Lsd

Wednesday

Amelia Butler-Gallie

Was the psychedelic art movement worth it?

If modern America were ever to have its own “the Great God Pan is Dead” moment, it would arrive in the form of Popeyes and KFC celebrating 4/20 as a marketing boon. After all, what better way is there to signal the end of counterculture than by chomping down on some discounted fried chicken? Devotees of the “4/20” marijuana festival, commemorated globally each year, have bemoaned a string of corporate sponsorship deals which are, they sniff, at odds with the event’s hallowed “hippie” origins. So when San Francisco decided earlier this year to cancel its annual 4/20 celebrations on Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park, citing city-wide budget cuts and a lack of lucrative brand deals, the whole affair was a little on the nose. Come on, man!

psychedelic

Monday

Birdie Hall

How LSD helped me find God

The first time I took LSD was alone on Christmas Day in a snowed-in Montana cabin. I watched my skin crawl and the walls melt. It was the first time since childhood I didn’t hate my own body, and a nice break from the depressing bioethics I was studying in school. I took deep breaths and stretched. As the effects took hold, I watched illustrations fly out from a gorgeous, tattered copy of Mark Twain’s biography of Joan of Arc. Four hours later, after smoking an entire pack of cigarettes, I was convinced I was descending to hell. I watched fake flames lick the yellow wallpaper. It was miserable and listening to Nick Cave didn’t help. At dinner with friends later that night, the elk roast resembled human meat and the bread rolls made to commemorate St.

lsd

Thursday

Sam Leith

Might LSD be good for you?

When Peregrine Worsthorne was on Desert Island Discs in 1992, he chose as his luxury item a lifetime supply of LSD. He may, according to the American journalist Michael Pollan’s fiercely interesting new book, have been on to something. Acid has a bad name these days: either a threat to the sanity of your children, or a naff 1960s throwback favoured by the sort of people who sell you healing crystals at markets in Totnes. Yet in LSD-25, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline and others we have a family of molecules with startlingly powerful effects on the human mind. They are not addictive, carry little or no physiological risk, and their association with the desire to jump out of windows has been distinctly exaggerated. They might even be good for us.

Friday

Dominic Green

In 1968, even Boston was ankle-deep in LSD

‘And this is good old Boston/, The home of the bean and the cod,’ John Collins Bossidy quipped in 1910, ‘Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots/, And the Cabots talk only to God.’ Also home, in 1968, to Mel Lyman, a folk musician turned LSD guru who believed he was God, and to Van Morrison. The music business abounds with stories about Morrison being grumpy. In my experience, he’s perfectly reasonable. You’d be grumpy if your job obliged you to consort with thieves, liars and drummers who can’t keep time. You’d be especially irritated by people asking how you wrote Astral Weeks. Sensibly, Morrison explains that Astral Weeks was written by a different person living, as its title song says, ‘In another time/ In another place.