The secret history of LSD is the story of the struggle between good and evil in the
human heart.
All the threads of life and death, virtue and virulence—hell, the deep journey from
cosmic emptiness to the illumination of galaxies—are
stored in the conscious reservoir accessible through LSD.
LSD is, as Dr. Stanislav Grof called it, a “non specific amplifier of the
unconscious”—it magnifies what is already inside us, magnifies the struggle between
good and Evil.
Its extraordinary powers were discovered most fortuitously in 1943 by the Swiss chemist
Albert Hofmann.
Working in his laboratory at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basil, Switzerland, Hofmann
hoped to create a new migraine pill out of ergot, a fungus that grows on diseased grain.
Refined ergot had been used for centuries as a medicine,
as a psychedelic mystery sacrament, and as a
way to teach people the secrets of witchcraft.
During the synthesizing process, Hofmann unintentionally ingested some of it.
He then took perhaps the most famous bike ride in history
while on the first LSD trip.
The following morning he felt positively rejuvenated, saying “I had
the feeling that I saw the earth and the beauty of nature as it had been when it was created
… it was a beautiful experience.
I was reborn, seeing nature in quite a new light.”
Despite such auspicious beginnings, he later called LSD his “problem child” after the
social uproar it caused during the late 1960s.
But the secret history of LSD is not one of a problem
child, but rather one of a wonder child, whose awesome power amplified the timeless struggle
between good and evil during the mid 20 th century.
And that struggle has implications today; the next moves we make are going to have a
tremendous impact on the future of this story.
What made LSD so attractive was the way it evoked what philosophers call “Mind at Large.”
Mind at Large represents every thought of every entity (human, animal, or alien) that
has existed since the Big Bang—and we are all hardwired
into it.
Accordingly, the human brain acts as a pressure valve, which guards our consciousness
against this total sensory overload.
LSD eases that valve, allowing the very building blocks
of creation to flood the mind.
The obvious question arises: Who would control this awesome power?
Various interests like the medical community, the CIA, and modern mystics all saw themselves
as the true keepers of LSD’s potential.
Initially, LSD found a home in therapeutic settings, helping people sort out their innermost
suffering, finding that bridge between mental hell and mental health.
People lined up to take LSD—in fact, they demanded it!
Treating these personal problems served as a way to nourish the
larger society.
LSD was going to heal the planet, one trauma, one anxiety attack, one depressive
episode at a time.
Many of the doctors giving LSD to patients also enjoyed the medicine themselves.
For ages, intellectuals had sought a way to touch both
the deepest parts of their Being … and touch the
deepest parts of the Cosmos—this principle has been articulated in many ways, but my
favorite phrasing goes “as above, so below.”
LSD was the long-awaited celestial adhesive that bridged
the holy heavens to the human heart.
The very doctors who saw LSD as a medicine for their
patients saw it as a metaphysical tool for themselves.
But this duality, this above and below, comes with a dark and sinister side.
You see, sometimes the very tools of enlightenment—the very
tools used for good—are used for abhorrent purposes.
LSD offers one such example.
Half a century ago, LSD was taken out of the mental health clinic and into the war room.
The CIA sought to use the non-specific amplifier
of LSD as a mind control weapon under a top secret
operation called MKUltra.
It was here where LSD revealed the true depths of depravity found in
the human heart.
MKUltra personnel felt that unsuspecting people would make the best targets.
And so they launched Operation Midnight Climax to secretly drug American citizens.
Through Midnight Climax the CIA funneled money to a man named George Hunter White, who
used the funds to rent apartments in New York and San Francisco.
He would then frequent the local bars and lure both sex workers and their
clients back to the apartment to secretly dose them
with LSD.
He wanted to see if LSD could be used to put a person—a foreign leader perhaps—in
a compromised sexual situation for later use in blackmail.
Midnight Climax did not work out well operationally.
Many of the dosed victims huddled in the corner of the apartment, too terrified to
speak, let alone discuss sexual habits.
They no doubt suffered long-term, untreated trauma from
the experience.
George Hunter White had very little regard for the human devastation he had caused with
LSD, saying of this time, “Sometimes, when people
had information, there was only one way you could get it: if it was a girl, you put her
tits in the drawer and slammed the drawer.
If it was a guy, you took his cock and hit it with a hammer.
And they would talk to you.
Now, with these drugs, you could get information without having
to abuse people.”
U.S tax dollars at work.
MKUltra also tested LSD on children, who were taken to secret locations where they were
sexually humiliated and trained as assassins.
One young girl abused by these trials later testified,
“They would perform radiation as well as mind control and drug experiments on me … I
would receive intensive electric shock, isolation
for days, sleep deprivation where they would attach
electrodes to me, and if I started to fall asleep, they would shock me.”
She was ten years old at the time.
One of the doctors abusing these children was Wilson Greene who admitted “I like scaring
them.
They and the Agency think I’m a god, creating subjects in experiments for whatever deviant
purposes they can think up.”
MKUltra left behind a trail of human devastation and two deaths … well, at least two deaths
that we know about.
The CIA found that they could not turn LSD into a weapon, so in 1973 MKUltra
was totally abolished.
With the question of an LSD weapon abandoned, more compassionate researchers started to
ask new questions: Is there a consciousness out
there in the universe?
A supreme principle?
Can that highest consciousness be reached through the
byways of our own neural circuitry?
Was LSD the key?
Some LSD aficionados like the author Aldous Huxley and philosopher Alan Watts thought
yes; they formed secret societies around the Los
Angeles area in the late 1950s, using LSD in modern
adaptations of ancient pagan mystery ceremonies—all in the comfort of a modern living room!
One doctor who was also a part of this LSD society stated: “We saw ourselves as members
of a consciousness clan that goes back through
history to Eleusis and the Sufis and the Vedic Hindus.”
A different side of LSD was now being specifically amplified.
Not as a weapon, or even a therapeutic medicine, but as a sacrament.
To many, who were working with LSD in this way, it
sat right beside the wheel, fire manipulation, and toilet paper in the annuals of great human
achievements.
Many saw it as a vital epoch in civilization.
And so artists, mathematicians, homemakers, professors, and scientists all
took LSD hoping to find the natural triggers of human
Evolution.
This, of course, raised questions about the nature of God and the meaning of life.
And so, clergymen started participating in LSD sessions,
blessing their psychedelic congregants and offering spiritual advice during the peak.
An LSD-using Bible study group even formed in Palo
Alto, California.
All of this was eclipsed by the tumultuous 1960s when media manipulation, fear mongering,
and irresponsible use by unprepared explorers
unfairly cast LSD into disrepute.
LSD was eventually criminalized in the late 1960s; but its influence
did not die.
Instead, it went underground, planting the seeds that would
one day blossom into the kind of culture that would
accept it.
This is where we come in:
The secret history of LSD teaches us that LSD is not a magic bullet that guarantees
love and enlightenment.
Its awesome powers can be used just as easily for evil.
In this, we all have the capacity to be both the doctor and the patient;
mystic and muggle; or CIA Agent and victim.
But this also comes with a bonus!
By acknowledging our own shadow side we can be more forgiving
of others and build a more tolerant, less polarized world.
Our culture is fractured, but I see an opportunity.
We are being given a chance to once again demonstrate the value of LSD, and bring
the secret history to light.
As more and more cities, states, and countries decriminalize all
psychedelic medicines, we have the ability to direct the fate of this non-specific amplifier.
That is the magic we all have within us.
So let’s close our eyes.
And imagine what we
could amplify.