With love to you and all dear ones.
Adi K. Irani
One young woman in her mid-twenties named Paula Gordon wrote to Baba, asking: "Is Baba's message regarding drugs directed primarily to spiritual aspirants, or that all psychedelic drug use is dangerous and all research on human beings should be stopped?"
Baba replied to Paula Gordon through Adi on 12 May 1966:
All psychedelic drug use is dangerous, and in the long run is harmful, irrespective of whether it is motivated by spiritual aspirations or otherwise. Baba repeats that marijuana, LSD and other psychedelic drugs should never be used, except when prescribed by a professional medical practitioner in the case of serious mental disorder under his direct supervision.
Concerning the illicit use of drugs in America and Europe, Mani wrote to those concerned on 14 May:
Adi has written to dear Paula [Gordon] in reply to her query. Our personal reaction to it is, that it is not for Meher Baba to explain the pathology involved in the eventual derangement from usage of LSD and related drugs whether it is psychical or from actual brain damage. It is enough that Baba tells us of the harmful results from such drug usage — that is the basic point.
Further, any drug, when used medically for legitimate [mental] diseases under the direct supervision of a medical practitioner is not impermissible and cannot be classed with individual usage of a drug for what one can get out of it — or hope to get out of it — whether thrills, forgetfulness, or a delusion of spiritual experience. This paragraph should be of interest to Richard Alpert.
On 30 May, Mani wrote:
Meher Baba indicated that medically there are legitimate uses of the drug LSD. LSD could be used beneficially for chronic alcoholism, for severe and serious cases of depression, and for relief in mental illnesses. Use of LSD other than for specific medical purposes is harmful physically, mentally and spiritually. LSD is absolutely of NO use for any kind of spiritual awakening. Use of LSD produces hallucination, and prolonged use of this drug will lead to mental derangement, which even the medical use of LSD would fail to cure. Proper use of LSD under the direct supervision of a medical practitioner could help to cure insanity. It could lead to insanity if used for purposes other than strictly medical.
In short, LSD can be used beneficially for specific medical purposes, but for spiritual progress it is not only useless but positively harmful . As regards your idea of possible use of the drug by an enlightened society for spiritual purposes — an enlightened society would never dream of using it!