Tag Archives: LSD

Anniversary, LSD

Albert Hofmann Changed Things

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Albert Hofmann Changed Things

April 16, 1943

Jason Falkner performed this instrumental cover of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds YouTube link


Albert Hofmann Changed Things

Albert Hofmann Changed Things

Not April 19

Today is not April 19, aka Bicycle Day, the day in 1943 when Albert Hofmann deliberately ingested lysergic acid diethylamide and decided to ride his bicycle home to relax and recover.

Albert Hofmann Changed Things

Albert Hofmann

Albert Hofmann was born on January 11, 1906 in Baden, Switzerland.  He attended the University of Zürich and graduated in 1929 with a doctorate in medicinal chemistry.

Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland hired him for a program that was developing methods for synthesizing compounds found in medicinal plants. It was there that Hofmann stumbled upon LSD-25 (the 25th such derivative tested) in 1938.

Albert Hofmann Changed Things

Set aside

He put it aside for five years until on April 16, 1943. On that day, when Hofman accidentally consumed LSD-25 and experienced  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.”

He came to the conclusion that it could be of significant use in psychiatric treatment and spent years investigating LSD’s hallucinogenic properties. He disapproved of the casual recreational use of LSD.

Albert Hofmann Changed Things

Problem Child

Albert Hofmann Changed Things

Hofmann did believe that in addition to LSD’s possible psychiatric uses, it could also be used in spiritual contexts. He proposed those ideas in his book LSD, mein Sorgenkind (LSD: My Problem Child, 1980).

The following is a brief video where he discusses his surprise at discovering an alternate reality in which the world transmits through our senses (acting like an aerial) and our consciousness acts like a TV screen.

Albert Hofmann Changed Things

Long legacy

Hofmann died of a heart attack on April 29, 2008, but even today, the idea of using LSD as more than a recreational compound–using it for therapeutic use–is still a  fringe part of scientific research.

Albert Hofmann Changed Things
Music et al, Music of the 60s

Los Angeles Acid Test

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Los Angeles Acid Test

February 25, 1966
Los Angeles Acid Test
newspaper advertisement for the LA Acid Test

Today marks the anniversary of the Los Angeles Acid Test held at the Cinema Theatre. This event was not the first one.  That had happened on November 27, 1965 at Merry Prankster Ken Babbs’ place. There had been others between and  several more would follow until the “acid test graduation” in October.

Of course, the Prankster’s 1964 cross-country bus trip could be described as an acid test on wheels and some evidence exists that the graduation in October was not actually the last.

According to (the now defunct) lysergic.com “At least one final act of Pranksterism remained however, as material recently come to light details the proceedings of an Acid Test at Rice University in Houston, Texas as late as March 1967. This event took place during a hiatus in Kesey’s legal affairs, and allowed him and the full band of Pranksters to load up their “Further” bus for a journey along the same route as the one famously undertaken in 1964. The Rice University Acid Test may well have been the last one ever staged, and it has to my knowledge never been described before. To understand the significance of this final Prank, a bit of background may be necessary”

Los Angeles Acid Test

Back to LA

While the idea of recording events part of the Pranksters’ style (filming for example), the notion of an historically accurate portrait was not. The music, the sounds, the lighting, the people were all part of whatever happened. The present counted.

It is understandable, then, that little is known about this particular acid test.

We do know that the Grateful Dead played. These tests were where the Dead learned to spread their wings both as performers and musicians. You can click on the link below to hear this one, but as thorough as the Dead and Deadheads are about the particulars of each show, such information about this one is lacking. In fact, the Internet Archive site has the qualifying notation: reportedly this date, plus other ’66. 

The recording is magnificent and one wonders whether the atmosphere at an acid test would be conducive to such quality.

Los Angeles Acid Test
Birthdays, Today in history

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

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Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

MKULTRA

The popular series Stranger Things may seem like another interesting fictional suggestion that there are secret government secret programs unleash terror upon peaceful law-abiding citizens, but MKULTRA was an actual program.

Army Kool Aid Acid Tests

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

MKULTRA

When it came to drug experimentation, the Feds were no slouches. The CIA program had its secret and illegal MKULTRA program that went on from 1953 to 1964. It tested subjects at over 80 institutions, many of which were fronts funded by the government and filtered to schools, private hospitals and even a jails. (Army Acid Test).

It had existed under previous names such as Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke. One of MKULTA’s goals was to develop a robot-like assassin, a real-life “Manchurian Candidate.”

On one level, the drug program hoped to achieve a simple drug protocol to effortlessly get Soviet spies to “spill their guts.” The means toward that end were typically illegal.

Director of Central Intelligence, Admiral Stansfield M. Turner, wrote a letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which that Committee released in 1977. In it Turner wrote that:

…the following types of activities were undertaken:

A. Possible additional cases of drugs being tested on American citizens, without their knowledge.

B. Research was undertaken on surreptitious methods of administering drugs.

C. Some of the persons chosen for experimentation were drug addicts or alcoholics.

D. Research into the development of a knockout or “K” drug was performed in conjunction with research being done to develop pain killers for advanced cancer patients, and tests on such patients were carried out.

E. There is a possibility of an improper payment to a private institution.

Volunteers

When our government needs experimental subjects, an easy pool of “volunteers” would be, of course, our Armed services.

From the looks of things it was an unqualified success as long as the goal was for the soldiers to have some fun and ignore orders. Here is a US Army film of its 1963 experiment. One soldier, James Stanley, sued government afterward saying the drug caused his marriage to fail. In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled against him (Ruling Reopens Wound for Bitter Ex-soldier), but in 1991, Stanley finally succeeded. (U.S. Backs Payment for Soldier in LSD Tests)

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

Fall in

The CIA destroyed most of the documents relating to the project in 1973.

November 27, 1964: the British did their own experiment as part of research into how the drug might affect military operations. From the Imperial War Museum’s description of the filmed summary: Introductory title places trial in context of recent research to discover chemical agents able to incapacitate enemy forces but with negligible risk of fatal casualties. … One Marine in state of distress is comforted by nurse, while others smile and laugh hysterically, one attempting to cut down a tree with his spade, and another climbing the tree. … After exercise Marines rest in bed in Porton ward … One very distressed Marine is held by duffel coated doctor and scientist, muttering “I am not going to die.”  

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests

Ironic Acid Tests

Military Kool Aid Acid TestsNovember 27, 1965: Ken Kesey began his acid tests. Not documented as such, it may have included the first performance by The Grateful Dead, known as The Warlocks. Held in Soquel, it was a small semi-public event advertised only at the local Hip Pocket underground bookstore.

Military Kool Aid Acid Tests