The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America by Don Lattin

Jul 03, 2012 Gretchen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

It's funny, something about Andrew Weil always repelled me. If this journalist is to be believed, at all, there's good reason for it. He is an ambitious, conniving RAT in the ugliest sense of the word. His being a rat may have been related to the fact that he was the fat (but equally smart and probably more talented) kid who was rejected, while the pretty boys got to join the party, which is something for our culture to consider.

It always interests me how "Harvard Men," for example, think that t...more It's funny, something about Andrew Weil always repelled me. If this journalist is to be believed, at all, there's good reason for it. He is an ambitious, conniving RAT in the ugliest sense of the word. His being a rat may have been related to the fact that he was the fat (but equally smart and probably more talented) kid who was rejected, while the pretty boys got to join the party, which is something for our culture to consider.

It always interests me how "Harvard Men," for example, think that they're the first to understand the potential implications of practices that have been in place for as long as human history has been recorded. "We" have discovered the possibility of human transformation.

John Lennon got the irony that he was reported to be more influential than Jesus.

I'm also enjoying that Lattin isn't afraid to dabble in the most extreme conspiracy theorists' accusations (JFK was shot because he was getting acid from an heiress via Leary and was "learning too much.") As good a theory as any.

Too few are the humorous insights into Leary & Ram Dass getting a hold of their CIA files after the Freedom of Information Act (I'm guessing that has been repealed, not officially, but de facto, by the Dept of Homeland Security, which is having so much fun observing my neighbors, "the Moroccan barber is cutting hair. The Moroccan barber then crosses the street and has coffee which is made by the Egyptian who owns the Egyptian coffee shop," as reported by CBS News. (they have tapes!) But there is a good bit about the parallels between G. Gordon Liddy & Leary. Ultimately, who was the criminal?

But isn't it amazing, that a few guys (the girls were there because their trust funds paid the way), introduced the mainstream West to the ideas of altered consciousness about the time I was born. When I was in elementary school, another Harvard Man figured out that this meditation bit, (which the psilocybin crowd came upon through their research), really IS good for you in a way that IS measurable via Western scientific methods, and indirectly the 1960's "drug culture" opened the doors to the West's gradual understanding that while medical technology can be miraculous, so can our ability to heal ourselves, given the appropriate tools and support and education. Ideas understood in the East through countless generations of experiential learning.

"Turn on, tune in and drop out" may have been a terrifying and controversial statement, but how wonderfully provocative. Especially if considered from this millennium by those of us who grew up hearing this mantra at the same time we learned "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." How appropriate these words are without any reference to drugs: illegal, prescribed or from the corner store. Turn on, tune in and drop out would fit easily into the books I've been reading by Buddhist monks, or the columnist for the NYT, or the trendy yoga stylists at the big festivals.

I'm old enough to have dropped acid at Grateful Dead shows, and I find the fact that, now, these events are about "yoga" ironic. Same model, some of the same people, but now an Andrew Weil-style money making machine is the goal, and it has become as conformist as an LA TV programmer. "Well, how about if the "X-games met yoga? Then we could really make some money."

I was interested that a gentleman I met at Kripalu years ago, who told me that one of the worst things he'd ever done was to introduce Timothy Leary to LSD, did quietly appear in the book. While not quoted directly, and no one was identified as having been the person who gave the psilocybin king his first acid, I did find my own little private trip to transcendence reference in there.

It would seem that this book was written in installments for a periodical. The author so often repeats himself from chapter to chapter that it appears there were different editors for each chapter. This didn't bother me as I tend to gloss over the details and have to go back and reread earlier references, but I would imagine this frequent repetition would drive some readers crazy. It also interested me that he felt the need to add an almost confessional afterward about his own drug experimentation. It was implied by his bio. Those of us who know, knew. Those who don't, wouldn't be reading this book.
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Jun 13, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. While the content of The Harvard Psychedelic Club was certainly intriguing, Lattin made poor use of his resource material and produced a mess of a book. A generous portion of text is invented dialogue and Lattin seems undecided about whether he is writing a history of 60's counertculture or a chatty biography of Timothy Learly and his fellow participants. One feels as if Lattin originally planned to write a much longer book, produced 250 pages of notes and bibliography, then deciced he was appro...more While the content of The Harvard Psychedelic Club was certainly intriguing, Lattin made poor use of his resource material and produced a mess of a book. A generous portion of text is invented dialogue and Lattin seems undecided about whether he is writing a history of 60's counertculture or a chatty biography of Timothy Learly and his fellow participants. One feels as if Lattin originally planned to write a much longer book, produced 250 pages of notes and bibliography, then deciced he was approaching deadline and promptly wrote a concluding chapter and sent the manuscript in unedited. The result is a poorly plotted book that jumps forward and backward in time as it attempts to follow the interconnected lives of several of the big names of the 1960's drug and social countertculture; Timothy Leary, Andrew Weil, Ram Das and Huston Smith.

What does emerge is Lattin's consuming interest in Leary, who was himself obsessed initially with the effects of psychedelics on the mind and society, and later on with the Cult of Leary. Leary dominates the material, despite Lattin's personal interviews with Ram Das and Andrew Weil. Huston Smith, the most interesting figure in the book to my mind, receives scant attention. Lattin attributes much of the development of sixties counterculture to Leary, conveniently leaving out such large factors as the effects of popular music outside the San Francisco/Height Ashbury scene and the effects of the Civil Rights movement.

What got the undivided attention of this reader was the administration of psychedelics to faculty and graduate students being incorporated into the curriculum of the Harvard Department of Psychology. Ironically, Leary, LSD's biggest cheerleader, hastened the banning of LSD, not yet illegal at the time of the Harvard experiments, by his escalating antics.

His conclusion as far as I can tell is the question, "What happens after the ecstacy?" My answer would be to take it up with Huston Smith, whose psychedelic experiences allowed him to expand his spiritual life and provided some insight into the mysticism he was studying.

Despite its many shortcomings the book was interesting, especially the revelation that at the same time Leary & Co. was tripping at Harvard the CIA was experimenting on US troops. I would recommend this book to anyone with the patience to read what might have made a decent Rolling Stone article but turned out to be a book-length run-on sentence.(less)

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Feb 15, 2010 Eh?Eh! rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-read, babble-added

I was firstreads-less for a year because I wasn't able to review the first firstreads I had won (after writing a 'review' about why I hadn't reviewed it earlier, bam, I win my 2nd firstreads book). Just in case lacking a review prevents one from winning again, I'm sticking this filler in for now.

Real review forthcoming...if the weather doesn't thwart the postalperson from delivering the book this time.

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I'm one of the few people who have never been high or stoned (or...more I was firstreads-less for a year because I wasn't able to review the first firstreads I had won (after writing a 'review' about why I hadn't reviewed it earlier, bam, I win my 2nd firstreads book). Just in case lacking a review prevents one from winning again, I'm sticking this filler in for now.

Real review forthcoming...if the weather doesn't thwart the postalperson from delivering the book this time.

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I'm one of the few people who have never been high or stoned (or even drunk). The 'recreational' substances have never sounded very fun to me and I don't know much about them other than what I picked up in passing on the playground and health classes. As a child in the '80s, I got the message pounded into me that 'drugs are bad.' Just say no! The D.A.R.E. officer would drive that dorky car (looked like a stationwagon with the back roof cut away) to my school every year for his presentation on drugs. I blame him for my confusion about LSD, when he described it as having the appearance of a "pencil eraser" with "fancy designs." But he also told us to tug on the stripe on the side of his pant leg to get his attention (this was when I was of an age where I was below waist-height, about five), and I thought he wanted us to "pants" him (I'm sorry, officer, I just wanted to get your attention!). Still cracks me up.

All the useless autobiographical trivia was meant to frame how I came to this book, with only a general knowledge of drugs and that decade associated with psychedelics. I hope I get the facts right: This book briefly describes each man's background, maybe a couple pages per, skimming up to the year 1960 when Timothy Leary tried psilocybin mushrooms. Leary and Alpert ostensibly began their psilocybin and LSD experiments with the intention of benefiting society in some way, such as by reducing recidivism in criminals on the hypothesis that a feeling of 'connectedness' would cause good behavior. Mainly, they tried to see if the high would intensify the religious experience and lead to increased spirituality. To this end, Huston Smith was brought in as an expert in world religions, to try to interpret the trips from the perspective of faith. This obviously all got sidetracked. Leary was too cocky, Weil played the role of villain, Leary and Alpert were ousted from Harvard, and experiments continued at Millbrook. As word got out, LSD attracted crowds of those just looking for a good time. The early emphasis of having the right set and setting for the positive and spiritual was lost. By the time they all reached San Francisco, it was a party with LSD fuel. Leary did crazy things. Alpert and Weil had perspective-changing experiences in India. Many years later, they all look back.

