| LSD: God's Gift to Humanity (For Free & Legal Distribution) |
| If enough people took LSD we would have peace, no money (or poverty), laws, international boundary-lines. People would refuse to work at bogus jobs buy, for and because of the almighty Devil Dollar. The federal government cracked down on manufacturers by tracing precursor chemicals. There are rumors that North Korea is supplying LSD. I'd like to convince Libya's populist leader, Muammar Gadaffi, into manufacturing LSD for free and legal distribution. Gadaffi also believes in eliminating money. (A powerful, mind-expanding, prioritizing, civilizing dose could be manufactured for about the same price as aspirin.) |
| I have been born again [after using LSD]. — Cary Grant LSD Creates Non-Conformists Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream, Jay Stevens, 1987 |
| The real reason LSD needed to be illegal wasn’t because it was making a tiny percentage of its users crazy, but because of what it was doing to the vast majority. ... LSD wasn’t attracting nonconformists so much as it was creating them. One couldn't, for example, after a serious immersion in LSD, go back to the 9-to-5 world of sales managers and upward mobility. Better to work for yourself, doing something simple and useful, which was why so many hippies became entrepreneurs, farmers, craftspeople. For most, the psychedelic experience dealt a serious blow to their desire for power, and all those buttresses to the power urge that go by the name ambition. Suddenly they had nothing to motivate them, particularly when they backed away from the rigors of the ancient pursuit of Mammon. |
| Tune in, Turn On, Drop Out. — Dr. Timothy Leary ‘LSD an Aphrodisiac’ — Dr. Says Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream, Jay Stevens, 1987 |
Dr. Timothy Leary, interviewed by Playboy, announced that LSD was the most powerful
aphrodisiac ever discovered. "Let me put it this way," he said, "compared with sex under LSD,
the way you’ve been making love – no matter how ecstatic the pleasure you think you get from
it – is like making love to a department-store-window dummy. "The three inevitable goals of the
LSD session are to discover and make love with God, to discover and make love with yourself,
and to discover and make love with a woman."
Leary taught psychology at Harvard and realized that psychiatry benefited only 33 percent of
those who tried it; 33% remained the same and 33% became worse.
aphrodisiac ever discovered. "Let me put it this way," he said, "compared with sex under LSD,
the way you’ve been making love – no matter how ecstatic the pleasure you think you get from
it – is like making love to a department-store-window dummy. "The three inevitable goals of the
LSD session are to discover and make love with God, to discover and make love with yourself,
and to discover and make love with a woman."
Leary taught psychology at Harvard and realized that psychiatry benefited only 33 percent of
those who tried it; 33% remained the same and 33% became worse.
| Psychedelics : Religion :: Telescopes : Astronomy — Dr. Timothy Leary Bill Gates & LSD |
PLAYBOY (December 1994): Ever take LSD?
GATES: My errant youth ended a long time ago.
PLAYBOY: What does that mean?
GATES: That means there were things I did under the age of 25 that I ended up not doing
subsequently.
PLAYBOY: One LSD story involved you staring at a table and thinking the corner was going to
plunge into your eye.
GATES: [Smiles]
PLAYBOY: Ah, a glimmer of recognition.
GATES: That was on the other side of that boundary. The young mind can deal with certain
kinds of gooping [groping?] around that I don't think at this age I could. I don't think you're as
capable of handling lack of sleep or whatever challenges you throw at your body as you get
older. However, I never missed a day of work.
GATES: My errant youth ended a long time ago.
PLAYBOY: What does that mean?
GATES: That means there were things I did under the age of 25 that I ended up not doing
subsequently.
PLAYBOY: One LSD story involved you staring at a table and thinking the corner was going to
plunge into your eye.
GATES: [Smiles]
PLAYBOY: Ah, a glimmer of recognition.
GATES: That was on the other side of that boundary. The young mind can deal with certain
kinds of gooping [groping?] around that I don't think at this age I could. I don't think you're as
capable of handling lack of sleep or whatever challenges you throw at your body as you get
older. However, I never missed a day of work.
| Before LSD became illegal, Beverly Hills psychiatrists gave LSD to Cary Grant, James Coburn, Jack Nicholson, Novelist Anais Nin and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. |
| A Brave New World Revisited By Aldux Huxley (1958) |
In The Brave New World (1931) of my fable there was no whisky, no tobacco, no illicit heroin,
no bootlegged cocaine. People neither smoked, nor drank, not sniffed, nor gave themselves
injections. Whenever anyone felt depressed or below par, he would swallow a tablet or two of
a chemical compound called soma. The original soma, from which I took the name of this
hypothetical drug, was an unknown plant (possibly Asclepias acida) used by the ancient Aryan
invaders of India in one of the most solemn of their religious rites. The intoxicating juice
expressed from the stems of this plant was drunk by the priests and nobles in the course of an
elaborate ceremony. In the Vedic hymns we are told that the drinkers of soma were blessed in
many ways. Their bodies were strengthened, their hearts were filled with courage, joy and
enthusiasm, their minds were enlightened and in an immediate experience of eternal life they
received the assurance of their immortality. …
In LSD-25 the pharmacologists have recently created another aspect of some – a perception-
improver and vision-producer that is, physiologically speaking, almost costless. This
extraordinary drug, which is effective in doses as small as fifty or even twenty-five millionths of
a gram, has the power (like peyote) to transport people into the other world. In the majority of
cases, the other world to which LSD-25 gives access is heavenly; alternatively it may by
purgatorial or even infernal. But, positive or negative, the lysergic acid experience is felt by
almost everyone who undergoes it to be profoundly significant and enlightening. In any event,
the fact that minds can be changed so radically at so little cost to the body is altogether
astonishing.
As well as tranquilizing, hallucinating and stimulating, the soma of my fable had the power of
heightening suggestibility, and so should be used to reinforce the effects of governmental
propaganda.
In his 1954 book, The Doors of Perception, Aldus Huxley wrote of his mescaline experience:
"But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be the same as the man
who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self satisfied, humbler in
acknowledging his ignorance, yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to
things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to
comprehend."
Jim Morrison got the idea for the name of his band from The Doors of Perception.
no bootlegged cocaine. People neither smoked, nor drank, not sniffed, nor gave themselves
injections. Whenever anyone felt depressed or below par, he would swallow a tablet or two of
a chemical compound called soma. The original soma, from which I took the name of this
hypothetical drug, was an unknown plant (possibly Asclepias acida) used by the ancient Aryan
invaders of India in one of the most solemn of their religious rites. The intoxicating juice
expressed from the stems of this plant was drunk by the priests and nobles in the course of an
elaborate ceremony. In the Vedic hymns we are told that the drinkers of soma were blessed in
many ways. Their bodies were strengthened, their hearts were filled with courage, joy and
enthusiasm, their minds were enlightened and in an immediate experience of eternal life they
received the assurance of their immortality. …
In LSD-25 the pharmacologists have recently created another aspect of some – a perception-
improver and vision-producer that is, physiologically speaking, almost costless. This
extraordinary drug, which is effective in doses as small as fifty or even twenty-five millionths of
a gram, has the power (like peyote) to transport people into the other world. In the majority of
cases, the other world to which LSD-25 gives access is heavenly; alternatively it may by
purgatorial or even infernal. But, positive or negative, the lysergic acid experience is felt by
almost everyone who undergoes it to be profoundly significant and enlightening. In any event,
the fact that minds can be changed so radically at so little cost to the body is altogether
astonishing.
As well as tranquilizing, hallucinating and stimulating, the soma of my fable had the power of
heightening suggestibility, and so should be used to reinforce the effects of governmental
propaganda.
In his 1954 book, The Doors of Perception, Aldus Huxley wrote of his mescaline experience:
"But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be the same as the man
who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self satisfied, humbler in
acknowledging his ignorance, yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to
things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to
comprehend."
Jim Morrison got the idea for the name of his band from The Doors of Perception.
| LSD Manufacturer Sentenced to LIFE! By Steve Fry • The Capital-Journal (Topeka, KS) • 11/25/03 |
The chemist who manufactured LSD in a clandestine lab near Wamego and the man who set
up, tore down and transported the LSD lab received long prison sentences in U.S. District
Court on Tuesday.
William Leonard Pickard, 58, Mill Valley, Calif., was sentenced to two concurrent life terms in
prison without parole, and Clyde Apperson, 48, Sunnyvale, Calif., was sentenced to two
30-year sentences without parole.
Pickard and Apperson were convicted March 31 on felony charges of conspiracy and
possession of LSD with intent to distribute more than 10 grams.
The sentence announcements followed a two and one-half day hearing in which the
defendants challenged a federal Drug Enforcement Administration chemist's calculations of
how much LSD was seized. Federal officials said that evidence of liquid and powder LSD, an
LSD by-product and two precursors to LSD showed that it would have produced an estimated
2.8 billion doses of LSD.
In sentencing Pickard, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Rogers said he had very little
discretion in imposing two life sentences once he learned the amount of drugs linked to the
case and that Pickard had two prior drug convictions.
Evidence shows that a "considerable amount" of drug was made at a former missile silo near
Ellsworth and earlier at a site in Santa Fe, N.M.
Pickard and Apperson will appeal their convictions, their defense attorneys said Tuesday.
Apperson would be eligible to earn up to 54 days of "good time" each year, meaning he could
be released after serving about 25 years six months. The good time doesn't apply to Pickard's
life sentence.
up, tore down and transported the LSD lab received long prison sentences in U.S. District
Court on Tuesday.
William Leonard Pickard, 58, Mill Valley, Calif., was sentenced to two concurrent life terms in
prison without parole, and Clyde Apperson, 48, Sunnyvale, Calif., was sentenced to two
30-year sentences without parole.
Pickard and Apperson were convicted March 31 on felony charges of conspiracy and
possession of LSD with intent to distribute more than 10 grams.
The sentence announcements followed a two and one-half day hearing in which the
defendants challenged a federal Drug Enforcement Administration chemist's calculations of
how much LSD was seized. Federal officials said that evidence of liquid and powder LSD, an
LSD by-product and two precursors to LSD showed that it would have produced an estimated
2.8 billion doses of LSD.
In sentencing Pickard, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Rogers said he had very little
discretion in imposing two life sentences once he learned the amount of drugs linked to the
case and that Pickard had two prior drug convictions.
Evidence shows that a "considerable amount" of drug was made at a former missile silo near
Ellsworth and earlier at a site in Santa Fe, N.M.
Pickard and Apperson will appeal their convictions, their defense attorneys said Tuesday.
Apperson would be eligible to earn up to 54 days of "good time" each year, meaning he could
be released after serving about 25 years six months. The good time doesn't apply to Pickard's
life sentence.
| The source for this story is unknown |
| Famous People & LSD This information was gleaned from the Internet, the comments are NOT necessarily my own. Please email suggestions with your source and comments. |
Abrams, Isaac – artist
Alpert, Richard a.k.a. Baba Ram Das – psychologist, author, guru
Anderson, Jon – lead singer of Yes, said he took LSD because Paul McCartney had but
McCartney did not like LSD, whereas Harrison & Lennon did (this schism caused
disharmony among The Beatles).
Atwell, Allen – artist
Barlow, John Perry – EFF founder
Barret, Syd – (and the rest of Pink Floyd)
Belushi, John – actor
The Beatles – musicians, see Jon Anderson and John Lennon
Black Sabbath – Ozzie Osborn, musicians
Bowie, David – pop musician, who basically lived with Andy Warhol during the 60's.
Burroughs, William – Beat Poet
Bush, Pres. George H.W. – former head of the CIA. The CIA experimented extensively with
LSD and many agents took it so they would know they were not going crazy if it was given to
them. Bush Sr. always appeared bright to me whereas his sons are dopes, crooks and
cheaters.
Carlin, George – counterculture comedian
Carter, Jack -- son of former President Jimmy Carter, who is considering a Senate run in
Nevada, was kicked out of the Navy for using marijuana and LSD.
Carrol, Lewis – mathematician, photographer, author: "Alice in Wonderland" – (mushrooms)
Castanada, Carlos – anthropologist (hallucinogens)
Coburn, James – actor
Coleman, Ornette – He spoke very fondly about his LSD experiences
Coltrane, John – Jazz musician. To discern the inner spiritual beauty of late John
Coltrane requires the ear of faith - or perhaps some LSD, which the saxophonist was
taking regularly by that time. Effectively, at that point jazz had ceased to be a popular
musical form, and became a cult. Coltrane wasn't just a hard act to follow; he was impossible.
Corman, Roger – movie director
Crick, Francis -- Nobel Prize winner for structure of DNA, "Crick was high on LSD when he
discovered the secret of life," The Daily Mail (London), 8/8/2004.
Crosby, David
Crowley, Aleister – magician, author: "Magick Without Tears", "Moonchild", "The Book of
Thoth", "Diary of a Drug Fiend", "Theory of Magick"
Davis, Miles – ??? listen to Bitches Brew, On the Corner and LIVE EVIL
Ellis, Dock – baseball player. He mentions the incident in his autobiography. From an
interview I saw on TV, he said he wasn't in the rotation that day, so he dropped thinking he
wouldn't be pitching. For some reason he got called to the mound, didn't think it would be a
good idea to confess to having dropped acid, and pitched the game. I don't remember whether
he was the winning pitcher, and I recall that someone else mentioned he gave up quite a few
walks, too. In the interview he said it was a pretty strange experience.
Ellis, Havelock – physician, author: "Psychology of Sex", essay: "Mezcal: A New Artificial
Paradise" – (peyote)
Eminem – Rap artist
Fisher, Carrie (a.k.a. Princess Leia) – She got to a point where she even checked herself in
to Betty Ford because she claimed she was addicted to LSD (obviously psychologically.) I
recall from interviews I've seen with Carrie that there was more involved in her addiction than
LSD, I think that Percodan might have been the other drug she did a lot, I could be wrong
though. I do remember it was a very addictive drug, I think it was an opiate, and I'm sure she
probably quite a bit of cocaine as well. Carrie is a good writer, "Post Cards From The Edge" is
really a good novel, better than the movie in my opinion.
Fonda, Peter – actor appeared with Dennis Hopper: "They were passing cocaine around at
meetings and I just didn't want it. When I was doing Fallen Angels, Peter Fonda was talking
about LSD and said, 'Come on, Nancy, you should try it, it's great - I just woke up on the shelf
of the linen closet.' " – Nancy Sinatra
Foucault, Michel -- Lords over the fields of history, literary theory, queer theory, medicine,
philosophy and sociology, and his ideas have permeated society in general. His best-known
theses, that the concept of "truth" is relative, that "madness" is a cultural creation and that
"history" is mere storytelling, are now familiar fare at enlightened dinner parties (and those
contemptuous inverted commas are mandatory).
Friedland, Robert – billionaire mining entrepreneur not only is planning on developing a major
copper and gold project there through his company Ivanhoe Mines Ltd, but he helped bail out
Mongolia from its $11.4 billion debt to Russia. Friedland, best known for the discovery by one
of his companies of the massive Voisey's Bay nickel deposit in Canada in the early 1990s, said
he expects by the end of the year a full feasibility study for the open-pit portion of the project,
from which banks assess whether it is worth financing.
About to turn 54, the Woodstock-generation Friedland is a colorful character in an industry with
its fair share of mavericks, loners and eccentrics. As a teenager he was arrested on charges of
selling LSD to an undercover cop, and in the 1970s he embarked on a tree farm business in
Oregon with Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs.
Garcia, Jerry – musician (Grateful Dead), philosopher.
Gates, Bill – reported to have used it a few times in college (see Playboy interview herein)
Grateful Dead – their sound guy was manufacturing most of the stuff in San Fran in the 60's
(Owsley also supplied.)
