Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / Nazi Human Experiments: The True History Of World War II Truth Serums | Norman Ohler

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Nazi Human Experiments: The True History Of World War II Truth Serums | Norman Ohler · The Smart Cookies podcast

0:05
A privilege and a pleasure to welcome author
0:07
Norman Ohler back to the show. Norman, thank
0:09
you for taking the time yet again. Of course,
0:13
my pleasure. It was a great conversation last
0:16
time, so let's make it great again. Well, before
0:21
the show, you told me you don't remember the
0:23
last time because you've done so many podcasts.
0:26
I appreciate it. I don't remember my name, but
0:31
let's go for it. Last time you were on, we talked
0:34
about your freakishly delicious non -fiction
0:36
book, Blitzed, Drugs in Nazi Germany. And during
0:39
that conversation, we discussed everything from
0:41
crystal meth -induced marches of the Wehrmacht
0:44
to Hitler's cocaine speedball ass injections
0:49
administered to him by his, if I remember correctly,
0:52
gross and unwashed personal physician, Dr. Theo
0:56
Morel, which you believe had a profound impact
0:59
on Hitler's demented state of mind especially
1:02
as the war was drawing to a close so if you haven't
1:05
listened to that conversation everybody do yourself
1:07
a favor and do so immediately immediately now
1:10
in the meantime you came out with a sort of a
1:12
spiritual successor of blitz which is called
1:14
tripped nazi germany the cia and the dawn of
1:18
the psychedelic age which is equally unputdownable
1:22
i have to say now the alternative title of the
1:24
book however which was used in slovenian my native
1:28
tongue, is LSD for mom. Because as you very touchingly
1:33
described in the beginning chapter, you actually
1:35
started to investigate the history of acid because
1:37
of your mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis, believing
1:41
that microdosing might alleviate her symptoms,
1:44
right? Yes. Where did you hear that LSD might
1:48
benefit people with Alzheimer's? There was a
1:52
white paper by an American startup company called
1:55
Ulusis, which had done phase one clinical studies
2:01
with microdoses of LSD on Alzheimer patients,
2:04
probably just a few. And those results were promising.
2:10
Also, it's neuroscientifically established, or
2:15
at least people think that what's happening in
2:18
the brain is that. LSD animates, I mean, it certainly
2:24
interacts with the 5 -HT2A receptors, the serotonin
2:29
receptors. And those are the receptors that also
2:32
suffer from Alzheimer's. So it would make sense
2:35
that low dosages of LSD continuously given might
2:41
help. And those phase one studies showed that
2:43
it actually does help. So I thought it might
2:46
be good for my mom. And was it? I thought it
2:50
was, and my father thought as well. And I couldn't
2:56
really ask her if she thought it was good, but
2:58
she was certainly more animated when she took
3:00
it, whenever she took it. Not only animated,
3:03
but also cognitively enhanced, like able to read
3:07
the newspaper again, which she wasn't able to
3:10
do so before for about a year. So my father actually
3:14
spoke of a miracle, medicinal miracle. This is
3:20
just anecdotal, you know, it's not a study. It's
3:23
just what happened in our family. But it was
3:25
quite touching, actually. So she 100 % reacted
3:30
to the LSD in a positive way. Did you do this
3:33
with like the blessings of her doctors or how
3:36
does the medical profession view this? Well,
3:38
I wasn't involved in that process because my
3:42
father's kind of taking care of her and that
3:45
kind of was full on taking care of her. She's
3:49
now in a home, so he's not taking care of her
3:51
like that anymore. But he was in charge and he
3:56
was speaking to their doctor in a German small
4:00
town. And the doctor, who had no idea about LSD,
4:05
basically shrugged. But he also said there's
4:09
nothing out there against dementia, so why not
4:12
try it? I mean, my father had been kind of skeptical
4:15
because he had been a judge. So he's not really
4:18
a drug person. But he also read the study. I
4:21
spoke to an Alzheimer expert, one of the leading
4:24
Alzheimer experts in Germany, showing him the
4:26
study. And he said it's quite a good study. So
4:31
we were kind of confident that it might work.
4:36
And also LSD, I mean, I don't see any danger.
4:41
We didn't see any danger, especially in low dosages.
4:44
I mean, we didn't give her... sort of microgravity.
4:47
We gave her 12 .5, which is a microdose. The
4:53
risk was very low. But there still was a risk
4:55
because it's not properly examined. What can
4:59
go wrong? She had Alzheimer's already. Yeah,
5:02
yeah. Sometimes you need to take a little risk
5:06
in life. Yeah, I totally agree. Do you microdose?
5:13
Just a second. Someone knocked on my door. I'm
5:15
very sorry. I have no answer. All good. Maybe
5:17
the LSD dealer. All right. I'm back. Was it the
5:23
LSD dealer? Okay, cool. All right. So the story
5:29
goes something like this. In search of new pharmaceuticals,
5:33
new drugs, the Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman.
5:36
famously synthesized LSD, I believe, in 1938.
5:39
I mean, I say famously, but I think what's actually
5:42
famous in this story was him ingesting a heroic
5:44
dose of his own miracle discovery and trying
5:48
to drive himself home while unexpectedly tripping
5:51
balls like a space cadet. Can you tell us about
5:54
this legendary bicycle ride? In fact, tell us
5:57
about the whole day that he had. Well, I mean,
6:00
he was a normal Swiss chemist and he had... involuntarily
6:06
taken some LSD when he synthesized it in 1943
6:10
on a Friday. I think it was April 16. What is
6:14
today? March. Well, April 16. And he felt a bit
6:22
weird. He was looking for a stimulant. I mean,
6:26
he didn't know what a psychedelic was. And so
6:28
on Monday, April 19, he decided to... to do like
6:34
a voluntary test with the substance. And he took
6:39
250 micrograms. He thought that was a very low
6:43
dosage because micrograms is not much, you know.
