Ellis, Havelock

Ellis, Havelock, Mescal A New Artificial Paradise, The Contemporary Review, January 1898. Henry Havelock Ellis traveled widely in Australia and South America before studying medicine in London. This text from the late 1800s describes a vision produced by mescal. 

The psychologist, Havelock Ellis s account of a mescaline experience, cited by Hoffer and Osmond (1967) was as follows The visions never resemble familiar objects they were extremely definite, but yet always novel they were constantly approaching, and yet constantly eluding, the semblance of known things. I would see thick glorious fields of jewels, solitary or clustered, sometimes brilliant and sparkling, sometimes with a full rich glow. Then they would... 

Louis Lewin S. Weir Mitchell Havelock Ellis... 

The first account of the peyote experience from someone who had actually tried it appeared in 1896. This came from a distinguished author and Philadelphia physician, S. Weir Mitchell, who then forwarded "peyote buttons to the prominent psychologists William James and Havelock Ellis. After ingesting them in his flat in London, Ellis called the resulting experiences "an orgy of visions and "a new artificial paradise (from the titles of his two reports). James, however,got a severe stomachache after eating only one, declaring that he would "take the visions on trust. ... 

The first account (by a white) of "peyote inebriation was published in 1897 by the distinguished Philadelphia physician and novelist Weir Mitchell. Soon after, he sent "peyote buttons —the part of the plant growing aboveground—to Havelock Ellis, a pioneer in psychological and sexual studies. Ellis had read Mitchell s narrative and soon published two influential accounts of his own experiments under the influence of peyote in the British Journal of Medicine. 

Arnold Mandell, the founding chairman of the Psychiatry Department at the University of California at San Diego, noted that despite much emphasis on the "visuals aroused by peyote, both Weir Mitchell and Havelock Ellis had metaphysical experiences under its influence. Ellis described a "detached yet acutely aware brain state and characterized his experience in... 

The earliest reports among whites were by skilled literary men—Weir Mitchell and Havelock Ellis. Writing toward the end of the nineteenth century, both emphasized the visual qualities of peyote ... 

Havelock Ellis gave a small amount of his peyote to the poet William Butler Yeats, who wrote back to Ellis about the impressive "visuals ... 

The concept of human chemical communication is not new. The pioneering works of Havelock Ellis [234] appeared in 1914. Among others, Irving Bieber [235], Alex Comfort [236], John Money [237], and Lewis Thomas [238, 239] have either examined or have commented on aspects of human chemical communication and its likely effects. 

Havelock Ellis remarked that What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance. The advent of computerized instruments has certainly made routine a number of difficult spectroscopic measurements. Unfortunately, the sophistication of the procedures now available can result in erroneous results or interpretations if they are not used with caution. A classic example is the use of curve-resolving techniques. There is always a suspicion that a good fit between an observed spectral profile and a number of bands can be obtained providing that a sufficient number of the latter are included in the analysis. Clearly, in such cases a prior knowledge of the number of bands and their frequency would significantly increase our confidence in the results. 

---