The Electric Kool Aide Acid Test

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Kevin Kusmit

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The Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test

Throughout history people seem to use drugs to escape and feel like they’re in a different world. That sensation of getting high creates a feeling that everyone’s problems are no longer being stressed upon their lives. This peace in this eventful environment that one experience’s erase’s your memory and problems when one’s life is in shambles. When Tom Wolfe interviewed the leader of the Merry Pranksters, Ken Kesey, things were entirely different. After WWII, the young generation that followed rebelled against life like none have done before. Experimenting on drugs was more of an exploration to a new dimension rather than a mode of escapism. Much of what these pranksters were doing seemed to be creating a new religious movement in the cultural movement called the psychedelic movement.

By the late 1960’s in San Francisco, much of the earlier beat generation had faded into something new and different. The once considered home base of the beat generation, North Beach, became an area of strip clubs and an ever changing nightlife. This counter cultural energy has transferred to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, taking on a role separate of the beats. As Wolfe describes this new hippie culture, it is focused around the drug culture with a specific interest on LSD (Wolfe, 11). This movement caused individuals mostly from middle-class to abandon their ways of life for this new lifestyle. This lifestyle was starting to spread in California and eventually to other states. We can see from Carrols point of view on the atlas map on how he sees religious upbringings, which we can favor a point of view from figures in helping create the ideals and gather all credible information; allowing us to focus on religious beliefs to create an accurate map from this new religious movement (Carroll Pg10). This view skips the makeup of religious history by providing the foundation of the landscape first. This new movement was first noticed around the summer of 1967, as young people began to rely on drugs, music, and multimedia. This gave a sense to those that participated had a higher sense of consciousness.

In trying to figure out this new movement novelist Tom Wolfe, interviewed where this movement had originated from, Ken Kesey. From what Tom had gathered, he wrote the story the "Electric Kool-Aide Acid Test." Kesey who lived in Palo Alto and attending Stanford, decided to sign up and participate in a drug study the CIA was sponsoring. The drug that the CIA was studying and experimenting on was called LSD. As Kesey began to use the drug more, he decided to attract followers to the attraction of the state that they can achieve while using the drug. They would use the drug at Kesey’s house whom they called their charismatic leader upon the name the "Merry Pranksters" (Wolfe, 11). They would buy neon day-glow colors and paint everything inside the house. This drug created a wild environment when especially involved with lights and noise. As the use began to take a rapid increase amongst the group, the local authorities of the La Honda area could not do anything as the drug was not yet labeled illegal. So all they could do was sit back and watch as these youngsters experimented on LSD day and night.

With Kesey publication of his newest novel being introduced in New York, the group decides to take a trip and witness his first release. The bus that they take was painted in neon colors and named "Furthur" (Wolfe, 68). This naming of the bus was a way of taking their LSD lifestyle into the normal world. Further represented a new confrontation of reality and the actual experience one gets on LSD. During this trip they filmed themselves on acid and this movie would eventually become the symbolization of the experiment that they are all uniquely involved in (Wolfe, 77). This created a new form of a religious movement across America. This mainstream never gained the success warranted by the group as they drove the psychedelic bus into the society confronting issues. These issues were mainly conformity, racial injustice, and class difference. They did not want to demand a change but rather through the pseudo-religious experience while on LSD.

The incorrect naming of the bus was a way to convey their unwillingness to conform to society and their traditionalism. In wanting to get the word spread about LSD, the idea of Acid test was projected and then started amongst youngsters. These tests were actually parties where everyone takes LSD and transcends into a new form of reality. Once taken, they become more focused on the drug itself rather than the social activism around them. One could see how they could have used this movement towards a greater good on social justice, but the pranksters decided to stay focused on the drug. LSD would give the individual the aspect of transforming the world around them. This test was a reckless use of the drug, trying to create a favorable condition for the individual under the influence. Making them feel good was the highest priority and the care of the world around them was irrelevant. As the individuals consciousness was blended with intersubjectivity where both one’s consciousness is known.

However, this type of consciousness was reached once from the group during their use of LSD as Tom Wolfe was writing their experimental use. That one time was on their way to see the Beatles perform, as Wolfe describes it as "the lights and sounds that the Pranksters create on the bus all work to form a "cloud" in which they are all caught up" (Wolfe, 202). The state, however, is only temporary, and they soon came back down to earth when their trip goes bad at the concert. This elusiveness for the pranksters to approach that type of intersubjectivity was a huge gamble. When taking LSD one seems to never know if they will ever recover from the trips of reaching intersubjectivity, as it was fraught with danger. In trying to pass on their experience during this trip they create a movie, filming the whole aspect of their trip. The movie gave the Pranksters the ability to filter the real world through the lens of LSD. It seemed that when the Pranksters took LSD, it was as if they were being transported to another time in space and dimension from the real world. Their use of filming themselves on LSD was a way to keep a reference on what was real and what wasn’t. This movie gave the world the ability to see the alternative state of mind one can achieve under the use of LSD.

Kesey, while he was down in Mexico running from the FBI for his illegal use of weed, thought up the idea of an acid graduation (Wolfe, 367). He had seen this as a way for the individual to move them into a psychedelic movement and beyond the drug itself. This graduation would eventually fail, even though Kesey saw this as a beginning to a new religion. The pranksters as seen by Wolfe, was a new religious movement as the embodiment of characters prominent to the highly successful religious groups. It was the certain vibe of their charismatic leader and the key to an experience others want to experiment. Kesey was the primary glue that held the pranksters together during the most difficult circumstances. The group started to fall apart during his absence in Mexico, but eventually was brought back together with his return. At a Unitarian Conference, Kesey was called a prophet by Paul Sawyer during the event (Wolfe, 192). This according to Wolfe, his experience with the Pranksters is similar to those that drove other religious movements (Wolfe, 192). It’s the availability of their shared experiences and of their leader to transmit the experience of LSD to others.

This sharing is what gave the Pranksters their strength. But for Kesey, he forgot that for the individual to sustain the feeling of that intersubjectivity the use of LSD is required. This failure signified the end of the Pranksters and their movement towards a new religion. It seems that during the time and observation Wolfe spent with the Pranksters he missed the main point; the point of the counter cultural movement that has been started by this group. Those that he interviewed are true rebels willing to be judged, careless to the thought of Wolfe or the society. Everything they were doing was considered wrong by the outside world; breaking the law mixed with anti-religious views. Going against all others on how they want you to live takes serious guts, especially with the law watching every step during this experiment. Hassler, one of the Pranksters, tells Wolfe "they’re transcending all the bullshit!" (Wolfe, 20) Wolfe seemed to have trouble with in understanding this and communicating to the Pranksters. You can see during his times there, there is bullshit that needs transcending.

Wolfe at first had trouble accepting the Pranksters for how they chose to view the world. This would cause a reader to find problematic. For instance, the reader isn’t looking for his opinion of his time spent with the Pranksters. They want the movement they were trying to start with the use of LSD across America. After reading the text, the graduation scene in the beginning is seen as a reflection of the time spent with the Pranksters. His approach is not necessarily unaccepting as he has heard about this lifestyle before assessing it. From Wolfe’s point of view, it seems he saw the Pranksters as a phony, exaggerating their experiences being on LSD. We can see from Wolfe’s analysis on this new religious drug movement giving an insightful look into the peace, students, and hippie movements. These seem to be conflated in our history. But Wolfe seems to suggest that this LSD movement effectively sustained the student activist movements, as many of the young leaders became lethargic after experiencing LSD. When reading the works of Kim Knott, her suggestion’s that "theories, approaches and methods that engage with the issues have affected the history mainly by our own standpoint and background" (Knott , 33).

The Merry Pranksters have taken this approach with their methods and theories towards a new religious movement. Towards the end of the reading the Prankster’s seem to become a sad group. The movement and time seems to just pass them by, signaling an end towards LSD and the hippie movement in general. As the Pranksters were the first to use and experiment with this drug, they too were the first casualties to LSD. Seeing how the Acid Test has taken a mind of its own, Cassady saw that he no longer had control of the content or message. While reading this book and looking at those involved, the most tragic figure was Cassady. Becoming both a hero from the novel of Kerouac’s and Kesey’s great psychedelic adventure, we can see Kesey trying to use him as a superman in creating a Nietzschean. This vision of Kesey’s future became flawed and Cassady became more of a victim of his own fast paced lifestyle than a hero.

Trying to not take an unbiased approach on the growth of LSD during the 1960’s, the reader can see several ethical interpretations in his writings. Wolfe sort of hints that using LSD can cause the user to become lackadaisical and disinterested in the worlds ethical outcomes. You can see this best when he starts to describe the leaders of the leftist student and civil rights movements who started taking LSD on how they became less concerned about their social activism, focusing solely on the drug itself. We have seen this with Gaustad as he looks to the primary sources of the belief system while avoiding the political approach and giving a more understanding to the events that occurred in the way they were perceived (Gaustad, 5). Wolfe tries to maintain a more ethical and neutral standing on the Merry Pranksters. But you can personally understand their search for an alternate state of mind. People are constantly wanting that difference and alternate mindset that drugs can convey. Even though Wolfe does not provide judgment towards the group of individuals, we’re left with the feeling that if these young people continued their work towards social justice and threw away the drugs what could have become of this movement.

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