It was studies like these that eventually led to the first experimentation of LSD by Bill Wilson. During the 1940s, Bill Wilson, a bit of a spiritual seeker who was interested in everything from Spiritualism to Jungian therapy, to Jesuit practices and New Thought philosophies began to connect with other spiritual seekers and leaders. And two of them…were Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley. Few today know the name of Gerald Heard, but he was once considered the grandfather of the New Age movement. A writer and public speaker on mysticism, philosophy and now this new experimental drug called LSD, Heard and Huxley decided to form a College for Mystics in Trabuco Canyon, California. And Bill Wilson was invited to visit. Currently the building is no longer an eclectic college as Heard eventually donated the land and buildings to the Vedanta Society. But, for many decades it held AA meetings in the very library that the three of them first met. Much could be written about the meeting and eventual friendship that bloomed between Wilson, Heard and Huxley and perhaps the best resource is the book Distilled Spirits — Getting High, Then Sober, With a Famous Writer, a Forgotten Philosopher, and a Hopeless Drunk by Don Lattin. It was this first meeting that later led to many conversations with Gerald Heard where he encouraged Bill to try LSD. What led to his eventual decision to try it? Since there is no written statement or letter found yet that says “I, Bill Wilson, decided to try LSD because…” we are left to fill in the blanks. Some say his depression and chain cigarette smoking were a factor. Others suggest that the research happening with alcoholics and LSD in Saskatchewan were another. Or perhaps it was just the inspiration and encouragement of Heard, who Bill considered a spiritual mentor.
There is a bit of history that may help to understand the changes that were occurring within AA as a whole and how it affected later decisions for Bill Wilson. Beginning in the 1940s, Bill Wilson, struggling now with major depression begins to seek outside help for his solution: Father Ed Dowling, a Jesuit priest and spiritual mentor, who informs Bill that his depression is related to a lack of spirituality or the need to satisfy a spiritual thirst, Dr Harry Tiebout who suggests that Bill’s problems stem from “both in his active alcoholism and his current sobriety he had been trying to live out the infantilely grandiose demands of “His Majesty the Baby” (Not God, by Ernest Kurst) and finally 5 years working with Dr Frances Weeks, a Jungian therapist who believes that Bills issues are his inability to separate the needs of AA with his own personal ones.
“Highly satisfactory to live one’s life for others, it cannot be anything but disastrous to live one’s life for others as those others think it should be lived…The extent to which the AA movement and the individual in it determine my choices is really astonishing. Things which are primary to me (even for the good of AA) are unfulfilled…So we have the person of Mr. Anonymous in conflict with Bill Wilson” – Soul of Sponsorship
How other members of AA, and even Bill himself, viewed him seeking psychiatric help for his depression were not positive.
“Bill believed that his depressions were perpetuated by his own failure to work the AA steps…”I used to be rather guilt ridden about this…I blamed myself for inability to practice the program in certain areas of my life.”-Pass It On
According to Francis Hartigan, author of the biography Bill W, when it got out that Bill W was seeking psychiatric help, she writes
“The reaction for many members was worse than it had been to the news he was suffering from depression…As these members saw it, Bill’s seeking outside help was tantamount to saying the A.A. program didn’t work.”-Bill W, Francis Hartigan
It is important to state that AA, the organization, is not against seeking outside help and encourages it if necessary. But that doesn’t always mean that its members are quite so accepting. And unfortunately, it appears that Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was beginning to experience an ever-growing dogma that was entering the rooms of AA. The dogma being that “AA and only AA is the solution”, apparently even for depression.
So, whatever the reasons for his decision to take LSD, Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, made the decision. And, like many of our members of Psychedelics in Recovery have experienced, on August 29, 1956, with set and setting and 3 guides present, took his first intentional usage of a psychedelic and entered the strange place of being both a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and…something other.
Under the supervision of his sponsee and friend Tom Powers, Gerald Heard and Dr. Sidney Cohen, psychiatrist, Bill Wilson takes LSD for the first of many times, and the effect was nothing less than profound on him. Here are some of the statements made in regard to this first LSD experience.
“At 1:00 pm Bill reported “a feeling of peace.” At 2:31 p.m. he was even happier. “Tobacco is not necessary to me anymore,” he reported. At 3:15 p.m. he felt an “enormous enlargement” of everything around him. At 3:22 p.m. he asked for a cigarette. At 3:40 p.m. he said he thought people shouldn’t take themselves so damn seriously.” My Name is Bill, Susan Cheever
“Bill was enthusiastic about his experience; he felt it helped him eliminate many barriers erected by the self, or ego, that stand in the way of one’s direct experience of the cosmos and of God. He thought he might have found something that could make a big difference to the lives of many who still suffered. Soon, he had a group of people — psychiatrists, ministers, publishers, and friends — interested in further experiments with the substance. Far from keeping his activities a secret, he was eager to spread the word. (Secrecy was never Bill’s strong point. His candor, certainly an important part of his great charm and credibility, also had its drawbacks. As Nell said, if you did not want something to be publicly known, you were well advised not to share it with Bill. In a word, he was open about his own affairs and those of others.)” -Pass it On
In a currently unpublished letter to Carl Jung described by Don Lattin below, Wilson writes that his LSD experiences are similar to the original “white light experience” back in the Townes Hospital years before.
“I discovered a second Wilson letter to Jung. In that letter of March 29, 1961, Wilson writes at length about his experiments using LSD to help members of Alcoholics Anonymous have the spiritual awakening that is central to the twelve-step program of recovery.
‘Some of my AA friends and I have taken the material (LSD) frequently and with much benefit,’ Wilson told Jung, adding that the powerful psychedelic drug sparks ‘a great broadening and deepening and heightening of consciousness.’
Wilson told Jung that his first LSD trip in 1956 reminded him of a mystical revelation he had after hitting bottom in the 1930s and winding up in a New York City hospital ward for hardcore alcoholics. ‘My original spontaneous spiritual experience of twenty-five years before was enacted with wonderful splendor and conviction,’”-Distilled Spirits, Don Lattin
