My Life in the One World Family Commune

III: The Universal Industrial Church of the New World Comforter

It was an incredibly high energy time, celebrating our New Age lifestyle and coming face to face with our individual karmic patterns, learning from them and letting go so that we could share and serve in a totally trusting relationship. I marvel when I look back at those days. Our many accomplishments, with little or no previous experience, were inspired by Allen Michael’s expansive vision and the freedom we felt to be our creative selves. As we performed our music, ran restaurants, published books and cared for our many children, our focus remained on our mission of publishing and distributing Allen Michael’s channeled writings and getting “the Comforter” before the people. It was clear to us that we were being guided by Creation Universe.

We recognize ourselves as the “church of God rising among the people,” making “Michael’s stand with the holy people,” Dan. 12:1-4, and in 1973, we became chartered as the Universal Industrial Church of the New World Comforter. We were granted a non-profit status, with Starmast Publications and Productions as the publishing and production facet of the church.

With past secretarial experience, I was naturally led to participate in the publication of Allen Michael’s channelings – a highly fulfilling endeavor, as well as a great challenge. It was rewarding to be able to use skills I had acquired as a secretary in the wage slave world toward something I truly cared about. Those of us who have worked on the publications have learned to trust that the supernal truth will shine thru in spite of it all and have strived to edit the messages coming thru as little as possible.

Allen Michael channels from an all-encompassing perspective of the Synthesis, explaining the relativity of all things on this world, which in the written form can be easily misinterpreted inasmuch as most of the words in our language are a reflection of limited thinking and duality. Out of ignorance of the truth, the fear of the unknown blocks people from being open to something they have never heard of before or read in their text books. It’s of course absurd to imagine that the books supervised by the establishment would have any truth about the economy and history, when their purpose is to program the youth to fit into the backwards system and keep the wheels turning in the so-called government and in giant corporations. However, at this time in the year 2011, the planetary transformation into our wonderful new sharing world is rapidly approaching, and the consciousness is expanding, as more and more people are recognizing the truth. Galactica has allowed the negative effects to build more intensely now in planetary catastrophies to awaken the people from their dream, or I should say “nightmare,” of buying and selling Creation’s abundance for secular gain.

“To the Youth of the World”

Back in Berkeley, at last, the great day came that we had been looking forward to. It was June of 1973, and as Starmast Publications, we published the first book of the Everlasting Gospel series, “To the Youth of the World.” Just as many other times over the years, that was one when we were all sure that this was the big breakthrough and, with our mission at last accomplished, we were soon to be recognized for the truth we were bringing to the people. I realize that “soon” is relative, and it’s always the same day in the Universe. Now, 39 years later, I can see that it was just one of the many publications, videos and talks over the years, containing the message and being recorded in the collective consciousness for this time now, when the rising planetary consciousness has reached a point where the truth of the Everlasting Gospel is being recognized.

Following the publication of the first EG, we published our natural food cookbook, “Cosmic Cookery”, thanks to Kathryn and Lorena’s competence and stick-to-it-iv-ness as editor and artist, along with the support of all the communal members who carried out the necessary daily activities to keep our visionary starship moving ever onward. As a result of Cosmic Cookery’s popularity, we published three additional printings, and Kathy had many opportunities to display her charisma and share the wisdom of a natural food diet.

Under Chris Plant’s leadership, a small group from the Family set up a communal project in Sacramento where we operated the One World Family Natural Food Restaurant on the K St. mall. We got the word out in the State Capitol, serving many people, including then governor Jerry Brown as an occasional customer.

Toward the end of ’75, with the demand of editing, publishing and promoting the EG and putting on musical productions, it became evident that the all-consuming responsibility of operating the One World Family Center in Berkeley was no longer feasible. As the older and more experienced members were being pulled to communication projects, we were unable to maintain our food service on the same high standard, and the Center wasn’t making it financially. Then, one day we were faced with the news that the two former fraternity houses we were living in on Prospect Street had been sold and our large family had to find other dwellings. With perfect timing, shortly before we were to move out of the houses, Allen Michael found a buyer for our restaurant. It was the end of an era and we were being moved on our way, just as we had been led from San Francisco to Marin to Berkeley.

Eugene

1974 was a year of emissaries going forth to establish projects on their own. First, Jay, Tama’s husband and a friend of the family, helped set up a OWF natural food restaurant in Lahaina on Maui, and Tama, Michael B., Bill B., Elaine, Betty, Sheila, Jeanie, Joe, and others went to beautiful Maui to communally operate the Cafe Paradise. Our little restaurant on Front Street was a big success, and subsequently, we opened the FarOutfits Shop also on Front Street. It was a beautiful little shop across from the ocean, where we sold our handmade, airbrushed clothing and gifts.

In that same year, Steve, who had gone on the road with his band, wanted to establish a musician’s commune in Eugene, Oregon and asked Michael and me to come there to help set it up. We agreed to make the move, welcoming the opportunity to be together with Mike, Rhys, Catie and Chris in a closer relationship than had been possible since joining the commune. Having been swept off our feet with the idealism and vision of a world of caring, sharing people, living as one family while going thru the myriad of changes that accompany so radical a change in lifestyle, we had been blind to the fact that our children needed a lot more individual attention and care than they were getting, and the move gave us the opportunity to do that.

The two months we had planned to be in Eugene flew by and became two years. Michael studied radio communications at Lane Community College, where he became a student Senator and, even though he was recognized as having some unusual and radical ideas, was chosen to attend a Community College conference in Washington, D.C. We participated in many fairs in Eugene and did our usual promotions to get the word out, with people joining us for different periods of time.

