Modalities of the psychedelic experience: Microclimates of set and setting in hallucinogen research and culture

The recent surge of interest in the medical use of psychedelics has led to increased engagement with the centrality of context for shaping experiences with these agents. This idea is often referred to using the concept set and setting. Briefly stated, the principle of set and setting contends that the effects of psychedelics are nonspecific and, crucially, are shaped by extra-pharmacological, contextual factors: psychological factors including personality, mood, expectation, and intention (set) and environmental factors including the physical, social, and cultural environment in which an experience takes place (setting) (Carhart-Harris et al., 2018; Hartogsohn, 2017).

The concept of set and setting plays a central role in scholarly and scientific attempts to decipher the often-variegated effects of psychedelics. It also plays a crucial role in the work of therapists working to optimize clients’ experiences and in the discourse of psychedelic enthusiasts who utilize these compounds in a variety of contexts such as in rave parties and new age rituals (see, for instance, Fadiman, 2011; Johnson et al., 2008).

Recent studies have sought to gauge the degree to which set and setting shape experiences with psychedelics using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Several studies have sought to quantify the impact of diverse elements shaping response to psychedelics (Haijen et al., 2018; Healy et al., 2021; Kaertner et al., 2021; Kettner et al., 2021; Perkins et al., 2021; Studerus et al., 2012). Others have taken a more qualitative approach. For instance, Dupuis describes the role of interpretative and narrative apparatuses in framing and shaping participant experiences at the Takiwasi center in Peru, which uses the ayahuasca brew in conjunction with syncretic healing rituals, terming this phenomenon “the socialization of hallucination” (Dupuis, 2021). This literature can be viewed in the context of other lines of research examining extra-pharmacology, particularly the growing field of research on the placebo phenomena (Hartogsohn, 2016; Stewart-Williams, 2004).

Another theoretical development has been the suggestion of collective set and setting (Hartogsohn, 2017). According to this idea, set and setting operates on two distinct levels: the first is individual set and setting, which relates to the immediate circumstances surrounding and framing a given experience with a psychedelic: the personality of a specific person ingesting the substance, their mood, expectations, and intentions on the given day of the experience, and the immediate physical and social environment framing their experience on that occasion.

Scientific and popular discourse often invoke the individual level of set and setting. This level, however, is crucially nestled within a greater sociocultural context—the collective set and setting. By interrogating the concept of set and setting, one readily observes that all its elements are set within the broader background of society and culture. All are dependent on the greater collective context: personality is, to a great degree, influenced by the surrounding culture (Chopik & Kitayama, 2018; Costa Jr et al., 2001; Kitayama et al., 2018; Levine, 2001). A person’s expectations regarding the psychedelic experience and their intentions going into one, are also crucially framed by the cultural discourse surrounding these agents. The setting for a psychedelic experience is likewise dependent on its collective context. Physical setting is dependent on the geography, architecture, and lifestyles of the culture. Social setting is a function of the types of individuals and relationships produced by that culture. Cultural setting—the belief structures framing the experience (e.g., What is the structure of reality? What is the validity and value of experiences with psychedelics?) are also shaped by collective cultural discourses.

We can, therefore, differentiate between two levels of set and setting. An individual level sitting on top of a more fundamental collective level, which frames and gives shape to the types of immediate set and setting types available to the individual.

The concept of collective set and setting has been used to describe the types of shared expectations arising within national cultures (Hartogsohn, 2020). It provides a useful concept for thinking about sociocultural environments and their role in shaping drug effects for individuals and groups. Nevertheless, a totalistic, all-encompassing focus on entire cultures leaves out the many intermediate, subcultural levels, which operate within the general culture and their characteristic conditions which mediate experiences with psychedelics.

The existence and dynamics of subcultures vis-á-vis their engulfing cultures are widely explored in the disciplines of sociology, translation studies, and cultural studies (Jenks, 2004; Parsons, 2013; Ulusoy & Fırat, 2018). One instance of immediate theoretical relevance is Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory which argues that “an aggregate of phenomena operating for a certain community can be conceived as a system constituting part of a larger polysystem, which, in turn, is just a component within the larger polysystem of the ‘total culture’ of the said community” (Even-Zohar, 2005, p. 9). Subcultures are, in other words, framed by broader cultural conditions but also exhibit and exert distinct, idiosyncratic effects owing to their distinctly situated position in the sociocultural matrix.

This article explores the idea that distinct types of subcultural set and setting exercise distinct types of effects. It elucidates this idea using the concepts of psychedelic modalities and microclimates.

The concept of microclimate originates in the fields of meteorology and climatology and denotes a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, either slightly or substantially (Aussenac, 2000). Transporting the concept to the domain of extra-psychopharmacology, a microclimate of set and setting is a delimited, narrower instance derived from a broader system of culture. Such microclimates, therefore, are informed and shaped by the surrounding cultural climate while also demonstrating distinct sets of properties such as characteristic modes of interaction, expectations, or interpretative schemes. Similarly, “modality” is commonly defined as “a particular mode in which something exists or is experienced or expressed” (Oxford Dictionaries, n.d.). Borrowing the term modality to discuss psychedelic effects points to discrete modes of interaction, interpretation, and expectation setting which modulate psychedelic effects. While the concept of microclimate highlights the context dependency of hallucinogenic effects, the concept of modality points to their inherent versatility. Thus, while a psychedelic modality can be conceived as the product of a microclimate, the two terms are closely related, represent two ways of approaching the same phenomenon, and can often be used interchangeably, as done here at times for the sake of simplicity.

