CHAPTER 04

Following Instructions and Going with the Flow

taken the substance. In the initial high energy and rapid changes that they could evoke with it, they had misjndged the case and needed time to integrate what had happened.

During my own initial experiments, I had run across these same areas of hyperenthusiastic response to certain kinds of experiences in the tank. I had also learned that until one has spent a good deal of time thinking about these results afterward, it is wise not to present the results in public. By the time that I did the experiments, we had several public examples of people who had gone the other path and had made this kind of mistake. Actually I should not say that they made a mistake. They taught us very valuable lessons. If they hadn't done what they did we couldn't have done what we did, So, actually, we owe them a debt. Each of these persons showed us what the public reaction would be if we took a similar path, so we were able to avoid the pitfalls and proceed with the work until the law made it impossible.

In regard to brain damage, I felt that there was no damage, as did the others who had taken it. We were opposed by the idea that we didn't have insight into the damage of our own brains. We felt this was fear-filled nonsense, as did those who examined us for possible brain damage.

In regard to chromosome damage, we designed experiments to find out if there was any. These turned out to be completely negative. Even though the evaluation of the damage was done by a man who was quite set against the taking of LSD, he could not find any chromosome damage due to LSD per se. In regard to the possible damage to children conceived during an LSD trip and to a pregnant mother taking LSD, we had lots of examples of people in the early davs who were on psychotherapeutic regimes with LSD and who conceived

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