Word: psilocybin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...would be unfortunate if the firing of Richard Alpert led to the suppression of legitimate research into the effects of hallucinogenic compounds. Such drugs as mescaline, psilocybin, and LSD may be of real value in scientific studies of the mind and in the treatment of mental disorders. But it would have been equally unfortunate if Dr. Alpert had been allowed to continue his activities under the aegis of a University that he has misinformed about his purposes...
What we are remembering this weekend is a controversy in the history of Harvard which filled the pages of The Crimson and preoccupied the national news media for months 20 years ago Drs. Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, both psychologist and members of the Harvard. Faculty, had discovered psilocybin, a consciousness altering substance in the "magic mushroom," and were busy persuading graduates and un dergraduates to take it--in some in stances as part of a course for credit They arranged sessions--called "drug trips" by their opposition--for groups as diverse as prisoners in the Concord Reformatory and worshippers...
Until Timothy Leary came along, psychology researchers at Harvard could do pretty much anything they wanted with their human subjects and still be left in peace. Even with Leary and his colleague Richard Alpert hosting psilocybin parties in private homes, with state and national agencies investigating the legality of the drug tests, and with reports of at least one former subject hospitalized at McLean's with a nervous breakdown-- even then, Harvard didn't do much. The Crimson reported in the spring of 1962 that University officials had known about the research on hallucinogens for at least two years...
Certainly, sensitivity to ethical problems in research has grown enormously during the decade since HEW required committee review. If a Leary came to Harvard wanting to experiment with psilocybin or LSD, the CUHS--if it knew of the tests--would certainly interfere, and few would mourn the assault on Leary's academic freedom. "The Committee has raised everyone's consciousness during the last few years," Bales says...
...earth wouldn't take any more. A billion love bugs spawned from the pools of standing water and made paste on every windshield that ventured out in the country. The water was good for every growing thing, and one of the most fabulous crops was the fabulous blue ring psilocybin mushrooms that some longhairs were collecting in the woods...