The Brotherhood of Eternal Love figured it could turn the entire world on to the mystical power of LSD.
One of the largest drug cartels in America, they distributed Orange Sunshine, arguably the most popular ‘brand’ of LSD in history; created the strain of pot known as Maui Wowie; and were the first to bring Afghan hash to the U.S.
So, Nick, what gave you the idea to write this book?
Basically, we ran a story in 1999 or 2000, “Laguna on Acid” by Bob Emmers, about a big Christmas concert, and deep in the article it mentioned this little-known group of surfers dropped acid onto the show from a plane.
That led to the idea to track those people down for a feature story. But no one from the Brotherhood talked to me until I was writing the book.
And this solves one of the last remaining mysteries of the 1960s: Who were they, and what were they trying to do?
“We were experiencing a whole new viewpoint of life that was so beautiful and loving and caring of others and the whole world. We felt connected to the source of all life.”
Nicholas Schou, an Orange County Weekly writer, tracked down members and associates of the Orange County counterculture group who spoke for the first time in decades about what seemed like a reasonable idea at the time.
Tell me more about what younger readers might get from this.
It will just blow their minds. I think young people today think America is still very divided, the two Americas that is still talked about all the time. But in the ’60s, it was way more divided than the way it is now.