Zihuatanejo Project

The Zihuatanejo Project was an intentional community created during the summers of 1962 and 1963 by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert under the umbrella of their nonprofit group, the International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF). The community was located in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico, and took up residence at the Catalina Hotel. The idea for the community was based on the fictional story from Aldous Huxley's 1962 novel, "Island".

More than 5000 people applied to the IFIF in the hopes of joining the project in Zihuatanejo. Out of this pool of applicants, a small, select group of people were chosen. Amenities cost $200 a month per person, including food and lodging in bungalows near a secluded beach. Fisherman supplied a bounty of fresh fish from the bay. Leary and 35 guests rented the Catalina Hotel for a month using the "Tibetan Book of the Dead" as a guide book for LSD sessions, while Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert helped manage the group. Group LSD sessions began in the morning with the consumption of liquid LSD, with a dosage of 100 to 500 micrograms ingested by participating individuals; the experience would usually last until late afternoon.

Immigration officials were tipped off to the project when the Mexican media began reporting stories about an "LSD Paradise". In the summer of 1963, after only six weeks (May 1 - June 16) the Mexican authorities shut the community down. Officials removed the group from Zihuatanejo and sent them to Mexico City aboard a chartered Douglas DC-3
DC-3.

Leary talks extensively about the project on the rare, out-of-print 1966 recording, "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: Timothy Leary Ph.D. speaks on L.S.D."

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Notes

References

*Hamilton, Neil A. (2002). "Rebels and Renegades: A Chronology of Social and Political Dissent in the United States", Taylor & Francis. ISBN 041593639X .
*Hollingshead, Michael. (1973). "The Man who Turned on the World". Blond and Briggs. London. ISBN 0-85634-015-4 .
*Lee, Martin A. & Shlain, Bruce (1992), "Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond", Grove Press, ISBN 0802130623 .
*Miles, Barry. (2005). "Hippie". Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 1402728735
*Stevens, Jay (1998), "Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream", Grove Press, ISBN 0802135870 .

Further reading

*Leary, Timothy; Richard Alpert; Ralph Metzner. Rationale of the Mexican Psychedelic Training Center. In Richard Blum & Associates: "Utopiates: The Use & Users of LSD-25", 178-186. New York: Atherton Press, 1964.