The Zihuatanejo Project was a psychedelic training center and

intentional community An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of group cohesiveness, social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, po ...

created during the beginning of the

counterculture of the 1960s The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights mo ...

Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...

and

Richard Alpert Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been d ...

under the umbrella of their nonprofit group, the International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF). The community was located in

Zihuatanejo Zihuatanejo (), or Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, is the fourth-largest city in the Mexican state of Guerrero. It was known by 18th century English mariners as Chequetan or Seguataneo. Politically the city belongs to the municipality of Zihuatanejo de Azuet ...

Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in Municipalities of Guerrero, 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acap ...

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

, and took up residence at the Hotel Catalina in the summers of 1962 and 1963.Leary, Timothy; Richard Alpert; Ralph Metzner. 1964. "Rationale of the Mexican Psychedelic Training Center". In Richard Blum: ''Utopiates: The Use and Users of LSD-25'', 178-186. New York: Atherton Press. .

Background

Leary and Alpert first discovered the town of Zihuatanejo in 1960. After the

Marsh Chapel Experiment The Marsh Chapel Experiment, also called the "Good Friday Experiment", was a 1962 experiment conducted on Good Friday at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Walter N. Pahnke, a graduate student in theology at Harvard Divinity School, designed the e ...

in 1962 they decided the area would make a good location for a training center. The idea for the community was influenced by

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxle ...

's fictional novel, ''

Island An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be ...

'' (1962).Lattin, Don. 2011. ''The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America''. HarperCollins. . 2011, 99, 112.

Training program

Thousands of people applied to the IFIF in the hopes of joining the project in Zihuatanejo. Out of this pool of applicants, a small, select group of people were chosen. Amenities cost $200 a month per person, including food and lodging in bungalows near a secluded beach. Fishermen supplied a bounty of fresh fish from the bay. During the first training session in 1962, Leary and 35 guests rented the Catalina Hotel for a month using their own version of the ''

Tibetan Book of the Dead The ''Bardo Thodol'' (, "Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State"), commonly known in the West as ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead'', is a terma text from a larger corpus of teachings, the ''Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation t ...

'' as a guide book for

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

sessions;

Ralph Metzner Ralph Metzner (May 18, 1936 – March 14, 2019) was a German-born American psychologist, writer and researcher, who participated in psychedelic research at Harvard University in the early 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later named ...

and Richard Alpert helped manage the group. Group LSD sessions began in the morning with the consumption of liquid LSD, with a dosage of 100 to 500 micrograms ingested by participating individuals; the experience would usually last until late afternoon.

Closure

Immigration officials were tipped off to the project when the Mexican media began reporting stories about an "LSD Paradise". In the summer of 1963, after only six weeks (May 1 - June 16) the Mexican authorities shut the community down. Officials removed the group from Zihuatanejo and sent them to

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley of ...

aboard a chartered DC-3. Several failed attempts were made to move the training center to Dominica and Antigua. In August 1963, with the help of wealthy patrons, Leary and their group moved to the

Hitchcock Estate The Hitchcock Estate in Millbrook, New York is a historic mansion and surrounding grounds, associated with Timothy Leary and the psychedelic movement. It is often referred to in this context as just Millbrook; it is also sometimes called by its o ...

in Millbrook, New York, where they stayed until 1968.Conners, Peter. 2010. ''White Hand Society: The Psychedelic Partnership of Timothy Leary & Allen Ginsberg''. City Lights Books. .Miles, Barry. 2005. ''Hippie''. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. Hamilton, Neil A. 2002. ''Rebels and Renegades: A Chronology of Social and Political Dissent in the United States'', Taylor & Francis. . 260-261.

Media

Leary talks extensively about the project on the rare, out-of-print 1966 recording, ''Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: Timothy Leary Ph.D. speaks on L.S.D.''

Background

Training program

Closure

Media

References

Further reading