1950-1970 / Psilocybin

R. Gordon Wasson's photo-essay in Life magazine announcing that he and photographer Allan Richardson had participated in a Mazatec mushroom ceremony near Huautla de Jiménez in June 1955. The article, illustrated with color photographs and watercolor plates, named Roger Heim as Wasson's collaborator.

The Harvard Crimson's July 1963 year-in-review covers Richard Alpert's May dismissal for giving psilocybin to an undergraduate and Timothy Leary's suspension. The article traces the dispute from March 1962 through the November 1962 warning by Dean Monro and Dr. Farnsworth.

The founding issue of The Psychedelic Review, published in June 1963 by Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner's International Federation for Internal Freedom. Hosted here are the issue's unsigned Editorial and Statement of Purpose, which set out the journal's program and explain its choice of the word 'psychedelic.' The issue's bylined articles, by Gerald Heard, R. Gordon Wasson, and Alan Watts, are described in the front matter but not reproduced.

A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead

Leary, Metzner and Alpert recast the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a manual for LSD, psilocybin and mescaline sessions. Hosted here is a fair-use excerpt: the book's opening definition of 'set and setting,' and the full 'Preparation' and 'The Setting' sections, which give that idea its practical, session-by-session form.

The poet Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) testified on June 14, 1966, before the special Senate Judiciary subcommittee holding hearings on narcotic rehabilitation and LSD on college campuses, with Quentin N. Burdick (1908–1992) presiding. He read a long prepared statement describing his visionary experience of 1948 and his use of peyote, mescaline, LSD, and ayahuasca, then argued from newspaper coverage and the medical literature that LSD's dangers had been exaggerated and that research should be expanded. The record hosts the full printed text, pp. 487–509, including his questioning by Burdick and Jacob K. Javits (1904–1986), his list of proposed research topics (Exhibit No. 76), and the references he put into the record.

Proceedings of a Conference Held at the National Institute of Mental Health

Proceedings of an NIMH conference held September 29, 1967, on adverse reactions to hallucinogenic drugs, published 1969. Addressed LSD's alleged chromosomal and teratogenic effects and the government's challenge in communicating risks to the drug-using public without propaganda.