LSD

Richard Alpert, PhD, (1931–2019) a.k.a. Ram Dass, was a Harvard psychologist who, with his colleague Timothy Leary, pioneered the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs. As Ram Dass, he became a spiritual leader, popularizing Eastern practices in the West through his charities and books like Be Here Now. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.

Sidney Cohen, MD (1910–1987) was a pioneer in research on LSD and other mood-altering drugs as an academic and as the first director of the Division of Narcotic Abuse and Drug Addiction at the National Institute of Mental Health. He was a psychiatrist, professor of medicine, and prolific author.

Lawrence Schiller began his career as a photojournalist for Life, Newsweek, and Paris Match, among other periodicals, photographing some of the most iconic figures of the 1960s, from Marilyn Monroe to Lee Harvey Oswald to Robert F. Kennedy; from Ali and Foreman to Redford and Newman. The author of several New York Times bestselling books, including American Tragedy, his many collaborations include Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Executioner’s Song. He has also directed and produced motion pictures and television miniseries, which have garnered an Oscar and seven Emmys. Schiller has been a consultant to NBC News and has written for the New Yorker, Daily Beast, and other publications. In 2008, he cofounded the Norman Mailer Center and the Norman Mailer Writers Colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Eric Jason Martin is an Earphones Award–winning narrator. He has narrated many dozens of audiobooks in fiction and nonfiction. He is also the host and producer of the award-winning This American Wife, a popular podcast, and now web series, that features original comedy and stories, as well as interviews with authors such as Robert Greene and Amy Tan.

Robert Fass is a veteran actor and twice winner of the prestigious Audie Award for the year’s best narration. He has earned many Earphones Awards and AudioFile magazine “Best of the Year” accolades.

Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for two Audie Awards. He has acted in a number of productions, both off Broadway in New York and off Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.

If you've watched TV at all in the past ten years, you've definitely seen her face and heard her voice countless times in any number of wildly successful national, global, and Super Bowl commercials, as well as playing the first blond Vulcan in Star Trek history. The daughter of two English professors, Natasha Soudek was raised in the South, speaks native German, lived in Berlin and Vienna, and finally settled in the Lower East Side of New York City as a teenager. After honing her stage presence by studying acting and playing hundreds of sold-out live music shows (singing and playing bass), she moved to LA to record with Channel/DreamWorks and act on TV. Favored on KCRW, Chris Douridas compared her voice and songwriting to the Beatles' Let it Be in meaning and soulfulness . . . qualities that translate especially well into her career as an audiobook narrator. Her voice is as distinct and memorable as the range of characters she's played on-screen, which gives listeners an immediate familiarity to connect to, along with a warmth and intimacy that spans and uplifts any genre.