Albion Dreaming (20 page)

Later in the year, Notting Hill Gate’s All Saint’s Hall hosted Dave Tomlin’s ambient event the Fantasy Workshop, soon followed by a Pink Floyd gig billed as “London’s farthest out group in interstellar overdrive stoned alone astronomy domine – an astral chant and other numbers from their space-age book.” Syd Barrett wrote the psychedelic classic “See Emily Play” at All Saints Hall, the song a lament for his sometime muse Emily Young (now a respected sculptor).

LSD users, who preferred the term “freak” or “head” to hippie, now had a multiplicity of places to socialise and to soak up the new art forms on offer. Where once audience and performer were separate entities, the new psychedelic dance halls offered the chance to be part of the experience. The limited size of the events and the bond of psychedelic drugs meant that often the audience had some social connection with the bands performing. Psychedelic light shows, a new idea from America, often projected on several walls at the same time, depicted amoeba-like blobs one minute and distant galaxies the next. Combined with the insistent pulse of bands like Pink Floyd these events formed the perfect incubators for the burgeoning psychedelic culture.

The influence of the acid-drenched Spontaneous Underground and All Saint’s Hall gigs on the development of avant garde rock music in Britain is rarely acknowledged, yet those two venues were responsible for launching the sound of a generation and a soundtrack to the LSD subculture.

After their failure to successfully arrest Hollingshead for LSD, the police stepped up their efforts, and the first LSD arrest in Britain took place in February 1966. The police had received information that John Esam was dealing LSD and though possession of the drug wasn’t yet illegal, they believed selling it was. Esam’s South Kensington flat was placed under surveillance and after a steady stream of visitors had been observed, a raid by the Flying Squad took place on 21 February. This time the police did find LSD in quantities that suggested Esam was selling the drug. They also discovered a syringe used by Esam to inject the sugar cubes with the correct dosage of LSD. Detective-Inspector Lynch, in charge of the raid, told Esam he shouldn’t be selling
LSD because he wasn’t a chemist. Esam replied, “I am quite aware of that,” adding, “but until you have used this stuff [LSD] properly you do not know how exhilarating it can be.”
⁷

This was hardly the sort of comment likely to endear Esam to the authorities, but it demonstrated the strength of belief held by the early LSD users. They believed they had found the keys to heaven and hell. Why would they take any notice of a legal, political and social system that couldn’t understand their psychedelic experimentation?

Undercover police officers visited many of London’s psychedelic hot spots during early 1966 and through a combination of surveillance and infiltration they compiled a comprehensive dossier on who was using and distributing LSD. Although no official study or investigation into the use of LSD had been carried out by the government, a large amount of taxpayers’ money was being spent in gathering information about the use of a legal drug. This suggests a decision had already been made that LSD was going to be outlawed and the police were now looking for some high profile arrests as justification. The media had also been very active, sending reporters to many of the same places the police had under observation.

The intense press interest came to fruition in mid-March when
London Life
heavily trailed its forthcoming LSD exposé.
London Life
was the quintessentially Swinging Sixties magazine, featuring hip society gossip, fashion, nightclubs, boutiques and music. The editor had been offered an exclusive interview with Desmond O’Brien, co-founder with Michael Hollingshead of the World Psychedelic Centre. This was O’Brien and Hollingshead’s big chance to expound their LSD philosophy to a wider audience. But Hollingshead knew nothing about the interview until he saw the lurid TV advertisement. It was shown during breaks on peak time TV; cheap psychedelic visual effects with a voice-over intoning: “LSD – the drug that could turn on London. Read the exclusive story in next week’s
London Life
.”

Hollingshead was appalled, but it was too late to prevent publication. Perhaps O’Brien had been caught off guard by the fact that Hugh Blackwell, one of the reporters, was a friend of
Hollingshead’s and regular visitor to the WPC. Or he may have been unaware that Blackwell intended to sell his story to
London Life
. When questioned by Hollingshead, all Blackwell could offer by way of an excuse was that he was so stoned he didn’t realise what he was doing.

