When America first dropped acid

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/tripping-on-utopia-margaret-mead-the-cold-war-and-the-troubled-birth-of-psychedelic-science-benjamin-breen-book-review

by jseliger • 3 years ago

146 174 3 years ago

newyorker.com

Deprogrammer9• 3 years ago

paywall blocked

degenerate• 3 years ago

Better than commenting "paywall blocked" is to provide an archive link: https://archive.is/vH7vF

spacebacon3• 3 years ago

I liked “like magic it is unlocked” better ;)

yieldcrv2• 3 years ago

they messed up by blocking icloud relay in an ill guided vpn spam prevention implementation, archive.is useless

latchkey3• 3 years ago

https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean

lemonberry2• 3 years ago

I take psychedelics a few times a year. I'm good with LSD once a year and I'm ok skipping it. I enjoy low (not micro) doses of mushrooms a few times each summer.

Both have been very good for my sobriety. They aren't for everyone though.

Great to see this becoming mainstream. Sad to see the number of charlatans and the industry has popped up around it.

I hope that we're able to safely get these substances to those that need them.

ericmcer2• 3 years ago

The effects of low doses of mushrooms/MDMA make me wonder if we have been going about it all wrong. You can easily take 20% of the normal amount and have a pleasant and noticeable effect but still be highly functional. It is like our "normal" dose for those drugs is the equivalent of 6+ drinks, and the idea of only having a beer or two is painted as a waste.

dylan6043• 3 years ago

The effects of low doses of _______ make me wonder if we have been going about it all wrong

It's human nature to think that more is better. If a little works, why not use more. There's a definite bit of experimenting that should be done to see when more become less effective. As a user, that's just part of the journey. Then we have the marketing/sales view point where they just want those numbers higher, but it actually makes to product less but not in a way the marketing cannot overcome it. I feel this way about the microbrewery movement with high alcohol and hops=>IPA usage.

peebeebee• 3 years ago

It’s not the same though. A high dose can lead to life altering insights. A low dose will just be a fun time.

Alcohol in higher doses isn’t therapeutic. More than 4 beers and any therapeutic effect alchohol could’ve had is now also gone. :)

_fat_santa• 3 years ago

Just this weekend I took a low dose of mushrooms and went to a nightclub. I typically drink at these places so it was interesting to take just mushrooms and zero booze.

It was quite fun at a low dose and gave a similar feeling to being drunk without the downsides. After that experience if I had to choose to go out and drink or go out and take a low dose of mushrooms I'm definitely doing the latter.

anjel• 3 years ago

Micro dosing psylocibe/psylocin on a regular basis puts your heart valves at some risk of permanent damage in ways occasional high dose use does not.

midiguy• 3 years ago

Microdoses have no real effect on me at best, and put me totally on edge at worst. But I love a mild 1-2g trip. I personally think the optimal dose is a mild tripping dose (perhaps mid ~3.5g if you are experienced and are looking for that kind of experience).

But at the end of the day, everyone reacts different. I don't know if there is a point to characterizing what should be 'normal' dosage. They are basically completely different drugs with different uses at different doses.

huytersd2• 3 years ago

The common knowledge amongst enthusiasts is that shrooms have a threshold below which you don’t feel anything and I feel like anecdotally I can vouch for that (though it’s been a long time and I can’t exactly remember anymore).

reducesuffering• 3 years ago

I've done it a few times. The 1.75g was one of the most profound moments of my life and the .25g were just an interesting night. Felt like a 20x difference to me.

EmilyHughes• 3 years ago

For the psychedelics this is very true, I enjoy mostly low doses. But I am not so sure about the MDMA. If I didn't have enough to get "over the hill" it always felt it's about to come on now but it never does it's just a very dissapointing limbo state. Even worse, redosing after that won't get you the full effect either for that night (maybe because some serotonin was already depleted at that point).

dylan6043• 3 years ago

Sad to see the number of charlatans and the industry has popped up around it.

This is (should have been) expected for any trending topic, but especially something currently seen as taboo. We've seen CBD and the 10000MG 1oz bottles. There will always be fraudsters and scammers. It's just too easy for money to be made by people that have no idea about the actual products, but it's not just drug related. Just look at Amazon to see how prevalent it is, and how accepted it has become

gardenhedge• 3 years ago

Why bother?

graublau• 3 years ago

America was introduced to LSD via CIA's MK-ULTRA program.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra

'to channel youth dissent and rebellion into more being and non-threatening directions' - FBI internal memo

spacebacon3• 3 years ago

In hindsight counter culture (LSD being a component of this) does seem to have been the response to heightened tensions pushing us towards authoritarianism. Still relevant today.

Wonnk133• 3 years ago

I think the name of the book is Poisoner in Chief, it's a great history of how Gottlieb ran that program and its impacts on society.

ethanbond2• 3 years ago

I don't think your first claim is true. It was "introduced" by psychiatrists and various philosophical zealots. MKULTRA attempted to research it to see if it could be used for the purpose you describe.

Without MKULTRA, LSD still hits the US and still causes some cultural tremors.

bhk2• 3 years ago

"The LSD movement was started by the CIA. I wouldn't be here now without the foresight of CIA scientists." -- Timothy Leary

Subproject 6 of MK-ULTRA involved funding Eli Lilly to develop its own synthesis of LSD. The CIA embarked on this to ensure an adequate supply after finding that Sandoz had produced only 40 grams total of LSD. After Lilly succeeded, the CIA became the main customer, and via various other subprojects funded and supplied researchers that experimented with LSD.

