Enlightenment—What's It Good For, The Author's Back Story: Prologue to Voluntary Peasants Sharing Life, Land and Love at the Ultimate Hippie Commune—The Farm in Tennessee

What is Truth? A bird sings. Zen! Enlightenment beckons.
The search for enlightenment of a reporter who followed the '60s over the edge.
Like now, the times were changing. Even minds were changing. Visit the '40s through the '60s, follow a spiritual quest that leads to far-out adventures including Greenwich Village Joy Ride, A Gypsy Good Time, The LSD Portal and Sold American.

CAUTION! This book may blow your mind. It will at least make you laugh and give you an authentic sample of the energy, vibes, feel and mindscape of the 50s-60s, focusing on thirteen years living in America's biggest, most-influential commune, The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee.

History comes alive in this entertaining literary time capsule. Leave the ordinary behind. Let your head soar free and take a trip—a 60s trip over the edge and back. Melvyn Stiriss takes the reader on an extraordinary, first-person journey from Greenwich Village to Haight Ashbury and back to the land, in this gripping, mind-opening tale; opening doors, revealing inner realms of those heady, revolutionary times—times rich in lessons that can help us now.

Enlightenment—What's it Good For is a far-out, fun, insightful, odd ball odyssey that transports the reader to the 50s and 60s and sets the stage for Voluntary Peasants. This is the author's back story, 1942-'69. A fun, Zen romp and sampling of psychedelic 60s spirit and mindscape. What is enlightenment? How does one attain it, and why would anyone want it? These age-old questions erupted in human consciousness in the sixties with tremendous power that rocked a generation and continues to reverberate around the planet. Insightful and humorous, Stiriss reveals personal enlightening experiences on his path.

Journalist/humorist Melvyn Stiriss sheds fresh light on a time when people dared to “get out of the box,” to seek meaning and liberation from old, constricting paradigms. Entertaining, informative nonfiction novel of times that flipped the world on its ear. From beatniks to hippies—Bob Dylan, marijuana, a transcendental dental experience, a Zen joy ride to Greenwich Village, a Gypsy Good Time, Woodstock.

A UPI reporter who covered the Grateful Dead and Vietnam War demonstrations in New York, Stiriss followed the story of the times over the edge to live the story himself. Like Don Draper in TV’s “Mad Man,” the author worked a stint in a Madison Avenue agency as a publicist and underwent a life-altering spiritual/identity crisis launching—
“A soul search and rescue mission for my own soul.” His quest led to an odyssey of far-out adventures—a search for meaning, purpose, love and enlightenment.

Stiriss—“I co-founded and lived thirteen years in America’s biggest commune—not undercover but as a full-fledged member of the hippie collective, living the dream, ‘saving the world.’ The idea of writing about the experience came after when I realized the importance of the 13-year social experiment—a far-out joint venture living in America’s biggest commune and cannabis church—a labor of love to save the planet.

“This is what James Joyce called the monomyth: an archetypal story that springs from the collective unconscious. Its motifs can appear not only in myth and literature, but, if you are sensitive to it, in the working out of the plot of your own life. The basic story of the hero journey involves giving up where you are, going into the realm of adventure, coming to some kind of symbolically rendered realization, and then returning to the field of normal life.”—Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

This book sets the stage for Voluntary Peasants, a psychedelic journey to the Ultimate Hippie Commune—a multilevel history of America’s biggest commune—The Farm in Tennessee—a daring social experiment to create a globally-affordable, simple-yet-gracious, sustainable lifestyle.

Voluntary Peasants, the whole 330-page book will be in print October.

Visit www.VoluntaryPeasants.com