Al Hubbard was a figure in early Canadian LSD therapy. A 1961 paper from Hollywood Hospital in New Westminster, B.C., lists A. M. Hubbard as its director of psychological research (MacLean et al., 1961). Historians Samuel Lett and Erika Dyck give his dates as 1901–82, describe him as a main figure in shaping the psychedelic session setting, and say Humphry Osmond and Duncan Blewett saw him as a very skilled guide (Lett and Dyck, 2023).
He was a Roman Catholic who believed religious insight had the most power to change people, and he used religious pictures and music in sessions (Lett and Dyck, 2023). A 2019 thesis says he was instrumental in establishing psychedelic therapy at the hospital (Ens, 2019).
Much of his legend is harder to pin down. Lett and Dyck mention, citing a biography, a past as a double agent in Prohibition-era Seattle (Lett and Dyck, 2023); the thesis calls him a former CIA operative, citing a popular history (Ens, 2019). No primary record of intelligence work has been found, so those stories are best treated as retellings.
Sources
- Lett and Dyck, 2023: Tune in, Turn on
- MacLean et al., 1961, Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol
- Ens, 2019, University of Saskatchewan MA thesis
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