Psychedelic Venus Church

The Psychedelic Venus Church (also known as PVC and PsyVen), was a new religious movement (NRM) founded on November 24, 1969 that was based in Berkley, California, Founders being Jefferson Poland and Mother Boats. It existed from 1969 to 1974 and had its peak member count of about 1,000 members. The group was a mixture of ideas from

Foundation

The church began as an offshoot from the existing Sexual Freedom League in the celebration of the leagues sixth year anniversary. It was described by the founders as a "a pantheistic nature religion, humanist hedonism, a religious pursuit of bodily pleasure through sex and marijuana (sic)." The church had ranging beliefs many of which were in accordance with the Counterculture of the 1960s that included body-positivity, sexual liberation, and finding spiritual meaning within the entheogenic sacramental use of cannabis. With inspiration by the pagan fellowship that Poland was a part of known as The Shiva Fellowship, the church used the roman goddess Venus-Aphrodite instead of Shiva as a idol, because of her symbolic representation of sex and desire. The group wrote an official scripture

In the early days of the church, Poland and Boats looked for counter-culture activists and other willing members along the Berkley / San Francisco area to join, gathering about 1,000 members at the peak of the groups popularity. Another documented way that the church would recruit members is by mailing free cannabis to whoever sent a SASE letter to the church. Poland would personally write instructions to the recipients on the best way to consume the cannabis and invite them to the church. For membership, The church would charge a $5 donation fee for lifetime membership. The church also handed out free membership cards to members of the existing Sexual Freedom League, and the Gay Liberation Movement, as well as to people who were interested and couldn't afford it. Poland predicted during the group's lifetime that at the rate at which the group was growing it could overthrow Christianity in popularity.

PVC was involved in many Neo-Pagan and

Ceremonies and Traditions

The Psychedelic Venus Church early on started with public monthly gatherings that were called "smoke-ins" by the group. These gatherings took place normally at Berkeley’s Peoples Park and any relevant cultural places. These gatherings were places that members could congregate and consume cannabis in devotion to the goddess Venus-Aphrodite. The gatherings would begin with a reading off the manifesto and a chant to symbolize the beginning of the event. After the readings were done, acolytes would roll joints and distribute them while participating in various activities such as music, food, more cannabis consumption and participation in mantra reciting's. During the public ceremonies, Poland would often strip nude to spread the message of body-positivity and the groups belief on the sacred nature of the human body. Due to this, Poland during the public ceremonies would often end up getting arrested for indecent exposure.

The church had reserved its more sexually involved gatherings as private ceremonies referred to as "Genital Sacrifices" that took place often in private residences. These ceremonies had limited rosters of containing only heterosexual couples, single women, and any homosexual variety. During the ceremony, it would begin with a traditional passing of sacramental cannabis and followed up by a brief introduction and a sermon. After the ceremonial introduction, present members would strip their clothing and sit down. 2 volunteers, 1 female and 1 male would walk towards the alter and were blindfolded by a priestess and were laid on the altar facing up. The volunteers on the altar would have honey applied to their individual genitals and when instructed the remaining attendees would lick the volunteers anointed genitalia. After this ritual, they would consume more sacramental cannabis and would participate in chants to lead into the closing prayers. At the end of the ceremony, members would celebrate by dancing nude to music and congregating into groups to practice intercourse with each other.

When the group rose in popularity, their traditional venues changed to various locations in San Francisco including a nine floor loft that become a regular meeting spot for the church. This spot took place one of their traditions called "Sensorium" which was a type of sensitivity training in which members would be stripped and blindfolded then proceeded to cover their feet with oil. Incense and a rose were brought out to stimulate the smell senses and was followed up by having a feather duster rubbed against the skin. This led into a full body massage that began with the feet and worked its way to the genitals.

A notable gathering was in 1971 when 70 church members and a few outsiders got together at the "Twin Peaks" mansion to host a "Genital Sacrifice" that ended up turning to a pansexual mass orgy. The house had surveillance cameras that captured the orgy on tape which masked attendees would take breaks to take a look at the tapes that were recorded live. This orgy was one of the first of its kind to be broadcasted on television and only reached to a underground bay area community where the tapes circulated in various alternative communities.

References

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