☮ Social ☮ How do YOU feel about Leary, the McKennas and Shulgins, RamDass/Alpert, Kesey, etc.?

[AutoTripper]

It was October 24th, 1968 when LSD became illegal to possess in the US. Google it

Okay thanks. That’s useful to know. I have a particular interest in that scene, when various high profile musicians specifically, were clearly ingesting huge quantities of LSD, all of them surely having their first official trip from one of those 279 ug Liquid pods from the local chemist lol!

John Lennon for example, describes such an event, 1965 I think, LSD unbeknown to them, a random chemist friend offered them it for 1st time.

Lennon and the others said how it was a 24 hour experience.

He also said about the aftermath of that initial legal 279 ug trip.....I was pretty stoned for about a month. As in mesmerised kind of.

So I was curious how the ruling affected the way pop superstars used LSD, where they sourced it from. Like, were microdots widely around before LSD was illegal!

Did the chemist sell those, TOO lol!

Just thinking aloud. Am tripping myself atm on 200 ug, lots cannabis and kava.

 

[G_Chem]

I think we need to also remember these guys were at the beginning of a new era, navigating terrain few have traveled before... I look at a lot of their work through those lenses, and it begins to make more sense. It was all magic to them, nowadays we’re a lot more rational about it all.

But yea Leary was a fuck no two ways around it, he gave the entire movement a bad name that took decades to wear off.

-GC

 

[Bella Figura]

Okay thanks. That’s useful to know. I have a particular interest in that scene, when various high profile musicians specifically, were clearly ingesting huge quantities of LSD, all of them surely having their first official trip from one of those 279 ug Liquid pods from the local chemist lol!

John Lennon for example, describes such an event, 1965 I think, LSD unbeknown to them, a random chemist friend offered them it for 1st time.

Lennon and the others said how it was a 24 hour experience.

He also said about the aftermath of that initial legal 279 ug trip.....I was pretty stoned for about a month. As in mesmerised kind of.

So I was curious how the ruling affected the way pop superstars used LSD, where they sourced it from. Like, were microdots widely around before LSD was illegal!

Did the chemist sell those, TOO lol!

Just thinking aloud. Am tripping myself atm on 200 ug, lots cannabis and kava.

It was his dentist and he slipped it into John and George's coffee at a dinner party

 

[AutoTripper]

It was his dentist and he slipped it into John and George's coffee at a dinner party

Yes I remember there was something rather underhand about it, same result though.

 

[finitelifeform]

I think we need to also remember these guys were at the beginning of a new era, navigating terrain few have traveled before... I look at a lot of their work through those lenses, and it begins to make more sense. It was all magic to them, nowadays we’re a lot more rational about it all.

But yea Leary was a fuck no two ways around it, he gave the entire movement a bad name that took decades to wear off.

-GC

It wasn't accidental though. It wasn't like they had just arrived at this new world. It was offered to them under the guise of government programs and initially research. Leary himself invented ways of evaluating personality which the government used and funded. The trend in research at that time was behavioural modification, this was big in all the academic circles Leary was in at the time. His book 'Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality' says on the preface his research was funded by the government and this was a precursor to understanding peoples behaviour from the view of personality with a view to modifying it. It's not mind control just happened out of nowhere, it was the culmination of decades of research and progressing. It's argued as a possible theory that LSD was actually created for this purpose which is why the CIA was Sandoz' biggest customer. It all ties in one way or another.
Learys research prior to LSD connected to research done by OSS, before the CIA existed. He didn't come from an innocent background to begin with. He had his fingers in all the pies right from the start. How did a government funded head of psychology with ties to research that was then used by the government and intelligence agencies BEFORE psychedelics, end up with the job of turning people on to LSD?

I personally think it's naive to just believe it was a new era and that they hadn't travelled there before. That's like saying the Christian Crusades were unchartered territory and therefore it wasn't intentional to kill HUGE amounts of people under the pretext of what God you believed in and whether that God was the most superior out of every other God on the leaderboard at the time. Of course it was. The trajectory of the Christian Crusades could obviously not be envisioned beforehand to the finest detail but they knew what they were doing right from the start.