I wish there had been more detail with the experiments, Millbrook, and disillusionment, but the book was pretty short, about 200 pages with largish font. Much of the book seemed to be based on personal interviews with all living key characters. It certainly reads sort of disjointedly, a little bit as if written by drug-addled stories from memory. That's not entirely fair, but I was getting aggravated by the chronology – an event would be described, but oh, it was rooted in this thing from 10 years ago which was followed by this thing 3 years later but 5 years prior this happened and that leads to...huh?

Other things I didn't like:
2) The 4 main figures were given names like a RPG – The Seeker, The Healer, The Teacher, The Trickster – and I found this a little distracting (my mind continued the list: the Druid, the Rogue, the Archer, the Orc, the Harkonnen…). Each chapter had a section on each man and,
3) I have doubts that Andrew Weil should have been given equal weight, though he was key in kicking events into motion, so to speak, and later in life became well-known. It felt like he was included so that the team would have 4 members before the quest began.
4) The author did research, which is good and required and expected, but he seemed unable to pare it down to the important parts. Up until I turned 6 and was faced with a jigsaw puzzle piece that I couldn't fit, I would find a likely place and pound it down with my fist...the author pounded little anecdotes into place like a 6 year old, unable to wait to find a better place to tell them or let them go. I remember having that problem when I tried to write research papers in school, piecing together all that information collected with so much effort. It must be even more difficult with a story told to his face in person by Smith or Alpert. But geez, for a publication it would’ve been nice if he’d exerted himself a little more.

Maybe not the best book about this subject, but not bad for someone ignorant about the subject like me. It was free! The bibliography lists some books to follow up on, for more depth.

I've been asked why I never do drugs or drink. It relaxes, everybody does it, don't you want to fit in, are you a narc...I used to try to excuse myself by saying that I was afraid I would turn out to be an angry drunk/stoner and then everybody would suffer when I used my kung fu (that I learned by watching kung fu movies). This book gives a better explanation, when it quoted Alpert's Indian guru - these highs can allow you "to visit the consciousness of a saint but won't let you stay there" (pg. 152). Why go for the temporary artificial when you can work on the permanent reality, whether it's a spiritual path or just general happiness or something else. I'm not preaching abstinence, just that I choose no for my own self (plus I'm idiotic enough w/o chemical enhancement). And I bet I could kill with my little finger when drunk. I keep sober for everyone else's good.(less)

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Jan 05, 2013 Louise rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, drugs, 1960-s

Author Don Lattin discusses the impact that key participants in the 1950's Harvard LSD studies had on today's culture through four biographies. He shows how the lives of each of the four intersected and how each followed his respective passion.

New ideas on nutrition and medical treatment advanced by Andrew Weil and perspectives on religion advanced by Huston Smith and Richard Alpert/Ram Das, once considered unorthodox are now mainstream. The most famous participant of them all, Timothy Leary, wa...more Author Don Lattin discusses the impact that key participants in the 1950's Harvard LSD studies had on today's culture through four biographies. He shows how the lives of each of the four intersected and how each followed his respective passion.

New ideas on nutrition and medical treatment advanced by Andrew Weil and perspectives on religion advanced by Huston Smith and Richard Alpert/Ram Das, once considered unorthodox are now mainstream. The most famous participant of them all, Timothy Leary, was a "Trickster" bringing only trouble for himself and a backlash against the drug he was promoting.

The story of LSD research starting with the CIA (the Unabomber was a participant!) to the famous Leary/Alpert tests was fascinating, as was the story of the termination of the study and its two professors. Their immediate lives after Harvard were period pieces, and somehow, though few people lived this sort of life, are considered emblematic of the 60's.

Besides the commonly identified Leary circle (Ginzberg, Burroughs, etc,) interesting to me was the variety of "household names" that flew into the Leary orbit: E Gordon Liddy, Aldous Huxley, Uma Thurmon (could she be called a step daughter?) Harry Winston (through his son Ronnie), Maynard Ferguson (name kept popping up), Bill W (founder of AA), Eldrige Cleaver, Bill Ayers (now again famous via Fox News) and (mystery woman) Mary Pinchot Meyer.

A small point, for a book with a generally smooth read, was the interchangeable use of first and last names. This works for those in the title, (i.e. sometimes it's Huston, sometimes Smith) but for those who have small "parts" it interfered with the read, since I had to flip back.

While this is a good book and each of the men profiled achieved, I don't buy the thesis about the depth of their impact. While each made a mark, there was a lot going on. The old ways of thinking were severely challenged by the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement and later the Women's Movement. These forced changes in thinking that have influenced everything including health and religion far beyond any impact of these four men. For instance, while I can't prove it, I think that the very publication in of "Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth with its straight talk on birth control, childbirth and menopause" was far more influential in changing the thinking/practice of medicine than any of the natural food/healing advocates. While, for me, the thesis was weak, the book the book was an interesting read.

For an excellent book on the impact of the 60's I recommend: "The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy" (less)

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Oct 22, 2011 Ken rated it 4 of 5 stars

The subtitle of this book is especially revealing; "How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America"....

That about sums up the thesis of the book. I was familiar with Ram Dass(Richard Alpert) and Tim Leary, but I was unfamiliar with Weil and Smith's role in this historical change in America's consciousness. Timothy Leary is "The Trickster". He even said that one gets, "The Timothy Leary that one deserves". He was both liar and ex...more The subtitle of this book is especially revealing; "How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America"....

That about sums up the thesis of the book. I was familiar with Ram Dass(Richard Alpert) and Tim Leary, but I was unfamiliar with Weil and Smith's role in this historical change in America's consciousness. Timothy Leary is "The Trickster". He even said that one gets, "The Timothy Leary that one deserves". He was both liar and extreme truth teller, and it kind of depends on the 'prism of the viewer' as to how one sees this interesting and confounding character. Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) was the son of wealth and power and he became the 'Religious Seeker' of the bunch. A closeted bisexual, and kind of a curmudgeon especially as he got older, he helped to promote the various Eastern Theories that became so prevalent in the decades to follow. Huston Smith was The Teacher. This man was a life-long student of religious thought, and became a prolific author who profiled the world's major religions, and in the 50's he even had a show on TV about basic concepts in Eastern Thought. And, finally, there is Andrew Weil. He was a ring leader of a conspiracy to have Leary and Alpert ousted from Harvard for their drug experiments on the Harvard campus in 1962. Weil was working for The Crimson, and broke a story about their experiments to expand human consciousness by using psychedelic drugs. What Weil failed to mention in his article, is that he too was part of the nefarious'drug ring/conscious expansion plot'. I don't think that Alpert ever really forgot or forgave Andrew Weil. However, Weil went on to become one of the most notable health, diet, food, and aging experts in the country, and, many years later, he was also a proponent for drug reform. The book was very even-handed, and presented a balanced and fair depiction of these men, and I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in this particularly volatile time in American history. I especially loved the presentation of Leary and Alpert's, 'Good Friday Experiment' of 1962 with the divinity students on the Harvard campus. Twenty students, and ten got the LSD, and ten got a kind of 'speedy' placebo. However, within an hour, it was completely obvious who got the 'real' stuff. And, all during the experiment, they were downstairs in the chapel basement listening to the Easter church service which was going on upstairs. Wild....(less)

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Jul 30, 2011 Brendan added it

Overall, this book provides a decent introduction to the story of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert's involvement with LSD and other psychedelic drugs. If you haven't read any other book on Leary, Alpert, LSD or psychedelic drugs, this would provide a relatively solid and accurate introduction to the topic. However, I do have quite a few complaints with the book itself. First and foremost, the inclusion of Andrew Weil and Huston Smith to the cast of main characters adds little to the story. Andre...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Erik rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

An enjoyable read about culture, competition and experiences of radical-non-duality. Some of these things are easier to write about than others - to paraphrase a music critic's truism, writing about mysticism is like dancing about architecture. I would've loved more time with Huston Smith, and a little less with Leary. What can I say - that guy just gives me the creeps. Clearly, he was the most wrapped up in psychedelic culture, and it was interesting to find out about his time on the run, and t...more

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May 05, 2010 Nancy Oakes rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

The real title of this book is a long one: The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America. It's a good book if you're into this sort of thing, easily readable and it raises a lot of questions for further exploration.

Lattin's central thesis is that these four men, "three brilliant scholars and one ambitious freshman," who were all together at Harvard University in the early 1960s, were able to transfo...more The real title of this book is a long one: The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America. It's a good book if you're into this sort of thing, easily readable and it raises a lot of questions for further exploration.

Lattin's central thesis is that these four men, "three brilliant scholars and one ambitious freshman," who were all together at Harvard University in the early 1960s, were able to transform not only their own lives but much of American culture as well, stemming from their involvement (or in one case, non-involvement) in a psychedelic drug research project started by Timothy Leary. He notes that these people, collectively the Harvard Psychedelic club, "each in his own way" led Americans to think about themselves from an inner point of view regarding mind, body and spirit. And it all started in 1960, when Leary, on a summer vacation in Mexico with his son Jack, tried some psilocybin mushrooms known as "flesh of the gods" along with a bottle of beer.

The book goes on to sketch out the lives of these four men and their involvement with Leary and his mind-expanding research. Timothy Leary, whose slogan "turn on, tune in, drop out" would become a catchphrase for the counterculture movement of the 1960s, was a Harvard professor of psychology in 1960. Along with Richard Alpert, who had a PhD in psychology and did research into human consciousness (and who later went to India and was reborn as Ram Dass), he started the Harvard Psilocybin Project (which ultimately became the "Harvard Psychedelic Project as mescaline & LSD were introduced) at the university's Center for Personality Research, where participants would take controlled doses and report their experiences. Huston Smith (author of The World's Religions) was a friend and admirer of Aldous Huxley, whose mystical experiences with mescaline became the basis of his famous work The Doors of Perception. Smith met Leary through Huxley, and was talked into taking part in the psilocybin project because Leary wanted someone who knew "something about mysticism" and religion to experience the drug and then analyze the reports in terms of the mystical. The fourth member of the group, Andrew Weil, a student (now a well-known advocate of alternative medicine & wellness), tried to get involved in the Psychedelic Project by the time LSD was drug of choice in mind-expansion research, but was turned down due to his undergraduate status. Weil's roommate was befriended by Alpert and let into the program, and in revenge, Weil became a whistle blower and basically shut down the project and got Leary and Alpert ousted from Harvard. That's when everything really started, and when LSD and Leary started making their way out into the public, away from the confines of the ivied halls.

Lattin quickly traces these four people from their beginnings through the whole hippie and counterculture movement on into the present, and his book makes for really interesting reading for many reasons, not just because of the whole drug thing. Now here come the buts:
1)I'm still not sure why Huston Smith is included as a major player as a member of the Harvard Psychedelic Club. He did have some early involvement in the psilocybin project, but wasn't so much known for his advocacy of mind-altering drugs but for interfaith understanding as a step toward peace in the world. Huston had actually begun to slowly disassociate himself from Leary some time later.
2) There were already movements afoot for changes away from the status quo going on already in the 1950s leading into the 1960s: poets and writers were already taking steps in moving toward nonconformity, the civil rights movement was already drawing young college students into action, and Jack Kerouac and other members of the beat movement were looking for something new within themselves, urging others to follow. It doesn't seem just that Lattin would place Leary's ideas of consciousness expansion through the use of mind-altering drugs as the cornerstone of change from the 1950s to the 1960s.
3) While I understand that the author would have to interject some of Leary's autobiographical material into his work, my guess is that some of the information gleaned from it was probably fabricated or at the very least, ramblings from a disturbed mind. Leary was probably so far gone in 1983 by the time the autobiography came out that it would be difficult to trust a lot of what he said. Let's just say he may be an unreliable narrator at some times.

Lattin's book on the whole is interesting, and it's a good read if you're interested in the psychedelic revolution and its proponents in the 1960s and the whole counterculture that existed and grew at the time. A lot of space is also given over to what happened as these people moved on in life as attitudes changed. It is an extremely readable book and made me want to explore this time period a bit further, and any author that can pique my curiosity like that is okay by me. (less)

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Feb 06, 2010 Patrick O'Neil rated it 5 of 5 stars

Don Lattin has always written about quasi-religious "fringe elements." Either whacked out cults with inbred sex (Jesus Freaks), or long strange trips in search of spirituality (Shopping for Faith/Following Your Bliss). His books are bold exposés that attest to his journalist background (he was the the San Francisco Chronicle's religious editor for twenty years). Yet, like all good journalism is supposed to be, his writing has always felt removed - describing the history, the event, the situation...more

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May 07, 2010 Timothy Hallinan rated it 4 of 5 stars

A cautionary tale about psychotropic drugs and scholarly arrogance featuring Tim Leary, Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass), religious historian Huston Smith, and the serpent in the garden, Andrew Weil. A riveting read for anyone who's experienced psychedelics, or just has some curiosity about where the hell the Sixties came from. Weil ratted out Leary and Alpert at Harvard -- got them fired -- not because of any principled moral stand but because they wouldn't give him any dope although they turned o...more

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Feb 16, 2010 Patrick C. rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating account of four of the main personalities associated with the research with psychedelic drugs at Harvard University under the leadership of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass). Lots of personal, even gossipy, details throughout. Two other prominent personalities are featured - Huston Smith, Harvard professor of religion and a prominent author, and Andrew Weil, now famous for his advocacy of psychedelics and alternative healing.

Very interesting is the revelation (for...more

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Jan 20, 2011 Kathy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Even though I was alive and semi-aware at the time, I never realized all four of these guys were at Harvard doing drugs at the same time. That is hardly a fair way to categorize their experience, BUT it is true in essence. The details of their relationships to each other, to their areas of study and to LSD are fascinating. You will enjoy it.
I do have to add a plug for THE ELECTRIC ACID KOOL-AID TEST. These four felt you should be taking drugs to enlarge your experien...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Chris Faraone rated it 4 of 5 stars

Don Lattin has had some enlightening trips of his own. In addition to a number of cliffhanging LSD adventures — one of which scrambled his melon for a month — the decorated San Francisco religion reporter traveled cross-continent to talk with the characters who famously ushered hallucinogens into pop-culture consciousness. I asked Lattin about his interviews with Baba Ram Dass (the former Harvard psychology professor Richard Alpert), former MIT professor and religion scholar Huston Smith, and al...more

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Jul 08, 2010 Mary M rated it 2 of 5 stars

Doctor Weil the health-food guy? Didn't know he was iconic in this context. Should be interesting.

Almost through, and pretty sure that books by journalists are some of the worst-written books ever. By that, I mean that books such as this are interesting for what they tell about people and events that are integral to American social evolution--or devolution, one may say in a different mood--but that I was too young to pay attention to when they were in the news; on the other hand, the ham-fisted,...more

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Dec 29, 2012 JJ W rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: psych, history, biography

Lattin excels at writing group biographies. He expertly writes the interweaving stories of these four men and brings out their positive and negative aspects with honesty and without the hysteria that often surrounds this topic. You can tell that Lattin really cares about his subjects and wants his readers to better understand their lives and the effects that psychedelics had on them. A grounded, illuminating, fun book to read. But a bit short. I would have preferred a bit more detail. For those...more

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May 13, 2011 Peter Federman rated it 2 of 5 stars

Not terrible, but not very good. I much preferred "Acid Dreams: A Social History of LSD". I find this group of people very interesting, in that they believed so strongly in the healing and positive social effects of a substance many (myself included) consider to be an illegal hallucinogenic drug. I think a lot of the social turmoil and confusion of the 1960's can be seen through the stories of Leary, Alpert and the others involved in this chapter of American history. The story of LSD in America...more

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Mar 04, 2010 Jennifer rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Lattin tracks the lives of four figures whose paths converged for a little while in the early 60s: Timothy Leary, surely the most damaged and damaging of the bunch; Richard Alpert, who returned from India as the guru Ram Das; Houston Smith, scholar of world religions; and Andrew Weil of alternative medicine and interminable public television fundraisers. I was so thrown by the way the book repeated various episodes that I am convinced it was not written to be read from page 1 to the concluding c...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Laurel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Despite the fact that this book was written by a working Journalist, I felt that there was just so much missing from this look at the lives of Leary, Ram Dass, Smith and Weil. The author was very selective in the material he chose to present in such a way that distorts the facts. For example, Lattin is quite passionate around the idea that Weil and Ram Dass were never able to put their contentious past behind. In the final chapter Lattin begins to explore the impact the work these men did might...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Rick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

THE HARVARD PSYCHEDELIC CLUB tells the story of how three scholars – Timothy Leary, Huston Smith, and Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) – and one freshman, Andrew Weil, met at Harvard in the Fall of 1960 and together researched LSD and spread its culture.