Grey, Alan – who won an award for the album cover of the String Cheese Incident's "Untying
the Not", said, "I'd like to thank God and LSD and all the psychedelics for the beautiful visions
of our infinite being.
Grey, Spaulding – actor, "Swimming to Cambodia." (Pol Pot, who believed in eliminating
money was slandered by devils. (See Pol Pot quotation and reference on my website.)
Groff, Stanislav – Psychedelic psychiatrist, Author of LSD Psychotherepy.
Hagman, Larry – actor JR Ewing "Dallas", Captain Nelson "I Dream of Jeanie" porn star
Jenna Jameson (see below) did a parody, "I Dream of Jenna" • Hagman revealed he'd rather
die than have a liver transplant: part of his liver was removed last year after bacteria attacked
his organs. The 72-year-old said: "I was on my back for a month. My muscles atrophied. I didn't
have any strength. They said if I did need one (a liver), then they would put me on the
(transplant) list. I said, 'Don't bother. I'm 72-years-old and I don't want to deprive somebody of a
new liver just because I'm greedy.' "I feel fine now. I am not afraid of death. I took LSD 40 years
ago and had ego death. That took the fear of death away."
Heffner, Hugh – Playboy (I'm just guessing.)
Hendrix, Jimi – musician, singer, legendary guitar player. Hendrix had everything – he had
the vision, the mentality and the will. What he didn’t have was the self-discipline. His problem
was, he didn’t have the right person, the right woman, to say: “Put this aside,” or “What do you
see yourself doing 20 years from now?” [I don’t think Hendrix liked women, his songs were
mean.] He was in Berkeley and I saw him, and I could see he needed something he wasn’t
getting. Sometimes you need to step back from a circle of friends and habits – as Coltrane and
Miles did – into a period of just crystallising you existence. Otherwise, you become a
performing monkey: everyone gives you more cocaine and says you play like god, but one
night you play a genius and then the next night you suck. It’s like Coltrane or Wayne Shorter or
Herbie Hancock. Few musicians take the time to crystalise their existence. Hendrix took LSD,
like I did, but he never realised what I did: that this is what you do but it’s not what you are. –
Carlos Santana
Hofmann, Albert – chemist, discovered LSD and became a proponent LSD. Shulgin asked
Hofmann what he thought of MDMA (Ecstasy). He replied, "Finally something I can do with my
wife." Hofmann wanted to market LSD in small doses as an antidepressant. Link to Hofmann
website here.
Hopper, Dennis – actor appeared with Peter Fonda
Huxley, Aldous – author: "Brave New World", "Island", "Doors of Perception", Died day CIA
Killed JFK. On his deathbed he took 100 micrograms of LSD.
James, William – physician, philosopher (Peyote)
Jameson, Jenna – porn star, her brother said they liked to trip in the casinos of Las Vegas
Jolie, Angelina -- Actress, he's done Cocaine, E, LSD and heroin.
Jobs, Steve – co-creator of the Apple computer, the NeXt computer and former head of Apple
Computers, Inc.. Jobs was interviewed in "Time" Magazine (their "Year of the Computer" issue)
about how (prior to starting Apple) he had taken LSD and "heard a wheat field singing Bach to
him" or a similar positive reference. Said, "LSD was one of the three most significant events in
my life." (What the Dormouse Said: How the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal
Computer Industry", John Markoff, 2005)
Kapor, Vince – the inventor of Lotus 123. Of course, he has turned into one of those "... but I
didn't really *like* taking drugs <whine> ..." maggots of late.
Kesey, Ken – author: "One Flew Over the Coo-Coo's Nest", "Once a Great Notion", sold
blotter-paper art
Kid Rock – musician
Kilmister, Lemmy -- MOTORHEAD wildman credits LSD with making him a more caring
person.
The ACE OF SPADES singer claims his experiences while under the influence of acid opened
his eyes to the importance of treating everybody with respect. The 58-year-old says, "It's the
only drug that really does that. It made me more aware and helped me realise what other
people are about.
King, Steven – has alluded a number of times (in his non-fiction writing such as 'Danse
Macabre') to having taken LSD, though I'm not sure he actually comes right out and says it. I
would think he might be willing to make a public statement, given the opinion of the
government he's expressed in novels like 'Firestarter' and 'The Stand'.
Kubrick, Stanley – filmmaker
Leary, Timothy – psychologist, father of Transactional Analysis, software author:
"Mindwheel". (See more of Leary's quotations herein). Nixon considered Leary the "most
dangerous man in America." See more on Nixon's involvement in the coup d'etat in Dallas: CIA
Killed JFK. Actress Uma Thurman's mother, Nena was once married to Leary. They divorced
after only one year. Nena then married a devoted Buddhist named Robert Thurman.
Leich, Donovan – musician
Lennon, John – (Beatle), revolutionary, likened unto Christ: "Instant Karma" "Imagine there's
no country, nothing to kill and die for." Lennon was murdered by a hypnorogrammed assassin,
see, Who Killed John Lennon?, Fenton Bresler, 1989. (Sirhan Sirahn, the alleged assassin of
Robert F. Kennedy was also hypnoprogrammed, see evidence here.)
Lilly, Dr. John Cunningham – physician, scientist (electronics, dolphin communication,
sensory deprivation), philosopher, author: "Mind of the Dolphin", "Center of the Cyclone,
"Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Bio-Computer." The movie "Altered States"
was based on Dr. Lilly's experiments.
Love, Courtny -- musician. "Because I was given acid at four, I think my mind was freed. My
father was this shyster who would get money from the government to make LSD, and bad
LSD." Love claims her father may be responsible for an especially toxic batch of acid that
made its way to California's Altamont Music Festival in 1969, believed to be behind the deaths
of four revellers. She explains, "Allegedly the brown acid at Altamont was his. He can't go to
Marin County (near San Francisco), because (he has) a hit out on him."
Manson, Marilyn – musician
Mitchell, Wier – physician, author: "Injuries of the Nerves and their Consequences" – (Peyote)
Moore, Marcia – Sheraton Hotel heiress, author: "Hypersentience", "Journeys into the Bright
World"
Morrison, Jim – lead singer for The Doors realized the absurdity of MONEY and wearing
clothes. See more about Morrison here.
Mothers of Invention – musicians
Mullis, Dr. Kary – Nobel Prize winning DNA expert, and surfer. Mullis received a 1993 Nobel
Prize for single-handedly inventing the PCR reaction, one of the most important advances in
molecular biology ever made. When asked by a reporter what his hobbies were, he replied that
they were surfing, chasing young women, and using hallucinogenic drugs. (Hopefully not all at
the same time.) He said this prior to receiving his prize, and was told by a friend on the
nominating committee that he had been up for consideration but would not receive the prize
until he cooled it with the LSD talk. He did cool it, and the next year got the prize. I got this from
an excerpt from his book "Dancing Through the Mind Field", which was on the Internet a
couple of years ago.
Nicholson, Jack – actor
Nin, Anais – writer, liberated woman
Nolte, Nick -- Actor: In the early Sixties, when Leary and Alpert were sending LSD around, a
professor of photography that I was working with had received a letter from them with
instructions on how to take it. You had to let go and realise they were all hallucinations. That
way you're fine. So we would go out to the desert, take the LSD and lay down in sleeping bags
for eight hours. Ken Kesey said you could walk around on it, but taking acid and going to a
concert became a nightmare. (LSD & MDMA are the best drugs to take at a concert where
there's plenty of room to dance. -- Raquel)
Osmond, Humphry – Psychiatrist, coined word, "psychedelic", gave Huxley mescaline,
experimented with LSD to cure alcoholism, see below
Santana, Carlos – musician, see Hendrix, above.
Shulgin, Alexander – PsychoPharmacologist/Chemist, author of PIHKAL: A Chemical Love
Story and TIHKAL: The Continuation. The titles are acronyms: "Phenethylamines/Tryptamines
I Have Known & Loved". These volumes chronicle the author's psychedelic experiments and
includes recipies for future pioneers. Shulgin received a plaque from the Department of Justice
for his "significant personal efforts to help eliminate drug abuse." His wife, Ann says that he
never planned to make money from his inventions. He didn't mind helping the government put
amphetamine or cocaine dealers in jail. Those drugs were "false in some way," he says. "The
sense of power they give is not real." They were only marginally better than marijuana — in his
opinion "a complete waste of time." [Yes, I prefer LSD to pot but . . .] On a neurochemical level
psychedelics release the same mood modifiers — such as serotonin, dopamine and
norepinephrine —as many antidepressants. Shulgin is no longer calling his compounds
psychedelics. His latest molecules are better described as antidepressants, he says. See 10-
page article about Shulgin in Playboy, March 2004.
Sklar-Weinstein, Arlene – artist
Smith, Adam – you know, the guy who hosts the TV show "Adam Smith's money world" on
public television. In one of his earlier books, "Powers of Mind," he mentions his experiences
with LSD in the context of controlled, scientific experimentation and a bunch of other cool stuff,
like the time he spent in the Arica program, going to Esalen, and time he met Carlos
Castenada.
Smith, Huston – pioneering religious scholar
Stone, Oliver – (director of "Platoon", "JFK", and much more) said on "Later with Bob Costas"
he took a lot of acid after returning from Vietnam. See "CIA Killed JFK" on my website.
Stravinsky – Composer (LSD ??)
Ram Daas – psychologist, author, guru
Rather, Dan – (source: Ladies Home Journal. July 1980.) Rather acts like a zombi now.
The Rolling Stones – (rock-and-roll) Listen to Their Satanic Majesties’ Request
Warhol, Andy – artist (I liked "Factory" workers, Candy Darling & Mora Moynihan)
Watts, Allen – Zen philosopher, master’s degree in religion, doctorate in divinity, author: "The
Joyous Cosmology", "Zen Sticks, Zen Bones", "The Taboo against Knowing Who You Are",
"The Wisdom of Insecurity".
Wiel, Andrew – physician, psychopharmacologist, anthropologist, fire-walker, alternative
health expert, author: "The Natural Mind", "Spontaneous Healing", "8 Weeks to Optimum
Health" marijuana, peyote, yage (S. American hallucinogen) Lives is Tucson AZ too. He writes
that LSD is pharmocologicly safe but not for unstable minds, i.e., you won't die from an
overdose unless you do something stupid.
Wilson, Brian – The Beach Boys
Wozniak, Steve – Apple Computer co-founder
Alpert, Richard a.k.a. Baba Ram Das – psychologist, author, guru
Anderson, Jon – lead singer of Yes, said he took LSD because Paul McCartney had but
McCartney did not like LSD, whereas Harrison & Lennon did (this schism caused
disharmony among The Beatles).
Atwell, Allen – artist
Barlow, John Perry – EFF founder
Barret, Syd – (and the rest of Pink Floyd)
Belushi, John – actor
The Beatles – musicians, see Jon Anderson and John Lennon
Black Sabbath – Ozzie Osborn, musicians
Bowie, David – pop musician, who basically lived with Andy Warhol during the 60's.
Burroughs, William – Beat Poet
Bush, Pres. George H.W. – former head of the CIA. The CIA experimented extensively with
LSD and many agents took it so they would know they were not going crazy if it was given to
them. Bush Sr. always appeared bright to me whereas his sons are dopes, crooks and
cheaters.
Carlin, George – counterculture comedian
Carter, Jack -- son of former President Jimmy Carter, who is considering a Senate run in
Nevada, was kicked out of the Navy for using marijuana and LSD.
Carrol, Lewis – mathematician, photographer, author: "Alice in Wonderland" – (mushrooms)
Castanada, Carlos – anthropologist (hallucinogens)
Coburn, James – actor
Coleman, Ornette – He spoke very fondly about his LSD experiences
Coltrane, John – Jazz musician. To discern the inner spiritual beauty of late John
Coltrane requires the ear of faith - or perhaps some LSD, which the saxophonist was
taking regularly by that time. Effectively, at that point jazz had ceased to be a popular
musical form, and became a cult. Coltrane wasn't just a hard act to follow; he was impossible.
Corman, Roger – movie director
Crick, Francis -- Nobel Prize winner for structure of DNA, "Crick was high on LSD when he
discovered the secret of life," The Daily Mail (London), 8/8/2004.
Crosby, David
Crowley, Aleister – magician, author: "Magick Without Tears", "Moonchild", "The Book of
Thoth", "Diary of a Drug Fiend", "Theory of Magick"
Davis, Miles – ??? listen to Bitches Brew, On the Corner and LIVE EVIL
Ellis, Dock – baseball player. He mentions the incident in his autobiography. From an
interview I saw on TV, he said he wasn't in the rotation that day, so he dropped thinking he
wouldn't be pitching. For some reason he got called to the mound, didn't think it would be a
good idea to confess to having dropped acid, and pitched the game. I don't remember whether
he was the winning pitcher, and I recall that someone else mentioned he gave up quite a few
walks, too. In the interview he said it was a pretty strange experience.
Ellis, Havelock – physician, author: "Psychology of Sex", essay: "Mezcal: A New Artificial
Paradise" – (peyote)
Eminem – Rap artist
Fisher, Carrie (a.k.a. Princess Leia) – She got to a point where she even checked herself in
to Betty Ford because she claimed she was addicted to LSD (obviously psychologically.) I
recall from interviews I've seen with Carrie that there was more involved in her addiction than
LSD, I think that Percodan might have been the other drug she did a lot, I could be wrong
though. I do remember it was a very addictive drug, I think it was an opiate, and I'm sure she
probably quite a bit of cocaine as well. Carrie is a good writer, "Post Cards From The Edge" is
really a good novel, better than the movie in my opinion.
Fonda, Peter – actor appeared with Dennis Hopper: "They were passing cocaine around at
meetings and I just didn't want it. When I was doing Fallen Angels, Peter Fonda was talking
about LSD and said, 'Come on, Nancy, you should try it, it's great - I just woke up on the shelf
of the linen closet.' " – Nancy Sinatra
Foucault, Michel -- Lords over the fields of history, literary theory, queer theory, medicine,
philosophy and sociology, and his ideas have permeated society in general. His best-known
theses, that the concept of "truth" is relative, that "madness" is a cultural creation and that
"history" is mere storytelling, are now familiar fare at enlightened dinner parties (and those
contemptuous inverted commas are mandatory).
Friedland, Robert – billionaire mining entrepreneur not only is planning on developing a major
copper and gold project there through his company Ivanhoe Mines Ltd, but he helped bail out
Mongolia from its $11.4 billion debt to Russia. Friedland, best known for the discovery by one
of his companies of the massive Voisey's Bay nickel deposit in Canada in the early 1990s, said
he expects by the end of the year a full feasibility study for the open-pit portion of the project,
from which banks assess whether it is worth financing.
About to turn 54, the Woodstock-generation Friedland is a colorful character in an industry with
its fair share of mavericks, loners and eccentrics. As a teenager he was arrested on charges of
selling LSD to an undercover cop, and in the 1970s he embarked on a tree farm business in
Oregon with Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs.
Garcia, Jerry – musician (Grateful Dead), philosopher.
Gates, Bill – reported to have used it a few times in college (see Playboy interview herein)
Grateful Dead – their sound guy was manufacturing most of the stuff in San Fran in the 60's
(Owsley also supplied.)
Grey, Alan – who won an award for the album cover of the String Cheese Incident's "Untying
the Not", said, "I'd like to thank God and LSD and all the psychedelics for the beautiful visions
of our infinite being.
Grey, Spaulding – actor, "Swimming to Cambodia." (Pol Pot, who believed in eliminating
money was slandered by devils. (See Pol Pot quotation and reference on my website.)
Groff, Stanislav – Psychedelic psychiatrist, Author of LSD Psychotherepy.
Hagman, Larry – actor JR Ewing "Dallas", Captain Nelson "I Dream of Jeanie" porn star
Jenna Jameson (see below) did a parody, "I Dream of Jenna" • Hagman revealed he'd rather
die than have a liver transplant: part of his liver was removed last year after bacteria attacked
his organs. The 72-year-old said: "I was on my back for a month. My muscles atrophied. I didn't
have any strength. They said if I did need one (a liver), then they would put me on the
(transplant) list. I said, 'Don't bother. I'm 72-years-old and I don't want to deprive somebody of a
new liver just because I'm greedy.' "I feel fine now. I am not afraid of death. I took LSD 40 years
ago and had ego death. That took the fear of death away."
Heffner, Hugh – Playboy (I'm just guessing.)
Hendrix, Jimi – musician, singer, legendary guitar player. Hendrix had everything – he had
the vision, the mentality and the will. What he didn’t have was the self-discipline. His problem
was, he didn’t have the right person, the right woman, to say: “Put this aside,” or “What do you
see yourself doing 20 years from now?” [I don’t think Hendrix liked women, his songs were
mean.] He was in Berkeley and I saw him, and I could see he needed something he wasn’t
getting. Sometimes you need to step back from a circle of friends and habits – as Coltrane and
Miles did – into a period of just crystallising you existence. Otherwise, you become a
performing monkey: everyone gives you more cocaine and says you play like god, but one
night you play a genius and then the next night you suck. It’s like Coltrane or Wayne Shorter or
Herbie Hancock. Few musicians take the time to crystalise their existence. Hendrix took LSD,
like I did, but he never realised what I did: that this is what you do but it’s not what you are. –
Carlos Santana
Hofmann, Albert – chemist, discovered LSD and became a proponent LSD. Shulgin asked
Hofmann what he thought of MDMA (Ecstasy). He replied, "Finally something I can do with my
wife." Hofmann wanted to market LSD in small doses as an antidepressant. Link to Hofmann
website here.
Hopper, Dennis – actor appeared with Peter Fonda
Huxley, Aldous – author: "Brave New World", "Island", "Doors of Perception", Died day CIA
Killed JFK. On his deathbed he took 100 micrograms of LSD.
James, William – physician, philosopher (Peyote)
Jameson, Jenna – porn star, her brother said they liked to trip in the casinos of Las Vegas
Jolie, Angelina -- Actress, he's done Cocaine, E, LSD and heroin.
Jobs, Steve – co-creator of the Apple computer, the NeXt computer and former head of Apple
Computers, Inc.. Jobs was interviewed in "Time" Magazine (their "Year of the Computer" issue)
about how (prior to starting Apple) he had taken LSD and "heard a wheat field singing Bach to
him" or a similar positive reference. Said, "LSD was one of the three most significant events in
my life." (What the Dormouse Said: How the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal
Computer Industry", John Markoff, 2005)
Kapor, Vince – the inventor of Lotus 123. Of course, he has turned into one of those "... but I
didn't really *like* taking drugs <whine> ..." maggots of late.
Kesey, Ken – author: "One Flew Over the Coo-Coo's Nest", "Once a Great Notion", sold
blotter-paper art
Kid Rock – musician
Kilmister, Lemmy -- MOTORHEAD wildman credits LSD with making him a more caring
person.
The ACE OF SPADES singer claims his experiences while under the influence of acid opened
his eyes to the importance of treating everybody with respect. The 58-year-old says, "It's the
only drug that really does that. It made me more aware and helped me realise what other
people are about.
King, Steven – has alluded a number of times (in his non-fiction writing such as 'Danse
Macabre') to having taken LSD, though I'm not sure he actually comes right out and says it. I
would think he might be willing to make a public statement, given the opinion of the
government he's expressed in novels like 'Firestarter' and 'The Stand'.
Kubrick, Stanley – filmmaker
Leary, Timothy – psychologist, father of Transactional Analysis, software author:
"Mindwheel". (See more of Leary's quotations herein). Nixon considered Leary the "most
dangerous man in America." See more on Nixon's involvement in the coup d'etat in Dallas: CIA
Killed JFK. Actress Uma Thurman's mother, Nena was once married to Leary. They divorced
after only one year. Nena then married a devoted Buddhist named Robert Thurman.
Leich, Donovan – musician
Lennon, John – (Beatle), revolutionary, likened unto Christ: "Instant Karma" "Imagine there's
no country, nothing to kill and die for." Lennon was murdered by a hypnorogrammed assassin,
see, Who Killed John Lennon?, Fenton Bresler, 1989. (Sirhan Sirahn, the alleged assassin of
Robert F. Kennedy was also hypnoprogrammed, see evidence here.)
Lilly, Dr. John Cunningham – physician, scientist (electronics, dolphin communication,
sensory deprivation), philosopher, author: "Mind of the Dolphin", "Center of the Cyclone,
"Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Bio-Computer." The movie "Altered States"
was based on Dr. Lilly's experiments.
Love, Courtny -- musician. "Because I was given acid at four, I think my mind was freed. My
father was this shyster who would get money from the government to make LSD, and bad
LSD." Love claims her father may be responsible for an especially toxic batch of acid that
made its way to California's Altamont Music Festival in 1969, believed to be behind the deaths
of four revellers. She explains, "Allegedly the brown acid at Altamont was his. He can't go to
Marin County (near San Francisco), because (he has) a hit out on him."
Manson, Marilyn – musician
Mitchell, Wier – physician, author: "Injuries of the Nerves and their Consequences" – (Peyote)
Moore, Marcia – Sheraton Hotel heiress, author: "Hypersentience", "Journeys into the Bright
World"
Morrison, Jim – lead singer for The Doors realized the absurdity of MONEY and wearing
clothes. See more about Morrison here.
Mothers of Invention – musicians
Mullis, Dr. Kary – Nobel Prize winning DNA expert, and surfer. Mullis received a 1993 Nobel
Prize for single-handedly inventing the PCR reaction, one of the most important advances in
molecular biology ever made. When asked by a reporter what his hobbies were, he replied that
they were surfing, chasing young women, and using hallucinogenic drugs. (Hopefully not all at
the same time.) He said this prior to receiving his prize, and was told by a friend on the
nominating committee that he had been up for consideration but would not receive the prize
until he cooled it with the LSD talk. He did cool it, and the next year got the prize. I got this from
an excerpt from his book "Dancing Through the Mind Field", which was on the Internet a
couple of years ago.
Nicholson, Jack – actor
Nin, Anais – writer, liberated woman
Nolte, Nick -- Actor: In the early Sixties, when Leary and Alpert were sending LSD around, a
professor of photography that I was working with had received a letter from them with
instructions on how to take it. You had to let go and realise they were all hallucinations. That
way you're fine. So we would go out to the desert, take the LSD and lay down in sleeping bags
for eight hours. Ken Kesey said you could walk around on it, but taking acid and going to a
concert became a nightmare. (LSD & MDMA are the best drugs to take at a concert where
there's plenty of room to dance. -- Raquel)
Osmond, Humphry – Psychiatrist, coined word, "psychedelic", gave Huxley mescaline,
experimented with LSD to cure alcoholism, see below
Santana, Carlos – musician, see Hendrix, above.
Shulgin, Alexander – PsychoPharmacologist/Chemist, author of PIHKAL: A Chemical Love
Story and TIHKAL: The Continuation. The titles are acronyms: "Phenethylamines/Tryptamines
I Have Known & Loved". These volumes chronicle the author's psychedelic experiments and
includes recipies for future pioneers. Shulgin received a plaque from the Department of Justice
for his "significant personal efforts to help eliminate drug abuse." His wife, Ann says that he
never planned to make money from his inventions. He didn't mind helping the government put
amphetamine or cocaine dealers in jail. Those drugs were "false in some way," he says. "The
sense of power they give is not real." They were only marginally better than marijuana — in his
opinion "a complete waste of time." [Yes, I prefer LSD to pot but . . .] On a neurochemical level
psychedelics release the same mood modifiers — such as serotonin, dopamine and
norepinephrine —as many antidepressants. Shulgin is no longer calling his compounds
psychedelics. His latest molecules are better described as antidepressants, he says. See 10-
page article about Shulgin in Playboy, March 2004.
Sklar-Weinstein, Arlene – artist
Smith, Adam – you know, the guy who hosts the TV show "Adam Smith's money world" on
public television. In one of his earlier books, "Powers of Mind," he mentions his experiences
with LSD in the context of controlled, scientific experimentation and a bunch of other cool stuff,
like the time he spent in the Arica program, going to Esalen, and time he met Carlos
Castenada.
Smith, Huston – pioneering religious scholar
Stone, Oliver – (director of "Platoon", "JFK", and much more) said on "Later with Bob Costas"
he took a lot of acid after returning from Vietnam. See "CIA Killed JFK" on my website.
Stravinsky – Composer (LSD ??)
Ram Daas – psychologist, author, guru
Rather, Dan – (source: Ladies Home Journal. July 1980.) Rather acts like a zombi now.
The Rolling Stones – (rock-and-roll) Listen to Their Satanic Majesties’ Request
Warhol, Andy – artist (I liked "Factory" workers, Candy Darling & Mora Moynihan)
Watts, Allen – Zen philosopher, master’s degree in religion, doctorate in divinity, author: "The
Joyous Cosmology", "Zen Sticks, Zen Bones", "The Taboo against Knowing Who You Are",
"The Wisdom of Insecurity".
Wiel, Andrew – physician, psychopharmacologist, anthropologist, fire-walker, alternative
health expert, author: "The Natural Mind", "Spontaneous Healing", "8 Weeks to Optimum
Health" marijuana, peyote, yage (S. American hallucinogen) Lives is Tucson AZ too. He writes
that LSD is pharmocologicly safe but not for unstable minds, i.e., you won't die from an
overdose unless you do something stupid.
Wilson, Brian – The Beach Boys
Wozniak, Steve – Apple Computer co-founder
| LSD & The Passion Of Christ |
"Bad trips" on LSD result from the eleven-hour forced introspection that the drug
creates. Most cannot stand to look that closely at themselves, certainly not for that
long. That's why Leary and company were getting complete cures of psychotics after
five or six guided LSD trips, of course, before the government stepped in and outlawed
the drug. Well, this movie ["The Passion of Christ," by Mel Gibson] is like being on acid
for two straight hours, only the subject isn't yourself, it is Jesus Christ. -- Edgar J.
Steele
creates. Most cannot stand to look that closely at themselves, certainly not for that
long. That's why Leary and company were getting complete cures of psychotics after
five or six guided LSD trips, of course, before the government stepped in and outlawed
the drug. Well, this movie ["The Passion of Christ," by Mel Gibson] is like being on acid
for two straight hours, only the subject isn't yourself, it is Jesus Christ. -- Edgar J.
Steele
| 666isMONEY LSD info vault LSD Encylopaedia Chemical Salvation: LSD! (A comic book story) A bunch of good LSD quotes from famous people and you Contact 666isMONEY |
The Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, on the grounds of the state’s Spring Grove
Hospital near Baltimore, is better known in certain scientific circles as Spring Groove. The
mellow-yellow building, custom designed in 1969 for LSD research, is set among dark Victorian
asylum structures with barred windows, a symbol of the bright hopes of the dawn of
psychopharmacology. Behind its plane brick walls, in special suites with kitchens and
bathrooms that allowed for lengthy therapeutic “trips,” researchers tried to harness LSD to
explore the workings of the brain and transform the treatment of mental illness. These days
Spring Groove houses schizophrenia research but no LSD.
The scientists who had been so sure that the most potent hallucinogen ever known would
quickly prove its therapeutic utility found they had a tiger by the tail. Some zealously promoted
the drug as a psychiatric cure-all – “God in a pill.” Others, alarmed by some scientific misuse
and massive public abuse, insisted that LSD was dangerous and scientifically worthless. A third
group of neuroscientists quietly stated that LSD was a fascinating if unruly research tool that
required a lot more study. These moderate voices were drowned out by the outcry against the
burgeoning drug-abuse epidemic of the early ‘70s. The government successfully stopped
human experimentation with hallucinogens in the lab – though not in the street. By the mid ‘70s,
LSD seemed destined to go down in history not as a psychiatric wonder drug but as the love
philter of Woodstock and the Grateful Dead.
Some researchers and drug-abuse agency officials maintain that enough is known about
hallucinogens to keep them out of the lab as well as off the streets. “Researchers had high
hopes for LSD as a magic short cut to psychological insight,” says Dr. Jerome Jaffe, associate
director for treatment policy at the Federal Office of Treatment Improvement. “Unfortunately, its
therapeutic benefits were outweighed by serious long lasting problems, such as schizophrenia-
like syndromes and depression. At the end of the road, LSD research showed us that the drug
causes such serious problems that it has no promise as a therapeutic agent.” LSD, like
marijuana and heroin, is a schedule 1 drug; no human research can be done without official
government approval.
Yet other scientists say that human research with hallucinogens, still severely limited, could be
productive and will probably return as more and more sophisticated compounds, both legal and
illegal, appear. "I think it’s likely that careful, systematic research in humans will be sanctioned
in the next decade," says Dr. Daniel X. Freedman, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at
UCLA. During 30 years of research at prestigious institutions, including the National Institute of
Mental Health (NIMH). Yale and the University of Chicago, he has employed LSD to study brain
function, the mechanics of perception and the fine neurochemical line between sanity and
madness.
Such research, Freeman says, could provide unique insights. “Is LSD a pathway to
understanding the brain and behavior? It sure as hell is,” he says. “Did we have that pathway
before? We sure as hell didn’t.” Although scientists have learned quite a bit about how LSD
affects neurons, they still have only an underground knowledge of its effects on people,
according to Freedman. “LSD reduces the constancy’s in the way subjects deal with drab
reality, and so creates the opportunity to consider new, more adaptive approaches to life and to
rearrange values and attitudes. That’s the point of psychotherapy, to offer the patient the
means of new learning, and it’s possible that drugs could help. That’s what should be explored
scientifically – not whether such a drug is good or bad.”
The idea of employing LSD to attack problems such as neurosis and addiction was a response
to a problem plainly evident by the ‘60s: A great many people need psychotherapy, but therapy
is lengthy, costly and often ineffective. An adult finds it hard to change because character
structure is established very early, at a deep emotional level that’s hard to access later. LSD
was regarded as a chemical means to produce the fresh, baby-like perception that is necessary
to inaugurate new approaches and habits.
“LSD makes a person very suggestible, and that’s the royal road to wisdom,” says Dr. Timothy
Leary, a former Harvard professor and personality expert who’s now a software designer in Los
Angeles. Before his "High Priest" phase, in a project conducted with the Massachusetts
department of corrections, Leary used psilocybin, an LSD-like drug, to provide prisoners with a
powerful "born again" catalyst for behavioral change that would reduce their 70% rate of
recidivism. Before long, Boston criminals were indeed talking about love and oneness but the
promising research was cut short by Leary's own transformation from scientist to guru.
Before Leary became guru, he co-authored a report showing that psychotherapy was a hoax:
those receiving psychotherapy were no better off than those who didn’t, one-third improved,
one-third remained the same and one-third got worse.]
“Using LSD to produce vulnerability is okay only if the set and setting for the experience are
benign,” Leary adds. A malignant example: From the ‘50s to early ‘70s, the CIA tested the drug’s
brainwashing utility in 149 projects at universities, hospitals and prisons; in 39 of them, LSD
was often given without the recipients’ knowledge or consent. [In fact, every spook in the CIA,
including President Bush has taken LSD.] Leary was far from alone in hoping that LSD could
help fight addiction. William James, the father of modern American psychology, said the best
cure for dipsomania is religomania and the nondenominational peak experience produced by
LSD seemed to many researchers to have great potential for treating drug and alcohol problems.
Dr. Herbert Kleber, now the federal government’s deputy drug czar, did research on LSD early
in his career; he says the manufacturer pulled the drug from the market before he could finish.
“After spending another 20 years on addiction,” he says, “it’s clear to me that religious-type
experience can be very helpful in treatment – after all, that’s the basis of AA. There are two
problems with using LSD this way. The instant mysticism associated with LSD isn’t effective in
the long run and when you try to assess why such an experience helps in concrete terms – a
basic requirement in science – it’s very difficult. Some people were helped by LSD therapy
short-term, some weren’t – It’s like many drug treatments.”
It’s especially like psychotherapy. as Freedman says of both LSD and talk treatment, “Do they
produce an experience? Yes. Are they effective? Maybe.” He thinks it’s pointless to subject the
same criteria the FDA uses to evaluate medicines such as antipsychotics and antidepressants,
drugs that relieve symptoms of psychiatric diseases in predictable, measurable ways. “The
search for self-knowledge and mastery is a different thing from relieving symptoms,” says
Freedman. “A different category and mode of regulation should be established for agents that
enhance insight and reflection.”
At this point, many researchers interested in hallucinogens are unable to study the drugs’
pharmacological effects because of politics and red tape. Dr. David Nichols, a professor of
medicinal chemistry at Purdue, says, “LSD was the new technology for psychiatry, and it
remains untapped. As with many drugs, including penicillin, second and third-generation drugs,
could have improved efficacy. That the research was stopped – and not the abuse – is tragic
because LSD belongs in a medical setting, not the back seat of a car.”LSD’s oh-wow effects on
perception were stumbled upon accidentally by Albert Hofmann, a distinguished pharmacologist
at the venerable Swiss drug company Sandoz. One day in 1943, he ingested 250-millionths of a
gram of Lysergic acid diethylamide-25 – a compound he was researching for use as a
respiratory stimulant – and had an extraordinary bicycle ride home. As Levine says, “When such
a minute amount of an agent – LSD is measured in millionths of a gram – produces such a
powerful experience, you assume it must be biologically significant.”
Scientists initially hoped LSD might be especially good for unraveling the mystery of
schizophrenia. They first associated the drugs effects with the illnesses symptoms, then found
LSD’s molecular structure resembles that of serotonin, a brain chemical that helps regulate
stimuli to the brain and responds from it. Researchers speculated that schizophrenia might be
caused by a neurochemical malfunction – perhaps too little or too much serotonin – that
somehow produced chronic LSD-like affects.
Although in the long run LSD neither cured or even accurately mimicked schizophrenia, the
studies strengthened the ides that a chemical mechanism could underlie that disease, says
Freedman.[Drs. Humphry Osmond and John Smythies published an essay in 1951 called A
New Approach to Schizophrenia, they theorized that anxiety caused the release of a
hallucinogenic adrenaline (the molecular structures of mescaline and adrenaline are similar)
leading to more stress and deeper levels of psychosis and withdrawal from “reality.” They also
stimulated research chemists to sythensize adrenochrone, a synthetic decomposition of
adrenaline that mimics psychosis. Osmond and Smythies later became very enthusiastic about
LSD.]
[Bruce A. Friedemann believes that persons born breech may act schizophrenic because of
different levels of blood in the brain. In the womb, the blood flows to the head in a “normal” birth
(96% of the time) whereas, the blood in a person born breech goes to the heart. Breech Birth &
Personality]
The effort to illuminate the serotonin system, in which LSD plays a unique role, is one of the
hottest and potentially most lucrative areas of pharmacology. [The amino-acid tryptophane was
banned from over-the-counter sale because it inexpensively effected serotonin without a Dr’s
paternalistic prescription for expensive, dangerous tranquilizers and sleeping pills.] New classes
of diet and sleeping pills, tranquilizers and antidepressants aren’t the only possible by-products,
says Jacobs: “If the times were such that people felt mood-altering drugs other than alcohol
were okay, chemists could supply specific compounds with few side effects to make them
insightful, mellow or whatever.”
“When we talk about the “psychedelic experience,” all we’re really talking about is the
functioning of equipment in the brain that permits consciousness of any kind.” says Freedman.
“You can only have the LSD trip that’s already in your head – it’s a physiological event. Rather
than adding something foreign to the brain, LSD releases some of the brain’s normally
suppressed latent capacities, rearranges what’s there, increases sensitivity to stimuli usually
ignored and turns up the volume. The breaks are off and certain neurological systems function
hypermaximally.”
When asked how a person who has never taken a hallucinogen can imagine what it’s like,
scientists often bring up babies. According to Jacobs, a baby probably couldn’t distinguish
between such a drug-induced state and normal perception.
The LSD experience is full of striking variations on what’s expected. The drug heightens the
emotions and senses to unprecedented intensities. Vision is the prime example: colors brighten,
details sharpen and the empty space around objects throbs with a life of its own.
In contrast to most heavily abused drugs, LSD doesn’t invite compulsive use. In fact, if it’s taken
three or more days in a row, it stops producing its effects. Moreover, the intensity and cerebral
nature of those effects are grueling even when gorgeous. As one researcher puts it, ‘Taking
LSD is like being grabbed by the collar and thrown into a psychic wall for eight hours.’ Not
surprisingly, surveys of volunteers for legal LSD experiments showed that the well balanced [or
ignorantly blissful] found the drug interesting but only wanted to try it once, twice or three times.
[LSD is Sacrament.]
Hospital near Baltimore, is better known in certain scientific circles as Spring Groove. The
mellow-yellow building, custom designed in 1969 for LSD research, is set among dark Victorian
asylum structures with barred windows, a symbol of the bright hopes of the dawn of
psychopharmacology. Behind its plane brick walls, in special suites with kitchens and
bathrooms that allowed for lengthy therapeutic “trips,” researchers tried to harness LSD to
explore the workings of the brain and transform the treatment of mental illness. These days
Spring Groove houses schizophrenia research but no LSD.
The scientists who had been so sure that the most potent hallucinogen ever known would
quickly prove its therapeutic utility found they had a tiger by the tail. Some zealously promoted
the drug as a psychiatric cure-all – “God in a pill.” Others, alarmed by some scientific misuse
and massive public abuse, insisted that LSD was dangerous and scientifically worthless. A third
group of neuroscientists quietly stated that LSD was a fascinating if unruly research tool that
required a lot more study. These moderate voices were drowned out by the outcry against the
burgeoning drug-abuse epidemic of the early ‘70s. The government successfully stopped
human experimentation with hallucinogens in the lab – though not in the street. By the mid ‘70s,
LSD seemed destined to go down in history not as a psychiatric wonder drug but as the love
philter of Woodstock and the Grateful Dead.
Some researchers and drug-abuse agency officials maintain that enough is known about
hallucinogens to keep them out of the lab as well as off the streets. “Researchers had high
hopes for LSD as a magic short cut to psychological insight,” says Dr. Jerome Jaffe, associate
director for treatment policy at the Federal Office of Treatment Improvement. “Unfortunately, its
therapeutic benefits were outweighed by serious long lasting problems, such as schizophrenia-
like syndromes and depression. At the end of the road, LSD research showed us that the drug
causes such serious problems that it has no promise as a therapeutic agent.” LSD, like
marijuana and heroin, is a schedule 1 drug; no human research can be done without official
government approval.
Yet other scientists say that human research with hallucinogens, still severely limited, could be
productive and will probably return as more and more sophisticated compounds, both legal and
illegal, appear. "I think it’s likely that careful, systematic research in humans will be sanctioned
in the next decade," says Dr. Daniel X. Freedman, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at
UCLA. During 30 years of research at prestigious institutions, including the National Institute of
Mental Health (NIMH). Yale and the University of Chicago, he has employed LSD to study brain
function, the mechanics of perception and the fine neurochemical line between sanity and
madness.
Such research, Freeman says, could provide unique insights. “Is LSD a pathway to
understanding the brain and behavior? It sure as hell is,” he says. “Did we have that pathway
before? We sure as hell didn’t.” Although scientists have learned quite a bit about how LSD
affects neurons, they still have only an underground knowledge of its effects on people,
according to Freedman. “LSD reduces the constancy’s in the way subjects deal with drab
reality, and so creates the opportunity to consider new, more adaptive approaches to life and to
rearrange values and attitudes. That’s the point of psychotherapy, to offer the patient the
means of new learning, and it’s possible that drugs could help. That’s what should be explored
scientifically – not whether such a drug is good or bad.”
The idea of employing LSD to attack problems such as neurosis and addiction was a response
to a problem plainly evident by the ‘60s: A great many people need psychotherapy, but therapy
is lengthy, costly and often ineffective. An adult finds it hard to change because character
structure is established very early, at a deep emotional level that’s hard to access later. LSD
was regarded as a chemical means to produce the fresh, baby-like perception that is necessary
to inaugurate new approaches and habits.
“LSD makes a person very suggestible, and that’s the royal road to wisdom,” says Dr. Timothy
Leary, a former Harvard professor and personality expert who’s now a software designer in Los
Angeles. Before his "High Priest" phase, in a project conducted with the Massachusetts
department of corrections, Leary used psilocybin, an LSD-like drug, to provide prisoners with a
powerful "born again" catalyst for behavioral change that would reduce their 70% rate of
recidivism. Before long, Boston criminals were indeed talking about love and oneness but the
promising research was cut short by Leary's own transformation from scientist to guru.
Before Leary became guru, he co-authored a report showing that psychotherapy was a hoax:
those receiving psychotherapy were no better off than those who didn’t, one-third improved,
one-third remained the same and one-third got worse.]
“Using LSD to produce vulnerability is okay only if the set and setting for the experience are
benign,” Leary adds. A malignant example: From the ‘50s to early ‘70s, the CIA tested the drug’s
brainwashing utility in 149 projects at universities, hospitals and prisons; in 39 of them, LSD
was often given without the recipients’ knowledge or consent. [In fact, every spook in the CIA,
including President Bush has taken LSD.] Leary was far from alone in hoping that LSD could
help fight addiction. William James, the father of modern American psychology, said the best
cure for dipsomania is religomania and the nondenominational peak experience produced by
LSD seemed to many researchers to have great potential for treating drug and alcohol problems.
Dr. Herbert Kleber, now the federal government’s deputy drug czar, did research on LSD early
in his career; he says the manufacturer pulled the drug from the market before he could finish.
“After spending another 20 years on addiction,” he says, “it’s clear to me that religious-type
experience can be very helpful in treatment – after all, that’s the basis of AA. There are two
problems with using LSD this way. The instant mysticism associated with LSD isn’t effective in
the long run and when you try to assess why such an experience helps in concrete terms – a
basic requirement in science – it’s very difficult. Some people were helped by LSD therapy
short-term, some weren’t – It’s like many drug treatments.”
It’s especially like psychotherapy. as Freedman says of both LSD and talk treatment, “Do they
produce an experience? Yes. Are they effective? Maybe.” He thinks it’s pointless to subject the
same criteria the FDA uses to evaluate medicines such as antipsychotics and antidepressants,
drugs that relieve symptoms of psychiatric diseases in predictable, measurable ways. “The
search for self-knowledge and mastery is a different thing from relieving symptoms,” says
Freedman. “A different category and mode of regulation should be established for agents that
enhance insight and reflection.”
At this point, many researchers interested in hallucinogens are unable to study the drugs’
pharmacological effects because of politics and red tape. Dr. David Nichols, a professor of
medicinal chemistry at Purdue, says, “LSD was the new technology for psychiatry, and it
remains untapped. As with many drugs, including penicillin, second and third-generation drugs,
could have improved efficacy. That the research was stopped – and not the abuse – is tragic
because LSD belongs in a medical setting, not the back seat of a car.”LSD’s oh-wow effects on
perception were stumbled upon accidentally by Albert Hofmann, a distinguished pharmacologist
at the venerable Swiss drug company Sandoz. One day in 1943, he ingested 250-millionths of a
gram of Lysergic acid diethylamide-25 – a compound he was researching for use as a
respiratory stimulant – and had an extraordinary bicycle ride home. As Levine says, “When such
a minute amount of an agent – LSD is measured in millionths of a gram – produces such a
powerful experience, you assume it must be biologically significant.”
Scientists initially hoped LSD might be especially good for unraveling the mystery of
schizophrenia. They first associated the drugs effects with the illnesses symptoms, then found
LSD’s molecular structure resembles that of serotonin, a brain chemical that helps regulate
stimuli to the brain and responds from it. Researchers speculated that schizophrenia might be
caused by a neurochemical malfunction – perhaps too little or too much serotonin – that
somehow produced chronic LSD-like affects.
Although in the long run LSD neither cured or even accurately mimicked schizophrenia, the
studies strengthened the ides that a chemical mechanism could underlie that disease, says
Freedman.[Drs. Humphry Osmond and John Smythies published an essay in 1951 called A
New Approach to Schizophrenia, they theorized that anxiety caused the release of a
hallucinogenic adrenaline (the molecular structures of mescaline and adrenaline are similar)
leading to more stress and deeper levels of psychosis and withdrawal from “reality.” They also
stimulated research chemists to sythensize adrenochrone, a synthetic decomposition of
adrenaline that mimics psychosis. Osmond and Smythies later became very enthusiastic about
LSD.]
[Bruce A. Friedemann believes that persons born breech may act schizophrenic because of
different levels of blood in the brain. In the womb, the blood flows to the head in a “normal” birth
(96% of the time) whereas, the blood in a person born breech goes to the heart. Breech Birth &
Personality]
The effort to illuminate the serotonin system, in which LSD plays a unique role, is one of the
hottest and potentially most lucrative areas of pharmacology. [The amino-acid tryptophane was
banned from over-the-counter sale because it inexpensively effected serotonin without a Dr’s
paternalistic prescription for expensive, dangerous tranquilizers and sleeping pills.] New classes
of diet and sleeping pills, tranquilizers and antidepressants aren’t the only possible by-products,
says Jacobs: “If the times were such that people felt mood-altering drugs other than alcohol
were okay, chemists could supply specific compounds with few side effects to make them
insightful, mellow or whatever.”
“When we talk about the “psychedelic experience,” all we’re really talking about is the
functioning of equipment in the brain that permits consciousness of any kind.” says Freedman.
“You can only have the LSD trip that’s already in your head – it’s a physiological event. Rather
than adding something foreign to the brain, LSD releases some of the brain’s normally
suppressed latent capacities, rearranges what’s there, increases sensitivity to stimuli usually
ignored and turns up the volume. The breaks are off and certain neurological systems function
hypermaximally.”
When asked how a person who has never taken a hallucinogen can imagine what it’s like,
scientists often bring up babies. According to Jacobs, a baby probably couldn’t distinguish
between such a drug-induced state and normal perception.
The LSD experience is full of striking variations on what’s expected. The drug heightens the
emotions and senses to unprecedented intensities. Vision is the prime example: colors brighten,
details sharpen and the empty space around objects throbs with a life of its own.
In contrast to most heavily abused drugs, LSD doesn’t invite compulsive use. In fact, if it’s taken
three or more days in a row, it stops producing its effects. Moreover, the intensity and cerebral
nature of those effects are grueling even when gorgeous. As one researcher puts it, ‘Taking
LSD is like being grabbed by the collar and thrown into a psychic wall for eight hours.’ Not
surprisingly, surveys of volunteers for legal LSD experiments showed that the well balanced [or
ignorantly blissful] found the drug interesting but only wanted to try it once, twice or three times.
[LSD is Sacrament.]