Editing Ken Kesey (section)

=== Experimentation with psychedelic drugs ===
At the invitation of Perry Lane neighbor and Stanford psychology graduate student Vic Lovell, Kesey was tricked into volunteering to take part in what turned out to be a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-financed study under the aegis of [[Project MKULTRA]], a highly secret military program, at the [[Menlo Park, California|Menlo Park]] Veterans' Hospital,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.paloalto.va.gov/locations/menlopark.asp |title=Menlo Park Division – VA Palo Alto Health Care System |author=VA Palo Alto Health Care System |work=va.gov |access-date=December 14, 2014}}</ref> where he worked as a night aide.<ref>Reilly, Edward C. "Ken Kesey". Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Second Revised Edition (2000): EBSCO. Web. Nov 10. 2010.</ref> The project studied the effects of [[Psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants|psychedelic drugs]], particularly [[LSD]], [[psilocybin]], [[mescaline]], [[cocaine]], [[alpha-methyltryptamine|aMT]], and [[Dimethyltryptamine|DMT]].<ref name="oregonianobit">{{cite news |title=All times a great artist, Ken Kesey is dead at age 66 |last=Baker |first=Jeff |date=November 11, 2001 |work=The Oregonian |page=A1}}</ref> Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the study and in the years of private drug use that followed.{{Citation needed|date= February 2018}}

Kesey's role as a medical guinea pig, as well as his stint working at the [[VA Palo Alto Health Care System|Veterans' Administration hospital]], inspired ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest''. The book's success, as well as the demolition of the Perry Lane cabins in August 1963, allowed him to move to a log house in [[La Honda, California]], a rustic hamlet in the [[Santa Cruz Mountains]] 15 miles southwest of Stanford University.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Perry+Avenue,+West+Menlo+Park,+CA&daddr=7940+La+Honda+Rd,+La+Honda,+CA |title=Perry Ave, West Menlo Park, CA 94025 to 7940 La Honda Rd, La Honda, CA 94020 – Google Maps |publisher=Google Maps |access-date=December 14, 2014}}</ref> He frequently entertained friends and many others with parties he called "[[Acid Tests]]", involving music (including Kesey's favorite band, the [[Grateful Dead]]), [[black lights]], fluorescent paint, [[strobe lights]], LSD, and other [[psychedelia|psychedelic]] effects. These parties were described in some of [[Allen Ginsberg]]'s poems and served as the basis for [[Tom Wolfe]]'s ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'', an early exemplar of the [[nonfiction novel]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/may/02/tom-wolfe-electric-kool-aid-acid-test |title=Acid adventures – review of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test: From the archive, 2 May 1969 |last=Reynolds |first=Stanley |date=May 2, 2014 |work=The Guardian |access-date=September 11, 2017 |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Alexandra |first1=Rae |title=A Wild Monkey Chase: Do Ken Kesey's LSD-Dosed Apes Still Roam La Honda? |date=September 22, 2020 |url=https://www.kqed.org/arts/13886018/a-wild-monkey-chase-do-ken-keseys-lsd-dosed-apes-still-roam-la-honda |publisher=KQED |access-date=September 30, 2020}}</ref> Other firsthand accounts of the Acid Tests appear in ''Living with the Dead'' by [[Rock Scully]] and David Dalton, ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs]]'' by [[Hunter S. Thompson]] and the 1967 [[Hells Angels]] memoir ''Freewheelin Frank: Secretary of the Angels'' (Frank Reynolds; ghostwritten by [[Michael McClure]]).{{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}