"Pioneers"

Further Adventures on the Poison Path

Welcome to our latest Substack. A wee stroll down through the his/her-stories of the New Psychedelic Age.

“Pioneers”

Golden Gate Park, January 14th, 1967 (The Human Be-In)

Dear Friends,

You'll notice an illustration down at the end of this Substack that I recently finished. It is a homage to Richard Alpert, Timothy Leary, and Ralph Metzner. (Please check it out!)

In my time and travels I was lucky to meet two of these fine people… (I will have a follow up Substack relating that tale this week coming.)

I met Ralph Metzner in 1998 at a Salvia Divinorum conference up in Breitenbush Hot Springs, a conference/health center up in the Oregon Cascades to the east of Salem. Jonathan Ott, Rob Montgomery, Kathleen Harris & Dale Pendell were there as well, delivering great talks…

In Ralphs & my initial discussion I told him about an experience I had back in 1967 when I was going back and forth from Denver to San Francisco delivering Mescaline from a Texan group out of Austin in exchange for Owsley White Lightening tabs.  (Little did I know that Owsley was living in Denver helping Chet Helms setting up the Denver "Family Dog" venue). More to follow on the actual discussion with Ralph down below this tale…

With all the comings and goings of that year on occasion when in Denver I would stay for a while at my mother's house in which I occupied the basement with its own private door (quite handy I have to say!). I often put-up people there when I was in town. During that time two couples came through Denver on their way to San Francisco from Millbrook in New York where Leary, Alpert & Metzner had set up a commune of sorts back in 1963...

For my giving them shelter for a couple of days they gifted me four capsules with red crystals inside... "These are Yage, make sure you're in nature when you take these". It sounded oh so mysterious! My interest was seriously engaged!

I thanked them and gave them a couple of addresses in San Francisco where they could possibly crash, and they were on their way. I had no real idea of what they had given me.

Millbrook: The 5 year experiment in New York…

A week or so later I flew off to Los Angeles to hang out with folks I had met previously there. As usual at that time I had a couple hundred capsules of Mescaline with me and in the top of the container I had the four Yage capsules wrapped in tin foil. 

After arriving I visited friends in West Hollywood, then went off to Santa Monica to see people I had met earlier on at their commune off of Pico on 14th.

I was warmly greeted by the good people at the commune. (we tend to remember the good times, do we not?) I hung out for a while, and as I was about to head down to Venice Beach, I pulled out my container of Mescaline and tossed it to my friend Richard and said, "please give everyone a dose if they want but don’t take the capsules wrapped in tin foil, I'll pick up my container tomorrow when I come to visit.”

Off I went to Venice Beach with friends, intending to have a great time for the evening. 

Next day I showed up at the commune and Richard greeted me at the door... He looked pretty distressed, so I asked him what was up. "You know those four capsules in the tin foil? Well before you cautioned us not to take them, I had already popped them down my throat. What the hell was in them?"

I explained it was Yage, from South America. 

"What happened that was so disturbing?" I asked. 

"Well to top it off I took a couple of mescaline caps as well and everything was going fine until I went into this vision... First I was a giant Anaconda swimming in a stream following a wild Pig, then I was a Jaguar following/stalking the Anaconda, then I turned into a giant eagle flying above watching the Anaconda and the Jaguar and then I passed out."

So, here's a question for everyone... Without any prompting from me beforehand and without Richard knowing that he was taking Yage, which at that time was pretty unknown to the psychedelic masses how was it that he had a classic ayahuasca/Yage vision/experience?  (It took lots of investigation on my part over the years to figure what my friend had taken. I think I can somewhat trace the lineage of events prior though. Perhaps it was William Burroughs/ Allen Ginsberg or associates who had provided the red capsules to folks at Millbrook. It is a guess; I cannot really say but it seems to follow.)

Richard apologized for taking the capsules, I could tell he was really shaken to his core. I told him it was okay and gave him a big hug before I left. The next day I took off heading to San Francisco to drop off another shipment of Mescaline to the Haight Ashbury.

Ralph & Tim at Millbrook

So back to Ralph Metzner:

Years past and there I was at the Salvia Divinorum conference talking to Ralph Metzner. I recalled the story of Richard and the Yage, and I recounted it to Ralph who got very, very upset as he listened. I was very puzzled by his reaction but then he said if I ever recall correctly, "No they couldn't have had Yage at Millbrook!!! (I found out later that he had left Millbrook before this event in ‘67...)

I explained what it looked like red crystalline structure inside the capsules. Probably sourced in Peru, Brazil, or somewhere else. 

He was truly upset, and I understood later on that was his work with Ayahuasca was his (special) territory and he was thinking that Tim or Richard had known about it before he had. I can't really speak to that, but it is a supposition worth considering. 

I have my own theory of course on what was in the capsules. Banisteriopsis caapi alone with no admixtures say, Psychotria viridis as an example. At that time, it was only the Vine that was recognized at least in papers about the use of Ayahuasca/Yage in the indigenous rites in South America. 

I felt bad for Ralph with the reaction he had, which I hadn't meant to have happen of course. I was just telling my story. Over the next few years, we would run into each other's conferences, but we never mentioned that conversation again. He was always on the main very polite. Even though Ralph had lived in the United States for most of his life in many ways he was still the son of European aristocrats.

The one person of the Pioneers group that I didn’t meet was Richard Alpert. He did have his influences on me though with his first book, “Be Here Now”, which I still have to this day. In a way I knew more about Richard than I did the others. In 1968 up in remote Northern California I met Helen Sweet. She was older than I by 20 years, and a member of the commune that I would visit when I came out of the hills. (I was camping some 14 miles in from the nearest bit of civilization).

Tim & Richard/Ram Dass 1963 or so…

It turns out that Helen had ended up in Millbrook coming from the Village in NYC in the early 60’s. She recounted to me that she and Richard had been lovers for a while, as well as telling the story of the famous LSD-soaked coat of Alpert’s that was cut up and used for parties for quite a while. (The cologne bottle in his suitcase that broke coming into the US from Mexico).

From what I gather, Helen had only been involved with women since the early 1950’s, but on meeting Alpert, along with taking LSD found herself attracted to men. In my memory Helen related that they fallen into each other’s arms at the “Zihuatanejo Project” in Mexico. (From all the stories that I heard about Alpert later on, she was the one woman in his life intimate wise.) There was a 6-month relationship after that and after the affair was over, Helen eventually made it out to the West Coast. We ended up in another commune as compatriots for a couple of years and kept up as friends for many years. She moved to L.A. about the same time as I did. She was a wonderful person. She passed away a decade or more back.

Over the years I have had experiences with Ayahuasca, and other sacraments from South America. I have always wondered what would have happened if it had been introduced to the West before LSD or Sacred Mushrooms had. We will never know of course.

I still think often on the Pioneers. For all of the thunder and lightning around psychedelics now days, I still find myself reflecting back to the huge risk that these 3 took to bring the spiritual fire of psychedelics to the masses of humanity. Many now can safely criticize them for their actions back then, it is always easier to pass judgement on a time/situation where one wasn’t present themselves.

Thank You for Reading,

Gwyllm

You can purchase “Pioneers” Giclee Print either 8.5x11in or 13x19in here: https://square.link/u/7Bi3ehk4

Or on Gwyllm-Art.Com at this link: Pioneers – Gwyllm Art (gwyllm-art.com)

Personally, I think “Pioneers” would make a great blotter print. Your Thoughts?