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TRANSCRIPT
Psychedelics / Hallucinogens
ANTH106 Dr Lisa Wynn
“Psychedelic face,” Orange Onion, © CreaCve Commons some rights reserved
What has cannabis research mostly focused on?
• its medical uses
OR
• the harmful health consequences of heavy and uncontrolled use (e.g. psychoCc effects, links with schizophrenia, etc.)
Research on the potenCal posiCve spiritual / mysCcal / pleasurable effects of illicit drugs is considered illegiCmate. Why?
Why no scienCfic research on spiritual/mysCcal/pleasurable effects
of drugs?
• Dichotomy of mind and body in Western thought, emphasis on the primacy of reason.
• “AestheCc horror” of drug use in mainstream society.
• Pervasive Puritan ethic, fear of hedonism and of Dionysian pleasure. (Manderson, LR)
IllustraCon of Dionysus, Greek god of wine, by Timothy Banks hXp://www.Cmothybanks.com/illusblog/?tag=dionysus
Today’s lecture will cover: • link between hallucinogens and shamanism in the New World,
& • the history of Western research on and use of hallucinogens
Learning goals:
We’ll examine scienCfic thinking and the basic assumpCons on
which it is founded à shape the type of knowledge we seek and obtain
• Hallucinogens as a case study to extend Manderson’s insights about links between social class and the legal status of drugs
• Extend Himmelstein’s insights into the role of moral entrepreneurs in shaping the way a drug is seen and used in a parCcular society.
Natural hallucinogenic drugs in pre-‐industrial Europe:
• Belladonna (deadly nightshade)
• Datura (Jimson weed, thorn apple)
• Mandragora (Mandrake)
Used in Europe mainly for ritualisCc purposes e.g. witches’ Sabbath* (and, of course, by Professor Sprout to fight Voldemort’s army) *Reference: Terence McKenna, “A Brief History of Psychedelics,” chapter 25 in
Shamanism: A Reader, edited by Graham Harvey, Routledge 2003
New World and hallucinogens The New World has the highest concentraCon of plant hallucinogens of any region in the world (mostly in tropical and subtropical zones).
McKenna: “The New World subtropical and tropical zones are phenomenally rich in hallucinogenic plants” (p.425) The cults and religious orders that use hallucinogens for ritual, religious, and healing purposes also cluster in the tropical New World.
Some New World hallucinogens: Name Ac2ve agent Loca2on found
Ayahuasca (yage / yaje)
Harmaline Western Amazon
Datura Scopolamine
North, Central, South America
Sacred mushrooms (e.g. Psylocybe mexicana)
Psylocybin Mexico (evidence of shamanic use in Oaxacan Mexico going back 3 millennia)
Peyote cactus Mescalin North America, Mexico
San Pedro cactus Mescalin Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador
Virola snuff Tryptamine N.W. Amazon
Ayahuasca vine
Datura (thorn apple)
Virola bark
Shamanism In the New World, the use of hallucinogens is centred on shamans who
play a dominant role in their socieCes with respect to religion, ritual and healing.
DefiniCon of shaman:
A religious and ritual specialist who gains control / power over supernatural forces. (Shaman is ojen called “master of the spirits.”) Shaman has ability to enter visionary trance-‐states (altered states of consciousness, including visions).
Shamanic trance can be induced by :
– tobacco – hallucinogenic drugs – fasCng – meditaCon, hypnosis – music, dancing – controlled breathing
A Shipibo shaman brews ayahuasca (image source: www.shamanism.co.uk)
FuncCons of shamanic trances Community funcCons: • Shaman as mediator between the supernatural and the community.
Shaman communicates with spirits uses spiritual power to gain control over supernatural forces for the benefit of the community.
• Healing: The shaman uses visionary trances to diagnose illness. Shaman can ‘see’ or visualise the cause of an illness, and commonly does baXle against evil and harmful supernatural forces causing illness. Effect of changing the mental state of the paCent – a form of faith healing or psychotherapy. (Anthropological literature on shamans as ‘primiCve psychotherapists’ – ANTH202!)
Personal spiritual funcCons: • Hallucinogens may contribute to the
development of religious awareness. Common religious theme in shamanic trances and the subject of some research into psychedelics – we’ll see more in film Psychedelic Science later this semester.
Andrew Weil on Hallucinogens and Social Controls
Weil applies Zinberg’s theory to the use of hallucinogens by Amazonian Indians and emphasises that the Indians do not appear to have any problems with hallucinogens, for the following reasons:
1. They use the drugs in their natural forms, not refined drugs. 2. They consider the human desire to periodically experience altered states
of consciousness to be normal, not deviant. 3. The taking of hallucinogens is usually under the supervision of an
experienced user, such as a shaman, who acts as a spiritual guide. 4. The use of hallucinogens is highly ritualised. This avoids negaCve effects
by ‘establishing a framework of order around their use.’ 5. Hallucinogens are not taken for negaCve reasons (e.g. to rebel against
parents) but for posiCve reasons.
(See Chapter 5 of The Natural Mind, “Enhancement of PosiCve Effects and MinimisaCon of Harm.”)
Andrew Weil: best-‐selling author and health guru who advocates blending biomedicine and alternaCve medicine in our search for healthy living
Andrew Weil on Hallucinogens and Social Controls
(See Chapter 5 of The Natural Mind, “Enhancement of PosiCve Effects and MinimisaCon of Harm.”)
• Following Zinberg’s argument about social controls/ rituals, Weil argues
that the Indians do not appear to have any problems with hallucinogens. • A criCque of Weil: Weil claims that drug use in the Amazon is not linked to
anC-‐social behaviour. Excessively romanCc view of the absence of social conflict in Amazonian tribal socieCes. Shamans are ojen key figures in intra and inter-‐tribal conflict, and they someCmes use their magical power, enhanced by hallucinogens, malevolently in these conflicts. (c.f. ethnographic novel by Timothy Knab: War of Witches)
• If there’s Cme, we’ll return later to this noCon of a romanCcised ideal of drug use in non-‐Western socieCes.
Sorry, I just cou
ldn’t resist includ
ing this hilario
us picture of A
ndrew W
eil
Hallucinogens in the West • Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) first synthesised from ergot
(fungus on rye) by Dr Albert Hofmann (Sandoz Laboratories, Switzerland). See Davenport-‐Hines for fascinaCng account of the history of this drug through scienCfic, military, and arCsCc communiCes.
Albert Hoffman first ingested LSD on April 16, 1943. He died 2 years ago on April 29.
The black parts of this rye are ergot, a fungus that in the Middle Ages led to insanity and death when people ate it (called “ergoCsm”).
From Hoffman to Hubbard to Huxley
• In 1943, Hofmann accidentally ingested some LSD and experienced vivid hallucinaCons. Started tesCng LSD on himself and volunteers
• First published on the mental effects of LSD in 1947. • Sandoz Laboratories imagined that it could be used by psychiatrists
to invesCgate schizophrenia, so they started supplying samples to psychiatrists.
• Psychotherapist Dr Ronald Sandison gave some LSD to Alfred M Hubbard, a former US intelligence officer and millionaire. (Check out Davenport-‐Hines descripCon of Hubbard on p.261 of In Search of Oblivion.)
• Hubbard gave Aldous Huxley his first LSD experience in 1955. (Huxley’s experiences with mescaline chronicled in 1954 book The Doors of PercepCon.) Hubbard ordered 43 cases of LSD from Sandoz in 1955 and became a sort of LSD missionary
à à
The CIA and LSD
• 1942, General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the CIA predecessor), launched top secret research program to find a “speech-‐inducing drug” for intelligence operaCons.
• IniCal OSS experiments with cannabis extracts). Marijuana extract referred to as TD (‘Truth Drug’); OSS agents tested TD on themselves. Too inconsistent for use in interrogaCon; OSS volunteers (“Donovan’s Dreamers”) had to be weaned off it.
• 1951: CIA launched a new secret program in search of a miracle truth drug called OperaCon ARTICHOKE. Agents sent to all corners of the globe to find plants with psychoacCve properCes. LSD chosen as the most promising.
Army tesCng of LSD on soldiers • LSD found to be more useful for interrogaCon as an anxiety-‐
producing drug. LSD used as an interrogaCon aid from the mid-‐1950s to the early 1960s.
• Late 1950s, U.S. Army considered using LSD in aerosol form as a ‘madness gas’ which could disorient enemy populaCons.
You can read John Marks’ book on the CIA’s mind-‐control program (compiled from documents the CIA released under Freedom of InformaCon Act requests) online at hXp://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/LSD/marks.htm ß
US Army LSD experiments: hXp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbHve0Ei3w0
The CIA and LSD • 1950s research financed by CIA found that LSD produced
transitory psychoses and symptoms similar to schizophrenia; called a “psychotomimeCc” drug.
• 1950s: CIA secretly financed LSD experiments in 15 prisons and mental insCtuCons, using inmates as guinea pigs.
• 1953: ARTICHOKE program superseded by new CIA secret drug and mind control program called MK-‐ULTRA. Went beyond interrogaCon experiments. Experiments to see if LSD could cause people to act strangely in public; theory tested through in-‐house experiments in ‘normal’ life sevngs, without warning (e.g. LSD in the punch at annual CIA Xmas party)
The CIA and LSD • George Hunter White (Federal Bureau of
NarcoCcs) employed by CIA to set up safehouses in NY and SF. Lured people to his apartment, slipped them LSD, and observed their behaviour.
