Articles

In-depth editorial pieces on the people, culture, science, and art of psychoactive substances.

All56 People21 Culture15 Science10 Art & Media10

Albert Hofmann

Swiss chemist who first synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938 and discovered its powerful psychoactive properties in 1943, an event that launched the modern era of psychedelic research.

psychedelicschemistryLSDpsilocybin

Read article

people

Aldous Huxley

English writer and philosopher whose 1954 essay The Doors of Perception transformed Western understanding of psychedelic experience and laid the intellectual groundwork for the consciousness-expansion movement of the 1960s.

psychedelicsmescalineliteraturephilosophyRead article

people

Alexander Shulgin

American medicinal chemist who synthesized and personally tested over 230 novel psychoactive compounds, introduced MDMA to the therapeutic community, and co-authored the landmark books PiHKAL and TiHKAL with his wife Ann.

psychedelicschemistryMDMAphenethylaminesRead article

people

Ann Shulgin

American author and lay therapist who pioneered the use of MDMA and 2C-B in psychotherapy, co-authored the landmark books PiHKAL and TiHKAL with her husband Alexander Shulgin, and co-developed the Shulgin Rating Scale for reporting psychoactive effects.

psychedelicstherapyMDMA2C-BRead article

people

Dennis McKenna

American ethnopharmacologist and research pharmacognosist who has spent over four decades studying Amazonian plant medicines, co-authored The Invisible Landscape with his brother Terence, and serves as a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute.

psychedelicsethnobotanyayahuascapsilocybinRead article

people

Hamilton Morris

American chemist, journalist, and filmmaker whose documentary series Hamilton's Pharmacopeia brought rigorous scientific storytelling about psychoactive substances to mainstream television.

pharmacologychemistryjournalismpsychedelicsRead article

people

Humphry Osmond

British psychiatrist who coined the word 'psychedelic' in 1957 and pioneered the use of LSD and mescaline to treat alcoholism and schizophrenia at Saskatchewan's Weyburn Mental Hospital.

psychedelicpsychiatryLSDmescalineRead article

people

Hunter S. Thompson

American journalist and author who invented gonzo journalism and wrote 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' a hallucinatory chronicle of the American Dream that became one of the most iconic drug narratives in literature.

gonzo journalismLSDmescalinecountercultureRead article

people

John C. Lilly

Maverick American neuroscientist who invented the sensory deprivation tank, pioneered dolphin communication research, and pushed the boundaries of consciousness exploration through intensive self-experimentation with LSD and ketamine.

neuroscienceisolation-tankflotation-tankketamineRead article

people

Ken Kesey

American novelist and countercultural icon whose participation in CIA-funded drug experiments at Stanford inspired 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and whose Acid Tests with the Merry Pranksters helped launch the psychedelic era of the 1960s.

LSDcountercultureMerry PrankstersAcid TestsRead article

people

Maria Sabina

Mazatec curandera and visionary poet from Oaxaca, Mexico, whose sacred mushroom ceremonies introduced psilocybin to the Western world and ignited a global psychedelic revolution -- at devastating personal cost.

psilocybinmushroomsmazatecindigenous-knowledgeRead article

people

Owsley Stanley

Known as 'Bear,' Augustus Owsley Stanley III was the first private individual to mass-produce LSD, manufacturing an estimated five million doses of legendary purity, while simultaneously revolutionizing live concert sound as the Grateful Dead's audio engineer.

LSDGrateful DeadWall of SoundcountercultureRead article

people

R. Gordon Wasson

American banker turned ethnomycologist who introduced sacred psilocybin mushrooms to the Western world through a landmark 1957 Life magazine article and founded the modern study of the cultural role of fungi.

ethnomycologypsilocybinmushroomslife-magazineRead article

people

Ram Dass

Born Richard Alpert, he was an American psychologist who conducted groundbreaking psychedelic research at Harvard alongside Timothy Leary before traveling to India, finding his guru Neem Karoli Baba, and becoming one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the 20th century.

psychedelicsspiritualityHarvardLSDRead article

people

Rick Doblin

American psychedelic drug researcher and activist who founded the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in 1986 and spent nearly four decades pursuing FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD.

MDMAMAPSPTSDpsychedelic therapyRead article

people

Rick Strassman

American psychiatrist who conducted the first government-approved human research with a psychedelic substance in over twenty years, administering DMT to sixty volunteers and coining the term 'the spirit molecule.'

dmtpsychedelic-researchspirit-moleculepineal-glandRead article

people

Robin Carhart-Harris

British psychopharmacologist who conducted the first legal LSD brain-imaging study in 40 years, proposed the influential entropic brain hypothesis, and founded the world's first academic Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London.

psilocybinLSDentropic brainREBUSRead article

people

Roland Griffiths

American psychopharmacologist whose landmark 2006 psilocybin study at Johns Hopkins University reignited scientific interest in psychedelics after decades of dormancy and led to the creation of the nation's first psychedelic research center.

psilocybinJohns Hopkinspsychedelic researchmystical experienceRead article

people

Stanislav Grof

Czech-born psychiatrist who conducted some of the most extensive clinical LSD research in history, mapped a radical new cartography of the human psyche, co-founded transpersonal psychology, and developed Holotropic Breathwork as a non-drug alternative.

lsdtranspersonal-psychologyholotropic-breathworkperinatal-matricesRead article

people

Terence McKenna

American ethnobotanist, author, and lecturer who became the leading intellectual voice of psychedelic culture in the 1990s, known for his advocacy of psilocybin mushrooms and DMT, the Stoned Ape hypothesis, and his Novelty Theory.

psychedelicsethnobotanypsilocybinDMTRead article

people

Timothy Leary

American psychologist who led the Harvard Psilocybin Project, became the most visible advocate for psychedelic drugs in the 1960s counterculture, and was called by Richard Nixon 'the most dangerous man in America.'

psychedelicsLSDpsilocybinHarvardRead article