Albion Dreaming Read Free

best friends, into that first trip. Just imagine a world in which professionals know how to guide people through bad trips and terrifying ordeals, and how to avoid the psychological damage that LSD can undoubtedly sometimes inflict. But I ask myself whether it could ever have been this way. Was the abuse and misunderstanding inevitable? Might we ever reach this dream world, and in my lifetime?
    I do not know but I keep hoping. And in a country where more and more people want to see the end of the war on drugs, perhaps we can do it. I’ve read many histories of psychedelic drugs and met many of the characters involved, but
Albion Dreaming
givesus something new by showing how the history of LSD played out differently here in Britain from the way it did in the USA. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much, and it may perhaps give us hope for LSD’s future here in Britain.
     
    Dr Susan Blackmore
    Psychologist and author of
The Meme Machine
(1999),
Zen and the Art of Consciouness
(2011) and other books on consciousness, memes and anomalous experiences
     
    Devon, February 2012
     
    www.susanblackmore.co.uk
    www.memetics.com

Albion
Dreaming
     

TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT
     
LSD: an abbreviation of the German term L ysergsäure- D iäthylamid for lysergic acid diethylamide: a semi synthetic illicit organic compound C 20 H 25 N 3 O derived from ergot that induces extreme sensory distortions, altered perceptions of reality, and intense emotional states, that may also produce delusions or paranoia, and that may sometimes cause panic reactions in response to the effects experienced. 1
     
    T he American psychologist Dr. Timothy Leary once said LSD was the drug with the most unusual emotional and psychological effects when compared to any other. Why? Because just the
idea
of the drug has the power to cause terror among people who have never taken it. With this, Leary was referring to the worldwide moral panic that has attended LSD since the drug first became popular among the hippie counter culture in the Sixties. 2
    For politicians, the police, the media and the public, LSD represents and remains a powerful folk devil. The idea of LSD is freighted with fears that it is capable of causing insanity after a single dose. It is believed to contribute to the moral and socialdegradation of the individual and the development of a counter culture antithetical to the values of western materialism. In other words, the drug is perceived to be a serious threat to the individual and to society.
    Yet there are fundamental differences in how different groups of people view LSD. Millions of individuals have taken LSD since its discovery in 1938 and its use has spawned a huge subculture. Devout supporters of the drug claim LSD is a beneficial tool for studying consciousness, with the potential of bestowing fundamental spiritual and personal insights on those who take it. Others simply laud the drug as being a powerful agent for altering consciousness and enhancing awareness, revealing the sensory world in all its glory. At the most mundane level, those who are not interested in LSD’s spiritual or consciousness expanding possibilities speak of the sheer, boundless, multi-dimensional cosmic fun to be had using the drug recreationally: a Disneyland of the mind. There are innumerable reports from people who have taken LSD who testify to its beneficial effects on their lives, yet society has deemed it so dangerous that its manufacture, distribution or possession is punishable by lengthy prison sentences.
    Of course, to those who have not taken LSD such claims might appear pretentious or deluded. They will refer to the handful of people who have died whilst under the influence of LSD. Alternatively, they will recount how some have been compelled to seek psychiatric help because the effects of the drug have been so overpowering. Everyone, whether they have taken LSD or not, has their own opinions, fuelled by a combination of experience and