In early June, Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris and members of his lab visited Shulgin Farm alongside collaborators from the Mitchell Lab. For the Foundation, it was the kind of visit the Farm was made for: scientists walking through a working piece of history, thinking about where the field came from and where it is going.
Later, he sat down with Executive Director Megan Bowers to talk about what he saw, what it stirred, and what the Farm represents for the field today (see YouTube video above).
Dr. Carhart-Harris, Will Lucas, Dr. Paul Daley, Executive Director Megan Bowers, and Annie Oak.
Dr. Carhart-Harris, who researches psychedelics at UC San Francisco, shared his reflections publicly after the visit. What came through was not just professional admiration but something more personal. He wrote of his admiration for Sasha’s deep roots in Bay Area academic culture, his training at UC Berkeley, his years at Dow Chemical, and his embeddedness in the scientific life of this region.
Members of the Mitchell Lab and Dr. Carhart-Harris’ lab.
“Psychedelic science has always been carried forward not only by institutions, but by unusual people, unusual homes, unusual communities, and a willingness to explore what had not yet been mapped.”
– Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris
Executive Director Megan Bowers shows one of Sasha’s pharmacology notebooks to Dr. Carhart-Harris and members of his lab.
He was equally moved by Ann’s place in the story. Her early therapeutic guidelines for working with MDMA, her co-authorship of PiHKAL and TiHKAL alongside Sasha, her role as a Jungian lay therapist and fellow explorer: these were not footnotes to Sasha’s work but inseparable from it.
Dr. Paul Daley gives a tour of Sasha’s lab to Dr. Carhart-Harris and members of his lab.
“[Sasha’s] work continues to feel startlingly relevant.”
– Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris
Dr. Carhart-Harris with members of the Mitchell Lab and his lab in the Shulgin library.
Watch Dr. Carhart-Harris’ conversation with Megan Bowers, recorded the same day: