[MURRAY, Muz (editor).] Gandalf's Garden. Mystical Scene Magazine. A Complete Run in 6 Issues. London: Citadelle Press and Socialist Review Pub. 1968-69.
6 vols, 8vo. Illustrated wraps with psychedelic artwork in pastel colours of pinks, purples and blues; some overall light creasing to corners and some edgewear, particularly along the spines; small chip to bottom corner of front cover of issue 1; internally lovely, bright copies, and rare as a complete set.
First editions, a complete run of all six issues of this underground magazine, comprising:
1. Gandalf's Garden.
2. Fear not - for you are now entering Gandalf's Garden.
3. A New World grows beneath the snows of Gandalf's Garden.
4. The inner zodiac wheels between the leaves of Gandalf's Garden.
5. Beyond the brain & blown mind lies Gandalf's Garden.
and
6. Earth's first civilisation reawakens in Gandalf's Garden.
Gandalf's Garden was a mystical community which flourished at the end of the 1960s as part of the London hippie-underground movement. It shared its name with a shop based in World's End, in what was, at the time, an unfashionable part of Chelsea. The shop promoted a peaceful atmosphere, with large cushions on the floor for customers to "hang out" and drink honey-flavoured exotic teas. The basement provided a shrine where the homeless could sleep during the day, and in the evenings it held spiritual meetings.
The magazine was founded by Maz Murray, an art student who, after travelling for seven years in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, experienced mystical awareness in Cyprus. Later, when comparing the event with his experiences of LSD, he found the latter inferior, and instead decided to found a community advocating meditation and psychedelics in contrast to hard drugs. The publication included cover designs by the psychedelic artist John Hurford, as well as articles by John Peel, Spike Milligan, Robert Wyatt, Herbert Read and Marc Bolan, and numerous articles by the anonymous "Legolas". Contributors to the "seedbag", or letters section, included Donovan and Timothy Leary. Issue 1 - containing a stream-of-consciousness piece by John Peel; an interview with "Ghandi's Successor" Vinoba Bhave; and an interview with Marc Bolan about the name of his band Tyrannosaurus Rex - appeared in 1968, and it ran for only six issues, concluding its publication in 1969 (much to the chagrin of subscribers who had already paid for 12). Many members of the editorial team, however, went on to become deeply involved in various aspects of the new age movement, including shamanism, Sufism and alternative medicine. Muz Murray went on to become Ramana Baba, and still teaches mantra yoga and Advaita Vedanta today.
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