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Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties & Beyond
Librarian's Note: this is an alternate cover edition - ISBN 10: 0802130623
Acid Dreams is the complete social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the sixties. Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain's exhaustively researched and astonishing account-part of it gleaned from secret government files-tells how the CIA became obsessed with LSD as an espionage weapon during the early l950s and launched a massive covert research program, in which countless unwitting citizens were used as guinea pigs. Though the CIA was intent on keeping the drug to itself, it ultimately couldn't prevent it from spreading into the popular culture; here LSD had a profound impact and helped spawn a political and social upheaval that changed the face of America. From the clandestine operations of the government to the escapades of Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, Allen Ginsberg, and many others, Acid Dreams provides an important and entertaining account that goes to the heart of a turbulent period in our history. "Engaging throughout . . . at once entertaining and disturbing.
Acid Dreams is the complete social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the sixties. Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain's exhaustively researched and astonishing account-part of it gleaned from secret government files-tells how the CIA became obsessed with LSD as an espionage weapon during the early l950s and launched a massive covert research program, in which countless unwitting citizens were used as guinea pigs. Though the CIA was intent on keeping the drug to itself, it ultimately couldn't prevent it from spreading into the popular culture; here LSD had a profound impact and helped spawn a political and social upheaval that changed the face of America. From the clandestine operations of the government to the escapades of Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, Allen Ginsberg, and many others, Acid Dreams provides an important and entertaining account that goes to the heart of a turbulent period in our history. "Engaging throughout . . . at once entertaining and disturbing.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 183 reviews
April 22, 2010
I got this as a gift from someone whose taste I trust implicitly, so read it despite not having had much interest in LSD since high school (when, frankly, I had a fairly serious and highly personal interest in the compound).
It's a beautifully written account of the role LSD played in the social and psychological upheavals of the '60s. The early chapters on the CIA's early experiments with acid as a mind-control tool are especially interesting.
The authors' historical research chops are impressive, but their attempts to be objective about LSD are shaky at best. They're clearly in the pro-acid, anti-establishment camp, and their hippie advocacy puts something of a damper on an otherwise great investigation of the heretofore underexamined link between this particular drug and the politics of liberation.
On the whole, a very good read. Certainly recommended for anyone who cares about LSD in anything more than a casual way (which set, for better or worse, does not include me).
It's a beautifully written account of the role LSD played in the social and psychological upheavals of the '60s. The early chapters on the CIA's early experiments with acid as a mind-control tool are especially interesting.
The authors' historical research chops are impressive, but their attempts to be objective about LSD are shaky at best. They're clearly in the pro-acid, anti-establishment camp, and their hippie advocacy puts something of a damper on an otherwise great investigation of the heretofore underexamined link between this particular drug and the politics of liberation.
On the whole, a very good read. Certainly recommended for anyone who cares about LSD in anything more than a casual way (which set, for better or worse, does not include me).
May 16, 2017
This book was somewhat interesting but didn’t really live up to its subtitle—“The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond.” It conveys something…ambitious. And I think that maybe that is this book’s problem—in the end, it just tries to cover too much ground.
I felt like the book was way too focused on Tim Leary, and the problem is that he’s just not that interesting of a guy. Or if he is, this book didn’t do much to get that across. For all the ink spilled about him here, I didn’t even really come away with an idea of what he’s actually like, or even a biographical sketch—just some in depth information about a few episodes in his life which I found, frankly, boring. Okay, so he got a new girlfriend and drove around Europe. And…? What’s this got to do with LSD, the CIA, or the sixties?
I think I was just expecting too much. Most of the information was not revelatory to me, and what’s more, the writing style did not really appeal to me. It would have been fine if the authors had been talking about things I cared about more, or found more relevant to their subtitle and premise, but as it was…not so much. They did touch on some important things, though, like how the CIA smuggled heroin inside corpses of dead soldiers coming back from Vietnam, and the class politics of LSD usage.
Also, the authors talk around the sexism and homophobia in the drug subculture but never call it that. They quote Leary as saying that “LSD is a cure to homosexuality,” while never pointing out that, um, homosexuality doesn’t need to be “cured.” The authors write, “a man with bisexual proclivities, Stark used drugs and sex to manipulate people,” as if oh yeah, being bisexual obviously goes hand in hand with manipulating people with drugs and sex! They relate stories of people spiking drinks with LSD and never say that it was problematic or really frown on it, despite the fact that was totally non-consensual and kind of a messed up thing to do. It’s all “oh haha so funny wasn’t that great” instead of like, wow, some people might not have appreciated that and everyone should decide for themselves whether they want to do drugs or not. The authors quote people saying things like “fuck your woman until she can’t stand up…total freedom for everyone!” (except for the woman who may or may not have agreed to that treatment, I guess) and that one of the “three inevitable goals” of an LSD trip is “making love to a woman.” Oh right then. What if you’re a woman, like half the population? Does it also involve making love to a woman—isn’t that homosexuality, something that needs to be cured?! I mean this kind of talk is completely unsurprising and par for the course for the 1960s, but I would have hoped that from this vantage point the authors could have at least paid lip service to how these points of view are sexist, making women objects instead of agents. Then again the authors are two straight old white dudes whose “politics” are probably of the “turn out, tune in, drop out” variety… still, disappointing.
Ultimately I feel like this is an interesting subject but we only got glimpses of that in this book. It wasn’t not horrible but I feel fairly confident that there are better books on this subject out there.
I felt like the book was way too focused on Tim Leary, and the problem is that he’s just not that interesting of a guy. Or if he is, this book didn’t do much to get that across. For all the ink spilled about him here, I didn’t even really come away with an idea of what he’s actually like, or even a biographical sketch—just some in depth information about a few episodes in his life which I found, frankly, boring. Okay, so he got a new girlfriend and drove around Europe. And…? What’s this got to do with LSD, the CIA, or the sixties?
I think I was just expecting too much. Most of the information was not revelatory to me, and what’s more, the writing style did not really appeal to me. It would have been fine if the authors had been talking about things I cared about more, or found more relevant to their subtitle and premise, but as it was…not so much. They did touch on some important things, though, like how the CIA smuggled heroin inside corpses of dead soldiers coming back from Vietnam, and the class politics of LSD usage.
Also, the authors talk around the sexism and homophobia in the drug subculture but never call it that. They quote Leary as saying that “LSD is a cure to homosexuality,” while never pointing out that, um, homosexuality doesn’t need to be “cured.” The authors write, “a man with bisexual proclivities, Stark used drugs and sex to manipulate people,” as if oh yeah, being bisexual obviously goes hand in hand with manipulating people with drugs and sex! They relate stories of people spiking drinks with LSD and never say that it was problematic or really frown on it, despite the fact that was totally non-consensual and kind of a messed up thing to do. It’s all “oh haha so funny wasn’t that great” instead of like, wow, some people might not have appreciated that and everyone should decide for themselves whether they want to do drugs or not. The authors quote people saying things like “fuck your woman until she can’t stand up…total freedom for everyone!” (except for the woman who may or may not have agreed to that treatment, I guess) and that one of the “three inevitable goals” of an LSD trip is “making love to a woman.” Oh right then. What if you’re a woman, like half the population? Does it also involve making love to a woman—isn’t that homosexuality, something that needs to be cured?! I mean this kind of talk is completely unsurprising and par for the course for the 1960s, but I would have hoped that from this vantage point the authors could have at least paid lip service to how these points of view are sexist, making women objects instead of agents. Then again the authors are two straight old white dudes whose “politics” are probably of the “turn out, tune in, drop out” variety… still, disappointing.
Ultimately I feel like this is an interesting subject but we only got glimpses of that in this book. It wasn’t not horrible but I feel fairly confident that there are better books on this subject out there.
August 27, 2017
The history of LSD is about as wild as you'd expect, ranging from the first CIA-spearheaded acid tests of the 1950s to the violent radicalism of the mysterious Weathermen fifteen years later to the quiet bust of enigmatic international kingpin Ronald Stark in the 1980s. This book itself is a trip (though admittedly a bit outdated now), examining--as the subtitle promises--not only LSD the drug but also LSD the culture, LSD the movement, LSD the menace. It's a surprisingly lucid narrative and while it's not entirely objective (it's impossible not to detect a wistful fondness for old Lucy in the Sky in Lee and Shlain's rhetoric) it's commendably comprehensive. So if you have a hankering for some psychedelic non-fiction, tune in, turn on, and drop by the bookstore.
July 4, 2023
I read this book for a class I took at PSU. Such a great book. Sheds light on all the lies and chaos of the 1960s. Great reference book for how LSD changed America. One of my favorite books. Still one of the best books I've ever read.
December 13, 2023
Making sense of what happens when you take LSD gets weird due to its subjective and temporal dependency (ie. the 'set' and the 'setting') . Describing what happens historically when many people ingest LSD must therefore be even more baffling and complex a story than just "what does it mean to 'trip', man". Have you ever tried something like LSD? Combine that with any of the CIA/JFK/LBJ/ABC/FBI/DEA/NSA/acronyms throughout the story and there is always more and never less mysteries hinting at even more complex secret orders or series of events. Okay, where to start?
First off, domestic and foreign chemical warfare is probably as shady as the entire espionage business itself; if your sources like CIA say they just deleted everything they did about it, you've either no material or rampant speculation. What this book speculates is that there is a pattern of substances that are directed from pharmaceutical companies by different agencies like literal government agencies or some sub-culture / group like spies or operatives to different parts of American/Anglo society at different times. Sounds awfully like drug use and probation business, but given the rather mythical impact of the dreaded LSD on psyche at very low doses, the military/intelligence interest could very well have been from the start the only serious source of funding for something like LSD research. Something like Nazi Germany, infamously gifted in the chemical and warfare businesses, could cook up. Indeed, if mescaline (a "psychedelic" amphetamine, chemically relative to MD(M)A) was being studied by Nazi scientists at Dachau, later recruited through Operation Paperclip, it might give a historical explanation to why and what OSS/CIA did with LSD during the Cold War. "Intelligence" business then.
So, intelligence business or espionage or spying probably involves the withholding and gathering of information. Since deception/misinformation is a key tool in keeping your secrets business, I wouldn't put it past something like CIA to publish this kind of a book and make the whole business seem way, way, WAY more inconceivable. Intelligence business is sometimes shitposting business. The book quotes John Lennon (1980) claiming the CIA created LSD, although the reverse could be said if it was indeed OSS intelligence officers who first "researched" the drug on themselves, among other things.
Third trippy aspect of the book were the wacky (sometimes borderline cartoonish) and seemingly omnipotent/omnipresent characters like cheery "Captain 'Cappy' Alfred M. Hubbard": a double-agent supreme with connections to uranium AND oil industries plus the quest to disperse LSD at parties to high-ranking politicians out of his sheer good will... When a person says "I'm a double-agent", he's probably lying, or not doing a very good job of double-agenting. Either way, true or not, the person is doubly suspicious as a source for their motives for gallant political decisions or, err, "eccentric stunts". A historic parallel could probably be drawn to Aleister Crowley because of the whole espionage business, drugs and esoteric spiritualism, but that would probably only add to the incoherence.
Thus, a shady 4/5 due to the rather dubious nature of numerous sources but perhaps it can be no other way. Talking about tripping is just as analytically elusive and insane like talking about tripping historically: you'll get international synchronicity and intelligence agencies and conspiracies that defy one's previous beliefs about the world nonstop.
Something to think about: schedule 1 drugs (no medical use) include most 'psychedelic' drugs, yet these same mythical and infamous [sugar cubes] that contained who knows what ABC123 compounds altered people's minds every day, and from what I've been told, this was completely unregulated business during the lifetime of some of us. The market has become a tad more regulated, it seems. If a Swiss chemist or Czech dissident could carry this drug en masse directly to a nation's cultural, academic, military, etc. circles, would an intelligence agency do the same? Given that hallucinogens tend to "open the psyche" for suggestion, inspection and/or manipulation, this might open a chemical way of gathering intelligence and influence. Whatever happened to Vaclav Havel and Czechoslovakia in the 60s? Gives a whole new spin to the "speech-inducing drug" that the CIA was originally, according to the book, looking for in their various projects or operations - ranging from loony (intelligence officers on acid) to criminally insane (let's secretly administer acid to intelligence officers who give acid to random people and "observe").
More like Acid Fever Dreams am I right? This book could be onto something - or it could be part of MK-ULTRA or The Naked Lunch. This review acts as testament to the weirdness of the subject matter.
First off, domestic and foreign chemical warfare is probably as shady as the entire espionage business itself; if your sources like CIA say they just deleted everything they did about it, you've either no material or rampant speculation. What this book speculates is that there is a pattern of substances that are directed from pharmaceutical companies by different agencies like literal government agencies or some sub-culture / group like spies or operatives to different parts of American/Anglo society at different times. Sounds awfully like drug use and probation business, but given the rather mythical impact of the dreaded LSD on psyche at very low doses, the military/intelligence interest could very well have been from the start the only serious source of funding for something like LSD research. Something like Nazi Germany, infamously gifted in the chemical and warfare businesses, could cook up. Indeed, if mescaline (a "psychedelic" amphetamine, chemically relative to MD(M)A) was being studied by Nazi scientists at Dachau, later recruited through Operation Paperclip, it might give a historical explanation to why and what OSS/CIA did with LSD during the Cold War. "Intelligence" business then.
So, intelligence business or espionage or spying probably involves the withholding and gathering of information. Since deception/misinformation is a key tool in keeping your secrets business, I wouldn't put it past something like CIA to publish this kind of a book and make the whole business seem way, way, WAY more inconceivable. Intelligence business is sometimes shitposting business. The book quotes John Lennon (1980) claiming the CIA created LSD, although the reverse could be said if it was indeed OSS intelligence officers who first "researched" the drug on themselves, among other things.
Third trippy aspect of the book were the wacky (sometimes borderline cartoonish) and seemingly omnipotent/omnipresent characters like cheery "Captain 'Cappy' Alfred M. Hubbard": a double-agent supreme with connections to uranium AND oil industries plus the quest to disperse LSD at parties to high-ranking politicians out of his sheer good will... When a person says "I'm a double-agent", he's probably lying, or not doing a very good job of double-agenting. Either way, true or not, the person is doubly suspicious as a source for their motives for gallant political decisions or, err, "eccentric stunts". A historic parallel could probably be drawn to Aleister Crowley because of the whole espionage business, drugs and esoteric spiritualism, but that would probably only add to the incoherence.
Thus, a shady 4/5 due to the rather dubious nature of numerous sources but perhaps it can be no other way. Talking about tripping is just as analytically elusive and insane like talking about tripping historically: you'll get international synchronicity and intelligence agencies and conspiracies that defy one's previous beliefs about the world nonstop.
Something to think about: schedule 1 drugs (no medical use) include most 'psychedelic' drugs, yet these same mythical and infamous [sugar cubes] that contained who knows what ABC123 compounds altered people's minds every day, and from what I've been told, this was completely unregulated business during the lifetime of some of us. The market has become a tad more regulated, it seems. If a Swiss chemist or Czech dissident could carry this drug en masse directly to a nation's cultural, academic, military, etc. circles, would an intelligence agency do the same? Given that hallucinogens tend to "open the psyche" for suggestion, inspection and/or manipulation, this might open a chemical way of gathering intelligence and influence. Whatever happened to Vaclav Havel and Czechoslovakia in the 60s? Gives a whole new spin to the "speech-inducing drug" that the CIA was originally, according to the book, looking for in their various projects or operations - ranging from loony (intelligence officers on acid) to criminally insane (let's secretly administer acid to intelligence officers who give acid to random people and "observe").
