Brotherhood of Eternal Love, History

BEL * The Church * Summer of Love * Orange Sunshine LSD * Mystic Arts World * Endless Summer *
Rainbow Bridge * Rainbow Surfboards * 1970 Xmas Happening * "Dodge City" * Maui Wowie * Art & Music *
Smuggling * Euphoria Gallery * Aquarian Temple BEL * Underground * Counterculture * Hippie Mafia * Visionaries *
Timothy Leary * Jimi Hexdrix * Rolling Stones * Grateful Dead * Moody Blues * Doobie Bros. * Hot Tuna * Dick Dale

BEL HISTORY ARCHIVES & MUSEUM
Enlightening Holy Grams
This site does not advocate or encourage any illegal activity. It is an archive of curated public history records.

"We believe in the sacred right of each individual to commune with God in spirit
and in truth as it is empirically revealed to him." --BEL Charter, 1966

BEL PEACE ORGANIZATION
Our Mission: Spreading Awareness of
Peace, Love & Harmony with Nature
Drop Out of the Meaningless & Tune In to the Productive: Familial, Tribal, & Beautiful

https://vimeo.com/216616715

"In reality the Brotherhood never numbered more than a dozen or so wild-idealed Californian freaks, but they added a whole chapter to the mythology of dope. In the words of Timothy Leary :
‘I can flatly say that the holiest, handsomest, healthiest, horniest, humorest, most saintly group of men I have met in my life are the dope dealers ... I think it is necessary that at some time in your spiritual, psychedelic career you do deal. Not for the money but simply to pay tribute to this most honorable profession.’" --Tim Leary.

Go Here For Current Events
http://belhistory.weebly.com/events.html

2017 EVENTS & NEWS
50th Anniversary Summer of Love

* * *

HISTORY CHANNEL - “America’s War on Drugs” is an immersive trip through the last five decades, uncovering how the CIA, obsessed with keeping America safe in the fight against communism, allied itself with the mafia and foreign drug traffickers. In exchange for support against foreign enemies, the groups were allowed to grow their drug trade in the United States. The series explores the unintended consequences of when gangsters, war lords, spies, outlaw entrepreneurs, street gangs and politicians vie for power and control of the global black market for narcotics – all told through the firsthand accounts of former CIA and DEA officers, major drug traffickers, gang members, noted experts and insiders. Night one of “America’s War on Drugs” divulges covert Cold War operations that empowered a generation of drug traffickers [including The Brotherhood of Eternal Love] and reveals the peculiar details of secret CIA LSD experiments which helped fuel the counter-culture movement, leading to President Nixon’s crackdown and declaration of a war on drugs.

New June 2017 Signed BEL Blotter Art

More here: http://belhistory.weebly.com/events.html

Original BEL Members and Guests at "Alley Cat Blotter Art" for the Summer Of Love
signing Blotter Art. Edward Padilla signing his book Lurigancho.

Original Brothers, Eddie Spaghetti and Bobby BEL & Friends

Stanley George Miller (born October 10, 1940), better known as Mouse and Stanley Mouse, is an American artist, notable for his 1960s psychedelic rock concert poster designs for the Grateful Dead and Journey albums cover art as well as many others.
http://www.mousestudios.com/

RIP, Brother NICK SAND, Alchemist
has crossed the Rainbow Bridge
https://www.psymposia.com/magazine/nick-sand-orange-sunshine-lsd-chemist-dies-75/

June 2016
Original Brothers BOBBY BEL & EDDIE PADILLA
at the 2016 Haight-Ashbury Faire, with thousands of friends.
http://belhistory.weebly.com/39th-haightashbury-faire.html

Grace Slick

https://www.facebook.com/groups/58594155068/10153621712680069/?notif_t=group_activity&notif_id=1466104263272157

2015 EVENTS & NEWS
July 2015
Orange Sunshine / Mystic Arts World Art Show, Newport Beach
http://belhistory.weebly.com/os-artshow-2015.html

Original BEL Members Blotter Art Signing
Michael & Carol Griggs Randall, Robert Ackerly, Mike Hynson, Eddie Padilla
http://belhistory.weebly.com/blotter-art.html

Mike Hynson of the film Endless Summer
Robert Ackerly, "Bobby BEL" of Aquarian Temple BEL
Eddie Padilla, Author of Lurigancho

THE SUNSHINE MAKERS

http://www.docnyc.net/film/sunshine-makers-the/#.Vh6vVRCrTdR
THE SUNSHINE MAKERS
9:45 PM, Wed Nov 18, 2015 | Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas
1:00 PM, Thu Nov 19, 2015 | IFC Center
Director Cosmo Feilding Mellen

WORLD PREMIERE A real-life Breaking Bad for the psychedelic set, The Sunshine Makers reveals the entertaining, untold story of Nicholas Sand and Tim Scully, the unlikely duo at the heart of 1960s American drug counterculture. United in a utopian mission to save the planet through the consciousness-raising power of LSD, these underground chemists manufactured a massive amount of acid, including the gold standard for quality LSD, Orange Sunshine, as they tried to stay one step ahead of the feds.
Director: Cosmo Feilding Mellen
Producer: George Chignel, Nicole Stott, Connie Littlefield
Cinematographer: Will Pugh; Editor: Nicholas Packer; Music: The Heliocentrics
Running Time: 90; Language: English; Country: UK; Year: 2015
FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/The-Sunshine-Makers-153453888047074/

Left: 1970, Nick with his BEL medallion, which depicts a flaming orb of sunlight.
Right: Tim Scully, Nicholas Sand; photo credit: The Sunshine Makers

New Site 2015: Founding Brother, Eddie "Spagetti" Padilla
Get His Side of the Story
http://edwardpadilla.weebly.com/

BEL's MOSTLY TRUE HISTORY

In 1966, a gang of sophisticated, elusive peacenik drug smugglers called “The Brotherhood of Eternal Love” became a prolific supplier of LSD stateside and to soldiers fighting the Vietnam War. Using a retail front called Mystic Arts World in Laguna Beach, California, the Brotherhood began its crusade to deliver LSD to the masses, for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment. Under their auspices, the ingenious chemist Nick Sand produced 3.6 million hits of acid in 1969. His product “Orange Sunshine” was the most popular form of LSD of all time.

The original “Mystic Arts World” opened its doors in 1967 as a sort of counterculture shopping mall. Inspired by the seven Chakras of Kundalini Yoga, the floor plan included art, clothing, jewelry, health food, a book store, and a meditation room. On June 6, 1970, the popular gathering place mysteriously burned down.

Hunter Thompson wrote, "History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of 'history' it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened."

This they tell, and whether it happened so or not I do not know;
but if you think about it, you can see that it is true. --Black Elk

"Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realize that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelled, felt or thought,expected or imagined,
is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear."
-- Nisargadatta Maharaj

"When a man in the process of dreaming becomes conscious that he is dreaming, he is no longer identified with the phenomena; he is not affected exultantly or dolefully. God consciously dreams His cosmic play and is unaffected by it's dualities. A yogi who perceives his real self as separate from his active senses and their objects never becomes attached to anything. He is aware of the dream nature of the universe and watches it without being entangled in its complex but ephemeral nature." --Paramahansa Yogananda (1893 - 1952)

This site doesn't necessarily endorse any materials written by others,
but provides them for archival purposes. They may or may not be "accurate" or "fair".
They represent Points of View, some from inside out, others outside looking in.

BEL Founder, "Farmer" John Griggs and Tim Leary, the hippie Godfather.

The [righteous] dope dealer is selling you the celestial dream. He is very different from any other merchant because the commodity he is peddling is freedom and joy. In the years to come the television dramas and movies will make a big thing of the dope dealer of the sixties. He is going to be the Robin Hood, spiritual guerrilla, mysterious agent - who will take the place of the cowboy hero or the cops and robbers hero.' (Timothy Leary, 'Dope Dealers -New Robin Hood', 1967)

A lot of weird things get said by outsiders about the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. Things look very different from inside than outside. Much of the who, what, when, where, and why depends on which of the eras is being discussed, and who is trying to control the narrative:

GROUND ZERO: The roots of the Brotherhood fellowship arose from relationships founding members formed from the 7th Grade, into Anaheim and Western High Schools. This is the Era of the Blue Jackets and Street Sweepers car club, where the brothers had each others backs. Despite reports, they were never a motorcycle gang. It includes John Griggs, Glenn Lynd, Eddie Padilla, Robert Ackerly, as well as J.C., Tommy, and Freddy Tunnell (cousins of Griggs), Mark Stanton, and Chuck Mundell. Mundell taught Griggs how to surf. Ackerley was introduced to Griggs by Tommy Tunnell in 1958. Griggs married Carol Horan in 1961.

* ERA 1 -- THE FOUNDERS' ERA [1966 - 1969] -- The Anaheim > Modjeska Canyon > Laguna Beach era when BEL incorporates as a church with LSD as its sacrament. BEL dealt pot and hashish to fund their mission of providing LSD at giveaway prices. Griggs met Leary at Millbrook in Summer 1966. 1967 was tge Summer of Love. This Era includes John and Carol Griggs, Dion Wright, Mike Randall, Rick Bevan, Travis Ashbrook (who met Griggs in '65), "Crazy" George Dumas, Brenice Smith, and more who worked in and around Mystic Arts World. MAW was open from 1967-1970. Bobby BEL was in Haight-Ashbury with the Aquarian Temple BEL. BEL was involved in the 1966 film Endless Summer. Mike Hynson perfected the short board in the late '60s-early '70s, shaping Rainbow Surfboards with a down rail. Arguably, this era ends with the passing of "Farmer" John Griggs, and incarceration of Timothy Leary, who lived in Laguna Beach and the Idyllwild Ranch over 2 years. On January 21, 1970, Leary received a 10-year sentence for his 1968 offense, with a further 10 added later while in custody for a prior arrest in 1965, for a total of 20 years to be served consecutively.

