Video: Early 60s Sci-Fi 'Shroom Self-Experimentation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz7k00544PAAnd you thought all those salvia videos on YouTube were crazy.

Check out this 1961 episode from the Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond program in which, as Neurophilosophy explains, "director and presenter John Newland ingests psilocybin under laboratory conditions, to investigate whether or not the hallucinogenic mushroom can enhance his abilities of extra-sensory perception."

This video is immensely entertaining – even more so when you think that aluminum giant Alcoa (AA) sponsored Newland to trip. The Hitchcockesque scoring is also hilarious. Make sure to check out parts two and three, too. He actually trips in the second video.

Here's my transcript of the stunning opening, which bends the truth a little. Magic mushrooms were popularly known to exist by the late 50s. But hey, it's still a fantastic monologue:

FADE IN: on three mushrooms arranged on black felt

This member of the mushroom family, this fungus, is known for the moment only as X. It was discovered barely weeks ago growing in a remote rain forest.

A hand enters from frame left to pick up a mushroom. The camera follows the hand until John Newland is fully revealed, besuited, in front of a wall of (fake) books.

Science has not yet given it a name (looking thoughtfully at the mushroom, as if it's whispering) for science knows scarcely anything about it. (Now staring directly into the camera) But it is felt that X might have one remarkable quality (dramatic pause) that it stimulates extrasensory perception. (begin slow zoom on Newland) enabling the mind to become telepathic and clairvoyant. Now that's a rather large claim. Is it true or false? The answer to that question took us on a unique and distant journey.

CUT TO: Newland walking down clearly ancient steps of a lost city in short-sleeves (gasp) and an open collar.

We're in Mexico, thousands of miles from our Hollywood sound stages in a place called M______, there are no actors and there is no script for this psychic report can only be recorded at the moment it happens.

What if this were the first two paragraphs of a sci-fi thriller, or its film adaptation, anyway? Any readers want to write the next paragraph?

See Also:

Psilocybin Study Hints at Rebirth of Hallucinogen Research
Chem Lab: Shrooms Make Time Feel Slower

Via >> Mind Hacks >> Neurophilosophy