Drug Abuse

Notes

Chapter One
1. A breakdown of the 206 sessions guided or observed by the authors shows the number of subjects taking the various drugs to be as follows: LSD, 112; Peyote, 85; Mescaline, 4; DMT, 3; and Psilocybin, 2. In this book we deal almost exclusively with LSD and peyote experiences.

2. Psychedelic subjects repeatedly have said that they regard their dnig experi-ence or some aspect of it as their "rich-est" or "most important" experience, etc. This occurs not just in our work, but also in the work of a great many other researchers.

Chapter Two

1. For extended discussions see Masters, R.E.L., Eros and Evil: The Sexual Psy-chopathology of Witchcraft. Julian
Press, New York, 1962; also, by the same author, Forbidden Sexual Behav-ior and Morality. Julian Press, New York, 1962.

2. In some of the older literature: Anha-lonium

3. The literature of peyotism among the American Indians is substantial. The most important volume is Weston La Barre's The Peyote Cult, reissued in an updated edition in 1964 by the Shoe String Press of Hamden, Connecticut. The reader may also profitably consult J.S. Slotkin's The Peyote Religion, Free Press of Glencoe, Illinois, 1956. No one attempting a study of peyote should neglect, at the very beginning, ti avail himself of La Barre's outstand-ing bibliographies.

4. Osmond, H., "Peyote Night," in To-morrow. Spring, 1961, p. 113.

5. That peyote ought not to be consid-ered along with such narcotic dmgs as heroin and morphine was clearly set forth in an admirable decision at Flagstaff, Arizona, in July of 1960. At that time, the Hon. Yale McFate, consider-ing action against a Navaho woman, ruled that "Peyote is not a narcotic. It is not habit-forming. . . . The use of Peyote is essential to the existence of the peyote religion. Without it, the practice of the religion would be effec-tively prevented. . . It is significant that many states which formerly out-lawed the use of peyote have abolished or amended their laws to permit its use for religious purposes. It is also signifi-cant that the Federal Government has in nowise prevented the use of peyote by Indians or others." However, in 1964, the California Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled against the use of peyote in that state and found that ,`. . the use of peyote in Indian reli-gious ceremonies constitutes enough of a threat to public safety to make the act illegal without violating constitu-tional rights of religious freedom." The wording of parts of this ruling made it clear that the court was more con-eemed with keeping peyote away from "Beatniks" than it was with barring peyote use by Indians. 'This brings to mind famed botanist Richard Schultes' axiom that when problems arise in con-nection with drug use, they tend to "arise after the narcotics have passed from ceremonial to purely hedonic or recreational use." VVhether this fear of "hedonic" (and other nonreligious) use is warranted in the case of peyote is a question this book may help to answer.

6. Lewin, L., Phantastica, Narcotic and Stimulating Drugs. E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1964, p. xvi.

7. Mitchell, S. Weir, "The effects of An-halonium Lewinii (the mescal but-ton)," British Medical journal. 1896, 2: 1625.

8. Ellis, H., "Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise," The Contemporary Review. January, 1898. Also in Annuat Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1898, PP. 537-548.

9. Cohen, S., The Beyond Within: The LSD Story. Atheneum, New York, 1964, p. 231.

10. See, for instance, Fisher, G., "Some Comments Concerning Dosage Levels of Psychedelic Compounds for Psycho-therapeutic Experiences," Psychedelic Review. Vol. 1, No. 2, 1963. However, we consider Fisher's recommended dos-ages to be on the high side and call especial attention to his warning that extremely drug-sensitive persons always should be given lesser amounts of a psychedelic drug.

11. A "good" example of this is the ar-ticle, "They Split My Personality," by Harry Asher, which appeared in Satur-day Review, June 1, 1963. Asher's un-fortunate LSD experience, and its still more unfortunate aftermath, doubtless makes fairly entertaining reading; but it cannot do other than create a mis-leading and damaging impression of the LSD experience as it unfolds in the vast majority of cases.

