The long, strange success of the Grateful Dead

Garcia told Denserow that while times may have changed, the scene remained just as important all these years later. ”[Haight-Ashbury’s hippies] “They’re still doing pretty much the same thing they did back then… except now they’ve got 15 years of experience and are experts at what they do, just like we’re experts at what we do, in a way.” He said that when the Grateful Dead started, America was not much different from the staid days of the 1950s. Or not…the moment they saw the long hair and all kinds of eccentricities, that was it. ”

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They may have arrived peacefully, but it’s easy to see how the rebellious lifestyle of these wild-haired hippies alarmed the newcomers. In fact, the band’s formation was closely tied to the glorification of LSD taking. Hallucinogens were discovered by Swiss chemists in 1938 albert hoffman. Years later, when he accidentally ingested the drug through his fingertips, he experienced a vision similar to the one he described. “A fantastic photograph, an extraordinary form with an intense, kaleidoscopic play of color.” Although Hoffman argued for decades that LSD could help treat mental illness, others envisioned entirely different uses for its potentially dangerous psychedelic properties.

electric kool aid acid test

Early in the Cold War, the CIA created a secret program to research mind control. The group, known by its code name MK-Ultra, funded experiments on unsuspecting patients, including prisoners in psychiatric facilities and prisons, using methods such as hallucinogenic drugs, sensory deprivation, and electroshock therapy. In 1960, CIA-funded researchers at California’s Menlo Park Hospital were paying students $40 a day to take LSD.

One of the volunteers was Ken Kesey, who would go on to write “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” In awe of the still-legal drug’s hallucinogenic effects, Kesey began distributing it to friends, and in 1964 he assembled a group of like-minded people called the “Merry Pranksters” and set out across the country in brightly painted buses. The journey was recorded by author Tom Wolfe. his book Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. A year later, in California, he began hosting a series of parties he dubbed “Acid Tests” to promote LSD consumption. The Grateful Dead performed at the second event, held in San Jose on December 4th. first gig. The band had previously performed as The Warlocks, but it turned out that another group with the same name existed, so Garcia’s gang changed the name to what they would be known for for decades to come.