In part 2 of my LSD segment, I'll be exploring some major figures and media surrounding the substance. While there have been many LSD advocates and scientists, I'm going to limit myself here. In part 3, I'm going to give my personal insight, and maybe we'll hear some experiences
Albert Hoffman
Obviously. Albert Hoffman was the brains behind the whole deal. ****, there probably wouldn't be LSD if not for him. Not only LSD, but Hoffman was the first to synthesize and isolate psilocybin and psilocin (mushrooms, I'll cover in another segment), so all you psychonauts out there should be thankful that this man was once alive. He was ranked first in the Telegraph's list of top 100 living geniuses, while he was alive of course. Hoffman went to the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and worked on a chemistry degree. His main interest was plant and animal chemistry, and in 1929, he recieced a doctorate for important research on chitin. Hofmann became an employee of the pharmaceutical-chemical department of Sandoz Laboratories located in Basel as a co-worker with professor Jordan Jake, founder and director of the pharmaceutical department. This is where he began studying squill and ergot in hopes to obtain an analeptic with lysergic acids.
Later, Hoffman discovered the psychedelic tryptamine 4-acetoxy-N,N-diethyltryptamine. Fascinated by the psychedelic chemistry of some plants, he began studying mushrooms found in Mexico, leading to the discovery of psilocybin, and morning glory seeds, where he found the active compound lysergic acid amide to be closely related to LSD. He and his wife traveled to Mexico in search of the salvia divinorum plant. He obtained a sample but never identified the active compound, which we know now to be diterpenoid salvinorin A.
Hoffman was upset with the prohibition of LSD, as he thought it could be very useful in psychoanalysis. He believed it was misused by the 1960s counterculture.
Timothy Leary
"The most dangerous man in America" said Richard Nixon. Harvard professor and psychologist Leary was one of the believers of LSD's usefulness in psychiatry. "Think for yourself and question authority". Leary has given the psychedelic world many developments, including 'set and setting', regarding the user's mind set and physical location upon use of psychedelics, and his eight-circuit model of consciousness. Leary first tried psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico, and stated that he learned more about his brain and it's possibilities, and more about psychology in five hurs than 15 years of study.Leary argued that psychedelic substances, in proper doses and in a stable setting, could, under the guidance of psychologists, alter behavior in beneficial ways not easily attainable through regular therapy. His research focused on treating alcoholism and reforming criminals. Many of his research subjects told of profound mystical and spiritual experiences which they said permanently, and very positively, altered their lives. According to Leary's autobiography Flashbacks, after 300 professors, graduate students, writers and philosophers had taken LSD, 75% reported the experience as one of the most educational and revealing ones of their lives. I'm going to leave out his legal troubles, because that might take a while to get into.
Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey is best known as an author, but has mad his own contributions to the psychedelic world. Kesey participated in the CIA study Project MKULTRA. The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, aMT, and DMT on people. He frequently entertained friends and many others with parties he called "Acid Tests", involving music (such as Kesey's favorite band, The Warlocks, later known as the Grateful Dead), black lights, fluorescent paint, strobes, and other "psychedelic" effects, and, of course, LSD. You can read all about these times in Tom Wolfe's book
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The book also describes the Merry Pranksters cross country trip in the bus "Further".
Aldous Huxley
An English writer, author of
Brave New World and the great
Doors of Perception. Huxley also took 100 micrograms of LSD as he lay dying, that was probably crazy. His influence can better be learned in his works.
LSD and Music
This is a music forum after all. LSD has had major influence on many musicians. Do you like psychedelic music? You can thank acid for that. The Beatles were major acid users, lol. Mike Dirnt of Green Day wrote the bass line for "Longview" on acid. Jerry Garcia? C'mon. Jim Morrison? Pshh. Basically anyone making rock music in the 60s was on acid.
Further Reading/Watching
Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, though this particular trip was mescaline.
LSD: My Problem Chil by Albert Hoffman
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
also gotta check out
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Easy Rider
The Trip