March 20 in A.A. History

In 1960, the weekly half-hour radio program, The Catholic Hour, aired Part I of “Alcoholism: The Problem and the Hope” with Marty M. [right, 1964] and an unnamed staff member from the General Service Office.

In 1961, having written to Dr. Carl G. Jung on 23 January and received a reply dated 20 January [left: these two letters], Bill W. wrote a second letter to Jung:

    Your observation that drinking motivations often include that of a quest for spiritual values caught our special interest.… Years ago, some of us read with great benefit your book entitled Modern Man in Search of a Soul. You observed, in effect, that most persons having arrived at age 40 and having acquired no conclusions or faith as to who they were, or where they were or where they were going next in the cosmos, would be bound to encounter increasing neurotic difficulties; and that this would be likely to occur whether their youthful aspirations for sex union, security, and a satisfactory place in society had been satisfied or not. Neither could any amount of resolution, philosophical speculation, or superficial religious conditioning save them from the dilemma in which they found themselves.

    Bill also remarked that Jung’s words “really carried authority, because you seemed to be neither wholly a theologian nor a pure scientist,” and he observed that Jung “spoke a language of the heart that we could understand.”
    He further wrote about his experiences with LSD, noting that many members of A.A.…

    have returned to the churches, almost always with fine results. But some of us have taken less orthodox paths. Along with a number of friends, I find myself among the later.

    Bill cited the Canadian research of Humphry Osmond, the man who introduced Huxley to mescaline in 1953. Osmond reported that 150 hardcore alcoholics were “preconditioned by LSD and then placed in the surrounding AA groups.” Over three years, they achieved “startling results” compared to similar individuals who were not treated with psychedelics but only participated in A.A. “My friends believe that LSD temporarily triggers a change in blood chemistry that inhibits or reduces ego thereby enabling more reality to be felt and seen,” Bill told Jung.
    “Some of my AA friends and I have taken the material (LSD) frequently and with much benefit,” he added, noting that the powerful psychedelic drug ignites “a great broadening and deepening and heightening of consciousness.”
    Bill informed Jung that his first LSD trip in 1956 reminded him of a mystical revelation he had experienced after hitting rock bottom in the 1930s and ending up in a New York City hospital ward for hardcore alcoholics. “My original spontaneous spiritual experience of twenty-five years before was enacted with wonderful splendor and conviction,” he wrote.
    He received no reply from Jung, who suffered a stroke just days after receiving the letter. Aniela Jaffé, a Jungian analyst and colleague of Jung, responded to Wilson on May 29, 1961, stating, “… as soon as Dr. Jung feels better and has enough strength to begin again his mail, I will show it to him.” Jung died a week later.