12. Cf. Hyde, R.W., "Psychological and Social Determinants of Drug Action," in Sarwer-Foner, G.J., The Dynamics of Psychiatric Drug TheraPy. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1960, p. 297, as regards the importance of the "situational determinants." Report-ing on sessions in which the subjects (dose usually 1 microgram per kilogram of body weight) were students, nurses, attendants, and physicians, he found that impersonal, hostile, and investiga-tive attitudes on the part of others led to devaluative distortions and hostile responses in the subjects. Flexibility, familiarity, acceptance, and presence of others with common culture amelio-rated the LSD reaction, while rigidity, unfamiliarity, nonacceptance, and ab-sence of others with a common culture potentiate the (psychotic) reaction.

13. Turner, W., Almudevar, M., and Merlis, S., "Chemotherapeutic Trials in Psychosis," American Journa/ of Psy-chiatry, 116: 261, 1959, abstract in Delysid (LSD-25), Annotated Bibliog-raphy, Addendum *2, Sandoz Phar-maceuticals, p. 226.
14. See, for example, Sandison, R., "Dis-cussion Fourth Symposium: Compari-son of Drug-Induced and Endogenous Psychoses in Man," in Bradley, P., Deniker, P., and Radouco-Thomas, C., Neuro-Psychopharmacology. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1959, p. 176. Abstract in Delysid, Addendum *4, p. 330.

15. Smith, C., "A New Adjunct to the Treatment of Alcoholism," Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 19: 406- 417, 1958; Chwelos, N., Blewett, D., Smith, C., and Hoffer, A., "Use of d-lysergic acid diethylamide in the Treatment of Alcoholism," Ibid., 20: 577-590, 1959; MacLean, J., MacDon-ald, D., Byrne, U., and Hubbard, A., "The Use of LSD-25 in the Treatment of Alcoholism and Other Psychiatric Problems," Ibid., 22: 34-45, 1961; and Jensen, S., "A Treatment Program for Alcoholics in a Mental Hospital," Ibid., 23: 315-320, 1962. In a subse-quent report published in the same joumal (24: 443, 1963), Jensen re-ported that talcing LSD is a "transcen-dental" experience for many alcoholics, producing a subsequent intensification of religious feeling.

16. "Alcoholics Aided in Mind Drug Test," New York Times,May 11, 1965. This same article reports on recent Ca-nadian work and quotes Dr. A. Hoffer, director of psychiatric research at Uni-versity Hospital, Saskatoon, as saying that out of 600 alcoholic subjects treated with psychedelic drugs, a third have achieved complete abstinence and a quarter have showed "marked im-provement."

17. These fmdings have been much criti-cized on a variety of grounds including lack of a control group. Unfortunately, more effort seems to have been put into attacking Leary than into trying to duplicate his results.

18. Arendsen-Hein, G., "LSD Therapy: Criminal Psychopaths," in Crocket, R., Sandison, R., and Wallc, A. (Eds.), Hallucinogenic Drugs and Their Psychotherapeutic Use. Charles C. Thom-
as, Springfield, Illinois, 1963, p. 102.

19. "A Simple Tool For Psychiatry," San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 1965, p. 7. This interview with a Czech psychia-trist, Dr. Stanislav Grof, of the Psychi-atric Research Institute of Prague, sug-gests that Iron Curtain countries are engaging in LSD work quite different from our own and meriting thorough study and investigation.

20. "Euphoria Induced to Ease Pain," Medical World News, August 30, 1963.

21. 1Cast, E., "Pain and LSD-25: A Theory of Attenuation of Anticipa-tion," in Solomon, D. (Ed.), LSD: The Consciousness-Expanding Drug. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1964, pp. 241-256.

22. As recently as 1961 a Lancet editorial could declare that "Much more lmowl-edge of good (and ill) effect is needed before LSD can be introduced into the mental welfare curriculum. It remains a tallcing point whether drug psychosis has most in common with schizo-phrenia, affective disorder, toxic deliri-ous state, or extended temporal lobe aura, and it is even more doubtful how far it is therapeutically effective." (Larzcet 1: 445, 1961.)

