Psychedelic Timeline

Cave rock art depicts Psilocybe mairei, hallucinogenic mushrooms in the Tassili-N-Ajjer region of the Sahara. This is the earliest evidence of the use of Psilocybe mushrooms.

In the Mycenaean civilization of the late Bronze Age, initiates into the cults of Demeter and Persephone drank a mysterious drink called kyke?n during the Eleusinian Mysteries initiation rites. The drink may have contained ergot, a fungus that grows on barley and has psychoactive effects similar to LSD.

Dr. John Raleigh Briggs, a doctor living in Texas, publishes a paper about the effects of "muscale buttons.” His work informs the research of German pharmacologist Louis Lewin, who later publishes the first methodical analysis of the peyote cactus.

English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley publishes The Doors of Perception. The book documents his self-experimentation with mescaline: the active psychedelic agent in peyote and San Pedro cacti.

Drs. Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) start the Harvard Psilocybin Project to study the effects of psilocybin. In 1963, Alpert is fired after giving psilocybin to an undergraduate student, Leary is fired, and the project ends. Leary and Alpert become prominent figures in the psychedelic drug and counterculture movement.

Dow Pharmaceuticals chemist Alexander Shulgin discovers MDMA’s effects after testing 120 mg on himself. He publishes his findings in 1978.

Dr. Evgeny Krupitsky and a team of researchers at the Leningrad Regional Center for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Therapy begin investigating ketamine in the treatment of alcohol and heroin addiction.

Neuroscientist Roland R. Griffiths publishes a landmark study about the psychological effects of psilocybin. This is one of the first double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical studies in decades to examine psychedelics, and it renews interest in further clinical research.

Psychiatrist Michael C. Mithoefer publishes a randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical study that shows MDMA therapy significantly improved symptoms among adults with PTSD. This research leads to the FDA granting Breakthrough Therapy designation for MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD.

Oregon becomes the first U.S. state to legalize the medical use of psilocybin under the care of a licensed facilitator.