American Trip: Set, Setting, and the Psychedelic Experience in the Twentieth Century by Ido Hartogsohn

Abstract

Reviewed by: American Trip: Set, Setting, and the Psychedelic Experience in the Twentieth Century by Ido Hartogsohn Devin Lander (bio) American Trip: Set, Setting, and the Psychedelic Experience in the Twentieth Century By Ido Hartogsohn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020. 432 pages, 6" x 9". $35.00 paper, $35.00 ebook. Ido Hartogsohn, assistant professor in the program for science, technology, and society at Bar Ilan University, has produced an expansive and well-documented historical overview of the cultural effects of psychedelic substances on the American society of the twentieth century. Hartogsohn's particular focus is on the concept of "set and setting" and how this theory relates both to the individual psychedelic experience and to the larger zeitgeist of mid-twentieth-century US culture. Hartogsohn defines the theory of set and setting as arguing that "psychedelic experiences are shaped, first and foremost, by the mind-set of an individual entering a psychedelic experience (set) and by the environment in which the experience takes place (setting)" and expands on this more clinical definition by concluding that "the character and content of a psychedelic experience … is not solely, or even predominately, determined by the drug itself" and is instead "primarily dictated by the personality, expectation, and intention (set), and the physical environment in which the experience takes place, including the people in the immediate vicinity and the broader sociocultural context (setting)" (1). It is on this broader sociocultural context that Hartogsohn stakes much of his argument. Hartogsohn's main thesis is that the reasons psychedelic substances became a major [End Page 422] cultural force in mid-twentieth-century America (and beyond) were as much a result of the collective sociocultural aspects of that particular time and place as the individual experiences created by psychedelics themselves. As such, Hartogsohn suggests that the "American Trip" referred to in the book's title is a "unique, culture-and time-dependent understanding and enactment of the psychedelic experience that emerged in mid-twentieth century America" (3–4). Illuminating on this theme by focusing on the research that began in earnest in the 1950s and reached a cultural pinnacle in the 1960s, Hartogsohn concludes that the "set and setting" of this particular era informed the conceptualization of what exactly a psychedelic experience is, or should be, and that this conceptualization exists to this day despite the fact that the time and place has changed. As a result, Hartogsohn notes that "Different societies at different points in history would have created different set and setting conditions, which would have shaped the character of the LSD (psychedelic) experience in entirely different ways" (208).1 In outlining this important and expansive theory, Hartogsohn organizes the book into ten chapters. In these chapters he traces the evolution of psychedelic research from the late 1940s through the 1960s and beyond by following five prominent psychedelic researchers and seven different, but at times overlapping, theories that existed as to what psychedelics were and how they could be used. The five researchers include German-born psychiatrist Max Rinkel, who was the first doctor in North America to work with LSD; Sidney Cohen, a psychiatrist at the UCLA School of Medicine who conducted experiments with a variety of substances, including LSD; Betty Eisner, a psychologist who worked with Cohen and went on to develop her own theories related to psychedelics; Timothy Leary, the psychologist and former Harvard faculty member who became the most visible advocate of the positive benefits of psychedelic use; and Myron Stolaroff, a former electrical engineer who helped introduce psychedelics to technological innovators in Silicon Valley. The seven theories and uses for psychedelics are woven throughout the book. Hartogsohn focuses them through the work of the five researchers, as well as other entities. Max Rinkel, for example, was an early proponent of psychotomimetic research, which was the theory that psychedelics mimicked psychosis and could be a useful way for researchers to learn more about that type of mental illness. Sidney Cohen, alternatively, was a prominent early supporter of using psychedelics as part of psychotherapy, while Betty Eisner would focus more on spirituality and Myron Stolaroff on the potential uses of psychedelics for creativity and innovation. Leary, meanwhile, quickly moved from the...