Psychedelics In The 1960's

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The introduction of psychedelics in the early 1960’s was an underground experiment that was pioneered by Ken Kesey and Timothy Leery. These men were the most iconic of the faces of the psychedelic movement. Through these two, groups like the Merry Pranksters and the Youth International Party or Yippies formed, under their direction, as a counterculture response to society at that time. The 1960’s were marked by the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War, both of which would lead to landmark changes in racial and foreign policies. Furthermore, the psychedelic movement emerged as a response to these events but also emerged as a result of stiff societal norms in the 1950’s. In addition to this, psychedelics became a refuge for many who did not fit…show more content…
As a result, psychedelics would explode out onto the mainstream and influence much of American culture at that time. People’s encounters with psychedelics lead to philosophical social encounters, influenced 1960’s pop culture, and facilitated the development ideologies that were contrary to popular political policies. Before LSD, Weed and other mind altering drugs became extremely popular for recreational use for a large portion of people, they were used to open up one’s consciousness. People like Leary believed that the use of LSD can be used to gain a greater insight into life and that it could be used to change the core values of society. To Leary, “ Religion, Politics, family life, and other social institutions have roles, rules, goals, and jargon all their own way”, (Timothy Leary and LSD) needed to be changed through the raising of one’s consciousness to bypass the senseless pillars of society. Through those encounters with other people along with the use of psychedelics, a new understanding regarding society’s meaning and how it held them back gave them the insight on how their revision of society would be…show more content…
They wanted to stick it to the man, a brief and crude summation of the core of the beliefs. The Yippies brought the counterculture to the forefront of American politics. Along with civil rights activists, the Yippes organized a large protest at the democratic presidential convention in Chicago and were able to demonstrate the brutality of the police and were also able to disrupt the democratic convention. These accomplishments helped reinforce their arguments that the system needed to be burnt down and allowed to let a new one take root and grow. Furthermore, these sentiments were common among many others of the generation. The anti-war movement of younger generation Americans provided a clear concise goal in political polices for their movement. The support for the war in Vietnam had drained away and the young beats and the intellectuals came together the Berkeley area to voice their argument for peace and military withdrawal. This reflects a larger, growing sentiment among many Americans who felt the need to protest openly against the established political institutions, a continuity from the civil rights era that taken place early in the

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