Ken Kesey: From Author to Acid Evangelist
Ken Kesey first encountered psychedelics not through the counterculture but through the U.S. government. In 1959, while a graduate student at Stanford University's creative writing program, he volunteered for CIA-funded experiments at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, where he was paid to take LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and other substances under clinical observation. The experiences profoundly influenced his debut novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1962), which became a bestseller and, later, the basis for a 1975 Academy Award-winning film.
Using the royalties from his novels (including "Sometimes a Great Notion," published in 1964), Kesey purchased a property in La Honda, California, in the forested hills south of San Francisco. The property became a gathering place for a loose collective of artists, writers, and adventurers who called themselves the Merry Pranksters. Key members included Ken Babbs (Kesey's friend from the Marines), Mountain Girl (Carolyn Adams, later Carolyn Garcia), the poet and filmmaker Stewart Brand, and -- most famously -- Neal Cassady, the legendary driver and real-life inspiration for Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's "On the Road."
