General
Aaronson, Bernard, and Osmond, Humphry, eds. 1970. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. One of the best collections of articles on psychedelic drugs, edited by two pioneering researchers in the field. It includes accounts of drug trips, anthropological and sociological studies, a consideration of therapeutic uses, and papers on the relation of psychedelic experience to religion, schizophrenia, and creativity. Authors include Osmond, Krippner, Metzner, Watts, Pahnke, Masters and Houston, Kast, Braden, and others. Extensive bibliography.
Ajami, Alfred M. ed. 1973. Drugs: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to the Literature. Boston: G. K. Hall. The emphasis is heavily on psychedelic drugs and related social, psychological, and metaphysical issues; the capsule descriptions are excellent.
Alpert, Richard, Cohen, Sidney, and Schiller. Lawrence. 1966. LSD. New York: New American Library. A debate, in the form of questions and answers, between a psychiatrist who used LSD in his practice in the fifties and the Harvard psychologist who became Leary's follower; Schiller provides a foreword and revelatory photographs of people on LSD trips. The issues discussed include: creativity, religion, reality and illusion in LSD experience, nature and extent of the dangers, therapeutic uses, and finally, the regulation and distribution of LSD—who should be allowed to have it. Specific cases are discussed. It is interesting to note that—to give an idea of where discussion of this subject can lead—Cohen and Alpert try to provide answers to the question What is man's goal? Although Cohen represents a more or less conservative position and Alpert supposedly represents the drug culture, they agree more often than one might expect. Both would like to see more research, but Cohen favors psychiatric control and strict laws against recreational use. The discussion is intelligent—and surprisingly unhysterical—on both sides, and the book remains a good introduction to the issues that arose in the sixties.
Brecher, Edward M., and the Editors of Consumer Reports. 1972. Licit and Illicit Drugs. Boston: Little, Brown. Probably the best introduction to problems of drug use and abuse for the lay public. About sixty pages are devoted to psychedelic drugs, with an emphasis on LSD. Therapeutic uses, dangers, and social and legal implications are discussed, but the reader will have to go to other sources for a description of the nature of the experience. Several of the best studies on the dangers and long-term effects of LSD are discussed in detail. There are references, but no bibliography.
Cholden, Louis, ed. 1956. Lysergic Acid Diethylamide and Mescaline in Experimental Psychiatry. New York: Grune 8z Stratton. A collection of papers (one of them by Aldous Huxley) read at a conference held at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Atlantic City in 1955; discussions of pharmacology, metabolism, psychotherapy, and metaphysics are included. The panel discussions and audience questions suggest what psychiatrists' attitudes were toward these fascinating new drugs in the innocent 1950s; some of the descriptions of their own experiences with these drugs indicate why their enthusiasm grew.
Cohen, Sidney. 1970 (orig. 1965). Drugs of Hallucination. St. Albans, England: Paladin. This is a later edition of the book originally titled The Beyond Within; two new chapters have been added. It is a general review of psychedelic drug effects, with several interesting descriptions of LSD trips, some disturbing cases of prolonged adverse reactions, and comments on the pharmacology of LSD and the relationship of the LSD state to other altered states of consciousness. There is also a skeptical but not hostile consideration of the therapeutic potential. The author believes that fairly strict controls are needed, but he emphasizes the loss to psychiatric research resulting from the reaction to street abuse.
Crocket, Richard, Sandison, B.A., and Walk, Alexander, eds. 1963. Hallucinogenic Drugs and Their Psychotherapeutic lise. London: H.K. Lewis. Proceedings of a meeting of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association held in London in 1961, largely devoted to therapeutic use but including papers on pharmacology and on the social and religious significance of psychedelic drugs. The psychiatrists involved are mostly European, and the emphasis is on psycholytic therapy; treatment successes and failures with phencyclidine and cannabis, as well as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin, are reported. The discussions following the papers are interesting, especially in the last session, where broader questions are considered. Of particular importance are Christopher
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Mayhew's account of his annual mescaline trip, and the comments by Francis Huxley, a social anthropologist.
DeBold, Richard C., and Leaf, Russell C., eds, 1967. LSD, Man and Society. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. A collection based on a symposium held at Wesleyan University, with papers on the sociology of LSD use, therapeutic potential, dangers, religion, legal problems, and pharmacology. Contributors include Walter N. Pahnke, Albert A. Kurland, Donald Louria, Murray E. Jarvik, Frank Barron, and others. There is little here that cannot be found in other sources.
Freedman, Daniel X. 1968. On the use and abuse of LSD. Archives of General Psychiatry 18: 330- 347. A brief examination of all aspects of the psychedelic drug controversy, in which the author takes a moderate position. He discusses possible mechanisms for the psychological effects of LSD, therapeutic uses, social consequences, and dangers. He criticizes psychedelic proselytizing and examines the motives of LSD users. He emphasizes that adverse reactions can be serious but are relatively rare and occur mainly in unstable persons. Concluding that LSD has been helpful to some people and harmful to a few, but in an unpredictable fashion, he advocates further research to learn how to control the effects better.
Carnage, James R., and Zerkin, Edmund L., eds. 1970. Hallucinogenic Drug Research: Impact on Science and Society. Beloit, Wisconsin: Stash Press. Proceedings of a symposium held at Beloit College in Wisconsin, including essays by Daniel X. Freedman, on the meaning of psychedelic drug research for the study of the mind, by Stanley Krippner, on the influence of psychedelic drugs on art and music, by Walter N. Pahnke, on psychedelic therapy, and by others on the dangers of uncontrolled use. The papers are generally more original than is usual in such symposia.
Geller, Allen, and Boas, Maxwell. 1969. The Drug Beat. New York: Cowles. About a third of the book is devoted to LSD, and the rest to marihuana and amphetamines. There are chapters on the history of LSD, its effects, and its therapeutic uses. The most interesting sections are the firsthand accounts by LSD users who say it helped them with neurotic, drug, and sexual problems. Ignore the meaningless title, which falsely suggests police work.
Hicks, Richard E., and Fink, Paul Jay, eds. 1969. Psychedelic Drugs. New York: Crone & Stratton. Proceedings of a symposium held in Philadelphia in 1968, with papers on dangers, legal issues, religious experience, and uses in clinical research and therapy. The most interesting sections are the panel discussions and the papers by John Buckman and Kenneth Godfrey on the prospects, limitations, and dangers of psychedelic drug therapy.
Hoffer, Abram, and Osmond, Humphry. 1967. The Hallucinogens. New York: Academic Press. Although the authors are well-known authorities, this is a disappointing book. It is poorly organized and much of it is taken up with the description of relatively trivial experiments, and with the authors' theories (since abandoned) about adrenochrome and "malvaria" in schizophrenia and alcoholism. The authors favor LSD therapy and angrily rebut criticism they consider intemperate and prejudiced. There is an interesting personal account of experiments with nutmeg intoxication. The bibliography is large and rather indiscriminate.
Horowitz, Michael. 1976. Interview with Albert Hofmann. High Times, No. 11 (July). Pp. 25-32. Hofmann describes the events leading up to his discovery of LSD and makes recommendations about its use. He says that if used wisely and selectively, it can supplement intellectual with visionary insight and make us conscious of a deeper reality. He recommends the use of Western, rather than Eastern, mystics and visionaries as guides for Europeans and Americans.
Huxley, Aldous. 1954. The Doors of Perception. New York: Harper & Row. This is probably the most influential single work on psychedelic drugs; the themes Huxley introduced appear again and again in the later literature. He describes his first mescaline trip, taken in 1953 under the guidance of Humphry Osmond, and reflects on the metaphysics' of psychedelic experience, with references to religious and artistic traditions. He concentrates on the transformation of the external world and emphasizes the link between the esthetic and the sacramental. Despite what he calls a fear of being driven into madness by an excess of beauty and significance, he describes mescaline as a psychologically sound and historically respectable way to attain religious experience, concluding that "the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out."
Huxley, Aldous, 1956. Heaven and Hell. London: Chatto and Windus. A supplement to The Doors of Perception in which Huxley discusses ideas, inspired by mescaline and LSD experiences, on such matters as traditional conceptions of paradise, the psychological and metaphysical significance of gems, and visionary heavens and hells in madness and poetry. He concludes that these drugs are "a safe vehicle to get to the mind's Antipodes," and are less inefficient and painful than older methods.
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Huxley, Aldous. 1972 (orig. 1962). Island. New York: Harper & Row. Huxley's last novel portrays a utopia in which psychedelic drugs play an integral part. He applies lessons from primitive culture, Buddhism, and modern science in trying to salvage a communal significance for the drug experience and avoid the danger of its becoming a mere pleasure trip, escape, or means of self-inflation; in finding a socially useful function for psychedelic drugs, he emphasizes tradition and discipline. The book has been underestimated as a utopia partly because it is ineffective as a novel; the dialogue is awkwardly didactic and the characterization feeble. Nevertheless, it contains his best descriptions of drug trips, superior to the ones depicted in The Doors of Perception, and there is a moving last chapter in which the utopia is destroyed.
Huxley, Aldous. 1977. Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience (1931-1963). Edited by Michael Horowitz and Cynthia Palmer. New York: Stonehill. Writings about psychedelic drugs, most of them from the last decade of Huxley's life, including letters, speeches, articles, and a transcript of the tape recording of an LSD trip. There is a great deal of political and psychological good sense here; Huxley's religious views and attitudes toward drugs have considerable subtlety and complexity. Together with Island, this collection supplies a good account, in breadth and depth, of Huxley's views on psychedelic drugs, and is an excellent place to start in exploring the larger implications of psychedelic drug research. Introductions by Albert Hofmann and A. T. Shulgin.
Lingeman, Richard R. 1969. Drugs from A to Z: A Dictionary. New York: McGraw-Hill. A useful reference work; definitions are often accompanied by descriptions of drug trips. Many slang and technical terms are included. Concise, accurate, and briskly written.
Metzner, Ralph, ed. 1968. The Ecstatic Adventure. New York: Macmillan. A collection of trip descriptions and commentaries edited by an early associate of Leary at Harvard. Note especially the article by Bull on architectural design and Blofeld's account of his mescaline-induced Buddhist revelation.
Radouco-Thomas, Simone, Villeneuve, A., and Radouco-Thomas, C., eds. 1974. Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Abuse of Psychotomimetics (Hallucinogens). Quebec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval. A collection of papers based on a symposium held at Laval University, Quebec. Topics include chemistry, pharmacology, effects on animals, dangers, and social and legal issues. The papers by Boissier and Witt on animal experiments, Lehmann's brief account of his work as a psychedelic drug therapist, and the detailed review and classification of psychedelic drugs by Garcin and his colleagues, are most useful.
Solomon, David, ed. 1966 (orig. 1964). LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug. New York: G. P. Putnam's. This collection was put together with advice, encouragement, and an introduction by Timothy Leary. It includes essays by Osmond, Huxley, Leary, Watts, Huston Smith, Burroughs, and others; there is a selected bibliography of the English-language therapeutic literature. The bias is favorable to LSD, but there are a few papers expressing dissent. The most interesting pieces are Alan Harrington's account of his LSD trip, Huston Smith's essay on drugs and religion, and the introduction to psychedelic therapy by James Terrill, Charles Savage, and Donald D. Jackson, with its case histories.
Stafford, Peter. 1977. Psychedelics Encyclopedia. Berkeley: And/Or Press. A useful and entertaining compendium of psychedelic drug history and lore that is also a consumer's guide and connoisseur's manual. Chapters are devoted to the major psychedelic drugs and some minor ones. The style is pleasantly discursive, and there are numerous black and white illustrations. Relying on street experiences as well as published sources, the author presents much information not conveniently available elsewhere, especially on lesser-known drugs and on the folklore and gossip of the psychedelic scene. Although for the most part accurate, as far as it goes, the book is weak on analysis and criticism. Stafford is reluctant to say a bad or even skeptical word about anything psychedelic for fear of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, so he is not a reliable guide to therapeutic efficacy or adverse effects. There is a short bibliographical essay at the end of each chapter, but publishers and dates are not given; the lack of references for the numerous quotations is also frustrating.
Tart, Charles T., ed. 1972. Altered States of Consciousness. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Two of the eight sections of this anthology deal with psychedelic drugs; there are essays on the relationship of drugs to mysticism, psychosis, creativity, behavior change, and other subjects. The editor provides a brief but excellent guide to the literature.
Ungerleider, J. Thomas, ed. 1968. The Problems and Prospects of LSD. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas. This collection is based on a symposium held at a convention of the American Medical Association. The authors are conservative, but argue against barring LSD from experimental and clinical research. There is little here that is not to be found elsewhere as well, except for the panel discussions, which, as is often the case, prove to be the most interesting part of the book.
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Chapter 1
GENERAL
Brimblecombe, Roger W., and Pinder, Roger M. 1975. Hallucinogenic Agents. Bristol, England: Wright-Scientechnica. A detailed study of the chemistry and pharmacology of psychedelic substances, both alkaloids and synthetic drugs, with a full survey of the types of drugs and proposed mechanisms of action. The authors say very little about the subjective experience and do not discuss any of the larger issues raised by these drugs, but the book is very useful within its limited range.
Efron, Daniel E., ed. 1967. The Ethnopharrnacological Search for Psychoactive Drugs. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Papers from a symposium held in San Francisco in 1967 provide important basic material on kava, nutmeg, Amazonian snuffs, ayahuasca, and fly agaric. The discussion is mostly botanical and pharmacological, but there is also some anthropology. Contributors include Richard E. Schultes, Daniel X. Freedman, Andrew Weil, R. Gordon Wasson, Claudio Naranjo, Bo Holmstedt, and others.
Efron, Daniel E., ed. 1970. Psychotomimetic Drugs. New York: Raven Press. Articles based on a 1969 symposium discussing new and old psychedelic drugs, by such authorities as Solomon Snyder, A. T. Shulgin, Bo Holmstedt, George K. Aghajanian, and Lauretta Bender. There is some clinical material, but the bulk of the volume, including its most interesting parts, deals with chemistry and pharmacology.
Holmstedt, Bo, and Lindgren, Jan-Erik. 1967. Chemical constituents and pharmacology of South American snuffs. In D. Efron, ed. The Ethnopharmacological Search for Psychoactive Drugs. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Pp. 339-374. This is probably the most complete survey of the topic. Tables list the Indian name of each drug, where it is used, and the chemical ingredients. The subjective effects are also discussed. There is a bibliography.
Rech, R. H., Tilson, H. A., and Marquis, W. J. 1975. Adaptive changes in behavior after repeated administration of various psychoactive drugs. In Arnold Mandell, ed. Neurological Mechanisms of Adaptation and Behavior. Advances in Biochemical Psychopharmacology, Vol. 13. Pp. 263- 286. A study of tolerance to DOM, mescaline, psilocybin. LSD, and DMT based on operant responses by rats. At the doses used (three different levels for each drug), tolerance to all except DMT developed in from three to seventeen days; in most cases there was also cross-tolerance among them and partial cross-tolerance with dextroamphetamine. The authors suggest that tolerance is caused by a desensitization of serotonin receptors in the raphe cells after continual exposure to activation by hallucinogenic drugs.
Shulgin, A. T. 1975. Drugs of abuse in the future. Clinical Toxicology 8: 405-456. One of the most inventive psychoactive drug chemists provides a preview, covering opiates, stimulants, depressants, and, briefly, hallucinogens. The author considers it likely that any new psychedelic or hallucinogenic drugs will be carbolines (related to harmaline), phenylethylamine derivatives, or related to atropine. He discusses the legal classification of controlled substances, listing the drugs covered by the Controlled Substances Act with notes pointing to inconsistencies and ambiguities in the law. There is a substantial bibliography.
LSD
Hofmann, Albert. 1975. Chemistry of LSD. In D. Sankar, ed. LSD: A Total Study, Westbury, N.Y.: PJD Publications. Pp. 107-139. The discoverer of LSD discusses its chemical structure and how to prepare it. After telling the story of his discovery, he describes modifications of the LSD molecule, its metabolites, and ways of identifying it chemically.
Sankar, D. V. Siva, ed. 1975. LSD: A Total Study. Westbury, N.Y.: PJD Publications. This collaborative volume was written largely by the editor, with contributions from colleagues. It contains a vast amount of information, unfortunately in rather indigestible form. It is fact rich, analysis poor; there is no consistent point of view, and much space is taken up by disconnected capsule descriptions of experimental results. Miscellaneous discussions of other drugs and general social problems are introduced for no clear reason. The most useful part of the book is the detailed accounts by Albert Hofmann, and others, of the chemistry, pharmacology, and metabolism of lysergic acid derivatives. The material on psychological test results, genetic effects, and patterns of use and abuse is also substantial, but presented in a way that makes it difficult to use. There is little on therapeutic uses or religious and philosophical questions. The table of studies on street drug use is helpful. There are appendices on drug laws and sources of information on drug abuse, as well as author and subject indexes. The references are extensive. It would be nearly impossible to read this book through, but it can be used selectively as an information resource.
OTHER TRYPTAMINE DERIVATIVES
Faillace, Louis A., Vourlekis, Alkinoos, and Szara, Stephen. 1967. Clinical evaluation of some hallucinogenic tryptamine derivatives. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 145: 306-313. A study
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of dipropyltryptamine (DPT) in twelve alcoholics who had five weekly sessions at doses of 0.7, 1.0 and 1.3 mg per kg. The effects resembled those of DET and lasted two to three and a half hours.
Naranjo, Claudia 1967. Psychotropic properties of the harmala alkaloids. In D. Efron, ed. The Ethnopharmacological Search for Psychoactive Drugs. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Pp. 385-391. The author describes the pharmacology of the harmala alkaloids, their relative strengths, the nature of the experiences they produce, and some of the contents of the visions.
Oss, O. T., and Oeric, O. N. 1976. Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide. Berkeley: And/Or Press. The pamphlet consists of a description of a method of home cultivation of Stropharia cubensis, followed by a brief table of dates denoting psilocybin mushroom history; it also includes a bibliography.
Ott, Jonathan, and Bigwood, Jeremy, eds. 1978. Teonanacatl: Hallucinogenic Mushrooms of North America. Seattle: Madrona Publishers. The proceedings of a conference held in 1977, with contributions by Wasson, Hofmann, Weil, Schultes, and the editors. Includes the history of the identification of the mushrooms and the extraction of psilocybin, a botanical description of the most important psilocybin mushroom species, advice on cultivation, suggested readings, and other commentary. The most complete survey of the topic.
Pollock, Steven Hayden. 1975a. The psilocybin mushroom pandemic. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 7(1): 73-84. The author reviews psilocybin mushroom use, discussing its history (including recent developments in the United States) and providing information on the classification of species and the pharmacology of psilocybin. The author tells how to identify psilocybin mushrooms; he defends their safety, advocates their religious and recreational use, and inveighs against the law.
Pollock, Steven Hayden. 1976. Psilocybin mycetismus with special reference to Panaeolus. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 8(1): 43-57. A discussion of the history, taxonomy, chemistry, and pharmacology of psilocybin mushrooms, with comments on contemporary use and therapeutic prospects. The bibliography is extensive.
Schultes, Richard Evans, and Hofmann, Albert. 1979. The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens. 2nd ed., Revised and Enlarged. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas. This authoritative work provides a thorough review of the botanical distribution and classification of hallucinogenic plants and the chemical structure of their alkaloids. The last chapter is a discussion of possible and suspected plant hallucinogens whose chemical constituents are unknown. Illustrated with chemical diagrams, drawings, and photographs.
Szara, Stephen. 1970. DMT and homologues: Clinical and pharmacological considerations. In D. Efron, ed. Psychotomimetic Drugs. New York: Raven Press. Pp. 275-284. A study of the tryptamine drugs DMT, DET, DPT, and 6-FDET; the effects in human beings were measured by a questionnaire and found to be similar.
Szara, Stephen, Rockland, Lawrence H., Rosenthal, David, and HandIon, Joseph H. 1966. Psychological effects and metabolism of N,N-diethyltryptamine in man. Archives of General Psychiatry 15: 320-329. Ten schizophrenics and ten normal subjects were given a moderate dose of diethyltryptamine (1 mg per kg intramuscularly). Symptoms included rise in blood pressure, dilated pupils, tremors, changes in body image, visual distortions, syriesthesia, and paranoid thoughts. Three of the schizophrenics became more approachable, and seven showed their symptoms in exaggerated form. The normal subjects were unemployed miners; most of them found the experience unpleasant.
PHENYLETHYLAMINE DERIVATIVES
Shick, J. Fred E., and Smith, David E. 1972. The illicit use of the psychotomimetic amphetamines, with special reference to STP (DOM) toxicity. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 5(2): 131-137. This article describes the history of DOM as a street drug, and its effects.
Shulgin, Alexander T. 1978. Psychotomimetic drugs: Structure-activity relationships. In Leslie L. Iversen, Susan D. Iversen, and Solomon H. Snyder, eds. Handbook of Psychopharmacology, Volume II. New York: Plenum. Pp. 243-333. The most complete survey of hallucinogenic phenylethylamine derivatives. The drugs discussed include some with which only the author and his associates have experimented. There is relatively little on indole hallucinogens. No firm conclusions are established on the relation between chemical structure and hallucinogenic activity, but the meticulous detailed analysis and the hundreds of references make this article a basic reference source.
Shulgin, A. T., Sargent, T., and Naranjo, C. 1971. 4-Bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenylisopropylamine, a new centrally active amphetamine analog. Pharmacology 5: 103-107. This drug (DOB) resembles MDA and MMDA; it produces introspection and emotional intensity without perceptual distortion. The minimum effective dose is 0.3 mg; at a dose of 2 mg the effects last fifteen to twenty-four hours.
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Shulgin, A. T., Sargent, T., and Naranjo, C. 1973. Animal pharmacology and human psychopharmacology of 3-methoxy-4,5-methylenedioxyphenylisopropylamine (MMDA). Pharmacology 10: 12- 18. Twenty experimental subjects were given an oral dose of 120 to 150 mg; the effects resembled those of MDA. The authors suggest possible therapeutic uses.