6:47
But for LSD, it's a very strong dosage, which
6:51
we know now, which he didn't know because he
6:53
was the first one ever taking LSD. And I would
6:57
imagine that also the LSD that he made in the
6:59
lab of the Swiss pharmaceutical company was quite...
7:02
Good, you know, pure and strong. So he had a
7:05
very strong trip, but he didn't know what a trip
7:07
was. So he had a horror trip. Because that's
7:11
a bad setting if you receive the drug without
7:13
knowing that you're receiving the drug. So he
7:19
thought he was poisoned. But then he cycled home.
7:23
His assistant cycled with him. That's the famous
7:27
bicycle ride. That's why on April 19th every
7:30
year you have... People on LSD riding bicycles
7:33
through towns in Europe. And in America, probably
7:36
too. Maybe even in Japan. Probably not in Japan.
7:39
When he got home, he called his doctor. His doctor
7:42
came. His assistant called the doctor, I think.
7:45
Because he was so out of it. The doctor didn't
7:49
notice any worrisome signs. His heart rate was
7:54
fine. His blood pressure was fine. Everything
7:56
seemed totally normal. Because LSD is that. It
8:01
has that special quality of being very potent
8:04
in very small quantities. So you basically take
8:07
nothing and your mind reacts very strongly to
8:10
it. So you don't have a lot of physical side
8:13
effects at all. How did he reflect on this experience?
8:20
Did he ever take acid again or was he too horrified?
8:23
Well, later on in life, he said the horror trip
8:25
is actually the best trip because you learn.
8:28
most about yourself, about your fears. And it
8:32
wasn't only horror. I mean, a horror trip is
8:34
not only horror. It's just overwhelmed and might
8:38
get scared. But there's also, you know, because
8:40
the stuff is so potent, especially when you take
8:43
it the first time, you also might have very beautiful
8:46
revelations and visions. And he had also very
8:50
beautiful experiences. And then suddenly it got
8:54
less. It's also very smooth. The LSD wears off
8:57
very smoothly. It just gets less, and then you're
9:02
back to normal, kind of. He was a little bit
9:05
exhausted, so he was a bit tired, so he took
9:07
the next day off. Didn't go to work. Just wrote
9:11
a report to his boss saying that they discovered
9:14
something quite unusual, that he doesn't know
9:16
really what it is, but it was quite interesting.
9:22
So he... continued taking it like he then took
9:25
lower dosages he was experimenting with micro
9:28
doses already back then with mini doses of like
9:31
20 micrograms so yeah he continued doing it for
9:35
the rest of his life basically um he developed
9:40
like analogs of lsd variations of it so he was
9:45
he became quite interested in psychedelic medicines
9:48
Now, in step with my morbid curiosity, I'm happy
9:51
to report that we're going to spend some time
9:53
with the Nazis again, although the drug of choice
9:55
obviously isn't going to be meth anymore. This
9:59
will sound like the plot of a particularly trashy
10:02
exploitation movie, but it's true, as bonkers
10:04
as it sounds. The Nazis, in a frantic search
10:08
for a truth serum, as well as mind control weapons,
10:12
actually utilized acid at concentration at Dachau.
10:18
one of the concentration camps, didn't they?
10:20
Well, that was the story that I found, you know,
10:23
because when I researched for Blitz, for meth
10:28
and other normal Nazi drugs, I also went to the
10:32
Dachau camp, to the archives there, and saw that
10:37
the SS had done psychedelic research, which was
10:40
surprising to me because the Nazis were not really
10:43
a psychedelic movement. So I wondered what actually
10:47
happened. And it was connected to their search
10:49
for a truth drug, which is a very Nazi thing.
10:52
The idea that you give someone a drug and then
10:57
you can control his mind or her mind. But it
11:03
was the first time I heard about this. And it
11:06
didn't say LSD. It said mescaline and another
11:09
odorless taste of the substance. And this was
11:11
late 43, 44. So my suspicion, of course, was
11:16
that it might have been LSD because LSD was developed
11:19
in April 43. So I was trying to find proof of
11:27
the connection. I was trying to find that this
11:30
odorless taste of substance was actually LSD
11:32
because I thought maybe that can shed light on
11:36
the later troubled history of LSD, the substance
11:41
becoming illegal. being utilized first by the
11:45
CIA. So I was trying to, you know, tell that
11:49
story. So I went to the archives of Sandoz in
11:52
Switzerland, Basel. Sandoz is the company that
11:55
developed LSD. And it is now the company of Novartis.
12:02
They acquired Sandoz in the 90s, Novartis being
12:06
one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in
12:08
the world. So I was trying to look in the archive.
12:12
First, the archivist just gave me the lab book
12:14
of Albert Hoffman, which he was very proud of,
12:17
the actual original book where Hoffman wrote
12:20
in his handwriting when he took the LSD on April
12:25
19th and what happened to him. It was quite interesting
12:28
to see that in the original, but it doesn't really
12:31
shed light on the Nazi connection, which I didn't
12:34
even know existed. I just had a suspicion that
12:38
it would exist. Because mescaline is not really
12:42
good as a truth drug. It tastes bitter usually.
12:45
It's natural mescaline. I'm not sure about synthetic
12:48
mescaline. I think it also tastes bitter. Like
12:51
most drugs actually taste bitter. So slipping
12:55
someone mescaline into the coffee would change
12:59
the taste of the coffee. So you can't really
13:01
do it without the person noticing it. While LSD,
13:07
because it works in such low... you can put a
13:12
drop of LSD in a coffee, no one will taste the
13:14
difference. So LSD is a much better truth drug
13:17
than mescaline. So I was not finding anything,
13:22
and then I thought I have to actually look at
13:25
the papers of the CEO of Sandoz, because it wouldn't
13:31
be Hoffman. He's just a chemist, even though
13:33
he's very famous for developing LSD, but he didn't
13:36
really play a role in the distribution of it.
13:40
That was the job of, you know, the distribution
13:43
channels of the company, which was headed by
13:46
a guy called Stoll, which is the Swiss CEO of
13:50
Sandus. And his papers I wasn't able to access
13:57
because the archivist didn't really want to show
13:59
them to me, which made... Head flag. Well, I
14:04
don't think he knew. He was just... He kind of
14:08
complained to me that all the researchers always
14:10
want to look for hidden stuff about LSD and no
14:15
one ever finds anything. It's always boring to
14:18
him also, always showing the same LSD archive
14:21
stuff. He said Sandoz made so many more interesting
14:26
products, which is of course not true. I mean,
14:29
they made many more products, but they're not
14:31
as interesting as LSD. So I asked him if he had
14:37
ever seen LSD and he said, no. How can I see
14:40
it? It's illegal. But I had some LSD with me
14:44
and I showed it to him and it had the old logo
14:46
of Sandoz printed on it. It's like an homage
14:50
by the rogue chemists who produced them. And
14:54
he... was kind of i mean not kind of he was surprised
15:00
you know he's like wow this is our old logo how
15:03
does this happen like he didn't know anything
15:04
about illegal lsd basically like he didn't know
15:08
i mean he probably heard of it that people still
15:10
use lsd but it's like a cult you know and chemists
15:14
actually print the old logo that was kind of
15:16
interesting to him hopefully he took it in front
15:21
of you and then Well, I would have to go on a
15:25
trip with him in the archives and then really
15:27
go to the stuff. But I actually suggest you should
15:30
take it in nature, you know, because Switzerland
15:32
is beautiful. You go hiking, it's like almost
15:35
as beautiful as Slovenia. And take it. So he
15:40
became friendly and then he actually showed me
15:42
the papers of the CEO. And after looking through
15:46
those papers for a few hours, I actually did
15:49
find... that he was communicating a lot with
15:53
Richard Kuhn, who was the leading biochemist
15:57
of the Hitler regime. Because coincidentally,
16:00
they had been friends since the 1920s. And that,
16:05
of course, became very interesting, you know,
16:08
was that, you know, the connection. And indeed,
16:11
I found a letter from October 43, in which Kuhn
16:17
thanked Stoll for sending him half a gram of
16:21
ergotamine, which is like the last step before
16:25
you make LSD. So the question that I couldn't
16:28
solve is, did Kuhn, and Kuhn was responsible
16:32
for like informing these tests in Dachau. So
16:37
Kuhn knew about LSD, knew everything about LSD
16:40
and received ergotamine, half a gram. So did
16:44
he really make, did he make LSD from it? I asked
16:47
a friend of mine. Leonard Picard, the once largest
16:52
LSD producer in the world, illegal LSD producer
16:55
in the world, how hard it is to make LSD from
16:58
ergotamine. And he said it's actually quite easy.
17:01
Then I asked him, why didn't Stoll send pure
17:07
LSD to Kuhn? And that question is basically unanswerable.
17:12
Why would he send ergotamine? I mean, Picard
17:16
said maybe Kuhn wanted to make his own LSD because
17:20
it's kind of a nice thing to make like your own.
17:23
But to make LSD, you need ergotamine. It's hard
17:27
to write. You need that precursor. So I have
17:34
a very strong case, you know, that Kuhn had LSD.
17:37
I mean, he had ergotamine and you can't really
17:40
do it. You could also create a migraine headache
17:42
maybe from it. Because ergot is good against
17:47
migraine also. But it looks like that they used
17:51
LSD and also when in Dachau. And when the Americans
17:56
liberated Dachau in the spring of 45, they interrogated
18:02
Kuhn. And Kuhn was very forthcoming with sharing
18:07
his information about LSD, sharing about LSD
18:12
in general. that they used it. And that was the
18:16
reason why the American general immediately took
18:21
the train down to Basel and received LSD himself
18:23
from Sanders. And then LSD became the focus of
18:28
the CIA, which was founded two years later, two
18:33
years after the war ended. Wow. So, yeah, I just
18:39
wanted to ask, in those files at Dachau, whether
18:42
it's mescaline or LSD, did they specify what
18:47
exactly they did with it? Did they just give
18:50
it to a bunch of inmates there? And what were
18:54
their findings? Well, there was a two -page report,
18:57
and the longer report was taken by the Americans
19:00
when they liberated the camp, and it's now in
19:02
the archives of Harvard. The report was called,
19:06
in German, Auserkraftsetzung des Willens, which
19:10
means... The report is called Chemical Ways to
19:16
Overcome the Will of a Person or something like
19:20
that. Talk about scary. It kind of breaks down
19:25
a person, I guess. I read one longer report by
19:32
a guy who took LSD and actually loved it, which
19:38
was like... Not really what the Nazis were intending,
19:41
but this guy had like... Like in the camp. Yeah,
19:43
he took it in the camp. Like he was forced to
19:46
take it in the camp. He got it with coffee. And
19:51
he had like very beautiful fractal kind of visions.
19:56
Like he had his eyes closed and just saw like
19:59
beautiful images. It was just very sad. He became
20:03
very depressed when the trip ended and he was
20:06
back. In the concentration camp, but not in like...
20:09
But that's crazy that you can have a nice trip
20:12
in the middle of a concentration camp. Yeah,
20:16
I mean, it helps against your boring or horrible
20:22
everyday life, I guess. Be it the concentration
20:28
camp or suburbia or whatever, you know. But it
20:33
is surprising, obviously. You could also imagine
20:36
someone taking it in the camp would have like
20:38
a horror trip or something. That guy had a good
20:41
trip, which is not what the SS really, what they
20:44
intended, obviously. And also the SS didn't really,
20:47
it didn't really get anywhere because it's not
20:52
possible. It's not really possible to instrumentalize
20:56
LSD. It doesn't really, I don't think it works
20:59
as a weapon because people have this more like
21:02
liberating experiences. Oops, the Nazis didn't
21:04
know and the CIA also didn't know. They thought
21:06
if someone LSD and he becomes like totally confused,
21:10
then you can kind of work with, kind of manipulate
21:13
the brain. It doesn't really work like that,
21:16
LSD. Since you started talking. It gives a person
21:20
more strength, actually. Sorry, come again? It
21:24
makes a person stronger in a way. It makes a
21:26
person more resilient against manipulation. It's
21:30
like an anti... brainwashing drug since you started
21:35
talking about this I just have to preface by
21:39
saying that this podcast has a very general anti
21:42
-conspiracy ethos because I think most of this
21:45
stuff is bullshit and how does the saying go
21:47
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
21:51
and most of the time not always of course but
21:53
usually there's less than none with these conspiracies
21:56
but when it comes to this MKUltra we have one
22:01
of those rare cases when the actual documentation
22:03
proves more demented than a made -up conspiracy
22:06
theory. So who comes up with this insane idea
22:10
about experimenting on the minds of fellow citizens
22:13
without their knowledge in the US after the Second
22:16
World War? That was the Nazi idea. That's what
22:19
the Nazis did. And the Americans just kind of
22:22
copied it from the Nazis. I mean, there was one
22:26
guy responsible for MKUltra and I write about
22:29
him in Tripped. Sidney Gottlieb, who was like
22:33
the head of MKUltra. But I also don't really
22:37
like MKUltra because it is kind of in that world
22:41
of conspiracy theory and I'm not really concerned
22:45
with that. But still, it's of course very interesting
22:49
because it was a real program that CIA did over...
22:53
something like 20 years involving thousands of
22:56
Americans and also non -Americans, but mostly
23:00
American. But I'm not an MKUltra specialist and
23:05
Tripp does not, Tripp specializes, Tripp tells
23:09
the story of LSD and MKUltra is part of that
23:13
story because it was a very bad, you know, LSD
23:17
had a bad trip, you know, being abused. For MKUltra,
23:23
and especially scientists who were doing proper
23:27
research at the time, were having a bad trip
23:29
because suddenly the CIA, they kind of monopolized
23:35
on LSD. There was a meeting in Basel with the
23:38
CEO from the CIA representative. Probably it
23:43
was Godley, but that's not proven, but it was
23:45
a very high -ranking MKUltra guy. And he basically
23:51
pressured the Swiss company not to sell it to
23:57
the Soviet Union. And also basically not to sell
24:02
it within the US, you know, just, you know, the
24:05
CIA wanted to have it. It was, you know, they
24:09
wanted to have it and use it only. So that blocked
24:14
a lot of research. Sanders could never really
24:17
market it properly. They gave out free samples
24:20
to researchers, but even that stopped at a certain
24:22
point in time because the CIA put pressure on
24:26
them. So because of the Nazis researching for
24:31
the truth drug, abusing LSD and Dachau, the Americans
24:35
learning about it, then thinking, oh, the Nazis
24:38
think it's so great as a truth drug. We should
24:40
also explore that option. That's, you know, that's
24:44
the dark. That's the first. There's still a history
24:48
of LSD, you know, it's still illegal. Even though
24:51
now researchers, you know, come out and do stuff
24:55
like the Elusis startup company that made the
24:58
phase one trials with low dosages of LSD against
25:03
Alzheimer's, which then helped my mom, you know.
25:05
So the story is, it's evolving, it's live, it's
25:11
interesting, you know. It's totally ridiculous
25:15
to have... to make LSD illegal. I mean, obviously
25:18
it has risks and I wouldn't recommend a child
25:22
using a huge quantity of LSD, you know, but every
25:27
drug has risks. Every drug you buy in a pharmacy
25:30
has risks, you know, that's why you have a patient
25:33
information leaflet. But LSD is no, it's not
25:37
more dangerous, it's certainly less dangerous
25:40
than tobacco, I mean, obviously, or alcohol.
25:45
But it has so many potential benefits, all kinds
25:50
of benefits, like mixed art. It made the Beatles
25:53
a better band. It made my mom read the newspaper.
25:58
It improves a mountain hike in Slovenia. It has
26:04
so many benefits. That cannot be improved. But
26:07
yes, thank you. You can improve anything through
26:10
LSD. That's true. No, no, I'm just kidding. I
26:13
haven't taken it myself because I'm a little
26:15
bit... As a person who sometimes struggles with
26:19
anxiety, I think the setting might be very important
26:23
for people like me. I would need to be with people
26:28
I hold dear and feel safe with and probably in
26:32
a nice setting, preferably. Not in some sweaty
26:36
basement after I've listened to some horrible
26:39
band. Yeah. Don't take it in Gaza. Don't take
26:45
it in Iran right now. It's also a very bad city
26:49
right now. But I received a call today from a
26:54
German journalist who had contacted me a few
26:58
months ago. He had read my book, Tripped, and
27:01
he had become interested because he was suffering
27:03
from manic, he was manic depressive. like a very
27:08
bad case for like 40 years and he tried everything
27:11
so he asked me you know would it help me and
27:14
i said i don't know you know like i'm not a doctor
27:17
i'm a writer so he called me today telling me
27:21
that he actually found his old like high school
27:24
friend by chance and that friend had become a
27:27
therapist by now and had made a special training
27:29
as an lsd therapist which apparently is possible
27:32
in germany i didn't really know it was And he
27:35
had done his first session with that guy last
27:38
Saturday, took 200 micrograms of LSD. And he
27:42
said half an hour into the trip, his depression.
27:45
And he had had a depressive phase for the last
27:49
year. Like for the last year, he was like every
27:51
day thinking about killing himself. He said after
27:55
half an hour, that was blown away. And it totally
27:59
cured him. He thinks it totally cured him with
28:01
like just taking it once and he's going to have
28:03
it again. And he was very much afraid because
28:06
he said, I'm very anxious. I thought I would
28:08
go like, I would see like elephants in the room.
28:11
But he described it as a very gentle, but he
28:14
said it very important was the setting that he
28:16
had his old, you know, best friend who was a
28:19
therapist by now. So they were, you know, talking
28:21
about old days and it wasn't his home. The guy
28:24
came to his home. So he said, I could play my
28:27
old, my own music. I could sit in my favorite
28:30
chair. I took the LSD. I looked out the window.
