Harvard Psilocybin Course – Beezone Library

The Harvard Psilocybin Project 1960-1963

Where psychedelics met academia – and everything changed

“It is fitting and natural that the Harvard intellectual community be the first to grapple with this new philosophic and practical issue and that the University of William James be given the first chance to accept or reject the educational potentialities of consciousness-expanding drugs.”

Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary

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Psilocybin changed the world – but first it shook Harvard University. The Harvard Psilocybin Project 1960-1963 reveals how a daring research initiative at the heart of academia challenged postwar cultural norms and set in motion a revolution in psychology, medicine, law, and spirituality that still echoes today.

The Harvard Psilocybin Project 1960–1963

By Edward J. Reither

A Faithful Portrait of a Transformative Moment in Consciousness Research

I come to this book from a rare vantage point. As a psychology graduate student at Harvard from 1960 to 1963, I was part of the original core team of the Harvard Psilocybin Project—working alongside my colleagues Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass), Ralph Metzner, and George Litwin. Decades later, in 2023, I was also guest speaker in a course on the project led by the author, Ed Reither, at the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement. So dear reader—my perspective in this review is both deeply informed and perhaps not entirely objective.

That said, The Harvard Psilocybin Project 1960–1963 is, in my view, one of the most thoughtful and even-handed accounts of that turbulent and groundbreaking era. Ed Reither brings to life a period that’s often been reduced to caricature—too easily dismissed as either naïve idealism or psychedelic fueled anarchy. What he’s done instead is dig deep into the Harvard archives—uncovering letters, memos, and long-forgotten accounts from Harvard University’s multiple libraries as well as journalistic accounts from that period and weave them together with insight, balance, and empathy.

The book accurately captures what we, the core team, truly believed we were doing: exploring the leading, sometimes bleeding edge of consciousness through a disciplined yet open minded inquiry that was at once both scientific and psycho spiritual. This was not a simple dress rehearsal for the psychedelic ’60s—it was our earnest attempt to expand psychology’s understanding of the human mind that, with few exceptions, such as Harvard’s own William James in the late 1880’s, had long been neglected in mainstream academic psychology.

Ed Reither avoids both hero worship and vilification of us and our critics. He lets the story write itself from the extensive source materials, showing the brilliance and the flaws, the aspirations and the resistance to our work. From compelling individual accounts of psilocybin experiences of Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs and others to the groundbreaking Concord Prison Project and the Marsh Chapel Good Friday Experiment, he chronicles the ying/yang of the promise and the pushback—the excitement of discovery and the institutional academic and political fears of the Nixon era that ultimately shut it all down.

From my perspective, this book rings true—not only to the facts but to the spirit of those years. For anyone who wants to understand what really happened—beyond the mythology of the psychedelic ’60s—this book offers a vivid and compassionate account of a time when science, spirituality, and imagination briefly converged in the pursuit of human understanding. I’m grateful to see that story told with clarity, intelligence and respect.

— Gunther M Weil

The Harvard Psilocybin Project 1960–1963
by Edward J. Reither

Where psychedelics met academia—and everything changed.

In the early 1960s, a quiet revolution stirred within the hallowed halls of Harvard University. Led by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass), the Harvard Psilocybin Project dared to explore uncharted territory: the potential of psilocybin to expand consciousness, heal psychological wounds, and awaken new realms of human understanding.

Ed Reither tells the gripping true story of this bold academic experiment. With clarity and insight, educator, historian, and founder of Beezone—offers a vivid, balanced account of how a group of psychologists challenged the norms of science, medicine, and culture, igniting a controversy that still reverberates today.

More than just a history of a research project this book is a meditation on the pursuit of knowledge, the limits of institutional tolerance, and the enduring human quest to pierce the veil of ordinary awareness. Reither’s detailed research sheds light on the visionary aims, ethical dilemmas, and institutional backlash that ultimately led to the project’s shutdown—but not before planting the seeds for a global psychedelic renaissance.

Perfect for readers interested in psychology, psychedelics, spirituality, and 20th-century cultural history, this book is a powerful reminder of how ideas—once ridiculed or repressed—can transform the world.

Discover the moment when science met spirit—and the world would never be the same.

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