It wasn't magic at all. What we are told to attribute psychedelics to is the pop culture mythology surrounding psychedelics. That's the fantasy we project onto it. And when we have our own experiences we infer this to be magic and in our own way it might be and be incredibly transformative. It doesn't mean to say what we perceive as magic and what was originally perceived as magic by those who helped to usher in the sixties revolution (itself proven to have been co-opted by US intelligence), are the same thing. That's where the lines are blurred and you're simply regurgitating propaganda and shady political debauchery where you can't really tell what was bullshit and what wasn't. Psychedelics are incredibly powerful and they are medicine. Always have been, always will be. But that's not the point. We've known this for thousands of years long before LSD was a thing. Many aspects of the psychedelic revolution were legitimate but these were unintentional off-shoots from the original decision to release LSD onto the streets and connected to the research being conducted at the time and those involved. There was a brief period of a complete lack of control, regulation and everything was out in the open - this might have been magic to some extent, but it was short lived and the people involved, most of them anyway, didn't just happen to be in the right place at the right time. They were there for a reason. Which makes you question just how magic that really is. Magic is unexpected, right? It happens out of nowhere. This wasn't and didn't.

What you might think is magical about these times is in fact the story you're told by pop culture and mainstream programming. The psychedelic experience itself can be magical and the potential for this to create a wonderful new window of opportunities. The backdrop for what many people call the psychedelic sixties, though? Most of it was compromised and far from magical, at least from the reality of the machine that was fuelling it.

 

[AutoTripper]

My

It wasn't accidental though. It wasn't like they had just arrived at this new world. It was offered to them under the guise of government programs and initially research. Leary himself invented ways of evaluating personality which the government used and funded. The trend in research at that time was behavioural modification, this was big in all the academic circles Leary was in at the time. His book 'Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality' says on the preface his research was funded by the government and this was a precursor to understanding peoples behaviour from the view of personality with a view to modifying it. It's not mind control just happened out of nowhere, it was the culmination of decades of research and progressing. It's argued as a possible theory that LSD was actually created for this purpose which is why the CIA was Sandoz' biggest customer. It all ties in one way or another.
Learys research prior to LSD connected to research done by OSS, before the CIA existed. He didn't come from an innocent background to begin with. He had his fingers in all the pies right from the start. How did a government funded head of psychology with ties to research that was then used by the government and intelligence agencies BEFORE psychedelics, end up with the job of turning people on to LSD?

I personally think it's naive to just believe it was a new era and that they hadn't travelled there before. That's like saying the Christian Crusades were unchartered territory and therefore it wasn't intentional to kill HUGE amounts of people under the pretext of what God you believed in and whether that God was the most superior out of every other God on the leaderboard at the time. Of course it was. The trajectory of the Christian Crusades could obviously not be envisioned beforehand to the finest detail but they knew what they were doing right from the start.

It wasn't magic at all. What we are told to attribute psychedelics to is the pop culture mythology surrounding psychedelics. That's the fantasy we project onto it. And when we have our own experiences we infer this to be magic and in our own way it might be and be incredibly transformative. It doesn't mean to say what we perceive as magic and what was originally perceived as magic by those who helped to usher in the sixties revolution (itself proven to have been co-opted by US intelligence), are the same thing. That's where the lines are blurred and you're simply regurgitating propaganda and shady political debauchery where you can't really tell what was bullshit and what wasn't. Psychedelics are incredibly powerful and they are medicine. Always have been, always will be. But that's not the point. We've known this for thousands of years long before LSD was a thing. Many aspects of the psychedelic revolution were legitimate but these were unintentional off-shoots from the original decision to release LSD onto the streets and connected to the research being conducted at the time and those involved. There was a brief period of a complete lack of control, regulation and everything was out in the open - this might have been magic to some extent, but it was short lived and the people involved, most of them anyway, didn't just happen to be in the right place at the right time. They were there for a reason. Which makes you question just how magic that really is. Magic is unexpected, right? It happens out of nowhere. This wasn't and didn't.

What you might think is magical about these times is in fact the story you're told by pop culture and mainstream programming. The psychedelic experience itself can be magical and the potential for this to create a wonderful new window of opportunities. The backdrop for what many people call the psychedelic sixties, though? Most of it was compromised and far from magical, at least from the reality of the machine that was fuelling it.

My primary interest in that era was not really about the nostalgia, more about the types of doses typically consumed vs over time, and how that translated visually. Call it scientific, rather than mythological. Weapons can backfire though. You portray LSD’s inception and timely deployment, as not a weapon, but part of a programme to analyse, influence, control.

I’m personally glad they unleashed that little programme though. Lotsa great music to not take for granted, we as the world have leant a lot about LSD, and I still get to trip whenever I choose.

Sure they leant a hell of a lot about us too. That’s their game always. I hide nothing. That way, I feel more free.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

The CIA's main interest in LSD, as I understand it, was related to some of the theories regarding assassination which were around back then...O'Neill mentions in that book "Chaos" that one of the main objectives back then was to create "supersoldiers" who could act without hesitation or remorse when ordered to kill. If they dialed in this process, the theory went, they could even get otherwise completely loyal members of an adversarial regime to kill their leadership (this was before the Church Committee put a damper on some of these practices)...they thought that they could enact this transition from loyal military officer (for example) to ruthless assassin via psychedelic drugs, hypnosis, etc.

This was related to Charles Manson, because Manson, it could be argued, had somehow actually found out a way to do this...three of the four murderers who committed a series of savage homicides at the Tate residence had no criminal records. Manson also had a long-standing interest in the power of suggestion and psychedelic-hallucinogens.

Adding to the debate about the exact level of government involvement in the psychedelic subculture is the fact that a lot of these questions are still open to this day. A lot of the state's involvement with various social movements (such as the student movement, the Black Panthers and Black Muslims, etc.) and leaders of said movements, during the 1960's and 1970's, is still unclear to this day. They (the government) definitely "colored outside the lines" quite frequently, doing stuff like spiking random members of the public with powerful hallucinogenic drugs etc.

 

[Deleted member 521610]

It was his dentist and he slipped it into John and George's coffee at a dinner party

there dentist also wanted to have a orgy with them and fuck them lucky john and george caught onto the vibe and left out there asap before they got taken of advantage of on lsd

 

[finitelifeform]

My

My primary interest in that era was not really about the nostalgia, more about the types of doses typically consumed vs over time, and how that translated visually. Call it scientific, rather than mythological. Weapons can backfire though. You portray LSD’s inception and timely deployment, as not a weapon, but part of a programme to analyse, influence, control.

I’m personally glad they unleashed that little programme though. Lotsa great music to not take for granted, we as the world have leant a lot about LSD, and I still get to trip whenever I choose.

Sure they leant a hell of a lot about us too. That’s their game always. I hide nothing. That way, I feel more free.

I like it

The CIA's main interest in LSD, as I understand it, was related to some of the theories regarding assassination which were around back then...O'Neill mentions in that book "Chaos" that one of the main objectives back then was to create "supersoldiers" who could act without hesitation or remorse when ordered to kill. If they dialed in this process, the theory went, they could even get otherwise completely loyal members of an adversarial regime to kill their leadership (this was before the Church Committee put a damper on some of these practices)...they thought that they could enact this transition from loyal military officer (for example) to ruthless assassin via psychedelic drugs, hypnosis, etc.

This was related to Charles Manson, because Manson, it could be argued, had somehow actually found out a way to do this...three of the four murderers who committed a series of savage homicides at the Tate residence had no criminal records. Manson also had a long-standing interest in the power of suggestion and psychedelic-hallucinogens.

Adding to the debate about the exact level of government involvement in the psychedelic subculture is the fact that a lot of these questions are still open to this day. A lot of the state's involvement with various social movements (such as the student movement, the Black Panthers and Black Muslims, etc.) and leaders of said movements, during the 1960's and 1970's, is still unclear to this day. They (the government) definitely "colored outside the lines" quite frequently, doing stuff like spiking random members of the public with powerful hallucinogenic drugs etc.

