"Orange Sunshine" a mystery revealed by Schou

Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World  by Nick Schou

             The Brotherhood of Eternal Love was a spiritual group and also a major smuggling ring of Hash and Marijuana and producers of some of the strongest LSD. The story Nick tells is of the police that wanted to take them down and how the government was dead set against the wisdom from the use of these drugs to get out and used by more people. Nick did a good job with what information was given to him, and manages to describe in surprisingly colorful detail an underground of hippie drug smugglers that spent the late sixties flying back and forth between Maui, Afghanistan and Laguna. Many members of the gang are still leery of talking about what went on during this time.  But we realize it does need to be told; so the truth will come out and everyone will know what really happened--not just what they want you to know. So more books like this one will be published and hopefully the stories can be told without too much ego-tripping or paranoia getting involved.

            It is often said that if you claim that you can remember the Sixties you really weren't there. Well, I remember the 60s, having been in my 30s then, but the memories are hazy from the lapse of time. Well, this book brings it all back. It very accurately reflects the FEELING of the times and the MENTALITY of people many of us who were there knew and met every day. It accurately depicts the naivité of many in the counterculture and how it all disappeared when the criminal element took over. An undercurrent of this book is the curious, double nature of the Brotherhood. There is no doubt they were spiritual people and deeply reverential. But make no mistake, we're talking about drug dealers here. This book is stark reminder of how very much things really have changed. It is a valuable time capsule for those who were born afterwards and who ask that question, "What was it like back then?" This book is one good answer.
        On one level this is a crime story: the evolution of a hippie drug smuggling operation and the cops who eventually took it down. But it's also a larger than life story about people who used highly illegal and unconventional ways to, in their point of view, bring peace on earth.
          The first historian to speak extensively with the group's original members, Schou sorts fact from fiction and shows how an American utopian movement morphed into criminal organization. Orange Sunshine is an important addition to the historical literature of the 1960s.
        This is a great book for anyone interested in the 60s, the counterculture, LSD, and the period of time when many thought a cosmic change of human consciousness was possible.
'Orange Sunshine' really gives you the impression that the creators of the 'Brotherhood Of Eternal Love'  had a pure intention about spreading the use of LSD to the whole of humanity...and their intention and belief was that it could save the world from corruption, hatred, and greed.
        The feeling/scenes at the beginning of the book  are enticing to say the least; I doubt there are many people who haven't dreamed of moving to a remote island with all their best friends and family and starting something pure.
       Having recently finished reading "The Harvard Psychedelic Club," I was happy to find a completely different look at the same period in "Orange Sunshine." Although Leary figures in both books, "Orange Sunshine" is not about Harvard Professors, Beatnik Poets, flashy rockers,  or famous writers. The Brotherhood was made up of lower middle-class suburban boys whose interest in cars and football were replaced by visions of God after taking LSD.
            John Griggs, the charismatic leader, had visions of establishing a hippie utopia on a tropical island and had already began selling some drugs to finance his vision. Disillusioned, Griggs, an apparently sincere religious seeker, saw his vision give way to ego and money as the brotherhood morphed into an international drug smuggling ring.
         This rise and fall takes place in suburban Orange County, Mexico, Afghanistan and Maui, and makes for an intriguing social history. The cast of characters, their adventures, their acid trips and their legal skirmishes provide great stories and add to our already rich and juicy memories of that decade.
         Many of the "brothers" are silent today. They are laying low, out of sight and hopefully out of the attention of the feds who pursued us for so many years. For many years, late into the seventies, I was stopped and searched by Customs agents whenever I was returning from an international trip. It had the effect of making me want to become invisible.
       The theme I most appreciate about this particular story about the Brotherhood is that (at least in the sixties) we did not exist to make money (although we never refused it, of course) but were more motivated by a desire to change the world, which seemed to be heading for violent chaos or at the very least, a mindless- cookie cutter conformist society. We had become transformed by the taking of LSD and mellowed by the smoking of pot and hashish. This book evokes the feeling of those times
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is peopled with interesting characters, places, and events. It is well written and kept my interest from beginning to end. It also really reveals what was wrong with the 60s counterculture, and it is fascinating to me to see how these lessons have been largely forgotten or conveniently ignored today.
              There was an idea that people could live communally and progress to some kind of utopia, but the book reveals that human nature cannot be wrung out of people, despite the best of intentions. Egotism, ambition, greed, and jealousy are not characteristics restricted to wall street bankers and oil executives.
      I loved this book, and I am very interested in the 1960's & I had first read about The Brotherhood of Eternal Love in the brilliant, Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: the CIA, the Sixties & Beyond by Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain. Ever since then, I was intrigued because the Brotherhood was from MY 'hood! Laguna Beach is a charming coastal town now & during the 1960's it was a haven for artists & hippies. It was also fairly Conservative (as most of Orange County is today), so it is amazing that this large & very successful drug operation was taking place there. A highly detailed account of the inner workings of this pretty secretive organization & an historical treat for those living in the "OC". This fantastical story of a hippie drug ring centered in Orange County is a shaggy one all right: lots of characters, not an especially neat story line, but some riveting episodes.
          Although the title stresses the Brotherhood of Eternal Love's signature brand of mind-melting LSD, I thought their hashish business was the most interesting part of the book. Members trekked to Kandahar when that was even more remote than it is now. The first trip took several weeks and was full of twists and turns; in fact, the original destination was Turkey, but some fellow travelers convinced them that Afghanistan had the best stuff. Once there, they scored primo hash from Afghans who would have been at home in the Hebrew Bible. The Brotherhood smuggled it back to the states, often in hollowed out surfboards. The LSD, it turns out, was practically given away, all in an effort to enlighten the world, Timothy Leary style. When Leary was sent to prison, the Brotherhood paid the Weathermen to bust him out. Yeah. Pretty wild.
            Organized crime is one of my favorite genres, and there's plenty of that here. But what comes through most vividly to me is the utopian impulse behind the operation. Mostly these guys wanted to surf, drop acid, smoke hash, meditate, and get back to the land. The drugs were in many ways more sacramental than recreational. There was plenty of sex, but their leader tried to emphasize family life, hippy style, especially on the ranch. (At first, the ranch community excluded unmarried members of the Brotherhood.)
         On the edge of the operation was Mike Hynson, best known for his role in "Endless Summer," which is nothing if not utopian. For you youngsters, that was the 1966 film about two youthful surfers traveling the world in search of the perfect wave.
        The Brotherhood's operation came crashing down in 1972, when law enforcement rounded up members in a multi-state raid. But several remained at large for years, and some went on to lead interesting post-Brotherhood lives.
          Often I have wondered what REALLY happened in the 'summer of love' and the subculture
that was pushing LSD as the magic drug to connect people to their spirit, but it is more than that,
it is the culture, the folklore, Timothy Leary and the much talked of John Griggs...It is surfing folklore
of surfers smuggling hash in hollowed out surfboards, and here in "Orange Sunshine' we see how prevalent it really was...Jimi Hendrix drops by towards the end when the cartel moved to Hawaii...The parties, the freedom,the utopian dream they had in the beginning and seeing that unwind into just another drug running operation.
          
       I found the book very well researched and it sort of stumped me that the author could get so
many of the people he interviewed  to speak...and also that he managed to find the original law enforcement and policemen who were busting our balls in the era. Having said that, I am sure there must be some  people who were there as part of the 'Brotherhood Of Eternal Love' that probably don't like the book, and they probably wished the story was never told or they were upset that they were not asked to contribute their version of events.....
       The final chapters really answered most of my questions...although it did motivate me to start investigating  the John Griggs character, who Timothy Leary so admired. It also made me want to revisit the archetypal utopian "escape to an island novel," 'Island' by Aldous Huxley.
            What I found most amazing is that we all had our own different experiences-- some better than others--and some of the stories they told I hadn't heard before.
If you found this interesting, you might want to compare it with The Brotherhood of Eternal Love: From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia:The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler and David May.