Changing World With Drugs

                                              Changing World With Drugs

  

     Since the start of the century, American society was going thorough radical changes. It seems like every decade had a crucial event that made a lasting effect on the society. In the 20`s, it was the demise of the red light districts and increase in women rights, 30`s were the decade of great depression, in the 40`s the whole world was swept away with world war, 50`s had huge economic prosperity. Just when it seemed like the society has found its stability, two Harvard professors burst into the scene with their radical ideas of changing the world.

     The book, "Harvard Psychedelic Club" by Don Lattin begins with the story of four important characters, each of whom would play important role in the psychedelic movement. Three of them were academics, regarded very highly in their field, and  Andrew Weill, a Harvard undergraduate. The first chapter of the book is not as exhilarating as the later chapters, but the writer did a great job in laying the foundation for what is about to happen.

     Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary, two of the most vocal proponent of the movement met at Harvard. Richard was a colorful character."His Cambridge apartment was filled with exquisite antiques. He had a Mercedes sedan, a MG sports car, a Triumph motorcycle, and his own Cessna airplane. It was the dawn of the swinging sixties and Alpert was all set for life in the fast lane."¹ Alpert struggled with his sexuality all his life, he was a bisexual and had relationships with both men and women.

     Alpert`s partner in crime, Timothy Leary was no slouch himself. He got recruited to Harvard when he met with Harvard professor David McClelland in Florence, Italy , where he rented  a "penthouse overlooking the red-tilted domes of the picturesque Tuscan City."² Later he became the leader of the psychedelic movement. "A charismatic leader, a man of intelligence, culture and charm who is completely self-assured and apparently absolutely fearless."³ He was not held that highly by the establishment though, president Nixon called him, "the most dangerous man in America."⁴

     Later in the first chapter we meet Andrew Weill, the Harvard undergraduate student who wrote an Exposé on the two professors that eventually brought them down, and Huston smith, the religious studies professor at MIT who was with the movement from the beginning but later drifted out.

     The whole thing started when the Harvard professors had their first trip with magic mushroom in Mexico. As academics of psychology, they saw it`s enormous potential; ranging from connecting with god to changing homosexuals. At one point Leary actually believed he had, “cut the recidivism rate in half” and “found a way to solve the nation’s crime problem.”⁵ They saw how it might effect in the study of religious mysticism, as psilocybin, the ingredient of magic mushrooms creates of the illusion of reaching into a higher consciousness. They wanted to get some noted religious scholars into their psilocybin society. Houston smith was their man. They were somewhat successful in the beginning, as Huston Smith describes the event as, "the most powerful cosmic homecoming I have ever experienced."⁶

                     

Andrew Weill`s Expose about the two professors.

     Everything was going fine until Andrew well decided to write an exposé on the two professors. They were both kicked out of Harvard. They took their experiment to Mexico and later tried three Caribbean countries but authorities kicked them out. So they settled in  a huge mansion in Millbrook, New York, “They were about to turn it into the Disneyland of the psychedelic sixties.”⁷Thousands of hippies came from all over the country in search of happiness and peace, but Alpert began to see that their movement is becoming something else other than the psychological experiment that they began with. He fell out with Leary later to be reunited again.

                                               

     San-Francisco is the place where the hippy movement really took off. Thousands of people flocked to the city with the book, "The Psychedelic Experience", a manual on how to enjoy the LSD trip written by Leary and Alpert in their pocket. Poets, students, singers, writes all got together in search of happiness and unity. The wild 60`s we see from the photos are mostly from San-Francisco. The hippie movement was  drifted away far from it`s initial goal, now it was the medium to change the world.

     The free reign of the psychedelic drugs were about to come to an abrupt end. Possession of psychedelic drugs were banned in California in 1966 and a federal bad  followed in 2 years. In the end of chapter six we see Tim Leary looking a life in prison.

     In plain view, we would assume it was a very unwise idea to experiment with psychedelic drugs to alter personality, but we have to think within a context. That was a very different time, and psychology was changing rapidly. Most of the psychological theories from previous era are not considered potent enough toady and the theories that prevails now were mostly developed in the sixties, notably my Abraham Maslow, Erikson, Bandura etc. There were many ideas about personality floating around, and changing personality with psychedelic drugs was one of them. So we should forgive these two professors for thinking that psychedelics might have the ability to alter personality. Although their experiment failed, the effect they had are still felt today.

Decade of love

   The effect 60`s had in our society is enormous.Even the word "Psychedelic" was created in the 60`s.The hippies were also a product of that era.It has effected in various aspects of life ranging from higher birthrate in the baby boomers to the rise of rock music. The war on drugs, that is still going on today had it`s roots in the 60`s. The 60`s were the decade of love, and it is felt by the higher birthrate in that era. The baby-boomer generation was surely effected by the psychedelic chemicals. This era is mostly signified by the effect it had on the music industry. The whole music scene changed, giving rise to popular musician such as "The Grateful Dead", Janis Joplin etc. It showed a whole generation of young people how to transcend above themselves and have find the deeper meaning of life. Things people see while on psychedelic drugs may be just illusion, but those illusion has the power to change the world.

^Referencs

^{[1] Don Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club (New York: HarperOne, 2011) 5.}

^{[2] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club 20.}

^{[3] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club 143.}

^{[4] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club 61.}

^{[5] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club 72.}

^{[6]Smith, Huston. Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2000. [7] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club 104.}

^{[7] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club 104.}