Even though watching psychedelic trips unfold in a clinical setting always gives me the heebie jeebies- it just seems cruel to film someone while they're in that state- pre 1960's LSD research fascinates me. It's almost as if the researchers themselves don't have the slightest clue of the power of what they're working with. Not even the father of LSD himself, Albert Hoffmann, knew what the hell he had on his hands.

edit: And I just noticed that the end of the video contains an advert for a book about Timothy Leary. IMO, if Leary and company didn't marry LSD with the idea of "dropping out" and other nonsense that scared the piss out of older generations then who knows where we'd be today in terms of acceptance of psychedelic use.

As far as old videos one could find their wife in . . . I suppose that's neither the best nor worst case scenario there.

Albert Hoffmann knew exactly how important was his discovery. When he first manufactured the stuff, he took 250 micrograms to see what it would do. He essentially lived out the Divine Comedy experiencing a kind of death, a progression through visions of demons and spirits, a reconstruction and rebirth, and followed by some kind of apotheosis.


250 micrograms is no joke.

well..... I guess Al did have it right.

It's too bad that LSD is officially extinct these days. That's just as well because I can't even handle mushrooms. I retreat into a state where only the Spanish language radio station can calm me down. (anything without lyrics)

Is it extinct? I recall the government rounding up most of the major chemists about fifteen years ago. When I was in high school, it was extremely prevalent. But people could just as easily get psilocybin. Mescaline was around as well but I doubt most kids these days know what that is.

It's impossible to find. These two gentlemen were apparently the last major suppliers and once they were busted it was the beginning of the end.

How much of a grasp of chemistry does one actually need to make good LSD?

*shifty eyes*

This isn't a chemistry experiment. Just making LSD is one thing. Making viable LSD for human dosing is something else entirely. You generally need to be a rather well educated chemist with some kind of background in pharmacology. People who experiment with drugs like LSD are generally unwilling to take something more dubious. So if there is shit out there, they simply won't purchase it. That is the problem with the LSD market. The DEA shut down the major chemists in the U.S., like they did in the early seventies before this, and it dried up supply. People who would have purchased LSD will just get psilocybin instead. Some are getting into DMT which I think carries too much risk for people to take. There are other drug cocktails people are traveling abroad to experience like ayahuasca which is allegedly far, far stronger than even mescaline which is incredibly potent -- far more than LSD. There still is a very small group of people who formally experiment with these drugs. It is not so much recreation for them as exploration and true experimentation.

There is no way the government can outlaw every hallucinogen possible and nor should they attempt it. It has become ridiculous to clamp down on these more harmless drugs while meth and heroin are destroying working poor. But it's mostly middle class and affluent kids doing hallucinogens so they need to keep up appearances. It's a shame, really. And we pay for it.

Apotheosis? Yeah, I've been there - or at least close to there. 7 hits on a bet when I was 19 back in 1998. I saw the whole karmic wheel of existence in a vision, worlds manifested and cannibalized, monstrous and sublime and infinite. I ended up naked and in the hospital, but damn, I wouldn't trade the experience for any amount of money.

My 15th birthday. 7 bucket hits of laced Skunk from PNG imported by my then-girlfriend's parents, and a quarter plate of mushrooms... I was out for 6-8 hours in a full sensory overload, completely separate from the outside world, was plagued by flashbacks for the following three years if I even got tipsy on beer, so it forced me to go completely cold turkey; scariest moment of my life, greatest moment of my life.

Like this Benkei?

Nah that was me the day before

Seeing how the woman reacted at first, I could see how some people would want to try this drug. Who would not want to see nice colors floating all around? lol.