Podcast 685 – The Nature of Consciousness

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Guest speaker: John Beresford

PROGRAM NOTES:

Dr. John Bereford delivering this talk in 2006 at the conference celebrating Albert Hofmann's 100th birthday.

Today's program features a lecture by psychedelic researcher Dr. John Beresford. Here is Erowid's introduction to him:

"British-born John Beresford began his psychedelic research interests in 1961, and shortly thereafter he resigned his post as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at New York Medical College. In 1963 he founded the Agora Scientific Trust, the world's first research organization devoted to investigating the effects of LSD. In contrast to Leary's invitation to "tune in, turn on, and drop out", Beresford initially wanted to keep LSD as a tool of scientifically trained specialists. However, later in his life he adopted a viewpoint that was opposed to the medicalization of psychedelics."

Of course, the story that he is best known for is the time that he wrote to Sandoz Laboratories and requested one gram of LSD! (If my math is correct, that's about 4,000 doses of 250 mics each.) Amazingly, Sandoz sent him a gram through the mail and attached a note that read, "Good luck."

The talk we are about to listen to was given by Dr. Beresford at the conference celebrating Albert Hofmann's 100th birthday. He titled it: "Psychedelic Agents and the Structure of Consciousness: Stages in a Session Using LSD and DMT".