Robert Hunter
<h1 class="gb-volume-title" dir="ltr">Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure</h1>
<p> By Carol Brightman</p>
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"What united the original Provincetown bohemians, playwrights and painters both, was the idea "that Art was the great universal refreshment." Curiously, for such dissimilar folk, this is what united the founders of the Grateful Dead. "What we were interested in was art," recalls Alan Trist, who was nineteen when he was his father, Eric Trist, a Visiting Fellow at Stanford who founded the Tavistock Institute in London, arrived in Palo Alto in 1960. "It was the business of being an artist that totally captured Jerry and Hunter," he states, pointing out to me, when we meet at the bagel shop near the Dead's office in San Rafael..."
pg. 79
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=SRqkcty3lB4C&pg=PA79&dq=%22Alan+Trist%22+%22grateful+dead%22+Tavistock&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xK6YVNOTHcjwoATJr4H4BA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Alan%20Trist%22%20%22grateful%20dead%22%20Tavistock&f=false">https://books.google.com/books?id=SRqkcty3lB4C&pg=PA79&dq=%22Alan+Trist%22+%22grateful+dead%22+Tavistock&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xK6YVNOTHcjwoATJr4H4BA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Alan%20Trist%22%20%22grateful%20dead%22%20Tavistock&f=false</a></p>
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<b>A Long Strage Trip: Inside the History of the Grateful Dead by Dennis McNall</b>y</p>
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"One consequence of American Beauty was the return of Alan Trist, Garcia and Hunter's buddy from Palo Alto. When he'd left California, he'd attended Cambridge, eventually marrying Robert Hunter's friend from the same Palo Alto circle., Christie Bourne. Through the sixties, Christie maintained a close friendship with both men, which kept the connection alive. After the Hollywood Festival show in 1970, Alan had gotten together with Hunter and McIntire, and eventually Jon had offered him the job of running Ice Nine, the Dead's music publishing firm. Alan faced an interesting quandary. He was then working with the Tavistock Institute, which studied social change, and now he had the opportunity to live it." pg. 383
<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=sWCRWJnTTF8C&pg=PA383&dq=%22Alan+Trist%22+%22grateful+dead%22+Tavistock&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Jq6YVIfgC8XioATDwIHQAg&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Alan%20Trist%22%20%22grateful%20dead%22%20Tavistock&f=false">https://books.google.com/books?id=sWCRWJnTTF8C&pg=PA383&dq=%22Alan+Trist%22+%22grateful+dead%22+Tavistock&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Jq6YVIfgC8XioATDwIHQAg&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Alan%20Trist%22%20%22grateful%20dead%22%20Tavistock&f=false</a></p>
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Jerry Garcia met Robert Hunter, <strong>who was a Scientologist*</strong> and would become a long-time lyrical collaborator with the Grateful Dead, in April 1961. Garcia and Hunter began to participate in the local art and music scenes, sometimes playing at Kepler’s Books. Garcia performed his first concert with Hunter, each earning five dollars. Garcia and Hunter also played in a band called the Wildwood Boys with David Nelson, a future contributor to some Grateful Dead albums. *ref: Jackson, Blair (1999). <em><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=JouSOka9hFEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=Scientology&f=false">Garcia: An American Life</a></em>. Viking Adult. pp. 62, 179.</p>
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Around 1962, Hunter was an early volunteer test subject (along with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey" title="Ken Kesey">Ken Kesey</a>) for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_chemical" title="Psychedelic chemical" class="mw-redirect">psychedelic chemicals</a> at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University" title="Stanford University">Stanford University</a>'s research covertly sponsored by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA" title="CIA" class="mw-redirect">CIA</a> in their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKULTRA" title="MKULTRA" class="mw-redirect">MKULTRA</a> program. [McNally 42] He was paid to take <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD" title="LSD" class="mw-redirect">LSD</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin" title="Psilocybin">psilocybin</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mescaline" title="Mescaline">mescaline</a> and report on his experiences, which were creatively formative for him: "Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist...and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resoundingbells....By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane." [Long Strange Trip, Dennis McNally 42–43]
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