LSD Research By Eugene Seaich
During the late fifties there was also a growing interest amongst the intelligentsia for the newly discovered drugs LSD and Mescaline. Writers like Aldous Huxely had begun to describe the remarkableeffects which these chemicals of the brain, producing visions of beauty which he likened to beholding "The first morning of creation". The newspapers were also filled with accounts of famous personalities like Kary Grant, who had experimented successfully with them, and who reported their beneficial effects. Indeed, at the time, these substances were entirely legal, and no one tried to conceal them: and since the hippies had not yet discovered them, they were used solely by the educated and scientifically oriented.
Five of my colleagues and I thuds decided to contribute ten dollars each toward the purchase of 100 milligrams of LSD from K@K laboratories in New York City. When our tiny package arrived in the mail---in a vial no larger than a pencil stub---we took it to the chemistry department had it divided into portions, using a sensitive analytical balance We then took one to the pharmacy department and have it triturated with milk-sugar, so that it could be conveniently administered in capsules,each containing 50 mcgs of LSD. I had a close friend also purchased a few grams of mescaline from K@K, which we wanted to compare to LSD
The openness with which all this is done is shown by the great amount of professional help which was willingly given us. We obtained, for example a large envelope full of instructions in the use of LSD from the prestigious Sandoz Company, the people who commercially manufactured it; and Dr. Goldman---the co-author of the world's leading text on pharmacology---gave us additional for its administration. Today, any of these individuals would have immediately called for the police and have them us arrested!
Well-attended by families and friends, and forearmed with injectable Thorazine as a potential antidote, we took turns discovering that LSD was indeed a magical substance, just as the literature had described it. I recorded my own experience in a monograph entitled The Far-Off Land, suggesting the depths of memory which the drug uncovered and released. It further taught me for the first time to perceive new beauty in Utah's barren landscape, which I suddenly realized was alive with pastel colors and exciting textures, none of which I had previously appreciated Today I still see these subtle landscapes through illuminated eyes, an undeniable benefit of my revelatory experience.
I was also fascinated by the curious phenomenon of automatic writing which the LSD produced. When I took notes, I simply pushed my wrist to the right, and my pen formed the words without conscious effort or direction. The writing, moreover, was much clearer than usual, and I only had only to think of an idea in order to see it appear in legible symbols. A couple of years later I gave an account of my experience before the faculty and students of the pharmacy department, still unafraid of being accused of criminal behavior. It should of course be reemphasized that our experiments were undertaken under cautious circumstances, and that the casual drug taker should not attempt to medicate himself without a proper antidote at hand, should the results be disorienting. But administered under favorable conditions and with supervision, LSD can hardly lead to the use of other drugs. Certainly it is not a "Gateway Drug" which creates a desire for other substances, for one emerges quite exhausted from a typical experience, which lasts six or eight hours, and which produces whatever for a repetition of the experience. My talk was eventually reprinted in the UtahPharmaceutical Journal
Five of my colleagues and I thuds decided to contribute ten dollars each toward the purchase of 100 milligrams of LSD from K@K laboratories in New York City. When our tiny package arrived in the mail---in a vial no larger than a pencil stub---we took it to the chemistry department had it divided into portions, using a sensitive analytical balance We then took one to the pharmacy department and have it triturated with milk-sugar, so that it could be conveniently administered in capsules,each containing 50 mcgs of LSD. I had a close friend also purchased a few grams of mescaline from K@K, which we wanted to compare to LSD
The openness with which all this is done is shown by the great amount of professional help which was willingly given us. We obtained, for example a large envelope full of instructions in the use of LSD from the prestigious Sandoz Company, the people who commercially manufactured it; and Dr. Goldman---the co-author of the world's leading text on pharmacology---gave us additional for its administration. Today, any of these individuals would have immediately called for the police and have them us arrested!
Well-attended by families and friends, and forearmed with injectable Thorazine as a potential antidote, we took turns discovering that LSD was indeed a magical substance, just as the literature had described it. I recorded my own experience in a monograph entitled The Far-Off Land, suggesting the depths of memory which the drug uncovered and released. It further taught me for the first time to perceive new beauty in Utah's barren landscape, which I suddenly realized was alive with pastel colors and exciting textures, none of which I had previously appreciated Today I still see these subtle landscapes through illuminated eyes, an undeniable benefit of my revelatory experience.
I was also fascinated by the curious phenomenon of automatic writing which the LSD produced. When I took notes, I simply pushed my wrist to the right, and my pen formed the words without conscious effort or direction. The writing, moreover, was much clearer than usual, and I only had only to think of an idea in order to see it appear in legible symbols. A couple of years later I gave an account of my experience before the faculty and students of the pharmacy department, still unafraid of being accused of criminal behavior. It should of course be reemphasized that our experiments were undertaken under cautious circumstances, and that the casual drug taker should not attempt to medicate himself without a proper antidote at hand, should the results be disorienting. But administered under favorable conditions and with supervision, LSD can hardly lead to the use of other drugs. Certainly it is not a "Gateway Drug" which creates a desire for other substances, for one emerges quite exhausted from a typical experience, which lasts six or eight hours, and which produces whatever for a repetition of the experience. My talk was eventually reprinted in the UtahPharmaceutical Journal
Comments