This paper explores the concepts of psychedelic modalities and microclimates as possible heuristic tools to approach and distinguish the diverse—and at times puzzling—diversity of effects of hallucinogens. To this end, I have concentrated on the history of mid-20th-century American hallucinogenic drug research. Examining this history, and the diverse schools and approaches to psychedelics in that period as they are represented in the contemporaneous scientific literature, as well as in secondary sources offering historical perspective on that era, I arrived at a list of seven distinct microclimates of set and setting that emerged at the time, each supporting its own set of characteristic effects. While the list of microclimates and modalities is not exhaustive and is based on a particular historical instance (I suggest potential addition of corporeal, aesthetic, and natural modalities in my discussion), the concepts of microclimates and modalities proves decidedly useful when examining and making sense of the historical case in question, which points to the need for conceptual tools when discussing the range of psychedelic effects. The history of mid-20th-century psychedelic research provides us with a striking example of the consequences of conceptual unclarity leading to the obfuscation of experimental results and unnecessary confusion and disagreement within research communities. Conceptual tools matter, particularly when attempting to assess the implications and potential of psychopharmacological agents as multifaceted, complex, and “pluripotent” (Pace & Devenot, 2021) as psychedelics. Thinking in terms of modalities can provide useful tools to clarify discussions around psychedelics, their diverse potentials and possible applications. After all, if the effects, benefits, and risks of these agents vary as wildly according to frames and applications, then such considerations of modalities are crucial for regulatory discussions revolving around questions such as how to regulate psychedelic use. For example, in deciding to regulate use within some modalities (e.g., psychotherapeutic), but not others (e.g., spiritual). A modality view is also useful in assessing the relative prominence of cultural constructions around psychedelic research and culture, and the trajectories these fields are taking: for example, what types of potential psychedelic modalities are made central, which are marginalized, and how do these shape the manner in which psychedelic experiences are seen and understood in our culture. Using the concepts of modalities and microclimates, one is better able to refer to and understand the typical schemes which frame attempts to gauge the effects and psychedelics and their characteristic results. This, in turn, may lead to a more informed discussion and analysis of the sometimes overlapping and sometimes contradictory uses and effects of psychedelics.

The microclimates of mid-20th-century psychedelic drug research

The landscape of mid-20th-century hallucinogenic research provides a rich case in point through which to examine the concept of contextual microclimates. At least seven different conceptualizations of psychedelics and their effects arose during that time, tied to seven schools of psychedelic research and experimentation that emerged between 1950 and 1970.¹ These seven different orientations for hallucinogenic research and practice—from which I derive the modalities framework—include the psychotomimetic, the military, the psychotherapeutic, the spiritual, the artistic-creative, the tech-innovative, and the political. Each of these modalities of psychedelic experimentation represented a microclimate of set and setting, producing distinct, often contradictory results, thereby cofounding researcher expectations.

Observing researcher reports on psychedelics from mid-20th-century America, one encounters striking contrasts. While some researchers described LSD and other hallucinogens as mentally debilitating agents that experimentally produce insanity, others viewed them as psychotherapeutic tools able to reinstate sanity in the individual and the society. Some scientists pointed to the cognitively retarding effects of the drugs, while others insisted these were actually cognitive enhancers. Moreover, while some scientists reported that those who take the drug never wish to repeat the harrowing experience, others contended that their subjects were enthusiastic about repeating (Abramson, 1960; Deshon et al., 1952; Hoch, 1957; Janiger, 1959; Terrill et al., 1962). It was as though researchers were talking about entirely different drugs.

The divergent reports ended up leading to actual collisions. A memorable object lesson was provided by the April 1959 Macy Conference on the Use of LSD in Psychotherapy. Researchers from different groups confronted each other, sometimes questioning the trustworthiness and good faith of groups presenting divergent results and conclusions. Psychologist Betty Eisner who participated in the conference later described the situation, observing that there were “26 different ways of looking at psychotherapy as well as LSD … and 26 opinions on the drug” (Eisner, 2002, p. 108).

Attempting to reestablish common grounds for discussion, conference organizer Frank Fremont-Smith eventually suggested to the participants that they should qualify whatever statement they make regarding the drug by prefacing it with the words “from my experience” (quoted in Abramson, 1960, p. 58). “I am wondering,” Fremont-Smith observed,

whether we may not have to take another very careful look at ourselves and the role we play in the results we get; this may be one of the crucial elements in determining why the differences occur. … If we really want to study the effects of LSD and arrive at a genuine critique of it, we need to study ourselves or see that we ourselves are studied, in a much more critical way than most of us have been doing. (quoted in Abramson, 1960, p. 133)

This pronouncement captures the complexities and difficulties that beset the attempts to arrive at a common understanding of the effects of LSD at the time. It highlights the degree to which different outlooks and perspectives emerging from different aims, motivations, and viewpoints have the potential to complicate common understanding of psychedelic drug effects (and psychoactive drug effects more generally). It also points at the need for a conceptual framework for thinking about the diverse uses of psychedelics.

The following sections portray the features and characteristics of seven distinct schools of LSD research and experimentation that existed in mid-20th-century America, comprising seven distinct types of microclimates for LSD phenomenology. These microclimates are brought into context by observing their engulfing cultural trends and observing how their characteristic conditions translated into the production of distinct modalities of psychedelic effects.

(1) The Psychotomimetic (psychosis-mimicking) modality

The idea that the origins of psychosis lie in a biological imbalance can be traced to the writings of Hippocrates of Kos, and to the Malleus Maleficarum, a medieval witch-hunting textbook, which stated that the fifth method of delusion used by the devil is the “disturbance of the humors effecting a transmutation in the forms perceived by the senses” (Institoris et al., 2009, pp. 101–102). In the 19th century an updated version of the idea was adopted by French psychiatrist Jean Joseph Moreau in his research on the effects of hashish (Moreau, 1973). In the early 20th century, this view received further support from towering figures in the world of psychiatry, including Emil Kraepelin and C. G. Jung (Jung, 1909; Kraeplin, 1919).

When mescaline, and later LSD, entered psychiatric research, first in 1920s Germany and then in 1950s United States, the preexisting framework was revived and used to interpret the effects of the drugs as producing psychosis (Langlitz, 2006). This had immediate results for participants in such experiments.

Subjects in psychotomimetic trials were regularly informed that the drug would render them temporarily insane, priming their perceptions towards a specific type of experience. The physical and social conditions of psychotomimetic experiences inadvertently supported these assumptions. Participants were placed in sterile, medicalized environment without privacy or solace, surrounded by unfamiliar personnel that accosted them with batteries of tests and treated them impersonally. The notion that hallucinogenic experiences might have validity or significance was dismissed, and psychiatrists described the occasional euphoric experience as “shallow elation and silliness” (Deshon et al., 1952, p. 37; for an extended exploration of experimental conditions within psychotomimetic research, see Hartogsohn, 2015, Chapter 1).

Such outlooks, framing the experience in pathologized terms, led to displays of “hostility,” “insecurity,” “suspiciousness,” “tension and apprehension,” that vindicated researchers’ claims that hallucinogens were essentially psychotomimetic (Deshon et al., 1952, p. 37). Notably, such harsh, objectifying forms of treatment reflected broader authoritarian trends in the history of psychiatry (Shorter, 1998). These broader trends were in turn themselves reflective of the broader outlooks about madness, objectivity, and self-mastery prevalent in Western culture (Foucault, 1988; Gaines, 1982). The psychotomimetic microclimate that emerged out of mid-20th-century psychiatric discourse therefore reflected broader trends in the climate of Western culture and psychiatry, resulting in a specific microclimatic environment that produced distinct types of responses.

(2) The military modality

During the 1950s and 1960s the CIA and the U.S. Chemical Corps dedicated concerted investigatory efforts into the potential use of LSD in battle and special operations. Interest in the military use of chemical agents in warfare was fueled by revelations about Nazi Germany’s nerve gas reserves and its mescaline experiments at the Dachau concentration camp (Schmidt, 2015, Chapter 5). By the mid-1950s, interest in psychochemical warfare had shifted towards nonlethal incapacitating agents. Under the looming threat of nuclear war, such agents were considered a benign alternative, with military officials predicting an era of bloodless war. Enemy soldiers could be dosed into confusion and submission, allowing swift, nonlethal victory (Lee & Shlain, 1992; Lieberman, 1962).

Intelligence agencies, meanwhile, were also inundated by a sense of limitless possibilities opened by the growing pharmacopeia of drugs known to science. Spymasters envisaged the use of drugs for the purposes of torture, investigation, memory wipe, and special operations. Interrogators, it was thought, could intimidate enemy captives into believing that excruciating mental experiences would continue until they divulged secret information, and could then be drugged into forgetting what they had disclosed (Lee & Shlain, 1992; Marks, 1991).

CIA and military experiments into the use of hallucinogens in the battlefield and for torture produced a starkly disempowering context for participants who were often enlisted involuntarily and had little agency or control. Participants in such “experiments” included disadvantaged groups such as prison inmates, prostitutes, and members of minority groups. Subjects were often treated cruelly. Some U.S. soldiers were given LSD and confined in sensory deprivation tanks, then subjected to hostile interrogations (Lee & Shlain, 1992). In a particularly harrowing tale, psychiatrist Ewen Cameron tried to “depattern” patients by sedating his subjects for months at a time, using infrequent wakeful periods for onslaughts of LSD dosing combined with electroshock (Marks, 1991). Some of these subjects later sued the CIA, and were compensated by the U.S. government (Thompson, 2017).

CIA and military experiments with LSD and other hallucinogens emerged out of the military trends and preoccupations of the Cold War. They created a distinct and highly belligerent microclimate that produced characteristic effects of fear, agony, and mental damage.

(3) The psychotherapeutic modality

The idea that LSD could be used to treat mental illness, seemingly opposed to the claims of psychotomimetic psychiatrists, was nevertheless present since the early days of LSD research. A 1950 paper by Busch and Johnson examined and conveyed a positive assessment of the drug's potential use as an aid in psychotherapy (Busch & Johnson, 1950).

This therapeutic interpretation was slower to take root than the psychotomimetic perspective that dominated American hallucinogenic research in the early and mid-1950s, a fact that can be recognized by surveying the trends of scientific literature at the time (Hartogsohn, 2015, Chapters 1 & 2). Nevertheless, by the late 1950s, this orientation was quickly gaining in popularity, outpacing psychotomimetic research which was, by then, running out of steam.

At a time when new revolutionary drugs were entering psychiatric practice, including novel types of antipsychotics (Chlorpromazine) and tricyclic antidepressants (Imipramine), the concept of biological remedies for mental illnesses was gaining considerable traction within American psychiatry, leading to an entirely new designation of hallucinogens. Rather than psychosis mimicking psychotomimetics, by the late 1950s, the drugs were increasingly described as mind-manifesting psychedelics, or propitious agents useful for uncovering mental materials and aiding in their analysis and resolution (Hartogsohn, 2020, Chapter 3).

Early psychedelic therapists famously approached the drugs using several preexisting conceptual frameworks, including Freudian and Jungian models. Unsurprisingly, such pre-assumed frameworks ended up corroborating researchers’ theoretical orientations (see, for instance, Abramson, 1956; Eisner, 1959, 1963). Concurrently, therapists developed a diverse set of unique tools to produce positive therapeutic experiences with psychedelics. Researchers paid increasing attention to selecting and screening study participants, preparing subjects for their journeys, and controlling their experiences. Sessions were held in carefully arranged spaces laid out with comfortable pillows, cushions, and sofas to rest on. Researchers utilized flowers, mirrors, art books, and pictures of loved ones to elicit emotions and introspective insight from participants. Special care was dedicated to ensuring that the social environment was benign and that the relationship between therapists and patients be congenial and based on trust. Participants were sometimes allowed to meet with family members shortly after the experience. The post-session interpretive framework was similarly supportive. Participants were encouraged to view their experiences as meaningful and interpret them in a positive light (Abramson, 1967; Chwelos et al., 1959; Eisner & Cohen, 1958; Grof, 1970). (For an extended analysis of the mid-20th-century therapeutic framework see Hartogsohn, 2015, Chapter 2.)

Growing out of surrounding trends in mid-20th century psychiatry, including Freudian psychoanalysis’s interest in transference and the unconscious, Jungian psychology’s fascination with archetypal realms, and the rise of humanist psychology with its interest in the positive value of peak experiences, the psychotherapeutic branch of psychedelic research would lead to a variety of promising results in the treatment of mental conditions ranging from neurosis to addiction, demonstrating that the ancient use of hallucinogens for healing could be adapted to the modern world.

(4) The spiritual modality

The use of psychedelics for religious and spiritual purposes has roots in historic and prehistoric cultures (Schultes et al., 1992). In the context of mid-20th-century psychedelic research, spiritual applications of psychedelics often overlapped with psychotherapeutic applications of the drugs. This is not surprising, as current research into psychedelics finds a correlation between the occurrence of mystical experiences in psychedelic trials, and psychotherapeutic benefit (MacLean et al., 2011; Roseman et al., 2018). Psychologists working with psychedelics in the 1950s and 1960s were often struck by the vivid spiritual experiences elicited by the substances. This led many to integrate spiritual concepts into their work. Psychologist Betty Eisner sought to map the realms of the mind, a pursuit which eventually led her to venture into collective psycho-terrains and explore spiritual ideas of reincarnations, unity, and cosmic love (Eisner, 1963, 2002). Psychologist Timothy Leary similarly found himself increasingly drawn to spiritual interpretations of the psychedelic experience, exploring the notion that LSD can lead one on the path to the spiritual insight and liberating experiences of transcendence (Leary, 1964). The period’s most memorable demonstration of the power of psychedelics to elicit spiritual epiphanies can be found in Walter Pahnke’s 1962 Good Friday experiment. A Harvard Divinity School major, Pahnke convinced Leary to arrange a double-blind experiment that included 10 divinity students who ingested the psychedelic psilocybin (and 10 more in the control group) in Boston's Marsh Chapel, praying, reading from the Bible, singing hymns, and listening to a sermon. The results of the study were unequivocal. Based on nine widely used characteristics of the mystical experience including a sense of unity, transcendence of time and space, a sense of sacredness, and a deeply felt positive mood, 8 of the 10 psilocybin subjects qualified as having experienced at least seven of the nine categories, while none of the control group did (Doblin, 1991; Pahnke & Richards, 1966). Significantly, a Johns Hopkins medical school research project from the mid-2000s corroborated the study’s results (Griffiths et al., 2006).

