Harry Anslinger long-time head of the Federal Narcotics Bureau, campaigned publicly against marijuana as a killer weed, but privately participated in a secret US foreign intelligence project that selected marijuana as a truth serum and described it in playful, sexual terms.
Julian Beck and the Living Theater experimental performing troupe that traveled extensively in Europe in the 1960s. "We were willing to experiment with anything that would set the mind free," said Beck.
The Black Panthers young African-American activists and socialists based in Oakland, California. Collaborated with white radicals and counterculture advocates in the spirit of Malcolm X.
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love a southern California-based LSD commune that supplied the world with "orange sunshine," started out as dope-dealing idealists and ended up as a hippie mafia.
William Burroughs mentor
of the beat generation and author of Naked Lunch, was looking for the "final fix" when
he participated in a yage ritual in South America in the early 1950s. He warned that
hallucinogenic drugs could be used to control rather than liberate the vision-starved
masses. "Remember," said Burroughs, "anything that can be done chemically can be
done in other ways."
Links to further Burroughs & Beat-related sources.
John Starr Cooke a disciple of Aleister Crowley, was the Eminence gris behind the Psychedelic Rangers and the San Francisco Be-in.
Lt. General William Creasy chief officer of the US Army Chemical Corps during the 1950s, preached a new, LSD-influenced military gospel of "war without death." During Congressional testimony, Creasy called for the testing of hallucinogenic gases on subways in major American cities.
The Diggers guerrilla theater
maestros and acid anarchists, lit up Haight-Ashbury with wild strokes of artistic genius
and organized alternative social services for the flower children.
Links to further Digger sources.
Bob Dylan the legendary folk
singer, dropped acid and went electric in the mid-1960s, influencing a generation of
rolling stones in search of a new America.
Links to further Dylan sources.
Allen Ginsberg poet laureate
of the grassroots acid subculture, charged that news media had exaggerated the dangers
of LSD.
Links to further Ginsberg & Beat-related sources.
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb the CIA's chief sorcerer-scientist, ran the Agency's Technical Services Staff and oversaw the super-secret MK-ULTRA program, which sought to develop LSD into a mind control weapon and also experimented with numerous other drugs and behavior control techniques.
Grateful Dead led by Jerry Garcia,
started out as a local acid rock band in San Francisco, before they claimed a loyal
following of Deadheads.
Links to further Grateful Dead sources.
Richard Helms CIA director from 1967 to 1973, was a strong advocate of secret behavior control experiments; he described LSD as "dynamite."
William Mellon Hitchcock the multimillionaire patron of the LSD commune at Millbrook, New York, later bankrolled a huge blackmarket acid manufacturing operation.
Dr. Paul Hoch financed by the US Army and the CIA to study the effects of drugs on human behavior, administered intraspinal injections of LSD to psychiatric patients and performed electroshock and lobotomies on patients while they were under the influence of LSD and other hallucinogens.
Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and the Yippies
political pranksters par excellence, dropped acid, burned money on Wall Street, and
demonstrated against the Democratic Convention in Chicago in August 1968.
Links to further Abbie Hoffman sources.
Dr. Albert Hofmann chemist working at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Switzerland, was the first person to synthesize LSD in 1938 and five years later he accidentally discovered the hallucinogenic effects of the drug.
Michael Hollingshead the British prankster and cultural affairs attache, gave Timothy Leary and his Harvard colleagues their first taste of LSD.
J. Edgar Hoover longtime FBI chief and closet queer, who oversaw extensive undercover operations designed to disrupt, neutralize, and counter the influence of the New Left, Black power proponents, and the sixties youth culture.
Captain Al Hubbard the
American superspy and uranium entrepreneur, became the first Johnny Appleseed of
LSD, turning on thousands of people, including scientists, politicians, intelligence
officials, diplomats, church figures, and housewives. "If you don't think it's amazing,"
said Hubbard, "just go ahead and try it."
Links to further Al Hubbard sources.
Aldous Huxley the eminent British novelist who lived in Hollywood, wrote The Doors of Perception, the seminal psychedelic manifesto. "It was without question the most extraordinary and significant experience this side of the Beautific Vision."
Laura Huxley administered LSD to her husband, Aldous, as he lay dying in November 1963.
