Psychedelic Pioneer and Confidence Man
Ram Dass once recalled the first time Hollingshead gave Leary LSD.  Leary, Ram Dass (who was then still Richard Alpert), Ralph Metzner, and others from their group were staying at Millbrook and continuing their research with psylocybin that they&#x27;d started at Harvard when Hollingshead turned up and offered Leary LSD.  Leary at first turned his nose up at LSD, but eventually tried it.<p>Then, Alpert reported, Leary did not speak for days.  Everyone in the group was scared, and Alpert told everyone to stay away from the LSD while they waited for Leary to come back to them.  After five days Leary finally spoke and the first word out of his mouth was &quot;Wow&quot;.  Then they all tried it.<p>I can&#x27;t find it now, but I also remember hearing an episode of the Psychedelic Salon[1] podcast where Lorenzo Hagerty talks about how he came across an old letter of Myron Stolaroff&#x27;s where the latter warned another psychedelic luminary about Hollingshead, calling him a consummate liar and saying that he shouldn&#x27;t be trusted.<p>Incidentally, Stolaroff was deeply hurt by being conned by yet another psychedelic luminary, Al Hubbard, another legendary and mysterious Johnny Appleseed of LSD.<p>Psychedelics certainly do seem to attract tricksters (perhaps because they also attract naive idealists, who are irresistibly ripe pickings for the tricksters).  Hollingshead, Leary, and Hubbard were all tricksters, as was Sasha Shulgin, who was very fond of practical jokes.<p>There was an interesting &quot;psychedelic reunion&quot; between Leary, Hubbard, Humphrey Osmond (who coined the term &quot;psychedelic&quot;), Sidney Cohen and others at Oscar Janiger&#x27;s home in 1979.[2]<p>I found the video of this reunion fascinating because it seemed that all these larger than life psychedelic pioneers, who&#x27;d probably all done psychedelics hundreds if not thousands of times seemed quite ordinary, uncomfortable, unenlightened, and even gruff and sour to one another.<p>For instance, Leary seemed to desperately need to be the center of attention and Hubbard seemed extraordinarily uncomfortable and taciturn while Leary needled him.  Later I learned that Hubbard absolutely detested Leary.  That explained it, and provided evidence (if any more was needed) that psychedelics didn&#x27;t inevitably turn people in to saints or enlightened beings who love everyone and who&#x27;s feathers couldn&#x27;t be ruffled by anything.<p>A couple other interesting recordings were the &quot;Lone Pine Stories&quot; with Myron Stolaroff [3], where he talks about being given LSD for the first time by Hubbard, and a Q&amp;A session[4] by Stolaroff and Gary Fisher, who&#x27;d treated schizophrenic children with LSD.[5]<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;psychedelicsalon.com&#x2F;category&#x2F;people&#x2F;myron-stolaroff&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;psychedelicsalon.com&#x2F;category&#x2F;people&#x2F;myron-stolaroff...</a><p>[2] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=U-sfDEEcMQ8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=U-sfDEEcMQ8</a><p>[3] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mMZ-oopMBog&amp;list=PLCB4ED9E989E17EF6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mMZ-oopMBog&amp;list=PLCB4ED9E98...</a><p>[4] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=qMUO0dP77rI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=qMUO0dP77rI</a><p>[5] - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.maps.org&#x2F;news-letters&#x2F;v07n3&#x2F;07318fis.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.maps.org&#x2F;news-letters&#x2F;v07n3&#x2F;07318fis.html</a>