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_Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond_, very first published in 1985 and revised in 1992, by journalist and author Martin A. Lee and author Bruce Shlain is a fascinating and wild account of the history of LSD in America. The implications of this journalistic history are startling in that they show the role of the CIA and the government of the United States in creating much of the LSD culture that grew up during the Sixties. I should add that one advantage of this book over Martin A. Lee's other book _The Beast Reawakens_ (1999) is that Lee is able to keep a cool head and write about LSD without lapsing into paroxysms of hysteria as he does when writing about Nazis. This is very fortunate for the reader because it spares us from having to sort through a lot of irrelevant nonsense. The history of LSD in the United States is a fascinating one, and the creation of a drug culture in the Sixties as well as the links between this culture and the hippies, the New Left, and the anti-war movement offers much interesting material. But, lurking behind the whole thing is the nefarious role of the CIA and the government, originally in testing out these drugs in a series of unethical experiments and later in possibly manipulating the very culture that arose from their newfound prevalence itself. This is a fascinating story and one that should be told particularly in light of the complex relationship that has always existed between the drug culture and the state.
The book begins with an Introduction entitled "Whose Worlds Are These?" by Andrei Codrescu. This Introduction lays out the use of LSD as presented in the book both through the experiments of the CIA and as promoted by such figures as Captain Al Hubbard, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Owsley, Art Kleps, Ken Kesey, and others. The book proper begins with a Prologue in which the authors explain the discovery of LSD-25 by Dr. Albert Hoffman, who was later to give an important speech to psychedelic followers in 1977. This Prologue also details the role of the CIA and through such projects as Operation MK-ULTRA engaged in unethical experimentation with LSD on unwitting participants. The very first section of this book is entitled "The Roots of Psychedelia". The very first chapter of this section is entitled "In the Beginning There Was Madness . . . " and details the role of the CIA in the unethical use of LSD and later in promoting the LSD subculture. This chapter includes sections entitled "The Truth Seekers", "Enter LSD", "Laboratories of the State", "Midnight Climax", and "The Hallucination Battlefield". This chapter details the role of the CIA in experimenting with LSD through projects such as Operation MK-ULTRA, mentioning such figures as William "Wild Bill" Donovan, Allen Dulles, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, and the hijinx of George Hunter White. The authors explain how originally the model for LSD was that the drug mimicked psychosis, but that eventually this model was to change. The CIA saw the drug as potentially useful for interrogations and engaged in many experiments on unwitting participants with the drug. The second chapter is entitled "Psychedelic Pioneers" and details how the drug was moved from the CIA clandestine operations to the counter-culture. This chapter includes sections entitled "The Original Captain Trips", "Healing Acid", and "Psychosis or Gnosis?". In particular, this chapter explains how government funded psychiatrists and psychologists came to believe that LSD may have some therapeutic potential thus abandoning the original "psychotomimetic" theory of LSD. The government engaged in much research on this drug, and by taking place in government sponsored experiments as participants, many prominent counter-cultural figures became involved with the drug (as a case in point there is the case of the poet Allen Ginsberg). Some figures came to see LSD as revealing deep secrets and as having a profound effect on human nature leading to the popular perspective that LSD offered a form of "gnosis" thus replacing the government's "psychosis" perspective. The third chapter is entitled "Under the Mushroom, Over the Rainbow" and explains how prominent individuals including Harvard professors (such as Timothy Leary and investment banker R. Gordon Wasson) became involved in the drug counter-culture. This chapter includes sections entitled "Manna From Harvard", "Chemical Crusaders", and "The Crackdown" - showing how the government eventually sought to crack down on LSD use eventually leading to its illegality. The fourth chapter is entitled "Preaching LSD" and discusses for example the hijinx of Timothy Leary (who some maintained was a CIA agent). This chapter includes sections entitled "High Surrealism", "The Psychedelic Manual", and "The Hard Sell". The fifth chapter of this book is entitled "The All-American Trip", detailing the rise of the Merry Pranksters who followed Ken Kesey. This chapter includes sections entitled "The Great Freak Forward" and "Acid and the New Left" - showing the problematic relationship between the LSD counter-culture and the political New Left. The second part of this book is entitled "Acid for the Masses". This part begins with the sixth chapter of this book entitled "From Hip to Hippie" showing how the LSD counter-culture created the emerging phenomenon of the hippie. This chapter includes sections entitled "Before the Deluge", "Politics of the Bummer", and "The First Human Be-In", in particular this chapter discusses how the "bad trip" came to emerge from a cultural matrix in which LSD was regarded as harmful by the establishment but as liberating by the counter-culture, virtually assuring that many would experiment with the drug themselves to find out for themselves the effects. The seventh chapter is entitled "The Capital of Forever" and includes sections entitled "Stone Free" and "The Great Summer Dropout". The eighth chapter is entitled "Peaking in Babylon" and includes sections entitled "A Gathering Storm", "Magical Politics", and "Gotta Revolution". In particular, this chapter shows how the LSD culture emerged in Haight-Ashbury and how it interacted with such other phenomena as the political New Left and the anti-war movement emerging as opposition to the Vietnam War, mentioning such things as the Diggers and the Yippies. In particular, many on the politically reductionistic New Left saw the whole hippie phenomena as an endeavor to drop out of politics entirely and thus regarded it negatively. Further, many hippies became easy prey for dangerous psychopaths such as Charles Manson. The ninth chapter is entitled "Season of the Witch" and includes sections entitled "Armed Love", "The Acid Brotherhood", and "Bad Moon Rising". This chapter explains the relationships between the New Left and the anti-war movement forming as a force of opposition to the Vietnam War as well as the continuing and complicated relationship with the hippie culture and the phenomenon of folk music. The tenth chapter is entitled "What a Field Day for the Heat" and includes sections entitled "Prisoner of LSD", "A Bitter Pill", and "The Great LSD Conspiracy", in particular, this chapter maintains that behind the scenes the CIA may have been manipulating the drug counter-culture and may even have seen the Haight-Ashbury district as a social laboratory. The book ends with a Postscript entitled "Acid and After" and an Afterword.
This book offers an interesting study on the Sixties and the drug culture focusing around LSD that emerged out of this decade. In particular, after reading the book, it becomes clear that the hippie movement was easily manipulated by psychopaths such as Charles Manson and larger forces out of their control such as the CIA. Further, the naïve belief of many that LSD would lead to world peace turns out to have only been a passing phase. Another problematic raised by this book is the relationship between LSD use and New Left politics. Unfortunately, the New Left sought to reduce everything to politics so failed to appreciate any sort of development that lay outside of their own political sphere. This book offers a good examination of a troubled era and some of the hopes of people in that era that were ultimately manipulated by larger forces.
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Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2NWFN612DXX3 My video review of Acid Dream. Really great bookAcid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond. ***** 5 stars =)
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Yhis book belongs on the bookshelf of all those interested in the early days of psychedelic research and it's social ramifications. One word for it: Excellent!
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Can't think of a more informative and interesting way of describing this period of time. I loved this book. Big thanks to the authors!
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This book is perfect - It offered everything I was hoping for when I very first purchased it. It covered from the end of the 50's and the Beat generation and how their influence lead into the hippie generation, and it ended in the early 70's tying in the beginning of rock and punk. It is a true spectrum of the 1960's counterculture generation.
It's a large book but its facinating to learn about the history and the culture. Like previous reviewers said, it really ties up everyhting and clearly shows the correalation between the drug counterculture and the govn't & society during that time period. I was born in the 80's and this book really showed me alot about the 60's counterculture and the attitudes towards drug use and young people during that time. I can see alot of correalations between that era with Vietnam as the war that they were protesting versus todays war in Iraq and the amount of US citizens that are against it.
The author also goes into government policies at the time and conspiricys and covert CIA and classified documents. I was amazed by the actions of the CIA and thetesting of LSD on unsuspecting American citizens. It is like the stuff movies are made of but it really happened! Truly and amazing and interesting book - I could not put it down. I reccomend it to everyone, regardless of your view on LSD or drug counterculture - a true wealth of information on 1960's America.