But when his friend first gave him this vial, he wasn't initially interested in trying it.

He heard, "Oh, it's like LSD, but it lasts 36 hours." I mean, it sounded kind of exhausting and not very fun.

And he said, "Well, that's nice," and he took the vial, but he thought, "Well, I'm not gonna take that." And so he ran into another friend of his and gave it to that friend, and that friend took the drug And called up Howard in the middle of the night and said, "You've gotta call Congress.

This isn't a drug.

It's a medicine." Howard was impressed enough by this midnight phone call that the next time he got a hold of some from his chemist friend, he thought, "Well, this, I'm gonna take it."

Remember, he was doing this completely unguided.

He didn't realize what was special about this medicine except for that it was really exhausting and he felt like he wanted to sleep for a week.

But then a few hours later, he woke up and felt completely refreshed, and he thought, "That's weird because I feel kind of fantastic and I haven't slept for days." [laughs] And then he was walking out in the city and he realized he was not in heroin withdrawal and he had not used heroin for days, and he should have been in acute withdrawal.

While a materialist at heart, she still attests to some of the unexplainable journeys the plant will take users on.

There's a very strange experience, um, which you can kind of describe or understand in different ways, where you appear to see not just through your eyelids but if you're wearing a blindfold, completely through your blindfold.

And the experience is that you can see the room and around you, and it's very confusing and, and, or you can see a notebook, and you can't tell is your-- are your eyes closed? Is your blindfold on? Is there writing in the notebook already, or are you about to write the notebook? I mean, things get kind of very mushy in there.

She and another participant actually shared the exact same vision.

I had this very specific vision about faces melting as they twisted.

It was a spindle with specific masks, with specific expressions, and I could describe the whole thing.

And as we sat up, uh, after our first sort of probably six-hour round of medicine, the guide in charge went around and asked all the different, uh, eight of us sort of lying on the mats on the floor that were going through the experience to tell out loud the visions that we were having.

And the first vision that the first person sat up and told us was the same exact vision I had just had.

While a materialist at heart, she still attests to some of the unexplainable journeys the plant will take users on.

There's a very strange experience which you can kind of describe or understand in different ways, where you appear to see not just through your eyelids, but if you're wearing a blindfold, completely through your blindfold.

And the experience is that you can see the room and around you, And it's very confusing.

And you can see a notebook and you can't tell, are your eyes closed? Is your blindfold on? Is there writing in the notebook already? Or are you about to write the notebook? I mean, things get kind of very mushy in there.

She and another participant actually shared the exact same vision.

this very specific vision about faces melting as they twisted.

It was a spindle with specific masks, with specific expressions, and I could describe the whole thing.

And as we sat up after our first sort of probably six-hour round of medicine, the guide in charge went around and asked all the different eight of us sort of lying on the mats on the floor that were going through the experience to tell out loud the visions that we were having.

He is very nice around.

My name is Lucy Walker.

I am a public engagement associate and I'm, especially towards the end of the year, going to be marking the 50th anniversary of Britain's death, which was in December 1976.

It seems that he was considered a force for good for the town.

I mean, you know, there will be some people who didn't think so, of course.

It seems that he was treated with a lot of respect, which may be a Suffolk thing, a kind of nonchalant pride in him, which is like, you know, not Mr. Britain, you know, but not making a kind of huge hullabaloo about him, which would have suited him as well.

I don't know the extent to which the people who were already living in the town, who weren't involved in the arts in any way, whether they went to the festival concerts.

Everybody knows it.