After time spent in New York in the 1950s, and several island experiments in Dominica, Honduras, and Belize in the 1960s, Jud settled in San Francisco at the end of the 1960s.
Kerista-inspired storefronts and communal houses existed in New York, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area throughout the 1960s, and were moderately popular.
From 1971 until 1991, the community was centered at the Kerista Commune (not a single physical building), founded in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco, California.
Potential members were expected to attend the Growth Coop for several months, interact with other Keristans at potluck volleyball and during newspaper distribution, and socialize with various BFIC families.
There were over 100 standards in 1991, examples of which included: Kerista used a group process called Gestalt-O-Rama, loosely taken from Fritz Perls' concept of gestalt ("enhanced awareness of sensation, perception, bodily feelings, emotion, and behavior, in the present moment.")
"[7] Features presented in the zine included articles and essays concerning life within the community and their proposed World Plan to establish a functional Utopian society on a larger scale.
The volume of publications and art work produced by Kerista Commune was quite a bit greater than other groups that were active in the Haight Ashbury during this period.
[8] The Keristans shared income and could choose whether to have outside paying jobs or work within the community (which operated several businesses, a legally incorporated church, and an educational non-profit organization).
It was voted[clarification needed] the 33rd and 42nd fastest-growing privately held company in America by Inc. Magazine in 1990 and 1991 respectively, and was the top reseller of Macintosh computers in the Bay Area in 1991.
The commune maintained a very active program of social events and Gestalt-o-rama rap groups, which were open to the public 3-4 nights a week, and were mandatory for Keristans to regularly attend.
The commune functioned much like a religious order and was an important focal point for a larger community of people in San Francisco interested in alternative lifestyles.
Beginning in 1983, the adult male Keristans underwent vasectomies to deal with birth control and address global population issues.
Jud typically got into fights with famous people who came to visit or study Kerista, like Stephen Gaskin from The Farm, Mario Savio from the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, and the researcher Robert Weiss.
After an arranged visit to Kerista by three professors, the New Tribe was criticized for not being egalitarian, notably in Bro Jud's dominance of many commune matters.
[12] Several former members of the commune still live in the San Francisco Bay Area, while a number moved to Hawaii and purchased a block of adjoining parcels of land.
Associate member Jennifer Glee would make a reading, which was then interspersed by songs the 'Bargain Basement Band' a mix of followers and local San Francisco musicians.
[15] Kerista's polyamorous sexual practice was influenced, as was that of the Church of All Worlds, by Robert A. Heinlein's (1907-88) science-fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), in which the Martian-raised human Michael Valentine Smith founded The Church of All Worlds, preached sexual freedom and the truth of all religions, and is martyred by narrow-minded people who are not ready for freedom.