The foundation of the hippie movement finds historical precedent as far back as the counterculture of the Ancient Greeks, espoused by philosophers like Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics. Hippie philosophy also credits the religious and spiritual teachings of Jesus Christ, Hillel the Elder, Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Henry David Thoreau, and Gandhi.
The first signs of what we would call modern “proto-hippies” emerged in fin de siècle Europe. Between 1896-1908, a German youth movement arose as a countercultural reaction to the organized social and cultural clubs that centered around German folk music. Known as Der Wandervogel (”migratory bird”), the movement opposed the formality of traditional German clubs, instead emphasizing amateur music and singing, creative dress, and communal outings involving hiking and camping. Inspired by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Eduard Baltzer, Wandervogel attracted thousands of young Germans who rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and yearned for the pagan, back-to-nature spiritual life of their ancestors. During the first several decades of the twentieth century, Germans settled around the United States, bringing the values of the Wandervogel with them. Some opened the first health food stores, and many moved to Southern California where they could practice an alternative lifestyle in a warm climate. Over time, young Americans adopted the beliefs and practices of the new immigrants. One group, called the “Nature Boys”, took to the California desert and raised organic food, espousing a back-to-nature lifestyle like the Wandervogel. Songwriter Eden Ahbez wrote a hit song called Nature Boy inspired by Robert Bootzin (Gypsy Boots), who helped popularize health-consciousness, yoga, and organic food in the United States.
Like Wandervogel, the hippie movement in the United States began as a youth movement. Composed mostly of white teenagers and young adults between the ages of 15 and 25 years old, hippies inherited a tradition of cultural dissent from bohemians and beatniks of the Beat Generation in the late 1950s. Beats like Allen Ginsberg crossed-over from the beat movement and became fixtures of the burgeoning hippie and anti-war movements. By 1965, hippies had become an established social group in the U.S., and the movement eventually expanded to other countries, extending as far as the United Kingdom and Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil. The hippie ethos influenced The Beatles and others in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, and they in turn influenced their American counterparts. Hippie culture spread worldwide through a fusion of rock music, folk, blues, and psychedelic rock; it also found expression in literature, the dramatic arts, fashion, and the visual arts, including film, posters advertising rock concerts, and album covers. Self-described hippies had become a significant minority by 1968, representing just under 0.2% of the U.S. population before declining in the mid-1970s.
Along with the New Left and the American Civil Rights Movement, the hippie movement was one of three dissenting groups of the 1960s counterculture. Hippies rejected established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Eastern philosophy, championed sexual liberation, were often vegetarian and eco-friendly, promoted the use of psychedelic drugs to expand one’s consciousness, and created intentional communities or communes. They used alternative arts, street theatre, folk music, and psychedelic rock as a part of their lifestyle and as a way of expressing their feelings, their protests and their vision of the world and life. Hippies opposed political and social orthodoxy, choosing a gentle and nondoctrinaire ideology that favored peace, love and personal freedom, perhaps best epitomized by The Beatles’ song “All You Need is Love”. Hippies perceived the dominant culture as a corrupt, monolithic entity that exercised undue power over their lives, calling this culture “The Establishment”, “Big Brother”, or “The Man”. Noting that they were “seekers of meaning and value”, scholars like Timothy Miller describe hippies as a new religious movement.
Â
 Histoire des hippies en France
En France comme dans de nombreux pays, les années 60 voient fleurir la contestation de l’ordre établi jusque dans les campus en mai 68. En 1967, le premier spectacle psychédélique à Paris, « la fenêtre rose », n’attira encore que peu de monde. En 1969, l’hebdomadaire Hara-Kiri est fondé : il se veut indépendant et provocateur. Les relais du courant hippie au début des années 1960 étaient le magazine Rock & Folk ainsi que le Pop Club sur France Inter avec Patrice Blanc-Francard. En 1971, un festival gratuit est organisé à Auvers-sur-Oise, mais s’il ressemble bien à celui de Woodstockà cause de la pluie et de la boue, il est finalement annulé dans la nuit à cause de divers problèmes techniques alors que 20 000 personnes sont rassemblées.
Les paroles d’un jeune hippie français de ces années-là n’étaient pas différentes de celles d’outre-Atlantique :
« Ainsi vont les choses dans nos sociétés dite de consommation : passée l’adolescence, âge irrécupérable mais dont on sait qu’il n’a qu’un temps, une certaine image de vous-même vous attend, tirée d’ailleurs à plusieurs millions d’exemplaires ; elle vous guette d’autant plus tôt que votre famille ne dispose pas des ressources financières qui, quelques années encore, vous garantiraient le droit à l’irresponsabilité. Gare à vous si vous ne marchez pas ensuite. On vous culpabilisera d’abord ; quelques bonnes lois feront le reste ».
Le Larzac, qui était un des lieux de prédilection du mouvement hippie, rassembla 60 000 personnes en août 1973 dont une grande proportion de hippies pour une manifestation intitulée « ouvriers et paysans, même combat ».
En 2009, il ne resterait qu’une communauté hippie en France à Charleval en Normandie.
