Solar Panels

My cabin in the Oregon woods for most of the 1980s

My one room shack, built on a forested hillside, was a ten minute's hike up from the nearest road, telephone, mailbox, and power line. I hauled my water five gallons at a time, and chopped firewood all winter. But the nights were long and dark, and reading by candle light is not recommended. The year was 1983. And I was a hippy who had browsed the Whole Earth Catalog and Mother Earth News attentively. I knew that my situation had a simple resolution. I just needed to deploy a photovoltaic solar panel. 

This simple device is made from a number of wafers of silicon wired together. That's all it is, really - aside from a protective frame. It converts sunlight to electricity. Combine this with a battery to store the energy gathered during the day, to have energy to use at night. 

The conversion of light to electrical energy - known as the photovoltaic effect - had first been observed by Alexandre Becquerel in 1839. But it was not until the 1950s that devices were built by Bell Laboratories to make use of the phenomenon: solar panels to power some of the earliest satellites launched to space. Gradually, solar cells made their way into the marketplace, sold typically as science novelties for children and hobbyists. By the 1970s, the most ubiquitous use of photovoltaics available to consumers was the solar powered calculator. However, in specialized niche markets, full scale power module solar panels were starting to appear by then. They were expensive, but useful for mobile and remote power needs.

Pres. Jimmy Carter installed solar water heating panels on the White House roof in 1979

In the late 60s and early 70s, Stewart Brand, hippy philosopher and itinerant peddler of tools, took note of solar panels and included them in his publication, The Whole Earth Catalog. And now the multitudes of his hippy readers knew where to get their hands on arrays of solar panels sufficient for powering a home, or a rock concert. 

I was lucky to find a local dealer of solar equipment, who happened to have a slightly used demo model that he sold me for half price - a bargain in 1983, for only $150. I built a mount on my cabin roof, bought an RV battery, wired it all up to my car stereo and a couple of light bulbs, and suddenly found myself civilized - with reading lights and nice music out in the middle of nowhere. 

I still have my solar panel, and it still works fine, 34 years later. Though I am currently only using it as a coffee table. But it's just nice knowing that, when the proverbial shit hits the fan, I can still crank up the tunes!

My old PV solar panel, now used as a coffee table

But aside from being useful for my own odd lifestyle choice in the 80s, solar power is an important answer for some of humanity's most pressing problems - especially when combined with other renewable sources of energy, and electrified transportation. Reliance on fossil fuel causes pollution, climate change, and international strife. The oil and coal corporations have a vested interest in maintaining our reliance on their products, and have suppressed the development of alternative energy with their propaganda and price manipulation.

Great inventions do not always catch on right away. Some never do. Others get caught up in buy-outs, or legal disputes, and languish in patent limbo. In the case of photovoltaic solar panels, a bit of misdirection and market manipulation has been sufficient to suppress this marvelous yet simple technology, which could be solving several global problems simultaneously right now. And to be frank, it could have started doing so as early as the 1970s, if only consumers had listened to the hippies instead of the petroleum corporations. We could have avoided several wars in the Middle East, averted global warming before it was too late, prevented hundreds of oil spill disasters such as the Exxon Valdez and the BP Deepwater Horizon, and a number of economic recessions might not have hit so hard, if we could have been more serious about green energy way back when it was first proposed.

Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, April 2010

While hippies did not invent the photovoltaic solar panel, and indeed most could not even afford to buy one, they certainly embraced and promoted the concept. The hippies deserve credit for recognizing solar energy's potential to solve major problems. The government and the marketplace were remiss in not heeding the foresight of those deep thinker hippies.

In fact, this gets at the central theme of my blog here. Again and again, we will find hippie wisdom lighting up the darkness and despair, only to be marginalized, scoffed at, swept under the rug, and snuffed out by mainstream society and its corporate puppeteers. But hippies are a humble lot, and would rather keep a positive attitude than hold a grudge. So I've decided that somebody needs to stand up and say "told you so!" I am here to point out all the times the hippies were right without being heard, and all the different ways they changed society without getting credit for it. In the case of solar panels, humanity lost about 40 years of crucial time by dismissing solar power as a hippy science fiction dream.

And now that we actually have futuristic monster hurricanes, rising sea levels, melted ice caps, coral reef bleaching, weird plant and animal migrations, record setting sweltering summers year after year, and politicians pretending like it's not happening, guess what? Solar panels are now so efficient and plentiful that solar energy costs less than fossil energy for the first time in history. There are now entire cities and countries running on 100% alternative energy. It may be too little, too late to prevent climate catastrophe. But solar is real. And cost effective. Not just for little cabins in the woods, but for nations and planets.

Book List 2

As the political and social struggles which spawned the hippy movement gained more experience and more followers, a deep insight into the roots of humanity's problems emerged. By the early 1960s, intellectuals and artists had declared that our very souls were crying out for spiritual nourishment in the existential darkness, and said our churches and religious authorities were not answering the call in any meaningful way. A crisis of spirit seemed to permeate the times.

