Acid History

A week or so ago I was researching the fascinating and brilliant minds behind the pro-LSD movement of the 60s.

I'm talking Ken Kesey of the "Merry Pranksters" and the American author. I came upon Kesey after watching 'Across the Universe' for the second time and wondering who Bono was supposed to be. Kesey believed that LSD was a way to see the world in a new light, to transcend barriers and get to know the true you. He held parties at his home with music (of the Grateful Dead), and the now stereotypical setting/atmosphere for hallucinogenics. Black lights and all that jazz.

"We're navigators, we're...aviators, we're...eatin' taters, masturbating alligators, we have no fears, we're pushing the frontiers of transcendental meditation, BUT...The weird thing is...We've never met, on this plane or another"
(Kesey talking about Leary in Across the Universe)

He and a group of other Acid guinea pigs embarked on experimentation with the drugs. As seen in 'Across the Universe' the group takes a psychedelic bus named 'Further' across the USA, notably to visit Timothy Leary, another writer and advocate of psychedelic drug use and research believing that these drugs connect you spiritually.









Here's a neat fact:
Timothy Leary ran for Governor of California, his campaign slogan was "Come together, join the party". He attended John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Montreal "bed in" and Lennon wrote Leary the song "Come Together" for his campaign song!

Tom Wolfe wrote a novel chronically the trips in his book "The Electric Kool-Aid Test".