• 1955: White iniCated OperaCon Midnight Climax. ProsCtutes hired to pick up men and bring them back to CIA-‐financed brothel. Fed drinks laced with LSD while White watched behind two-‐way mirror, sipping marCnis. (IntenCon to find out about sexual behaviour for espionage purposes.) Safehouse experiments conCnued unCl 1963.
Moral entrepreneurs: Huxley
• Famous writer Aldous Huxley first experimented with mescaline under supervision of psychiatrist Osmond. Described experience in The Doors of Percep;on – LR: percepCon of flowers, books and furniture described in terms of “a sacramental vision of reality” and “Inner Light.”
• Huxley’s theory that the funcCon of the brain was elimina;ve – i.e. it acts as a screening mechanism “to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by the mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge.” Hallucinogens by-‐passed this screening process, intensifying visual impressions, heightening the percepCon of colour, and dissolving the ego.
Huxley and Osmond on terminology
• Huxley and Osmond argued that terms “hallucinogen” and “psychotomimeCc” were inappropriate b/c implied negaCve states (hallucinaCon, psychosis). Osmond coined the term “psychedelic” à “mind-‐manifesCng,” implying that the drug elicits whatever is latent in the unconscious. (That’s why Osmond and many other psychiatrists came to see LSD as an important aid to psychotherapy – c.f. Psychedelic Science.)
Moral entrepreneurs: Leary & Ginsberg Dr Timothy Leary
• 1954 -‐1959 Director of clinical research and psychology at California hospital
• 1959 Appointed to Harvard, where he experimented with psilocybin, established psilocybin research project at Harvard with Richard Alpert and, later, Huxley. Conducted experiment with theology students at Harvard: 9/10 reported having an intense religious experience when they took ‘shrooms.
• 1960: Leary introduced sacred mushrooms to poet Allen Ginsberg.
• Huxley advocated conducCng LSD research quietly, non-‐confrontaConally
• In contrast, Leary and Ginsberg wanted to take psychedelics to the masses. Utopian fantasy of biochemical world revoluCon.
• (Famous writer Arthur Koestler on sacred mushrooms: “I solved the secret of the universe last night, but this morning I forgot what it was!”)
• Leary and Alpert accused of conducCng research outside the medical model; dismissed from Harvard in 1963. But notoriety helped popularise Leary (“Mr LSD”) and psychedelics. Leary coined phrase “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.”
Moral entrepreneurs: Leary & Ginsberg
LSD banned à black market boom
• In 1963, LSD classified by FDA as “experimental drug” • 1966: LSD became illegal in the USA. • Last LSD research project ended in 1975. • Making it illegal only fuelled popular interest in the drug. An
extensive black market developed to meet growing demand for LSD.
LSD was popularly sold as drug-‐soaked bloXer paper decorated with colourful symbols from popular culture.
Moral entrepreneur: Kesey • Another “moral entrepreneurs” (to use Himmelstein’s phrase) responsible for popularising LSD was Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).
• First experienced LSD as MK-‐ULTRA test subject.
• Accessed psychedelics in mental asylum where he worked.
• California commune, parCes with LSD-‐laced chilli.
• Band of LSD enthusiasts called the Merry Pranksters toured US in a psychedelically decorated bus (described in Tom Wolfe’s 1968 The Electric Kool-‐Aid Acid Test).
Leary and Alpert’s Millbrook commune • Ajer leaving Harvard, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert
retreated to a 64-‐room mansion called Millbrook. Psychedelic commune with 30 other men and women. Fairy-‐tale atmosphere: Persian carpets, crystal chandeliers, large aquariums, and elaborate psychedelic art. Residents stayed up all night tripping – even children and dogs.
Photos of the Millbrook mansion by Gene Anthony
Leary and Alpert’s Millbrook commune
• Atmosphere at Millbrook highlights the importance Leary placed on proper “set” and “sevng” in achieving euphoric, religious experience with the aid of psychedelics. Contrast with inCmidaCng, cold, impersonal laboratory atmosphere of the CIA experiments, which explains the labelling of LSD as a psychotomimeCc drug.
• LSD is neither inherently transcendental nor anxiety-‐producing. It simply amplifies exisCng psychic and social procliviCes within the individual.
Photos of the
Millbroo
k mansio
n by Gen
e An
thon
y
A record produ
ced at M
illbroo
k in which Leary preache
s LSD
PoliCcisaCon of LSD • 1964: Kesey’s scene began to aXract people from the
Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Start of poliCcisaCon of US campuses and emergence of New Lej poliCcal organisaCons, and poliCcisaCon of LSD. LSD and marijuana became a form of protest against authority.
