Career
He is reputed to have been the "Johnny Appleseed of LSD" and the first person to emphasize LSD"s potential as a visionary or transcendental drug. In 1920, Hubbard was publicized in West coast newspapers as having developed a free energy motor. In 1929 he received United States. Patent 1,723,422 for a radioactive "Internal Combustion Engine Spark Plug" device, which was manufactured sparingly by at least one United States. company.
lieutenant used an electrode doped with Polonium 210, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 138 days.
The supposed "ionizing effect" of Polonium 210 upon the combustion gases in the spark gap was purported to "improve engine efficiency". Motion was said to be among Hubbard"s passions.
His identity as "Captain" came from his Master of Sea Vessels certification and a stint in the United States Merchant Marine. According to some accounts, Hubbard worked at various times for the Canadian Special Services, the United States Justice Department, the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the Office of Strategic Services.
Having read in a scientific journal about the then-obscure drug LSD25, Hubbard felt this was something he was destined to learn more about, and be involved with.
Hubbard found the researcher conducting the reported experiments with rats. He was able to obtain some LSD for himself. He believed in its utility for opening the human mind to deeper, broader vistas.
The confident and connected First Rate (at Lloyd's) Hubbard requested Doctor Humphry Osmond"s company for lunch at the Vancouver Yacht Club.
Osmond and colleagues were using the drug, as well as the similar mescaline, in psychiatric research and treatment at Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Osmond later recalled the Yacht Club "was a very dignified place, and I was rather awed by lieutenant was a powerfully-built manitoba.with a broad face and a firm hand-grip.
He was also very genial, an excellent host." "Captain Hubbard" was interested in acquiring some mescaline, which was then still legal. Doctor Osmond supplied him with some.
Hubbard went there to meet Leary and wanted to swap some LSD for some psilocybin, the synthesized constituent of magic mushrooms identified, and then produced, by Switzerland"s Sandoz Laboratories.
The Central Intelligence Agency grew out of the post-War Office of Strategic Services, reputed to be one of Hubbard"s employers for a period of time. Under the auspices of MK-ULTRA the Central Intelligence Agency regularly dosed its agents and associates with powerful hallucinogens as a preemptive measure against the Soviets" own alleged chemical technology, sometimes with disastrous results. lieutenant is possible Hubbard had some links with the Central Intelligence Agency. But Humphry Osmond doubts that Hubbard would have been associated with a project like MK-ULTRA, "not particularly on humanitarian grounds, but on the grounds that it was bad technique."
"I was convinced that he was the man to bring LSD to planet Earth," remarked Myron Stolaroff, who was assistant to the president of long-range planning at Ampex Corporation when he met the Captain.
Stolaroff learned of Hubbard through a mentor, philosopher Gerald Heard, a friend and spiritual mentor to Aldous Huxley.
According to Todd Brendan Fahey, Hubbard introduced more than 6,000 people to LSD, including scientists, politicians, intelligence officials, diplomats, and church figures.