Intriguing. Much is not known and it will be a long time before it will be known because, as it's already known, much of what they do today in terms of influencing the masses and the sorts of campaigns they can unleash, will tie in to the stuff that hasn't been mentioned. Some people argue that MKULTRA never really stopped and it's easy to believe that when you look at how psy-ops have had an effect on society since then. What they learn they don't unlearn and what they get away with they don't just throw away as obsolete once they are found out.

It's a game of chase but ultimately by the time things are discovered, there's already something else to be chasing after you've found the pieces for the last thing you were chasing.

 

[AutoTripper]

O'Neill mentions in that book "Chaos" that one of the main objectives back then was to create "supersoldiers"

Just on this, and that exact term, in my mind minutes ago. After recent bantering with BellaFigura how we both clumsily injured ourselves on benzos.

I said how even high dose LSD can leave me as cautious, in control, awareness as can be, from a safety point of view.

But the super soldier thing is so valid. I’ve used that exact term to describe some of my phenomenal trips. I once took 5 x 350 mics one night...shit....1750 ug.

I walked to a friends ar night. My movement, ease, speed of walking, ability, pure lightness and flowing chi, was extra sensory.

Far from being impaired, I was in an advanced state of functioning. Like gravity didn’t exist. Infinite stamina. Uncanny coordination, speed, stealth.

I sneaked into my friends house that late hour, like an assassins not a sound, front door, stairs and floorboards.

High dose LSD can project you into a different level of functioning.Potentially very super soldier IMO.

However, I don’t feel LSD really goes with the whole super assassin lifestyle for most lol! I could be wrong.


My point again though, on super high doses of lsd, ket too in past, you become as fluid and capable mobiily as can be.

 

[finitelifeform]

Just on this, and that exact term, in my mind minutes ago. After recent bantering with BellaFigura how we both clumsily injured ourselves on benzos.

I said how even high dose LSD can leave me as cautious, in control, awareness as can be, from a safety point of view.

But the super soldier thing is so valid. I’ve used that exact term to describe some of my phenomenal trips. I once took 5 x 350 mics one night...shit....1750 ug.

I walked to a friends ar night. My movement, ease, speed of walking, ability, pure lightness and flowing chi, was extra sensory.

Far from being impaired, I was in an advanced state of functioning. Like gravity didn’t exist. Infinite stamina. Uncanny coordination, speed, stealth.

I sneaked into my friends house that late hour, like an assassins not a sound, front door, stairs and floorboards.

High dose LSD can project you into a different level of functioning.Potentially very super soldier IMO.

However, I don’t feel LSD really goes with the whole super assassin lifestyle for most lol! I could be wrong.


My point again though, on super high doses of lsd, ket too in past, you become as fluid and capable mobiily as can be.

Yeah but this is supersolider as if in, someone programmed to kill without even being aware of it and having any connection to the task at hand.
Brainwashed essentially but done so under government mandated clearance for the task of going to war.

 

[AutoTripper]

there dentist also wanted to have a orgy with them and fuck them lucky john and george caught onto the vibe and left out there asap before they got taken of advantage of on lsd

Yeah, I never went into the gritty details. He was a crafty little cretin that dentist I know that. They were too high for him even then. Just a weak parasite falling off instantly.

It was no luck either. Sure, first time tripping, like, collectively.....is this guys fucking with us? Yes. Right, outta here.

No way was he ever gonna succeed in his sordid little game.
Fakers can’t handle real people with light. I believe John Lennon maybe was.

I used to walk into a new student house at Swansea to score hash. There may be a faker, attention seeker, pretender philosopher etc there who the other cool students (from Crewe Alexandra near Liverpool on this occasion), had gotten sick of, too pollute to say leave.

I entered the room, pure light vibrations. This imposter never said a word. Quickly got up and scarpered. That were all in hysterics. They said how it completely spun him out as I came out of the blue, the real thing he was pretending to be.

We were good student friends for years. But they never knew what my name was, and this Baron guy said....Socrates...and it became an unshakeable nickname spread far and wide.

 

[AutoTripper]

Yeah but this is supersolider as if in, someone programmed to kill without even being aware of it and having any connection to the task at hand.
Brainwashed essentially but done so under government mandated clearance for the task of going to war.

