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Father of LSD nears the century mark: Scientist calls drug 'medicine for the soul'
Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | 1/7/06 | CRAIG SMITH/New York Times

Posted on 01/08/2006 12:20:54 PM PST by wagglebee

BURG, Switzerland -- Albert Hofmann, the father of LSD, walked slowly across the small corner office of his modernist home on a grassy Alpine hilltop here, hoping to show a visitor the vista that sweeps before him on clear days. But outside there was only a white blanket of fog. He picked up a photograph of the view on his desk instead, left there perhaps to convince visitors of what really lies beyond the window.

Hofmann will turn 100 on Wednesday, a milestone to be marked by a symposium in Basel on the chemical compound that he discovered and which unlocked the Blakean doors of perception, altering consciousnesses around the world.

As his time left grows short, Hofmann's conversation turns ever more insistently around one theme: man's oneness with nature and the dangers of an increasing inattention to that fact.

"It's very, very dangerous to lose contact with living nature," he said. "In the big cities, there are people who have never seen living nature, all things are products of humans," he said. "The bigger the town, the less they see and understand nature."

And, yes, LSD, which he calls his "problem child," could help reconnect people to the universe.

(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alberthofmann; chemicalwarfare; drugs; lsd; psychedelicdrugs; wodlist
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He calls LSD "medicine for the soul" and is frustrated by the worldwide prohibition that has pushed it underground. "It was used very successfully for 10 years in psychoanalysis."

But the drug was hijacked by the youth movement of the 1960s and then unfairly demonized, he said. He concedes LSD can be dangerous and calls its promotion by Timothy Leary and others "a crime."

Does he have any evidence of success using LSD in psychoanalysis?

1 posted on 01/08/2006 12:20:57 PM PST by wagglebee
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To: wagglebee
It's all baloney, really.

Interesting to hear he is still alive. He has been a great chemist.

But drugs like LSD and the like and their widespread use are the main reasosn we are in the liberal cesspool we are in now.

2 posted on 01/08/2006 12:22:59 PM PST by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: wagglebee
Even today the same old grifters are talking about drugs like ectsatsy or whatever the flavor of the day being used for "psychoanalysis" etc...
3 posted on 01/08/2006 12:24:33 PM PST by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: wagglebee

Oh yeah, Imagining spiders swarming out of your pores is real "medicine for the soul".


4 posted on 01/08/2006 12:24:59 PM PST by cripplecreek (Never a minigun handy when you need one.)
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To: wagglebee

"Does he have any evidence of success using LSD in psychoanalysis?"

No, unfortunately, both the psychologist and the patient have to be tripping at the same time to communicate at the same level.....not enough functioning neurons were left in either for analysis.


5 posted on 01/08/2006 12:26:13 PM PST by RouxStir (Peaceful Muslim?.....The Ultimate Oxymoron.)
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To: wagglebee

Yeah he might still be alive, but Timothy Leary's dead....
......no...wait...he's just on the outside looking in.


6 posted on 01/08/2006 12:30:47 PM PST by Vaquero ("An armed society is a polite society" Robert Heinlein)
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To: wagglebee
"Does he have any evidence of success using LSD in psychoanalysis?"

Yes, he does. But you have to be crazy on acid to see it.

7 posted on 01/08/2006 12:33:48 PM PST by Gordongekko909 (I know. Let's cut his WHOLE BODY off.)
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To: wagglebee

Ergot blight. Probably caused hallucinations for centuries among unknowing people, even back in the middle ages.


8 posted on 01/08/2006 12:34:37 PM PST by Supernatural (All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie! bob dylan)
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To: Vaquero

LMAO!


9 posted on 01/08/2006 12:35:51 PM PST by steveo (No Anchovies? You've got the wrong man, I spell my name steveo...)
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To: Supernatural

Ergotism was very likely the cause of irrational behaviors that resulted in the Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century.

http://web.utk.edu/~kstclair/221/ergotism.html


10 posted on 01/08/2006 12:40:08 PM PST by wagglebee ("We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." -- President Bush, 1/20/05)
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To: wagglebee

100 years? That's a lot time for flashbacks.


11 posted on 01/08/2006 12:41:54 PM PST by toddlintown (Lennon takes six bullets to the chest, Yoko is standing right next to him and not one f'ing bullet?)
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To: wagglebee

I can certainly believe it. Something has to explain the irrational behavior that got a lot of innocent people brutally killed.


12 posted on 01/08/2006 12:43:12 PM PST by Supernatural (All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie! bob dylan)
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To: wagglebee
"Medicine for the soul?"

When I was in college back in the 1960's, LSD was everywhere. San Francisco, Haight Street, the "Summer of Love." Two or three people I knew pretty well flunked out of school after they got involved with acid. One guy went on a really bad trip and was hospitalized for a couple of weeks. Another went nuts and just walked away from his scholarship. The last time I saw him he was a street bum begging for handouts.

13 posted on 01/08/2006 12:44:12 PM PST by ex-Texan (Mathew 7:1 through 6)
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To: Vaquero; steveo
Yeah he might still be alive, but Timothy Leary's dead.... ......no...wait...he's just on the outside looking in.

Tuned out, turned off, dropped dead.

14 posted on 01/08/2006 12:46:00 PM PST by Freedom_no_exceptions (No actual, intended, or imminent victim = no crime. No exceptions.)
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To: ex-Texan

Oh yeah....that's REAL Medicine for the soul. Amazing huh?


15 posted on 01/08/2006 12:54:09 PM PST by cubreporter (I trust Rush. He has done more for this country than anyone will ever know. He's A++)
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To: tallhappy

That's a pretty broad claim--drugs equals liberalism--which I don't think you could support with the facts. (Plenty of drunks and pillheads on our side of the table, sorry to say.) That said, I took LSD about a dozen times in college and apart from one really fun afternoon in the Egyptian wing of a museum in New York ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD CAME OF IT-- the "revelations" that come from acid add up to so much bulls**t in the light of day--and I know this from hard experience. In exchange for a little wild fun, LSD drains away physical health, concentration, memory and true creativity. I met Leary a couple of times late in his life and it struck me that there was about 45% of a brain there.


16 posted on 01/08/2006 12:54:54 PM PST by Nick5
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To: cubreporter
I don't know that it's reasonable to equate his controlled use of LSD and the street versions of LSD.

I knew someone in college who had tried LSD before and experienced what he was like when he had a flashback. Wasn't pleasant.

The Drug Enforcement Administration reports that the strength of LSD samples obtained currently from illicit sources ranges from 20 to 80 micrograms of LSD per dose. This is considerably less than the levels reported during the 1960s and early 1970s, when the dosage ranged from 100 to 200 micrograms, or higher, per unit. (Source: NIH/DHHS)

17 posted on 01/08/2006 1:07:43 PM PST by newzjunkey (In 2006: Halt W's illegals' amnesty. Get GOP elected statewide in CA.)
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To: RouxStir
"Does he have any evidence of success using LSD in psychoanalysis?"

Not sure. but Cary Grant swore by it!

18 posted on 01/08/2006 1:12:35 PM PST by Bommer
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To: newzjunkey

if I am not mistaken, there is a limit that the body can absorb and you reach a plateau and thats it.....one could take a 10X overdose and the effects and longevity would remain the same......


19 posted on 01/08/2006 1:12:36 PM PST by Vaquero ("An armed society is a polite society" Robert Heinlein)
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To: newzjunkey

Well, for knowing or claiming to know so much and how to save the world from the rest of us "over 30's crowd" they sure didn't contribute anything. Instead they got high and stayed that way.


20 posted on 01/08/2006 1:16:28 PM PST by cubreporter (I trust Rush. He has done more for this country than anyone will ever know. He's A++)
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