![Marsh-chapel-window](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Marsh-chapel-window.jpg)
The Harvard Psilocybin Project was a series of experiments in psychology conducted by
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
and
Richard Alpert
Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been d ...
. The founding board of the project consisted of Leary,
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley ...
,
David McClelland
David Clarence McClelland (May 20, 1917 – March 27, 1998) was an American psychologist, noted for his work on motivation Need Theory. He published a number of works between the 1950s and the 1990s and developed new scoring systems for t ...
(Leary's and Alpert's superior at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
),
Frank Barron,
Ralph Metzner
Ralph Metzner (May 18, 1936 – March 14, 2019) was a German-born American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later named ...
, and two graduate students who were working on a project with
mescaline
Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin.
Biological sou ...
.
Description
The experiments began some time in 1960 and lasted until March 1962, when other professors in the
Harvard Center for Research in Personality raised concerns about the legitimacy and safety of the experiments in an internal meeting.
Leary and Alpert's experiments were part of their personal discovery and advocacy of
psychedelics
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of ...
. As such, their use of
psilocybin
Psilocybin ( , ) is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi. The most potent are members of the genus ''Psilocybe'', such as '' P. azurescens'', '' P. semilanceata'', and '' P.&nbs ...
and other psychedelics ranged from the academically sound and open
Concord Prison Experiment
The Concord Prison Experiment, conducted from 1961 to 1963, was designed to evaluate whether the experiences produced by the psychoactive drug psilocybin, derived from psilocybin mushrooms, combined with psychotherapy, could inspire prisoners to ...
, in which inmates were given psilocybin in an effort to reduce
recidivism
Recidivism (; from ''recidive'' and ''ism'', from Latin ''recidīvus'' "recurring", from ''re-'' "back" and ''cadō'' "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of th ...
, to frequent personal use.
The
Marsh Chapel Experiment
The Marsh Chapel Experiment, also called the "Good Friday Experiment", was a 1962 experiment conducted on Good Friday at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Walter N. Pahnke, a graduate student in theology at Harvard Divinity School, designed the e ...
, an example of the Project's activities, was run by a
Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...
graduate student under Leary's supervision. Boston area graduate divinity students were administered
psilocybin
Psilocybin ( , ) is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi. The most potent are members of the genus ''Psilocybe'', such as '' P. azurescens'', '' P. semilanceata'', and '' P.&nbs ...
as a part of a study designed to determine if the drug could facilitate the experience of profound religious states, and all of the ten divinity students reported such experiences.
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016) was an influential scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, ' ...
's last work, ''Cleansing the Doors of Perception'', describes the Harvard Psilocybin Project in which he participated in the early 1960s as a serious, conscientious, mature attempt to raise awareness of
entheogen
Entheogens are psychoactive substances that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior for the purposes of engendering spiritual development or otherwiseRätsch, Christian, ''The Encyclopedia of Psychoac ...
ic substances. Of the members of the subgroup in which Smith took part, Leary is not listed.
History
In 1960,
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
and
Richard Alpert
Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been d ...
ordered psilocybin from Swiss-based company
Sandoz
Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loca ...
with the intent to test if different administration modes lead to different experiences. To a greater extent, they believed that psilocybin could be the solution for the emotional problems of the Western man.
[Andrew T. Weil]
The Strange Case of the Harvard Drug Scandal
''Psychedelic-library.org'', 5 November 1963
The first test group was composed of 38 people of various backgrounds. Soothing environments were chosen to conduct the experiments. Each subject controlled its own intake dosage, and the lead researchers Leary and Alpert also ingested the substance. This study led to the conclusions that, while 75% of the subjects in general described their trip as pleasant, 69% were considered to have reached a «marked broadening of awareness». 167 subjects in total participated to the 1960 study. At the end of the study, 95% of the subjects declared that the psilocybin experience had «changed their lives for the better».
In 1961, Leary decided to orient the study towards psilocybin and the rehabilitation of inmates. It resulted in the inmates being able to visualize themselves in a «cops-and-robbers game».
Controversy
Other professors were concerned with Leary and Alpert's abuse of power over students. They pressured graduate students to participate in their research who they taught in a class required for the students' degrees. Additionally, Leary and Alpert gave psychedelics to undergraduate students despite the university only allowing graduate students to participate (a deal was passed with the administration to avoid this in 1961). The legitimacy of their research was questioned because Leary and Alpert took psychedelics with the students during the experiments, an accusation to which Leary replied that the researchers had to be in the same state of mind as the subject to understand his experience in the moment it happens. In 1961, two Harvard students ended up in the mental hospital after consuming psilocybin, and the Harvard administration started to dislike the project.
While Leary and Alpert are described as ridiculing the rules that were set by the school, they also believed that nothing should deny someone the right to explore his inner self, or this would mean taking another step towards totalitarianism.
Also, the selection of research participants was not
random sampling
In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset (a statistical sample) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attemp ...
. These concerns were then printed in ''
The Harvard Crimson
''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...
'' (edition of 20 February 1962). Leary and Alpert immediately replied to the Crimson to rectify its doomy tone, but a few days later, Dana L. Farnsworth, director of Harvard University Health Services, also wrote to the Crimson to expose the risks related to the consumption of mescaline. A dispute rose on campus, which led the
Harvard Center for Research in Personality to organize a meeting on 14 March 1962 to solve the issue.
The meeting turned into a trial against Leary and Alpert, and was reported in the Crimson by a journalist who discreetly assisted to the meeting. This article accelerated the crisis. Local newspapers followed and published about the drug scandal on university grounds. A member of the
Massachusetts Department of Public Health
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is a governmental agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with various responsibilities related to public health within that state. It is headquartered in Boston and headed by Commissioner Monica B ...
stated the experiments led by Leary and Alpert should be conducted by a -"«sober»"- researcher, followed by the state food and drug administration which declared its intention to open an investigation on the psilocybin experiments.
In April, the state authorities finally decided to authorize the psilocybin experiments under the conditions that a (sober) physician is present during the experiments. When an advisory committee demanded Alpert that he gives away his psilocybin to legal authorities for safe-keeping, he insisted on keeping some for his personal use, which outraged the committee that never met again afterwards. It is believed that Leary and Alpert used Harvard stationary to order more psilocybin from Sandoz to stock up before leaving for their
Zihuatanejo Project
The Zihuatanejo Project was a psychedelic training center and intentional community created during the beginning of the counterculture of the 1960s by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert under the umbrella of their nonprofit group, the International ...
. Maybe smeared, Alpert's reputation on campus quickly became tainted.
There was concern that "private psilocybin parties" were taking place amongst some students.
[Virginia Prescott]
Tripping out at Harvard
''Maps.org'', 12 June 2008 On 27 May 1963, Alpert was fired for distributing psilocybin to an undergraduate student.
At the time only
Mescaline
Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin.
Biological sou ...
and the
Peyote cactus were illegal. It would be five years until
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
and
psilocybin
Psilocybin ( , ) is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi. The most potent are members of the genus ''Psilocybe'', such as '' P. azurescens'', '' P. semilanceata'', and '' P.&nbs ...
were made illegal. Both Leary and Alpert had been rising academic stars until their battles with Harvard and their advocacy of the use of psychedelics made them major figures in the nascent
counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
.
See also
*
Psilocybin therapy
Psilocybin therapy is the use of psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in psilocybin mushrooms) in treating a range of mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, addictions, obsessive compulsive disorder, and psychosis. It is one of s ...
References
External links
* Leary's active participation in the Marsh Chapel Experiment and its effects on Reverend Randall Laakko (who, at the time, was a student at the Divinity School) are depicted in a segment of a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...