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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Today in psychedelic history (12/22) 1
#13670078 - 12/22/10 11:14 AM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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- 1938: Cathryn Casamo aka Stark Naked is born
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Cathryn Marie Casamo was born in New Jersey on December 22, 1938 to Bill and Victoria Casamo. She graduated from Westfield High School in New Jersey. She attended Northwestern University where she became a star in the Drama Dept. and was classmates with Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentess and Karen Black.
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"With Neal Cassady at the wheel, they left La Honda in June 1964 and began their now legendary journey across the country, smoking marijuana, and dropping acid along the way. The top of the bus was made into a musical stage and when it detoured through some cities, the Pranksters blasted a combination of crude homemade music and running commentary to all the astonished onlookers." On the way through San Francisco, they stopped at actor Larry Hankin’s where they met "The Beauty Witch", Cathryn Casamo, later to be known as "Stark Naked". Cathy a drama student from Northwestern University and ingénue was convinced to go on the “trip” and star with Neal Cassady in the movie they were making. She was reluctant to leave her small daughter, Caitlin, behind but wanted the chance to star in the movie so she accepted after Larry agreed to watch over Caitlin. And off they went.
(http://www.cathryncasamo.com/)
- 1987: MDMA goes temporarily unscheduled again
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Dec 22, 1987 MDMA is removed from schedule I because of improper procedure in its original emergency scheduling by the DEA
(http://www.erowid.org)
Summary: By order of the United States Court Of Appeals for the First Circuit, the previous order for the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) placing 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) into Schedule 1 was vacated effective December 22, 1987. This rule will delete 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) from Schedule 1. Effective date: The effective date of this order is January 27, 1988.
(http://maps.org)
MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, Ecstasy), which continues to be used medically, notably in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The medical community originally agreed upon placing it as a Schedule III substance, but the government denied this suggestion, despite two court rulings by the DEA's administrative law judge that placing MDMA in Schedule I was illegal. It was temporarily unscheduled after the first administrative hearing from December 22, 1987 - July 1, 1988*.
(wikipedia)
- 2000: Nick Sand is released from prison
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While in prison, Nick completed writing a rough draft of a book he titled Psychedelic Secrets, which detailed various insights he'd gained from his extensive experience using psychedelics and guiding others in their thoughtful use. On December 22, 2000 Nick was released to a halfway house after winning an appeal that overturned his conviction for bail jumping because he was never given a specific date to report to the court.
(https://www.erowid.org/)
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Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, academic and clinical psychologist, and author of many books, including the seminal 1971 book Be Here Now. He was known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, and for founding the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He continued to teach, via his website; produced a podcast, with support from 1440 Multiversity; and pursued mobile app development through the Be Here Now network and the Love, Serve, Remember Foundation.
Harvard professorship and research
McClelland moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to teach at Harvard University, and helped Alpert accept a tenure-track position there in 1958 as an assistant clinical psychology professor. Alpert worked with the Social Relations Department, the Psychology Department, the Graduate School of Education, and the Health Service, where he was a therapist. He specialized in human motivation and personality development, and published his first book Identification and Child Rearing.
McClelland did work with his close friend and associate Timothy Leary, a lecturer in clinical psychology at the university. Alpert and Leary had met through McClelland, who headed the Center for Research in Personality where Alpert and Leary both did research. Alpert was McClelland's deputy in the lab. After returning from a visiting professorship at the University of California, Berkeley in 1961, Alpert devoted himself to joining Leary in experimentation with and intensive research to the potentially therapeutic effects of hallucinogenic drugs such as psilocybin, LSD-25, and other psychedelic chemicals, through their Harvard Psilocybin Project. In addition, Alpert assisted Harvard Divinity School graduate student Walter Pahnke in his 1962 "Good Friday Experiment" with theology students, the first controlled, double-blind study of drugs and the mystical experience.
Alpert and Leary co-founded the non-profit International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF) in 1962 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in order to carry out studies in the religious use of psychedelic drugs, and were both on the board of directors. Leary and Alpert were formally dismissed from Harvard in 1963. According to Harvard President Nathan M. Pusey, Leary was dismissed for leaving Cambridge and his classes without permission or notice, and Alpert for allegedly giving psilocybin to an undergraduate.
Millbrook and psychedelic counterculture (1963–1967)
In 1963 Alpert, Leary, and their followers moved to the Hitchcock Estate in Millbrook, New York, after IFIF's New York City branch director and Mellon fortune heiress Peggy Hitchcock arranged for her brother Billy to rent the estate to IFIF. Alpert and Leary immediately set up a communal group with former Psilocybin Project members at the estate (commonly known as "Millbrook"), and the IFIF was subsequently disbanded and renamed the Castalia Foundation (after the intellectual colony in Herman Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game). The core group at Millbrook, whose journal was the Psychedelic Review, sought to cultivate the divinity within each person. At Millbrook, they experimented with psychedelics and often participated in group LSD sessions, looking for a permanent route to higher consciousness. The Castalia Foundation hosted weekend retreats on the estate where people paid to undergo the psychedelic experience without drugs, through meditation, yoga, and group therapy sessions.
Alpert and Leary continued on to co-author a book entitled The Psychedelic Experience with Ralph Metzner, based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and it was published in 1964. Alpert co-authored LSD with Sidney Cohen and Lawrence Schiller in 1966.
In 1967 Alpert gave talks at the League for Spiritual Discovery's center in Greenwich Village.
Spiritual search and name change
In 1967, Alpert traveled to India where he met American spiritual seeker Bhagavan Das, and later met Neem Karoli Baba who became his guru at Kainchi ashram, whom Alpert called "Maharaj-ji". It was Maharaj-ji who gave Alpert the name "Ram Dass", which means "servant of God", referring to the incarnation of God as Ram or Lord Rama. Alpert also corresponded with Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba and mentioned Baba in several of his books.
Be Here Now
After Alpert returned to America as Ram Dass, he stayed at the Lama Foundation in Taos, New Mexico, as a guest. Ram Dass had helped Steve Durkee (Nooruddeen Durkee) and Barbara Durkee (Asha Greer or Asha von Briesen) co-found the countercultural, spiritual community in 1967, and it had an ashram dedicated to Ram Dass's guru. During Ram Dass's visit, he presented a manuscript he had written, entitled From Bindu to Ojas. The community's residents edited, illustrated, and laid out the text, which ultimately became a best-selling book when published under the name Be Here Now in 1971. The 416-page manual for conscious being was published by the Lama Foundation, as Ram Dass's benefit for the community. Be Here Now contained Ram Dass's account of his spiritual journey, as well as recommended spiritual techniques and quotes. The proceeds from the book helped sustain the Lama Foundation for several years, after which they donated the book's copyright and half its proceeds to the Hanuman Foundation in Taos.
Later life
At 60 years of age, Ram Dass began exploring Judaism seriously for the first time. "My belief is that I wasn't born into Judaism by accident, and so I needed to find ways to honor that", he says. "From a Hindu perspective, you are born as what you need to deal with, and if you just try and push it away, whatever it is, it's got you."
Leary and Ram Dass, who had grown apart after Ram Dass denounced Leary in a 1974 news conference, reconciled in 1983 at Harvard (at a reunion for the 20th anniversary of their controversial firing from the Harvard faculty), and reunited before Leary's death in May 1996.
In February 1997, Ram Dass had a stroke that left him with expressive aphasia, which he interpreted as an act of grace. He stated, "The stroke was giving me lessons, and I realized that was grace—fierce grace...Death is the biggest change we’ll face, so we need to practice change." He lived on Maui and did not leave the Hawaiian Islands from 2004 until his death in 2019, after he almost died from an infection during a trip to India. He continued to make public appearances and to give talks at small venues; held retreats in Maui; and continued to teach through live webcasts. When asked if he could sum up his life's message, he replied, "I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people ... to me, that's what the emerging game is all about." Ram Dass was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in August 1991.
