Humpfrey Osmond
| Humpfrey Osmond was a British psychiatrist, who played a role in the MI6/CIA controlled LSD and mescaline research and counterculture of the 60's. He invented the word 'psychedelic'. During WW2 he worked as a Navy surgeon. |  |
He worked at St George Hospital with John Smythies, cousin of Richard Dawkins. Smythies developed the first biochemical theory of schizophrenia.
In 1947 Sandoz Laboratory, backed by SG Warburg, introduced LSD as drug in psychiatry.
From 1951 Osmond and Smythies conducted LSD, mescaline and insulin shock therapy research at Weyburn Mental Hospital in Canada. They worked with Abram Hoffer in treating alcoholics with LSD. Hoffer developed a theory that oxidized adrenaline (adrenochrome) could cause psychotic thoughts (schizophrenia). They were helped by CIA agent Alfred Hubbard.
In may 1953 (year of MK Ultra) Osmond and Smythies gave LSD to Aldous Huxley, who wrote The Doors of Perception.
They also worked with:
- Willis Harman of Stanford
Research Institute
- Gerald Heard (SPR,
BBC, friend of Huston Smith who did LSD research
with Timothy Leary, The Realist with
Huxley, HG Wells of Fabian
Society, Arnold Bennett of HOGD)
- Betty Eisner (Stanford)
- Clare Booth Luce (Dame of Malta,
wife of Time owner Henry Luce S&B)
- Sidney Cohen (Columbia, CCNY,
National Institute of Mental Health)
- Bill Wilson (founder of Alcoholics
Anonymous, jesuit Edward Dowling as confessor).
The AA used the confession ritual of the jesuits (Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola) and the Moral Re-Armament movement of Frank Buchman (Rowland Hazard, treated by Carl Jung). Oscar Janiger, cousin of Allen Ginsberg, gave mescaline to Alan Watts.
In 1960 he wrote Chemical Bases of Clinical Psychiatry with Hoffer.
He participated in peyote rituals of the Native American Church (Jim Morrison had a media image of Indian shaman, the hippie counterculture was marketed as an Archaic revival).
In 1967 he wrote The Hallucinogens.
He worked with Christopher Mayhew of British intelligence, who took LSD for a BBC tv experiment.
Laurel Canyon band The Doors with Jim Morrison was named after Huxley's book.
He worked for CIA front Esalen Institute. He was the head of the Bureau of Research in Neurology and Psychiatry at the New Jersey Psychiatric Institute in Princeton. His colleague Dr Mikuriya was later in charge of marijuana research at the National Institute of Mental Health.
His CIA connections were the subject of Acid Dreams by Martin Lee (Harvard, Columbia, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting with Noam Chomsky).
Adrenochrome was mentioned in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas of Hunter S Thompson (film of Terry Gilliam with Johnny Depp).
He appeared in LSD documentary 'Hofmann's Potion: the Early Years of LSD' with Albert Hofmann, the wife of Aldous Huxley, Richard Alpert (Harvard research with jesuit Timothy Leary) and Stanislav Grof (CIA Esalen Institute).
born 7/1/1917, date Diana, Stanislav Grof, Debbie Harry.
died 2/6/2004, date Ronald Reagan (MK Ultra commission).