28:34
That's how you should do it. So I recommend you
28:38
doing it also. Don't do it in Shibuya at night,
28:41
you know, on the pedestrian, like outside or
28:45
something, which can also be fun because you're
28:48
going to see like a dystopian society around
28:51
you, but it's better not to. I wouldn't even
28:54
take a crap in Shibuya anymore. I feel horrified
28:56
there, even when I'm not doing anything crazy.
29:04
Yeah, I've done bigger doses of psilocybin, like
29:08
mushrooms. And it was usually amazing, but I
29:11
had one pretty... How should I put it mildly?
29:18
An insane, insane experience, which was really
29:21
hardcore and scary. But afterwards, I felt much
29:25
better. So it was a bit of a cliche, even when
29:27
you have like a... yeah a terrifying experience
29:30
you feel like something is lifted afterwards
29:33
well sorry the world is terrifying human existence
29:36
is uh you know it's nice sometimes to look at
29:40
but you have to be you know it can be overwhelming
29:43
so you have to be careful about that but yeah
29:47
you have to be speaking of you can also endanger
29:49
yourself taking psychedelics obviously it can
29:52
be dangerous of course yeah yeah yeah yeah I
29:57
don't want to dwell on this MKUltra too long,
29:59
but just because it's gained such cultural significance,
30:02
I just have one more question. Sure. How did
30:05
they do this to people? I'm aware of prisoners
30:07
sometimes volunteering for these to get a reduced
30:09
sentence. Whitey Bulger, the famous drug lord,
30:12
played by Jack Nicholson in The Departed, the
30:15
Martin Scorsese movie, was a famous case. There's
30:17
a lot of speculation that Charles Manson was
30:19
another one, and both of them apparently became
30:21
more psychotic afterwards because they were duped.
30:24
They didn't know what's going to happen. Who
30:26
would have thought? But besides prisoners, how
30:28
would they find these poor people and drug them?
30:32
There were different setups. Some people voluntarily
30:35
took it, like Ken Kesey. Ken Kesey received $75
30:39
for taking LSD. But also there was an infamous
30:45
Canadian psychiatrist who gave it in his clinic
30:49
in Canada. I wrote about it on a trip. I forgot
30:52
which. hospital it was, gave people huge dosages
30:57
without really telling them what it was. People
31:01
were just not nice, you know. Doctors can be
31:04
horrible and just give you stuff. And also the
31:10
CIA, again, they're very different, a lot of
31:13
different ways. The CIA also had so -called safe
31:15
houses, which were the opposite of what they
31:17
sound like. One in Manhattan and one in San Francisco.
31:21
And in the one in Manhattan, for example, CIA
31:24
agents would go out to bars in Greenwich Village
31:30
and invite people home for a private party and
31:34
then slip them LSD into the drink. They were
31:37
trained actually how to put LSD into drinks without
31:40
the person noticing it. They had a course with
31:44
a leading magician. Mal Holland was his name
31:46
who like... explain to them how you do it like
31:49
you reflect like the attention then you put the
31:53
LSD in the drink or whatever you know so yeah
31:56
I mean these were very unethical experiments
32:00
there's a good book by Marx is the name he really
32:04
researched the MKUltra thing it's called The
32:08
Search for the Manchurian Candidate I think is
32:11
the title or I mean in Tripped I do discuss various
32:17
parts of that program also now that you uh explain
32:23
how they did this inviting people home and then
32:26
slipping lsd into their drink there's this amazingly
32:29
terrifying movie climax by gaspar noé and the
32:32
plot of the movie is that everybody's drinks
32:35
at a party gets spiked right with with acid i
32:38
don't know if you've seen it it's it's really
32:40
amazing director We had a drinking night in Paris.
32:45
It was insane. There was no LSD, no drinks, but
32:48
so many drinks that I had also kind of an experience.
32:53
No, it's an interesting movie. It's quite scary.
32:56
I don't think he's a psychedelic guy. I wouldn't
32:59
do anything scary about psychedelics because
33:02
there has been so much scare about them anyhow.
33:05
It should tell positive stories like my mom's
33:08
story. Speaking of positive stories, I'm not
33:11
sure if this was in the book or whether I heard
33:12
you say this somewhere else, but supposedly JFK
33:16
took a bunch of acid and then changed his mind
33:19
about going to war with the Soviets. Yeah, that's
33:22
why he was assassinated. I mean, that's a conspiracy
33:25
theory, obviously, because no one knows why JFK
33:28
was assassinated. Or at least, I don't know.
33:32
But it is a fact, and we don't know if he took
33:36
LSD, but it is a fact that he had... A lover
33:39
or a very close friend that stayed overnight
33:41
in the White House. That's a fact. Her name was
33:44
Mary Pinchot. And it's also a fact that she visited
33:50
Timothy Leary in April again. I think it was
33:53
63, the year JFK was assassinated, if I'm correct.
33:57
And she asked Leary, and Leary writes about this
34:02
in his autobiography. She asks him for LSD for
34:05
a very important person. And then Leary says,
34:08
yeah, I'll come with you. I'll be like the trip
34:10
guide. And she says, it's impossible. I have
34:13
to do this alone with him. And then she gets
34:18
the LSD from Leary. And a few weeks later, Kennedy
34:25
gives his famous speech at the American University.
34:30
And I encourage everyone to look at that speech.
34:32
It's quite interesting. Because Kennedy actually
34:35
was... Not a piece in it. He was more like a
34:38
hawkish, your normal run -of -the -mill democratic
34:42
president, basically, like all for the Cold War
34:47
and against the Soviet Union being tough. And
34:49
he had had this traumatizing experience with
34:51
the Cuban crisis where he was tough. But in that
34:57
case, he was making a good decision, I guess.
