Albion Dreaming (5 page)

If an experimental compound failed to yield results it was usually shelved and quickly forgotten. Yet there was
something
about LSD-25 that called Hofmann back to that particular chemical compound. Five years passed but Hofmann could not forget LSD-25. In his autobiography, he wrote that eventually: “A peculiar presentiment – the feeling that this substance could possess properties other than those established in the first synthesis – induced me, five years after the first synthesis, to produce LSD-25 once again so that a sample could be given to the pharmacological department for further tests.”
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Hofmann’s intuition led him to synthesise LSD-25 for the second time on Friday, 16 April 1943. As he entered the final stage of the process, the point at which the drug was purified and crystallised, he began to notice unusual physical and mental sensations. He recorded his experiences shortly afterwards in a note to his colleague Professor Stoll:

“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 dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated like condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the sunlight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours. After some two hours, this condition faded away.”
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Hofmann presumed that his odd experience had been caused by the drug he was working on at the time. He couldn’t be sure how the substance had entered his system but he was certain of one thing: if LSD-25 was responsible for his symptoms it must be incredibly potent in minute dosages. As the drug hadn’t caused an abreaction, Hofmann reasoned the most logical way to proceed was to try a scientific self-experiment.

In his laboratory, at 4.20 pm three days later Hofmann took 250 μg of LSD-25 dissolved in water. At 5.00 pm he noted in his laboratory journal: “17.00: beginning dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire to laugh.” That was the last entry in the journal that day. Hofmann was
soon overwhelmed by the effects of the drug and had to ask his laboratory assistant to escort him home. As it was wartime they travelled by bicycle, Hofmann experiencing progressively more florid symptoms of the drug. The visual distortions increased in intensity and at one point he felt he was not making any headway on his bicycle, even though they were moving quite rapidly. When he arrived home he could barely stand, having just enough self awareness to ask a neighbour to call a doctor and bring him some milk as an antidote to the poisoning he believed he was suffering.

When the milk arrived Hofmann, now laid on a sofa, saw his neighbour as a masked witch bent on doing him harm. The room was spinning and the physical world was in a state of flux, once ordinary items such as furniture changing shape, size and perspective. Hofmann’s internal world was in turmoil too. He believed he was possessed by a demon that was preventing him from exercising his will and this intensified his general anxiety. Then the thought struck him that the drug was causing him to go insane. He saw himself as if from outside his body, an impotent witness to the runaway psychological drama unfolding in his mind. What would his wife and children think? If he failed to return to sanity would they understand he had been trying a scientific experiment and not indiscriminately experimenting with drugs? All these thoughts were born and multiplied in ever more convoluted permutations in Hofmann’s consciousness as he lay on the sofa. From the depths of his confusion Hofmann realised, somewhat wryly, that if he died as a result of his experiment it would be as a direct result of a drug he had discovered.

Though the drug’s intensity had begun to wane by the time the doctor arrived Hofmann was still unable to formulate a coherent sentence. It was left to the laboratory assistant to give an account of what had happened as the doctor gave Hofmann a check up. Other than dilated pupils the doctor could find nothing wrong with his patient, who he ordered to bed. Once in bed, with the drug starting to wear off, Hofmann lost his fear of insanity and began to enjoy the experience. A state of synaesthesia ensued, with auditory sensations transforming into visual imagery of seemingly endless shape and colour. When his wife returned Hofmann was lucid
enough to tell her what had happened after which, exhausted, he finally fell asleep.

When he awoke the following morning Hofmann was tired but suffused with a sensation of well-being. His senses appeared highly tuned: “When I later walked out into the garden, in which the sun shone now after a spring rain, everything glistened and sparkled in a fresh light. The world was as if newly created. All my senses vibrated in a condition of highest sensitivity, which persisted for the entire day.”
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Hofmann reflected on his extraordinary experience for the next few days. He concluded that LSD-25 was a potent drug, highly active in infinitesimal doses. Hofmann was also impressed that despite the intense and overwhelming effect of the drug he was conscious throughout and afterwards able to clearly recall the details of the experience. Though he couldn’t immediately foresee the uses to which LSD-25 would be put, he was certain the drug had a place in medical science, especially psychiatry. Hofmann’s discovery also immediately re-connected him with his childhood enchantments: “Taking LSD reminded me of experiences I had as a child ... It came back to me taking that first LSD trip. It made me so sure of myself. It brought an inner joy, as well as a gratefulness for this internal sensitivity that few can experience. To be part of the miracle of Creation ...” Hofmann’s connection of LSD and the religious experience would be repeated time and time again when LSD became widely available. It would be the subject of great debate between its proselityzers and those who believed it was naïve to ascribe religious experience to a chemical.
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Following Hofmann’s discovery of the effects of LSD-25 an intense period of research into the drug’s properties took place. Three of Hofmann’s colleagues at Sandoz took the drug and even at a third of the dosage found the effects to be “impressive and quite fantastic.” But for a drug to be used widely on humans it must first be subject to a range of clinical tests. The drug was tested on a variety of animals and it was obvious that some, such as the cat, experienced hallucinations. When given to one chimpanzee from a community the drug caused uproar, as the intoxicated chimp failed to adhere to the usual strict social hierarchy of the
rest of the group. Yet there was no pattern of effects common to all the experimental subjects. In spiders low doses of LSD-25 affected their ability to weave webs, resulting in web structures of increased symmetry when compared to those woven by un-dosed spiders. High doses saw a reversal of this, the webs becoming very basic and asymmetrical.

