Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and the CIA with Benjamin Breen

03/14/24 • 84 min

If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you’ve heard stories about the CIA’s experiments with drugs, particularly LSD, during the infamous MKUltra program. But you may not know that the characters involved in that dubious effort connect to one of the 20th Century’s most famous and revered scientists, the anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Shane Harris talked with historian Benjamin Breen about this new book, Tripping on Utopia, which tells the story of how Mead and her close circle launched a movement to expand human consciousness, decades before the counterculture of the 1960s popularized, and ultimately stigmatized, psychedelic drugs. Mead and Gregory Bateson--her collaborator and one-time husband--are at the center of a story that includes the WWII-era Office of Strategic Services, a shady cast of CIA agents and operatives, Beat poets, and the pioneers of the Information Age.

Psychedelics are having a renaissance, with federal regulators poised to legalize their use - Breen’s book is an engrossing history that explores the roots of that movement and how it influenced and collided with the U.S. national security establishment.

Books, movies, and other points of interest discussed in this conversation include:

Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science by Benjamin Breen
Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age by Norman Ohler
MKUltra
The intelligence community’s research on “truth drugs”
The Manchurian Candidate
The Good Shepherd
Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer
The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death by Deborah Blum
“Operation Delirium” by Raffi Khatchadourian in The New Yorker

Also check out:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Books, movies, and other points of interest discussed in this conversation include:

Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science by Benjamin Breen
Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age by Norman Ohler
MKUltra
The intelligence community’s research on “truth drugs”
The Manchurian Candidate
The Good Shepherd
Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer
The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death by Deborah Blum
“Operation Delirium” by Raffi Khatchadourian in The New Yorker

Also check out:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Spy Disguises in Fact and Fiction with Jonna Mendez

Jonna Mendez advanced in her Central Intelligence Agency career to become Chief of Disguise despite the many institutional challenges to women's promotions. And now she has written a memoir, In True Face, about it all.

David Priess spoke with Jonna about career options for women at CIA in the early Cold War, her own start there in the 1960s, how photography classes set her on a path that ultimately led to service as Chief of Disguise, her interactions over the decades with Tony Mendez, the tandem-couple problem for intelligence professionals, semi-animated mask technology and other CIA disguises, her experience briefing President George H. W. Bush in the Oval Office, how the story behind the Canadian Caper became declassified and eventually the movie Argo, the International Spy Museum, and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The book In True Face by Jonna Mendez

"How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran," by Joshuah Bearman, WIRED, April 24, 2007

The movie The Ides of March

The movie Argo

The book Argo by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio

The book The Master of Disguise by Antonio Mendez

The movie Mission Impossible

The TV show The Americans

The TV show Homeland

The movie Casino Royale

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

From Right-Wing Radio to the Heart of the Never Trump Movement, with Charlie Sykes

Charlie Sykes recently stepped down as host of the Bulwark Podcast. He's a regular commentator on MSNBC, and has written a number of books. He tells the story here of his political journey, from being a page for the Wisconsin delegation at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to being a working journalist increasingly disenchanted with conventional liberalism, to finding a home in Reagan Republicanism and becoming more of a political warrior than he ever meant to be--and then leaving the whole thing behind over Trumpism.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.