The Harvard Psychedelic Club

AP Photo In 1960, Timothy Leary set up an infamous institute at Harvard to experiment with psychedelic drugs. An exclusive excerpt from Don Lattin’s new book on how lifestyle guru Andrew Weil and other freshmen started tripping.
Andy Weil and Ronnie Winston were friends and dorm mates in Claverly Hall. They were both incoming Harvard freshmen when they walked into Leary’s office on Divinity Lane and volunteered to be research subjects in his psychedelic research project. Weil had grown up in a middle-class family. Winston was the son of Harry Winston, the wealthy diamond and jewelry manufacturer whose creations hung around the necks of trophy wives and Hollywood starlets from coast to coast. Neither of them would officially take part in the project, but they would both play an important, little-known role in the rise and fall of Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary.
Winston would eventually be brought into the psychedelic family. Weil would not, and the implications of that unequal treatment would forever alter the careers and life paths of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert.

He didn’t see the experiences as just an excuse to get high. He wasn’t rebelling against anything. He was just curious, eager to understand what was going on inside his own brain.

Weil and Winston had both read The Doors of Perception, Huxley’s book about the insights the British writer gleaned from his 1953 mescaline trip. They walked into Leary’s little office on Divinity Avenue eager to fly off on their own mystical journey.
They were a bit nervous when they sat down, but Leary soon put them at ease with his soft-spoken charm.
“Yes,” Leary said, “Huxley was the trailblazer. You know, I didn’t have a clue as to the potential of this research until I had my own experience with psilocybin mushrooms over the summer. At its core, you have to understand that this is not an intellectual exercise. It is experiential. It is, and I’m almost embarrassed to say it, religious. But it is more than religious. It is exhilarating. It shows us that the human brain possesses infinite potentialities. It can operate in space-time dimensions that we never dreamed even existed. I feel like I’ve awakened from a long ontological sleep.”
  Weil and Winston were on the edge of their seats.
“Anyway,” Leary continued, “the research is pretty straightforward. Our subjects take a controlled dose of synthesized psilocybin. We make sure they are in a safe and comfortable setting. We’re trying to get people from all walks of life, not just graduate students. We’re giving this stuff to priests and prisoners and everyone in between. They do a session about once a month and are expected to write up a two-to three-page report describing the experience. Between sessions, we get together and discuss whatever insights we’ve gleaned from all this. Now, I assume neither of you have had any experience with these substances.”
“No, sir, we have not,” Weil replied. “But we are ready, willing, and able.”
“I can see that,” Leary said. “But I think we may have a little problem. How old are you boys?”
“Eighteen.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. You see, our agreement with the university does not allow us to use undergraduates in this research.”
“That’s what we were afraid of,” Weil said. “To tell you the truth, some of us over at Claverly were thinking of running our own series of tests, and we were wondering if you could clue us in on how we might obtain some of these pills.”
“Well, I could, but I’d better not do that, boys,” Leary replied. “But if you’re persistent, I’m sure you can find your own source.”...

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@'Daily Beast'