Albion Dreaming (2 page)
Authors: Andy Roberts
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Philip (Wally Hope) Russell | Charismatic hippie and LSD advocate who founded the Stonehenge Free Festivals |
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Greg Sams | American who, with brother Craig, was instrumental in setting up macrobiotic and whole food restaurants in Sixties London |
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Ronnie Sandison | Britain’s first LSD psychotherapist |
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David Schneiderman | Enigmatic LSD dealer, briefly a member of the Rolling Stones’ entourage |
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Ben Sessa | Contemporary British psychiatrist who believes there is a place for LSD in psychotherapy |
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Peter Simmons | Set up several LSD laboratories in the late Sixties |
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Ian Sinclair | London based author and psychogeographer, chronicler of Ginsberg’s 1967 visit |
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David Solomon | American writer on drug issues; later became involved with the Operation Julie LSD conspiracy |
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Henry (Bing) Spear | Chief Inspector of the Dangerous Drugs Branch of the Home Office 1952–1986 |
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Augustus (Bear) Owsley Stanley III | Legendary Californian LSD chemist |
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Ronald Stark | Enigmatic international LSD dealer; connected to international terrorism; suspected of working for various intelligence agencies |
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Arthur Stoll | Co-worker of Albert Hofmann |
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Terry Taylor | Beatnik author who went on to be an LSD dealer and to found LSD based magic cult in London |
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Vince Taylor | British rock and roll singer; Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust was based on Taylor |
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Henry Todd | Key player in the Operation Julie LSD conspiracy |
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Dave Tomlin | Jazz musician and author; foot soldier of the psychedelic revolution |
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Alexander Trocchi | Poet and writer; dealt LSD in London during the Sixties |
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Alan Watts | British expatriate mystic and philosopher with an interest in psychedelic drugs; part of the scene around Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard |
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Don Webb | Airman who took part in LSD experiment at Porton Down during the 1950s |
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Bernadette Whybrow | Occasional hippie prostitute and LSD dealer in the Kapur LSD conspiracy |
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Peter Wright | Former member of MI5; author of the controversial book Spycatcher |
1. God is alive in a sugar cube badge
4 and
5. Drawings by Maxwell Hollyhock
6. Turn on, tune in, drop out badge
7. LSD: better living through chemistry badge
8. Michael Hollingshead’s Christmas card, 1965
11. Victor Kapur’s LSD laboratory, London, 1967
12. Michael Hollingshead, Nepal, 1969
14. Granny Takes a Trip, London boutique
15. Allen Ginsberg, Wales, 1967
16. Publicity flyer for
The Trip
17. John Michell and DJ Jeff Dexter
19. Hampshire Drug Squad, Isle of Wight festival, 1970
21. Stonehenge Free Festival sign
22. Jeremy Dunn with newspaper reporting on Operation Julie
24. Operation Julie graffiti, Edinburgh
25. Operation Julie graffiti, London
26. Operation Julie police chiefs, 1978
27 and
28. Casey Hardison’s LSD laboratory, 2004
29. Blotter LSD seized at Hardison’s laboratory
30. Sheet of LSD blotter art, signed by Albert Hofmann
Acid | LSD |
Acidhead | One whose preferred drug is LSD |
Blotter art | Non-LSD-containing sheets of blotter |
Blotter | Dose of LSD on blotting paper |
Bust | Police search, raid or arrest |
Cap | LSD in capsule form |
Coming down | The tailing off of an LSD experience, returning to “normal” consciousness |
Counter culture | The culture, especially of young people who use drugs, with values or lifestyles in opposition to those of the established culture |
Dig | Understand |
Drop | To take LSD orally, i.e. to drop acid |
Establishment | The matrix of political, legal, economic, religious, and social forces committed to maintaining the status quo |
Freak | Early name for a hippie, member of the counter culture |
Freak out | Adverse reaction to LSD, often in public |
Happening | Spontaneous eruption of artistic display, often by amateurs |
High | Under the influence of a drug |
Hippie | Member of the counter culture |
Mind blowing | Ecstasy producing experience or drug |
Psychedelic | Mind expanding or mind manifesting |
Scene | Any aspect of the counter culture, also used to describe a small part of it |
Score | To buy drugs, i.e. “I went to score some acid” |
Set | The mind set of the LSD user – their fundamental beliefs and values |
Setting | The physical surroundings for an LSD experience |
Stoned | Under the influence of a drug, usually cannabis |
Straight | Someone who has not used LSD, a member of the Establishment |
Tab | LSD in tablet form |
Trip | LSD experience |
Tripping | Under the influence of LSD |
Turn on | To use LSD, to give someone else LSD |
μg | Scientific symbol for microgram (one-millionth of a gram) |
Underground | Another name for the counter culture |
I am so glad I took LSD.
Albion Dreaming
reminds me why, as well as telling me many things I never knew about the ultimate psychedelic and how its story played out here in Britain. This turns out to be quite a different story from the better-known tale of LSD in the USA. Acid was, after all, a European invention and there were many Englishmen involved in its early use, including Aldous Huxley who famously asked for it as he lay dying of cancer.
No wonder its discoverer, Albert Hoffman, called LSD ‘My Problem Child’. More than any other drug I know, LSD has the capacity for the extremes of insight and joy as well as the bleakest and most fearful of depths. This may be why it can be such a great teacher and I guess this is the main reason I am glad. I was also very lucky to have good guides for my earliest trips and the opportunity to choose wonderful settings. For me the ideal has always been to take it early in the morning and spend a day on the cliff tops or the beach or the woods or even my own garden. I may have overindulged a bit in those early days in the 1970s – after all, it was all so exciting! But most of my life I have wanted it only once every few years when the time or the need seemed right.
In January 2006 I went to Basel in Switzerland for the symposium to celebrate Albert Hofmann’s 100th birthday, and what an event that was and what an amazing man. I glimpsed him the first morning there as I was going up an escalator and looked round to
see him halfway up. Crowds were hovering around him as though in awe or even worship. Part of me rebelled as I so dislike heroes turned into semi-religious figures but then I too was captivated as he stepped off at the top and I was looking into his bright, warm, intelligent eyes. He radiated a kind of presence that I have never seen before, and then moved steadily off amid an enormous crowd of admirers.
How can someone live to a hundred and be so fit and well? Did it have anything to do with the drugs he synthesised, tested and used? Perhaps it had more to do with his earlier spiritual or mystical experiences as a child, experiences that arguably led him to the ‘mishap that was not a mishap’ as he put it, to the intuition that the apparently innocuous 25th compound in the LSD series was worth a second look. Or was it, as he suggested, his daily breakfast of raw egg? We cannot know. Yet this hundred-year-old man participated fully in the three days of the conference. As he walked up onto the stage for the first time, he wobbled a little and steadied himself with his stick. Then he turned and apologised ‘I’m sorry for being a little unsteady but I must remind myself that I’m no longer in my nineties’.
I was lucky enough to meet him briefly face to face. As well as just enjoying the event I was recording interviews with many of the people there, hoping to make a BBC radio programme and write articles on LSD. Like lots of other journalists and researchers I had asked for, and been politely refused, an interview with the great man himself. Then one afternoon, to avoid the melee, I had snuck away into a relatively quiet corner to interview Martin Lee, author of
Acid Dreams
. What I hadn’t realised was that the innocuous looking door behind us was a secret way through from the conference centre to the hotel next door, and right in the middle of the interview I saw a small group coming towards us – the organisers escorting the birthday boy to this door. I was introduced right then and there to the centenarian who put aside his stick and warmly shook my hand. I went completely pathetic and mumbled what I tried to say in the most appalling German. Yet of course he understood for I was only saying what everyone else there wanted to say. Thank you Albert.