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WINDING DOWN + 293 son, Marion's youngest child, had become depressed and dropped out of school while living with his father in Canada. Marion asked if we could move to Canada to be near family while she recuperated, to help out her son, and to give me some breathing room. Uncertain as to how successfully I could commute to Albuquerque, I nev- ertheless agreed to the move. Every two months I scheduled a two-week stay in New Mexico, and I tried running as many studies as we could during those visits. The wear and tear was tremendous, and I worried about local support when I was gone. No one knew the studies, nor the volunteers, as well as I did. One of the research subjects for the dose-finding work with psilocybin began having problems. Vladan, about whose experiences we read in chap- ter 12, got stuck in a spiral of increasing pessimism with every psilocybin session—a "what's the point?" attitude. He never had the breakthrough he thought would come with higher doses. Instead, he became more reclusive and preoccupied. When told we wanted him to take a break from further studies, he bought a semiautomatic weapon, "just in case of Armaged- don." He adamantly denied any intention of using it against us. I was not especially reassured, so I invited him to my office during one of my New Mexico trips to assess his dangerousness. I relaxed somewhat after a two- hour meeting, but Vladan did not want to give up the gun. I obtained permission to begin an LSD study, but decided to wait. Conditions did not look promising for giving LSD at the Research Center. Finally, my former Buddhist monastic community began criticizing my research and withdrawing their personal support at the same time. These events were the final ones that led me to discontinue the psyche- delic research, and they are the focus of the next chapter.