1960 Harvard invites psychology professor Timothy Leary `to study the change of human behaviour`. Leary ingests psylocibin mushrooms in Cuernavaca, Mexico, returns to Harvard to set up a psychedelic research project with Frank Barron. He invites Huxley, Alan Watts, Arthur Koestler, Beat writers Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Neil Cassady, Charles Olson, jazz musician Maynard Ferguson, etc. *** John Beresford buys one gramm of LSD-25 from Sandoz for 269 US-Dollar thinking that it would be four portions instead of four-thousand. This magic gramm went into a couple of thousand people, among them Tim Leary, Jean Houston, Keith Richards, Paul McCartney a.m.o..
1961 Aldous Huxley and Tim Leary give lectures on LSD and behaviour change at an international psychology conference in Copenhagen. *** Prof. Richard Alpert and graduate student Ralph Metzner join Leary’s group, which develops the concept of `set and setting` as trip determinants. *** Concord Prison Project commences, in which psilocybin is taken together by Harvard researchers and prisoners, reversing rates of recidivism for the latter group. *** Publication of Exploring Inner Space is the first personal account of LSD therapy in the U.S. by nutritionist Adelle Davis.
1962 The first LSD song appears on a record by The Gamblers. *** `Good Friday` psilocybin experiment conducted by Walter Houston Clark, Walter Pahnke, and Huston Smith in Boston University chapel proves LSD’s value as a sacred drug inducing religious experience. *** The LSD foundation `Agora Scientific Trust` is started by John Beresford, Jean Houston and Robert Masters in New York City. *** The LSD research Center `International Federation for Advanced Study`, is started by Myron Stolaroff and associates in Menlo Park, CA. *** Bernard Roseman and Bernard Copley manufacture the first black market LSD (62.000 tablets); they are later arrested and imprisoned on the false charges of smuggling it from Israel, since manufacturing was illegal there at that time. *** Michael Hollingshead brings his mayonnaise jar containing 5.000 doses of LSD (half on Beresford`s gram obtained from Sandoz) to Harvard and` turns on` Leary, other members of the Harvard research group and later many key british rock `n Roll musicians. *** Harvard Research Group establishes a summer colony in Zihuatanejo in Mexico to explore LSD. *** Alan Watts publishes the `Joyous Cosmology`, Aldous Huxley published `Island`. *** William McGlothlin publishes the first study ever done on the long-lasting effects of LSD. *** President John Kennedy is introduced to LSD by his lover Mary Pinchot Meyer, who received guidelines on tripping sessions from Leary; allegedly they `tripped` in the White House. *** Oklahoma: The scientists West, Pierce and Thomas send the first elephant on an acid trip. Tusko dies during an LSD-Experiment after the fatal injections of LSD, followed by a neuroleptica and a sedative.
1963 Aldous Huxley visiting Dr. Hofmann in Basel, calles LSD the true moksha-medicine of his new novel `Island`. *** The first journal devoted to psychedelic drugs `Psychedelic Review` is launched in Cambridge, MA. *** The first liquid underground LSD appears in the Cambridge area as impregnated sugar cubes. *** More & more articles about LSD appear in the mainstream media (Life; Look; Saturday Evening Post). *** Fired from Harvard, Professor Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, immediately launche a LSD research program called I.F.I.F. (International Federation for Internal Freedom) in Newton Center, MA. He trains guides to conduct psychedelic sessions; the group is later forced to leave Mexico and Dominica. ***The first modern psychedelic church `Church of the Awakening` incorporated by the Aikens in New Mexico. *** Spring Grove State Hospital, Maryland, becomes a major research center for testing the potential of LSD in psychotherapy. *** Dr. Eric Kast administers LSD in psychotherapy and to terminally ill patients and successfully reduces their pain and anxiety. *** Six hours before his own death in Los Angeles Aldous Huxley requests and is given 100 mg LSD intramuscularly by his wife Laura Hours after he received the news of John F. Kennedy assassination *** Lysergic acid amides extracted from the Baby Hawaiian Wood rose.
1964 Publication of the `Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead` by Leary, Metzner & Alpert, which has never been out of print. *** Leary`s group establishes an LSD cultural research center called Castalia Foundation on the Hichcock estate in Milbrook, New York, and develops the `experimental typewriter` for a meta-communication during the LSD plateau. *** John C. Lilly experiments in the Virgin Islands giving LSD to dolphins and taking it in the samahdi- or isolation tank, which he developed. *** Alexander (Sasha) Shulgin synthesizes DOM, a strong, long-lasting psychedelic. *** Psychedelic Information Centers spring up in Cambridge, Washington DC and elsewhere.
1965 Owsley Acid aka `White Lightening`, `Purple Haze`, `Blue Sheer` etc. (LSD manufactured by Augustus Owsley Stanley) begins to appear in North California in the first large-scale underground LSD manufacturing and distribution (contra-)operation. *** Founding of the Neo-American Church by Art Kleps. *** Hollingshead opens World Psychedelic Center in London and turns on british cultural elite. *** The Beatles inadvertently take their first LSD trip, when a dentist friend of Harrison puts 200 Microdots of LSD in their coffee. *** Lysergic acid amides extracted from Baby Hawaiian Wood rose.
1966 Millbrook raided by sheriff G. Gordon Liddy. *** Kyoki Izumi wins architecture prize for his LSD-inspired mental hospital design. *** First non-academic LSD Conference in San Francisco. *** The League for Spiritual Discovery, an LSD-based religion formed by Leary, produces Psychedelic Celebrations in major cities. *** Acid Tests organized by Kesey’s Merry Pranksters culminate in a `Hippie-Festival` in San Francisco. *** ‚Congressional Hearings on the LSD `epidemic`; Leary, Ginsberg and Kleps testify. *** LSD is made illegal with heavy penalties, October the 6th; the `Love Pageant Rally` is celebrated in Haights-Ashbury on the same day. *** Publishing of `The San Francisco Oracle`.
1967 The first `Human Be-In` held at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. *** Owsley Stanley captured with 200 grams (one million doses) of LSD. *** Appearance of DOM (under the name STP) in San Francisco in high dose tablets causing overdoses. *** Summer of Love apex of LSD counterculture in San Francisco, LA, NYC, London & elsewhere; flourishing of psychedelic poster art, rock music, newspapers (SF Oracle), fashion & lifestyle; Toronto LSD conference; Jimi Hendrix’s `Are You Experienced?`; the Beatles `Sergeant Pepper` album; first LPs by Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead.
1968 The manufacturing, sale & distribution of LSD is made illegal by President Lyndon B. Johnson. LSD becomes classified as a category one drug *** Appearance of `Orange Sunshine` (tablet) LSD, manufactured by Tim Scully & Nick Sand. For the following four years it is distributed worldwide by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love (with the involvement of probab le government agent Ronald Stark) . *** Appearances of Leary’s `High Priest & Politics of Ecstasy`; Metzner’s `Ecstatic Adventure`, Laura Huxley’s `Memories of Aldous`. *** First book on psychedelic art. *** Allan Coult starts the International Society for Psychedelic Anthropology.
1969 Woodstock mega-rock-festival. *** The Beatles White Album is published *** Charles Manson triggers the LSD influenced minds of his hippie gang members into the `Tate & La Bianca murders` in Hollywood.
1970 After receiving a request from the US-department of health to tell an anti drug campagne story with the superhero Spiderman, DC Marvel Comic Begründer Stan Lee released his version of the „LSD makes you believe you can fly“-myth, which was born 1953 in New York, when the CIA drugged biological warfare specialist Frank Olson with LSD and killed him by throwing him through his closed hotel room window *** The Comics Code Association retracts the passage on forbidden exposure of illegal drugs *** Appearance of `Windowpane` aka `Clearlight` (jelly) underground LSD. *** Founding of Fitz Hugh Ludlow Memorial Library, a psychedelic archive/research center in San Francisco *** Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis pitches no-hitter in San Diego while under the influence of LSD. *** Bad Acid vibes at Alamont Rock concert.
1972 Blotter Acid emerges as the primary type of underground LSD; dosages are generally lower than past forms. *** Before leaving office CIA head Richard Helmes secretly orders the destruction of most of the agency`s self-incrimating mind drug research files.
1973 The staff of the Rockefeller commission concludes that Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, head of the CIA’s testing program of LSD, destroyed the drug records to cover up possible illegal actions. Gottlieb was personally involved in a fatal experiment, in November, 1953, when researcher (und undercover CIA agent) Frank Olson, was surreptitiously given LSD. (Webvideo: Operation Artichoke) *** Leary writes `Neurologic`, `Starseed` & `Terra 2′ while imprisoned in U.S. jails.
1974 Alan Ginsberg presents 44 questions about Timothy Leary during the P.I.L.L. (People Investigate Leary`s Lies) press conference in St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco.