Pubdate: Fri, 22 Apr 2016
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Copyright: 2016 The Orange County Register
Contact:  http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: Antonie Boessenkool

NEW DOCUMENTARY 'ORANGE SUNSHINE' EXPLORES THE BROTHERHOOD OF ETERNAL 
LOVE AND THE BEACH TOWN'S UNDERGROUND PAST

Before Laguna Beach became known for multimillion-dollar houses and 
high-end art galleries, the city was home to a group of hippies who 
called themselves the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. They used LSD as a 
path to enlightenment and claimed to be the world's biggest suppliers 
of psychedelics in the 1960s and '70s.

Documentary filmmaker William A. Kirkley grew up in Newport Beach and 
heard stories of the Brotherhood from his father-in-law, who had 
spent time in Laguna in the '60s. Kirkley's interest led him on a 
10-year path to make "Orange Sunshine," a documentary that screens at 
the Newport Beach Film Festival this weekend and next week.

"I couldn't believe that something that interesting happened in such 
a conservative place," Kirkley said. "Laguna Beach has always had 
this kind of magical quality to me. With it being an artist colony, 
there's something really special about it." The Brotherhood was a way 
to tell a different, more underground, story of the place.

But people weren't so willing to open up about a history that 
involved selling drugs, evading police and time in prison.

"We never did any of this to get notoriety or fame," said Carol 
Griggs Randall, one of those who was there to experience this time in 
Orange County's history.

LOCAL KIDS

John Griggs was the nucleus of the Brotherhood. He was a bit of a 
troubled kid. His first experience with LSD came after he and his 
friends robbed a Hollywood movie producer at gunpoint, relieving him 
of his drugs.

In an interview in advance of the film's screening, Griggs Randall 
and husband Mike Randall remembered their friend.

Griggs was a small guy, but a larger-than-life personality, Griggs 
Randall said. She was a teenager from Garden Grove when she met him 
and fell in love.

"Everybody loved him," she said. "Everybody thought they were his 
best friend. He was that way. He was so genuine."

LSD changed Griggs irreversibly. "Once he woke up, he realized, oh my 
God, all of humanity could use a shot of extra love, how to treat 
each other," Griggs Randall said.

She and Griggs married young and bought a house in Fountain Valley 
with their already growing family. Griggs would trip with his friends 
and eventually Griggs Randall joined in. Through parties, dances and 
at the beach, Griggs and others came together, including Randall and 
Travis Ashbrook, who grew up in Rossmoor and also spoke with the 
Register about his time with the Brotherhood. They were experimenting 
with other drugs when they switched to LSD.

"When we started taking psychedelics, it changed the whole dynamic of 
everything," Randall said. In college, he thought he'd be a 
businessman. Once he tried LSD, he switched to studying philosophy 
and religion.

As a group, they moved to Modjeska Canyon and started a church, with 
LSD as their sacrament. They aimed to introduce it to everyone and 
called themselves the Brotherhood of Eternal Love.

"Of course, that did not work out," Kirkley said.

The Brotherhood sold hashish to fund the making of LSD. They were 
able to bring drugs across the country, to the East Coast, at a time 
when airline security was far less stringent than today.

The Brotherhood moved to Laguna Beach in 1967 to set up its 
acid-making operation. The members opened Mystic Arts World, a store, 
art gallery and gathering place on Pacific Coast Highway. They began 
distributing doses of acid that came in orange, giving them their 
signature product, Orange Sunshine.

Griggs Randall described Laguna Beach at the time as a low-key beach 
town. "It was a haven for whoever, odd or different, and everybody 
fit in there." She paid $90 a month to rent a three-bedroom beach 
shack. "It was wonderful."

The operation grew. Street-level drug dealers appeared, getting acid 
from Brotherhood members and claiming to be a part of the group, 
though they weren't tied to its spiritual aspect.

"It just turned into something way bigger than we thought," Ashbrook 
said. "We weren't organized crime. We were unorganized crime."

Police began focusing their attention on the Brotherhood, especially 
when Timothy Leary showed up. Leary, a writer and psychologist, was a 
vocal advocate for using LSD and a major figure in the 1960s 
counterculture. President Richard Nixon called him the "most 
dangerous man in America."

Kirkley includes in "Orange Sunshine" an interview with Neil Purcell, 
the retired Laguna Beach police chief who in 1968 arrested Leary. 
Leary was charged with possession of marijuana, LSD and hashish. 
Purcell's take on the hippie scene in Laguna at the time is decidedly 
different than the Brotherhood's - in the documentary, he says that 
he aimed to arrest as many people as possible for illegal drug use.

In the meantime, Leary had moved in with the Brotherhood. When Leary 
announced he was going to run for governor of California, he brought 
more unwanted scrutiny to the group. Things were changing rapidly, 
Griggs Randall said.

But Griggs' death in 1969 after ingesting psilocybin definitively 
ended the Brotherhood as it once was.

"It's hard to explain," Ashbrook said of Griggs. "(He was) a very 
dynamic guy. Lot of energy, lot of love."

Members of the Brotherhood scattered. Arrests came later, sometimes 
after years of evading police and moving from place to place. Randall 
and Griggs Randall were living in Colorado in 1981 when Randall was 
arrested. He said he served five years for conspiracy to smuggle 
hashish and for passport fraud. Ashbrook served 11 years in prison 
for hashish smuggling and tax evasion.

"So much happened during that compressed little period of time," 
Ashbrook said. "So much happened that it was unbelievable."

INNER CIRCLE

Decades later, Kirkley heard bits of the Brotherhood story. When he 
decided to make his documentary, he found he needed a lot of persistence.

"When I started working on it, nobody wanted to talk to me," Kirkley 
said. "It was really difficult to break into that circle."

Kirkley interviewed street-level dealers who had associated 
themselves with the Brotherhood and the police who pursued the 
Brotherhood. After seven years, he had finished a film about drug 
smuggling in Laguna Beach.

It wasn't the movie he wanted it to be. He hadn't talked with Randall 
and Griggs Randall, two people at the heart of the Brotherhood. 
Kirkley had been in touch, but they were wary. After all, Randall 
said, this is also a story about illegal activity. Kirkley had to 
prove his sincerity.

"Finally, he said he'd be willing to completely start over," Griggs 
Randall remembered. "And I said OK, now we're talking."

In "Orange Sunshine," Kirkley mixes re-enactments, some filmed to 
look like old home movies, with present-day interviews. The end 
result puts more emphasis on the bonds between the founding members 
of the Brotherhood, and a love story, rather than the criminal enterprise.

Ashbrook, Griggs Randall and Randall are now in their early 70s. But 
this period of their youth set the stage for the rest of their lives, 
Randall said. These days, Ashbrook is a consultant for a medical 
marijuana company. Griggs Randall and Randall run a jewelry business 
in San Anselmo, near San Francisco.

"We never outgrew the '60s," Randall said. "If you have a spiritual 
awakening, you never outgrow it."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom