IDEAS

3 TAKES ON A ONCE REVOLUTIONARY DRUG

or how did LSD become so bourgeois?

By Mitchell Shim 

What Happened?

People like to think that drugs are something that invades and contaminates our culture, but they’re wrong, drugs aren’t invading our culture; in a fundamental sense drugs are our culture and like a virus, we and they are in a constant dance of adoption and adaption. I have always considered drugs to be dangerous, even lethal, but I never quite understood how much culture has to do with their potency until I started reading contemporary accounts about LSD. The notion that drug use is cultural as well as biological is certainly the case when we think about the evolution of psychedelics over the last fifty years, or, if you’re stickler, 53, or if you are a super-stickler 73.

Albert Hoffman created LSD in his lab in 1938. Yet it wasn’t until five years later that he consumed the drug by mistake. By all accounts, he had a beautiful and blissful experience. He told several of his colleagues about this new magical substance, but for the most part the drug remained underground. Ironically, the CIA saw acid’s geopolitical possibilities, or to put it bluntly, thought that it might be a type of mind control weapon. They set up test labs in college towns across the country and that’s how the drug seeped its way into the general population, or how it seeped its way into the counterculture and upper-middle class. Among its first adherents were professors, hippies, artists, and college students. And when LSD hit the culture, it hit it hard. From the ‘Grateful Dead’ to the incredibly mainstream ‘the Beatles’ suddenly LSD and its psychedelic effects were everywhere.

If you look at the covers of four Beatles Albums that were released one after the other during the mid-sixties you can actually see how fast LSD influenced them and the world at large. So, let’s look at these covers…You can see how the aesthetics of each cover takes on a more psychedelic hew. Beginning with Rubber Soul, the cover has some distortion, but mostly from the way the camera looks up at the Beatles; Revolver takes on a more of an abstract display, but the color combination of black and white ink drawing mutes the effect of the distortion, where the last two are most certainly influenced by a full-on psychedelic trip.

Music wasn’t the only field that LSD changed in dramatic ways. The fashion industry exploded with psychedelic-inspired clothing. All of a sudden simple colored dresses and suits were out of fashion and vibrant floral patterns were in. Referring back to the evolution of aesthetic in music you can see the drastic changes in fashion from the early 60’s the mid-60’s.

                                                                    Early 60’s Fashion:

                                                                    Mid-60’s Fashion

You can see how high fashion all of a sudden had a LSD feel to it, as if the self-realization that LSD supposedly promised could be expressed in one’s every day or party outfits. What is clear is that LSD was changing the nature of mid-60’s culture and that it was considered to be a revolutionary drug, a reputation helped by Harvard Professor Timothy Leary and the earlier writings of Aldous Huxley. However, like all fads, LSD’s revolutionary powers did not turn out to be as powerful as advertised and the drug eventually fell back into a type of benign underground of Grateful Dead concerts and Techno Raves. So, it’s a bit of a surprise that LSD has returned to our culture, but this time in a slightly different guise.

Aylete Waldman

Ayelet Waldman’s A Really Good Day tells us how LSD positively transformed her life. Prior to becoming a dedicated LSD micro-doser, she suffered from mood swings that were so severe that they would plunge her into overwhelming depression. Conventional medicine wasn’t helping, which prompted her to give LSD a try after reading James Fadiman’s works.

Micro Dosing for Serenity, like Yoga

Waldman was seriously bipolar and she couldn’t control it. On some occasions when her moods were stable, she would converse cheerfully, construct coherent sentences, and treat others affectionately. She was equally productive in her daily responsibilities, which made her feel good about everything. However, whenever her moods headed south, she was plagued with guilt, low self-esteem, and shame. She would frequently pick fights at slight or no provocation, unnecessarily shout at people, and had a habit of slamming doors. She would also rage at her husband, the quasi-famous novelist Michael Chabon, due to the fact she thought she could hear him chewing almonds two rooms away.

They can drive you crazy

Waldman describes the ease of access to anti-depressants and how she found them wanting in managing her fluctuating moods. She tried sociologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists who recommended deep self-meditation. Her search for a solution led her to Fadiman's works, who had had some luck in prescribing LSD to his patients. Despite her thorough knowledge of American’s drug laws due to her role as a federal public defender, she gave LSD a go. She confidentially orders an entire bottle, reads the instructions carefully before inducing two drops of acid. The effects on her were phenomenal and immediate. People around her immediately noticed this sudden change and started complimenting her positive adjustment. Even her own daughter realized how calm she was and was wondering if it was her actual mother or someone in disguise. Her book seems to chronicle an incredible medical success: her moods improve, she’s consistently happier, and she works harder and more productive than before. So... it's a success?

