Tests

Following the bus trip, the Pranksters held a series of "Acid Tests", where participants were given "acid", the street name for LSD. The tests were held at various venues in California, and were sometimes advertised with colorful crayoned signs asking "Can you pass the acid test?" The first Acid Test was held in Palo Alto, California, in November 1965. The young psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead (known earlier as The Warlocks) supplied the music during these events; in essence, they were the house band for the mobile party. Jerry Garcia, of the Grateful Dead, stated that the acid tests allowed him to “play with a certain kind of freedom, that you rarely get as a musician. We didn’t have to fulfill the expectations about us, or expectations about music. It allowed us to experiment with music freely.” Jerry Garcia said that the Pranksters at the Acid Tests were the best audience the Grateful Dead ever had. The acid test is credited with the expansion of the consciousness of the sixties. Kesey believes that the sixties, particularly the experimentation with psychedelic drugs was the beginning of a paradigmatic shift that is still relevant today. In Kesey’s own words, “It was the beginning of a real true revolution that is still going on.” ^[6] Location in Santa Clara County and the state of California Coordinates: , Country State County Santa Clara Government  - Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto[1] Area  - City 25. ... Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that attempts to replicate the mind-altering experiences of hallucinogenic drugs. ... This article is about the band. ... Jerome John Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician, songwriter, and artist best known for being the lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead. ...

Hells Angels

Kesey and the Pranksters also had an important relationship with the famous outlaw motorcycle gang the Hells Angels, who were introduced to LSD by Kesey. The details of their relationship are documented both in Wolfe's book and in famous counterculture figure Hunter S. Thompson's book, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. Poet Allen Ginsberg also wrote a poem about the Kesey/Angels relationship. This article is about the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. ... Hunter Stockton Thompson (18 July 1937 – 20 February 2005) was an American journalist and author, famous for his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. ... Irwin Allen Ginsberg (IPA: ) (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet. ...

Later events

In 1969, Furthur and the Pranksters (minus Kesey) made it to the Woodstock rock festival. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was a historic event held at Max Yasgurs 600 acre (2. ...

A collection by Kesey of short pieces, several about the Merry Pranksters, called Demon Box and released in 1986, was a critical success, although a subsequent novel, Sailor Song, was not, with critics complaining it was too spacey for comprehension. In 1997, Kesey appeared with the Merry Pranksters at a Phish concert during a performance of the song "Colonel Forbin's Ascent" from the album The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday. In 1999 Kesey toured with the Pranksters, performing a play he wrote about the millennium called Twister. This article is about the band. ... The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday was the senior thesis of Trey Anastasio, guitarist and primary vocalist of the rock band Phish, written while he attended Goddard College in 1987. ...

The Merry Pranksters filmed and audiotaped much of what they did during their bus trips. Some of this material has surfaced in documentaries, including the BBC's Dancing In the Street (1996). Some of the Pranksters have released some of the footage on their own, and a version of the film edited by Kesey himself is available through his son Zane's website.

The original Prankster bus now rests at Kesey's farm in Oregon. The Smithsonian Institution sought to acquire the bus, which is no longer operable, but Kesey refused. True to form, Kesey attempted, unsuccessfully, to prank the venerable Smithsonian by passing off a phony bus. The Smithsonian Institution Building or Castle on the National Mall serves as the Institutions headquarters. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Kesey died of complications due to liver cancer in November 2001. Ken Babbs attempts to keep the Prankster spirit alive through his Skypilot Club website, which is a spoof of 1950's comic book clubs and which encourages psychedelic ideals and mind-expanding experiences, particularly through immersion in the emotion of love. Hepatic tumors are tumors or growths on or in the liver (medical terms pertaining to the liver often start in hepato- or hepatic from the Greek word for liver, hepar). ...

In 2005, Kesey's son Zane Kesey asked a friend, Matthew Rick, to put on a 40th Anniversary of his father's Acid Tests. Matthew got together a small group of promoters, including Rob Robinson from New York, to help him produce what Zane had asked of them. The event was held on October 31, 2005, in Las Vegas. It was known as AT40. Zane Kesey, Simon Babbs (Ken Babbs's son), Jon Sebree, Matthew, Dead On Randy, TK Bi-Polar Bear, Torrey, Mushroom, Lance and Nathan rode to Vegas on FURTHUR 2. Original Prankster, George Walker, was also on hand. is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The south end of The Strip; approximately one third of the entire Strip is represented here. ...

Membership in the Pranksters

People who consider themselves Pranksters in spirit are said to be "on the bus" whether or not they ever actually took a bus trip with Kesey. In other words, the bus has become a metaphor for the lifestyle of anyone who is in solidarity with the psychedelic movement and who encourages others to have mind-expanding experiences, with or without drugs. Kesey was strict about what should constitute a proper prank. He said a successful prank must not physically hurt anyone, and the person being pranked must in some way be enlightened by the experience. This article is about metaphor in literature and rhetoric. ...

Notes and references

1. ^ Whelan, Brent. "'Furthur:' Reflections on Counter-Culture and the Postmodern." Cultural Critique 11 (1988): 63, 70.
2. ^ “electrified guitars, and basses and flutes, and horns and the light machines and the movie projectors, and the tapes and the mikes and the hi-fi’s, all of which pile up in insane coils of wire and gleams of stainless steel and gleams of winking amplifier dials. . .” Tom Wolfe, quoted in Whelan, 69.
3. ^ Whelan, 63-86.
4. ^ Cavallo, Dominick (1999). A Fiction of the Past: The Sixties in American History, pp. 110-11. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-21930-X.
5. ^ Stone, Robert: "Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties", page 120. HarperCollins, 2007
6. ^ The Tomorrow Show, Tom Snyder, Television retrospective Interview available on YouTube

See also

The Middlebury College Ultimate Team: Named the Pranksters, in honor of Kesey's movement. http://community.middlebury.edu/~uf/

External links

• Merry Prankster History Project
• Zane Kesey
• Ken Babbs
• Stewart Brand
• Better Version
• Never Trust a Prankster
• Prankster Music
• Notes article AT40
• Official site of AT40
• Zane article
• Rob Robinson