Members of the New Sunlight Commune frequently sent letters to Mother Earth Journal, a counterculture hybrid magazine and catalog popular which frequently printed letters and correspondence between subscribers. However, by the end of 1968, the majority of communards had ceased correspondence, both with the Mother Earth Journal and the outside world at large. The sole member of the commune who continued to write was Thomas de Boer, who joined in late summer 1968.
de Boer's correspondence with the Journal appeared in an estimated 75,000 printed issues of the Mother Earth Journal prior to his disappearance, during which time the Foundation was not aware of any anomalous activity associated with SCP-3967 or the New Sunshine Commune. Upon discovery of SCP-3967, and its connection with de Boer's letters, it was determined that seizure of all existing copies of the Mother Earth Journal mentioning SCP-3967 would be both logistically and financially impossible. Instead, Researcher ██████-█████ was assigned the task of maintaining correspondence under the guise as de Boer to allay any suspicions regarding the New Sunshine Commune and the fate of its members. Researcher ██████-█████ maintained correspondence as de Boer for nine months, ceasing with the closure of the Mother Earth Journal in January, 1972.
Date: 19/08/1968
Recipient: Mother Earth Journal
Text: Greetings, friends, colleagues and fellow wanderers,
For those of you who still make the choice to live in the city, in systems that binds and destroy you, I bring good news from the other side! Everything you have read about living off the land is true. A few months ago, I joined some friends inland at the New Sunshine Commune. Waking up at the crack of dawn to do weeding and fertilizing. Wholesome food with people that you see every day. Conversations about life and truth, without any of the distractions of a TV or a radio. Nights smoking and looking up at the stars and just wondering. It's the first time in my life that I've felt like a complete, realized human being.
We even have a souped-up computer here. It helps with things like calculating crop planting and yields. I think there's something so powerful in that - this tool, once used to rain death on civilians and calculate yields on dumping toxins into the water, is freed and allowed to fulfill its true purpose: to serve man.
I can't even begin to explain just how alive all of this feels. It's like we're finally living our lives as they were meant to be lived. No more being some endless point on a command chain, receiving and obeying commands. Here everyone knows one another, cares for one another. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but if you are on the fence, don't hesitate. Feel the soil beneath your feet, feel the love of your fellow man. Turn away from the fire and the death outside. Find your people, and they will take care of you. Liberate yourself.
Love and Peace from Your Friend,
Woody
Date: 01/12/1968
Recipient: Mother Earth Journal
Text: Greetings, friends, colleagues and fellow wanderers,
When you discard hierarchy, you necessarily have to discard ego. It's hard to unlearn decades of programming that tell us that we have to strive to be the first, the best, the top. We learn competition, not cooperation. We must re-learn it from the soil and all the microorganisms within it. We live it in our community every day.
Of course, any system needs regulation. That's what makes it a system. You need a neutral arbiter, a Comprehensive Designer. Something that can love without ego and can create systems where we can all flourish. That's where we have the computer.
I don't know the specifics of how it actually works, but it gives out advice that brings us together. Just like how it is a collection of systems which all interrelate and speak to one another, it teaches us how we're all interconnected as well. By living a better world, we can create a revolution of the soul which will go beyond whatever any political program can hope to achieve. That’s what they will never understand, but we al
Love and peace,
Woody
Date: 24/06/1969
Recipient: Mother Earth Journal
Text: Do you remember the first time that you used the I Ching and for one moment as you flung the coins, you could feel the energy of the universe guiding them? The energy and the vitality pushes and pulls you into these complex patterns that you can never explain, only know.
You can feel it here. It's in the ways that our radishes and flax grow in the own particular patterns. It's in the books, where the words have begun to rearrange themselves to speak to us. It's in the way that the computer provides us with everything we need to live and to understand.
It's beautiful, it really is. We've set it up in such a way that we hardly ever need to see the outsiders. You can tell by the way that they look at us, they want to snuff out what we have here. They will always try to destroy you. They hate us and envy us. They want to come and destroy our loving flow, contaminating everything with their rot and ignorance. Some of them might have even started posing as us. We need to keep vigilant and keep them out
But it is the computer that keeps us whole and unpolluted and tells us how to stop them. One day, we will burn this city to the ground and incorporate it into our flow.
Note: Letter was rejected for printing by Mother Earth Journal.
Date: 01/12/1969
Recipient: Lawrence "Larry" Ionescu
Text: Larry, you have to help me. They threw me out. Said I wasn't one of them, that I made them unclean. I can't stay here & will try to hitch hike to San Fransisco. If I make it, I'll meet you at the St. Francis Fountain at midnight when the moon is full. I love you.
Woody
Date: 16/07/1970
Recipient: Lawrence "Larry" Ionescu
Text: I'm going back. I've tried to adjust. I've done all the spiritual crap and tried therapy. I've tried other communes. I even tried getting on the jesus (sic) train. none of it worked at all.
Everything here feels flat and dead, like rags nailed to a board. I am alone, even with you. All I can do is drop acid and smoke pot and try to remember what it feels like to be in that living place, where you are surrounded by joy and know that everything works out because you are guided by a steady hand that loves you and only wants the best for you.
I don't know what will happen to me when I return. I don't care. They threw me out before and called me a traitor. By the time I left, things had gotten pretty bad. I'm going anyway. The love that I felt suffused everything, and even if I end up in a bad way, it will be like the ecstasy of Saint Teresa, not this dull pain everywhere. I hope that one day you will visit and not even recognize me and I will be whole and full of the sun and its love for all things.
Love,
Woody
Note: Dental records indicate that Mr. de Boer was one of the 38 bodies interred in the mass grave.
