The LSD Connection

A few random conversations and informative tidbits I came across last week all seemed to converge into some kind of crazy cosmic alignment regarding LSD. Oddly enough, it was during a grueling session of dishwashing when this connection came together. I say oddly because dish washing seems pretty far removed from drug culture -- maybe not for cleanliness-obsessed, cranked-out individuals...but my thought process was not encouraged by any sort of external influences. Now, granted, I could have been researching LSD and these connections would have less of an impact...but I wasn't doing any research and these little nuggets of information just presented themselves. So I leave it into your hands, dear reader, to silently judge for yourself.

1) The Salem Witch trials were caused by bad rye.
Now this is fascinating. My sister informed us of a theory about the Salem Witch trials being caused by bad rye. Apparently a fungus can grow on rye during very rainy seasons and this fungus would have been ingested as food/drink source by the greater Salem population of the 1690s. The relation to LSD? The fungus is called ergot and contains chemicals from which LSD is made and ergot poisoning can cause a whole panel of symptoms -including hallucinations and delusions - that lent itself to the bewitched paranoia of the times. Taking this one step further, when the first dry season occurred, the trials abruptly ended.

2) Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
The association of The Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to LSD, with its suggestive name and psychedelic lyrics, came quickly and assuredly. This association was so strong that it was banned for a time by the BBC for the drug reference. John Lennon maintained it was based on a picture drawn by his then young son, Julian, describing the picture as his friend, 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'. Unfortunately, it made recent news that Lucy, the friend on which the picture was based, had passed away.

3) Uma Thurman and Timothy Leary.
A random search this week on imdb.com landed me on Uma Thurman's biography page. According to the trivia there, Nena Thurman's (Uma's mother) first husband was the champion of LSD, Timothy Leary. Just saying...

Not totally blown away like I was? Perhaps I should lay off the dishwashing.