Leary and Alpert fancy themselves prophets of a psychic revolution designed to free Western man from the limitations of consciousness as we know it. They are contemptuous of all organized systems of action—of what they call the “roles” and “games” of society. They prefer mystical ecstasy to the fulfillment available through work, politics, religion, and creative art. Yet like true revolutionaries they will play these games to further their own ends.
Erowid Stolaroff Collection : Andrew Weil’s 1963 Report on Harvard’s Firing of Richard Alpert
"Why hadn’t I read this article before? I tried to recall the last time that I’d searched through the microfiche collection at a library. I tried to remember the last time that I’d actually been to a library. Since my mind was not immediately serving up any answers to these questions, I typed the article’s title into a search engine: ‘Corporation Fires Richard Alpert For Giving Undergraduates Drugs’. Zero hits."
Fantastic work by Erowid surfacing & explicating this primary material! I’m as guilty as the next unread blogger of Internet boosterism, but perhaps we’ll learn to take a long view and identify some of these discontinuities before it’s too late.
