Now synonymous with Sixties counterculture, LSD actually entered the
American consciousness via the mainstream. Time and Life, messengers
of lumpen-American respectability, trumpeted its grand arrival in a
postwar landscape scoured of alluring descriptions of drug use while
lesser outlets piggybacked on their coverage with stories by turns
sensationalized and glowing.
Acid Hype offers the untold tale of LSD's wild journey from Brylcreem
and Ivory soap to incense and peppermints. As Stephen Siff shows, the
early attention lavished on the drug by the news media glorified its use
in treatments for mental illness but also its status as a mystical--yet
legitimate--gateway to exploring the unconscious mind. Siff's history
takes readers to the center of how popular media hyped psychedelic drugs
in a constantly shifting legal and social environment, producing an
intricate relationship between drugs and media experience that came to
define contemporary pop culture. It also traces how the breathless
coverage of LSD gave way to a textbook moral panic, transforming
yesterday's refined seeker of truths into an acid casualty splayed out
beyond the fringe of polite society.