Acid dreams : the complete social history of LSD : the CIA, the sixties, and beyond / Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain ; with an introduction by Andrei Codrescu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lee, Martin A.

Contributor:

Shlain, Bruce.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

LSD (Drug).

Drug abuse--United States.

Drug abuse.

United States.

United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

Social history--1960-1970.

Social history.

Social history--1970-.

Physical Description:

xxv, 345 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Grove Press ; [Emeryville] : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 1992.

Summary:

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 1950s 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.

Contents:

Introduction: Whose Worlds Are These? / Andrei Codrescu xiii

Part 1 The Roots of Psychedelia

1. In the Beginning There Was Madness ... 3

The Truth Seekers 3

Enter LSD 12

Laboratories of the State 19

Midnight Climax 27

The Hallucination Battlefield 35

2. Psychedelic Pioneers 44

The Original Captain Trips 44

Healing Acid 53

Psychosis or Gnosis? 61

3. Under the Mushroom, Over the Rainbow 71

Manna From Harvard 71

Chemical Crusaders 77

The Crackdown 89

4. Preaching Lsd 96

High Surrealism 96

The Psychedelic Manual 106

The Hard Sell 113

5. The All-American Trip 119

The Great Freak Forward 119

Acid and the New Left 126

Part 2 Acid for the Masses

6. From Hip to Hippie 141

Before the Deluge 141

Politics of the Bummer 150

The First Human Be-In 157

7. The Capital of Forever 170

Stone Free 170

The Great Summer Dropout 179

8. Peaking in Babylon 194

A Gathering Storm 194

Magical Politics 201

Gotta Revolution 211

9. Season of the Witch 223

Armed Love 223

The Acid Brotherhood 234

Bad Moon Rising 251

10. What a Field Day for the Heat 259

Prisoner of Lsd 259

A Bitter Pill 267

The Great Lsd Conspiracy 276

Postscript: Acid and After 288.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-332) and index.

ISBN:

0802130623

OCLC:

42884131