On January 6, 1965, the sound of a drill echoed in a house on Herenstraat in Amsterdam. Amsterdam medical student Bart Huges conducted a dangerous experiment. He drilled a small hole in his skull, believing it would lead to heightened consciousness.
The Amsterdam photographer Cor Jaring (1936-2013) captured the moment. His photos became world-famous and ended up in archives about the turbulent 60s in Amsterdam. It was a time of experimental ideas, the Provo movement, and creative rebellion.
A Radical Theory
Huges believed that trepanation, drilling a hole in the skull, would improve blood flow to the brain and thus create a permanent state of mental expansion. He possibly came up with this idea during his medical studies.
Huges ideas were rejected in the medical world. For this reason, he decided to perform the drilling himself. He did it with a dentists drill, sitting on the ground in his white underwear with a bandage around his head. The photos are shocking: a skinny, almost naked young man drilling a hole in his forehead surrounded by a lot of blood.
After his procedure, he was briefly admitted to the Wilhelmina Gasthuis for observation but was soon released.
Amsterdam in the 60s
In the mid-60s, a cultural revolution began in Amsterdam. After World War II, reconstruction followed, and the hierarchical pre-war society continued. The Netherlands was obedient, disciplined, and bourgeois. But as prosperity increased, the youth wanted more freedom. Two youth cultures emerged in Amsterdam: the Pleiners and the Dijkers. The Pleiners gathered at Leidseplein and were artistic. The Dijkers hung around Nieuwendijk and were tough.
Bart Huges was part of the artistic Pleiners. They experimented with drugs like LSD and hashish to expand their consciousness. Huges first used LSD in 1958, which induces hallucinations, among other effects.
City War
Culture, lifestyle, and politics seamlessly intertwined during this time. Besides the Pleiners and Dijkers, another movement emerged. This was more political and anarchistic and culminated in Provo: a movement that provoked the paternalistic Amsterdam politics. With their often playful actions, they managed to attract a lot of attention. Tensions escalated to the point that Mayor Gijs van Hall had to resign in 1967. There were so many riots in the city, and the police responded so harshly that he was forced to step down by the state.
Between 1965 and 1985, there was a twenty-year city war between the counter-movement and the city council. What started small escalated into a societal revolution where the old regents were succeeded by a hip generation. Critics claimed they became regents themselves, but with a hip appearance.
Revolution
Amsterdam became the epicenter of the cultural revolution in the Netherlands. Squatters, hashish, and coffee shops, rebellion against the municipality, hippies, free sex, and pop music defined the image. People experimented with alternative lifestyles. There was a lot of freedom on one hand, but on the other hand, the tyranny of freedom prevailed. You were not allowed to be bourgeois.
Typical of the 60s
Although Huges theories were not recognized by scientists, he remained steadfast in his beliefs until his death in 2004. He studied medicine but did not complete his studies. He worked as a documentalist at the Royal Tropical Institute. Huges was buried at Zorgvlied.
His experiment is typical of Amsterdam in the 60s. An example of the creative, and often radical spirit of the city during that defining period. A consequence of that time is the many coffee shops in the city and the ingrained drug use. The magic center became tolerant of the deviant.
Want to know more
The photos of Cor Jaring can be found in various Amsterdam archives and museums, including the Amsterdam City Archives and Huis Marseille.
Skull trepanation or skull drilling was practiced in ancient prehistoric cultures on people considered insane. In these cultures, it was believed that insanity was caused by an evil spirit in someones head. By drilling a hole in the skull, the spirit could leave the head.
Photos Rokin and Spui: Amsterdam City Archives