Drugs of Hallucination: Uses and Misuses of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

281 Pages·1965·1.7 MB·English

by  Sidney Cohen

Drugs of Hallucination

THE USES AND MISUSES OF
LYSERGIC ACID DIETHYLAMIDE
Sidney Cohen,
By M.D.

FOREWORD BY JOHN ROWAN WILSON
author of Margin of Safety

THE SCIENTIFIC BOOK CLUB 121
CHARING CROSS ROAD LONDON
W.C.2
First published in England 1965 by
Martin Seeker & Warburg Limited 14
Carlisle Street, Soho Square, W.I
Copyright © 1964 by Sidney Cohen

Printed in Great Britain by
Fletcher & Son Ltd. Norwich
Dedicated to Dr. Albert Hofmann
Synthesizer of LSD and discoverer of its mental action
Discoverer and synthesizer of psilocybin and psilocin in the
Mexican magic mushroom
Discoverer of the hallucinogenic compounds in ololiuqui,
the tropical American morning glory
Foreword

The last two hundred years have seen the application of scientific
principles to a number of important fields of study. So far as the
human body was concerned, this development took place when the
great discoveries of anatomy and physiology made it possible to
look upon man as a piece of biological machinery, complex indeed,
but in no way beyond our power to understand. This led rapidly to
similar advances in medicine. With the advent of specific remedies
for specific diseases, which could be proved effective by clinical
trial and studied by laboratory methods to discover their mode of
action, the treatment of illness at last moved out into the light. The
age of guesswork and incantation was at an end.
The mind presented a more difficult problem. It was more
indefinite and complicated, and man as an investigator could not
stand above it in the same way as he could stand above inanimate
or purely biological mechanisms. Also the tools for investigation
were lacking. The usual methods were difficult to apply. The mind
could not be adequately studied in animals, and it was not
practicable to take it to pieces to see how it worked. It was difficult
to devise satisfactory experiments. The result was that psy-
chology suffered from the same defects as pre-scientific medicine.
At the one extreme there were objective observations about
behaviour which were so simple as to be almost platitudinous; at
the other there was a tangled tropical undergrowth of theories,
fascinating in their exoticism, bewildering in their obscurity, but
quite impossible to prove one way or the other.
Recently, however, we have seen the development of a variety
of promising new methods of investigation, and prominent among
these are the hallucinogenic drugs. With these substances it is
possible to cause changes in perception and mental activity of a
quite remarkable kind, which the subject can record while he is
experiencing them and which are fortunately reversible when the
drug is withdrawn.
The use of these agents gives us a glimpse into the maze of
mental activity which is unique. It tells us something different
from the study of insanity, from psychoanalysis, from behaviour
study, from the introspective speculations of the philosophers. It
opens up the possibility of checking observations by different
methods of investigation; providing, as it were, an extra witness in
an area of study where cold, objective, measurable proof is hard to
come by and we have to rely all too often on circumstantial
evidence.
If, for instance, a psychoanalytic theory appears to fit in, not
only with the results of psychoanalytic treatment but with
observations made under the influence of drugs, the chances of its
validity are obviously greatly increased.
Such confirmation is particularly important since this field of
scientific investigation has been overlaid with an unusual degree of
personal involvement. Scientists (and indeed philosophers also)
have always been much more emotional about their work than
would seem compatible with the objective and logical traditions in
which they take such pride. But few issues have aroused and still
arouse such violent passions as the various theories of
mental activity. There is a tendency for the protagonists of
different views to become separated, like medieval theologians,
into schools and factions. A cool, detached exploration and
discussion of observed phenomena is rare and valuable.
This is one of the great strengths of Dr. Cohen's book. It is above
all dispassionate and factual. It is based on careful and systematic
experiments carried out under controlled conditions, and it
contains the fruit of years of thought on the significance both of
the author's own observations and those of others. It contains
detailed accounts by intelligent subjects of their states of mind
while under the influence of LSD. These are significant both for
their similarities, which are presumably due to the action of the
drug, and their differences, which express, under the relatively
constant conditions of the experiment, variations associated with
the individual mental state and make-up of the subject. The
significance of these findings is discussed with a refreshing clarity
and freedom from jargon. Dr. Cohen deals in a concise, sensible,
and unemotional manner with all the controversial issues that have
arisen at one time or another as a result of these investigations.
This leads him inevitably into fascinating byways of thought, into
twilight areas of speculation where philosophy and theology,
psychology and medicine overlap; where genius touches fingers
with insanity and the intellect becomes difficult to separate from
the emotions. Under LSD he has been able to show the complex
flood of associations which lie beneath ideas, to demonstrate a
blending of feeling and thought which may represent an earlier
evolutionary stage before those two dominant aspects of mental
activity acquired a separate identity. He discusses the resemblance
of certain mental states reported with LSD to the spontaneous
bursts of inspiration experienced by creative artists. Here, as so
often in these experiments, the significance of the reported
observation
is obscured by the fact that subjective accounts are not enough. A
man may feel like a creative artist in the same deluded way that he
