17 Geniuses Who Used Drugs To Inspire Their Best Work

Laika said:
Steadman most certainly did not use drugs to produce his best work..
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I am not sure drugs inspired the best work of anyone on that list.

Huxley wrote Point Counter Point and Brave New World years before LSD was synthesized. I believe a dinner plate was partially responsible for the work that won Feynman a noble prize. Steve Jobs main ideas came from a visit to Xerox Parc. As much as like Carl Sagan I am not sure he added anything groundbreaking to science, he was just very good at explaining what other people had discovered.

Erdos was a legitimate genius imo..
 
Most historical figures were on some kind of drug depending on the age be it opium, weed, cocaine, barbituates benzoes and amphetamines etc. for instance Hitler and Churchill were drugged to the gills :L
 
And of course Freud was, I cant think of what else explains some of his more bizarre theories for example 'penis envy'
 
I wonder how many budding geniuses our society is unwittingly missing out on by not having widely available LSD anymore (as compared with the 60s or 90s)?
 
or those kids who were put on mind-numbing psychiatric medications because they 'acted out' a few times in Elementary school
 
alejandro rules

Holy Mountain, El topo etc . Masterpieces!

The wonderful Alejandro Jodorowsky had used mushrooms too!

He met Carlos Castaneda in person and met many shamans/ curranderas like the legendary Maria Sabina, the mushroom princess.

Check out his book "The spiritual journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky" or any other.

I believe -and Alejandro would agree- that if you cannot open the door of higher consciousness, the gates of new perception, you must take help from the "medicine".. Once the door opens wide open, it is shown that it can be opened then one must act as an adult human being and adjust to the new responsibility.
The responsibility of opening the big door alone, with will, determination, discipline and plan, without any help from the medicine.

If not you are doomed to be a child, an infant that cannot literally open a door by himself.

Think about it.
 
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slimvictor said:
Sorry, you're right! For some reason, I read it as Doors of Perception... Brave New World is one of my favorite books, too, so not sure why...
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Well, the article focused on The Doors of Perception, I just consider Point Counter Point and BNW to be Huxley's best work. I read one of the few interviews with him available online and he said "Time Must Have a Stop" was the work he was most happy with.
Huxley said:
I personally think the most successful was Time Must Have a Stop. I don’t know, but it seemed to me that I integrated what may be called the essay element with the fictional element better there than in other novels. Maybe this is not the case. It just happens to be the one that I like best, because I feel that it came off best. ​
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cool interview:aldous-huxley talks about creativity, fiction, lsd, misc.

 
This is why I love this forum, because it has freedom of speech and its variety, thank you for this thread. It does not mean I agree with everything but I love the freedom.
 
The whole drugs-fueling-creativity thing is a myth.

Mmp85 said:
It would have been interesting to include people like Cary Grant who claim to have cured their alcoholism with LSD when it was being used as a trial drug for that purpose.
But I agree, most of this is just conjecture and grasping at straws.
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That's a pretty dangerous thing to say. Alcohol withdrawal can be fatal so attempting to treat it with LSD could kill you.
Also, even if it worked that is hardly a cure. Being on LSD would make you even less functional than being drunk.
 
Jabberwocky said:
10. Friedrich Nietzsche: Opium.
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He’s one of the most celebrated philosophers of his time, but the German’s notions were perhaps influenced by drugs. He wrote The Genealogy of Mortals during a two-week opium binge.
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I think the source meant the Geneology of Morals 😂 In any case I consider that book his best, so opiumi might have done him some good maybe?
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
The whole drugs-fueling-creativity thing is a myth.



That's a pretty dangerous thing to say. Alcohol withdrawal can be fatal so attempting to treat it with LSD could kill you.
Also, even if it worked that is hardly a cure. Being on LSD would make you even less functional than being drunk.
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Thats wrong. Drugs the right ones make people creative this would be cannabis and psychedelics. LSD makes you more functional than sober life not the other way its a completely different drug to anything that exists on this planet. If im on a normal dose of LSD that is not reality melting heroic doses i will be at my best able to do anything. LSD can cure addictions if used for that purpose. LSD will rewire your cells mind brain and body. Theres alot somebody who has never done LSD will never be understand what it truly can do.

LSD gave us the modern world computers electronics the internet all of it were created by college students on acid trips.
 
TripSitterNZ said:
Thats wrong. Drugs the right ones make people creative this would be cannabis and psychedelics. LSD makes you more functional than sober life not the other way its a completely different drug to anything that exists on this planet. If im on a normal dose of LSD that is not reality melting heroic doses i will be at my best able to do anything. LSD can cure addictions if used for that purpose. LSD will rewire your cells mind brain and body. Theres alot somebody who has never done LSD will never be understand what it truly can do.

LSD gave us the modern world computers electronics the internet all of it were created by college students on acid trips.
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Actually, I thought about it and agree with you on some substances. Not weed, though: it's actually been proven to dampen your creativity.
I can see how hallucinogens could help, though, do to "visions" or hallucinations. Stephen King was high on Psilosybin mushrooms the entire time he wrote The Tommyknockers. He was so drunk writing Cujo and The Dead Zone that he doesn't remember writing any of them at all. Most of his best books (80's to early 90's) where written when was was drinking very heavily. He was on a lot of oxy when he wrote Dreamcatcher.
 
ChemicallyEnhanced said:
Actually, I thought about it and agree with you on some substances. Not weed, though: it's actually been proven to dampen your creativity.
I can see how hallucinogens could help, though, do to "visions" or hallucinations. Stephen King was high on Psilosybin mushrooms the entire time he wrote The Tommyknockers. He was so drunk writing Cujo and The Dead Zone that he doesn't remember writing any of them at all. Most of his best books (80's to early 90's) where written when was was drinking very heavily. He was on a lot of oxy when he wrote Dreamcatcher.
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Dreamcatcher was superb, particularly the memory warehouse bit. I could see that as an extension of an opiate-fueled inebriation.
 
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