Albion Dreaming (4 page)

Among shamanic, tribal cultures, plants and fungi that induce visions are frequently the centre of spiritual life and tradition. These substances are believed to be sentient beings, supernatural emissaries; the origins of music and medicine, cosmology and extensive botanical knowledge often attributed to the visions revealed under their influence. In such societies, rejection of the visionary knowledge offered by the botanical world would be a form of insanity. Yet in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, these experiences are outlawed, often for no logical reason.

At various times throughout history governments have legislated for the use of drugs when they have been thought useful, and against when not. In Britain, for instance, prior to World War I, people often drank alcohol during the day because drinking water was full of impurities. While we were primarily an agricultural society this was not seen as a problem. The advent of industrialization saw drinking affecting production and so during World War I, licensing laws were changed to help increase productivity. Drugs were incorporated on the battlefield, troops being given a tot of rum to help boost the courage needed to walk into a hail of machine-gun fire. Cannabis, morphine and cocaine could all be purchased in chemists’ shops until at least the 1920s, being recommended for complaints such as period pains, pain and depression. In World War II, amphetamines were issued to soldiers to increase alertness and enable them to fight for days at a time. In each of these cases, it has been the government who, for its own
ends, has decided what drug its citizens should be able to legally take and in what circumstances they take it. By the 1960s all the drugs mentioned above, with the exception of alcohol, had been outlawed, with stringent fines and prison sentences for those who dared to experiment with their consciousness.
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All drugs are legal for many years before they are criminalised. This raises questions about the basis on which a drug is made illegal. Is the decision made from genuine, evidential research? Or is it merely due to public outcry, media pressure and political opportunism? Indeed, should any government have the right to tell individuals what they may or may not ingest? Those who believe LSD is dangerous claim it is illegal because of its potential dangers to the minds of those who take it. LSDs proponents argue it has been criminalised in order to deny access to it by those who seek to alter their consciousness for spiritual and personal reasons.

In most people’s minds, the history of LSD is inextricably bound up with America. The drug was first widely used there, initially by the CIA and the military and later in a psychotherapeutic context. But it was the counter culture of the Sixties and Seventies, the hippies’ flamboyant use of LSD that has been most visible and which has led to the identification of the drug with America. In addition, the vast majority of popular literature dealing with the drug has emanated from America including, of course, the drugs most famous proselytiser, Timothy Leary.
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This American bias has been at the expense of a much broader account of LSD’s history in which Britain, with its own lengthy tradition of LSD use, plays a crucial role. In fact, LSD is a European export to America. The drug was discovered in Switzerland, the British pioneered LSD psychotherapy and military tests and much of the counter culture’s underlying philosophy stems from British expatriates such as Aldous Huxley and Alan Watts. On a more fundamental level, at certain times the bulk of the world’s LSD was manufactured in Britain. Nevertheless, when people think of LSD it is to American culture they turn for their knowledge.

Albion Dreaming
seeks to redress the balance, tracing the history and use of LSD and restoring Britain’s status as a major crucible of LSD culture. That process has already been started
with a handful of books, notably Tony Melechi’s
Psychedelia Britannica
, David Black’s
Acid
, and Stewart Tendler and David May’s
Brotherhood of Eternal Love
. These books are detailed and well researched but only cover certain narrow aspects of British LSD culture.
Albion Dreaming
takes a chronological and thematic overview of the drug’s impact on individuals and society from its arrival here in 1952 until the present day. The book is intended to be a social history, reflecting how LSD has been viewed and used across all levels of society. It is, by no means, a comprehensive work. New information is constantly becoming available and there is more than enough material for an entire book devoted to each of the three main themes of this book; the military, medical and counter-cultural uses of LSD. The author hopes that his research will stimulate others into further investigation, leading to an even deeper understanding of the role LSD has played within British society.

Albion Dreaming
has been compiled from a range of disparate, often obscure, sources spanning the period 1938–2007. Information about the military and medical use of LSD was sourced from a variety of government archives and augmented with information gleaned from new interviews with some of the individuals concerned. The fascinating saga of the counter culture’s involvement with LSD, which forms the majority of the book, was pieced together from contemporary sources and new interviews with people crucial to the movement.

This aspect of the research has been the most frustrating. Some major players refused interviews. Others wish to minimise their involvement with LSD because of the drug’s illegal status and an unwillingness to compromise themselves or their friends. Where this is the case, the interviewees have attempted to be as truthful as possible without betraying others in their trust. Some have been cautious because of their current jobs or because their families know little about their activities of forty or more years ago. However, over a hundred people have freely given of their memories, experiences and opinions with no constraints on how they are presented, with only one person requesting anonymity. As the LSD subculture evolved it has generated a specific jargon
and to help clarify some of the language used a glossary of terms is provided.

Because LSD has permeated all levels of society, it has become fashionable to speculate that a conspiracy lies at the core of the worldwide LSD story. The arc of this conspiracy stretches from the belief the drug was created as part of an unspecified sinister plot, to belief that the CIA introduced LSD to post-war youth in order to dilute the desire for political and social change. Between these sketchy and unproven extremes flit real people to whom membership of these ill-defined conspiracies has been ascribed. However, the purpose of this book is not to pander to the fantasies of the counter culture. The reader must make up his or her own mind if there is evidence for any conspiracy surrounding LSD in Britain.

Ultimately,
Albion Dreaming
is not about LSD itself. It is about people’s experiences of the drug, lifestyle choices made as result of LSD use, the drug’s impact on society and the fundamental questions of whether an individual has the right to change their own consciousness in whatever way they choose and whether anyone has the right to prevent this.

The title of this book stems from Albion, the primeval giant from whom Britain took its first name, Alba. Albion has been described as having “... our native hills for his bones and our native forests for his beard ... a single figure outlined against the sea and a great face staring at the sky.” William Blake drew on Albion as a symbol of man before the Biblical fall and historian Peter Ackroyd has used the term for the title of his book charting the origins of the English imagination. From the Sixties onwards sections of the counter culture used the term Albion to refer to their vision of a land, society and individual consciousness based on the insights offered by LSD. Thus, Albion embodies the mythological imagination of these Isles, a state akin to the aboriginal Dreamtime, to which everyone should have access. This, then, is Albion’s dreaming.

Would LSD become a blessing to humanity or a curse? This I often asked myself when I thought about my problem child.

Albert Hofmann
¹

U
nlike most drugs, it is known exactly when, where and by whom LSD and its effects were discovered. And, unlike most drugs, it is possible to trace the geographical spread and usage of LSD from the day the drug was first synthesised. The story of LSD in Britain, then, starts with its discovery in Switzerland in 1938. But to tell the full story of the drug’s unique history and qualities we must go back to the childhood experiences of Albert Hofmann, the chemist responsible for the creation of LSD.

Hofmann recalls that as a child in Switzerland he had numerous experiences which defied rational explanation. These “enchantments”, as he refers to them, were altered states in which his perceptions were greatly enhanced and the familiar became transformed into the strange. One such “enchantment” took place on a May morning while he was walking through the spring woods near his home: “As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light ... It shone with the most
beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness and blissful security.”

Hofmann had similar transcendental experiences throughout his entire childhood. They helped formulate his world-view, persuading him of “the existence of a miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality that was hidden from everyday sight.” He reflected often on these enchantments, puzzled as to how he could carry them into adulthood and convey them to others.
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The young Hofmann eventually chose chemistry as a vocation because of his desire to “gain an insight into the structure and essence of matter.” His choice of profession, driven by the mystery and wonder of his childhood enchantments, was to change the course of popular culture in the West irrevocably.

In 1929 Hofmann took a post as a research chemist with the Swiss pharmaceutical firm of Kern & Sandoz, based in Basel. Under the supervision of Professor Arthur Stoll he worked on extracting the active components of medicinal plants. After some years studying the chemical structure of the perennial herb Mediterranean Squill, Hofmann wanted a new challenge. He requested, and was granted, permission to investigate the ergot alkaloids. It was this decision that set Hofmann on the final path to discovering LSD.

Ergot is a parasitic fungus found on rye and other species of grain and wild grass and has a long and intriguing relationship with the human race. In the early Middle Ages, Europe was swept by epidemics and outbreaks of bizarre symptoms known as Holy Fire or St. Anthony’s Fire. Though those suffering from it were unaware of the cause of the problem, it was ergot poisoning. Symptoms included painful burning sensations in the limbs, which caused the strange “dance” in those afflicted. In extreme cases the poisoning caused hallucinations, convulsions and a dry gangrene.

Several historical episodes have been directly linked with ergot poisoning. These include the 1692 witch trials at Salem, Massachusetts and the Great Fear that swept France in 1789 prior to the Revolution. In both these outbreaks the sufferers displayed the symptoms of ergot poisoning, their mental disturbances being ascribed to witchcraft and political paranoia respectively. In both
outbreaks there was evidence that the weather leading up to the harvest had been wet, a prerequisite for the formation of ergot, and evidence that the condition of sufferers improved when fed on good quality bread. In her book
Poisons of the Past
, Mary Kilbourne Matossian makes a strong case for many other medieval bouts of hallucination or mental disturbance, such as the witch persecutions, being attributable to ergot poisoning. The last major outbreak of ergot poisoning took place during 1926–27 in parts of southern Russia.
³

The first record of ergot in a medical capacity dates from 1582 when it is mentioned in a
Herbal
, or book of remedies, as being used to stimulate childbirth. Ergot was later widely used by midwives in Europe to induce abortions and to prevent post-partum bleeding. In common with other medicinal plants, the connection between the ergot fungus and human experience is an old one, presumably pre-dating the first written accounts of its use or poisoning.

Because of its unusual properties, chemists began to study ergot in depth and in 1918 Arthur Stoll isolated ergotamine from the fungus. This extract was marketed as Gynergen by Sandoz in 1921 and used in the same way medieval midwives had used the fungus. The majority of the ergot alkaloids have lysergic acid at their centre. By isolating lysergic acid and then re-combining it with other chemicals, new ergot derivatives could be created. Hofmann worked intensively on these combinations and in the process developed several successful new products for Sandoz. These included dihydroergotamine for the treatment of migraine, hydergine for the treatment of circulatory problems and methergine for post partum bleeding.

Hofmann created LSD-25, the twenty-fifth permutation of lysergic acid, in November 1938. In his search for a synthesis that might lead to the discovery of a circulatory and respiratory stimulant he combined lysergic acid with Coramine, a nicotinic acid diethylamide. But Hofmann was to be disappointed. Tests on animals indicated that LSD-25 had a strong effect on the uterus but this wasn’t enough to warrant further investigation, so Hofmann abandoned further study of the compound.