PSA's Psychedelic State(s) of The Union: March 10th, 2026

By Natalie J. Storey

From our friends at the Maenad Diary on Substack

I finished reading Susannah Cahalan’s excellent psychedelic biography of Rosemary Woodruff Leary over the weekend. In many ways the book is a stunning rewrite of the first psychedelic renaissance through the eyes of a woman who witnessed it firsthand. Timothy Leary, one of the main characters of psychedelics, doesn’t come off so well.

“The new context made it harder for Rosemary to ignore the ‘banality’ of her husband’s mind,” Cahalan writes of how inflated Leary became after his escape from prison. “LSD was always the solution to the world’s ills. Racial conflict? Free TV and LSD. Overpopulation? Tantra and LSD. Women’s liberation? More LSD.”

So much of The Acid Queen felt familiar and eerie in a heartbreaking way. The person who introduced me to psychedelic group therapy had similar issues with inflations and psychedelics, and my teacher’s groups were rife with claims similar to the ones Leary was making in the 60s. If only we had listened to Rosemary Leary instead of her husband.

Many other parts of this biography hit close to home and enraged me, such as Rosemary’s habit of giving away her ideas to men around her who continually exploited her, betrayed her and denied her contributions to their work. I, too, am guilty of such behavior. Just ask my fly fishing guide ex who is currently getting rich off of a business idea I gave him and then made happen or my former psychedelics teacher who based his lectures on my ideas and experiences for more than a year after I left his groups.

Cahalan’s descriptions of the early connection between Rosemary and Timothy Leary as telepathic—especially while on acid—triggered now-sickening memories of parts of my psychedelic journey that I wish could have remained true and untainted. Sickening because I remember still the feeling of merging with someone else while on psychedelics, and then the come down of that person’s betrayal. I remember still the euphoria of feeling someone else had touched my mind, and then how awful it felt to have that connection ripped away. While the connection is live, you feel indestructible and it imbues you with insane hopes. Once you have woven your psychic threads with someone like that it’s very painful to unweave them. I personally experienced the pain as a psychic amputation, as though I had cut off parts of myself, especially the ones my teacher saw and helped me name.

Or take this personally enraging and terrifying detail Cahalan reminds readers of throughout the The Acid Queen: How long and hard Rosemary Leary tried to get her writing published to no avail. No one wanted to publish her, but anything her husband said was printed immediately even though she was the one scripting him. Cahalan even includes a moment in The Acid Queen when Rosemary realizes Timothy plagiarized her unpublished memoir in one of his books. Maybe what you liked about Timothy Leary were her words all along. Did you ever think of that? Of course, it’s the same in psychedelics today as it was in the 1960s—it’s one field where white dweebs’ opinions still reign supreme.Shar

Or perhaps the most validating and troubling part of The Acid Queen: the fact that through her many years of drug use and her proximity to a psychedelic guru, Rosemary came to the same conclusions as I eventually did about psychedelics. “I’m more inclined to pay attention to beauty had I not done these things,” she said near the end of her life. “I believe in everything, and at the same time almost nothing, but it leaves me in a very comfortable place.”

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by our friends at the Maenad Diary over on Substack - be sure to support and subscribe!

Powered by Psychedelics Today

With cutting edge psychedelic research underway at Emory University in Atlanta, a robust college town community in Athens, and local policy reform efforts having been floated by ATL’s city council in years past — Georgia is a more likely hub for the southern psychedelic revolution than it may appear at first glance.

Mondays at 3:30 PM EST / 12:30 PM PST

Fridays at 2:00 PM EST / 11:00 AM PST

Learn more about PSA’s Media Partnership Program Here

Until next time,

The Psychedelic State(s) of America Team