* ERA 2 -- ORANGE SUNSHINE Era [1969 - 1973] is the heyday of Orange Sunshine LSD, under de facto leadership of Mike Randall, who also managed Mystic Arts World (MAW). BEL was the exclusive distributor of Nick Sand and Tim Scully's acid. In December 1968 Sand and Scully set up an LSD lab in a farmhouse in Windsor, California. Their 3.6 million tablets of LSD were distributed exclusively by BEL as "orange sunshine." In 1971, BEL was involved in the film Rainbow Bridge, with Jimi Hendrix. BEL paid $25,000 for the Weathermen to smuggle Leary and Rosemary out of the US (and eventually into Algeria, Switzerland, and Afghanistan). After Summer 1969 patron/investor Ronald Stark took over procurement and manufacture of Orange Sunshine. Original members began moving to Maui, Oregon, Nicaragua, Canada, and elsewhere, especially after Nixon bought his San Clemente hideaway, the Western White House, in 1969.

* ERA 3 -- AMERICA'S MOST WANTED era is pre- and post-Operation BEL, 1972-1973, during which many dealers denied or claimed membership in a very ephemeral BEL. Operation Julie in Europe took out Kemp and Stark's acid laboratories -- the European-made Orange Sunshine. The great Light of Orange Sunshine cast a great darkness. Cocaine contributed to the demise of brotherhood, solidarity, and BEL's mission statement. The DEA was established in 1973 in response to the convictions of several BEL members, based largely on the testimony of original BEL member Glenn Lynd, who had moved to Southern Oregon. The Drug War was on. Some brothers became LSD POWs. BEL's Dark Ages began with many going underground, some for decades.
https://ia600404.us.archive.org/7/items/hashishsmuggling00unit/hashishsmuggling00unit.pdf

* ERA 4 -- THE ETERNAL NOW. 21st Century. BEL Here Now. Redemption began with resurgence of interest in the historical context of BEL's contributions to social change, and the art of the Mystic Artists from Mystic Arts World gallery. Many members resurfaced. The legend came full circle, remaining unbroken but for those who crossed the Rainbow Bridge. In 2011, John Griggs was awarded the Cannabis Cup and inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame as a psychedelic pioneer by High Times Magazine. The event was raided by Amsterdam police. In 2013, Bobby BEL officially incorporated Aquarian Temple BEL as The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Inc. ID#C3530677, a religious, educational, and charitable peace organization. Several memoirs have appeared, as well as Nick Schou's 2011 Orange Sunshine book. But with so many facets, the Brotherhood story cannot be limited to a single narrative. A documentary film remains in the works [TBA]. Founders are in demand for Blotter Art signing.

The Movement, the Legend, the Brothers

The blustery, rum-drinking Al Hubbard is widely credited with being the first person to emphasize LSD's potential as a visionary or transcendental drug. His faith in the LSD revelation was such that he made it his life's mission to turn on as many men and women as possible. "Most people are walking in their sleep," he said. "Turn them around, start them in the opposite direction and they wouldn't even know the difference." But there was a quick way to remedy that—give them a good dose of LSD and "let them see themselves for what they are." --Acid Dreams

Paramahansa Yoganada talked about Eternal Love as the love of, and from God. Suppose in essence, it is the Brotherhood of God. We used Paramahansa's chants at our meetings in Modjeska. Those were 33 and a 1/3 vinyl records. We needed a name for the Charter with the State. All in the room had a say so in suggesting a name. John told me he thought the top of SaddleBack Mt. looked like a outline of a Lady lying down. He stood in the middle of the room, pointing out of the window toward the top of SaddleBack and suggested "The Church of the Sleeping Angel" Chuck, sitting below that window said, right out of his heart chakra "What about, The Brotherhood of Eternal Love" I remember it like it was yesterday. All in the room knew that is our title we will be known as from that day forward. Many leaves grew from the branches. The main branches of the Brotherhood in the room are/were connected to others who experienced and are expreriencing the true core of the mission. Om" --Edward Padilla, "Eddie Spaghetti"

From its founding in 1966, the BROTHERHOOD OF ETERNAL LOVE (BEL) has been pioneering and shaping society. They fueled the zeitgeist with synchronicity and the seeds of change. Jung said that “Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world.”

The story of the Brotherhood is more concerned with psychic forces -- archetypal, philosophical, and cosmic -- than it is with the historical and emotional lives of the characters that weave in and out of it. They did, however, embody a Holy Moment, a slice of space-time that superseded reality. They had the Gaze of those who pierced through the illusions of ordinary life to marvel at the deep archetypal forces that shape reality.

The Brotherhood became agents of mass transformation. But, "seeing everything" either leads into enlightenment or the deeper darkness of disillusionment. At some point, the vision becomes obsession and turns cloudy. The irrational depths of the soul are undeniable. The ever-burning energy of human instinct transmutes into creative power. The feedback of 20/20 hindsight shows that in the worship of their own creation, perhaps they misunderstood the symbol for the thing. Even when we see Reality, we may be unable to help the situation. The meaning lies not in abstract spirituality but in the [re]sacralization of earthly life, not the nightmares of history.

As mercurial tricksters and shamanic sorcerers, they helped expose society's entrenched hypocrisy through a rejection of obsolete values -- the consensual trance of traditional morality. In tearing the veil from the 3rd eye of millions, they revealed the psychedelic heart of creativity that transcends language and conceptualization.

But the mystic eye and the evil eye are the same organ - bent on different ends. The power to imagine still shapes the future. That visionary power is what makes us human. The Brotherhood story is bigger than than they are -- than the narratives of each individual life. It galvanized a movement. Today's Brothers are glad to have survived their adventures, whether it was real or only a dream lived aloud. Sometimes even a whole lifetime cannot reveal the whole truth. Their secrets remained concealed because they are experiential -- initiatory.

Joseph Campbell said, "What we call monsters can be experienced as sublime. They represent powers too vast for the normal forms of life to contain them. . .Meanwhile, you’re climbing, until suddenly you break past a screen and an expanse of horizon opens out, and somehow, with this diminishment of your own ego, your consciousness expands to an experience of the sublime."

Griggs and his buddies migrated from Anaheim, California to bucolic Modjeska Canyon, where they formed a pastoral church centered around hallucinogens. With entrepreneurial spirit, they developed an illicit drug business. Needing a low-key hideout in Laguna Beach, they moved to Woodland Drive, an out-of-the-way collection of cheap-rental cottages and shacks. Later, it was called "Dodge City". Then they opened an art gallery and head shop called Mystic Arts World on South Coast Highway.

This is one epic Dope Opera, full of psychedelic surfers entangled in lots of magic seaweed. Timothy Leary was their resident Godfather for two years of intense, unstructured brainstorming, both in Laguna and at the Idyllwild ranch. BEL romanticized the American Outlaw and themselves -- as brash streetwise outsiders, righteous guerrilla dealers, and freedom fighters, but not criminals. They made those 60s albums and concerts sound even better. The counterculture burst into technicolor bloom, reflecting deep mysteries in new hues -- especially orange sunshine.

Branding Bravado

Everybody and their brother seems to think they were associated, but the original BEL crew was actually quite small with roots in Junior High and High School in Anaheim. They were never a "motorcycle gang", despite that characterization. They were destined to become a legend in their own time, by selling celestial dreams and oceanic communion. The story of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love is a paradox of the '60s Southern California counterculture and an electrified metaphor describing the rise and fall of the entire phenomenon.

The saga of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love is a bizarre mélange of evangelical, starry-eyed hippie dealers, mystic alchemists, and fast-money bankers. Federal investigators described them as a "hippie Mafia" of approximately seven hundred fifty people that allegedly grossed $200,000,000. But the Brotherhood's secret
network of smugglers lived by a code different from that associated with organized crime. They were fired with idealism, committed to changing the world by disseminating large quantities of psychedelics. At least that's how it was at the beginning …. (Acid Dreams)

There's no soft-pedaling it -- the Brothers were drug distributors and smugglers who seized the magic moment of great instability and decay and provided a dynamic and very personal rebirth experience. In an era that deeply questioned the nature of reality, their history reads like a movie treatment, complete with hair-raising scenes of international smuggling in Afghanistan, near-arrests and miraculous escapes, surfing on acid, psychic visions, UFOs, agonies, ecstasies, and, of course, Leary with his bizarre escapades. Other like-minded groups formed, but the Brotherhood had a starring role with ambitious participation, amplified by Leary's financial and alchemical connections, patronage and payoffs.

BEL became a daring group of enormously successful underground drug manufacturers and dealers in LSD, pot, and hashish in the late ’60s to early ’70s. But the fact is that the brilliant glimpse of a living cosmos did pour through for a while, and it resulted in an unprecedented vision of a different world. One could debate forever the question of how much of what the drug did for us was contingent on the peculiar conditions of that time. The opening, however, was real. History can be funny that way.

Tuned in to the mystic arts yet aggressively pragmatic, the BEL believed they could transform the world by getting enough acid out on the underground market. They had already hit the JackPot with their grassroots network. Always seeking a Utopian escape, some of BEL's members fled to Maui -- their 'Rainbow Island' -- where these transplanted pot smugglers turned to big-wave surfing, created Maui Waui, and appeared in their film Rainbow Bridge with Jimi Hendrix. A few returned to Santa Cruz and widely-dispersed Brotherhood properties within a short time.

