Trepanation

What this episode covers

On January 6, 1965, a young medical student in Amsterdam, just shy of his PHd, squatted down before a mirror. Beside him, there lay a syringe loaded with a local anesthetic, a surgical knife, and an electric drill. He administred the anesthetic, made a careful incision with the knife, and began boring a hole into the front of his own skull. For two years Bart Huges had been attempting to convince a number of doctors to perform this operation, and it is without surprise that all of them refused. After a mescaline trip in November of 1962, he had become obsessed with the idea that manipulating the ratio of brain blood to cerebro-spinal fluid was the key to the expansion of consciousness- and would eventually become convinced that the act of making a hole in one’s head altered this ratio. Naturally, to prove this would require funding and research, but Huges own countercultural activities, such as advocating for the use of LSD, his involvement with the student radicals the Provos, and the minor scandal caused by naming his daughter Maria Juana- among other incidents- probably did not endear him to the sober minded-medicos at University. Having been rejected by the establishment, Huges decided to take matters into his own hands. This is a story of freakouts and artifacts, LSD and gravity’s drag. This is the story of Trepanation. And its Past Dark.

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