23. See, for e,xample, Cohen, S., "Lyser-gic Acid Diethylamide: Side Effects and Complications," Journa/ of Nerv-ous and Mental Disorders, 130: 30, 1960. Cohen's report is based on 5,000 LSD and mescaline subjects who re-ceived the drugs 25,000 times (LSD dosages 25 to 1,500 micrograms). Among experimental subjects there were no suicide attempts and psychotic reactions lasting longer than forty-eight hours were met with in only 0.8/1,000 of the cases. In Patients undergoing therapy the rates were attempted sui-cide: 1.2/1,000; completed suicide: 0.4/1,000; psychotic reaction over forty-eight hours: 1.8/1,000. Cohen additionally found in this study that exposure to LSD produced no serious prolonged physical side effects. He found LSD to be contraindicated inm the cases of schizoid personalities, epi-leptics, obsessive compulsives, seriously depressed patients, and persons with serious physical diseases, such as liver damage.

During the course of our own re-search, no subject ever experienced a post-session psychotic reaction, much less attempted or completed suicide.

24. Cohen, S., The Beyond Within, p. 36.

25. Cf. "How Drugs Act on Brain," MD, March, 1965, p. 114. (Abstract of a paper by Prof. P. Bradley, Depart-ment of Experimental Neuropharma-cology, Birmingham University, Eng-land.) A thorough discussion of chemi-cal and biochemical aspects of LSD pharmacology is that of Metzner, Ralph, "The Pharmacology of Psy-chedelic Drugs," Psychedelic Review,

June, 1963. An extensive bibliography is appended.

26. If psychotherapy-in-general may be so described.

27. Blum, R., & Associates, Utopiates: The Use and Users of LSD 25, Ather-ton, New York, 1964, pp. 6, 7.

28. This type of reaction to a drug-state "psychosis" is one we have encountered several times. After describing in hair-raising detail the most harrowing sort of experience, the person will go on to say that it was valuable, and claims of consequent enhancement of self-esteem and specific therapeutic benefits may be made. We have never heard a re-covered schizophrenic give a similar estimate of the "value" of his psychosis —perhaps another point of differentia-tion between (some) drug-induced and otherwise originating psychoses.

Chapter Three

1. This latter type of (robot or mechani-cal man) experience has occurred in sessions conducted by one guide (R.M.), but not in sessions conducted by the other guide. It appears to be related to this guide's more "material-istic" orientation.

Chapter Four

1. For relevant discussions of the psy--_.'hology and principles of caricature, see the section on "The Comic" in Emst Kris, Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1953.

2. Same subject previously identified in this chapter as S-4.

3. We might note here that even among professionals in the fields of aesthetics and psychology "empathy" is a rather vague and ill-defined term when its meaning is not drastically limited to such behavior as adopting postures imi-tative of art works. 'The drug subjects, like the professionals, find "empathy" a conveniently elastic category.

4. McGovern, W.M., Jungle Paths and Inca Ruins, Grosset & Dunlap, 1927, p. 263.

5. Wilkins, H.T., Devil Trees and Plants of Africa, Asia and South America, Haldeman-Julius, Girard, Kansas, 1948, p. 22.

6. "Editor's Essay," MD, June, 1965, p. 11.

7. Compare, for example, Duncan Blew-ett, "Psychedelic Drugs in Parapsycho-logical Research," International Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 65:
"

In order to serve this computer function, the cortex must also serve as a sorting or selective filtering mecha-nism, such that one idea or quantum of information at a time is called to awareness. This aspect of cortical be-havior has been widely discussed. This inhibiting or shutting-out was discussed by Bergson and is cited, for example, by Smythies, who states: 'Usually, ideas of mind-brain relation are thought of wholly in terms of excitation. Brain events excite certain mental events in the mind. However, it is also possible that some brain events normally ac-tively inhibit the spontaneous activity of the mind. When this inhibition is, in turn, suppressed by the specific ac-tion of the psychedelic drugs, then the spontaneous activity of the human psyche becomes released or re-vealed. . . "

This theory, and its variations, has been used to explain not just ESP phe-nomena, but a large part of the entire psychedelic experience.

8. The child's search for the cookie jar was apprehended by the subject as a "vivid mental impression"—she "saw" not eidetic images, but "with the mind's eye."

9. Puharich, Andrija, Beyond Telepathy. Doubleday, New York, 1962.

10. We are speaking here mainly of con-scious, nondrug-state concern. In the psychedelic sessions the subject very often evidences a concem for his cos-mic significance and relationship to God that is far in excess of the interest he displays at other times. Even so, for a majority of subjects, the relationships with other persons are probably of still greater importance.

Chapter Five

1. Another six may have reached this level, and these six did achieve what we regard as authentic mystical experi-ences, but without the "transforma-tion," or experiencing of drastic and positive change. We will deal with these six "special cases" in our section on mysticism and explain why we separate them from the other eleven. We would add here, too, that the integral level has been reached by ten percent of the last sixty subjects, suggesting that as the guiding methodology was refined the percentages tended to in-crease.

Chapter Six

1. Various other writers have made this distinction between "simple" and "complex" images or, as some mislead-ingly call them, "hallucinations." For example, Balestrieri, A., "Hallucina-tory Mechanisms and the Content of Drug Induced Hallucinations," in Bradley, P., Fliigel, F., and Hoch, P., Neuro-Psychopharmacology, Vol. 3, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1964, pp. 388-390. Balestrieri mentions as simple "hallu-cinations" images and other phenome-na including "geometries, colours, sounds without significance, 'stars,' lights,' changes in shape, in number, in localization, and so on." His com-plex "hallucinations" include "images of persons and things, autoscopies, landscapes, etc." He writes (p. 389) that "We believe that rough variances in sensory systems or an interference with the nervous mechanisms indicated by Kliiver are more apt to cause ele-mentary or simple hallucinations, at least at first. However, more complex phenomena could, at least in some cases, derive from the activation of images already recorded and retained in the brain." Balestrieri reports simple "hallucinations" in about ninety per-cent of his subjects. In eighty percent of the cases these were the only ones to appear or else preceded the appear-ance of the complex "hallucinations." The complex "hallucinations" occuned with twenty percent of the subjects. Without preceding simple "hallucina-tions," they occurred with only ten and a half percent; and the complex "hallu-cinations" never preceded the simple ones. It should be noted that his sub-jects are described as "psychoneurotics or affected by neurological diseases." In our opinion, intelligence and "creativ-ity" may be important factors in de-termining the occurrence and incidence of complex images. Thus, the very high frequency (almost all) of complex images among our own subjects who were almost all of superior intelligence and many of whom were engaged in some kind of creative work or displayed considerable imagination.

2. In all of our cases drugs were given orally. Administration by injection seems warranted, if it ever is warranted at all, only for medical purposes.

3. The effects of DMT, in many ways similar to those of LSD, last for only about thirty minutes, as compared to the eight to twelve hours of the typical LSD and peyote intoxications. Also, the injected DMT takes effect almost instantly as compared to the several minutes typically required by the injected LSD.

4. In these cases the reader may wonder why the subject does not simply open his eyes to escape the horror of the image? Some do, as this subject does, eventually; but, for a while at least, the subject is fascinated by the image and it does not occur to him that he might escape in such a way. In any case, opening the eyes is no guarantee of escape from the anxiety, which then may be projected onto the environ-ment. There would seem to be no way to predict whether, in a particular in-stance, it would be better to stay with the images or to "change the scene" and rislc something even worse.
5. De Beauvoir, Simone, The Prime of Life. The World Publishing Company, New York, 1962, pp. 168-170.

Chapter Seven
1. It should be noted that the subject retained this repulsive self-image at the time of his session. The self-image is not in accord with the facts, since the subject has an intelligent, not at all unattractive appearance.

2. Heard, Gerald, Explorations, Vol. 2, "Part Three: Rebirth." World Pacific Records, Hollywood, 1961.

Chapter Eight

1. Hindey, A., "Mescaline and the 'Other World,' " in ChoIdea, L. (Ed.), Ly-sergic Acid Diethylanzide and Mesca-line in Experimental Psychiatry. Gmne & Stratton, New York, 1956, pp. 48-49.

2. After his session, S steadfastly claimed to be conscious of no information of the sort contained in his account. He agreed, however, that it was "quite possible" that he might have sublimi-nally "picked up" this information through casual reading of a weeldy magazine to which he and his family had been regular subscribers since his childhood; but if so, he was not aware of it.

