Prompted by this strange impulse, Hubbard packed his bags and returned to the Inland Empire for some quiet solitude and self-reflection. The tranquil Spokane woods full of ponderosa pines, Douglas firs and junipers were the perfect setting for this, and Hubbard embarked on several long hikes. During one of these woodland treks, while approaching a clearing, Hubbard reported seeing a familiar golden glow. As he would later tell friends, the same heavenly spirit that had visited him a few decades prior in Seattle suddenly appeared to him again. This time the angel announced that something tremendously important to the future of mankind would be arriving soon in which he would be playing a key role. Upon delivery of the message, the bright glow of the spirit then dissipated into the air and was gone. Hubbard still didn’t have any clear answers, but this divine visit assured his mystical side that everything would be settled soon enough, and he returned to Dayman Island, much more at peace with himself than when he left.

Almost a year later, in 1953, Hubbard was reading through a copy of the Hibbert Journal—a British quarterly that published scholarly commentary on religion and philosophy—when he stumbled across an article written by Dr. Humphry Osmond about the properties of mescaline, a hallucinogenic derivative of the peyote cactus that had been slowly gaining attention in research and academia. Osmond was a British psychiatrist who served as clinical director of the Saskatchewan Mental Hospital in Canada and was involved in a project studying the use of mescaline in the context of mental health treatment. Starting in the 1940s, an increasing number of intellectuals, artists and writers had been actively seeking out mescaline due to its psychoactive properties, so Hubbard already had a peripheral awareness of the drug. Reading this article further piqued his curiosity. A call was placed, and a meeting was soon set up between the two men at the Vancouver Yacht Club, a swank marina where Hubbard welcomed Osmond aboard his private ship.

As Osmond would later recollect of the meeting, “It was a very dignified place, and I was rather awed by it. Hubbard was a powerfully built man…with a broad face and a firm hand-grip. He was also very genial, an excellent host.” Hubbard’s eccentric range of interests certainly didn’t go unnoticed. “He was interested in all sorts of odd things,” Osmond laughingly recalled. Hubbard wished to obtain some mescaline, and as it was still legal, Dr. Osmond supplied him with some. It is unknown where Hubbard’s initiation with mescaline took place, though Dayman Island would be the logical guess. From what he later reported, it was a life-changing experience in which he claimed to have witnessed his own conception: “It was the deepest mystical thing I’ve ever seen. I saw myself as a tiny mite in a big swamp with a spark of intelligence. I saw my mother and father having intercourse. It was all clear.”

Interestingly enough, the Hibbert Journal article had also captured the attention of noted writer Aldous Huxley. The British intellectual was living in California at the time and wrote Osmond a letter in which he requested a personally guided trip of the drug. With Huxley’s well-known literary credentials, Osmond readily agreed and flew to Los Angeles to take the famous man of letters on his first mescaline journey. The resulting experience would directly inspire Huxley’s next book, The Doors of Perception, in which he described his trip as “the most extraordinary and significant experience this side of the Beatific Vision.” With Osmond now a common denominator between the two men, Hubbard and Huxley would soon meet and eventually form a lifetime friendship.

In 1954—the same year that The Doors of Perception was published—Hubbard himself was actively engaged in the study of mescaline and peyote, which led him to research other known psychoactives. He learned how plant hallucinogens had been used for centuries in various world religions, as well the shamanic practices typically associated with these different compounds. All of this reverberated strongly with his gnostic brand of religion. His pursuit to learn everything he could about psychotropics led him to an article about a revolutionary new drug being manufactured by Sandoz Laboratories. Marketed under the trade name Delysid, LSD was being touted for its various uses and clinical applications in psychoanalysis. As the marketing literature explained, Delysid allowed psychiatrists and mental health researchers the ability to gain valuable insight into what full-blown madness felt like. Most intriguing, though, were the profound transcendental experiences that were being reported while under the influence of LSD. To Hubbard, this new drug sounded very similar to mescaline.

The article was written by British psychiatrist Dr. Ronald Sandison, who had introduced the clinical use of LSD at Powick Hospital in England. Sandison had pioneered the use of art and music in psychotherapy and, after first hearing about LSD and its possible clinical uses, had traveled to Switzerland, where he personally met Albert Hofmann. He returned to the United Kingdom with one hundred vials of Sandoz LSD and, after discussing the matter with his colleagues, began treating patients with it. From this new form of therapy, Sandison coined the term “psycholytic” (meaning “mind loosening”) to describe the drug. He believed this particular property allowed access to areas of the mind not normally accessible.

