Unorthodox Communes

Abstract

Although it is sometimes difficult to judge who has the final word on social “sanity,” from time to time intentional communities have originated whose philosophy and make up have stunned even the most nonjudgmental observers. Interestingly, the lifestyles of these “unorthodox” human organizations tend to vary as much as the individual personalities of the charismatic leaders who direct them (Stoner and Parke, 1977:100). In 1978, for example, the world was shocked to learn that hundreds of followers of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple had committed suicide. A similar feeling of shock erupted in 1993 when 85 Branch Davidians, 17 of them children, perished in a fire after a month-long government siege of the Ranch Apocalypse in Waco, Texas. The Children of God movement, often known as The Family, was started by David Berg, a former Missionary Alliance preacher, who began his ministry in the late 1960s in California hippie communes. For many years his organization specialized in “Flirty Fishing,” which meant that members should indulge in sex with outsiders as a means of luring them to the cause. After all, Berg told his disciples, “There is nothing intrinsically wrong with sex, it’s a gift from God” (Milne, 1994:26).