During the ‘60s I saw some weird supernatural stuff.

One day I’m driving down the street and I hear this song on the radio. I think that sounds kind of familiar, it’s a beach boys song, isn’t it? All of a sudden I realize, it’s my voice. It was a song called ‘ Little Honda”. By the Hondells where we’d done this album a couple of months earlier and delivered it to Mercury Records. We didn’t even know what they were going to call the group. All of a sudden my song’s on the radio in L.A. I was in the music business. I had songs on the charts. But I’m drinking alcohol and I’m kind of getting like crazy in my life. Out of control kind of really. Then along comes the hippie movement. Then I got really curious about the psychedelic drugs. And uh, I got a hold of some LSD. That was a real turning point in my life. That was like so different for me that it seemed to open up this whole dimension of the spirit realm that I have never really been aware of before. Of course, it’s a counterfeit experience. It’s not of God. The bible says that the devil comes as a minister of righteousness and an angel of light. That’s exactly how he came to me. I thought this is real. The secrets of the universe are being revealed to me. This is the key to what’s going on in eternity and the whole thing. Eventually, we wound up to become this little hippie cult. Kind of Manson Esc kind of thing except we didn’t have a homicidal leader. So we stayed out of that area. But we were seeking God through drugs and we thought this was the way to find God. So we’re reading the bible and we come to this doctrine of speaking in tongues. We start to get kind of into an argument about it. I had gone up behind our house. There was a little hill there. I would get stoned on something and I’d go up there with my guitar. I would sing in these weird languages but it was a negative thing. You know, I would start babbling and it felt kind of cool to do it. Then all of a sudden it would get real dark and frightening. I would go “whoa! That’s not good.” I would put the guitar down and go in the house. So I’m thinking tongues is not good. I’m thinking that’s what the bible is talking about is what happened to me up there on the mountain. I’m thinking I don’t know, it’s in the bible, though. It says the disciples spoke in tongues. Well, there’s some hippies down in this kind of commune, down in Newport Beach that have been Christians for a while. Let's just go talk to them about this. So we drove down to what’s called the Blue Top Motel, in Newport Beach. That’s where we met a guy named Lonnie Frisbie who was the first hippie preacher at Calvary Chapel. So we drove up. We didn’t know anybody there. We just knocked on the first unit and we had a bible in our hand. I like to imagine what they must have been thinking. They were probably having, it was about dinner time, they probably finished dinner and they were having a prayer. “Lord send us others like us that need to hear the truth of your word”. Then all of a sudden there’s a knock on the door. There're five guys stoned out of their minds with a Bible in their hands saying; “can you guys tell us what this tongues thing is all about?” So they brought us into the house and I don’t remember that we ever talked much about tongues. But they loved on us and they said; “ you guys need to come up and see our Pastor Chuck Smith. He’s a cool guy and you know, visit the church some. We did. The whole tone of the service was very low key. Very much what hippies would enjoy. There was no stressful preaching. It was all kind of laid back. I was in the back row because I wanted to be able to get out of there if I didn’t like what was going on. God got a hold of me and He really just touched me. All of a sudden I just felt this burden come off me. Like I had been carrying the weight of the world. I had this philosophy that was sort of like, I couldn’t be free til all men were free. Kind of comes out of that John Lennon “ I am you and you are me and we are all together” kind of things. That we are all part of the universe. My idea was that until all men come to the truth, no man can come to the truth. But Jesus is just the opposite. Then all of a sudden, I didn’t really understand the doctrine but this big weight came off my shoulders. Then I felt released and I started to weep. About a week after what I would call my official conversion experience, I went down to see Lonnie Frisbie at Blue Top. Really mightily used of God and one of the most powerful men in the Holy Spirit that I’ve ever met. Now I’m going to pray for you and your going to speak in tongues. I go “no, no that’s not good. I did that back in the mountain in Laguna Beach. “This will be different, don’t worry about it.” That’s what He said. So he lays his hands on me and he prays for me and man I mean I exploded. The Holy Spirit came on me and it was just a beautiful, completely different experience from what I experienced on the mountain.