Ralph Metzner

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Ralph Metzner (2009)

Ralph Metzner (born May 18, 1936 in Berlin , Germany ; † March 14, 2019 in Sonoma , California , United States ) was an American psychologist with German-British roots. He was an early companion of Timothy Leary and co-author of the Psychedelic Handbook .

Life

Ralph Metzner was the son of a German father and a British mother. He studied philosophy and psychology at Oxford University and received his PhD in clinical psychology and personality research from Harvard University in 1962 . In the following year, Dr. Ralph Metzner Member of the College of Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), the medical school at Harvard University. Together with assistant professors Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary, he was involved in the psilocybin and LSD experiments held in an academic setting . Together they published an adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead , which was published in 1963 under the title The Psychedelic Experience (German: Psychedelic Experience. A manual based on instructions from the Tibetan Book of the Dead ).

According to Metzner, he had his first psychedelic experience with psilocybin in 1961. In 2006 he described this experience as one of two turning points in his life, "after which everything in my life changed".

After leaving Harvard, Ralph Metzner was director of the International Foundation For Internal Freedom (IFIF) founded by Timothy Leary from 1963 to 1967 . The aim of the IFIF was to set up privately financed research centers throughout the country, in which primarily "artists, writers, believers and seekers" could take under medical supervision and under contract produced, legal mescaline , psilocybin and LSD to modify consciousness. The in-house Psychedelic Review , whose editor was Ralph Metzner, served as the publication medium . The journal with the scientific claim should inform the readership about the correct handling of psychedelic drugs and contribute to the expansion of consciousness, intelligence and the creation of mystical experiences by means of psychedelics. These plans became obsolete with the general ban on LSD in the USA in 1966 at the latest.

Fonts

  • with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert : Psychedelic Experiences. A manual based on instructions from the Tibetan Book of the Dead , Barth Verlag, Weilheim 1971 (1963). ISBN 978-3870412487
  • with Ram Dass : Birth of a Psychedelic Culture: Conversations about Leary, the Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the Sixties. Synergetic Press, Santa Fe 2010. ISBN 978-0-907791-38-6
    • Birth of a Psychedelic Culture: Conversations about Leary, the Harvard Experiments, Millbrook and the 60s , Solothurn 2018. ISBN 978-3037885499
  • Albert Hofmann and the search for the alchemical philosopher's stone. In: Mathias Broeckers / Roger Liggenstorfer: Albert Hofmann and the discovery of LSD - On the way to Eleusis , Baden 2006, pp. 90–99, ISBN 3-03800-276-3 .
  • The fountain of memory. The mythological and shamanic roots of our culture , Arun Verlag, 2012. ISBN 978-3866630802

Discography

  • with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert: The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead , 1966 (2003).
  • Ralph Metzner: Bardo Blues , Mimir Music 2005 (Min 40:27).

Web links

Commons : Ralph Metzner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mathias Broeckers: Pioneer in the space of the soul: Ralph Metzner RIP on broeckers.com from March 15, 2019.
  2. ↑ Neil Genzlinger: Ralph Metzner, LSD and Consciousness Researcher, Dies at 82. In: The New York Times , April 4, 2019. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
  3. ↑ Timothy Leary: Because they knew what they were doing. Eine Rückblende , Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12582-7 , p. 94.
  4. ↑ About Ralph Metzner. In: Green Earth Foundation. Retrieved March 15, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Ralph Metzner: Albert Hofmann and the search for the alchemical philosopher's stone. In: Mathias Broeckers / Roger Liggenstorfer: Albert Hofmann and the discovery of LSD , p. 98.
  6. ↑ Timothy Leary: For They Knew What They Are Doing , pp. 200-206.
personal data
SURNAME Metzner, Ralph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 18, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , Germany
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 2019
Place of death Sonoma , California , United States