More like Acid Fever Dreams am I right? This book could be onto something - or it could be part of MK-ULTRA or The Naked Lunch. This review acts as testament to the weirdness of the subject matter.
July 31, 2011
These gentlemen did their homework and I am proud to have not only read their research but purchased new copies of their book more than 20x to send out to those who were led to believe the media lies of the 60s. Their documentation is perfect and succinct.
The 60s movement could have worked. I know this because I have implemented it often on small scale settings; frightening the knickers off of those in charge. Now the methods remain as my legacy in 4 novels to build a more perfect union. Good luck!
Hear the Calliope: A sentimental journey on the EarthRide (Vol 1) The 60s Indian style http://newbookjournal.com/2011/07/hea...
Legacy: Let the games begin (Vol 2) Haudenosaunee overthrow http://newbookjournal.com/2011/07/leg...
Reason Void of Reason: Spirituality honeymoon style (Vol 3) Iroquois erotica http://newbookjournal.com/2011/07/rea...
BREATHE:NOUMENON (Vol 4) REVENGE; the only satisfying song http://newbookjournal.com/2011/07/bre...
The 60s movement could have worked. I know this because I have implemented it often on small scale settings; frightening the knickers off of those in charge. Now the methods remain as my legacy in 4 novels to build a more perfect union. Good luck!
Hear the Calliope: A sentimental journey on the EarthRide (Vol 1) The 60s Indian style http://newbookjournal.com/2011/07/hea...
Legacy: Let the games begin (Vol 2) Haudenosaunee overthrow http://newbookjournal.com/2011/07/leg...
Reason Void of Reason: Spirituality honeymoon style (Vol 3) Iroquois erotica http://newbookjournal.com/2011/07/rea...
BREATHE:NOUMENON (Vol 4) REVENGE; the only satisfying song http://newbookjournal.com/2011/07/bre...
July 18, 2012
The subtitle of this book says "The complete social history of LSD: the CIA, the sixties, and beyond." In a nutshell, this is an entirely accurate summary. Lee and Shlain trace the strange journey of LSD from an experimental military chemical, to a psychiatric wonderdrug, to a driving forces of the 60s counter-culture, and possibly its demise. This book is more journalistic than academic, but it is deeply sourced and informed. The authors are pro-psychedelic but fully recognize the limits of chemical enlightenment, and how the flashbulb cosmic glow of LSD inspired a revolution that blossomed in the headlines but failed to hold the streets. The 60s were a trip, but all trips end. Especially those helped along by agent provocateurs of the CIA and FBI.
At least we can still dream of better world, some times.
At least we can still dream of better world, some times.
January 16, 2022
I blame the CIA for Evolve music festival
February 28, 2020
This is a microhistory of America’s interaction with LSD. LSD, commonly called “acid” from its full name Lysergic acid diethylamide, is a chemical substance that was originally derived from ergot fungus, and which causes distortion of perception, an altered state of consciousness, and – in some cases – hallucinations. When I say it’s American history, that’s an oversimplification because many of the events described happen overseas (e.g. LSD’s own story begins in Switzerland with chemist, Albert Hofmann, after all,) but most of the central players are American and the book’s two primary lines of investigation are both centered on America. One of these lines involves the covert research program designed to discover if acid could be used as a truth serum, a mind-control agent, an incapacitant, or otherwise to the benefit of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other covert agencies. The other line is about the role that LSD played in the countercultural revolution of the 60’s and early 70’s.
The book’s flow begins more heavily focused on the covert programs, then gets into what was happening with the youth in the 60’s, and toward the end discusses where the proceeding lines seem to run together with individuals like Ronald Stark who was a drug smuggler involved with an organization called the “Brotherhood for Eternal Love” but who many suspected of having ties with (if not direct employment by) the CIA – and not entirely without reason (though not with sufficient evidence that firm conclusions are drawn in the book.) I should mention that this just the general flow. The book has a chronological flow with topical segments within, so it’s not like it deals with these issues entirely independently.
If the covert research program had been carried out by competent scientists using accepted methodologies, then the discussion of these programs would probably be at best moderately interesting. (To be fair, some competent science may have occurred, but it’s so unnoteworthy compared to the wild and pranksterish that it draws no attention.) What the reader learns, however, is fascinating because it involves clean-cut and seemingly respectable g-men spiking unwitting subjects with acid like a teenage prankster-idiot might do – but without the “excuse” of being immature, stoned, and having not yet learned to behave responsibly. Perhaps the most bizarre program was Operation Midnight Climax, in which CIA agents hired prostitutes in San Francisco to spike the drinks of their johns so they could find out if the customers got loose-lipped. A CIA agent would watch on, dutifully making pipe-cleaner twists of the various sexual positions performed by the sex-worker and her customer.
The civilian history follows a path from Hofmann’s discovery at Sandoz Laboratories (now owned by Novartis) through the early years of Al Hubbard (the so-called “Johnny Appleseed of LSD”) through the trials of Timothy Leary to others who figured in the heyday of LSD such as Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, and, finally, to the crackdown on psychedelics and the illicit smuggling rings that resulted. There is fascinating coverage of how Federal law enforcement tried to stifle production and smuggling of LSD, particularly with respect to training agents to infiltrate hippie organizations.
This book originally came out in the 80’s (though I read the 2007 edition) and while it has a post-script that discuss a bit of a resurgence that occurred beyond the 70’s, it doesn’t touch upon a more recent thaw in attitudes toward psychedelics as they’ve begun to be legalized (or sought out where they are legal) or the surge in popularity of “micro-dosing.” As of this book’s end all psychedelics remained Schedule I – a label which states that they have no legitimate medicinal value (which cooler heads have realized is blatantly wrong given substantial evidence that psychedelics can be of benefit in conquering addiction, in managing depression, and otherwise.)
I found this book intriguing. It’s a must-read if you are interested in any of the following topics: the 60’s counter-culture revolution, mind-control programs, or how public policy gets hijacked by history.
The book’s flow begins more heavily focused on the covert programs, then gets into what was happening with the youth in the 60’s, and toward the end discusses where the proceeding lines seem to run together with individuals like Ronald Stark who was a drug smuggler involved with an organization called the “Brotherhood for Eternal Love” but who many suspected of having ties with (if not direct employment by) the CIA – and not entirely without reason (though not with sufficient evidence that firm conclusions are drawn in the book.) I should mention that this just the general flow. The book has a chronological flow with topical segments within, so it’s not like it deals with these issues entirely independently.
If the covert research program had been carried out by competent scientists using accepted methodologies, then the discussion of these programs would probably be at best moderately interesting. (To be fair, some competent science may have occurred, but it’s so unnoteworthy compared to the wild and pranksterish that it draws no attention.) What the reader learns, however, is fascinating because it involves clean-cut and seemingly respectable g-men spiking unwitting subjects with acid like a teenage prankster-idiot might do – but without the “excuse” of being immature, stoned, and having not yet learned to behave responsibly. Perhaps the most bizarre program was Operation Midnight Climax, in which CIA agents hired prostitutes in San Francisco to spike the drinks of their johns so they could find out if the customers got loose-lipped. A CIA agent would watch on, dutifully making pipe-cleaner twists of the various sexual positions performed by the sex-worker and her customer.
The civilian history follows a path from Hofmann’s discovery at Sandoz Laboratories (now owned by Novartis) through the early years of Al Hubbard (the so-called “Johnny Appleseed of LSD”) through the trials of Timothy Leary to others who figured in the heyday of LSD such as Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, and, finally, to the crackdown on psychedelics and the illicit smuggling rings that resulted. There is fascinating coverage of how Federal law enforcement tried to stifle production and smuggling of LSD, particularly with respect to training agents to infiltrate hippie organizations.
This book originally came out in the 80’s (though I read the 2007 edition) and while it has a post-script that discuss a bit of a resurgence that occurred beyond the 70’s, it doesn’t touch upon a more recent thaw in attitudes toward psychedelics as they’ve begun to be legalized (or sought out where they are legal) or the surge in popularity of “micro-dosing.” As of this book’s end all psychedelics remained Schedule I – a label which states that they have no legitimate medicinal value (which cooler heads have realized is blatantly wrong given substantial evidence that psychedelics can be of benefit in conquering addiction, in managing depression, and otherwise.)
I found this book intriguing. It’s a must-read if you are interested in any of the following topics: the 60’s counter-culture revolution, mind-control programs, or how public policy gets hijacked by history.
October 7, 2025
Acid
Facts and history about MK Ultra, CIA, and the invention of acid. TD = Truth Drug. CHATTER = information gathering arm. Marijuana was referred to as sugar by the CIA; they would sprinkle it into their concoctions. Project Paperclip to gain info from nazi scientists. Project bluebird was approved and given a wide budget then Artichoke. CIA spread cocaine and heroin, mostly under the guise of trying to gain data.
LSD was the only drug that showed aid in interrogation. The FDA was aiding the CIA in obtaining acid before they made it themselves. A scientist named Olsen killed himself due to his brain being fried from LSD. A coverup ensued. The staff dosed each other and it was a shit show. There were some hints that the Kennedy assassination was affiliated with the CIA's covert operations being discovered. Edgewood Arsenal human experiments. “The Beats” went against the cultural norm and were pro acid.
After all the BS with the CIA doing illegal shenanigans and the FDA, the public wanted the drug made legal or studied, but alas. Haight in San Fran, 1967, hippy meet up. Kids were disillusioned with their futures and the future of America, then the Beatles came to town. Then Manson in 1969. The acid eaters were being taken advantage of (rape, brainwashing, high dosing) and many new drugs were simply being given away for free. The CIA was linked to keeping watch over the hippy camp as a guinea pig farm. It was about sending a message, refocusing hate, and controlling the narrative about politics at the time.
“The Diggers” were trying to help others, be anti-government, called into question class and consumerism, but were critiqued as being theatrical, especially since they also gave away drugs. We move on into Vietnam and soldiers doing drugs, to the CIA having a financial institution known as Castle Bank, which provided shielding for criminal activities and an intelligence front, covered for the mob, and the hidden war in Cuba. Nixon planned to destroy groups from the inside by providing drugs and weapons. The Beatles broke up and weed was blocked at the border, just as heroin was made in excess.
Leary (acid taker and counter movement leader) escapes prison and the book devotes a lot of time to this fact. Every truth thrives on its denial, and the proceedings led to even a CIA investigation to which they denied. In recent years more evidence has come forward and more victims as well. Drugs and pleasure are still prevalent in a world where supply brings demand and vice versa.
I found it captivating and long but it did take interest in some topics and glossed over others, I assume to preserve fact and not conspiracy.
---
“The language of God is the DNA code.”
“Mundane objects such as love beads and peace insignias were tokens of self-imposed exile that communicated a forbidden identity; they warned the straight world of a threat and issued an oblique challenge to consumer society. But this meaning was not readily apparent to the multitudes who turned on for the first time after the be-in. Before long, teenyboppers and “plastic hippies” from the suburbs started frequenting the hip hot-spots for some weekend entertainment.”
“Those who responded to that melody were plunged willy-nilly into an abstract vortex of soul-searching, escaping, and “discovering thyself.” Some were intensely sincere, and their quest very often was lonely and confusing.”
“Peace would rule the planet and love would steer the stars.”
“To think that your personal consciousness can overcome historical forces is a mistake.”
Facts and history about MK Ultra, CIA, and the invention of acid. TD = Truth Drug. CHATTER = information gathering arm. Marijuana was referred to as sugar by the CIA; they would sprinkle it into their concoctions. Project Paperclip to gain info from nazi scientists. Project bluebird was approved and given a wide budget then Artichoke. CIA spread cocaine and heroin, mostly under the guise of trying to gain data.
LSD was the only drug that showed aid in interrogation. The FDA was aiding the CIA in obtaining acid before they made it themselves. A scientist named Olsen killed himself due to his brain being fried from LSD. A coverup ensued. The staff dosed each other and it was a shit show. There were some hints that the Kennedy assassination was affiliated with the CIA's covert operations being discovered. Edgewood Arsenal human experiments. “The Beats” went against the cultural norm and were pro acid.
After all the BS with the CIA doing illegal shenanigans and the FDA, the public wanted the drug made legal or studied, but alas. Haight in San Fran, 1967, hippy meet up. Kids were disillusioned with their futures and the future of America, then the Beatles came to town. Then Manson in 1969. The acid eaters were being taken advantage of (rape, brainwashing, high dosing) and many new drugs were simply being given away for free. The CIA was linked to keeping watch over the hippy camp as a guinea pig farm. It was about sending a message, refocusing hate, and controlling the narrative about politics at the time.
“The Diggers” were trying to help others, be anti-government, called into question class and consumerism, but were critiqued as being theatrical, especially since they also gave away drugs. We move on into Vietnam and soldiers doing drugs, to the CIA having a financial institution known as Castle Bank, which provided shielding for criminal activities and an intelligence front, covered for the mob, and the hidden war in Cuba. Nixon planned to destroy groups from the inside by providing drugs and weapons. The Beatles broke up and weed was blocked at the border, just as heroin was made in excess.
Leary (acid taker and counter movement leader) escapes prison and the book devotes a lot of time to this fact. Every truth thrives on its denial, and the proceedings led to even a CIA investigation to which they denied. In recent years more evidence has come forward and more victims as well. Drugs and pleasure are still prevalent in a world where supply brings demand and vice versa.
I found it captivating and long but it did take interest in some topics and glossed over others, I assume to preserve fact and not conspiracy.
---
“The language of God is the DNA code.”
“Mundane objects such as love beads and peace insignias were tokens of self-imposed exile that communicated a forbidden identity; they warned the straight world of a threat and issued an oblique challenge to consumer society. But this meaning was not readily apparent to the multitudes who turned on for the first time after the be-in. Before long, teenyboppers and “plastic hippies” from the suburbs started frequenting the hip hot-spots for some weekend entertainment.”
“Those who responded to that melody were plunged willy-nilly into an abstract vortex of soul-searching, escaping, and “discovering thyself.” Some were intensely sincere, and their quest very often was lonely and confusing.”
“Peace would rule the planet and love would steer the stars.”
“To think that your personal consciousness can overcome historical forces is a mistake.”
February 10, 2024
Ok I’ve read a lot of books that have been leading me to this so I guess it’s time I get this off my bookshelf. I wish I had read this before How to Change Your Mind. This book has the full history of LSD including MK Ultra but am emphasis on the 60’s in general. I loved this and it absolutely lived up to its tire, however I’d you’re not interested in the 60’s, drug history in America, or the CIA, I don’t think you’ll like this book. Wouldn’t recommend it for everyone but I thought it was great. 4.7 stars
July 26, 2021
This was a collection of everything I've ever heard or read about lsd In chronological order. Although the beginning about the CIA was fascinating, and not something I knew much about before. As I had expected, it didn't go into depth about very much. If you want to learn the basics of the history of acid and only want to read one book on the subject this is the book for you.
May 29, 2025
Fascinating book on the history of the 60’s, with an emphasis on the role of LSD. It covers the experiments of the CIA and the activities of political/hippie groups. It does go deep into people’s personal lives sometimes which I personally find boring to read, but it isn’t redundant. Overall, the Zeitgeist of the 60’s is perfectly captured in 250 pages and makes for a very interesting read.
October 31, 2012
http://www.examiner.com/review/acid-d... This is an impressive and scholarly-researched documentation of the CIA's intimate involvement with the psychoactive drug LSD-25 in the attempt to develop a compound that would prevent anyone being interrogated from keeping secrets. Generally speaking, when this organization is referenced in a work of nonfiction, there are a few inconsistencies. For instance, I've heard Albert Hoffman, the "discoverer" of LSD was an agent, but this book doesn't mention it. I've heard the same about Timothy Leary, but that's not mentioned either. I'm not saying I know what's what, just that the waters are muddied as far as who is and isn't an agent, and just how far CIA influence went in the promotion of the acid craze that started in the sixties. According to this book, the peace and love fest in popular culture of the 1960s, which began about ten years after the spooks began to push the drug and conduct experiments on unwitting citizens using acid, overcame and superceded their own spooky interpretation of the substance as an anxiety-producing agent and recast it as the doorway to Nirvana, which qualities it then assumed and lived up to perfectly in the minds of most takers. In this way LSD is the drug most perfectly representative of the notion that reality is a hologram and it's all about angles, what happens to you and what you see. My own acid years are long past, but it still freaks me out to think of all the trips I took never knowing the CIA had a hand in any of it, that Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, the Beatles and all the other countercultural action heroes got their drugs second- or third-hand from the secret government, knowingly or otherwise.
January 16, 2017
A fascinating history of one of the most powerful chemicals ever synthesized, the government agencies that tried unsuccessfully to turn it into a weapon and then, even less successfully, to contain it after the proverbial genie was out of the bottle. Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Albert Hoffman and Aldous Huxley and several other well-known characters whose lives were inextricably linked to the story of LSD, make their expected appearances, some more fleshed out than others. We are also introduced to some less-infamous characters whose lives would make epic bio-pics all their own (none more so than the larger-than-life Captain Al Hubbard). Anyone who's not already familiar with the CIA's use of LSD and other drugs in their quest to find the ultimate chemical weapon (before the Soviets could beat them to it), and the involvement of the military, might be shocked to read about MK-ULTRA, in which unwitting US and Canadian citizens--including college students, hospital patients, prison inmates, soldiers, the homeless and the mentally ill--were subjected, mostly without their knowledge or consent, to an absolutely horrifying array of psychological tortures involving LSD, BZ and a long list of other hallucinogenic and "psychomimetic" (madness-mimicking) drugs. This book was originally published in 1986, so although it's been re-released, it unfortunately doesn't cover the "psychedelic renaissance" of the 1990s, Terence McKenna or more recently, any of the promising research being conducted with LSD and other psychedelics (see the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), et al).
May 1, 2016
Not exactly the book I was looking for but quite illuminating. I want to read a good history of the early years of Projects Artichoke and MKUltra but I'm realizing that the source material for such a book probably doesn't exist. This book has a little bit of that history but most of its length is an account of the LSD culture of the 1960s...a story told better in Storming Heaven, by Jay Stevens. The other chapters, the ones that dance away from the same old groovy times to circle back into the realm of spooks and psychedelic agents provocateur are riveting.
A few individuals emerge from the pages here as subjects that that bear further investigation, if only in the shadowy corners of the internet. Acid-guru John Starr Cooke. the first person to go clear in the young church of Scientology and who owned a tarot deck annotated by Aleister Crowley, looks like one of those weird linchpin cultural figures whose life bridged many strange paths, espionage, old-time occultism, and psychedelics. Conman/mega-LSD dealer/CIA agent Ronald Hadley Stark is one of the strangest characters I've encountered outside of comic books. Someone should definitely write his biography.
Mostly, I found this book a good account of another era in the ongoing flight from reason, a chronicle of the creation of a new reality, whether one built on chemicals or designed by deliberate, sometimes clumsy manipulation of a generation.
Of course, it also begs the question of what manipulations are still being practiced today.
A few individuals emerge from the pages here as subjects that that bear further investigation, if only in the shadowy corners of the internet. Acid-guru John Starr Cooke. the first person to go clear in the young church of Scientology and who owned a tarot deck annotated by Aleister Crowley, looks like one of those weird linchpin cultural figures whose life bridged many strange paths, espionage, old-time occultism, and psychedelics. Conman/mega-LSD dealer/CIA agent Ronald Hadley Stark is one of the strangest characters I've encountered outside of comic books. Someone should definitely write his biography.
Mostly, I found this book a good account of another era in the ongoing flight from reason, a chronicle of the creation of a new reality, whether one built on chemicals or designed by deliberate, sometimes clumsy manipulation of a generation.
Of course, it also begs the question of what manipulations are still being practiced today.
July 25, 2011
I recall first reading about this book in an advertisement in the then-weekly, now-defunct Guardian weekly out of New York City. I was greatly intrigued and resolved to keep an eye open for it. Years later I actually found the book and snapped it up, reading it almost immediately. I was not disappointed. Indeed, I was impressed by both the quality of the writing and by the material covered.
This is, generally speaking, a social history of the influence of psychotropics such as LSD on Western culture, particularly on American culture. Much of the most important--and disturbing--material, however, concerns the involvement of the CIA and its many subsidiary "cover" organizations in the investigation and utilization of such drugs both on its own people, often without consent, and on, as they say, "unwitting civilians". The hope was part of a greater effort to find chemical means to facilitate brainwashing and interrogations--and later, at least to discombobulate foes. Much of the most entertaining material concerns the (probably?) unintended consequences of the drugs escaping into the broader culture.
This is, generally speaking, a social history of the influence of psychotropics such as LSD on Western culture, particularly on American culture. Much of the most important--and disturbing--material, however, concerns the involvement of the CIA and its many subsidiary "cover" organizations in the investigation and utilization of such drugs both on its own people, often without consent, and on, as they say, "unwitting civilians". The hope was part of a greater effort to find chemical means to facilitate brainwashing and interrogations--and later, at least to discombobulate foes. Much of the most entertaining material concerns the (probably?) unintended consequences of the drugs escaping into the broader culture.
January 21, 2011
I'm one of those weirdos who does not find the prospect of doing LSD or other drugs in a recreational fashion interesting at all. It was with a lot of surprise that I found that I enjoyed this book! It is impeccably researched, well-written, and, in parts, terrifying (particularly in the early chapters, which cover the CIA's quest to find a "truth serum" and its efforts to that end, including MK-ULTRA). Anyone who is interested in the 1960s (warts and all), the less-savory aspects of government research (as I am), or the social aspects of drug use should give this fast-paced narrative a try.
November 30, 2021
Given the fact that the CIA got pretty high billing in the title, I was expecting this book to mainly be about the CIA's acid tests. That is one of the several things that this book is about. It's for the most part about all the political and social movements that were united by, uh, dropping a lot of acid -- the Merry Pranksters, Timothy Leary and his ilk, the Yippies, tangentially sort of the SDS, and also the Weathermen. I'd recommend this pretty much to anyone looking for a social history of the 60s in any respect as long as you don't mind it having LSD as a unifying theme.
March 25, 2021
An uncontrolled science experiment played out in mid to late-twentieth-century America. What happens when you take John Kenneth Galbraith's Affluent but highly conformist society of organization men and women and introduce one of the most psychoactive chemicals that Terrence McKenna handily named an entheogen (a substance producing divine revelations) and unleash it on this well-oiled machine of post-war prosperity. You get the technicolor explosion of chaos called the sixties. It started out during WWII with the discovery of Albert Hoffman's problem child Lysergic Dimethal Amide (LSD). Hoffman's accidental discovery is well known and his first drug trip. I will spare it only an aficionado of the psychedelic drug culture cares about that anecdote. However immediately other actors saw in this substance a funhouse mirror of their fears and desires. First were OSS and CIA spy spooks who saw a mind-control substance or a truth serum, then came the military brass which thought it would make the perfect non-lethal weapon (hell you don't have to kill the enemy this stuff will fuck them up so bad they won't be able to fight), then came the shrinks who thought hell maybe we can fix broken people with this stuff, tell me where it hurts, then the proselytizers showed up "it is a gateway to God, no really, far out!", then the celebrities and the media picked up on it, Oprah will tell you how acid will make you live your dreams and get your man to behave. Some of the big names are Al Hubbard a retired? CIA spook turned LSD religious nut who had to spread the psychedelic gospel in the 1950s. Then a couple of Harvard academics Leary and Alper started getting high on their own supply that they were studying and became media gurus later countercultural outlaws on behalf of this "entheogen" but If Leary was a media guru the master distributor and king of LSD "Johnny Appleseed" on the West Coast was Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Ken took the money from writing books like "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" and used it to buy a bus and travel the country and hold "Acid tests" with barrels of Kool-Aid laced with LSD to spread to eager masses looking for good times. The house band of these acid tests was the newly formed "Grateful Dead" (I was dropping acid at their shows in the 1980s and 1990s, that is staying power). So the scene exploded and hippies became a thing. LSD also mixed with the new left of the 1960s. The affluent society with its conformity bred a yearning to bust loose, of course, aspirations of the civil rights movement, and fears of being drafted and winding up fighting in a Southeast Asia jungle fueled radicals just as much. And no I don't buy conspiracy theories that the establishment pumped out LSD to derail the student movement. The movement's grievances weren't economically based like they are today, sure the radicals could talk up Marxism as radical chic but it wasn't about material conditions then. LSD wasn't unleashed by capitalists to stop dissent. LSD stopped nothing it just made it weird. Anyway LSD was hot for the decade but burned out sure acidheads like me were doing it in the 1980s but the drug culture changed and moved to other pleasures by then I was an outlier. So it left a mark on the culture which has more color to it but didn't change capitalism much (I don't think that was the direct plan anyway.) fun book about weird times.
Here is a neuropharmacological video on how LSD works. The science and no bullshit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klBYZ...
1 like · Like ∙ flag
following reviews
READING PROGRESS
December 25, 2020 – Started Reading
December 25, 2020 – Shelved
December 28, 2020 – page 0
0.0% "I have done LSD or other psychedelics (shrooms, mescaline) over 100 times in the 80s and early 90s this was my primary drug vice. Anyway, I am going to post this video on the pharmacology of LSD because such matters always interest me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klBYZ..."
December 28, 2020 – page 3
0.78% "LSD has meant many things to many people since it was discovered. Psychologists thought it was a treatment for many ills, The CIA thought maybe it could be used for mind control or perhaps a truth serum, The army thought it might work on the battlefield as a nonlethal weapon of war "I mean what the hell better than outright killing the enemy" and many a proselytizer wanted a sacrament some like to party like me"
December 28, 2020 – page 3
0.78% "In the early days the OSS the forerunner of the CIA was first to pick up on
Albert Hoffman's problem child of LSD and they thought it might work as a truth serum to get info out of people or screen personnel for possible pro-German sympathies (there was a war on, don't you know). It always starts somewhat innocently."
December 28, 2020 – page 44
11.4%
December 28, 2020 – page 44
11.4% "Captain Al Hubbert former spy spook who became a well-meaning religious nut who was on a mission to make LSD a sacrament and gateway to the divine. It isn't always black and white or good guys and bad guys all the time."
December 28, 2020 – page 71
18.39% "The psych people then got a hold of it. Hmmm, maybe I can fix broken people with this stuff. Tell me where it hurts."
December 28, 2020 – page 96
24.87% "Media and celebrities get wind of it. This outta be fun. We're talking about the 1950s and it is beginning to spread."
December 29, 2020 – page 118
30.57% "Leary and Alper are two Harvard Academics who start looking into LSD sure enough they start taking this stuff themselves and soon after becoming proselytizers for the gospel of LSD and winding up as counter-culture outlaws on the lamb. I am not making this shit up. It happened in the 1960s."
December 29, 2020 – page 118
30.57% "If Timothy Leary was a media spokesman and guru for having the world turn on to LSD then Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were point men spreading acid to masses with "Acid Tests" wild parties with garbage cans full of Kool-Aid laced with LSD open to one and all. The House band the Grateful Dead came together and performed at these events. I spent a good chunk of the 80s and 90s following the Grateful Dead around."
December 29, 2020 – page 141
36.53% "Okay, the book up to this point is about the spreaders and how the phenomena of lots of LSD experimentation exploded into the culture from WWII up to the mid-1960s the rest of the book is about the aftermath. History in books if not on the ground has a certain logic to it."
December 29, 2020 – page 170
44.04% "The technicolor explosion of LSD on Haight-Asbury and the San Francisco scene.,"
December 29, 2020 – page 194
50.26% "The affluent society, race integration aspirations, and our involvement in Vietnam (a draft of young people no less) was going to brew up a lot of radical activism. Conspiracy-minded say LSD was pumped out to destroy the radicalism because establishment/capitalists were working to derail young radicals. I don't buy that. The affluence of the time of ordinary people so the fight wasn't economic LSD just made it weird"
December 29, 2020 – page 222
57.51%
December 29, 2020 – page 258
66.84%
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: american-history
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: cold-war
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: european-history
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: mid-twentieth-century
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: late-twentieth-century
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: politics
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: psychology
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: religion-or-not
December 29, 2020 – Finished Reading
Here is a neuropharmacological video on how LSD works. The science and no bullshit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klBYZ...
1 like · Like ∙ flag
following reviews
READING PROGRESS
December 25, 2020 – Started Reading
December 25, 2020 – Shelved
December 28, 2020 – page 0
0.0% "I have done LSD or other psychedelics (shrooms, mescaline) over 100 times in the 80s and early 90s this was my primary drug vice. Anyway, I am going to post this video on the pharmacology of LSD because such matters always interest me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klBYZ..."
December 28, 2020 – page 3
0.78% "LSD has meant many things to many people since it was discovered. Psychologists thought it was a treatment for many ills, The CIA thought maybe it could be used for mind control or perhaps a truth serum, The army thought it might work on the battlefield as a nonlethal weapon of war "I mean what the hell better than outright killing the enemy" and many a proselytizer wanted a sacrament some like to party like me"
December 28, 2020 – page 3
0.78% "In the early days the OSS the forerunner of the CIA was first to pick up on
Albert Hoffman's problem child of LSD and they thought it might work as a truth serum to get info out of people or screen personnel for possible pro-German sympathies (there was a war on, don't you know). It always starts somewhat innocently."
December 28, 2020 – page 44
11.4%
December 28, 2020 – page 44
11.4% "Captain Al Hubbert former spy spook who became a well-meaning religious nut who was on a mission to make LSD a sacrament and gateway to the divine. It isn't always black and white or good guys and bad guys all the time."
December 28, 2020 – page 71
18.39% "The psych people then got a hold of it. Hmmm, maybe I can fix broken people with this stuff. Tell me where it hurts."
December 28, 2020 – page 96
24.87% "Media and celebrities get wind of it. This outta be fun. We're talking about the 1950s and it is beginning to spread."
December 29, 2020 – page 118
30.57% "Leary and Alper are two Harvard Academics who start looking into LSD sure enough they start taking this stuff themselves and soon after becoming proselytizers for the gospel of LSD and winding up as counter-culture outlaws on the lamb. I am not making this shit up. It happened in the 1960s."
December 29, 2020 – page 118
30.57% "If Timothy Leary was a media spokesman and guru for having the world turn on to LSD then Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters were point men spreading acid to masses with "Acid Tests" wild parties with garbage cans full of Kool-Aid laced with LSD open to one and all. The House band the Grateful Dead came together and performed at these events. I spent a good chunk of the 80s and 90s following the Grateful Dead around."
December 29, 2020 – page 141
36.53% "Okay, the book up to this point is about the spreaders and how the phenomena of lots of LSD experimentation exploded into the culture from WWII up to the mid-1960s the rest of the book is about the aftermath. History in books if not on the ground has a certain logic to it."
December 29, 2020 – page 170
44.04% "The technicolor explosion of LSD on Haight-Asbury and the San Francisco scene.,"
December 29, 2020 – page 194
50.26% "The affluent society, race integration aspirations, and our involvement in Vietnam (a draft of young people no less) was going to brew up a lot of radical activism. Conspiracy-minded say LSD was pumped out to destroy the radicalism because establishment/capitalists were working to derail young radicals. I don't buy that. The affluence of the time of ordinary people so the fight wasn't economic LSD just made it weird"
December 29, 2020 – page 222
57.51%
December 29, 2020 – page 258
66.84%
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: american-history
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: cold-war
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: european-history
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: mid-twentieth-century
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: late-twentieth-century
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: politics
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: psychology
December 29, 2020 – Shelved as: religion-or-not
December 29, 2020 – Finished Reading
December 14, 2025
Reality really is stranger than fiction. I have long been extremely interested in the 60s as a historical era: the radicalism, the drug culture, the music, the shenanigans of the CIA. Weird to think my grandparents were my age during this time. It's fitting that I actually bought this book during my trip to San Francisco, from City Lights Books, which is the store & publishing company that first published Allen Ginsberg's Howl !
This book attempts to tell "the complete social history" of LSD. It starts with of course the first synthesis of LSD by Albert Hoffman, then goes into MK Ultra, the CIA's bizarre program to develop a mind control drug for use in the cold war, which LSD was a large part of. (MK Ultra is another super specific rabbit hole interest of mine but this particular book didn't go into too much detail about it). Then it goes on to discuss how acid left the labs of the CIA and supercharged the already-burgeoning counterculture movements of the 60s. It discusses the phenomenon of Haight-Ashbury (which I visited in 2025, to find it's just a tourist trap now), student protest movements against Vietnam, the civil rights movement and Black Power movements, and how these intersected with drug culture and the music scene.
I really appreciated that this book went into detail discussing tensions within the era that are often glossed over in broad overviews.
I hadn't previously considered the tension between hardcore revolutionaries and acidheads that the book describes. It was interesting to read about how different leaders and groups either embraced LSD and cannabis as accessories to radicalism, while others viewed them as frivolous distractions or even counter-revolutionary forces.
I also appreciated that the book discussed the dark side of the Haight (as memorialized by Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem )--the undercurrent of harder drugs, addiction, criminal networks and sexual violence.
Towards the end, it also starts to talk about the tension between the peace-and-love hippies and the emerging militant groups like the Weather Underground, as well as the effect that their violent tactics had on the mainstream public's perception of the counterculture, which was already poor. I definitely want to read more about this as I found it kind of scary that the combination of drugs + total immersion in radical politics + isolation from outside society led to people being detached from the political reality on the ground.
The central thesis of this book seemed to be that the heavy use of acid during the 60s greatly impacted the politics of the era and essentially supercharged the drive for social change and revolution that people already had. I think it was a really fascinating overview of the era and taught me a lot that I didn't previously know, despite having had a strong interest in everything 60s for a while.
This book attempts to tell "the complete social history" of LSD. It starts with of course the first synthesis of LSD by Albert Hoffman, then goes into MK Ultra, the CIA's bizarre program to develop a mind control drug for use in the cold war, which LSD was a large part of. (MK Ultra is another super specific rabbit hole interest of mine but this particular book didn't go into too much detail about it). Then it goes on to discuss how acid left the labs of the CIA and supercharged the already-burgeoning counterculture movements of the 60s. It discusses the phenomenon of Haight-Ashbury (which I visited in 2025, to find it's just a tourist trap now), student protest movements against Vietnam, the civil rights movement and Black Power movements, and how these intersected with drug culture and the music scene.
I really appreciated that this book went into detail discussing tensions within the era that are often glossed over in broad overviews.
I hadn't previously considered the tension between hardcore revolutionaries and acidheads that the book describes. It was interesting to read about how different leaders and groups either embraced LSD and cannabis as accessories to radicalism, while others viewed them as frivolous distractions or even counter-revolutionary forces.
I also appreciated that the book discussed the dark side of the Haight (as memorialized by Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem )--the undercurrent of harder drugs, addiction, criminal networks and sexual violence.
Towards the end, it also starts to talk about the tension between the peace-and-love hippies and the emerging militant groups like the Weather Underground, as well as the effect that their violent tactics had on the mainstream public's perception of the counterculture, which was already poor. I definitely want to read more about this as I found it kind of scary that the combination of drugs + total immersion in radical politics + isolation from outside society led to people being detached from the political reality on the ground.
The central thesis of this book seemed to be that the heavy use of acid during the 60s greatly impacted the politics of the era and essentially supercharged the drive for social change and revolution that people already had. I think it was a really fascinating overview of the era and taught me a lot that I didn't previously know, despite having had a strong interest in everything 60s for a while.
July 3, 2019
Then I got to wondering what Times were like before they had a-changed, that is, before I was; what kind of world was there to shape me so: Weathermen full of more than sound and fury, the CIA's autoespionage, panthers Black hiding charismatic ex-Ivy drug-pushing jailbreakers in Algeria or White dropping tabs on radicals at my own alma mater (so weird to say) where a mathematical prodigy would graduate to rail against the progress of technology; mentally neotenous human analogues of stamens, stems, and stigma flowing freely down the streets of San Francisco yore, gay poets passionate to catalogue delirium, swashbuckling Captains playing off federal agents against turned-on English gentlefolk and other multitudes: Angels, Heads, New Leftists, rogue chemists of dueling codes of ethics, a merry band on a bus; when the sun shone orange as the killing fields, riots shocked viewers nationwide through cathode rays and editorial whim, when actors meant for the medium could wipe their childhood shoulder chips off finally, in bigger, whiter houses, and walls of sound could galvanize a generation even as their frontmen drowned in acid, alcohol, adulation.
No; I was not there when Bacchus bathed the heavens and the earth in orgiastic fantasia, but I am here for the mess their party bequeathed me, all cast by Lee and Shlain in sober light. Times were simpler then.
Selected quotations
No; I was not there when Bacchus bathed the heavens and the earth in orgiastic fantasia, but I am here for the mess their party bequeathed me, all cast by Lee and Shlain in sober light. Times were simpler then.
Selected quotations
January 26, 2009
Breif: This was a mind clenching book for it was mostly about conspiracys done by the CIA in the United States of America to find a truth Serium. Eventually, the truth serium, was found to be L.S.D. and it spreed to all forms of American culture. It also talked about the Nazi Scientist who worked on American Soldiers to find this serium. It was interesting to read, and really makes you question what is going on in the world today. This is why I really enjoyed this book.
Samantha Kernc
September 23, 2008
Lit- to- World
Literary Analyses
Acid Dreams
Throughout the ages US intelligence has fought in many wars. During the 1940’s and into the 1960’s they were heavily involved in the Cold War trying to undermind the Soviet Union and Cuba as well as communism in various places around the world. This is where my mind journey begins. This is a story that opened my eyes to what our government is really like, and not all the false propaganda that is proposed on television, on the radio, and in the everyday talk of other Americans. I was very surprised to find out that my America that I have envisioned was so pure and full of justice is so condescending or hypocritical. The CIA was one of America’s top intelligence groups and still is today. Today there is a war going on. This is the war against Terrorist Groups under the leadership of Al Quida networks. These Terrorist Groups are found in Afghanistan, and Iraq. Isn’t there some suspicious between the misleading truths of yesteryear and today?
Our national intelligence went into Iraq after proposing that weapons of mass-destruction were threatening the United States. These weapons of mass-destruction led us to the War on Terror. When we shipped our sons and daughters of America off to Iraq we learned that there are not these so called weapons of mass-destruction that the US was telling us about. So what did our country do after we found no weapons? Our country decided, well, we should stay there to help the people over come their leader. The United States of America said that we need to take down and overthrow this malicious tyrant because of all the horrid atrocities that he had done to his own people. Case in point, that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein both used their own people to test bullet, bombs, drugs, and other war crimes. We had to save them and force the people to become just like us and be completely Americanized.
What I learned in the book “Acid Dreams” was that we truly are no different than the countries that we say we’re trying to save. In our CIA, which John F. Kennedy tried to dismantle, we hired known Nazi war criminals. There were 600 hired Nazi scientists that were pardoned for all their war crimes while residing at concentration camps, but not only were they pardoned they received a high government status, a highly paid jobs, and a lifelong pension for the rest of their life and their families. While these Nazi scientists were still in Germany at Dachau concentration camp they would experiment with the human capacity for how long people could survive in different conditions using; weather aliments, bombs, gas, bullets, starvation, thirst, labor, mental abilities, and the list goes on and on. Our top Nazi scientists were: Dr. Hubertus Strughold, Dr. Sigmund Ruff, and Dr. Sigmund Rascher. It was known that Dr. Hubertus Strughold injected gasoline into inmates at Dachau concentration camp, and would either have them shot with a bullet so they could burn to death or crush them to death and then burn the bodies later. We let these scientists conduct experiments on our US Navy and Infantry during Operation Bluebird, Operation Artichoke and many others. On our soldiers they tried to find a “Truth Drug” or TD which was the billion dollar mission of the OSS “Office of Strategic Services.” This TD was supposed to be a speech inducing agent that was colorless, tasteless, and odorless so it could be administered in food or drink. They tried many substances: morphine, ether, Benzeclrine, ethyl alcohol, mescaline, marijuana, etc. The one that fit with their best option was Lysergic acid diethylaminde or LSD-25. It was delivered to the hands of the CIA by Dr. Werner Stoll who invented it using the ergot wheat fungus. It had all that they had wanted in a drug. At first, it had been used to induce speech and was given to foreign spies from whom we wanted information. It turned out to be not that affective since some of the spy’s figured out that they had been drugged. Then our government tried to use a stronger dose on our own spies, so if they were on a dangerous mission they could take the pill and would only speak gibberish while being questioned. When the drug was used in the battlefields of Vietnam it proved ineffective. They found more of the solders were being sent home from insanity than they were from being shot in battle. When LSD-25 was introduced in Vietnam it switched over to the popular culture of the American public and spread like wildfire. This was almost the overturn of our nation when the counter culture took over. When LSD spread to the Soviet Union the author thought it was a contributing factor in the break up of the Soviet Union.
I found the facts presented in this book, “Acid Dreams,” were rather disturbing. It destroyed my optimistic connotations of America and it’s representation of righteousness. I would have never believed that someone would have hired Nazi scientists who had committed so many atrocities. I will always be left this question, why is it that in all of our history books do we only hear of the one side about all the Nazi’s who were committed for war crimes, and not about all the rest who were not punished?
Samantha Kernc
September 23, 2008
Lit- to- World
Literary Analyses
Acid Dreams
Throughout the ages US intelligence has fought in many wars. During the 1940’s and into the 1960’s they were heavily involved in the Cold War trying to undermind the Soviet Union and Cuba as well as communism in various places around the world. This is where my mind journey begins. This is a story that opened my eyes to what our government is really like, and not all the false propaganda that is proposed on television, on the radio, and in the everyday talk of other Americans. I was very surprised to find out that my America that I have envisioned was so pure and full of justice is so condescending or hypocritical. The CIA was one of America’s top intelligence groups and still is today. Today there is a war going on. This is the war against Terrorist Groups under the leadership of Al Quida networks. These Terrorist Groups are found in Afghanistan, and Iraq. Isn’t there some suspicious between the misleading truths of yesteryear and today?
Our national intelligence went into Iraq after proposing that weapons of mass-destruction were threatening the United States. These weapons of mass-destruction led us to the War on Terror. When we shipped our sons and daughters of America off to Iraq we learned that there are not these so called weapons of mass-destruction that the US was telling us about. So what did our country do after we found no weapons? Our country decided, well, we should stay there to help the people over come their leader. The United States of America said that we need to take down and overthrow this malicious tyrant because of all the horrid atrocities that he had done to his own people. Case in point, that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein both used their own people to test bullet, bombs, drugs, and other war crimes. We had to save them and force the people to become just like us and be completely Americanized.
What I learned in the book “Acid Dreams” was that we truly are no different than the countries that we say we’re trying to save. In our CIA, which John F. Kennedy tried to dismantle, we hired known Nazi war criminals. There were 600 hired Nazi scientists that were pardoned for all their war crimes while residing at concentration camps, but not only were they pardoned they received a high government status, a highly paid jobs, and a lifelong pension for the rest of their life and their families. While these Nazi scientists were still in Germany at Dachau concentration camp they would experiment with the human capacity for how long people could survive in different conditions using; weather aliments, bombs, gas, bullets, starvation, thirst, labor, mental abilities, and the list goes on and on. Our top Nazi scientists were: Dr. Hubertus Strughold, Dr. Sigmund Ruff, and Dr. Sigmund Rascher. It was known that Dr. Hubertus Strughold injected gasoline into inmates at Dachau concentration camp, and would either have them shot with a bullet so they could burn to death or crush them to death and then burn the bodies later. We let these scientists conduct experiments on our US Navy and Infantry during Operation Bluebird, Operation Artichoke and many others. On our soldiers they tried to find a “Truth Drug” or TD which was the billion dollar mission of the OSS “Office of Strategic Services.” This TD was supposed to be a speech inducing agent that was colorless, tasteless, and odorless so it could be administered in food or drink. They tried many substances: morphine, ether, Benzeclrine, ethyl alcohol, mescaline, marijuana, etc. The one that fit with their best option was Lysergic acid diethylaminde or LSD-25. It was delivered to the hands of the CIA by Dr. Werner Stoll who invented it using the ergot wheat fungus. It had all that they had wanted in a drug. At first, it had been used to induce speech and was given to foreign spies from whom we wanted information. It turned out to be not that affective since some of the spy’s figured out that they had been drugged. Then our government tried to use a stronger dose on our own spies, so if they were on a dangerous mission they could take the pill and would only speak gibberish while being questioned. When the drug was used in the battlefields of Vietnam it proved ineffective. They found more of the solders were being sent home from insanity than they were from being shot in battle. When LSD-25 was introduced in Vietnam it switched over to the popular culture of the American public and spread like wildfire. This was almost the overturn of our nation when the counter culture took over. When LSD spread to the Soviet Union the author thought it was a contributing factor in the break up of the Soviet Union.
I found the facts presented in this book, “Acid Dreams,” were rather disturbing. It destroyed my optimistic connotations of America and it’s representation of righteousness. I would have never believed that someone would have hired Nazi scientists who had committed so many atrocities. I will always be left this question, why is it that in all of our history books do we only hear of the one side about all the Nazi’s who were committed for war crimes, and not about all the rest who were not punished?
July 4, 2021
It's still as entertaining and worth reading as it was twenty years ago. Covering the movements from the Diggers to the Yippies alongside government research and misuse, "Acid Dreams: the Complete Social History of LSD", is a treasure.
June 10, 2025
This book is super well researched and includes a really wide range of arguments! Also the CIA is fucking crazy. Drugs as a means of social commentary is a super cool approach!
The one thing I will say is that it focuses on specific characters in the 60s and I wish the lens was a bit more broad.
The one thing I will say is that it focuses on specific characters in the 60s and I wish the lens was a bit more broad.
August 16, 2021
Fuck the CIA
February 7, 2019
Great read for anyone interested in LSD and its historical involvement with the American government, the CIA, and the hippie movement. Significant text with important information.
June 30, 2022
A very informative and entertaining read.
October 28, 2021
Really interesting read!
May 3, 2023
My takeaway from this is the CIA played a big role in shaping American culture. It’s a good read if you’re interested in getting a better understanding of how the study of hallucinogens brought out the full spectrum of human nature. From those believing it a tool for higher levels of consciousness to those with more sinister reasons in finding ways to control people.
Take with a grain of salt and wear your tin foil hat (sometimes). Understandably, lots of conjecture and assumptions. Not as detailed in referencing verifiable sources and papers as the authors later books.
But if you’re interested in the history of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, this should quench that thirst.
Take with a grain of salt and wear your tin foil hat (sometimes). Understandably, lots of conjecture and assumptions. Not as detailed in referencing verifiable sources and papers as the authors later books.
But if you’re interested in the history of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, this should quench that thirst.
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