AMST 3100 The 1960s The Psychedelic Movement Part 1

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AMST 3100 The 1960sThe Psychedelic MovementPart
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• Powerpoint 6
• Read the web notes on the psychedelic movement.
• Primary source is Jay Stevens, Storming Heaven
  LSD and the American Dream, 1998

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Spiritual Lag?

• Jay Stevens argues that, in a sense, the hippies
  were an attempt to push evolution to raise
  consciousness to new levels.
• The psychedelic movement, of which hippies were a
  central element, was an attempt to restore
  spirituality and humanity to Western cultures
  that had become uprooted by the force of
  modernity.
• Modernity Social patterns resulting from
  industrialization, urbanization, rationalization,
  and other changes that have occurred over the
  last few centuries.
• The argument is that the rapid shift toward
  modernity came at the expense of the environment
  and human spirituality - or humanity itself.

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The Problem-loss of spirituality

• Rapid industrialization and mass society have
  transformed and uprooted our spiritual roots.
• The emphasis on materialism and consumerism
  detract us from our spiritual health.
• The rise of weapons of mass destruction
  (particularly The Bomb), brought by modernity,
  suggest that the human race may be headed toward
  apocalypse unless we develop our spiritual health
  and connect with our humanity.
• Einstein felt that in the dangerous nuclear age,
  we were like children playing with loaded
  weapons. We needed to grow - very quickly - if
  we were to avoid disaster.

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Aldous Huxley

• Writer of Brave New World (1932), a fictional
  novel featuring a dystopian culture where the
  masses were given happy pills to keep them
  content and passive while elites ran the world.
  This drug (soma) was used for escapism rather
  than growth.
• Huxley wondered if in real life there might be a
  drug that could be used to create utopia, not
  dystopia. Such a drug would not be an escapist
  drug it would be an engaging drug that
  facilitated our connections to humanity and life.
• Huxley felt a sense of urgency in the need for
  social change and growth, given the events of
  World War II, the emergence of the Cold War, and
  the nuclear arms race that was so frightening.

July 26, 1894-Nov 22, 1963
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The Crisis of Modernity

• This sense of crisis led many thinkers to argue
  that we are doomed unless we find a way to speed
  up evolution, or to raise consciousness to a
  higher level.
• This raised the question of whether we can
  consciously evolve ourselves. Hence, the
  interest in finding a key to unlock the doors of
  perception.
• They asked is there a door in the mind we can
  pass thru, and if so, does a key exist to unlock
  it?
• These thinkers thought that perhaps LSD and other
  psychedelic drugs were the key to raising
  consciousness.

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LSD

• LSD was viewed in the counterculture as a mind
  detergent capable of washing away years of
  social programming. It was a tool to help push us
  up the evolutionary ladder.
• By 1967, during the peak of the psychedelic
  movement, a countercultural momentum had
  developed in which the hippies began to see
  themselves as the true revolutionaries of the
  mind and spirit.
• LSD was one of the sacred sacraments of this
  movement.

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LSD

• By 1967, LSD had been one of the most extensively
  studied chemicals in our society.
• Yet despite this, there was no consensus about
  LSD.
• It was linked to madness, yet also to curing
  madness.
• It was linked to mystical experiences and
  profound insights, yet it merely chemically
  scrambled neurons.
• Was it a source of enlightenment? Or was it just
  a way to get the neurons to malfunction?

This is the cover of an anti-LSD pamphlet
distributed by authorities in 1968.
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LSD

• From a spiritual perspective, the question was
  whether the psychedelic state of consciousness
  was an affirmation of the mystics argument that
  the kingdom of Nirvana is inside all of us,
  waiting to be discovered.
• The history of LSD has a scientific component, a
  spiritual or religious component, and a cultural
  component.

LSD art Mandala by Isaac Abrams.
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The Scientific Aspect of LSD

• LSD is the product of scientific research.
• In 1943 Albert Hofmann was searching for a new
  headache powder and revisited a drug he had
  synthesized in 1938 - LSD. This time he
  discovered (accidentally) that LSD was capable of
  producing fantastic hallucinations.
• However, it was unclear what it could be used
  for.
• Sandoz, the drug firm Hofmann worked for, then
  sent the LSD to psychiatrists seeking to get
  their feedback.
• Could LSD help patients release repressed
  material?
• The psychiatric testing of LSD had begun. It
  arrived in the U.S. in 1949.

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Science and Psychology

• The post-war rise in psychology contributed to an
  interest in LSD.
• Given what the Nazis had done during the war,
  researchers were greatly interested in the mind
  and human behavior.
• Freudians especially were interested in the
  unconscious in releasing the inner mind. They
  were attracted to mind drugs for this purpose.
• Freudians treated the wealthy more than any other
  demographic. Consequently wealthy people would be
  among the first to take LSD.

Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis. Freud
argued that the mind was complex and that there
existed an unconscious element that could be
reached with guided introspection. Unfortunately
Freudian therapy could take years of analysis.
Could LSD help access the unconscious?
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Timothy Leary, scientist

• By the mid-1950s scientists became interested in
  scientifically testing the effectiveness of
  traditional therapy psychotherapy.
• Timothy Leary was one of the first scientists
  involved.
• Leary found that those receiving traditional
  (Freudian) therapy were no more likely to improve
  than the control group.
• However, he found that where successful therapy
  had occurred, something else had occurred these
  patients had experienced a vitalizing
  transaction a moment of epiphany realization
  about themselves.
• The key to these vitalizing transactions lay
  somewhere in the unconscious mind, according to
  Leary.

In search of vitalizing transactions.
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1950s Scientific Research into LSD

• The 1950s research of LSD revealed that it made
  people extremely sensitive to nuance it
  heightened awareness of others moods as well as
  heightening the moods of the subjects.
• LSD was found to produce astonishing effects in
  both normal and crazy people.
• A catatonic on acid would sometimes come out of
  their shell, only to return after the effects
  wore off.
• LSD made some people become selfless, yet at
  other times they became egocentric. The selfless
  state was similar to the spiritual state called
  Nirvana.

This is a photo of Leary with Neal Cassady on the
Merry Prankster bus in 1964. Neal Cassady was
celebrated among some Beats as a role model for
the selfless ego. Cassady was the driver of the
bus.
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Historical Backdrop

• Historically, the use of mind drugs is associated
  with
• 1. Pleasure, and/or
• 2. Healing and spiritual enlightenment.
• Psychedelic drugs are less associated with a
  third motivating factor for drug use escapism.
• The drugs that work best for escapism tend to
  dull rather than awaken or sharpen the mind.
  Drugs like alcohol, heroin, cocaine,
  barbiturates, etc., are typically used for
• 1. Pleasure, and/or
• 2. Escapism.

Different drugs are associated with different
demographics. This photo depicts people shooting
up heroin, a classic escapist drug commonly found
in poor urban neighborhoods during the 1960s.
Indeed, Durham, N.C. was unofficially considered
a heroin capital of the world during the late
1960s because of the rampant heroin use in the
urban poor neighborhoods. It would not be typical
of these folks to use LSD.
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Historical Backdrop

• The first scientific approach toward
  mind-altering drugs occurred in 1855, when these
  drugs began to be cataloged.
• By the late 1800s, artists and intellectuals had
  discovered the potentials of peyote and magic
  mushrooms.
• They used these psychedelic drugs for both
  pleasure and mind stimulation.
• In the 1800s Victorian culture, experiences of
  the body were viewed in a moralizing tone as
  immoral as a threat to civilization and decency.

Ben Franklin was rumored to have used opium
occasionally. Many artists, intellectuals, and
scientists of the earlier centuries used various
kinds of drugs.
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Historical Backdrop

• The U.S. was particularly influenced by
  conservative mores, given its Christian and
  Victorian influences.
• There was even a Prohibition Era between
  1920-1933 that outlawed alcohol consumption (the
  18th Amendment, later repealed by the 21st
  Amendment).
• Consequently, the U.S. even today is unusually
  moralistic in its approach toward sex, drugs,
  rocknroll, and other pleasures of the body.

The writing below this sunrise image advocating
Prohibition in North Carolina says the sun will
rise tomorrow on a state redeemed from the
whiskey evil saloons and dispensaries will be
hunting for a city of refuge. Note the
moralistic tone.
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Historical Backdrop

• Yet nearly all societies use mind-altering drugs
  of some kind.
• One reason may be that the human mind is
  constantly dulled by the inflow of everyday data.
  Consequently the mind seeks out sensation in the
  way we use grit to sharpen a dull blade.
• In other words, mind-altering drugs may be
  intrinsically appealing because they function to
  stimulate new sensations that sharpen the brain.

Native American peyote rituals were common until
American moralists legislated against them. They
began to regain some of their rights by the late
1960s as a consequence of organized actions in an
age of civil rights and increasing tolerance.
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Historical Backdrop

• It took less than 30 years for peyote to pass
  from the hands of scientists to the hands of
  artists and intellectuals.
• For LSD the period was even shorter.
• Aldous Huxley was one of the artists/intellectuals
  who was an important catalyst for the spread of
  LSD.

LSD-inspired art began to influence the
mainstream popular culture by the mid-1960s,
especially in art, music, and fashion.
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Aldous Huxley

• Fascinated by mind drugs.
• Huxley was searching for an ideal drug which did
  not pollute the body the way alcohol does.
• Huxley became interested in the scientific
  reports on the effects of psychedelic drugs and
  he sent a note to two of the key researchers
  Humphrey Osmond and John Smythies.
• Huxley wanted to try mescaline, and Osmond
  agreed. So in 1953 Osmond turned Huxley on.

Humphrey Osmond attending a religious peyote
ceremony in Montana. Osmond is the third person
on the right.
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Aldous Huxley

• Huxleys philosophical interests
• 1. The gap between rational technology and
  wisdom.
• 2. Evolution (or the misapplication of
  evolution).
• Particularly the dangers of engineering human
  nature with new technologies. See also the novel
  Frankenstein for this indictment.
• 3. The failure of education to create the whole
  man.
• 4. The increasing concentration of power in the
  form of Big Government and Big Business.
• In Brave New World the all-powerful corporate
  state issued a mind-altering drug which induced
  euphoria. Here, the drug was used for diabolical
  purposes.

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Aldous Huxley

• Huxley was interested in a drug which could be
  used for enlightenment rather than entrapment.
• He had dabbled in many forms of psychic awareness
  chanting, meditation, hypnosis, and Eastern
  philosophy. What he discovered is that widely
  divergent mystical experiences had some core
  similarities
• They blended a physiological experience into the
  very structure of the mind to produce a moment of
  deep mystical revelation.
• The physical sensation of dancing and chanting
  can serve as a catalyst toward achieving the
  mental state of selflessness where a person
  becomes at one with the universe. As any shaman
  knows, the physical and the mental are connected.

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Aldous Huxley

• By the 1950s, Huxley was considering psychedelic
  drugs as a tool to raise consciousness.
• His first mescaline trip in 1953 excited him to
  the possibilities he thought he may have found
  the key to the doors of perception.
• In 1954 Huxley published a manuscript titled
  after William Blakes poem, The Doors of
  Perception, which became a classic among
  psychedelic drug users.

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The Psychedelic Experience

• The psychedelic experience transcends words.
• Huxley likened the psychedelic experience to a
  journey or a trip where the perceiver sailed
  beyond the horizon.
• Tripping is paradoxical. It is a social
  experience on the one hand, because of the
  heightened skill at nonverbal communication yet
  no two people found themselves in the same part
  of this other world. Sometimes one felt
  distinctly alone.
• Some people had powerful mystical experiences
  others didnt.
• Go to this link to browse an excellent resource
  site called The Psychedelic Library.

The Doors, a notable psychedelic band of the
1960s, took their name from Aldous Huxleys book,
The Doors of Perception.
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The Psychedelic Experience

• Some trippers began to distinguish between a mere
  visionary experience and the more powerful
  mystical experience.
• Both Huxley and Timothy Leary were interested in
  the mystical experience because of its
  transformational powers.
• By 1956 Huxley was at the center of an emerging
  movement, part scientific and part religious or
  aesthetic.
• This movement was spurred on by Al Hubbard
  (Captain Al), who turned Huxley on to acid in
  1955.

Al Hubbard, known to be one of the best and
friendliest acid guides, was sought out by Huxley.
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The Psychedelic Experience

• Al Hubbard was a flamboyant millionaire who had
  taken an interest in psychedelic drugs and had
  experienced a mystical vision.
• Thereafter, he devoted his time to spreading the
  good word. By 1959, he had turned on 1700 people.
• Hubbard was an excellent guide for acid trips. He
  emphasized the importance of set and setting on
  the trip.
• He attended to the set of preconceptions, moods,
  etc of the tripper, along with the proper setting
  in which to make the trip most rewarding. Hubbard
  got people in the right mood and provided the
  right setting for a rewarding trip.
• To author Jay Stevens, he played the role of the
  ancient shaman who guides tribal members on their
  trips using techniques passed down thru time.

Al Hubbard, on the right, with friends. Aldous
Huxley is in the middle.
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LSD formal or informal research?

• While scientists studied LSD in the laboratory
  under careful scientific conditions, Hubbard used
  a more informal mystical approach to the acid
  trip.
• Huxley opted for Hubbards approach. If the goal
  was to speed up human evolution and raise
  consciousness, Huxley concluded it was important
  to select the right mix of brilliant and
  influential people and turn them on informally.
• This technique would hopefully cause a snowball
  throughout the culture.
• After all, Huxley felt the human race didnt have
  much time.

Captain Al Hubbard
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Emergence of an LSD Subculture

• By 1956 LSD researchers had become an informal
  fraternity of trippers who got together and
  shared their stories.
• They even began to have LSD parties among
  themselves.
• LSD was beginning to take off, especially in
  California.
• California provide the right cultural climate for
  acid because it was a hip place even in the
  1950s.
• Eventually the scientists shared acid with the
  artists and intellectuals, and by the early 1960s
  many famous people had tripped.
• LSD became the fashionable party drug among the
  Hollywood elite.

The actor Cary Grant was part of the emerging LSD
subculture in California.
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A Short Cut to Wisdom?

• Among the intellectuals, the debate over acid was
  whether it was indeed possible to mass produce
  the mystical experience.
• To writers like Anais Nin, you couldnt take a
  short cut to wisdom.
• But to Huxley, humans did not have the luxury to
  ignore short cuts.
• The world of the 1950s was already too close to
  the nightmarish dystopia of Brave New World.
• Huxley did not promote the wholesale distribution
  of LSD. He was selective about who should be
  turned on. LSD was too powerful to give to just
  anybody.
• Huxley was interested in turning on Beat artists
  particularly.

Anais Nin
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The CIA

• While Al Hubbard was celebrating the mystical
  properties of psychedelic drugs like LSD, the CIA
  was looking for a drug they could use for mind
  control.
• The Cold War drove both the Americans and Soviets
  toward diabolical methods of warfare, including
  chemical and psychological warfare.
• The CIA needed a domestic supplier of LSD so they
  contracted with Sandoz for huge local supplies of
  the drug, which eventually contributed to LSDs
  cheap and ready availability in the U.S. (LSD was
  not illegal until 1966).

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The CIA Experiments

• The CIA experiments with LSD were so bizarre they
  seem like science fiction.
• Driving a car thru New York City and randomly
  dosing unsuspecting civilians.
• Dosing unsuspecting soldiers and, in one
  experiment, faking that their plane was about to
  crash to see how they reacted.
• These experiments on unsuspecting American
  citizens were not alarming to the U.S. Inspector
  General after all, we were at war!

The CIA experimentation with LSD on unsuspecting
American civilians was under a program called
MKULTRA, which was approved in 1953.
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The Importance of Set and Setting

• What the CIA, psychologists, and artists began to
  agree on was how crucial set and setting are in
  influencing the quality of the psychedelic
  experience.

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What made LSD so attractive to the kids of the
1960s?

• The kids of the 60s grew up with messages of
  rigid conformity. Any deviation from cultural
  norms was viewed as a sign of mental instability.
• 1. This rigidity led kids to develop a
  fascination with the surreal superheroes found in
  comic books.
• Plasticman, the Human Torch, Captain Marvel
  they were all nonconformists. But they had
  started out as ordinary conformists until a
  chemical accident transformed them.
• They affirmed the idea of chemically-induced
  evolution or transformation. This made comic book
  superheroes subversive.

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What made LSD so attractive to the kids of the
1960s?

• 2. Mad Magazine emerged during the 1950s and 60s
  to goof the adult world and encouraged an
  irreverent attitude toward authority.
• 3. Elvis Presley and rocknroll bypassed
  rational thinking and conformity in favor of
  kinetic, emotionalized body music.
• 4. Hollywoods new antiheroes, like James Dean
  and Marlon Brando, were role models of teen
  alienation and rebellion. They were
  nonconformists.
• 5. The Beatniks, bored with bland conformity,
  were gluttons for new and alternative
  experiences. The more intense the better. They
  were ripe for LSD and helped lead the way.

Mad Magazine, May 1958 issue. Mad first came out
in 1952, and was irreverent from the start.
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The Beats

• Many of the Beatniks tripped. Beats sought the
  same state of selflessness that Huxley sought.
• Beats like William Burroughs were concerned with
  shedding their social skin to explore their
  asocial self.
• They felt that the socially-constructed self of
  Western culture was a conformist straightjacket.
  It was trapped by repressive societal mores. They
  advocated shedding the repressed social self for
  something freer. LSD liberated people by
  de-constructing the socially constructed self.
• Beats viewed traveling as a means of not being
  held down by oppressive social structures.
  Tripping was a form of traveling.
• California was the promised land a place free
  from the stifling moralistic norms of the East
  Coast.

The elder Beat himself, William Burroughs, chats
with Curt Cobain of the band Nirvana. Burroughs
died in 1997.
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Allen Ginsberg

• One of the leading Beats of the era was Allen
  Ginsberg.
• His poem Howl became a classic among the
  emerging underground.
• San Francisco was fast becoming the new Mecca.
• Ginsberg took acid and became an immediate
  advocate of LSD.
• He felt everyone should use it as a
  de-contamination tool.

Allen Ginsberg was partly responsible for the
morphing of the 1950s Beat subculture into the
Hippie subculture of the 1960s. He was an
advocate of human equality and freedom in all
forms.
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End of part 1