The Sixties, Hippies, Beatniks and Psychedelics
The big difference between the Beatniks of the Fifties and the Hippies of the Sixties was the drugs of choice.
The fifties Beat Poets used marijuana (tea) and alcohol (as well as some amphetamine and heroin). The sixties Hippies used marijuana and Hash (Pot, weed, bush, spliff) with psychedelics like LSD and Mescaline (there was also a lot of speed but junkies were generally looked down on). The prevailing attitude of the sixties was that these psychedelics and pot were harmless. Indeed there were many who saw them as brain vitamins and a necessary way to augment a musical event complete with lightshow, a film (like 2001 a Space Odyssey) or the creative process. Many bands were producing long drawn out improvisations geared to an audience on psychedelics.
The Hippies thought that pot and LSD were much safer than alcohol and nicotine, and that the older generation were being hypocritical. It is only later with the psychosis and depression created by the drugs that there is perspective. They are not as harmless as they seemed.
For the Beatniks satori was to be aspired to by meditation in the traditional Zen manner. It took years and had to be mastered.
For the Hippies it was as simple; you just dropped a tab of acid and an hour later you were there – instant nirvana.
But were they talking about the same thing?
For straight society it was all very worrying whichever way you looked at it. All this desire to attain a mystical union with the cosmos was disturbing. It was wacky, weird and most unwelcome.
The abiding question of the time was were you hip or were you square? Were you straight or were you cool? Did you opt in or did you drop out?
I was too young for the beatnik era. I would have lked it. My father liked it, but came from too straight laced a family to delve to deeply. He was a writer, though.
I did definitely see some permanent psychosis happen with LSD. Being a psychotherapist, I saw most problems with alcohol, heroin, nicotene and speed – then, a little later crack and meth. Rarely have I seen anyone strung out on pot, except people who were strung out on low self esteem andyway, and used pot to not have to deal. I did some LSD and realized right away that it was not a recreational drug for me. It was very personal and spiritual. Then I did a lot of mushrooms in the 70s. Same deal. Sometimes it was around people, but I always ended up walking to someplace I could be alone. Then, it became clear that meditation was the more integral way to get there. I have never been able to get to that same place, totally beyond time and ego, but close….and just remembering it helps me focus in a different way. I don’t regret any of it. The person that really taught me the difference was Ram Dass. He is just so real. I actually wish I could use LSD in some therapeutic situations, but I would certainly lose my license over that! There is also a drug called eboga (from a root in Africa) that can cure addictions. It is used in many countries, but alas, still illegal in the US. Thanks for bringing all this up again, Opher. There was something so wholesome about those years that seems missing now. So much technology.
Yes there was. It was naïve and idealistic and felt so good, optimistic and affirming. There was a brotherhood/sisterhood that is lacking these days.
As an educator I definitely saw negative effects of cannabis. Some young boys were definitely adversely affected. They became completely turned off and lacklustre, no interest or enthusiasm. The research seems to suggest it has a detrimental effect on young brains that it doesn’t have on older brains. I noticed the demotivating effects.
I have two friends who were severely affected by LSD. One to the point of committing suicide. I’ll do a post about them.
Thanks so much for your input. Very interesting and informative. Great to hear from you.
So sorry about your friends, Opher! So sad!! LSD really can take one to some deep scary places. To some place sometimes impossible to return. I feel so fortunate it didn’t happen to me permanently. I certainly went to some scary places, but also beautiful ones.
Yeah, that is definitely the downside to pot – the lacklustre, loss of enthusiasm or motivation. I wonder too, if my memory problems are from that, or just age. I mean, really, why can’t I just put my keys on the hook where they belong instead of the daily frustration of losing them?! Hahaha.
What keys? Oh yes I remember them now – shiny things.
I don’t know. Nothing is without risk. Some people are affected and some not. You can die canoeing down a river, climbing a mountain or dropping an acid tab. I think it’s important to keep risks in proportion and minimise them.
I think society’s attitude to drugs is unhelpful and has been counterproductive. We need solid facts not hype and propaganda.
I do not think that moderate use of cannabis has too great an effect. Overuse or young people using it is a different matter.
Certainly alcohol and nicotine is far more dangerous.
I agree! Everything you just said.
It’s about time this debate was out in the open and we had the facts instead of hysteria. The government policy has created a lot of harm.
I’ve drunk a lot of alcohol over the years, and smoked a lot of cannabis resin and weed. I also tried acid a coupla times at Uni, guided by 2 experienced trippers who were my close friends at the time. My first trip was brilliant, the second descended into a paranoid nightmare which put me off using it any further.
I’ve since read that LSD of itself is good, and the bad trips are/were caused by impurities used to either to cut the pure drug or are part and parcel of the LSD production process, with strycchnine being a common culprit. The interactions when there are pre-existing mental conditions are also reckoned to be a common cause of problems.
Like most things, ‘a little of what you fancy does you good’ seems to be a good maxim to follow.
There is an obvious converse to this, that too much of a good thing can be harmful. I’ve no doubt that that applied in Syd Barrett’s case and I suspect that Peter Green nearly went the same way, and for the same reason. However, Syd was considered to be well up the Asperger scale and I think that Peter also had similar mental issues.
In my own experience, I definitely became borderline psychotic on some particularly strong skunk that I used to get regularly from a Jamaican friend. However, it might be argued that my own underlying, at that point unaddressed PTSD may have been a factor, as may have been the fact that my 2nd marriage was in tatters, though neither of us had acknowledged it at that point.
On balance, I still like to smoke weed when I can get hold of it, and I’ve pretty much weaned myself off alcohol. My last remaining challenge is to kick my nicotine habit. I’ve done it before and gone long periods not smoking cigarrettes or weed. I restarted smoking nicotine only after catching up with an old school-friend a few years ago who started to supply me with weed again.
This time round I’m intending to get into cooking with weed before I kick the roll-ups. Trouble is, I like smoking spliffs too much 🙂
I think that the trouble with government policy and illegality is that we end up with drugs with impurities, dubious quality, unknown strength and a lot of false information.
We need some scientific sanity.
Some people are just not good on some drugs. Their physiology or mental state cannot cope. Others are fine. The trouble is that at present we have no way of knowing who is what without trial and error.
Syd and Pete were sad casualties. Whether that was poor quality drugs, too much or a mental condition is uncertain. Nick Drake was another.
Cannabis has two active ingedients – THC and Canabinoids. In the THC gets you high and has some harmful effects. The cannabinoids counter those harmful effects. Skunk was genetically modified to have super high levels of THC but no cannabinoids. It manifests the harmful effects much more that ordinary cannabis.
Skunk is not to be recommended to anyone. Steer clear.
We need better information and less propaganda.
Throughout history people have used drugs of all descriptions. Our present society sanctions two of the most dangerous in alcohol and nicotine. We need much more research and some common sense.
Thanks for pingback!
Ha – great song – psychedelic Armstrong!
LSD and cold war politics: Tune in, turn on….Andropov…. *smirk*
Lol