Dr. Harris Isbell ran extensive drug experiments for the CIA at the Lexington Narcotics Hospital in Kentucky, where addicts were supplied with heroin in exchange for their participation in secret CIA LSD tests.
Dr. Oscar Janiger a Los Angeles-based psychiatrist, used LSD as a tool to study the creative attributes of the mind and gave the drug to many well-known painters, musicians, actors, comedians, and writers. Janiger was also the first person in the US to synthesize DMT, a short-acting super-hallucinogen.
Jack Kerouac the beat novelist,
sampled the magic mushroom extract and reported: "It was a definite Satori. Full of
psychic clairvoyance (but you must remember that this is not half as good as the
peaceful ecstasy of simple Samadhi trance as I described it in Dharma Bums)."
Links to further Kerouac & Beat-related sources.
Ken Kesey and the Merry
Pranksters were introduced to LSD courtesy of the US Army. They
drove a day-glo bus across the United States and hosted the first electric kool-aid acid
tests and rock/art extravaganzas in California during the mid-1960s.
Links to further Kesey sources
Arthur Kleps chief Boohoo of the
Neo-American Boohoo Church, added epistemological spice to the Millbrook scene
with his surrealistic antics.
Links to further Art Kleps sources.
Timothy Leary the pied piper of
the acid generation, implored everyone to "turn on, tune in, and drop out."
Links to further Leary sources.
John Lennon and the Beatles gave the blossoming psychedelic counterculture a stunning musical benediction with their release in June 1967 of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
G. Gordon Liddy Dutchess County prosecutor who tried to bust Timothy Leary, went on to serve as one of President Nixon's Watergate burglars whose arsenal of dirty tricks included LSD and other hallucinogens to neutralize Tricky Dick's political enemies.
Charles Manson ex-convict and would-be rock musician, was a habitue of Haight-Ashbury before he formed a satanic LSD commune in Southern California, whose members engaged in depraved acts of violence and murder.
The Motherfuckers crazed LSD radicals, took up the cry of "acid armed consciousness" and prefigured the paramilitary fad that engulfed the New Left in the late 1960s.
Dr. Humphry Osmond a British research psychiatrist who coined the word "psychedelic," explored the therapeutic potential of LSD for curing alcoholism.
Owsley (Augustus Owsley Stanley III) the undisputed king of the illicit LSD trade in the mid-1960s, deluged Haight-Ashbury and points beyond with street acid. Subsidized the Grateful Dead's infamous Wall of Sound.
Maria Sabena a Mexican witch doctress, gave the divine mushroom to Harvard Psychologist Timothy Leary in 1960.
Ed Sanders and the Fugs turned-on peace activists and folk-rock band, provided musical edification for protesters at the Pentagon in October 1967.
Tim Scully young, idealistic genius, served time in prison after manufacturing orange sunshine and other forms of LSD.
Dr. Van Sim chief of the Clinical Research Division at Edgewood Arsenal (headquarters of the Army Chemical Corps), received the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service because he tried all new drugs, including LSD, on himself, before administering them to American soldiers.
John Sinclair and the White Panthers, Ann Arbor-based activists who allied themselves with the Yippies and the Black panthers. "Acid was amping everything up, driving everything into greater and greater frenzy," Sinclair recounted.
Ronald Stark CIA informant and counterculture con man, produced 50 million doses of LSD before he was busted in Italy in the mid-1970s.
R. Gordon Wasson banker for J.P. Morgan, traveled to the Mexican highlands in the mid-1950s and participated in a magic mushroom ritual under the guidance of a local shaman. "For the first time," he wrote in Life magazine, "the word ecstasy took on real meaning. For the first time it did not mean someone else's state of mind."
Weather Underground tripped-out, left-wing revolutionaries, helped Timothy Leary escape from prison and bombed symbolic targets in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Dr. Louis Joylon West conducted tests for the CIA at the University of Oklahoma, was called upon to examine Jack Ruby while he was in prison for murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President Kennedy. Concluding that Ruby suffered from delusions of a conspiracy in the JFK killing, West prescribed "happy pills" for Ruby during his incarceration.
George Hunter White a high-ranking US narcotics official who tested LSD on unwitting American citizens at the behest of the CIA. "It was fun, fun, fun," said White. "Where else could a red-blooded American lie, kill, cheat, and rape with the sanction of the all-highest?"