The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin' at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it's their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin' party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent it—with chickens—is to clip blinders on them. So's they can't see.

Experimentation with psychoactive drugs
At the instigation of Perry Lane neighbor and Stanford psychology graduate student Vik Lovell (heretofore acquainted with Richard Alpert and Allen Ginsberg) Kesey volunteered to take part in a CIA-financed study under the aegis of Project MKULTRA at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital where he worked as a night aide. In 1997 health problems began to take their toll starting with a stroke that year. as a threat to civilization and intellectualism and sobriety" and rejected Kesey's Stegner Fellowship applications for the 1959-60 and 1960-61 terms.

: /ˈkiːziː/; September 17 1935 – November 10 2001) was an American author best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey (pron.