The Harvard Psychedelic Club Blog

In The Harvard Psychedelic Club novel it starts off with a man named Richard Alpert who is an assistant professor in clinical psychology at Harvard University. He must hide his homosexuality from the time he is in college all the way until he gets to Harvard. David McClelland was the person who offered Albert the job at Harvard, and David came across a very brilliant man named Timothy Leary which later on in the story he would meet with Richard Albert. David McClelland was very impressed with Timothy Leary’s work and wanted him to work for Harvard. “McClelland had just read The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality and was very impressed with Leary’s work.”[1] Andy Weil was very interested in finding more about psychedelic drugs, and one of the students pointed out someone who may be able to assist him. “Go check out this psychologist who’s working with David McClelland, his name is Leary, and he’s into some pretty interesting stuff.”[2]

Timothy Leary and his friends ate some psilocybin mushrooms when they were staying in Mexico and they began to see things that amazed them. They drifted onto a world they would have never imagined, and everything seemed so clearer to them. “We took some mushrooms, he explained to his startled guests.”[3] When he later returned to Harvard he came up with the Harvard Psilocybin Project. They used the psilocybin the active ingredient of the magic mushrooms, and the ones who were given these drugs would write out reports of their own experiences. Richard Alpert met Timothy Leary near the airport of Mexico City and little did Leary know was that Albert barely bought the plane. They discussed their future plans with the mushroom research, and how it would help everybody. “Were going to take a whole new approach with this research, Leary told Alpert.”[4]

Richard Alpert and Timothy gave the psychedelic drug to over 200 hundred graduate students and also faculty members from Harvard and MIT. Leary later on in 1961 changed the name of the project to the Harvard Psychedelic Project. “The vast majority of the other subjects reported that the sessions were among the most power, educational, and enlightening experiences of their lives.”[5] Timothy Leary would later conduct the Good Friday Experiment and his theory was that it would give people a religious experience once they take the Psilocybin drug. Twenty students took part in this experiment which some received the Psilocybin, or either Placebo. The people who participated in this experiment completed questionnaires of their own experiences they went through while they took the drugs. Though Kelman believed that Leary and Alpert were abusing their power of going too far with researching the drugs. “You’ve got to do something, Kelman told McClelland, and these drugs are dangerous.”[6]

Alpert and Leary’s days of experimenting with Psychedelic drugs was put to rest when Andrew Weil accused them of giving drugs to undergraduate students and then Harvard fired both men. Even though the men were kicked out of Harvard they vowed to continue their research, and not to put it on hold. LSD replaced the psilocybin that Albert and Leary focused further in their research. Timothy Leary not only were kicked out of Harvard, but also three countries in a short period of time. “It turns out the CIA had tracked them all the way down to Dominica, where the agency reported the professors planned to open, an alleged Happiness Hotel.”[7] Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary refuged in a mansion in New York where they would continue their Psychedelic drug research. William and Tommy helped them get established with trust funds. The drugs made many hallucinate, and some ended up doing crazy things that cost them their lives.

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[1] Don, Lattin. The Harvard Psychedelic Club. How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age of America. (New York: HarperCollins, 2010). 20.

[2] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 26.

[3] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 41.

[4] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 52.

[5] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 61.

[6] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 88.

[7] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 111.