1.Watch “The Spring Grove Experiment” which will provide you with some context as to what was going on at
the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.
2.Read “The Trip Treatment,” by Michael Pollan, in the New Yorker.
3.Watch the video, “Magic Mushrooms and the Healing Trip,” which features the experiences of Cancer
survivor Eddie Marritz, a participant in NYU’s Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety Study.
These three sources (the two films and the New Yorker article), along with Slater’s chapter on psilocybin, will
provide the FRAMEWORK for your research paper. I’d like you to focus particularly on the particular studies
that Pollan describes in “The Trip Treatment” – recent studies at NYU, Hopkins, and Imperial College.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT is to try to assess the similarities and differences between your 5 subjects’ experience
(and, more generally, the LSD Training study) and those currently being conducted at places such as NYU.
You’ll notice that Roland Griffiths, the researcher at Hopkins working with psilocybin, is quoted in Pollan’s
article as saying, “There are so many directions to take this research. It’s a Rip van Winkle effect – after three
decades of no research, we rubbing the sleep from our eyes.”
To what extent does it appear that the recent studies are drawing from the work conducted in Maryland three
decades earlier? Are the findings the same? What about the actual experiences your subjects describe they
are having under LSD – are they similar to those Pollan describes in his article? (see in particular pp. 10-12 of
Pollan).
Your final paper should be approximately 10 pp in length and draw on each of your five subjects in some way.
Online archival research from Spring Grove state hospital
Maryland Psychiatric Research Center LSD Professional Training Program Study files, MSP 170
https://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/digital/collection/msp170/search
1.EVERYONE read study results: https://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/digital/collection/msp170/id/133/rec/1
2.You will each be assigned FIVE subjects. Each one of these subjects took part in the training study
conducted at Spring Grove Hospital. Each subject will have multiple pages (descriptions of LSD trip, analysis,
studies done, etc.). Read these studies closely. What can you ascertain about their significance? How might
researchers of the 1970s assessed these records? Do your five subjects support the overall study
findings? What do you make of the differences/ similarities? If you find you need to look at additional records
in the collection beyond the five I’ve assigned you, feel free to do so. Based on these records, do you agree
with Slater’s belief in the promise and potential of psychedelics
I have completed the analysis of subjects 26, 27, 29, and 30. I need you to complete the analysis for subject
- The professor provided feedback on this current version stating:
Suggestion: do draw on a few examples/ quotes from individual subjects - it makes the topic more compelling
because we get a better sense of who these subjects are. Also - say a few definitive things about the study
itself, based on the first archival document assigned. In your first full paragraph on p 3, you make reference to
the study and some of the surprises on the part of researchers. It would be helpful to also provide some other
basics (how many people involved; what were they looking for; what were their findings, etc).
I have attached the draft so it can be expanded on and subject 28 can be discussed as well as suggestions
implemented from the professor.
Subject 28 Link: https://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/digital/collection/msp170/id/1021
Sample Solution