The
London Life
interview was published on March 19, the day after Hollingshead’s first court appearance following the January arrests at the WPC. Luckily the case was adjourned until May, giving Hollingshead the opportunity to read what the “straight” world thought of his psychedelic antics. Headed “The Drug That Could Become A Social Peril”, the article opened with O’Brien rather unwisely introducing himself as “Mr. LSD” and claiming that anyone could take control of London in under eight hours by putting LSD in the water system.
⁸

Yet if the reader ignored these unlikely tales of psychedelic terrorism and read carefully what O’Brien was saying, a clear picture of the new LSD philosophy could be discerned. O’Brien explained how carefully his LSD sessions were run and what motives lay behind the WPC: “The plan was to disseminate knowledge about LSD to responsible, intelligent people who could appreciate and benefit from its properties. It was introduced to intellectuals, writers, artists and other creative people in London as well as minor people in the lower realms of politics.” This was the philosophy Aldous Huxley advocated for LSD but it wasn’t exactly what had happened.

O’Brien also acknowledged that the drug could have negative effects: “It must be remembered that while normally agreeable or even beautiful sensations predominate, they are not guaranteed. Their very depth and intensity must give rise to occasional feelings of non-comprehension and disquiet.”

Unfortunately these balanced considerations of the drug’s use were subsumed by
London Life’s
garish accounts of people imagining themselves to be Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest. The editorial message was summed up with the portentous statement: “In these days of instant trends there is a very real danger of this dangerous drug spreading, as purple hearts did, among wider sections of the population. Who knows what moral lethargy could result?”
⁹

If the
London Life
piece were not enough to worry London’s psychedelic pioneers, the following day saw both the
News of the World
and the
People
enter the debate. The
People
had infiltrated the WPC so successfully they had been able to take photographs inside the flat, showing bags of sugar and psychedelic posters. The sugar was presumably there in connection with Joey Mellen’s theory that it kept people calm while they were under the influence of LSD. The
People
captured the depths to which the WPC had fallen: “The Centre was deserted and in a state of considerable chaos when our investigator gained entry on Thursday. There were used hypodermic syringes, empty drug ampoules and a variety of pills. Among the litter of paper were dozens of phone numbers, some of them well-known show business stars and personalities.”
¹⁰

O’Brien was traced to his Cheshire home where he told the
People
: “You could call me Mr. LSD, but I’m not a pusher of the stuff ... Such drugs enlarge the mind, the perception and understanding of life.” Among the usual uninformed dire warnings from the police and medical experts the
People
featured a lengthy story about Stewart Gunther-Rains who, they claimed, had been driven insane by his addiction to LSD. The fact that LSD is neither physically or psychologically addictive had been conveniently ignored in the paper’s rush to be a player in the moral panic being stoked by the press. At another LSD centre, a flat at Emperor’s Gate, West Kensington, LSD dealer Kevin Bayliss gave the
People
just what it was looking for. Bayliss cheerfully sold the undercover reporters LSD on blotting paper saying, “Just chew it and you’ll have a nice scene.”

News of the World
reporter Charles Sandell weighed in with a piece headed “Menace of the ‘Vision of Hell’”. Sandell discovered he could easily purchase LSD in Chelsea for around £1 and he too stressed the possible psychiatric problems LSD could cause. A detective was quoted as saying, “It presents a much bigger threat than marijuana and purple hearts.” Just why it presented such a threat was not explained. The statement, one of many such warnings about LSD issued during 1966, suggests there was concern in the corridors of power about the drug’s potential for personal and social change.
¹¹

The media’s ruthless investigation of London’s LSD scene had exposed a naïvety among the psychedelic pioneers. No matter how educated and socially sophisticated the leaders of the psychedelic revolution were, they had no idea how to deal with the press. Although LSD was still legal, by allowing reporters into the WPC and other psychedelic centres O’Brien, Hollingshead and the others had played straight into the media’s hands. By claiming he was “Mr. LSD”, O’Brien had unwittingly painted himself as a criminal “Mr. Big”. Irrespective of O’Brien’s eloquence in describing the positive uses of LSD, the frightened British middle classes felt something they didn’t understand was taking place, and they were only too happy to believe anything the popular press told them. Bob Dylan had summed up what the LSD users thought of the straight world on his 1965 LSD inspired album
Highway 61 Revisited
when he wrote: “Because something is happening here/But you don’t know what it is/Do you Mr. Jones?”
¹²

Despite their urbane cleverness in tricking the first wave of LSD proselytisers, the police and press had also made errors. In their haste to warn that LSD use caused insanity, “visions of hell” and immorality, they had inadvertently highlighted a crucial fact. At each of the properties infiltrated, observed or raided the LSD dealers had a non-stop stream of customers. Yet no one was forcing these people to use LSD, it was a conscious decision. As LSD was non-addictive it was clear that young people were using it repeatedly because they liked the experience and gained something from it. It was also clear to LSD users that despite the press hyperbole LSD did not automatically cause insanity or immorality. Firsthand reports from LSD users almost always stressed the positive effects and qualities of the drug, while the “bad trips” were simply accepted as a necessary part of the experience, to be dealt with as they arose.

London Life
, the
People
and the
News of the World
were read by hundreds of thousands of readers. In their pursuit of public outrage and sales figures these news sources had also raised the public profile of LSD to an unprecedented level. Prior to March 1966 the British public had little knowledge of LSD and these exposés were the first time most young people had read anything
about the drug. Now the letters LSD were a household name, and to anyone curious enough to read beyond the hyperbole the clear message was “LSD exists, it is easy to get, and it will blow your mind”. What better advertisement could a drug and a subculture have?

In the same edition the
News of the World
revealed another psychedelic menace to the British public: morning glory seeds. While fulminating against their misuse, the paper explained exactly how to prepare the seeds for use as a psychedelic drug. As evidence of how popular the seeds were becoming they cited a shop owner in Richmond who had sold his entire stock of seeds to one young man. As with the media revelations about LSD, most young people were similarly ignorant of the fact that morning glory seeds could be used to get high, but following the scare story it was public knowledge. Garden centres began to notice an influx of a much younger clientele who just wanted to make the one purchase.
¹³

There was an immediate knock-on effect from these revelations. The Home Office rapidly issued a statement requesting the seed trade observe a voluntary moratorium on sales of morning glory seeds. The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain took an immediate interest in the seed buying habits of Britain’s youth and initiated an investigation. As with LSD, the press was trying to use its muscle to have a drug legislated against. That no deaths or serious illness had resulted from the use of morning glory seeds appeared to be irrelevant. The simple fact that young people had discovered a cheap, legal and effective way of getting high was enough to outrage the tabloid press.

On 7 April the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain reported to the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins that “... some species of the plant could, if seeds were eaten, produce hallucinations and well-being”. Could a substance that produced feelings of well-being, with no serious medical contraindications be legislated against, and if so on what grounds? The Home Secretary needed time to consider and it was noted that, “... the organisations concerned would consider separately the implications of the report and have further consultations.”
¹⁴

Throughout 1965 and 1966 Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, the Swiss
chemical manufacturer responsible for discovering, producing and distributing LSD, had become increasingly worried about the recreational use of the drug. On 15 April, after a spate of lurid LSD press stories from America, Sandoz announced it was ceasing to distribute LSD to the medical profession there, believing this would prevent LSD from leaking out to the hippies. This may have been a good public relations exercise for Sandoz but it was a futile gesture – too little, too late. The vast majority of LSD being manufactured for recreational use in America and Britain was now being made by legendary underground chemists such as Augustus Owsley Stanley III, known as Bear. It would not be long before maverick chemists would be producing Britain’s own illegal LSD.