Shulgin, Alexander T., Sargent, Thornton, and Naranjo, Claudio. 1967. The chemistry and psychopharmacology of nutmeg and related phenylisopropylamines. In D. Efron, ed. The Ethnopharmacological Search for Psychoactive Drugs. Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office. Pp. 202-213. A chemical analysis of the essential oils of nutmeg, mace, and other spices and the relationship between these ingredients and methoxylated phenylisopropylamines.
Shulgin, Alexander T., and Dyer, Donald C. 1975. Psychotomimetic phenylisopropylamines. 5. 4- alky1-2,5-dimethoxyphenylisopropylamines. Journal of Medical Chemistry 18: 1201-1204. A basic study of the methoxylated phenylisopropylamine series DOM, DOET, DOPR, DOBU, and so forth.
Snyder, Solomon H., Faillace, Louis A., and Weingartner, Herbert. 1968. DOM (STP), a new hallucinogenic drug, and DOET: Effects in normal subjects. American Journal of Psychiatry 125: 357- 364. The main source of information on DOET.
Turek, I. S., Soskin, R. A., and Kurland, A. A. 1974. Methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA)—subjective effects. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 6(1): 7-14. This is the most complete study except for Claudio Naranjo's The Healing Journey. Most of the information is based on an experiment in which ten subjects were given 75 mg of 1-MDA. The general mood was joyous and serene; mild physical symptoms included chills, numbness, tingling, dry mouth, and loss of appetite.
Weil, Andrew T. 1971. Nutmeg as a psychedelic drug. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 3(2): 72-80. A complete review of this subject, with references. History, effects, pharmacology, chemistry, and sociology of contemporary use are discussed.
Weil, Andrew. 1976. The love drug. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 8(4): 335-337. A short but provocative essay based on the author's and his friends' personal experience, emphasizing relaxation, well-being, heightened physical coordination, and loss of allergic responses as positive effects of MDA. The adverse effects are infections in the female genito-urinary tract, muscle tension in the jaw, and fatigue the day following ingestion. The article suggests the need for furthv research on this drug.
Zinberg, Norman E. 1974. -High- States: A Beginning Study. Washington, D C.: Drug Abuse Council. This attempt to describe the phenomenology of drug-induced states of consciousness by comparing heroin addicts and MDA users provides one of the few firsthand accounts of recreational MDA use and what it means to the user. Observing twenty-three users of the drug, the author was impressed by its effect on degree of awareness and sensitivity, but dubious about its potential for producing lasting insights. He stresses the importance of cultural setting in determining drug effects.
CANNABIS (TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL)
Grinspoon, Lester, 1977. Marihuana Reconsidered, 2d ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. A comprehensive review of the literary, historical, pharmacological, sociological, psychiatric, medical, and other material on marihuana. The second edition includes an extra chapter describing research done after 1971. The main conclusion is that we must move to legalize the social use of marihuana, because the laws do more harm than the drug could ever do. References and a bibliography.
Hollister, Leo E., and Gillespie, H. K. 1969. Similarities and differences between the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide and tetrahydrocannabinol in man. In J. R. Wittenborn, Henry Brill, Jean Paul Smith, and Sarah A. Wittenborn, eds. Drugs and Youth. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas. Pp. 208-211. A double-blind experiment comparing LSD with high doses of oral delta9-THC finds many similarities and some differences.
FLY AGARIC (MUSCOMOLE)
Ott, Jonathan. 1976. Psycho-mycological studies of Amanita—from ancient sacrament to modern phobia. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 8(1): 27-35. A useful review with references. The author discusses reasons why Ely agaric is feared and emphasizes that it is not one of the truly poisonous species of the genus Amanita.
Waser, Peter G., and Bersin, Petra. 1970. Turnover of monoamines in brain under the influence of muscimol and ibotenic acid, two psychoactive principles of Amanita muscaria. In D. Efron, ed. Psychotomimetic Drugs. New York: Raven Press. Pp. 155-161. The authors describe the subjective effects of muscimole in an oral dose of 15 mg and the similar but weaker effects of ibotenic acid in doses up to 75 mg. The effects of neurotransmitters in rat and mouse brains are found to resemble those of LSD.
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BELLADONNA ALKALOIDS
Johnson, Cecil E. 1967. Mystical force of the nightshade. International Journal of Neuropsychiatry. 3: 268-275. After some historical notes and an account of the physical and psychological effects of the belladonna alkaloids, the author describes his own experience with nightshade, which convinced him that now he understands how the insane feel and, he thinks; almost killed him.
Weil, Andrew T. 1977b. Some notes on Datura. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 9(2): 165-169. A well-written discussion of the history, pharmacology, effects, and uses of the belladonna alkaloids, especially scopolamine, including descriptions of the author's and others' subjective experiences. He regards the drug as too dangerous for recreational use,
PHENCYCLIDINE
Petersen, Robert C., and Stillman, Richard C., eds. 1978. Phencyclidine (PCP) Abuse: An Appraisal. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. The most complete treatment of the subject, with seventeen chapters by various authors covering such topics as pharmacology, epidemiology, chronic use, psychotic and other adverse reactions, and treatment, One chapter includes a discussion of ketaniine.
Rosenbaum, Gerald, Cohen, Bertram D., Luby, Elliot D., Gottlieb, Jacques S., and Yelen, Donald. 1959. Comparison of Sernyl with other drugs. Archives of General Psychiatry 1: 651-656. A comparison of phencyclidine (Sernyl), LSD, and amobarbital in schizophrenics and normal experimental subjects. The effects of PCP were more like those associated with schizophrenia than the effects produced by LSD and amobarbital—especially the changes in reaction time and attention.
Showalter, Craig V., and Thornton, William E. 1977. Clinical pharmacology of phencyclidine toxicity. American Journal of Psychiatry 134: 1234-1238. A review of what is known about phencyclidine as a street drug, concentrating on the dangers and the treatment of adverse reactions. The physical and psychological symptoms of PCP psychosis are described.
KETAMINE
Collier, Barbara B. 1972. Ketamine and the conscious mind. Anaesthesia 27: 120-134. A survey of patients taking ketamine in surgery shows a high prevalence of transcendental experiences and other psychedelic effects. The sample is large. Patients speak of going to heaven, seeing God, dying and being reincarnated, leaving their bodies, going mad, and so forth.
Domino, Edward F., Chodoff, Peter, and Corssen, Suenter. 1965. Pharmacological effects of C1-581, a new dissociative anesthetic, in man. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics 6: 279-291. This is the first scholarly article on ketamine; its pharmacological properties and its relationship to phencyclidine are described. Yhe term -cerebral dissociative anesthesia" is introduced. An experiment in which twenty prisoners were given an anesthetic dose, intravenously, is discussed, with emphasis on the realistic hallucinations that occurred.
Lilly, John. 1978. The Scientist: A Novel Autobiography. Philadelphia: Lippincott. The last third of this autobiographical fragment is an account of the author's adventures—largely misadventures—in prolonged intensive use of ketamine. He leaves no doubt about its potential for abuse and arousal of psychological dependence.
Siegel, Ronald K. 1978. Phencyclidine and ketamine intoxication: A study of four populations of recreational users. In Robert C. Petersen and Richard C. Stillman, eds. Phencyclidine Abuse: An Appraisal. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Pp. 119-143. A good survey which includes history, description, and testimony from users on the nature of the experience. The material on ketamine—a drug about which not much has been written—is especially interesting.
NITROUS OXIDE
Lynn, E. J., Walter, R. G., Harris, L. A., Dendy, R., and James, M. 1972. Nitrous oxide: It's a gas. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 5(1): 1-7. A brief review of the history, pharmacology, subjective effects, and therapeutic uses of nitrous oxide, with references. In an experiment with twenty volunteers, visual effects were rare, auditory ones common. The peak of the effect occurred two to three minutes after breathing the nitrous oxide; for an hour or two after the experience, the subjects felt generally better.
Shedlin, Michael, and Wallechinsky, David, eds. 1973. Laughing Gas. Berkeley: And/Or Press. A view of nitrous oxide from the perspective of the drug culture, compiled by a San Francisco group called the East Bay Chemical Philosophy Symposium. It includes historical notes, passages from nineteenth-century writers (Ilumphry Davy, Benjamin Paul Blood, and William James among them), personal accounts of the subjective effects by the editors and their associates, and practical suggestions for use. Illustrated with photographs and cartoons. The use of nitrous oxide is advocated for therapeutic and recreational purposes.
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GENERAL
De Rios, Marlene Dobkin. 1973. The non-Western use of hallucinogenic drugs. In Drug Use in America: Problem in Perspective. Second report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Appendix, Vol. I. Pp. 1179- 1235. A useful survey with an extensive bibliography, including both eastern and western hemispheres, arranged by culture. The uses of hallucinogenic plants for treatment of disease, witchcraft, and divination in various cultures are listed in tabular form.
De Rios, Marlene Dobkin. 1979. The Wilderness of Mind: Sacred Plants in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Beverly Hills: Sage. A review of hallucinogenic drug use in eight New World and Old World preindustrial cultures, including the Aztec, Maya, and Inca. The sections on the Bwiti cult and on New Guinea mushroom madness are especially interesting. The author generalizes about the cultural role of the drugs and the cultural patterning of their perceived effects. She also discusses the use of music in structuring drug rituals. There are several tables and extensive bibliography.
Furst, Peter T., ed. 1972. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. New York: Praeger. This collection includes articles by Schultes, Wasson, La Barre, and others, with an introduction by Furst. It covers the use of tobacco, San Pedro cactus, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, fly agaric, cannabis, iboga root, and ayahuasca. Especially interesting are Wasson's speculations on the nature of soma and La Barres theory of the reasons for the popularity of hallucinogenic plants among American Indians.
Furst, Peter T. 1976. Hallucinogens and Culture. San Francisco: Chandler & Sharp. The most comprehensive and informative book on this topic. There are chapters on the iboga root, tobacco, cannabis and nutmeg, morning glories, psilocybin mushrooms, fly agaric, peyote, datura, and cohoba snuff. The author calls for an interdisciplinary approach. His own method of organization is rather unsystematic; if there is any overarching theme, it is a polemic against Western civilization and its attitude toward these drugs. The history of research in the field is discussed, and there is an extensive bibliography.
Harner, Michael, ed. 1973. Hallucinogens and Shamanism. London: Oxford University Press. This collection complements Flesh of the Gods, edited by Peter Furst. It contains ten papers, a general introduction, and an introduction to each of the four sections. Topics include the use of belladonna in European witchcraft, the nature of yagé experiences, Apache peyote Ilse, mushroom use in Oaxaca, and Amazonian curing with ayahuasca and cohoba. The papers are based on anthropological field research, and most of the authors have used the drugs they are writing about.
La Barre, Weston. 1972. Hallucinogens and the shamanic origins of religion. In P. Furst, ed. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. New York: Praeger. Pp. 261-278. After discussing his psychoanalytic theory of the origin and meaning of religion, the author proposes an interesting explanation of why hallucinogenic plants were used longer and more extensively in the New World than in the Old World.
Schleiffer, Hedwig, ed. 1973. Sacred Narcotic Plants of the New World Indians. New York: Hafner. A collection of excerpts from early Spanish chronicles, anthropologists' and travelers' reports, and other sources, on the use of tobacco, datura, peyote, mushrooms, ayahuasca, and other sacred drugs. The arrangement of the book is by plant fb.milies. Sample items are a letter on psilocybin mushrooms written to F. Gordon Wasson, in 1953, by a linguist who had lived among the Mazatec Indians; affidavits condemning peyote use, presented by Indians at a conference held in 1914; and observations on Amazonian hallucinogens, by the nineteenth-century botanist Richard Spruce and several priests. The book is an interesting mixture of historical, anthropological, and botanical information, some of which—especially the material more than fifty years old—is not easily available elsewhere.
Schultes, Richard Evans, and Hofmann, Albert. 1979. Plants of the Gods: Origins of Hallucinogenic Use. New York: McGraw-Hill. A survey of hallucinogenic plants and their use around the world, profusely illustrated with black and white drawings and many color plates and drawings. The combination of text, pictures, and tables makes this one of the most vivid and effective presentations of the subject.
OLD WORLD
Fernandez, J. W. 1972. Tabernanthe iboga: Narcotic ecstasies and the work of the ancestors. In P. Furst, ed. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. New York: Praeger. Pp. 237- 260. An anthropological study of the use of the iboga root by the Bwiti cult in Gabon. The author analyzes the syncretic religious beliefs of the cult, recounts the myths associated with the origins of the iboga root, and discusses its ceremonial use both as a stimulant and as a hallucinogen.
Annotated Bibliography
Chapter 2
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Interviews with cult members reveal their reasons for using the root and the nature of the visions.
Wasson, R. Gordon. 1968. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. The author presents a solution to the mystery of soma, the divine intoxicant of the Vedas; it is said to be the fly agaric mushroom. Many scholars agree, but the issue is still disputed.
Wasson, R. Gordon, Ruck, Carl A. P., and Hofmann, Albert. 1978. The Road to Eleusis. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. The auhors explore the secret of Eleusis and conclude that it was a potion containing lysergic acid alkaloids derived from a variety of ergot that grows on barley. The foreword and introductory chapter are by Wasson; Hofmann contributes observations on varieties of ergot and their alkaloids; Ruck discusses the nature of the mysteries and provides further documentation; there is also a translation of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, a narration of the events portrayed dramatically in the rites. The authors emphasize that ancient descriptions make the climax sound like a mystical revelation, and they believe that a drug would be the most plausible way to produce such an effect on a great mass of people. This is not a thesis that classical scholars will find easy to accept.
SOUTH AMERICA
Chagnon, Napoleon A. 1977 (orig. 1968). Yanomami5: The Fierce People. 2d ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. An anthropological study of an Amazon society in which the adult men use a hallucinogenic snuff almost daily. In an appendix, the author describes the effects of the snuff on himself. Illustrated with photographs.
De Rios, Marlene Dobkin. 1972. Visionary Vine: Psychedelic Healing in the Peruvian Amazon. San Francisco: Chandler. An account of the magical and therapeutic use of the harmaline drink ayahuasca in the slums of the city of Iquitos, Peru, near the headwaters of the Amazon, written by an anthropologist who lived among the people and took part in the healing sessions of the empiricos, folk healers who perform a kind of short-term psychotherapy by using the drug to help patients identify and symbolize the causes of their problems and conflicts. The author describes the life of lower-class Iquitos and classifies the uses of ayahuasca, including witchcraft, divination, and pleasure. She discusses why many slum-dwellers prefer the empiricos to doctors, and ale narrates some case histories.
Harner, Michael. 19736. Common themes in South American yagé experiences. In M. Harner, ed. Hallucinogens and Shamanism. London: Oxford University Press. Pp. 155-175. The themes include snakes and big cats, demons and gods, -seeing- distant persons and places, dying and rebirth; and separation of the soul from the body; the information comes from reports by Indians and the author's own experience. He is not sure to what extent the imagery is determined by chemistry and to what extent it is determined by culture.
Lamb, F. Bruce. 1979 (orig. 1971). Wizard of the Upper Amazon, 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. This is the story (as told to the author) of Manuel C6rdova-Rios, a Brazilian captured by an Indian band in the early twentieth century and trained by its chief to be his successor. After several years he returned home and became a healer, using ayahuasca and other techniques learned from the Indians. There are several notable descriptions of communal and individual drug sessions. How much credence to put in this story is uncertain; it happened long before it was written down, and has probably been subjected to imaginative heightening, first by C6rdova-Rios and then by Lamb. Whatever mixture of truth and fiction is involved, the book does give a more or less plausible picture of the life of a small forest Indian band in the early days of contact with white men.
Linzer, Jeffrey. 1970. Some anthropological aspects of yage. In B. Aaronson and H. Osmond, eds. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Pp. 108-115. A brief review of the literature on yagé (ayahuasca), with references. The main emphasis is on the Tukano, Cashinahua, and Jivaro Indians.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1972. The cultural context of an aboriginal hallucinogen: Banisteriopsis caapi. In P. Furst, ed. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. New York: Praeger. Pp. 89-113. The author reviews the use of this harmaline-producing plant in the Amazon, with special reference to the myths and rituals of the Tukano Indians. He points out how important yagé visions are in supplying material for the tribe's art, and he says that the Indians' ancient knowledge of hallucinogenic plants is being lost as their cultures disintegrate or become assimilated into others. Ile is uncertain whether the typical yage imagery has pharmacological or cultural roots.
Sharon, Douglas. 1972. The San Pedro cactus in Peruvian folk healing. In P. Furst, ed. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. New York: Praeger. Pp. 114-135. This study of the San Pedro cactus of Peru includes an interview with a curandero who uses the mescaline-producing plant as one of many medical techniques, primitive and modern. The curandero invokes modern psychological conceptions, as well as Christian saints and aboriginal spirits, to explain what he is doing.
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Wassén, S. Henry. 1967. Anthropological survey of the use of South American snuffs. In D. F:fron, ed. The Ethnopharmacological Search for Psychoactive Drugs. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Pp. 233-289. A review that complements the work of Hohnstedt and Lindgren on the chemistry and pharmacology of the snuffs. It includes both archaeological and ethnographic findings, with annotated maps.
Wilbert, Johannes. 1972. Tobacco and shamanistic ecstasy among the Warao Indians of Venezuela. In P. Furst, ed. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. New York: Praeger. Pp. 55- 83. This analysis of the sacred and magical functions of tobacco in an Amazonian culture shows how much the definition of a psychedelic drug depends on social setting.
MEXICO
Benitez, Fernando. 1975. In the Magic Land of Peyote. Austin: University of Texas Press. This account of Huichol religious life is not an anthropological study but a personal chronicle. The author is a Mexican journalist and social critic who was the first non-Indian to participate in a peyote hunt. A chapter on Leary and the U.S. psychedelic scene is included for contrast. Introduced by Peter T. Furst and illustrated with photographs.
Furst, Peter T., and Myerhoff, Barbara G. 1972. El mito como historia: el ciclo del peyote y la datura entre los huicholes. In S. H. Sitt6n, ed. El Peyote y los Huicholes. Mexico: Sep Setentas. Pp. 55- 108. An interesting theory, based on Huichol mythology, that an early datura cult was replaced by the less dangerous peyote.
Myerhoff, Barbara G. 1974. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. An anthropologist who participated in the 400-year-old pilgrimage and ceremony recounts her experience and supplies historical and ethnographic background. She describes Huichol religion with special reference to the central symbol complex of deer, corn. and peyote. Her explanations are largely derived from the work of Mircea Eliade, and concentrate on the theme of mythical primordial time. This is the most thorough published account of the peyote hunt; there is a large bibliography.
Schultes, Richard Evans. 1940. Teonanacatl: The narcotic mushroom of the Aztecs. American Anthropologist 42: 429-443. This pioneering work identified the Aztec teonanacatl as a mushroom of the genus Panaeolus; it was based on a study of samples collected in Mazatec country.
Wasson, R. Gordon. 1962. The hallucinogenic mushrooms of Mexico and psilocybin: A bibliography. Botanical Museum Leaflets, Vol. 2, No 2. Pp. 25-73. A thorough compilation of the anthropological and botanical literature.
UNITED STATES
Aberle, D. F. 1966. The Peyote Religion Among the Navaho. Chicago. Aldine: This is the best single work on all aspects of the peyote religion. It is based on research done mainly in 1949-1953, with further observations made in 1964. Aberle discusses at length the social and historical background and the resistance of both traditional Navaho and white authorities. He describes the rituals and beliefs of the peyote eaters, contrasts them with traditional Navaho religion, and explains the attraction of the new cult. He believes that the religious experience provided by peyote is valuable for church members, and he criticizes their detractors. Photographs of the ritual and an appendix on peyote and health are included.
La Barre, Weston. 1964: (orig. 1938). The Peyote Cuit. Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoestring Press. The original version of La Barres classic study was based on field data obtained during visits to fifteen reservations in 1935 and 1936; appendices in the second edition bring the scholarship up to date in 1964. The botany and subjective effects of peyote and the history of the peyote religion and its ceremonies are described, with attention to intertribal variations. The importance of doctoring in peyote meetings is emphasized. La Barre calls peyotism the living religion of most Plains Indians. The bibliography is extensive.
Schultes, Richard Evans. 1938. The appeal of peyote (lophophora williamsii) as a medicine. American Anthropologist 40: 698-715. Studying peyote use in Oklahoma, the author discovered that many Indians regarded small amounts of peyote as medicine for minor physical anti psychological ailments, to be used almost as we use coffee and aspirin. Myths and stories about peyote, he says, center on its value as a guardian and restorer of health, and not on visions and emotional catharsis.
Slotkin, J. S. 1956. The Peyote Religion: A Study in Indian-White Relations. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. A clearly organized historical and anthropological study by a white man who became an elected official of the Native American Church, with an emphasis on the subject mentioned by the subtitle. The historical survey of the rise of the peyote religion and the defeat of attempts to suppress it, is especially useful. The ritual use of peyote is described and its function as a universal remedy and -inexhaustible teacher- is discussed.
Spindler, George Dearborn. 1952. Personality and peyotism in Menornini Indian acculturation. Psychiatry 15: 151-159. A study of peyote-eating Indians in Wisconsin which suggests that they
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have much in common with some hippies. Unlike the confident Menomini of old, awaiting the access of vision power, the peyote eater regards himself as a sinner being saved. The author regards the peyote religion as a home for the culturally homeless; applying ideas from the sociology of deviance, he states that the systematic cultural difference appears here as a deviation in personality type.
Chapter 3
Braden, William, 1970. LSD and the press. In B. Aaronson and H. Osmond, eds. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Pp. 400- 418. A journalist examines the treatment of psyChedelic drugs by the mass media in the 1960s, showing how hard it is for newspapers, magazines, radio, and television to describe such a cornplex and emotionally charged phenomenon without oversimplifying or distorting it.
Carey, James J. 1968. The College Drug Scene. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Prentice-Hall. An ethnographic exploration of the Berkeley drug world, with an analysis of the economics of drug distribution, portraits of typical casual and habitual psychedelic drug users, and some discussion of the reaction of outsiders. The author emphasizes the gulf of incomprehension between the drug culture and the rest of society. The work is based on conversations, field observations, and interviews with eighty subject-informants. He points out that most of his subjects are cautious about using LSD and do not proselytize for it.
Cox, Harvey. 1977. Turning East: The Promise and Peril of the New Orientalism. New York: Simon and Schuster. The well-known Protestant theologian examines the social roots and spiritual significance of the new interest in Eastern religion. Chapter Three, which is devoted to a trip to Mexico with Salvador Roquet to take peyote with the Huichol Indians, will be of most interest to The student of psychedelic drugs. Cox believes that the connection between oriental interests and psychedelic drugs is not chemically but culturally determined; and he regards both turning on and turning East as merely short-term palliatives for the ills of Western culture.
Downing, Joseph J. 1964. Zihuatanejo: An experiment in transpersonative living. In R. Blum and Associates, eds. Utopiates: The Use and Users of LSD-25. New York: Atherton. Pp. 142-177. A sympathetic description of the institute set up in Mexico in June of 1963 by Leary's International Foundation for Internal Freedom; it lasted for six weeks before it was closed by the authorities. The Zihuatanejo Center for Transpersonative Living attracted mostly middle-class people seeking insight and self-knowledge through psychedelic drugs. Both staff and visitors are described as mature, serious, intellectual, and familiar with the effects of LSD. In the author's opinicn, the Center -fulfilled most of the claims its founders made for it.-
Feigelson, Naomi. 1970. The Underground Revolution. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. A well-written but extremely partisan account of the drug culture that perhaps overemphasizes the radical political elements within it. The author discusses the influence of Eastern and American Indians, the longing for the exotic and ecstatic, and the effects on fashion, music, visual art, and the ecology movement. There is a chapter on the underground press and a final chapter interpreting the hippies and their political offshoots as the avant-garde of a cultural revolution.
Hofmann, Albert. 1979. LSD: My Problem Child. New York: McGraw-Hill. The Swiss research chemist who invented LSD writes of his career and the history of the drug. The book ranges from chemistry to metaphysics. He includes several accounts of LSD trips taken by himself and friends, and describes encounters with Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, the German poet Ernst Jiinger, and others. He disapproves of a casual use of LSD, but he concludes that the drug can provide -material aid to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality.- The book presents important historical testimony and is often fascinating reading.
Hollingshead, Michael. 1974. The Man Who Turned On the World. New York: Abelard-Schuman. This memoir of the sixties, by the man who brought LSD and Timothy Leary together, provides a firsthand source on the elite of the drug culture. He says that LSD caused an important change in sensibility but it has lost its interest for him and most other former users. In this chronicle of -a long, arduous, oppressive decade,- Leary is compared to Jean Cocteau. The decade ended with Hollingshead experiencing Methedrine addiction and consequent paranoid psychotic episodes. There are several descriptions of LSD trips.
Keniston, Kenneth. 1968-1969. Heads and seekers: Drugs on campus, countercultures, and American society. American Scholar 38(1): 97-112. The best known and one of the best studies of this subject. With implicit emphasis on marihuana and LSD, Keniston distinguishes -tasters- who experiment briefly with drugs out of curiosity, -seekers- who use them from time to time for self-exploration or new experience, and -beads,- the smallest group, who make drugs the center
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of their lives. He believes that there is more psychedelic drug use in academically selective colleges. In this environment drug use is associated with both the feeling that intellectual performances are somehow fraudulent and an insistence on honesty, experimentation, and a search for the truly meaningful. In most cases, drug use and dropping out are a temporary phase. The hippie world is a kind of temporary camping ground on the way to adulthood; and only the -heads- are truly alienated in the popular sense.
Kleps, Art. 1977. Millbrook. Oakland: Bench Press. This constantly entertaining, sometimes hilarious, occasionally libellous memoir of Leary and company in their headquarters in the early days of the psychedelic rebellion was written by a former prison psychologist who lived among them for several years. Kleps is the founder and chief Boo-Hoo of the Neo-American Church and the last of the psychedelic outlaws; he professes to regret nothing except the crushing of the revolution by straight society. Only Tom Wolfe conveys the essential aura of those years better, but Kleps is funnier. There are many colorful characters and anecdotes and several accounts of drug trips. Kleps' sardonic views on what he calls the -kid culture- and the West Coast scene may be surprising. He does not inspire confidence in his veracity (in the straight-world sense) and this tale has to be described as at best nonobjective (he is a philosophical solipsist, in any case) Nevertheless, for the moment, it stands as the definitive account of Millbrook. The reader cannot be sure whether the attempts at metaphysics and social theory are meant to be part of the comedy or not, since Kleps himself appears to be uncertain.
Leary, Timothy. 1968a. High Priest. New York: New American Library. This is Leary's most interesting and self-revealing book, and still a useful cultural document. He tells the story of his adventures in the psychedelic drug game from the early days in Cuernevaca and Cambridge to 1967. The account of the prison psilocybin project strikes a different note from the sober and scholarly tone of his articles in psychiatric journals. Leary describes many LSD and psilocybin trips and expounds his ideas on death and rebirth, Hindu cosmology, and drugs as aphrodisiacs. He also discusses the unpredictability of psychedelic drug trips and the role of the guide. Arthur Koestler, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs are among the famous names who put in an appearance. (Burroughs describes a horrifying DMT trip.) Despite the talk of -neurological liberation- and -ontological conspiracies,- and the defiance expressed in the view that LSD use should be -for kicks, like life itself,- Leary's tone is not consistent: he is relfective and ironical about his role as guru as often as proselytizing and provocative.
Leary, Timothy. 1968b. The Politics of Ecstasy. New York: G. P. Putnam's. A collection of essays and occasional pieces exploring what, for want of a better word, might be called Leary's social philosophy. The book includes -Hormonal Politics,- -The Fifth Freedom: The Right to Get High,- -Drop Out or Cop Out,- -Start Your Own Religion,- and -Education as Addiction and its Cure.-
Leary, Timothy. 1973. She comes in colors. In David Solomon and George Andrews, eds. Drugs and Sexuality. Frogmore, St. Albans: Panther Books. Pp. 251-289. A 1966 Playboy interview republished under a title borrowed from a Rolling Stones song. Leary articulately defines his position on a number of issues from that period, discussing LSD as an aphrodisiac, his troubles with the law, and the coming revolution in consciousness.
Marks, John. 1979. The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. New York: Times Books. In the fifties and early sixties the CIA conducted experiments in mind control with LSD, hypnosis, and other methods. This book shows that CIA funding and connections were involved in much of the early academic psychedelic drug research, which was often conducted by standards that would be ethically unacceptable today. Scholars cooperated freely with government intelligence agencies during that era in a way that would now be unthinkable. A few of the experimental subjects given LSD without warning or permission were seriously harmed. One chapter tells the story, covered up until recently, of Frank Nelson, a biological warfare expert. Nelson killed himself during a prolonged psychotic reaction two weeks after being given LSD, without his knowledge, at a party by the head of the CIA chemical and biological weapons project. As a mind control weapon, LSD eventually proved useless.
National Survey on Drug Abuse: 1977. Rockville, Maryland: National Institute on Drug Abuse. A sample of 4,954 subjects indicates that 6 percent of the population over twelve years of age (ten million people) have used psychedelic drugs; 0.7 percent (1,140,000 people) used them in 1977. Among people aged eighteen to twenty-five, 20 percent had used psychedelic drugs and 2 percent used them in 1977.
O'Donnell, John A., Voss, Harwin L. Clayton, Richard R., Slatic, Gerald T., and Room, Robin G. W. 1976. Young Men and Drugs—A Nationwide Survey. NIDA Research Monograph 5. Rockville, Maryland: National Institute on Drug Abuse. A survey of 2,500 men in their twenties from October 1974 to May 1975 reveals that 22 percent had used psychedelic drugs; 10 percent of them had used it ten or more times but only 1 percent in the month and 5 percent in the year
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before questioning. A similar survey in 1972 had shown 10 percent use in the previous year. Of the psychedelic drug users, 1.3 percent (seven men in the sample) had been treated for problems arising from the drugs. This study apparently makes no distinction between LSD and PCP.
Playboy Panel. 1970. The drug revolution. Playboy 17(2): 53-74, 200-201. A discussion in which the participants include Baba Ram Dass, William Burroughs, Leslie Fiedler, Alan Watts, Harry Ans-linger, and others. All the familiar illicit drugs, including marihuana and LSD, are covered in the discussion. Anslinger sounds predictably ridiculous, but the rest of the remarks are interesting, especially those by Fiedler, Ram Dass, and Burroughs.
Pope, Harrison, Jr. 1971. Voices from the Drug Culture. Boston: Beacon Press. A very useful but brief introduction to the hippie world, based on research done in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts, the Lower East Side of New York, and Haight-Ashbury. Pope discusses the process of dropping out as a sociological phenomenon, LSD use as an initiatory rite, the uses of bad trips, death-rebirth experiences, and the drug-induced view of -vast fields never contaminated by the Western technical apparatus.- He also mentions the dangers of occultism, fatalism, and withdrawal, but says that 95 percent of psychedelic drug users are unharmed by the experience. There are chapters on each major class of drugs, and a short final section on the minority who become stimulant, sedative, or narcotic addicts. There are extensive quotations from drug users. The reference notes incorporate an annotated bibliography.
Pope, Harrison, Jr. 1974. The Road East. Boston: Beacon Press. A sympathetic but critical view of the recent interest in Eastern philosophies and religions among Western youth, with perceptive comments on the origins of this interest in the drug culture. The author regards himself as committed to both Western science and Eastern philosophy. He discusses the dissolution of the drug culture and the social, psychological, and health advantages of Eastern disciplines as a substitute form of protest against Western rationalism and technology. He emphasizes the metaphysical appetites whetted but unsatisfied by psychedelic drugs, the need for discipline (fulfilled by Eastern practices), and the fear of spiritual and physical poisoning by industrial products. There are many ,quotations from interviews and an annotated bibliography in the form of reference notes to each chapter. This is an excellent sequel to Voices from the Drug Culture.
Ram Dass. 1971. Be Here Now. New York: Crown Publishers. The first section is autobiographical and takes Richard Alpert through his period of interest in psychedelic drugs to the advent of his new identity as Baba Ram Dass. The rest of the book is mostly an account of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy designed for Americans along with spiritual advice from the.author. Elaborate black Aid white illustrations evoke psychedelic drug trips. There is a brief discussion of the pros and cons of psychedelic drugs as instruments of spiritual development. The story of how Alpert's professional and social roles -fell away- before his eyes on his first psilocybin trip is still worth reading. The book provides a good example of how some LSD users have continued in life after putting aside psychedelic drugs.
Roszak, Theodore. 1969. The Making of a Counter Culture. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Although the term -counter culture- may now seem premature and a little pretentiqus, this is the most intelligent, sympathetic evaluation of the hippie movement. Roszak sees beyond baroque detail to more general questions. In his treatment of Timothy Leary and psychedelic drugs, however, he unfortunately makes little attempt at sympathetic understanding, and in general he underestimates the importance of the drugs in the genesis of the hippie movement.
Slack, Charles W. 1974. Timothy Leary, the Madness of the Sixties, and Me. New York: Peter H. Wyden. This memoir provides still another view of Leary; it is by a psychologist who knew him in the pre-psilocybin Harvard days and stayed in touch as late as the early 1970s, The emphasis is on Leary's irresponsibility and what have to be called the psychopathic or sociopathic features of his personality.
Smith, David E., and Luce, John. 1971, Love Needs Care. Boston: Little, Brown. This chronicle of the rise and decline of the Haight-Ashhury hippie community from 1965 to 1970 is written from the point of view of a physician (Dr. Smith) who ran the Free Medical Clinic there. It describes the operation of the clinic and provides a sympathetic but rather horrifying view of the underside of hippie life, especially the severe mental and physical health problems related to it. The book is not well organized or brilliantly written, but it provides a detailed account of the scene by a person who was not a tourist, journalist, or sociologist but a man who actually worked among the hippies. With a bibliography and black and white photographs.
Stafford, Peter. 1971. Psychedelic Baby Reaches Puberty. New York: Praeger. A collection of relaxed and amiable interviews with psychedelic drug users, including Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, the rock impresario Bill Graham, Humphry Osmond, and many less celebrated persons. Although Stafford has a probably excessive faith in the liberating power of psychedelic drugs, he does not ignore the dangers: he warns against their misuse and interviews a psychiatrist in a hospital that has seen a number of adverse reactions to LSD. The book is not continuously interesting, and it is
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necessary to range through it for the best items, among them several reports on the use of LSD as self-prescribed therapy; see, especially, the interview entitled -Home Remedy."
Strategy Council on Drug Abuse. 1976. Federal Strategy: Drug Abuse Prevention. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. This government survey contains data on psychedelic drug use in the mid-seventies based on (admittedly not very reliable) Drug Abuse Warning Network surveys. It estimates that in 1974 4.2 percent and in 1975 2.8 percent of young people aged twelve to seventeen had used psychedelic drugs; for adults the figures were 1.5 percent and 1.1 percent.
Weil, Andrew T. 1977a. The use of psychoactive mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest: An ethnopharmacological report. Botanical Museum Leaflets, Vol. 25, No, 5. Pp. 131-149. A sociological study of the recent growth in psychedelic mushroom use in this region.
Wolf, Leonard, ed. 1968. Voices from the Love Generation. Boston: Little, Brown. These taped interviews with nine men and six women in Haight-Ashbury provide comments from some of the more articulate hippies on various aspects of their lives, including the role of LSD. There are-. some counter-culture clichés but no ideological party line and surprisingly few illusions about either the hippie world or its drugs. The editor supplies an introduction, an epilogue, photographs of the interview subjects, and a glossary of Haight street slang.
Wolfe, Burton H. 1968. The Hippies. New York. New American Library. A survey of the hippie scene that makes up for its lack of a point of view through many fascinating anecdotes and descriptions, including the author's conversation with Ken Kesey at a forest prison camp where Kesey had been sent on a marihuana charge.
Wolfe, Tom. 1969 (orig. 1968). The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York: Bantam Books. The story of the novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters in the West Coast psychedelic scene of the mid-sixties, based on interviews and tape recordings of Prankster events. Wolfe tells the story enthusiastically from the point of view of the subjects, in his patented hyperbolic style. The book is entertaining and provides an unusually close look at one aspect of the hippie world. There are several descriptions of LSD trips. The title refers to parties called acid tests at which the Kool-Aid was spiked with LSD (acid).
Yablonsky, Lewis. 1968. The Hippie Trip. New York: Pegasus. An honest, intelligent, arid balanced, if uninspired, account by a sociologist who became deeply involved in the lives of the hippies he was studying. At the end the author describes his own LSD trip. The book is not about LSD, but the author says that -it pervaded all the behavior I witnessed"; he saw people both' damaging and helping themselves with it. He visits the East Village, Haight-Ashbury, and a California commune in a state of disastrous collapse, and also Makes use of tabulated data from 700 questionnaires about drug use and social attitudes. There are also a number of conversations and interviews, including one with Chuck Dederich, the founder of Synanon, on his experimental LSD trip of 1957. Despite his sympathy for the hippies, Yablonsky makes it clear how, and why, schizoid and violent characters were attracted to the scene.
Young, Warren R., and Hixson, Joseph R. 1966. LSD on Campus. New York: Dell. A largely historical study of the psychedelic drug scene of the sixties, with accounts of drug trips that show the variability of effects. There is a chapter on Hofmann's discovery of LSD and one on Leary. The tone is primarily critical of LSD use and the drug culture. The style is somewhat breathless but the content is sober. The title is misleading; this is not a study of college campuses.
Chapter 4
Alexander, Marsha. 1967. The Sexual Paradise of LSD. North Hollywood, California: Brandon House. Despite the misleadingly sensational title and a certain amount of pornographic packaging, this book does not promote LSD as a producer of guaranteed sexual ecstasy. The complex and variable sexual effects and their relationship to other psychological changes are examined through case histories. It is suggested that LSD can have profound effects, both good and bad, on sexual life; the emotional aspects of sexual life are affected most.
Barr, Harriet Linton, Langs, Robert J., Holt, Robert R., Goldberger, Leo, and Klein, George S. 1972. LSD: Personality and Experience. New York: John Wiley. A carefully designed experiment correlating the effects of a moderate dose (100 micrograms) of LSD with the various personality types of experimental subjects. Although the framework is psychoanalytic (the theory of primary process thinking), the authors conclude that LSD research demands certain revisions of Freudian concepts. They describe the changes in ego functioning that occur when LSD is taken, and elaborate certain syndromes or typical kinds of reaction. One of their conclusions is that LSD is frequently written about and promoted by the kind of adaptable and flexible person for whom it
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is useful, then taken by others for whom it is dangerous. Because of the limitations imposed by the dose, the setting (a laboratory room draped in black) and the constant psychological testing, this experiment does not reveal the full potential of psychedelic experience.
Boissier, J. -R. 1974. Les psychodysleptiques: Pharmacologie animale versus pharmacologie humaine. In S. Radouco-Thomas, A. Villeneuve, and C. Radouco-Thomas, eds. Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Abuse of Psychotomimetics (Hallucinogens). Quebec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval. Pp. 139-151. This article is the best indication of how little animal experiments reveal about human psychedelic experience. It is impossible to find animal analogues for the most interesting psychedelic effects. No general conclusion can be drawn about the effects of psychedelic drugs on learning and conditioning.
Breslaw, Daniel. 1965 (orig. 1961). Untitled. In D. Ebin, ed. The Drug Experience. New York: Grove Press. Pp. 325-350. Entertaining and vivid accounts of three psychedelic drug trips—two on psilocybin, taken in a laboratory, and one on peyote, taken with a friend. The author visited hell and then discovered -a new universe with laws of its own--an experience he says he chooses to call the most important of his life. The jocular manner can be irritating; apparently it is a defense.
Burroughs, William, and Ginsberg, Allen. 1975 (orig. 1963). The Yage Letters, 2d ed. San Francisco: City Lights Books. The authors' correspondence about their adventures in South America while searching for yagé (ayahuasca), the Amazonian psychedelic plant containing harmaline. There are several descriptions of ayahuasca trips. The sardonic Burroughs adds a flavor of urban drug-culture cynicism to his comments.
Ebin, David, ed. 1965 (orig. 1961). The Drug Experience. New York: Grove Press. Unusually articulate and interesting first-person accounts by users of cannabis, opium, peyote, mushrooms, and LSD.
Ellis, Havelock. 1897. Mescal: A new artificial paradise. In Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 537-548. An early account of peyote visions that is still worth reading.
Gay,. George R., Newmeyer, john A., Elkin, Richard A., and Wieder, Steven. 1975. Drug/sex practice in Haight-Ashbury. In Problems of Drug Dependence. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences. Pp. 1080-1101. Interviews with Haight-Ashbury drug users show that their attitudes toward the sexual effects of the more potent psychedelic drugs are ambivalent: these drugs heighten sensuality and fantasy but create such unstable moods that it is often difficult to sustain desire. Sexuality is more often transformed or transcended than enhanced. Cocaine and marihuana are preferred for sex—or no drugs at all.
Groh, Georges, and Lemieux, Marcel. 1968. The effect of LSD on spider web formation. International Journal of the Addictions 3: 4 1-53. One of the few interesting results of animal experiments using LSD: it inexplicably causes spiders to make smaller and more geometrically regular webs. Chronic exposure at high doses produces abnormal web structures.
Grof, Stanislav. 1975. Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research. New York: Viking Press. This is probably the most important and certainly the most intellectually original single book on psychedelic experience. It is based on enormous clinical experience: from 1956 to the mid-1970s Grof observed or guided more than 2,000 LSD trips that included both normal subjects and psychiatric patients. Anyone interested in psychedelic drugs must decide how to interpret this clinical material and come to terms with Grof's ideas, either in agreement or opposition. No book conveys the potential depth and complexity of psychedelic experience better. The emphasis on the importance of previous exposure to LSD, the progress that can be made from one trip to the next, is crucial. Whether or not Grof's idea of -systems of condensed experience- in neurosis, his concept of the birth trauma, and his speculations on Eastern religion seem plausible, anyone who reads this book is likely to be convinced that there is, at any rate, something important to be explained. Grof says that he began as a more or less orthodox psychoanalyst, and he apologizes at the end of the book for the astonishing nature of his conclusions. Illustrated with black and white drawings by the patients.
Harrington, Alan. 1966. A visit to inner space. In D. Solomon, ed. LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug. New York: G. P. Putnam's. Pp. 72-102. On this LSD trip, guided by Ralph Metzner and Art Kleps, the author experienced what he regarded as phylogenetic memories and visions out of Eastern cosmologies, despite his previous annoyance at -the enthusiasts of Eastern philosophy.-
James, William. 1882, On some Hegelisms. Mind 7: 186-208. James's classic account of his mystical
nitrous oxide experience and the reflections on Hegel's doctrine of the Spirit inspired by it.
Klüver, Heinrich. 1966 (orig. 1928 and 1942). Mescal and Mechanisms of Hallucination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mescal (1928) is a pioneering work that classifies and analyzes psychedelic eidetic visions of the simpler sort. The author finds patterns similar to those of toxic delirium. He concludes, concerning -mescal psychosis,- that one looks -beyond the horizon of
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the normal world, and this `beyond' is often so impressive or even shocking that its aftereffects linger for years in one's memory... Mescal (1942) is an analysis of hallucinatory constants at three levels: the form-constants of eidetic imagery; alterations in the size, shape, and so forth, of objects; changes in space and time perception. The problems of defining "hallucination" are also discussed.
Krippner, Stanley. 1970a. An adventure in psilocybin. In B. Aaronson and H. Osmond, eds. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Pp. 35-39. A psychologist who took 30 mg of psilocybin "to peek beneath the cosmic curtain and see what the universe is all about," describes his trip.
