1966: Sidney Cohen’s UCLA Speech on Psychedelics

Author: Sidney Cohen

Date: April 19, 1965

Source: Archives of the UCLA Communications Studies Department.

Partial transcript

“I would say that this chemical produces, oddly enough, a state extremely similar to the cosmic transcendental religious state known to us in the theological and philosophic literature. Naturally there are differences: the fact that one has taken a chemical makes a difference, the fact that it lasts for hours rather than moments makes a difference, the fact that one hasn't paid the price of achieving the state makes a great difference because the price is part of the state. But I do believe that this technological advance of modern day rationalism has given us this most unrational of agents.

I also believe that it's an extremely, extremely important item for the study of the mind, both the sane, the insane and, if you will permit me, the unsane mind. It's a delicious tool for the study of mood changes, of perceptual changes, of changes in cognition, and of our sense of subjective time.

In case some of you wonder what unsanity is, unsanity might be defined as organized insanity, in other words, loss of self, dissociation, but with some intactness.

The third reality about LSD is that its future is miserable. We are seeing in the past few years an accelerating decay in its use. We are seeing accidents happen, we are frightening the public, we are getting laws passed. We are not using the anthropological approach of insinuating a valuable drug of this sort into our culture. We are becoming frightened by it — if not us, those people out there.

One other thing that LSD teaches me, and perhaps you, is the enormity of the human potential. Those of you who have read descriptions of the LSD state must be impressed by the lushness of what comes forth from, if you'll pardon the expression, the unconscious. The stuff that we never knew existed, the creativity within us, is enormous and is transiently released in some of the fantasies connected with LSD.

Another reality that I must emphasize, because I think some of you will disagree, is that the LSD experience is only a beginning. It is not an end, it is a beginning of a beginning. You are not struck by lightning, having had LSD, and thereafter are a different person. Oh no, the people who have had such experiences spontaneously tell us this, and it is true of LSD. I have seen it happen. People have said to me, ‘I can't be the same miserable creature I used to be, I've seen the glory,’ and off they go in their old behavioral pattern.

It's an opportunity for change, it's not change itself.”

📕 For more on Sidney Cohen, see his Biography page.