Revealingly, interest in the spiritual use of hallucinogens arose in the context of the liberalizing effects of the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council and a period of Christian self-confidence, characterized by peak rates of church attendance in the United States. It can also be seen in the context of growing interest in eastern forms of spirituality including Hinduism and Zen Buddhism, which gained popularity through the writing of Beat writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Both Eisner and Leary are emblematic of this trend. Eisner cultivated a longtime relationship with spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti, participating in his weekly seminars at the Ojai center in Southern California (Hartogsohn, 2020). Leary, on his part, developed an interest in Vedanta Hinduism, which he considered strikingly in line with psychedelic phenomenology, later moving on to Buddhism and Daoism, and publishing The Psychedelic Experience (1964), a psychedelic adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol), and Psychedelic Prayers, a 1966 adaptation of Lao Tzu’s Dao de Djing (Leary, 1966/1997; Leary et al., 1964).

Of note, the latter two publications by Leary were strictly nonacademic, representing the psychologist’s departure from academic circles and into the growing cultural scene that developed around psychedelics as the 1960s progressed. A spiritual conceptualization of psychedelics as devotional sacraments informed much of the popular interest in the drugs during the 1960s, framing individual experiences with psychedelics in terms of expectations, intentions, choice of music, and environment. The spiritual microclimate of early LSD research thus eventually merged into the broader culture, fueling a late 1960s movement of popular psychedelic spirituality that fed into what later came to be dubbed by some as the Third Great Awakening (Wolfe, 1976).

(5) The artistic-creative modality

Research into the potential of psychedelics as catalysts for artistic ingenuity began in the mid-1950s. Unlike the therapeutic and spiritual applications of psychedelics, thinking of psychedelics as creativity enhancers was new, and driven no doubt by the rise of creativity research in the early 1950s (Ryhammar & Brolin, 1999). At a time when creativity was becoming an object of scientific investigation, the concurrent rise of psychedelics provided an interesting ramification for the new field of studies.

Early studies about psychedelics and creativity reached inconclusive results. One study included four prominent graphic artists who were given LSD and mescaline, and had their LSD-inspired artworks examined by a panel of art critics who deemed the artists’ new works superior to their standard output (Berlin et al., 1955). Other studies produced more equivocal results. One study by Frank Barron, a creativity researcher interested in psychedelics, included the ingestion of psilocybin by artists who became enthusiastic about newly opened creative vistas. Nevertheless, some of the artists were later disappointed to find out that the work lost much of its interest after the drug’s effects wore off (Barron, 1965). The most prominent mid-20th-century study on psychedelics and creativity was conducted by psychiatrist Oscar Janiger, who gave psychedelics to some 100 Los Angeles artists. The artists reacted enthusiastically, with one claiming the psychedelic experience was as valuable as four years of art school (Janiger, 1959).

Gauging the merit of artworks is a notoriously subjective and uncertain enterprise. The cultural reception of psychedelics, by contrast, affords us a more conclusive story. By the mid to late 1960s, psychedelics became popular with artists and musicians across the United States. Psychedelic poster art, developed in the San Francisco Bay Area, became iconic of the era. New forms of design, architecture, fashion and film emerged, which resonated the characteristic visual and experiential effects of psychedelics (Blackman, 2005; Blauvelt, 2015; Gordon, 2008).

An even more impressive development occurred in music during the second half the 1960s as various musical careers took psychedelic turns, and the psychedelic sound, characterized among other things, by use of elaborate studio effects, incorporation of eastern elements, and boundary-dissolving effects like echoplex-delay, wah-wah pedal, tremolo vibrato, and reverb, became emblematic of the era (Bromell, 2002; Echard, 2017). The Beatles produced some of the most noteworthy examples of this new psychedelic sound, releasing immediate classics like Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and Magical Mystery Tour (1967). Other musical acts of the era followed similar routes, producing a psychedelic invasion into music that included albums by Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead and many other lesser-known artists. Even Motown acts like The Temptations jumped on the psychedelic bandwagon with albums like Cloud Nine (1969) and Psychedelic Shack (1970). Notably, 1966 and 1967, the peak years of the psychedelic era in music, are regularly acclaimed as the greatest years in modern popular music history (“1967,” 2006).

Perhaps psychedelics could indeed enhance creativity. Alternatively, such positive appraisals of the late 1960s works might be the product of entrenched cultural biases that bind our cultural predilections to the enthralling allure of late 1960s culture. Either way, it is interesting to note that psychedelic creativity did not evolve in a vacuum, but was rather a product of the era’s broader cultural and technological currents. Stax and Johnson stress the reliance of psychedelic music on sound effects that became available shortly before the arrival of psychedelics, including the fuzz (distortion) pedal and a series of other boundary-dissolving effects (Johnson & Stax, 2006). Musicologist William Echard identifies a wide range of topical influences on 1960s psychedelic sound, including film music, Indian music, surf music, and even medieval Gregorian chants (Echard, 2017). Meanwhile, art historian Jonathan Harris speaks of psychedelia in terms of an eclectic culture borrowing from diverse sources ranging from art nouveau decorativeness and Victorian tailoring to Romantic poets and Aleister Crowley’s Celtic covens (Harris, 2005). The point to take from all this is that the set and setting of artistic adventures with psychedelics was crucially nestled within a broader cultural moment and rich cultural traditions. These in turn led to a distinct style and sound that ended up framing not just the psychedelic style, but also creating a new type of set and setting for psychedelic users, cast in the form of the newly emerged psychedelic style in music and design.

(6) The tech-innovative modality

Another markedly modern motivation for psychedelic experimentation that ended up producing a new outlook on the drugs with a distinct array of set and setting conditions is the use of psychedelics for technological innovation. Fittingly, this technologically oriented application of the drugs emerged in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the region currently known as Silicon Valley, a leading global hub of technology and innovation.

During the early 1960s, the southern San Francisco Bay Area was becoming increasingly populated by technology corporations and startups. The area had already become a technological development hub with corporations like Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, and Lockheed settling in Stanford University’s Industrial Park. Around these giants developed a modest but growing ecology of technologically oriented companies, presaging future developments that would later turn the area into a global hub for innovation (Lécuyer, 2007).

In this entrepreneurial environment, electrical engineer Myron Stolaroff founded the International Foundation for Advanced Study (IFAS). The intriguing multidisciplinary enterprise brought together several electrical and mechanical engineers, as well as one psychologist and one psychiatrist. Between 1961 and 1966 the IFAS introduced some 350 individuals to LSD, including notable figures such as Stewart Brand, editor of the influential Whole Earth Catalog, and Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse and a renowned pioneer of human–computer interfaces (Markoff, 2005).

The group’s landmark research project revolved around the administration of psychedelics to scientists, engineers, and technicians to enhance their problem-solving abilities. Participants were asked to bring a technical problem with which they have been grappling in their professional work and have been unable to solve for three months or more. Researchers sought to manipulate the expectations of subjects to maximize the drug’s purported cognitively enhancing effects. This was done by describing LSD as a cognitive magic drug that would allow subjects to achieve immaculate focus and superhuman powers of imagination. Results were impressive. Out of 44 problems approached in 27 sessions (some sessions included more than one problem), in 19 cases solutions were obtained or reached various stages of development and authorization. In 20 other cases, new avenues for investigation were opened, while in four cases no solution was obtained. Psychometric tests, meanwhile, showcased impressive improvements of up to 200% in performance (in the Witkin Embedded Figures test). Growing out of the cultural set and setting of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, LSD was thus transformed into a wholly new creature—an agent of cognitive enhancement, presaging latter-day conceptualizations of psychedelics as nootropics within the contemporary subculture of psychedelic microdosing (Reed, 2019).

(7) The political modality

A seventh vision for the use of psychedelics that emerged during the mid-20th-century was their use as tools to enhance international understanding and raise political awareness (Dahl, 2016). The idea that psychedelics could serve in this field grew out of persisting notions that psychedelics enhance mutual interpersonal understanding and growing concerns regarding the acute need to reach global cooperation to avoid a nuclear war. In this context, psychedelics were to transform into pharmacopolitical agents.

The post-war years were characterized by the growth of an international peace movement, vitalized by a growing recognition of the existential threat posed by the nuclear arsenals of Cold War superpowers (Cortright, 2008). Psychedelic drugs, meanwhile, seemed able to produce feelings of empathy and sympathy towards others, leading some to surmise that the drugs might help individuals and groups reach mutual understanding and cooperation (The Editors [From Psychedelic Review], 2007).

The vision led to some rarely remembered chapters in the history of psychedelics. In the 1950s United Nations ambassadors and various government officials reportedly participated in psychedelic sessions, presenting a little-known example for international psychochemical diplomacy (Lee & Shlain, 1992). World peace did not ensue. However, the sentiment that psychedelics might aid in achieving greater understanding persisted, supported by the nuclear scare and the perceived urgency to reach a global understanding. In 1960, when beat poet Allen Ginsberg first ingested psilocybin mushrooms, he famously tried to get President Kennedy, Soviet leader Khruschev, and Chairman Mao all on the line “to settle all this about the Bomb once and for all” (Leary, 1983, p. 54). A similar sentiment was expressed by Beatle Paul McCartney, who asserted in an interview that if the leaders of the world would all just take LSD, they would “banish war, poverty and famine” (as quoted in Lee & Shlain, 1992, p. 181).

By the end of the 1960s, as the political climate heated and polarized, such peace-loving sentiments were giving way to new conceptualization of psychedelics as tools for politicization and radicalization. Psychedelic drugs seemed to introduce the youth to new political horizons. “Drugs planted utopia in your own mind,” wrote Todd Gitlin, former head of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the influential 1960s student organization (Gitlin, 1993, p. 202). Revolutionary groups like the San Francisco Diggers and the Yippies harnessed LSD in the service of new forms of acid activism and pranksterism. They used the drug as an aid for liberating the mind from the old shibboleths of political thinking, and to brainstorm new forms of political activism. Militant groups like the Motherfuckers and the Weather Underground, meanwhile, disseminated psychedelics among their ranks as tools for revolutionary consciousness raising and radicalization (Lee & Shlain, 1992). The story of how psychedelics transformed from drugs supporting empathy to drugs fomenting militant radicalization bespeaks the striking transmutations of the political set and setting that surrounded their use. It underscores how diverse environments of socio-political climates were able to turn psychedelics into deeply political agents that seemed to support wholly dissimilar ideological programs.

Discussion

In this article, I have proposed the concepts of microclimates and modalities in psychedelic experimentation and demonstrated the role such microclimates and modalities played in shaping the trajectories of 1950s and 1960s hallucinogenic research and culture.

The concept of set and setting microclimates aims to transcend the culturally decontextualized concept of individual set and setting. This attention to varieties of context can offer a more nuanced, differentiated understanding of the ways individual set and setting is framed by surrounding subcultures, in contrast with homogenizing analyses grounded in the broader concept of collective set and setting. Individual set and setting is indeed crucially shaped by collective conditions. However, such collective conditions themselves include multiple modalities and possibilities from which drug users (consciously or unconsciously) draw and which end up framing drug experiences. Microclimates of set and setting therefore exist at a more local, intermediate level mediating between the broader collective set and setting of national and global cultures and the specific, concrete (individual) environments in which drug effects unfold.

Microclimates of set and setting are nestled within a broader cultural climate that provides context, vocabulary, and background to psychedelic use. However, they are also framed by the local conditions provided by subcultural forces, resulting in distinct types of environments for hallucinogenic experimentation. Thus, in the case of mid-20th-century American society, the Cold War, consumer society, biological psychiatry, and the sexual revolution were influential forces operating within the broader collective setting or climate. Concurrently, American society’s assorted cultural niches afforded diverse types of conditions for experimentation with hallucinogens, each bringing to bear a distinct blend of climatic influences and resulting in highly divergent outcomes. When such microclimatic conditions cluster to breed distinct forms of psychedelic experiences, shaped by characteristic arrays of contextual factors, one may speak of psychedelic modalities associated with a distinct repertoire of phenomena and reactions.

This paper has suggested seven principal microclimates or modalities for psychedelic experiences in mid-20th-century America, including the psychotomimetic modality, the psychotherapeutic modality, the artistic-creative modality, political, tech-innovative, and military modalities. These modalities correspond to different cultural domains, including art, politics, religion, science, warfare, and therapy.

Each of these modalities offered up a different array of contextual conditions for psychedelic experimentation. On the level of intention and expectation: artists, tech-innovators, political activists, religious seekers, and patients in therapy all bring distinct sets of expectations and intentions to their encounters with drugs. Similarly, different modalities are associated with distinct physical and social settings. A psychedelic artist might take the drug in the studio, an innovator in a lab or an office, a patient might have it in a clinic, and soldiers in the totalitarian environment of a military camp. The cultural worlds of art, science, and military life likewise charge the experience with distinct values, perceptions, and ways of thinking.

Modalities can therefore be understood as thematic aggregates in which distinct types of expectations, intentions as well as physical, social, and cultural environments all tend to cluster. Characteristic assemblages of set and setting conditions breed recognizable stencils for psychedelic experiences, the templates of which are provided by broader cultural conditions and the specific paths and avenues provided by the culturally nestled subcultural domains with their characteristic norms, tendencies, and preoccupations. The diversity of these domains and their characteristic conditions thus create a basic palette of experiences with psychedelics.

Crucially, such contexts are not natural, nor are they pregiven or ahistorical. Rather, they are deeply reflective of the possibilities and interpretative potentialities opened up by enveloping social trends. The tech-innovative and political modalities of psychedelia that appeared in mid-20th-century America provide some examples of novel environments and applications for psychedelics that did not exist in the premodern world, to the best of our knowledge. Rather, they were deeply embedded in the historical moment. Moreover, such modalities are dynamic and in flux. Most modalities described in this article, might, for instance, have some precedent in premodern societies but assume a crucially different form in modern times. For instance, premodern societies employed psychedelics in warfare, but they used them on themselves and for performance enhancement, rather than dosing the enemy for purposes of decapacitation (Dobkin de Rios, 1984; Kamienski, 2016), and while the therapeutic use of psychedelics is likely age-old, traditional uses tended to have the shaman consume the drug rather than the patient, and their medicinal use was embedded within a vastly dissimilar cultural matrix to that of modern psychotherapeutic culture (Beyer, 2010).

Remarkably, most of the modalities of mid-20th-century psychedelia can still be recognized in the current psychedelic renaissance. True, attempts to weaponize psychedelics ended in the 1960s, as far as we are aware. However, the application of psychedelics in the contexts of psychotherapy, model-psychosis, spirituality, cultural production, technical innovation, and political activism have all resumed (Baggott, 2015; Burge & Brown, 2012; Griffiths et al., 2006; Langlitz, 2012; Leonard, 2015; Roseman et al., 2021; Sweat et al., 2016).

As noted, microclimates of psychedelic experimentation can be understood as subcultural parts of a broader cultural domain. A wide variety of theoretical fields can be approached to conceptualize the relationship between subcultures and their broader surrounding cultural environments. One such approach is systems theory, with its emphasis on dynamic, interrelated complex systems hosting multiple subsystems (Von Bertalanffy, 1950; Von Bertalanffy & Sutherland, 1974). Another valuable perspective is the one offered by the multidisciplinary study of subcultures with their characteristic histories, interrelations, and worldviews, as well as their tendency towards fragmentation and flux (Jenks, 2004; Ulusoy & Fırat, 2018). For the purposes of this study, I found Even-Zohar’s polysystem model particularly useful, in its view of cultural systems as subparts of a larger polysystem, which in turn host their own subsystems.