By the late 60s, the youth culture had discovered that some answers and nourishment could be obtained from an eclectic mixture of the world's religious traditions - leading to some new hungers and questions to contemplate, of course. American and European kids brought up as Protestants and Catholics developed a fascination with Buddhism and Vedantic practices, along with ancient shamanic wisdom and pagan lore. They then blended this exotica with Jesus and other favored heroes retained from the Christian catechism, such as St. Francis of Assisi. The result was a tossed salad of spirituality, which could be sampled and nibbled as needed, in a sort of do-it-yourself approach to individualized religious syncretism.

Book List #2 - Spiritual Awakening

These are just a few of the books which influenced and guided hippy explorations of the soul and spirit. 

Be Here Now 
by Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)
1971

This is the ultimate hippy guidebook. Starting with Dr. Alpert's autobiographical transformation from psychologist into a devotee of yoga and meditation, this unusual book also includes an assemblage of quotable quotes of wisdom, instructions for breathing techniques and yoga postures, and a wonderful bibliography that is probably responsible for the awkward similarity of so many hippy libraries.

 ___________
 

The Sacred Pipe
by Black Elk
1953
 
A generation raised on Hollywood Westerns questioned the cowboy and Indian polarity, and soon embraced the Native American cause. Hippies often consulted this little book to keep it real. Black Elk was an Oglala Lakota medicine man. He was also a performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show throughout Europe in 1887, he fought at the battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, and he was a Catholic school teacher in the 1900s. His semi-autobiographical book Black Elk Speaks was published in 1932. He became known for expounding the symbolic purpose and meaning of traditional Sioux ritual, along with his own visions and prophecies. This much slimmer volume, The Sacred Pipe, explains how and why to perform the most sacred of these rites and prayers.

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Zen in the Art of Archery
by Eugen Herrigel
1948

The culture clash known as "East meets West" has been colliding and melding ever since Marco Polo. Even though European and American organizations such as the Vedanta Society (founded 1894) and the Theosophical Society (founded 1875) translated and studied the holy books of India, Japan, Tibet and China, the general public in the West was largely unfamiliar with Asian religions - until this brief introduction to Zen Buddhism was published in Germany in 1948. Herrigal was a philosophy professor who stayed in Japan for five years to study archery from a Zen master. His account of the experience made the basic concepts of Zen accessible to Westerners, and became required reading for all hippies interested in spiritual pathways. And because of its emphasis on the balance and co-ordination of mind and body in the midst of an athletic feat - in this case, archery - this book also had a big influence on sports and coaching.

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Autobiography of a Yogi
by Paramahansa Yogananda
1946

Even when regarded crassly as a mere marketing gimmick, this book was a miracle worker. Decent hard-working Christian folk regarded Hinduism with suspicion and disdain, equating it with snake charmers and devil worshippers. When along came this mild-mannered, long haired guru, packing lecture halls across America with his infectious love of God, and his advice about how to experience that love more fully. Yogananda was a hit sensation with the novelty seeking public. The lecture tour was soon followed by publication of this book, which details Yogananda's youthful yearnings and plucky pilgrimages, complete with some mystical miracles. Suddenly the whole Western world had a friendly handle on the holy teachings of India, and the ancient legacy of Brahmanic Hinduism gained a bit of acceptance. After George Harrison read this book in 1966, it inspired The Beatles to take their 1968 trip to Rishikesh, India. As a result, every hippy had to read it - and with a miraculous resurgence, book sales skyrocketed.

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Meetings with Remarkable Men
by G. I. Gurdjieff
(English edition) 1963

Gurdjieff's teachings are notoriously tough to adhere to, and his writings have a
reputation for abstruse density. But this story is a carefree romp compared to his other books. An autobiographical tale of his wanderings through Transcaucasia and Central Asia, it puts emphasis on Gurdjieff's quest for wisdom and meaningful work, and the people he met along the way. Some of the more improbable anecdotes in the narrative are no doubt intended as fables for teaching purposes, so approach it with a bit of skepticism and a metaphoric eye. But for the most part, we can trust this to explain the origins and development of Gurdjieff's unique spiritual philosophy. As such, it serves as an entertaining primer on the subject. It was even made into a movie in 1979. Nevertheless, only a certain type of hippy took much interest in Gurdjieff's teachings. This book could only be found on the bookshelves of super serious, introspective, intellectual, agnostic hippies. But it always held a place of importance there.

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The Way of Zen
by Alan Watts
1957


Alan Watts was the consummate explainer of Eastern philosophies to Western readers. With a prolific number of books to his credit, he expressed his thorough scholarship - on everything from ancient Chinese divination to the meaning of Easter Sunday - in terms that ordinary lay people could understand. This book outlines the historical background of Zen Buddhism, describes how it is practiced, and discusses its relevance and meaning in the modern world. It is thought that this book was partly responsible for the Buddhist underpinnings of Jack Kerouac's 1958 travelogue, The Dharma Bums. And indeed Alan Watts himself makes an appearance in that novel as the character Arthur Whane. A typical hippy collection might include half a dozen different Alan Watts books. But at least one of them was inevitably The Way of Zen.