"How come the communists in the 1950s allowed the production and research of LSD?" - "We had a group of chemists who were great in alkaloids. Sandoz had little trouble producing LSD, then. Along with Switzerland, we were the only country where that was possible. People from all around the world were buying LSD from the Spofa company. And how come communists had allowed it... That was because we hadn't spoken on what was happening during the LSD sessions. We hadn't spoken on it being related to psychoanalysis. This would have terminated the research. And we definitely hadn't said that people were having mystical, spiritual experiences. Anything related to religion was considered opium of the people and something hostile to the global communist revolution. So, we agreed to describe it as chemotherapy without talking about the concrete mechanisms."
"Young people who were using LSD ostentatively were part of the hippie movement distinct from mainstream America. They had long hair, goatees, painted their cars in psychedelic colors. Many of them also organized demostrations against the Vietnam War. Make love, not war. This way, they self-identified as troublemakers. This also contributed to psychedelics being outlawed." - "When did that take place?" - "It all started in 1965 with the Harvard scandal. Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner were doing research with students which was heavily criticized for an irresponsible way of handling these substances. This was an incentive for a change in legal regulation."
"They began bothering me. One of them, who introduced himself as Captain, even visited me during my night shift. He also came to my place or approached me in the street. Essentially, they claimed I was not a communist and that I had to prove my loyalty to the regime. They wanted me to inform on party members. There were plenty of people in the Research Institute who entered the party for career reasons. They probably hadn't trusted them and wanted to use me to inform on them. I came to my colleagues and told them that I was being bothered by the secret police who asked me to rat on them. I decided to say this out loud at the local Party meeting. To tell them who was effectively in charge in Czechoslovakia. That I thought the Communist Party was in power and that the secret police wanted me to rat on the commies. However, my friends from the Institute said: 'Don't be stupid, that would mean big trouble. Talk to them, find out what they want to know about us. We want to know what happens inside the secret police.'"
"In 1965, I was offered a stipend. I could have stayed there. I could have then legally returned to the US. If I had been staying legally, I would have had better connection with my family. So, I decided to come back and give it a try. However, they rejected my application to return to the US. Then they changed their mind, saying they'd let me know if I informed them on my stay. The first year, I was staying legally. I even invited by brother and parents for a visit. The communists were not interested in retired people. They wanted to get rid of them, keep their apartments and not pay their pensions. There was an opportunity for the whole family to stay in the US. However, my parents refused to stay. They didn't want to be dependent on us. My brother then settled in Canada. After the 1968 invasion, communists ordered me to return without delay. However, by then, I had declined to come back to Czechoslovakia."
"They were looking for that flyer but I managed to get rid of it in the meantime. They brought me to the police in Bartolomějská street where they kept me for two weeks. There was a large cell where they held some seventeen of us; I was there amongst thieves and pimps. During the interrogations, they used very strong lights shining into my eyes. They asked about various things from my life. Then, they let me go. But we hadn't known whether they'd return in half an hour or let us sleep for once. It was great suspense and adrenalin. There were also a father with a son who were found in possession of a rifle. Those had been returning to the cell badly beaten. So, I was under a lot of stress. During the interrogation, when they asked me about my childhood, I began hallucinating. I had visions. I realized there was something about it that I liked. I experienced altered state of consciousness with which I then worked for the rest of my professional life. It was the first time I experienced them; in such a difficult situation."
"Were you still able to work with LSD in your research institute?" - "It was the last place in America where that research had still taken place. Initially, there were 72 research projects but all of them were halted. This was the last one surviving." - "When was it terminated?" - "When I arrived in 1967, there were already laws in place and it was just us who had an exception to do research. We were able to work with LSD up until my departure from the institute in 1973. I had an increasing amount of material and several publishers offered me to write a book on this."
Stanislav Grof was born on 1 July 1931 in Prague. His parents were from Česká Třebová where Stanislav spent part of his childhood. Ever since 1939, the family lived in Prague. Stanislav was a talented student who loved Walt Disney films and wanted to produce animated movies. After reading a book by Sigmund Freud, he instead decided to do psychiatry. A year into his graduation, in 1948, he was accused of distributing anti-communist flyers and spent several months in pre-trial detention. Charges against him were eventually dismissed but he couldn’t return to his original high school and was at risk of not being allowed to pass his final exam. He worked on the construction of Klíčava dam thanks to which he was admitted to a high school intended for working class students. Thanks to his excellent results, he was admitted to a medical school. The communist putsch also affected his father who was fired from his job of a business agent for refusing to join the Party. Moreover, the regime confiscated family houses in Česká Třebová. In the 1950s, Stanislav took part in scientific experiments with LSD. After graduating from medical school he carried on with laboratory research and later did clinical reserach with seriously ill patients. In the 1960s, the secret police wanted him to rat on his colleagues. He only shared information which he pre-authorized with them. In 1967, he resided in the US, working as a researcher at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore. Following the 1968 Warsaw Pact armies invasion, he opted for staying in the US. He was head of research of psychoactive substances at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and at the same time assistant professor at the Henry Pipps Psychiatric Clinic. From 1973 until 1987 he worked as visiting researcher at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. He wrote, organized seminars and lectures and along with his wife Christina worked on developing the method of Holotropic Breathwork. He founded the International Transpersonal Association and organized conferences all around the world. In 2007, he was awarded the Vize 97 prize by the Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation. His brother Pavel Grof is also a renowned psychiatrist, residing in Canada.
