Re: MAPS: Correction on elephant's death

[Robert Forte <rforte@xxxxxxxxxx>]

my memory is a little fuzzy here but i do recall ron siegal, another 
government agent, describe the elephant debacle.  as it says below, the 
elephant was injected with an enormous amount of LSD, went into 
convulsions (but who knows? these could have been spontaneous yogic 
positions) the researchers (west and siegal) then attempted their 
pharmacological rescue, injected lethal amounts of some anti-psychotic 
drug which, acording to siegal, killed the elephant.  i do believe there 
was a follow up as well where an elephant was given the same amount of 
LSD and went into convulsions but was not given anti-psychotic treatment 
and lived.  i heard this in 1983 at a club in LA on the occasion of albert 
hofmann's visit to the west coast. he spoke in santa barbara then came to 
LA and spoke there with siegal, oz janiger... 

Robert Forte
P.O. Box 322
Santa Cruz, Ca 95061
rforte@xxxxxxxxxx

On Thu, 14 Jan 1999 PACAYACITY@xxxxxxx wrote:

> My version of how the animal died was based on Stan Grof's description at an
> Esalen seminar in the mid-eighties.  I still stand by my version that Jolly
> used this incident to infiltrate a hippie commune and befriend psychedelic
> artists, because I heard the lecture and saw the slides myself.  Bob Jesse
> corrected details of my previous posting about the death of the elephant:
> 
> 
> sorry, can't send this one out to the entheogen list as-is.  i think
> there's a good chance that it contains more rumor than substantiated fact.
> 
> re the elephant:  the writeup (in SCIENCE, Vol 138) says that the
> injection was given "into the gluteal muscles" -- far from the jugular.
> maybe west was lying but the account also says that the entire procedure
> was recorded on motion-picture film and noted by observers.  the writeup
> gives a detailed account of what happened after the LSD injection --
> several phases of distress and two pharmacological attempts to rescusitate
> the elephant.  it says that death occurred 1 hour and 40 minutes after the
> LSD injection.  nothing in the writeup (including the autopsy report)
> gives any evidence that "trauma" from the injection itself was a factor in
> the animal's death.
> 
> I
> 
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