tried LSD for the first time in 1955, obtained from "Captain" Al Hubbard. Alfred Hubbard Alfred Matthew Hubbard is reputed to have introduced more than 6,000 people to LSD, including scientists, politicians, intelligence officials, diplomats, and church figures. He became known as the original "Captain Trips", travelling about with a leather case containing pharmaceutically pure LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. He became a 'freelance' apostle for LSD in the early 1950s after supposedly receiving an angelic vision telling him that something important to the future of mankind would soon be coming. When he read about LSD the next year, he immediately sought and acquired LSD, which he tried for himself in 1951. Although he had no medical training, Hubbard collaborated on running psychedelic sessions with LSD with Ross McLean at Vancouver's Hollywood Hospital, with psychiatrists Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond; with Myron Stolaroff at the International Federation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park, California; and with Willis Harman at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). At various times over the next 20 years, Hubbard also reportedly worked for the Canadian Special Services, the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms. It is also rumored that he was involved with the CIA's MK-ULTRA project. How his government positions actually interacted with his work with LSD is unknown. Harold A. Abramson In 1955, Time magazine reported: "In Manhattan, Psychiatrist Harold A. Abramson of the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratory has developed a technique of serving dinner to a group of subjects, topping off the meal with a liqueur glass containing 40 micrograms of LSD." This mention in America's most popular newsweekly is noteworthy because Abramson was not a psychiatrist or even a psychologist, but was an allergist who was a key participant in the CIA MK-ULTRA mind-control program. R. Gordon Wasson In 1957, R. Gordon Wasson, the vice president of J.P. Morgan, published an article in Life magazine extolling the virtues of magic mushrooms. This prompted Albert Hofmann to isolate psilocybin in 1958 for distribution by Sandoz with its product LSD in the U.S., further raising interest in LSD in the mass media. Following Wasson's report, Timothy Leary visited Mexico to experience the mushrooms. Timothy Leary Dr. Timothy Leary, a lecturer in psychology at Harvard University, was the most prominent pro-LSD researcher. Leary claimed that using LSD with the right dosage, set (one's emotional mindset at time of ingestion),