Brotherhood Hashish: The Story of Ronnie Bevan
250 pages
Introduction
Step back in time as I recount the adventures of a young man, barely in his twenties, traveling through countries that are no longer accessible to westerners and one country, Yugoslavia, which is no longer there. Follow me to Afghanistan, a faraway fairy tale land of enchantment and hashish. The Arab nations were at peace, modernization was coming, and they welcomed us with open arms. It was a time of change, and I truly believed the world could become a better place through the use of Psychedelics.
The first chapters of Brotherhood Hashish are memoirs from my childhood and teenage years. They tell of my unusual life, and the circumstances that influenced me to become the person I am. At the heart of the book are memoirs from my life as Ronnie Bevan. These stories follow a period during which I aspire to be an engineer, discover LSD, embrace the hippie movement, smuggle hashish, become a fugitive, escape to the Caribbean, and after returning to California spend ten years avoiding arrest. The last chapters are memoirs from my life after the adventures of Ronnie Bevan end. During this period, I met thousands upon thousands of people, and never revealed my secret past to anyone, until now.
Foreword
In the mid-nineties, when I began working as an editor for High Times magazine (the legendary connoisseur dope rag), the Brotherhood of Eternal Love was an almost mythological organization. Legend had it they were a group of acid evangelists who, in the late-sixties, conspired to "turn on the world" through the mass distribution of LSD. Until now, none of the core group has told their story. What little information existed was culled from police reports, trial transcripts, and the testimony of informants who traded made up stories in return for their freedom. The 2017 Brotherhood-approved movie Orange Sunshine went a long way towards dispelling the myths, but Ronnie Bevan's Brotherhood Hashish is the first detailed account of what it was like to be there at the birth and rise of a spiritual revolution and its ultimate disintegration as the players scattered to evade the law.
Ronnie grew up in a broken home and moved to Long Beach, California when four years old. He was your typical post-war kid, playing baseball and surfing until an LSD trip in 1965 rearranged his priorities. Along with Johnny Griggs, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love's spiritual leader, he believed the enlightenment LSD provided was too essential to keep to oneself. In 1967, Ronnie smuggled the first load of hashish from Afghanistan (it’s in the movie) and started his journey into the secret world of smuggling. His clandestine adventures continued into the seventies, but when the scene got too hot, he started a new life, a family, and became a pillar of the local community, all under an assumed name. Only recently has Ronnie Bevan—to the shock of those who’ve known him as Ronnie Barry—decided to tell of his former life. Brotherhood Hashish is an alternate history of post-war America, where the bad guys are not the criminals, the policeman is not your friend, and the politician is not the guarantor of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Above all, this is high adventure played out against even higher stakes, a cinematic odyssey through the psychedelic underworld as seen through the eyes of a survivor who lives to tell the tale. Chris Simunek
Step back in time as I recount the adventures of a young man, barely in his twenties, traveling through countries that are no longer accessible to westerners and one country, Yugoslavia, which is no longer there. Follow me to Afghanistan, a faraway fairy tale land of enchantment and hashish. The Arab nations were at peace, modernization was coming, and they welcomed us with open arms. It was a time of change, and I truly believed the world could become a better place through the use of Psychedelics.
The first chapters of Brotherhood Hashish are memoirs from my childhood and teenage years. They tell of my unusual life, and the circumstances that influenced me to become the person I am. At the heart of the book are memoirs from my life as Ronnie Bevan. These stories follow a period during which I aspire to be an engineer, discover LSD, embrace the hippie movement, smuggle hashish, become a fugitive, escape to the Caribbean, and after returning to California spend ten years avoiding arrest. The last chapters are memoirs from my life after the adventures of Ronnie Bevan end. During this period, I met thousands upon thousands of people, and never revealed my secret past to anyone, until now.
Foreword
In the mid-nineties, when I began working as an editor for High Times magazine (the legendary connoisseur dope rag), the Brotherhood of Eternal Love was an almost mythological organization. Legend had it they were a group of acid evangelists who, in the late-sixties, conspired to "turn on the world" through the mass distribution of LSD. Until now, none of the core group has told their story. What little information existed was culled from police reports, trial transcripts, and the testimony of informants who traded made up stories in return for their freedom. The 2017 Brotherhood-approved movie Orange Sunshine went a long way towards dispelling the myths, but Ronnie Bevan's Brotherhood Hashish is the first detailed account of what it was like to be there at the birth and rise of a spiritual revolution and its ultimate disintegration as the players scattered to evade the law.
Ronnie grew up in a broken home and moved to Long Beach, California when four years old. He was your typical post-war kid, playing baseball and surfing until an LSD trip in 1965 rearranged his priorities. Along with Johnny Griggs, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love's spiritual leader, he believed the enlightenment LSD provided was too essential to keep to oneself. In 1967, Ronnie smuggled the first load of hashish from Afghanistan (it’s in the movie) and started his journey into the secret world of smuggling. His clandestine adventures continued into the seventies, but when the scene got too hot, he started a new life, a family, and became a pillar of the local community, all under an assumed name. Only recently has Ronnie Bevan—to the shock of those who’ve known him as Ronnie Barry—decided to tell of his former life. Brotherhood Hashish is an alternate history of post-war America, where the bad guys are not the criminals, the policeman is not your friend, and the politician is not the guarantor of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Above all, this is high adventure played out against even higher stakes, a cinematic odyssey through the psychedelic underworld as seen through the eyes of a survivor who lives to tell the tale. Chris Simunek