The Brotherhood of Eternal Love: From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture

This is a reprint of the authors' 1984 exploration of the drug underground of the 1960s, which has become known as a classic in its field. Crime reporter Tendler and journalist May combined to produce one of the first extensive and in-depth histories of LSD, from its discovery by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman in 1943, through various efforts by the CIA in the 1950s in their search for the ultimate truth serum, through its manufacture and distribution into the Hippie communities of the 1960s by psychedelic supporters such as Augustus Owsley III, Grateful Dead-patron and master drug manufacturer. But while the media of the time focused on Timothy Leary as the main proponent of LSD, Tendler and May focus on the real key players: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a group of young drifters based in Laguna Beach, Calif., who started out as ""missionaries"" spreading the gospel of altered consciousness into big-business drug distributors who by the mid-1970s had reaped ""$200 million through an estimated membership of 750 people."" Through solid reporting-and including new material and interviews-the authors chart the Brotherhood's expansion from California to Hawaii to Afghanistan, and its pursuit by international narcotics police, in what still remains a great combination of social history and true crime suspense.