Leary, Timothy, Metzner, Ralph, and Alpert, Richard. 1964. The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books. This abridged and modified English version of the Bardo Thbdol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) is designed for use as a drug trip manual. There is a remarkable resemblance between some psychedelic drug experiences and the guide to "liberation by hearing on the after-death plane- presented in this ancient religious text treasured by Carl Jung. The text was supposed to have been chanted into the ear of a dying or dead man to ease his passage to Nirvana, or, failing that, to a fortunate rebirth. The bardos are stages of the soul's journey, and the ultimate aim is absorption in the Clear Light. This book was popular in the drug culture in the late 1960s and early seventies. Psychedelic visions are interpreted in Buddhist terms as both projections of the mind and segments of reality. The advice is to go with the experience and not offer resistance, rationalize, or contaminate it with expectations. Appropriate ways to reenter ordinary consciousness are also recommended, and there are comments on drug dosage and the role of the guide. This work has actually been used by a Danish psychiatrist in his therapeutic work with LSD (see Alnaes).
Leary, Timothy. 1966. Psychedelic Prayers. Kerhonkson, N.Y.: Poets Press. Six groups of prayers or chants for use in psychedelic drug sessions, derived from the Tao te Ching of Lao Tse. The Tao is interpreted as energy„ and prayer is described as the language of ecstasy. There are also remarks on levels of consciousness.
Lilly, John C. 1972. The Center of the Cyclone. New York: Julian Press. These autobiographical notes by the dolphin expert and psychic explorer devote considerable attention to LSD trips in and out of isolation (sensory deprivation) tanks. He seems occasionally accident-profie and self-destructive; he warns that LSD "réleases stored hidden programs and weakens the aware surviving self...."
Masters, R. E. L., and Houston, Jean. 1966. The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience. New York. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. This is one of the few serious attempts to analyze and classify LSD experiences. It is based on work with 206 experimental subjects, most of whom were given LSD once in a dose of 200 micrograms. Four kinds of trips are distinguished: abstract-esthetic, recollective-analytic, symbolic, and integral. The heart of the book is the testimony of the etiperimental subjects in their own words. Several examples of incidental therapeutic effects are presented. The theoretical orientation is implicitly Jungian, with much emphasis on myth and ritual. The title, of course, is a paraphrase of William James's classic.
Mayhew, Christopher. 1965 (orig. 1956). An excursion out of time. In D. Ebin, ed. The Drug Experience. New York: Grove Press. Pp. 293-300. An unusual account of time distortion and time-transcendence under the influence of mescaline, by a British legislator and former journalist who took the drug before television cameras under the supervision of Humphry Osmond. He described the experience years later as -the most interesting and thought-provoking of my life."
Michaux, Henri. 1963 (orig. 1956). Miserable Miracle (Mescaline). San Francisco: City Lights Books. After one mescaline trip it took Michaux three weeks to reconstruct his barriers against excessive intimacy and trust. Other trips took him to heaven and hell. He compares hashish to a pony and mescaline to a locomotive; hashish, unlike mescaline, "keeps an eye on me."
Michaux, Henri. 1963 (orig. 1961). Light Through Darkness. New York: Orion Press. He writes of clairvoyance, divination, discerning multiple meanings; at one point "beliefs disappear because they exist only in a context of action."
Michaux, Henri. 1974 (orig. 1966). The Major Ordeals of the Mind, and the Countless Minor Ones. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. He describes four psychedelic worlds "outside both reason and madness": pure heroism, pure love, pure contemplation, and pure eroticism. He comments on the tendency to devalue normal experience and to regard sanity as hypocrisy.
Michaux, Henri. 1975 (orig. 1964). Infinite Turbulence. London: Calder and Boyars. Many interesting observations, especially concerning a dissolution in primal sexuality and a fusion of the author's soul with the imagined soul of a girl in a magazine photograph. The first two parts of the book are about mescaline, the last part about hashish and LSD.
The preceding four volumes record a continuing venture in self-experimentation with psychedelic
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drugs by a French poet, artist, and travel writer. Michaux is in the tradition of Baudelaire and De Quincey, and he has worked hard to capture the psychedelic experience in words—some will say too hard. His style is not to everyone's taste; in his determination to be original and avoid clichés, he often sounds awkward or pretentious. Nevertheless, some of the passages in his work are among the most memorable in the annals of psychedelic drug trips. As he describes he analyzes, offering comments on thought, language, and mataphysics. He regards his psychedelic adventures not as pleasure trips but as self-imposed ordeals, and he writes with relief of his return to -the marvellous normal.- The books are illustrated with black and white drawings by the author.
Mitchell, S. Weir, 1896. The effects of Anhalonium Lewinii (The mescal button). Lancet 2: 1625- 1628. An early account of peyote visions by the American physician, concentrating on the oneiric imagery.
Richards, William A., and Berendes, Margaret. 1977-1978. LSD-assisted psychotherapy and dynamics of creativity: A case report. Journal of Altered States of Consciousness 3: 131-146. The title is slightly misleading, since the article says little about creativity. The heart of it is an eloquent account of regression and a death-rebirth experience by a woman writer who was a patient of the authors. The woman believed the experience had improved some of her neurotic symptoms, but not her ability to write creatively.
Tart, Charles T. 1971. On Being Stoned. Palo Alto: Science and Behavior Books. A thorough study of the nature of marihuana intoxication that deliberately avoids reliance on laboratory experiments; it is based on questionnaire responses by 150 experienced marihuana users. Topics include thought, memory, the senses, sexuality, spiritual experience, and social relationships. The prevalence of different effects at different levels of intoxication is emphasized in the tables and statistical analysis. The subjects also compare marihuana with more powerful psychedelic drugs; an appendix lists the percentage of respondents who say that LSD rarely, sometimes, or often produces each of the 220 effects listed in the questionnaire. This book has two special virtues: it shows how closely marihuana can approximate the effects of stronger psychedelic drugs in certain circumstances, and it gives an idea of which responses to LSD are most common in recreational use.
Wasson, R. Gordon. 1972a. The divine mushroom of immortality. In P. Furst, ed. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. New York: Praeger. Pp. 185-200. The first modern description of a psilocybin mushroom trip. Wasson, a banker and amateur mycologist, took the magic mushroom in Oaxaca in the summer of 1955 under the guidance of the Mazatec curandera Maria Sabina. He has since become one of the best-known authorities on hallucinogenic mushrooms, and this essay includes not only an account of his trip but speculations on the role of psychedelic plants at Eleusis and elsewhere.
Watts, Alan W. 1962. The Joyous Cosmology. New York: Vintage. This short book is an account of several LSD trips collapsed into one. It is overwritten in spots, but gives a good sense of how a certain kind of mind and personality responds to LSD. Watts's trips were occupied mainly with metaphysical reflection and sensory absorption in the external world, out of which he draws a Buddhist cosmology and some meditative morals. There is a foreword by Leary and Alpert and a prologue by Watts himself in which he advocates the use of LSD by artists and scientists. Illustrated with black and white photographs.
Chapter 5
GENERAL
Irwin, Samuel. 1973. A rational approach to drug abuse prevention. Contemporary Drug Problems 2(1): 3-46. The most sophisticated attempt to measure the comparative dangers of drugs. LSD appears somewhere below the middle of the list—below alcohol, heroin, amphetamines, and barbiturates—mainly because it is not a drug that people are likely to use habitually as a euphoriant. There are, therefore, effective limits on its abuse. Whether the comparative dangers of drugs can be measured in this way is questionable—too much depends on the user, set, and setting.
FLASHBACKS
Fischer, Roland. 1971. The 'flashback': Arousal-statebound recall of experience. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 3(2): 31-39. The author interprets flashbacks as a special form of recall provoked by a state of arousal similar to the one in which the experience originally occurred: statebound memory. He relates this idea to a general theory of levels of arousal and their relationship to
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memory and what we conceive to be truth. The subconscious is interpreted as another term for the amnesia between one state of consciousness and another. Schizophrenic hallucinations and mystical rapture are interpreted as states on a continuum of levels of arousal.
Horowitz, Mardi J. 1969. Flashbacks: Recurrent intrusive images after the use of LSD. American Journal of Psychiatry 126: 565-569. An early study of flashbacks based on interviews in Haight-Ashbury. Eight of the thirty-one interview subjects had had flashbacks, usually a visual image resembling one seen during a psychedelic drug trip. Several theories on the causes of flashbacks are discussed, including the idea that archetypal imagery is released by LSD and presses for recall.
Matefy, Robert E., and KraII, Roger R. 1974. An initial investigation of the psychedelic drug flashback phenomena. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 42: 854-860. Comparing chronic psychedelic drug users who have flashbacks with those who do not, the authors find no systematic differences in their biographies or scores on psychological tests; they concluded that flashbacks are not caused by latent psychopathology. The main causes of flashbacks were stress and anxiety. About 35 percent thought the flashbacks pleasant and about 45 percent found them unpleasant. Few thought a psychiatrist would be of any help to someone having problems with flashbacks.
Matefy, Robert E., Hayes, Carla, and Hirsch, Jerrold. 1978. Psychedelic drug flashbacks: Subjective reports and biographical data. Addictive Behaviors 3: 165-178. Of sixty-three psychedelic drug users solicited by advertisements, thirty-four had experienced flashbacks. Perceptual effects were most common, followed by sensations of depersonalization, anxiety, confusion, a feeling of union with the world, and unusual body sensations, in that order. These symptoms tended to diminish with time but sometimes lasted up to two years after drug use ended. Fifty-six percent of the subjects enjoyed the flashbacks on the whole and 44 percent did not. The majority said they were able to control them, and more than 90 percent said that reality-testing was not impaired. The drug users who had flashbacks did not differ from the others in amount and intensity of use, but they described themselves as more frivolous, spontaneous, and assertive. Most users in both groups thought that psychedelic drugs had influenced their lives for good, but four people had sought psychiatric help for their flashbacks.
Naditch, Murray P., and Fenwick, Sheridan. 1977. LSD flashbacks and ego functioning. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 86: 352-359. A study of 235 LSD users shows that 28 percent have had flashbacks; of these 11 percent called them very frightening, 32 percent somewhat frightening, 36 percent pleasant, 21 percent very pleasant. Sixteen percent (4 percent of all those using LSD) had sought clinical help for them. As opposed to those who did not have flashbacks, those who did use regression and repression more, and intellectualization less, as defenses; they had different motives for use, more thought disorder, and more acute adverse reactions. Number and intensity of flashbacks were associated with number and intensity of bad trips and with use of the drug as self-prescribed psychotherapy. The authors suggest that flashbacks resemble hysterical conversion reactions.
Shick, J. Fred E., and Smith, David E. 1970. Analysis of the LSD flashback. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 3(1): 13-19. Flashbacks are described as occurring usually after multiple drug exposures, and especially before sleep or during intoxication by a drug like marihuana or alcohol. Flashbacks are usually perceptual but may also involve physical symptoms resembling hysterical conversion reactions, or emotional states, especially panic. Recommended treatment, where treatment is necessary, is minor tranquilizers or reassurance. A bibliography is included.
Stanton, M. Duncan, Mintz, Jim, and Franklin, Randall M. 1976. Drug flashbacks. H. Some additional findings. International Journal of the Addictions 11: 53-69. In this study a questionnaire was administered to 2,001 soldiers; 241 had used LSD, and of these 23 percent (57) had had flashbacks. Marihuana users who had taken LSD experienced more flashbacks than other LSD users Those who had used LSD more did not have more flashbacks. A useful table of earlier flashback studies is included: author, subjects, percent reporting flashbacks, subjects' previous drug use, study limitations, and proposed explanations are listed.
Twemlow, Stuart W., and Bowen, William T. 1979. Psychedelic drug-induced psychological crises: Attitudes of the -crisis therapist.- Journal of Psychedelic Drugs. 11(4): 331-335. The authors recommend helping psychedelic flashback patients to integrate the unconscious material produced in symbolic form. They present four case histories.
OTHER ACUTE REACTIONS
Blumenfeld, Michael, and Glickman, Lewis. 1967. Ten months' experience with LSD users admitted to county psychiatric receiving hospital. New York Journal of Medicine 67: 1849-1853. A study of LSD reactions at King's County Hospital in Brooklyn from August 1965 to June 1966. Twenty-five of 20,000 emergency-room cases involved LSD, and twenty-three were admitted to a mental hospital. Ten of the twenty-five had had previous psychiatric treatment; ten had been in
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mental hospitals before. Fifteen of the twenty-five were diagnosed as schizophrenic, five were -borderline,- and two sociopathic. Forty percent had a previous arrest record. Thirteen eventually went to state hospitals. The authors believe that LSD was a minor factor compared to preexisting mental problems.
Bowers, Malcolm B. Jr., 1972. Acute psychosis induced by psychotomimetic drug abuse. Archives of General Psychiatry 27: 437-442. Twelve patients with drug-induced psychotic reactions were compared to twenty-six patients with acute psychotic reactions not related to drugs. Six had taken LSD, two had taken amphetamine, and four had taken -mescaline--probably LSD or PCP. On admission the drug group showed more conceptual disorganization but less blunted affect and loss of energy. The premorbid condition of the drug patients was better, and there was no evidence that they were prepsychotic or in any way especially vulnerable to psychosis in general. The author concludes that LSD can cause a long-term reactive psychosis even in the absence of previous psychopathology. The average hospital stay was seventy-seven days for the drug psychoses and 111 days for the others. There was some history of admissions to mental hospitals in the immediate family of about a third of both groups.
Cohen, Sidney, and Ditman, Keith S. 1963. Prolonged adverse reactions to lysergic acid diethylamide. Archives of General Psychiatry 8: 475-480. An analysis of types of prolonged adverse reaction to LSD, with case histories. Included are psychoses, depressive reactions, and paranoid reactions. It is noted that these reactions to LSD often resemble the drug trip itself.
Dewhurst, Kenneth, and Hatrick, John A. 1972. Differential diagnosis and treatment of lysergic acid diethylamide induced psychosis. The Practitioner 209: 327-332. A study of sixteen English patients who had prolonged reactions to LSD. All were members of the hippie subculture. They showed such symptoms as infantile regression, -grandiose philosophical delusions,- visual hallucinations, and a great variety of schizophreniform, affective, and neutoric reactions. Often they had at least partial insight into the nature of their problems. The average hospital stay was five and a half weeks, and electroconvulsive therapy worked unusually well and quickly. Thirteen of the sixteen did not intend to take LSD again. There were no residual psychotic symptoms on release.
Ditman, Keith S., Tietz, Walter, Prince, Blanche S., Forgy, Edward, and Moss, Thelma. 1968. Harmful aspects of the LSD experience. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 145: 464-472. A particularly interesting study in which three groups of LSD users were compared: fifty-two who had no problems, twenty-seven who came to outpatient clinics with problems related to LSD use, and thirty-seven who were hospitalized for LSD reactions. The nature and frequency of their LSD experiences were compared by means of a 156-item questionnaire. The frequency of use was the same in all three groups, but the latter two groups experienced more anxiety, paranoia, and despair during drug trips. Despair was especially common in the hospitalized group. The first group described mostly beneficial effects. Subjects in the latter two groups were more likely to be unemployed arid rootless, and only subjects in the third group (27 percent of them) had used narcotics. Subjects in all three groups described feelings of joy, mirth, esthetic delight, and closeness to God. The item most significantly differentiating the second and third group from the first was the statement -I thought I might become permanently insane.- The authors conclude with a discussion of the dangers and possible therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs suggested by this study. They propose that material rising to consciousness during an adverse LSD reaction be worked through in therapy. The questionnaire is reprinted at the end of the article.
Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs. 1973, Ottawa: Information Canada. In the section of this report devoted to hallucinogens, data on adverse LSD reactions appearing at Canadian hospitals from 1969 through 1971 are presented. There were several thousand such reactions; 15.6 percent required hospitalization and only 1.4 percent required hospitalization for more than two weeks. According to hospital records for 1971, there were sixty-seven patients in Canadian mental hospitals for whom LSD was mentioned as a factor in the primary diagnosis. This amounted to 0.3 percent of all patients; most of them were multiple drug abusers, and the precise role of LSD was not always clear.
Forrest, John A. H., and Tarala, Richard A. 1973. 60 Hospital admissions due to reactions to lysergide (L.S.D.). The Lancet 2: 1310-1313. A study of all sixty adverse reactions to LSD appearing at the Edinburgh Regional Poisoning Treatment Center in 1971-1973. Most were panic reactions or arrests for disruptive behavior while under the influence of LSD. Twenty of the patients had been using alcohol as well, and fifty-six of the sixty were discharged within twenty-four hours. Only one stayed longer than forty-eight hours. Usually the only medical treatment used was sedation, mainly with chlorpromazine. Most were lower-class, 40 percent were unemployed, 39 percent had police records, and fourteen percent were alcoholics or narcotics addicts. Sixteen percent required psychiatric help.
Frosch, William A., Robbins, Edwin S., and Stern, Marvin. 1965. Untoward reactions to lysergic acid
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diethylamide (LSD) resulting in hospitalization. New England Journal of Medicine 273: 1235- 1239. A study of the first twelve of twenty-seven adverse LSD reactions appearing at Bellevue Hospital from March to June 1963. There were seven panic reactions, three flashbacks, and three psychoses. Five subjects had been psychotic before using LSD. Four brief case histories are presented.
Fuller, Dwain G. 1976. Severe solar maculopathy associated with the use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). American Journal of Ophthalmology 81: 413-416. The author discusses several cases of impaired vision incurred by staring at the sun during an LSD trip. In one case there was permanent damage to the retina of the left eye.
Glickman, Lewis, and Blumenfeld, Michael. 1967. Psychological determinants of 'LSD reactions. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 145: 79-83. In a further study of the twenty-three hospitalized patients- discussed in Blumenfeld and Glickman (1967), the authors conclude that most of them were disturbed people who thought that LSD might prevent a psychotic decompensation; when the hope of cure through LSD failed, so did their mental balance.
Hatrick, John A., and Dewhurst, Kenneth. 1970. Delayed psychosis due to LSD. The Lancet 2: 742- 744. Two cases of delayed psychotic depressions that occurred, two weeks and two months respectively, after taking a single dose of LSD---in one case, after the victim had been given the drug without her knowledge and then watched a horror movie. The patients were treated with electroconvulsive therapy and discharged from the hospital after a month. The authors believe. partly because of legal implications, that LSD should not be used even under medical supervision.
Hekimian, Leon J., and Gershon, Samuel. 1968. Characteristics of drug abusers admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Journal of the American Medical Association 205: 125-130. This study reveals a high rate of preexisting psychopathology in people admitted to Bellevue Hospital for LSD reactions. All patients in the period from January to July 1967 who had taken LSD or another psychedelic drug less than forty-eight hours before admission were included. Forty-three of the forty-seven were psychotic on admission; thirty-one of the forty-seven were already schizophrenic, and others were sociopathic, schizoid, or depressive.
Horowitz, Harvey A. 1975. The use of lithium in the treatment of the drug-induced psychotic reaction. Diseases of the Nervous System 36: 159-163. Four cases of prolonged psychotic reactions to LSD are reported. Lithium proved an effective treatment, sometimes after phenothiazines had failed. The author considers it possible that LSD psychoses resemble mania rnore often than schizophrenia, and he emphasizes the danger of LSD to people who are susceptible ro affective disorders.
Klepfisz, Arthur, and Racy, John. 1973. Homicide and LSD. Journal of the American Medical Association 223: 429-430. A description of the five cases of homicide under the influence of LSD reported in the literature. Usually other psychopathology or other drugs and alcohol were also involved, and the causal role of LSD is not always made clear.
McCabe, O. Lee. 1977. Psychedelic drug crises: Toxicity and therapeutics. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 9(2): 107-121. The most complete study of short-term adverse psychedelic drug reactions and ways of treating them. The varieties of bad trips are discussed. Minor tranquilizers or short-acting barbiturates are preferred to phenothiazines for cutting short a panic reaction, but the best approach is said to be conflict resolution by either talking the patient down or urging him to go with the experience and allow a cathartic resolution, It is important to avoid questioning. interpretations, and suspicious movements.
Metzner, Ralph. 1969. A note on the treatment of LSD psychosis. Behavioral Neuropsychiatry 1: 29- 32. One of the most complete case histories of a prolonged psychotic reaction to LSD. The victim, a friend of the author, had taken LSD three or four times in the year before the psychotic breakdown; he became progressively confused, anxious, and out of contact with reality and the people with whom he was living. His perceptions fluctuated wildly from almost catatonic stupor to acute awareness, behavior described as periodic "tripping" and coming down. He was hospitalized and recovered after four electroconvulsive treatments, but he remained anxious and depressed and spoke of taking more LSD. The author admits that the ECT worked, but suggests that other methods, such as meditation and sensory deprivation, might have produced a more complete, though slower recovery.
Naditch, Murray P. 1975. Ego functioning and acute adverse reactions to psychoactive drugs. Journal of Personality 43: 305-320. A questionnaire study finding that drug use by seriously maladjusted persons, either with therapeutic intent, or as a reluctant response to peer pressure, were the main variables of set and setting associated with adverse reactions to LSD and marihuana.
Nadith, Murray P., Alker, Patricia C., and Joffe, Paul. 1975. Individual differences and setting as determinants of acute adverse reactions to psychoactive drugs. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 161: 326-335. Questions were formulated from interviews with drug users and sent to
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483 persons. Setting proves unimportant compared to personality in determining adverse reactions to LSD. The only feature of the setting that makes a difference involves taking the drug reluctantly on the insistence of friends at an emotionally troubled moment. Adverse reactions (bad trips) are associated with high scores on psychological tests indicating maladjustment, schizophrenia, and regression.
Reich, Peter, and Hepps, Robert B. 1972. Homicide during a psychosis induced by LSD. Journal of the American Medical Association 219: 869-871. A rare case of murder during a prolonged reaction to LSD.
Robbins, Edwin, Frosch, William A., and Stern, Marvin. 1967. Further observations on untoward reactions to LSD. American Journal of Psychiatry 124: 393-395. A new sample of twenty-seven adverse LSD reactions taken from Bellevue Hospital in 1966. Included are eleven panic reactions, eight flashbacks, and eight prolonged psychoses. Five of the latter subjects had been psychotic before; three were seriously disturbed but probably not psychotic.
Rosen, D. H., and Hoffman, A. M. 1972. Focal suicide: Self-enucleation by two young psychotic individuals, American Journal of Psychiatry 128: 1009-1012. Two cases in which psychotics blinded themselves or plucked out eyeballs in reaction to the biblical passage -And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.- (Mark 9:47). In one case the incident occurred just after an LSD trip; in the other, the temporal relationship between incident and drug was less clear. The authors believe that LSD made these patients more vulnerable to a religious psychosis.
Smart, Reginald G., and Bateman, Karen. 1967. Unfavorable reactions to LSD: A review and analysis of the available case reports. Canadian Medical Association Journal 97: 1214-1221. A thorough review of the literature on adverse reactions to LSD up to 1967. Twenty-one papers reporting 225 adverse reactions are surveyed: 142 prolonged psychoses, sixty-three non-psychotic prolonged reactions, eleven cases of flashbacks, nineteen attempted suicides, four attempted homicides, eleven suicides, and one homicide. There were no cases of addiction, dependence, or death by overdose. The point is made that a single dose of LSD can precipitate a prolonged psychosis in a person who is not diagnosable as prepsychotic. The authors question the low rate of adverse reactions reported by Sidney Cohen in his study of psychiatric use of LSD, and they express doubt that LSD is safe even in supervised settings.
Thomas, R. Buckland, and Fuller, David H. 1972. Self-inflicted ocular injury associated with drug use. Journal of the South Carolina Medical Association 68: 202-203. The authors describe the case of a psychotic man who blinded himself after ruminating on the biblical passage -and if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.- (Mark 9:47) He had been taking LSD for several years as he became progressively more psychotic, but there was no clear temporal relationship with LSD use.
Tietz, Walter. 1967. Complications following ingestion of LSD in a lower class population. California Medicine 107: 396-398. A study of forty-nine patients seen at Los Angeles County General Hospital because of LSD reactions from April to June 1966. Most were young and of lovv socioeconomic status. Fifty-seven percent had a prolonged psychosis with no previous history of psychosis. Fifteen were acute panic reactions, six were flashbacks, and twenty-eight a prolonged psychosis hard to distinguish from acute schizophrenia. The patients' Bender-Gestalt tests were normal, unlike those of schizophrenics, but scores on the MMPI resembled those of schizophrenics. Most of the twenty-eight psychotic patients were eventually admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and as far as the author could tell they made poor social adjustments after discharge.
Ungerleider, J. Thomas, Fisher, Duke D., and Fuller, Marielle. 1966. The dangers of LSD: Analysis of seven months' experience in a unviersity hospital's psychiatric service. Journal of the American Medical Association 197: 109-112. The authors report on LSD cases appearing at the Psychiatric Emergency Service of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at U.C.L.A. Medical Center from September 1965 to June 1966. They note that this hospital had a reputation in the Los Angeles area as the place to go for problems related to LSD use. They studied all the cases in which LSD was "mentioned in the diagnosis or implicated as related---a total of seventy, or 12 percent of those seen by the psychiatric Emergency Service during that period. Of these, only sixteen had used LSD in the previous week; twenty had taken it once and thirty, ten or more times. The most common symptoms were hallucinations, anxiety, depression, and confusion. Thirty percent were diagnosed as psychotic (cause of psychosis not stated), 21 percent as neurotic, 18 percent as character disorders, and 10 percent as addicts. Ten percent had been mental hospital patients before, and 27 percent had had outpatient treatment. Most were unemployed or students. Eventually twenty-five of the seventy were hospitalized, seventeen of them for more than a month; one was hospitalized for nearly five months. The authors believe that bad trips are common even in carefully prepared settings.
Ungerleider, J. Thomas, Fischer, Duke D., Goldsmith, Stephen R., Fuller, Marielle, and Forgy, Ed.
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1968. A statistical survey of adverse reactions to LSD in Los Angeles County. American Journal of Psychiatry 125: 352-357. A survey of psychiatrists, psychiatric residents, internists, general practitioners, and psychologists in the Los Angeles area during the period July 1966 to January 1968 indicated at least 2,000 adverse reactions to LSD. Adverse reaction was left undefined in the survey, and the authors believe that it was probably interpreted to mean any drug-induced state that led the drug user to seek professional help. Questionnaires were sent to 2,700 professionals and 1,584 responded. Of these, 428 (27 percent) had seen adverse LSD reactions, including 75 percent of the psychiatric residents and 47 percent of the psychiatrists. The total number of reported adverse reactions was 8,958 by one method of tabulation and 2,389 by another method. Sixty percent of the professionals surveyed thought that more than half of their patients experiencing LSD reactions had previous emotional disturbances, but many said none of their LSD patients had had previous psychiatric problems. The authors point out that there must have been many adverse reactions not seen by this sample, and they conclude that their estimate is conservative.
EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM USE
Barron, Stanley P., Lowinger, Paul, and Ebner, Eugene. 1970. A clinical examination of chronic LSD use in the community. Comprehensive Psychiatry 11: 69-79. Among twenty long-term LSD users (those who ingest the drug more than eight times over a period of more than six months—the average is thirty-eight times), there were no consistent signs of psychosis or neurosis, but seventeen were described as character disorders; only three were well-adjusted in their work and sexual relations. The problems appeared to have existed before LSD use. The subjects tended to use LSD less as time passed.
Bergman, Robert L. 1971. Navajo peyote use: its apparent safety. American Journal of Psychiatry 128: 695-699. The author finds that peyote use in the Native American Church causes almost no acute or chronic emotional problems. He found only one case of acute psychosis and knew of schizophrenics who attended peyote meetings without apparent harm. He believes that tradition, discipline, ritual, and guidance make peyote eating safe. The conclusions are plausible, but the). are based on purely anecdotal information.
Blacker, K. H., Jones, Reese T., Stone, George C., and Pfefferbaum, Doll. 1968. Chronic users of LSD: The 'acidheads', American Journal of Psychiatry 125: 341-351. This is the most careful and convincing study of the effects of chronic psychedelic drug use in the hippiesubcuiture. Using a control group for comparison, the authors examined twenty-one volunteers who had taken LSD an average of sixty-five times (range from fifteen to 300). They were interviewed and subjected to cognitive and perceptual tests and EEG studies during a six-week stay on a research ward. The incidence of abnormal EEGs was not unusually high, but they showed higher energy and greater amplitudes than controls in all four frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha, and beta). They also showed more response to low-intensity visual stimuli, but their auditory-evoked responses, unlike those of schizophrenics, were normal. Performance on cognitive tests was also generally normal. In interviews the volunteers appeared eccentric or childlike but not schizoid They were intelligent and likable and had normal interpersonal skills. All were passive, avoided anger, and took an interest in mystical and magical ideas. Many spoke of increased sensitivity to colors, gestures, and postures. A few had unusual mannerisms or old-looking faces, and four occasionally suffered memory lapses and had difficulty in organizing their thoughts. The findings on possible CNS damage were regarded as inconclusive; the relaxation, avoidance of anger, passivity, visual sensitivity, and magical beliefs were probably in part caused by LSD, but the authors emphasize the difficulty of separating drug effects from those of predisposing personality and social climate.
Breakey, William R., Goodell, Helen, Lorenz, Patrick C., and McHugh, Paul R. 1974. Hallucinogenic drugs as precipitants of schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 4: 255-261. A retrospective comparison of forty-six young chronic schizophrenics with a control group suggesting that use of marihuana, mescaline, amphetamines, and LSD may cause schizophrenia to appear at an earlier age and in some people who would not otherwide have been so vulnerable to it. The retrospective nature of the study, the small sample, and the problems in establishing amount and kinds of drugs used make the results of limited value.
Flynn, William R. 1973. Drug abuse as a defense in adolescence: A follow-up. Adolescence 8: 363- 372. Interviews with four adolescent patients who used LSD and the parents of a fifth. All were multiple drug abusers. The author found, contrary to his previous opinion, that illicit LSD use was no more serious a problem than other forms of delinquent behavior and not more fraught with danger for future adjustment or maturity; it offered -no special hazards or significance for teenage patients.-
Glass, George S., and Bowers, Malcolm B., Jr. 1970. Chronic psychosis associated with long-term psychotomimetic drug abuse. Archives of General Psychiatry 23: 97-103. The authors discuss four cases of what they believe to be a chronic psychosis associated with and possibly caused by
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chronic LSD use. But the symptoms described are not typical of schizophrenia, and it is not clear where, in these cases, hippie attitudes end and psychotic symptoms begin.
lendin, Herbert. 1973. College students and LSD: Who and why? Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 156: 249-258. Psychiatric interviews with fifteen college students who are regular users of LSD suggest that they are suffering from an emotional numbness that is temporarily dissolved by the drug. They tend to feel lonely, depressed, and withdrawn; LSD itself is not the problem. These subjects may be atypical, since they came for psychiatric help.
Logan, William J. 1975. Neurological aspects of hallucinogenic drugs. In Walter J. Friedlander, ed. Advances in Neurology, Vol. 13. New York: Raven Press. Pp. 47-78. A controlled study of longterm LSD users which shows that they experience no apparent neurological damage.
McGlothlin, William H., Arnold, David O., and Freedman, Daniel X. 1969. Organicity measures following repeated LSD ingestion. Archives of General Psychiatry 21: 704-709. Sixteen chronic LSD users scored on the average signficantly lower than matched controls on a test of nonverbal abstraction (comparing geometric figures). On other neuropsychological tests there were no significant differences. There were no clinical signs of organic impairment in the LSD group, but six of them, including the three heaviest users, had "moderately suspicious" scores on the tests and may have suffered minor organic impairment. However, low test scores were not correlated with the number of times LSD was used but with length of time it was used; this suggests that the low scores may have been related not to drug use itself but to motives for drug use.
McWilliams, Spencer A., and Tuttle, Renee J. 1973. Long-term psychological effects of LSD. Psychological Bulletin 79: 341-354. The authors come to the reasonable conclusion that LSD is not usually dangerous, especially if taken by stable persons in controlled settings. But their review of the literature on adverse reactions is somewhat too complacent and one-sided, and does not take all of the data into account.
Smart, Reginald G., and Jones, Dianne. 1970. Illicit LSD users: Their personality characteristics and psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychiatry 75: 286-292. One hundred chronic LSD users were compared with forty-six controls through interviews and the MMPI. They showed more psychopathology--especially conduct disorders (low ego-strength and rejection of social conformity). Vie interviews suggested that these characteristics had existed before any drug use. Most of the LSD users had used many drugs, and half had had psychiatric treatment for problems unrelated to drugs.
Tucker, Gary J., Quinlan, Donald, and Harrow, Martin. 1972. Chronic hallucinogenic drug use and thought disturbance. Archives of General Psychiatry 27: 443-447. Four groups of subjects were studied: sixteen schizophrenics who had used psychedelic drugs, twenty-eight schizophrenics who had not; fourteen psychedelic drug users with personality disorders, and twenty-one with personality disorders. Long-term psychedelic drug users showed more conceptual boundary confusion and idiosyncratic and disrupted thinking. They showed more intrusion and primitive drive content on the Rorschach test, as did schizophrenics; but they also showed higher responsivity, and in this they did not resemble schizophrenics. The amount of difference between psychedelic drug users and controls was not correlated with amount of drug use. The authors discuss the problems in evaluating the data and the difficulty in judging cause and effect; they also admit that their experimental subjects were atypical—hospital inpatients. Nevertheless, they conclude cautiously that prolonged use of LSD and related drugs can heighten pathological mental disturbances, some of which are related to those found in schizophrenics.
Welpton, Douglas F. 1968. Psychodynamics of chronic lysergic acid diethylamide use: A clinical study of ten voluntary subjects. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 147: 377-385. In this study of ten chronic LSD users (acidheads), the author concludes that they often had severe personality disorders. Seven were diagnosed as character disorders and three as borderline personalities. They used LSD to escape despair and to achieve intimacy and fusion with other people and with nature. The "most impressive finding' was that in spite of their personality disturbances, adverse reactions to the drug itself were rare.
Wright, Morgan, and Hogan, Terrence P. 1972. Repeated LSD ingestion and performance on neuropsychological tests. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 154: 432-438. A comparison of chronic LSD users with a control group matched for age, sex, education, and IQ finds no differences in a series of neuropsychological tests.
CHROMOSOME DAMAGE AND BIRTH DEFECTS
Dishotsky, Norman I., Loughman, William D., Mogar, Robert E., and Lipscomb, Wendell R. 1971. LSD and genetic damage. Science 172: 431-440. This review of sixty-eight retrospective and prospective studies concludes that there is no good evidence that LSD produces genetic damage. It may be teratogenic at extremely high doses, far out of the normal range for recreational or therapeutic use. This study remains authoritative; its conclusions have been repeatedly confirmed by later work.
Long, Sally Y. 1972. Does LSD induce chromosomal damage and malformations? A review of the
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literature. Teratology 6: 75-90. With the paper by Dishotsky et al., this is the major article on LSD, chromosome damage, and birth defects. Animal and human studies are presented in tabular form. The conclusions are the same as Dishotsky's.
Poland, Betty J., Wogan, Lorraine, and Calvin, Jane. 1972. Teenagers, illicit drugs, and pregnancy. Canadian Medical Association Journal 107: 955-958. Ninety-nine users of various illicit drugs, including LSD, were compared with eighty-nine controls to discover effects on pregnancy. There was no increase in miscarriages or birth defects.
Robinson, J. T., Chatham, R. G., Greenwood, R. M., and Taylor, J. W. 1974. Chromosome aberrations and LSD: A controlled study in fifty patients. British Journal of Psychiatry 125: 238-244. Fifty patients who had been treated with LSD, some for several years, were compared with fifty controls for chromosome breakage; there was no difference. There were also no birth defects in children born to women in either group.
Chapter 6
GENERAL
Abramson, Harold A., ed. 1960. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy. New York: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation. A collection of papers on psychedelic drug therapy based on a conference held at Princeton in 1959. The records of the conference proceedings are especially interesting, since they include comments that many psychiatrists have been unwilling to put into their written work—for example, on the birth experience. Most of the important American psychedelic drug researchers are represented as well as many foreign ones.
Abramson, Harold A., ed. 1967. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Hobbs-Merrill. A basic source of information on the use of LSD as a therapeutic agent. The most important psychedelic drug researchers in the United States, Canada, and Europe are contributors. The book is based on a conference held in 1965, and even at that time, psychiatrists were expressing frustration at not being able to obtain LSD legally. The dangers as well as the advantages of LSD therapy are discussed, and some of the participants say why they have given it up. There are many case histories, and the discussions following each paper are particularly revealing.
Arendsen Hein, G. W. 1972. Selbsterfahrung und Stellungnahme eines Psychotherapeuten. In M. Josuttis and H. Leuner, eds. Religion und die Droge. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Pp. 96-108. A psychiatrist's thoughtful account of his own attraction to and partial disillusionment with LSD, both as a therapeutic agent and in his own life. He writes eloquently on his mystical LSD experience and his inability to carry its effects over into ordinary life. He is against providing such experiences without a proper milieu, preparation, and guide to work them through and integrate them.
Caldwell, W. V. 1969 (orig. 1968). LSD Psychotherapy. New York: Grove Press. The author of this vividly written introduction to psycholytic and psychedelic therapy is not a psychiatrist, but has been through LSD therapy himself and thinks it has worked well for himself and others. The framework he uses is psychoanalytical, but the descriptive method is impressionistic rather than systematic. The work of Sandison, Leuner, and others is discussed. There are numerous descriptions of regression, relived memories, and symbolic fantasies, some of them apparently from the author's own experience. An annotated bibliography is included.
Ditman, Keith S., Hayman, Max, and Whittlesey, John R. B. 1962. Nature and frequency of claims following LSD. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 134: 346-352. In this experiment, seventy-four subjects were given 100 micrograms of LSD and questioned about the experience six months to three years later. Nearly half of them described it as -the greatest thing that ever happened to me,- and half thought it had been of lasting benefit. Various kinds of benefits are discussed. There were no controls. (This is one of the studies summarized in Weil, et. al. 1965.)
McCabe, O. Lee, and Hanlon, Thomas E. 1977. The use of LSD-type drugs in psychotherapy: Progress and promise. In O. Lee McCabe, ed. Changing Human Behavior: Current Therapies and Future Directions. New York: Grune & Stratton. Pp. 221-253. This is the most recent review of the therapeutic literature. The theory of psychedelic drug therapy is discussed, and the work of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center is summarized. The authors recommend what they call the -extended psychedelic therapy model,- integrating psycholytic and psychedelic approaches. They discuss the political obstacles to research, and they admit that this treatment, although it has demonstrated limited effectiveness, has no substantial public health import because it requires so much time and training to administer. The importance of the therapeutic relationship is emphasized. An extensive bibliography is included.
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Savage, Charles, Savage, Ethyl, Fadiman, James, and Harman, Willis. 1964. LSD: Therapeutic effects of the psychedelic experience. Psychological Reports 14: 111-120. Eighty percent of seventy-four subjects given LSD showed improvements in values, personality, attitudes, and behavior on questionnaires and MMPI test data two or six months afterward. There was no control group. Clinical raters found marked improvement in twelve, moderate improvement in twenty-two, minimal improvement or no change in thirty-nine, and worsening in one. Five case histories are presented. After twelve months, 80 percent of the subjects still thought they had benefited from the experience, although many now thought they had not gotten from it all they could have. Common claims were less hostility and anxiety, and more self-understanding and self-esteem. (This is one of the studies summarized in Weil, et. al. 1965.)
Sherwood, J. N., Stolaroff, M. J., and Harman, W. W. 1962. The psychedelic experience—a new concept in psychotherapy. Journal of Neuropsychiatry 4: 69-80. Of twenty-five patients given LSD for a psychedelic experience, twelve were said to be much improved, but the criteria of improvement and follow-up time are not mentioned. Four impressive case histories are recounted, and the metaphysical meanings of the psychedelic experience are discussed.
Stafford, P. G., and Golightly, B. H. 1967. LSD: The Problem-Solving Psychedelic. New York: Award Books. The thesis of this book is that -everyone can become a prime problem-solver- with the help of LSD. There are chapters on everyday psychological problems, education, religion, artistic and scientific problems, extrasensory perception, and mental health. Dangers are not ignored, and a very useful chapter on therapeutic technique and the role of the guide is included. The anecdotes—many of them from psychiatric sources—are often fascinating and convincing, but a certain amount of skepticism is necessary. The authors refer to experimental studies only when the results are to their liking and they do not discuss the unpredictability and unreliability of the effects they describe so enthusiastically. Nevertheless, the book is worth reading. There is an annotated bibliography and a preface by Humphry Osmond.
Weill, Gunther M., Metzner, Ralph, and Leary, Timothy. 1965. The subjective after-effects of psychedelic experience: A summary of four recent questionnaire studies. In G. Weil, R. Metzner, and T. Leary, eds. The Psychedelic Reader. New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books. Pp. 13-21. The studies indicate changes in values, attitudes, and behavior after a single dose of a psychedelic drug. Common claims were improved self-confidence, relaxation, tolerance, and self-understanding. There were no controls.
NEUROSIS: TECHNIQUES
Alnaes, Rudolf. 1964. Therapeutic application of the change in consciousness produced by psycholytica (LSD, psilocybin, etc.). Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 40, Supp. 180. Pp. 397-409. A discussion of psychedelic drug therapy based on work with experimental volunteers and twenty neurotic patients—mostly anxiety and compulsive neuroses—at a Danish hospital. The author has used Leary's manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a guide for therapy sessions. He values both the psychoanalytical and the transcendental aspects of the experience. There are several interesting case histories.
Baker, Edward F. W. 1967. LSD psychotherapy; LSD psychoexploration: Three reports. In H. A. Abramson, ed. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. Pp. 191-.207. A succinct report on the use of LSD treatment for neurosis, with several case histories. A table of indications, contraindications, and dangers is included.
Buckman, John. 1967. Theoretical aspects of LSD therapy. In H. A. Abramson, ed. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. Pp. 83-100. This paper discusses the rationale for psycholytic therapy, selection of patients, regression, resistance, transference, and countertransference. The resolution of transference is emphasized more than mystical experience. The author insists on the need for careful preparation by the psychiatrist.
Bonny, Helen L., and Pahnke, Walter N. 1972. The use of music in psychedelic (LSD) therapy. Journal of Music Therapy 9: 64-83. Detailed recommendations on the music appropriate for different stages of a therapeutic LSD experience, based on more than 600 sessions. Music is used to release emotion and provide continuity and structure in the experience.
Brandrup, E., and Vanggard, T. 1977. LSD treatment in a severe case of compulsive neurosis. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 55: 127-141. A fascinating case history of long-term LSD treatment of obsessive-compulsive neurosis. The authors say that a well-integrated personality is necessary to bear the strain of this treatment.
Chandler, Arthur L., and Hartman, Mortimer A. 1960. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) as a facilitating agent in psychotherapy. Archives of General Psychiatry 2: 286-299. Two psychiatrists report successes in psycholytic therapy with 110 patients, mostly neurotics, alcoholics, addicts, or personality disorders. There is much useful detailed description of drug sessions. Advantages of LSD therapy are said to be recovery of early memories, affective intensity, heightened transference, awareness of defense mechanisms, and the possibility of reaching other-
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wise inaccessible patients. The disadvantages are the length of session, the need for careful supervision, the emotional burden for the therapist, and the danger of acting out or suicide. The authors say that their patients' problems were often too severe for psychoanalysis; some had had psychoanalysis for years without success. The authors also comment on the -grandiose philosophical delusions" and "fantasies of reincarnation- whose defensive function must be exposed. Despite the absence of controls or independent clinical ratings, this article is important for its descriptive content.
