THIS IS A GOOD and interesting account of some positive uses of
psychedelics written mainly for the non-technical reader. In some
details it can be faulted, but it is a stimulating work, full
of information, much of it gleaned patiently from the journals
and some obtained directly by the writers in the course of their
enquiries. However, this does not, I think, constitute its main
importance, and its significance would be completely misunderstood
if it is seen only in this light. It will certainly be read widely
by the psychedelic generation and their successors; but in my
opinion, it should receive the closest attention from those who
consider themselves older, wiser, and more in touch with sober
reality than these adventurous people. I hope that my contemporaries
and colleagues will read this book and give it their careful consideration,
because if we do not grasp clearly what its authors are saying,
we can easily make some serious errors of judgment.
Unless I have completely misunderstood the message, this book
must be looked upon as a manifesto from one generation to another—from
the young to their elders. As I see it, the younger generation
is telling us that it proposes to use psychedelics because it
considers them appropriate instruments for living in the hurricane's
eye of accelerating change. These young people consider that it
is neither possible nor desirable to prevent them from employing
these substances in this way, and in fact they are challenging
lawmakers, law givers and law enforcers to stop them.
If I am correct in this assumption, there is already a serious
source of disagreement between people of different ages. It may
well be that the authors have over estimated the extent to which
interest in these remarkable substances exists today, and to which
it will be maintained in the future. Some of my colleagues hope
and indeed believe that this is just a fad which will soon die
out. This is possible, but I would not bet on it.
Supposing they are correct, what then? If psychedelics are indeed
agents both for adapting to and producing social change, then
clearly we may expect to see their effects in the fairly near
future, if we are not seeing them already. Those who dominate
the administrative structure, many of whom seem to be very ignorant
about psychedelics and inclined to even doubt their existence,
have only two courses of action open to them-they can either suppress
psychedelics and punish those who make, distribute and use them,
or they can seek ways of incorporating these innovations in the
main stream of our society. Since there is reason to suppose that
the psychedelic experience can be produced without drugs and while
some of these non-drug methods are safe, others are more dangerous
to health than chemicals, it is by no means certain that suppressing
the chemicals, even if possible, would solve the psycho-social
problem.
This book gives us many accounts of experiences which will undoubtedly
liven and enrich, but also at times, endanger us. One is forced
to ask oneself, supposing it were possible to suppress both the
chemicals and the experience, would we still be wise to attempt
this? The authors and many of their readers will not, I think,
allow us to avoid this issue with learned platitudes.
The elderly of whatever chronological age have always resisted
and feared innovation, and when they have been unable to prevent
it, have usually urged that innovators should desist until the
matter had been mulled over for a few centuries. Innovators, however,
are impatient creatures and do not wish to hasten slowly. Even
when innovation has been successfully repressed, such success
has often had bitter consequences. The elimination of the Albigensians
by fire and sword is not now seen as a particularly creditable
episode in European Church history, even though it was considered
to be a crusade at the time. Galileo's forced recantation is now
seen as being an unnecessary blunder by Pope Urban VII and his
advisors. It did not achieve its goal; however, even the Vatican
did not attempt to prevent people from grinding telescope and
other lenses, and astronomers continued to look at the stars.
Today it is possible to make reasonably efficient and not very
dangerous psychedelics more easily and more inconspicuously than
it was to grind even moderately efficient lenses in the seventeenth
century. All the evidence is that it is becoming steadily easier.
Knowledge about the use and abuse of psychedelics is, as this
book shows, widespread and easily available. Curiosity and love
of adventure alone would encourage people to seek and find these
substances even where there are not a number of very serious reasons
for doing so. These facts must be recognized if those in authority
plan to prevent the growing use of psychedelics.
Of course, if we decide that we cannot prevent them being made
and used, then it would be folly to pretend that we can, and wholly
different policies must be devised to ensure that safer substances
and methods are developed, combined with suitable customs and
traditions for preventing harm to society and its members. The
worst possible solution would be to prohibit these substances
with a ban that did not work.
As one might have predicted, things have moved more quickly than
my old friend, Aldous Huxley, and my many professional colleagues
expected a decade or so ago. Nevertheless, he and we have warned
repeatedly that official unwillingness to face what was likely
to happen must lead to muddle and unnecessary misfortune. At present,
hastily passed laws have much restricted the professional use
of these powerful and extraordinary tools to the chagrin of many
long-established investigators. No such inhibitions deter the
psychedelic generation who are continuing their explorations,
learning, sometimes painfully from their mistakes, and seeming
determined to continue to follow up the many remarkable possibilities
which the authors of this book have vividly discussed.
As we grow older many of us become unwilling to believe that we
live in a strange and dangerous world in which the very air which
we breathe becomes lethal at times. We long for something safer,
more predictable, and cosier. Dr. Roger Revelle, Director of the
Harvard Center for Population Studies, said recently, "Once
men start down the technological road, they cannot turn back,
once having bitten into the fruit of the tree of knowledge, there
can be no return to the Eden of innocence and ignorance."
This certainly applies to psychedelics, and some of the shrill
denunciations of these substances and those who employ them are
likely to encourage defiance and rasher use, rather than to foster
caution and good sense. It seems that there are many of us who
wish to applaud the young for being adventurous, non-conformist
and tackling the great problems of our era, but we expect them
always and only to adopt means for solving these problems which
are congenial to us and of which we approve. Yet the very existence
of some of our greater social conundrums is evidence of a need
for wholly new approaches. It is asking too much that we should
expect people to be original and creative, yet conformist and
unable to dispense with our prejudices and preconceptions.
I do not doubt that this book will be widely read, but I hope
that its readers will not be confined to those who already believe
in its authors' opinions. The "nay-sayers," the critics,
the cynics, the uncommitted and the undecided have a duty to consider
the propositions put forward here, for one way or another they
are likely to affect our lives and those of our children and grandchildren
after them. The consequences of an extra-legal psychedelic movement,
a maquis, employing these psycho-pharmacological weapons, would
be wholly different from the same substances used within the social
and legal framework. We must take these matters seriously because
this book shows, if it shows nothing else, that members of the
psychedelic movement are in earnest and are unlikely to be permanently
deterred by either threats or blandishments. It is not even certain
that they will "think differently when they are older and
more mature." Such evidence as we have does not support this
reassuring platitude.
There are rarely simple answers to great social problems. This
book gives one an opportunity to ponder possible answers to this
one and to seek wise and feasible conclusions upon which decisions
can be reached for taking actions which do as little harm as possible.
Such modest goals are not dramatic and do not appeal greatly to
those who are already for or against the psychedelic movement.
Nevertheless, the history of great differences of opinion shows
that very often when the dust of conflict is settled, the damage
assessed and the dead and wounded counted, there are far fewer
complete victories or utter defeats in the realm of new ideas
than is commonly supposed.
As passions rise, those who stand "hat-a-hand" between
the contenders seem to be lacking in zeal, integrity, and courage,
for compromise, one of the most biological of human virtues, is
like nature itself, curiously incomplete. With only a little imagination,
some common sense, much patience and a great deal of sustained
good will, these instruments can be put to many uses for the general
benefit of mankind, provided only that those who are using them
and intend to use them in the future, and those who wish to limit
and restrict their use respect each other's sincerity and negotiate
as equals. We do not know whether this will happen. Those who
are already convinced of the rightness of their cause rarely stop
to think. I hope that on this occasion at least some of them will
remember that those who will not learn from history are often
fated to repeat it.
HUMPHRY OSMOND, MRCP, DPM
DIRECTOR Bureau of Research in Neurology and Psychiatry
New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute Princeton, New Jersey 1967
