Anyone familiar with Orange County's 1960s folklore knows that Laguna Beach was the center of Southern California's underground hippie scene.
In fact, that center had a street address: 670 S. Coast Hwy., where, just after the 1967 Summer of Love, a head shop, art gallery, book store and exotic-goods retailer opened its doors. Mystic Arts World, as the place was known, was also essentially a front for the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the legendary group of surfers and smugglers who for a time operated the nation's largest hashish and LSD network.
Mystic Arts World burned down under mysterious circumstances (some, including artist and Brotherhood cohort Dion Wright, claim it was the work of members of the John Birch Society) some 43 years ago this month. But now, just next door, at 664 S. Coast Hwy., a new Mystic Arts has opened its doors, and the art gallery and exotic-goods store appears to have the Brotherhood's blessing.
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The shop's artistic director, Diane Valentino, couldn't be immediately reached for comment for this story, but you can check out and “like” the store's Facebook page here.
The shop is described as a co-op of local Laguna Beach artisans, including several who go back to the early days of the Sawdust Festival, which was founded in 1968 by artists including Wright, whose masterpiece, the Taxonomic Mandala, was on display in the original Mystic Arts World and miraculously survived the fire.
Among the artists who are said to be members of the co-op are Donna and Lance Jost, the latter of whose artwork used to decorate Rainbow Surfboards, which was started in 1969 by the Brotherhood's John Gale.
News of Mystic Art's opening is spreading fast among folks who were around in Laguna back in the Brotherhood era and via Facebook, and so far, the chatter appears to be positive, despite the fact that Wright, who also wasn't available for immediate comment today, is not apparently involved with the shop.
Stay tuned for more details on the store; meanwhile, anyone who stops by the shop should feel free to post feedback here.
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. Twitter: @NickSchou. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).
I was there from the beginning in ’68. It’ll never be the same nor have the same vibe it had back then when John Griggs was around.
Hey Nicholas, we met and had lunch a few years ago in the OC, I wrote the book “How I Survived the 60’s” mentioning Mystic Arts World, it’s also a screenplay. Maybe, if you have time you can go to a Podcast I taped talking about my books. https://bit.ly/4202Rxz … I did read your book “Orange Sunshine”, lots of fond memories, especially the bust where Peter was shot. I met my daughters father, Crazy George Dumas at MAW and hung out there a lot meditating to the Mandala, it was the best place to hang out in the late 60’s if you were high! Timothy Lear, Rosemary, his daughter and his son Jack would frequent the place. Thanks so much for doing this write up! So many of those folks are gone now but the memories live on!! God bless!