Chatter: Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and the CIA with Benjamin Breen
The Lawfare Podcast14 Maalis 2024

Chatter: Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and the CIA with Benjamin Breen

If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you’ve heard stories about the CIA’s experiments with drugs, particularly LSD, during the infamous MKUltra program. But you may not know that the characters involved in that dubious effort connect to one of the 20th Century’s most famous and revered scientists, the anthropologist Margaret Mead.


Shane Harris talked with historian Benjamin Breen about this new book, Tripping on Utopia, which tells the story of how Mead and her close circle launched a movement to expand human consciousness, decades before the counterculture of the 1960s popularized, and ultimately stigmatized, psychedelic drugs. Mead and Gregory Bateson--her collaborator and one-time husband--are at the center of a story that includes the WWII-era Office of Strategic Services, a shady cast of CIA agents and operatives, Beat poets, and the pioneers of the Information Age.


Psychedelics are having a renaissance, with federal regulators poised to legalize their use - Breen’s book is an engrossing history that explores the roots of that movement and how it influenced and collided with the U.S. national security establishment.

Books, movies, and other points of interest discussed in this conversation include:


Also check out:


Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jaksot(2878)

Lawfare Archive: Stephanie Leutert on Violence in Mexico and Central America

Lawfare Archive: Stephanie Leutert on Violence in Mexico and Central America

From October 8, 2016: Stephanie Leutert, the Mexico Security Initiative Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Lawfare's "Beyond the Border" series, joined Benjamin Wittes on th...

1 Maalis 37min

Lawfare Archive: Trump’s Tariffs and the Law

Lawfare Archive: Trump’s Tariffs and the Law

From February 27, 2025: For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Kathleen Claussen, an expert in international economic law and professor at the Georgetown University...

28 Helmi 46min

Lawfare Daily: Patronage Pardons: A Conversation with Prof. Lee Kovarsky about a Novel Feature of the Trump Administration

Lawfare Daily: Patronage Pardons: A Conversation with Prof. Lee Kovarsky about a Novel Feature of the Trump Administration

Lee Kovarsky, an endowed chair professor at the University of Texas School of Law, speaks with Senior Editor Roger Parloff about patronage pardons, the subject of his forthcoming article in the Duke L...

27 Helmi 41min

Lawfare Live: Unpacking the Kilmar Abrego Garcia Hearing with Anna Bower

Lawfare Live: Unpacking the Kilmar Abrego Garcia Hearing with Anna Bower

In a Feb. 26 Lawfare Live, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower discussed the evidentiary hearing in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia criminal case which focused on the...

26 Helmi 28min

Rational Security: The “Off the Rails” Edition

Rational Security: The “Off the Rails” Edition

This week, Scott was joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Roberts, and University of Virginia Professor of Law Paul Stephan to talk through the week’s big news ...

26 Helmi 1h 16min

Lawfare Daily: The State of IHL

Lawfare Daily: The State of IHL

Loren Voss, Public Service Fellow at Lawfare, sits down with Stuart Casey Maslen, the head of the IHL in Focus project at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. They di...

26 Helmi 21min

Lawfare Daily: Are We Going to War in Iran?

Lawfare Daily: Are We Going to War in Iran?

Lawfare Public Service Fellow Ariane Tabatabai and Eric Brewer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative join Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes in a discussion of the possibly impending U.S. strike on Ir...

25 Helmi 48min

Lawfare Daily: Ideology, Action, and Terrorism in the 1970s

Lawfare Daily: Ideology, Action, and Terrorism in the 1970s

Senior Editor Michael Feinberg is joined by Jason Burke of The Guardian, the author of “The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists who Hijacked the 1970s.” The two discuss the roots of European a...

24 Helmi 50min

Suosittua kategoriassa Politiikka ja uutiset

uutiscast
aikalisa
ootsa-kuullut-tasta-2
rss-ootsa-kuullut-tasta
tervo-halme
politiikan-puskaradio
rss-vaalirankkurit-podcast
viisupodi
rss-podme-livebox
et-sa-noin-voi-sanoo-esittaa
rss-asiastudio
otetaan-yhdet
the-ulkopolitist
linda-maria
rikosmyytit
radio-antro
rss-sanna-ukkola-show-verkkouutiset
io-techin-tekniikkapodcast
rss-raha-talous-ja-politiikka
rss-tasta-on-kyse-ivan-puopolo-verkkouutiset