Broken Hallelujah

LORDS OF ACID
How the Brotherhood of Eternal Love Became OC’s Hippie Mafia

Leary’s mantra—Tune in, turn on, drop out—had already led countless disaffected middle-class kids to quit their jobs or classes, head to California and drop acid. The Brotherhood’s bible was Leary’s Psychedelic Prayers, his idiosyncratic translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Mystic Arts sold copies of Leary’s book, along with incense, candles and imported countercultral paraphernalia. Behind a bamboo-covered wall, church members gathered in a secret meditation room decorated with a massive Taxonomic Mandala, a technicolor spiral depicting the evolution of life, from primal ooze to Homo sapiens.

But Mystic Arts was more than a head shop or meditation center. And although it didn’t start out that way, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love wasn’t just a church. It was also Orange County’s first major international drug smuggling network. [more »]