Best Friends & Worst Enemies

The tightly-knit community went from zeros to heroes to the FBI's Most Wanted. The Brotherhood alchemists turned ergot mold into the gold of Orange Sunshine. Those who weren't caught individually or in the Operation BEL sweep went into hiding underground or abroad. The Brothers who had been best friends could also be worst enemies. Some brothers maintained the code of silence when faced with incarceration and even betrayal.

Tim Scully first met William "Billy" Mellon Hitchcock, grandson of William Larimer Mellon and great-great-grandson of Thomas Mellon, through Owsley in April 1967. They became friends and Billy loaned Scully $12,000 for the second Denver lab in 1968. The product from the lab was distributed by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. Like Nick Sand, Scully was connected with the Brotherhood via Billy Hitchcock and Tim Leary.

In December 1968 Nick Sand (through an intermediary) purchased a farmhouse in Windsor, California where he and Tim Scully set up a large LSD lab. Tim Scully and Nick Sand (another psychedelic chemist) produced over 3.6 million tablets (300 micrograms each) of LSD they dubbed "Orange Sunshine" by the summer of 1969. In May 1969 Tim Scully was arrested in California for the 1968 Denver lab. The search was eventually ruled illegal, but Scully decided to retire from clandestine chemistry and pursue electronic design instead.

In 1972 the BEL alchemist, Nick Sand was prosecuted along with several members of the Brotherhood for the manufacturing of LSD. They had been the focus of a lengthy investigation by federal narcotics agents in the early 1970s. In early 1973 Billy Hitchcock was threatened with 24 years in prison for tax evasion if he didn't help the government convict the prime movers of the LSD cartel.

Billy provided evidence and testified against Tim Scully and Nick Sand and they were both indicted in April 1973. In 1976 Sand was found guilty partially due to the testimony of Billy Hitchcock and other "snitches" and was sentenced to 15 years in a federal penitentiary. Released on bail, he went underground in 1976 and remained a fugitive from federal agents for two decades.

One Drug Ring to Bind Them All

Core BEL brother, Glen Lynd turned state's evidence, revealing the entire BEL enterprise to the Feds for immunity from prosecution after Operation BEL. Patron Billy Hitchcock and even Leary turned snitch for a softer landing. In a stark reality check, middle-man Ronald Stark snitched for immunity on tax evasion and money laundering linked to Operation Julie in Britain. Some bad deals went down among the brothers themselves. The center could not hold.

One one level this is a true 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. Though many have tried, you cannot demystify the story of the Brotherhood, whose saga continues as a Peace Organization.

Silent Swagger

Some brothers don't wish to speak about any of it; others do. Some things are better left unsaid and "that was then and this is now". Some brothers still carry serious resentments and old gripes. In this dog eat dogma group, every dog has its day, every Brother has his say. Like blind men examining an elephant, many books, articles and videos describe different aspects of the Brotherhood, each with its own emphasis and spin. But all get mixed reviews for accuracy, even though they tried to interview other players who remain anonymous or silent.

We all tend to distill our experiences down into narratives we repeat almost verbatim. The best accounts are those by the brothers themselves, as reporters tell facts but fail to capture much of the flavor and fervor of the times. Despite its drug history, BEL remains what it essentially always was -- an activist spiritual organization, not just a pipedream, nebulous organization, or notorious legend. Eventually the Cold War nexus of institutions and ideas collapsed under their own weight. The process continues.

BEL survivors include Veterans, Ministers, Addiction Counselors, Healers, Artists, and Lamas. The core is still more interested in spirituality and helping fellow travelers on their life journey than in chasing the dollar, the Life-Spirit-Drug. If ministry is about touching peoples' lives, the BEL reached inside and rototilled their brains.

This is their story, and it is still unfolding, so check back as our archive grows. This connection has not been fully explored yet. Today's BEL is a social activist peace organization supporting veterans, health, and organic food choices for children, musical and community events. It's a conspirituality. The Brotherhood is still pushing Peace & Love and riding that cultural wave. Join the Revival. Show Us Your Peace Sign.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brotherhood_of_Eternal_Love

art: Muckenthaler

High Times video

Counterculture Hall of Fame Induction, 2011
More + photos here: http://belhistory.weebly.com/hall-of-fame.html

John Griggs

Dion Wright, “Starseed”, Mystic Arts World Gallery

This film was seemingly made for US Educational system via NIMH, showing Tom and friends
living around Laguna, Dodge City, the Canyon surfing the beach, Mystic Arts, the Caves and more.
https://www.facebook.com/orangesunshinemovie/timeline

The Brotherhood Movement

American Brothers by Frank Sayre

BEL is still hotter than a pistol with a HIGH Q!
The Q Score is a measurement of the familiarity and appeal of a brand, company, celebrity, or television show used in the United States. The higher the Q Score, the more highly regarded the item or person is among the group that is familiar with them. Q Scores and other variants are primarily used by the media, marketing, advertising and public relations industries.

Original Brother Eddie Padilla's story - NatGeo's Locked Up Abroad
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/locked-up-abroad/episodes/hippie-mafia/
& His New Book, Lurigancho on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Lurigancho-Mr-Edward-Padilla/dp/0970620055

More on the LUA stories of Eddie Padilla, Ernie Combs, and Frank Sayre
http://belhistory.weebly.com/locked-up-abroad.html

"A wonderfully gritty story of transcendence of the physical and the spiritual. Serve time with Ed and discover hell and heaven. Unique and extraordinary."
Jeremy Tarcher, publisher, Tarcher Books and 7 Years in Tibet

"A harrowing account of one of the most infamous hell-holes on earth, and a thrilling tale of betrayed ideals, adventure, escape and redemption."
Nicholas Schou, author of Orange Sunshine

https://www.createspace.com/4245678

BUY HERE: http://www.brotherhoodofeternallove.org/#!store Signed Copies Available

by ORIGINAL BROTHER Edward Padilla, with Paul Wood

A sensational-and true-prison escape story in the tradition of Papillon and Midnight Express. Edward Padilla, an American, is the only living person ever to escape from the world's foulest prison -- Lurigancho Prison in Peru. Here is the true story of his four-year ordeal and his miraculous flight to freedom. A founding member of the now notorious "hippie" church called The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Ed is one of the few surviving core members of that group, the only one to come forward with brutal honesty in the telling of this story.

"Eddie Padilla embodies so much of the promise and peril of post-War Southern California that it makes your head spin: a multiracial child of the New West; schooled by surfers, street fighters, and smugglers; turned on as a '60s seeker; turned out as a '70s nihilist. In Lurigancho Prison, Peru, a Dante-esque catalog of horrors, Padilla paid for California's broken dreams as much as his own. His brave escape and ongoing recovery offer a dagger of redemption and hope in the fight against 21st century cynicism and apathy."
Joe Donnelly, co-editor/founder of Slake: Los Angeles

"Edward Padilla's gritty street prose takes the reader into a desperate Heart of Darkness from which not many could ever emerge. But this gripping narrative turns emergence into a transcendent awakening and genuine rebirth. This is the real stuff, no modifiers required."
John Kent Harrison, Screenwriter/director

"An astonishing true story that has every twist and turn you could imagine. Eddie's is a story that plunges to the bleakest depths and soars to the greatest heights. Guns, drugs, girls, South American hell-holes-it has it all...."
Nick Green, director of the National Geographic documentary "The Hippie Mafia"

WOODEN SHIPS ON THE WATER
In early 1970, Padilla and Brotherhood associates purchased the historic Aafje schooner. Jimmy Dale, Joe Angeline, and Malcolm – all Brotherhood men – were on board, and had anchored offshore of Mexico, outside the twelve mile limit. Padilla arranged to load kilos of pot on the boat, with motor launch after motor launch loading the cargo. This 1500 kilograms of Mexican weed was the parent strain of “Maui Wowie”.
http://mikemcclaughry.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/the-history-of-the-schooner-aafje/

Schou reports in Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love and Acid to the World: "Padilla arrived on the island in May 1970 by the most arduous route imaginable. Along with a handful of friends, almost none of whom had any sailing experience, he sailed to Maui on the Aafje, a 70-foot yacht the Brotherhood had loaded with a ton of high-quality Mexican marijuana it dubbed "Lightning Bolt," the clones of which, when planted on Maui, became the legendary "Maui Wowie" strain. Because the boat had no functioning navigational equipment, the Aafje strayed off course by hundreds of miles, surviving several tropical storms in the process; the trip was saved when a sympathetic Norwegian ship captain gave them fuel and food to complete their voyage."

The Brotherhood was influential in the production of lifestyle cult films, "Endless Summer" and "Rainbow Bridge", which starred Jimi Hendrix. Mike Hyson, star of Endless Summer wrote his memoir of the Brotherhood era, as have other core players.

Memoirs by Brothers

BEL History Files: http://belhistory.weebly.com/bel-files.html

This is a Original LSD Blotter Art Sheet "REMEMBER SASHA" ORANGE SUNSHINE FOR CHRIST SAKES". Or Laughing Jesus .Sasha Shulgin was the person who gave members of "THE BROTHERHOOD OF ETERNAL LOVE" the formula to make Orange sunshine LSD and MDMA back in 1966. Without SASHA there may have never been anything like it ever made.

ORANGE SUNSHINE LSD BLOTTER ART Hand Signed.
By 5 Original Members Of THE BROTHERHOOD OF ETERNAL LOVE.
Mike Hynson, Michael and Carol Randall, Robert Ackerly, and Eddie Padilla

Roger Basset Design
https://www.facebook.com/orangesunshinemovie/timeline

In the Beginning, the Universe Rang Like a BEL
& So Do We
Turned On & Tuned In

Cosmic Creation: Nothing became something. Turning on and tuning in is a cosmic meme -- a metaphor of creation and frequency. "Om" is a symbol of primordial creation, analogous to "The Word", spreading outward from a singularity. The rapidly expanding early universe infused enough energy to proto-particles that instead of quickly subsiding into the vacuum, they remained in the real world. The sudden influx of countless particles from the vacuum was like a stone thrown into the dense particle pond of the early universe, sending out ripples of pressure waves. Pressure waves rippling through a gas are nothing more than sound waves.

