The History channel version:
April 16: General Interest
1943 : Hallucinogenic effects of LSD discovered
In Basel, Switzerland, Albert Hoffman, a Swiss chemist working at the Sandoz pharmaceutical research laboratory, accidentally consumes LSD-25, a synthetic drug he had created in 1938 as part of his research into the medicinal value of lysergic acid compounds. After taking the drug, formally known as lysergic acid diethylamide, Dr.
Hoffman was disturbed by unusual sensations and hallucinations. In his notes, he related the experience:
"Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant, intoxicated-like condition characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away."
After intentionally taking the drug again to confirm that it had caused this strange physical and mental state, Dr. Hoffman published a report announcing his discovery, and so LSD made its entry into the world as a hallucinogenic drug. Widespread use of the so-called "mind-expanding" drug did not begin until the 1960s, when counterculture figures such as Albert M. Hubbard, Timothy Leary, and Ken Kesey publicly expounded on the benefits of using LSD as a recreational drug. The manufacture, sale, possession, and use of LSD, known to cause negative reactions in some of those who take it, were made illegal in the United States in 1965.
celebrate as you see fit.
haha, very cool tidbit of information.
i think i read somewhere that he was totally flipping out at home, like thinking his neighbors were conspiring against him and such. i believe he called a family friend, who was a doctor, over to check him out... pretty wild stuff....
craziest thing is the dude is still alive and raging at over 100 years old
he went for a bike ride the second time tho. thats classic. definitely a hero in my mind. if he never invented it or never decided to try it again.....wel.......none of us would probably even be here right now.
my friend went to his 100th birthday party/conference iin Amsterdam a few years ago and it changed his entire perspective on life. I saw him right after it tucson and i mean it really just split his psyche wide open and a whole new more and visibly more enlightened person emerged before our eyes. it was pretty wild. I miss eating L.
I was actually reading an interesting article about people tripping for centuries due to bad wheat or someshit. Lysergic acid would mold onto the wheat and then it would be made into bread and the people who ate the bread would get all faced, but none of it was on purpose. The whole article speculated that medieval witchcraft/witch stories etc. were due to this.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_salem/clues.html
celebrate as you see fit.
I know only one way to celebrate this.
I was also at that conference, and it was an amazing experince. It was also my graduation presant from college so the whole theme, for me, was being launched into an infite world of exploration...or so i wrote in my notes.
Amsterdamn has beautiful trains, I wrote that alot in my notes too.
I was actually reading an interesting article about people tripping for centuries due to bad wheat or someshit. Lysergic acid would mold onto the wheat and then it would be made into bread and the people who ate the bread would get all faced, but none of it was on purpose. The whole article speculated that medieval witchcraft/witch stories etc. were due to this.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_salem/clues.html
thanks for the link, I saw a special on this on pbs a few years ago about it possibly being linked to the salem trials and they showed all the corrilations. All about the poor people and the dogs ate bread made from wheat in the valley fields and those were the ones that saw the witches, and they were able to prove that because of a heavy rainfall all summer that year the wheat would have had the mold on it that caused lsd. Pretty crazy to think that the witch trials might have just been a bad trip mixed with 16th century "breathe and you\'re going to burn in hell" protestant mentality. I think I would start seeing people turn into the devil too if I had that kind of upbringing.
I was actually reading an interesting article about people tripping for centuries due to bad wheat or someshit. Lysergic acid would mold onto the wheat and then it would be made into bread and the people who ate the bread would get all faced, but none of it was on purpose. The whole article speculated that medieval witchcraft/witch stories etc. were due to this.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_salem/clues.html
Ergot.
It has been linked to the Salem Witch trials. It isn\'t necessarily LSD but it does have psychoactive components.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot