1957

After decades of slow progress, psychiatric research into hallucinogens expanded in the 1950s. Mexico became involved in 1957 when Dr. José Rodríguez initiated a mescaline study at a Mexico City psychiatric hospital. Salvador Roquet, a young doctor who participated, was initially terrified and incapacitated by his experience but later believed psychedelics were powerful psychiatric tools. Over a decade, Roquet learned from Mazatec and Huichol shamans and built a medical practice translating that knowledge for his urban, ladino, well-educated patients. His Clínica de Psicosíntesis operated in Mexico City from 1967 to 1974.

Study at a glance

Abstract

After several decades in which scientists produced a slow trickle of scholarship on the potential uses of peyote/mescaline for mental health afflictions, in the 1950s this genre of psychiatric research into hallucinogens expanded significantly. Mexico remained a relative backwater for this type of work until 1957, when Dr. José Rodríguez at the Sanatorio Psiquiatrico Santiago Ramírez Moreno in Mexico City initiated a mescaline study, in which a young Mexican doctor named Salvador Roquet participated. Though terrified and initially incapacitated by his experience, over time, Roquet came to believe that the psychedelics he took in this session offered profoundly powerful tools for psychiatry. Over the course of a decade, he sought to learn as much as he could about these drugs from their traditional users, the shamans of the Mazatec and Huichol communities, and to build a medical practice in Mexico City that translated that knowledge into something that would be useful for his urban, ladino, and generally well-educated patients. His Clínica de Psicosíntesis operated in Mexico City from 1967 to 1974.