Altered States of America
Archives
In this section you will find things I have collected, some of them from the archives of Timothy Leary and R. G. Wasson, and other sources, that survived the fire which took my home and virtually all of my possessions in the summer of 2020… Items which will demonstrate my thesis that there is another hidden level to how psychedelics came here and helped create these altered states in America.
During the last year of Timothy Leary’s life I spent many hours with him going through his archives which we stashed in boxes that filled his two car garage. They’ve since been donated to the New York Public Library. Here are some selections that provide a glimpse into the early days of the psilocybin project at Harvard, and other adventures of his life….
A lot is said in this article and Tim’s response to it. First we see the common narrative repeated again and again in contemporary media that Leary is to blame for ruining research, when really all he ruined was the CIA’s monopolistic control of it.
The following three pages are a memorandum from RG Wasson to Thomas Lamont, President of Harvard University, September 13, 1961, just as Timothy Leary is beginning to run afoul of the Harvard Administration. Notice the tone Mr. Wasson carries throughout this missive. The president of Harvard is a powerful post in that institution, but notice who is wielding power here. Mr. Wasson is not only instructing Mr. Lamont how to manage his troublesome employee Dr. Leary, he is telling him to be secret about who is actually in charge. This is the very essence of the word, ‘conspiracy,.”
In early 2002 I spent a few weeks in the archives of Gordon Wasson that are stored at Harvard University and began to learn about a hidden layer of modern psychedelic history….
This is the document Gordon referred to (in our interview) as the first inkling he had of a “sacred” mushroom, a clipping he received from the mythologist and poet, Robert Graves, in 1952. I am especially struck by the first paragraph which describes an intoxicating mushroom that deranges most of the users, while conferring illumination only on a specialized group of users. For this is precisely the point i want to make: the dual nature of the psychedelic experience.
An awesome and significant photograph when you consider what is being imparted by the now famous Mazatec sabia (wise woman) Maria Sabina to Wall Street executive Wasson. Photographed by Allan Richardson to depict the transmission of the sacred mushroom from indigenous use to modernity. Note the suspicious eye of Maria’s daughter at her left shoulder. Unless ye become like little children. When a novice student of the subject I saw this photo akin to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco, the transmission of divine power to humanity. First published in LIFE Magazine, “Seeking the Magic Mushroom,” (1957), the article that introduced the psilocybin mushroom to the modern world. Eventually I learned that this entire operation was in fact a covert CIA operation, MKULTRA#58, that led to a profound shift in my understanding of modern psychedelic history. Why did the CIA sponsor this expedition, and the publication of it, in America’s most popular magazine, introducing psychedelics to the widest audience yet, essentially starting “a” psychedelic movement?I
“A” psychedelic movement, I emphasize, because it seems to me that this one ‘they” started bifurcated into another, counter movement with entirely different objectives. We may assume that the movement instigated by Wasson and the CIA was intended to be in service of their corporate, military industrial establishment, as Huxley suggested in Brave New World. In just a few years, mostly because of Timothy Leary, who was originally recruited to work for them, the psychedelics became rebranded as tools of dissent. Let’s remember Leary did not just popularize psychedelics. He popularized them with memes to “Question Authority,” “Think for Yourselves,” “Start your own Religion,” etc… We will see in the documents below attempts of the right wing psychedelicists like Wasson, Al Hubbard, Myron Stolaroff… originally colleagues, to reign him in. For example:
My psychedelic odyssey brought me to know many exceptional characters who have left an indelible mark on modern history. None more hilarious and brilliant, reckless and kind, than Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. We met and became friends in 1984 at a party Jack Nicholson invited me to. I turned them both onto MDMA. Of the documents and literary correspondence that burned in the fire, maybe I miss Hunter’s late night faxes the most, of which only these two remain. Below is his inscription of Generation of Swine, my favorite book of his, and honestly, the only one I have read.