The entire UNIVERSE RANG LIKE A BELL.
Those reverberations were abruptly silenced 13 billion years ago, when the universe became transparent. Once photons were traveling freely through space, (“Let there be Light!”), there was no longer enough pressure to support the sound waves. But before fading forever, those echoes of creation left their mark on the cosmic microwave background. BEL is still ringing.

Our Molecules Ring Like Bells, Our Proteins Vibrate Like Violins, The Symphony Of Life, Revealed
http://beforeitsnews.com/health/2014/01/the-symphony-of-life-revealed-2519224.html

Surf Camp

Store / Front

Come In: We'll Tell You Some Mostly True Stories

WET SIDE STORY
Wave Set & Sun Setting

Surfing the Cosmos: Fractal Wave Upon Waves

One of the best ways of describing what we're doing . . . is to define our roles as "evolutionary surfers." Everything is made of waves. At the level of electrons and neutrons ... it's part of a wave theory. Historical waves -- cultural waves. The more you think about the evolutionary process, the more you see the fundamental structure of nature itself. It's the quantum theory . . . dealing with quantum leaps and quantum waves . . . things come packaged in sequential, cyclical, moving, ever-changing forms...see you can talk about surfing brain waves as you would about surfing external waves. --Tim Leary
http://stokereport.com/rant/interview-dr-timothy-leary-evolutionary-surfer?feature=promoted_item

"Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King,
a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on a [Rainbow] Island somewhere
in the Ocean 5000 years ago. Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul.
This is the Center, the Self." --C.G. Jung

"Know that the Self is the rider, the body the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, and the mind is the reins.
The senses, say the wise, are the horses and the roads they travel are the mazes of desire. The enlightened
call the Self the enjoyer when it is united with the body, mind and senses." --Bhagavad Gita

True BELievers

The best year to be a hippie was 1965, but then there was not much to write about, because not much was happening in public and most of what was happening in private was illegal. The real year of the hippie was 1966, despite the lack of publicity, which in 1967 gave way to a nationwide avalanche-in Look, Life, Time, Newsweek, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Saturday Evening Post, and even the Aspen Illustrated News, which did a special issue on hippies in August of 1967 and made a record sale of all but 6 copies of a 3,500-copy press run. But 1967 was not really a good year to be a hippie. It was a good year for salesmen and exhibitionists who called themselves hippies and gave colorful interviews for the benefit of the mass media, but serious hippies, with nothing to sell, found that they had little to gain and a lot to lose by becoming public figures. Many were harassed and arrested for no other reason than their sudden identification with a so-called cult of sex and drugs. The publicity rumble, which seemed like a joke at first, turned into a menacing landslide. So quite a few people who might have been called the original hippies in 1965 had dropped out of sight by the time hippies became a national fad in 1967. --Hunter S. Thompson

ORANGE CRUSH
They Lived in the Sun & Dealt in the Shade
Tim Leary was just selling ideas, not drugs. But his Brothers sure were.

Grass-roots Network

Mostly, the hippies of the 1960s are remembered for their peaceful ways, for preaching 'Peace and Love'. In those days, parts of Orange County still looked like a vintage wooden fruitbox label. But, some of those visionaries foresaw the future and banded into what High Times and Rolling Stone dubbed a 'hippie mafia'. They were more pro-active than mere protesters. They launched a grassroots crusade against the mental inquisition of consumerism and conformity. Youth culture made a bigger quake than the San Andreas faultline before ultimately becoming commercialized itself into an over-the-counterculture.

The hippies were a social phenomenon which spurned materialism for their new tribal religion. But the brothers who grew up in the shadow of Disneyland still made untold millions, whether in a willing or inadvertent league with CIA and other black marketeers. Most likely they didn't realize it at the time. They were convinced this would change the world for the better.

Though BEL virtually cornered the acid market, they were never motivated by monopoly or "power". But the situation had them oscillating rapidly between everyday ego inflations and synthetic ego-death. Jung called ego-inflation a potential pitfall—amplifying the shadow of anyone practicing a “spiritual path.” They say without the prerequisite humor, honesty and humility, the danger only increases as one’s practice advances.

The identification with the collective psyche is acceptance of inflation, but now exalted into a system of great truths. Temporary ego death is an experience that is said to reveal the illusory aspect of the ego, but it can also feed an essentially bipolar cycle. Clearly, it is not the ego or self which is annihilated in ego death. Neither the ego of depth psychology nor the actual self, specifically the self-identity dissolves - only the belief boundaries we construct of past experiences and identification. From the perspective of unity, there is no such thing as dying, nor of being reborn. There is no such thing as ego death, and no such thing as enlightenment either, since you are already the unity. Transcendent experience goes beyond identifications structured by a particular self-representation.

Over the Rainbow

We now know you can't solve such problems with a pill. Spirituality is linked to the "oceanic" feeling of limitlessness. The sensation of an indissoluble bond is a deeply meaningful connection with the external world in its integral form. This feeling is an entirely subjective fact, not an article of faith. The oceanic experience is usually brief and completely unexpected. It is being at one with the entire universe, and of feeling a deep meaning and purpose to every part of existence.

This numinous experience is often accompanied by feelings of compassion and love for all beings. -- sacred participatory consciousness. But it may just be a momentary glimpse, a felt sense of what an integrated state would feel like. The universe looks very different seen from the inside out as pure consciousness apprehending itself. The holistic shift reveals that matter, energy, biology and consciousness are all inter-connected in a coherent sympathetic resonance.

If such behavior seems outrageous, remember we all grew up thinking we were under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, or personal annihilation in the Wars -- overseas, or the drug war at home. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled "black" by the professionals, spring up everywhere. The truer currencies emerge among people. The real dope may be the perpetuation of 'movements' -- the "you done it" genre. Everyone knew that in any scenario California was a hard target so there seemed little to lose.

Technology of the Sacred

LSD was the drug in "Sex, Drugs & Rock n Roll" -- the 'atom bomb of consciousness'. It was a catalyst for the personal and collective unconscious, amplifying whatever was there, positive or negative, and opening alien dimensions. Neither psychiatry nor religion has come to terms with the nature of mystic experiences. Acid had a profound creative influence despite the tie-dyed tipi-dwelling idealism.

When perception changes, what we construe to be reality changes. LSD reveals the psychoactive root of phenomenology, archetypes, symbols, and myth. It was a Eureka-experience for many. Acid became the Universal Solvent, the true Philosopher's Stone. This gift of the Mothercorn, ergot, sparked an archaic revival unequalled since the Eleusinian Mysteries. Hesiod wrote of Elysion: the island of the happy dead. We might say, 'the Grateful Dead'.

Researchers began devising maps of consciousness for the Far Off Lands. Stan Grof and Charles Tart cataloged a range of evolutionary stages recapitulated in mystical, mythological and psychobiological experiences and identifications from the species, to cellular, to quantum levels. Acid also was an antidote to watching the body count from the Vietnam war on TV with dinner every night. The brothers sprinkled their Brain Seasoning like fairy dust. It changed the consciousness and social history of America in many ways. It put the collective culture through a revolutionary type of ego death and renewal. As Jung said, modern man was in search of soul, and many found it on the heroic journey within, coupled with various technologies of visionary culture.

No Stone Unturned

BEL alchemists, (Nick Sand, Tim Scully, and Ronald Stark with Kemp) came in tow with Timothy Leary via Billy Hitchcock. They gave new meaning to the "Joy of Cooking" -- synthesizing heaven. They approached it with a certain reverence and intentionality. Acid is overwhelming. It all depends on whether that is positive or negative. When it comes to making acid, "cleanliness is next to Godliness." The purer it is, the clearer the experience. The chemists and distributors strongly believed in their mission to raise human consciousness by providing a rainbow bridge to the inner world.

The brothers had a vertically integrated system from production to delivery. It was a "new" way of thinking with deep roots in the ancient Mystery religions of psychedelic spirituality. The Revolution in consciousness meant the extraordinary became ordinary. The collective mind glimpsed its psychedelic ancient/future. The transcendental self came out to play.

Acid was more than a party drug; it changed people in profound and meaningful ways. More than recreational, it was re-creational, embodying the mystery of spiritual rebirth. Even Leary suggested that many had already ingested enough acid to learn its lessons and should move on. Many people, shown this transformation, thought to themselves, "Now, how can I do this without drugs?" The typical claim was to have 'seen God'. Jung describes the transformative effects of even the drug-free mystical experience of the instant present Presence as follows:

The God-image is the symbolic expression of a particular psychic state, or Function, which is characterized by its absolute ascendancy over the will of the subject, this inspiration that transcends conscious understanding, has its source in an accumulation of energy in the unconscious. The accumulated libido activates images lying dormant in the collective unconscious, among them the God-image, that [archetypal] . . . imprint which from the beginning of time has been the collective expression of the most overwhelmingly powerful influences exerted on the conscious mind by unconscious concentrations of libido. --Carl Jung; Psychological Types; 243-44.

God, becomes‟ by an act of conscious differentiation from the unconscious dynamis, a separation of the ego as subject from God . . . as object. . . . But when the “breakthrough” abolishes this separation by cutting the ego off from the world, and the ego becomes identical with the unconscious dynamis, God disappears as an object and dwindles into a subject which is no longer distinguishable from the ego. In other words, the ego, as a late product of differentiation, is reunited with the dynamic All-oneness. --Carl Jung; Psychological Types; 255.

Underground Swell

The brothers will say they went from Zeroes to Heroes to Zeroes with the busts, and perhaps in the end back to countercultural Heroes as their legend assumes its historical aspect. America loves a good redemption story, and some brothers remain to testify to that, rather than against one another. They thought of themselves as spiritual warriors, the 'untouchable' star-crossed Robin Hoods of acid, more of an outlaw band than criminal ring. They awoke one day in Laguna in the middle of history. But there was a riptide toward the shadowy depths that inexorably pulled them under. This is the tale of surf rebels who morphed into multi-million dollar international drug smugglers who pushed peace and love as hard as their mind-manifesting products.

Storming heaven, "High Priest" Timothy Leary declared a de facto war on ordinary consciousness. LSD opened a door to the scientific study of mystical experience. Those with the experience consider it a deeply meaningful event. Orange Sunshine became a "double agent", a shot across the bow of the establishment that provoked the longest War in American history -- on drugs. Image-wise, this War was headquartered at Nixon's nearby retreat in San Clemente. Meanwhile in Laguna Beach, heads were exploding out of conformist patterns into uncharted realms. Operation BEL and Operation Julie were launched to squash the government-manufactured counterculture, once and for all.

Yet that alternative society, or what is left of it, claimed they were idealists whose true history was guarded as carefully as any state secret. The Brotherhood supplied LSD and marijuana as a sacred mission, believing in the righteousness of their profession. They had lived outside the law from their high school days. No one can grasp what they did without understanding the rise of LSD, the growth of the psychedelic movement and the heady, optimistic, revolutionary, energized days of the 1960s. But this is not so much a story of drugs as it is of life and death, and the highs and lows of the human spirit.

The Brotherhood existed, achieving many of the legendary things claimed on its behalf. It certainly generated millions of dollars, as a loosely networked drug ring. First, they hit the "jack-Pot". It was also fired with idealism, novelty-seeking, and adventurism. The French might call it bel esprit, a clever person who uses the mind creatively.

Utopiates

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love was one part of a much greater movement fascinated by the potential of LSD to improve the quality of mankind's life. The promising psychiatric tool became a potent new weapon in the hands of generals and spymasters -- the manipulators of populations. The research, both civilian and military, was widespread.

Besides the smuggling drug ring, as in Tolkein's trilogy there was "one ring to bind them all" -- the indole ring, a shared related structure in LSD, psilocybin, and neurotransmitters. Compounds that contain an indole ring are called indoles. The amino acid tryptophan is an indole derivative and the precursor of the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Many believed that through the heightened perceptions and insights it produced, LSD could radically alter the direction of the human race by creating a golden pathway to the future. Utopianism is a 'hope-iate'. The dream united diverse individuals who fueled the creation of the psychedelic movement. Drugs in the 1960s no longer meant the drugging down of society. They were seen as a means to 'enlightenment', or at least being the sorcerer's apprentice for a brief time. Distribution became a cosmic conspiracy -- conspirituality. But it caused tremendous backlash. That mystic arts spirit has triumphed and survives today in compassionate treatment and medical marijuana which has eased the suffering of millions and the newly-rekindled "psychedelic science". [see http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/?p=155586 ]

THE INDOLE RING
One Ring to Bind Them

REVELATIONS OF ETERNAL LOVE

DRUG RING OF FLOWER POWER
Maui Wowie, Orange Sunshine, & Hash Oil, Oh My!

The Four Powers of the Sphinx:
to Know, to Will, to Dare, to Remain Silent

The social experiment/social engineering story became one of how the supporters of a dream were driven underground, where ideals and loyalties wither before the demands of survival. The counterculture faced hostility from the status quo, the potential for corruption, and the ambiguities of its uneasy existence. The psychedelic movement never had the discipline and order with which the space navigators and visionaries could combat its difficulties. Hippie Utopia was a notion doomed from the start, but you can't really blame them for trying and promoting an ethos of connectivity and kindness. Life in Southern California made extreme over-stimulation the norm. The whole place was an "amusement park".

In those years, the California ideology may have been Orange County's biggest export. Whether psychedelics promote evolution or not and whose agenda that actually serves remains questionable. When it comes to the high octane story of LSD it seems we now have three tales: 1) a more or less official PTB cover story, 2) the real intergenerational social control story, and 3) the fracked conspiracy theory story that makes something like machiavellian unwitting idiots of the heroes of psychedelic culture. In that sense, conspiracy theorists actually fan the flames of disinformation by creating more layers of confusion, perhaps playing right into #2.

The dope dealer is selling you the celestial dream. He is very different from any other merchant because the commodity he is peddling is freedom and joy. In the years to come the television dramas and movies will make a big thing of the dope dealer of the sixties. He is going to be the Robin Hood, spiritual guerrilla, mysterious agent - who will take the place of the cowboy hero or the cops and robbers hero.' (Timothy Leary, 'Dope Dealers - New Robin Hood', 1967)

The brothers became 'Alice D. Millionaires', as the Dead called it. Though psychedelics have arguably been known for 100,000 years, never had so many been so high at once, often in the same locale. The drugs at its core were sacred tools but also commercial commodities. Smuggling was its own manic high. Millions were made, laundered and lost. The brothers went from naive to notorious for turning the world on in one fearless leap across the Abyss. But, the global black market economy worships its own GOD: Gold, Oil & Drugs. In any market, middle men and even production are replaceable and therefore ultimately expendable. Only the players change but not the game.

The story moved from the amusements parks and chic beaches of Orange County, to hyperdelic interior worlds brightly lit by Orange Sunshine, to a bleaker landscape -- the international Badlands, heavy with the scent of corruption, scams, secrets, profit and betrayal. It became a story of fallen idealism, a modern morality play, peopled not only with psychedelic ideologues but with terrorists, criminal entrepreneurs and those who walk on the wilder shores of life. In some cases, the pipedream became a nightmare. Many were forced underground -- a brotherhood of eternal flight.

Things went sour. "Cocaine, and the greed and paranoia that came with it destroyed whatever was genuine in the Brotherhood's idealistic, spiritual origins," writes Schou. Griggs had already died of a psilocybin overdose, and rougher Brothers prevailed. Rip-offs and violence ensued. It all culminated in a 1972 bust that "yielded 53 people and two and half tons of hash, thirty gallons of hashish oil, and 1.5 million tablets of Orange Sunshine."

But, perhaps, the story finally became one of redemption, even 'resurrection' among the few remaining original Brothers -- a sort of alternative Pilgrim's Progress. The brothers have matured and their contributions are being recognized. We now acknowledge the mythical nature in the notions that chemicals will show us the way to God, or evolution into space travel through Leary’s ‘eight circuits’, or quick-fix immersions in the Overmind. The story that couldn't be told before because of the unwritten law of "need to know", now can be. It emerges from behind the scenes of the well-known, but often distorted, public stories. Over the years there have been many stars in "the Dope Show", but the Brothers did it first and did it bigger -- "as bold as love".

The Brotherhood had its own 'Genesis' and later a mass 'Exodus' from the OC. It certainly had plenty of 'Numbers' and 'Kings' of kool, and 'Chronicles' too numerous to mention. Tim Leary Leary wrote BEL's own Bible, Psychedelic Prayers. There were sacraments, ceremonies and rituals. They had their own Guru, Prophets and 'Taco Jesus'. The US Senate threw the book of 'Judges' at them. They were heroes to some, but sun devils to the Feds.

More than one brother suffered through the Dark Night of the Soul. Latecomers and outsiders wrote the 'Apocrypha', some of which don't make the historical cut, according to the original band of brothers. Liturgical commentary comes from both orthodox and protestant media peanut galleries. But the brothers have their own narratives. The '60s and '70s constitute its Old Testament period, and the Millennial stories the New. Oliver Stone produced its Revival. This is BEL's "Book of Revelations". It's a story full of wisdom, humor and more than a little madness.

Let the Sunshine In
Rosemary, Timothy Leary, and BEL founder, 'Farmer' John Griggs

The dope dealer is selling you the celestial dream. He is very different from any other merchant because the commodity he is peddling is freedom and joy. In the years to come the television dramas and movies will make a big thing of the dope dealer of the sixties. He is going to be the Robin Hood, spiritual guerrilla, mysterious agent - who will take the place of the cowboy hero or the cops and robbers hero.' (Timothy Leary, 'Dope Dealers - New Robin Hood', 1967)

THE PSYCHEDELIC SCENE: KISSING THE SKY
The Inside Dope on the BEL

Life exists only at this very moment,
and in this moment it is infinite and eternal,
for the present moment is infinitely small;
before we can measure it,
it has gone, and yet it exists forever...
--Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

"The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer. They think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer." —Ken Kesey

OVER THE RAINBOW
A Surreal Saga of the Psychedelic Surfers
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love was not your typical anarcho-syndicate.
They changed the black pirate flag into a rainbow Jolly Roger.

"But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice -- guessed and refused to believe -- that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the rainbow, and they its children. . . .” ― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

BELonging

From its founding in 1966, the BROTHERHOOD OF ETERNAL LOVE (BOEL or BEL) has been pioneering and shaping society with synchronicity. Synchronicity is a reminder that we are not encapsulated in the body and that the center of our being, the Self, is in relationship with the universe. In California's kingdom of cults and gangs, they quickly gathered millions of enraptured followers, delivering way more than some cheesy correspondence course.

The original Brothers already had a creed of 'all for one and one for all' even before they officially organized. In the 60s the scent of revolution was in the air. When BEL incorporated as a non-profit at "The Church" in Modjeska Canyon, Orange County, all agreed that was the perfect name for the spiritual group. They hitched their star to the political-spiritual movement.

Many brothers loyally keep the faith with one another to this day. The true story of the BEL Brothers is far from told since most of what has been written comes from "rats, rip offs, lames, shopkeepers, and cops". When the United States was "going to pot", the brothers took a lot of heat for the pleasure of the masses and their life-changing experiences. Going to jail was like making the honor role.

This is one epic Dope Opera, full of psychedelic surfers entangled in lots of magic seaweed. The arc of the plot is a 'gravity's rainbow', the parabolic trajectory of a rainbow-shaped path once a missile's initial force subsides -- a metaphor for the unconditioned psychic state -- the freefall of absolute Zero. Somewhere over that rainbow came the inevitable fall. It came in the same year Pynchon published his great American novel - 1973.

BELoved
BEL romanticized the American Outlaw -- as outlaws or outsiders, not criminals. After all, for the most part the brothers were drug merchants, but not pushers. Their product didn't require pushing, and the grass, acid and hash weren't addictive, even if pleasurably habituating. It was strictly supply and demand.

Some don't wish to speak of it; others do. Some things are better left unsaid. Some brothers still carry serious disagreements and old gripes. There are accusations and misaccusations. In this dog eat dogma group, every dog has its day, every Brother has his say. These survivors include Veterans, Ministers, Addiction Counselors, Healers, Artists, and Lamas.

The core is still more interested in spirituality and helping fellow travelers on their life journey than in chasing the dollar, the Life-Spirit-Drug. If ministry is about touching peoples' lives, the BEL reached inside and rototilled their brains. This is their story, and it is still unfolding, so check back as our archive grows. This connection has not been fully explored yet. Today's BEL is a social activist organization supporting veterans, health, and organic food choices for children, musical and community events. It's a conspirituality. The Brotherhood is still pushing Peace & Love.

GENESIS

In the beginning, BEL became an official church in 1966. The brothers all lit up, becoming One. And Farmer John said it was good. It felt so divine they decided among themselves to make mankind in their own image. They decided to share the joy as the "Appleseeds of Acid", the righteous dealers of cosmic consciousness. And they thought, "We should have a firmament in the midst of the waters, a utopian island to call our own" --
the land of milk and money -- a Rainbow Island.

Within a short time, the Brotherhood went on to make ground-breaking movies, inspired numerous books, created music and psychedelic art, and promoted the "Peace & Love" ethic. The self-proclaimed philosophy of surfing, if there is such a thing, is freedom for all people in an environment of brotherhood and peace. The brothers extended their adventures into surfing the Akashic.

Countless culture heroes, scientists, musicians, writers, inventors, therapists, and artists have been inspired and influenced by their lifestyle prescriptions. Some say they were the Ground Zero of West Coast counterculture. They fueled a cultural revolution, certainly in Southern California and beyond. They transformed the Wasteland of a war-torn cultural landscape into "the Greening of Consciousness", by holistically repatterning the Collective Unconscious with a collective dream.

An all-star cast played against the aliases of the Brothers themselves. They opened a crack in the conventional timeline of history that ignited a retinal circus and a mystic gnosis sometimes mistaken for self-realization. It was self-actualization, fulfilling one's individual potential. They created the reality they wanted to live in. There was a restlessness and craving for spiritual adventure and radical transformation. Acid did reveal an essentially timeless realm of immediate perception, but normal life inevitably returned. The bottom line was in blowing minds. They "turned on" their friends and, in some cases, later their friends turned on them. They went from altered states to altered statements and state's evidence.

BEL, BOOK & CANDLE

The universalist philosophy of 'Farmer' John Griggs spread far and wide, despite his early tragic death. BEL represented an ideal, a twisted cultural mission that transcended riding waves. Many surfers combine their love of the sport with their own religious or spiritual belief. This could have only happened in the Laguna Canyon during that revolutionary time. It fed into a new global mythology of bigger and better stories, of life lived more fully with spontaneous options -- a more organic perspective, more imaginative, more synchronistic. The world became their amusement park. Their Legacy was turning the world on to Peace and Love through Harmony with Nature. But other forces were already in play.

CIA became interested in LSD when they feared the KGB would weaponize it. They began experimenting with it as a truth serum. Many claim the U.S. Government deliberately created and manipulated the "drug problem" in the USA. Psychedelics were used in "occult" circles in the mid-1800's, then in "artistic" circles in the early-1900's, and widely in the late-1900's.

Psychedelic parties were part of the LA-Hollywood scene from the mid-50s, and Harvard in the early 60s. Leary was part of that intelligentsia. He often said that “credibility is overrated. I want to be incredible.” A leprechaun trickster, depending on who you were, you got a "different" Tim Leary. He gave his imprimatur to the new youth hero, the “righteous dealer.” However, wisdom is not granted by a wizard or teacher but realized by the individual searching within. Some brothers loved Leary; some thought him the penultimate narcissist. Some just thought the grandiose trickster brought too much heat.

No one took many pictures, because they weren't photos -- they were potential 'evidence'. Outmoded and limited perceptions, myths and metaphors were recast, redesigning the human fabric and all our ways of seeing. Movies like "Endless Summer" and "Rainbow Bridge" gave rise to new archetypes, and the evolution of old ones -- a new cultural Zeitgeist, the "California Ideology". Like modern Percivals they launched a quest for the Holy Grail of consciousness.

Myth facilitates the health of the psyche. New stories change outworn habits. This is what the artist knows and uses for inspiration -- a rebirth of the self. . .new ways of being. Everything happens Now. Surfers know that oceanic feeling, too. They also know the sting of liquid salt in their wounds. Surfing is environmental awareness. The image of the surfer as wild and free won out over the competitive clean-cut square. Bad-boy beach bum defined the image of the surfer.

COSMIC PARADIGM

BEL took on a legendary, even mythic quality with their underground chemistry and overland smuggling. They dared to dream, and they dreamed up a psychedelic movement. Huxley spoke of "the doors of perception". The brothers kicked down the doors to uncharted territory. They traveled vertically and horizontally, scouring the globe for unique botanicals. They surfed the waves of association in oceanic consciousness. Some commentators have a very cynical view of the Brotherhood, a band of acid-washed surfers whose idealism masked their self-indulgent shadowy side. Others are more reportorial. But the best accounts come from those who were there, lived it, and are still living it.

The panacea was married to a 'back-to-the-land' philosophy, not unlike that of the Brothers. No one person knows the whole story; all they know is their involvement or 2nd and 3rd-hand stories they've heard. Many people never even met in person; all that was widely known was the product. Did they strike a balance between selflessness and selfishness? Probably not, but the world changed, anyway. They tried to suggest new principles for collective decisions.

They responded to the ossification of consumer culture and the toxicity of the Military-Industrial complex. Their seemingly random behavior had nonrandom outcomes for the population as a whole. New principles were broadly applied in a grand experiment somewhere between self-indulgence and spiritual aspiration. Sometimes there isn't much ground between breakthrough and breakdown, emergence and emergency, bloom and doom. Some of the darkest stories of these perennial Peter Pans remain untold despite recent "revelations", and perhaps that is best.

'AGENT' ORANGE?

The Brotherhood remains a seminal influence. Arguably, no turn-on was more massive than the tsunami wave of Orange Sunshine they surfed into every corner of the globe. It was a real orange crush. Eventually, the revolution got subverted and extinguished itself.

Clearly, the history of LSD, both within and without the BEL is all spooked up with intelligence connections and international money laundering. Stark was a shady character that combined tradecraft with chemistry to take the BEL in a global direction. He taught them international smuggling so they could dispense more 'Agent Orange', er, Orange Sunshine. What there was beyond question, was drugs and money -- literally tons of both. "Ghost money" comes in secret and leaves in secret.

Some brothers were closer than others. Some had a change of hearts and minds due to the actions of others, and rank betrayal. The move to Idyllwild created the first schizm. Some will say that the love was genuine, and some will say it wasn’t once greed and hard drugs entered the picture. BEL was many things to many people but there are many things it was not and never could be. But the Frontier remains. Sun still shines on the BEL.

BEL HEIR

With numerous books and films in the works, and even at least three related
National Geographic shows, the Brothers have a really high Q-Rating.

Oliver Stone's movie "Savages" (2012) was set in Laguna Beach, and its prequel "Kings of Cool" draws even more liberally on the legends of the Brotherhood for its story line. They pretty much invented the Mexican pot trade, singlehandedly moving enough weed to kick production up into the “industrial” range. They loved their psychedelics, and did more to feed the heads on campuses all over this country than any other group.

When it came time to branch out into new ventures, they were the first to move Thai sticks, and Afghani black and Lebanese blonde hashes in weight. Those nonlinear stories are all woven together here. Not everyone knew each other at the time or over the different locales. That is because BEL also pioneered Spiritual Activism, Social Networking and Cosmic Networking. And, hey -- they are still the Kings of Kool.
http://lagunabeach.patch.com/articles/savages-prequel-novel-in-stores-now-with-even-more-laguna-content

“What happened? Stan repeats.
To us? To the country?
What happened when childhood ends in Dealey Plaza, in Memphis, in the kitchen of the Ambassador, your belief your hope your trust lying in a pool of blood again? Fifty-five thousand of your brothers dead in Vietnam, a million Vietnamese, photos of naked napalmed children running down a dirt road, Kent State, Soviet tanks roll into Prague so you turn on, drop out; you know you can't reinvent the country but maybe you reimagine yourself; you believe you really believe that you can that you can create a world of your own and then you lower that expectation to just a piece of ground to make a stand on but then you learn that piece of ground costs money that you don't have.
What happened? Altamont, Charlie Manson, Sharon Tate, Son of Sam, Mark Chapman we saw a dream turn into a nightmare we saw love and peace turn into endless war and violence our idealism into realism our realism into cynicism our cynicism into apathy our apathy into selfishness our selfishness into greed and then greed was good and we had babies, Ben, we had you and we had hopes but we also had fears we created nests that became bunkers we made our houses baby-safe and we bought car seats and organic apple juice and hired multilingual nannies and paid tuition to private schools out of love but also out of fear.
What happened? You start by trying to create a new world and then you find yourself just wanting to add a bottle to your cellar, a few extra feet to the sunroom, you see yourself aging and wonder if you've put enough away for that and suddenly you realize that you're frightened of the years ahead of you. Watergate Irangate Contragate scandals and corruption all around you and you never think you'll become corrupt but time corrupts you, corrupts as surely as gravity and erosion, wears you down wears you out I think, son, that the country was like that, just tired, just worn out by assassinations, wars, scandals, by Ronald Reagan, Bush the First selling cocaine to fund terrorists, a war to protect cheap gas, Bill Clinton and realpolitik and jism on dresses while insane fanatics plotted and Bush the Second and his handlers, a frat boy run by evil old men and then you turn on the TV one morning and those towers are coming down and the war has come home.
What Happened? Afghanistan and Iraq, the sheer madness the killing the bombing the missiles the death you are back in Vietnam again and I could blame it all on that but at the end of the day at the end of the day we are responsible for ourselves. We got tired, we got old we gave up our dreams we taught ourselves to scorn ourselves to despise our youthful idealism we sold ourselves cheap we aren't Who we wanted to be.”
― Don Winslow, The Kings of Cool

In the prequel to Savages, Don Winslow reveals that his protagonists are the children of a prototypical BEL organization, he modeled on the Brotherhood.

TACO BEL

“Suffice it to say that the Surfers met the Hippies in Laguna Beach. It had to happen. The difference between a Surfer and a Hippie? A board.” Inspired by legendary tales of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Kings of Cool by Don Winslow tells how the three main characters, children of the 60s BEL group, fell into the drug business in the first place. Flashback to the 1960s Taco Bell, on the corner of Coast Hwy. and Cleo St., where a character named Doc (a.k.a. "Taco Jesus") hands out free grub to his LSD-eating hippie disciples.

The second period is the late 1960s, when young surfer John McAlister meets a local, charismatic character everyone calls Doc, who spreads his word of love and brotherhood while handing out free tacos. Nearby are Stan and his wife, Diane, two hippies who long to turn their decrepit house into a really cool bookstore. Doc eventually brings John, Stan and Diane under his wing and forms The Association, an odd grab bag of hippies and surfers who eventually form the largest and most lucrative local drug cartel in all of Southern California. Then Doc moves The Association into dealing harder drugs, including cocaine, and his alliances with organized crime make things increasingly tense — and increasingly threatening for all involved.

They're really just following the paths laid out for them by their parents, who turn out to be members of a secretive Baby Boomer drug ring called the "Association." Surfers, free love, messed up parenting, communes, therapy and more all combine to propel first the parents and then the children into drug dealing. Winslow also artfully shows how the game changes along with the drugs: the mellowness of pot slides into the trippy-ness of acid which burns into the stinging nastiness of cocaine. The money gets bigger, the stakes get higher and the violence turns from an off-screen flirtation into a live-in lover.

Savages was fun but The Kings of Cool has more emotional weight. Parents betray -- or, worse, simply fail -- their children. Children must decide whether their loyalty lies with biology or those they've bonded with. The story bounces back and forth between Laguna Beach in the mid-2000s and the late 1960s and profiles, among other characters, surfing weed dealer Doc Holliday, nicknamed Taco Jesus, who gives out free tacos at the infamous Taco Bell.

In fact, that Taco Bell used to be the epicenter of Orange County's drug scene. . . just a block away from Mystic Arts World, a famous head-shop, art gallery and countercultural market run by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which inspired Winslow's "Association," a secretive group of hippies that smuggled hashish from Afghanistan in Volkswagen buses to fund an international LSD-distribution network. (Schou)
http://www.ocweekly.com/2012-07-12/film/don-winslow-savages-laguna-beach/full/

Unusual Suspects

Cosmic Connections

The Brothers were the 'Forest Gumps' of dope dealing, bumping into an all-star cast of characters and cosmic connections. Many lives were woven into this global tapestry. One way or another BEL was involved with innumerable rock stars, the Merry Pranksters, Black Panthers, White Panthers, Weather Underground, Mujahideen, Hare Krishnas, Manson Family, Hell's Angels, Process Church, Rainbow Family, CIA spooks, Latino drug lords, international mobsters, and assorted unscrupulous characters. Many of these had even shadier contacts often concealed from other associates. At more than one point, the Psychedelic 'Movement' took a dump.

The scene included artists and writers like Alan Watts, Ken Kesey, Jack Kerouac, Salvador Dali, Steve Allen, Jean Houston, Walter Bowart, and R. Crumb; therapists like R.D. Laing, Myron Stolaroff, Oscar Janiger, Sidney Cohen, Humphry Osmond, Stanislav Grof, Leo Zeff, James Fadiman, and Aldous Huxley; actors like Robert Mitchum, James Coburn, Gary Grant, Peter Fonda, Peter Coyote, Dennis Hopper, and David Carradine; scientists like Francis Crick, John Lilly, Claudio Naranjo, Albert Hofmann, and Kary Mullis; media moguls Walt Disney, Henry Luce and Steve Jobs; top political figures John and Robert Kennedy; spooks like Al Hubbard (Capt. Trips) and Ronald Stark; and musicians too numerous to mention from The Beatles and Hendrix, to the Moody Blues, and on and on. They all took the magical mystery tour.

BELated

Soon after Leary returned to the United States in 1973, he admitted he might have made a mistake in encouraging LSD use to spread so wide. In a British television interview, he said he had never really liked the hippies, but later expressed continued admiration for John Griggs and the original Brothers. By and large, Leary believes the psychedelic movement's achievement was the raising of consciousness and understanding of the human body. With his customary verbal flourish, Leary -- High Priest of Acid, the "Pope of Dope" -- said: 'Flowers produce seeds and there are millions of seeds from the flowers of the 1960s.'

Transformational Festivals and concerts remain the center of alternative culture today.
The Brotherhood is a global Hippie Icon, as or more influential than any rock group.
In their own way, they were the underground rock stars of the psychedelic revolution.
Artists embody the role of the shaman in the modern world.
"Surfing the Net" became the metaphor of the Information Age

Rainbow Island Is a State of Mind
Drop Out of the Meaningless and Tune Into the Productive

Leary bootstrapped his League of Spiritual Discover into The Dope Party to run for California Governor

Griggs & BEL; Counterculture Hall of Fame

BELeaguered

"The biggest raid that had ever been staged in America’s war on drugs took place when a task force of state, local and federal law enforcement agencies combined to take down a secretive group of hippie acid dealers and hashish smugglers known as the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. On August 5, 1972, cops in California, Oregon and Maui arrested dozens of people, sending an even larger group scattering around the world in pursuit of an underground life that in some cases lasted decades.

By then, the Brotherhood, better known among cops as the “Hippie Mafia,” had become America’s biggest hash smuggling network, with a direct pipeline to Kandahar, Afghanistan. They were also the country’s hardest-working distributors of LSD who even had their own trademark version of the mind-altering drug, Orange Sunshine. They operated their own storefront, Mystic Arts World, in Laguna Beach, where many members lived. After befriending ex-Harvard psychology professor Timothy Leary, they lured him to Laguna Canyon and later, to a mountain ranch in Idyllwild, California. Members, including the group’s charismatic leader, John Griggs, slept in tipis and ate vegetables from their own garden – all with the aim of creating a self-sustaining utopia." --Rolling Stone

In March 1969, the Nixons explored southern Orange County, inspecting properties. Rumor had it that the Nixons looked at a house in Laguna Beach but the Secret Service had security concerns so they settled in San Clemente, a few miles south. It sounded a death-knell for the BEL.

BELauded
John Griggs & BEL Honored in Counterculture Hall of Fame
FULL STORY & PHOTOS HERE:
http://belhistory.weebly.com/hall-of-fame.html

List of Inductees

Bob Marley (1997)
Louis Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow (1998)
Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs (1999)
Ina May Gaskin (2000)
Paul Krassner (2001)
Bob Dylan, Joan Baez (2002)
Jack Herer (2003)
Stephen Gaskin (2004)
John Trudell (2005)
Barry "Plunker" Adams, Garrick Beck (2006) (Rainbow Family veterans)
Tommy Chong, Cheech Marin (2007)
Peter Tosh (2008)
Thomas King Forcade (2009) High Times Founder
Coke La Rock (2010) 1st rapper
John Griggs, BEL (2011)

John & Carol Griggs

John Griggs, Jr.

Mike Randall & Carol Griggs Randall

Back in the late 1960s, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love was a spiritual organization based in Laguna Beach that doubled as America's largest LSD distribution network and hashish smuggling ring. Today, several members of the group, as well as relatives of John Griggs, one of the group's founders, are flying to Amsterdam for High Times' 24th Annual Cannabis Cup. They're traveling courtesy of the magazine as special guests for the event, at which Griggs, who died in August 1969 at the group's commune in Idyllwild, CA, will be posthumously inducted into the so-called Countercultural Hall of Fame.

The cannabis cup begins Nov. 19 - Nov. 24th, 2011, when the countercultural award ceremony takes place. Among the special guests are Carol Randall, Griggs' widow, and her husband, Michael Randall, an original Brotherhood member who also managed Mystic Arts World, the group's famous headshop, which was located across the street from Laguna Beach's historic Taco Bell on S. Coast Highway, as well as John Griggs, Jr., and Brotherhood member Travis Ashbrook.

Steven Hagar of High Times first announced the plan to induct Griggs into the hall of fame in January of this year. "They weren't just a smuggling organization, they were a religious movement," he said of the Brotherhood. "Much of what you see today at Rainbow Family Gatherings looks a lot like what was going on around Griggs at Laguna. Since Griggs remains relatively unknown, it's only right that we try to raise his profile and celebrate his accomplishments at the Cannabis Cup."

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love was formed as a registered non-profit organization in 1966, with LSD as a sacrament, just days before California became the first state in the country to ban the substance. Their mission: turn on the world and achieve universal peace through cosmic mind expansion. The following year, the group lured Timothy Leary to California, where he lived for two years with Griggs (whom he called his "spiritual guru" and one of the "holiest" men to ever live in the U.S.) in both Laguna Beach and Idyllwild. Among other things, the Brotherhood helped plan Leary's unsuccessful 1969 campaign for governor (John Lennon wrote "Come Together" as a campaign anthem) and created an international LSD network, complete with its own secret laboratories and homegrown acid brand, Orange Sunshine.

To help fund the labs, the Brotherhood used everything from surfboards to Volkswagen buses, and eventually yachts and airplanes, to funnel untold quantities of hashish from Afghanistan and marijuana from Mexico and Hawaii, where the group popularized the infamous Maui Wowie. The Brotherhood was also the focus of what was then the largest raid in the brand new "War on Drugs," which was launched by Richard Nixon and is still going strong, in August 1972, when dozens of members were arrested in California, Oregon, Maui, and Afghanistan.

MINDMAPS: BEL Network & Players

BELligerance

http://wlym.com/archive/oakland/docs/19810606-WOD.pdf

John Griggs, Photo Dion Wright, Hash Wrapping;

"That idealistic dream ended in August 1969 – the same month that saw Woodstock, the Manson murders and the first moon landing – when Griggs died of an overdose of synthetic psilocybin. By then, Leary had been busted for marijuana possession, and not long after Griggs died, he went to prison. That’s when the BEL pulled off one of the most spectacular stunts in American counterculture. They raised some cash and paid off the notorious anti-war radicals, the Weather Underground, to bust Leary out of prison and help him escape to Afghanistan, where he was finally arrested in 1973. BEL and the Weathermen gave Leary his second wind. A government report estimated that the Brotherhood was responsible for 50% of all the LSD and hash to be found in the United States.

During the early 60’s Griggs and his crew were a gang of itinerant surfers, custom car enthusiasts, junkies and petty crooks. [They NEVER were a motorcycle gang]. In ’66 they came into a stash of LSD (a substance they knew nothing about and which was ironically still legal at the time) through armed robbery. This was the watershed moment: a week later Griggs "threw away his gun and was running around hollering, ‘This is it.’ That’s how it all began." -Rolling Stone, http://thecargoculte.com/archives/1532

August 11-1974;

“Case dismissed, charges dropped, game over…the State’s star witness has left the building, bugged out, skipped town, slunk off to Belgium and/or Italy, like the scumbag weasel we know him to be…” He was referring to my old pal Ron Stark, who’d been cooperating in cases against Scully, Sand, Mr. Billy, and the Brotherhood. The anxiety & dread had been building for months - a lot of tough talk from federal attorneys about the Bad Shit that was going to happen for not jumping on the bandwagon and turning State’s evidence.

Unfortunately for the State, their star witness had spread himself too thin; founding a satanic pedophile ring in Belgium to service naughty NATO needs, more dark fun where the sun don’t shine with Faction Absurde & Le Cult de la Voie Verte in Paris…collaborating with colleagues Enrique Paghrea and Renate Curcio in yet more Red Brigade “terrorist” attacks; and in the near future, the removal with “extreme prejudice” of former Italian prime minister, Aldo Moro. All this, when not posing as a Mossad agent, a physician, or alter-ego Khouri Ali, supposedly fronting the “radical Palestinian” Group-14, with notable synthetic-terror connections in Syria & Libya. A very busy man, a true agent of History, and…sorry, he’s not available.

So now, their case had fallen apart

ENDLESS SUMMER OF LOVE
Endless Dreams; Egoless Summer;
Eternal Sunshine; Psychedelic History

“If you remember it, you weren’t there.”
But let us remind you....

Billl Ogden

The Endless Summer is a seminal 1966 surf movie.

Filmmaker/narrator Bruce Brown follows two surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, on a surfing trip around the world. Despite the balmy climate of their native California, cold ocean currents make local beaches inhospitable during the winter. They travel to the coasts of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii in a quest for new surf spots and introduce locals to the sport. Other important surfers of the time, such as Miki Dora, Eugene Harris, Phil Edwards and Butch Van Artsdalen, also appear. Its title comes from the idea, expressed at both the beginning and end of the film, that if one had enough time and money it would be possible to follow the summer around the world, making it endless.

Rainbow Bridge is a 1972 film directed by Chuck Wein that features footage from a Jimi Hendrix concert, and a short piece of conversation between Pat Hartley, Wein and Hendrix. It was mainly financed by Hendrix manager Mike Jeffery, hence his appearance. The film is about Pat Hartley's "spiritual awakening" via a visit to the 'Rainbow Bridge' planetary meditation cult on Maui, where, as part of the proceedings Jimi Hendrix visits to play a concert during a 'Rainbow Bridge' mass meditation/color/sound "experiment". The "Rainbow Bridge" concert was a free concert by Jimi Hendrix that was held on July 30, 1970, in a horse pasture above Seabury Hall, on the "Upcountry" slopes of Haleakala, the volcano that makes up 75% of the island of Maui, Hawaii, although it probably last erupted in the 17th century, it is officially considered active.

Hawaiian Sunset Wallpaper

Newport Pop Festivals

"Many great bands played one hour sets so it was full-on all day long and into the night. The crowd was rockin and everybody was blitzed. 20 thousand tripping at the same time. There had been an "acid auction" the night before. (Don't forget this was next to Laguna Beach home of the "Brotherhood of Eternal Love"."

Saturday, August 3, 1968 -Alice Cooper, Canned Heat, Chambers Brothers, Charles Lloyd Quartet, Country Joe and the Fish, Electric Flag, James Cotton Blues Band, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sonny & Cher, Steppenwolf, Tiny Tim.
Sunday, August 4, 1968 -Blue Cheer, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Grateful Dead, Illinois Speed Press, Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Byrds, Things to Come. More - http://belhistory.weebly.com/concerts.html

Art - Graphic Design by Patti: http://www.pattisdolls.com/

THE ETERNAL NOW:
THAT WAS THEN; THIS IS NOW
"Life Flows On Within You & Without You"

http://www.brotherhoodofeternallove.org/

Aquarian Temple BEL

http://www.brotherhoodofeternallove.org/

May the long-time sun shine upon you
And all love surround you
And the clear light within you
Guide your way home.

When the Moon was in the 7th House, and Jupiter Aligned with Mars...
& We Let the Sunshine IN....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Aquarius

Psychedelic Prayers
Tim Leary, Flashbacks, & BEL
Mystic Arts World, Laguna Beach

All substances are part of my own consciousness. This consciousness is vacuous, unborn, and unceasing.
Thus meditating, allow the mind to rest in the uncreated state. Like the pouring of water into water, the mind should be allowed its own easy mental posture in its natural, unmodified condition, clear and vibrant.
--Leary, Metzner, Alpert; The Psychedelic Experience

“Psychedelic poetry, like all psychedelic art, is crucially concerned with flow. Each psychedelic poem is carefully tailored for a certain time in the sequence of the session. Simplicity and diamond purity are important. Intellectual flourishes and verbal pyrotechnics are painfully obvious to the ‘turned on’ nervous system.”

Tim Leary's PSYCHEDELIC PRAYERS,
Dedicated to the Brotherhood Of Eternal Love.
http://library.kisps.net/Timothy%20Leary%20-%20Psychedelic%20Prayers.pdf

Third edition: Psychedelic Prayers/ after the/ Tao Te Ching/ by/ Timothy Leary/ (publisher's device: seal of the League)/ (rule, thicker in middle)/ LEAGUE FOR SPIRITUAL DISCOVERY * * MILLBROOK, NEW YORK %V% x 6 7 /i6 in. Photo-offset printing of A5c, with identical collation, but text printed in black on cream paper, and differs as follows: p. [4], top line now reads: Cover by Dion Wright; p. [5] Dedication changed to: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, publisher's device added with seal of the League. 31 Stiff, cream wrappers printed in black. Front cover: human figure showing nervous system, with a rose, directional lines and binary code in background; title and author's name printed at left and below in lettering similar to A5a. Back cover: Tibetan mandala. Spine: title and author's name printed as in A5a; no publisher's imprint. Published ca. 1970 by the Mystic Arts Bookshop, Laguna Beach, Calif. Unknown number of copies printed and sold at various prices to raise money for Leary's legal expenses.

MORE PIE-EYED PIPER THAN SAINT

http://www.internationaltimes.it/archive/index.php?year=1970&volume=IT-Volume-1&issue=79&item=IT_1970-05-08_B-IT-Volume-1_Iss-79_020

SUN, by FLURA

Special thanks to all those who have helped keep not only the story
but the spirit of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love alive through the years.
Acknowledgements:
Special thanks to all sources of fair use material,
known or unknown, named and unnamed.

Fair Use copyrights apply; Educational Purposes Only
(c)2013-2017, Brotherhood of Eternal Love
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This site does not advocate or encourage any illegal activity.
Created by Robert Ackerly and Iona Miller

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This site does not advocate or encourage any illegal activity. It is an archive of public history records.
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Peace * Love * Groovy
http://www.brotherhoodofeternallove.org/

BEL PEACE ORGANIZATIONOur Mission: Spreading Awareness ofPeace, Love & Harmony with NatureDrop Out of the Meaningless & Tune In to the Productive: Familial, Tribal, & Beautiful