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...
To Todd McCormick and all other political prisoners of the war on some people who
use drugs. Editor: Paul Krassner First Edition May 2001 ISBN#: 1-893010-07-4 "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."

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

Introduction 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'
(mindaltering) 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 mindchanging 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...."
After the article was published, Leary invited me to visit the Castalia Foundation

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. "Listen," he reassured me, "anybody who tells
you he's transcended his ego..." 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

Speech Movement, with thousands of students protesting the ban in the face of
police billy clubs. 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

became. The climactic message I got 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