Rudolf Gelpke (1928–1972) was a Swiss Islamic scholar.
Between September 1962 and May 1963, he taught as associate professor at UCLA.
In his paper, “On Travels in the Universe of the Soul”, he reported on self experimentation using lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin that he had conducted with his friends Albert Hofmann, pharmacologist Heribert Konzett, and writer Ernst Jünger.
In 1966 he published a book about these self experiments called Vom Rausch im Orient und Okzident (On Inebriation in the East and the West).
After returning to Switzerland, he suffered a stroke and died in 1972 at the age of 43.