Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research, by Grof, is a truly amazing book.
He's got a few out-there ideas with no empirical support (ancestral memories, reliving past lives, etc), but by and large his LSD-aided psychoanalysis sessions yielded results similar to those of traditional psychoanalysis, although in a fraction of the time.
The illustrations and responses produced by subjects under the influence of LSD were steeped in symbolism related to the individual's "core (traumatic) experience"; thus a well-trained psychoanalyst could more quickly piece together the aspect(s) of a patient's life related to the trauma which were not integrated with the rest of his/her consciousness.
Failure to "integrate" (ie recognize, cope with, move on, etc) aspects of the core trauma, Grof argued, gives rise to a complex built up around the experience, and patients have a strange tendency to symbolically re-live their trauma. IIRC, for example, one of the case studies was of a young woman who was raped and beaten up by a stepfather; later in life, she (unconsciously) re-lived the initial trauma by gravitating toward the same kind of man, ie, one who mistreated her. The same basic idea seems to hold true for a variety of different experiences.
Really interesting stuff. Too bad loudmouths like Leary believed enlightened nirvana is just an acid hit for everybody away. LSD can have powerfully positive effects when administered by a professional, for example, but idiot teenagers who dose and go to see a slasher film will probably go out of their minds. LSD is certainly not a drug to be taken lightly, or on a whim. Because of that fact alone, at least 98& of the public should probably never try it unless supervised by someone with extensive training...