In particular, many counterculture figures first encountered LSD as subjects of CIA-backed experiments, including Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, and Grateful dead lyricist Robert Hunter.

Timothy Leary himself was one step removed, being introduced to psychedelics by a fellow Harvard researcher whose research into magic mushrooms was CIA-funded.

[this is all discussed in Kinzer's "Poisoner in Chief"]

Without the CIA it might have taken decades longer.

thinkingtoilet2• 3 years ago

I'm curious to see how many people have access to mushrooms these days. For my 20s and 30s it seemed impossible to get, now all of a sudden I can get them no problem. I have a friend who is not into drugs at all but grows them, weighs them, and has a pill making machine to make pills so he can accurately micro-dose to address severe depression. I have other friends who love drugs and can get the literally anytime they want. It's shocking that they are so available now compared to even 5 years ago. Anyone else experiencing this?

newsclues• 3 years ago

I smoke weed so it’s always been easy to find acid or shrooms, but now people openly advertise it (I’m Canadian)

Wonnk133• 3 years ago

So I'm a stage 4 cancer patient and now there's a real fire under my ass to do a heroic dose. I talked to my therapist about it and he was like yea, here's this website where you can order some chocolate bars. My jaw hit the floor. I thought he was referencing the darkweb, but nope just a typical site in Canada I think.

I'm still incredibly new to it all and would love to grow my own at one point. I'd also love to know where ahem folks are sourcing their stuff.

quchen4• 3 years ago

Germany: Spores are legal in Austria (maybe also Netherlands?). Then search Uncle Ben's Tek online.

You can also grow legal mushrooms like this, King Oysters in my case. It's a wonderful project teaching you a lot. Start to finish it's about 20 hours of work spanning 2 months.

flerchin• 3 years ago

Sorry about the cancer. What's the idea behind a heroic dose?

kamranjon2• 3 years ago

Oregon has stores now that sell everything you need to grow your own. Pre-sterilized substrate bags with injection ports and many different strains of psychedelic mushrooms sold in spore syringes. You basically just stick it in a closet, inject it and it will just do its thing - in a few weeks you will have pounds of mushrooms.

There are more than one of these stores in my city - wouldn’t be surprised if it was happening in many other cities on the west coast as well.

h2odragon2• 3 years ago

They're easy to grow. I can highly recommend these folks: https://sporeworks.com/

I used to do "too much" doses and go running the hills with the hounds, back when. They're a great thing; but like all good things they can be overindulged.

probably got an ounce or two under alcohol in the freezer still; haven't felt the need to dip into that for a decade.

scyzoryk_xyz• 3 years ago

Look up Portland Psychedelic Society videos about how it works. It's super easy as a hobby. You buy the spores or the substrate online. Also super easy. Grow-boxes should basically be legal for your purposes.

Sounds like it very much is about time. If I were you I would also just splurge and seek out a solid ayajuaska experience somewhere in that other America down there. Good luck

ParanoidShroom• 3 years ago

Shroomery has all the information in the world or just youtube. Spore tend to be legal in many places, then buy sterilised kits and inject, its really easy. You can do it all yourself for a bit less money but then you'll see tricky grain infections can be.

heroic dose. imho they arent worth it, im making assumption regarding the cancer but you might benefit more from an actual `ceremony`. Not to get spiritual but they are more guided, a guided ayahuasca ceremony might be less intense but I personally think would be a better fit.

Hope you'll be fine.

thinkingtoilet2• 3 years ago

DO NOT just go and do a heroic dose on your own if you are not VERY experienced.

TSiege• 3 years ago

Please do it with an experienced friend! High doses like that can be really jarring for your first time if you're not in a good location with someone who knows how to remain chill on them

huytersd2• 3 years ago

Eh, I’ve done it a dozen times and it was amazing every time except the last one when I was expecting some bad news in the near future. If I did shrooms with my death looming, I feel like I might have lost my mind. Be careful, though I guess you don’t have a lot to lose. If I were you, I would go the stimulant (amphetamine) and opiate route since it’s a lot more easily accessible fun and will probably help you mentally cope with this period better.

AndrewKemendo2• 3 years ago

Availability is cultural

If you grew up around cattle country in Texas they are literally growing out of cow shit everywhere

It’s effectively decriminalized in the US at this point

Now that people realize that it’s better medicine than what pharmaceutical companies are producing they are adjusting their consumption

wahnfrieden• 3 years ago

Toronto has dozens of stores (with huge colorful signs, expensive ground floor storefronts, ads all over the city, people handing out leaflets) openly selling them in the downtown core despite it being completely illegal

giraffe_lady2• 3 years ago

The "uncle ben tek" has been around a decade or more now and that really changed the accessibility of it. It uses shelf stable ready-to-eat (fully cooked, sterilized) rice as the medium for inoculation.

It dramatically reduces the difficulty and risk of what used to be the main failure point in the process. Now for $200 of gear and the complexity of a weekend baking project you can just do the whole thing yourself.

Anecdotally I've also seen a lot of people pick up this skill/"hobby" the last few years. I really think the accessibility of this technique is what's driving the increased availability.

__MatrixMan__2• 3 years ago

Huh, I've been using PF tek as a starter for grain beds, never heard of uncle ben. I'll look into that.

It's a fun hobby. It motivated me to go back to school and pursue a biology degree. I think there's a lot we can learn from fungus, and not even in some kind of spiritual mumbo jumbo way, they're just better than we are at a lot of tasks (e.g. if you want to talk about 9's of availability, mycorrhizal networks are way ahead of us: they don't tend towards single points of control/failure like we do).

thow16161• 3 years ago

Yes, they've gotten easier.

There are mushroom based gummies available in local smokeshops due to some loophole in the that this particular strain of shrooms is not explicitly illegal.

My gf just got into shrooms. She started getting them from her weed dealer. His shrooms were overpriced, and hit or miss quality. Then we ran into a girl with a shroom hat at a festival, and it turns out she's a great source. Selling shrooms is her primary source of income. She makes little vegan shroom "cookies" (which are more like fudge), and also sells raw shrooms. She's a licensed massage therapist, and seems to launder the income by charging you for a massage.

quchen4• 3 years ago

hit or miss quality

Psiloc(yb)in content varies a lot among fruiting bodies of the same batch, genome, flush, hell even within the same cluster (example papers [1][2]). So even for known/good sources I would suggest mixing at least a couple of fruiting bodies to have something known and repeatable. Since powder degenerates faster, honey is a good water/air/light free preservative.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17401967/ [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/037887...

Clamchop• 3 years ago

I don't believe there's a loophole, if you're talking about the US. There are indeed mushroom products in smoke shops, but they're amanitas. The effects are much more mild.

Psylocybin and psylocin are Schedule I wherever they occur.

The only practical loophole is spores, which can be sold for research purposes, though not in all states, and are illegal to germinate anywhere. Still, many online outfits sell and ship liquid culture (mycelium suspended in liquid), which is illegal but it appears nobody cares too much.

yonaguska• 3 years ago

If you're in IL, I believe I know this person.

__MatrixMan__2• 3 years ago

I've never had a hard time finding them. You could always just order spores online if you didn't know a guy. But now that it's not a crime to possess them where I live (Colorado) I'm a little less reserved about talking about it. The terrarium is out of the closet, and that's a recent change.

ldjkfkdsjnv3• 3 years ago

Recently read a description of 1960's ideology. The claim being that its all propaganda, and what we know as 60s ideology (peace love etc) actually never really happened for a real duration of time. What did happen was that those that prescribed to that line of thinking either moved to communes, or they dropped so much acid they were societally irrelevant. There werent many people actually out and about that were pushing those lines of thinking, the ideology died within a year or two, but mass media keeps it alive.

Weird to think about how media can amplify a set of ideas, that itself didnt last very long. We keep having this renewed consciousness of ideas, like a microphone blowing it into everyones ears. Even funnier is to think that an ideology that hates mass media (anti corporate 60s culture) may actually just be a product of mass media, much like mickey mouse.

germinalphrase• 3 years ago

Unless we are defining that “ideology” very narrowly, the sheer volume of cultural output (fashion, music, cinema, etc) would be a clear counterpoint.

ldjkfkdsjnv3• 3 years ago

How long did that period last? It died very fast, and was really only 5 years at maximum. Probably not much longer than the time that covid started until now. A flash in the pan.

mrangle• 3 years ago

Cultural output pushed by media, continuously and inarguably well after the movement ended?

If there's one thing that's clear beyond all else involved in the topic of popular culture, it's that the media chooses what culture to push and what to ignore.

chimeracoder• 3 years ago

The claim being that its all propaganda, and what we know as 60s ideology (peace love etc) actually never really happened. What did happen was that those that prescribed to that line of thinking either moved to communes, or they dropped so much acid they were societally irrelevant.

This sounds like something you'd read in a pop psychology book, not an actual piece of historical analysis.

Given the visible cultural impact that the "ideology" (to use your word) had, and the sheer number of artifacts we have to attest to that, it's almost impossible to imagine how this claim could be substantiated.

Ironically, the only thing in that that's close to a correct statement is the line about communes and acid, which were actually a very small part of the "ideology" that you're referring to, and relatively rare, but which were amplified in public perception due to media portrayals.

ldjkfkdsjnv3• 3 years ago

No this opinion comes from Academia. A large volume of media was created in a very short time, and then essentially disappeared/stopped production over night

ericmcer2• 3 years ago

Couldn't we make the same claim about all polarized views (both right and left) that the media love to amplify today, but not many people actually hold?

feedforward• 3 years ago

There's almost universal opinion on the mainstream, left and right that a cultural shift happened in the US between Eisenhower leaving office and Woodstock. It's not some narrative invented and pushed out.

The media does manufacture narratives. Youth in New York and San Francisco had a subculture in the 1950s which was framed as beatnik, and soon sitcoms were mocking beatnik. Small basement performance places would have patrons not clap to avoid noise complaints, so patrons would snap their fingers as applause. This was then presented as something unusual and pretentious, minus its original context. The same thing with San Francisco hippies - they arose organically, the mainstream culture took notice of them and presented them a certain way, and the cycle goes on.

Every social movement that arises is met with an attempt to coopt and to commodity by the corporate media and corporate America, this has happened for a long time.

altairTF2• 3 years ago

In the same way, Woodstock '99 broke all that was left of the mainstream hippie movement, giving rise to the new metal one

CPLX2• 3 years ago

If you want to read a very smart book that really digs into this concept may I recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Cool-Business-Counterculture...

elsjaako• 3 years ago

I love the way Hunter S. Thompson described it. I'll strip it a bit for brevity, but the whole book (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) is worth reading.

San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world.

...

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

takoid• 3 years ago

Another relevant quote from Fear and Loathing that was posted on HN a little over a week ago by isoprophlex:

... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody - or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

nyolfen2• 3 years ago

the actual impact of the 60s counterculture was that the hegemonic mainstream culture had its legitimacy broken -- but it was not replaced by the counterculture, or anything else

morelisp3• 3 years ago

One thing which immediately reveals the lie in this is that it pretends the counterculture was the only thing going on in the 60s and ignores the New Left, Civil Rights movements, various arts movements, the cementing of the MIC, the rise of the PMC, etc etc. The 60s were a massive rupture and while it’s true the counterculture wasn’t the only influence its bizarre to say it didn’t really exist to any extent.

CPLX2• 3 years ago

And beginnings of the labor market having its back broken of course.

asveikau4• 3 years ago

I disagree, but ignoring this somewhat, I offer this:

One remarkable thing is how the hippie stuff often induced by chemical manipulation of serotonin receptors mirrors a lot of religious messages. You can take slogans like "peace on earth, love your neighbor, love is all you need" and say, is that hippie stuff? Or is it, say... The message attributed to Jesus? In that sense, you don't really need the drugs or counterculture to come up with that. It's been an authentic part of history before. Nor can it totally be dismissed as only coming from drug culture, or a brief source for a small moment in time. We've had similar movements and ideas become popular before. I'd go one step further and call it objectively a good thing.

matrix875• 3 years ago

Maybe because psychedelics wake up the part of the human psyche that understands religion

Workaccount2• 3 years ago

There is a not insignificant amount of evidence pointing to psychedelics as playing an outsized role in the formation of religions.

A shaman brewing a mystical drink that gives you visions of supernatural forces is pretty convincing evidence of a god(s) to your any 2000 B.C. person. How else could you explain such a trip while having no concept of chemicals much less neurochemistry.

scotty792• 2 years ago

Peacefully loving all is just a natural state of relaxed mammal. It's an idea you might try to verbalize if you are cut off from disturbing sensations by a chemical or perhaps when your are comfy, warm and fed, without extending any effort because you have all your needs taken care of by disciples you sweettalked into doing it.

2devnull2• 2 years ago

Hippies like many modern leftists are really puritans. They don’t know themselves as such, but this Puritanism you see in such “movements” is quintessentially American.

kingkawn• 3 years ago

This is such an absurd overgeneralization of the cultural lives of millions of people

bratwurst30002• 3 years ago

The French Revolution was also 4 years btw and nearly anybody involved in it that did matter was killed. Still it has a profound effect on society to that time And maybe to today.

My opinion is also that it is more amplified then justified part of the 60s. The more important part was the social revolution and not the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution was more the pill. People did fuck before.

mynameishere• 3 years ago

They're selling hippy wigs in Woolworths, man.

renewiltord• 3 years ago

To be honest, if you've used psychedelics, you'll know many people have that experience. I definitely have that over-encompassing all-is-one feeling. To be honest, it feels like a lower level of consciousness, less sophisticated, that is just making connections between random things.

ks2048• 3 years ago

I think most revolutions are done by relatively small (and surprisingly small) percentage of the population (social revolutions, political revolutions, etc). I believe there is quantitative evidence of this out there if you look for it.

ecocentrik• 3 years ago

The way we understand history is limited to the mechanisms we have for recording it and reliving it. We experience history through imitation, parody, critique, imperfect recollection and the marketing and resale of cultural artifacts. Media can reduce ideas and people to stereotypes but it can also provide you with hours of raw documentary footage to wade through if you're willing.

Projectiboga• 3 years ago

Here is that book written by someone born in 1968 who is a conservative hack https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Politically-Incor... The idea that psychedelic and the alternative life styles not being widespread was true, but the author was coming with his mind set from the start.

fuzzfactor• 3 years ago

As we can see, some people have been deluded by some kind of propaganda which makes it difficult for them to grasp the way an anti-war movement could have had any long-lasing or widespread effects, much less this far into the 21st century.

While anybody who has been paying attention to reality for very long will recall that the preference for peace & love over war & hate was so overwhelming that it was the war that was over within just a year or two after critical mass was reached among young people. Yes it was only a small portion who took the LSD, but the entire generation was influenced in some way or another too numerous to mention. For one thing it was just too stupid to continue being drafted into the army to go and fight for somebody else's country. There were not major anti-corporate attitudes, that was the least of considerations and really just a little bit of collateral fallout against military contractors. Nothing compared to the number of people today who are truly anti-corporate.

The entire nation grew to a point where a US President known to be dishonest by millions of citizens, was embarassingly ushered out by the combined attitude of the rest of the country (including those who had voted to re-elect him), way more respectably than deserved.

Think how much more widespread a collective attitude among young people against dishonesty would have to be before it could spread further enough for anything comparable like that to be accomplished today. Someone born in the 21st century would be the easiest to be taken advantage of by current disinformation since they simply have no frame of reference, there's nothing modern that compares. When someone born as early as 1968 can come up without a clue.

What's really hilarious is whoever is swallowing this propaganda is spending so much time so misinformed it's like (not even) trying to grasp reality while never venturing outside of Disneyland, and having nothing but imaginary characters as a source of guidance. This wouldn't be the first century where some people's perceptions can become far more distorted without any drugs compared to others who are under the influence.

