In The Spectator, Sam Leith asks “Might LSD be good for you?” There is something of a parallel between the sociology of psychedelics research and promotion and the Alt Right as a research and social movement.
And there’s an uncanny parallel between the jester-like figure of Timothy Leary, who was a Harvard scholar before becoming the Pied Piper of Psychedelia, and Richard Spencer:
Ah, Leary. Publicity-crazed, perma-grinning Timothy Leary was the worst possible ambassador for psychedelics. Not only did his stunts contribute substantially to the atmosphere in which governments cracked down both on street use and clinical research, his fame occluded the serious work that has been done on them before and since.