PT551 – Tripped: The Connection Between LSD, Nazi Germany, and MKUltra, with Norman Ohler

Psychedelics Today

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Life Sciences, Science, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 598 Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2024

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Joe interviews award-winning novelist and screenwriter, Norman Ohler.

Following in the footsteps of "Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich," his newest book, "Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age," tells the story of how the Nazi's passion for methamphetamine turned into a curiosity about LSD, and how their experiments with trying to harness LSD as a truth drug eventually led to the CIA continuing their research under their MKUltra program. The book came about from trying to understand why LSD never became medicine – a question posed by his father, when discussing how LSD could help with his wife's progressing Alzheimer's symptoms.

He discusses:

His path to becoming a "gonzo historian" and how his early psychedelic research was inspired by a friend's discovery of methamphetamine tablets from the 40s
Henry Beecher's LSD experiments with students at Harvard, and how researchers often didn't know they were contributing to MKUltra
His recent appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience and Jesse Watters Primetime
His mother's experience with microdosing LSD and why police showed up at his father's door with a warrant
Why he believes psychedelics will be legalized in the U.S. in the next 10 years

and more!

For links, head to the show notes page.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, everybody. Welcome back to psychedelics today. This is Joe Moore coming at you from
0:17.0	Brooklyn, Colorado. Today in the show, we have Norman Oler, who wrote
0:22.4	blitzed and tripped two very excellent books, I think, covering the intersection of the German,
0:31.8	Swiss side of World War II and drugs, and very, very, very well done. I love the narrative style. It's kind of
0:40.2	gonzo and really, really clever. So we just wrapped recording and I'm, you know, probably going to
0:46.9	keep pushing these books for, for years to come, especially after the interview. So I hope you
0:52.3	enjoy it. Norman's a journalist, spent some time
0:55.6	in Manhattan, but really German, kind of Berlin-based. And yeah, we just had a lovely time chatting.
1:02.5	So I hope you enjoy it. Coming up, December 3, 2024, I will be at Remind in Las Vegas,
1:10.1	the psychedelic business forum. At least me from the Psychedelics Today team will be at Remind in Las Vegas, the psychedelic business forum, at least me from the Psychedelics
1:14.3	Today team will be there.
1:15.3	We're working to see if we can get others.
1:17.4	So I hope you come.
1:19.5	And if you're there, please, please, please say hi.
1:21.7	We'd love to say hi.
1:23.3	And yeah, it's kind of all day, single day event around the MJ BizCon event. So check it out. And
1:28.8	yeah, please get blitzed. Please get Tripp. It's really great. And yeah, we'll see on the other side.
1:34.2	Enjoy the episode.
1:39.6	Hello, everybody. Welcome back to psychedelics today. I'm here today with Norman Oler, author of Blitz, Drugs in Nazi Germany from 2015, and the more recent tripped in 2024 that talks about the similar time period, honestly, World War II kind of German-Swiss side of the psychedelic, early unfolding of the psychedelic thing in Germany.
2:03.7	So Norman, thanks for being here today.
2:05.3	Thank you.
2:05.9	Hello.
	...

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