35:03
But this... This lecture he gave at the American
35:07
University right after his lover acquired the
35:11
LSD for a very important person. He speaks completely
35:14
differently. You can see that on YouTube. Like
35:18
he talks about, he does sound like a hippie in
35:21
that speech. He says like, we are all the same.
35:23
You know, also the Russians, they're also humans
35:25
with kids. And why are we doing this ridiculous
35:29
arms race? I'm going to stop the arms race. we're
35:34
going to create a completely different world
35:35
where we're all sharing and there's going to
35:38
be peace on earth and there's going to be no
35:40
more weapons of mass destruction by anybody,
35:42
which is of course, you know, great. And that
35:46
would have been very nice to achieve, but it's
35:48
also a big threat to the arms industry, I guess,
35:53
or to people that make a lot of money, you know,
35:56
from the cold war, which would make the whole
35:58
system. He wanted to revolutionize the whole
36:00
like thinking. way of dealing with other countries.
36:05
And so I think that's actually, I think he was
36:08
murdered because of that speech, because of his
36:11
change of mind, which came out in the speech,
36:15
but he was obviously doing that, trying to change
36:19
the policies. So I think he was assassinated
36:22
for that. So I think he was assassinated because
36:25
he took LSD and had a mind change, but I can't
36:28
prove that, but it's a very plausible story.
36:31
But I don't, you know, I don't, I don't really,
36:33
it's just a side story of my book. It's not,
36:36
I'm not like preaching this in order to solve,
36:41
finally solve the JFK murder case. During our
36:44
last conversation, you were explaining how in
36:46
1930s Germany, kids could simply walk into a
36:49
pharmacy and get themselves some good old pervitin,
36:52
a form of meth without a big fuss. In the same
36:54
manner, in American drugstores, cocaine was...
36:57
readily available without prescriptions in the
37:00
19th and beginning of 20th centuries. No biggie,
37:04
kind of. But when I was growing up, drugs were
37:06
the public enemy number one. It didn't matter
37:09
whether we're talking mushrooms or weed. They
37:12
told us if we do any of them, we're going to
37:14
end up as weed children from the Bahnhof Zoo,
37:17
which was literally playing on the telly every
37:19
weekend back home. So literal corpses or harrowing
37:23
addicts. Boozing was fine. But God forbid you
37:26
had a little spliff. When and why did this moral
37:30
switcheroo regarding drugs happen in the West?
37:33
Well, the first study that was done by university
37:36
was Johns Hopkins. And I think it came out in
37:39
2015 or 2016, where he proved that Professor
37:44
Griffith actually proved that psilocybin works
37:49
against depression, severe depression. It can't
37:52
be treated any other way. No, sorry. Maybe I
37:56
was a bit unclear. I thought more like drugs
37:59
were kind of used widely before the Second World
38:02
War. But then after the Second World War, they
38:05
suddenly became taboo. Yeah. How did that happen?
38:09
How did that happen? Yeah. Well, I mean, they
38:11
became illegal, especially in the United States.
38:13
There was the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which
38:18
had been responsible for... the prohibition era
38:23
in the United States, but that didn't work. So
38:26
the head of the FBN, Anslinger was his name,
38:31
looked for a new scapegoat. So his federal bureau
38:34
didn't have to close down. They needed a new
38:36
enemy. So he decided it would be marijuana now
38:38
since alcohol became legal again. And he was
38:42
really, he was very quite influential. I do tell
38:46
his story in Tripped. So he's one of the most
38:49
unknown. political figures with the most impact
38:53
on our lives because by you know the drugs becoming
38:57
illegal totally changed everything i was just
39:01
wondering if they justified it with any sort
39:05
of like with any sort of ideological reasons
39:08
as well you know it was fine until 1930 or 1945
39:12
or whatever and now suddenly um this is this
39:16
is the most devilish thing you can you can do
39:19
which is a big change It's changing again, changing
39:23
back. You started explaining about the experiment
39:26
at John Hopkins at 2015. Well, I mean, now scientists
39:29
more and more realize that, well, I mean, scientists
39:33
have always worked in the field, always knew,
39:36
but since Griffith proved that it works against
39:40
depression more and more, it has become more
39:44
and more acceptable. It was like completely...
39:47
unacceptable in the academic world to do scientific
39:50
psychedelic research so after Griffith's study
39:57
it became acceptable again and now many scientists
40:02
neuroscientists or chemists are working with
40:05
psychedelics in American and British but also
40:08
Swiss or other universities you know the truth
40:12
cannot be suppressed really for that It can be.
40:18
Obviously, it can be suppressed. But this truth
40:20
that drugs are not really our main problem, especially
40:23
the psychedelic drugs, and that non -psychedelic
40:28
drugs like the addictive drugs are different
40:30
kinds of problems than how we address it. We
40:34
address it in a way that they become very problematic.
40:37
More and more people understand that because
40:39
there's more and more people talking about it
40:42
or people making their own experiences. So the
40:46
government's prohibitionist schemes never were
40:52
founded on scientific evidence that, for example,
40:57
LSD is dangerous or whatever. So it's kind of
41:01
hard to prevent people from taking something
41:03
that might be very beneficial in the age of biohacking
41:08
and everyone taking creatine. So why not take
41:14
LSD? It's just become harder. That kind of propaganda,
41:20
the anti -drug propaganda has become harder to
41:24
maintain. Other types of propagandas are still
41:27
very functional and effective. But the anti -drug
41:31
propaganda doesn't really work anymore. It's
41:33
old school. Everyone knows it's old school. Even
41:36
the conservatives in America now like psychedelics.
