"I could feel my tongue getting thick, and I couldn't answer questions quite properly. It felt as though the messages were all coming into the switchboard, and messages were going out all right, but that the switchboard was congested and the two weren't coordinating. As though the operator had something else on her mind or too much to do, and was just letting things get all jammed up" (from LSD session report, October 1955).

The point of the Cohen-Fishman study was to compare the functioning of an individual under the drug and in his individual state. For this a battery of psychological tests were devised to measure the functioning of the individual as himself and after having taken the drug. In order to accomplish this, there were a number of tests chosen for measuring different aspects of the person: general intelligence, psychological functioning, psychological makeup, maturity, and general functioning ability as shown by the difference between the drug and non-drug states. Drug dosage was assigned according to body weight of the subject. Comparisons were made between the drug and non-drug states to get insights on the drug being tested.

In this battery, the individual tests had been given in some of the psychological tests like the "Draw a Person" (DAP), where the individual draws a picture about how he feels about himself and other people. The description of the drug experience continues.

"Then I saw the color of the wall waxing and waning - ebbing and flowing. The extraordinary character of light and color...There was a third-dimensionality to color - and a constant change. And there would be a symphony of variations on what ordinarily is a plain brown wall...This was interesting - how dimension and color all were mixed up in that they were all part of the whole pulsating ebb and flow, and it took enormous effort to try and separate things out sufficiently to describe accurately what was happening."

"Just before the colors hit and the curtain started down between sections of my brain, I had that wonderful relaxation which I had known before - the awe-inspiring relief, the letting go of psychological barriers which has come to be identified in my thinking with the relaxation of the ego. I could feel myself being drawn into a mystical experience - the sense of unity with all things in the universe... But as I felt the relaxing of the self boundaries, there was this flood of grateful tears which I stopped because of the three men present..."

Searching through the accordion-pleated files of time for the context of that experience takes me back to 1955, to the beginning of LSD research in the western United States and to my own first knowledge of the drug. There was that notice on the UCLA Psychology Department requesting a graduate student for a doctoral thesis on the effects of a new and unusual drug. In the recesses of another fold of memory from who knows where or when, came:

"I'll bet that research is about LSD!" (There had been an article in LOOK magazine.)

I yearned to apply to Sidney Cohen, M.D., the author of that request, but I couldn't; I had almost completed the work for my own infertility studies, and the time loss was much too great for my own dissertation on infertility. Next best was to send a friend, and one was handy, Lionel Fishman. He hadn't seen the notice, but was very interested. However, before telling him the details, I extracted his promise that I be the first subject if indeed the research were on LSD. Lionel, or Fish, as we called him, talked to Dr. Cohen, signed on with enthusiasm, and didn't forget his promise. After Dr. Cohen and Fish had their own trial experiences with LSD, I indeed became their first research subject. The original quotation at the beginning of this was part of the report on the LSD session. I remember my intense interest in their study, but I didn't have much time to kibitz, as I was dragging myself out of bed at 4:30 a.m., trying to finish my dissertation. I had passed the write doctoral exams at UCLA the spring of 1955, the same year that my son arrived to join his three-year old sister. (I figured that gave me an M.A. at least twice over - at school and at home.) I was pretty far along on my dissertation, too, as I remember, at the point of getting judges to categorize the Rorschach responses of the women who couldn't get pregnant as contrasted to women who had at least two children and no difficulty getting pregnant. At the same time, I was doing that pre-sunrise scene in order to write on the dissertation. I was in no position to add any other activities.

But I did add just one - serving as subject for the Cohen- Fishman study. Lately, just recently, all I could remember of that first LSD experience was that I was constantly being interrupted in my LSD experience in order to take tests. In the Draw-a-Person I remembered the courtly French cavalier type I drew for the man. (In contrast, my report - thank heaven for the necessity to write a report:

"I wanted to draw Little Lord Fauntleroy...I didn't want to put it down. But my honesty made me do it, although my defensiveness changed it into a courtier at the time of one of the Louis'. That way it was more acceptable.")

With the Draw-a-Person, one first draws the way one sees oneself. I had just remembered the courtier more strongly. Also, as I first remembered, the woman I drew was in a hoop skirt, I remembered this from the same period. (Ah, memory! The actuality of the first figure I drew, a woman, was quite different, thank heavens for records!)

"I drew an old-fashioned little girl - and at the same time I really didn't want to - knowing I was drawing myself. And I came up with a little girl where the head didn't belong to the body. The legs were all grown up but the head was a vapid child's head. And the dress was of the Victorian era."

It was a terrible experience to reveal oneself so clearly, and it was also humiliating to be asked to perform tasks when I couldn't concentrate; I couldn't think; and the tasks seemed meaningless and irrelevant. For instance:

"It was the word association test, and I was completely set to cooperate and to give associations. But with the first word I realized that it was impossible. There was no association present at all. It was as though the word had been released into a great bubble of space-time and hung suspended there. It had no relationship to anything. And since it was completely irrelevant, I couldn't even attempt to find a word to go along with it. It would be like trying to answer a question on color with a bar of music."

"I tried to tell them what it was like - it was as though I was in the middle of a wide wonderful pasture - free and green and full of sunlight, and something was going on back at the fence that they wanted me to do. I was in the pasture, but the word association test was part and parcel of the fence - which is only an artificial barrier with no real intrinsic meaning to the freedom of the pasture. It was trivial, and there was no association of any kind, so I begged off. It was almost impossible to see how intelligent people could expect to find meaning to life (which was the pasture) in contemplating designs of the fence. And suddenly I saw the difficulty. Life is the warmth and the flowing and the three-dimensionality - but it comes overwhelming to a man who must compress it into one dimension and flatness and barrenness in order to deal with it. And this necessity to deal with it comes when he tries to go somewhere. It is the motion of trying to go - trying to get some place is the difficulty - it is the cause of the descent from Eden. Because the minute that one tries to go someplace or to "be" someone or something, then one is not content to let things be. In our ardor to "be" something, we lose personal life - and must content ourselves with this poor, flat, tawdry imitation... the illusion had become a reality."

Pretty heavy material! In the session of January 10, 1957, I remembered telling Sid Cohen that I felt that LSD was a therapeutic drug, and that there were profound therapeutic implications to be examined with respect to its use. After my first LSD on October 10, 1955, I had worked very hard and finished my doctorate - not in March of 1956 because both kids got the mumps - but by the end of July. I had been meeting with Sid periodically about the LSD work because of the fascination I felt after my first session despite the frustration of being pulled back to reality to perform the tasks. Sid gave me numerous reports of people who had taken LSD and what they had to say about their experiences. There may have been some mescaline reports among the LSD reports too.

As I remember, the majority of reports came from Al Hubbard's file. Al was the grand old man of LSD, of consciousness change. How he heard about the LSD, I'm not sure, but he had worked with mescaline and other substances, and he was the first explorer of the LSD universe on the West Coast. He was reputed to be a millionaire, and after he first tried LSD, he reportedly ordered 43 cases from Sandoz, and got them! And, "Captain" or "Dr." Hubbard was the one who first gave LSD to Humphry Osmond, and perhaps Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard. Al had worked with the mescaline before with Humphry Osmond. In fact, Al met Humphry because of Humphry's report on his working with mescaline. Al also explored every mind-changing drug he heard about. My first memory of him is his arrival at our house carrying a tank of nitrous oxide and conning everyone present to having a whiff by extolling its virtues for psyche and soul. Just wasn't only nitrous oxide that Al had - he had developed his own pharmacopoeia to "blow out the stuff" that stood in the way of a good LSD session, which to him meant having a mystical experience. He was for the preliminary "clearing away the problems," and then giving one large dose to produce a transcendental experience. For instance, he had little white pills, called, I thought, mescaline-amphetamine, which caused people to open up and talk. In retrospect, I think it was methedrine with Al's fancy name. But even more important, as I remember it was on a later visit, he had tanks of oxygen and carbon dioxide. This was the first time he had experienced or seen the Meduna technique of inhaling "carbogen" for altered states of consciousness in order to help deal with psychological problems. I was to find that 6 to 10 inhalations, or "sniffs" helped as preparation for my second LSD session and then was useful in working to dissolve problems which arose afterwards. Much later Ernie Katz and I were taught by Lee Sanella to use carbogen (70% oxygen, 30% carbon dioxide) along with Ritalin - a technique which really "blew out the problems." This was a remarkable technique which patients hated more than any other but also knew how effective it was in helping solve psychological problems. I applaud it for the remarkable work it accomplished. What a buccaneer Hubbard was - large, rambling, and with his own private plane and special island on Puget Sound (which some gossip said belonged to a mysterious sponsor; this was in no way ever confirmed). We all felt as though he traveled with pockets full of magic and gold. From reports that I wrote at the time I can see how much I owe Al and his soft-spoken, insightful wife, Rita, for all they taught us about using drugs and also all the help they game me when I was going through the aftermath of that traumatic second LSD session. The following gives a flavor of Al:

September 23, 1957

Dear Dr. Betty (which he always called me),

"It gave us great pleasure to read your last letter, and to realize that my last one to you somehow jumped the semantic barriers and put across even in a small way which I desired to express..."

"I think I know that you believe I have some sort of block towards academic people, but really Betty, I do not. I think it is just that I expect so much more from them than they are able to give, and it is such a shock sometimes to realize how little it all really counts that I do perhaps rather take the attitude, `Oh Hell, another dough-head.' Perhaps part of it is the years I have had in this work, and being only human after all, many times have had the experience of knowing that I have done a really good job, and it would not have cost some Doctor anything at all to have said it was good. After all, that is all outside of the knowledge that we are doing good work, and that is all I get out of it. I suppose as I advance in my own development this will all pass away, I sincerely hope so..."

May 7, 1957

"...I have no trouble in Canada as I work under authority of the Government of Canada..."

"As to your reference to Catholic doctor, I think this is an excellent idea...I am perfectly aware that most of our people with their little personal God do now know my God of the Galaxies, and there is such a vast chasm between their God and my God that in most cases it would be impossible to bridge. The small group of mystics in our church who know what I am talking about and within whose authority I operate, are not very many compared with the five hundred million members..."

Al formed The Commission for the Study of Creative Imagination with himself (and his questionable Ph.D.) as research director, with Humphry Osmond, Abram Hoffer, John Smythies, Sidney Cohen, Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, Henry Puharich, Hugh Keenleyside and W. Kluhauf of Mexico City on the Board.

October 28, 1957

Dear Dr. Betty,

"...I believe there are certain common experiences for all people in these things, and I believe as I believed before, one must have spiritual grace to allow them to enter into certain dimensions or levels or what you will to call them. Then they have to have the intellectual capacity to turn it into current language of our day, describing the symbolic experience that they went through. Some minds are just not capable of doing this and look upon the enormity of the things brought before them with its fringe of illusion mixed up with some hallucinations, and just say, `Yes, I have lived many times before.' Then proceed to confabulate until they complete the `acceptable experience of the objective mind.' This does not mean that the experience has not been valuable to them, but the capacity to appreciate it in full is missing..."

Al Hubbard was a real and daring pioneer in drug work. He was first with so many things, and he never received the credit he deserved. But there were a lot of pioneers - Humphry Osmond, with his quiet and charming English gentlemanly way, his penetrating ideas, and his courageous spirit. He and Al Hubbard used to play intricate games in the cosmos after having taken LSD or mescaline. Next there was Aldous Huxley; no need to describe him - everyone knows of his scintillating mind, and what a path-forging person he was. He was also very kind to all of us who worked in the area. In fact, I never knew Aldous to be anything but kind to everyone. I'll never forget an argument he had with Tim Leary - a discussion as far as Aldous was concerned - about the role of the cellular intelligence, to which Tim was assigning total credit with much heat and emphasis. "But, Timothy," Aldous said patiently and gently, "the cellular intelligence is important. But there are other forms or intelligence, too."

Gerald Heard, the English philosopher who was very interested in the LSD work at this time, was just as brilliant as Aldous, but he talked in paragraphs that ran for a page or two, and always had an esoteric association to the insight at hand. I had met Gerald Heard at Trabuco, a meditation retreat he and Felix Greene founded and built in southern California in the 1940's. I will never forget the Benedictine silence at Trabuco, and the meditation room, built in the three descending circular levels and fitted with black curtains so that it was a place where no light could ever penetrate - of the worldly type, that is. Gerald was very shy and reclusive in those days, but the consciousness-changing work made him much more outgoing and more inclined to work with others.

I realize that all this time I haven't described Sid Cohen, who at the time I met him was head of Psychosomatic Medicine at the Brentwood Veterans' Administration. He was the main rock-hard researcher who did not tolerate fools lightly. Sid had the look of an eagle about him, and much of the sharp-eyed, hard-nosed skepticism that might be said to accompany it. He was also enormously subject to data and facts, which made him a true scientist and opened his mind to experiences beyond those with which he might be familiar. He was also a penetratingly intelligent researcher and research supervisor; he should have had legions of devoted researchers to follow their combined hunches - something which he was able to do only for a certain period of time.

But something happened in later years, and Sid, who had done the definitive work on toxic psychosis, all sorts of research on psychedelics, and also wrote articles and a book on LSD, seemed to have his perception change as time passed, into a bias against psychedelics. This might well have developed because of the wide- appearance of the drug culture in the later years of his life. But then he was as excited as all the rest of us about LSD, levels of consciousness, our psychotherapeutic work, and the work and thinking of anyone who was using psychedelics creatively - and properly.

During this period, the fall of 1956 and early 1957, there was a boiling activity. We read report after report - dozens - of people who had taken LSD and/or mescaline. And we discussed them, Sid and I - and Al, and Humphry Osmond when he visited, and people like Tom Powers who came from the east coast to experience LSD, bringing W. Wilson from AA on several trips. Every one of the people wanted to talk about their experiences, experiences which were so unique that each one of us was busy trying to make sense of all the phenomena which were occurring, and to fit them into some intelligible description, category, and understanding.

Through the fascination of all of the personal reports of LSD sessions ran the thread of the therapeutic possibilities of the drug, which confirmed my own intuition from my first experience - fragmented though it was from all the tests I had taken. The more I read, the stronger I felt. I shared my feelings with Sid, and he agreed.

Little did I know though, what I was getting into when I agreed to serve as the first subject (as far as we knew) to test the possible therapeutic potential of LSD. If I had known what was going to happen I doubt that I ever would have taken that fateful 100 gamma, the same dosage I had had at my first LSD session. (The report says my first time I was given 70 + 30 gamma, split.)

This time there was a difference, however. I was at least a little more prepared. I had the good sense to arrange for sitters for the children; I planned nothing for after the session, having learned from the experience following my first LSD. I ended up in chaos and total confusion and found myself putting the undried clothes carefully back into the washer after I had put them from the washer into the dryer.

After that first LSD session, I had to call my husband home from work because I was such a complete mess; I had no conception of what a disorienting experience LSD could be. No one had told me that - or that it could go on for hours or actually even days!

Lucky that I made those arrangements! After the second LSD I ended up, not in chaos and confusion but with the blackest depression that anyone could dream up. Depression had never been a symptom I suffered from.

Many hours afterwards, in despair, I finally forced myself to especially call Sid for help. Sid sat through much of my session. It was shattering to find that our phone was out of order when I went to call. In profound physical and psychological distress, I walked to the corner to a pay phone, forced myself to wait in line, and called, finally reaching Sid.

He refused to take me seriously saying to get a good night's sleep and all would be well in the morning. I clearly remember telling him that it wouldn't look good for the research if the psychologist who was the subject committed suicide. He was unimpressed.

Then I called my closest friend who had been with me through the whole eight hours of my LSD experience. She had taken a sleeping pill and was exhaustedly on her way to bed. The pill had begun to work, and not only was it impossible for her to come and help me, but she couldn't even talk long and coherently enough to help make sense of where I was. I can't remember what I did then in my despair, but I must have walked home. I know that I felt the universe had collapsed on me.

But our hypothesis had been proven! My friend told me as she delivered me home after the session that I had gone through the equivalent of 500 hours of analysis, something she knew only too well since she had been in analysis for many years with Dr. Otto Fenichel, a disciple of Freud's. Fine thing! The experiment was a success, but the patient was about to die!

In any case, in the midst of the profound depression, I may have saved my life and I certainly saved my sanity, by searching through our library, book by book until I came upon what finally helped. All night long I submerged myself in the writings of St. John of the Cross - that long, long night of the dark of my soul!

Thirty five years later, these are the memories which come into being about that session: the beginning with Mozart where there were all sorts of gleaming insects attacking my head, beautifully-colored insects which drilled into my skull; the ice princess and the gingerbread (man) - northern part and southern, warmer parts. But, as before, I had mostly forgotten. From the report, written within the first 24 hours of the session, dated January 10, 1957:

"Actually, I sort of expected a repetition of the freedom from self of the first session. But in reality I lived through a massive reduction of my defenses and habit patterns back to the very beginning of family identifications. All of these appeared in brilliant color, so, although I was conscious of what was going on, I might be said to have been hallucinating. I could stop the process when I wanted to, but I tried to ride the emotional and symbolic wave down to the bottom to understand the whole story."

"Almost the whole process was acute agony - pure hell or purgation - and I realized it as such and spoke of it thus. It was purgation of the spirit through self-knowledge; not just insightful knowledge, but also emotional knowledge of a direct and actual and acute sort. Almost the whole time I realize that I was enclosed in a wall of the defense: I could see and feel the limitation. But several times the light broke through, and at the end when I was beaten and spent I began the ascent to the light of wholeness and integration..."

"I remember having the feeling of waiting, waiting - waiting for I knew not what. Then I saw spots of brilliant color in small flecks or squares - the pure color made when a prism diverts pure light. The flecks danced all over to the music and everything in between was gray. To the left was a sly fox with a bushy tail. I realized with anguish - because it became painful at the very beginning - that analysis is my first line of defense: I take reality and break it up into pieces because I cannot deal with it whole and pure. This makes flecks of extraordinary brilliant color, but the whole interplane is gray. And how foxy I think the defense of analysis is!"

"Then I saw a white church and spire against a mauve background, and this reminded me of a cardboard cover for a record - again, a defense against the pure music itself. I fought throughout the session to understand and associate to these symbols. The little white church with the high steeple at times had a woman standing beside it. She was all bundled up in warm clothes - mauve with a white trim - and it was cold. The woman became in turn a madonna, a snow maiden, a snowman, and a gingerbread man...Sometimes the church would show just its bare bones - the ribbing like the prow of a ship, and then the woman became a figurehead. And at times the bare bones of the church changed into a magnificent cathedral with the shadow of the structure still upon it. And I realized that these were the planes of the prism which contaminated the pure soaringness of the church - the bones of my defensive system."

"As I experienced these symbols I relived the myth of Nordic supremacy - to my horror. I was made to feel the coldness, the austereness, the separateness of the myth that Nordic people are superior to others. I realized that this had been built into me from earliest childhood. I felt its austerity and its coldness - anyone who must be superior pays the price of snow and ice. And through these symbols I released the racial intolerance back and down to my childhood where I was brought up in the South - and I loosened part of my own need for feeling superior. The first line of defense: analysis. The second line of defense: prejudice and intolerance..."

"In understanding the symbols I found the madonna and the gingerbread man were two halves of myself which I could not get together into a whole - they were stereotypes of my misperceptions of the masculine and feminine parts of my nature."

"We followed this down - down through my relationships with sensitive men whom I had manipulated so that at times I felt I had driven them to the brink of death or insanity. I felt this in a violent way because the guilt and the misery of manipulation of the vulnerable was so overwhelming for me to face. I felt that I should be my brother's keeper, but instead I had used my brother to my own advantage. I saw this with terrible and excruciating clarity in terms of how I had sided against my brother and father; I who knew how he felt and should have protected him! And how this relationship of fundamental competitiveness had become displaced with the years onto my relationship with men."

"As the guilt piled up, I felt that I killed my father, turned my mother toward insanity and made my brother neurotic and latently homosexual. And it was too much. I went off into a tangential world and knew that I was insane. I could feel the enclosedness of it, the separateness, and worst of all - the symbolization. I saw giant mosquitoes which drilled into my skull and sucked out the brains. They were not alive but were mechanical - huge, impersonal, glittering insects with the flecks of brilliant color that were the sign of my analytic tendencies as decorations on their transparent, beautiful but completely dead wings. And they swarmed around in complete silence. I told the therapists that they would have to pull me through - or I didn't know what would happen."

Well, pull me through they did, by showing me that as a little girl I couldn't have been responsible for all those problems, but enough was left of the massive dose of self- awareness that it precipitated me into that profound depression.

I swore that I would never do that to a patient!

And we never did.

Letter to Ewing W. (Zip) Reilley of New York who funded our research at the V.A. Saturday, January 12, 1957

Dear Zip:

"And the top of the New Year to you -- and all good wishes for each and every day of 1957."

"I am writing you for several reasons: first to tell you how much Will and I enjoyed meeting you and Tom last week. Secondly - - aren't you the sly one! Here I talked practically all evening about my absorbing interest in the therapeutic application of LSD and even mentioned that Sid needed money for a study, and you didn't say a word about your good deed and the fact that you will make all this possible..."

"I thought you might like to know that we have in effect started: Thursday I took LSD with a therapeutic orientation with a friend of mine (with whom I've worked out a number of problems in the past) and Sid present. The equivalent of four years of analysis in six hours. And it's still coming..."

"There were so many things I learned for subsequent therapy. First, the preparation before taking the drug is of utmost importance. It sets the whole frame of reference. Nothing can happen at all, to speak of, if the person is unwilling to go into problems -- or is closed to the possibility of religious experience. Both aspects seem to be necessary. It is quite possible that with patients preliminary sessions of small amounts of LSD to get the problem areas out into the open and cleared up will prove to be the optimal way of proceeding."

"Then I learned something about the well defended, successful people: they are more difficult to open because their defensive system has been so beautifully rewarded and sanctioned by society. And their anxieties are deeply buried along with their unacceptable drives. I also have a hunch that individuals in the psychiatric field or allied ones are also more defended along these lines. I want to test some of these hypotheses -- another of which is that alcoholics, with proper preparation -- are almost the best possible subjects -- A.A.'s that is. They've been living through their hell on earth and if really close to accepting the third step are really open to what LSD can do for them... if you have any questions I'd love to try to answer them..."

"For now -- blessings on you for all your good works -- and for making this possible for us. Will joins me in all good wishes. Betty"

Letter from Zip Reilley postmarked January 27, 1957

Dear Betty and Will:

"I am sorry to have delayed so long in answering your wonderful letter. It `rang such a bell' with me that I wanted to be in a position to do justice to it..."

"The reason your letter made such an impression is that it served to crystallize the realization that I am an example of `the well defended, successful people'...who are `more difficult to open because their defensive system has been so beautifully rewarded and sanctioned by society etc'. I have been working on this problem in a groping and not very effective sort of way for years. So LSD holds out for me the hope of accelerating this process..."

"I am delighted by your reaction to the opportunity to work with Sid in the exploration of the therapeutic potentialities of LSD. And it was a great privilege to have been able to play a small part in furthering the work. I hope that I will have an opportunity to do more. (And who knows, I may have been `casting my bread on the waters' personally as well!) If LSD can do generally what it did for you of accomplishing in six hours the equivalent of four years' psychotherapy, I cannot imagine a greater boom to mankind. Certainly this is something we can all get very enthusiastic about and contribute to in whatever way we can..."

"All my best to both of you...Zip"

Wednesday, February 13, 1957

Dear Zip:

"I can't tell you what a pleasure it was to have your good letter..."

"First -- we all send greetings. Sid said to tell you that your gift has been accepted (many thanks again) and my contract is in Washington for approval just now. It is to run from March l to July l with privileges of renewal. My office is just about ready, and we hope to start soon on our first official subject. Because in the meantime we have been experimenting unofficially. The picture becomes much clearer, and the necessity of the problem- centered LSD experience emerges even more strongly...I feel, and I think that Sid does too -- that the best possible therapeutic LSD experience is one in which a subject glimpses the unity of the cosmos and his own place in it, and then sees and tackles his problems in relationship. And it can be done and that is what we are going to be doing..."

