PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

P A R T V I I I
S O C I O L O G Y O F P S Y C H E D E L I C S
I N T H E C U R R E N T S C E N E
The influence of psychedelics on behavior is paralleled by a
concomitant influence on social structures and ways of responding
to them. Certain aspects of the hippie life-style
(Brown et al., 1967) are merely some of the more visible
consequences. Others include the greater tolerance for direct
expression of all fundamental needs in the most direct terms,
as illustrated on a verbal level in any of the "undergroud
newspapers"; the development of particular styles of dress,
and of painting and writing; and the development of such
things as communal living arrangements. Most of these
changes have occurred among young middle-class people, 0f
the sort expected to be concerned with college and subsequent
career, so that their parents are left worried and wondering
about what happened. At least two of the books that deal
with drugs or psychedelics focus on the college campus situation
in line with this kind of concern (Young and Hixson,
1966; Nowlis, 1969).
Any widely used substance is likely to develop culturally
specific customs around its use. Alcohol, to cite one example,
has given us bars, pubs, cocktail parties, cocktail dresses for
women, and night clubs. Psychedelics have also produced
many of these changes, as well as churches and all the appur-
tenances of a new movement promising revolutionary change.
The psychedelic experience can alter one's view of the word
so drastically that all one's relations to the world come under
close scrutiny. One would have to go back to the religious
ferment that produced the Quakers and other, similar groups
to find a comparable time. Leary's slogan "Turn on, tune in,
drop out," however misused, is really an expression of the
fundamental changes that occur in the ways of looking at
tilings and the subsequent ways of behaving that flow from