Albert Hofmann Quotes - Page 2

We can study various psychic functions and also the more primitive sensory functions, such as seeing, hearing, and so on, which constitute our image of our everyday world. They have a material side and the psychic side. And that is a gap which you cannot explain.

LSD is no longer playing a bad role in the drug scene and psychiatrists are again trying to submit their proposals for research with this substance to the health authorities. I hope that LSD will again become available in the normal way, for the medical profession. Then it could play the role it really should, a beneficial role.

We need a new concept of reality and a new set of values for things to change in a positive direction. LSD could help to generate such a new concept.

LSD is really just a small chemical modification of a very old sacred drug of Mexico. LSD belongs, therefore, by its chemical structure and by its activity, in the group of the magic plants of Mesoamerica. It does not occur in nature as such, but it represents just a small chemical variation of natural material.

After some time, with my eyes closed, I began to enjoy this wonderful play of colors and forms, which it really was a pleasure to observe. Then I went to sleep and the next day I was fine. I felt quite fresh, like a newborn.

The productive sender is the outer world, the external reality including our own body. The receiver is our deep self, the conscious ego, which then transforms the outer stimuli into a psychological experience.

Wrong and inappropriate use has caused LSD to become my problem child.

LSD was my "wonder child", we had a positive reaction from everywhere in the world. Around two thousand publications about it appeared in scientific journals and everything was fine. Then, at the beginning of the 1960s, here in the United States, LSD became a drug of abuse. In a short time, this wave of popular use swept the country and it became "drug number one". It was then used without caution and people were not prepared and informed about its deep effects. Instead of a "wonder child", LSD suddenly became my "problem child".

I became very sensitive to what will happen to all this and all of us.

LSD should be treated as a sacred drug and receive corresponding preparation, preparation of quite a different kind than other psychotropic agents. It is one kind of thing if you have a pain-relieving substance or some euphoriant and (another to) have an agent that engages the very essence of human beings, their consciousness.

The truth will finally come out and the truth is: If LSD is used in the right way, it is a very important and very useful agent.

It is true that my discovery of LSD was a chance discovery, but it was the outcome of planned experiments and these experiments took place in the framework of systematic pharmaceutical, chemical research. It could better be described as serendipity.

People who use LSD today know how to use it. Therefore, I hope that the health authorities will get the insight that LSD, if it is used properly, is not a dangerous drug. We actually should not refer to it as drug; this word has a very bad connotation. We should use another name.

In many instances, LSD actually produced terrifying and deleterious effects instead of beneficial effects, because of misuse, because it was a profanation.

It is true that my discovery of LSD was a chance discovery, but it was the outcome of planned experiments and these experiments took place in the framework of systematic pharmaceutical, chemical research. It could better be described as serendipity. That means that you look for something, you have a certain plan, and then you find something else, different, that may nevertheless be useful.