This page is an introduction to the video recordings in the Wolff Archive; you may also access the Video Recordings directly.
The video material in the Wolff Archive may be partitioned as follows:
- There is a film from 1940 that chronicles a summer of work on the Ashrama, a granite structure that Wolff and the Assembly of Man constructed over a period of twenty years.
- There are travelogues produced by Gertrude during the trips that she and Franklin Wolff made during their marriage. Only four of what should be many more of these films are found here.
- There is an interview of Franklin Wolff conducted by Joel Morwood (with Dianne Harrison) in June 1983. This video begins with Joel hiking to the Ashrama.
- Material from two films produced in the early 1980s, when the status of the Ashrama was being evaluated by the United States Forest Service:
- “The Philosopher’s Stone” is a fourteen-minute film that sketches Wolff’s lifework (with an emphasis on the Ashrama); this production was spearheaded by John Lilly. Faustin Bray, one of the producers of the film (and its narrator), sat with Wolff for an interview of over ninety-nine minutes during production.
- “Franklin Wolff: Ashrama Man” is a twelve-minute film produced and aired by Mammoth Cable TV in 1984. The original footage shot during the film's production has been cut into eight outtakes, which include a standalone thirty-minute interview of Wolff.
- There are two video records of Conventions held by the Assembly of Man/Friends of the Wisdom Religion: the first is from 1985, about two months before the death of Franklin Wolff; the second is from 1988, at which students and friends of Wolff gathered to share their memories of the man.
Please note that the videos listed here are raw footage copies of material that may be accessed elsewhere on this website in slightly edited form (e.g., the raw footage of “Franklin Wolff: Ashrama Man” has a color bar leader that is edited out of the copy used for the “Interviews of Franklin Merrell-Wolff” page of the website).