Shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the group which would come to be known as the Edenics was founded in Berkeley, California. Several years later, after a series of train bombings in Madrid, los cristianos del pacto edénico, a similar organization, was established in that city by Spanish nationals who had been part of the Berkeley organization in its early days. Membership in either of these organizations was not a matter of official administration; one considered themselves a member by participating in the “edenic” lifestyle and occasional paid retreats and potlucks hosted by their respective group. As a result, membership in either party did not conform to any borders: the Edenical Christians, as they came to be collectively known, therefore spread rapidly through the western United States and continental Europe, especially the Mediterranean region and coastal France. At their highest extent in the mid 2000’s, there were even a few outposts of the Edenics in northern Africa and Turkey, but they largely died out as a result of public suspicion and some political turmoil which tended to follow them in the oriental regions of the world.
The official beliefs of the sect—though they denied use of the term sect and preferred terms like family—were based essentially in a return to the way of life present in Eden. Accordingly the members were strict nudists (Genesis 2:25) and in general ate a vegan diet (Genesis 1:29), though the latter prescription was a matter of some debate among members. One’s own understanding of what Eden was like was considered both highly subjective and itself holy, and members were encouraged to beautify their own life until they believed it to be the “living image” of Eden itself. The height of this commandment was a headquarters called the Living Image in Oakland: originally a community garden, purchased by Edenic members and turned into a semi-public garden (admittance was based on adherence to the commandment of nudism and one’s faith). Within the picketed walls was a combination fruit-and-flower garden; garden-goers were encouraged to pick what fruit they could and smell the flowers. Sex in the space was also encouraged, and pregnant women were considered to be special guests in the garden, who were admired both as public works of art and as the personification of one aspect divinity—the creation of life. However, as birth remained a painful act (Genesis 3:16), giving birth was prohibited within the Living Image parameters. To the public credit of the Edenics, however, a midwifery was established on the neighboring space, which became a source of income for the group as they operated publicly.
Madrid remained the largest hub for Edenical Christianity in Europe. Public demonstrations were frequent at the Parque del Retiro; at first such demonstrations were dubbed illegal gatherings and some members of the group were maced and generally harassed by armed forces in the early years of the project as a result of charges of public indecency; but the spirit of the group was enlivened by the outcries of the legal administration and eventually both the police of the city and the local citizens came to accept their presence. For a four-month period the Parque was actually converted into a sort of autonomous zone by members of the organization, but the land was not apt for farming and most of the food was imported. There were issues with sexual assault—mostly affecting the young men of the group—which led to scandal, and the project was abandoned. The attempt and failure at maintaining autonomy in Madrid was a serious blow to the group; their membership gradually declined in the months following the media scandal that arose as a result of the effort. Many converts eventually moved to northern California to join the sister group there, and over time the locus in Berkeley grew to global prominence. At one time close to one-tenth of all immigrants from Europe to the United States were heading to northern California for the explicit purpose of joining the organization.
The Edenics—the Berkeley organization—were steadfast in their adherence to nudism even in the wintertime. Over time, however, several prominent members reconsidered the meaning of Edenhood: rather than a set of aesthetic ideals, they argued its telos was contained in human contentment. A few public debates over the course of a particularly cold winter led to the fissure and the creation of a new group, the Revised Edenical Christians, often mockingly called “the Protestants” by members of the Edenics. This group, less adherent to many of the beliefs of the mother organization, became within a couple of years larger than the Edenics, in part due to their more lax rules relating to nudism and dietary restriction. Dairy products and unfertilized eggs were widely considered good to eat, as they did not require the killing of an animal in order to be consumed; many in the organization continued to eat meat on the argument that doing so provided a more complete diet which was easier to maintain, thus improving the quality of life of the member who chose to consume meat. Internal disagreement was relatively common in the REC, and was in fact encouraged by the oversight council, called the Parent-Council of the Revised Edenical Christian Family.
Despite the accepted level of disagreement within the REC, there remained an official platform of their beliefs, which they often disseminated through their self-published periodical, the Edenic Bugle. One of the defining beliefs of the REC was a rejection of the pacifism of the Edenics. The argument in favor of this revolved around the necessity of authority to maintain beauty and perfection, and the fact of evil in the modern world. As long as violence between members was prohibited, there was no philosophical limit to the violence which an REC member could inflict upon their environment, assuming it was for the betterment of said environment. This position—“the necessity,” as it was known—served to generate continued controversy for the group; though infamous, they continued to gain new members at a rate exceeding either the Edenics or los cristianos del pacto edénico.
More members brought in more money, and there came to be widespread support for a headquarters similar to the Living Image for the REC. Members usually hosted their own get-togethers; wine-parties and potlucks were for a time ubiquitous in Berkeley and often would scale up to encompass block-parties. There was no restriction on alcohol for members, regardless of age, which attracted younger members into the organization. These younger members were often more radical in their wants, and support for a headquarters morphed into a desire for their own autonomous zone similar to the kind attempted by the Madrid organization. At first this took the form of what might be called extended block parties: basically a gang of teenagers continuously occupying a few blocks of a neighborhood, walking around naked, drinking wine, and having sex in the street. These were usually broken up only as a result of noise complaints as opposed to public indecency, but it was still often remarked in local newspapers and through gossip that the whole affair was innately scandalous, despite the efforts of the REC to emphasize the spiritual aspects of the cause. Eventually the effort for autonomy became more sophisticated, and a lobbying organization was set up on behalf of the REC with the aim of, at first, decriminalizing public nudity. After this was achieved—in a matter of months, thanks to some fortuitous timing around a local election and an intense grassroots effort by those younger members—the aims of the lobby shifted towards attaining official recognition from the local governments of the Bay Area as a distinct religious and, importantly, political group. Recognition came in the form of speeches delivered by politicians at the potlucks and block parties the group was famous for. However, official recognition as an autonomous party did not come.
Time made desire turn violent. The necessity became a matter of widespread scandal when two young members—both under the age of 21—broke into an elderly couple’s house and declared the land common to all Edenics. Telephone lines were cut and the couple were kicked out of their home onto the street. The couple went to a police station to report the crime and within three hours the two teenagers were arrested. The controversy this caused within the group was oriented around whether the actions of the two members were commendable or, at best, neutral.
...Well—I mean—I've got—I've got five big things that you… you all brought up that there's this kind of everyday quality to a specific form—a letter form—that has shape that we look at, and we are acting on it, whether to make it look good, or to convey meaning—that through that action, we're trying to convey something, whether it's narrative, whether it's directive—we're hopefully creating something that works systematically and provide some kind of instruction. Now that's a lot of layers that you have already. And that's fantastic. I mean I honestly thought, those are the five key aspects of typography that we're taking into the semester, and we'll do it through various ways, various considerations but yeah that's that's really the material. That's the stuff...
“Somewhere out in the woods theres a big clearing. You know the kind, big grove and some wildflowers in it, really pretty in the summertime and if you can hoof it out there in the spring when it’s all wet you can see the flowers blooming in real time. Whole lot of beauty, you know what I mean. Anyways, so it’s this big clearing out there. My friend was telling me—shit, I don’t know? Maybe he was just messing with me—about this big groupa guys he knows. They go out there, right?, into the clearing thing, and they just do stuff. From sundown till sun up, it’s just nonstop.
The initiation ritual—rite of passage, I don’t know what you call it—it’s like this. It’s a dose of magic mushrooms, like three grams’ worth maybe, and a ton of coffee. And you go out and just dance around this bonfire they make. He said—my friend said—it’s like this initiation rite thing they do in the Amazon somewhere, right?, but they have the boys stand over a fire with a knife in the hands, and the cut their dicks from the base to the tip. Yeah, anthropologist guys call it the “circumcision” ritual or something, but they filet the damn thing. Base to top on the underside. Over the fire, right?, and the blood I guess gets into the flames. It’s like big thing. But then, that’s when you’re a man. You’re a man, because you could conquer it or something; you conquer it to prove you’re not a child anymore.
But these guys, they drink coffee all night. That’s it, that’s actually the major component of the nights they spend, is the heroic doses of caffeine these guys will take. He said—you know that preworkout stuff you can get at GNC? Like it’s caffein powder and some nootropics or vasodilators and stuff to make your veins pop; they take that stuff but the glassful all night, and coffee, and just more and more coffee and preworkout. And they get out there and just dance. It’s no music or anything, either, it’s just the night. And they look up at the stars. I know he said the big and little dipper, they’re supposed to be important. I guess the Chinese call it the vault of the heavens or something, right?, and it means the entryway into the celestial sphere. But they like worship the damn thing, right?
And so you’re dancing out there—you’re the new guy—you dancing out there, tripping balls or something, and you’re dancing around this huge fire. Man, he said there was some kid—he fell into the flames, right? And he didn’t realize he was burning. And he just kept dancing in the bonfire, and no one helped him. (I think he made that up.) But he said, right, it’s these huge doses of caffeine and the shrooms, and they howl. They howl at the moon. I don’t —I don’t know, I guess it’s like a wolf thing. Yeah, I guess it’s like a wolf thing; it has to be, right?
I don’t know, the point is, you go out and you revel. Like really let loose. You can fight. Shit, you get naked too. Imagine that, man. Naked out in the mud, bonfire, just slapping and yowling.