Jerry Garcia Giving the Guitar to Humankind

If you managed to forget (or never knew) about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (above, to the right), doesn't this look like Jerry giving the guitar to humankind? 

The picture to the left a closeup of Chelsea Guitars' sign (a picture of the whole storefront is on the right).  Chelsea Guitars is in the Chelsea Hotel, which is where Robert Hunter wrote "Stella Blue" and Bob Dylan wrote "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands."  The Grateful Dead themselves played there in 1967.

While I don't believe that Jerry Garcia is actually God, my feelings run along these lines:

Caroline Rago, formerly a core member of the Family of Unlimited Devotion, said that the idea that they believed Jerry was God was a misconception. In the Spinner cosmology, she likened him more to an avatar -- describing a role similar in many respects to the one attributed to Bob Marley by Rastafarians. "He was the cosmic minstrel who provided the channel," she said.

Members of the Family of Unlimited Devotion were called "Spinners" because of the way they danced -- which, they believed, combined with Jerry's music, helped open the door.  The name of the group derives from the name of the Grateful Dead song "The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion."  In addition to the source I cited above, there's not a lot out there on the internet about the Spinners.  We discussed them on the WeLL, if I recall correctly.  There's this essay about their attire (yawn -- although one noticed some similarities to the Shakers), and this, which seems to have something to do with parties in Germany, and a mention on the Deadhead page on Wikipedia.

Update: Do not confuse the Spinners with the Twelve Tribes.  Twelve Tribes preyed on people who were hanging around the Dead scene in search of something more, something on a spiritual level.  The Family of Unlimited Devotion offered that spiritual search through the Grateful Dead itself. The Twelve Tribes has a Rick Ross page (which should tell you something -- so does Landmark Education) and a listing in Wikipedia.  Here's a really good blog that belongs to a kid who grew up in Twelve Tribes (he now attends Gallaudet University).  He says, "My parents were sent away on tours (Grateful Dead shows)."  Anyone who went to Dead shows knows this group, and would recognize their bus.  I found two accounts (one and two) of their visit to New York last summer, including pictures of the multi-tone brown bus that we all remember from the parking lots of shows.

Comments

[Yoda]

I knew the spinners. "Got into" many shows with them.

[Larry]

Everything I know about the spinners is in this post.

[kathy palmer]

On two or three trips east, the spinners spent several days in my apartment. I'm interested in how they're doing, including Joseph ("the spun one" as someone referred to him).

Kathy Palmer

[Rick Spencer]

I knew them all well, great people! Being a individualist I never went to "deep" with them, but they were friends. I personally knew Cathy, Annie, Joseph, Tim, Lisa Jill, Caroline (who I went to Hampshire College with) and their side project: Jim Green. A lot of Krishna influence, but truly a blend of all faiths! I hope they are all well. I have to admit, there was a very strong "pull" to their orbit, a person could get lost in there.