1953-1973 Flashcards
How much did the US Federal Government spend to fund studies of LSD?
$4 million funding 116 studies involving 1700 subjects. These figures do not include classified research.
What was Albert Hoffman’s contribution in 1938?
He first synthesised LSD-25 in 1938 and, in April 1943, had a “peculiar presentment” to look at it again. It seems he accidentally ingested a minute amount and noted some slight unexplained effects. On the Monday after, he decided to take 250 micrograms (100 micrograms came to be seen as the safe dose for humans). His subsequent psychedelic bike ride home has become the stuff of legend.
He gave the compound to any researchers that requested it but studies were often poorly designed and seldom well controlled, if at all. He subsequently synthesised the active ingredient of LSD, psilocybin.
Richard Nixon’s response?
By the mid-1960s, LSD had escaped from the lab and swept through the counterculture. In 1970, Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act and put most psychedelics on Schedule 1, prohibiting their use for any purpose.
Aldous Huxley’s experience and influence?
Introduced to mescalin, derived from the peyote mushroom, in 1953 by Humphrey Osmond, an English psychiatrist.
Huxley chronicled his experience in “The Doors of Perception” in 1954. His “little Blakian tract”. Much of it speculation on what it all might mean.
He proposed research of LSD for terminal cancer patients and had his wife inject him with the drug on his deathbed. He died of laryngeal cancer in November 1963.
R Gordon Wasson’s contribution?
Psilocybin mushrooms first came to the attention of Western culture in a 15 page article in Life magazine by this amateur mycologist and VP at JP Morgan in New York. In 1955, after years of searching, he was introduced to Maria Sabina, a curandera - healer or shamen - in southern Mexico.
His awed first-person account of his psychedelic journey during a nocturnal mushroom ceremony inspired several scientists, including Timothy Leary.
He sent samples of the mushrooms and morning glory seeds to Albert Hofmann who found they produced chemicals of the same family as the ergot mushroom.
Also applied the theory to the history of religions in Mexico then Vedic Soma (with Robert Graves) and ancient Greeks (the Eleusinian mysteries).
Alongside his wife, Russian emigre, Valentina Pavlovna.
Timothy Leary’s role?
Inspired by R Gordon Wasson’s account, this well-regarded psychologist doing personality research at Harvard took up the study of psilocybin. After trying magic mushrooms in Cuernavaca in 1960, he conceived the Harvard Psilocybin Project to study the therapeutic potential of hallucinogens. Fired by Harvard for not attending his own lectures. Court appearances and became a fugitive. Nixon called him: “the most dangerous man in America”.
Huxley to Osmond (December 1962): “I am very fond of Tim - but why, oh why, does he have to be such an ass?”
His famous rallying call: “Tune in, turn on, drop out”.
What was Walter Pahnke’s 1962 Good Friday experiment?
A psychiatrist and minister working on a PhD dissertation under Timothy Leary, 20 divinity students received a capsule of white powder (half being a placebo) before a Good Friday service at Marsh Chapel on the Boston University campus. Pahnke concluded that the experiences of eight of the students were “indistinguishable” with classic mystical experiences reported in literature by William James and others.
Repression repeating itself?
As Roland Griffiths pointed out, the reason Gordon Wasson had to rediscover magic mushrooms in Mexico was because the Spanish had suppressed them so thoroughly, deeming them dangerous instruments of paganism.
“It can be threatening to hierarchical structures… we ended up demonising these compounds. Can you think of another area of science regarded as so dangerous and taboo that all research gets shut down for decades? It’s unprecedented in modern science,”
Jeffry Kripal: “As it turned out, like so many other mystical traditions concerned with the production of altered states of consciousness, the movement would eventually crash on the rocks of pressing social needs and moral concerns. The filters always return.”
Who first came up with the term “counter culture”
Theodore Roszak in a four part article in The Nation in 1968
What is the theory of psychedelics?
The utilitarian filters of the brain are carefully designed by evolution to focus on the tiniest sliver of the energy spectrum. Certain plants appear to shut such adaptive filters and open us up to the most extraordinary realities.
Who first used the term “psychedelic”?
Humphrey Osmond in a letter to Aldous Huxley. “To fathom hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic”.
Why did the American authorities become interested in LSD?
Due to false rumours that the Russians had purchased huge quantities from the Swiss Sandoz lab.
