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The true story of the drug-smuggling, church-founding “Hippie Mafia”: “A definitive history of the dark side of the 1960s.” —Los Angeles Times
Few stories in the annals of American counterculture are as dramatic as that of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. They began as a small band of peace-loving, adventure-seeking surfers. But after discovering LSD, they embraced Timothy Leary’s mantra of “Turn on, tune in, and drop out” and resolved to make that vision a reality by becoming the biggest acid dealers and hashish smugglers in the nation.
Just days after California became the first US state to ban LSD, the Brotherhood formed a legally registered church in its Laguna Beach headquarters, where they sold blankets and other paraphernalia. Before long, they also began to sell Afghan hash, Hawaiian pot (the storied Maui Wowie), and eventually Colombian cocaine, much of it smuggled in secret compartments inside surfboards and VW minibuses driven across the border.
They befriended Leary, enlisting him in the goal of buying a tropical island where they could install the former Harvard philosophy professor and acid prophet as the high priest of an experimental utopia. The Brotherhood’s most legendary contribution to the drug scene was homemade: Orange Sunshine, their trademark acid tablet that produced an especially powerful trip. Their foot soldiers passed out handfuls at communes, Grateful Dead concerts, and love-ins up and down the coast. The Hell’s Angels, Charles Manson and his followers, and the unruly crowd at the infamous Altamont festival all tripped out on this acid. Jimi Hendrix even performed a private show for the Brotherhood on the slope of a Hawaiian volcano.
Journalist Nicholas Schou takes us deep inside the group, combining exclusive interviews with both the surviving members and the cops who chased them. A wide-ranging narrative of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll (and more drugs), Orange Sunshine explores how America moved from the era of peace and free love into a darker time of hard drugs and paranoia.
ASIN : B004RCNVMG
Publisher : Thomas Dunne Books; Reprint edition (March 16, 2010)
Publication date : March 16, 2010
Language : English
File size : 3771 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 322 pages
Customers say
Customers find the book easy to read and informative. They appreciate the well-written portrayals of characters and the author’s factual style. The book provides a fascinating account of how street toughs got religion and the counterculture. Readers praise the writing quality as excellent, richly detailed, and refreshing. The book illuminates the feelings and motivations of those involved with the spiritual group.
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