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Psychedelic Pioneer and Confidence Man

79 points by prismatic 7y ago

pmoriarty 7y ago
Ram Dass once recalled the first time Hollingshead gave Leary LSD. Leary, Ram Dass (who was then still Richard Alpert), Ralph Metzner, and others from their group were staying at Millbrook and continuing their research with psylocybin that they'd started at Harvard when Hollingshead turned up and offered Leary LSD. Leary at first turned his nose up at LSD, but eventually tried it. Then, Alpert reported, Leary did not speak for days. Everyone in the group was scared, and Alpert told everyone to stay away from the LSD while they waited for Leary to come back to them. After five days Leary finally spoke and the first word out of his mouth was "Wow". Then they all tried it. I can't find it now, but I also remember hearing an episode of the Psychedelic Salon[1] podcast where Lorenzo Hagerty talks about how he came across an old letter of Myron Stolaroff's where the latter warned another psychedelic luminary about Hollingshead, calling him a consummate liar and saying that he shouldn't be trusted. Incidentally, Stolaroff was deeply hurt by being conned by yet another psychedelic luminary, Al Hubbard, another legendary and mysterious Johnny Appleseed of LSD. Psychedelics certainly do seem to attract tricksters (perhaps because they also attract naive idealists, who are irresistibly ripe pickings for the tricksters). Hollingshead, Leary, and Hubbard were all tricksters, as was Sasha Shulgin, who was very fond of practical jokes. There was an interesting "psychedelic reunion" between Leary, Hubbard, Humphrey Osmond (who coined the term "psychedelic"), Sidney Cohen and others at Oscar Janiger's home in 1979.[2] I found the video of this reunion fascinating because it seemed that all these larger than life psychedelic pioneers, who'd probably all done psychedelics hundreds if not thousands of times seemed quite ordinary, uncomfortable, unenlightened, and even gruff and sour to one another. For instance, Leary seemed to desperately need to be the center of attention and Hubbard seemed extraordinarily uncomfortable and taciturn while Leary needled him. Later I learned that Hubbard absolutely detested Leary. That explained it, and provided evidence (if any more was needed) that psychedelics didn't inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who's feathers couldn't be ruffled by anything. A couple other interesting recordings were the "Lone Pine Stories" with Myron Stolaroff [3], where he talks about being given LSD for the first time by Hubbard, and a Q&A session[4] by Stolaroff and Gary Fisher, who'd treated schizophrenic children with LSD.[5] [1] - https://psychedelicsalon.com/category/people/myron-stolaroff/ https://psychedelicsalon.com/category/people/myron-stolaroff... [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-sfDEEcMQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-sfDEEcMQ8 [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMZ-oopMBog&list=PLCB4ED9E989E17EF6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMZ-oopMBog&list=PLCB4ED9E98... [4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMUO0dP77rI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMUO0dP77rI [5] - http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v07n3/07318fis.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v07n3/07318fis.html
- naringas 7y ago
  > psychedelics didn't inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who's feathers couldn't be ruffled by anything. similarly, having a really good gun doesn't turn anyone into a warrior. the point being that psychedelics can certainly help yet they aren't indispensable nor the only way.
  - toss1 7y ago
    Yup, a brief glimpse into the far landscape, showing what the mind can do, but you must then work to get there for real
- RangerScience 7y ago
  > inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who's feathers couldn't be ruffled by anything. I'm thinking that enlightened states are not inherently stable; they're sharp peaks with shallow troughs. It takes active work to stay in them, and that it's getting habitual at becoming enlightened that we call enlightenment. The main inspirations for this are the temporary experience of enlightenment present in many psychedelic experiences, and the number of koans about "suddenly, they were enlightened" that now make more sense; they're realizing they have a habit of maintaining the enlightened state.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    In addition to this, I think people in general are really good at deluding themselves, and a lot of people have very underdeveloped critical faculties (especially in regards to themselves and the revelations they have), which lead them to believe they really are enlightened when they're not. Paradoxically, ego inflation is a very common effect of psychedelics.
    - gunshai 7y ago
      What's difficult to ascertain about all of this is meta-cognition in general. Is this really measurable past fleeting binary states self-awareness about your own self-aware state? Past that, I like your connection between naive idealist + self delusion, however I think you have described the human condition of curiosity, in which our conscience mind is able to imagine future states. Then, while we reverse engineer how to possibly do that, we create an ad hoc hypothesis (conscience or not) to end up in that future state. Therefore delusion is almost a necessity, as the mind has little way to tie this hypothesis causation to the ad hoc hypothesis. If a conscience mind accepts the imaginary future state of enlightenment as being one that they ought experience. The following question is ... how? This moment is exactly how I see your point fitting in especially with psychedelics.

