by Andy Roberts
LSD use and ideas from eastern spirituality became enmeshed, and for those who couldn’t bring themselves to stick solely to either acid or meditation, a mix of the two seemed to be equally effective. For those who had been shaken to their soul by LSD, religious practice offered both spiritual salvation and an escape from the disorientating effects of the drug and the impact it had on their lifestyles.
One religious group that specifically targeted LSD users was the Divine Light Movement (DLM), founded in India in the early Sixties. The DLM was led by Prem Rawat, known originally to his followers as Guru Maharaji Ji. Rawat’s teachings were an eclectic mix of various elements of Hinduism with the focus being on four meditation techniques that caused physical effects in the practitioner. Rawat believed himself to be “Lord of the Universe”, the physical manifestation of the divine. His followers were known as Premies and Knowledge was the spiritual transmission conferred on those deemed ready to receive it, Knowledge being analogous with enlightenment.
Drug users of all persuasions were attracted to DLM in its early years because of its relative lack of structure compared to other religious disciplines. One study discovered that, when compared to a control group, those who joined the DLM in the early Seventies reported twice the incidence of drug use prior to joining the cult. Rawat noticed the appeal of DLM to the acid subculture and manipulated it to the cult’s advantage.
One early DLM promotional leaflet focusing on LSD in relation to Rawat’s teachings philosophised: “If a man takes LSD, as long as he feels the effects of LSD, he feels okay, but when the LSD finishes, he is not ok, because he is no longer in bliss.” The leaflet continued with the claim, “What I have is a constant LSD. It’s not LSD; it’s like a built-in LSD, which God provided you with when you were born. When you get into it, you’re always blissed out. There is no need to come down from it ... So come, leave these things and come to me. I’ve got a much better thing. Try it, you’ll like it. It’s much better and much more far out.”24 For anyone brought to the end of their mental and spiritual tether by LSD these words would have seemed like a lifeline thrown to a drowning person: someone who understood LSD and promised to take you further without it.
Rawat already had many followers in Britain when he visited for the first time in June 1971 to appear at the Glastonbury Fair. This event is covered in detail in the next chapter but suffice to say it was an event at which there was “bucket loads of acid”, according to one attendee who later became a DLM Premie. Organiser of the festival, Andrew Kerr, was unimpressed by how Rawat’s brand of spirituality was introduced to the festival: “I was on stage at the time listening to a band called Brinsley Schwarz ... when all his followers came along and pushed the band off stage. I walked off, disgusted.”25
Though some festival-goers were highly impressed with Rawat and took Knowledge from him, others were less keen. Many of the grass roots hippies including Sid Rawle, who was running one of the free food kitchens there, were indifferent to the fourteen-year-old guru and his pushy followers. They believed he was out of tune with the spirit of the event and had virtually gate crashed the event. Rawle even believed that the pyramid stage had been specially designed for Rawat, which Andrew Kerr flatly refutes.
DLM ashrams quickly sprang up all over Britain, attracting those for whom LSD was either too overwhelming or who wanted a more organised spirituality in their lives. Many who joined the DLM and received Knowledge later became dissatisfied with the organization, regarding it as a dangerous cult. Having broken free, these ex-Premies now run their own email message boards on which they discuss their experiences. LSD is often mentioned as being one of the reasons they turned to DLM. They equated the effects of DLM practice and the Knowledge offered by Rawat as being synonymous with the LSD experience. One ex-Premie wrote, “... acid was absolutely key to me looking for ‘knowledge’, which was what our group of mates called it before I knew about Rawat.”26 Another recalled, “the line I remember from the guy who told me about the big K was – it’s like the most gentle, most beautiful, peaceful acid trip you can imagine.”27
In its early years in Britain DLM was not as tightly organised as, say, the Hare Krishna movement and didn’t demand that its adherents dress differently or cut their hair. This was also one of the attractions of being a Premie, on the outside, you could remain a hippie. In fact, many Premies joined DLM and continued to use LSD and other drugs. One ex-Premie noted, “the number of ISB fans and Deadheads that were around was scary.”28 Both the ISB (Incredible String Band) and the Grateful Dead were regarded as hard-core acidhead bands, their lyrics often of the “cosmic” variety, their fans frequently serious LSD users and seekers after transcendence.
Other religious organizations, such as the Hare Krishna movement, Meher Baba and Transcendental Meditation, attracted LSD users in large numbers. For some LSD users these religious organizations almost certainly saved their mental and spiritual health. They gave the spiritually inclined but existentially shattered LSD taker a structured existence, a purpose and an extended and loving family. Despite this, large numbers who joined these cults and sects only briefly or who couldn’t break free of their LSD habits came back into the LSD subculture and took up where they left off.
As a result, barely understood ideas taken from a variety of religions and beliefs were fed back into the LSD subculture. Books such as Tim Leary’s Psychedelic Prayers and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, touted as being guidebooks for those on an LSD trip, bolstered these ideas further. These books helped consolidate the already widely held belief that an acid trip was about self-discovery, the experience of God or of supernatural powers. LSD users often found that a heavy trip could encompass all of those and much more besides, leaving them spiritually fragile for days afterwards.
Jeff Dexter, like many other acidheads, was a follower of the Tibetan Buddhist Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and visited his monastery in southern Scotland. “One night there I had some acid and Trungpa said, ‘Well, give me some then.’ So I gave him some acid. Three of us in the room took acid, including him. After about forty minutes this bead of sweat appeared on his forehead, I looked at it, and I thought it was a crystal coming out of his skull! And he went, ‘I see, little mouse’. That’s what he called me, little mouse. ‘This is something quite special. You have to realise that all your answers you are looking for ...’ and he put his hand on my shoulder and of course if he touched anyone up there they thought they had been immediately blessed, ‘all your answers are already inside you. You’re already there.’”29 Shades here of Huxley’s Island philosophy: “Here and now boys, here and now.”
Going into an LSD experience with the idea and expectation that you were going to untangle your psyche, literally meet God or the devil and hang out with deities put an enormous strain on some individuals. These trips were frequently unplanned and unguided, the participants often disregarding or misunderstanding the importance of set and setting. Some people had the most amazing, positive, life enhancing experiences, while others were shaken to their core. Whenever LSD users gathered they would swap stories of their latest forays into the chemical unknown, often to the point where self-obsession eclipsed interest.
LSD stories had become the war stories of a generation of young people. Being an LSD user meant you were part of a secret society, for which the price of admittance could be your mind, your soul or both. The singular nature of the psychedelic experience meant only those who had experienced the lysergic long dark night of the soul were able to empathise with their fellow psychonauts. Sadly, this meant that people often took LSD because it was the thing to do, because they had heard the stories told by those who had been through the doors of perception and wanted to experience it for themselves.
This do-it-yourself chemically fuelled search for spirituality frequently led to people getting themselves into difficult existential states, or “freaking out”. Poet and former acid dealer, Dave Cunliffe captured this state in “The Two Hour Assassination of God”, the first
and last verses of which are:
At 4 am, she entered the brain of God
And stumbled blindly through its convoluted
Swamps until reaching a clearing
In which was reflected the image of everything
that had ever happened
To anyone anywhere in time and space
At 6 am she clearly and directly saw
A myriad living things manifest
In joy and liberation upon the surface
Of a world which didn’t really change
Except some skin and scales just dropped away 30
This might sound trite and over exaggerated but is a very accurate description of what might take place on a powerful LSD trip. The experience Cunliffe describes would have been utterly, palpably real and loaded with life changing portent and meaning. Those unable to assimilate this kind of experience into their lives, or who couldn’t laugh at the cosmic absurdity of it all, often turned to religion in an attempt to deal with the devastating effects of the drug. Others, those who dared admit their LSD use had gone wrong, made use of the mental health services or limped back into straight society, forever haunted by their psychedelic nemesis. No study has yet been carried out to determine the numbers of people whose mental health was damaged by unwise or excessive LSD use. But the acid casualties, as they became known, certainly existed, often living miserable half lives, their thought processes and quality of life dimmed by the dark side of the LSD experience.
Of course, not everyone’s LSD trip was tinged with numinousity or dogged with existential doubt. There are numerous accounts of people taking LSD and having nothing but unadulterated psychedelic fun. Unfortunately, the government saw no political value and the media no increase in sales figures by reporting stories of individuals whose lives were changed positively by psychedelics. Shock horror accounts of madness, degradation and weird religions were the stories Mr. and Mrs. Average wanted to read in their daily paper. Yet for the vast majority of LSD users this wasn’t the case and while some found fulfilment in spiritual and cerebral pursuits and others wrestled with their souls on LSD, others just had fun.
Pete Mellor spent the late Sixties and early Seventies as a hippie, living in London and Cornwall. His description of the sheer, unadulterated pleasure LSD could give is a useful antidote to the accounts of those who were mired in fear, religion and belief because of LSD: “I loved acid. Perhaps once a week, during the night, we would drive out into the Cornish countryside, or the woods, or just hang around the bays. I remember one dawn, after a clear starlit night. We watched the sunrise and saw the first rays lifting the morning dew off the ground, forming clouds in the air. Magic stuff ... A ramble in the country was turned into an adventure like nothing since. Colours, sounds, vision were super heightened. Normal, straight humanity was hilarious! On acid, we were cosmic. The sound of the sea was a symphony. Hours could be spent sat cross-legged on some prehistoric stone, meditating. Digging the vibes. A million things could get you spaced and wasted on the utterly incredible-ness of whatever your attention became fixed on. Acid was speedy and so your body pulsated with energy. You could walk for miles. Or a flat could become your total world. Nothing else would be real. Like the man said, ‘nothing is real and nothing to get hung up about’. I never once had a bad time on the stuff, or got frightened or freaked out.”31
Mellor’s attitude and philosophy toward LSD use mirrored that of American author Ken Kesey, who wrote the classic study of mind games in a psychiatric hospital, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Kesey was introduced to LSD via a US government sponsored test programme in the late Fifties. Kesey’s attitude was LSD is a drug, it produces amazing effects and can bind people together, get out there and use it how you see fit, but most of all – have fun! In 1964, Kesey, together with a motley crew of psychonauts known as the Merry Pranksters, crossed America in an old school bus. This LSD fuelled excursion was chronicled by Tom Wolfe in the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, and became the inspiration for the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour film.
Kesey visited Britain in late 1969 together with his Pranksters, some Hells Angels and an offshoot of the Grateful Dead family known as the Pleasure Crew. Jeff Dexter believes there were also some of the people who were in the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a loose knit group of LSD chemists and distributors. They were there because, somewhat patronisingly, “they were trying to turn on London”. They had also come to visit the Beatles who were, to the US acid intelligentsia, the “sun kings”, psychedelic deities who needed to be thanked for their contribution to the consciousness revolution. And to accelerate the revoluton “they brought with them thousands of acid tabs. I was supposed to share this with the people I thought were ok. I was given this huge bag of acid. It was orange. I was doing lots of shows at that time and whenever anyone I felt was deserving I would share it with them, pass on the sacrament to them, and it was brilliant, absolutely fantastic ... I never sold it, I just gave it away.”32
In the late Sixties, the government believed most LSD consumed in Britain was imported from America. This perception was based on a wealth of media reports from the US and an unwillingness on the government’s behalf to acknowledge that a great deal was being made in Britain. The Kapur trial had shown that LSD was being illegally manufactured almost from the day it was outlawed. LSD was relatively easy to make and the formula for it was available in university libraries and in samizdat publications circulating in the counter culture. There was constant demand for LSD and the temptation to try making it was strong for anyone who was curious and had the money to finance a laboratory.
Peter Simmons was one of those who found the temptation too much to resist. After being on the periphery of the cannabis and LSD dealing scene for a few years, Simmons thought he would move into manufacturing. Money wasn’t the motivating factor in this decision. “I was quite evangelical. Money was just something that enabled you to do things. I wanted people to trip”.33
A friend gave him a partial recipe for LSD and when his dealing partner located a full formula for LSD at the Patents Office, he decided it was time to find a chemist who could turn his dream into reality. His first two chemists worked from a laboratory he set up in a caravan on a site outside London. This turned out to be a disaster. They were disturbed by a neighbour knocking at the door and, believing it to be the police, they flushed the drug away. This lab had cost Simmons £1000 to set up, no small amount in 1968.
The second attempt, using a chemist called Quentin Theobald, was initially much more successful. Another lab was constructed, this time at Theobald’s house at Hythe in Kent. Theobald knew what he was doing and asked Simmons for the best equipment, including such items as a rotary evaporator. The cost of the lab caused Simmons to “go up several gears in my dealing” to provide the funds for this laboratory. The lab lasted for three production runs. The run produced a gram of liquid LSD that they sold on in 100 trip bottles. It was sold as liquid because the chemist couldn’t manage to crystallise it. They managed to get the second run solid enough to put it into capsules for sale. Although Theobald was a competent chemist, the flaws in the manufacturing process meant that they were unnecessarily handling the LSD and were high most of the time.
The finished product sold well and gave them the impetus to continue making the drug. However, all was not well. Flushed with his success at being an acid chemist, Theobald began to boast about his unusual career at parties. Being an LSD chemist carried considerable kudos in the counter culture and it’s easy to see the social advantages of his boasts. But his indiscretions meant that word of their activities was out and it was only a matter of time before the police got wind of their laboratory.
During one production run, the chemist and an old friend got blind drunk while trying to solve the problem of how to crystallise the LSD. The drunken evening ended with them falling asleep having forgotten where they had put the fruits of their labour. When Simmons arrived the next day, he found a filter paper on a windowsill covered with
a chemical mess; the missing LSD, left exposed to the air and sunlight for over twelve hours. Simmons thought it would be inert but wanted to test it anyway. So with no knowledge of what the dosage would be he randomly cut a lump off the paper and ate it.
The LSD hit shortly afterwards as Simmons sat watching cricket on the village green. He managed to stagger through the overwhelming hallucinations back to the lab where he retired to bed before losing consciousness. When he came round several hours later, still heavily under the influence, he estimated he had taken a dose between ten and hundred times the usual dose.
The third LSD production run had just been completed and the drug was in crystallised form when the police simultaneously raided Simmons’ London flat and the acid lab in Hythe. At the trial, Simmons received five years in prison, Theobald the chemist seven years. Simmons believes his sentence was high because details of the Manson trial had recently dominated the media. This is unlikely. Though sentencing was inconsistent when it came to LSD, five years imprisonment for producing substantial quantities of the drug was light when compared to sentences in the late Seventies.
When the initial furore about LSD had died down the media needed a new way to present the subject to its readers. Between 1968 and 1973 the media seized on any scare story they could to demonstrate the evils of LSD. It was claimed the drug was responsible for individuals jumping from the roof of a house, drowning as the result of believing LSD allowed one to walk on water, dying in a car crash while under the influence of LSD and being run over while tripping. These were just a few of the stories published by the press during that period. But in each case, there was no evidence that LSD was actually responsible for the mishaps, only that the victim was using it at the time or had done so previously. This was selective reporting at its best.