THE ART OF ACID

LSD heists, psychedelic cabals, and other countercultural lore with Erik Davis, author of 'Blotter'

Hitting ya’ll with a rare double-punch this week! Following our last subscriber-exclusive post on the sickest LSD tabs ever made—which you should definitely peep if you haven’t yet—I caught up with one of my favorite galaxy brains in the psychedelic game, Erik Davis, for a more in-depth interview about all things acid. Further down we have links to my latest reporting on psychedelic news, a notable eco-rave coming up this weekend, and… streetwear-inspired fentanyl testing strips. Like and share if you’re feeling this, tagging @ravenewworldwide on IG so I can see it ;) — Michelle

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Last spring, I joined a colorful cast of acid heads shuffling into the indie music venue Zebulon in Los Angeles to hear stories of LSD heists, psychedelic cabals, and other countercultural lore. The occasion was the launch of Blotter—an illustrated book by countercultural scholar Erik Davis that charts the under-reported history of LSD blotter art. Blotters, in case you’re wondering, are highly-absorbent pieces of square paper that liquid acid is dropped on, and they are usually decorated with pop cultural iconography like flying saucers, cartoon characters, and other tongue-in-cheek or trippy images. The audience at the event did not disappoint: as I sat at the bar drinking Diet Cokes, an animated hippie sidled up and whispered RFK conspiracies in my ear. In the crowd, I spotted long-haired bikers in leather jackets covered in Grateful Dead pins, and at least one shirt that spelled out ERGOT in Greek letters. 

Then the lights darkened and Davis took the stage in front of flashing images of the most iconic acid blotters ever made. By the late 70s, blotter had become the dominant method for distributing LSD, he explained. While their designs are easily written off as a form of illicit branding, Davis makes the case that this “ephemeral and snackable” medium amounts to more than just underground commercialism; rather, he writes, they are “material manifestations of a visionary and irascible subculture whose potent iconography demand(s) to be preserved.” 

Mark McCloud at the Institute of Illegal Images (Photo via SF Gate)

Blotter collects its material from a multitude of sources, including original interviews with (typically press-shy) LSD blotter-makers, as well as reports from the Drug Enforcement Agency, which ironically provide historically valuable and sometimes obsessive notes on which designs were showing up on the streets. Mostly, however, Blotter draws from the collection of Mark McCloud—a swashbuckling renegade who Davis met through the Bay Area psychedelic scene, and who has been collecting the world’s most beautiful and rarified acid blotters at his San Francisco museum, the Institute of Illegal Images. 

McCloud eventually got up on stage next to Davis, his knuckles covered in gold rings. While Davis has the vibe of an elfish professor, McCloud’s eyes had the mischievous twinkle of a psychedelic pirate who has spent years battling the authorities that tried several times to arrest him and confiscate his collection. Later, Davis told me this book, more than any other he’s written, was infused with a sort of love: McCloud obsession with blotter art, Davis’ fondness for LSD, as well as their friendship with each other. 

McCloud’s skull ring and pen were so swag I had to grab a pic of it…

I recently caught up with Davis, who was chilling in Northern California’s dankest county, Mendocino. We discussed some of the the coolest, wildest, and most next-level blotters ever made—check them out here. Below is our extended interview, which gets deeper into this idea of acid blotters as a form of countercultural media—as well as strange tales of chemists praying over LSD crystals and other deep lysergic lore.

Michelle: Let’s start with this idea that acid is kind of a new technology that comes about in the early 70s. 

Erik: One of the motivations for the book was to grapple with the particular and peculiar nature of LSD. Even though many of our narratives of the counterculture derived from the 1960s, there’s still a weird way in which we haven't really digested or reframed what that compound is. 

LSD emerged in the West immediately in and after World War II. A whole set of new technologies, from television to radar, emerged from the craziness and absolute horror of WWII. LSD is part of that mix. When it shows up, it comes on as very contemporary and looks like technology, psychiatric medicine, and media, rather than an ancient expression of the gods drawn from plants. MK Ultra also happened to latch onto LSD, as it did many other drugs, so it’s carrying so many different ghosts, some of them really disturbing. That partly characterizes why it's such a weird and singular psychedelic.