Cary Grant on LSD

[Woodpecker]

http://www.liveland.com/stars/cgrantlsd.htm

The Trip

by John Whalen of the LA Weekly
One morning in April 1962, Cary Grant swallowed four tiny blue pills of lysergic acid diethylamide — LSD. Incredibly, it was the 58-year-old actor’s 72nd acid trip under the supervision of a psychiatrist. Grant relaxed on a plush couch and sipped coffee as the drug began to take effect. During the five-hour session, his running commentary was captured on a small tape recorder for later transcription: "I was noting the growing intensity of light in the room," he recalled at one point, "and at short intervals as I shut my eyes, visions appeared to me. I seemed to be in a world of healthy, chubby little babies’ legs and diapers, and smeared blood, a sort of general menstrual activity taking place. It did not repel me as such thoughts used to."

*
Hardly the suave repartee associated with the star of His Girl Friday and North by Northwest. But as the aging movie idol had already stated in bold public endorsements of the experimental drug, LSD had a way of stripping away cultivated veneers and forcing one to confront unguarded, often unpleasant, emotions. Grant was grateful for his LSD "therapy" — over the course of a decade, he’d drop acid more than 100 times. Among other benefits, he credited LSD with helping him control his drinking and come to terms with unresolved conflicts about his parents.

*"When I first began experimentation," he said on that sunny spring morning, "the drug seemed to loosen deeper fears, as sleep does a nightmare. I had horrifying experiences as participant and spectator, but, with each session, became happier, both while experiencing the drug and in periods between . . . I feel better and feel certain there is curative power in the drug itself."

Grant was just one of hundreds of citizens in the Los Angeles region who participated during the 1950s and early 1960s in unprecedented academic studies of the then-novel pharmaceutical. In just a few short years, of course, LSD would become a chemical taboo, the notorious "hippie psychedelic" vilified by the media, criminalized in every state, classified by the FDA as a Schedule I drug of no medical value and banned globally by international treaty. But before most Americans had heard of lysergic acid diethylamide, here in the shadow of the Hollywood Hills, students, professionals, clergymen, writers, artists and celebrities enthusiastically turned on, tuned in and didn’t drop out.

*"It was a time in the world when scientific research with psychedelic drugs was perfectly acceptable," recalls Dr. Oscar Janiger, the psychiatrist who administered LSD to Cary Grant and more than 900 others in the longest ongoing experiment with LSD on human subjects in a nonclinical environment.

LSD story from Cary Grant Autobiography

Without the ability to fully love or be fully loved, so many of us think that the acquisition of money can bring self-esteem and happiness. I’ve enjoyed friendship with some exceedingly wealthy people. If money brought happiness, then each of them should be ecstatically happy. But I doubt whether any of them is any happier than any of my less well-to-do friends. Money, it seems, attracts more envy than empathy. More lust than love.
In 1932 the practice of psychiatry was little known or respected. The public seemed to regard it, just as I probably did, with skepticism. For years I absurdly treated subjects with which I was unfamiliar, or sports in which I was not proficient, or books which I should have read but didn’t, with disdain. But by 1956, lacking the foundation of early spiritual training and suspecting that there was more happiness available than I seemed able to grasp, I had grown much more tolerant of, and receptive to, the knowledge of others. Other searchers, other sharers. Humanitarians in all fields of endeavor. At the age of 53, after three unsuccessful marriages, either something was wrong with me or, obviously, with the whole sociological and moralistic concepts of our civilization.*
Now, I believe in caring for my health; and I trust you do too. Physical health is a product of, and dependent upon, mental health — one nurtures and nourishes the other. And so, together with a group of other interested Californians — doctors, writers, scientists and artists — and the encouragement of Betsy, who was interested herself, I underwent a series of controlled experiments with Lysergic Acid, a hallucinogenic chemical or drug known as LSD 25. Experiment is perhaps a misleading word; to most people it signifies patronization and objectivity. For my part I anxiously awaited their personal benefits that could be derived from the experiences, and was quite willing to be less than objective. Any man who experiments with something that cannot benefit himself, or add to his happiness, and that of his fellow man in turn, is a fool and a menace to society. I’ve heard that a man here and there died during LSD25 sessions; but then I’ve heard that men died during poker games and while watching horse racing; but that didn’t seem to stop such occupations. Those men might have died anywhere while doing anything. Men have also died testing airplanes and parachutes, vaccines and common cold cures. In attempting to traverse the next step into progress and knowledge, men have always died. But there is a difference between the man who knows what he’s about with a high-powered airplane, and an idiot who puts wings on a bicycle and takes offf from the edge of Niagra Falls.*
LSD 25 is a psychic energizer and the exact opposite in reaction to the addictive drugs and opiates. Indeed, Seconal, or similar sedative, is usually given as an antidote, to quell and offset the effects of LSD 25, if necessary. The action of the chemical releases the subconscious so that it becomes apparent to yourself. So that you can see what transpires in the depth of you mind — and what goes on there you wouldn’t believe, ladies and gentlemen — and learn which misconceptions, guilts and fears, with their resultant repressions, inhibitions and insecurities, have formed the pattern for your past behavior. A successively recurring pattern since childhood.*
The feeling is that of an unmarshaling of the thoughts as you’ve customarily associated them. The lessening of conscious control, similar to the mental process which takes place when we dream. For example, when you’re asleep and your mind no longer concerned with matters and activities of the day, your subconscious often brings itself to your attention by dreaming. With conscious controls relaxed, those thoughts buried deep inside begin to come to the surface in the form of dreams. These dreams, since they appear to us in symbolic guise, are fantasies and, if you will accept the reasoning, could be classified as hallucinations. Such fantasies, or hallucinations, are inside every one of us, waiting to be released, aired and understood. Dreams are really the emotions that we find ourselves reluctant to examine, think about, or meditate upon, while conscious.*

Under the effect of LSD 25, these dreams or hallucinations, if you wish, are speeded up, and interpreted, when properly conducted ba a psychiatrically orientated doctor who sits quietly by, awaiting whatever communication one cares to make — the revealing of a hidden memory seen again from an older, more mature viewpoint, or the dawning of new enlightenment. Then, if the doctor is as skilled as mine was, he carefully proffers a word or key, that can lead to the next release, the next step toward fuller understanding.*

The shock of each revelation brings with it an anguish of sadness for what was not known before in the wasted years of ignorance and, at the same time, an ecstasy of joy at being freed from the shackles of such ignorance.*
One becomes a battleground of old and new beliefs. Of nightmares beyond description. I passed through changing seas of horrifying and happy sights, through a montage of intense hate and love, a mosaic of past impressions assembling and reassembling; through terrifying depths of dark despair replaced by glorious heavenlike religious symbolisms. Session after session. Week after week.
I learned may things in the quiet of that small room. I learned to accept the responsibility for my own actions, and to blame myself and no one else for circumstances of my own creating. I learned that no one else was keeping me unhappy but me; that I could whip myself better than any other guy in the joint.*
I learned that all cliches prove true; which is, of course, the reason for their repetition, even when the meaning has been forgotten by the constant usage.*
I learned that everything is, or becomes, its own opposite. A theory I can sometimes apply, but would find difficult to convey.*
I learned that my dear parents, products of their parents, could know no better than they knew, and began to remember them only ofr the most useful, the best, the wisest of their teachings. They gave me my life and body, the promising combination of the two, and my initial strength; they endowed me with an inquisitive mind. They taught me to feed myself, to walk, to bathe myself and to clothe myself; and I shall think of them always with love now, not only for what the did know but, even, for what the didn’t know.*
For a slow learner, I learned a great deal — and the result of it all was rebirth. A new assessment of life and myself in it. An immeasurably beneficial cleansing of so many needless fears and guilts, and a release of the tensions that had been the result of them. Not a cleansing and release of them all, certainly, for that would be the absolute — the innocence of the newly born baby with an unformed ego still close to God — and I cannot experience the absolute until I have unreservedly returned to the comfort of God.*
In life there is no end to getting well. Perhaps death itself is the end to getting well. Or, if you prefer to think as I do, the beginning of being well.*
I have heard and now believe it to be so, that drowning men in the last seconds of life relive the whole of it again; probably in order to cleanse themselves before meeting the great Maker, just as our religions instruct; and everyone is accustomed to the phenomenon of elderly people remembering their childhood with extraordinary clarity, yet forgetting what went on only yesterday. We call it second childhood, but it is undoubtedly the same process, undergone at a slower pace, as that experienced by the drowning man.*
LSD 25 is no longer obtainable in America. Orthodox psychiatrists using the slower customary methods resisted its usage, and it’s unlikely that it will be reintroduced unless some brave, venturesome and respected psychiatrist publicly speaks out in its favor. Meanwhile, the authorities have banned its use; at least for therapeutic purpose. Although how men can be authorities on something they’ve never tried mystifies me. However, in the hands o f thrill-seekers it could, like whiskey and the automobile, be exceedingly dangerous. I suppose all new methods, new theories, new inventions go through the filter of trial and error, acceptance and rejection. Past the inevitable parade of scoffers and stone-throwers.
Yes, it takes a long time for happiness to break through either to the individual or nations. It will take just as longa s people themselves continue to confound it. You’ll find that nowadays they put you away for singing and dancing in the street. “Here now, let’s have none of that happiness, my boy. You cut that out; waking up the neighbors!” “Those darn neighbors need waking up, I can tell you, constable!”*
I suppose if a healthy youngster walked along a street in a bathing suit to allow his or her youthful pores a little more oxygen from the meager amount obtainable in our smog-infested cities, he or she would be arrested. “Here now, none of that trying to keep a healthy body in this city. Go to the beach!” “In which direction , officer? This is Kansas City.” Even bare feet and a rare acquaintance with the earth beneath them would be sufficient to disassociate you from the association of your embarrassed associates. Civilization! Oh, brother! And you, too, sister!*
I have made over 60 pictures and lived in Hollywood for more than 30 years. Thirty years spent in the stimulating company of hard-working, excitable, dedicated, loving, serious, honest, good people. Casts and crews. I recognize and respect them. I know their faults and their insecurities. I hope they know and forgive mine. Thirty years ago my hair was black and wavy. Today it’s gray and bristly. But today people in cars, stopped alongside me at a traffic light, smile at me!*
I feel fine. Alone. But fine. My mother is quite elderly. My wives have divorced me, and I await a woman with the best qualities of each. I will endow her with those qualities because they will be in my own point of view.*
As a philosopher once said, “You cannot judge the day until the night.” Since it is for me evening, or at least teatime, I can now look back and assess the day. It’s been a glorious adventure up to here — even the saddest parts — and I look forward to seeing the rest of the film. Just as I did in 1932 when I sat in that Paramount Studio office. I took up the pen and wrote for the first time “Cary Grant.” And that’s who, it seems, I am. Well, as some profound fellow said, “I’d be a nut to go through all that again, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.” And that goes for this autobiography.

[ May 30, 2005, 05:18 AM: Message edited by: Woodpecker ]

[Buzz]

Woodpecker, you must have seen that PBS American Masters about Grant, right? He's a very interesting guy. I had been thinking about picking up his Autobiographical essay (as PBS kept refering to it). Looks like you did. He has some good insights into the LSD experience.
Thanks for posting this.

[Woodpecker]

Yes, Buzz, I saw that documentary. Good stuff. A PBS station is one of the four that we get here on ye olde scavenged television, and it's so much nicer than much of the crapola on the commercial stations. The documentary on Jack Johnson, "Unforgivable Blackness," was the greatest so far.

Grant comes off as a really well-rounded and human kind of guy. His journey from street urchin to acrobat to movie star to acid mystic.

(Linguistics is my drug these days. I take it in three-credit doses, sometimes two doses at once. I feel like I can quit anytime I want. Effects? It's like surfing a giant wave of pure information.)

[nanouk]

hehe, i read about his love for psychedelics b4...in fact, i believe it was the same article...he was from the capitol of my resident borough, y'know...Bristol, Avon.
One of my favourite actors, indeed, what a comedian! What a man to have known...

Have a Nice Day!
[img]smile.gif[/img]

Love and Respect,
~N~

[Isaiah Mpski]

When you look at pictures of Quanah Parker,can you imagine what it was like to be with him?
He lived to be 150.
Quanah Parker,the first religiously oriented psychedelic explorer.
Founder of the Native American Church.
See yahoo group Pick Over Flow photos of Quanah and His bodyguard.

[ May 31, 2005, 04:02 PM: Message edited by: Isaiah Mpski ]

[jezebelle]

Hi Isaiah, nice to hear from you, I'm glad you are still kicking!

Could someone please provide a link to these pictures, I get a jumbled mess, with boxes running through text and pictures off the corner.
Usually through someone's link, I can get stuff.
I am still curious.
thanks, thanks, jez2

[eaglesyes]

yup now wood that is what i talkin bout wishing we could get back to into the foods for the soul that is what is wrong with the world today not enough folks trip anymore because it is taboo that is a shame - we can learn so much from the use of psychedelics i sure miss it
dayum
let's fight for our rights to nourish the soul and open the mind ie;break open our heads and take in all that it has to offer
thanks for the great post
folks would see the forest through the trees better i think if they could open their minds and see the big picture we wouldn't war and such well
peace out

[nanouk]

eagleseyes wrote: "folks would see the forest through the trees better i think if they could open their minds and see the big picture we wouldn't war and such well "

what worries me is when folks can't see it anyway, 'cause their self centered fog is too thick...no psychedelics in the world can capture the light and make it last...either you carry the divine light, or you don't...

Love and Respect,

~N~

ps. Daniel, i know i have confronted You on a couple of occasions, it is not personal, but i must add: I LOVE this forum as much as i LOVE LIFE itself, well almost...thank you for catching this many, and i hope many more thousands after, with your book, i promise You, i will read BOTH one day, when i have enough peace and move house so that my electrical equipment will work better, i am now down to two ceiling lights working, and have gone through 10-12 different table or desk lamps, they all blow up and "die"
)0:
like i said, i need a cave, because electrics don't like me...
Thank You.
~N~

[ June 03, 2005, 02:18 AM: Message edited by: nanouk ]

[Isaiah Mpski]

Nanouk.Have you thought about where you would go in case of large American disaster.
I have some real nice caves on our 40 acres on Lake Eufaula Oklahoma.
You can see them if you go to Yahoo groups,join Pick Over Flow and look at Jon's Pictures.In of of those three pictures you can see Interstate 40,it crosses lake Eufaula and my land is on the east shore.South of the highway is a large gully,the sides of which are appx 150 ft tall.
Probably at least a thousand years ago this was home to several hundred Caddos.I suppose some lived in the caves on my property.Giant Oaks are there.Plenty of them to build a homegrown house.

Nanouk.Do you know why the white man gave Oklahoma to the Indians?

[snow]

Nanouk, I love this forum too. I have just finished reading Daniel's book again, a year later. Tour de Force, they say in my profession. Only other book I read twice was Villette, Bronte. Daniel, I feel you is really onto to some stuff, hohoho Santa Claus, i'd say. Although, must say, umph, I am slogging it thru and puzzling out the Kali and Atomic Death Sex threads.

[silentwolf]

I found Daniel's book highly interesting as well, it's what led me to this forum. It's interesting to hear the tale of another's journey towards Awakening.

Speaking of Awakening, Daniel, how has your progress in sensing/motivating spiritual energies come along? You don't speak much of it, and I was wondering if you'd been practicing.

[nanouk]

isaiah, tell me why the white man gave oklahoma to the natives, if there is such a thing as giving something that doesn't belong to them anyway...

ps: how's your alter ego/es?
(Van Gogh, etc)

~n~

[Isaiah Mpski]

Oh no,no,no,Nanouk.
Someone has to own the ground
if it is only the first moccasin
foot filled way of life and a Comanche.

In our case it was probably the Chinese Communists,
maybe. There were probably several people running west from the Serbs however.Long haired,blond,and beautiful.

I really don't know if the first were white or red.I suspect they will end up Read.

jesus i want to do it with you.

[ June 04, 2005, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: Isaiah Mpski ]

[Buzz]

You want to fuck Jesus?

Hey Woodpecker, seems this thread has been de-railed. I saw the Jack Johnson special as well. I taped it even, though I'm afraid I've taped over it accidently. One thing I really like about folks like Jack Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, and a handful of others. They are colorless, or at least never let race get in the way of their talent. "Keep on movin', straight ahead, Midnight Lightening striking right now."

[Buzz]

Here's a bit more about Grant and other celebrities who did acid back in the 60's.
LSD and celebrities (and more)

[nanouk]

"Have you thought about where you would go in case of large American disaster."

in my case, America is on the other side of the Atlantic, but i live on an ancient volcano, the springs in my back garden are rising and my plants are suffering with ferrous overdose....as far as i know, noone is looking into the activity underground around here, but i have a feeling they should...
...the water rising(slowly so far) isn't only full of iron, my hand gets warm if i hold my hand over it...so where would we all go, if we had the chance to escape it? and for that matter, i study, and i enquire, i live every day as if i am a new-born, just a bit wiser every time,
and i'd rather do something to figure it all out, than worry.
my time nearly came a few weeks ago, (while on acid)face to face with a speeding 1200 cc motor bike, a better way to go is engulfed by the Great Mother, or Mamapacha.

Have a Nice Day, Y'all! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Love and Respect,
~N~

[ June 07, 2005, 01:54 AM: Message edited by: nanouk ]

[JCCamp007]

Will you send me an airplane ticket.Make it via Tel Aviv and we can fulfil all the Old Testament prophecy.

Old frog,new pond.Old pond,new frog.Splash.

[Woodpecker]

Hey Buzz. Thanks for the link. There's a book edited by Cynthia Horowitz, Winona Ryder's mom, about women's drug experiences, that has a long passage from that same piece of Anais Nin's writing about her LSD experience(s?). Exquisite writing and insights. The psychiatrist seemed to be trying to peer inside her mind at one point, she says.

[ June 08, 2005, 07:13 AM: Message edited by: Woodpecker ]