The Father Yod Centennial

July 4 was the birthday of James Edward Baker (1922-1975), known also as Father Yod and YaHoWa.

Interest in this man and his group of followers has swelled in recent times as an outgrowth of increased curiosity about cults, surely spurred on by the large-scale, terrifying mystery of the MAGA phenomenon. Baker’s group had some of the features of a religious cult, but I think it’s debatable whether or not it completely answered the description. The typical cult story culminates in violence: either murder, or mass suicide, and/or coercion, imprisonment, child endangerment, and sexual abuse. Some of these features appear to have been present in the Yod story, but nothing on the clear cut scale we typically observe in groups like this. It has no spectacular obvious darkness at its center as did the cults of Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Heaven’s Gate. The Source Family had its own original religion with Father Yod at the center. The core group lived together on a commune, and were known for their popular chain of health food restaurants, and their influential psychedelic jam band. People could come and go as they pleased. And the only dramatic death that emerged from the Source’s strange journey was Yod’s own.

Of the time prior his emergence as a spiritual leader, though, one hears a different story. As with many cult leaders (Chuck Dederich of Synanon springs to mind), Baker came with a legend of machismo. He was a U.S. Marine who saw action in the Pacific during World War II, though there is no evidence of his having received the Silver Star Medal he often boasted of. Baker became a martial arts master known as “Judo Jim”, winning a major competition in his native Cincinnati in the late ’40s. His interest in judo and jujutsu went with a concomitant enthusiasm for health food (a raw, vegetarian diet) and regimens of exercise. He also attended a Swedish massage school in Chicago and studied yoga. But he had demons to conquer. His legend is that in his younger years he was involved in a bank robbery, embezzled funds from one of his businesses, and that he killed two men in separate altercations, serving time for the second incident.

Baker came to L.A. in the 1950s, unsuccessfully seeking work as a stunt man, and auditioning for the part of Tarzan in a film. Naturally, in L.A. he got even more deeply involved in the healthy lifestyle culture, already thriving there at the time. This would lead naturally to an interest in esoteric religions of both East and West, especially Hinduism, Sikhism, witchcraft, Freemasonry, paganism, and sex magick.

Meanwhile he earned his living with a series of health food restaurants, The Aware Inn, The Old World, and the biggest one of all, The Source, which was launched in 1969. The Source became a popular hang-out for movie stars and other celebrities like Steve McQueen, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Marlon Brando, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The restaurant was used as a location in such movies as Paul Mazursky’sAlex in Wonderland (1970) and Woody Allen’sAnnie Hall (1977). (Shockingly it’s not in Beatty’s Shampoo — what an omission!) It was also lampooned in a sketch on Saturday Night Live.

With its prominent Sunset Strip location, The Source attracted a lot of attention, which led to droves of young people congregating there. Many sought to work there or otherwise become involved with the growing group of Father Yod worshippers. By now Baker had fleshed out his own labyrinthine, somewhat incoherent philosophy, fueled by psychedelic drugs, which were taken as sacraments. There were daily yoga sessions and lessons at the foot of the master. And lots of group sex. He purchased the former mansion of publisher and real estate millionaire Harry Chandler, where his flock lived and could practice their alternative lifestyle 24/7. At its peak Father Yod had about 150 followers, most of them crammed into that mansion.

Some of the notable members of The Source Family included Bud Cort,Andre Previn’s daughter, and Skye Saxon of the garage band The Seeds (“Pushin’ Too Hard”). And they developed a psychedelic acid rock jam band, which recorded several records that received limited releases, and belatedly became influential on alternative music. (I confess I find their music pretty amazing, mostly because of the offbeat instrumentation. Father Yod, for example, beat out a rhythm on a kettle drum). The band was originally called The Spirit of ’76 (presumably having something to do with Baker’s July 4 birthday) and was later called Yo Ho Wha 13. (The name is derived from YHWH, the tetragrammaton, the unspoken name of the Hebrew deity in the Old Testament)

Eventually, as always happens, things went south. It always evolves into a power trip. Yod, who by now was claiming to be God (rhymes with Yod!) naturally went with whatever woman struck his fancy. One of them happened to be his legal wife, and she was none too happy about the others. He sold his restaurants to keep his community afloat, but even then he had to downsize to a smaller house, making living conditions for his members now a crowded, unhappy ordeal. Eventually he moved them all to Hawaii, where the locals were extremely hostile to them.

One day in 1974, the voices in Father Yod’s head told him to go hang-gliding off a 1,300 foot cliff. He had never been hang-gliding before, but he went for it anyway: ceremoniously, confidently, and with great fanfare. He jumped off the edge of the cliff — and then rapidly sank to the beach. A broken Father Yod lay on the sand surrounded by followers and died a few hours later. What is really strange is that all of this was caught on film. He was quite lucid and talked a lot to his followers in the hours after the accident. There were also hints that his death was intentional. Prior to the glide, he dropped cryptic hints that he would soon be leaving the earth. It may have been that he saw nothing but disaster ahead, and wanted to escape in the most romantic manner possible. Did he want to fly off into the sunset? His end was more like that of Icarus.

Father Yod’s community per se lasted until 1978, although it retains many adherents right down to the present day. There are numerous books about the story, and a terrific 2012 documentary called The Source Family.