Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics

Summary

This review of a book of interviews with psychedelic therapy pioneers notes the volume's nostalgic value and its division into sections on research, psychotherapy, culture, and religious implications. The reviewer reflects on the history of LSD therapy, including early work with alcoholics and convicts, and expresses skepticism about claims that psychedelic effects can be achieved with Ritalin. The reviewer also critiques the media's role in promoting and then undermining psychedelic therapy, and disagrees with Huston Smith's view that the psychedelic movement aided antiwar and civil rights efforts.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The book is a collection of interviews and the distilled wisdom obtained between late 1996 and mid-1998, updated and edited by eminent psychiatrists, Professors Roger Walsh and Charles Grob. The alliteratively poetic title in lower case, in green and blue with a colorful psychedelic logo, contrasts with the ashen photographs of all the participants. The book will evoke nostalgia in anyone who lived through the 1960s. Betty Eisner’s chapter’s title, “The Birth and Death of Psychedelic Therapy,” may be less poetic but more accurate. It invites comparison with Freud’s magnificent polemic, “A History of the Psychoanalytic Movement” (Freud, 1917). Why not a history of the psychedelic movement? It was quite a feat to bring together these aging luminaries in one place for 3 days of meetings, interviews, and follow-up. Still, one may wonder why it took so long to bring it to fruition. Some developments after 1996 are missing. For example, in August 2003, “This Week on the Infinite Mind: Psychedelics” (Goodwin, 2003) gave an extensive report on much current research and ongoing litigation with the government. My colleague, Bill Richards, is still carrying on approved research with psilocybin. My grandson reports from his college that students still take LSD and are hospitalized or expelled for dealing. This useful and stimulating volume contains the reminiscences of Ram Dass, Betty Eisner, James Fadiman, Gary Fisher, Peter Furst, Stanislav Grof, Michael Harner, Albert Hofmann, Laura Archera Huxley, Zalman SchachterShalomi, Alexander Shulgin, Ann Shulgin, Huston Smith, and Myron Stolaroff. The book is divided into chapters on Research, Psychotherapy, Culture and Consciousness, and Religious Implications. There is a richness to the book that I find difficult to summarize. It is impossible to do justice to each participant, and I can only suggest that the reader will find each chapter rewarding. The marvelous contributions of LSD’s discoverer, Hofmann, those of Aldous Huxley, and the valiant efforts of Ram Dass to overcome his aphasia require no further exegesis. Although the wide variety of LSD therapy for different indications may have been highly successful, it does not seem worthwhile reviewing it in extenso for its historical value. Betty Eisner believes that psychedelic therapy can be achieved with Ritalin. I personally am skeptical. I am not in a position to evaluate Stan Grof’s psychedelic therapy achieved through controlled breathwork, but I recommend highly his original chapter on the theory and practice of psychedelic therapy. I am still in debt to Stan Grof for an LSD session that helped me over a problem with dependence on sleeping pills. The rebirth experience does have an impact. Surprisingly, psychedelic therapy even without drugs evokes a hostile press, at least in Australia, where the headlines in The West Australian, Perth proclaim, “Banned Therapy Link Sparks Alert.” Max Honeycutt a psychologist questioned the validity of therapies offered by California-based psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof. However, Dr. Koesterich, the Vice President of the Australian Medical Association, said “breathing and meditative techniques were used by many people with a lot of success.” He would be concerned about the “possible risks of someone attending the workshop trying the techniques without appropriate training or skills.” (Hodge, September 5, 1998) Interest in LSD therapy began with Condrau’s 1949 paper on the treatment of depression, which I tried to replicate (Savage, 1952). Later therapy assumed importance as a rationale, a legal justification for the psychedelic movement; Alpert describes how he turned his back on the promising beginnings of psilocybin therapy with convicts. That was unfortunate. Such therapy provided a justification for their personal research and might have reduced the likelihood that he would be fired for treating undergraduates. Jim Fadiman’s pithy observation about the press is apt: never trust anyone in the media to give you a fair shake. Higher Wisdom does not give the media sufficient credit for its role in first promoting and then destroying psychedelic therapy. Myron Stolaroff and I once asked a reporter to delay publication, saying, whether favorable or unfavorable, it would destroy us. He said, “It doesn’t matter, as long as it sells papers.” I hope everyone will be stimulated to read this book. I found the subchapters of Myron Stolaroff, Jim Fadiman from the International Foundation for Advanced Studies in Menlo Park, California, and Stan Grof at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Spring Grove, Maryland, most rewarding because I had worked with them for several years. Equally rewarding was that of Huston Smith, whom I first met in the 1960s at a meeting of the R. M. Bucke Memorial Society in Montreal. I do not agree with Huston Smith that the psychedelic movement helped either the antiwar effort or civil rights efforts. (In fact, it helped bring us Nixon’s election, The War on Drugs, the Southern Strategy, and 6 plus more years of Vietnam.) Nevertheless, I am still a great admirer of his. I was impressed by his discussion of Anomie and of the general ignorance of and indifference to history and religion. Important, too, is his brief explication of why he had a bad session at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center at Spring Grove. Rabbi Zalman Schachter gives a parallel treatment of Jewish Mysticism. Michael Harner and I participated in seminars in ethno-botany at Esalen in Big Sur. His contribution and that of Peter T. Furst are impressive. They do not acknowledge John Marco Allegro’s speculation in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (Allegro, 1970) that the Eucharist is based on eating sacred mushrooms. There are a number of helpful gems. Myron Stolaroff and Gary Fisher warn against working with difficult cases and tell how to avoid them. Psychedelics are not for everyone. I found useful Betty Eisner’s discussion of the breakdown between the psychedelic movement and Alcoholics Anonymous. Such a liaison had assisted our successful work with alcoholics at Spring Grove. I will not trouble the reader with her discussion of the gaucherie of the Word, Entheogen.

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