On one of my trips to Berkeley for a visit, I learned the art of airbrushing from Bill B., and when I returned to Eugene, I set up an airbrush studio in our house. I found that not only was it a good chance to get our literature to the people, but as well, selling flying saucer T-shirts at the Saturday Market – a popular arts and crafts marketplace downtown – was a great weekend cash flow project. Michael and Rhys expressed their creativity in woodwork and weaving by making and selling Inca looms and beautiful hand woven belts, while Catie and Mike helped with the booth.

Beldon came up from Berkeley to join us, and during our last two months in Eugene, we took over a bakery that was going out of business. It was a great time, baking our honey pastries and Whole Wheat Sunflower Seed Bread in the beautiful, large professional bakery and having the opportunity to provide our natural whole grain pastries and bread for the community. It was short but sweet, and after operating the bakery for two months, we had to move out because the owner went into bankruptcy. We realized then that it was time to return to the Family’s newly acquired home base in Stockton.

Stockton

Following our move from Berkeley, members had found temporary living quarters in various areas while the Family searched for affordable housing large enough to fit our needs in the land of separate family dwellings. Because we had the small group of the OWFC operating a vegetarian restaurant near the Capitol in Sacramento, we included that area in our search. Thus, we found the beautiful Wong Mansion in Stockton, 45 minutes south of Sacramento, located in the San Joaquin Valley. Stockton has the distinction of being a multi-cultural area, with a deep water port on the San Joaquin River, surrounded by fertile delta farmland. The low cost-of-living and the slower pace was a welcome change from Berzekly for all of us, particularly for those of us with children.

By the time we returned from Eugene, Allen Michael and some of the communal family members had made the move to the Wong Mansion, which we renamed the Altamira. It was a beautiful oasis in an older, multi-ethnic neighborhood of small houses. The 12 bedroom mansion was built above street level, with large grounds containing many different kinds of fruit trees and surrounded by a beautiful wrought iron fence. On the adjacent property, we rented a three-apartment complex with a large swimming pool. As more of the family reassembled, we rented three additional houses within a block of the mansion and, on that same block, had an organic vegetable garden on a large lot donated by our landlady.

Stockton was quite a contrast to the radical, fast-moving scene in Berkeley, and without the vast drain of energy it took to operate our large Center on Telegraph, we were able to develop other areas of creativity and communications, as well as publish two more books of the Everlasting Gospel series, “UFO-ETI World Master Plan” and “ETI Space Beings Intercept Earthlings”.

Along with publications and promotions, our other “Creative Schools of Experience” included a productive woodshop, sewing, airbrushing, candle making, tie-dying, video and music productions, recording, catering and organic gardening, most of which were included in our Children’s Schools of Experience.

The high point of this period were our musical productions, with leading musicians, Bill B., Bill H., Andor, Leaetta, Alan; Patti and Bill’s dancing and teaching abilities; the genius of Betty’s costume creations; Elaine and Joy’s sewing skills and, of course, the participation of all of us other talented members of the family. We provided most of our own entertainment and recreation, and the weekly family disco parties in the Meditation Room were gala celebrations, hosted by our own “Disco Daddy,” Bill B.

We had our little self-contained environment, learning thru the doing while we produced our inspired art, music and books. It was a wonderful world, free of the insecurity that comes of the secular world of buying and selling, wheeling and dealing. Of course, we all had our different karmic patterns to unravel, and living communally is a speedy way to learn about yourself and to make changes. If you can’t make the changes, you have to leave, and when you know there is nowhere else you want to go, you do it. In looking back at where I was at then, I can see how much I’ve grown in self awareness, and I’m so thankful I’ve been given this opportunity to awaken more and more to my true self – a continuing process for all of us here on this healing project planet.

The Synthesis Party

In early 1980, Michael Parry came up with the idea that we form our own political party and he drew up the papers for us to register as the Synthesis Party, “the party to end all political parties and have a real party!” – with Allen Michael running for president in the ‘80 election.

On one of his promotion trips to Southern California, Beldon succeeded in setting up a date with the producer of the Real People show. At that time, Real People was a popular CBS-TV show out of Hollywood. The show’s director, Chuck Hillinger and host, John Barber, came with their crew to document our dynamic communal demonstration. The crew had planned to spend half a day with us, but they were so interested in each person they interviewed, the spirit of our wonderful lifestyle and the colorful surroundings of the Wong Mansion, that they extended it to two full days of interviews.

It was an exhilarating experience, with all of us turned on to the wonderful story we have to tell and the thrill that we were finally going to be seen and heard. This was a few months prior to the 1980 presidential election and Allen Michael made an agreement with the producer that he would not appear on any other national TV show before the election, which meant canceling a scheduled appearance on the Tom Snyder Show.

It was another of those peak times when world recognition appeared to be eminent, and had CBS shown our demonstration of living together as one family on national TV, we most certainly would have had world attention. But of course, the ruling powers wouldn’t want that, and we probably would have attracted a lot of negative energy to ourselves from the establishment. I can see now that the consciousness at that time wasn’t ready for the truth of so great a scope and the coming changes.

Month after month, we were told that the showing had been delayed for one reason or another, and ultimately, it was never shown! It was obvious to us then, just as it has been obvious all along, why no major network has yet covered our fantastic demonstration and the enlightening messages coming thru Allen Michael from Galactica. The “money behind the throne,” who control the mass media, couldn’t let people see how wonderful life can be when people are sharing all things in common and serving one another without thought of reward. It might blow all the brainwashing that’s been done to portray communism (communalism) as an evil, sinister force. The truth is that it is the powers-that-be of the usury money world who represent the evil force – but then too, it’s all relative!