Tests of LSD on animals sometimes exemplified the worst excesses of the scientific method. In a 1962 experiment to see if LSD-25 could induce madness in elephants, Tusko, a powerful male was given a dose of 297 mg. If this appears to be a low dose it should be borne in mind it would be enough to give 3000 adults a powerful LSD experience. An hour and forty minutes after being shot by a dart containing LSD, Tusko died. In an attempt to be positive about the experiment, its instigators noted, without a trace of irony: “It appears that the elephant is highly sensitive to the effects of LSD – a finding which may prove to be valuable in elephant-control work in Africa.”
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Of course, laboratory experiments on animals and insects only give a narrow view of what the effects of a drug are. While testing drugs on animals might enable study of the physical effects, they tell us very little about the effects on the brain and personality of the subject. This becomes even more relevant when dealing with mind altering drugs such as LSD. Chemists at Sandoz were aware of this and after extensive tests on animals convinced them the drug was safe and unlikely to cause psychological or physiological harm, the next step was to test the drug on adults. A research programme run by Professor Stoll’s son Werner was conducted in the psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich. The participants were given dosages of between 2 and 13 μg. These dosages were very low compared to Hofmann’s experimental dose of 250 μg, but the research subjects still reported euphoria as the principal effect of the drug. Everyone involved with the research was amazed at a drug that could have such powerful effects in miniscule quantities. Werner Stoll eventually tested the drug and took 60 μg. His lengthy report, the first published by a psychiatrist, detailed a stream of vibrant colourful imagery for which words were barely adequate. The psychological insights were startling. Stoll felt as though he
understood abstract pictures, felt at one with all romanticists and dreamers and often “... seemed to stand at the pinnacle of artistic experience.” Later in the experiment Stoll’s euphoria changed to depression and he contemplated thoughts of suicide, but this passed and by the time he felt able to travel home he was euphoric again. “I had experienced unexpected, impressive things. It seemed to me that a great epoch of my life had been crowded into a few hours. I was tempted to repeat the experiment.”
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Stoll’s experiment took place mainly with his eyes closed or in a darkened room at his laboratory, with no preparation. Though several people had now taken LSD experimentally no consideration had been given to the two factors arguably most important when LSD is given to a person: set and setting. Set and setting, as will be seen throughout the story of LSD in Britain, are crucial and can make the difference between a positive and negative LSD experience.
Set
refers to the LSD taker’s mind set, their personality, what and how firmly held are their moral, ethical and religious belief, what they know of LSD and what they expect from the LSD experience and so on.
Setting
refers to the physical location and type of surroundings in which LSD is taken. Later, recreational LSD users would find the combination and manipulation of these two factors could be decisive in how an LSD experience would develop.

Hofmann was uneasy about the controlled laboratory testing of LSD, believing it wasn’t a satisfactory way of taking the drug. He seemed to have unconsciously grasped the principle of set and setting when he commented, “We used low doses – 50 μg – in a controlled setting with interviewers, Rorschach tests, written explanations of what we were going through. These weren’t especially meaningful experiences; personally I thought it would be more interesting to see how it would work in an artistic surrounding.”
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The chemist’s notion that the LSD experience under laboratory conditions might differ from that of a more aesthetic environment was brought home to him when he “... arranged to explore these things in a non laboratory setting in 1951 with the pharmacologist, Herbert Knozett and the German novelist, Ernst Junger. I would say it was the first truly psychedelic experience, though it was a
low dose and it didn’t go very deep. But it was beautiful. I believed I was in North Africa among the Berber tribes. I saw all these beautiful, exotic landscapes, oases, while a Mozart record played like music from above.”
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Hofmann went on to take LSD numerous times and had many religious experiences and insights which deepened his personal philosophy. Though his initial statements about LSD were reserved, in his old age he had become more outspoken about the positive effects of LSD, eventually accepting his place as the elder statesman of the psychedelic generation.

In 1947 Sandoz had enough confidence in its controlled LSD tests to market it as Delysid, a name proposed by Hofmann. Initially the drug was provided free of charge to research institutes in return for their data being shared with Sandoz. Delysid was available as sugar-coated tablets containing 25 μg or ampoules containing 100 μg. The prospectus issued by Sandoz distilled their findings as: “The administration of very small doses of Delysid (half to 2 micrograms per kg of body weight) results in transitory disturbances of affect, hallucinations, depersonalization, reliving of repressed memories and mild neurovegatative symptoms.”

Sandoz suggested that LSD could be used to good effect in two specific areas. Laboratory tests had indicated that LSD might be useful in analytical psychotherapy, where the psychiatrist may want access to material repressed by a patient suffering from anxiety and obsessional neuroses. The second use recommended by Sandoz was more surprising. They advocated LSD should be taken by those investigating the nature of psychoses noting, “By taking Delysid himself, the psychiatrist is able to gain an insight into the world of ideas and sensations of mental patients.” Sandoz’ summing up of LSD’s possible effects noted that the drug should not be given to those who were unstable or suffered from suicidal tendencies and advised the drug only be taken under medical supervision.
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Sandoz’ decision to make LSD publicly available was a key factor in the chain of events, which led to it becoming the most contentious drug of the twentieth century. Though Hofmann had lived through two bloody world wars, a new conflict was already
on the horizon. Its weapon – the nuclear bomb – was developed just months before the discovery of LSD. In the space of five months two discoveries had been made, both of which changed millions of lives and which altered the course of popular culture forever. LSD evangelists would later suggest this was no coincidence, that one discovery was the counter-balance to the other. In 1966 poet and author of several books on drugs, George Andrews, published the poem “Amsterdam Reflection” which contained the lines: “Soldiers, take orders only from the rainbow alliance! Peace to the world LSD is the only answer to the atom bomb.”
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