Confronting the figure of the "mad scientist" in psychedelic history: LSD's use as a correctional tool in the postwar period.

The figure of the 'mad scientist' associated with unethical LSD experiments persists in public imagination even as psychedelic stigma fades. Scientists and humanities scholars have tried to separate careful from ignorant use of psychedelics, but historical examples from Canada show that knowledgeable psychedelic therapists also used LSD on vulnerable populations in correctional facilities. Enthusiasm about the drug's potential led experienced therapists to apply it in institutional settings like prisons. This history reveals how modern industrial society's institutional context shaped past psychedelic therapy and suggests today's therapists must consider how this broader context affects their work.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Since reports about CIA-funded LSD studies came out in the 1970s, psychedelic drugs have invoked images of unethical experimentation and "mad scientists" in the public imagination. Even now, as the stigma surrounding psychedelics diminishes in the 21st century, the figure of the "mad scientist" continues to occupy a space in what Ido Hartogsohn calls the "collective set and setting," the larger framework of cultural understandings that shape how individuals experience psychedelic drugs. Scientists and humanities scholars who study these drugs have responded to this issue by drawing boundaries between those who used psychedelics carefully and those who used them ignorantly. Yet these boundaries were not always so clear in the past. Drawing on historical examples of LSD's use as a correctional tool in Canada, I show how enthusiasm about the drug's potential led several experienced and knowledgeable psychedelic therapists to use it on vulnerable populations in diverse institutional settings, such as correctional facilities. These examples reveal how the institutional context of modern industrial societies shaped the application of psychedelic therapy in the past and suggest that today's therapists need to carefully consider how this broader context impacts their work.