Though we don’t know about her own experience with the drug, Mead was surrounded by researchers and users who enthused about the nonaddictive, liberatory, insight-generating potential of acid and mescaline, and she had written about the “curative properties” of peyote two decades prior while studying the Omaha people.
Mead’s interest in psychedelics stemmed from her lifelong quest to find a way to help humanity design peaceful, culturally diverse societies full of self- actualized individuals — in essence, a utopia.
But as she and the rest of her generation navigated “the most rapid period of change in human history, before or since,” Breen explains, Mead both inadvertently and intentionally participated in government projects more commonly associated with dystopia.
Worse, immediately after the dropping of the atomic bomb, he wrote a report proposing a new intelligence agency “specializing in unconventional warfare.” This missive was later credited with spurring the creation of the C.I.A.
Though excising more tangential anecdotes would have aided narrative clarity, Breen’s investment in even minor characters, like the mysteriously disappeared artist Weldon Kees (who may or may not have been involved in the MKULTRA sub-project “Midnight Climax,” in which prostitutes brought their clients to a CIA apartment for observation after they were unwittingly dosed with LSD) is indicative of the passion he brings to his project.
Breen’s empathy is frequently on display, but especially comes to the fore when he turns his attention to Bateson, a man who, at the end of his life, described himself as a smoke ring, “a circle spreading outward into nothingness.”
The original article contains 865 words, the summary contains 257 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Though we don’t know about her own experience with the drug, Mead was surrounded by researchers and users who enthused about the nonaddictive, liberatory, insight-generating potential of acid and mescaline, and she had written about the “curative properties” of peyote two decades prior while studying the Omaha people.
Mead’s interest in psychedelics stemmed from her lifelong quest to find a way to help humanity design peaceful, culturally diverse societies full of self- actualized individuals — in essence, a utopia.
But as she and the rest of her generation navigated “the most rapid period of change in human history, before or since,” Breen explains, Mead both inadvertently and intentionally participated in government projects more commonly associated with dystopia.
Worse, immediately after the dropping of the atomic bomb, he wrote a report proposing a new intelligence agency “specializing in unconventional warfare.” This missive was later credited with spurring the creation of the C.I.A.
Though excising more tangential anecdotes would have aided narrative clarity, Breen’s investment in even minor characters, like the mysteriously disappeared artist Weldon Kees (who may or may not have been involved in the MKULTRA sub-project “Midnight Climax,” in which prostitutes brought their clients to a CIA apartment for observation after they were unwittingly dosed with LSD) is indicative of the passion he brings to his project.
Breen’s empathy is frequently on display, but especially comes to the fore when he turns his attention to Bateson, a man who, at the end of his life, described himself as a smoke ring, “a circle spreading outward into nothingness.”
The original article contains 865 words, the summary contains 257 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!