Mike Jay: Psychonauts (1885)

In this episode the cultural historian Mike Jay takes Peter back to the high Victorian Age to see how a pioneering group of scholars and artists experimented with mind altering drugs.

Jay labels these characters 'psychonauts'. These were daring, romantic figures like Sigmund Freud who championed cocaine as a stimulant, and William James whose experiments with nitrous oxide brought new insights into human consciousness.

Others at this time used drugs more informally. One such person was Robert Louis Stevenson. Suffering from poor health in the mid-1880s he took advantage of the powerful drugs that were easily accessible. A result of this, Jay explains, is Dr Jeykill and Mr Hyde, one of the great short stories in English literature.

Mike Jay is the author of Psychnauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind.

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Show notes

Scene One: January 1885, Vienna - Sigmund Freud publishes his self-experiments with cocaine.

Scene Two: March 31st 1885, Cambridge, Mass - William James in his study, corresponding with Benjamin Blood and Edmund Gurney about nitrous oxide.

Scene Three: September 1885, Bournemouth - RL Stevenson writes Jekyll & Hyde in three days.

Memento: A branded Merck vial of cocaine 

People/Social

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Mike Jay

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

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