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.
For more, as ever, visit our website: tttpodcast.com.
Show notesScene 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/SocialPresenter: 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
Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_
See where 1885 fits on our Timeline
John Darlington: The Port Royal Earthquake (1692)
Katja Hoyer: Beyond The Wall (1973)
Company of Heroes 3: David Milne (1942-4)
Sarah Bakewell: Petrarch and Boccaccio (1348*)
Nandini Das: The first English embassy to India (1616)
[From the archives] Ariana Neumann: When Time Stopped (1944)
Nicholas Spencer: The Great Debate (1860)
Christopher Hadley: Roman Roads and the Invasion of Britain (51 AD)
Don Hollway: The Year of Three Battles (1066)
[From the archives] Rebecca Wragg Sykes: Neanderthals (Eemian)
James Hall: Michelangelo and Leonardo in Florence (1504)
Tania Branigan: Mao and the Cultural Revolution (1966)
Marion Turner: The Wife of Bath (1397)
John Sellars: Aristotle (347 BC)
Simon Akam: The Changing of the Guard (2006)
[From the archives] Diarmaid MacCulloch: Thomas Cromwell (1536)
Tim Clayton: James Gillray and a Revolution in Satire (1792)
Harry Sidebottom: The Mad Emperor (218)
Josiah Osgood: Caesar, Cato and the Fall of the Roman Republic (46BC)
Philip Mansel: Louis XIV, The Sun King (1700)
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra