Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain. Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixites, and Beyond. 1985.

The title is misleading in that this “complete” history barely refers to events outside the USA.

The opening chapters about the CIA and their astonishing indulgences are interesting, creepy, and valuable, although this research is ultimately not used in service of any argument, except that the CIA made the psychedelic revolution possible through underwriting the mass production of the drug for testing as a weapon. And they dosed. Lots. And dosed each other. And dosed lots of people without telling them. Spooks on acid. Scary.

Also of interest, and not explored nearly enough in this volume, is the research of psychologists who hoped to use LSD as a therapeutic tool, apparently with some real success, before the drug was made illegal.

The parts about 60's culture are a good introduction to events and characters of the 1960s that have already been well documented elsewhere, such as in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. I found these chapters (most of the book) endlessly tiring, and was reminded less of scholarship than of an aging hippy showing off a collection of vintage 60's memorabilia, unaware that those vintage R. Crumb comics mean nothing, and indeed seem somewhat tacky, to those who weren't There. You can learn more about psychedelic culture by tripping and listening to Surrealistic Pillow than by reading these historians write about Be-Ins.

The writing style hangs somewhere between scholar and hippy:

A lot of acid veterans couldn't handle the paranoia and split to the countryside, where they hoped to pursue a relatively hassle-free existence on one of the many communes that were springing up in California and the Southwest. These rural enclaves provided a temporary haven for those who needed to mellow out after having their minds blown in a million different directions. (191)

In this example, the authors have reported a situation more or less as the people in it would have described it, and has thus left the reader without any kind of analysis, interpretation, or benefit of hindsight. These passages seem empty and, worse, to reproduce the slang of the period to this degree is arguably bad writing. Dig?

The book suggests, but does not convincingly assert:

• that the CIA wittingly or unwittingly triggered the psychedelic revolution of the mid 1960s
• that the activism and energy of the 1960s (such as the Yippies) would have taken a different form, or would not have happened, without this particular drug
• that American LSD use tends to be more spiritual than hedonistic, and that in this respect LSD is a fundamentally unique “Promethean fire” (297) (?) (the authors do sometimes derisively refer to some people who use the drug hedonistically, but do not make this distinction convincing or clear. They would not allow, for example, that Timothy Leary was a wastoid who just liked to get fucked up, of which, despite any number of pages referring to him as a spiritual leader and important Harvard psychologist, I am convinced—to put it more sypathetically, Timothy Leary had a drug problem—he was capable of being most undignified)

I do applaud the authors' definition of LSD as a psychological “amplifier,” meaning that the drug does not have a unique character (stimulant, depressant, narcotic, euphoriant) so much as intensify the unique character of the person using it and the situation they use it in. For this reason, the enormous amounts of research undertaken by the CIA would appear to be inconclusive, and so, I am afraid, is this book. And Timothy Leary's “research.”

One of the little-discussed effects of LSD is that it makes you think it's really, really important. The first couple of times you use it.

I'd like to see a revision of this book, with more about Ronald Stark, nothing about Timothy Leary, and a studious attempt to avoid mentioning rock and roll bands. I've got nothing against rock and roll bands, but damnit, the CIA spiked their own punchbowl! Lots! Everybody already knows that Jerry Garcia turned on! I want more declassified secrets, less discussion of famous people. Reading the first chapters of this book one is treated to a surprising glimpse of national security.

Anyway the vivid yellow and magenta cover of the 1992 edition is a groove. And, if you are teaching English 101, and some wide-pupiled freshman seems earnest about writing a paper about LSD, this book should be required reading. As should Surrealistic Pillow.