In 2003, Wayne Dyer published a plea for donations for Ram Dass's support due to his declining health following the stroke, "Now it is our turn…Ram Dass’s body can no longer endure the rigors of travel. He has come to Maui, where I live and write. I speak with him frequently and I am often humbled by the tears in his beautiful 73-year-old eyes as he apologizes for not having prepared for his own elderly health care—for what he now perceives as burdensome to others. He still intends to write and teach; however without the travel—we can now come to him. Maui is healing—Maui is where Ram Dass wishes to stay for now! He is currently living in a home on Maui, which he doesn’t own and is currently in jeopardy of losing. I am asking all of you to help purchase this home and to set up a financial foundation to take care of this man who has raised so much money to ensure the futures of so many others. To live out what Ram Dass has practiced with his actions. Please be generous and prompt—no one is more deserving of our love and financial support."
In 2013, Ram Dass released a memoir and summary of his teaching, Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart. In an interview about the book, at age 82, he said that his earlier reflections about facing old age and death now seem naive to him. He said, in part: "Now, I’m in my 80s ... Now, I am aging. I am approaching death. I’m getting closer to the end. ... Now, I really am ready to face the music all around me."
He died on December 22, 2019, at the age of 88.
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
Edited by Learyfan (12/22/23 09:59 AM)
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briant230


Registered: 08/20/06
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#13670087 - 12/22/10 11:16 AM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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haha wow I never knew that happened. Imagine those couple months when it was legal again hahaha I could only imagine what would happen if that went down today.
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: briant230]
#13670106 - 12/22/10 11:21 AM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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Yeah, I'd be really interested to know if they bothered busting people for it during that short time period. And if they did, I wonder if anyone beat the rap due to MDMA's temporary unscheduled status.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
Loc: High pride!
Last seen: 20 hours, 39 minutes
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: briant230]
#13671437 - 12/22/10 03:48 PM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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Bump
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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drr

Registered: 05/20/09
Posts: 8,444
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#13671447 - 12/22/10 03:49 PM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Learyfan said:

Yumm
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SummerDaisies
Out of Retirement



Registered: 12/04/06
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: drr]
#13672130 - 12/22/10 06:13 PM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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i thought pure mdma didnt press?
-------------------- [quote]Abuse said: summerfaggot is one of the biggest cunts on this site.[/quote]
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
Loc: High pride!
Last seen: 20 hours, 39 minutes
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: SummerDaisies]
#13672958 - 12/22/10 08:46 PM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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It can probably stick together, but can crumble easily. Is my guess.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
Edited by Learyfan (12/22/12 09:59 AM)
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DoseInTheWoods3420
LSD Connoisseur



Registered: 10/06/09
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#13673893 - 12/23/10 12:04 AM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Learyfan said:

yea that doesnt look like it would stay together as much as a pill with biunders would.
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You're either on the bus, or off the bus everything i say is complete and utter bulshit
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
Loc: High pride!
Last seen: 20 hours, 39 minutes
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#15554909 - 12/22/11 05:45 AM (12 years, 1 month ago) |
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Annual bump.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Apple-Glass Cyndrome - Someday
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,083
Loc: High pride!
Last seen: 20 hours, 39 minutes
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#17431219 - 12/22/12 07:26 AM (11 years, 1 month ago) |
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Here's more about Cathryn Casamo aka Stark Naked.
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THE MAGIC BUS KEN KESEY, NEAL CASSADY, CATHY CASAMO AND THE MERRY PRANKSTERS
PROLOGUE
There is a lot of misinformation out there these days, and it's abetted by the ease of dissemination on the Web. In regard to Cathy Casamo, aka "Stark Naked", most of the confusion began, I believe, with Tom Wolfe's popular second-hand version of the bus story in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and has been perpetuated in typical web fashion. She has been portrayed as "a bus dropout", "psychotic", and "stark raving mad" none of which is true. When Albert Hoffman and Aldous Huxley spoke of being transfixed and thinking they died or were out of their bodies during hallucinaions, they didn't assume psychosis or insanity. Ken Kesey in Cuckoo's Nest writes of his sympathies for people who are conveniently labled mentally ill by the system. In the only first hand accounts of the bus story (Larry Hankin's tale of Cathy's disappearance, the flashbacks of Ken "Intrepid Traveler" Babbs in On The Bus, and a short piece by Larry McMurtry in Spit In The Ocean #7) nowhere is there any mention of Cathy going crazy. George "Hardly Visible" Walker told me,"I never thought she was mad". From my conversations with Cathy and with Ron "Hassler" Bevirt, her state would be more correctly described as extremely high, and it is my intention to correct the record (as well as the persistent misspelling of her name...seen everywhere as Kathy Casano). Cathryn Marie Casamo was the last to join the original group of Merry Pranksters. She got on the bus after arranging with her significant other, actor Larry Hankin, to care for her daughter, Caitlin, in her absence. The Northwestern University drama major had been asked to become one of the group and star with Neal Cassady in the movie they were making chronicling the Prankster's "search for a kool place". Once on the journey, she became disheartened with a bunch of stoned guys admittedly running around trying to make a film with no apparent direction, in Kesey's own words, "embracing amateurism". In Texas, she became further disillusioned and missed her daughter deeply. After a rather large dose of acid and removing her clothes in the sweltering bus, she saw Larry McMurtry's little son playing in the yard, and rushed out of the bus "Stark Naked" to hold him . (The blanket she had been wearing around her shoulders was left behind in the bus.) According to McMurtry, "James, in diapers, had no objection to naked people, and the neighbors, most of them staid Republicans, took this event in stride; It was the Pranksters who were shocked". She subsequently spaced out, went for a walk with the now famous blanket around her shoulders, and was picked up by the cops who didn't have a clue what was happening. Staunchly refusing to implicate her fellow bus riders, a case can be made that she actually had "her wits about her" at the time. "In the morning the Pranksters - who would soon be advising America to tear up their schedules and embrace spontaneity and disorder - remembered that they had a schedule: Ken's book party for Sometimes a Great Notion was happening in New York in only a few days." So they hit the road without her. Without assigning any blame, I'd like to point out that on the first public group tripping experiment ever, the code of staying together was abandoned in Houston with Stark Naked when things got really complicated. She was an expression of the innocent, pure spirit on the bus to me; the prototypical flower child. And here is the whole story as well as I can put it together. -Stephen Ehret
BACKGROUND
In the summer of 1960, Cathy Casamo left Northwestern University after four years as a drama major, a few math credits short of a degree. Pregnant with Caitlin, she set out on the classic road trip for the West Coast and the burgeoning literary and art scene in San Francisco accompanied by her boyfriend, Yale undergraduate Jim McGiffin. After running out of gas and pawning a stereo, they finally arrived with no money to what Jim describes as an incredibly friendly scene. Put up for a time by generous strangers in North Beach, they soon settled in one of the arks on the Sausalito waterfront and Cathy became a waitress at the No Name Bar. Several years later, after she and Jim broke up, Cathy and Caitlin moved back over the bridge to North Beach where they lived with actor Larry Hankin. "In 1959, Ken Kesey, a graduate student in creative writing at Stanford University, volunteered to take part in a government drug research program at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital that tested a variety of psychoactive drugs such as LSD, which was legal at the time, psilocybin, mescaline, and amphetamine IT-290." "The experiments at Stanford were part of a secret operation (MK-ULTRA) funded by the Central Intelligence Agency to determine the potential utility of hallucinogens as weapons in the Cold War. Hospitals and psychiatrists across the country, carefully selected by the CIA, conducted these government-sanctioned and financed experiments on patients. Many individuals were unaware they were being given the drugs. Others, like Kesey, were volunteers. LSD, peyote and other hallucinogens were revelations to Kesey..." "Over a period of several weeks, Kesey ingested these hallucinogens and wrote of his drug-induced experiences for government researchers. From this experience, Kesey wrote his most celebrated novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and began his own experimentations with psychedelic drugs. His goal was to break through conformist thought and ultimately forge a reconfiguration of American society. In the early 1960s, Neal Cassady showed up to meet the famous author and became the most celebrated member of Kesey's fledgling group, the Merry Pranksters. Much of the hippie aesthetic that would dawn on the San Francisco scene in the mid sixties can be traced back to the Merry Pranksters who openly used psychoactive drugs, wore outrageous attire, performed bizarre acts of street theater, and engaged in peaceful confrontation with not only the laws of conformity, but with the mores of conventionality. As Kesey put it: 'What we hoped was that we could stop the coming end of the world'." "The 'trip' was a powerful metaphor linking an LSD-inspired interior journey to the historic American inclination to take to the road in search of another place. But Kesey's bus trip reversed the historic direction of American movement. He and the Pranksters went from west to east. They wanted to discover what might happen to themselves and the country when the East experienced what had been uncovered in the West a hundred years after the Gold Rush: the liberating qualities of LSD." "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was an immediate critical and commercial success. It was read as a compelling cautionary tale that viewed society, represented by Big Nurse, as a cold, formidable negation of all that is free, lusty and nonconformist. McMurphy, a malingerer from a penal work farm, tries to rekindle a spark of life among his fellow patients, and is thwarted at each step by the cold, calculating Nurse Ratched, who ultimately curtails McMurphy's free wheeling ways by subjecting him to a lobotomy. From this book, Kesey gained the notoriety and the income necessary to draw together his motley band of Merry Pranksters, who through their many antics and travels, set the stage for the Psychedelic Era that was to follow. A critically acclaimed novel that is still taught at universities today, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest remains Ken Kesey's most popular work. "With the commercial success of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey bought property in La Honda and moved his wife and children and assorted Merry Pranksters to the mountains outside of San Francisco."
THE TRIP
Conceived as a way of getting to New York for the publication party of Sometimes A Great Notion, Kesey's second novel, the trip required a worthy vehicle to transport the Merry Pranksters further. "Fresh from the stunning success of 'Cuckoo’s Nest', Kesey bought the bus for $1,250 from Andre Hobson in Atherton, Calif., a sales engineer who had outfitted it with bunks, a bathroom and a kitchen to take his 11 kids on vacation...” "At La Honda, Kesey’s home in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco, they installed a sound system, a generator on the back and went wild with the paint. Artist Roy Sebern painted the word “Furthur” on the destination placard as a kind of one-word poem and inspiration to keep going whenever the bus broke down. It wasn’t until much later that he found out he had misspelled it. Just as the bus was constantly being repainted, somewhere along the line the Further sign was corrected." "The day they were ready to go, Ken Kesey recruited Cassady from a bookstore where he was working, Babbs recalls. The bus pulled out of the driveway with Ray Charles singing 'Hit the Road Jack,' and ran out of gas. That was quickly remedied, and down the road they went, Cassady spewing the speed-talking rap-babble that inspired Kerouac’s writing style." "With Neal Cassady at the wheel, they left La Honda in June 1964 and began their now legendary journey across the country, smoking marijuana, and dropping acid along the way. The top of the bus was made into a musical stage and when it detoured through some cities, the Pranksters blasted a combination of crude homemade music and running commentary to all the astonished onlookers." On the way through San Francisco, they stopped at actor Larry Hankin’s where they met "The Beauty Witch", Cathryn Casamo, later to be known as "Stark Naked". Cathy a drama student from Northwestern University and ingénue was convinced to go on the “trip” and star with Neal Cassady in the movie they were making. She was reluctant to leave her small daughter, Caitlin, behind but wanted the chance to star in the movie so she accepted after Larry agreed to watch over Caitlin. And off they went.
The Merry Pranksters Ken Kesey * Chief/Captain Flag/Swashbuckler (and the original 13) Ken Babbs * Intrepid Traveler John Babbs * Sometimes Missing Ron Bevirt * Hassler Steve Lambrecht* Zonker Jane Burton * Generally Famished Cathy Casamo * Beauty Witch/Stark Naked Neal Cassady * Speed Limit Mike Hagen * Mal Function Chuck Kesey * Brother Charlie Dale Kesey * Highly Charged Sandy Lehmann-Haupt * Dis-Mount Paula Sundsten * Gretchen Fetchin George Walker * Hardly Visible
"Dressed in combinations of fluorescent orange and green, the Pranksters acquired new names as their personalities developed. Female Pranksters included...'Gretchen Fetchin' and 'Stark Naked'; their male equivalents included 'Mal Function' and 'Hardly Visible'; Kesey was 'Swashbuckler' and Lehmann-Haupt 'Dis-mount' on account of his habit of getting off the bus every time it stopped." "The wildly painted bus got stopped by the police, but with their short haircuts ..., the Pranksters were never arrested. They carried orange juice laced with LSD, which was legal at the time. The bus got stuck in an Arizona river." (The Wiki-up incident) It was here that all the beautiful pictures of Cathy and Neal on the left were taken by Ron Bevirt. (see photo gallery page "THE MAGIC BUS" and links for movie clips "Mud Puddle Satori 1 & 2) "It stopped in Houston for a visit with author Larry McMurtry, who was with Kesey at the Wallace Stegner writing seminar at Stanford University when he wrote 'Coockoo’s Nest' in the early 1960s." This is where Stark Naked got her name and when she first parts ways with the Pranksters.
Larry McMurtry and son, James, 1964
Houston...Quenby Street. Shading oaks. Birds chirruping. Manicured lawns. Respectable homes. A curtain pulls back from a front window and a bespectacled eye peers out. "See anything yet?" a female voice calls from the kitchen. "They called from Flatonia, so it should be a few minutes yet," Larry McMurtry says. Novelist, writer of Horseman, Pass By (made into the movie Hud), Larry was a classmate of Kesey's at Stanford's graduate writing program four years earlier. He stands poised, his son in his arms. "Oh, God!" he says, dropping the curtain. "What is it, dear?" his wife calls. "It's them. But what a them." "What do you mean?" "It's indescribable. You'll have to see for yourself." Shifting the boy into his other arm, he goes outside. A shrill laugh comes from the bus. Larry walks to the curb and the bus door opens..."Cathy shrieks, stepping out of the bus and out of her blanket. She tugs at Larry's son. "Ma`am," Larry says in a soft drawl. "Ma`am, would you please let go? The boy is crying, ma'am.... "Cassady pops out with the blanket. "We all have children back home, m'dear, and even our hardened hearts are suffused with longing; but you must admit, this is not the one...." "Wow!" John says, head out the window. "What a shot! Did you get it, Hassler?" Hassler turns, 35-millimeter camera in hand. "I was ready, but the shock was too much. I forgot to click the shutter. Did you see that? She was naked. Stark naked!" Kesey steps off the bus and he and Larry shake hands. Larry's wife comes out and there are introductions all around. "Make yourselves at home," Larry tells everyone, and the Pranksters troop inside, escorting Cathy. Larry looks at them nervously. "She going to be all right?" he asks Kesey. "I hope so. Strung out is all. If she can make it through the next day or so it ought to wear off." "Better keep an eye on her. I just hope no one witnessed that exhibition outside. They're pretty straight folks around here, you know." "Hey!" Babbs says, "Straight is as straight does. Like an arrow, varoom! Not to worry, we got it under control." "Hummmm," Larry murmurs, looking over the top of his glasses.
-- by Ken Babbs, from the book, On The Bus.
Here is the first hand account by Larry Hankin:
Cathy’s Disappearance
Cathy would call regularly in the evening and speak to Katy and me. And then the phone calls got irregular and then one morning around 10am, I got a call from a male voice that said he was one of the Merry Pranksters calling from Houston, Texas and that they were all sleeping on the floor in Larry McMurtry’s house. Cathy had disappeared last night around 2am and they couldn’t find her and the Pranksters were going to leave town the next day or two,… so I better come down and look for her because nobody’s going to be here in Houston. Whaaaaat? I said I’d be right there. I was picked up at the Houston airport by a group of Merry Pranksters in a borrowed car, and was filled in on everything that anybody knew. The basic story line was: Cathy was high on acid when they all went to sleep on McMurtry’s living room floor around 2am and somewhere in the next hour or two Cathy went out for a walk. She never came back. That’s it. They’d been calling hospitals and police stations all day and there was no one fitting her description anywhere in Houston. It was now 6 pm. I didn’t believe anything anyone told me. I was just angry. Because they were so famous, of course I remember Larry McMurtry’s and Ken Kesey’s names, but every other name and face is a blur. I was just there to get Cathy, and this acting rule kept going off in my head: “Every scene has an objective for your character. Help your character accomplish that objective.” I was there to find Cathy. To me, all The Merry Pranksters were just one big Person-of-Interest in Cathy’s disappearance. I remember getting out of the car at Larry McMutry’s house and being filmed by the Merry Prankster’s cameraman, Mike. Inside, Ken Kesey and McMurtry rapped out what they knew about “Cathy’s Disappearance”. That’s what it became to me, a chapter TITLE: “Cathy’s Disappearance”. I was so pissed and confused - and pissed because I was pissed and confused – that I’m sure the first 24 hours were distorted. I could feel my brain manufacturing it’s own LSD from running scenarios of dread; and I suspected everyone in that house. I didn’t drink, smoke, or eat anything anyone at Larry M’s house gave me for the first day. Cathy could’ve gone for a walk and been kidnapped. Murdered. Nobody knew anything. Not knowing is insane, but not knowing around a chunk of long-haired Pranksters you know are just coming down off many days and doses of LSD doesn’t calm you down much. You need a house with a stone foundation and a kitchen table. I clung to Larry McMurtry’s every word. At least he gave off an assumption of sanity. He lived and in a house with a solid foundation that didn’t go anywhere. He’s to be trusted. Larry McMurtry was the only voice I allowed myself to listen to. Even Kesey was not above suspicion. Larry M. let me use his phone. I wanted to call the police. “We already called the police”, someone said. I called the police. “I want to report a missing person.” “What’s your relationship?” “Friend. We live together – significant other.” “Is she over 18?” “Yes. And she’s a mother.” "Why are you looking for her?” "She didn’t come home last night.” “How long has she been missing?” “She went for a walk at 2am and never came back.” “She’s only been missing 21 hours.” “Right. But she’s never—" “She’s over 18, sir. She’s an adult. She can stay away as long as she wants. You’ll have to wait 24 hours before we can take a missing person’s call.” "But that’s only 3—" “Call back after 24 hours have passed, sir." And he hung up. It wasn’t going well. I felt totally violated. I hated that cop; I hated the Merry Pranksters; I hated Kesey. Larry M. calmed me down. Right. Find Cathy. Actually, Kesey was sympathetic about my state of mind but there was nothing he could do, really. McMurtry lived in a safe-zone in the middle of Houston’s suburbs. Once you go outside his green zone, you were in The South and we were hippies. And we weren’t well–tolerated. The only hope was Larry McMurtry’s lawyer. There was talk of a missing persons bulletin. Larry’s Lawyer was well connected and he was on it. I spoke to him on the phone. He was a smart, calm, logical guy and I trusted him. He was on the case and would keep me notified. He was making phone calls to everyone he knew plus the morgue. 3 hours and 2 minutes later I called the police station back. “Okay, it’s 24 hours.” Nobody there by that description, no reports of anybody by that description were picked up. We didn’t know where to go or what to do or who to call next. I slept at a nearby motel and early in the morning went over to Larry’s house and starting making phone calls to police stations and hospitals again, and Larry’s Lawyer called in to say he had no new info. I just dialed another police station for the third time and described her for the third time. “Oh yeah. She’s here. We have her.” “What! She’s there now?” “Yeah.” They found her! “How is she? Can I talk to her? Is she okay? How’d she get there?” “You can’t talk to her right now. She’s in a holding cell.” “Why?” “She has no I.D., no shoes, and she bit the arresting officer.” I actually smiled. I asked him to describe her: it was Cathy. “Can I see her?” “Yeah. You can pick her up. She didn’t have any ID.” “I’ll be right there.” “She’s not going anywhere. Do you know if she’s on anything?” “No. Why?” “Just asking.” He gave me the station’s address. “How long have you had her?” “She was brought in yesterday about 3 am.” “What?! I called you twice yesterday! I was told both times, you didn’t have her.” They wouldn’t tell me anything else over the phone. Kesey told Mike and a sound man to go with me and film it, and three other Pranksters jumped in the car and I just lost it. I flipped out. I told everybody to back off and I didn’t want Kesey filming this - totally forgetting it was the ‘60’s, I was a long-haired hippy in the south, and I was not controlling my temper, and neither were the Texas Police. So if I went, a camera’s record might be a good thing to have. On the other hand, from what I was experiencing in S.F. and seeing on the news, the southern police didn’t take kindly to Hippy’s with Cameras and I didn’t want any bumps on this particular road. This was a different road. Kesey called off his band of Merry Pranksters and asked Sandy, the soundman, to drive me and just audio tape it, and nobody else goes. Sandy got a Nagra tape deck, threw it in the back, and we took off for the Houston Police Station, about 20 minutes away. But somehow the police didn’t know what we were talking about. They didn’t have anyone by the name of “Casamo, Cathy.” No one by that description, either. No females in the holding cell at all. Whaaaaat? The Captain insisted they didn’t have any female and we should leave. This had to be an acid trip because this was just too big a hiccup in reality: this was too big a lie. Someone’s missing, someone you really care about, and nobody will tell you anything. And then they change what they tell you. It kept getting crazier and I just kept getting angrier. I didn’t understand. Alice in Wonderland is real or I’m crazy or one of the pranksters slipped me some LSD. Cathy’s disappeared and the police are laughing at me and Mike and making haircut jokes after every question we asked, ‘til, out of nowhere, another officer walked over and said, “She was here. They just took her over to the county asylum.” “Whaaaat?! Why?” “She bit the arresting officer.” “What’s that got to do with anything? That’s resisting arrest: the county asylum for resisting arrest? Why were you arresting her in the first place? I called and you said you had her and I could pick her up if I came here and I said I’d be there in 20 minutes and you said okay. What happened between then and now?” The Captain opened the slatted blind that was blocking out the bright Texas sun and pointed to the city of Houston outside. “You Damn Yankees see that? That’s Houston, Texas out there. You’re not in the north no more and we do things different down here. Now, we just told you where she is. So you better leave now right, son. You understand me?” We did, and we left. In that instant I was a Merry Prankster and I hated the pigs. Sandy and I both figured there must have been a fight and they don’t want Cathy’s bruises to be found on their turf. They’re getting rid of the evidence until she heals. Now, I knew that Cathy didn’t like the police. A lot. Really. All the time I knew her, I couldn’t mention the police without Cathy going off on them. I wasn’t a stranger in the ‘60’s to police harassment: I was a hippy, I was a professional working satirist – a paid Doberman Clown trained to attack the police, the government, and pompous a-holes in general. I was a clown. I had rent. It was a gig. But it was a lot of fun. And, as in all cultures throughout time: too much fun is a bust-able offense and we must have been having fun-right-up-to-the-edge because the police were always harassing our company or our theater or our director (and the whole city of San Francisco in general), because of our anti-war, anti-Nixon material and pro-pot references and use. So I was no stranger to the problem of harassment. But Cathy’s dislike of The Man took it to a whole other level. So, if Cathy was on acid and the Texas Police tried to hassle her in any way, I could see her putting up quite a battle. This is what Sandy and I talked about on the way to the asylum. It was on the outskirts of Houston, a massive, grey, hospital building out of a Batman comic book. It had to have been built in the 30’s and no one painted it or changed a light-fixture since. I was the one seeking custody of Cathy, so the receptionist told Sandy to wait in the lobby while I was taken to see the head nurse (Kesey: head nurse? Yeah, I know). I had an attitude. I was trying to be nice but she could feel my hostility through my answers to who I was and who Cathy was and why we were here and what Cathy did and what she was on and what was I on and on and on. I just wanted to let Cathy know that we knew where she was and we’re going to get her out. She’d been gone for at least 36 hours -- obviously busted by the police in the middle of the night for a good reason or no reason at all. Probably & simply it was because she was wandering around still on acid in a Texas suburb at 2am, and female in the ‘60’s wearing a blanket with no I.D., and a northern accent, and an attitude, and didn’t remember which house she came from. I just wanted to get her a message. But this was turning into an interrogation. When she asked me what I did and I used the word “satire”, she said, “You don’t like authority, do you?” “What if the tables were turned and it was someone you couldn’t talk to or see?” She simply said, “Sir, if you don’t calm down and stop making trouble, I’ll have you committed right now. We can legally keep you here for three days. It’s up to you. But I do have the authority and I will use it. Don’t test me.” She was very calm and serious. She told me I could talk to Cathy and see her the next day at 2pm. I wrote a quick note to Cathy, leaned on the word “Caitlin”, and asked the nurse to give it to Cathy. She said she would, and I left. My thoughts were simple and basic: this is stupid. There is nothing that I could possibly dream of or do that is stupider than this real reality. I started thinking of very dark, stupid things to do, knowing nothing I did could be stupider than this reality right now that’s getting even stupider. I was getting close to The Time Of The Totally Stupid Move. It’s a Living Organism Thing: “I can, therefore I will”. I came the next day at 2pm with a bouquet of flowers. Sandy and the Nagra came with me. The nurse that interviewed me the day before came out to the lobby. She told me as flatly as she could that she was sorry but I couldn’t see Cathy that day. She didn’t know why because the doctors hadn’t told her why. “Doctors? More than one?” She just looked at me, waiting for a wrong twitch. Sandy said, “We’ll come back tomorrow. Thanks, ma’am.” I handed over the bouquet of roses and my long letter and asked the nurse to give them to Cathy. She said she would. “Did she say anything?” “About what?” “My note yesterday.” “Oh. No.” “No answer?” “No.” “You gave it to her?” “Yes.” “I can’t see her today?” “No.” “What’s wrong with her?” “Are you married to her or a blood relative?” They were driving me insane with reasonableness and red tape. I was driving myself insane trying to reach the level of humanity these people were function at - or on. Was it even bi-pedal? Back at the house I told my crazy sad tale to Kesey who listened patiently. All he said was, “I know; I wrote a book about it.” Touché. But I also got that he was leaving soon. And they did. Larry M’s lawyer called and says that he’s getting responses and paperwork going. “We’re going there tomorrow and picking her up. I’m going with you.” “What about today?” “Tomorrow.“ The next day Larry McMurtry, and I drove back with his lawyer. The ride was very solemn. (All three of us named Larry, which probably wouldn’t help our cause with the authorities.) Larry the Lawyer was loaded for bear: he had a writ. He had documents. He had signed papers. He had Authority in every pocket. He had made many phone calls and had arranged for us to get her out of there immediately. Plus: The three days were legally up. I was instructed to not say anything: let Larry the Lawyer do all the talking. We brought a bag of clothes for Cathy. She hadn’t seen or talked to anyone outside of her custody or that building since she went for a walk that night. The lawyer confirmed that the City of Houston had a legal right to do everything they’d done so far and/or had threatened to do. In the Chief Doctor’s office, Larry the Lawyer signed papers and heads were nodded. While all this stuff was going on, another nurse asked me if I wanted to see Cathy, “Upstairs”. When the nurse and I got off the elevator, all I could think of was the b/w movie, The Snake Pit, plus excerpts from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (yeah). It was that hard to grok. Literally, inmates were wandering the old grey-green halls with high ceilings, totally zoned, wearing grey hospital smocks, and/or bathrobes, and paper slippers. Shuffling slowly. One in five was mumbling, one in ten babbling. Each green “room” door had a hole cut in it with a little green hatch that opened and closed at face level. We came up to this one door and the nurse open the little hatch and she said Cathy was in there. And there she was in a grey hospital smock sitting on the edge of a bare army cot, bare feet on an old, linoleum-covered floor, a metal grate over a pebbled-glass window so you couldn’t see out of it. She looked totally drained. Paint peeled off large swatches of the wall; no discernable colors anywhere. It was like a scene from Titicutt Follies, a documentary about a horrible little mental hospital in the small town of Titicutt, New York. “Hey, Cathy.” She came right up to the face hole and whispered, “Get me out of here.” She was completed exhausted. I told her we have McMurtry’s lawyer downstairs and he’s getting her out right now. I asked her if she got the notes and flowers I’d sent. She said, “No”. “Any messages from anybody? Any contact?” “No.” “They didn’t tell you we were looking for you? That we knew you were here a day-and-a-half ago? That I’d been here twice?” “No. Just get me out of here.” The nurse said I had to leave. I told Cathy she’ll be out in less than an hour, and I was taken back to the lobby. The lawyer said everything’s ready but, since they were releasing Cathy to my custody, I had to go to the office to sign custody papers and then we can all leave. I was led to the office. It wasn’t really “custody” papers. It was a legal document saying that Cathy Casamo was given into my custody and therefore it was my responsibility to have Cathy Casamo out of the State of Texas within 24 hours or we’d both be arrested. We were Undesirable. They didn’t say why. I asked what was wrong with Cathy? Why they had to keep her so long? “She was psychotic. She was having psychotic episodes.” “You mean she was angry? What does that mean?” “It’s hard to define in layman’s terms. Psychosis is a very general medical term that covers a vast array of mental problems so it’s really difficult to define simply or succinctly.” He wasn’t going to tell me. They brought Cathy into the room. She was dressed in the clothes we had brought her, her hair was combed, no shoes. She looked like anyone would look if they’d been on acid, got in a fight with the police and spent three days awake in an old, southern mental institution being tested for every drug under the sun and asked every question there is warmed over. She leaned down and again whispered in my ear, “Get me out”. I signed the paper and Cathy and I walked out to the lobby where Larry and Larry were waiting. I was never told what exactly the matter was with Cathy or why the police sent her here or why they held her incommunicado for 3 long days. Cathy was strangely quiet and all Larry and the lawyer wanted to do was to get her out of there so we headed for the door – which is when this young nurse came running up waving a folder and saying, “Excuse me, sir. We need one more blood sample before she leaves.” Cathy froze in her tracks and said in a startlingly strong voice, “No. No more. They’ve taken enough.” So, I said, “She said no. So, no. No blood.” The head nurse said to the lawyer, “Then she’s not leaving.” Larry the Lawyer said, as nicely and as calmly as he could, “Cathy, let them take the blood and we can all go home.” Cathy sat down on a wooden bench, folded her arms and said, “No.” So I said, “Hey, look. Obviously she doesn’t want to do it, so that’s it. No.” So the nurse said to two nearby very muscular male nurses – who’d obviously been bred for this job, “We need to take one more blood sample before she leaves. Miss, would you go with these two gentlemen, please?” Cathy said, very loudly, “No! They’ve taken enough! No.” The nurse nodded to the two males in white: they grabbed Cathy, one to an arm, and started dragging her away. Larry grabbed my one arm and the lawyer put his hand on my opposite shoulder and said very close to my ear, “Don’t. Don’t do anything. Let them take the blood. We’ve got to get Cathy out of here. They can keep you here for 3 days, I can’t stop them, and I can’t go through this again for you.” Cathy screamed as loud as she could as they dragged her down the hall and into a room. The door closed and the yelling abruptly stopped. (She later told me they just threw her on the bed, put a pillow over her face, held her down and took the blood). About a silent minute went by, the door opened, a very exhausted Cathy was drag-carried back to us, deposited back on the wooden bench, and the nurse said to Larry’s Lawyer: “Thank you. She can go now.” Larry’s lawyer drove Cathy, me and Larry back to Larry’s house. Cathy didn’t speak a word the whole way back. That last little bit of blood taking had walloped her bad. We were concerned. Back at the house we celebrated but Cathy was very quiet. She wanted to see Katy. Everybody agreed that was a great idea. I remember, later that eve, during the last dinner at Larry’s house, there was a lot of food and wine and whatever, but Cathy just sat on the back porch and petted Larry’s Dog. Was it the cops, the arrest, the LSD, The asylum, the blood-taking, the exhaustion, the bus trip, all of it, some of it, which,…? It was the same on the flight back. She came out of it a bit when she saw Katy, but it took a while.
--Larry Hankin, Marina del Rey, 4.3.10
continued on the AFTERMATH page
Stark Gets Off The Bus By Larry McMurtry from Spit in the Ocean #7
"The tremors struck Houston on a fine spring morning in 1964, when Ken called and said they were coming to see me; little did I know that the breeze of the future was about to blow through my quiet street. A very few minutes later there it came, the bus whose motto was FURTHER, and whose occupants probably indulged in a bit of drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll, as well as almost continuous movie-making and a good deal of rubbernecking as they sped across America. There were Pranksters sitting on top, waving at my startled neighbors with Day-Glo hands. Ken was plalying a flute. Living legend Neal Cassady - who had inspired both On The Road and Allen Ginsberg's beautiful poem The Green Automobile - was at the wheel. My son James, aged two, was sitting in the yard in his diapers when the bus stopped and a naked lady ran out and grabbed him. It was Stark Naked (later shortened to Stark), who, being temporarily of a disordered mind, mistook him for her little girl. James, in diapers, had no objection to naked people, and the neighbors, most of them staid Republicans, took this event in stride; It was the Pranksters who were shocked. To that point virtually every moment of the trip had been filmed, but there was Stark, wearing not a stitch, and the Pranksters were not camera-ready. I soon coached Stark inside, where she rapidly took seven showers. Neal Cassady came in, said not a word, went to sleep, and didn't stir until the next day, when it was time to leave. The Pranksters, at this stage only on the road a few days, were extremely appealing. They were young, they were beautiful, they were fresh, and they were friendly. My neighbors at once adopted them; soon cookies were being baked and doughnuts fetched. I was glad to see the Keseys but also nervous. Who knew what Stark would do when she finished taking showers? The Kens, Kesey and Babbs, parked a mysterious jar in my kitchen cabinet - I didn't investigate but I suslpect we'd all be just getting out of jail now if that jar had fallen into official hands. I never got a solid count of Pranksters on that visit, but there were enough of them to cover most of the floor space in my small house. In the night, despite my vigilance, Stark slipped away, having no idea what city or state she was in. The police found her and at once popped her into what Carl, the Billy Bob Thornton character in Sling Blade, calls the 'nervous hospital'. In the morning the Pranksters - who would soon be advising America to tear up their schedules and embrace spontaneity and disorder - remembered that they had a schedule: Ken's book party for Sometimes a Great Notion was happening in New York in only a few days. They lingered long enought for Ken to teach James his first word - 'ball' - before hurrying off, Cassady again at the wheel... This smooth departure left me, my lawyer, and Stark's lovelorn boyfriend to extract Stark from the nervous hospital. It didn't help that all our first names were Larry, but in time, we got her out. The boyfriend was screamed at and driven off. My lawyer advised me to get her on the next plane to San Francisco, which happened to be the red-eye. In the airport, with several hours to wait, I asked her if she was hungry and she said she might eat a grilled cheese sandwich. She ate $78 worth, a big meal for an airport restaurant in 1964. As she munched she slowly regained a measure of her sanity, enough of it that when her boyfriend straggled up, the picture of woe, she meekly took his hand and got on the plane."
with the gracious permission of Larry McMurtry
(http://www.cathryncasamo.com/)
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



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Happy 75th Birthday Cathryn "Stark Naked" Casamo!

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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#21011007 - 12/22/14 05:21 AM (9 years, 1 month ago) |
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Annual bump.
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#22685724 - 12/22/15 05:36 AM (8 years, 1 month ago) |
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Annual bump.
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#23948149 - 12/22/16 05:42 AM (7 years, 1 month ago) |
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Annual bump.
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



Registered: 04/20/01
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#24861470 - 12/22/17 05:39 AM (6 years, 1 month ago) |
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30th anniversary of MDMA going temporarily unscheduled. Still don't know what happened to people who were arrested for it during that time. Hopefully they got off scot-free, but I don't know who in the world you could ask about that.
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!



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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#25695821 - 12/22/18 12:07 PM (5 years, 1 month ago) |
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^ Okay guys, after I posted that last year, I decided to take a shot in the dark and e-mail Robert Widdowson if he recalled the short period of time between when MDMA was temporarily removed from schedule 1 (December 22, 1987) and then rescheduled permanently (March 23, 1988). Not only did he remember that time, but it played a big part in his own case. He gave me permission to post his e-mail with this disclaimer - "Yes, you can post my response but with the following disclaimer: These events occurred more than 30 years ago and are my recollections. If I am mistaken, please correct me. Thanks." So here's what he said. I bolded parts that I thought were most important.
Quote:
Hi [Learyfan],
Yes I remember it well. We knew that MDMA was doomed, so from our beginnings in 1985, we looked for an analogue. Right around that time, the DEA temporarily scheduled MDMA, but they messed up the procedure and it was unscheduled. At this time also a petition of 1,500 psychologists and academics begged the DEA to make it schedule III, so that they could use it in their practices. Also about two years earlier, a researcher named Ricaurte at NIDA published a paper in Science on an emergency basis (usually it’s about a year to wait for publication after acceptance of an article; this one they put out right away). It showed brain damage in rats with street doses of MDMA. (Unfortunately, there were only 6 rats in the study and the staining technique to show the brain damage was never used anymore because it was so unreliable. Ricaurte later admitted that the results were much less clear than he presented. He’s the same guy who was turned in by his students for falsifying experiments on mdma in 2001, the results of which were used to crank up penalties v. mdma. He admitted his crime and recanted the results, but the laws never changed back.)
OK, so when mdma was unscheduled, all these factors were at play, and, under pressure the DEA set up a commission of about 20 experts to study the issue and make a recommendation that the Drug Czar said that he would follow. After several months, they reported that MDMA should be placed in Schedule III. The Drug Czar went back on his word and arbitrarily placed it in Schedule I. While it was unscheduled, people could be arrested but not convicted. There was no law. This is the context for my case as detailed in the Psymposia article #1. The Analogue Act couldn’t work and Temporary Scheduling was all they had. That’s why the prosecutor in my case appealed to SCOTUS. They needed that law, and the fix was in.
By the way, my lawyer was a great guy who let me participate in my own defense. He sent drafts of all briefs and correspondence and boxes of law articles. For the SCOTUS case, I even wrote a page in our presentation. At that time the DEA had used Temporary Scheduling 17 times. In 13 of them they had screwed up. In one, for example, they misspelled the name of the substance. They never met their deadlines, and it was obvious that they weren’t taking the process seriously. Since one of our points was that the Attorney General should not have delegated his authority to the DEA, we felt that this was important. The Court ignored it (and the rest of our arguments).
So yes, no one could be prosecuted during the Unscheduling. They were desperate for a law. Temporary Scheduling has now been used about 400 times I think. Their plan worked.
Have fun.
Rob
I also did more research since his e-mail and found that the main reason for it being temporarily unscheduled was thanks to Dr. Lester Grinspoon and a group of psychiatrists who took the government to court to have it reclassified. So we should all salute Dr. Grinspoon for his valiant effort to have the government allow MDMA to be used therapeutically. He was ultimately unsuccessful, but just the fact that he was able to have it temporarily unscheduled was an incredible feat.
Quote:
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Drug Enforcement Administration 21 CFR Part 1308 Schedules of Controlled Substances; Deletion of 3,4- Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) From Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act AGENCY: Drug Enforcement Administration, justice. ACTION: Final rule. SUMMARY: By order of the the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. the previous order of the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) placing 3.4- Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) into Schedule I was vacated effective December 22. 1987. This rule will delete 3.4- Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) from Schedule I. EFFECTIVE DATE: The effective date of this order is January 27. 1988. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Howard McClain. Jr., Telephone: (202) 533-1366. SUPPLEMENTARY IMFORMATION: On October 8,1906. the Administrator of DEA signed a final order placing 3.4- Methylenedioxymethamphetarnine (MDMA] into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act pursuant to a rulemaking proceeding. This order was published as a final rule in the Federal Register. on October 14,1986. (51 FR 36552). The effective date of the order was November 13, 1986: Dr. Lester Grinspoon. a party to the rulemaking proceeding& appealed the Administrator's order to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. On September 18.1987. the Court issued its opinion vacating the Administrator's order and remanding the case to him for further proceedings-(828 F.2d 881). Following denial of the agency's petition for rehearing en Nam, the Court issued its mandate on December 22. 1987. This rule will delete MDMA from Schedule I until such time as the Administrator reconsiders the record in the scheduling proceeding and issues another final rule. While this rule removes MDMA from Schedule I. the illegal manufacture. distribution and possession of MDMA with intent for human consumption is a violation of the Controlled Substances Act. (21 U-S.0 813). Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 605(b). the Administrator certifies that the removal of MDMA from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act will have no impact upon small businesses or other entities whose interests must be considered under the Regulatory Flexibility Act. (Pub. L 96-354). This action removes a substance from control under the Controlled Substances Act. In accordance with the provisions of -section 201(al of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 811(a)), this decontrol action is part of a formal rulemaking "on the record after opportunity for a hearing.- Such proceedings are conducted pursuant to provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act 5 U.S.C. 556 and 557. and as such have been exempted from the consultation requirements of Executive Order /ran (49 FR 13193). List of Subjects in 21 CFR Part 1308 Administrative practice and procedure-Drug traffic control. Narcotic& Prescription drugs-. Under the authority-vetted in the 'Attorney Genera/ by section 20t(a) of Sthe Controlled Starste Tat& Act F21 U.S.C. 811 fa)} and delegated to the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration by regulations of the Department of justice. 28 CFR0.100(4 and pursuant to the order of the United States Court of Appeals for the First a Circuit, the Administrator hereby orders that Part 1308. Title 21. Code-of Federal Regulations. be amended as follows: PART 1308—SCHEDULES OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES 1. The authority citation for Part 1308 continues to read as follows: Authority 21 LLS.C. ant, 871(b). §13011.11 fArnendedl 2. Section 1308.11 is amended by removing paragraph (d)(71.. and redesIgnating existing paragraphs (6X8) throu d1171 through K4(24). Dated: January 20 1968. 1 C.. Li9715., Administivtot. (FR Doc. 88-1592 Filed 1-25-88t 8:45 am) 111.1102 COOS 44 10-01-11
(Deletion of MDMA from Schedule I following appeals court decision, Federal Register, January 27, 1988)
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Edited by Learyfan (12/22/19 10:11 AM)
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Learyfan
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#26395385 - 12/22/19 10:40 AM (4 years, 1 month ago) |
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So just to reiterate, on this day in 1987, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, and other psychiatrists, successfully lobbied to have MDMA removed from DEA Scheduling on December 22, 1987. During the period of time between December 22nd and March 23, 1988, MDMA was technically still illegal, but police were not able to prosecute the victims of arrest. Here's a really detailed article from February 1988 about Dr. Grinspoon's temporarily successful bid to stop the DEA from removing this incredibly important tool from the psychiatric community and arresting users and dealers. I salute his valiant effort.
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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1988 THE SUN
Regulators-researcher battle leaves 'Ecstasy' in limbo
Code:
By Mary Knudson
On a Saturday afternoon four years ago, Harvard psychiatrist Lester Grin-spoon and his wife of 30 years sat down in their living room, and each took a pill. Within 45 minutes, they began subtly experiencing a high that Dr. Grinspoon describes as "a gentle invitation to insight." And. although the couple had always had a closely bonded rapport. they found that under the influence of MDMA, they could express thoughts even more openly than ever before. Dr. Grinspoon is among dozens of psychiatrists who have taken MDMA, a psychoactive drug also known as Ecstasy. to find out first-hand the effects it can have in psychotherapy and in counseling people with terminal cancer. Dr. Rick Ingrasci, a Boston psychiatrist, said he has seen dramatic results. One lawyer In her mid-30s had developed colon cancer that spread to her liver. Emotionally, she was "very closed," he said. "She was Just having a hard time opening up with family." After one session on MDMA. "she Just melted. The whole family — a 17-year-old daughter. husband and mother — Just kept talking and talking and crying together." Dr. Ingrasci said. Later, family members described the session as a break-through in sharing intimate thoughts and feelings. good and bad. "She only lived another three months, but I have to think that dramatic shift in quality was worth it." Dr. Ingrascl said. However. scientific investigation of MDMA, a mercifully short acronym for the drug's full name, 3.4- methylenedioxymethamphetamine, was soon to come to a halt — not because scientists decided it had no potential. but because federal drug enforcement officials decided so. During the early 1980s. MDMA, which is considered dangerous for people with heart disease and has been linked to a few deaths, started gaining popularity In the streets. On May 31, 1985, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration made it illegal for humans to use MDMA by placing it In "schedule one" of the controlled substances list. where It joined such drugs as heroin. LSD and marijuana. Drugs are put in schedule one that are trafficked In illegal markets and which the DEA maintains have no proven medical use. said Gene R. Haislip. deputy assistant administrator for the Drug Enforcement Administration. The action was controversial. The government's decision to put MDMA in schedule one "stopped no one but the legitimate researchers." Dr. Ingrasci said. "Those of us who want to play by the rules are sitting here with our hands tied and quite angry about it." Mim Landry, director of the training and education project of the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco, agreed, saying he has seen MDMA users come into the clinic. Placing the drug in schedule one, he said, "primarily has the effect of taking MDMA away from physicians. It does not, by any means, take It out of street use." Schedule one, the most restrictive category under the law, "puts the burden on the scientist to show you've met certain basic tests concerning toxicity before you give it to humans," and requires approval of the federal Food and Drug Administration. said Mr. Haislip. Dr. Grinspoon maintains there are so many layers of application and approval and documentation for schedule one drugs that using them for human research is not a realistic option. "Schedule one is a black hole from which no light emerges, Including research light," he said. Although he only took MDMA once and has never used it on a patient. Dr. Grinspoon said enough anecdotal evidence is available from psychiatrists and patients to convince him to take on the federal bureaucracy. Dr. Grinspoon and a group of psychiatrists took the government to court to get MDMA reclassified to a less restrictive category so that it could be used In both animal and human research. "We want to put MDMA to the test," he said. "We want to determine: one, is there something to this therapeutic experience, then, how do we maximize its use and how do we deal with whatever toxic side-effects there are." A U.S. Court of Appeals Judge in Boston ruled In the psychiatrists' favor and recently refused a request from the DEA to rehear the case. The court's action left MDMA in limbo as the DEA decided on its next move. After the Dec. 14 decision, the agency removed MDMA from the controlled substances