The Beyond Within is a well-balanced two part documentary on LSD featuring Albert Hoffman, Ken Kesey and British politician Christopher Mayhew.

While the entire documentary is filled with absorbing insights, The Mayhew segment is particularly fascinating.

Media and public interest in LSD reached a point in the early 60’s that a politician by the name of Christopher Mayhew agreed to undergo an experiment, and for this experiment to be filmed by the BBC. This fascinating experiment involved his taking a dose of Mescalin in the company of a physician, and answering certain basic brainteasers over the course of his little trip. The footage of his experience is extraordinary, as this eloquent upper-class aristocrat describes what he is experiencing under the influence of the drug, his eyes wide as saucers. Indeed, the footage proved too controversial for the BBC at the time, and was not shown until this Everyman documentary broadcast it in the 1980’s. Interestingly, Mayhew, who in 1986 was a member of the House of Lords, watches the footage, 30 years later, and stands by his description of the experience. “I had an experience in time” he says, and his conviction is apparent.”

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in psychedelics within the psychiatric and scientific community and I personally think it’s about time. The benefits of psychoactive drugs, DMT and LSD in particular, far outweigh the hazards. It’s time to make pharmaceutical quality LSD available to adults who want an alternative path to mental well-being and spiritual insight. We need to re-approach this extraordinary chemical without hysteria and hype.

Made in 1986 for BBC television, The Beyond Within explores the rise and fall of LSD.  Here it is in its entirety.
 

Thanks for the interesting information.

This post has been included in the Museum of Drugs resources page
http://www.museumofdrugs.org

You and I have very different conceptions of “well-balanced”, Mr. Campbell.

Marc, it’s actually called ‘The Beyond Within’, which sorta makes a wee bit more sense.
Regards/

Response to film: Have we recovered from the 60’s enough for you, yet, Scruton?(red-headed professor in the film.
How’s it look? Pretty great, huh? Right down into the shit-hole we go (without even managing to “maintain” our “institutions” or “inheritance” in the process!

Marc says:
The benefits of psychoactive drugs, DMT and LSD in particular, far outweigh the hazards. It’s time to make pharmaceutical quality LSD available to adults who want an alternative path to mental well-being and spiritual insight. We need to re-approach this extraordinary chemical without hysteria and hype.

G says:
The “lowest common denominator” does seem to rear it’s head when psychoactive drugs are released willy-nilly into society; but perhaps we have learned 40 years later and are ready to use these gifts responsibly and with wisdom.
It seems to me that many around me are ready to get to the next level; like Kesey says “once a century” society expresses itself colorfully and seems to “break out” of its drab existence a bit.

I think flowerings or renaissances happen more than once a century. It’s time for another flowering, the first one of the 21st century. We don’t necessarily need drugs to do it; but some drugs can be useful as catalysts.

Mona,

thank you. I corrected it. I should have learned by now not to cut and paste my typos.

“You and I have very different conceptions of “well-balanced”, Mr. Campbell.”

eyep,

The documentary was made for British TV. It’s as well-balanced as one can expect from something made for mainstream consumption. Overall, I think it does a fairly good job of showing the different sides of a very controversial subject.
I don’t agree with everything it posits, but I do find much to like about the film.

I hate to comment before actually viewing but I can’t resist since I read the book back in 1980-81(a long time ago)and I confess I’ve had numerous occasions for “scientific research” and surprise I became a functioning, fairly nice and loved member of society-gee whiz.The one of the main things I took from the book was that certain poisons in nature when taken in appropriate amounts, amounts that don’t kill you can open doors to other forms of human consciousness. In this particular case,LSD. It being an inhibitor of inhibitors. If we didn’t have chemicals suppressing the information coming into our brains it would be sensory overload. LSD interrupts that process,which to paraphrase William Blake is sometimes a good thing.
Now,I go watch video.

p.s. you guys post so much fascinating stuff I can’t keep up.

I watched this a few times when it first aired, and greateful to be able to see it again. It’s still the very best documentary on LSD I’ve seen, amazing since it was made at the height of the US-led War on Drugs.  Very balanced, thorough, and most certainly fascinating.  Some segments were burned permanently into my mind the moment I first watched them, especially those dealing with Mayhew and the student-priests. (The latter starts about 50:30.)  Perhaps the only shortcoming is a very cursory treatment of the CIA “mind control” experiments.  There’s much more to that story than simply denouncing the experiments as reprehensible (even by the ethical standards of the day), including what they might tell us about the psyche or self.

There is a recent National Geographic documentary, which discusses some serious contemporary research on the drug.  Likewise recommended.