3. It is a frequent occurrence for subjects to experience symbolic or literal mate-rials relating to being in the womb. Thus subjects have reported being locked up in some lcind of small con-fine, being buried in the depths of the earth or swallowed by a monster, etc.
Through some of these symbols the subject experiences a symbolic death with regression to an embryonic state then followed by the experience of being rebom.

4. This proposal to subjects that they consider symbols of religious signifi-cance was made in only a few cases and does not substantially affect the statistical incidence of the religious and religious-type experiences as they have occurred in the totality of our cases. Also, the religious symbols were pre-sented only to strongly religious indi-viduals--i.e., persons who would, in any case, almost certainly have intm-duced religious elements into their drug experience.

5. That is, anachronistic. l'his bringing together in the same spatial context persons and objects from different tem-poral ones, is a fairly common experi-ence and sometimes discloses hitherto unrecognized parallels between indi-viduals, events, ideas, etc.

6. The Prometheus-Faust myth receives extended exemplification in the case of S-3 in the following chapter on reli-gious and mystical experience. That case involves also some of the other mythic motifs.

7. For an interesting and relevant discus-sion of the place of this motif in pat-terns relating both to mythology and the unconscious, see Carl Jung's essay, "The Psychology of the Child-Arche-type," in Jung, C.G., and Kerenyi, C., Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myths of the Divine Child and the Divine Maiden. Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1963, pp. 70-100.

8. For a further exploration of the mean-ing and source of the motifs of this subject's experience the reader is re-ferred to Weston, Jessie, From Ritual to Romance. Doubleday Anchor Books, Garden City, New York, 1957.

9. Jung, C.G., op. cit., p. 85.

10. Zimmer, H., The King and the Corpse. Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series XI, New York, 1948, p. 193.

11. That such props may indicate regres-sion to a childish state is obvious--and one of the cases to follow will illustrate the fact. However, this element is not always present, or certainly is not a factor of major significance in some of the cases we have observed.

12. There would seem to be only very rarely any question of the individual experiencing the symbolic dramas be-cause he is not able to approach his conflicts directly and insightfully (as suggested by Betty Eisner, "Observa-tions on Possible Order Within the Unconscious," in Bradley, P., Deniker, P., and Radouco-Thomas, C., Neuro-Psychopharmaeology. Elsevier, Amster-dam, 1959, p. 441). Rarely, this may be true and then the symbolic drama may provide a means of escaping direct confrontation with the literal materials so that the resolution of problems may occur in a form that does not provoke any strong resistance. (Or so we specu-late on the basis of our non-therapeutic experience with experimental subjects.) But much more often, we think, the symbolic drama will require as a con-stituent prerequisite the working through of the psychodynamic mate-rials on the preceding level; just as the following experience of the integral level usually requires as a constituent prerequisite certain experiences on the symbolic level.

Chapter Nine

1. See, for example, Huxley, Aldous, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. Harper & Row, New York, 1963; Heard, Gerald, The Five Ages of Man. Julian Press, New York, 1964; Watts, Alan, The Joyous Costno/ogy. Pan-theon Books, New York, 1962; and Zaehner, R., Mysticistn, Sacred and Profane, Oxford University Press, New York, 1961.
At the present writing most of this controversy has not yet erupted into print; but the authors are amazed at the easy acquiescence of seminarians and theologians to the claims of reli-gious and mystic efficacy made for the psychedelic drugs.

2. For a discussion of the physiology of fasting and the psychological changes it produces, see Keys, Ansel, The Bi-ology of Human Starvation. University of Minnesota Press, 1950.

3. Huxley owes this phrase to the theory of Henri Bergson that the brain, sense organs, and central nervous system function essentially as organs of selec-tion and elimination. This eliminative process, referred to before, helps pro-tect us from being overwhelmed and disoriented by the vast quantities of useless and irrelevant knowledge that would be ours were we able to perceive the multiplicity of phenomena within our sensory and cognitive field. By screening out the multiplicity and leav. ing only those perceptions with pragmatic potential to survival, our aware-ness is organically inhibited and we perceive only a fraction of our world. As Huidey has put it: "Mind at large is funneled through the reducing valve ' of the brain and the nervous system" and what survives the joumey through the funnel is only "a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which vvill help us to stay alive on the surface of this planet." Hindey, op. cit., p. 23.

4. De Felice, Philippe, Poisons Sacrés, Ivresses Divines. Editions Albin, Paris, 1936, p. 363.

5. An interesting reconsideration of these ideas is to be found in Mary Barnard's "The God in the Flowerpot," The American Scholar, Autumn, 1963, pp. 578-586: "What . . . was more likely to happen first," she asks, "the sponta-neously generated idea of an afterlife in which the disembodied soul, liber-ated from the restrictions of time and space, experiences etemal bliss, or the accidental discovery of hallucinogenic plants that give a sense of euphoria, dislocate the center of consciousness, and distort time and space, make them balloon outward in greatly ex-panded vistas? . . . the (latter) experi-ence might have had . . . an almost explosive effect on the largely dormant minds of men, causing them to think of things they had never thought of before. This, if you like, is direct revela-tion." Miss Bamard goes on to suggest that "fifty theo-botanists working for fifty years would make the current theories concerning the origins of much mythology and theology as out-of-date as the pre-Copemican astronomy."

6. Wasson, R.G., 'The Hallucinogenic Fungi of Mexico: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Religious Idea Among Primitive Peoples," Botanical Museum leaflets Harvard University, Vol. 19, No. 7, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Feb. 17, 1961, pp. 156-157.

7. Wasson, R.G., and Wasson, V., Mushrooms, Russia and History, Pan-theon Books, New York, 1957.

8. Aristides writes in part: "Eleusis is a shrine common to the whole earth, and of all the divine things that exist among men, it is both the most awe-some and the most luminous. At what place in the world have more miracu-lous tidings been sung, where have the dromena called forth greater emotion, where has there been greater rividry between seeing and hearing?" Quoted in Otto, W.F., "The Meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries," in The Mys-teries: Papers from the Eranos Year-books, Joseph Campbell (Ed.), Pan-theon Books, Bollingen Series )00C, 2, New York, 1955, p. 20.

9. Wasson, R.G., 'The Hallucinogenic Fungi of Mexico," pp. 149-150. The Porphyrius reference is taken from-Giambattista della Porta, Villa, Frank-fort, 1592, p. 764.

10. Quoted in Harman, W.W., "The Issue of the Consciousness-Expanding Drugs," Main Currents in Modem Thought, Vol. 20, No. 1, Sept.-Oct. 1963, p. 6.

11. It should also be noted, however, that Hindey was the first to caution moderation with regard to the expecta-tion of the mystical efficacy of the psy-chedelic drugs. "I am not so foolish," he wrote, "as to equate what happens under the influence of mescalin or of any other drug, prepared or in the fu-ture preparable, with the realization of the end and ultimate purpose of hu- - man life: Enlightenment, the Beatific Vision. All I am suggesting is that the mescalin experience is what the Catho-lic theologians call 'a gratuitous grace,' not necessary to salvation but poten-tially helpful and to be accepted thank-fully, if made available. To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and the inner world, not as ' they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and uncondition-ally, by Mind at Large—this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intel-lectual." Huxley, oP. cit., p. 73.

12. Stace, W.T., Mysticism and Philos-ophy, J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia and New York, 1960.

13. Pahnke, Walter N Drugs and Mys-ticism: An Analysis of the Relationship between Psychedelic Drugs and the Mystical Consciousness. A thesis pre-sented to the Committee on Higher Degrees in History and Philosophy of Religion, Harvard University, June, 1963. This thesis is available at the Harvard University Library, Cam-bridge, Massachusetts, although re-stricted for five years. Before this time persons may write the author at 277 West 14 Place, Chicago Heights, Illi-nois, for pennission to obtain a micro-film of the thesis.

14. Leary, T., "The Religious Experi-ence: Its Production and Interpreta-tion," Psychedelic Review, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1964), p. 325.

15. McGlothlin, W.H., Long-Lasting Ef-fects of LSD on Certain Attitudes in Normals. Printed for private distribu-tion by the RAND Corporation.

16. Ditman, K.S., Hayman, M., and Whittlesay, J.R.B., "Nature and Fre-quency of Claims Following LSD," Journa/ of Nervous and Mental Dis-ease, Vol. 134 (1962), pp. 336-352. And: Savage, C., Harrnan, W.W., Fadiman, J., and Savage, E., "A Follow-up Note on the Psychedelic Experience." Paper delivered at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, St. Louis, Mis-souri, May, 1963.

17. Slotkin, J., The Peyote Religion. Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1956.

18. Smith, Huston, "Do Drugs Have Re-ligious Import?" The fourna/ of Phi-losophy, Vol. LXI, No. 18, Sept. 17, 1964. This article has been reprinted in Solomon, D. (Ed.), LSD: The Con-sciousness-Expanding Drug, G.P. Put-nam's Sons, New York, 1964, and the above quotation may be found on p. 159 of that volume. In the same article Dr. Smith suggests that Zaehner's dis-affection with the drug may be due in part to the fact that his own mescaline experience was by his own admission "utterly trivial." Also, Zaehner is a convert to Roman Catholicism and thus may feel bound to uphold the Church's official position that mystical experience is a gift of grace and as such can never come under man's control.

19. On the other hand, and as we noted at the outset, it is possible to go to the opposite extreme. Then, only pathology is perceived and, through reduction and misunderstanding, authentic mysti-cal experience becomes nothing more than depersonalization, etc.

20. James, William, The Varieties of Re-ligious Experience, Modem Library, New York, 1902, pp. 378-379.

21. This notion of a kind of symbolic animal hierarchy related to stages of human development has come up with several of the psychedelic drug subjects. The case of S-7 in our chapter on the body image offers, as will become clear, some especially striking correspond-ences to the present case.

22. Dosages on each occasion was 250 micrograms LSD.

23. 'This incident of "sitting down before the Majesty of God" carried with it no real sense of confronting God. Later, S was not certain that "God was there at all. Perhaps this was only a place where meetings with Cod were supposed to be held."

24. Stace, W.T., Mysticism and Plu7os-ophy, pp. 110-111.

25. Stace, ibid., p. 79.

26. William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," xxii.

27. William Wordsworth, "Tintern Ab-bey." Compare with this the similar senti-ments in Robert Browning when he has the young David sing: "I but open my eyes,--and perfection, no more and no less, In the kind I imagined full-fronts me, and God is seen God In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod."("Saul," xvii.)

28. Underhill, E., Mysticism, Meridian Books, New York, 1955, pp. 255-256.
In the same work, Evelyn Under-hill records a remarkable instance of cosmological mysticism to be found in the Journal of George Fox. Here, as in Boehme's case, there is the insistence on having been the recipient of a reve-lation concerning the nature of objec-tive reality:
"Now I was come up in spirit through the flaming sword into the Paradise of God. All things were new: and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. . . . 'The creation was opened to me; and it was showed me how all things had their names given them, according to their nature and virtue. And I was at a stand in my mind whether I should practice physic for the good of mankind, seeing the nature and virtue of the cre-atures were so opened to me by the Lord .. . Great things did the Lord lead me unto, and wonderful depths were opened unto me beyond what can by words be declared; but as people come into subjection to the Spirit of God, and grow up in the image and power of the Almighty, they may receive the word of wisdom that opens all things, and come to know the hidden unity and the Eternal Being." (George Fox, Jounzal, Vol. 1, cap. quoted on pp. 257-258 of the Under-hill volume.)

29. Leary, T., "The Religious Experi-ence: Its Production and Interpreta-tion," Psychedelic Review, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1964, pp. 324-346.

30. In this case, the fact that S had been for many years a dedicated student of Eastern disciplines explains certain epiphenomena--especially, the initia-tion in which she received the "third eye" as a mark of her enlightenment—which may seem puzzlin,g to the reader not too well acquainted with this field.

31. Quoted by Huston Smith, op. cit., p. 159.

32. Some portions of this and the pre-ceding chapter first appeared in Jean Houston's article, "Psycho-Chemistry and the Religious Consciousness." In-ternational Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. V, No. 3, Septernber, 1965, Pp. 397-413.

< Prev