by Andy Roberts
Though the drug’s intensity had begun to wane by the time the doctor arrived Hofmann was still unable to formulate a coherent sentence. It was left to the laboratory assistant to give an account of what had happened as the doctor gave Hofmann a check up. Other than dilated pupils the doctor could find nothing wrong with his patient, who he ordered to bed. Once in bed, with the drug starting to wear off, Hofmann lost his fear of insanity and began to enjoy the experience. A state of synaesthesia ensued, with auditory sensations transforming into visual imagery of seemingly endless shape and colour. When his wife returned Hofmann was lucid enough to tell her what had happened after which, exhausted, he finally fell asleep.
When he awoke the following morning Hofmann was tired but suffused with a sensation of well-being. His senses appeared highly tuned: “When I later walked out into the garden, in which the sun shone now after a spring rain, everything glistened and sparkled in a fresh light. The world was as if newly created. All my senses vibrated in a condition of highest sensitivity, which persisted for the entire day.”6
Hofmann reflected on his extraordinary experience for the next few days. He concluded that LSD-25 was a potent drug, highly active in infinitesimal doses. Hofmann was also impressed that despite the intense and overwhelming effect of the drug he was conscious throughout and afterwards able to clearly recall the details of the experience. Though he couldn’t immediately foresee the uses to which LSD-25 would be put, he was certain the drug had a place in medical science, especially psychiatry. Hofmann’s discovery also immediately re-connected him with his childhood enchantments: “Taking LSD reminded me of experiences I had as a child ... It came back to me taking that first LSD trip. It made me so sure of myself. It brought an inner joy, as well as a gratefulness for this internal sensitivity that few can experience. To be part of the miracle of Creation ...” Hofmann’s connection of LSD and the religious experience would be repeated time and time again when LSD became widely available. It would be the subject of great debate between its proselityzers and those who believed it was naïve to ascribe religious experience to a chemical.7
Following Hofmann’s discovery of the effects of LSD-25 an intense period of research into the drug’s properties took place. Three of Hofmann’s colleagues at Sandoz took the drug and even at a third of the dosage found the effects to be “impressive and quite fantastic.” But for a drug to be used widely on humans it must first be subject to a range of clinical tests. The drug was tested on a variety of animals and it was obvious that some, such as the cat, experienced hallucinations. When given to one chimpanzee from a community the drug caused uproar, as the intoxicated chimp failed to adhere to the usual strict social hierarchy of the rest of the group. Yet there was no pattern of effects common to all the experimental subjects. In spiders low doses of LSD-25 affected their ability to weave webs, resulting in web structures of increased symmetry when compared to those woven by un-dosed spiders. High doses saw a reversal of this, the webs becoming very basic and asymmetrical.
Tests of LSD on animals sometimes exemplified the worst excesses of the scientific method. In a 1962 experiment to see if LSD-25 could induce madness in elephants, Tusko, a powerful male was given a dose of 297 mg. If this appears to be a low dose it should be borne in mind it would be enough to give 3000 adults a powerful LSD experience. An hour and forty minutes after being shot by a dart containing LSD, Tusko died. In an attempt to be positive about the experiment, its instigators noted, without a trace of irony: “It appears that the elephant is highly sensitive to the effects of LSD – a finding which may prove to be valuable in elephant-control work in Africa.”8
Of course, laboratory experiments on animals and insects only give a narrow view of what the effects of a drug are. While testing drugs on animals might enable study of the physical effects, they tell us very little about the effects on the brain and personality of the subject. This becomes even more relevant when dealing with mind altering drugs such as LSD. Chemists at Sandoz were aware of this and after extensive tests on animals convinced them the drug was safe and unlikely to cause psychological or physiological harm, the next step was to test the drug on adults. A research programme run by Professor Stoll’s son Werner was conducted in the psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich. The participants were given dosages of between 2 and 13 μg. These dosages were very low compared to Hofmann’s experimental dose of 250 μg, but the research subjects still reported euphoria as the principal effect of the drug. Everyone involved with the research was amazed at a drug that could have such powerful effects in miniscule quantities. Werner Stoll eventually tested the drug and took 60 μg. His lengthy report, the first published by a psychiatrist, detailed a stream of vibrant colourful imagery for which words were barely adequate. The psychological insights were startling. Stoll felt as though he understood abstract pictures, felt at one with all romanticists and dreamers and often “... seemed to stand at the pinnacle of artistic experience.” Later in the experiment Stoll’s euphoria changed to depression and he contemplated thoughts of suicide, but this passed and by the time he felt able to travel home he was euphoric again. “I had experienced unexpected, impressive things. It seemed to me that a great epoch of my life had been crowded into a few hours. I was tempted to repeat the experiment.”9
Stoll’s experiment took place mainly with his eyes closed or in a darkened room at his laboratory, with no preparation. Though several people had now taken LSD experimentally no consideration had been given to the two factors arguably most important when LSD is given to a person: set and setting. Set and setting, as will be seen throughout the story of LSD in Britain, are crucial and can make the difference between a positive and negative LSD experience. Set refers to the LSD taker’s mind set, their personality, what and how firmly held are their moral, ethical and religious belief, what they know of LSD and what they expect from the LSD experience and so on. Setting refers to the physical location and type of surroundings in which LSD is taken. Later, recreational LSD users would find the combination and manipulation of these two factors could be decisive in how an LSD experience would develop.
Hofmann was uneasy about the controlled laboratory testing of LSD, believing it wasn’t a satisfactory way of taking the drug. He seemed to have unconsciously grasped the principle of set and setting when he commented, “We used low doses – 50 μg – in a controlled setting with interviewers, Rorschach tests, written explanations of what we were going through. These weren’t especially meaningful experiences; personally I thought it would be more interesting to see how it would work in an artistic surrounding.”10
The chemist’s notion that the LSD experience under laboratory conditions might differ from that of a more aesthetic environment was brought home to him when he “... arranged to explore these things in a non laboratory setting in 1951 with the pharmacologist, Herbert Knozett and the German novelist, Ernst Junger. I would say it was the first truly psychedelic experience, though it was a low dose and it didn’t go very deep. But it was beautiful. I believed I was in North Africa among the Berber tribes. I saw all these beautiful, exotic landscapes, oases, while a Mozart record played like music from above.”11
Hofmann went on to take LSD numerous times and had many religious experiences and insights which deepened his personal philosophy. Though his initial statements about LSD were reserved, in his old age he had become more outspoken about the positive effects of LSD, eventually accepting his place as the elder statesman of the psychedelic generation.
In 1947 Sandoz had enough confidence in its controlled LSD tests to market it as Delysid, a name proposed by Hofmann. Initially the drug was provided free of charge to research institutes in return for their data being shared with Sandoz. Delysid was available as sugar-coated tablets containing 25 μg or ampoules containing 100 μg. The prospectus issued by Sandoz distilled their findings as: “The administration of very small doses of Delysid (half to 2 micrograms per kg of body weight) results in transitory disturbances of affect, hallucinat
ions, depersonalization, reliving of repressed memories and mild neurovegatative symptoms.”
Sandoz suggested that LSD could be used to good effect in two specific areas. Laboratory tests had indicated that LSD might be useful in analytical psychotherapy, where the psychiatrist may want access to material repressed by a patient suffering from anxiety and obsessional neuroses. The second use recommended by Sandoz was more surprising. They advocated LSD should be taken by those investigating the nature of psychoses noting, “By taking Delysid himself, the psychiatrist is able to gain an insight into the world of ideas and sensations of mental patients.” Sandoz’ summing up of LSD’s possible effects noted that the drug should not be given to those who were unstable or suffered from suicidal tendencies and advised the drug only be taken under medical supervision.12
Sandoz’ decision to make LSD publicly available was a key factor in the chain of events, which led to it becoming the most contentious drug of the twentieth century. Though Hofmann had lived through two bloody world wars, a new conflict was already on the horizon. Its weapon – the nuclear bomb – was developed just months before the discovery of LSD. In the space of five months two discoveries had been made, both of which changed millions of lives and which altered the course of popular culture forever. LSD evangelists would later suggest this was no coincidence, that one discovery was the counter-balance to the other. In 1966 poet and author of several books on drugs, George Andrews, published the poem “Amsterdam Reflection” which contained the lines: “Soldiers, take orders only from the rainbow alliance! Peace to the world LSD is the only answer to the atom bomb.”13
By the early 1950s, the Cold War was raging across the political landscape of the northern hemisphere. Both sides in this war of ideologies believed the other held technological secrets. Espionage rather than overt aggression was now the name of the game and intelligence gathering was being honed to a fine art. It was no longer acceptable to use physical torture to extract information. Subtler, more devious methods were required and a scientific race was on to see who could find the perfect “truth drug”.
The Nazis had used the hallucinogenic drug mescaline, derived from the peyote cactus, on captured allied agents in World War II as well as in the concentration camps. But while mescaline made interrogation subjects talk, it proved impossible to control the content of the grilling. The US Office of Strategic Services, predecessor to the CIA, had also begun a wartime search for the perfect interrogation drug. But the OSS soon discovered, as the Nazis had, that none of the drugs, even peyote, gave them the results they required.
When the CIA was formed in 1947 they redoubled their efforts to find a chemical which would act as the perfect “truth drug”. In the same year the US Navy instigated Project Chatter which revisited mescaline on this basis. Results with the drug were inconclusive and Project Chatter was discontinued five years later. The CIA’s search for the elusive drug that would loosen tongues demonstrates just how little was known in the Forties about the workings of the human mind. No such drug existed then or now. But the Cold War was a kaleidoscope of rumour and counter rumour. It was believed the Russians already possessed, or were on the brink of discovering, the ultimate truth drug; therefore the West had to develop its own lest they fall behind in the drugs race. Whether the Russians really were exploring LSD’s potential uses during the Cold War is unclear. At the height of the Cold War, CIA psychologist John Gittlinger commented, “I’m sure they were, but if you ask me to prove it, I’ve never seen any direct proof of it.” Nonetheless, as soon as the CIA became aware of LSD and its potential as a truth drug they plunged large amounts of money into research.
Despite the CIA’s later obsession with LSD, they initially seemed ignorant of the drug. LSD arrived in America courtesy of the psychiatric profession who heard about it from Viennese doctor Otto Kauders. Kauders, in America in search of research funding, held a conference at Boston Psychopathic Hospital in 1949, where he spoke about the new experimental drug. The hospital’s research director Milton Greenblatt was keenly interested in Kauders’ account of how a barely measurable dose of LSD had convinced Hofmann he was going insane. “We were very interested in anything that could make someone schizophrenic,” he recalls. The possibility that LSD mimicked schizophrenia and psychoses greatly intrigued psychiatrists everywhere and was the key driver in the spread of LSD among the medical community during the Fifties.14
Research psychiatrist Max Rinkel, a delegate at the conference, immediately ordered some LSD from Sandoz and gave a 100 μg dose to his enthusiastic colleague Dr. Robert Hyde, who became the first person on American soil to have the LSD experience. Hyde and Rinkel tested it on a hundred volunteers at Harvard University’s affiliate Boston Psychopathic Institute, discovering it produced “a transitory psychotic disturbance”. This was in line with conclusions drawn by the Sandoz chemists and led the American psychiatrists to believe LSD could be used to induce mental illness in otherwise sane people for the purposes of objective study.
It was during the CIA’s early investigations into LSD that one of the most enduring legends about the drug was born. Before the Agency started testing the drug they contacted Los Angeles psychiatrist Nick Bercel, the first medical professional in the USA to work with LSD, and asked him a bizarre question. What would happen, they queried, if the Russians were able to introduce a large amount of LSD into the water supply of a major American city? Bercel told them nothing would happen because the chlorine would make the drug ineffective. Although the CIA toyed with altering the chemistry of LSD to create a variant that wouldn’t be destroyed in chlorinated water the idea was soon abandoned. But the notion that terrorists could put enough LSD into a city or country’s water supply became one of the first LSD scare stories and was often repeated by the media, as we will see later in this book.
Early success with initial trials using LSD suggested to the CIA that the drug held promise. Military personnel were dosed with up to 150 μg and given a “secret”, which they were asked not to disclose. In at least one case the officer revealed all and was unable afterwards to recall what he had divulged. This was just the kind of result the CIA was looking for from a drug, and from 1953 onward they began many years of contentious experimentation with LSD. The history of the CIA’s involvement with LSD is fascinating but appears to have had little direct impact on the history of the drug in Britain. The interested reader is referred to Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain’s Acid Dreams, as the most comprehensive book on the matter to date.
In the early Fifties the British psychiatric and military establishment was aware of the effects and potential uses of LSD; however, the drug was still to be used on British soil. This situation was to change in September 1952 when psychiatrist Ronnie Sandison set off from England on a study tour of Swiss mental hospitals.
LSD: THE CURE OF SOULS?
There are good reasons for believing that the LSD experience is a manifestation of the psychic unconscious.
R. Sandison1
Until its closure and demolition in the closing decades of the twentieth century, Worcester’s Powick Hospital stood in the long shadow of the Malvern Hills. The Victorian hospital, originally the Worcestershire County Pauper and Lunatic Asylum, was built in 1852 to house the mentally ill from across the county. In its early years, the hospital practised an enlightened regime, encouraging patients to work in its various workshops and to play in the hospital band. The composer Edward Elgar was bandmaster there in 1879 and exercised a powerful influence over the artistic life of the hospital; from his tenure until the 1940s it was a requirement that all male nurses must be able to play a musical instrument.
Until 1907 Powick was a model of hospital treatment for the mentally ill. Then Dr. Fenton took over as medical superintendent. Fenton’s miserly ways soon led to services and treatment at Powick being determined purely by how much money could be saved. The result of this style of management was the hospital’s slow deterioration from mental health flagship to depressing and run down in
stitution. It was in this state that Dr. Ronnie Sandison, the newly appointed Consultant Psychiatrist found the hospital when he started work there in September 1951.2
In an interview Sandison recalled: “When I first arrived at Powick, Arthur Spencer the Medical Superintendent, said something like: ‘I’ll run the administration if you will run the clinical side of the hospital.’ That suited me perfectly.”3 With this agreement in place, Sandison and Spencer worked hard to return the hospital to its former glory. In the space of a year the hospital, its staff and systems had been overhauled and it was once again a fit place in which to treat the mentally ill. Most importantly Sandison introduced psychotherapy to the treatment regime. In doing so he set the hospital on course to be internationally regarded as a centre of excellence and, later, controversy.
Following a wartime career as a physiologist with the RAF, Sandison trained as a psychiatrist at Warlingham Park Hospital in Surrey. There he came across Freudian and Jungian analysts and decided on a career in psychotherapy. Analysts practiced Depth Psychology, a psychology of the unconscious, in which conscious recollection as well as the content of dreams is analysed for clues to the origin or stimuli of a patient’s mental health symptoms. While Freudian and Jungian analysts differed in their interpretation the principles of analysis between the two schools were similar, the technique becoming known as psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is one of the methods that fall under the wider heading of psychotherapy, and is based on the experiential relationship between patient and therapist using dialogue, communication and behaviour modification to deal with certain types of mental health issues.