Collection

Communal Societies

Hamilton College Library Digital Collections

Item Media Type

Collection

Collection Designation

Special Collections

Genre

Ephemera

Language

English

Description

The Kerista commune existed in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, California, from 1971 to 1991. The Kerista religion was founded in 1956 in New York City by World War II veteran John Peltz Presmont, who became known as Bro Jud Presmont. The Keristans practiced polyfidelity, in which up to twenty-four or thirty-six partners (an even mix of men and women) were faithful to each other, forming a BFIC ("best friend identity cluster") that slept together on a fixed rotating schedule. Keristans also employed an intense face-to-face form of group criticism which they called "gestalt-o-rama." Hamilton College holds the major archive for the commune, comprised of hundreds of manuscripts, publications, ephemera, visual materials, video recordings, artifacts, and over 350 cassette recordings of the "gestalt-o-rama" sessions.

Note

For additional information visit https://www.kerista.com/

View Kerista items on our website http://contentdm6.hamilton.edu/digital/collection/rb-fia/search/searchterm/kerista/field/all/mode/all/conn/and/order/title/ad/asc

Institutional Owner

Hamilton College Library Digital Collections

Restrictions on Access

There are no restrictions on access to this resource.

Rights Statement

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)