Full Description
A detailed history of the blossoming of psychedelic research in the 1950s
• Explores the different groups--from research labs to the military--who were seeking how best to utilize LSD and other promising psychedelics like mescaline
• Reintroduces forgotten scientists like Robert Hyde and Rosalind Heywood
• Looks at the CIA's notorious top-secret mind-control program MKUltra
• Reveals how intellectuals, philosophers, artists, and mystics of the 1950s used LSD to bring ancient rites into the modern ageExploring the initial stages of psychedelic study in Europe and America, Thomas Hatsis offers a full history of the psychedelic-fueled revolution in healing and consciousness expansion that blossomed in the 1950s--the first "golden age" of psychedelic research.
Revealing LSD as a "wonder child" rather than Albert Hofmann's infamous "problem child," the author focuses on the extensive studies with LSD that took place in the '50s. He explores the different groups--from research labs to the military to bohemian art circles--who were seeking how best to utilize LSD and other promising psychedelics like mescaline. Sharing the details of many primary source medical reports, the author examines how doctors saw LSD as a tool to gain access to the minds of schizophrenics and thus better understand the causes of mental illness.The author also looks at how the CIA believed LSD could be turned into a powerful mind-control weapon, including a full account of the notorious top-secret program MKUltra.
Reintroducing forgotten scientists like Robert Hyde, the first American to take LSD, and parapsychologist Rosalind Heywood, who believed LSD and mescaline opened doors to mystical and psychic abilities, the author also discusses how the infl uences of Central American mushroom ceremonies and peyote rites crossbred with experimental Western mysticism during the 1950s, turning LSD from a possible madness mimicker or mind weapon into a sacramental medicine. Finally, he explores how philosophers, parapsychologists, and mystics sought to use LSD to usher in a new age of human awareness.
Contents
Foreword by Martin A. Lee
Before I Forget . . . Again
1 Pharmacies of Fairyland
Victorian Psychedelia
2 Mother's Grain
A Brief History of the Ergot Fungus
3 A Peculiar Presentiment
Birth of the Wonder Child
4 Delysid
Seeking a Model Psychosis
5 The Great Lips
An Intentional Approach to Set and Setting
6 Mind Fields
Weaponizing LSD
7 Academic Espionage
Lucy in Disguise with Doctors
8 Enlightened Operatives
The Blood of Patriots
9 The World Where Everything Is Known
María Sabina's Gift
10 Voices from Behind the Veil
ESP and LSD
11 To Soar Angelic
Birth of the Psychedelic Renaissance
12 The Vitalist Heretic
Critics of Chemical Mysticism
13 Altar at the Center of the Universe
Psychedelics as Sacred Medicine
14 Scoundrels and Explorers
Eternity in an Hour
15 Something Different than Madness
Hollywood, Popular Media, and LSD
16 The Madonna and the Gingerbread Man
LSD, Psychotherapy, and Alcoholics Anonymous
17 An Intellectual, Fun Drug
A Strange Fraternity
18 The Fall
The Tragedy of Timothy Leary
19 A Far-Gone Conclusion
Resurrecting the Renaissance
Notes
Bibliography
Index