41:38
Except the religious... fanatics they they still
41:44
don't like but everyone else seems to like it
41:47
by now well um in japan even weed is a class
41:51
a drug because the constitution was written by
41:57
americans after the second world war and a lot
41:59
of those articles stayed the same from the from
42:02
the 40s yeah that's a problem and the americans
42:05
influenced global drug policies in the 40s and
42:08
50s through anslinger actually he used the United
42:12
Nations as a vehicle to spread his propaganda
42:16
and misinformation. So who's that? Anslinger,
42:20
the head of the FBI and the Federal Bureau of
42:22
Narcotics. He was the anti -drug person in the
42:26
US administration under six presidents. He was
42:30
very long in office and he did a lot of damage
42:34
to this world, actually. So he was like, if we
42:38
can't have them... If we said that the Americans
42:41
can't have them, then nobody else will be able
42:44
to use them. Yeah, I mean, he was trying to have
42:46
a prohibitionist approach worldwide because America
42:49
was seeing itself as the emerging superpower
42:52
and American policies and values are the best
42:56
in the world and should be everywhere. So anti
42:59
-drug policies, well, the war on drugs is a global
43:03
domination policy by the US. And I kind of realized
43:08
that through drugs, you can have global influence
43:10
and manipulate and spread your values. Like you
43:16
said before, now there's a lot of people who
43:18
are into psychedelics very openly. You mentioned
43:21
conservatives. There's even a lot of people I
43:24
would find morally objectionable, like CEOs and,
43:28
I don't know, AI people and billionaires who
43:31
openly proclaim using them. Do you sometimes
43:34
worry that... They sort of give a bad rep to
43:39
this whole movement. Because a lot of people
43:43
say that they become better people after taking
43:47
psychedelics. But these people apparently carry
43:51
on dominating others. Even after they've said
43:55
that they've... I don't think psychedelics make
43:57
you a better person. It can even make you a worse
44:01
person, like Charlie Manson. apparently you know
44:04
couldn't handle it or thought that like lsd can
44:07
also make you believe in yourself very strongly
44:10
but i don't really think it hurts to move it
44:13
i mean lsd should not be legal because it makes
44:15
better people it should be legal because it makes
44:18
the brain neuroplastic by by any any brain it
44:22
makes more neuroplastic which means the brain
44:25
becomes more alive more you know resets reconnects
44:31
like gets gets better i think neuroplasticity
44:35
seems to be a good thing and um but you can you
44:39
know use your amazing brain also to do bad things
44:43
you know i think you could i think generally
44:46
it makes people usually more reflective uh like
44:50
most people that i know but it also a lot of
44:52
people become idiots when they take lsd because
44:55
they're so They suddenly see the world and they
44:58
think like, now I understood everything. And
45:01
then they become like, they think they're like
45:03
superior or something. That's probably what happened
45:06
to Charles Manson. And that could happen also
45:10
to people like Elon Musk or Sam Altman, who recently
45:16
had, I shouldn't say who he was meeting, but
45:19
he's in contact with high class. psychedelic
45:24
people. But I don't know if he takes LSD and
45:28
then realizes that he has to change his approach
45:31
to AI and maybe prevent AI from destroying humankind.
45:35
I don't know what happens if Sam... I would take
45:39
LSD with him and show him what's important. But
45:44
I don't know how people like that take it. I
45:47
guess Musk just took it in the White House while
45:50
Trump was babbling about some... stuff, you know.
45:53
It's also quite interesting, you know. I don't
45:58
think it gives it a bad rap, you know. I think
46:00
it's just part of the story. But it does make
46:04
also even Musk smarter if he takes LSD. I don't
46:07
know if that's a good thing, but maybe, you know,
46:09
could be. Some people also have change of hearts,
46:12
like suddenly realize that they have to change
46:14
their ways. This could even happen to Sam Altman.
46:19
And that will be great. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.
46:21
Yeah. It doesn't look good out there these days.
46:25
Finally. There's a crisis and then comes the
46:27
change. Yeah. Finally, Norman, I don't know if
46:34
this is too personal, but could you talk about
46:37
your own experiences with LSD? Well, my first
46:40
trip also was a horror trip because my girlfriend
46:42
in New York gave it to me when I was quite young.
46:45
And I didn't really know what it was because
46:46
I hadn't read my own book Tripped yet because
46:48
it hadn't been written yet. So I just kind of,
46:52
I don't know, I really had no idea what LSD was,
46:55
but I thought, why not take it? It was very,
46:58
very strong. And I thought I would have gone
47:01
insane. I thought the rewiring in my brain was
47:06
going to be permanent and I would always see
47:10
energy as colors and all of that. But it just...
47:14
stopped after like 16 hours. It was quite a long
47:16
trip. That was a bit terrifying, but I was also
47:20
fascinated by it because I realized that there's...
47:23
Before that, I thought the world that I see is
47:26
just the world. It was a very stupid, naive way
47:29
of thinking. But I thought that's normal. But
47:34
on LSD, I realized there's different ways of
47:38
perceiving things. It was quite interesting to
47:41
me. So I took it. again and again and I will
47:46
always take it you know as long as I live which
47:50
doesn't mean that I take it like every day but
47:52
maybe I take it once a year or whenever like
47:56
the occasion arises and I think this would be
47:58
a great moment or it's good to refresh or but
48:03
there's also other drugs you know other very
48:05
interesting drugs like psilocybin which I don't
48:08
take that much because I don't know. I just think
48:10
LSD is better, but a tough one. In the old age,
48:14
I always took mushrooms. Maybe it's a bit more
48:16
natural because LSD is semi -synthetic, but it
48:20
also has the ergon in it, so it has the mushroom
48:23
part in it. It's actually not a synthetic drug.
48:27
It's a semi -synthetic drug. It comes from a
48:29
natural compound. It's a very sophisticated product.
48:36
Or you could take ibogaine. I'm personally interested
48:40
in drugs, which doesn't mean that I take them
48:43
all the time. I really don't. And I used to when
48:47
I was in my mid -20s. I took a lot of psychedelics.
48:50
And that was good, but that's so intense. I think
48:54
it's enough to take Ibogaine every two years
48:57
or LSD every year. Isn't that really strong?
49:01
Everything I read about Ibogaine is kind of mind
49:06
-altering, life -changing stuff. It's pretty
49:10
strong, but also while you're on ibogaine, you're
49:14
completely conscious, unlike when you're on LSD
49:17
or when you're totally drunk, you're not really
49:19
that conscious anymore, like in a state of intoxication.
49:23
You actually really shouldn't compare LSD with
49:25
alcohol. The area, the dimension of intoxication
49:30
of LSD is pure, while the dimension of the intoxication
49:36
through alcohol is toxic. So I would say. But
49:43
you're still intoxicated. But on Ibogaine, you're
49:49
like completely conscious. Like you know who
49:52
you are and where you are. But at the same time,
49:55
your mind is also on Ibogaine. So you can talk
49:59
to your own. You can communicate with yourself
50:02
in a very interesting way. Like you know quite
50:05
a lot. Your brain knows a lot, but it only gives
50:09
you like this very small feed of what it knows.
50:14
So you can function, you know, we're not sitting
50:16
cross -legged the whole time, like reflecting
50:19
on our lives. But while you're on Ibogaine for
50:22
like 10 hours, you actually do that. You lie
50:24
there and you really, you can go into memories.
50:30
Like you could see who was present at your sixth
50:33
birthday, you know, in your hometown and what
50:36
cake you were having because that's actually
50:39
stored in the brain. And we don't need that information.
50:42
But maybe on that birthday, like the strongest
50:46
guy, even though it was your birthday, kind of
50:49
hit you on the nose because he was a fucking
50:51
asshole. And since then, you've been like always
50:55
like putting yourself down or having being afraid
50:57
of others. It's just a story, you know. But you
51:01
would see that on Ibogaine. You're like, wow,
51:04
now I understand why I'm like this. So I don't
51:07
think Ibogaine is a very scary drug. It's just
51:12
it has a problem. It has a hard risk. It's a
51:16
very small percentage of people who should not
51:18
take it. So when you take it for the first time,
51:21
you must take it in a clinical setting. You must
51:24
go to an Ibogaine retreat. You can't just take
51:27
this stuff at home because it's life. You know,
51:30
you can die from it. Unlike LSD, you know, from
51:34
LSD, you can't die. I know a guy who took, I
51:38
think it was 80 million trips at once because
51:40
he was manufacturing it, Leonard Picard. And
51:44
he was balancing a tray with liquid LSD and it
51:47
slipped out of his hand and went over him. So,
51:50
and even he said, and... Immediately got into
51:55
his skin like everywhere. I think it was a precursor
52:01
that would go through. He knew he had taken a
52:04
lot of trips. That's the highest dosage that
52:07
anyone ever has taken. And he said it was just
52:10
the most beautiful, gentle trip. He was sitting
52:15
there. He lived in New Mexico. He was looking
52:17
at the mountains. He just saw how the universe
52:21
was forming. So, what am I saying? I'm losing
52:27
my thread. I think it's time to wrap up. I'm
52:30
becoming like a fairy tale. No, no. You just
52:33
said that setting is important. Clinical setting
52:35
is important. Absolutely. Everyone should take
52:40
Ibogaine. In a clinical setting is important
52:42
to say. Only. Because everything else would be
52:45
irresponsible. Seriously. Yeah. In a clinical
52:50
setting, it can be amazing. Yeah. Yeah, that
52:53
was just like a fad when I was still living in
52:55
Berlin a couple of years ago when they were doing
52:58
ayahuasca in their basements and completely unsupervised.
53:01
And there were some horror stories going around
53:03
that. So also probably not the nicest setting
53:07
in somebody's shitty, dirty keller in Berlin.
53:11
Yeah, I think with a dodgy guy who's supposedly
53:14
a shaman because he went to Peru for 48 hours.
53:17
I think this is also urban. that these bad settings
53:21
happen, but I'm sure they do happen. Yeah, I
53:24
mean, I would probably be shocked if I would
53:25
see how people actually take psychedelics because
53:28
I always take them in very nice settings. I think
53:32
everyone could, but I think a lot of people just
53:34
also take them at night, you know, when they
53:36
go to parties. So you think I can drink more
53:38
if I take some acid, which might be true, but
53:42
it's not really the way to do psychedelics. So
53:45
don't do it like that. Weed tripped. Then you
53:48
understand the history of LSD. And also follow
53:52
my sub stack, which is called Stone Sapien sub
53:55
stack. Because I write about psychedelics a lot
54:00
in that sub stack. And I write stuff that doesn't
54:02
end up in my books. So I recommend actually the
54:05
Stone Sapien sub stack. What a nice way to wrap
54:09
up, Norman. I can tell you're a total pro. Thanks
54:12
again for taking the time. It was a real pleasure.
54:14
Thank you for having me again. And when StoneSapiens
54:17
comes out, we'll speak for the third time. I
54:19
hope. And finding the Smart Cookies podcast on
54:42
there and of course giving me... And then last
54:45
but certainly not least, I have to thank my existing
54:47
patrons. Like always, without you, there is no
54:50
Smart Cookies podcast, which makes you actual
54:54
producers of this show. So eternal thanks to...
54:57
Charlie Balbeck, Peter Ribarić, Zala Velkavrh,
55:00
Matija Valingar, Sluga, Katja Glinšek, Pač Mančkin,
55:03
Simon Vidmar, Luke Johnson, Jim Bird, Bewildered
55:06
Beauty, Davorin Pavlica, Dale and Mia, Črt Gosar,
55:09
Saša Sodja, Amy Jans, Matija Renčel, Florian
55:11
Haua, Dejan Žulnir, Darej, Rok Tržan, Saša Vipotnik,
55:14
Neven Cvijanović, Juš Premrov, Sirkezi, Goran
55:17
Ivašič, Anže Sever, Oule, Marin Ferrara, Aljaš
55:19
Maher, Strole, Aida Mancian, Miha Medved, Medinho,
55:22
Goran, Gordon, Lorenzo, Jurečuk, Mila, Carmen,
55:25
Vronika and... Tai Chi. From the bottom of my
55:28
heart, thank you so much. It means a lot.