In "A Nation of Mystics", author Pamela Johnson deftly explores the youth subculture in San Francisco and Berkeley in the mid-1960s, with all its initial goodwill and naiveté — its dedication to free speech, promise to end war, commitment to racial equality, new art and music, and the exploration of spirituality based on mind-expanding hallucinogens.

In this epic story of intimacy, metaphysical exploration, and coming of age, the Haight-Ashbury becomes home to genuine and unforgettable characters: Christian Brooks, haunted by a fiery riot in India, leaves the ministry for a new path to God. Kathleen Murray arrives seeking to change the world and exchanges picket lines for a more direct method of altering consciousness. Brilliant young botany student Myles Corbet must choose between prison and betraying his oldest friend. Jerry Putnam, seeking knowledge through science, instead discovers the shamanic calling. Opposing them is drug agent Dolph Bremer, who vows to crush the counterculture movement through any means necessary, while attorney Lance Bormann carefully walks between worlds to defend his young clients.

'Book I, Intentions', is the story of the communal family’s growing commitment to the creation of a new culture — to social action, expanded awareness, new insights into the nature of mind, and the courage to make change.

Although set in the 1960s, A Nation of Mystics is strikingly relevant, addressing conflicts between political idealism and the old order, violent police overreach, and the beginning of America’s War on Drugs.