Increasing tension between New Lej poliCcal acCvists and the Hippies. LSD crusaders such as Kesey, Leary and Ginsberg were apoliCcal, more concerned with personal liberaCon than poliCcal revoluCon. (Leary: “The choice is between being rebellious and being religious.”)
Photos of the Free Speech Movement protests at Berkeley by Ron Enfield
Psychedelics and counter-‐culture aestheCcs • Haight-‐Ashbury in San Francisco
as centre of “psychedelic lifestyle” in mid-‐1960s: rock music, street theatre, wild costumes, communal living and sexual freedom. LSD was sold on a mass scale.
• Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band (1967): “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” expressed psychedelic ideals and aestheCcs. Timothy Leary proclaimed the Beatles “prototypes of revoluConary agents sent by God with a mysterious power to create a new species.”
Psychedelics and counter-‐culture aestheCcs 1969: Woodstock music fesCval as apogee of the psychedelic revoluCon and counterculture.
Woodstock. This photo for the album cover was taken by Burk Uzzle. Later, the woman in the photo recalled "I remember the rain, the lack of toilets and the body odor.” hXp://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2009/07/07/2009-‐07-‐07_woodstocks_undercover_lovers_.html
The decline of psychedelics… • New drugs (PCP, STP) hit the
market. • Hippies of Haight-‐Ashbury
were superseded by people with different avtudes towards drugs – came for the sex and the rebellion but didn’t share religious ideals of peace, love, and transcendence of bourgeois ideals.
• LSD on the black market: tainted supplies, controlled by mafia.
• Manson murderers aXributed to LSD.
The decline of psychedelics… Extremist groups Weathermen and White Panthers carried out more than 4,000 bombings of corporate headquarters, government buildings and military installaCons in 1969 and 1970.
These events discredited and undermined the psychedelic subculture. The symbols of the psychedelic lifestyle remain, but they have largely been exploited by the commercial interests of modern capitalism and incorporated into mainstream culture.
Key points • The relevance of Zinberg’s theory of set and se=ng
determining experiences of drugs • Himmelstein’s theory of moral entrepreneurs in shaping
the way a drug is seen in society • Different approaches to describing drugs in society
(contrasty historical account of psychedelic drugs in the West with ahistorical anthropological accounts of shamanic use of hallucinogens)
• The scien2fic approach we use to studying drugs determines what we look for and, to some extent, what we find. Research that looks only for public health harm or biomedical benefits associated with drugs will never capture religious, spiritual, transcendental striving that many people are looking for when they use drugs, and it was this scienCfic bias that researchers like Huxley, Leary and Alpert were trying to rebel against.
References and further reading: • John Buckman, 1977. “Brainwashing, LSD, and CIA: Historical and Ethical PerspecCve.”
Interna;onal Journal of Social Psychiatry 23(1):8-‐19. • R. Davenport-‐Hines (2001) The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Social History of Drugs, London: Phoenix Press. • Charles Grob, 1998. “Psychiatric Research with Hallucinogens: What have we learned?” The
HeLer Review of Psychedelic Research, Volume 1, chapter 2. • Michael Harner, 1973. “The Sound of Rushing Water,” in M Harner, ed., Hallucinogens and
Shamanism. • Aldous Huxley, 1972. ‘The Doors of PercepCon’. In The Doors of Percep;on and Heaven & Hell.
London: ChaXo & Windus, pp. 5-‐20. • MarCn Lee and Bruce Shlain, 1992. Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the
Six;es, and Beyond. Grove Press. • Terence McKenna, “A Brief History of Psychedelics,” chapter 25 in Shamanism: A Reader, edited by
Graham Harvey, Routledge 2003. • Desmond Manderson, 1995. “Metamorphoses: Clashing Symbols in the Social ConstrucCon of
Drugs.” The Journal of Drug Issues 25(4):799-‐816. • C Naranjo, 1973. “Psychological Aspects of the Yage Experience in an Experimental Sevng,” In M
Harner, ed, Hallucinogens and Shamanism. • Des Tramacchi, 2000. “Field Tripping: Psychedelic communitas and Ritual in the Australian Bush.”
Journal of Contemporary Religion 15(2):201-‐213. • A Weil, 1973. ‘Clues from the Amazon’. In The Nature of Mind, Jonathon Cape, London, pp.
98-‐115. • J Wilbert, 1987. ‘Tobacco and ShamanisCc Ecstasy Among the Warao Indians’. In P Furst (ed),
Flesh of the Gods: the Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. New York: Praeger, pp. 55-‐83. • NE Zinberg, 1984. ‘Historical PerspecCves on Controlled Drug Use’. In Drug, Set and SeVng: the
Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use. Yale University Press, pp. 1-‐10.