The Secret History of Psychedelics
Historian Erika Dyck wants to document the deep roots of and battles over LSD, psilocybin, and other psychoactive substances.
HD DownloadErika Dyck is a professor at the University of Saskatchewan who studies the history of psychedelics with a special interest in the legacy of Humphry Osmond, the British-born psychiatrist who coined the term pyschedelic, gave Aldous Huxley his first dose of mescaline, and conducted pathbreaking work using LSD to help alcoholics stop drinking. Among Osmond's best-known patients was Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Reason sat down with Dyck at the MAPS Psychedelic Science 2023 conference held in Denver this June, where a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about all aspects of today's psychedelic renaissance. We talked about why drugs such as MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD are making a comeback; how tensions are rising between indigenous people and medical practitioners; and whether prohibitionists have finally lost the war on drugs.
Music Credits: "Life's Journey Begins" by idokay via Artlist
- Producer: Nick Gillespie
- Editor: Adam Czarnecki
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"...and conducted pathbreaking work using LSD to help alcoholics stop drinking. Among Osmond's best-known patients was Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous."
So his big success story for using LSD to help alcoholics stop drinking is a guy who co-founded an organization that rejected LSD in favor of Christianity?
The idea of a secret history of psychedelics sounds like an abuse of the word "secret" and that "untold", "unknown", "forgotten", or even just "uninteresting" might be more appropriate.
Somewhat akin to the LGBT movement where, despite it being either translucently or even transparently publicly observable, the fact that we don't have parades and a month dedicated to it, don't have every TV channel broadcasting hierarchically-apportioned representations of it, and don't teach it to children as federal education policy from birth, it's "secret".
I didn't give my kids the entire history of LSD or go through the guesses as to which exact members of the band and crew had used LSD before they heard "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" as toddlers. Doesn't mean it was a secret and, even if it was, the fact that I/we don't know some of the answers kinda indicates it's not my/our secret to tell or keep.
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