A.A. co-founder Bill Wilson’s involvement with LSD began in the 1950s. Wilson hoped ingestion of the chemical would help alcoholics. He wrote, “It is a generally acknowledged fact in spiritual development that ego reduction makes the influx of God’s grace possible. If, therefore, under LSD we can have a temporary reduction, so that we can better see what we are and where we are going–well, that might be of some help.” (PASS IT ON, pg. 370)
In the 1950s LSD was a recent development. Wilson, aware that A.A. simply did not work for every motivated alcoholic, was searching for things that would help.
For those who have heard or read that Bill Wilson was a Christian, the fact that he believed LSD could possibly facilitate the “influx of God’s grace” demonstrates much. There was no understanding of the grace of Christ. According to his secretary, Nell Wing, during Bill’s own ingestion of LSD, “He had an experience [that] was totally spiritual, [like] his initial spiritual experience.” (PASS IT ON, pg.370)
PASS IT ON, Wilson’s official A.A. biography, also states, “Bill was enthusiastic about his experience; he felt it helped him eliminate many barriers erected by the self, or ego, that stand in the way of one’s direct experience of the cosmos and of God.” (pg.371)
“Almost to the end, [Alcoholics Anonymous cofounder Bill Wilson] engaged in serious and prolonged experiments with spiritualism, hallucinatory drugs such as LSD and megavitamin doses of niacin,” states Nan Robertson. (Bold mine; quote from ‘Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous,’ by Nan Robertson, pg.124)
Robertson notes Wilson “felt that no one should have to believe in any particular religious faith or dogma; that each member was entitled to a personal interpretation of the words ‘God as we understand Him,’ including the concept of the A.A. group as a ‘Higher Power.’” (pg. 124)
Nan Robertson is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and Alcoholics Anonymous member.
Bill Wilson’s first personal use of LSD was on August 29, 1956.