Yes I appreciate that. I was purely speaking of the very real phenomenon I’ve personally experienced countless times, how high dose LSD can free your shackles, leave you as aware, spatially, as can be. Movement capabilities, agility, stealth, stamina massively enhanced.

So from that aspect alone, unconscious mind programming purposes....

Sorry too tripping still to wrap any sensible point up. Just my observations over time.

 

[blistersinthedark]

fantastic posts by @SKL and @finitelifeform
i just want to add documentary filmmaker Fredererick Wiseman's brief description of Leary from a discussion recorded with Errol Morris about his latest film (around the 2 minute mark):

I thought that "Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the 1960s" by Tom O'Neill was decent too, as far as books about the nexus of psychedelic drug use and government intelligence operations during the 1960s (although the book is more about the Manson case specifically). I also have "Poisoner In Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control" by Stephen Kinzer, but I haven't read that one yet

I've read 3 books mentioned (Acid Dreams, Chaos, Poisoner in Chief)—there's a ton of overlap, but they're all worth your while. Acid Dreams I found particularly useful in understanding how the dynamics between the new left and the psychedelic scene played out. Unfortunately the author spreads a few falsehoods regarding the drugs themselves (not too informed about the whole DOM/STP debacle; perpetuates the myth that there was strychnine in LSD)

Speaking of shady intelligence operatives, I really want to know what the deal was with that Ronald Stark fella!

 

[Bella Figura]

there dentist also wanted to have a orgy with them and fuck them lucky john and george caught onto the vibe and left out there asap before they got taken of advantage of on lsd

In interviews Lennon said he suspected the dentist was up to something shady because he wouldn't let them leave. I.E. he had just dosed them with acid and didn't know how they'd react / wanted them to stay with him for safety's sake. They were just para that he wanted an orgy, it wasn't really the case.

 

[unodelacosa]

I don't know much about Kesey other than what was in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, but he seemed like kind of a cool guy...definitely a flawed person, but everyone has flaws, and he seemed to have some strong personal qualities, a very charismatic individual it seemed like. He was an excellent writer, too, at least judging by the single book I've read of his ("One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest").

Kesey wrote one more book after Cuckoo's Nest and it was nowhere near as good or well received. I've heard and read the opinion before that Kesey squandered his talent for writing via his more hedonistic pursuits but otherwise could've been one of the true American greats. Now idk if one can come to this conclusion with just two books to use for judgment, only one of which is impressive enough to remember…

 

[trogere]

I have a lot of respect for the work of the Shulgins.

 

[tired of crap]

I have a lot of respect for the work of the Shulgins.

And Hofmann and Nichols and others I’ve forgotten and don’t know of the top of my head.

Sure Leary, Kesey, McKenna et al lead interesting lives and “furthur”ed the movement we all enjoy but they pale in comparison to real researchers (and no, taking RCs doesn’t make you/me a researcher lol)

 

[SKL]

Nichols

One of the best. Did a lot of work in the space Shulgin created, and in a more "hard-sciencey" kind of way. The novelties he created were more for poking rat receptors (see: BOMamines) than for recreational use, he was saddened to hear that they started circulating and killing people. Unlike Shulgin, creating new drugs for people to use wasn't his intention. What he did do was contribute more than anyone else to our understanding of SAR and what the drugs do in the brain. The brilliant pharmacologist for Shulgin's brilliant chemist. Also super personable and down to Earth. Don't let the hard science fool you, he's a super heady guy as well, but still he doesn't indulge in mysticism...at a conference once we talked for a long time about LSD quality and the perennial question of good vs bad acid, for instance.

 

[Delsyd]

I remember that conference. Meeting Shulgin there was a highlight of my young adult life. He signed my ex's journal next to a drawing of a DMT molecule. I wish I still had that, unfortunately its lost now but at least I still have the memories.


Pickard, Casey Hardison and Darrell Lamaire deserve an honorable mention. Darrell and his friends were part of the Shulgin crew responsible for the trip reports in the second half of the Xihkals. He made a bunch of MDMA and many of the Shulgin creations but had to remain underground as that was his form of income. Casey was his apprentice.
If you haven't seen the Hamiltons Pharmacopeia episode called 'The Lazy Lizard School of Hedonism," I highly recommend it as it tells their story.