By Don Lattin
Four Harvard men who transformed America
Subject
Themes
In the autumn of 1960, four men converge at Harvard University, each carrying ambitions that will be redirected by encounters with psychedelic substances. Timothy Leary, a research psychologist haunted by his wife's suicide, has just eaten psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico and returned convinced he has experienced "the deepest religious experience" of his life. Richard Alpert, a young professor hiding his homosexuality behind material success, soon joins Leary's research project and discovers, during a snowy February night on psilocybin, something he calls his true soul. Huston Smith, an MIT philosopher who has written about mysticism without experiencing it firsthand, takes psilocybin on New Year's Day 1961 and finds the terrifying awe he has always sought. Andrew Weil, a calculating freshman from Philadelphia, is refused entry into the project because he is an undergraduate, but runs his own mescaline experiments in a nearby dormitory.
In the autumn of 1960, four men converge at Harvard University, each carrying ambitions that will be redirected by encounters with psychedelic substances. Timothy Leary, a research psychologist haunted by his wife's suicide, has just eaten psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico and returned convinced he has…
Published in 2010, The Harvard Psychedelic Club arrived at a moment when psychedelic substances were re-entering serious scientific and cultural conversation after decades of prohibition. Don Lattin, a veteran religion journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, brought both personal experience with…
One of the most consequential insights to emerge from the Harvard psychedelic experiments is that the nature of a drug experience depends enormously on the context in which it occurs. Leary and Alpert call this the principle of "set and setting": the user's mind-set (expectations, fears, hopes) and…
Each member of the Harvard Psychedelic Club embodies a distinct archetypal role that shapes his response to the psychedelic experience and determines his long-term cultural impact. Timothy Leary is The Trickster, Richard Alpert is The Seeker, Huston Smith is The Teacher, and Andrew Weil is The…
The Harvard setting is not incidental to the psychedelic story; it is central to understanding both why the movement gained such force and why it provoked such intense backlash. Harvard in 1960 is not merely a university but a nexus of American power. John F. Kennedy, a Harvard graduate, has just…
A central tension running through the narrative is whether psychedelic drugs can serve as genuine tools for spiritual development or whether they are shortcuts that ultimately mislead. Each of the four principal figures addresses this question differently, and their collective experience suggests…
The most surprising revelation of the Harvard Psychedelic Club story is how deeply the counterculture of the 1960s embedded itself in mainstream American institutions. Practices that once seemed radical, from meditation and yoga to holistic health and religious pluralism, have become so ordinary…
Four very different paths converge at Harvard University in the winter of 1960-61, each carrying a man whose life will be transformed by encounters with psychedelic substances. Richard Alpert, an assistant professor of clinical psychology still in his twenties, appears to have everything: a…
On 9 August 1960, Timothy Leary sits beside a swimming pool at a rented villa in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and eats seven psilocybin mushrooms washed down with beer. The Aztecs called these fungi teonanacatl, the flesh of the gods, and they had been virtually unknown to Western audiences until a 1957 Life…
By spring 1961, Leary renames his research effort the Harvard Psychedelic Project and decides to test whether psilocybin can reform hardened criminals. The Concord Prison Project targets a system where roughly 70 percent of released inmates return to prison. Leary recruits graduate student Ralph…
The unravelling of the Harvard Psilocybin Project begins in March 1962, when Crimson editor Robert E. Smith slips into a faculty meeting convened by David McClelland to address growing complaints about Leary and Alpert's research. The Department of Social Relations has split into two factions: those…
Expelled from Harvard, Leary and Alpert barely pause before launching a second summer session at the Hotel Catalina in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Three dozen pilgrims gather for weekly LSD sessions modelled on Aldous Huxley's utopian novel Island, where fictional islanders take moksha-medicine to achieve…
On a brilliant January afternoon in 1967, Timothy Leary stands on a stage covered with oriental rugs at the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park and delivers the slogan that will follow him for the rest of his life. Dressed in white, beads around his neck, a yellow flower behind his ear, and stoned on…
Richard Alpert arrives in India in late 1967, more tourist than pilgrim. He is burned out from years of lecturing on psychedelic drugs, privately aware that he does not truly know what he is talking about. Travelling with a wealthy patron in a shiny Land Rover, he feels embarrassed by the contrast…
By 2007, Andrew Weil has become one of America's most influential figures in health and medicine. Twice featured on the cover of Time magazine and named one of the nation's twenty-five most influential people, he operates from a 120-acre ranch on the edge of Saguaro National Park in southern…
By Don Lattin
Subject
Themes
In the autumn of 1960, four men converge at Harvard University, each carrying ambitions that will be redirected by encounters with psychedelic substances. Timothy Leary, a research psychologist haunted by his wife's suicide, has just eaten psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico and returned convinced he has experienced "the deepest religious experience" of his life. Richard Alpert, a young professor hiding his homosexuality behind material success, soon joins Leary's research project and discovers, during a snowy February night on psilocybin, something he calls his true soul. Huston Smith, an MIT philosopher who has written about mysticism without experiencing it firsthand, takes psilocybin on New Year's Day 1961 and finds the terrifying awe he has always sought. Andrew Weil, a calculating freshman from Philadelphia, is refused entry into the project because he is an undergraduate, but runs his own mescaline experiments in a nearby dormitory.