Search results
The Acid Tests were a series of parties held by author Ken Kesey primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid-1960s, centered on the use of and advocacy for the psychedelic drug LSD, commonly known as "acid".
The "Acid Tests" — parties centered around LSD-laced Kool-Aid and carried out with lights and noise intended to enhance the psychedelic experience — started at Kesey's house in the woods of La Honda, California.
- Tom Wolfe
- 1968
The acid test parties began after Kesey’s experience with mind-altering drugs as a volunteer test subject for Army experiments in 1960 (later revealed to be part of the CIA’s mind control experiment, Project MKUltra ). Kesey stole LSD and invited friends to try it with him.
December 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the “Acid Tests,” events held by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in partnership with legendary musicians The Grateful Dead. Acid, also known as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is a powerful hallucinogen that elicits a variety of psychoactive effects in users.
Aug 8, 2017 · The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test: How The Author of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” Spread LSD Across America. In 1964, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, traveled across America in a tie-dye school bus with nothing but a few friends and enough LSD to get an entire country high.
Aug 12, 2011 · Tom Wolfe wrote about Ken Kesey's LSD experiments in the book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. In 1987, Wolfe spoke to Terry Gross about following Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.
Oct 5, 1999 · Tom Wolfe's much-discussed kaleidoscopic non-fiction novel chronicles the tale of novelist Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters. In the 1960s, Kesey led a group of psychedelic sympathizers around the country in a painted bus, presiding over LSD-induced "acid tests" all along the way.
