If our current era is one of politics, technology, and economics, it's fair to say that the 60s were an era where social science, self-reflection and cultural anthropology ruled the day.

And if places like Stanford, and MIT are the intellectual hubs of our day, Harvard was an intellectual hub of the ’60s

Nowhere was that more true than in Harvard's establishment of a Department of Social Relations.  With figures like Timothy Leary, Ram Das, and Ted Kaczynski, as part of the faculty, it was an epicenter of its time.

Today Harvard is restarting psilocybin reaching and launching a new center for the neuroscience of psychedelics in association with Mass. General Hospital.  So it’s a good time to look back at the antecedents of this effort.

Patrick Schmidt has written about it in his new book HARVARD’S QUIXOTIC PURSUIT OF A NEW SCIENCE.

My conversation with Patrick Schmidt: