Kerista Commune

Kerista Commune (leaflet)

Description of the Kerista Commune Collection

The Kerista commune existed in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, California, from 1971 to 1991. The Kerista religion was founded in 1956 in New York City by World War II veteran John Peltz Presmont, who became known as Bro Jud Presmont. The Keristans practiced polyfidelity, in which up to twenty-four or thirty-six partners (an even mix of men and women) were faithful to each other, forming a BFIC ("best friend identity cluster") that slept together on a fixed rotating schedule. Keristans also employed an intense face-to-face form of group criticism which they called "gestalt-o-rama." Hamilton College holds the major archive for the commune, comprised of hundreds of manuscripts, publications, ephemera, visual materials, video recordings, artifacts, and over 350 cassette recordings of the "gestalt-o-rama" sessions.

More information about the Kerista Commune  Research on site

View Kerista items on this website

• View the Kerista ephemera (154 items, flyers, programs, posters)

View Kerista items on our other website

• View the finding aids (for manuscripts, print, and audio collections) (3 PDFs, opens in new browser tab)