HIGH TIMES presents
Paul Krassner's Psychedelic Trips for the Mind
eVersion 1.0 / trc

Stories by and about Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Ken Kesey, Wavy Gravy, Groucho Marx,
Jerry Garcia, Mountain Girl, Andrei Codrescu, Todd McCormick, Squeaky Fromme,
Abbie Hoffman, Michael Hollingshead, Eldridge Cleaver, Steven Hager, Susie Bright,
Dave Marsh, Michael Simmons, Steve Parish, Augustus Owsley, Steve Bloom, Dawna
Kaufmann, Stanley Krippner, Jerry Hopkins, Roy Tuckman, and many others...

use drugs.
Editor: Paul Krassner
First Edition May 2001

"I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition,
characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with
eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures,
extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors."
Albert Hofmann, _LSD: My Problem Child_

"Dock wound up and threw a hot one over the corner of the plate-a swinging strike!
It was no ordinary pitch: The ball burst from Dock's hand and left a blazing,
comet-like tail that remained visible long after the ball was caught. Dock felt
wobbly on the mound and his stomach was churning with acid cramps. His
concentration, however, was superb. As long as he kept to his fastball, the comets
kept burning across the plate. All he had to do was steer the ball down the
multicolored path. Dock had a crazed look in his eyes and his lack of control was
evident to the batters, many of whom were feeling increasingly vulnerable in the
batter's box.
Dock easily retired three batters in a row..."
Eric Brothers in _High Times_, describing a no-hit game which Dock Ellis pitched
for the Pirates after ingesting three hits of LSD

"The left side of my upper body was flat and muscular, just like the chest of a
boy. I reached up with my boy's large, clumsy hand to touch my right breast and
felt my penis stirring. It was a hermaphroditic phantasm that held me entranced as
I discovered my divided body."
Esther Willliams, _The Million Dollar Mermaid_

Introduction
Countercultural History
The Leary Papers
Grateful Dead
Disneyland
Bummers
Narrow Escapes
Prisoners
Various Acid Trips
Disco Doses
Two for the Road

Who could have predicted that I would end up collecting stories for a book like
this? Not me. While I was growing up, I seemed to absorb mainstream values by
cultural osmosis, so when it came to drugs, I was really puritanical. I didn't
even use any _legal_ drugs. I never took aspirin or sleeping pills or
tranquilizers. I never smoked cigarettes, and I never drank coffee or alcohol. I
had no socially acceptable vices.

The first time I heard of LSD was in a 1961 _New York Times_ review of Alan Watts'
book, _This Is It_ "If a simple drug can place within the reach of millions an
experience that throughout the centuries has been considered the final fruit of
religious discipline, then what authorities acting on what principle are going to
be able to prevent usage of this drug?"

In 1962, John Wilcock wrote a column for my satirical magazine, _The Realist_,
titled, "What People Are Talking About that _Vogue_ Won't Admit To." Under "Names
to Drop," he included: "Tim Leary a young Harvard professor who's been

experimenting with non-addicting, consciousness-changing drugs, because the
sensible and unsecretive way he's been handling his research might mean the first
major breakthrough in the official wall of prejudice and therefore the possible
availability in the future of such drugs for anyone who wants them."

In 1963, in the only crossword puzzle I ever published in _The Realist_, the
correct answer to "Causes artificial schizophrenia" was LSD. In 1964, I ran a
front-cover story by Robert Anton Wilson titled, "Timothy Leary and His
Psychological H-Bomb." It began:

"The future may decide that the two greatest thinkers of the 20th century were
Albert Einstein, who showed how to create atomic fission in the physical world,
and Timothy Leary, who showed how to create atomic fission in the psychological
world. The latter discovery may be more important than the former; there are some
reasons for thinking that it was made _necessary_ by the former.

"Nuclear fission of the material universe has created an impasse which is not
merely political but ideological, epistemological, metaphysical. As Einstein
himself said, atomic energy has changed everything but our habits of thought, and
until our habits of thought also change we are going to drift continually closer
to annihilation. Timothy Leary may have shown how our habits of thought can be
changed.

"After the outburst of unfavorable publicity about Dr. Leary in the mass magazines
in November and December 1963, most readers presumably know who Timothy Leary is
and what he has been doing. He is the man who, together with Dr. Richard Alpert
[now Ram Dass], conducted several experiments at Harvard on 'psychedelic' (mind-
altering) chemicals; as a result of these experiments, Dr. Leary pronounced some
very shocking and 'radical' ideas at various scientific meetings, and attempted to
implement these ideas by setting up an organization through which these mind-
changing chemicals could be legally made available to whoever wanted them.

"When the authorities found out what Dr. Leary was attempting, the laws were
quickly changed to make the distribution of these chemicals a government monopoly,
and Dr. Leary and Dr. Alpert were removed from their positions at Harvard...."

at the Hitchcock estate in Millbrook, New York. The name Castalia came from _The
Bead Game_ by Hermann Hesse, and indeed, the game metaphor permeated conversations
with Leary, Alpert and Ralph Metzner, the Three Musketeers of Millbrook. Leary
talked about the way people always try to lure you onto _their_ game-boards. He
discussed the biochemical process called imprinting with the same passion that he
claimed he didn't believe anything he was saying, but somehow I managed to believe
him when he told me I had an honest mind. I admitted to him that my ego couldn't
help but respond to his observation.

In 1964, Leary and Alpert did a lecture series on the West Coast. At the
University of California at Berkeley, there was an official announcement that only
the distribution of "informative" literature as opposed to "persuasive"

Leary argued that such demonstrations played right onto the game-boards of the
administration and the police alike, and that students could shake up the
establishment much more if they would just stay in their rooms and change their
nervous systems. But it really wasn't a case of either-or. You could protest _and_
explore your 13-billion-celled mind simultaneously. During the mass imprisonment
of Free Speech Movement demonstrators, a Bible which had been soaked in an acid
solution easily made its way into the cells. The students eagerly ate those pages,
getting high on Deuteronomy, tripping out on Exodus.

I confessed in the December 1964 issue of _The Realist_ that "I'm still too
chicken to try LSD should the occasion ever arise." But I became intrigued by the
playful and subtle patterns of awareness that Leary and Alpert manifested. If
their brains had been so damaged, how come their perceptions were so sharp?

I began to research the LSD phenomenon, and in April 1965 I returned to Millbrook
for my first acid experience. I had never been high on anything before. Leary was
supposed to be my guide, but he had gone off to India. Alpert was supposed to take
his place, but he was too involved in getting ready to open at the Village
Vanguard as a sort of psychedelic comedian-philosopher. So my guide was Michael
Hollingshead, who had originally changed Leary's life by introducing him to acid.

Our start was delayed for a few hours, and I made the mistake of raiding the
refrigerator while waiting. Finally we went to an upstairs room and ingested a
tasteless, colorless, odorless liquid pure Sandoz LSD. Then my trip began with a

was: IT'S VERY FUNNY! I felt an obligation to share this tremendous insight in
_The Realist_ with one giant headline and nothing else on the front cover. But,
no, I couldn't do _that_. I debated the matter with myself, finally concluding
that even though I tried to live by this universal truth, I shouldn't jeopardize
the magazine by _flaunting_ it like that.

"Well, the least you can do," my lunar self said, "is inform your readers that no
matter how serious anything in _The Realist_ may appear, you will always be there
between the lines saying IT'S VERY FUNNY!" I laughed so hard I had to throw up.
The nearest outlet was a window. I stuck my head out and had a paranoid flash that
this was actually a guillotine and that Holllingshead was about to be my
executioner. But I knew in my heart that I could trust him, so I concentrated
instead on the beautiful colors of my vomit as it started moving around on the