Kerista Commune

The Kerista Commune was a moderately successful urban commune based in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, existing from 1971 to 1991. Membership varied over the years, but at its largest it was slightly less than 30 men, women and children. Founded by John Presmont (Brother Jud) and Eve Furchgott (Even Eve) in 1971 (though Presmont had founded Kerista as a religion as early as 1956), all members agreed to the same social contract in order to join. Social contract standards ranged from 'Total Rationality at All Times' to 'Clean Up Your Own Mess'. The commune also practiced Gestalt Therapy (members would verbally encounter themselves, friends and sometimes strangers about their neuroses), and communal living and finances. The Commune also practiced polyfidelity (members were faithful to a family group, called a Best Friend Identity Cluster or BFIC, within which they rotated sleeping arrangements), and coined the word "compersion" as "the opposite of jealousy, positive feelings about your partner's other intimacies."

The Commune was based on the idea of independent learning, self-education, and the creative use of technology to find novel solutions to the world's problems. Projects ranged from the simple to the highly ambitious and included self-esteem workshops, creative visualization, drama (Theater Verité, the Cosmic Opera), social justice, assistance for veterans (Presmont was a Vietnam veteran), free courses and rap groups, formation of a network of intentional communities ("Kerista Global Village"), newsletters and zines ( The Storefront Classroom, The Utopian Classroom, Rockhead, The Node, others) and books. Kerista Commune members also formed the executive leadership and held many staff positions of Abacus, Inc, a highly successful Apple computer reseller in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Kerista Commune broke up in 1992, triggered in large part by feelings among many members that Presmont was not holding hiimself to the same standards he demanded of others. Presmont continued his work (incorporated as the World Academy of Keristan Education, or WAKEINC), until he died in 2009.

[Preceding adapted from information on the Kerista Commune website, http://www.kerista.com/

From the guide to the Kerista Commune Collection, circa 1971-2008, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)