The Sunshine Makers

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1

Remain seated and come to order,

court will begin in session.

In today's

hearing, the government

is not dealing with the

standard playground pusher.

These men represent a new

form of organized crime,

totally different

from our previous notions.

Tim Scully was not part

of the psychedelic scene.

He was the psychedelic scene.

I wasn't interested

in personally making money.

I thought that

what we were doing

was really important, trying

to change the consciousness

of the world in a positive way.

But we all know who

is number one in this case.

It is Nicholas Sand.

I was considered

some kind of mad man,

psychedelic commando.

Because I'd go anywhere, do

anything for psychedelics.

We are talking now about

people responsible for producing

millions of doses

of hallucinogenic drugs.

And they are proud of it.

If we could turn

on everyone in the world,

then maybe we'd have a new

world of peace and love.

Call it whatever

you want to call it.

They all ended up in one thing,

the degradation of mankind.

The degradation of society.

We had the same

desire to risk our freedom,

and be what we thought

were American patriots.

Hey, partner.

Good to see you, man.

- Too long, eh?

- Yeah.

I think we're supposed to go in.

I think so.

Nice Panama hat.

It's getting a little

worn around the edges,

just like the rest of us.

- Great seeing you, man.

- Yeah.

Hey, you look good.

You look great, man.

I didn't know Nick

Sand when I first took acid.

Totally losing that hair.

It was early 1965,

and it wasn't that

easy to find yet.

I found a fellow

in San Francisco who had some.

We built a fire

in the fire place,

and took it in the evening.

I was kind of a wild kid.

I grew up

on the streets of New York.

My first experience with taking

acid changed everything.

I had very good friends

who were a couple.

We went up to their lake house

retreat in Mahopac, New York.

As the sun went down, we

took our capsules of LSD.

I was nervous when

I first swallowed the acid.

I knew that the experience

could be very terrifying.

Ordinary things could become

very ominous and scary.

But I knew also that

it could be transcendent.

And of course I was

hoping for transcendence.

I sat

in front of the fire,

with nude in the lotus position.

I just wanted to be naked.

I didn't want to be

encumbered by clothing.

Everything

that I looked at,

seemed to have

a life of its own.

The mantle piece

under the fireplace.

The fabric on my pants

that I was wearing.

Yeah. This is it.

And then it went

much further than that.

I disappeared.

I was floating in this

immense black space.

I said, what am I doing here?

As you

get very high on acid,

that's when you get

to experience oneness.

You see the whole

universe reflected

in all the other people

that you look at.

If everybody took LSD,

the entire place would

change overnight.

People would want

to be more loving.

The flash that I had

was that if everybody could

share this experience,

they'd be much less likely

to be mean to each other.

To just trash the world

by using up resources

and dumping

pollutants everywhere.

We'd avoid destroying

ourselves with the tools

we've been developing.

And suddenly

a voice came through my body.

"And it said," your

job on this planet,

is to make psychedelics

and turn on the world."

Um. It was very interesting.

As we were coming

down from the acid trip,

the world was completely

new and fresh.

Smells of the flowers

and lawns were really intense.

I thought, we could

make this stuff.

We could make a lot

of it and give it away.

We could turn on everyone,

everyone who wanted to.

And maybe it would

save the world.

With small groups of

people, you felt connected.

And in fact you were connected.

Sometimes it was just

by the intensity

of what you were experiencing.

And sometimes it felt spiritual.

It was just extraordinary, and

made you think about the world

differently.

We were always friends

and off and on we were lovers.

He was sure really wonderful

to be with in many ways.

Hey!

Hey, Trooper.

Hola.

How are you?

- It's so good to see you.

- Good to see you.

Today I feel great.

How are you doing?

I'm OK, especially

after seeing you.

That's just because I

remind you of your childhood.

He was full

of excitement about whatever

his latest project was.

He was certainly like

that about psychedelics.

He became a sort of...

He probably would

say a psychedelic warrior.

I was on a crusade.

I wanted to turn on the world.

And that was how I first

met Billy Hitchcock.

He was a chubby, not

really smart guy.

He liked to take LSD.

And he said, you've got

to come up to Millbrook.

Come on, I want you

to meet Timothy Leary.

By teaching

people how to use their head.

And in order to use your head,

you have to go out of your mind.

For the first time

I found a whole community

of people interested

in psychedelic research.

Billy Hitchcock owned

the whole property.

Dr. Leary leased one

of the houses on the property.

We would have a population fluctuating

between ten and 20 people,

working

with hallucinogenic drugs,

doing research

and experimentation.

All kinds

of scientists, physicists,

ecologists from all

over the world came.

And so it just became

like psychedelic rat wiring.

And so I stayed there

for a couple of years.

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