Clinical psychologists, Dr. Timothy Leary and Dr. Richard Alpert (who later took the name Baba Ram Dass), both professors at Harvard University, were experimenting with several new very potent drugs (later called "hallucinogens") at Leary's institute on the Mellon estate in Millbrook, New York. In August 1964, Dr. Leary and Dr. Alpert, along with a group of their students from Harvard, drove to nearby Woodstock to hear Darwin Shaw give a talk on Meher Baba. Although Leary and Alpert had heard that Meher Baba was the leading "spiritual authority" on consciousness, it was their first introduction to someone who had actually met and knew Baba.
One of the group attending Darwin's talk was a graduate student in the department of social relations named Allan Y. Cohen, 24. After meeting Darwin, Allan became interested in Baba and began reading about him. On 29 September, he wrote to Kitty in Myrtle Beach, describing his experiences with LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). On a beautiful inviting day, Cohen had gone to an open field in the woods with Baba's Discourses and had taken the drug. He wrote:
It was delightful, ecstatic and as close to God-realization as my consciousness (it was no longer I, of course), that is, my ego, can remember. Now, I really can't judge what level the experience was at — but afterwards it sounded much the same as the Soul facing the infinite (while still considering itself finite).
Now about these psychedelic (mind-changing) drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. I don't know if you are acquainted with them, their effects or the controversy surrounding them. I know I would never have seen Meher Baba if it were not for my work with these drugs. They allow an indefinite period of superconsciousness, expanded consciousness, ego death, etc. (Not automatically, of course, but with the right set and setting.)
Although the drugs are used in psychotherapeutic, educational and downright low-level contexts, it is beginning to be clear to me that their most appropriate use is in attaining spiritual freedom (or at least helping one to see the path). I get the feeling also, that the existence of these drugs (actually natural chemicals found in common plants) is not a random occurrence, and their increased impact may well be a significant step in loosening up our distorted culture (at worst) and in increasing the drive toward spiritual freedom (at best)....