"I have high hopes (and some concrete evidence) that small doses of LSD are most efficacious in beginning the lowering process of the defenses; the next step is to test this out precisely..."

"I shall leave room for a note for Will... And now with best love from us both -- until soon - Betty"

Letter from Tom Powers, dated January 22, 1957

Dear Betty,

"Thank you for your letter of the 12th and for letting me share what you wrote Zip. I would like to know much more about what happened when you took LSD..."

"Even after the quite literal miracles with which my life has been blessed, I am still a person of so little faith that when the hand of God becomes obvious in certain events, I experience a kind of delightful uneasiness. It was so in our meeting with you and Will. After all that had happened on our trip, it seemed almost too good..."

"The evening after I returned from California I had a wonderful talk with my Mother and Dad. I told them about the new LSD experience, and we talked particularly about the beauty of the worlds which are revealed and how these undoubtedly are the worlds in which the soul finds itself when it leaves the body for good. The next day at l:00 in the afternoon quite suddenly and unexpectedly my Dad died. He went very quickly and gently and easily. Very much happened then and in the days immediately following that I would like to tell you about, but not now and not in a letter anyhow..."

"I do not have an extra copy of the report on the first experience but please do if you wish to make a copy from the one which is available out there for your own use in any way you see fit."

"Sincerely, Tom"

Friday, January 25, 1957 (my reply)

Dear Tom:

"We were so pleased to have your letter..."

"It was very extraordinary about your father...Sometime I should like to hear what happened; the death of a man's father is a very important event in his life and I am sure that there was on the one hand much involvement...and on the other hand much freeing."

"I have taken you at your word that you wanted to know about my LSD experience; I feel perhaps that it will be helpful -- if only to show what people are defending against. With the postulates for the session -- what I hoped of it -- I asked for whatever I should have -- for the strength to cope with it-- to see the problems through..."

"Thank you for permission to reproduce your report and to have it for very special occasions. It is truly an extraordinary and freeing and integrating one to read..."

"Al Hubbard came back from Texas -- although everyone expected him to go straight on north from there. I don't quite know where our research -- or rather our attempt to get information from him -- is going, but perhaps we can see him with a few other patients. As to the project with Sid, it is in Washington, I guess, to get an okay for the VA. Sid has an office for me in his building, and he is going to gather some furniture for us -- a tape recorder, and a phonograph. We can't really start with subjects until we have the official okay, but it shouldn't be too long in coming."

"This is so important to me -- it is hard to think about much else. There is some key to its therapeutic use which lies just outside our grasp -- but somehow I feel that we have almost all the pieces assembled and that the insight will eventually come. If only we can learn to use it with all the power implicit in the intimations we have seen!"

"Will sends his best to you -- as do I. With affectionate regards, Betty"

January 29, 1957

Dear Betty,

"Just a note to tell you that your LSD material has arrived and I would like to ask your permission to keep it for ten days or perhaps two weeks. I have read the material, but it bears so directly and powerfully upon areas of this whole problem that I am most deeply interested in that I want an opportunity to study it carefully."

"You are a good soldier and a good reporter, Betty. I have been through exactly the same places you describe so faithfully; the details of my experience do not match yours of course, but the essence does. I went there via the use of alcohol, metrazol shock, and some other means. You went there via LSD. That doesn't matter. The important thing is to get there -- and to get through. Not out (that's what the ego is always clamoring for) but through."

"I think you are coming through -- really, honestly, deeply I do. And then, when you have come through, the way lies open to the fulfillment and the incredible joy that the human heart is really made for..."

Tom

"The key is surrender -- at every stage. Let the ego go; let it die. It always makes a mess of dying, but what of that? (Suicide, of course, is not the death of the ego; very much the contrary. The ego is an awful ham. It always tries to make a tragedy out of its own death. But this, as everything egotistical, is also false. At the death of the ego, the real self laughs. Actually the real self laughs well before the ego- death and this brings on the happy event as nothing else can. The ego can not stand being laughed at; it sill go to any lengths to avoid it.)"

Saturday night -- February 2, 1957

Dear Tom:

"Your two letters came today, and I hasten to answer them. First -- my very deepest and heartfelt thanks for your kindness and understanding. I can't tell you how much it means..."

"Of course keep the stuff as long as you need it and find it helpful. Another chapter will join it toward the end of next week. Like a dope I made only one copy of the sequel which occurred last Wednesday. This friend and I both took 25 gamma expecting to loosen inhibitions and to get further into our problems. (January 30, 1957) I hoped that I might pick up the thread of my father relationship and be able to carry it on further because its unresolvedness has been like acid deep inside. I was therefore totally unprepared to have a completely positive experience -- with nothing about problems whatsoever. Just pure light, integration -- and pleasurableness. But you will see. I haven't talked to Sid yet, but we are both very curious about the whys of this -- whether following the problem-solving session -- then the integrating -- or whether the small dosage for me or just what. We shall have to experiment with this and see because it is of extreme importance for our work therapeutically. Interestingly enough, we had given 100 gamma to a psychiatrist the day before -- who had a mixed reaction... I felt guilty I had to leave him (which we had all known because I had a prior appointment with a patient) after lunch -- at a time which coincided with Sid's leaving him for a while. And his feeling of isolation and depression I think were a direct result of this -- or at least this intensified it. The one thing I have noticed is that the subject who takes LSD should be the whole center of attention for as long as the process goes on and should have any and all necessary support for as long as he or she needs it. I don't think Sid realizes this as much as I do, but I've seen it both objectively and subjectively... also I think it is better when working therapeutically for only one subject to take the drug. If people are on the same level -- all right, let several take it -- and it might well be that smaller doses would work just as well. Dr. Humphry Osmond told me that when he was down, but when I checked with Hubbard, he said no. But after my experience, I believe Osmond."

(Discussion of Load Carrying followed in response to his mention of Contagion)

"For one thing, I have found -- and Sid agrees with me -- that one should not try more than one LSD session a week. It just takes too much out of you no matter what kind of thing it is. I know that in these sessions there is some sort of bridge constructed -- or rather a bridge comes into being between the subject and me -- they have all spoken of it and talked of how I knew what was going on in them and they could communicate with them (me?). I can feel it too, but not as overtly as they think. However -- this seems to be important for the therapy -- and through it I seem to operate intuitively as a therapist. Certainly it is not anything very planned --what is to be said comes from the unconscious -- and if it is not right, one knows immediately. Anyway, I find that this demands great psychic energy -- and as such it would be helpful if there were ways to channel this -- or help it along..."

"I do thank you for your concern about me. I was very touched. But perhaps it would help to know that I have worked as therapist with psychotics, with sexual psychopaths (legal terminology, not psychological) and naturally with neurotics. I really feel that although LSD brings much more out much faster, it is the same process. The interesting feeling I have, however, is that it is not my experience which is insulating from the infection -- not the therapeutic experience, that is -- but... the fact that one knows and feels deep down through the layers of the unconscious the power of the good and tries to operate out of this center..."

"Anyway, the important thing I see as a therapist is to give an individual an LSD experience which combines optimally the integrative and the problem oriented...I am trying to sort out the conditions which make it possible. It obviously depends on the state of the individual, his openness, his own physical and mental condition as he takes the drug, and on the therapist, too. And one large and important element is that of trust. In fact, after my own last experience I would say that this is almost paramount. Because if we have a bridge of trust from one individual to another, it can so easily extend to God."

(From a report of 25 gamma session January 30, 1957: "If one can build a bridge of trust to another human being, then the bridge needn't be much longer to go to God. Or maybe even shorter. But suddenly I saw that that was what Al has told us in hundreds of different ways. He 'processes' people until they trust him implicitly before he gives them the 'materials' -- or else he doesn't give it to them...this may very well be a key and crucial point on which the type of reaction under LSD swings.")

"And now it is late and I am tired and I don't know whether I am making sense any more or not. But I do want to say one more thing. Thank you very much for your note about surrender... But by golly -- until it is over -- just how does one surrender? Not with the conscious mind, certainly!? And who can control the unconscious...All I think that I can do is to try to stay open -- and to ask desperately for help from anyone who knows. Friends can really help at times...Probably, however, the most helpful comes in the daily exchanges and contacts if relationships are as honest as they can be..."

"Thank you again for everything...Betty"

Wednesday, February 13 (1957)

Dear Tom:

"It was wonderful -- I can't tell you how wonderful -- to have you-all here..."

"Of course there is no problem with LSD -- or with those who work with it (or) don't work with it -- if it is only the means. When it becomes the end, then the difficulty arises..."

"I have been busy the past few days keeping relationships up to date -- as you call it... you might like to know that I called and went out to see Gerald (Heard, English philosopher) this afternoon. I picked up his reports to classify and told him how much I needed his help in the work which Sid and I will be doing... I went on the say that I was sorry about Sunday night and told him the circumstances...(which) arose from my own questions about parts of my own experiences and where they fit into the scheme. The only time that you were mentioned was when he said that you felt that the difficulty had to do with Al. He went on to discuss the assembly of people...and he drew the analogy of the elements...which in combination make gunpowder. Of course in my naive way I had thought that those of us with deepest concern about LSD should be gathered to communicate...It is just that the communication became warped because it was grafted on past currents and eddies of great strength and force. However, all seems well...Gerald had to leave for an appointment, so M.G. and I went for a lovely walk. Her third LSD experience was very similar to my problem-centered one..."

"I saw Sid today and also my office -- which begins to look like a habitable (though far from esthetic) place...I think that the large sessions will be held away from the hospital...I'm going to start seeing our first subject soon; also I plan a trip to Long Beach to see the head of the VA Hospital1 there who has been using LSD therapeutically with great success (reported) on all kinds and number of patients in group situations. Then Sid gave me a brief report of 500 LSD sessions on 40 patients at Pinebluff Sanitarium, Pinebluff, North Carolina which reports many of the improvements which we have noticed with therapy..."

"Driving home from dropping you off at the Miramar I had the sudden flash that -- although you speak well about knowing that you are unable to help W. (W. Wilson, founder of A.A.) the words are not yet synchronized to the music. This may not be an accurate observation and I offer it only tentatively..."

"Please give our best regards to W. and tell him that it was a real pleasure to meet as interesting, extraordinary, and powerful (and challenging as a problem to himself and others) person as he..."

"With love from us both, Betty"

(From LSD report of February 16, 1957, which turned out to be the

1 1 The head of the VA Hospital was Oscar Janiger, MD who made an extraordinary contribution with his world-wide work. He was fascinated by LSD and gave it to whomever he could, possibly between 200 and 1000 doses. He had artists do painting of kachina dolls before and after LSD sessions. Oz said he planned on studying creative people and their reactions to their sessions.

first group session we ever did):

"When I talked to Tom about his coming out...the idea of all of us taking 25 gamma experimentally to see what would happen. Since all of us had had it at least once -- in larger doses, it would be interesting, I thought, to see what the small dose would do... So unconsciously or rather half consciously I probably had hopes of help from Tom either in the problem area or in the integrative..."

"But when W.W. (Wilson) walked into the den...I knew this was his session..."

"Sid was waiting for us in his office at the hospital and there were warm greetings to Tom and W. At 12:20 we took the drug...W. had taken 50 gamma -- the rest of us 25. When offered the little blue pills and was told by Sid to take what he wanted, he said -- 'Never say that to a drunk,' and took two...it was 35 minutes later when he said he felt stirred by the music, and 10 minutes after that when he began talking. Throughout the session he rarely would admit feeling the drug or its action, but about the time he started talking quite a bit in a more relaxed way his face changed, he looked much younger, and the tension began to go."

"Tom and I took alternating roles of therapists; Sid for the most part sat very quietly. I felt pulled in different directions at times by the three of them...the problems seemed to be in the mother-father area from the masculine aspect. Sid was very open to the whole thing...and I felt that many of the things which were said to W. he felt were said to him, too. And Tom seemed to identify a great deal with the problem and at one point cried. W. came close only twice -- once in relation to his mother and once with his father, I believe. I kept having the feeling that my role was that of therapist -- this wasn't my time to experience the drug, and then I consequently examined myself as to whether this were a defense against the drug..."

"...Gregorian Chants, and these moved Tom profoundly. He seemed to take onto himself the suffering of humanity and particularly with respect to a mental hospital...I think he actually was open to the surrounding suffering and as such felt it. This is important with respect to where we hold our massive LSD experiments..."

"I hesitate to enter into the dynamics of the problem(s) as they were uncovered. I do think that there were two important parts, though -- W.'s experience of himself as unloved -- and the perception that it was not through himself but because of his parents that this occurred...It was interesting to see how the therapy went -- at times I felt that Tom jumped too many levels and lost W.; at times he felt that I was off the beam..."

"At about four or shortly after W. seemed to be coming out and rebuilding his defenses (but one can still get through, Tom -- as we found at dinner: both Will and I did.)...Sid had to go to a military ball, and so we decided to leave. Now that the session was over, I suddenly began to feel the drug -- four hours after I had taken it. (Both Tom and I had full LSD reactions 5 hours after the drug had been administered.)...I really didn't feel that I should drive, but W. is ticky in LA and Tom wasn't in much better shape than I. So I crawled down San Vicente concentrating on all aspects of driving and had a terrible time figuring out where to go...But we finally made it to Tali's, and while we sat drinking and talking the drug really hit me. The color and room approached and receded in waves -- it was just like the first time I had had the drug from the sensory aspect -- the slugging on the back of the head, the nausea, etc. And I knew I was in for a bad reaction because there wasn't the concomitant freeing experience."

"I felt progressively worse as we came home -- and since the sitter had to leave almost immediately, I was projected like a missile into the domestic situation. Nothing was done that should have been done, and everything was a mess, which I tried to keep from Tom and W. (the old perfect hostess operating) and I felt worse and worse and worse...But I couldn't put a name or reason to it -- there didn't seem to be anything related to my suffering...I had to retire to the bedroom...I sobbed and sobbed in terrible anguish over -- I didn't know what! And I still don't really. Tom suggested that it might have been a reaction from the session since I was carrying a heavy load of masculinity -- one of me and three of them..."

"So -- Will came home and we had drinks -- hard and soft -- and talked and talked. And then to the Miramar for dinner where Will really got through to W. a couple of times on the bridge between them of depression. I got through to him once, too, although Tom didn't think we could do it... And we talked about trust, and the difficulty is that W. doesn't trust anybody: he can't let them close because he doesn't trust himself -- that he may kill them, in effect. Because those of us with 'paranoid' tendencies will kill before being killed, and the 'depressive' will kill himself first. And I think that is all there is to different psychiatric classifications in this area. And perhaps there is only one: the ego when attacked will defend itself to the death. And this violence and basic urge to kill (basic to the ego, not the self) is so appalling to the 'depressive' that he shrinks back and turns the point of the weapon toward himself while the 'paranoid' on the other had tries to rationalize it and make a pretty picture of it for society or whoever to see..."

"And when we got home at one or after I was still so disturbed and upset and in such suffering I cooked until 3 and soon I felt peace and release and back to creative reality again. Cooking is a sacrament; I never knew before."

February 26, 1957

Dear Betty,

"I wrote a brief note the other day... I've had too much work the past six weeks, and I'm really a little punchy."

"Your report of our 25g session came today, together with the earlier report. I'll return all of these along with the other material I have to send back to you..."

"I think both you and Will are wonderfully good for W. because you are among the very few people who are interested enough and loving enough to deal with him forthrightly and outside of the highly forced and artificial context of his position in A.A. Something did him a whale of a lot of good -- obviously, visibly so -- while he was out there this last time, and I think you and the LSD are very largely responsible..."

"The great thing about LSD for me is that it permits the realization that Reality is here and now and that only the thinnest kind of dream separates the ego-bound consciousness from the always-existent free child of God. Our experience together was no exception, and I am grateful to have been with you and Will in your lovely home when the clearest of the glimpse was open to me."

"Something persists after the experience, too, and it persists this time more strongly than before. The drug is a wonderful help but it is a crutch, and I'm sure the time would come when the crutch would not longer be needed."

"My love to Will." Tom

March 22, 1957

Dear Folks,

"Please forgive this late response in thanking you both for all the friendship you gave me so freely on my last trip to the Coast. More often than you can guess, I have continued to think of you."

"Since returning home I have felt - and hope have acted! - exceedingly well. I can make no doubt that the Eisner-Cohen- Powers-LSD therapy has contributed not a little to this happier state of affairs."

"It looks like the contract for our television show is about to be signed. One of the best things about this is that it may bring Tom and me within sight and sound of you both once more."

Devotedly yours, W. (W. Wilson)

April 13, 1957

Dear Betty,

"Thanks for you(r) letter. Sorry for this delay in answering..."

"Thank you very much for the memorandum on the conditions contributing to an optimum LSD session. It is helpful, particularly with our meeting in June coming up here. Do send along anything you think would be of help. My interest continues to be very, very keen. The total effect of the three sessions on me has been striking, and steady. It has profoundly changed me for the good; and the change extends to a considerable extent to the physical level; a bad allergic situation which had existed for ten years is about 95% cleared up and slowly improving more with time. W. is strongly affected for the good. Everyone notices how much better he is. He himself is very happy about it and realizes clearly what it is that has done it."

"We are all very excited about Sid's coming here. Let me know what is happening there. Best to Will and the kids."

Love, Tom

Thursday, April 18 (1957)

Dear Tom:

"I hope you won't mind my answering your letter so quickly..."

"I have thought of you so often -- and come so close to writing you to ask for your help. But things seem better now, and I hope that I am past that part. But I have walked so close to insanity, Tom -- and it was only my responsibilities which at times seemed to hold me back from driving a car over a cliff. I guess I took so much guilt so fast -- and then environmental conditions seemed to converge on me...But as I said, events changed...and also I have been reading up on conversions (both Sid and I have because it bears on the LSD work and also on schizophrenia.) And half of the world's conversions have no element of feeling of personal sin at all. That is our heritage from Christianity -- and also especially the Reformation and Luther and Calvin. But no matter. Oh yes, one more important insight -- the Gregorian Chants are not good LSD music; they have invariably projected the subject into strong feelings of guilt, just as they did you that day: that was the Chants you got the reaction to -- not the hospital -- because I have had it happen several times until I realized what it was. The music is very important: if the subject doesn't have any preferences, I've found a Mantovani record of classical selections is good to start -- and then Chopin's first piano concerto is better than anything. Pablo Casal's Kol Nidrei is good, too, and several of Beethoven's concertos. Also some Mozart -- just so it isn't done mechanically. I want to talk to you about this at length. In fact I have a number of things to say about LSD sessions but tonight I'm very tired. I had a session yesterday, and another today, and then I had a post LSD subject in and a meeting last night. I'm handling the session(s) by myself most of the time now..."

"We seem to have hit on the technique of getting people past any possible bad effects of a session with the graduated dosage sessions. But must run a larger sample. I feel we can do it for anyone -- if one is willing to risk the investment of time and energy -- any non-psychotics, that is, because I don't know about them."

"Will joins me in sending best -- and bless you for your letter." Betty

April 27, 1957

Dear Betty,

"Sorry to hear that you have had a few rocky spells lately. But I am not surprised. I think you are carrying a very large load. An LSD session in which one takes the kind of interest and responsibility that you do is liable to draw off a lot of energy and vitality. I do hope you will not over-do."

"I still have more work than I can do right, but it is nearly all work that I love and I am glad to have it..."

"My love to Will. And please do not try to do too much too soon. This LSD work is hard work and difficult work, and I think the first saying of A.A. applies very directly to it: Easy does it. Tom"

May 14, 1957

Dear Tom:

"Again bless you for your letter..."

"I am not working too hard -- really don't think I am. It's just that life has had a whole lot of things piling up for me just recently. At the moment it isn't overwhelming. But if you remember, I told you and W. that I wasn't ready for this work; my children are too young, etc. And you both laughed and said it was always that way. On top of everything else there has been great difficulty in getting responsible and kindly women to stay with the children. And as you know, I feel my first responsibility is to them and to Will -- workwise, that is."

"Of course the main difficulty is myself and the particular problems I am trying to work through. One does the best one can. I eagerly await your arrival out here -- whenever -- so that I can take one more LSD..."

"This week I start a hospital patient and a patient who did not benefit at the alcoholic clinic... So we go into the pathologies, and I'm excited to see how it goes. I hope my feeling of confidence is borne out. I really feel, Tom that we have the method licked. But we need more cases to test this. And we are planning a really long-range study with other therapists too, if we can get the details worked out, because we feel this is so important. If it's to be, it will."

"Best love to you. Will would join me, except that he is in Washington on his way to Orlando, Florida for some military meetings along with a whole bunch from Rand. Betty"

P.S. "Work is also a defense for me: when things go awry if I can do helpful work the situation mends."

Thursday, June 6, 1957

Dear Tom:

"...I have just finished my third session, today, in as many days...The man today is finished after four sessions -- he didn't really need the fourth one, but he went higher and experienced more deeply. This was my first hospital patient and it was his second hospitalization (last 1954) and now he seems a different man. It makes one very humble and joyful."

"I await your arrival with eagerness. If you can possibly arrange it, could you manage to wait until after the fourth of July? I have a heavy schedule as a man is coming down from Palo Alto the week of the 24th for three treatments; the week of the 17th will be Sid's first week back at the hospital and I am scheduled for three sessions then, too..."

"Come as much ahead as you can spare the time -- sit in on a session with me if you like -- or anything that would be helpful. And save one day for me. I await your arrival eagerly (now I'm repeating myself). Best love from us both -- Betty"

Western Union June 25, 1957:

TRIP POSTPONED UNTIL AUGUST LETTER FOLLOWS TOM

Saturday, June 29, (1957)

Dear Tom:

"I didn't know how much your coming meant to me until I had your wire that the plans were changed."

"Is there any possibility that you and W. Wilson might be coming out on the TV show? In July? You see, I'm leading a psychotherapeutic seminar for the Rathbuns (Sequoia Seminar) in Ben Lomond from August 18th to August 25th... After the seminar we have a few days in Los Angeles and then leave for New York. Our American Psychological Association meetings are over Labor Day, and I think I'm going to be presenting a paper. I'll be in New York from about the 30th to September 5th; Will will go down to Washington on business after a few days in New York and I'll join him there. I was hoping to see you while I was back there, but it wouldn't do for my LSD session. Nor would it work between Ben Lomond and New York..."

"Is it at all possible to make your trip the first part of August rather than the latter?"

"Thomas Merton just isn't a substitute for Thomas Powers -- much as some of his things help."

"With love, and please let me know. Betty"

July 17, (1957)

Dear Betty,

"Yes, it will be very good to be with you again. A lot has been happening both here and there. I'm sure we won't have anywhere near enough time to get talked out, but we'll make a dent in the situation anyhow."

"The greatest effect of the LSD experience for me has come in the past two or three months. A lot of what I knew under LSD is coming back, not as a permanent state, but as quite steady intermittent awareness. It isn't like a recurrence of the experience, of course, but it comes pretty close to it. The net result is a drastic de-problemizing of my whole life. Things are still tough here and there, but it is a matter of dealing with conditions, not problems. It is hard to describe, but the connection with LSD is unmistakable. I think it will be years before we really begin to know what the possibilities of this experience are."

"Love to all. Tom"

July 15, 1957

Dear Zip:

"It was good to have your letter in May and to have more direct news of you from Sid..."

"Both Sid and I are extremely grateful to you for your confidence on our LSD work as demonstrated by the extension of the grant. As the main (or should I say sole?) beneficiary of it, I want to thank you especially. And I guess Sid wrote you that he put through a rise in rate and a change from 16 to 20 hours. I leave all that up to him because I love the work so much and find it so fascinating...all the ideas appearing on schizophrenia, hypnosis, the mystic experience, and all the rest. I think we have a pretty good idea now of how to make it work for almost everyone (psychotics excepted) and the point now is to demonstrate on a number of patients. Which I hope to continue to do. In the fall we plan to limit ourselves almost exclusively to hospital patients for several reasons: not the least of which is that they are easier to discuss when trying to communicate what we have learned..."

"And so -- until some time in August -- our best good wishes, and again all sorts of thanks for everything."

"Affectionately, Betty Eisner"

(A number of letters between Tom and Betty about plans for the coming visit and the scheduling of activities)

LSD SESSION -- Wednesday, August 28, 1957. These are from both my and Tom's notes. Tom's notes are marked with "'", mine with

""" and direct quotations are marked with "'"; my interpolations are marked with "()".

"My memories today of the session are vivid but limited. First I was in `hell' and in pain for what seemed like one eternity after another. Finally, when I had made up my mind that I would be in hell forever and accepted that fact, it was over. And then I remember going to `heaven' which was beautiful clouds and `cosmic' scenes which turned out to be nauseating to me, and meaningless. Out of this grew the Tower of Babel with everyone speaking their own language and no one understanding anyone else. I can't remember the transition, but the awareness grew in me that something had to be done about dependency."

There was a great deal on dependency/addiction. Besides the importance of experiencing the unreality of both "hell" and

"heaven" was the insight that I must make a symbolic sacrifice so that I could communicate with my mother (a very difficult job). I hit upon giving up alcohol, a valid symbol of dependency/addiction. Following the session I didn't drink any liquor for a year and a half. This "sacrifice" actually did enable me to get along with my mother until her (to me) entirely unnecessary death, which she seemed to bring on herself by insisting on an incorrect operation and then dying on her wedding anniversary from the embolism which followed.

"75 gamma taken at 9:18 a.m." Tom listed the music which was used during the session.

"I lay in silence almost for the whole first two hours. I can remember the first powerful impression I had was of Tom. I said 'I can feel you, Tom; you're an extremely powerful person.' To which he replied that he could feel me, too. I can remember wishing that he would play the music in certain order but feeling that I shouldn't interfere. Finally I asked him to put on the Chopin first concerto...then the Beethoven Fifth Concerto."

"It may have been the Beethoven. During this time I was feeling the action of the drug. I felt first a sort of disengagement -- a going with the music. And I remember that the field in front of my eyes was of the color of eyelids with light shining against them. Slowly I became aware of the fact that my body felt as though it were disintegrating. This proceeded very smoothly until the process got to my head. There was trouble there: it was too hard. I remember smiling about this. In fact I reacted with smiles at times and at other times tears slipped down my cheeks, and sometimes they made a river..."

"About this time I began to feel pain in the back of my head and also in my left arm and hand... It was as though I were being told that I must see, and yet I was not allowed to see. In other words that I must see what there was to be seen, but I was not allowed to understand it -- to see it with all the logical questions answered. The pain in my arm became excruciating and as I tried to `see' what I was supposed to...elbow bending, or the alcoholic, of dependency...The pain was almost unbearable, and...I became aware that I was to consider myself an alcoholic -- just like Tom. That it was involved in my dependency problem, and that I had to be content to accept the pain and allow it to continue forever with no way out. But the pain was too great; I couldn't bear it alone. So I finally asked Tom to put his hand under my left elbow where it was at its worst..."

ll:ll 'Wants T.P. to put hand on (under) left elbow briefly. Says will explain later. Says is a good joke on her.'

'`The purgation of the alcoholic...will explain it later. It is hell being an alcoholic.''

"`I am an alcoholic.'"

'`Everyone is an alcoholic -- Wherever the dependencies are, whether family, children, or whatever.'' (Dependency leads to addiction.)

'`I ran right up against Jehovah of the Old Testament....Guilt is not just in the person or the personal unconscious. A cosmic thing -- involving other lives. Even hell is pleasant, if you accept it.''... He did not say pleasant, as I remember, but that it can be tolerated. And in order to go through an experience, one must accept that experience as though it is for the rest of life and as though there will be no other.

'`There is a place where one is not allowed humor. Because that is also an escape.''

"`I know. I have been there.'"...

'`I keep thinking of Job. You can't understand him, just live through it.'' (This is being broken on the cosmic wheel, which I was.)...

11:35 '`We are brother and sister. A cosmic relationship.'' (Working out of sibling business on here and now level, too. As Tom says, when all the levels are in line -- the here and now up to the cosmic -- that is the reality. Also seeing kinship of where we are and what we are doing.)

ll:50 '`These worlds seen in LSD are not the Reality. They are designs. We (T. and B.) know that there is only one Reality. Dependency has to be burned out.''

'`Other levels are kind of nauseating. Hell is not the only false level. All these other levels are not important, not real....''

"`The Maya of the Tree of Life.'

'B. gets a bad taste for some of these levels -- archetypes, etc.' (Heaven is as nauseating as hell is painful. There is only one reality --God. That is all that counts.)

12:20 '`In time, we cover up the crying need to live with God, masking it under the dependencies, and then hating the dependencies.''

"Addiction is not necessary or desirable. (I think what I said was that addiction arose when one misinterprets the one dependency as being other than on God; then addiction follows inevitably.) Responsibility is the important thing..."

12:25"...`The cosmic levels are magnificent. But they are just smoke.'..."

"Have to accept heaven and hell. Other was painful, the hell experience. This is nauseating. This is heaven, but it is smoke, too. Have to be willing to live in it, knowing it's not the real. It is wrong to cling to religion." (I had to accept and be willing to live on the symbolic or heaven level even if that were all there were.)

"The wheel. The cycle of rebirths. The Maya. Why the illusion? Must be willing to live in each level."

1:30 "`It is all a process of purification to make us able to love... Unless we've lived through it in the here and now, we can't love...The only horror is not to be able to love. We make all our mistakes because we do not love each other...Have to take up our burden in the here and now and clean up.'" (Clean up one's own dynamics.)

1:35 "Still `stuck in heaven'. Experiencing heaven as `purgation'. ..." (Nauseating.)

'B. thinks she may have to give up drinking... Sees the implications (of giving up) all the way up to the top and all the way down to the bottom.'

"`I never have seen it this way before.'..."

4:10 "`How many lifetimes I have lived today!'"

4:30 "`The whole idea of ritual sacrifice. Give up drinking not to save your soul, but lovingly for someone else.'" (And not for any rational reason, but simply because the evidence presented is overwhelming that it must be done although the reason why is not vouchsafed. And this sacrifice was for mother.)

"Marked difference in level. Much more use of the scanning and rational facility -- return to a much less deep level."

"Discussion: whether there is a pattern to going into and coming out of the experience."

4:50 "And then M. came and she could see what I had been through. And when I described the long purgation, Tom couldn't believe that I had been through at least two solid hours of pain. `But you looked so peaceful,' he said. Tom was tired, and M. took over. It is good to have someone fresh come in at the end to take over and carry the subject further. And the next four days were the ecstatic and the light. And I needed an enormous amount of sleep for the following week. I tired greatly and my arm was very sore. And since then I have felt the boiling of the internal levels, settling down to the alcoholic restriction. With luck they should settle within three to four months, as they did with the smoking before. But we shall see."

The schedule was a busy one that August: Monday, August 26, Tom arrived by train and Zip by plane. On the 27 Zip took LSD at Gerald Heard's, with Gerald, Tom, and Sid there (I was not invited to these Gerald Heard sessions; the all-male sessions didn't seem to want an interfering feminine touch). On Wednesday, August 28 I had my just-described LSD session with Tom sitting with me. And the next day, Tom took mescaline at Gerald's with Zip present.

September 4, 1957 Dear Betty and Will:

"It was so good to see you if only so briefly; and I feel that I owe you an explanation of why I was so withdrawn on Monday."

"For some time prior to going to California I had been under a good deal of pressure; getting only about six hours sleep a night. Then I flew out on an overnight coach getting no sleep. This was my only vacation so I had counted on doing some relaxing out there. But I found myself on the go more than I was able to handle. So my nerves were rather jagged. Finally, the L.S.D. experience opened up some areas that were rather intimate and personal. And the "ego" was counter-attacking, which I was not fully aware of until afterward. As a result I now realize that I may have created an impression that was very far from my intentions and true feelings. If I did I hope you will accept my apologies."

"I hope to be back in California between Christmas and New Years and am looking forward to seeing you then. Meantime my fond regards and wishes for all the best of everything to both of you."

Sincerely Zip

September 11, 1957

Dear Zip:

"Thank you for your very sweet letter of the 4th. Of course we understood about your being so busy when you were out..."

"Actually, I've found that I'm not good for much of anything in the practical sense after taking LSD..."

"I don't know whether this is pertinent or not, but I should like to try to communicate to you something as have learned from the research which you have so generously made possible: and that is the extreme value of the low doses (25 and 50 gamma) for clearing up the personal problem areas which are of a pressing nature so that the large dosage LSD experiences can be really creative and integrating. There is also a symbolic and guardian level which must be penetrated, but it yields to traversing with devoted friends once the here and now problems have been understood and largely cleared up. I hope that these observations will be helpful to you..."

"Meanwhile best of everything, and take it easy so you can get the good of your LSD work."

"Sincerely, Betty"

(Alas, Zip was unable to profit from the research he had made possible! Only large dosages, and no "therapist" present.)

October 2, 1957

Dear Tom:

"This has been a long time in the writing; my desk is still piled with things I didn't get done before my seminar."

"But I do want to thank you for all the wonderful help you gave me in my LSD session. I never would have made it as I did without your help. I hope someday to be able to type up your notes. Do you want a copy then -- or at least to see it?"

"Enclosed is a blue line of our current LSD thinking which I have just revised. You will find that there is not much fundamental change, but there are some additions which are important to put into writing."

`I've been getting some very interesting things in sessions lately: did several Sequoia Seminar people, and they were very remarkable One a full experience on his first 25 gamma session -- and reenacting many of the Freudian-posited dynamics on the way, but going far beyond that. I'm glad we have all these on tape."

"Have you started work yet? Do let me have news of what goes on. We are having two sessions a week, and sometimes I can manage three if they are 25 gamma ones. Hope to get the article in shape before too long. In checking up our subjects seem to show continued change for the better. Which is very exciting."

"Best love to you and it was wonderful to see you in August. Betty"

10/10/57

Dear Betty,

"Thanks for `current thinking on LSD'; it is very good and will be really helpful if and when something gets going in the way of actual sessions here..."

"I was a long time getting back to normal after the mescaline experience this time. This one was a real earthquake, and some pretty large chunks of life were shaken up and are even now still settling... I have great difficulty this time in trying to say anything about the experience. I just feel that everything I say is wrong; not false but hopelessly and almost offensively inadequate."

"Your work sounds even more exciting than ever, particularly the fact that the subjects continue over a period of time to show change for the better."

"Affectionate regards to Will and the kids, and to Sid, to whom I shall be writing one day soon. Tom"

1/30/58

Dear Betty,

"Good to get your note."

"When Sid and I looked in on your patient and particularly during the time I held her hand, I felt a tragedy in the process of being resolved. Then I saw clearly something that was very like Blake's picture of the light angel subduing and binding the dragon. Enclosed is a report on my own last LSD experience."

"Hello to Will and the kids."

"Love, Tom"

February 28, 1958

Dear Tom:

"Thank you for your note and the report. I was very moved by it. It is such beautiful simplicity and so full of what it is. It was a bridge for me, also."

"I was interested in the description of what was happening with my patient. You were so right. I was almost out of energy when you came in, and it took both of us and Sid, too, to pull the trick. She had one final session in SF with a group and hit the mystical transcendence and is now cured. But without that particular session I don't think she could have."

"We are publishing the article and hope soon to have it submitted for publication. It goes well and is fun to write with Sid."

"We plan to come East the 15th of April... I would like to see you if you are not too busy around that time... I also want to see Dr. Denber at Manhattan State Hospital if he is not in Rome. Otherwise we shall be visiting friends..."

"I want muchly to discuss the integrative experience and its effectiveness, personality-wise, too. Best to you from us all. Love, Betty"

Sunday, June 8, 1958

Dear Tom:

"...I was deeply sorry not to have seen W. Wilson; at the hospital they didn't know we were just back from the Midwest. Please tell him to call us at home next time..."

"I have been looking for an office and picking up my practice. Also trying to get some of my thoughts on paper. If the Rome trip works out (that I can get away, that is) I would like to go SAS directly and then come back via NY and then I would see you then..."

"There are a number of interesting things going on: foremost is the fact that I am getting LSD-like phenomena (low dose equivalents) without the drug at all. It is relatively easy in people who have had LSD, either with or without music, but I have one patient who has never had any sort of drug like this and who does wonderfully. It certainly does speed the therapeutic process for those who are open to interpretations of their own symbolism. Several friends who have had LSD are also noticing this with their patients."

"Had lunch with Sid the other day and it was great fun. Our article has been submitted to J. of Nerv. and Ment. Dis. and this month we give the paper in SF at the AMA. He is very kindly letting me read it, which I shall enjoy. I hope to give several sessions in SF; have been away from the drug too long with only a couple of sessions since March. And I find it makes a difference. Have talked to Gerald but not seen him, but I did have lunch with Aldous Huxley and we talked about drug work, what should be done, and I asked his advice on all the material I have which I think would be helpful if in print. There is a writer who is interested too, Anais Nin, and we are going to see what might be possible. She had quite an extraordinary inward-turning, creative experience."

"It would be lovely to be able to see you; barring that to talk to you. But sooner or later you will be out or I shall be back. Until then we all send you our best love. Plus heartfelt wishes for a lightening of your load."

"Regards to Zip and W. Wilson. Love, Betty"

Two notes from Anais Nin:

Dear Betty Eisner:

"As I am leaving for Europe for July and August (leaving June 23), I am sending you these books for yourself, and I hope we will see each other when I return. I was very impressed by your attitude as to the positive value of LSD -- and hope I can give you some support as a writer, or in publishing -- at least believing in you!"

Anais Nin

July 8, 1958

Dear Anais Nin:

"I don't think you would have dreamed of how much your note and the books did for me. Just after I had written you that we would see you soon, I was called in the middle of the night and told that my mother had died very unexpectedly..."

"Somehow your books and your kindness conveyed a special message to me when I returned..."

"I was particularly touched and quickened by what you had written on the fly leaves. I suppose I had never thought particularly of it outside of my own psychological bias, but it had not occurred to me that one would render less creative by analysis. I can see how this thought would arise within the confines of resistance or lack of knowledge; however, if such a process occurred, it would be because the creativity of the individual was made available through neurotic means, rather than through an opening process. And if the analysis or whatever process of maturing were continued far enough, I should think that the creativity would reappear, many times refreshed. I know nothing of your life, although somewhere back in the recesses rings a tiny bell which connects you with Henry Miller and with that time of his life in Paris. I have found him an inspired writer, and one time Will and I, accompanied by Rajagopal who took us there, called on him high on the hill of Big Sur. He had been asleep and he awakened so gently and so penetratingly insightfully that the afternoon is framed in my remembrance... So there is some part of you which fits in there somewhere, I think..."

"Next, I was struck by your observation that your analysis was your method by which the negative aspects were prevented from taking over in an individual always close to her unconscious. This is extremely meaningful to me and I should very much like to pursue it sometime at length with you. Sid and I...had an LSD study all set to try to get some insights into creativity by the use of painting and artists as contrasted with the paintings of schizophrenics at the hospital. Alas, the National Institute of Mental Health had other places for its grants..."

"There is another whole aspect by which the negative can become understood and used creatively instead of being limiting and destructive: this has become clearer to me with continuing experience with LSD. I think this occurs when the individual makes contact with the deep Innerness -- call it what you will -- which lies within us all and which probably has some common ground. Perhaps it is something as simple as what Dr. Osmond calls the transdimensional vector: love...LSD when used properly enables the individual to make contact with this and to experience it so that life can become very different..."

"I am also finding that for certain levels of the unconscious, drugs are not necessary. I know this has been self evident for you all your life, but for those of us who never had an image, a vision, or a fantasy in color until LSD, it is a revelation that such an infinity of worlds exists within us, accessible to us at almost any time under proper conditions..."

"With great affection and gratitude. Betty"

(Undated; probably December, 1958)

Dear Betty:

"I didn't write you after your gracious dinner because I thought you were leaving for Mexico -- and I was so touched when I received your letter - Particularly when I know how busy you are - This was the first year when faced with growing burdens of correspondence I gave up sending holiday greetings - perhaps also because I felt they can be offered all through the year."

"I was very exhilarated by our talk. I feel that you are very creative in your work with a fine blend of intellect and intuition. And you do write well. And in yourself there is the aliveness which could make these experiments fascinating. I do want to help you with your book in any way I can -- even if it is only as a fiction writer encouraging the case history to put on flesh, color and identity - It is time we reject the convention of fiction itself and unravel the truth about human beings, but it is true we have to bring to it the artistry which makes the truth alive - We have a lot to talk about and so little time. Both of us fulfill our women's role and you besides that of a mother -- but let us not for lack of strength or time, lose contact - If you are able to get your cases to fill out - perhaps I can then help you with suggestions - Some evening when R. plays near you I'll run in for another talk -"

"Affectionately, Anais"

Tuesday, August 12, 1958

Dear Tom:

"Your letter was carried up to Ben Lomond with me in the fond hope that I could answer it there. Actually it arrived when I was in Kansas City because of the unexpected death of my mother. Fortunately we had been back there in late April and early May and she had had two weeks with Maleah and DB who were her real loves. Her death was one of those unnecessary and completely unexpected things medically... Thanks to you and the session of just about a year ago I was able to handle it all. You will never know how grateful I have been for that session on so many levels, Tom; it really was an extraordinary one."

"As far as my plans now are, subject to anything happening such as measles, I leave here Sunday, August 4th and go directly to London. A couple of days in Worchester with Sandison, a couple in London with Dr. Ling, I hope a day in Hamburg with Frederking, some time with my brother and friends, then Rome on the 7th. The conference is the 8th to 12; my paper is on the 12th...then I have alternative routes home. One is go to London and back over the pole; the other has me leaving Rome the 14th, I think, for New York... The whole trip is very delicate, and I must feel my way along. But IF all goes well, and IF I can make it home via NY, I have planned the two days so that I can be just with you...I have a great deal more information about the drug -- and in fact about doing the same thing as 25 or 50 gamma sessions without any drug at all. We call this deep fantasy out here and a number of us who have worked with LSD are able to do it for patients..."

"I also want to write Humphry (Osmond) before you and W. Wilson go there...Give him a big hug for me; he has kept me alive in heart during many dry times of these last few years. He is a wonderful person, and really knows about love -- which, after all, Tom, is all there is worth knowing about. I think all the rest of this we do is just embellishment on the theme -- and usually the theme of resistance."

"The seminar this summer was remarkable in many respects, one of which was the level of drug dosage. We used 10 gamma two days, interspersed with 22 mg. of mescaline and 5 mg. of methedrine two other days. Then the group had 25 gamma (except two refractory ones had 50 gamma) and I 10 the last day. It was the most remarkable group sessions I have ever seen for getting down to basic dynamics. I'll try to write some clues to Humphry you might use in AA groups. Certainly I think low dosages are your answer - - particularly things like methedrine which open rapport among people -- plus a little mescaline if 10 gamma LSD is hard to get...Best love to you, Tom, and let me know your plans. Betty The kids are wonderfully well -- growing muchly -- very great fun."

It was August of 1958, and I was in transition: we had finished the research at the V.A., and I was getting my own office and going into private practice. Also, I was on my way to Rome to give my very own paper on LSD. Pretty exhilarating. But before we go sailing off to new worlds to conquer, it seems appropriate to see what our research had been about.

When we started "treating" the subjects of our research at the Brentwood V.A. to examine the therapeutic potential of the new drug LSD, the first session we gave them only 25 gamma of LSD, approximately one-fourth the amount that I had taken in each of my LSD sessions. And while it wasn't enough for the strongly- defended subjects (the alcoholic, the salesman, and the schizoid), it worked well for the majority of the 22 subjects we had in our initial study. And if the 25 gamma wasn't effective that first session, a week later the 50 gamma was, or certainly the 75 gamma the third week. Because we met the subjects weekly, and raised the dosage each time until we reached 100 or 125 gamma in most cases, and 250 gamma with a few recalcitrant subjects. At the time, incidentally, we didn't know anything about Ron Sandison's work in England where he started with 25 gamma with patients at Powick Hospital and gradually increased the dosage. But we found out from his articles, from letters, and then, finally, by visiting him in England.

Dr. Ronald Sandison worked with Drs. Spencer and Whitelaw at Powick Hospital north of London, where a whole ward of the hospital was reserved for patients undergoing LSD therapy. While their dosages began at 25 gamma, sometimes they increased more rapidly than we, and sometimes went as high as 150 to 400 gamma. Their "team" consisted of a psychiatrist, nurses who stayed with the patients through the whole session, and therapists who conducted group therapy between drug sessions. Two-thirds of their 94 patients were reported improved with follow-up periods of six months to five years. However, "We would stress that all our cases were in danger of becoming permanent mental invalids, lifelong neurotics or suicides." (Sandison, R.A., Spencer, Andy and Whitelaw, J.D.A.. The therapeutic value of lysergic acid diethylamide in mental illness. J. Ment. Sc. 100: 491-507, 1954.)

Dr. Joyce Martin, also in England, treated 50 chronic neurotic outpatients at a day hospital with gradually increasing doses of LSD and found lasting improvement two years later of 68%.

"The therapeutic effect of LSD-25 would appear to be in the reliving of early experiences, particularly if accompanied by release of repressed feeling... the presence of the psychiatrist helps him to act out and work through the experience in an environment of security not present at the original experience." (Martin, A.J. LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) treatment of chronic psychoneurotic patients under day-hospital conditions. Internat. J. Social Psychiat., 3; 188-195, 1957.) Alas, there is no readily-available record of Tom Ling's work which was carried out primarily in private practice in London.

Our own experience was somewhat the same and somewhat different. Because earlier reports of Al Hubbard had shown that the setting and the people present made a difference in the experience the subjects had under LSD, we fixed up a hospital room to be as attractive as possible. (In fact, it ended up not looking like a hospital room at all. Al had found music to be effective in enhancing the action of the drug, which we corroborated personally and with our first subjects. In fact, we found that the type of music and the period when it was played in a session could have a profound effect. We developed a set of pieces, mostly classical, which aided the drug in its effectiveness and direction. Also, we let subjects bring their own music, which sometimes was helpful, sometimes not. We found that "light" classical music was good at the beginning of a session, and that concertos were really effective in the deepening and integrative periods of the drug action. Concertos seemed to express and enhance the relationship of the individual to the environment as expressed by the interaction of the soloist with the orchestra. Piano concertos were particularly good, especially Chopin's First and Second, and Beethoven's Fourth and Fifth.

Sessions lasted from four to eight hours. I was with the subject the whole time while Sid joined us periodically and always for the simple sandwich lunch, eaten there so that the subjects didn't have to leave the room. The presence of both a man and a woman seemed to help resolve problems, especially during stressful times. We also used other aids such as photographs, especially of family and early life situations, and a large, hand-held mirror. After the sessions the subjects were taken to the art therapy clinic to draw or paint, as they chose. Their productions make a fascinating record of the course of their therapy. Even later, when I was in private practice, photographs of the patient and family members were found to be especially helpful in resolving early problems. While there was no art clinic at that time, pastels and paints were made available, and many patients chose to draw or paint following a session.

Of the 22 subjects in the study carried out at the Brentwood V.A., five subjects were neuropsychiatric hospital patients and 17 were volunteer outpatients. Problems ranged from depressive states to borderline schizophrenic patients in the hospital. Our improved rate was just over 72%, as judged by the two doctors, the patient, and the individual closest to the patient. Follow-up interviews were held over periods ranging from six to 17 months, continuing success in behavioral adaptation being the criteria of improvement. For instance, one of the "non-improved" category, a hospital patient, was cured of his alcoholism, the reason for his admission, only to become a compulsive gambler two years later. The rate of improvement was 16 out of 22 patients. (Eisner, B.G. and Cohen, S., Psychotherapy with Lysergic Acid Diethyllamide, J. Nerv. and Ment. Dis., Vol: 127, #6, December 1958)

Probably our most dramatic patient was an alcoholic who had been hospitalized 23 times for bouts of drunkenness during which he usually became violent. J.D. had seven LSD sessions with discussions in between when he requested them. He improved to the point of being discharged from the hospital and has never been rehospitalized -- some 35 years later (although, he did drink again). His weekly productions in the art clinic are a fascinating record of the drama of his recovery, although they do not picture the event which made his recovery possible: the abreaction of an incident where he had been captured by the Germans in World War II and had had to kill two Germans in order to escape and return through enemy lines to his own Air Force unit.

Another interesting case was a hospitalized patient who was obviously on the verge of a psychotic episode.

"I'm afraid we'll blow him into a paranoid schizophrenic psychosis with LSD," I told the ward doctor.

"Well, he's going to have a paranoid breakdown anyway if we don't do something," the doctor replied, "and there's nothing lost if we try."

So with Sid's approval, we gave the patient a series of LSD sessions of gradually increasing dosage and walked him past his psychosis so that he was able to be discharged the following month. Again, we have a record of his progress in the pastel drawings he did each week. With respect to approval, Sid and I had decided that no subject would be approved for the study unless interviewed by both of us, and we agreed that the person was appropriate for the study. The agreement was breached twice: once when we accepted a patient by phone without having interviewed him; and Sid's solo approval of a patient who later, after I had gone into private practice, broke into my office back door and knocked me out of my chair from behind. This was a schizoid patient who was almost impossible to tolerate until he was under LSD, and then he could be related to. He had been unable to get a job or to maintain a relationship, but after 16 LSD sessions, he was able to do both. However, evidently we didn't drain the reservoir of his hostility enough during his sessions. Incidentally, it was interesting to note how LSD lowered an individual's barriers enough to make the person possible to relate to. No matter how unpleasant or hostile before, all patients were "lovable" once the LSD was working strongly.

It was a fascinating and absorbing time during that first study of LSD. Sid and I were very involved with the psyches and complications of our subjects/patients, our colleagues, and almost anyone who had had LSD or was working with it. Certainly our study proved to both of us beyond the shadow of a doubt that LSD was one of the most potent therapeutic tools in existence. Also that it was a powerful drug for teaching: observers could watch as patients went through levels of their defensive system, layer by layer, down to core problems. It was amazing how observers could follow, see, and understand the structure and the process. We also learned about the power and the process of abreaction of past traumatic events as we watched and recorded successful solutions of difficulties emerge from the recapitulation of past- time events, accompanied by emotional turmoil and often explosive actions and vocalizations.

Usually the insight(s) came to the person himself or herself. However, with difficult problems, sometimes insights and interpretations from one or both of the "therapists" could resolve the difficulty. But the main technique which was found effective for basic problems which presented themselves in symbolic terms -- such as raging fires, the void, dragons, a vortex -- was to instruct the individual to move toward whatever appeared. On consideration, this is an extremely valuable piece of advice for anyone with a difficult problem: to face the difficulty head on, and to move toward it. In the first place, if we run from a problem, we can't see just what it consists of, how threatening it is, whether it is going to devour us, or what. When facing away and running, the problem always feels insoluble, and the terror increases as we retreat, being all the more terrifying because it is unknown. When we turn to face the problem, we become aware of its nature and are able to deal with whatever it is in the best possible manner. Furthermore, and most important, as the individual under LSD "walked" toward the fire in order to be consumed, the flames which appeared to be of hellish intensity, suddenly changed in the moment of impact, of stepping into their midst, and were transformed, as though miraculously, into a situation capable of resolution.

As Sid and I finished our absorbing study, we began to write up the experience. Also, we collected everything we could find which had been written about LSD, especially anything which had any bearing on therapeutic changes in subjects or patients. And we read and reread the reports of our subjects/patients, the necessity for a written report of each session having been one of the requirements for the subject's participation. About this time, Dr. Herman C.B. Denber of Manhattan State Hospital suggested us as participants in the upcoming meeting in Rome on September 13, 1958 of the First International Conference on Neuro-psycho-pharmacology. That was a pretty heady business for me -- the prospect of a trip to Rome, and to give a paper at an international conference! There was a paper to be written, but that wasn't all. In getting to Rome there was the possibility of visiting all of the LSD workers in Europe!

But before Rome and the exciting business of getting there on the way to the meeting, it seems a good idea and might be interesting to review some of the correspondence from those exciting first days of trying to understand LSD.

June 25, 1957

Dear Dr. Osmond:

"I have been contemplating this letter with pleasure for weeks; I'm glad that it is finally becoming actual."

"In the first place, I didn't think it was fair for me to get so much pleasure out of your letters to Sid and Gerald (which they have kindly let me share) without telling you about it. Sort of like watching the neighbors without their being aware of it..."

"We have been doing such fascinating work, too, that I want to tell you about it...As you know, Sid and I became interested in the therapeutic possibilities of LSD through you, Gerald, Al, etc. We read every report we could get out hands on... We even tried a few patients ourselves, and got good results. The big question was whether we could make it work in every case; and make it work without throwing that percentage of people who seem prone to unpleasant reactions into a tailspin. We think we have both of these factors licked by a simple device: we start the subject at 25 gamma and increase the dosage each week..."

"Sometime I'd like to tell you about the process of our therapy; about the mystic or interactive experience which I believe is at the core of any therapeutic change which is lasting, and talk to (you) about so many things which bear on this area -- like hypnosis, for instance. And depersonalization..."

"I have noticed that the course of the drug seems somewhat the same from subject to subject if there is no interference from the therapist. I think the function of the therapist is to optimize conditions for the LSD to work... In tracking down the records of subjects with bad experiences and in talking to them, I have found that they were holding out and fighting with all their might against accepting some aspect of themselves -- and letting go to the drug. And they fight by regressive modes of defense: catatonia, paranoia, depression, etc."

(long discussion of schizophrenia and Humphry Osmond's theory)

"...If only I could talk to you about this -- Sid and I really have at it, but how we would love to have you here, too...please give my best to Dr. Hoffer. I liked him immensely when I met him -- just like with you. And now -- Best regards from us all -- Betty"

Box 1056 Weyburn 30:6:57

Dear Betty

"(I hope you will forgive the familiarity but if in doubt look on it as a bit of cuneiform or cryptography). I was delighted to hear from you. I enclose a copy of the key to the short hand to help your ciphering; you might let Gerald and Sid squint at it when in doubt...I am very much interested and encouraged at your account of the work you are doing. It seems to me much more sophisticated than Abramson and Sandison (in England). Paul Bergman (of the Pinel Clinic in Seattle -- possibly you might like to write to him) has suggested psychoanalytically that this mass "integration" of id, ego, and super-ego seems to take place -- Your idea of starting with a small dose, working up is very sensible. I suspect that it reduces the anxiety giving a patient a sense of mastery and achievement which makes the experience very much "his own show"...I am much in agreement with your views on the need to allow the process to unfold and developing its own way. It may become possible to intervene when we know more, but possibly when we know more we shall be less keen to muddy the waters. How should we interpret the psychotic-like effects? I am not altogether sure that they are really all of one sort..."

"Your model of schizophrenia is a convincing one and very congenial to me... (long and fascinating discussion of schizophrenia; he really seems to understand the aspects from the biological, psychological, perceptual, etc)..."

"It will be very interesting to see how LSD works with early and borderline schizophrenics. It may well be that a discovery on their part of the `naturalness' of their strange experiences may well make it easier to cope with it. And what may be as important may make communication possible because of the recognition that if the therapist has taken LSD too there is then a common language as it were. I believe this opening up of communication between the ill person and the therapist who has become an honorary psychotic may play a large part..."

"I have not seen Al yet, but hope to do so. Abram Hoffer saw him last week and he seems more settled. I think we may slowly get him to realize that the professional and business worlds differ in their customs and that piracy still does not very often pay steady dividends even though it may be a good short term investment. He does not understand the patient and prolonged work necessary to turn a hunch, however good, in (to) a working hypothesis. Yet I believe he has been very helpful in churning up good ideas and could be even more useful in the future if he can learn that we live in very different worlds... However in the past explorers have not always been the most scientific, excellent or wholly detached people. They have often been quite wrong in their estimates of the country into which they pushed. Christopher Columbus believing that he was in the Indies...(Al) is much more likely to receive recognition for his considerable achievements than poor Columbus was. Ever, Humphry"

July 11, 1957

"Dear Humphrey: (and I would have done it last time if I'd had the nerve)..."

(long discussion about communication, schizophrenia, adrenochrome, perceptual anomalies, etc)

"And may I venture an aside here and agree with you wholly and completely that love is the transcendental (how did you put it -- transdimensional?) vector by which any salvaging (or salvation?) can occur. But it takes great time and enormous energy for the channel through which it comes and cannot be maintained indefinitely, I believe...Love is somehow the bridge by which the sick person finds his way back..."

"I think I mentioned that there was a schizophrenic whom I wanted to give LSD to...the three borderline ones we have worked with have given us enormous insight -- and a healthy respect for the amount of after-hours work when the subject is a `normal' or outpatient referral. We hope in the fall to concentrate fully on hospital patients whereby the individual will be transferred to Sid's ward and we can really see what is going on and be assured that there is good care 24 hours a day..."

"I wrote Al just yesterday and took the liberty of mentioning that you had called him an explorer like Christopher Columbus... I hope you don't mind my quoting from you to give grandeur to my suggestion of where he can contribute the most. I think that you and I are the only two who see both sides of Al and are able to deal with them simultaneously; he does stir up such a fury of reactions at either one extreme or another. And then perhaps I am calmer about him because he has been most helpful and kind to me, really..."

"So with great good wishes for your trip to Zurich and many thanks for making such a pleasure my attempt to communicate. And with love from us all, Betty"

Box 1056, Weyburn, 21/7/57

Dear Betty,

"...delay in answering...a project which I have put to have Francis Huxley (Julian's son) work 6 - 9 months on a very chronic ward and look at it as he would the Urubu...who are an Amazonian excannibal tribe. Huxley would live on the ward and would confer with Kyo Isumi our architect to enlarge the architect's idea of people and space. From this we hope to enlarge our thinking on this topic and maybe make minor changes using Hediger's (Zurich Zoo) principles and see where we can make better social conditions at minimal expense...Our objective is to take the running of mental hospitals out of the sphere of intuition and put it slap into learned techniques. There are far too few intuitive people for us to depend on them..."

"Of course you must develop a new lingo for the LSD work -- you don't want it confused and contaminated. I suspect however that some of the existentialist or phenomenologists work might be useful...I don't think you can or indeed should pretend that those who have not taken LSD 25 or something similar can possibly understand. I don't think they should be allowed to use it as a therapy and they should be most strongly discouraged -- Hard words, but what is the point -- they will just use words about words and we have so many of them already..."

"I am sure that you are right LSD 25 properly used by those who are prepared gives immense self understanding. But as the mystics insist, this is never absolute or permanent, but then in life nothing is. It has to be used and good habits built on the new foundation..."

"I am very glad you did write Al and mention C.C. as a parallel...I know him well and love him, but whether I can influence him to see things as they are I don't know. Possibly he has no motive for seeing things as they are. It is much easier to feel that `I am right' and the island, the aeroplane and the Rolls Royce are mute and not inglorious evidences that not I, but the other fellow is wrong. However Abram and I hope to see him soon. He wants to contribute, he is able to, he has a variety of gifts..."

"Good wishes to Sidney, Gerald, and all. Ever, Humphry"

August 3, 1957

Dear Humphrey:

"I do hope that you have a chance to see Jung in Zurich. He lives in a suburb called Kusnacht -- on Seestrasse 228... I was moved to drop him a note telling him of my admiration of his intuitions regarding the impersonal or racial unconscious and intimating at levels beyond. That and individuation appear to me to be well substantiated by the LSD work we've been doing and by the many reports of subjects which have passed through my hands...in the years to come I think that his contribution will be more recognized and he will stand with Freud rather than being mentioned almost apologetically by categorizers as though he belonged in a footnote..."

"It was interesting to have your report on the two psychologists who got into the paranoid area and kept at it hour after hour. This `schizophrenic belt' (Al's term, as I remember) is one of the aspects of LSD and it is of immense fascination to speculate on just why and when its doors open to engulf the intoxicant. I went into it and came out by myself, but had to be pulled back from the area by interpretations by Sid and my friend; we have had one patient go into it in the form of severe depression; and one just the other day who happens to be a good friend of mine went through it to the experience of relatedness to humanity. Again it was interpretations of what she was worried about which brought her out -- that and the physical contact with Sid and me. This latter appears to be of extreme importance... she needed both a man and woman present to pull her out quickly. The trip through that to the other proved the most beneficial experience she has had therapeutically so far; I look to her next (and last, I think) session for the furtherest advance which I think will be preceded by her depersonalization. Because it seems that the extreme mystic benefits to be obtained from LSD are available only after some form of depersonalization is experienced by the subject. The razor's edge in a way: on the one side one tumbles down the precipice to psychosis if the shock of `not being one's self' is too great; on the other (side) one is projected upward to another level of consciousness and understanding. Do I make too much importance of this as the unlocking phenomenon for the mystic area? Please check my observations on this."

"Of course the `cure' isn't permanent. But at least one can see where the sun rises and sets and the horizons and the galaxies and know the infinite peace of liberation. And since the air is purified by truth, it gains something for use in everyday living. And one can never be content to live always in the valley at sea level when one has experienced the rarefied ozone of the higher altitude. So it serves as a map left in the intellect, as a warmth or remembered radiance in the emotions, and as a still small voice or an agonizing goad in the conscience and a longing in the heart. I really mixed up levels of abstraction in that one didn't I? I think I mean to say that one can never be the same after going through self understanding (of the outstanding problems of the moment) to the experience of the Other under LSD. At first I felt reluctant to exercise the responsibility I felt was in my hands at setting another individual's feet into the path which must inevitably become straighter and narrower as the perception clears. But if the individual is sent to us, who am I to send him away?..."

(Description and discussion of three borderline cases, and of paranoid schizophrenics)

"Now my observations may not be wide enough, but it seems to me that temperament may set the direction -- certainly the biochemical is the substrate -- but the early environment showed the direction in which the twig was bent. A willow may lean further and bend back on itself in spirals, but an oak will have only a slight curvature. Actually, I think Freud was extremely perceptive and accurate on many things. I think there is a good deal more to the levels of psychosexual development than the opponents of psychoanalysis would like to admit (and a great deal less than the devoted brethren would like to think, too). I feel that early experiences plus temperament give the form and design of the ego structure. Heavens -- end of page; so end of letter. With great good luck and fun in Zurich and best love - Betty"

August 11, 1957

Dear Humphrey:

"This is in the way of addenda to my letter of the 3rd. We have just done two extraordinary women subjects with LSD, increasing doses, and the steps they went through were so startlingly similar -- with variations for their own individual dynamics, of course -- that it seemed perhaps there was a rough sort of map here for our inspection."

"With the 25 gamma both women relived incidents from their past -- and both of them spoke of it in terms of the unrolling of microfilm. Both are extremely intelligent people, and the details remembered from half a century ago, even, were extraordinary. The microfilm story unrolled -- not in the sequence or steadily, but jumping from recent past to deep past, but concentrating more as time went on, on the deepest past. And there were many tears and laughs accompanying it. This continued until in both cases repressed incidents were relived with strong affect -- what I call a massive abreaction. In both cases these early incidents had served as a crystallization point for later emotional distortions."

"Once they were remembered and relived, there came a peacefulness; then the scene appeared to change to a different level of consciousness -- the symbolic. Both women experienced extremely frightening `apparitions' which appeared to be symbolic representations of their own guilt. The younger woman went into the schizophrenic area; the older one experienced it more like hell with Mephistopheles present..."

"Getting through this aspect of the unconscious entailed moving toward the difficulty and the help of both Sid and me. In both cases they needed both a man and a woman, and the time element ran about 45 minutes...And part of the most effective help is through the `laying on of hands'. That, encouragement, and the aid in moving toward the frightening apparition rather than away from it. Then it changes its face and reveals itself. Another help is the letting the frightening animal or incident fall away and recede into perspective, which comes with the help of the therapist."

"Once through this level, comes the experience of the solution of the problem through the ages: one subject experienced the full family circle first in Biblical times, then Egyptian, then Grecian. Both started with the Biblical level and then experienced peace, the unity of humanity, and the solution of the outstanding problem in different ages. This has been true of a number of reports I have read of sessions that Al has conducted. I suspect that this is the area of the impersonal unconscious wherein one experiences other times and the personal problems are solved at a different level."

"After this, the rising to the light -- and the going as high as the person is able to. But the oneness of humanity precedes this -- and seems to stem directly from the impersonal level. Perhaps that is the level of human unity; the cosmic one arises from that."

"When people jump past one of the levels, could it be possible that they either have worked through that one, or are in some way open to the other one at this time? Some for instance go straight to the ages; some straight to the light...I think maybe with time our understanding of the layers of the unconscious will be clearer... With best love... Betty"

Box 1056, Weyburn 10:8:57

Dear Betty,

"Yours of the third August to hand -- and being in the mood and having just had Al here for a couple of days, I feel I must hurry and answer before the pre-Zurich rush clamps down..."

"We had a delightful visit. I think I have unraveled much of the California debacle and it was in some ways highly successful; because even if Al did not do all he hoped at least he seems to have added a good push to your work and helped it along...He brought his old fireman's hat along and I must admit that he has no false ideas about it. It is a Ph.D. It is recognized by the state of Tennessee (it has their seal on it). Al seems to recognize quite clearly that it is not quite the same as some Ph.D.'s but it is recognized by state and so with limitations by federal law. And hell, Al is better than 100 Ph.D.s or M.D.s, much shrewder, too! His lawyers have examined it carefully and tell him that he is entitled to call himself Dr. H. if he wishes. However now he seems happy enough to be Captain! I am curious to know what happened. But it does seem that K. Ditman was ill advised to hold up Al's LSM. It was an arbitrary, improper, and probably illegal act. It was above all the one sort of action which would set Al moving along his tycoon lines... What Al did not quite recognize was that in his new surroundings such behavior was a trifle outre. Yet looking at it from his point of view it was wholly commendable and really very moderate. So I suppose Wild W. Hickock would have been commendably moderate if he had shot off someone's hat rather than his head...Al signaled quite clearly that he would get his property back and this meant that he would act in accordance with common business procedure. I don't think that anyone heeded his signals... Anyway, he is very happy getting news of your work and of course I am too..."

"I think you are perfectly correct (and the mystics bear you out on this) that there is a psychotic belt lying between normality and what my colleagues Duncan Blewitt (one of the two bedeviled psychologists) calls the golden strand. Physical contact may be very important..."

"I do hope to see the great old master of Zurich. He has written too much, but he is so exuberant and seems to have no critical friend who can hack off some of the pudding. Indeed rather the reverse. The faithful are inclined to encourage him to great diffuse tomes! I had a notable three hours with him almost two years ago, but I fear that I won't be so lucky this time. Jung is greatly pleased at our work on toxin X whose existence he predicted about 50 years ago in spite of Freud's opposition..."

"My good wishes to Sid -- and of course to Gerald, Margaret, Will and Michael when you see them. Let me know if my hunch is right about the Ditman episode. I'm pretty sure what you saw was another convention being played. It looked like nursery, but it is orthodox business. Ever Humphry"

Box 1056, Weyburn. 15:7:(should be 8):57

My dear Betty,

"Now you have got something. That clicks..."

I think that we must realize that not only are there specific difficulties at each level, but there is a very real possibility of a scrambling of levels -- being in two places at the same time. We experience this in a mild way with the cinema and television now, but we have very quickly learnt how to cope...Now what determines our capacity for changing levels and being able to accept "other realities"? There are clearly two great dangers which have to be guarded against: 1. the incapacity to accept another reality other than the culturally sanctified one, i.e., one learns society's way so well or so painfully that one either dare not or can not look elsewhere...2. The incapacity to have a relatively stable `here and now', so that the other levels become here and now and can swamp here and now. What has to be done is to steer a course between these two and it is not and can not be easy. The administrator has usually fallen into error l., the artist or saint into error 2..."

"There must, surely, be a variety of hells depending upon the levels involved. I suspect that one level is very simply the non expression of the cosmic in one who has once experienced it. Hell can be here and now, in the personal subconscious, in the impersonal symbolic, and in impersonal humanity ages. I don't believe that it is in the cosmic because it is essentially only the absence of the cosmic. Does that sound right?"

"The great virtue of impersonal (humanity-ages) is that it gives one perspective. We are not alone, we can not be alone. There is no personal tragedy, the only personal tragedy is the result of confining oneself and one's experience to the levels of personality at which we normally function -- I wholly agree. First we must discover that no man or woman is an island, but we are parts of the main. After this it is possible for us to begin to appreciate those levels which you label cosmic. To me this does not mean that we have reached THE ABSOLUTE, as some would have it, but as Raynor Johnson wisely suggests, we have reached the limit of our perceiving and communicating apparatus. In other words our 3-4 dimensional brain has limitations beyond which it can not go. This does not, I am sure, apply to our souls, but however as far as we in our here and now are concerned it is important because it sets a limit on our experience. The limit is so vast and generous as to be no limitation, but it has some important practical applications. The best that we can know of God is the most that can be revealed in our 3-4 dimensional continuum -- beyond that we can not and will not be able to go. However by understanding our limitations we can be splendidly free. We do not need to heed those who peddle distorted visions of God, they have partly sprung from subconscious levels and though they may be useful and even necessary at certain times as guide posts -- only an idiot mistakes the guide post for his final destination. -- I suspect that therapy which will emerge will aim at first allowing the person to orient himself and find out where he is vis-a-vis the various levels; second to explore them with a greater or lesser freedom; and lastly to learn how to relate the cosmic levels through the others to the here and now, and to live so that all are attuned. Enough to do? ..."

"I was greatly pleased to have your news and look forward to further news... Good wishes to Sid and Gerald when you see him. It looks as if we are soon going to be ready for a good push on all fronts and push back our ignorance some distance. Ever Humphry (on with the last bit of the budget)"

September 8, 1957

Dear Humphrey:

"So much has happened in the past few weeks that I doubt that I shall be able to communicate it properly..."

"I think I wrote you that I was going to conduct -- by the way, I hope that you are comfortable because I have a feeling that this is going to run on tonight -- so get some good stout ale at your elbow or a pot of delicious English tea. I figure it must be the water because I never had any like that in England. Anyway, I had a psychotherapy seminar with some of the Sequoia Seminar people -- ten of their leadership group, in fact. I did one last year as a trial and there seemed to be great possibilities...I had long wanted to try some experimentation with group therapy, and this seemed to be my chance...There has been a gradual movement of the group away from the strict consideration of the teachings of Jesus to a combined study of the best method of living life...and self study. Because through the years it became apparent that one might decide to live the good life, but there was some little nuisance inside who didn't get the word and really raised havoc when the chips were down in important decisions..."

"Last summer I had tentatively planned with one of the members of the seminar who is an art teacher that we would combine art and therapy. There has always been music at the seminar...So we have a situation with many factors: a group of ten people deeply interested (and committed) to living the best life they know of and at the same time dedicated to finding out about whatever elements of themselves prevent this; a gorgeous natural setting -- redwoods, beautiful country in the Santa Cruz mountains and no household chores or interruptions from mundane affairs; the combination of therapy, art, and music. And I added another variable: a drug. Sid had had some mescaline (20 milligrams), dexedrine (10 milligrams) capsules made up for our use at the hospital...I had noticed in sessions where he (Al) used the pills (methedrine) that there was more openness, and that I, for one, was able to "go along" with the person getting LSD much more easily. So we had enough pills to try them out with half a capsule to start to see that there weren't any ill effects, and two full capsules for two different days. (All covered by medical Rx.)"

"I couldn't believe what happened. We started out with a schedule of two hours of really concentrated therapy (at which time I did much more interpretation at a deep level than is common in group therapy situations), then went down to the art and they could paint or use pastels on wet paper or mold clay. There was no talking at all -- and music part of the time. After lunch two more hours of therapy, and then art again if they wanted (on the days they had the pills we ran all morning in session (8:30 to 12) and afternoons l:15 to 6 and had to make up the art the next day. Truly, Humphrey, on the second day when one of the group started into the psychotic belt, I was surprised, and then when the group began painting series of pictures from their unconscious...which showed their basic family identifications, the state of the problem as far as the unconscious, the working out of problems in a series of paintings, and the projection of the solution in the future (all these are not necessarily connected -- nor separate) I was overwhelmed. And then another member really went into th