How to Change Your Mind

There was no point in trying to get inside the mind; it was, in B. F.
Skinner’s famous phrase, “a black box.” Instead, you measured what you
could measure, which was outward behavior. The work with psychedelics
would eventually spark a revival of interest in the subjective dimensions
of the mind—in consciousness. How ironic that it took, of all things, a
chemical—LSD-25—to bring interiority back into psychology.
And yet, successful as the new therapy seemed to be, there was a
nagging little problem with the theoretical model on which it was based.
When the therapists began to analyze the reports of volunteers, their
subjective experiences while on LSD bore little if any resemblance to the
horrors of the DTs, or to madness of any kind. To the contrary, their
experiences were, for the most part, incredibly—and bafflingly—positive.
When Osmond and Hoffer began to catalog their volunteers’ session
reports, “psychotic changes”—hallucinations, paranoia, anxiety—
sometimes occurred, but there were also descriptions of, say, “a
transcendental feeling of being united with the world,” one of the most
common feelings reported. Rather than madness, most volunteers
described sensations such as a new ability “to see oneself objectively”;
“enhancement in the sensory fields”; profound new understandings “in
the field of philosophy or religion”; and “increased sensitivity to the
feelings of others.”* In spite of the powerful expectancy effect, symptoms
that looked nothing like those of insanity were busting through the
researchers’ preconceptions.
For many of the alcoholics treated at Weyburn hospital, the core of the
LSD experience seemed to involve something closer to transcendence, or
spiritual epiphany, than temporary psychosis. Osmond and Hoffer began
to entertain doubts about their delirium tremens model and, eventually,
to wonder if perhaps the whole psychotomimetic paradigm—and name
for these drugs—might need retooling. They received a strong push in
that direction from Aldous Huxley after his mescaline experience, which
he declared bore scant resemblance to psychosis. What a psychiatrist
might diagnose as depersonalization, hallucinations, or mania might
better be thought of as instances of mystical union, visionary experience,
or ecstasy. Could it be that the doctors were mistaking transcendence for
insanity?
At the same time, Osmond and Hoffer were learning from their
volunteers that the environment in which the LSD session took place