San Francisco Oracle - Successors and Imitators

Successors and Imitators

After the paper folded, Oracle staff who had left the city and relocated in Middletown, California put out a single one-shot issue of a 24-page psychedelic tabloid paper called the Harbinger in 1968, with contributions by Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Michael Hollingshead, and others.

In November, a new Oracle called the San Francisco Oracle of the Spiritual Revolution was launched, publishing 7 issues between November 1968 and November 1969. Published in Larkspur, CA and edited by Phillip Davenport (1943–2001), a disciple of Murshid Samuel Lewis (Sufi Sam), it had a more spiritual focus and included material relating to Stephen Gaskin, Sufi Sam, Baba Ram Dass, and other gurus of the San Francisco scene, as well as the usual underground fare.

A psychedelic Los Angeles paper called the Oracle of Southern California, existed for a short time. Some members of the SF Oracle collective were involved in starting another paper, San Francisco Express Times, which published from January 24, 1968 to March 25, 1969, at which time the paper's name was changed to San Francisco Good Times, appearing under that title from April 1969 to August 1972. In 1967 students at San Francisco State College distributed a one-off 8-page tabloid parody of the Oracle called the Orifice, edited by Ben Fong-Torres.