Lattin, Don. New York: Harper San Francisco, 2003. 288 pp., $ 24.95 (USD). ISBN: 0-06-009394-3 (cloth).

[1] Don Lattin defines the 'sixties as the period spanning from January 20, 1961, the date of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, through to November 18, 1978 and the mass suicide of members of the People's Temple. These very appropriate boundaries represent both “the idealism, religious activism, and social commitment that defined the best of the Sixties” and a tragedy that saw “the spiritual and political dreams of the Sixties [collapse] in a collective nightmare” (3). This creative treatment of the “decade” of the 1960s combines a realistic look at the social, intellectual, and spiritual shifts in American society without descending into mere sentimental nostalgia.

[2] Lattin’s exploration of the 'sixties is largely organized around first-hand accounts of those who lived through selected trends and events; this period of dramatic social change is therefore described through the stories of “the real children of the Sixties—kids born and raised amid some of the era’s wildest social, spiritual, and sexual experimentation” (2; emphasis in the original). Through these stories, excerpts from interviews, and first-hand experiences, Lattin manages to present a vast array of religious themes: shifts in Roman Catholicism, the arrival of Eastern spirituality in North America, and Rock ’n’ Roll as “another vehicle for spiritual transcendence” (114) among them, and the emergence of such religious leaders as the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and Jim Jones. The developments of the American religious experience explored in Following Our Bliss are not always positive. Lattin notes, for example, that psychedelics may “ignite the spirit,” but they can also “fry the brain” (171) and sexual abuse never seems to be far away when religious organizations, traditional and otherwise, involve power structures or charismatic personalities. The book provides realistic snapshots of selected topics; balanced, not idealized.

[3] A book largely built around anecdotal evidence can lack a sense of organization and ultimately closure. However, Lattin manages to pull together a fitting conclusion as he identifies key “aspects of Sixties spirituality, good and bad” (238) that emerge from the period, namely that it is liberating, experiential, antiauthoritarian, eclectic, unifying, and therapeutic.

Michael Gilmour
Providence College
Otterburne, Manitoba
Michael.Gilmour@prov.ca