feels like a good driver under the influence of alcohol. So far, little
evidence of useful creative work has been produced. Even if it
were, it would still be open to differences in interpretation of its
aesthetic value.
With each new discovery it becomes increasingly obvious that
the traditional barriers between various forms of learning are
breaking down. Advances in chemistry and biology are constantly
throwing up information which has an obvious relevance to
philosophy, religion and the arts. One of the first writers to see the
significance of this was Aldous Huxley. In his controversial book
The Doors of Perception, published in 1954, he vividly described
personal experiences with mescaline and suggested the possibility
of the use of such drugs to help in the attainment of transcendental
and mystical experience. It is true that, since primitive times,
natural preparations of marihuana, mescaline, and psilocybin have
been used as part of religious rituals as well as for their pleasurable
effects. On the whole, this use of hallucinogens to induce what Dr.
Cohen pithily refers to as "instant zen" attracts little support in
reputable quarters nowadays. But the suggestion has certainly
drawn attention to the fact that many of the practices commonly
used by mystics to induce spiritual elevation have results which
resemble the effects of hallucinogenic drugs. Another technique
which has been devised for the study of the mind, by which
subjects are artificially placed in circumstances where they are
deprived of sensory stimuli, leads to fantasies and hallucinations
which are not dissimilar from the effects of these drugs.
These observations give us at least some hope of adding to our
knowledge of the mysteries of human perception. If we are ever to
attain a true understanding of thought
processes it is important neither to take them for granted nor to be
so overcome by their complexity that we regard any true scientific
investigation of them as an impossible task. The hallucinogens
have given us an insight into the astonishing fragility of our
conscious world. What seems so real to us can, as if by the slight
turning of the knob on a television set, become totally changed
and distorted. While the changes in perception induced by
hallucinogens are not exactly comparable to those in
schizophrenia, they have a sufficient resemblance to give us at
least some sympathy with the kind of experience which people suf-
fering from this condition have to face. This is surely of great value.
A purely intellectual understanding of abnormal states of mind is
notoriously inadequate. It is difficult, for instance, for anyone who
has not suffered from pathological depression to project himself
into the state of mind of the melancholic, or for a doctor who has
never for a moment experienced anything but normal perception
to form a sympathetic picture of the hallucinated world of the
schizophrenic. As to whether hallucinogens are likely to be of
much value in the treatment of mental conditions, there is still
difference of opinion among psychiatrists. So far, their use in
psychotherapy has been on a restricted scale and the results
reported have been something less than dramatic.
Hallucinogens have their dangers, both to the individual and
to society. Because they have been much publicized as a means of
obtaining a new and exciting experience, they are bound to have
an attraction for the bored, the inadequate, and the unstable.
Because they are easy to produce and cheap to obtain, they
represent an incipient social problem which has already caused
some concern in the larger cities of the U.S.A. Fears have also been
expressed that they might be used for "brain-washing", or thought
control, one of the major phobias of our time. However great
dangers of hidden or overt persuasion
to which we may be subjected, it is probable that LSD will not form
part of them, if only because other methods are much more
effective. Another nightmare abuse which has been suggested is as
a form of chemical warfare—it is suggested that their widespread
administration could destroy the will of a population to resist. How
practicable this is we do not know. At one time such a possibility
might have aroused more alarm than it does now. Once the
weapons of total destruction are known to be available refinements
of terror acquire almost an atmosphere of irrelevance. Compared
to the hydrogen bomb, a temporary poisoning with lysergic acid
diethylamide seems positively humane.
On a more immediate practical level, the one thing on which
most responsible authorities seem to be agreed is that the
widespread use of hallucinogens for the sake of personal
experience is dangerous and undesirable. The experience varies
greatly between one individual and another, and also according to
the circumstances in which it is taken. It may be ecstatic or
terrifying; it may pass off quickly or persist for an inconvenient
length of time; it may appear to be over, and then unexpectedly
recur. The question of addiction is still indefinite. While these
drugs are not addictive in the same sense as morphine or heroin, it
is likely that any drug which alters the mental state can become a
drug of addiction in susceptible individuals. Dr. Cohen has also
observed that risks may not be confined to the person taking the
drug. He records for the first time a condition to which he has
given the name of "therapist breakdown"—a form of psychiatric
illness which tends to affect, not individuals who are under treat-
ment, but the therapists who are treating them. It seems that the
hallucinogens, like so many of the agents of scientific advance, are
likely to claim their toll of casualities among the enthusiastic and
inexperienced.
Science is now the business of everyone. It is a dominant
factor in our lives, and a general understanding of its aims and
methods is essential if we are to understand the world around us.
Most of all we need to understand as much as possible of
ourselves, and of the basis of our thoughts and actions. Dr.
Cohen's book gives us a lucid and imaginative picture of one of the
most remarkable methods so far used to investigate the
unexplored world of the human mind.
JOHN ROWAN WILSON