Neil Pike and the Pagan Love Cult

The only cult in the world that tries to brainwash its members to think for themselves... The Pagan Love Cult is an Australian psychedelic institution. Based in Nimbin and operating in one form or another since the 70s, they use music and light to explore the juncture between social activism and psychedelic bliss. They have toured the UK, US and Asia. Psychedelic folktronica.

http://www.paganlovecult.com/

http://neilpike.com/

Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll — 1970s

Home free . . . Thousands of young Australians left city homes to live in dwellings like The Temple, a cosy, three-storey open-air-conditioned cottage in a forest near Kuranda. The Temple family in September 1975 were (back row from left) Frances Swan, 18, Neil Pike, 20, Nick, 26, reporter John Philip; (front row) Allan Dixon, 14, Colleen Colours, 19, with baby Jessie James; Tony Gomme, 29, and Sandi Moonbeam, 19. Picture: Brian Church
THE 60s finally arrived in Queensland in the 1970s. The disillusionment and boredom teenagers felt with their workaday lives and dead-end jobs in the 50s crystallised into the hippie movement of the 70s.
Teenagers no longer wanted to follow the example of their parents and many began leaving school to "find themselves", rather than find a job.
Queensland, particularly the north — with its laid-back lifestyle, breathtaking natural beauty and large tracts of uninhabited land — was mecca to the flower children. Parents fretted as their sensibly named progeny tagged themselves Waterfall, Lilypad and Moonbeam and went off in search of Utopia.
They came from all around Australia to follow the hippie-trail north — from Byron Bay, through the Sunshine Coast hinterland and up to Cairns. From there they ventured to Kuranda and Cedar Bay. By 1975 about 6000 young Australians were living in communes.
A threat more real than rock'n'roll had emerged: drugs.
LSD and marijuana were the drugs of choice, supplemented with products from nature's own medicine cabinet, including magic mushrooms and the highly toxic hallucinogen datura plant, or angel's trumpet. As well as experimenting with different lifestyles, teenagers were experimenting with altered states of consciousness.
On the Atherton Tablelands near Kuranda was a commune known as Rosebud Farm. The property was bought in 1971 by idealistic young Harvard dropout Rich Trapnell, who invited a handful of friends to come join him in a self-sufficient life. Those who came ranged in age from 16-20.
They grew their own fruit and vegetables, listened to music and experimented with drugs and an unconventional lifestyle.