The worldview-child of Woodstock 1969, the father of modern-day music festivals, was on display in Rome, New York at Woodstock 1999. Nevertheless, boomers around world would have you believe that Woodstock ’99 was a perversion of the heavenly reality that descended onto the people of Woodstock 1969.

Any story of harmony at the 1969 Woodstock festival that does not also directly involve a tale of hard drug induced states, unfettered sexual encounters, and the techniques of LSD induced hypnosis is not a truthful retelling of Woodstock ’69. Everybody knew what was up, and the sense of “togetherness” that people remember from that event does not recon any sense of goodness to that festival or the attendees. Woodstock ’69 was a religious revival: a sacramental four day feast of debauchery in celebration of the destruction of the oppressive social norms of nuclear families, traditional sexuality, and western Christianity.

I used to be someone who wished upon a star to be able to time travel and see Jimi Hendrix live at Woodstock. The hippie ethos is intoxicating. Everyone merging onto the same path of like-mindedness leading to peace, love, and justice for all is something I thought must have been a dreamscape.

The problem is not finding the way to peace, love, and justice, and joining in that journey with other people. The problem is defining what the way is, and if it is the right one. The chaos of Woodstock in ’69 may have been less aggressive, but it was no less sinister. The “truth” became relative. Social norms gave way to an individual’s personal truth. The Yogis were teaching that inner peace is found when we learn to embrace our own interpretation of what constitutes “the truth” for ourselves. If we all just learn to locate our truth, and thus find peace, we will have harmony in the world.

A jigsaw puzzle is a puzzle consisting of a mass of irregularly shaped pieces that reveal a image when fit together in their proper order. The puzzle will never be solved, and the image will never be revealed, if you look for pieces where they cannot be found. Only the pieces designed for one another will work.

I think this analogy of the puzzle is one that works well for the form and order in the world. God has formed the heavens and the earth to be fit together in a particular way, and all things, including humans, are to live in that world according to this particular pattern. Humanity is a piece of the puzzle of the universe that has a specific place in the unity of the whole. God reveals the right way of living to Moses, not because of an arbitrary decision, but because, if followed, that way of life leads to the universe flourishing, because that particular way of life corresponds to what has been made.

Woodstock was the religious experience that put on full display the chaos of redefining “the way” of peace, love, and justice being rooted in the inner peace of an individual’s personal truth. Woodstock 1969’s hopes and dreams become realized in Woodstock 1999’s utter chaos and pandemonium.

The event started with women immediately taking off their clothes as a symbol of their liberation. One woman from the docu-series on Netflix said this about the nudity which immediately became common within the walls of the festival on day one:

“Seeing so many woman just getting naked was liberating. It was just kind of this free moment for everybody.”

– female testimony of Woodstock 1999, Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99, Netflix Docuseries

Aw yes, the naive and nihilistic point of view that having no rules is the truest form of freedom. But this, of course, is not freedom, but slavery. Rules restrain the carnal passions. Carnal passions, if unrestrained, turn men and women into animals,

“I am here to shoot the people here to have sex, to do drugs, and to live the life of Woodstock.”

Pay-per-view journalist shooting Woodstock ’99

Any notion of harmony and peace and love that does not also directly involved acid, cocaine, weed, and unfettered sexual encounters with as many people as possible is not a truthful retelling of Woodstock ’69. All the hippie boomers from the Netflix Documentary, and all of them out there in the world trying to say it was anything different are just wrong, plain and simple.

The full endorsement of sexual passions, the hyper-masculine aggression, and the overwhelming abundance of extreme drug use is the child-come-of-age that was born from the seed of Woodstock 1969. To live your truth as you see it is nothing more than encouragement to fulfill your passions to their absolute ends. This is what you get, and thus, you have no right to complain or shout boo when someone else’s truth is diametrically opposed to your own.

When peace becomes the focus, and the definition of peace is something internal that emerges as a feeling when you “live your truth”, anyone can do anything, under any pretense or urge, and still confess that it is, in fact, peace to them, for they are just living their truth. The final form of the indulgence of the passions is rape, incest, child sacrifice, murder, self-mutilation, and suicide. Woodstock 1999 is the result of the worldview of Woodstock 1969.

All of these people were acting like animals.”

Journalist at Woodstock ’99

That is exactly what humans have been told that they are for over a hundred years now. We are only chemically determined meat-sacks groping in the darkness for a meaning to life, a standard to live by, or a higher calling that simply isn’t there. But this is of course completely ridiculous to believe. If we are “stardust” as the 1969 Woodstock theme song roars in the film, then best of luck offering a compelling reason why it’s wrong for anyone to have been raped in the 1999 Woodstock disaster. We’re all just stardust, bursting and bubbling over with chemically determined DNA, with only the illusion of consciousness. Rape is just another word for something that happened, no different than drinking water or breathing.

The degeneracy continued to get more and more hellish as the days continued at the 1999 Woodstock festival. By the second night, there were people in the corners of the Rave Hangar, on all fours like animals, having sex, there were people hallucinating and banging their heads against the dance floor until they were bleeding, and along a wall in the Hangar was a line of people who were bending over while a second line of men behind them took turns penetrating each person there. In the words of one of the promoters experiencing the moment, “It was a truly pagan experience.”

By day three, the grime of two days and nights of degeneracy had manifested in a solid coating of filth and mud on the bodies of almost everyone present. The lines for the showers were so long that the pipes were intentionally busted, creating a river that flowed from the showers, through the port-o-potties and down to the open pasture. This stream eventually created a lake-like pool of water where everyone began bathing and dancing in the raw sewage.

The drinking water was tested by a lab that weekend as well. What was being used by everyone to stay hydrated, brush their teeth, or wash their clothes off had been contaminated with feces. The symbolism of this moment is defining for the entire event. The people were literally covered in sewage inside and out.

And isn’t it interesting that the promoters scheduled Willie Nelson to play on Sunday morning, who sings Amazing Grace, in hopes of culling the violence and restoring some sort of order to the mayhem by creating a religious experience. Christianity is the enemy of liberation until our own sins become so real that we find ourselves begging for it to save our lives from the chaos we’ve just created.

Sadly, Willie’s attempt at a gospel hymn did no good in bringing peace to the show. The night ended up in flames, literally. The fires were raging all around the compound when Michael Lang, though he doesn’t realize it, prophetically says,

“Things like that that go uncontrolled can lead to chaos.”

Michael Land, Woodstock Co-founder

He doesn’t even know how right he is.