The author refers to Leary as the Trickster, Smith as the Teacher, Alpert as the Seeker, and Weil as the Healer, and he traces their interactions and their work, which radically changed American society.

The book is both interesting and en...more

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Jan 07, 2010 Marvin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, kindle

The definitive book of the psychedelic movement of the 60s has yet to be written. Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test comes awfully close. But while it succeeds in capturing the mood and times, it doesn't give you a sense of where the movement came from and where it went. The best book as yet to get that information may be The Harvard Psychedelic Club. Don Lattin focuses on four of the most important personages of the time and how their involvement defined the 60s. He describes the roles...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Jan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a great read in terms of providing a deeper more lucid history of the four major figures responsible or involved in the Harvard Psychedelic Experiments that ushered in the 60's. Most of the accounts I've read did not necessarily focus on what happened at Harvard and how the experiments were shut down. My major criticism of the book is that the last chapter or two seemed out of place in context of the main part of the book, and though informative could have been incorporated elsewhere. I...more

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May 16, 2011 Remi Watts rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Beginners

Written in a straightforward long-form journalism style, the book does a poor job of adequately capturing the characters and dialog, and completely misses the rich experiential language that makes literature regarding 60s counterculture so vibrant. However, the book does provide insight into the roles of Huston Smith and Andrew Weil, who are often forced to take a backseat or are forgotten entirely.
The book would be best used as an introductory read for those just beginning their quest into the...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Birgit rated it 2 of 5 stars

If you've only heard of Timothy Leary as the 'father' of "Tune in, turn on, and drop out" counterculture LSD-addled hippiedom, and have read Huston Smith only in terms of comparative religion classes in college, have no clue who Ram Dass was or is, and know of Andrew Weil only as an old hippie dude who has figured out how to market himself and his products, then you're in for a treat. Their connections going back to Harvard and the very early 1960s make for an interesting read. I am a tad turned...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Brook rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm a big fan of books that take a personal angle on big topics, explaining ideas and eras through the people who moved them forward. But I was still surprised how much I liked this book, after I stopped comparing its sometimes-flat narrative to the brilliance of the similarly-titled The Metaphysical Club. A great introduction to people who have always been just 60s idols to me. Who knew that Andrew Weil, that Andrew Weil M.D. was the one who "betrayed" Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert/Ram Dass...more

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Aug 19, 2010 Jamie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: true-stuff-and-criticism

I think I kind of perhaps liked this book. Sort of. Maybe.

I didn't learn a lot from this book. Still, I know that I've read a lot of books along these lines so I'm not sure that I'm really the person who WOULD learn anything from it. It's a serviceable introduction to these four men, but one that requires you read other sources to really get the full picture. The only person that I was really fascinated by was Huston Smith, perhaps because I knew the least about him beforehand. Timothy Leary com...more I think I kind of perhaps liked this book. Sort of. Maybe.

I didn't learn a lot from this book. Still, I know that I've read a lot of books along these lines so I'm not sure that I'm really the person who WOULD learn anything from it. It's a serviceable introduction to these four men, but one that requires you read other sources to really get the full picture. The only person that I was really fascinated by was Huston Smith, perhaps because I knew the least about him beforehand. Timothy Leary comes off as an ass, Ram Dass (ne Richard Alpert) as the most fully realized person, and Andrew Weil as the villain, but Huston Smith is just an intriguing man whose involvement with the sixties LSD culture was fascinating.

Unlike some books that pull together seemingly unrelated people to tell a story, "The Harvard Psychedelic Club" has four disparate characters who actually came together briefly to help in the creation of the LSD culture of the sixties. That their time together was ultimately brief doesn't really bother me, but there's something about the WAY that Lattin tells this story that gets on my nerves. I don't want to make this into a laundry list of qualms, but here it is anyway:

1) Andrew Weil is painted as a villainous whiny Harvard undergrad, then Lattin spends the entire book trying to explain why he did it and how he's attempted to atone for his sins. It doesn't work.
2) There's dialogue in here that can't possibly be true to what happened, and it's distracting. It's supposed to be a work of nonfiction, but Lattin creates dialogue for events that could not possibly have been documented.
3) He jumps around in time - he follows Alpert to 1965, then the next page we're back in 1959 with Smith, etc. It's very hard to follow in spots.
4) He repeatedly describes people as "the (something)," and many times he'll repeat whatever that something is over and over and over again, just to make sure you get it. At one point he mentions Allen Ginsberg and calls him "the legendary gay poet" in one sentence and then "the everpresent beat icon" in another (or something to that effect). I'm pretty sure I had an idea of who he was after the first five times you reminded me that he was the legendary, gay, everpresent, beat poet icon.

Best thing about this book? The bibliography. As always, I'll have a field day reading some of the books that he read to write this one.
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May 29, 2010 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book tells the tale of four men who crossed paths in the winter of 1960-1961, and how their shared experience in a Harvard psychedelic research project changed their lives and affected American culture in the 1960s and 1970s. There is Huston Smith, the teacher, who studied various world religions and educated Americans to adopt a more tolerant attitude toward other cultures’ religions. Richard Alpert is the seeker; his psychedelic path led him to India, and he returned to America as “Ram Da...more This book tells the tale of four men who crossed paths in the winter of 1960-1961, and how their shared experience in a Harvard psychedelic research project changed their lives and affected American culture in the 1960s and 1970s. There is Huston Smith, the teacher, who studied various world religions and educated Americans to adopt a more tolerant attitude toward other cultures’ religions. Richard Alpert is the seeker; his psychedelic path led him to India, and he returned to America as “Ram Dass,” a spiritual leader with a “Be Here Now” mantra. Andrew Weil is the healer, becoming a leader in alternative medicine and spending much of his life reforming the American health care system. And there is Timothy Leary, the trickster, who was the main proponent of LSD in “the sixties,” advising an entire generation to “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.”

The psychedelic community is harmed by a combination of misinformation and a bad reputation. It is unfortunate that hallucinogens have been included in the overall category of “drugs,” and are viewed as comparable to developing a dangerous crack or heroin habit or taking pharmaceutical drugs to get through a stressful day on the job. Don Lattin does a good job of showing the reader that many users of psychedelics aren’t trying to escape reality, but rather they are trying to find it.

Prior to reading this book, I knew a lot of information about the Harvard Psychedelic Project, but I knew nothing of Andrew Weil or Huston Smith. It was very interesting to read about the effect these two had on the psychedelic community in the sixties. The book is composed like a collective biography of these four men, and offers a lot of insight into their lives and work that were new to me. The Harvard Psychedelic Club was published this year, and it is a fresh look at the effect that these LSD pioneers had on the world. I would highly suggest it to anyone interested in the subject, and I think that everyone who reads this book has the potential to learn something new.(less)

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Apr 25, 2010 Glenn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Timothy Leary, Dick Alpert, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil's lives all converged at Harvard in 1960, and soon none of them (and none of us) were ever the same. The reason? Psychedelic drugs. Psychedelic was a word that didn't even exist in 1960. The genesis of it is one of the neat stories that makes this book worth reading. There's all kinds of tidbits, like the basic story of Andrew Weil ratting out Leary and Alpert at Harvard, mostly out of spite for not being given good drugs. Also, who knew t...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Peggy rated it 4 of 5 stars

In the early 60s at Harvard professors Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Huston Smith were all experimenting in expanding human consciousness. Undergrad Andrew Weil did some experimenting himself before joining with the administration to bring Leary & Alpert down. Lattin argues that each of these men were instrumental in changing the way we view consciousness, religion, and drugs, both for good and bad. Fascinating.

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Feb 07, 2010 Heather rated it 2 of 5 stars

Perhaps the fact that I didn't live through the 60s is what kept me from enjoying this book. I really can't put my finger on what bothered me about it, but I certainly wanted to like it a lot more than I ultimately did. I thought the narrative jumped around unnecessarily, and the reconstructed conversations and descriptions of acid trips were awkward. It also felt at times that Lattin was trying to force these four men into a preconceived narrative when in reality their lives did not intersect m...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Doug Meyer rated it 4 of 5 stars

No one can deny the impact psychedelic drugs have had on our culture in the present. And there is a direct link between this impact and the era which gave birth to it. The 50's and 60's were so shaped by "awakenings" of various shapes and sizes that it is hard to imagine it ever happening WITHOUT psychedelics. Leary was a complicated character, and the mix of personalities and histories make this an intriguing read.

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title link	preview: The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America
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The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America

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