Hubbard was instantly intrigued by this “mind-loosening” substance and decided to fly to Great Britain to meet Dr. Sandison so he could experience the drug himself. Little is known about their meeting or where, exactly, Hubbard’s first LSD experience took place. Most likely, his introduction to the drug happened in a controlled setting at Powick Hospital itself. Dr. Sandison wasn’t known to just freely dispense LSD. Rather, per protocol, patients and test subjects would be administered the drug and then left alone in one of the hospital rooms. Typically, these sessions would take place mid-morning, with in-room music provided to those who requested it. A call button was available should a crisis arise, and staff psychiatrists would make occasional rounds to check in and see how things were going. Otherwise, the person was left to navigate the LSD journey entirely on their own. For Hubbard, the resulting experience turned out to be even more jubilantly profound than mescaline. This is what his angel visit had foretold, he realized. This was his true purpose. He became an instant convert, believing LSD to be a powerful utility for opening the human mind. Over the next few years, he would gradually abandon his uranium enterprise while dedicating himself entirely to this powerful new drug and eagerly seeking out others familiar with its use.

In the United States, Boston psychiatrist Max Rinkel had obtained LSD from Sandoz and was the first person to bring it to the country, where he was conducting an LSD study with one hundred volunteers at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital. In New York, psychiatrist Harold Abramson had discovered that small doses of LSD helped facilitate psychotherapy sessions, while on the other side of the country, Hungarian psychiatrist Nicholas Bercel had commenced LSD research in Los Angeles. At the time, the prevailing theory held that LSD produced a “model psychosis.” That is, it replicated the same mental state as what a schizophrenic experienced. There was even a word commonly used for this: psychotomimetic, meaning “a mimicker of madness.” This attribute quickly caught the attention of some within the U.S. intelligence community who were actively seeking a chemical agent that could be used to break the will of enemy agents and otherwise manipulate human behavior. Rather than utilizing the therapeutic potential of this new drug to help people, these American spooks were more interested in using LSD to control them.

For Hubbard, LSD represented a powerful way to expand the mind, and he now made it his mission to introduce others to its sublime wonders. His life, up to this point, had introduced him to a wide assortment of key and influential people, and these were typically whom he would invite to Dayman Island for the opportunity to experience this new drug, often flying them in on one of his seaplanes. His wife, Rita, was now an active participant in this new mind-expanding pursuit, and the couple would regularly host LSD sessions for their various island visitors. Word traveled fast about the eccentric millionaire from the Pacific Northwest, and Hubbard’s name started making the rounds within a growing community of others who were curious about this new mind-illuminating substance. As far as obtaining LSD, Hubbard went straight to the source and purchased forty-three cases of the drug from Sandoz Labs in Switzerland. This was the mid-1950s, and Sandoz—which was hoping to turn the drug into a pharmaceutical success—had no issues with fulfilling such a large order. In fact, when Canadian customs authorities seized the shipment due to Hubbard’s papers not being in order, Sandoz quickly intervened to help resolve any administrative hurdles. As a result, Hubbard became the proud owner of a huge supply of pure Sandoz LSD that, over time, would be used to transform the consciousness of hundreds, if not thousands, of people worldwide. This would be only the first of many such purchases that he would be making from the Swiss pharmaceutical company.

It is unknown how many people visited Dayman Island to take part in these early LSD sessions, but the numbers were substantial enough that Hubbard was able to finetune and perfect his techniques within a relatively short period. All the mechanical appliances from his earlier years were now being replaced by the machinery of the mind. He drew inspiration from the shamanic practices of various indigenous cultures, in which initiates were guided through their hallucinogenic trips. Thus, when introducing people to LSD or mescaline, Hubbard saw himself as the captain of a ship taking passengers on a journey of the mind. He was able to recognize that the setting was crucial to the outcome of a trip. A dull and sparsely furnished hospital room, for instance, was not conducive to inspiring a profound epiphany or igniting a round of spiritual ecstasy. And to Captain Hubbard’s way of thinking, these transformative effects were where the true value of the drug was to be found. While other researchers were clinging to the “model psychosis” viewpoint of LSD, Hubbard was developing ways to harness its consciousness-expanding potential. He built a special room inside his airplane hangar that was dedicated to these LSD sessions. The room was furnished with a comfortable couch and chair, and various works of art—often religious in nature—hung on the walls. Two of his favorites were Gabriel Max’s Jesus Christas (an optical illusion–style painting featuring the head of Jesus, whose eyes are either open or closed depending on the perspective of the viewer) and Salvador Dali’s Christ of St. John of the Cross. Music, usually soothing classical, was available. Sometimes, depending how the trip was going, specific songs were chosen to elicit a specific emotional response. If a visitor started exhibiting distress or anxiety, Hubbard would offer reassurance, sometimes pulling out a piece of art to allow the person’s focus to be shifted to something both calming and visually beautiful. From all of this, he was able to re-create his own modern version of a shamanic ritual with a promised visit with the Other Side.

Dr. Osmond had remained in contact with Hubbard, sometimes flying out to Dayman Island, and the two men regularly exchanged ideas and new discoveries they were making. Up to this point, Osmond’s approach to psychotropic drugs was similar to the “model psychosis” theory. He and a co-worker, Abram Hoffer, had developed the “Hoffer-Osmond Adrenochrome Hypothesis,” which posited that schizophrenics overproduce adrenochrome, a byproduct of adrenaline that is structurally similar to mescaline, which then causes the same set of mental symptoms as what a psychedelic trip produces. Hubbard was always dismissive of model psychosis and was known to frequently tell people, “It’s easy to make people crazy; what’s hard is to make them sane.” From his conversations with Hubbard, Osmond gradually incorporated LSD into his research at Saskatchewan, which was now focused on using hallucinogens for the treatment of alcoholism. He all but discarded his previous adrenochrome theory and, with Hubbard’s guidance, developed a new form of therapy geared toward helping the patient achieve a peak transcendental experience. In a typical session, the alcoholic patient would be given a single large dose of LSD inside an attractive and well-furnished room (setting was important, reminded Hubbard) and then guided through their journey, with the ultimate goal being the release of repressed psychic material to allow the person to view their condition from a fresh perspective. Dialogue was sparse during the drug experience itself, but a full psychotherapy session was held afterward in which the patient was encouraged to relay any new insights. The results were astonishing, with abstinence rates reaching as high as 60 percent. Best of all, LSD therapy was now viewed as an attractive, cost-effective form of mental health treatment. As a result, Saskatchewan became home to some of the most important such research in the world.

Hubbard’s work with Osmond soon caught the attention of Aldous Huxley, who excitedly wrote about this mysterious new figure in a letter to one of his literary associates: “Some new developments might be taking place quite soon in the mescalin field, owing to the appearance of a remarkable personage called Captain Hubbard—a millionaire businessman—physicist, scientific director of the Uranium Corporation, who took mescalin last year, was completely bowled over by it and is now drumming up support among his influential friends.” Hubbard’s exploits had, no doubt, drummed up a fair deal of excitement, and the letter concluded by adding, “Hubbard is a terrific man of action, and results of his efforts may begin appearing quite soon.”

Osmond eventually set up a meeting between Hubbard and his new famous admirer. The two men got along famously but were opposites to an almost humorous degree. Huxley was the epitome of a British intellectual, an articulate and well-read gentleman of the letters, which stood in stark contrast to Hubbard’s more rugged and boisterous style of country-boy resolve. While Huxley’s genteel approach to life was to analyze it through writing and discourse, Hubbard was prone to simply jump into the middle of where the action was and worry about the details later. The tall, slender Englishman and the stout American renegade represented a genuine odd couple, but they became fast friends and formed a bond that would last a lifetime. After meeting Hubbard for the first time, Huxley wrote this to Osmond:

Inevitably, with their friendship now well established, Huxley quickly became interested in a guided LSD session, which the Captain was more than happy to oblige. On Christmas Eve 1955, with a grinning Hubbard at the helm, the British author took his first dose of LSD. The session took place inside Huxley’s Los Angeles home, and although he consumed only a tiny amount, the experience was highly significant. He stated:

His previous mescaline journey with Osmond had been unquestionably profound, but he felt that LSD allowed him an even greater understanding of himself, and it inspired the writing of his next book, Heaven and Hell.

Having been properly indoctrinated in both mescaline and LSD, Huxley and Osmond now had an important matter to resolve—what to call this category of drugs? The popular term at the time, psychotomimetic, seemed misinformed, if not downright sinister sounding. After all, it wasn’t madness they were seeking. In a letter to Osmond, Huxley proposed the word phanerothyme, which means “to make the soul visible.” He composed a small ditty to sell his idea: