The Oracle of the City of San Francisco, also known as the San Francisco Oracle, ^* was an underground newspaper published from 1966 to 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of that city. Allen Cohen was editor and Michael Bowen the art director, the two of them having co-founded the publication. The Oracle combined poetry, spirituality, and multi-cultural interests with psychedelic design, reflecting and shaping the countercultural community as it developed in the Haight-Ashbury.

It was arguably the outstanding example of the psychedelic aspect of the countercultural press, noted for experimental multicolored design, and involving many of the most significant San Francisco-area artists of the time, including Bruce Conner and Rick Griffin. It featured the writing of San Francisco-area beat writers Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure.

A spin-off in Los Angeles (The Los Angeles Oracle) existed for a short time.

External links

• San Francisco Oracle, Human-Be-IN, History of the Haight-Ashbury
• 25th anniversary issue of the San Francisco Oracle
• Biography of Allen Cohen, Editor of the San Francisco Oracle
• Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s

Newspapers of California | Alternative weekly newspapers | Defunct newspapers | San Francisco Bay Area newspapers | History of San Francisco

San Francisco Oracle