I became interested in psychedelics for personal growth in the mid seventies and read much of the literature available on the subject at the time. I was struck by the diversity of views and goals of different LSD inner-world explorers and the apparent lack of clear mapping of the subconscious dimension the drug opened up. My interest in LSD was primarily as a tool for ridding myself of whatever emotional baggage that was lurking inside of me from my past.

What began for me as some initial exploration with LSD developed into a fairly regular series of nearly predictable psychedelic sessions incorporating the neo-Reichian therapy teachings of Charles Kelley, which he calls Radix education, the practice of Rolfing or Structural Integration, and of course, LSD. This combination of practices allowed me to access and release a large quantity of repressed emotion and resulted in some major changes in my personality and maturity levels.

Early in my personal growth journey, after reading several of the books by Wilhelm Reich, my first impression of my own state of emotional health was that I was in fairly good shape, with not a lot of repressed emotions lurking in my subconscious. I have since found that most other people (regardless of their actual condition) also seem to think that they are without repressed emotions. Our psychological defenses it seems, including mine, protect us from the ego damaging belief that most of us may be fairly emotionally blocked individuals.

Unbeknownst to me I was in much worse shape than most. I did know that I had some problems, such as intermittent depression, anxiety, lack of any real inner strength, had a less than satisfying emotional life, was pretty uptight, and in general wanted more from life. I did have some strong schizoid personality traits and disagree with the view of some that such people are unfit for psychedelic work.

I tried to bring together three separate forms of psychotherapy: psychedelic, Rolfing or Structural Integration, and neo-Reichian therapy (not all practitioners of the latter two approve of the use of psychedelics and I did run into some disapproval of what I was doing).

People have the ability to focus their attention on whatever they wish, the work they do, television, cooking dinner, or the meowing neighbor’s cat. This ability to focus also permits us to ignore stimuli we don’t particularly wish to pay attention to, such as our sorrows or the cat next door. We need to limit what we focus on or we all would be overwhelmed by the bombardment of the sights, smells, sounds, and inner stimuli we each are continually sensing at any one time.

Our focusing of our attentions allows us to ignore unpleasant emotional stimuli for long periods of time. When we do this, however, we limit the range of our awareness, diminish our sensitivity, and limit our ability to experience our feelings.

I hardly feel it is a surprise that society is becoming more and more plagued by emotional and psychological ills as we are being ever more bombarded by attention grabbing stimuli and ever more over worked. We don’t allow ourselves the luxury of listening to the subtle emotional messages in our own bodies and selves. We ignore these messages at our peril.

Reichian psychology teaches us that we all have an energy flowing inside of us, call it orgone, chi or prana, and in the attempt to limit our emotional awareness we limit our breathing and tense assorted muscle groups to stop the flow of energy and the feelings associated with it. These tensions remain with us until we allow these feelings into our awareness and allow their expression.

Charles Kelley, the founder of Radix education, has taught and written of which muscle groups different personality types use to block the energy flow associated with different emotions. In his bodywork therapy he attempts to free bound energy and permit blocked feelings to flow back into awareness. Kelley emphasizes, as do Rolfers, tuning into and paying attention to one’s body and feelings.

Rolfing, or Structural Integration, strives to realign a person’s body by deep tissue manipulation. Rolfing works with a person’s fascia or connective tissue in an attempt to reintegrate the body and in so doing the structural misalignment caused by years of emotional blockages, bad habits, and physical trauma (car accidents, etc.) can be healed. The goals of Rolfing are to reintegrate the body and to strengthen a person’s core to allow for better handling of life’s stresses. Rolfing can allow a person to tune back into emotions and bodily feelings that were previously ignored. Rolfing strives to give a person a new way of functioning, not just to heal old physical or emotional scars.

The Structural Integration and Radix practitioners both prefer to think of the work they do as education rather than as therapy emphasizing self knowledge and understanding rather than as a treatment for the "ill."

LSD limits one’s ability to focus attention and consequently incoming emotional stimuli are more difficult to ignore. The softening of a person’s defenses is of course neurochemical rather than from the muscular and energy effects like that of Rolfing or neo-Reichian therapy. The beauty of LSD is that the sheer quantity of emotion accessed and released during a session is vastly greater than what can be dealt with by the use of non-drug techniques. Also LSD psychotherapy allows easy access to deeper emotional levels and eliminates the problems associated with other non-drug therapies with their "trying" to achieve "spontaneous" emotional releases.

