Edward Padilla
LITERARY CLIENT
Born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, and Orange County, Ed is one of the last surviving founders of the infamous Brotherhood of Eternal Love – a group of rebels and surfers who spiritually bonded by ingesting LSD and established a church in order to take their spiritual mission to the world. The U.S. government outlawed their sacrament, and later accused them of manufacturing and distributing 900 million hits of Orange Sunshine Acid. At the time a new culture was emerging. Ed was one of the creators who built and managed Mystic Arts World, a cultural temple on the coast highway, Laguna Beach, California.
Later, during the ‘70s, in pursuit of pleasure, Eddie “went left when he should’a went right,” winding up for years in Lurigancho Prison, Peru. He is the only living person who has ever escaped that hell-hole, which Amnesty International once named the worst prison on Earth.
Ed, Collaborating with award-winning author Paul Wood, has written LURIGANCHO, a book-length work of literary nonfiction that brings to life the unimaginable story of his ordeal in South America. Now he and Wood are bringing the same treatment to the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, determined to re-frame the way the world thinks of the '60s revolution.
Ed serves as a certified counselor with a specialty in addiction recovery. After several years of education, training, and experience
he has devoted decades to assisting other addicts to recover. He is often asked to tell his story, especially as it relates to issues of addiction, incarceration, and practical spirituality.
Ed moved to Northern California in 1989 and began working for a recovery center in Marin County, north of San Francisco. In 1992
he went on to work as case manager/counselor with the more severely addicted at Alta Bates Hospital in Oakland, California, where he formed an alumni of hundreds of successfully recovering addicts.
He added to his work at the hospital when in 1993 Ed was hired to join a federal task force developing treatment of addiction in San Francisco.
Ironically, Edward, still surfing, was invited by the Maui County Chief of Mental Health to present a workshop on developing treatment for the addicted criminal offender. That led to him continuing his work, surfing, and living on Maui through 2003. Today he continues his work and lives with his wife of 27 years in Sonoma County.
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