their experience, and their wisdom. It is a shame that at least for now
their healing practice depends on acts of civil disobedience.
I spent a productive and pleasurable year as a fellow of the Radcliffe
Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, which gave me the opportunity
to research and write the history of psychedelic research in the city where
an important chapter of it took place. The institute offered the perfect
environment for pursuing a project that touches on so many different
disciplines: I only had to walk down the hall to consult a brain scientist, a
biologist, an anthropologist, and an investigative reporter. While at
Radcliffe, I was blessed to work with a dogged undergraduate research
assistant who helped me navigate the Harvard archives and turned up
one hidden gem after another: thank you, Teddy Delwiche. I also owe a
debt to Ed Wasserman, my dean at the Graduate School of Journalism at
Berkeley, for granting me time off from teaching so that I could go to
Cambridge and, later, complete the book.
Back in Berkeley, Bridget Huber did brilliant work, first as a research
assistant and then as a fact-checker; that this is the most thoroughly
sourced of my books owes entirely to her diligence and skill. Several of
my colleagues at Berkeley contributed hugely to my education in
neuroscience and psychology: David Presti, Dacher Keltner, and Alison
Gopnik enriched this book in more ways than they realize and, in the case
of David and his partner, Kristi Panik, who read a draft of the
neuroscience chapter, saved me from errors large and small. (Though
they bear no responsibility for any errors that may remain.) Mark
Edmundson supplied some crucial early advice that helped shape the
narrative, and Mark Danner was, as ever, an invaluable sounding board
on our walks at Inspiration Point. I count myself especially lucky to be
close friends with an editor as astute and generous as Gerry Marzorati;
his comments on the manuscript were invaluable and saved you, dear
reader, from having to read several thousand unnecessary words.
My first foray into the subject of psychedelics came in a 2015 piece in
the New Yorker, “The Trip Treatment”; thanks to Alan Burdick, the gifted
editor who assigned it, and David Remnick, for seeing it fit to publish; the
piece opened all sorts of doors.
For crucial research assistance along the way, as well as their
indispensable online library, I’m deeply grateful to Earth and Fire, the
frankie
(Frankie)
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