Location:
Anatomy Building, JZ Young Lecture Theatre G29
Medical Sciences and Anatomy Building, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT
Zoom Link: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/99342982623
Abstract:
Psychedelic drugs such as LSD have previously been proscribed as having ‘no scientific or medical value’, in other words they were societally judged as useless. The usefulness of a substance in a society dedicated to consumption, production and financial gain is defined by its ability to contribute to those processes. However, some members of society did find a use for psychedelics leading them to be defined as ‘recreational drugs’. Their association with the counterculture supposedly caused President Nixon to call Timothy Leary the guru of LSD ‘the most dangerous man in America’. How have substances once so transgressive that they were considered a fundamental threat to society, now become the projected products of multiple startups and investment guides? In 2015 in the context of the burgeoning Psychedelic Renaissance I asked whether, once commodified, psychedelics would lose their ‘subversive mojo’. That transgressive capacity, which so characterised them for Leary and Terence Mckenna, to deprogram the user from the meta-narratives of Church, State and consumer society. In the current situation of rapacious Corporadelic developments it is appropriate to revisit that question in search of further answers as former ‘dangerous drugs’ are being repurposed.
Biography:
Alan Piper graduated in the History of Ideas in 1986 as a mature student. Having participated in the psychedelic sixties and seventies, he later applied himself to the history of psychedelic culture. Alan has published several papers on the cultural history of psychoactive drugs and spoken at several psychedelic conferences. His topics have included how both left- and right-wing figures have found inspiration in the powers of psychoactive drugs and how the transgressive power of psychedelic drugs was adopted by the counterculture as a tool of resistance against the dominant culture of consumer capitalism and militarism. The headline essay of his recently published book ‘Bicycle Day and other Psychedelic Essays’ examines the greater social and political contexts of Bicycle Day, separating comforting myth from the complexities of history.
Previous publications:
Alan Piper. (2015) Strange Drugs make for Strange Bedfellows: Ernst Jünger, Albert Hofmann and the Politics of Psychedelics. Portland, OR: Invisible College Publishing
Alan Piper. (2023) Bicycle Day and other Psychedelic Essays. London: Psychedelic Press.
A collection of previously published essays on various aspects of the history of psychedelic culture. They include the recreational use of mescaline at Harvard in the nineteen thirties and an extended review of Ernst Jünger’s novella of 1952 A Visit to Godenholm, which was inspired by his LSD sessions with Albert Hofmann and friends.