The recent psychedelic “renaissance” is actually a renaissance in the literal sense. Scientists aren’t suddenly studying these substances for the first time.
There was already a massive wave of psychedelic research throughout the 1950s and 60s. More than 1,000 clinical papers were reportedly published during that era, describing psychedelic treatment involving tens of thousands of patients.
A lot of those studies wouldn’t meet the methodological standards we use today, so I wouldn’t take every number below as definitive proof. But some of the results were honestly kind of wild, and several of the questions researchers were asking 60 years ago are basically the same ones being investigated again today.
1960: One of the first large safety surveys looked at nearly 5,000 people across more than 25,000 LSD/mescaline sessions.
Among healthy experimental subjects, there were no reported suicides or suicide attempts, and prolonged psychotic reactions occurred in roughly 0.8 per 1,000 participants.
Rates were somewhat higher among psychiatric patients, which is one reason modern trials screen participants carefully.
Sidney Cohen, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide: Side Effects and Complications (1960). PMID: 13811003.
1960: LSD-assisted psychotherapy was reported in 110 psychiatric patients, many of whom had already undergone previous therapy.
Researchers Chandler and Hartman reported that 50 showed considerable, marked or outstanding improvement, while another 38 showed some degree of improvement.
There wasn’t a randomized control group, so these numbers have to be taken cautiously, but this was one of the early studies that helped generate enormous interest in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
Chandler & Hartman, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD-25) as a Facilitating Agent in Psychotherapy (1960). DOI: 10.1001/archpsyc.1960.03590090042008.
1961: One of the famous early alcoholism studies treated 61 people with long histories of severe alcohol problems.
At follow-up between 3 and 18 months later, 30 were completely abstinent, another 16 had substantially reduced their drinking, and 15 were unchanged.
So 46 of the 61 showed improvement after treatment.
Again, this was an open-label study rather than a modern randomized trial, but those numbers were obviously enough to get researchers’ attention.
MacLean et al., The Use of LSD-25 in the Treatment of Alcoholism and Other Psychiatric Problems (1961). DOI: 10.15288/qjsa.1961.22.034.
1962: Another LSD alcoholism program followed 33 patients for as long as 88 weeks.
Seven were reported completely abstinent and another ten substantially reduced their drinking. Six were lost to follow-up.
O’Reilly & Reich, Lysergic Acid and the Alcoholic (1962). PMID: 14480914.
1962: The famous “Good Friday Experiment” tested whether psilocybin could reliably produce genuine mystical-type experiences.
Twenty theology students were randomly given either psilocybin or an active placebo during a Good Friday church service.
The psilocybin group scored dramatically higher across measures like unity, sacredness, positive mood and transcendence of time and space. Eight of the ten psilocybin participants experienced at least seven of the nine features researchers associated with mystical experience.
What’s especially interesting is that when researchers tracked most of these people down about 25 years later, the psilocybin group still described substantial positive effects from that single experience.
Walter Pahnke, Good Friday Experiment, 1962/1966; long-term follow-up by Rick Doblin, 1991.
1963: Another alcoholism study compared 70 patients receiving LSD-assisted treatment with 55 receiving conventional individual psychotherapy.
Of the LSD-treated patients, 39 were abstinent and another 7 were drinking substantially less at follow-up.
In the comparison group, 8 were abstinent and 4 had reduced their drinking.
There were major limitations here, particularly the fact that the groups weren’t randomized and many control participants were lost to follow-up. Still, this was one of the early results that made researchers wonder whether a psychedelic experience could interrupt severe addiction.
Jensen & Ramsay, Treatment of Chronic Alcoholism with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (1963). DOI: 10.1177/070674376300800305.
1963: LSD was even experimented with in people who had repeatedly committed serious crimes.
Dutch psychiatrist G.W. Arendsen-Hein treated 21 men described at the time as severe “criminal psychopaths,” many with histories of 5 to 20 court sentences each.
Following repeated LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions, 12 were described as clinically improved and another 2 as greatly improved.
This wasn’t a controlled trial and we don’t have reliable recidivism data showing that LSD stopped them from committing crimes, so I wouldn’t make that claim. But the fact that psychiatrists were seeing psychological improvement in people considered almost untreatable at the time is still fascinating.
Arendsen-Hein, LSD in the Treatment of Criminal Psychopaths (1963).
1964: LSD was compared with powerful opioid painkillers in 50 seriously ill patients, most suffering from terminal cancer.
Researchers compared LSD with meperidine and hydromorphone.
LSD produced pain relief that lasted considerably longer than either opioid. Researchers also noticed something unexpected: many patients became noticeably less distressed about dying and were able to discuss death much more freely.
This observation eventually helped inspire the modern research into psychedelics for end-of-life anxiety.
Kast & Collins (1964).
1964: Another follow-up looked at 68 people treated with LSD for chronic alcoholism.
Twenty-six were abstinent during the follow-up period.
Even more interestingly, the type of psychedelic experience appeared to predict the likelihood of abstinence…an early hint of something modern psychedelic studies repeatedly find today: the subjective experience itself may actually be connected to therapeutic outcome.
O’Reilly & Funk, LSD in Chronic Alcoholism (1964). DOI: 10.1177/070674376400900311.
1964: LSD-assisted psychotherapy was studied in another 100 psychiatric patients.
Researchers reported 47 recovered and another 18 improved, compared with substantially poorer outcomes in a historical comparison group treated without LSD.
This wasn’t a randomized modern clinical trial, so again, don’t read “47 recovered” as “LSD cures 47% of people.” But researchers were repeatedly seeing enough improvement to keep investigating.
Whitaker (1964).
1966: Researchers even tested psychedelics for creative problem-solving.
Professionals were brought in with real technical and creative problems they had been unable to solve.
During psychedelic sessions, participants showed significant improvements on some measures of creative thinking and visual problem-solving. They also described less fear of making mistakes, fewer inhibitions and an increased ability to look at problems from unusual perspectives.
Some participants reportedly came away with solutions that were later useful in their actual professional work.
Harman et al., Psychedelic Agents in Creative Problem-Solving: A Pilot Study (1966).
1967: At Spring Grove State Hospital, 69 people with alcoholism underwent psychedelic psychotherapy with LSD.
At six months, roughly one-third remained abstinent, while researchers also reported statistically significant positive changes across most of their clinical measures.
The researchers concluded that psychedelic therapy appeared to add something valuable to existing alcoholism treatment, while emphasizing that it required trained professionals and careful preparation.
Kurland et al., Psychedelic Therapy Utilizing LSD in the Treatment of the Alcoholic Patient (1967). DOI: 10.1176/ajp.123.10.1202.
1969: LSD-assisted psychotherapy was studied in 22 people dying from cancer who were experiencing depression, anxiety and fear of death.
Fourteen of the 22 showed meaningful psychological improvement after treatment, and six of those improvements were described as dramatic.
Researchers reported reductions in depression, anxiety and fear of death along with greater relaxation, better family relationships and greater ability to tolerate pain.
Five of the six people who had especially intense “peak” psychedelic experiences were also among those who improved the most.
Pahnke, Kurland, Goodman & Richards, LSD-Assisted Psychotherapy with Terminal Cancer Patients (1969). PMID: 5348915.
1969: A randomized alcoholism study found an interesting short-term effect even when researchers deliberately removed psychotherapy from the equation.
Seventy-two men received either a single 600 µg dose of LSD or dextroamphetamine.
At two months, the LSD group was doing significantly better.
By six months, however, the difference disappeared.
I actually think results like this are important because they hint at something researchers are still arguing about today: simply giving someone a psychedelic may not be the same thing as creating an environment where the experience can actually be integrated into their life.
Hollister, Shelton & Krieger, A Controlled Comparison of LSD and Dextroamphetamine in Alcoholics (1969). DOI: 10.1176/ajp.125.10.1352.
And here’s probably the most interesting part in hindsight.
Decades later, researchers went back and performed a modern meta-analysis of six randomized LSD trials for alcoholism from this old era, involving 536 people altogether.
When the results were pooled, a single dose of LSD was associated with significantly greater improvement in alcohol misuse than the comparison conditions.
So while a lot of these individual old studies had methodological problems, the alcoholism signal didn’t simply disappear when researchers went back and analyzed the randomized evidence together.
Krebs & Johansen, LSD for Alcoholism: Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials (2012).