Sources in this era
32 results
July 9, 1963Psilocybin Highlights Harvard Year
Efrem Sigel · Newspaper Article
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.
Psilocybin
26 July 1963CIA Inspector General MKULTRA Report
J. S. Earman · Testimony
The CIA Inspector General's internal audit of MKULTRA, documenting covert LSD and drug testing on unwitting American citizens through a Bureau of Narcotics safehouse arrangement. The Inspector General finds safeguards inadequate and recommends terminating unwitting testing on Americans.
MKULTRALSD
June 1963Psychedelic Review, No. 1
Gerald Heard, Alan Watts, and R. Gordon Wasson · Academic Article
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 i...
LSDPsilocybin
January 3, 1963Menlo Wife’s Story
George Draper · Newspaper Article
George Draper's front-page story about Maureen Thompson, a Menlo Park mother of four who took LSD and mescaline in August 1961 at Myron Stolaroff's International Foundation for Advanced Study, which charged $500. She describes the session as a turning point in her life, and her husband Bill took the same treatment a...
1964The Psychedelic Experience
Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner · Book
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.
LSDPsilocybinDMT
August 24, 1964People v. Woody
Mathew O. Tobriner · Source
The California Supreme Court reverses the peyote convictions of four Navajo men arrested at a Native American Church meeting near Needles in 1962. Justice Tobriner's opinion describes the all-night ceremony, its officers and its ritual objects before reaching the First Amendment question.
February 24, 1965Sidney Cohen’s UCLA Lecture on ESP
Sidney Cohen · Audio/Video
An excerpt (25:14–36:48) from a February 1965 UCLA lecture by Sidney Cohen on extrasensory perception and claims of "dermal optical perception," or seeing through the skin. Cohen mentions synesthesia under LSD and mescaline, then argues that unproven claims belong in a "suspense file" rather than being accepted or d...
ESPHuman Potential- ROApril 19, 1965
Recording of the Dolphin Peter after Being Given LSD
John C. Lilly · Audio/Video
A reel-to-reel tape made on April 19, 1965, at John C. Lilly's Communication Research Institute on St. Thomas, with the sounds of the dolphin Peter after he was given LSD; Lilly can also be heard. Stanford University Libraries digitized the tape in 2014.
December 12, 1965Allen Ginsberg and Joe K. Adams Discuss LSD
Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, and Joe K. Adams · Audio/Video
Allen Ginsberg's tape of a December 1965 conversation with the psychologist Joe K. Adams, with Peter Orlovsky present. Adams describes the months-long manic episode that followed an LSD session in 1960 and his involuntary hospitalization, and talks about figures in Bay Area psychedelic research such as Charles Savag...
LSDNetworks
June 14, 1966Ginsberg Senate Testimony on LSD (1966)
Allen Ginsberg · Testimony
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 hi...
LSDPsilocybinCounterculture
May 13, 1966Leary Senate Testimony on LSD (1966)
Timothy Leary · Testimony
Timothy Leary (1920–1996), then president of the Castalia Foundation at Millbrook, New York, testified on May 13, 1966, before the special Senate Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Thomas J. Dodd (1907–1971) that was holding hearings on narcotic addict rehabilitation and on LSD use on college campuses. Leary proposed...
LSDCounterculture- SCMarch 2, 1966
Sidney Cohen’s UCLA Lecture on LSD
Sidney Cohen · Audio/Video
A talk at UCLA in March 1966 by Sidney Cohen, the Los Angeles psychiatrist who had studied LSD since 1955. Cohen compares the drug state to religious mystical experience and calls LSD a valuable research tool, but predicts that its future is "miserable" as accidents, public fear, and new laws pile up.
Historical overview
A contextual essay for this era is in preparation. In the meantime, the sources at left, the key figures below, and the further-reading panel offer entry points.
Key figures in this era
Further reading
Secondary sources- Vetted secondary sources for this era are being prepared.