Waldman’s book is interesting; the point of view is interesting; I’m glad that she’s nicer to people, including her almond eating husband, and she makes a good case for the drug. But and this is a big but, the book just covers a 1-month journey of micro-dosing. Despite the positive outcome, the length of time hardly reaches FDA standards for drug testing. It is still difficult to conclude what we should think of LSD micro-dosing from such a brief foray into drug use. In a way, it’s the most circumstantial type of evidence we could have. If Waldman extended her experiment and maybe she has, the outcome may result in different, less happy effects and problems than we see here.

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan also writes about the joys of psychedelics in How to Change Your Mind. After penning an article on the effect of LSD on cancer patients, he notices that psychedelics have a powerful impact on cancer patients. Most notably, the drug seems to overpower their fear of death, or diminishes it a lot.

Interested in the good

This prompts him to embark on a two-year research project on psychedelics that covers a great deal more range, scientifically and statistically than Waldman’s one-month memoir. Pollan, a prolific science writer, explores psychedelics' potential use in lowering the pain and suffering of cancer patients, especially those suffering from depression, addiction, and anxiety. He interviews neuroscientists involved in the research and usage of psychedelics and while doing so ponders over the complexity of human consciousness. Pollan notes that in the 1950’s psychedelics gained prominence in a great deal of psychological research, but those insights were suppressed in the late 60’s. He believes that new research interest in LSD poses an opportunity to explore untapped benefits that might revolutionize mental healthcare.

Pollan's extensive gives him access to actual evidence on the effects of psychedelics, especially psychological effects. In one of the more interesting moments of the book, he meets a philosophy lecturer involved in the clinical trial of psychedelics. The professor concludes his experience by describing the experience as "Love conquers all." The professor's summary is corroborated by Pollan's interaction with a nicotine smoker who quits smoking. The smoker explains that he found smoking irrelevant after trying the psychedelics.

Okay, but why the drugs part?

Pollan describes one patient named Patrick Mettes, who while suffering from bile duct cancer had a thrilling experience with the drug. Mettes’ became calmer about his impending death and believed that he had a mission in the afterlife. After being treated, he felt that everyone deserves this experience.' Patrick is not scared of death, and his only concern is the quality of his life, rather than the quantity. At a certain point, he stops chemotherapy and has what can only be described as a happy death.

Pollan is much more of a scientific thinker than Waldman. Her goal is a kind of a self-experimentation, a self-evaluation of her own experiences. Pollan is more interested in the drug’s mind-expanding possibilities or, maybe better put, the drug’s ability to calm patients who are experiencing tremendous emotional turmoil. On the other hand, culture does not seem to play a big factor in How to Change Your Mind. For Waldman, the world around her, the world we live in, is a constant factor in her moods. Whereas Pollan interest is more scholarly, neither of them seems quite able to catch the force of the drug on the culture and the way the force of the culture is looking for the drug.

Tao Lin

At the onset of Tao Lin’s Trip, he tells the story of a moment where his entire life seemed to be going nowhere. Lin is staying in a tiny room in New York where he blames anything and everything, including pesticides, for his woes. At this point, he spends a great deal of his time surfing the internet and thinking about his divorce. To avoid falling into depression, he consumes psychedelics, although all his experience verge on the bad trip variety.

Very serious, very, very serious

He describes the turbulent relationship he had with his former girlfriend and explains his inability to establish new relationships. During one trip, he destroys his personal computer and yet he somehow finds psychedelics life altering and affirming. While on pharmaceuticals he tried to commit suicide and this is never the case with LSD, mushrooms, and Dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

Like any good student, Lin finds Terence McKenna’s lectures on psychedelics on YouTube. But it’s not just scientific information, but what McKenna has to say. Lin agrees with McKenna that we should lift the ban on psychedelics and embrace their healing properties (if they are any) and believes, like Waldman, through his experiences that the drug has great potential for psychological salvation. At one point, Lin visits McKenna’s widow and children to express his gratitude.

Are any of these pro-LSD books truly satisfying or convincing. Well, probably not, but they do point to a new life for the drug in the culture. In the 60’s LSD was all about revolutions; now, it’s all about making through the day and being a good person.

©Mitchell Shim and the CCA Arts Review