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

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.