How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (2018)

LSD first entered the psychiatric scene in the 1950s. The drug’s effects were so novel and understudied that it took a decade for scientists to begin to understand the experiences. At the same time that scientists were beginning their research, the CIA was also secretly researching psychedelics. While scientists hoped to use the drug to learn more about mental illness and addiction, the CIA hoped to find a “truth serum, mind-control agent, or chemical weapon” (142).

After Albert Hoffman experienced the first LSD trip, Sandoz began to manufacture the pill form of the drug in high quantities. Using the power of the science community, Sandoz offered LSD free to any researcher who requested it. This policy remained in place from 1949 to 1966 and allowed the first wave of psychedelic research to begin (143).

Science struggled to comprehend the psychedelic experience. It was clear that trips were largely impacted by the user’s prior expectations as well as the environment around them (143). The concept of set and setting would become a mainstay in psychedelic use and therapy. What was also puzzling was the fact that the researchers who got involved with LSD research seemed to be infected with irrational excitement for the research (144). This exuberance might have improved results, but it also might have caused skepticism from colleagues who had not yet had a psychedelic experience. One of the biggest questions, which science still wrestles with today, is how does one measure psychedelic experiences and design a controlled experiment to do so?

Before they were known as psychedelics, these compounds were known as psychotomimetic. This class of drugs seemed to mimic psychosis, based on what scientists could interpret from trip experiences (145). Outwardly, people given LSD or psilocybin seemed to exhibit many of the same symptoms as psychosis, so scientists hoped that these drugs would help them better understand the psychotic state. Clinicians thought the drugs to be a way to better understand their schizophrenic patients. Achieving understanding of psychosis or schizophrenia meant the researchers would have to take the drugs themselves, which many considered the ethical thing to do prior to giving the drugs to research subjects or patients (146).

Humphry Osmond was one of these researchers hoping to get a better look into his clients’ brains. His research in mental illness gave rise to the field of neurochemistry, which LSD also gave a boost. The introduction of LSD into neurochemistry eventually allowed for the discovery of neurotransmitters and their receptors, as well as the discovery of SSRIs, a class of antidepressants. Osmond did much of his research at the Saskatchewan Mental Hospital in Weyburn, Canada. This institute became a hotbed for research into psychedelics.

Psychotomimetics were introduced to the public in 1953, with the publishing of a journalist’s experience with LSD titled “My 12 Hours as a Madman.” Osmond and his team gave LSD to many people, focusing on using LSD to better understand the biochemistry of mental illness. That focus eventually shifted into questions on the experience that the drugs elicited, and whether that state had any therapeutic potential. Osmond eventually saw similarities between an LSD experience and the delirium tremens that alcoholics experience while in withdrawal. LSD had potential to mimic delirium tremens and help alcoholics stay sober. Osmond and his team tested this hypothesis over the next decade, and nearly half of the volunteers remained sober, often for several months (149). It wasn’t the chemical that was the key but the experience.

When the reports from the volunteers who took part in Osmond’s studies were analyzed, their experiences did not line up with the experiences of delirium tremens. Those who took LSD had positive things to say, most commonly describing transcendental feelings, “or spiritual epiphany, rather than temporary psychosis” (150). Because of these findings, this class of drugs was renamed from psychotomimetic to psycholytic.

The psycholytic paradigm was developed by Sidney Cohen, Betty Eisner, and Oscar Janiger. Psycholytic means “mind loosening,” which is what these drugs seemed to do. At doses as low as 25 micrograms, and not exceeding 150 micrograms, patients seemed to relax their ego, which allowed them to talk about repressed topics (155). The psycholytic approach meshed well with the field of psychoanalysis, which utilizes dreams and free associations to access a patient’s subconscious. So, LSD and psilocybin were an opportunity for a better path into the subconscious. Trained psychoanalyst Stanislav Grof found that LSD helped patients to recover trauma, unearth deep-rooted emotions, and even “relive the experience of their birth—our first trauma, and Grof believed (following Otto Rank), a key determinant of personality” (155).

Patients, including neurotics, alcoholics, and those with minor personality disorders, were treated with LSD in therapy sessions (156). According to Cohen and Eisner, “sixteen of their first twenty-two patients showed marked improvement” (156). The success of psycholytic therapy ranged from 42% to 70%, depending on the mental illness. Eventually, LSD as a therapeutic became routine practice. Celebrities underwent this therapy, and eventually the trend caught on with the public, even showing up on the street. Culminating around 1959, this marked the beginning of the end of psychedelic research.

Once a proponent of LSD, Sidney Cohen began to have second thoughts. He avoided scenes that used the drug recreationally and became uncomfortable with the cult that had formed around it. He “struggled with the tension between the spiritual import of the LSD experience (and the mystical inclinations it brought ought in its clinical practitioners) and the ethos of science to which he was devoted” (158). Cohen represents one of few scientists who remained skeptical of LSD rather than becoming a “psychedelic evangelist” after taking the drug and using it in research (159).

In Saskatchewan, Humphry Osmond took a new approach to LSD after the psychotomimetic theory was disproven. This time he turned to Aldous Huxley, a famous author. In 1953 Osmond administered LSD to Huxley, who wrote that this was “without question the most extraordinary and significant experience this side of the Beatific Vision” (160). This experience became one of the most important events in Huxley’s life, one that shaped his writing and his thoughts on existence. Together, Huxley and Osmond came up with a new name for this class of drugs: psychedelic, meaning “mind manifesting” in Greek (163).

Psychedelic therapy differed from psycholytic therapy in that it involved a single high-dose trip on LSD. The session took place in a comfortable environment, with a therapist present. Music and eyeshades were usually used to eliminate any distractions (162). The goal was to have a spiritual experience, much like the one Aldous Huxley had. This type of trip setting was influenced by Al Hubbard, another player in psychedelics’ spread across the country.

Al Hubbard was an extremely odd, elusive character, and much is not known about him. The life details we do have “are impossible to confirm, contradictory, or just plain fishy” (164). Hubbard also experienced a life-changing LSD trip, and he realized that it was his duty to introduce “the new gospel of LSD” (166) to the country. He got Sandoz to send him an extremely large quantity of LSD; the actual amount differs based on the account. He kept a large portion of that in a leather satchel, which he carried with him wherever he went. He managed to secure an Investigational New Drug permit from the FDA, which allowed him to conduct clinical research on LSD. It’s estimated that he introduced 6,000 people to the drug between 1951 and 1966—and this work shifted the trend of human history.

Hubbard also worked with Osmond and influenced Osmond’s shift away from the psychotomimetic model of LSD by proposing a therapeutic method using single high doses (169). Hubbard was one of the first researchers to put set and setting into practice while conducting psychedelic therapy. His influence removed sterile white walls from research rooms and introduced the couches and comfortable settings that we now associate with a therapist’s office. Hubbard had a grasp on how suggestible the mind became during a psychedelic experience and how critical it was to use that state for healing (170).

Hubbard’s influence on psychedelics from a scientific and a social perspective cannot be ignored, no matter how convoluted his history was. Of particular import was his influence in the region that became Silicon Valley. Hubbard introduced the drug to Silicon Valley as a tool for creativity, something that continues today in the form of microdosing (taking small doses of LSD as a daily tonic), which is pervasive in tech communities (175). Through loose connections, Hubbard may have had a hand in some of the creativity from technological giants like Steve Jobs (175).

Part two of this chapter breaks down the fall of psychedelic research by following Timothy Leary. Leary launched the Harvard Psilocybin Project in 1960, when psychedelic research was plentiful (185). For many people, Leary’s entrance into psychedelic research marked the beginning of the end. Leary’s involved in the field began with a formative psychedelic experience that lead him to become bored and disenchanted with his scientific work. Some people who knew Leary would say that he was disenchanted with science and academia prior to his psilocybin experience, and that “he was already halfway off the deep end” (187). Three years of the Harvard Psilocybin Project turned out very little science, and many of the sessions had a naturalistic rather than scientific feel to them.

These studies were run outside of university buildings and in living rooms, while researchers joined in on psychedelic trips with their subjects (189). It wasn’t until 1961 that graduate student Ralph Metzner came up with an ambitious project that would give the Harvard Psilocybin Project credibility. This project sought to determine whether psilocybin experiences could change personalities and reduce the rate of prisoners re-entering the prison system. Later known as the Concord Prison Experiment, 32 inmates were given psilocybin inside the prison, while a second group did not receive any form of drug at all. The two groups were followed for a few months to see what their return rate was. Leary reported that 25% of the psilocybin inmate group ended up back in jail after 10 months of being released. The control group had a rate of 80% (191). The experiment had numerous flaws. Leary’s data was inaccurate: There was no significant difference between the two groups and their return to prison. This kind of research was denounced in science, and the psychedelics fields had a difficult enough time asserting its legitimacy.

