Autorentext

Alleged by United States federal agencies to have produced “90% of the world’s LSD,” William Leonard Pickard is a chemist, academic, former drug policy fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a research associate in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, and deputy director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). 

As a researcher at Harvard in the 1990s, Pickard warned of the dangers of a fentanyl epidemic, anticipating its deadly proliferation in the illicit drug trade decades before the current opioid crisis. Pickard’s predictions and recommendations for prevention have been acknowledged as prescient by organizations like the RAND Corporation.

In 2000, Pickard was convicted of conspiring to manufacture and distribute a massive amount of LSD, and served 20 years of two life sentences, during which time he wrote his debut book, The Rose of Paracelsus: On Secrets and Sacraments, using pencil and paper. His life story—marked by academic achievement, controversy, and incarceration—has made him a significant and often debated figure in psychedelic history. Pickard was granted compassionate release in 2020. Presently, he is a senior advisor for the biotechnology investment firm JLS Fund and the Fireside Project. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Klappentext

A sensation in underground culture, and read in colleges and universities worldwide, The Rose of Paracelsus may be the finest writing on altered states of consciousness since Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions (1821).

Part memoir, part philosophical journey, part modern alchemical manuscript, The Rose of Paracelsus invites readers into one of the most mysterious and controversial lives in psychedelic history.

Written during Pickard’s years of incarceration, the book explores consciousness, suffering, faith, beauty, imprisonment, transcendence, and the hidden architecture behind transformation. This Revised Edition includes a new Epilogue by the author written after his release from prison.

More than just a memoir of the colorful (and criminal) psychedelic underground, it reads as a meditation on what it means to become human through collapse, silence, and rebirth. It is a story of mythic proportions—and a literary work that continues to resonate deeply with readers seeking something beyond sensationalism. With tens of thousands of copies sold to readers worldwide, The Rose of Paracelsus has a cult following across the psychedelic, philosophical, and literary worlds.