New Age Magazine Attains Fiscal Health : Publishing: Orange County Resources finds a niche by blending spiritualism and moneymaking.

It took nerve for Brian Enright to bring his crystals-cherishing, bliss-following New Age magazine to Orange County, an area usually regarded as more hospitable to John Wayne than Shirley MacLaine.

The only magazine of its kind in the county, Orange County Resources has sometimes faced an uphill battle, dealing with a fragmented community of New Age advocates and conservative Christians who have urged distributors to ban the magazine.

Despite such problems, the 7-year-old magazine has grown from a 16-page calendar of events to 68 pages packed with advertisements in its latest issue. Distributed free to county retail outlets, it claims a circulation of 40,000.

Enright, the magazine’s 45-year-old founder, has successfully exploited an increasingly popular twist to the New Age movement: the marriage of spiritualism and moneymaking.

“It seems like the New Age really has been co-opted by materialism in Southern California much more than other places,” said Glenn Bradley, who ran a sister publication in Los Angeles for seven years.

Some recent advertisements in the magazine read: “Have a $$Million Dollar$$ Retirement Program” and “Drive a Mercedes and Be Independently Wealthy in 90 Days.”

“We joke that all of our readers are hippies who drive vans, but it’s not true,” said Enright, an easygoing man who was wearing an aqua-color corduroy shirt during a recent interview at his second-floor office in a Huntington Beach strip mall.

“The traditional concept of people involved in healing, growth and transformation used to say that people who pursued financial prosperity were selling out. But a lot of people have learned that they can take ideas of integrity and incorporate them into the workplace; for instance, what we’re doing here. We’re producing this publication, and we still eat.”

Enright said the most recent issue of Orange County Resources grossed $65,000 in sales and turned a $5,000 profit.

A native of Chicago, Enright is a salesman by trade. Since moving to Huntington Beach in 1966, he has sold insurance, motorcycles, antique and classic cars, telephone answering machines and fitness equipment.

About seven years ago he became interested in herbal healing, an interest that harked back to his earlier studies in chiropractic medicine. Searching for a way to swap information about herbal healing with other local enthusiasts, he was discouraged to find only a single bulletin board at a Huntington Beach health food store.

In 1984, he published a directory of alternative health services modeled after Los Angeles Resources magazine.

“It sounds corny, but I was sincerely motivated by the need of people who are into alternative healing and growth,” Enright said. “A need from the humanistic point of view, not the business point of view.”

He named his magazine Resources after two separately owned publications, Los Angeles Resources and San Diego Resources.

Enright borrowed $50,000 and continued working as a part-time salesman to keep his magazine going. And he raised another $20,000 by selling his 1935 Rolls-Royce limousine.

In 1986, when the owner of Los Angeles Resources decided to get out of the business, Enright bought the magazine.

Resources has a small staff, two full-time and two part-time workers, including Enright. Besides scores of ads for everything from laser acupuncture to past-life therapy, the magazine regularly features music and book reviews, a three-month calendar of events and stories on environment and health-related topics that are mostly excerpted from books and other alternative magazines.

Orange County Resources is distributed to 100 locations, mostly health food stores, restaurants, bookstores, chiropractors and holistic health centers.

As Enright has groped his way through his first publishing venture, he admits making some blunders. The biggest, he says, was his attempt in 1986 to switch from four issues a year to six--a move that failed financially.

Enright likes to recite the concept, “serve your customers, then your business will prosper.” With that in mind, he has organized a series of marketing and advertising seminars with Harry Pickens, a well-known jazz pianist-turned-marketing consultant.

Not surprisingly, many people who attended the seminars wound up placing ads in Enright’s magazine. Advertising revenue is up 15% to 20%. “We wound up creating a group of advertisers for us and also boosted our image substantially,” Enright said.

To support the seminars, Enright installed a toll-free 800 telephone number and another computer, sent out mailings, rented hotel rooms and hired a full-time marketing person. With the fees attendees pay, the operation will just about break even, he said.

Though Enright says most of his advertisers run legitimate businesses, he admits that there is a kooky fringe. He doesn’t accept sexually explicit ads and has rejected requests from satanists and witches.

Nevertheless, some conservative Christians have charged that Satan, not Enright, runs Orange County Resources and have asked his distributors to remove the magazine from their newsstands. Enright is touchy on this issue and initially was reluctant to be interviewed for this story, saying he didn’t want to stir up sentiment against his magazine.

“We have had people come in and say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have that here,’ ” said Jeff Doleman, a salesman at the Fahrenheit 451 bookstore in Laguna Beach. “No one has been violent. We just tell them we’re in the business of catering to people’s interests, and this is one thing people around here are interested in.”

“Satan is not running this magazine,” Enright said. “If he were, it would make my job a lot easier.”