Eventually Leary lost interest in science altogether and wanted to focus on psychedelics’ spiritual and cultural importance rather than any therapeutic use. Leary trended toward efforts to bring visionary and psychedelic experiences to the broader public, and to do so immediately (194).

Leary’s colleagues at Harvard were uneasy about the Harvard Psilocybin Project, especially given the lack of scientific rigor used in its studies. Grievances circulated around the campus regarding the project and its lack of viable data. Students and faculty gathered to air their concerns about the project, many hinging on the fact that “students felt pressure to participate in the drug taking” (195), as any “who chose not to participate [were] labeled as ‘squares’” (196). Faculty and students were quickly divided because of psychedelic drugs, a trend that was soon reflected in American culture.

Undergraduate reporter Robert Ellis Smith broke the story in the Crimson, the university newspaper. The controversy discussed in closed rooms was plastered over the front page, and it was quickly picked up by the Boston Herald and other news outlets. Timothy Leary was hounded by reporters, to whom he gave outrageous quotes (196). When Harvard forced Leary to give up his psilocybin pills, he retaliated by giving this particularly inflammatory quote to a reporter: “Psychedelic drugs cause panic and temporary insanity in people who have not taken them” (197).

At the end of the year Leary took his research out of the university setting and formed the International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF), where he continued conducting psychedelic research. Some people would say that psychedelic research escaped the laboratory setting in the 1960s, but it would “be more accurate to say they were thrown over the laboratory wall” (197) by Leary. Rather than playing the science game, he wanted to start playing the “game of cultural revolution” (197). Psychedelic researchers across the country watched with dismay and horror as Leary turned from a chaotic scientist to a threat to their research at large. Numerous researchers reached out to Leary, hoping to talk some sense into him, but none were successful. Myron Stolaroff wrote this in a letter to Timothy Leary, in hopes of persuading him:

“Tim, I am convinced you are heading for very serious trouble if your plan goes ahead as you have described it to me, and it would not only make a great deal of trouble for you, but for all of us, and may do irreparable harm to the psychedelic field in general” (199).

With his research out of Harvard, Leary started to skip lectures and talked about leaving after his contract was up. Before Leary could leave, another article in the Crimson got him fired. This time, Andrew Weil wrote an article about Leary’s partner Alpert giving psilocybin to undergraduate students (201). At the time there were rules at the university restricting the drugs to grad students only, but Alpert was giving them out more frivolously. Leary and Alpert were removed from Harvard and took their work with the IFIF from Cambridge to Mexico, to Dominica, until they finally settled in New York.

The rise in counterculture fueled Leary’s trajectory for a while, giving him speaking gigs and interviews, but in 1966 he was arrested for possession of marijuana while crossing the Mexican border (204). He escaped from prison with the help of a revolutionary group, becoming an international fugitive from justice (204). He ended up in Algeria as a refugee, which turned into a hostage situation when the people he was staying with took his passport. He then escaped to Switzerland, moved to Vienna, Beirut, and Kabul, and was eventually arrested by US agents and returned to prison (204). The remainder of his life was filled with courtrooms and jail cells, with a healthy dose of memoirs and interviews. His extreme life added to the brewing panic around psychedelic drugs.

Leary’s work played a large part in the counterculture revolution taking up LSD as a part of the norm—and became a reason why people found counterculture potentially threatening. Kids started to drop out of high school, refused to serve in Vietnam, and began to fight against authority and the status quo; all of these things were linked to counterculture, and therefore LSD use. By 1963 psychedelic researchers were finding their research barred from publication in academic journals, especially research done by people who took the drugs themselves. The media incited panic, following cases of psychosis and bad trips caused by illegal LSD, or even hyped-up panic attacks (209). The public began to see LSD as a threat.

Researchers tried to quell fear of psychedelics through studies, showing little evidence of serious long-term side effects. Researchers did note that certain people with a predisposition to psychosis might have adverse effects to LSD, but casual use was not as harmful as it was being portrayed (211). It was a fruitless endeavor. By 1966 the public’s moral panic was too large for science to reign in. The entire landscape of psychedelic research had collapsed (216). There were Senate hearings, in which Timothy Leary testified, but scientists were not able to separate “legitimate use and a black market” the government was concerned about (217). In October 1966 the FDA ordered psychedelic researchers across the country to stop their work. The Psychiatric Research Center in Spring Grove was the only institution to survive this wave, and even it eventually closed its doors as funding ran out. The era of psychedelic research had ended.