“If I Said No, I Meant No”: Paul McCartney Rejected John Lennon's Idea That They Both ...
One notable strength of the Paul McCartney-John Lennon creative collaboration was their ability to push each other and keep the other in check—the latter of which McCartney had to exercise when Lennon proposed they both undergo an alarming medical procedure that some proponents (including Lennon) believed could enhance mental strength and well-being.
Fortunately for both Beatles, McCartney was having none of it. He rejected Lennon’s suggestion and, as he would later explain in a 2018 interview with GQ, his bandmate knew McCartney well enough to know that his decision was final.
In the late 1960s, the New Age movement began touting the supposed benefits of trepanation, an ancient practice of boring a hole into the skull to increase mental strength and overall well-being. Dutch librarian and self-trepanner Hugo Bart Huges helped usher in this alarming medical movement with his 1964 work, “The Mechanism of Brainbloodvolume (‘BBV’),” also known as “Homo Sapiens Correctus.”
The paper, which Huges presented in scroll form, claimed that humans’ bipedal nature prevented adequate blood flow in and out of the brain. Trepanation, Huges argued, reversed gravity’s effects on blood flow to the brain, resulting in greater mental well-being and a “permanent high.” Huges performed this questionable medical practice on himself in 1965 using a foot-operated electric dentist drill and what we have to assume was an overwhelmingly strong stomach.
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