list. However, under another law that took effect a little more than a year ago aimed at so-called "designer drugs," MDMA Is still Illegal. Mr. Haislip said, because it is similar in chemical structure — called an analogue — to the drug MDA, which is illegal. "It's more complicated" to convict somebody under the analogue act. Mr. Haislip said, because prosecutors must prove the drug was made for human consumption and that it truly is an analogue of a controlled drug. Against that background, the court's decision in the psychiatrists' suit apparently prompted several prosecutors to drop charges against MDMA manufacturers and dealers, he said. "I think it will have some unfortunate effect" on increasing street traffic, Mr. Haislip said of the court order. If word spreads that prosecutors are not willing to press for convictions, and more home manufacturing and selling subsequently occurs. Eager to get MDMA back under control, DEA administrator John C. Lawn last week signed an order returning the drug to schedule one —this time based on reasoning that was not shot down in court. The court had said DEA's original reason for putting MDMA in schedule one — that the Food and Drug Administration had not approved it — was not acceptable justification for claiming that the drug has no medical benefit. Therefore, Mr. Haislip recommended to Administrator Lawn that MDMA be reclassified in schedule one, based on a different line of reasoning—that individual patient experiences do not establish medical need and controlled scientific studies have not been done. The new regulation should be published in the Federal Register this week, Mr. Haislip said. Dr. Grinspoon said he has not decided how he will respond to the latest DEA move. He said he worries that continuing controversy and publicity about the drug may fuel interest in it among abusers. The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported results of a survey of Stanford University students that found 39 percent had used MDMA. "In a drug that we know so little about, it's alarming that students are using it the way that they are," Dr. Grinspoon said. The psychiatrist said he recognizes that his own admission to having used the drug adds to the curiosity. "The kids say well, 'If Grinspoon did it. why shouldn't we do it?' " he said. He said, however, he wouldn't use the drug again or give it to patients until animal studies are completed. In Maryland, so far, drug and law enforcement officials said they are not aware that MDMA is used in this state. The lack of controlled studies of MDMA leaves several question marks: how safe it is. for one. It can be fatal to people with heart disease they are not aware of, Dr. Grinspoon said. Because MDMA is an amphetamine, it stimulates the heart and can produce chaotic uncontrolled rhythms in some people whose hearts are not healthy. One heart condition that could be aggravated by MDMA, known as Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome. has no symptoms. Anyone thinking about taking MDMA should undergo medical tests, including an electrocardiogram. to determine If abnormal heart rhythms are present. Dr. Grinspoon said, and people with heart problems should not take it. The Journal of the American Medical Association last March cited five deaths associated with the use of MDMA and a related drug, MDEA, involving uncontrolled heart rhythms in people with underlying heart disease and bizarre behavior that resulted in accidental death. Also, rat studies with the MDMA parent drug MDA have suggested some brain-cell death, but more animal studies are needed to learn about the long-term effects of MDMA, Dr. Grinspoon said. Mr. Landry of Haight-Ashbury said that less than 1 percent of the people who come to the clinic's detoxification center were MDMA users, which may indicate that the drug has less addiction potential than alcohol, cocaine or heroin. Those few who do come for treatment experienced anxiety after taking the drug, or took an overdose and had toxic reactions ranging from slight agitation to panic, extreme anxiety or even psychosis Involving delusions of persecution and belligerence. Another reaction he has seen at the clinic. Mr. Landry said, was only experienced by some people who are self-appointed "road testers" of new drugs and took several capsules a day over a period of weeks. They felt a "sense of detachment from their normal self." he said. Mr. Landry has sought contact nationally with people who have had bad experiences with MDMA and said that during the past four years, he has talked with more than 50 people who had problems with the drug, most Involving anxiety reactions that occurred when "very potent material was transferred from the subconscious to the conscious" mind. Yet, bad experiences with the drug apparently are rare, according to psychiatrists who have used It, and they have not been afraid to use it themselves. Dr. Ingrasci took MDMA with his wife in 1980. "I felt a warm glow and felt that I was OK. The message I got was that it's OK to open up. Like most of us. I get scared by vulnerability on an emotional level," he said. "Yet I have learned that the risk of being hurt is worth It. It turns out when you take away anxiety, defensiveness and fear, you automatically feel more loving." His patients who used the drug included people with cancer women who were sexually abused as children. MDMA "makes you less afraid to remember the truth about your life," the psychiatrist said: "That may not sound like a big deal. But most of us are repressing a lot of unpleasant memories." A person who isolates certain traumatic experiences may develop neurotic and defensive behavior that is rooted In the repressed pain. Dr., Ingrasci said. 'What I think (MDMA) does is remove the fear and allow you to know your whole self." Dr. George Greer, a psychiatrist in Santa Fe, N.M., who has given MDMA to patients, also has used it himself — first in 1980 at home San Francisco at age 30 with a woman, 28, who later became his wife. As the drug took effect, the first thing he noticed was that "my mind got very still and quiet and alert." Then he said he experienced "a very peaceful feeling and a positive attitude about things in general. And Just an acceptance of my situation at the time. No problem was insolvable. "It enabled us to communicate about things we liked and didn't like about each other without feeling threatened emotionally," he said. "Normally. I was inhibited at saying those type of things. "Then I was able to let go of it and forgive her. And we realized that we could really do that kind of communication anytime. with or without MDMA. It was very shortly after that we decided to get married." In therapy, the worst effect of MDMA he saw on patients was that a couple "felt very anxious the next day." However. Dr. Greer said he is unaware of any patient research going on in the United States since' the DEA action in 1985. But "several dozen therapists were using MDMA before it became illegal," he said. 'with patients who had problems stemming from childhood or adult traumatic experiences, people suffering from anxiety, depression and failed intimate experiences. "Without exception, every therapist I know who's given this to patients has found it extremely useful," he said. "In contrast, there are a lot of psychiatrists and government officials who have never given it to patients who are skeptical."
(The Baltimore Sun Baltimore Maryland 21 Feb 1988 Sun Main Edition Page 83)
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Learyfan
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#27101987 - 12/22/20 04:16 AM (3 years, 1 month ago) |
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20th anniversary of Nick Sand's release from prison. But today is also the 1 year anniversary of Richard Alpert/Ram Dass' release from this earthly realm.
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Nature Boy
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan] 1
#27103038 - 12/22/20 07:57 PM (3 years, 1 month ago) |
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I was unaware he had passed. Not sure how I missed that news. Thanks for the sad, but important notation of this occurrence.
Much love, N.B.
-------------------- All submitted posts under this user name are works of pure fiction or outright lies. Any information, statement, or assertion contained therein should be considered pure unadulterated bullshit. Note well: Sorry, but I do not answer PM's unless you are a long-time trusted friend. If you have a question, ask it in the appropriate thread.
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LSD-25


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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Nature Boy] 1
#27103334 - 12/23/20 12:14 AM (3 years, 1 month ago) |
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miss you Richard Alpert
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Learyfan
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Nature Boy]
#27590243 - 12/22/21 05:07 AM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Nature Boy said: I was unaware he had passed. Not sure how I missed that news. Thanks for the sad, but important notation of this occurrence.
Much love, N.B.
Yes sir. He died on this day in 2019. LSD-25, great video.
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Learyfan
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#28108212 - 12/22/22 05:05 AM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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35th anniversary of MDMA going temporarily unscheduled again for a brief time, thanks to Lester Grinspoon. He fought a good fight, but the DEA was too big an evil monster for him to concur in the end.
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Learyfan
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Re: Today in psychedelic history (12/22) [Re: Learyfan]
#28593882 - 12/22/23 10:02 AM (1 month, 5 days ago) |
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Merry Prankster Cathryn Casamo aka Stark Naked would have been 85 years old today.
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