PriestTheyCalledHim
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2005
- Messages
- 14,724
There are references to LSD, LSD25 and LSD6 in the both the Burroughs Letters books of 1945-1959 and 1959 - 1974. The first is in a letter to Ginsberg in 1956 in the context of his (Ginsberg's) mother's schizophrenia. It is refered to as LSD. In 1957 (to Alan Ansen) he writes "The LSD6 people are clamming up". (Though he did get an evasive reply from a Dr Tait in Scotland). In 1959 he sends a clipping to Ginsberg from the Herald Tribune and quotes that during withdrawal "..substances similar to LSD 6 are released in the body." And, a month later, refers to LSD6 both in the context of a cancer treatment and of a magnetic phenomena that is not clearly described but may be to do with scrying using a mirror ball whilst under the influence. However, in August 1960, to Brion Gysin, he talks of a trip to Amsterdam . "They have the new hallucinogen there and I have made tentative arrangements to try it. Also LSD-25." (He doesn't say what the "new hallucinogen" is but it is clearly not an LSD). In September , again to Gysin, he writes "I am scheduled for LSD this week under sign of Beaverbrook Press..." This is probably a reference to a very un-scientific drug session out of which some kind of sensationalist piece of journalism was going to be produced (and paid for). At the end of December that year he tells Ginsberg "I did make an LSD6 scene in London and some other more potent hallucinogen that has to be injected..."
This doesn't really help in establishing the difference between -6 and -25, but it does seem to indicate there were two different substances. What I'd like to know is what the "...more potent hallucinogen .." was. As anyone come across Prestonia ? Or Dr Tait?
There is also a letter where Burroughs writes about splitting a dose of Mescaline with Gysin in October of 1959. But he does not really write about the drug experience. So maybe he did not take it? Or the dose was not really that effective? Or maybe he traded it to someone for opiates?
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