[1] In 1920, Hubbard was publicized in West Coast newspapers as having developed a free energy motor, though a Popular Science article published in 1928 referred to it as a hoax.
By the time Timothy Leary and his colleagues were experimenting with psychedelic drugs in the psychology department of Harvard in the early 1960s, Hubbard had obtained a supply of Sandoz LSD.
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.
Under the auspices of MK-ULTRA, the CIA regularly dosed its agents and associates with powerful hallucinogens as a preemptive measure against what was alleged to be the Soviets' own chemical technology, sometimes with disastrous results.
"[7] "I was convinced that he was the man to bring LSD to planet Earth,"[7] remarked Myron Stolaroff, who was assistant to the president of long-range planning at electronics company Ampex Corporation when he met the Captain in the spring of 1956.
According to Todd Brendan Fahey, Hubbard introduced more than 6,000 people to LSD, including scientists, politicians, intelligence officials, diplomats, and church figures.