Book Read Free

The Harvard Psychedelic Club

Page 26

by Don Lattin


  Alpert’s first trip and, 54–55

  Altamont Speedway concert and, 174–75

  Andrew Weil and, 26, 57–58, 59–60, 86–87, 144–45, 187

  appearance, 45, 46, 47, 122, 123

  arrests and convictions for possession of marijuana, 119, 132, 170, 172, 175

  autobiography, 14, 82, 187

  Beatles and, 2, 174

  in Berkeley, 13–14, 133

  childhood and early years, 15–17

  children of, 102, 125, 132, 202–3

  Concord Prison Project, 61–62, 68–72

  consciousness-altering techniques, non-drug, 112

  convictions for marijuana possession, 175

  cremation and ashes, 203

  criticism of, 141, 142–43

  culture of the 1960s and, 85

  David McClelland and, 12–13, 20

  death of, 15, 196–98, 201, 202, 203, 219

  drug use, multiple (1973), 198

  education and clinical work, 16–18

  in Europe (1958–59), 19–20

  “Existential Transactionalism,” 69

  first wife’s suicide, 13–14, 19, 102

  G. Gordon Liddy and, 132–33

  Good Friday Experiment, 62

  as government informant, 199–200, 201

  government persecution of, 109–10, 111, 172

  governor of California campaign, 2, 173

  as guru/messianic figure, 46, 84, 106, 108, 119, 121, 127, 202, 218

  at Harvard, 52–53

  Harvard Crimson articles on, 86–99

  Harvard firing of, 62, 96–97, 99

  Harvard hiring of (1959), 20

  Harvard Psilocybin Project, 41, 53, 57

  heroin and, 178–79

  historical importance of, 215–22

  home as base for psychedelic trips, Newton, Massachusetts, 41, 48, 51, 70, 78–79, 102

  Human Be-In and, 119–20

  Huston Smith and, 2, 36, 46–50

  impact of psychedelics on, 3, 44, 69

  India trip (1965), 169–70

  influences on, 112–13

  Internet, cyberspace, and, 196–97

  The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality, 19, 20

  introduction to psychedelics, 1–2, 37–44

  Joanna Harcourt-Smith and, 198, 199

  kicked out of Mexico and Caribbean islands, 111

  lecture series, 133

  legal problems, 132, 172–77, 198–200

  lifestyle, 13, 216

  LSD and, 108, 115–17, 119, 121, 123–26, 174, 177, 198, 199

  LSD conference, San Francisco, (1966), 119–20, 139–40

  marriages, 14, 17

  militancy, 171–72

  at Millbrook, 102, 111–18, 131–33

  Nena von Schlebrügge, third wife, 114, 116, 170

  Paul Lee and, 77–78

  Peggy Hitchcock and, 102–3

  personality and character, 19, 46, 57, 58, 82–83, 84, 106, 174, 203–4

  Philip Slater on, 214

  Playboy interview, 123–25

  political activism/social movements and, 138–39

  prison escape, 169, 170–71

  psychedelic philosophy/mission, 44, 46, 49, 50, 52, 82, 83, 88, 105, 119, 121, 125, 133

  Ralph Waldo Emerson and, 105, 106

  as revolutionary, 50, 61, 97, 202

  Richard Alpert, early years, 38, 51–56

  Richard Alpert, estrangement from, 7, 116–18, 128–29, 131

  Richard Alpert, later years, 74

  Richard Alpert, reconciliation with, 201

  Richard Alpert’s homosexuality, condemnation of, 7

  Rosemary Woodruff, fourth wife, 132, 133, 171, 172, 177, 199

  in San Francisco, 119–26

  sanity questioned, 198–200

  sex and sexuality, 13–14

  songs by popular groups and, 2

  spirituality/religious experience on psychedelics, 73

  Switzerland, exile and arrest (1971), 169, 176–79

  testimony before Congress, 119

  “test pilots” for, 54

  thirty-year prison sentence, 123, 126

  as The Trickster, 2, 82, 125, 204, 214, 215

  trip chamber built, Kenwood house, 102–3

  tripping protocol, 47, 70–71

  “turn on, tune in, drop out,” 2, 105, 119, 121, 142–43, 218

  Walter Pahnke and, 74

  in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, 99, 102, 107–10

  Leary, Timothy, Sr., 15–16

  Lee, Paul, 76, 77–79, 96, 113–15, 137–40, 197, 197, 203

  “Legend of a Mind, The” (song), 2

  Lemle, Mickey, 192

  Lennon, John, 2, 174

  Levine, Stephen, 120

  Liddy, G. Gordon, 132–33

  Life magazine, 38, 140, 165, 213

  Linkletter, Art, 141

  Linkletter, Diane, 141

  Litwin, George, 197

  Llano del Rio, 32–33

  Lonely Crowd, The (Riesman), 26

  Look magazine, 95

  Los Angeles Veterans Administration Hospital, 66

  Lovell, Vik, 8–9

  Love Pageant Rally, 135, 136

  LSD (Alpert, Cohen, and Schiller), 140

  LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), 3, 62–64, 102, 136–40 accounts of effects, 62–63, 108–9, 174, 223–26

  “Acid Tests,” 135, 202

  American use of, 217

  bad trips, 134–35, 225–26

  behavioral change and, 115

  Caroline Winter and, 130

  cautions about, 202, 227

  CIA research on, 110n, 115, 211–13

  conference, San Francisco (1966), 119–20, 139–40

  conference, Switzerland (1993), 202

  countercultural revolution and, 101

  criminalization of, 80, 112, 136, 141

  fears about and dangers of, 140–41

  federal ban on research, 125

  flashbacks, 141, 146, 226

  Humphrey Osmond research on, 64, 67

  Huston Smith’s cautions and, 119–20

  Ken Kesey and, 8, 135, 202

  Leary Playboy interview, 124–25

  Maharaji and, 152

  Millbrook estate, bowling alley LSD experiment, 116

  Millbrook estate, use at, 115–17

  orange sunshine, 127

  Owsley Stanley as producer of, 128, 135

  Philip Slater and, 213

  psychosis and, 212–13, 226–27

  research resumed on, 217

  Richard Alpert and, 108, 115–17, 119, 202, 227

  Rinkel-Hyde research, 211–12

  sexual revolution and, 124–25, 126

  Timothy Leary and, 108, 115–17, 119, 121, 123–26, 174, 177, 198, 199, 202, 227

  Lusanne, Switzerland, 169, 176–79

  magic mushrooms, 3, 63 accounts of effects, 39, 40–41

  Andrew Weil and, 165–67

  Frank Barron and, 20, 201

  R. Gordon Wasson and, 38–39, 213

  Timothy Leary’s discovery of, Mexico, 1–2, 37–41, 51, 69

  Maher, Brendan, 88

  Manchurian Candidate, The (film), 115

  marijuana, 92, 114, 125, 178, 198, 226 Andrew Weil’s research, and, 144–48

  “Leary Biscuits,” 197

  raid of Millbrook estate and, 132–33

  Richard Alpert and, 8

  Timothy Leary’s arrests and convictions for possession, 119, 132, 170, 172, 175

  Maslow, Abraham, 18

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 59, 61 Aldous Huxley lectures at, 2, 35, 44

  Huston Smith at, 1, 35, 51, 137, 160

  McClelland, David, 7, 9, 12–13, 20–21, 38, 44 at Center for Personality Research, 9

  department meeting about Alpert/Leary research (1962), 88–89

  psychedelics, opposition to, 44

  McLuhan, Marshall, 123

  McMillan, Byron, 175

  “Meat-Eating, 230-Pound Doctor Is Now
a 174-Pound Vegetarian” (New York Times), 147

  meditation, 31, 45, 112, 183, 228 “body scan,” 155

  center, Massachusetts, 157

  Ram Dass and popularization of, 219

  Zen zazen, 159–63

  Medium Is the Message, The (McLuhan), 123

  Mellon, Andrew, 102

  Mellon, William Larimer, 102

  Mendez, Eva, 39

  mescaline, 24–25, 36, 46, 58, 64, 65 Aldous Huxley and, 25, 56, 65, 213

  Andrew Weil and, 24–25, 58–59, 93, 85, 144

  Metzner, Ralph, 68–72, 73, 82, 101–2, 107–9, 113, 116, 117, 197, 197, 227

  Meyer, Cord, 109, 110

  Meyer, Mary Pinchot, 109–10

  Millbrook estate, New York, 102, 111–18, 131 final year, 131–33

  Gurdjieffian exercises employed at, 113

  Richard Alpert’s bowling alley LSD experiment, 116

  mindfulness, 155

  “Molecular Revolution, The” (Leary), 139

  Moody Blues, 2

  Mothers of Invention, 128

  Mount Zion Hospital, 143, 145

  Murray, Harry, 110n

  mysticism, 31, 33, 42, 43, 51, 79–80 Andrew Weil and, 58

  Good Friday Experiment and, 62, 73–81

  Huston Smith and, 34, 44–45, 47, 209

  Huston Smith on psychedelics and, 141–43

  mystical experience and psychedelic

  drug effects, categories of, 79

  non-drug approaches to, 152, 218–19

  Ralph Metzner and, 70, 108–9

  Richard Alpert and, 55, 158

  Timothy Leary and, 57

  Timothy Leary’s desire to replace psychotic model with mystical model, 77–78

  “Mysticism in the Lab” (Time), 79–80

  Natural Mind, The (Weil), 22, 95, 147–48, 163

  Nature, 146

  Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaji), 149–53, 156–57, 189

  Nesbit, Lynn, 183

  New Age movement, 190, 228

  New England Journal of Medicine, 145–46

  Newsweek, 86

  Newton, Massachusetts, 7, 106 complaints filed against Alpert, 99–100

  Grey Cliffe Road commune, 104, 106

  Richard Alpert’s Kenwood Avenue

  home in, 99–104, 106

  Timothy Leary’s home in, 41, 48, 51, 70, 78–79, 93, 102

  New York Times, 145, 147, 148

  Nietzsche, Friedrich, 138–39

  Nin, Anaïs, 176

  Nisker, Wes “Scoop,” 154, 173, 173, 174

  nitrous oxide, 43, 197

  Nixon, Richard, 61, 85, 133, 147, 163, 214

  Oaxaca, Mexico, 165

  Ohio State University, 18

  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Kesey), 8

  Ono, Yoko, 174

  Orlovsky, Lafcadio, 102

  Orlovsky, Peter, 102

  Osmond, Humphrey, 46, 64–65, 67, 68, 85

  Osmond, Jane, 64–65

  Pahnke, Walter, 73–82

  Pain, Sex and Time (Heard), 30, 31

  Paisner, Bruce, 92–93

  peace movement, 121, 171, 221

  Perennial Philosophy, The (Huxley), 33

  peyote, 58, 64, 164

  Pickett, Wilson, 126

  Pine, Richard, 184

  Plants of God, The (Schultes and Hofmann), 164

  Playboy magazine, 123–25

  P. O. Frisco newspaper, 136

  Powers, Tom, 67

  Prabhavananda, Swami, 31

  Presnell, Madison, 68

  Principles of Psychology, The (James), 43

  psilocybin, 3, 63, 92, 102 Alpert’s first trip on, 54–56

  Concord Prison Project and, 68–72

  Good Friday Experiment, 73–81, 84

  Harvard Psilocybin Project, 41, 48, 53, 54, 57–58, 59, 60, 61, 85, 86–99, 104, 110n, 129, 196, 197

  Huston and Kendra Smith’s first trip on, 48–51

  mushrooms (see magic mushrooms)

  synthesized form, 53–54

  Psychedelic Experience, The (Alpert, Leary, and Metzner), 70–71, 129

  psychedelics, 2, 97, 108. See also specific drugs; specific people account of Albert Hofmann’s ingestion of LSD (1944), 62–63

  account of Andrew Weil’s mescaline experience, 58–59

  account of Bill Wilson’s LSD trip, 66–67

  account of Don Lattin’s LSD trips, 223–26

  account of Huston Smith’s first encounter with, 48–50

  account of Paul Lee’s first trip, 78–79

  account of R. Gordon Wasson’s magic mushroom ingestion, 39

  account of Ralph Metzner’s trips, 70, 108–9

  account of Timothy Leary’s first

  encounter with, 40–41

  accounts of participants in Good Friday Project, 80–81

  antinomianism and, 139

  Claremont Hotel, discussion on psychedelics (1990), 202

  criminalization of LSD, 80, 112, 136, 141

  distortion of space-time, 48, 57, 79, 224

  DMT, 102, 132

  etymology, 64, 65–66

  as “heaven and hell” drugs, 49

  Humphrey Osmond research on, 46, 64

  Huston Smith break from Leary/Alpert on LSD, 137–40

  impact on the way Americans think

  about mind, body, and spirit, 3, 21, 41, 220–22

  LSD, 3, 8, 62–64, 66–67, 102, 119, 134–35, 136–40, 202

  magic mushrooms, 1–2, 37–41, 51, 63, 165–67

  mescaline, 24–25, 36, 46, 56, 58–59, 64, 85, 93, 144, 213

  mystical experience and drug effects, categories, 79

  mysticism and, 48, 51, 55, 57, 58, 62, 70, 73, 108–9

  nature of reality and, 214–15

  out-of-body experiences and, 48–49, 55, 63

  peyote, 58, 64, 164

  political activism/social movements and, 138–39

  psilocybin, 3, 41, 53–54, 63, 92, 102

  psychology and, 41, 44, 52

  salvia divinorum, 217

  “set and setting,” 70–71, 227

  Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert’s

  research, Millbrook, 112

  Timothy Leary backlash and crack-down on drug research, 217

  Timothy Leary’s rules for tripping, 47

  transformation and, 109, 164–65, 227, 228

  in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, 107–10

  psychology behaviorism, 18, 19, 69–70

  consciousness-altering techniques, non-drug, 22, 112

  consciousness research, 202

  critics of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert’s drug research, 19, 44, 87–90

  Good Friday Experiment, 73–81

  “the halo effect,” 72

  Harvard’s history as center for inquiry, 42–43, 89–90

  humanist movement, 18

  “the Leary Circle” personality test, 19

  LSD and alcoholism treatment, 66–67, 115

  LSD experiments and, 64, 66, 115, 217

  post–World War II, 17–18

  roles and game playing, 69

  Timothy Leary’s desire to replace

  psychotic model with mystical

  model, 77–78

  Timothy Leary’s early years in, 18–19

  Timothy Leary’s psychedelic approach, 41, 44, 52

  William James and, 43

  Pursuit of Loneliness, The (Slater), 213

  Pusey, Nathan, 90, 93

  Ram Dass. See Alpert, Richard (Ram Dass)

  Ramparts magazine, 121

  “Reaching Out” program, 191–92

  Reagan, Ronald, 2, 173, 175, 214

  Religions of Man, The (now The World’s Religions [Smith]), 33, 44 fiftieth anniversary of publication, 204–5

  “Religious Significance of Artificially Induced Religious Experience, The” (Smith), 137

  Relman, Arnold S., 184–85

  Richards, Keith, 178

  Richardson, Allan, 38–39

  Riesman, David, 26


  Riggs, Michael (Bhagavan Das), 149–50

  Rinkel, Max, 211–12

  Ripley, George, 105

  Roddenberry, Gene, 203

  Rogers, Carl, 18

  Rolling Stones, 127, 178, 183 Altamont Speedway concert, 174–75

  Exile on Main Street, 178

  heroin and, 178, 179

  Roosevelt, Franklin D., 85

  Roshi, Goto. See Goto Roshi

  Rossman, Michael, 190

  Rubin, Jerry, 119, 199

  Rush, Benjamin, 217

  Russin, Joseph, 85, 86, 92, 93, 97

  Salinger, J. D., 23

  salvia divinorum, 217

  Salzberg, Sharon, 154

  samadhi, 152

  Sandoz Laboratories, 53–54, 90, 202

  San Francisco Andrew Weil in (1968), 143–47

  drug culture and, 119–48

  Fillmore Auditorium, 126–27, 128, 129–30

  Haight-Ashbury, 129

  Human Be-In, 119–21, 135

  Love Pageant Rally, 135, 136

  LSD conference (1966), 119–20, 139–40

  Merry Pranksters and, 8

  music scene, 127

  psychedelic celebration in, 139

  Richard Alpert in Haight-Ashbury, 118, 126–30

  Summer of Love, 136

  Timothy Leary in, 119–26

  Trips Festival, 135

  westward exodus to, 129, 143

  San Francisco Chronicle, 121–22, 133, 145

  San Francisco Oracle, 120, 136

  San Francisco Zen Center, 139

  satori, 159

  Satprakashananda, Swami, 33–34

  Schiller, Lawrence, 140

  Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr., 85

  Schultes, Richard Evans, 164

  Secular City, The (Cox), 78

  Seeger, Pete, 139

  Separate Reality, A (Castaneda), 164

  Seva Foundation, 157, 189–91

  sexual revolution, 124–25, 126

  sixties, decade of. See American life/culture

  Skinner, B. F., 69–70

  Slater, Philip, 212–14

  Slick, Grace, 101

  Smith, Huston, 1, 27–36, 29, 44–51, 73–81, 85, 137–43, 142, 159–63, 204–9 Aldous Huxley and, 2, 32–33, 35–36

  altered consciousness, first experience, 28

  autobiography, 207

  childhood and early years, 27–30

 

‹ Prev