How important of a role did psychedelics play in shaping the counterculture movement?
CP: It was the background. It loosened everybody up. At the time it all seemed to come from LSD. In retrospect, a lot of things fed into it. There were the traditions of Bohemia. After a while, a certain radical left-wing element came in, but they were not part of it in the beginning. As a matter of fact, there was a sort of hostility or at least a lack of sympathy between the acidheads and the radicals. Then after the thing got going, there were just sort of like all the lost waifs and strays of America who were drawn by the idea of a community where you would be accepted and helped. It was a great big stew. Probably 100,000 people moved to the Haight-Ashbury in that period. V: Looking back now, did it achieve what you’d hoped it would at the time? CP: The problem was that everybody had kind of their own vision. Everybody was on their own trip, basically. But the thing about LSD is it speaks in accents of great seriousness like secrets are being revealed right now. You almost think th
