Friday 25 May 2012

Kenwood: August 28th, 1967.


Serenity Now! On the afternoon of August 28th, 1967, a very stunned (albeit serene) John and Ringo gathered with Ray Coleman round the pool at Kenwood to discuss the previous day's events. Pete Shotton had driven up from Hayling Island that morning to lend moral support, but, having found John very serene indeed on his perch, headed off again to tend to matters supermarket.
John, of course, was later to regret the whole Maharishi-led Serenity Now response to Brian's death.
As it sayeth in Seinfeld: Serenity Now - Insanity Later. And so it came to pass that under the influence of Arthur "Insanity Now - Serenity Later" Janov, John, fresh from Primal-ing, resented the way he'd bottled up his real feelings of anger/guilt etc., and characterised the Maharishi as a "f**kin' idiot" in the Wenner Rolling Stone interview.
Though he was later to turn on Janov in similar fashion, if certain accounts are to be believed John stuck with the notion of "squeezin' the real feelin'"(TM), occasionally in ways that might generously be described as "somewhat insensitive", right up until the end of his own life.
Alas, no pics from the day in question, but plenty o' text; download and zoom in to read.

1 comment:

  1. This is typical of how they dealt with the situation at the time and was heavily influenced by what they were going through with the Maharishi, though of course all were grief stricken. I do think it was very helpful for them that the Maharishi was there at this particular period of crises for them. Whatever Lennon may have went through later, with the Janov therapy, etc., I believe is more to do with John's peculiar personality more than anything else. Also it is worth noting that these music papers at this time were prone to be rather "family" oriented, and anything too risqué said by The Fabs or anyone else I believe would've been censored.

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