Cheek, Frances E., Sarett, Mary, and Newell, Stephens. 1969. The illicit LSD group and life changes. International Journal of the Addictions 4: 407-426. A study of illicit drug users employing LSD to facilitate a kind of informal group therapy. These middle-class professionals and intellectuals found LSD useful in exploring their personal problems. The authors believe that use of LSD produced changes in their lives that a psychotherapist would regard as favorable.
Clark, Walter Houston. 1976. Bad trips may be the best trips. Fate Magazine, April. Pp. 69-76. A full description of Salvador Roquet's psychiatric techniques, which combine Western psychotherapy and Mexican Indian shamanism. There is a moving account of the author's own experience in two sessions with Roquet.
Clark, Walter Houston. 1977. Art and psychotherapy in Mexico. Art Psychotherapy 4: 41-44. A case history of an alcoholic artist treated with psychedelic drugs by the Mexican psychiatrist Salvador Roquet. Art is used expressionistically to release unconscious fears and resolve conflicts. The author mentions Mexican artists whose work has been affected by Roquet's treatment, and he believes that his method achieves the same results as psychoanalysis in a much shorter time.
Eisner, Betty Grover, and Cohen, Sidney. 1958. Psychotherapy with lysergic acid diethylamide. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 127: 528-539. A study of twenty-two patients in LSD therapy, six of whom were hospitalized. The problems they had included anxiety, depressive, compulsive, and traumatic neuroses. They were treated weekly up to sixteen times with small to moderate doses. Sixteen of the twenty two were said to be improved, but standards of improvement are not clear. The authors suggest that the rich view of the unconscious afford9d by LSD should be useful for validating psychiatric theories, and they advocate exploring several techniques. They recommend having both a male and a female therapist present during the LSD session.
Grof, Stanislav. 1967. Use of LSD in personality diagnostics and therapy of psychogenic disorders. In H. Abramson, ed. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Hobbs-Merrill. Pp. 154-185. A detailed description of the mechanisms of psychedelic drug therapy (mainly psycholytic), based on three years of experimental and four years of therapeutic work. The author regards LSD in the right hands as "an unrivalled diagnostic and therapeutic tool," which intensifies, deepens, and shortens psychotherapy. He admits that the work is subtle and difficult and can be hard on the therapist; he also warns against misuse of LSD.
Grof, Stanislav. 1970. The use of LSD in psychotherapy. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 3(1): 52-62. The author describes the varieties of psychedelic drug therapy and his own conception of the combination of psycholytic and psychedelic therapy. He believes that LSD works for patients who are otherwise unreachable.
Khorramzadeh, E., and Lofty, A. 0. 1973. The use of ketamine in psychiatry. Psychosomatics 14: 344-348. One of the few published studies of the use of ketamine in psychotherapy as an abreactive agent. Patients experienced dissociative reactions and recalled forgotten childhood events. At least temporary relief was common; one patient had a complete remission of symptoms that had lasted for a year at follow-up. Unfortunately, there is not enough detail and no case histories are provided.
Langner, Fred W. 1967. Six years' experience with LSD therapy. In 11. Abramson, ed. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Hobbs-Merrill. Pp. 117-128. A psychiatrist's informal account of his LSD treatment of sixty patients, many of them described as severe personality disorders. One case is discussed at length. He says that this form of therapy can be useful for anyone with reasonably good ego defenses, and he believes (writing in 1965) that his patients are being denied a useful therapeutic experience by the law,
Leuner, Hanscarl. 1963. Psychotherapy with hallucinogens. In R. Crocket, R. Sandison, and A. Walk, eds. Hallucinogenic Drugs and Their Psychotherapeutic Use. London: H. K. Lewis. Pp. 67-73. Of fifty-four hospitalized patients treated by the author in psycholytic therapy thirty-six recovered or were greatly improved—a 63 percent success rate. Twenty two had had previous psychoanalysis, ECT, or narcotherapy. The author emphasizes the importance of allowing regression and permitting the patient to give way to childish impulses.
Leuner, Hanscarl. 1967. Present state of psycholytic therapy and its possibilities. In H. Abramson, ed. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. Pp. 101-116. A description of the purposes and techniques of psycholytic therapy as practiced by the author. He
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finds that, as in psychoanalysis, the therapeutic benefits are derived not from abreaction but from the resolution of transference. Some statistics on his results in treating severe chronic neurotics are presented. He considers psychedelic drug therapy to be safe, useful, and broader in scope than other therapeutic techniques.
Leuner, Hanscarl. 1971. Halluzinogene in der Psychotherapie. Pharmakopsychiatrie Neuro-Psychopharmakologie 4: 333-351. An excellent review of the use of psychedelic drugs to shorten and intensify psychodynamic psychotherapy. The author discusses theoretical issues, patient suitability, and results. He provides examples of the material that emerges in LSD psychotherapy, and he recounts four cases at some length.
Ling, Thomas A., and Buckman, John. 1963. Lysergic Acid (LSD 25) and Ritalin in the Treatment of Neurosis. Lambarde Press (England). An account of psycholytic therapy at a hospital in London over a five-year period. The treatment was on an outpatient basis, and the authors emphasize the need for high intelligence, good motivation, and strong ego defenses in patients; they found only one in twenty patients to be suitable. Their technique concentrates on regression, abreaction, resolution of transference, and insight. The heart of the book is a dozen fascinating case histories describing apparent cures of psoriasis, migraine, writer's block, sexual problems, anxiety, and depression.
Martin, A. Joyce. 1967. LSD analysis. In H. Abramson, ed. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, Pp. 223-231. The author uses a method she calls anaclitic therapy, serving as a surrogate mother for regressed patients. She says that even patients with narcissistic neuroses can develop (and resolve) a transference in this treatment. Recovery or great improvement is reported in a majority of sixty cases. Four cases are described in detail.
Meduna, L. J., ed. 1958. Carbon Dioxide Therapy, 2d ed. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas. Patients breathing a mixture of 70 percent oxygen and 30 percent carbon dioxide experience psychedelic effects whose therapeutic uses were explored in the 1950s. This collection of essays summarizes that research. Carbon dioxide was used for diagnosis and therapy in the treatment of neurosis, especially sexual problems, anxiety states, and phobias. The most interesting papers are by L. J. Meduna on the effect of carbon dioxide on the brain and by Norman P. Rogers and Sue J. Kalna on psychodynamic exploration and psychological test data. Several case histories are recounted in these papers. The effects are strikingly similar to those encountered in psycholytic therapy with LSD.
Naranjo, Claudio. 1975 (orig. 1973). The Healing Journey. New York: Ballantine Books. A Chilean psychiatrist writes of his work with four psychedelic drugs whose effects are somewhat different from those of LSD: the "fantasy enhancers- harmaline and ibogaine and the "feeling enhancers" MDA and MMDA. He uses techniques of guided imagery borrowed from gestalt therapy to explore the unconscious with these drugs, which he regards as less disorganizing than LSD and deeper in their effects than the sedative-hypnotics. There are a number of case histories, including several examples of apparent dramatic improvement in neurotic symptoms. The author admits in a preface that these improvements did not always last, but- his case histories suggest strongly that the drugs should be explored further as therapeutic agents.
Newland, Constance A. 1962. My Self and I. New York: New American Library. An actress and writer tells the story of her successful psycholytic therapy, discussing in great detail the LSD imagery and its connection with unconscious desires and fears.
Sandison, R. A., Spencer, A. M., and Whitelaw, J. D. A. 1954. The therapeutic value of lysergic acid diethylamide in mental illness. Journal of Mental Science 100: 491-507.
Sandison, R. A., and Whitelaw, J. D. A. 1957. Further studies in the therapeutic value of lysergic acid diethylamide in mental illness. Journal of Mental Science 103: 332-343. Thirty-six severe chronic neurotic patients were treated with LSD over a one-year period; some possessed neuroses of long standing, but about two-thirds recovered. The effects of LSD are described and several case histories are recounted.
Savage, Charles, Jackson, Donald, and Terrill, James. 1962. LSD, transcendence, and the new beginning. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 135: 425-439. A useful series of three articles, one by each of the authors, based on contributions to a symposium held in California in 1960. The common theme is a turning away from the use of LSD to facilitate conventional psychodynamic psychotherapy and toward treating the psychedelic experience as a unique phenomenon with special therapeutic value. Terril describes the nature of the experience and reports of therapeutic effects. Savage discusses the nature of the conversion sometimes experienced by alcoholics who take LSD; he recounts a successful case history. Jackson emphasizes that the LSD experience requries social reinforcement to become something more than a fading memory; he too cites several cases. Dangers and failures are not ignored.
Savage, Charles, McCabe, O. Lee, Kurland, Albert A., and Hanlon, Thomas, 1973. LSD-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of severe chronic neurosis. Journal of Altered States of Conscious-
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ness. 1: 31-47. A controlled study of LSD treatment for depression and anxiety. After six, twelve, and eighteen months there was no difference between a group that took a single high dose of LSD, a group that took a single low dose of LSD, and a group that had only conventional treatment. There was one psychotic reaction. A table summarizing the results of previous LSD psychotherapy studies and an appendix on training for LSD therapy are included.
Van Rhijn, C. H. 1960. Symbolysis: Psychotherapy by symbolic representation. In H. Abramson, ed. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. Pp. 151-197. The process of breaking resistance in LSD therapy is interpreted as symbolization of the problem in presentational forms (visions) rather than neurotic symptoms.
Walzer, Herbert. 1972. Depersonalization and the use of LSD: A psychodynamic study. American Journal of Psychoanalysis 32: 45-52. A psychoanalyst's account of the use of LSD by one of his patients as self-prescribed psychotherapy. LSD made him more responsive to reality for a few days by reducing his feelings of emptiness and numbness.
Yensen, Richard, DiLeo, Francesco, Rhead, John C., Richards, William A., Soskin, Robert A., Turek, Brahim, and Kurland, Albert A. 1976. MDA-assisted psychotherapy with neurotic outpatients: A pilot study. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 163: 233-245. Ten neurotic outpatients were treated with MDA; each had two to four drug sessions. Psychological tests showed much improvement just after treatment and some improvement six months later. Age-regression without panic or loss of ego functions was particularly important. The authors consider MDA potentially useful for therapeutic interviews.
NEUROSIS: EVALUATION
Geert-Jorgensen, Einar, Hertz, Mogens, Knudsen, Knud, and Kristensen, Kjaerbye. 1964. LSD-treatment; Experience gained within a three-year period. Acta Psychiattica Scandinavica 40, Supp. 180. Pp. 373-382. A study of 129 cases of severe chronic neurosis treated with LSD with a three-year follow-up. Seventy were unchanged and fifty-nine improved substantially. The number of LSD sessions ranged from five to fifty-eight, and the amount of treatment needed was very variable; in one case, two doses of 50 micrograms apparently produced a complete cure, and in another, fifty-four large doses did not help at all. There was one suicide attempt, onesuccessful suicide, and one murder. The authors admit that the results are not statistically impressive, but they point out that these were difficult cases, many of whom had failed in other forms of psychotherapy and possibly could not have been helped in any other way.
Lewis, David L., and Sloane, R. Bruce. 1958. Therapy with lysergic acid diethylamide. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology 19: 19-31. A study of twenty-three hospitalized nelrotics treated with LSD. Twelve improved, nine were unchanged, and two became temporarily worse. The authors say that LSD is a useful tool which facilitates transference, but they also admit that the results were about what would be expected in conventional therapy.
McGlothlin, William H., and Arnold, David 0. 1971. LSD revisited: A ten-year follow-up of medical LSD use. Archives of General Psychiatry 24: 35-49. Another excellent controlled study on longterm LSD effects, in the form of a survey of 247 people who had been given LSD either as experimental subjects or in psychotherapy by three Los Angeles psychiatrists between 1955 and 1961. Most had taken it only a few times; 23 percent had used it later without medical supervision. The therapist-initiated group was compared with a control group consisting of other patients of some psychiatrists; the nonmedical users were compared with another control group: The LSD users claimed that the drug had made them more tolerant, less egocentric, less aggressive, and more appreciative of natural beauty. Tests showed no evidence of this for those who had been initiated by therapists, but did show some evidence for those who had taken the drug on their own. The values of the nonmedical user group differed from those of the controls in various ,ways; the values of the therapist-initiated groups differed only in respect to interest in Eastern philosophy. There was a strong tendency to pantheism in the nonmedical group. The authors conclude that in general there was little evidence of LSD-induced change; rather, nonmedical use attracted certain kinds of people. The induced interest in Eastern philosophy, however, is significant.
McGlothlin, William, Cohen, Sidney, and McGlothlin, Marcella S. 1970. Long lasting effects of LSD on normals. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 3(1): 20-31. One of the best controlled studies on long-term effects of LSD. Seventy-two experimental subjects, all graduate students, were divided into three groups. In three drug sessions they were given respectively 200 micrograms of LSD, 25 micrograms of LSD, and 20 mg of amphetamine. They were tested before and six months later on anxiety, attitudes and values, esthetic sensitivity, creativity, and projective tests. Seven members of the first group quit after one drug session. After six months, the first group showed a small but significant decrease in defensiveness and an increase in frustration tolerance. Thirty-three percent in the first group as opposed to 13 percent and 9 percent in the other groups also described themselves as feeling less anxious and tense. They were also more likely to report
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changes in values and greater appreciation of music and art. These subjective impressions were not confirmed by tests, except for lower levels of anxiety and measured by galvanic skin response and a greater interest in classical music as measured by concert-going and record buying. Those who reported lasting changes did not produce different galvanic skin responses from those who did not.
Mascher, E. 1967. Psycholytic therapy: Statistics and indications. In H. Brill, J. O. Cole, P. Denker, H. Hippins, and P. B. Bradley, eds. Neuro-Psychopharmacology. Amsterdam: Excerpta-Medica. Pp. 441-444. A synopsis of the literature on psycholytic therapy from 1953 to 1965. The mean treatment time was four and a half months with 14.5 LSD sessions; the success rate varied from 70 percent for anxiety neurosis to 42 percent for obsessive-compulsive neurosis. Follow-ups averaging two years later showed few relapses. The author concludes that psycholytic therapy has advantages over the psychodynamic psychotherapy on which it is modelled: shorter treatment time and the ability to treat more serious cases.
Pm, Robert. 1966. LSD-25 as an adjunct to long-term psychotherapy. Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal 11: 330-342. A study of twenty-four patients treated at Toronto General Hospital from 1962 to 1965. The total number of LSD sessions was fifty-six. Symptoms included anxiety, depression, phobias, and conversion syndromes; almost all were disabling and longstanding. Five successes and two possible successes are reported. There was no increase in suicide attempts. The author believes that the teaching value of psychedelic drugs is greater than their therapeutic value, but he recommends further exploration of the drugs as one variable in treatment.
Robinson, J. T., Davis, L. S., Sack, E. L. N. S., and Morrissey, J. D. 1963. A controlled trial of abreaction with lysergic acid diethylamide. British Journal of Psychiatry 109: 46-53. Psycholytic therapy was tested against standard treatment for neurosis and a barbiturate-amphetamine combination. Two-thirds improved in each group on follow-up after three and six months. But anxious patients did better with LSD than with the other methods, and passive-dependent patients did worse.
Soskin, Robert A. 1973. The use of LSD in time-limited psychotherapy. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 157: 410-419. A controlled study of psycholytic therapy in twenty-eight nonpsychotic inpatients who received either LSD or placebo (Ritalin and Librium) five times during a thirteen-week period. Independent raters found no significant differences in the two groups either just after treatment or at follow-up eighteen months later. The author concludes that at least in these -marginally motivated and psychologically unsophisticated- patients, LSD was of no help. Earlier studies are critically analyzed.
Vanggard, Thorkil. 1964. Indications and counter-indications for LSD treatment. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 40: 427-437. A detailed study by a Danish psychiatrist of twenty-four patients in LSD therapy under the direction of Sandison. Five of the twenty-four were apparently cured by the treatment, thirteen were not improved, and two deteriorated during the hospital stay. The cases are discussed in detail. The author concludes that the best patient for LSD therapy is of the same kind as the best patient for psychoanalysis.
DISTURBED CHILDREN
Bender, Lauretta, Cobrink, Leonard, and Sankar, D. V. Siva. 1966. The treatment of childhood schizophrenia with LSD and UML. In Max Rinkel, ed. Biological Treatment of Mental Illness. New York: L. C. Page. Pp. 463-491. A major article on the use of LSD in autistic and schizophrenic children. Weekly doses of 150 micrograms of LSD or 6 mg of UML (a non-psychoactive lysergic acid derivative) over a period of several years seemed to produce similar clinical improvements; there was no control group. The children were said to become happier and more playful and show less stereotyped behavior; they sought more contact with adults. Young psychotic children showed dramatic changes in their handling of fantasy material. Given the effect of UML, it may be that the improvement was mainly in the eyes of the therapists.
Fisher, G. 1970. The psycholytic treatment of a childhood schizophrenic girl. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 16: 112-130. The only published case history of psychedelic drug treatment of a child.
Simmons, James Q., III, Berior, Daniel, and Daniel, Dale. 1972. The variable effects of LSD-25 on the behavior of a heterogeneous group of childhood schizophrenics. Behavioral Neuropsychiatry 4(1-2): 10-16. A study of the effects of LSD on seventeen emotionally disturbed children. The effects were variable but mostly positive. There was no permanent change in the children's condition.
Simmons, James Q., III, Leiken, Stanley J., Lovaas, O. Ivar, Schaeffer, Benson, and Perloff, Bernard. 1966. Modification of autistic behavior with LSD-25. American Journal of Psychiatry 122: 1201-1211. Observers rated two sets of identical autistic twins given either 50 micrograms of LSD or a placebo for fifteen days. The drug improved the children's mood and increased their sociability. Results were less consistent with a more heterogenous group of child schizophrenics.
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Rhead, John C. 1977. The use of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of severely disturbed children: A review. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 9(2): 93-101. A review of the work on autistic and schizophrenic children, with many references. The author suggests that some severely disturbed children without evidence of organic brain damage are suffering from the effects of the birth trauma. He recommends further experimentation with psychedelic drugs in disturbed children.
SOCIOPATHS
Leary, Timothy, and Metzner, Ralph. 1967-1968. Use of psychedelic drugs in prisoner rehabilitation. British Journal of Sociology 2: 27-51. A lengthier review of the project discussed in Leary et al. 1965. The authors offer a theory of reform through detachment from learned social roles. They favor avoiding a doctor-patient model and advocate instead spending time informally with ex-prisoners. They admit that despite profound psilocybin experiences, once prisoners were back on the street they often relapsed into old habits. Nevertheless, there is some suggestion of a lower than average recidivism rate in the group treated with psilocybin; the follow-up time however, was not long enough. The authors recommend halfway houses in which released prisoners could use psychedelic drugs.
Leary, Timothy, Metzner, Ralph, Presnell, Madison, Weil, Gunther, Schwitzgebel, Ralph, and Kinne, Sara. 1965. A new behavior change program using psilocybin. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice 2: 61-72. An account of a prisoner rehabilitation project in which psilocybin was used in group sessions with interesting but equivocal results. Two case histories are discussed. It is hard to tell how much of the effect was due to psilocybin and how much to the prisoners' intimate personal relationship with the experimenters.
Shagass, C., and Bittle, B. M. 1967. Therapeutic effects of LSD: A follow-up study, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 144: 471-478. Twenty patients treated with a single high dose of LSD were compared with twenty matched controls. Six and twelve months later the patients in the first group were more improved as measured by school and job performance and home life. Those who had what the authors call insightful responses to the LSD were most improved—although they tended to relapse after six months. Ten of the LSD patients were referred by courts or had legal problems related to their psychiatric ones; nine were diagnosed ,as psychopaths. The ratings were not blind: the interviewers knew which patients had taken LSD.
ADDICTION AND ALCOHOLISM
Abuzzahab, F. S., Sr., and Anderson, B. J. 1971. A review of LSD treatment in alcoholism. International Pharrnacopsychiatry 6: 223-235. This review of thirty-one studies on LSD treatment of alcoholics, controlled and uncontrolled, with different experimental designs from the 1950s to 1970. Despite 10 of evidence favoring LSD in controlled experiments, the authors believe it may be useful as an adjunct in some cases.
Albaugh, Bernard J., and Anderson; Philip 0. 1974. Peyote in the treatment of alcoholism among American Indians. American Journal of Psychiatry 131: 1247-1251. In an alcoholism treatment project at a Bureau of Indian Affairs hospital in Oklahoma, peyote meetings under the auspices of the Native American Church were employed, along with other forms of therapy. The authors report some success, but there are few details and no statistics.
Bowen, William T., Soskin, Robert A., and Chotlos, John W. 1970. Lysergic acid diethylamide as a variable in the hospital treatment of alcoholism. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 150: 111-122. LSD treatment was compared with Human Relations Training in alcoholics during six months of hospitalization. On measures of abstinence, employment, hospitalizations, and legal troubles, both groups were the same a year later. The best outcomes were associated with being married and employed just before entering treatment. The authors point out that LSD often produced a short-term beneficial effect (two or three months) and they suggest that follow-up LSD sessions might be useful.
Cheek, Frances E., Osmond, Humphry, Sarett, Mary, and Albahary, Robert S. 1966. Observations regarding the use of LSD-25 in the treatment of alcoholism. Journal of Psychopharmacology 1: 56-74. A controlled study of hospitalized alcoholics showed no difference produced by LSD (two large doses) on follow-up at three, six, and twelve months. Attitude change after treatment was greater in the LSD group, but this did not correlate well with subsequent sobriety and family and work adjustment. The authors suggest making more effective use of the temporary attitude change.
Faillace, Louis A., Vourlekis, Alkinoos, and Szara, Stephen. 1970. Hallucinogenic drugs in the treatment of alcoholism: A two-year follow-up. Comprehensive Psychiatry 11: 51-56. Twelve severe chronic alcoholics were treated with DPT. Two years later three of them were substantially improved; in two cases the drug therapy was apparently related to the improvement, and one patient had been abstinent ever since the treatment. The authors conclude that the success rate was not high enough to justify the time, expense, and danger involved. The drug brought personal problems to the surface of consciousness, but only a few of the alcoholics could take advantage
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of the insights. In a number of cases there was a temporary improvement (a few weeks).
Grof, S., Soskin, R. A., Richards, W. A., and Kurland, A. A. 1973. DPT as an adjunct in psychotherapy of alcoholics. International Pharmacopsychiatry 8: 104-115. An uncontrolled study showed some promise for the use of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of alcoholics. Fifty-one alcoholics were given LSD; many showed dramatic improvements on psychological tests and a social history questionnaire six months later. Eighteen (38.2 percent) were totally abstinent after six months. In another experiment DPT was given one to six times to chronic alcoholics in a low or a high dose, after two to three weeks of preparation followed by therapuetic interviews. Psychological tests just after treatment and a social history questionnaire six months later showed substantial improvements in both groups.
Hollister, Leo E., Shelton, Jack, and Krieger, George. 1969. A controlled comparison of lysergic diethylamide (LSD) and dextroamphetamine in alcoholics. American Journal of Psychiatry 125: 1352-1357. Seventy-two alcoholics were divided into two groups and given either LSD or amphetamine. A "blind" interviewer rated the LSD group better off after two months but not after six months; both groups improved substantially. A methodological critique of earlier studies is included.
Jensen, S. E., and Ramsay. Ronald. 1963. Treatment of chronic alcoholism with lysergic acid diethylamide. Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal 8: 182-188. A controlled experiment that suggests LSD treatment of severe chronic alcoholics may be an advantage; methodological deficiencies make the study dubious.
Johnson, F. Gordon. 1969. LSD in the treatment of alcoholism. American Journal of Psychiatry 126: 481-487. Ninety-five alcoholic patients were divided into four groups receiving LSD with psychotherapy, LSD without psychotherapy, an amphetamine-barbiturate combination, and standard clinic care. Both drug treatments produced a short-term improvement, but after a year, clinical raters found no difference among the four groups on measures of drinking and employment.
Kurland, A., Savage, C., Pahnke, W. N., Grof, S., and Olsson, J. E. 1971. LSD in the treatment of alcoholics. Pharmakopsychiatrie Neuropsycizopharmakologie 4: 83-94. High and low doses of LSD were compared in hospitalized alcoholics. Both groups improved equally on psychological tests just after treatment. Independent social workers found global adjustment and drinking problems to be the same in both groups after twelve and eighteen months; the high-dose group was better off after six months. More than half the patients in both groups were described as essentially rehabilitated after eighteen months.
Ludwig, Arnold M., and Levine, Jerome. 1965. A controlled comparison of fiVe brief treatment techniques employing LSD, hypnosis, and psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy 19: 417-435. Five groups of fourteen hospitalized heroin addicts received five different short-term treatments. On psychological tests the three groups getting LSD showed more improvement after two weeks, and the group who had a combination of LSD and hypnosis still showed more improvement than the others after two months. Neither the name nor the effects of LSD were disclosed to the patients; it was described simply as an "experimental drug." The authors point out that they tested only attitude change and do not know whether there was any behavior change after release from the hospital.
Ludwig, Arnold M., Levine, Jerome, and Stark, Louis H. 1970. LSD and Alcoholism: A Clinical Study of Treatment Efficacy. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas. An excellent and thorough controlled experiment on LSD treatment of alcoholics, with disappointing results despite the overwhelming effect of the LSD. The most interesting findings are that the great majority of hospitalized alcoholics improve after any treatment, and that no single treatment is better than any other for an unselected group of alcoholics. A superior analysis of the methodological problems in such studies is included.
Pahnke, Walter N., Kurland, Albert A., Unger, Sanford, Savage, Charles, and Grof, Stanislav. 1970a. The experimental use of psychedelic (LSD) psychotherapy. Journal of the American Medical Association 212: 1856-1863. Alcoholics treated with a single high dose of LSD improved more than those who took a single low dose. After six months 53 percent of the first group and 33 percent in the second group were said to be "essentially rehabilitated." The authors say that LSD is no substitute for skilled psychotherapy, and they emphasize the long period (twenty hours with a psychiatrist) spent in preparation for the drug experience.
Pascarosa, Paul, and Futterman, Sanford. 1976. Ethnopsychedelic therapy for alcoholics: Observations in the peyote ritual of the Native American Church. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 8(3): 251- 221. The ritual of the Native American Church peyote meetings is described and its religious and therapeutic values extolled. The quotations from participants, including one recovered alcoholic, are especially interesting.
Roy, C. 1973. Indian peyotists and alcohol. American Journal of Psychiatry 130: 329-330. The au-
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thor found that in the small Canadian tribe he was studying the only adults whom he would not
call alcoholics were twenty peyote eaters. The question of cause and effect is not discussed.
Savage, Charles, and McCabe, O. Lee. 1973. Residential psychedelic (LSD) therapy for the narcotic addict: A controlled study. Archives of General Psychiatry 28: 808-814. Thirty-seven heroin addicts were given six weeks of residential therapy plus one high dose of LSD. When compared with a control group, after twelve months a much larger proportion were abstinent from narcotics, but the global adjustment ratings in the two groups were the same. The addicts who had a peak experience were much more likely than the others to have perfect global adjustment ratings twelve months later. The authors admit that it is hard to separate the effects of LSD from those of the intensive residential therapy.
Smart, Reginald G., Storm, Thomas, Baker, Earle, F. W., and Solursh, Lionel. 1966. A controlled study of lysergide in the treatment of alcoholism. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 27: 469-482. The authors criticize earlier studies on LSD treatment of alcoholics and describe an unsuccessful controlled experiment of their own.
Smart, Reginald G., Storm, Thomas, Baker, Earle F. W., and Solursh, Lionel. 1967. Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) in the Treatment of Alcoholism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. A skeptical review of studies on LSD treatment of alcoholism which are criticized for various methodological faults. The authors also describe their own controlled experiment. Sections on the history of LSD and LSD psychotherapy are included. Further research is suggested, on the assumption that LSD might be useful for some special categories of alcoholics.
Soskin, Robert A. 1973. Short-term psychotherapy with LSD: A case study. Journal of Religion and Health. 12(1): 41-62. A case history of a patient who showed dramatic improvement in LSD therapy. He was a drug addict, unemployed for eleven years, who had been in psychoanalysis for many years without success. In thirteen weeks of inpatient treatment he had five LSD sessions.- After treatment he immediately got a job and his symptoms disappeared: follow-up took place sixteen months after treatment. The author admits that the hospitalization and staff attention may have been important, but the patient himself attributes his recovery to LSD. His account of the treatment is impressive.
Soskin, Robert A., Grof, Stanislav, and Richards, William A. 1973. Low doses of dipropyltryptamine in psychotherapy. Archives of General Psychiatry 28: 817-821. Alcoholics were given either DPT (in a low dose) or placebo six to eight times for therapeutic interviews. The DPT interviews seemed more productive to both the interviewers and the patients. Four cases are discussed.
Van Dusen, Wilson, Wilson, Wayne, Miners, William, and Hook, Harry. 1967. Treatment'fif alcoholism with lysergide. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 28: 295-304. A disappointing controlled study of LSD in female alcoholics: drug and control groups improved equally.
DYING
Cohen, Sidney. 1965. LSD and the anguish of dying. Harper's, September. Pp. 69-78. An anecdotal report on the author's LSD treatment of several dying patients, with quotations.
Grof, Stanislav, and Halifax, Joan. 1977. The Human Encounter with Death. New York: E. P. Dutton. Starting from their own and others' work in the psychedelic drug treatment of cancer patients, the authors explore many aspects of death and dying. The book includes firsthand accounts by patients in treatment with LSD and by people who have had ecstatic and visionary experiences when approaching death. The detailed case histories are especially interesting. There are chapters on the posthumous journey of the soul in myth and on ritual death and rebirth. The purpose of the book is to draw on the theory of mind that Grof has derived from psychedelic drug research to integrate traditional, clinical, and anecdotal material. Whether or not one believes that anything has been achieved theoretically, the incidental information is fascinating.
Grof, S., Goodman, L. E., Richards, W. A., and Kurland, A. A. 1973. LSD-assisted psychotherapy in patients with terminal cancer. International Pharmacopsychiatry 8: 129-141. Of sixty dying patients treated with LSD or DPT or both, one-third were said to be dramatically improved, one-third somewhat improved, abd one-third unchanged. Nurses, psychiatrists, physicians, families, and independent clinical raters rated thirty-one patients systematically before and afterward on depression, isolation, anxiety, and fear of death: 29 percent showed dramatic improvement and 42 percent moderate improvement; two were slightly worse. The authors say that the most interesting and lasting result was a greater acceptance of death, especially after a mystical experience. Previous work with LSD on dying patients is reviewed.
Huxley, Laura Archera. 1968, This Timeless Moment. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. This memoir by Aldous Huxley's second wife includes a moving passage about her husband's use of LSD on the day of his death.
Kast, Eric C., and Collins, Vincent J. 1964. Lysergic acid diethylamide as an analgesic agent. Anesthesia and Analgesia 43: 285-291. LSD was compared with standard narcotics for its effects on
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pain in fifty cancer and gangrene victims. LSD relieved pain for a longer time, but most patients found the experience emotionally draining and only twelve wanted to repeat it.
Kast, Eric. 1966. Pain and LSD-25: A theory of attenuation of anticipation. In D. Solomon, ed. LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug. New York: G. P. Putnam's. Pp. 239-254. Dying cancer patients received LSD after some preparation and instruction. In most cases mood returned to the old level after twelve hours, but sleep improved for an average of ten days, and a few patients felt pain relief for up to three weeks. About a third of the patients were unwilling to repeat the experience. A small dose of LSD also seemed effective in a pilot study as a preanesthetic for hysterectomies. In four cases of phantom limb pain it provided no relief.
Pahnke, Walter N. 1969. The psychedelic mystical experience in the human encounter with death. Harvard Theological Review 62: 1-21. This article is a version of the 1968 Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality delivered at Harvard Divinity School. After criticizing the way death is handled in our hospitals and briefly analyzing the nature of mystical experience, the author goes on to discuss the LSD treatment of seventeen dying patients. The importance of properly combining preparation, setting, and drug is emphasized. One-third of the patients are said to have improved dramatically, and none became worse. Common effects were loss of the fear of death and greater feelings of closeness to family and others. Two case histories are recounted at length. The article is followed by uneasy responses from a physician and a theologian.
Pahnke, Walter N., Kurland, Albert A., Unger, Sanford, Savage, Charles, Wolf, Sidney, and Goodman, Louis E. 1970b. Psychedelic therapy (utilizing LSD) with cancer patients. Journal of Psy-, chedelic Drugs 3(1): 63-75. Another study of LSD treatment of dying patients at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, with several case histories.
Richards, William, Grof, Stanislav, Goodman, Louis, and Kurland, Albert. 1972. LSD-assisted psychotherapy and the human encounter with death. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 4: 121-150. In a pilot project on the treatment of dying patients, nine of the thirty-one subjects improved -dramatically- and thirteen improved -moderately- when anxiety, pain, depression, and attitudes toward death were measured on a scale devised by Richards and Pahnke before, and three days after, a high dose of LSD. The problem of separating the effects of LSD from those of the preparatory psychotherapy is discussed. There are detailed descriptions of drug sessions, and two case histories are recounted. The philosophical implications of the changes in feelings about death are analyzed. The experience is said to help the patient's family as well as the patient.
Richards, William A., Rhead, John C., DiLeo, Francesco, Yensen, Richard, and Kurland, Albert A. 1977:The peak experience variable in DPT-assisted psychotherapy with cancer patients. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 9(1): 1-10. Dying Patients were given DPT after therapeutic preparation. Fifteen were judged to have had a peak experience (feelings of cosmic unity, death-rebirth, etc.) as determined by a questionnaire devised by Walter N. Pahnke. The ones who had this experience were rated by themselves, by clinical observers, and by psychological tests as better off a week later; but independent raters who did not know which patients had had the peak experience saw no difference. Those who did not have the peak experience had been judged more anxious, tense, and hostile on the day before the drug was administered; the authors suggest that they may have needed more psychodynamic work.
Richards, William A., Rhead, John C., Grof, Stanislav, Goodman, Louis E., di Leo, Francesco, and Rush, Lockwood. 1979. DPT as an adjunct in brief psychotherapy with cancer patients. Omega 10: 9-26. Thirty patients took a high dose of DPT after twelve hours of preparatory psychotherapy. Their levels of depression and anxiety as measured by independent clinical raters and psychological tests were significantly lower four weeks later. Many also showed more self-assertiveness and confidence, more self-acceptance, and less denial of anger. The authors conclude that the results are promising but a controlled study with an active placebo is necessary.
COMPLICATIONS AND DANGERS
Bhattacharya, B. 1966. Lysergic acid diethylamide. British Medical Journal 2: 49. A survey of psychiatrists using LSD in Great Britain suggests that its dangers in a therapeutic environment are not great. Follow-up time is not mentioned.
Cohen, Sidney. 1960. Lysergic acid diethylamide: Side effects and complications. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 130: 30-40. The author reviews the literature on adverse reactions during LSD therapy and describes several cases, including suicides, attempted suicides, and subjects with prolonged reactions. He gives recommendations on patient selection and guidance. A survey of psychiatrists using LSD suggests a low rate of attempted suicide and psychosis.
Denson, R. 1969. Complications in therapy with lysergide. Canadian Medical Association Journal 101: 659-663. A study based on work in a Canadian hospital finds a 4 percent rate of major complications during and after LSD therapy, but no permanent harm.
Malleson, Nicholas. 1971. Acute adverse reactions to LSD in clinical and experimental use in the
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United Kingdom. British Journal of Psychiatry 188: 229-230. A questionnaire sent to psychiatrists in Great Britain suggests that the danger of therapeutic use of LSD is not great. There was no relationship between acute adverse effects and dosage or number of doses.
Savage, Charles. 1959. The resolution and subsequent remobilization of resistance by LSD in psychotherapy. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 125: 434-437. An account of a schizophrenic woman who committed suicide after her defenses were shaken too fast and strongly by LSD. The author also cites some cases in which LSD-induced insights were later repressed and had no permanent effect.
Chapter 7
GENERAL
Aaronson, Bernard S. 1970. Some hypnotic analogues to the psychedelic state. In B. Aaronson and H. Osmond, eds. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Rooks. Pp. 279-295. Working with six hypnotized subjects, the author suggested certain perceptual changes (no depth, expanded depth, slowed time, stopped time, and so forth) and produced experiences resembling psychedelic, religious, and psychotic states. Expanded depth, in particular, produced a sense that everything was part of a perfect divine order. The author believes that the instruction to enhance depth perception has the effect of increasing the rate of perceptual processing and allowing stimuli normally excluded to gain access to consciousness.
Clark, Walter Houston, and Funkhouser, G. Ray. 1970. Physicians and researchers disagree on psychedelic drugs. Psychology Today 3(11): 48-50,70-73. A large majority of the psychedelic drug researchers and a large minority of the randomly chosen members of the American Psychological Association and American Medical Association who answered the authors' questionnaire considered psychedelic drugs to have possible therapeutic and research uses. Almost all wanted the government to offer more encouragement to research, Psychologists were most favorable to the use of psychedelic drugs and physicians least; psychiatrists were in between. These results were published at a time when it had already become almost impossible to do research on psychedelic drugs.
Clark, Walter, Lieff, Jonathan, Lieff, Carolyn, and Sussman, Roy. 1975. Psychedelic research: Obstacles and values. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 15: 5-17. One hundred responses to questionnaires placed in two professional journals in 1972 express researchers' frustration and discouragement, along with their resignation at not being able to make use of psychedelic drugs. Lack of legal clearance, lack of funds, red tape, and the disapproval of superiors were the main obstacles. The researchers anticipated useful results in psychotherapy, religious research, problem-solving, and the study of the mind.
Drug Abuse Council. 1975. Altered States of Consciousness. Washington, D.C.: Drug Abuse Council. A collection of papers delivered at a 1973 conference, whose authors include Roland Fischer, Jean Houston, Julian Silverman, A. T. Shulgin, Richard Evans Schultes, and Alan Rechtschaffen. Silverman's paper on the sensory basis of transcendental states, Fischer's general theory pf al-' tered states of consciousness, and Shulgin on the relationship of chemical structure to its effects on consciousness, are especially interesting.
Ludwig, Arnold M. 1966. Altered states of consciousness. Archives of General Psychiatry 15: 225- 234. In this useful review that includes many references, the causes, characteristics, frequency, and therapeutic and creative uses of altered states of consciousness are discussed, as well as ways in which these states are purposely induced.
Moody, Raymond A. 1975. Life After Life. Atlanta: Mockingbird Books. This exploration of near-death visionary and ecstatic experiences includes a discussion of their possible relationship to the effects of various drugs, especially ketamine and nitrous oxide.
Mostert, Jacobus W. 1975. States of consciousness during general anesthesia. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 19: 68-76. The altered states of consciousness produced by anesthesia during surgery are described and discussed; the capacity of patients to recall what happened while they were in deep anesthesia is noted.
Siegel, Ronald K., and Jarvik, Murray E. 1975. Drug-induced hallucinations in animals and man. In R. Siegel and L. West, eds. Hallucinations: Behavior, Experience, and Theory. New York: John Wiley. This is an important and thorough review of the subject. The first part is devoted to animal experiments, the second part to human experiments, and the third part to theory. There is interesting material on the early history of psychedelic drugs. Forms of drug-induced imagery are classified, and the question of cultural determination is discussed. Different levels of halluci-
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natory vividness are described, and a theory of memory retrieval and perceptual release is proposed. There are color plates of paintings based on psychedelic imagery and an extensive bibliography.
Siegel, R. K., and West, L. J., eds. 1975. Hallucinations: Behavior, Experience, and Theory. New York: John Wiley. This collection is of interest throughout to anyone concerned with psychedelic drugs. It includes papers by Weston LaBarre on primitive use of hallucinogens, by Ernest Hartmann on dreams, and theoretical papers by Roland Fischer, Mardi J. Horowitz, C. Wade Savage, and Louis Jolyon West. The essays by LaBarre and the one by Siegel and Jarvik on drug-induced hallucinations are most relevant, but potential uses of drugs in studying the mind are discussed throughout.
Silverman, Julian. 1971. Research with psychedelics: Some biopsychological concepts and possible clinical applications. Archives of General Psychiatry 25: 498-510. The author points out that subjects taking LSD are unusually tolerant to strong stimuli and unusually sensitive to weaker stimuli. He proposes an explanation connected with excitation-inhibition balance and stimulus intensity control; and he suggests clinical applications in the treatment of sociopaths, autistic children, and chronic pain.
Tart, Charles T. 1975. States of Consciousness. New York: E. P. Dutton. One chapter of this book is devoted to a discussion of the use of drugs to induce altered states of awareness. The author believes that it makes sense to speak of a marihuana state but not of an LSD state—with LSD the effects are too unstable and variable. He also develops a theory of "state-specific sciences" based partly on work with psychedelic drugs.
Zinberg, Norman E., ed. 1977. Alternate States of Consciousness. New York: The Free Press. A second conference sponsored by the Drug Abuse Council in 1975 produced these papers. Alternate states of consciousness are discussed from many points of view—methodological, anthropological, neurological, and mystical. Zinberg's introduction is an interesting attempt at a synthesis along psychoanalytical lines. The essays by Peter T. Furst on American Indian techniques of inducing altered states of awareness and by Caryl Marsh and Charles T. Tart on theoretical frameworks for analyzing altered states are especially useful for the student of psychedelic drugs. Joel Elkes' essay on subjective and objective observation in psychology also contains much material on drugs. A bibliography is included.
NEUROPHARMACOLOGY
Aghajanian, George K., and Haigler, Henry J. 1975. Hallucinogenic indoleamines: Preferential action upon presynaptic serotonin receptors. Psychopharmacology Communications 1: 619-629. A summary of what is known about the effect on neurotransmitters of LSD, DMT, and psilocybin. The- authors' thesis is that they act at presynaptic serotonin receptors to inhibit the firing of raphe neurons, thereby releasing postsynaptic neurons from an inhibiting serotonin influence. Neither LSD nor psilocybin mimics serotonin at postsynaptic receptor sites.
Aldous, F. A. B., Barrass, B. C., Brewster, K., Buston, D. A., Green, D. M., Pinder, R. M., Rich, P., and Skeels, M. 1974. Structure-activity relationship in psychotomimetic phenylalkylamines. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 17: 1100-1111. The chemical structural features associated with high hallucinogenic potency are discussed, but despite a few empirical correlations nothing conclusive is shown. The authors suggest that once a compound has been shown to be hallucinogenic and not amphetamine-like, rise in body temperature in rabbits correlates well with hallucinogenic potency in man. The article covers a large number of drugs and provides extensive tables.
Balestrieri, Antonio. 1967. On the action mechanism of LSD-25. In H. Abramson, ed. The Use of LSD in Psychotherapy and Alcoholism. New York: Bobbs-Merrill. Pp. 653-657. Temporal lobe epileptics found that the effects of LSD at a dose of 100-200 micrograms resembled their seizures in some ways. The authors suggest that LSD acts on the temporal lobes.
Beaton, John M., and Bradley, Ronald J. 1972. The behavioral effects of some hallucinogenic derivatives of amphetamine. In E. H. Ellinwood and Sidney Cohen, eds. Current Concepts on Amphetamine Abuse. Rockville, Maryland: National Institute of Mental Health. Pp. 49-57. This study examines various measures of hallucinogenic activity based on the behavior of experimental animals, and concludes that none of them is entirely adequate. The chemical structural requirements for hallucinogenic as opposed to stimulant activity are discussed, and so is the relationship between chemical structure and hallucinogenic potency. A table of the nineteen amphetamine derivatives tested is included. Many references.
Bennett, James P., Jr., and Snyder, Solomon H. 1976. Serotonin and lysergic acid diethylamide binding in rat brain membranes: Relationship to postsynaptic serotonin receptors. Molecular Pharmacology 12: 373-389. A study of the effects of LSD on serotonin systems in the brain. LSD has the same binding sites as serotonin; it is a weak post-synaptic agonist but an excellent inhibitor of the firing of raphe cells in the brainstem.
Bradley, P. B., and Key, B. J. 1963. Conditioning experiments with LSD. In R. Crocket, R Sandison,
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and A. Walk, eds. Hallucinogenic Drugs and Their Psychotherapeutic Use. London: H. K. Lewis. Pp. 4-11. An important study of the effects of LSD on conditioned learning. Like positive conditioning, LSD increases the significance level of a wide range of stimuli; for example, it makes animals respond anew to stimuli to which they have become habituated. The authors conclude that LSD affects the neurophysiological mechanisms that filter and integrate sensory information. Unlike amphetamine, which affects the reticular activating system, LSD seems to act on afferent impulses entering the reticular activating system.
Brawley, Peter, and Duffield, James C. 1972. The pharmacology of hallucinogens. Pharmacological Reviews 24: 31-66. A detailed summary with many references. The different types of hallucinogens are distinguished and some guesses about the relationship of molecular structure to potency are offered. The authors admit that none of the proposed neurophysiological explanations for psychedelic drug effects seems at all sufficient, and they conclude that we still know very little about the subject.
Christian, Samuel T., Harrison, Robert, Quayle, Elizabeth, Pagel, John, and Monti, John. 1977. The in vitro identification of dimethyltryptamine (DPT) in mammalian brain and its characterization as a possible endogenous neuroregulatory agent. Biochemical Medicine 18: 164-183. Receptors for DMT found in rats and human beings suggest that it plays some role as a neurotransmitter. The enzyme that produces DMT has been isolated from rat brain tissue. The authors suggest that LSD may act by displacing DMT at the synaptosomal level.
Goldstein, L., and Stolzf us, N. W. 1973. Psychoactive drug induced changes of interhemispheric EEG. Agents and Actions 3: 124-132. Experiments suggest that psychedelic drugs reverse the lateralization of EEG amplitude in the occipital cortex in the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
Jacobs, Barry L., and Trulson, Michael E. 1979. Mechanisms of action of LSD. American Scientist 67: 396-404. An excellent, clearly written, systematic and historical survey of the relevant research leading up to a discussion of the authors' own experiments. The psychedelic or hallucinogenic drugs which suppress the action of serotonin (raphe) cells in the brainstem can be distinguished behaviorally, when administered at high doses, by the production of abortive grooming and limb flicks in cats. LSD and DOM produce more limb flicks than even the highest doses of other drugs tested, and they are also the only ones that mimic the action of dopamine; superinposition of a dopamine on a serotonin effect is suggested. The authors also found that tolerance to the behavioral effect of the second day's dose of LSD was not accompanied by any reduction in the firing rate of raphe cells. They conclude that repeated administration does not change brainstem effects significantly, but reduces the sensitivity of the target regions to which the raphe cells direct their message. They note that brainstem serotonin cells seem to serve a general inhibitory function in a variety of situations; an LSD experience resembles a waking dream because, in dreaming sleep as in psychedelic states, these cells stop firing.
Keup, Wolfram. 1970. Structure-activity relationship of hallucinogens. In Wolfram Keup, ed. Origin and Mechanisms of Hallucinations. New York: Plenum. Pp. 345-369. The author lists a large number of drugs and classifies them in an attempt to find correlations between chemical structure and pharmacological effects in hallucinogens. No reliable rules emerge.
Serafetinides, E. A. 1965. The significance of temporal lobes and of hemispheric dominance in the production of the LSD-25 symptomatology in man: A study of epileptic patients before and after temporal lobectomy. Neuropsycholgia 3: 69-79. Experiments on epileptic patients suggest a relationship between LSD and right-hemisphere dominance: epileptics with the epileptic focus in the right hemisphere show more visual effects under the influence of LSD than those with the epileptic focus in the left hemisphere.
Snyder, Solomon H., Riche!son, Elliott, Weingartner, Herbert, and Faillace, Louis A. 1970. Psychotropic methoxyamphetamines: Structure and activity in man. In E. Costa and S. Garatini, eds, International Symposium an Amphetamines and Related Compounds. New York: Raven Press. Pp. 905-928. The authors discuss the problems of determining a relationship between chemical structure and activity among psychedelic drugs; they offer the suggestion that the most potent drugs are those that can produce a carbon-ring formation geometrically resembling that of LSD.
Von Hungen, Kern, Roberts, Sidney, and Hill, Dianne F. 1974. LSD as an agonist and antagonist at central dopamine receptors. Nature 252: 588-589. Experiments show that LSD can block the action of dopamine and norepinephrine as well as serotonin at various sites in the brain. The hallucinogenic or psychedelic effects may be caused by complex agonist and antagonist actions at all these sites.
PSYCHEDELIC EFFECTS AND PSYCHOSIS
Bowers, Malcolm B., Jr., and Freedman, Daniel X. 1966. 'Psychedelic' experiences in acute psychoses. Archives of General Psychiatry 15: 240-248. The authors find a close relationship between psychotic and psychedelic phenomena, emphasizing a heightened sense of reality and religious feel-
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ings. They cite William James on psychosis as a form of "diabolical mysticism," and they supply quotations that make acute schizophrenia sound remarkably like an overlong LSD trip that has gone sour. Seven case histories are presented. One person describes his psychotic break as resembling a previous LSD trip—but without the knowledge that he was coming back.
Cholden, Louis S., Kurland, Albert, and Savage, Charles. 1955. Clinical reactions and tolerance to LSD in chronic schizophrenia. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 122: 211-221. A review of experiments in which schizophrenics were given LSD, followed by an account of the authors' own experiment. A dose of 100 micrograms was given to two schizophrenics. A catatonic laughed, talked, sobbed and danced for the first time in years, and a hebephrenic talked seriously about her "pathetic" state; but the next day they were back in their previous conditions. The authors find no reason to believe that LSD will be useful in treating schizophrenia.
Claridge, Gordon. 1978. Animal models of schizophrenia: The Case for LSD-25. Schizophrenia Bulletin 4: 186-209. An interesting attempt ro revive the idea of psychedelic drug effects as a chemical model for natural psychosis, based largely on the resemblance in effects on conditioned reactions and learning. Both schizophrenics and LSD subjects tend to overgeneralize stimuli in conditioning, which implies an impairment of attention mechanisms that makes them oversensitive to remote emotional cues. Also, in both schizophrenics and LSD subjects, perceptual sensitivity, as measured by critical flicker fusion, and level of physiological arousal, as measured by galvanic skin response, do not vary in the normal, more or less direct, way: perceptual sensitivity tends to be far too high at a low level of arousal. The author concludes that LSD, like acute psychosis, causes a failure of the homeostatic mechanism regulating the relation between arousal and perceptual sensitivity; this heightens the sense of meaningfulness and may eventually produce thought disorders. He also points out that the most popular current model psychosis, amphetamine psychosis, is limited because it resembles only paranoid schizophrenia. He recommends further research with LSD using this model. Extensive references.
Hollister, Leo E. 1962. Drug-induced psychoses and schizophrenic reactions: A critical comparison. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 96: 80-88. A study emphasizing the differences between psychedelic experiences and natural psychosis: in an experiment, blind raters could easily tell people under the influence of drugs from chronic schizophrenics on tape recordings, and questionnaires showed few typically psychotic responses in the mescaline and LSD takers. The author doubts whether any generalizations about schizophrenia can be drawn from work with psychedelic drugs; his experiments do not seem adequate to prove that.
Jones, Reese T. 1973. Drug models of schizophrenia—cannabis. In J. O. Cole, A. M. Freedman, and A. J. Friedhoff, eds. Psychopathology and Psychopharmacology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp. 71-86. Still another analysis of the resemblances between psychedelic drug effects and schizophrenia, supplemented by an experiment with a large dose of THC. The author believes that it may be best to treat some acute psychoses as if they were bad trips.
Kleinman, Joel Edward, Gillin, John Christian, and Wyatt, Richard Jed. 1977. A comparison of the phenomenology of hallucinogens and schizophrenia from some autobiographical accounts. Schizophrenia Bulletin 3: 560-586. The authors present autobiographical accounts by schizophrenics and psychedelic drug users, emphasizing the differences—especially the unpleasant affect and thought disorder in schizophrenia.
Langs, Robert J., and Barr, Harriet Linton. 1968. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) and schizophrenic reactions: A comparative study. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 147: 163-172. Experimental subjects taking LSD were compared with chronic schizophrenics; the latter showed less regressive behavior, suspicion, body preoccupation, and visual distortion. Two acute schizophrenics showed symptoms much more intense than those of the LSD subjects. The authors conclude that thé LSD reaction does not resemble undifferentiated schizophrenia but in some cases resembles paranoid schizophrenia. They recommend the use of LSD to study psychosis.
Osmond, Humphry, and Smythies, John. 1952. Schizophrenia: A new approach. Journal of Mental Science 98: 309-315. Mescaline intoxication is proposed as a model of psychosis. A table shows that mescaline produces every major symptom of acute schizophrenia; the differences are fewer auditory hallucinations, more synesthesia, more euphoria, and less withdrawal. The authors speculate that in schizophrenia the body produces a mescaline-like compound.
Rhead, John C. 1978. The implications of psychedelic drug research for integration and ,sealing over as recovery styles from acute psychosis. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 10 (1): 57-64. The author argues for treating some acute psychoses as psychedelic trips, avoiding antipsychotic drugs and allowing the patient to accept and integrate his unconscious material by living the experience through. He compares recurring acute psychoses with psychedelic flashbacks, and he suggests that chronic schizophrenia might be a stabilized maladaptive "recovery" from acute psychosis which could in some cases be reversed by LSD.
Silverman, Julian. 1969. Perceptual and neurophysiological analogues of "experience" in schizophren-
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ic and LSD reactions. In D. V. Siva Sankar, ed. Schizophrenia: Current Concepts and Research. New York: PJD Publications. Another discussion of the similarities between psychosis and psychedelic experience, with special attention to hyperresponsiveness to details, body image changes, thought blocking, and changes in depth perspective.
Stockings, G. Tayleur. 1940. A clinical study of the mescaline psychosis, with special reference to the mechanism of the genesis of schizophrenia and other psychotic states. Journal of Mental Science 86: 29-47. An excellent (and prize-winning) early article noting the similarities between mescaline intoxication and acute schizophrenia. The description of symptoms and the summary of resemblances are striking.
Vonnegut, Mark. 1976. (orig. 1975). The Eden Express. New York: Bantam Books. The author vividly describes his acute schizophrenic break and notes a striking resemblance to his previous mescaline and LSD trips.
Young, B. J. 1974. A phenomenological comparison of LSD and schizophrenic states. British Journal of Psychiatry 124: 64-73. The author finds that LSD experience is phenomenologically indistinguishable from acute psychosis, except that the certainty of coming down makes for less anxiety and fewer actual delusions. He believes that visual hallucinations or pseudohallucinations are more common in acute psychosis than is generally acknowledged.
DREAMING
Green, William J. 1965. The effect of LSD on the sleep-dream cycle. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 140: 417-426. A study of the effects of LSD (a large dose taken in the morning) on the sleep and dreaming of one subject, an alcoholic, in treatment. LSD delayed the onset of dreaming and increased dreaming time for three nights. The author points out that there was little previous work on this subject; there has been no subsequent work either.
Muzio, J., Roffwarg, H., and Kaufman, E. 1964. Alteration in the young human adult sleep EEG configuration resulting from d-LSD-25. Presented to the Association for the Psychophysiological Study of Sleep, Palo Alto, California, March 1964. A small dose of LSD taken before bedtime produces a large increase in dreaming time.
Tart, Charles T. 1972 (orig. 1969). The -high- dream: A new state of consciousness. In C. Tart, ed. Altered States of Consciousness. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Pp. 171-176. A brief introduction to a topic that deserves more research: the effect of psychedelic drugs on the quality of dreams. The concepts of the high dream and the lucid high dream are introduced.
CREATIVITY AND LEARNING
Durr, R. A. 1970. Poetic Vision and Psychedelic Experience. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. The author intersperses quotations from poetry (especially Romantic) and philosophy (especially Eastern) with accounts of psychedelic drug trips. He finds the striking similarity between literary accounts and drug experiences reassuring as far as the effects and dangers of the drugs are concerned, since the experiences of the poets and philosophers presumably did not hurt them. The emphasis throughout the book is on unity with external nature rather than introvertive mysticism.
Harman, Willis W., McKim, Robert H., Mogar, Robert E., Fadiman, James, and Stolaroff, Myron J. 1972 (orig. 1969). Psychedelic agents in creative problem solving. In C. Tart, ed. Altered States of Consciousness. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Pp. 455-472. People with specific talents and specific problems—most of them scientists—were asked to work under the influence of a small dose of mescaline, with interesting and apparently valuable results. The quotations from the scientists are remarkable. The experiment was not controlled, so it is not clear how important the drug itself was. More experimentation in this area is needed.
Hayter, Althea. 1968. Opium and the Romantic Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press. A beautifully written volume of literary biography and criticism that is probably the best study of the relationship between drugs and artistic creation. Much of what the author says about opium—except problems of addiction, which take up a large part of the book—would apply a fortiori to psychedelic drugs.
lzumi, Kyo. 1970. LSD and architectural design. In B. Aaronson and H. Osmond, eds. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press. Pp. 381- 397. An architect tells how a visit to a mental hospital during an LSD trip suggested a new design for such hospitals.
Krippner, Stanley. 1970. The influence of 'psychedelic' experiences on contemporary art and music. In J. Carnage and E. Zerkin, eds. Hallucinogenic Drug Research: Impact on Science and Society. Beloit, Wisconsin: Stash Press. Pp. 83-114. The influence of psychedelic drugs on artists is analyzed through a survey. The author believes that artists are less vulnerable to adverse effects of the drug than other people.
Krippner, Stanley. 1972 (orig. 1969). The psychedelic state, the hypnotic trance, and the creative act. In Charles T. Tart, ed. Altered States of Consciousness. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books.
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Pp. 278-296. A discussion of the use of psychedelic drugs and hypnosis for learning and prob-
lem-solving, with an emphasis on time distortion. Several interesting anecdotes are included.
Masters, Robert E. L., and Houston, Jean. 1968. Psychedelic Art. With contributions by Barry N. Schwartz and Stanley Krippner. New York: Grove Press. A handsomely designed and illustrated volume exploring the influence of psychedelic experience on artists. The authors believe that drug experience can enrich the content of art and its means of expression. There are contributions by Barry N. Schwartz on surrealism, and by Stanley Krippner on a survey of artists who have taken LSD. The testimony from artists on how LSD affected their work is especially interesting. Many plates in black and white and color.
Zegans, Leonard S., Pollard, John C., and Brown, Douglas. 1967. The effects of LSD-25 on creativity and tolerance to regression. Archives of General Psychiatry 16: 740-749. A controlled experiment, designed to measure the effect of LSD on creativity, produced equivocal results in a randomly selected group of subjects. The authors point out the crippling methodological and conceptual problems in this kind of experiment.
RELIGION
Anonymous. 1974. Religious freedom and the Native American Church. Arizona Law Review 16: 554-556. A law review article analyzing a decision of the Arizona Supreme Court describes the conditions in which an otherwise illegal drug can be exempt from criminal penalties in the name of religious freedom. The requirements are, first, a firmly rooted theological system and ritual to which the drug is essential, and second, the absence of a compelling state interest in prohibition. Merely personal religious beliefs that involve the drug are not enough reason for exemption.
Barnard, Mary. 1963. The god in the flowerpot. American Scholar. 32: 578-586. The author suggests that hallucinogenic or psychedelic plants must have been far more important as a source of religious beliefs and institutions than the modern West has been willing to acknowledge. She argues plausibly that Western prejudice about drugs and a feeling that religion must be insulated from a degrading association, have hampered scholarship in this field. Perhaps in unconscious compensation, she herself exaggerates the probable influence of drugs as opposed to other means of inducing altered states of consciousness.
Bharati, Agehananda. 1976. The Light at the Center: Context and Pretext of Modern Mysticism. Santa, Barbara: Ross-Erikson. A Hindu monk of European origin offers an autobiographical and polemical discussion of mysticism—a topic with which he is intimately acquainted—including some comments on his drug experiences. This is an intelligent and lively book, worth reading for its debates wtih various contemporary mystical schools.
Blofeld, John. 1968. Consciousness, energy, bliss. In R. Metzner, ed. The Ecstatic Adventure. New York: Macmillan. Pp. 124-133. An American Buddhist tells how he -found peace in the glorious radiance of Amitabha Buddha- under the influence of mescaline.
Braden, William. 1968 (orig. 1967). The Private Sea: LSD and the Search for God. New York: Bantam Books. A journalist's intelligent exploration of religious and philosophical issues raised by psychedelic drugs—especially drug users' bias toward Eastern religion—with a postscript describing the author's own LSD trip. The wide range of cultural reference includes many Eastern and Western poets, philosophers, and theologians. Braden insists on the identity between drug-induced religious experience and other kinds, and he is concerned less with the drugs themselves than with the ideas suggested by the kind of experience they produce.
Clark, Walter Houston. 1968. The relationship between drugs .and religious experience. Catholic Psychological Record 6: 146-155. Eight volunteer subjects rated the religious intensity of their experiences under the influence of LSD, often concluding (both at the time of influence and a year later) that it was -beyond anything ever experienced or even imagined.- The author believes that psychedelic drugs release an authentic mystical experience in some people in some circumstances.
Clark, Walter Houston. 1969. Chemical Ecstasy. New York: Sheed and Ward. A good introduction to the subject of the relationship of psychedelic drugs to religion and mysticism, with examples from drug-induced and other mystical, visionary, and conversion experiences. The author, a student of the psychology of religion, says that he has learned as much about the subject from his LSD trips as from his reading; he regards the two kinds of research as complementary. He makes an eloquent plea for the controlled use of psychedelic drugs for religious purposes, and opposes what he regards as the tyrannical dominion of priests and theologians over the definition of religion. There is also a chapter in defense of Timothy Leary.
Downing, Joseph J., and Wygant, William, Jr. 1964. Psychedelic experience and religious belief. In R. Blum and Associates, eds. Utopiates: The Use and Users of LSD-25. New York: Atherton. Pp. 187-198. In a questionnaire, forty-two experimental subjects describe the effects of psychedelic drugs on their religious beliefs and religious lives. Sixty percent said their religious feelings had changed in some way; 40 percent had less fear of death.
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Josuttis, Manfred, and Leuner, Hanscarl, eds. 1972. Religion und die Droge. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. A useful collection including essays by Hanscarl Leuner, Huston Smith, Walter Pahnke, and others. The most interesting piece is a thoughtful essay by G. W. Arendsen Hein analyzing, from personal experience, the significance and limitations of LSD as a therapeutic tool and religious vehicle.
Pahnke, Walter N. 1970. Drugs and mysticism. In B. Aaronson and H. Osmond, eds. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Pp. 145-165. An account of the famous Marsh Chapel controlled psilocybin experiment of Good Friday, 1962. The author says that the intense religious and mystical experience of the subjects who took psilocybin did not cause a retreat from reality or make ordinary life seem less meaningful—the opposite was true.
Smith, Huston. 1966 (orig. 1964). Do drugs have religious import? In David Solomon, ed. LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug. New York: G. P. Putnam's. One of the most intelligent discussions of this subject. The possible origins of religion in drug experiences, theistic and nontheistic drug revelations, and the differences between religious experience and a religious life are discussed. The author rejects the idea that drug-induced religious experience is somehow necessarily second-rate or fraudulent.
Smith, Huston. 1976. Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition. New York: Harper & Row. A plea against the domination of the scientific world view, favoring a vision of the universe with elements of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Neoplatonism. In an appendix the author brings to bear evidence from psychedelic drug research—especially the work of Grof—to support this vision. The author has previously written an excellent popular introduction to the world's religious traditions and this book is an unusually intelligent, welt-written, and scholarly version of Aquarian thought.
Van Dusen, Wilson. 1961. LSD and the enlightenment of Zen. Psychologia 4: 11-16. A psychologist discusses the -central experience that alters all others- and says that LSD enables people to achieve it through symbolic death and relinquishment of the core of identity. Examples are given. At the end he advocates going beyond drugs and recognizing that, as Zen Buddhism teaches, the divine and the commonplace are one.
Watts, Alan. 1970. Psychedelics and religious experience. In B. Aaronson and H. Osmond, eds. Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. Pp. 131-145. A defense of the authenticity of drug-induced mysticism, basedpartly on the author's own experience. He discusses the Western suspicion of mysticism and defends some psychedelic drug users as a persecuted religious minority.
White, John, ed. 1972. The Highest State of Consciousness. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books. An anthology of papers on mystical experience, with several essays specifically on psychedelic drugs and many others containing material that is relevant to the study of psychedelic drugs—especially the essays on the relationship between mysticism, regression, and psychosis. Authors include Watts, Maslow, Pahnke, Houston and Masters, Tart, Laing, and Krippner.
Zaehner, R. C. 1974 (orig. 1973). Zen, Drugs, and Mysticism. New York: Vintage. A Roman Catholic scholar and student of Eastern religion critically analyzes psychedelic religiosity in several essays of this book. Those who would like to see him as the definitive debunker of the religious pretensions of psychedelic drug users will be disappointed, for—despite a tendency to caricature their arguments—he concedes a great deal to his opponents, admitting that psychedelic drugs can serve various religious functions. He denies, however, that they can provide an approach to the transcendent God of Christianity. And he mistrusts what he regards as an application of technology to the soul. He states that Huxley became disillusioned with LSD and was convinced that the mystical experience it offered was somehow spurious; this conclusion is mistaken, as Huxley's late writings and manner of death indicate.
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