Daddy turns 100!

[jackshoegazer]

DR ALBERT HOFMANN: The Father of LSD

Albert Hofmann, who just turned 100, remembers very clearly the moment when, on a spring afternoon, riding his bicycle, the whole world - and his life - changed.

In 1938, Hofmann had synthesised the 25th chemical: lysergic acid diethylamide. It showed little effect in test animals, bar restlessness, and it was shelved.

Five years later, on a hunch - or a "peculiar presentiment", as Hofmann puts it - he brewed up a fresh batch. In the process, he was overcome by dizziness. Sent home, he "sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination".

Sandoz was keen to find a use for this new compound, and Hofmann thought it could have an important role to play in psychiatry. After animal tests showed it to be virtually non-toxic, it was made freely available to qualified clinical investigators. "Properties: causes hallucinations, depersonalisation, reliving of repressed memories and mild neurovegetative symptoms," read the label on the bottle.

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Comments

[mananath.livejournal.com]

wow.. I didn't realize he was still alive..

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I did, but only because psychedelic research and thereapy is one of my favorite subjects and I like to stay well-read and up-to-date in that field.

Plus he just released a book not too long ago, a memoir/autobiography, if I remember right.

[kiwikat.livejournal.com]

he's still alive? shite.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Yup, 100 years old. Imagine being born in 1906. No cars, computers, internet, television.

EEK!

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

LSD as treatment for cluster headaches, eh? That's interesting. When I've talked to various doctors, they've said that they think my headaches have tell-tale symptoms of both migraines and cluster headaches, and could be either.

It's so weird for me to think about LSD gaining international professional and academic interest. Those stereotypical 60's images of recreational-using hippies are so strong in my mind, and with them are the typical assoications. I've been working very hard on breaking down those stereotypes, but it's been difficult for me.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

See, I never really got the hippy-imprint. I realized that it was widely-used and I accepted that, but before I ever did anything, I did massive research into it's history, uses, testing, effects, etc... and it was these things that drew me in. Only later did I begin to read about Tim Leary and Ken Kesey and the beginnings of hippidom.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

I think it comes from growing up in Vermont and having so many stupid potheads around, and then Goddard, and then, well, I've just grown up around it. I'm so curious about an intellectual and REAL spiritual culture (not psuedo-spiritual) around psychedelics. I need to shake off that imprint.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Yes you do. Stupid hippies ruined it for all us REAL explorers.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

I say leave it to the shamens. We should have a culture that still embraces sexual and spiritual teachers. You can have access to it, but only through a shamen guide. Drugs, not sex. :)

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I *AM* the shaman, silly.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The hippies, on the other hand, are losers.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

The chaff and the wheat, BAY-BEE!

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Yes, but sadly, from a Darwinian perspective, hippies seem to have no troubles breeding, even after all those drugs. Half of their children were conceived while their parents were on drugs!

[anubis75.livejournal.com]

Gods bless him!

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I think God's already done that :)

[matt120.livejournal.com]

GIMME!!! GIMME!!! GIMME!!! GIMME!!! GIMME!!! GIMME!!! GIMME!!! GIMME!!! GIMME!!!

HAPPY TRIPPIES ALL DAY LONG!!!

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

My sentiments exactly, my good sir.

wow - coincidence?

[anarch-king.livejournal.com]

My frinds Tivo had a tripping special on the other week. I had long been under the standing that hoffman's position was entierly non-psycological. In fact I was informed, supposedly, that he was a "hide tanner" a leatherman, if you will. LSD was puported to be a chemical solution meant for (as one might expect) leather.

Neat to hear, see, and now read! That no, there are no coincidences quite that absurd in the land of science.

OH, and may I pontificate as this has become a slightly hippy bashing psychonaut experience. Hippy's are just dirty. Inso much as everything else they are just like normals. Druggies of all kinds and formations have taken LSD, and mescalin, and sylicybin(SP!) and etc. Met a guy who wouldn't smoke pot save to help him smooth out the acid come down, and even then prefered alcohol or just plain soothing music and quiet.

@ACLUSTER! ME = Hippy (dirty). Me = Mega Intellectual. Me = MASSIVE pothead! ME = Rather par typist. ME = "Well" paid proffesional!

Meditate on these things. People are as they do, however they do do.

Acid is like.. strapping your perceptions to a rocket. The trick is to fly with friends, make sure you record the starcharts when your there (cause they look alot different from the ground), and keep your real interests in mind at all times.

Heh, reading all those magic books really came in handy on a couple of occasions. The descriptions of astral journeys are like the best advice for keeping your head when tripping your nuts off. In fact that may be exactly what they were written for.

AKA You can drink or you can drunk... and .. You can trip or you can fall.

[gutzilla.livejournal.com]

You'd love Grant Morrison's run on the comic Doom Patrol. In one of the storylines, Mr Nobody and his cohorts steal the bicycle of Albert Hoffman and use it to power a psychedelic minivan across the country on an election capaign: "Nobody For President!"

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

So where are all the Abbie Commemorative LJ icons?!

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I've been busy all weekend, but maybe tonight :)

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Now, don't use this as an excuse to procrastinate. You may, however, make my ANtarctica Series. That is allowed.

EEEK! School starts tomorrow!!

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Email me all your antarctical pictures later so I can get to work on them.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

You're asking me to put out EFFORT!?

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

YES!