[Counter-Culture] Leary, Timothy, and George H. Litwin and Ralph Metzner Reactions to Psilocybin Administered in a Supportive Environment

A Very Early and Scarce Report Issued by Timothy Leary on the Effects of Magic Mushrooms

(Baltimore): The Williams & Wilkins Co., 1963. First separate printing ("Reprinted from The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol. 137, No. 6, December, 1963"). Folio. (i), 562-573, (3) pp. Original staple-bound limp self wrappers, bottom edge of leaves slightly affected by damp. Horowitz, Walls & Smith AA45

"Offprinted from journal article in a limited number of copies for the authors' use in December 1963...Footnote on p. 561 gives authors' affiliation as the Center for Research on Personality, Harvard University. The authors express their gratitude to Sandoz Laboratories for supplying psilocybin. This was one of the key papers to come out of the Psychedelic Research Project, and the first study to examine the effects of psychedelic drugs given in a supportive setting." (Horowitz, Walls & Smith, p. 116).

A very scarce report of Timothy Leary's research on the effects of magic mushrooms--one of the most important papers issued by the Harvard Psilocybin Project (HPP)--that predates his more well-known experimentation with LSD. Leary established the HPP with fellow Harvard psychologist Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) in 1960 as doctoral research while employed at Harvard's Center for Research in Personality. It was Leary's first research pursuit at Harvard, and between 1960-62 he and Alpert conducted dozens of experiments administering psilocybin mushrooms to students, artists, and musicians, and documenting their experiences. "'Reactions to Psilocybin Administered in a Supportive Environment' is significant because it represents one of the first attempts to move psychedelic research out of the medical environment (hospitals and mental illness facilities) and into comfortable settings...Leary and his research team...pushed the boundaries of what constitutes a psychedelic drug experience." (Timothy Leary: The Harvard Years, edited by James Penner, 2014). Although Leary's research would prove incredibly controversial at Harvard, and lead to his eventual firing in 1963, his outspoken views on the transformative qualities of magic mushrooms, LSD, and other psychedelic drugs were incredibly influential and helped lay the groundwork for the burgeoning hippie and counter-culture movements of the 1960s.

We can locate only two copies in the auction record, while OCLC traces only two institutional copies, at Harvard University and at the University of California, Irvine.

Provenance

From the private collection of Asher D. Atchick, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania