Groundbreaking and controversial researchs on LSD + Free book ´"LSD, Spirituality, and the Creative Process"

Oscar Janiger, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist  who ``turned on'' scores of artists, intellectuals and elite members  of Hollywood's entertainment community, including the late Cary Grant, to the psychedelic drug LSD  in the 1950s and 1960s, has died at 83. From 1954 until 1962 -- four years before LSD was declared illegal -  - Janiger was one of the first researchers to probe the drug's  potential for enhancing intellect and creativity. He incorporated  the drug into his therapy and handed it out to an estimated 1,000  volunteers including such luminaries as novelists Anais Nin and Aldous Huxley, actors Cary Grant and Jack Nicholson, and  conductor/composer Andre Previn.

Janiger often said he was particularly interested in artists'  ability to access a state of altered consciousness in uniform  conditions using this ``creativity pill,'' which he saw as a  ``marvelous instrument to learn more about the mind.'' ``From then on when I'd get into situations, I'd determine what  aspect that was within me was being projected outward, and what was  a reflection of the world that others can validate along with me.  That, of course, has been the theme of my work in therapy and as a  scientist,'' he said during a 1990 interview.

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Janiger received his MA in cell physiology from Columbia University.  For a time he worked as a New York City high school teacher but got  reprimanded for pasting stars on the classroom ceiling. He  ultimately quit after being reprimanded again for bringing moldy bread, cheese and wine into the classroom to teach children about the advent of penicillin. He went on to receive his MD from the University of California  Irvine School of Medicine, where he served on the faculty in their  Psychiatry Department for more than 20 years in addition to  maintaining a private practice in Beverly Hills.

Unlike the LSD field tests conducted by the United States government, Janiger's subjects were fully aware they were being  given the drug and each paid $20 for a ``hit'' of ``acid'' which was made by a Swiss pharmaceutical firm. Janiger gave his patients the LSD in a room that adjoined a garden  in his office rather than hospital or prison settings that had  typically been used in previous government tests. He personally took  LSD 13 times and said that it helped him see that ``many, many  things were possible.''

LSD, Spirituality, and the Creative Process - Free book

Between 1954 and 1962, Janiger conducted some of the most groundbreaking and controversial research on LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), testing nearly 1000 people. Though authored by medical anthropologist De Rios (Janiger died in 2001), this book is based largely on Janiger's studies and on interviews conducted in the last months of his life. Janiger's study was unique in that he aimed to gauge the effects of LSD on a wide variety of people in "normal" society rather than treating patients with severe psychiatric disorders. During the course of his study, he became interested in the way LSD affected creativity and imagination and began experimenting with artists and documenting the results. This book includes artwork, poetry, and personal narratives from many of the participants. De Rios compares her extensive cross-cultural knowledge of shamanistic religious ceremonies to the LSD experience. She concludes that LSD, under highly controlled circumstances, can help individuals both creatively and spiritually by altering and expanding their consciousness. A scholarly, serious examination of how psychedelic substances can influence expression, this title is recommended for larger collections in psychology, anthropology, and New Age shamanism.-Mimi Davis, Broward Cty. Lib. Dist., Fort Lauderdale, FL



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review by Brandy Doyle ..................... Ah, the good old days. As scientists face hurdle after hurdle to obtain approval for research with psychedelics, it’s worthwhile to look back at a time before the War on Drugs, when studying the actions and even benefits of these substances was much easier. Marlene Dobkin De Rios’s new book, LSD, Spirituality, and the Creative Process, tells the story of Oscar Janiger’s pioneering research, in which over 900 people were administered LSD. Janiger’s study began in 1954 and continued until it was shut down in 1962. About six years later he con- ducted a follow-up that analyzed questionnaires from about 200 participants. MAPS conducted another follow- up after 40 years, reaching 45 individuals. In both follow- ups, most people found the experience pleasant overall; however, there was wide variation within each group when people were asked if the experience had lasting benefits. Janiger’s follow-up noted that those in therapy had a high rate of positive response, and they felt that the experience was beneficial overall, but they found the experience much less pleasant than other participants who were not in therapy. (Many of Janiger’s subjects had been referred by their therapists to the study.) In the 40- year follow-up, one-third reported persisting beneficial changes, and interestingly, those who had been in therapy when they began the study were much more likely to report lasting benefits.

In one of the most interesting sections of the book, De Rios discusses the question of LSD and creativity. Early in Janiger’s project, an art professor in the study made a drawing of a Hopi kachina doll that was in the house. The artist found that LSD had a profound influence on his style, and suggested that Janiger invite other artists to explore this change. Janiger began a separate sub-study on creativity, turning one room of the house into a studio. He invited professional artists, writers, and musicians to participate, eventually including about 100 people. De Rios’s book includes a section of color images of the kachina doll, which was painted by many of the artists before and during their LSD sessions. ......... READ ALL REVIEW

CIA LSD Experiment on Psychosis

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Discovering new planes of introspective creativity

About 70 of Oscar Janiger’s patients took part in a creativity experiment in which he asked them to paint or draw an American Indian Kachina Doll  before taking the LSD and then again one hour after taking it. Some  250 works of art were created during those sessions.

ALL (not some, or a few, but ALL) were said to have positive responses to the drug, saying it helped them open up and be more creative. They felt their art was better, and not that, but after using, they could reach a state of higher creativity easier than ever before. Dr. Janiger would also be known to later has test volunteers such as Cary Grant and Jack Nicholson. Jack Nicholson would later go on to describe hes experience as a beautiful and eye opening one. He would also later go on to make the LSD fueled "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest", written by Ken Kesey, legendary LSD supporter

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Affectionately nicknamed ``Oz,'' as in ``wizard,'' by his friends,  Janiger's interests were wide ranging. After LSD was outlawed in  1966 he remained an advocate of the drug but turned his attention to other research. Among his many accomplishments he established a relationship between hormonal cycling and pre-menstrual depression in women, discovered  blood proteins specific to male homosexuality, and determined through studies of the Huichol Indians in Mexico that centuries of peyote use do not cause chromosomal damage.

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Nine drawings LSD experiment

These nine drawings were done by an artist under the influence of LSD, as part of a test conducted by the US government during the 1950’s. The government was keen to learn of any potentially beneficial effects that these new synthetic drugs may have, and how such effects could be used. Their primary hope was to be able to use LSD as a truth serum, using the patient’s altered sense of reality to overcome any conscious guards.

The artist was to be given a dose of LSD 25, and free access to an activity box full of crayons, paints and pencils. His subject throughout is the doctor administering the drugs. The first drawing is done 20 minutes after the patient has received the first dose (50μg). The attending doctor observes that the patient starts drawing with charcoal.

The artist explains “Condition normal , no effect from the drug yet.”

85 minutes after the first dose and 20 minutes after a second dose has been administered (100μg total).  The doctor notes that the patient seems euphoric.

“I can see you clearly, so clearly. This…. you…. it’s all… I’m having a little trouble controlling this pencil. It seems to want to keep going.”

2 hours and 30 minutes after the first dose.  Patient appears very focused on the business of drawing.

“Outlines seem normal, but very vivid. Everything is changing color. My hand must follow the bold sweep of the lines. I feel as if my consciousness is situated in the part of my body that’s now active… my hand… my elbow… my tongue”

2 hours and 32 minutes after first dose.  Patient seems gripped by his pad of paper.

“I’m trying another drawing. The outlines of the model are normal, but now those of my drawing are not. The outline of my hand is going weird too. It’s not a very good drawing is it? I give…I’ll try again…”

2 hours and 35 minutes after first dose.  Patient follows quickly with another drawing.

“I’ll do a drawing in one flourish… without stopping… one line… no break”

Upon completing the drawing the patient starts laughing and then becomes alerted by something on the floor.

2 hours and 45 minutes after first dose.  Patient tries to climb into activity box, and he is generally agitated and responds slowly to the suggestion that he might like to draw some more. He has become largely non-verbal.

“I am… everything is… changed… they’re calling.. your face… interwoven…who is…”  Patient mumbles inaudibly to a tune (sounds like “Thanks for the Memory”).

He changes medium to tempera.

4 hours and 25 minutes after first dose.  Patient retreated to the bunk, spending approximately 2 hours lying, waving his hands in the air. His return to the activity box is sudden and deliberate. He changes his medium to pen and water color.

“This will be the best drawing, like the first one, only better. If I’m not careful, I’ll loose control of my movements, but I won’t, because I know. I know.” (He continues to repeat “I know” over and over.)

Patient makes the last half a dozen strokes of the drawing while running back and forth across the room.

5 hours and 45 minutes after the first dose.  Patient continues to move about the room, intersecting the space in complex variations. It’s an hour and a half before he settles down to draw again; he appears to be over the effects of the drug.  “I can feel my knees again. I think it’s starting to wear off. This is a pretty good drawing, but the pencil is mighty hard to hold. (He is holding a crayon).

8 hours after first dose  Patient sits on bunk bed.He reports the intoxication has worn off, expect for the occasional distorting of faces. We ask for a final drawing, which he performs with little enthusiasm. “I have nothing to say about this last drawing. It is bad and uninteresting. I want to go home now.”