79 points by prismatic 7y ago

Ram Dass once recalled the first time Hollingshead gave Leary LSD. Leary, Ram Dass (who was then still Richard Alpert), Ralph Metzner, and others from their group were staying at Millbrook and continuing their research with psylocybin that they'd started at Harvard when Hollingshead turned up and offered Leary LSD. Leary at first turned his nose up at LSD, but eventually tried it. Then, Alpert reported, Leary did not speak for days. Everyone in the group was scared, and Alpert told everyone to stay away from the LSD while they waited for Leary to come back to them. After five days Leary finally spoke and the first word out of his mouth was "Wow". Then they all tried it. I can't find it now, but I also remember hearing an episode of the Psychedelic Salon[1] podcast where Lorenzo Hagerty talks about how he came across an old letter of Myron Stolaroff's where the latter warned another psychedelic luminary about Hollingshead, calling him a consummate liar and saying that he shouldn't be trusted. Incidentally, Stolaroff was deeply hurt by being conned by yet another psychedelic luminary, Al Hubbard, another legendary and mysterious Johnny Appleseed of LSD. Psychedelics certainly do seem to attract tricksters (perhaps because they also attract naive idealists, who are irresistibly ripe pickings for the tricksters). Hollingshead, Leary, and Hubbard were all tricksters, as was Sasha Shulgin, who was very fond of practical jokes. There was an interesting "psychedelic reunion" between Leary, Hubbard, Humphrey Osmond (who coined the term "psychedelic"), Sidney Cohen and others at Oscar Janiger's home in 1979.[2] I found the video of this reunion fascinating because it seemed that all these larger than life psychedelic pioneers, who'd probably all done psychedelics hundreds if not thousands of times seemed quite ordinary, uncomfortable, unenlightened, and even gruff and sour to one another. For instance, Leary seemed to desperately need to be the center of attention and Hubbard seemed extraordinarily uncomfortable and taciturn while Leary needled him. Later I learned that Hubbard absolutely detested Leary. That explained it, and provided evidence (if any more was needed) that psychedelics didn't inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who's feathers couldn't be ruffled by anything. A couple other interesting recordings were the "Lone Pine Stories" with Myron Stolaroff [3], where he talks about being given LSD for the first time by Hubbard, and a Q&A session[4] by Stolaroff and Gary Fisher, who'd treated schizophrenic children with LSD.[5] [1] - https://psychedelicsalon.com/category/people/myron-stolaroff/ https://psychedelicsalon.com/category/people/myron-stolaroff... [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-sfDEEcMQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-sfDEEcMQ8 [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMZ-oopMBog&list=PLCB4ED9E989E17EF6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMZ-oopMBog&list=PLCB4ED9E98... [4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMUO0dP77rI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMUO0dP77rI [5] - http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v07n3/07318fis.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v07n3/07318fis.html

naringas 7y ago
> psychedelics didn't inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who's feathers couldn't be ruffled by anything. similarly, having a really good gun doesn't turn anyone into a warrior. the point being that psychedelics can certainly help yet they aren't indispensable nor the only way.
- toss1 7y ago
  Yup, a brief glimpse into the far landscape, showing what the mind can do, but you must then work to get there for real
RangerScience 7y ago
> inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who's feathers couldn't be ruffled by anything. I'm thinking that enlightened states are not inherently stable; they're sharp peaks with shallow troughs. It takes active work to stay in them, and that it's getting habitual at becoming enlightened that we call enlightenment. The main inspirations for this are the temporary experience of enlightenment present in many psychedelic experiences, and the number of koans about "suddenly, they were enlightened" that now make more sense; they're realizing they have a habit of maintaining the enlightened state.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  In addition to this, I think people in general are really good at deluding themselves, and a lot of people have very underdeveloped critical faculties (especially in regards to themselves and the revelations they have), which lead them to believe they really are enlightened when they're not. Paradoxically, ego inflation is a very common effect of psychedelics.
  - gunshai 7y ago
    What's difficult to ascertain about all of this is meta-cognition in general. Is this really measurable past fleeting binary states self-awareness about your own self-aware state? Past that, I like your connection between naive idealist + self delusion, however I think you have described the human condition of curiosity, in which our conscience mind is able to imagine future states. Then, while we reverse engineer how to possibly do that, we create an ad hoc hypothesis (conscience or not) to end up in that future state. Therefore delusion is almost a necessity, as the mind has little way to tie this hypothesis causation to the ad hoc hypothesis. If a conscience mind accepts the imaginary future state of enlightenment as being one that they ought experience. The following question is ... how? This moment is exactly how I see your point fitting in especially with psychedelics.