Another helpful analogy can be drawn from the domain of linguistics and its analysis of linguistic genealogy. Thus, for instance, German, English, and Dutch represent different branches of the Germanic language family, which is itself part of a larger family of Indo-European language families (including Roman and Slavic languages) while also giving birth to many distinct sublanguages and dialects. In a similar way, modalities of set and setting may be part of larger modalities as well as host a range of submodalities. The comparison seems even more apt since set and setting can be understood as a complex socio-semiotic construct that structures experiences with psychedelics, and such socio-semiotic modalities could be understood as language families with their characteristic syntax, vocabulary, and morphology (consisting of diverse concepts, aims, worldviews, etc.).

To further elucidate what such a multi-layered system of modalities might look like, one may examine the diverse submodalities of the primary modalities described above. The spiritual modality, for instance, hosts a wide variety of submodalities. These may include the richly described traditions of Brazilian Ayahuasca religions like Santo Daime, Uniao de vegetal, and A Barquinha (Araújo, 2002; Cemin, 2010; Hartogsohn, 2021; Melo, 2016), a diverse trio sharing some traits that bind them as a branch when compared against the peyotist Native American Church, and Iboga root use within the Gabonese Biwiti religion (Calabrese, 1997; Ndoua & Vaghar, 2018). All of these could be considered as microclimatic instances of their surrounding (Brazilian, Native American, and Central African) cultures. Furthermore, Such submodalities correlating to established hallucinogenic religions and their characteristic contextual conditions can be conceived as a branch on the broader modality of spiritual uses, which includes contemporary psychedelic spirituality with its many groups and dialects from those of the Peruvian Takiwasi center led by Jacques Mabit and described by Dupuis, to those of the individualistic neo-shamanic ceremonies described by Gearin (Dupuis, 2021; Gearin, 2017; Gearin, 2015). Spiritual submodalities might additionally include the use of psychedelics in transformational festivals like Burning Man and the Boom, and their use for meditative practice and in the realm of psychonautics—the single-person investigation epitomized by countercultural characters like Terence McKenna, Alexander Shulgin, and John C. Lilly (Johner, 2015; Móró et al., 2011). Thus, the spiritual modality is composed of diverse submodalities. Similar types of analyses can be performed, for instance, focusing on the therapeutic modality with its various styles and traditions, the political modality with its diverse ideological orientations, and the techno-scientific modality with its varied fields of application.

As always, when proposing a theoretical scheme of this sort, it is essential to note that the map is not the territory. Several caveats are thus in order. First, it is important to note that the seven modalities discussed in this paper do not encompass the totality of psychedelic modalities. Other modalities might include a corporeal modality (manifesting in diverse types of bodywork), an aesthetic modality, and a nature-oriented modality, among other things. Second, the proposed modalities are kept distinct for purposes of analysis. In reality, such modalities are not hermetically isolated from one another and may draw on each other and produce various crossover styles (Ulusoy & Fırat, 2018). One such example is the strong spiritual element permeating many contemporary therapeutic modalities (Roseman et al., 2018). Third, one should remember that while distinct microclimates and modalities predispose subjects towards distinct types of experience, the relationship is not one of determination—a spiritual experience might, for instance, occur from within an artistic modality and vice versa. Modalities create tracks and grooves upon which psychedelic experiences tend to follow. They do not predetermine the character of an experience with a psychedelic.

Conclusion

This article proposed the concept of psychedelic modalities, corresponding to microclimates of set and setting. By charting the different modalities and microclimates of psychedelia, we may arrive at a fuller understanding of how such modalities mediate the reception of psychedelics in science and culture. Such models may help chart a map of the varieties of psychedelic experiences in their relationship with distinct cultures and subcultures. Furthermore, they provide us with essential conceptual tools to analyze and discuss the often perplexing diversity of psychedelic phenomena, viewing them in the historically and socioculturally rooted context of modalities and their characteristic effects. As psychedelics return to the fore of Western medicine and culture, they do so wearing varying guises, and under diverse banners from therapy and spirituality to popular uses in the domains of creative productivity, and even aspirations that the drugs might prove politically useful (see, for instance, Gandy et al., 2020; Nour et al., 2017; Roseman et al., 2021). But what are psychedelics really? What may we expect of them in which contexts? How are they to be regulated? And can we make sense of the flurry of seemingly disparate activities and interests that have been emerging in the current revival in psychedelic research and culture? By using the concepts of microclimates and modalities, we are better able to enunciate the range of responses these compounds elicit, and the ways in which these responses are embedded in sociocultural expectations and contexts. Future work may look at specific modalities and microclimates, deepening our understanding of the cultural and historical embeddedness of psychedelic modalities and the ways in which such modalities shape experiences with hallucinogens. It may furthermore use the concept of modalities to map the orientations of psychedelic research and culture, and develop differentiated regulatory frameworks mindful of modal diversity.