Prominent Psychedelic Figures

[!!4iV4HF9R34g]

Over the years there have been a handful of really visible and influential characters in the psychedelic community, from Leary to the McKennas to folks in other fields like Sagan. In this thread I'd like to discuss the contributions, both positive and negative, of these figures, as well as the impacts made on the community and society at large. Also, maybe which is your favorite and why.

Personally I feel like most of the psychedelic gurus we've seen have been well-intentioned fools who've unfortunately succumbed to the powerful affects of psychedelics on mind.. There's not often much empirically sound validation for the ideas these guys espouse, yet they're often vehemently believed by users of these substances. Even the philosophy and wild speculation on reality and religion, which inherently can't be scientifically proven, are usually just bastardized and ill informed renditions of older ideas that have been pop cultured and sold wholesale to malleable minds.
Plus, a lot of the nonsense is why these compounds are regulated.


Nonetheless, if you want to hear cool stories, I actually like McKenna. Just as fiction though.

 

[atmos]

Timothy Leary was probably the most influential to me. Now that I've grown up a bit and looked at his attitudes more critically, IMO he's been slightly dangerous (society is actually a good thing, lol) and/or deluded at some points in time. Same goes for Abbie Hoffmann & co, whose ideas I honestly tried integrating into a workable moral structure/lifestyle at one point...

Now, Shulgin is the most important writer in psychedelics, to me. His blending of scientific and spiritual exploration is really inspiring.

IMO intense psychedelic use can have a subtle effect to make the user believe in invented or fantastical concepts that they wish to be real, especially faddish or new-age spiritual or social ideas, even for a long period after taking any drugs. There's almost a feedback loop here, where the psychedelic insights suggest ideas that are almost obsessed upon after the experience, and then fed back into subsequent experiences and reconfirmed. This leads to half-crazy theories like Leary's circuits of consciousness, IMO.

Personally, I really look forward to the future of psychedelics and their impact on society and public opinion, more than the past. To be a little corny, space wasn't the only unexplored frontier opened to humans in the 1950's and 60's... and for all we know, we could still just be taking baby steps

 

[filter2700]

The OP mentioned a person I admire; Carl Sagan is one of my greatest inspirations. He used cannabis and loved it, and he destroys the typical stereotype of cannabis smokers being lazy and unintelligent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSHNU8XrEgg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JVOHgCFd-Q

 

[bindingaffinity]

The mention of Carl Sagan reminds me that psychedelics have been influential to a lot of figures who aren't popularly associated with them. Supposedly LSD helped Francis Crick discover the double helix structure of DNA. Ralph Abraham, who has worked in dynamical systems/chaos theory, has talked about his experiences with DMT, LSD, and psilocybin in interviews. And I've heard Richard Feynman used LSD as well.

And amphetamines aren't exactly (or at all) psychedelics, but they're responsible for many of Paul Erdős's mathematical works. I'd be very surprised if he hadn't dabbled with psychedelics as well, although there's no documentation of this.

I think it's worth expanding the public definition of psychedelic users to include people like Feynman, Crick, and Sagan, in addition to folks like Leary and McKenna. Perhaps doing so would increase public acceptance of psychedelics.

 

[SONN]

I read timothy leary's biography, Flashbacks, when I was sixteen and I really loved it. Since then I have come to really admire Alexander Shulgin, Ram Dass and Maharajji, Terrence Mckenna, and I've always loved Sagan.

 

[Eshu2012]

A most deep thanks

Thank you Rosemary Leary......... thank you......
also thank you Laura Huxley for giving me courage....

 

[biffhenderson]

Sasha Shulgin.

I place Sasha Shulgin on a pedestal along with my other favorite scientists and inventors, Leo Fender and Nikola Tesla. Sasha is still with us as of this writing. Blessings and good vibes to you sir. It is an honor living in the same time as you.

 

[Foreigner]

I like the story of Albert Hoffman, but I've never been able to find out if it's true or not. The proper name for LSD is LSD-25, because Hoffman made 24 previous versions before he arrived at the magic formula. He had been receiving visions in dreams of this moecule, but after years of trying he could not attain it. He even gave up, until the dreams haunted him again, and after a 5 year hiatus he continued working at it.

I know there are also 25 hydrogen atoms in LSD, but I have read in other sources that it is also the 25th derivative of LSD.

Urban legend? I'd love to hear what others think. In any case, Hoffman lived to 102 which no doubt had something to do with his LSD consumption. It is amazing for blood circulation and the cardiovascular system!

 

[Shifty38]

I think Jeremy Narby's work in the field has been important to a greater or lesser extent. I'm an academic (humanities) by trade and I appreciate the scholarly framework Narby utilises to expound his thesis. Whilst open to criticism, I enjoyed the moment from the book in which he realises that the Western scientific / academic paradigm deems his conclusions unacceptable or inappropriate yet he just knows they are valid. This is so important. Exploring these subjects from an academic standpoint will always be limiting as a great deal of the process of understanding and using psychedelics is based on intuition, experience and emotion. Just my two pence or cents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cosmic_Serpent - sorry, wiki link.

 

[RhythmSpring]

Alex Grey - the official painter of what it's like to be tripping. A really cool guy from Brooklyn. His voice sounds a little like McKenna's actually.

John C. Lilly - Invented the sensory deprivation chamber and was a dangerously intelligent reductionist psychonaut, with ketamine as his his sharp tool of choice. Lived at the Esalen institute in California and researched dolphin behavior. Wrote a weird/cool book called "The Center of the Cyclone: An Autobiography of Inner Space."

 

[Rorthron]

Hi !!4iV4HF9R34g

Personally I feel like most of the psychedelic gurus we've seen have been well-intentioned fools who've unfortunately succumbed to the powerful affects of psychedelics on mind.. There's not often much empirically sound validation for the ideas these guys espouse, yet they're often vehemently believed by users of these substances. Even the philosophy and wild speculation on reality and religion, which inherently can't be scientifically proven, are usually just bastardized and ill informed renditions of older ideas that have been pop cultured and sold wholesale to malleable minds.
Plus, a lot of the nonsense is why these compounds are regulated.

To begin, that last phrase of yours is particularly disturbing and in my humble opinion, does not echo what many people here on BL feels. No compound should be regulated. Period.

Also your condescending view of "psychedelic gurus" (your term) is way too biased, and show a clearly incomplete view of history and science. Note that I'm not saying that what several "psychedelic gurus" have written is the "truth", but neither is the current scientific opinion. On philosophy, you are again misinformed, Naturally you will find influences other philosophers on the works of other people, but was not Whitehead that has written that the whole western philosophy should be footnotes to Plato? All philosophers workings are based in their predecessors! BTW, Plato as well as Socrates were Eleusinian initiates - should that count them as "psychedelic gurus"?

McKenna's opinions have not been totally refuted. On topic, pick up Supernatural, by Graham Hancock - a mass market but extremely well researched book on the subject. And after reading it, and verifying the facts, please post again.

And for contributing to the community, my favorite "psychedelic gurus" are Padrinho Sebastiao and Mestre Irineu, the originators of the Santo Daime Religion, an Ayahuasca Religion, peaceful, ecologically centered, with tens of thousands of members, and very well integrated.

 

[IamMe90]

I like the story of Albert Hoffman, but I've never been able to find out if it's true or not. The proper name for LSD is LSD-25, because Hoffman made 24 previous versions before he arrived at the magic formula. He had been receiving visions in dreams of this moecule, but after years of trying he could not attain it. He even gave up, until the dreams haunted him again, and after a 5 year hiatus he continued working at it.

99% sure this is all false, but what do I know lol

 

[Roger&Me]

I like the story of Albert Hoffman, but I've never been able to find out if it's true or not. The proper name for LSD is LSD-25, because Hoffman made 24 previous versions before he arrived at the magic formula. He had been receiving visions in dreams of this moecule, but after years of trying he could not attain it. He even gave up, until the dreams haunted him again, and after a 5 year hiatus he continued working at it.

I know there are also 25 hydrogen atoms in LSD, but I have read in other sources that it is also the 25th derivative of LSD.

Urban legend? I'd love to hear what others think. In any case, Hoffman lived to 102 which no doubt had something to do with his LSD consumption. It is amazing for blood circulation and the cardiovascular system!

Oh god, no. Go to your local used book store and pick up an organic chemistry textbook. There are no "magic formulas" in chemistry, Hofmann prepared a series of compounds (which is basic, absolutely standard procedure for a working medicinal chemist) and then one of them just happened to be active. There was nothing magical involved, it was just a coincidence -- Dr. Hofmann was in the right place at the right time.

 

[Cortexiphan]

The researchers at Sandoz made hundreds of semisynthetic ergot derivatives. LSD is in the 6th paper on ergot alkaloids and there are at least 83 papers published in Helvetica Chimica Acta from the ca 1940 to 1976. If LSD was the 25th derivative? Possibly, it could also be the 25th lysergic acid diamide he made. In any case it wasn't the last as the psychedelic effect was discovered years later, I believe he initial paper describes oxytocic effects in rabbits or somesuch.

 

[huolesoh]

Dr. Hofmann was in the right place at the right time

no i think this isn't right - he specifically chose to, on a hunch, suddenly eat 250 micrograms of his creation - he didn't do this with any of the other ergolines he created ... ! not to mention he was the first to discover psilocybin

i love Hofmann, he is crafty and quite rapturous, and Ann Shulgin because she is a rather perceptive, wise lady. oh i love Andrew Weil too, he was at harvard and is now a food technologist and physician

Leary fucked things up but he was quite good at his beginning at Millbrook - truly enlightened - and then he just lost whatever 'it' was that he had - then towards his end he dropped his foolishness and became quite sincere
McKenna can be quite wonderful but sometimes a bit what - can understand what you mean by McKenna as entertainment

 

[zn13bt]

Jean-Paul Sartre supposedly took mescaline once in the 1930's, and had a terrible time. So it may be that Existentialism is all the result of a bad drug trip.

Aleister Crowley also tried mescaline at some point, though I don't think he was as fond of it as he was the heroin.