Combining all three therapeutic approaches I believe gives a faster, cheaper, deeper psychotherapy than any one approach can provide alone. The work of Kelley provides us with a roadmap of the psyche and gives us an understanding of the problems encountered with mishandled emotional release work, Rolfing releases blocked energy and feeling, and LSD degrades psychological defenses and acts as an emotional stimulant permitting the release of larger quantities of emotion than would be possible with more conventional means.

Another advantage of LSD therapy over non-drug emotional release therapy is that the drug permits an individual to be free of societal and cultural pressures during one very long outpouring of emotion, whereas with non-drug therapies an individual is constantly being bombarded by social pressures to turn off feelings between small emotional outbursts what the therapy is attempting to turn on. It is very difficult for a person who is being given the opportunity through Rolfing to remain emotionally open in the face of all the societal pressures not to show any sadness, or fear, or anger and to be happy, cheerful and pleasant. LSD permits more of a compartmentalization of the negativity during a psychedelic session, whereas with non-drug therapies negativity is dribbling into awareness on a more day to day basis constantly conflicting with social pressures in a person’s environment over longer periods of time. A person undergoing LSD therapy tends to better able to override social pressures demanding emotional control on a day to day basis.

In my psychedelic work I did have a regime I followed prior to using LSD. I ran a little every day, partly to free energy in my legs and partly to improve my cardiovascular health.

I would undergo a series of Rolfing sessions prior to a series of LSD sessions. Rolfing comes in a series of 10 basic sessions and a series of 4 advanced. Additional "booster’ sessions can be done as well. I found one Rolfer was not overly eager to work on me in the middle of a series of LSD sessions. He was bothered by the energy depletion the drug caused which in turn I was told depleted his own energy by touching me. This was one of the best Rolfers I went to and respected his comments.

Just prior to an LSD session I would visit a chiropractor for an adjustment. Out of place vertebrae could bother me during a psychedelic experience. I had a tendency to have my upper cervical vertebrae out of place. It is important to note that tensions at the base of the skull are associated with repressed fear and deep tensions there are common in schizophrenia. I was concerned with keeping this part of my body freed up while on LSD. It is a fundamental rule in Reichian psychology to keep higher energy blocks in the body free of tension to allow energy from further down in a person’s body to flow up properly. Serious psychological harm can result from ignoring this principle.

I would do some stretching or massage work prior to an LSD session to try to free up some of the major muscle groups such as the psoas, trapezius, rhomboids, diaphragm, jaw muscles, scalp, leg muscles, etc.

According to Reich people refraining from all sexual activity not only block their sexual feelings but also in the process end up blocking and diminishing the rest of their emotional feelings as well. I found in myself, however, that sex too close to an LSD session lessened the overall emotional intensity of the experience and I therefore abstained for a couple days prior to taking the drug.

I would like to add that I was in fairly good physical condition. The emotional intensity that I experienced during an LSD session was very high and usually drove my metabolic rate to very high levels. The experience wasn’t what I would recommend for the physically unfit at moderate to high dosage levels.

I don’t know the exact dosages I was using, but I did get over my initial overconfident attitude and reduced my dosages from perhaps 600-700mcg to around 200 or 25Omcg. I would always wear as little clothing as possible to allow for cooling from perspiration and would always have a high-speed fan with me during an LSD session. I went so far as to make my own when I found that a regular window fan was inadequate.

Unlike what some psychedelic therapists recommend, I would always be standing during a session and I always kept my eyes open. I initially tried the lying-down-eyes- closed approach to LSD use but quickly found it both acutely distasteful and counterproductive. According to Reichian psychology, the eyes are a critical energy portal and closing them blocks the flow of energy through them. If a small child wishes to block out something the first thing they do is close their eyes. The eyes are critical to the expression of emotion. We are wide-eyed when frightened, glaring when angry, and communicate longing, sorrow or sadness with our eyes when we cry. I wasn’t about to go through an LSD session with my eyes closed.

As for standing, it permitted a wider range of motion of my hips, chest, legs, etc., permitted a freer and deeper breathing, and permitted a grounding of energy through my legs. As I mentioned before, a LSD session for me was a very physical experience and remaining vertical not only felt right but also allowed for a wider more violent range of motion than was possible by either sitting or lying down. Usually during a session I would cough or hack up a fair amount of phlegm. I would be concerned about choking on this if I was in a prone position. Running shoes seemed to help my standing comfort, especially since a psychedelic session was more physically intense than most strenuous exercise.

After ingesting LSD I would wait for the emotion to surface. This could take as long as an hour or two, but usually occurred within 45 minutes or so of the drug taking effect. If I was just beginning a series of psychedelic sessions I noticed that it might take a session of just tuning in to myself without any emotional outpouring at all before feelings would surface.

I would focus my attention on my body and feelings and not on the environment around me.

Fantasy and verbal thinking were mental activities I avoided. Kelley in his teachings mentions some of the problems with other emotional release therapies using guided fantasy. I tried to stay in the here and now. Another pitfall I tried to avoid was a tendency to "push" feelings out. Emotions had to be felt fully and had to well up inside rather than my trying to get something to happen by making noise or by trying to feel something. Kelley warns of emotional release work where feelings are improperly released in a partially blocked fashion. When in doubt I would shut up and wait for the inner pressure to build up. I did notice that there seemed to be an optimum dosage of LSD where I didn’t spend undo time waiting for emotion to surface but not so high that my body was overly driven by the emotional intensity of the experience.

Often the emotional progression I would go through during a session was crying first, then fear, and then anger. There were also sessions where the emotions were more mixed. I did some wailing as well as crying. Sometimes I’d get into angry crying. Fear releases usually preceded anger. I felt the one feeling was responsible for the holding down of the other. I would also at times feel the fear locked in the left side of my body while the anger was locked in the right side. Tensions inside of me were by no means always symmetrical and the physical process of releasing the emotions reflected this. I could usually feel where in my body various emotions were flowing from during an LSD session. Sometimes I could feel the feelings being released from muscle groups higher up and moving down (classical Reichian armoring of body segments). Anger would start in my jaw, then flow from my shoulders, and finally from my pelvis.

For a period of six LSD sessions I did have a Rolfing session between every two LSD sessions. During this period I did notice that during the psychedelic experiences different emotions were more distinctly seperate and that my eyes were noticably clearer afterwords.

Never during a psychedelic experience did I have what I would consider a hallucination. The energy the drug released I managed to channel fairly well into pure feelings.

Kelley states that memories sometimes accompany emotional release work and in my use of LSD I found that sometimes I would have a general idea of what caused the feelings I was experiencing. Kelley didn’t seem to think that memories were in anyway an important part of emotional release work, however.

I had an experience fairly early on in my work with LSD where I was crying but not really very into what I was doing. Kelly warns of situations where people get comfortable with an emotion and have trouble switching to a more appropriate one. For instance some people feel comfortable bellowing in anger when they are hurt and others cry hysterically when they are frightened.

After crying for a while I felt as if everything became very distant and far away from me, not in distance, but that I was becoming distant in my awareness from my surroundings. I felt exceedingly dulled mentally, exceedingly dulled emotionally and I believe what I was experiencing what was a form of dissociative psychosis. I felt very lifeless. Totally gone was the usual glow of a psychedelic experience.

Repressed fear often causes a more under-charged energy state (like what I was experiencing), while repressed anger causes a more over-charged energy state. Kelley mentions also that schizophrenia is caused by blocked fear. I thought that this may have been my problem and quit the unfelt crying, shut up and waited for the pressure to build up inside of a more appropriate emotion. During this time I knew I was in trouble but was too dissociated to feel really scared. After twenty minutes or so the fear did surfaced into my awareness and I screamed for most of the rest of the session. By the time the session ended my mental and emotional clarity had fully returned and I felt very good and glowing.

Going through this experience both taught me to be more careful and gave me some confidence at handling the dangers of psychedelic work.

I usually released fear primarily by making more of a high aehhh... sound and not often the high shrill scream we usually associate with terror. The aehh... could also change into a cry of pain or into rage. After my psychotic (?) episode I was considerably more careful about switching emotions and kept an inner watch for emotions beneath the surface. Neurosis and psychosis are the results of inappropriately focusing attention away from inner feelings and during a psychedelic session inappropriate focusing of attention on one emotion while another is building up inside for too long can be a problem.

I would like to comment on the process of releasing feelings during a psychedelic session. My body from the neck down was by no means still while I was making a lot of noise vocally. My legs would usually be bending and straightening rhythmically, or bouncing, or shaking, my pelvis was often in motion in an almost sexual to and fro rhythm, my arms would move in various ways but I usually had them hanging at my side. Some of this motion was quite violent at times and usually my metabolism was very high (except for when I was crying). I would sweat a great deal and in general the entire experience was very exhausting and draining physically. I do feel that if I had had a guide with me that the person would have had to be very accepting of the far from dignified and nearly convulsive nature of what I went through. I wonder how often the presence of some dignified degreed professional has inhibited the full expression of bodily emotion of someone during a psychedelic session.

The non-stop full force of the emotional outpouring usually lasted about 3 hours and there was usually a lesser outburst of twenty minutes or so later on during the session.

During one session I tried to augment the oxygen concentration of the air in the room by bubbling compressed oxygen through a bucket of water (for moisturizing). The session that followed was the gentlest on my body that I had ever experienced and spared me the usual "torn and abused" physical condition the psychedelic experience usually left me in. I tried this subsequently with miserable results, possible since I failed to use distilled water, I don’t know. The second time I tried it I felt as if I had been inhaling sawdust and had a very nasty experience. I do feel that there should be some further investigation into the use of oxygen to minimize the physical stress of psychedelic emotional release work even though I personally abandoned it.

The upsurge of emotion didn’t end after a session with LSD. Feelings would continue bubbling into my awareness during the usual two weeks between sessions and usually twice a day I would have a ten or so minute outburst of one emotion or another. It seemed that once the emotional energy circuits were opened they tended to stay that way.

According to Kelley when people block negative feelings they also block positive ones as well with the same muscle groups and when the negative emotions are allowed expression the positive feelings also flow back into awareness. I observed this in myself during my release work and found this quite pleasant. LSD therapy wasn’t by any means all gloom, terror and fury. I did to a large extent spend my LSD sessions experiencing negativity and during the days between sessions experienced very much heightened levels of love, joy, sexual pleasure and feelings of power. The whole process of opening up feelings with the bodywork and use of psychedelics produced a very intense full array of emotions. At times this was a bit socially awkward. I’d go from being insecure and frightened to being very confident and aggressive, to being depressed to being joyous and elated, and from being totally furious to being as friendly as a warm puppy. I also noticed a very much-increased tendency to get angry when I didn’t get my own way. Many small children are like that.

Another effect of the work I was doing was a change in my thought processes. There is a phenomenon called neurotic stupidity where a person with neurotic tendencies has a certain lack of good sense, says things that are inappropriate socially, and even though may be highly educated is somehow just lacking in basic good judgment. I noticed in myself an increased reliance on the intuitive side of my thinking and an increased maturity that in retrospect I realize I sadly lacked before I began the therapy work.

The intense emotional release work also resulted in some interesting changes in my facial expressions. With different emotions building up and being released my facial muscles would tense and soften with different levels of feeling. At times my cheeks would be fuller, my eyebrows less angled, mouth, nose and law less tense, etc. My physical appearance could vary considerably with how I felt. The glow of my skin would also vary. Most people don’t realize how much a person’s face and body reveal about their sub-surface emotional state.

My voice would also change with the tensions being released from my throat and jaw. My voice became deeper, especially after fear releases, and more resonant.

As most of us who have had major emotional outbursts know that large emotional discharges can be very draining to our energy and after six to ten LSD sessions I would rest for about a year in order to recharge. During this time I noticed my breathing was much deeper and more intense than usual and I avoided if possible anything that was very taxing of my energy. The burn out effect of the use of psychedelic is very real but in my opinion worth the benefits of LSD therapy. Most people restrict their respiration to hold down their overall emotional excitement levels so they are not bringing in much energy as well as blocking the release and expression of energy. LSD therapy allows for major outpourings of energy followed by accelerated in flowing of more energy.

A Radix practitioner mentioned to me that one person releasing emotion discharges energy that others nearby can pick up. She liked to use group non-drug emotional release sessions for this reason. Energy would flow from person to person arid hence be recycled rather than just being wasted if one was alone doing the work. This concept offers some possibilities for psychedelic work as well.

I would like to mention that even though I was alone during my LSD experiences that I was very much aware of a higher being in my company and holding me up emotionally through what I was going through. I was also aware at times that this entity didn’t altogether approve of my being alone and of having to be the one constantly emotionally supporting me. I was on Earth, not in Heaven.

I did have a mystical experience during one session even though I was standing, had my eyes wide open and making as much noise as possible at the top of my lungs. It was as if I was on a spiritual plane, above the body of mine releasing all the emotion, very much in the presence of a loving giant sphere of light and a sea of other smaller spiritual lights on a plane encircling the larger sphere. I didn’t "see" this with my eyes, but with another sense altogether. My eyes were still seeing the room I was in, but I was not paying attention to this.

The experience had a profound effect on me. I only mention it since there are those who are interested in the mystical experiences possible with the use of psychedelics. It seems that standing with my eyes open didn’t preclude such experiences.

Also during my psychedelic work I felt an urge or a duty to serve others and I didn’t feel that I had the choice not to. It was very much a heart felt need to be giving. Some neurotic individuals can be very selfish and are often very good at justifying being that way to themselves. I believe that psychology at one point merges with the spiritual and for us to grow as individuals we must address the spiritual side of our natures. I feel that psychedelics open us up to the spiritual side of our being and I would never take LSD if it didn’t feel right intuitively.

Even though I spent my LSD sessions alone I would like to comment on the presence or use of a guide or therapist. I know that if I was high that I wouldn’t want anyone who was very emotionally blocked in my presence. I think that a guide or therapist capable of the necessary warmth and able to be fully accepting of the full force of the emotional intensity of someone undergoing psychedelic therapy is fairly rare. In my experience professional psychiatrists and psychologists often lack the personal emotional spontaneity necessary to be, in my opinion, a good companion for someone trying to open up emotionally on psychedelics.

The emotional investment by a guide or therapist necessary in his/her clients using psychedelic work is vastly greater than with traditional chat therapies. I know that it would have been difficult for me to go through what I did with LSD if I had been in the presence of someone who didn’t love me.

It is an uncommon individual that is capable of lifting the awareness of a person during an LSD session and not of just dragging them further down by their mere presence.

As for my work with psychedelics, I eventually had to quit since I developed a problem with my left knee as a result of regularly running downhill with poor quality shoes. I was told that either I quit what I was doing or I’d need surgery. I could no longer take the repeated stress of psychedelic work. Non-drug emotional release work is slow and expensive. The work I did do with psychedelics has freed me up emotionally and has had a marked effect on releasing deep-seated tensions in my body. I also feel that I am more sensitive and intuitive as a person. I’m sorry I couldn’t take the work to its logical conclusion.

I’d like to make some comments on those interested in Rolfing or Structural Integration. Personally I think perhaps one in three Rolfers are good at what they do. Some are inexperienced and some are fairly emotionally blocked and not as sensitive as they should be. Rolfing is a very intuitive art as well as a technique. Sensitivity is crucial for a person becoming competent in this practice. I had one bad experience with LSD that I blame mainly on the lack of expertise of the Rolfer I had visited. The better Rolfers gave me no such problems.

I have provided a list of sources for anyone interested in further information about either Radix education or about Rolfing. There are or have been some conflicts between the Radix Institute founders Charles and Erica Kelley and the new management of the Radix Institute as well as between the Guild for Structural Integration and the Rolf Institute.

E-mail sources for books are included in parentheses for rarer publications.

Cauldwell, William V. LSD Psychotherapy: An Exploration of Psychedelic and Psycholytic Therapy. New York: Grove Press, 1968.

Glenn, Linda et al. The Radix Reader. Heron Press, 1999. (sssoftparade@aol.com)

Kelley, Charles. Opening the Feelings: The Functional Approach. Santa Monica: Radix Institute, 1975. (ggwtg@mhtc.net)

Kelley, Charles. Education in Feeling and Purpose. Santa Monica: Radix Institute, 1974. (ggwtg@mhtc.net)

Reich, Wilhelm. Character Analysis. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970.

Special thanks to the Guild for Structural Integration for supplying photographs.

Web Sites:

www.rolfguild.org Guild for Structural Integration

www.rolf.org Rolf Institute