The Harvard Psychedelic Club by Don Lattin is a very intriguing book that takes place between the 1950s to the 1970s. The book focuses on the lives of 4 professors and their research of the psychedelic drug LSD. Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, Andrew Weil and a few others made up the Harvard Psychedelic club. All the characters in the book all had very complex lives. Also this book brought a lot of social issues to the table. The different topics that the book has focused on are sexuality, lifestyles and drugs.
Sexuality is one of the social issues that the book focuses on. This is the first book that I have read that goes into the topic of sexuality. In the beginning of the book, Richard Alpert one of the characters finds out the he is gay. Things started off all right for Richard at Williston, where he worked on the school newspaper and excelled at tennis. But in his early teens, he started having strange feelings about some of the other at school. Sexual feelings.[1] As Richard gets older he began dating both a man and women. Richard was living two different lifestyles on each end of the US, the Bay Area and Boston. During this time period in our society we begin to see people be more open about their sexuality and relationships.
In Harvard Psychedelic Club, alternative lifestyles are shown throughout the book. Timothy Leary and his wife Marianne had a alternative lifestyle. In their marriage, they agreed that it was okay to have a lover on the side. He and his wife, Marianne, had what would later be called an "open relationship". They called it "wife swapping back in the fifties.[2] Later Marianne would kill herself after she believes that Timothy has fell in love with his lover. This tragic event adds more complexity to the life of Timothy Leary. But during this time period, more and more people started to lives these type of lifestyles.
With people being more open about their sexuality and their lifestyles, drugs start to be apart of American society. Drugs like Marijuana, Mushrooms and LSD are at the forefront in the 50's,60's, and 70's. Richard Alpert and Timothy started to research and experiment with psychedelic drugs in the early 60's. They wanted to show evidence that psychedelic drugs contributed to religious mysticism. The Good Friday subjects were to demonstrate that psychedelic drugs could produce genuine experiences of religious mysticism.[3] The guys of the Harvard Psychedelic Club were the pioneers of drug use and they had a major impact on American culture.
So far this has been my favorite book of the class. Maybe because I'm from Berkeley and I know all of the locations in the Bay Area that the book points out. For example, Tim and Marianne house on 1230 Queens road. The martini parties they held at their home at 1230 Queens road had become notorious among the clinical psychologists down the hill on the University of California campus.[1] I know exactly were that is, I grew up about two blocks from UC Berkeley. Also when the book mentions cities like San Francisco,Oakland and Palo Alto it makes me become more connected to the book. The different topics that the book has focused on such as homosexuality, lifestyles and drugs makes this book very interesting.
1. Don Lattin. 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. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Kindle edition. Location 108
2.Don Lattin. 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. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Kindle edition. Location 209
3. Don Lattin. 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. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Kindle edition. Location 935
4. Don Lattin. 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. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Kindle edition. Location 200
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