By spring we had given psychedelic drugs to over 200 subjects and had learned a lot about how to run sessions. Eighty-five percent of our subjects were reporting that the experience was the most educational of their lives. These testimonials were pleasing because most therapies, including psychoanalysis, traditionally reported around thirty-three percent positive change. As scientists we were still dissatisfied. We were faced with the unavoidable problem in the field of psychiatry. How do you demonstrate that someone has improved? Self-appraisals are an important index but inconclusive; heroin addicts and born-again Christians claim to feel better but others might disagree. There didn't seem to be an objective way to keep score on life changes. Half of the people coached might have loosened up and half might have gotten their lives more tightly organized, and for any or all of them the changes might have been a genuine improvement. Half might have increased the intimacy and closeness of their marriages, and half might have left their spouses. Some might have benefited by making more money, some by making less. We needed clear statistical indices, like batting averages, for the game of life. About this time a call came from two officials of the Massachusetts prison system, requesting that Harvard graduate-interns be assigned for research and training. They expected a quick turn-down. Just as prison guards were the bottom of the law-enforcement hierarchy, prison work was at that time the pits of psychology. Criminals simply didn't change. Much to their surprise I invited the prison officials over for lunch at the Faculty Club. I welcomed the chance to get into a prison and initiate a volunteer rehabilitation program. I had two purposes in mind: first, if we could change the behavior of violent criminals with our drugs, we'd demonstrate that our methods and theories worked where nothing else did. Second, prison rehabilitation would provide us with the behavioral scientist's dream, an iron-clad objective index of improvement—the recidivism rate. The return-rate in Massachusetts prisons was running seventy percent. I felt we could decimate that percentage. What a boon to society—converting violent criminals to law-abiding citizens! If we could teach the most unregenerate how to wash their own brains, then it would be a cinch to coach non-criminals to change their lives for the better. A deal was made over lunch. I agreed to send Harvard graduate-interns into the prisons; the officials agreed to get clearances from the wardens and correctional psychiatrists for us to give drugs to convicts. A week later I drove out to the prison. I wore my Ivy League tweed uniform. I even wore leather shoes for this occasion. Warden Tom Grennan, a fellow Irishman, was impressed and pleased. A Harvard psychologist had never come around before. Next I had to get the approval of the prison psychiatrist. This could have meant trouble. Shrinks didn't usually like programs of head expansion, and medics liked to preserve their monopoly on drugs. I walked nervously down the hallway to the metal cage that opened into a prison cellblock. Rang a bell. A slot opened. A guard looked out, nodded, and opened up a second metal door. I walked through the prison with a sense of foreboding. And precapitulation. I'd been here before and I'd be here again.

From Psychedelic Library at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/leary1.htm Prisoners to Prophets Timothy Leary excerpts from chapter 11 of FLASHBACKS, an Autobiography by Timothy Leary Published by Jeremy P. Tarcher ©1983, 1990 Timothy Leary. MARCH 1961 HARVARD UNIVERSITY By spring we had given psychedelic drugs to over 200 subjects and had learned a lot about how to run sessions. Eighty-five percent of our subjects were reporting that the experience was the most educational of their lives. These testimonials were pleasing because most therapies, including psychoanalysis, traditionally reported around thirty-three percent positive change. As scientists we were still dissatisfied. We were faced with the unavoidable problem in the field of psychiatry. How do you demonstrate that someone has improved? Self-appraisals are an important index but inconclusive; heroin addicts and born-again Christians claim to feel better but others might disagree. There didn't seem to be an objective way to keep score on life changes. Half of the people coached might have loosened up and half might have gotten their lives more tightly organized, and for any or all of them the changes might have been a genuine improvement. Half might have increased the intimacy and closeness of their marriages, and half might have left their spouses. Some might have benefited by making more money, some by making less. We needed clear statistical indices, like batting averages, for the game of life. About this time a call came from two officials of the Massachusetts prison system, requesting that Harvard graduate-interns be assigned for research and training. They expected a quick turn-down. Just as prison guards were the bottom of the law-enforcement hierarchy, prison work was at that time the pits of psychology. Criminals simply didn't change. Much to their surprise I invited the prison officials over for lunch at the Faculty Club. I welcomed the chance to get into a prison and initiate a volunteer rehabilitation program. I had two purposes in mind: first, if we could change the behavior of violent criminals with our drugs, we'd demonstrate that our methods and theories worked where nothing else did. Second, prison rehabilitation would provide us with the behavioral scientist's dream, an iron-clad objective index of improvement—the recidivism rate. The return-rate in Massachusetts prisons was running seventy percent. I felt we could decimate that percentage. What a boon to society—converting violent criminals to law-abiding citizens! If we could teach the most unregenerate how to wash their own brains, then it would be a cinch to coach non-criminals to change their lives for the better. A deal was made over lunch. I agreed to send Harvard graduate-interns into the prisons; the officials agreed to get clearances from the wardens and correctional psychiatrists for us to give drugs to convicts. A week later I drove out to the prison. I wore my Ivy League tweed uniform. I even wore leather shoes for this occasion. Warden Tom Grennan, a fellow Irishman, was impressed and pleased. A Harvard psychologist had never come around before. Next I had to get the approval of the prison psychiatrist. This could have meant trouble. Shrinks didn't usually like programs of head expansion, and medics liked to preserve their monopoly on drugs. I walked nervously down the hallway to the metal cage that opened into a prison cellblock. Rang a bell. A slot opened. A guard looked out, nodded, and opened up a second metal door. I walked through the prison with a sense of foreboding. And precapitulation. I'd been here before and I'd be here again. CONCORD STATE PRISON I walked through the first tall cellblock, across the prison yard to the hospital. Bell, peephole, metal hinges creaking. Entered the hospital. Knocked on the door of the prison psychiatrist. It opened and facing me was good news. The prison psychiatrist was black and definitely avant-garde. Hurray! Philosopher Thomas Kuhn said that when you wish to introduce change-technology to a culture, you'll find your best allies among the outsiders, those whose alienation from the establishment makes them more open to change. Aside from being a black psychiatrist Dr. Jefferson Monroe [Madison Presnell] stood out in the primitive period of 1961 as another kind of rarity—a sophisticated psychiatrist. Impeccable, graceful, hip. He had a twinkle in his eye and a wise, cool way of looking at you. He was definitely ready for something new. A few days later Dr. Monroe paid a return call at the Faculty Club and then came to a staff meeting at the Center. We put him on the Harvard payroll as a consultant. The following Sunday he brought his wife over for cocktails. "Your plan to teach prisoners to brainwash themselves is simply delicious. There's even a slight chance you can pull it off. Do you know what that might mean?" "A great boon to society," I suggested. Dr. Monroe crossed his legs gracefully and laughed. "My dear, you don't really understand what you're getting into, do you? Sooner or later you're going to discover that law enforcement people and prison administrators have no desire to cut crime. They want more crime and more money to fight it. I'll cover you from the medical and psychiatric end, but sooner or later, if your methods work they'll start coming down on you. Reporters, bureaucrats, officials. 'Harvard Gives Drugs to Prisoners!' And you're going to have to do the impossible. Cure prisoners with your left hand while you try to hold off the entire bureaucracy with your right. " "So what? If it works." "Being human, sooner or later you'll make a teeny little mistake. One of your subjects will revert. 'Harvard Drug Parolee Robs Bank.' " "As long as we do everything out front, no secrets," I said, "we can make a few honest mistakes." "Maybe," said Monroe. "Look, here's the deal. I'll back you all-out, until you goof. When they start coming down on you, exactly at that point I'll have to protect my own pretty black ass. 'Cause, I'm not you. I'm not the new Freud. So I'll win with you, but I can't afford to lose with you." On that basis we agreed on a plan: Monroe would line up volunteers in the prison population for the drug project and I'd line up Harvard graduate students willing to put their nervous systems on the line taking drugs with maximum security prisoners.