I guess you can't trust everybody's description, especially when it comes to ideology.

Plus I would think it makes sense to do whatever one can do to discourage the spreading of propaganda.

ugh123• 3 years ago

Weird to think about how media can amplify a set of ideas, that itself didnt last very long.

I feel like something similar happens with various woke/cultural issues

jrflowers• 3 years ago

It is refreshing to read a description of a claim somebody read online, it really makes you think

photochemsyn• 3 years ago

Depending on how you define America, use of psychedelics goes back a bit further than the 20th century, or the arrival of Europeans. For example, here's a nice overview of the history of mescaline, the active ingredient in peyote cactus:

https://medicalhealthhumanities.com/2019/09/17/from-the-dese...

latchkey3• 3 years ago

I recently ran out of gummies. Thanks to things being legal now, I just went to the handy Eaze website to do an order.

$70 of goods + $30 in taxes and fees.

Is this what libertarians mean by "taxation is theft?"

ijhuygft776• 3 years ago

https://tor.taxi

latchkey3• 3 years ago

Too late, I just got my delivery. Thanks though!

dang• 3 years ago

This is the book of Hacker News's own https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=benbreen!

All: please let's discuss the specifics of this article—there's a lot there, and it will be much more interesting than the nth generic thread about psychedelics. Specifics beat generics on HN.

throwaway_ls2• 3 years ago

I was suffering from really bad loneliness and depression. I caught wind that friends I wasn't particularly close with were having an LSD retreat. I was raised that all 'hard' drugs were bad and potentially addictive. But I decided to join them and to try it.

It turned out to be an transformative experience for me. And it wasn't from the LSD itself, the dose was too low to impact my brain in a lasting way. But it's helped me connect with others better in a more 'intimate' setting and build more meaningful relationships. It's been over a year and I've done it a few times since and each time it's been a great experience with others. That's the TLDR of my experience.

bowsamic2• 3 years ago

My experience was sadly the opposite and it greatly exacerbated my depression and invented the thought of suicide in my mind. It’s hard because there are many people online who get angry at any mention of negative outcomes, but I have to share my side of the story too. Thankfully it is slowly improving, but it has been quite a ride since then. Maybe exactly what I needed? But can’t say those 5 years weren’t absolute Hell

opportune3• 3 years ago

It also took me 5 years to recover from a bad trip - I believe it was so traumatic that it gave me some form of PTSD. I had actually tripped several times before and also tried other psychedelics. Completely agree that online you are met with skepticism and FUD at the mentions of these experiences, and also that maybe ultimately it did have some positives come of it (respect your body and mind and don’t be reckless? Develop mental resilience?).

After that experience, I believe that for most people the benefits do not outweigh the risks until the drug is better studied clinically. The exceptions would be those who stand to experience exceptional quality of life improvements from a treatment-resistant depression breakthrough or cluster headache treatments (which AIUI are already pretty clinically established).

That said, I am probably too curious about life and novel experiences to have ever heeded this kind of advice if it meant not satisfying my curiosity at least once. So if you’re dying of curiosity I get how it might be worth it anyway.

throwaway_ls2• 2 years ago

Thank you for sharing. For what it's worth I absolutely believe you. In the same way that people react different to being drunk and some will get happy and some will get angry, people will react differently to each substances. I think we're all wired differently and it changes how we responses to substances and even depression.

For what it's worth I've had bad trips. i.e. a sense of impending doom, demons etc... For some reason I found the experience interesting and positive. I can see why you did not.

Let me know if you'd like to connect and discuss your experience. I would enjoy listening.

ProllyInfamous• 3 years ago

Referenced in the article, Michael Pollen's 2018 "How to Change Your Mind" book is wonderfully written [1]. I read this right after reading Gabriel Maté's "Chasing the Scream" [tl;dr: addiction is a mental problem, not judicial]. Pollen's level-headed approach to the silly topic of entheogen exploration reminded me that I am just a simple chemical meatbag.

Reading the article, I am reminded of my humanness.

[1] Check out Pollen's "Botany of Desire" about plants (THC included) controlling humans. IMHO it's the author's best title.

benbreen4• 3 years ago

Author of the book under review here. AMA!

One thing I thought would be helpful is to link to the YouTube video described in the opening paragraph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMF-cyHAaSs

It's from a 1957 CBS documentary series called "Focus on Sanity" that featured interviews with Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard, among others. I found it fascinating and my questions about it were actually one of the motive forces for why I wrote the book.

I believe the recording was first brought to public attention by Don Lattin, whose books The Harvard Psychedelic Club (2010) and Distilled Spirits (2012) are both great.

galenmarchetti• 3 years ago

What does your writing process look like when you set out to write an entire book? I know a lot of HN users have blogs, but the idea of writing a whole book seems daunting. Would love to hear the details of your experience and what it looked like particularly for Tripping on Utopia

benbreen4• 3 years ago

I wouldn't recommend my process to anyone, to be honest! I probably wrote a total of around 200k words over a four year period, of which I ended up cutting around 110k. I find it to be very true that you don't know what you actually want to say until you start writing things that aren't what you want to say. Then it's an iterative process of critiquing, rethinking, and starting over. I'm sure some people are able to start with a clear outline and then just plow through to the end, but I'm not one of them.

In terms of research, I used to keep all my photographs of archival documents, PDFs of sources, etc in DEVONThink, but I switched over to using the standard Photos app on Macs. It has automatic OCR now so I'm able to search text that appears in photographs quite easily. I did a lot of oral history interviews to supplement the archival research. This book wouldn't have been possible up until recently because it's only in the past decade that so many historical archives have been digitizing their collections. I was able to visit the key archives in person, but with others, archivists were nice enough to send me scans of key documents. Super grateful to them.

dghlsakjg• 3 years ago

From reading Michael Pollan, I recall that there was a lot of work being done on psychedelics up here in Canada.

Did you look into that at all? Especially considering the current stance on psychedelics in Canada (essentially decriminalized), and the state of serious research, do you see Canada being a pioneer going forward like it was in the past?

benbreen4• 3 years ago

Yes, Canada (and especially Saskatchewan) is very important in psychedelic history. I didn't look into it much personally because it's one part of the story that's been documented very well already via the work of Ericka Dyck, which is excellent. Specifically her book Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD from Clinic to Campus (Johns Hopkins, 2008) but also other articles by her students and collaborators.

1letterunixname• 3 years ago

Excellent find.

I heard perhaps urban folklore from an old-timer former journalist that the LSD trade was monopolized by a single criminal syndicate in the 50's. There are still some haunts with local regulars not overrun with suits, squares, or tourists.

codingdave• 3 years ago

Why would a criminal syndicate in the 50s monopolize a drug that was not illegal at that time?

bag_boy• 3 years ago

Thanks for the recommendation.

After reading the article, I watched the Margaret Mead bit on “The Rejected.”

Hope your book does well. I’ll buy it on Audible :)

buildsjets2• 3 years ago

Hi author! Given the timeframe of the subject, I was surprised to see no mention in the New Yorker article of Al Hubbard, who was well known to be involved in that early era, both in developing now common therapeutic practices such as the use of the Hubbard Room, and working to expose as many influential cultural, religious, industrial, government, and military figures to the experience as possible.

Was there any collaboration or correspondence between Mead/Bateson and Hubbard? Documentation on Hubbard can be hard to find, and he seems to have preferred it that way.

benbreen4• 3 years ago

He's in there! In fact I decided to cut several pages on him, since a lot has already been written. Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind, among other books, has a lot of detail that I couldn't add much to.

Hubbard was important, to an extent, but one of the things I'm trying to do is draw out the larger social and intellectual circle that surrounded the more famous names. So to just to take on example, Betty Eisner was (I would argue) significantly more important than Hubbard both in developing the concept of set and setting and in developing psychedelic therapy in general.

She actually released a memoir online before her death, which is fascinating reading and has a lot of quotes from original letters (some of which I consulted at Stanford, which has her archive): https://erowid.org/culture/characters/eisner_betty/remembran...

matrix875• 3 years ago

I used to do psychedelics frequently and tried really hard to get something out of them. Up until the last time I dropped acid, I just got high and came down.

The last time I ever did a psychedelic, I dropped acid and was reading this book called "Be Here Now" by Ram Dass. There's a part of the book that talks about drug induced psychosis. There's some illustration of lightning hitting a tower. I remember turning the page, seeing it, then hearing this super loud thunder outside that shook the house

I stopped doing them after that point because it was some kind of sign. When I started doing them I wasn't able to believe in God, after that experience I could

dingnuts• 3 years ago

When I started doing them I wasn't able to believe in God, after that experience I could

meanwhile, the experience of general anesthesia basically took away my ability to believe in God

one in one out, I guess. It seems like I'd be happier if I'd gone the other way but one can't control what one believes

matrix875• 3 years ago

I'm sorry. I didn't know that anesthesia could do that kind of thing

shwaj• 3 years ago

I’m very curious to hear more, if you’re willing to share.

profsummergig• 3 years ago

I've never dropped acid.

Net-net, what's best in your (whosoever is reading this) opinion?

1. To never drop acid.

2. To try it out a couple times and never do it again?

3. To add it as part of one's regimen as and when one needs it?

progmetaldev• 3 years ago

I think it can be very worthwhile, but I would wait until something internal calls you to use it. If you don't feel a draw to it, I would suggest not ever trying it. If you decide to use LSD, I would make sure to take it with others that have experience using it, and that you deeply trust. It's very easy to let go of your ego and spill every secret in your head, and you'll want to make sure you're around people that won't be judgmental of that. Personally, I think moderation is definitely key, and this is coming from someone that did not use moderation and ended up in a bad place because of abuse. I was psychologically addicted, and I believe it helped exacerbate latent anxiety. I was always somewhat anxious, but it made my anxiety clinical and negatively life affecting. I still think that it has its place, and can be extremely profound and positively life changing. Make sure you are in a good head space with people you trust, in surroundings that won't drastically change for the length of your experience.

nyolfen2• 3 years ago

it is basically analogous to porn -- what porn serves for your sex drive, acid and psychedelics generally do for your desire for meaning and insight. occasionally you will hear of someone who finds it therapeutic for trauma or something, but for most people, even those who claim to have found great truths, it makes no material impact on the course of their lives, unless it is a negative one from emotional destabilization if they are vulnerable for whatever reason. it can still be fun and worth doing as a novelty but it is dangerously oversold imho.

mock-possum2• 3 years ago

I would generalize it a little further, and look at psychedelics’ effects as “merely” providing an intense emotional experience.

when something feels really good or really bad, that memory stands out in your brain, and it’s hard to shake, for better or worse, it colours future experiences, shapes the way you interpret and react to them.. One huge negative experience can cast a long shadow - and so can one huge positive experience. A negative and a position don’t cancel one another out, but they each reduce the sum impact of the other - and if your goal is to use one intense emotional experience to change the weight of another, then psychedelics are absolutely a route to making that change.

If you’re trying to cope with trauma, a powerful positive experience on psychedelics can help attenuate your memory of that pain - and if you’re trying to break a habit e.g. a psychological addiction, a negative experience on psychedelics can offset the effects of past positive reinforcement from indulging that addiction. Very similar to forcing yourself to drink until you’re sick, to make you averse to drinking.

Carefully and purposefully seeking out experiences that shape your mind is an important part of being sentient, imo. You don’t have to use drugs to do it, but you’re really missing out if you don’t pursue the practice at all.

tech_ken• 3 years ago

2 or 3, depending on definition of regimen, but also "best" depends on what you're shooting for/concerned about. From what evidence I've reviewed it seems pretty low-risk from a health perspective, as long as you're taking prudent doses with prudent infrequency, and the effects are generally positive although somewhat inconsistently so. If you're curious about taking it, I would recommend doing so and picking between 2 and 3 afterwards. If you have a lot of anxiety around drug use, or are generally averse to intoxication, it might be better to stick to 1 as I think you will find the experience overwhelming. Regardless I would recommend not hyping up the experience too much in your mind, as IMO the actual 'tripping' experience on a standard 1 tab dose is quite different (and in some ways more mild) than the typical media representation, and I think too much fantasizing about what it's like can lead to more anxiety than is really necessary. Finally, I would recommend not taking more than 100ug in almost any circumstances, as IMO beyond that point the downsides start to accumulate far faster than the upsides.

Some background/trip-reporting-ish: For the last 6 months or so I've been dosing around 25-50 micrograms at a frequency of ~1 per 2 weeks as my "going out" drug, rather than consuming alcohol. Results have been mixed, definitely enjoyed some nights very much but others the effects were similar to pot paranoia. Lately I've decided that this is probably an imprudent frequency and am dropping down to maybe once per quarter, but will likely consume closer to 100ug per a session. The things I like about it are:

* the rush of energy that persists for the first few hours

* the duration of the trip (4-6 hours of effects, which from a bang/buck perspective is a plus in my book)

* the general silly vibe it creates in me.

Things I don't like about it are:

* the high body load (it creates a lot of muscle tension in my body, and I often feel physically worn out the next day like I was working out)

* the occasional paranoia/in-my-headness

* the higher level of emotional vulnerability I feel while at peak trip (good for some social situations, but in the wrong environment kind of sucks).

tl;dr: on the best trips I turn into a silly fae with a lot of curiosity and humor, on the worst trips I turn into an analytical gargoyle perched at the fringes of the function. In all cases I'm kind of run down the next day.

65• 3 years ago

Acid is one of those things that you do a few times then don't have much of a desire to do again.

I've done acid about 15 times. Was fun, I guess.

Acid makes you think outside the box and really zoom out on life. It feels like you're able to think 100x more in the time you're tripping than sober. I would definitely try it. It can open your mind a bit.

But I think magic mushrooms are overall better as an emotional aid.

OkayPhysicist• 3 years ago

If you've never done psychedelics, then at a bare minimum it will be a novel experience. Generally, my philosophy towards life applies a positive value to novelty, which is of course often balanced against other concerns (e.g., I'm not looking to eat anybody for ethical reasons far outweighing the novelty), and since psychedelics generally don't have substantial reasons NOT to try them, I'd recommend trying it at least a couple times.

LSD is a pretty safe choice of psychedelic, since very few things are dangerous at the dosages that you take LSD at, so the most likely "I didn't get what I paid for" scenario is you getting some formerly damp paper. If you have a family history of schizophrenia, it might adjust your risk calculus, but otherwise safety isn't a big concern.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as the first mind-altering chemical someone uses, since the 6+ hour trip time can be brutal if midway through you freak out, which is typically caused by being uncomfortable with the idea that your brain can be under the influence. But if you've drank and smoked cannabis, you're probably relatively comfortable with the idea that your mind can be temporarily altered by chemicals.

But on the whole, I think the fundamental novelty of the experience, in that there is absolutely nothing else like it, makes it worthwhile to try out. If you enjoy it, then it can find its spot in a broad collection of recreational activities, and if you don't, then at least you've experienced it, and it'll be done and dusted in a day or so.

lemonberry2• 3 years ago

Try a very small dose with someone you trust that has experience with it. If things get dark having someone around that knows how to help you out of it will make a world of difference. Setting and company has a huge influence on what your experience is like.

Taking LSD is a skill. If you're paying attention and have a modicum of self-awareness you'll get better at it. What does it mean to get better at taking LSD? It's the ability to have your entire being torn inside out but still able to remind yourself that it will end and that you'll be fine. It's analogous to be being caught under water by a big wave: thrash and let fear take over and you're in trouble. If you can relax and let the wave pass you'll be fine.

Other than those with PTSD I don't think anyone needs it. I do it to help with my sobriety and to keep a fresh outlook on the world and myself, but psychedelics are just some of the tools in my toolkit.

It can be fun, it can be terrifying, it can be enlightening, it can be disappointing.

If you try it, good luck! If you don't try it, good luck!

opportune3• 3 years ago

Personally, I do not believe the benefits outweigh the risks unless you have cluster headaches or treatment resistant depression (without anxiety).

Most of what people consider to be “profound” during tripping is just the drug making you think things are profound - in the same way alcohol makes you think it’s reasonable to get angry about an argument about a TV show or cocaine makes you think Uber for cats is the next trillion dollar company. It unquestionably does put you in a state where you may have ideas or thought patterns you won’t have otherwise so there’s a chance that those ideas are actually profound, just like your cocaine-fueled startup idea actually may be a good one. But people ascribe too much meaning and magic to this IMO, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Some people, like myself, have had panic attacks (“bad trips”) on psychedelics. Without going into detail these can be very disconcerting and leave lingering effects like PTSD/anxiety. If you are prone to anxiety I would not partake, and personally I think the benefits don’t outweigh the risk of this at all for most people. At the very least I caution against mixing LSD with cannabis, recommend you have someone with you that isn’t tripping, and ideally have something on hand to treat a panic attack (even if just strong beer/wine/liquor).

A lot of people will say that 1. This only happens if you get something else passed off as acid, or have a bad set and setting 2. You can avoid that if you are smart about where you get it. I think that’s BS because it’s a well documented phenomenon and testing can only easily rule out certain particular things anyway (you can only ever be certain about it if you made it yourself or got it from a regulated research source). Similarly, LSD has the potential to induce psychosis and schizophrenia, which many say is only possible if you were going to develop those conditions anyway (it was already latent) - which is nondisprovable and has no way of being identified. Personally I think these arguments are made from a place of wishful thinking that it can’t happen to them.

On the other hand single trips have been shown/known to help pull people out of depressive states in a moderately durable manner. You may not only process feelings or concepts you haven’t before, but the drug itself may induce a good mood lasting a few days called an “afterglow” which could bring you out of some kind of local optimum. If depression has been negatively impacting your quality of life for a long time I would consider the potential benefits to outweigh the risks enough to try it once.

Also, cluster headaches I believe are uniquely treatable by psychedelics. Those are the only thing that I think justifies adding it to a “regimen” because IIUC those headaches are so uniquely extreme and debilitating.

chasd00• 3 years ago

I wouldn’t say don’t do it but just understand that LSD (the real stuff) is incredibly powerful and poorly understood. When it goes well it’s good beyond comprehension, when it goes bad it’s bad beyond comprehension. There’s no shaking it off either, once it takes hold it has you for 10-12 hrs.

holythrow• 3 years ago

Another user put it well that it's a _novel_ experience unlike anything else. To have a couple layers of your ego, bias, and preconceptions shed off for a few hours to see the world, yourself, your life, your thoughts, and everything else in a new lens that you may have forgotten how to see, while your mind runs on a overclock for a brief period with a little extra randomness/creativity. If you are a 'thinker', and able to get yourself over the 'hard drugs' concept, then you should try it if you have access and just see if you like what comes of it.

I like the metaphor of the mountain ski slope, where our minds have our regular thought patterns/trails that we are used to using and LSD is like a fresh load of snow that let's your mind explore and create new pathways in the slopes! This doesn't mean you will come out in 10 hours as a different person, but you will have had a new perspective and that's always enlightening in some way, however simple it may be.

Taking one tab of 100ug for me is never a full 'tripping' experience where I feel out of control and I think most people can try this and enjoy it without much to worry about. There's minimal mental and visual effects and at the peak for 1-2 hours or so you'll get a taste of what LSD is about. If you have a pleasurable experience then up the dose by 25ug every 4 months until 150 or so to get a better trip where things aren't out of control at the peaks but you have a good time. Then when you're comfortable you can do a yearly trip/meditation session out in nature, the shore, or a nice view. The mental state is really unlike anything else for me and being nonaddictive is so nice as I can just go a whole year without using it with no mental effort. Unlike where with weed where my brain equates it with a dopamine response and I'll get thoughts to go smoke even though I'm no regular user.

That's my 6 cents, hope it was useful to someone.

wonderwonder• 3 years ago

Meh. Did it a couple times in college, did not really enjoy it, didn't hate it but preferred most other drug options. I did mildly hallucinate which was pretty neat. I wonder how much of what you get out of it though is what you go in expecting. Expect a mind altering experience and maybe you get one.

Only real negative for me was it lasts quite a while.

da39a3ee• 3 years ago

If you do it, make sure you're in a relaxed (probably domestic) setting. Not wandering around a city; and definitely not meeting anyone you know but wouldn't want to meet while on acid! Like the person below says, hopefully you've taken alcohol or other drugs and know what it's like to have your mind changed. However. Depending on how sensitive you are to it and the dosage, what LSD does to your mind can be pretty extreme: you have to be prepared to lose your own personality completely for a few hours and basically feel like life as you knew it as your previous self doesn't exist any longer. And so, as the other person says, it's really only going to work well if you're the sort of person that can enjoy that sort of craziness and somewhere in there be able to have a little voice reminding you that this doesn't, actually, last forever.

dmoy• 3 years ago

Dang I thought this was gonna be about tripping on LSD-like substances in rye bread in Salem before getting burned at the stake for witchcraft in the 17th century.

UberFly• 3 years ago

This thread has degenerated at warp speed into the kind of generics that dang steered against in the first post. Not surprised, but that was fast.

dirtyhippiefree• 3 years ago

Worth linking to the story of the FOIA that forced the CIA to release the documents for MKULTRA on its website in 2018: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/ken-keseys...

When America first dropped acid

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