GenericMind
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Drugs like LSD allow you to think without some of the usual restraints that result from natural social conditioning. I don't think there's much more to it than that.
LSD's message?
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the seeker
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PsyGhost said:
im not saying drugs can't influence you. i'm saying the idea that they have a specific message they are designed to impart is unfounded.
the seeker
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Ravr said:
i said "im not saying drugs can't influence you."
if you see a building and you get a certain feeling when you look at that building, does that mean the building has a message it wishes to impart to all mankind?
the seeker
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and that would be?
the seeker
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hoffman created lsd by accident, he was trying to make something else.
the seeker
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i suppose not.
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It always seems that everyone is so polarized in these arguments. Either drugs are sentient lifeforms with intelligence and purpose, or they're just things and if you think that there's any sort of greater meaning to them, you're crazy.
Personally, I think that psychedelics are tools that allow us an easy entry into various parts of the collective consciousness, whatever your name for that is (nature, god, the lifeforce, etc). That force itself, the same force which we are each a part of, does indeed have a vast collection of knowledge contained within, and when we're able to touch on it, sometimes there is a very clear message. I'm not sure that the collective consciousness is trying to impart any message actively, because it doesn't need to; we are all it, in various incarnations so that it can experience itself subjectively. But as a human, who is ordinarily unable to perceive himself as such, awakening into this higher state of perception could easily cause such messages to arise, because it seems so important to have such an awareness once you're there.
But the drug itself is not alive... it's a tool, a molecule that synergizes in a special way with the human neurochemical process.
Personally, I think that psychedelics are tools that allow us an easy entry into various parts of the collective consciousness, whatever your name for that is (nature, god, the lifeforce, etc). That force itself, the same force which we are each a part of, does indeed have a vast collection of knowledge contained within, and when we're able to touch on it, sometimes there is a very clear message. I'm not sure that the collective consciousness is trying to impart any message actively, because it doesn't need to; we are all it, in various incarnations so that it can experience itself subjectively. But as a human, who is ordinarily unable to perceive himself as such, awakening into this higher state of perception could easily cause such messages to arise, because it seems so important to have such an awareness once you're there.
But the drug itself is not alive... it's a tool, a molecule that synergizes in a special way with the human neurochemical process.
Fishface
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Of course, there's always the question of what the 'message' Hoffman received was and how he received it (from Erowid - edited as shown (ed)):
Now, how many people believe that the effects of a 50-75 microgram dose of LSD would only have lasted two hours? [nearly all hands go down]
We read from his account: "I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours (emphasis added) this condition faded away." (Hofman, 1983).
Well now, that was a conundrum for me. I read that and I thought, "gee I'm a scientist, and this doesn't make sense with what I know." And for most of you, I think, that doesn't make sense either. So, the question: how can we formulate a hypothesis consistent with this observation? We need to consider a few things.
We know that Albert originally synthesized LSD in 1938 as part of an ambitious program to make a number of lysergamides. LSD-25 was only the 25th in the series. (ed)
Why the 25th? We know that only the 25th in the series was active. Any other compound that he made -- and I've made many of them, we've tested many of them -- none of the others approach LSD, either in its sophistication or in its potency. Only the 25th. And this is unusual. In pharmacology often you have a regular series. If we think of things like DOB, and DOI, there's a kind of regular progression. They all fit into a kind of subgenus. And LSD doesn't. We don't call the other members of the series Albert made as LSD something or other, but if we had LSD-23, 24 and 26, they would all be one-tenth the activity of LSD-25. Peculiar presentiment indeed!
As I've said, Swiss and German chemists have a reputation -- today and back then -- for being absolutely meticulous. If we had gone into Albert's lab at Sandoz in 1943, we would probably have found everything in its place, organized in an obsessively neat manner. No dirty glassware, no trash on the floor, meticulous. How in the world did a meticulous Swiss chemist get 50 to 75 micrograms or more of LSD into his body? We don't know.
Another fact: I've made LSD in my lab on many occasions for research purposes, possibly in not so meticulous a manner as Albert Hofmann. Nothing ever happened. I had several graduate students who made LSD as an intermediate for projects. No accidental ingestion of LSD ever occurred. A technician in my lab makes it routinely because we use it as a drug to train our rats. He's learned by experience that he never gets high, nothing ever happens. And yesterday I was talking to Nick Sand, and Nick said, "I made a solution of LSD in DMSO…" -- DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) is a chemical that greatly enhances absorption of other chemicals through the skin -- he says, "…I painted it on my skin. Nothing happened." A concentrated solution and nothing happened! How did this very meticulous Swiss chemist get the LSD into his body? I don't know.
The other fact we need to think about is when Albert was a child, he had a spontaneous mystical experience. Now depending on whether you're a psychologist or a psychiatrist or whatever, we could say that Albert had a predisposition to altered states of consciousness.
So what facts do we know? I'm going to formulate a hypothesis. He took a dose that by your consensus should have lasted certainly more than two hours, but it only lasted two hours. He was a meticulous chemist -- a Swiss chemist. Anyone I know who's worked with LSD -- and Nick Sand painted a solution of it on his arm -- didn't get high. This doesn't make sense. And what is this peculiar presentiment? Why the 25th in the series? Inexplicable! And, he was predisposed to altered states of consciousness.
The only hypothesis I can come up with that's consistent with all of these facts is that on April 16, 1943, Albert Hofmann did not get LSD in his body at all. He had a spontaneous mystical experience!
Now if I were working in the lab with a new chemical, and I started having kaleidoscopic visions of wonderful colors and patterns, my first thought wouldn't be that I was having a spontaneous experience. My first thought would be, "What was that new chemical I was working with? I need to tell Sasha about it." [laughter]
I think that's what happened, that's the hypothesis. We can't test that hypothesis, but when I saw Albert in Basel a couple years ago, I presented that particular hypothesis to him and said, "What do you think?" He said, "It's entirely possible." So, that's our little experiment, and I think most of you really didn't think seriously about the discovery of LSD, but it puts a different light on it.
Now one aside to that we could then bring up is this. If the force that caused him to have this peculiar presentiment -- and very peculiar it is -- is the same force that induced him to have this mystical experience, which caused him to focus on this chemical, we can hope it might happen again.
Now, how many people believe that the effects of a 50-75 microgram dose of LSD would only have lasted two hours? [nearly all hands go down]
We read from his account: "I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours (emphasis added) this condition faded away." (Hofman, 1983).
Well now, that was a conundrum for me. I read that and I thought, "gee I'm a scientist, and this doesn't make sense with what I know." And for most of you, I think, that doesn't make sense either. So, the question: how can we formulate a hypothesis consistent with this observation? We need to consider a few things.
We know that Albert originally synthesized LSD in 1938 as part of an ambitious program to make a number of lysergamides. LSD-25 was only the 25th in the series. (ed)
Why the 25th? We know that only the 25th in the series was active. Any other compound that he made -- and I've made many of them, we've tested many of them -- none of the others approach LSD, either in its sophistication or in its potency. Only the 25th. And this is unusual. In pharmacology often you have a regular series. If we think of things like DOB, and DOI, there's a kind of regular progression. They all fit into a kind of subgenus. And LSD doesn't. We don't call the other members of the series Albert made as LSD something or other, but if we had LSD-23, 24 and 26, they would all be one-tenth the activity of LSD-25. Peculiar presentiment indeed!
As I've said, Swiss and German chemists have a reputation -- today and back then -- for being absolutely meticulous. If we had gone into Albert's lab at Sandoz in 1943, we would probably have found everything in its place, organized in an obsessively neat manner. No dirty glassware, no trash on the floor, meticulous. How in the world did a meticulous Swiss chemist get 50 to 75 micrograms or more of LSD into his body? We don't know.
Another fact: I've made LSD in my lab on many occasions for research purposes, possibly in not so meticulous a manner as Albert Hofmann. Nothing ever happened. I had several graduate students who made LSD as an intermediate for projects. No accidental ingestion of LSD ever occurred. A technician in my lab makes it routinely because we use it as a drug to train our rats. He's learned by experience that he never gets high, nothing ever happens. And yesterday I was talking to Nick Sand, and Nick said, "I made a solution of LSD in DMSO…" -- DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) is a chemical that greatly enhances absorption of other chemicals through the skin -- he says, "…I painted it on my skin. Nothing happened." A concentrated solution and nothing happened! How did this very meticulous Swiss chemist get the LSD into his body? I don't know.
The other fact we need to think about is when Albert was a child, he had a spontaneous mystical experience. Now depending on whether you're a psychologist or a psychiatrist or whatever, we could say that Albert had a predisposition to altered states of consciousness.
So what facts do we know? I'm going to formulate a hypothesis. He took a dose that by your consensus should have lasted certainly more than two hours, but it only lasted two hours. He was a meticulous chemist -- a Swiss chemist. Anyone I know who's worked with LSD -- and Nick Sand painted a solution of it on his arm -- didn't get high. This doesn't make sense. And what is this peculiar presentiment? Why the 25th in the series? Inexplicable! And, he was predisposed to altered states of consciousness.
The only hypothesis I can come up with that's consistent with all of these facts is that on April 16, 1943, Albert Hofmann did not get LSD in his body at all. He had a spontaneous mystical experience!
Now if I were working in the lab with a new chemical, and I started having kaleidoscopic visions of wonderful colors and patterns, my first thought wouldn't be that I was having a spontaneous experience. My first thought would be, "What was that new chemical I was working with? I need to tell Sasha about it." [laughter]
I think that's what happened, that's the hypothesis. We can't test that hypothesis, but when I saw Albert in Basel a couple years ago, I presented that particular hypothesis to him and said, "What do you think?" He said, "It's entirely possible." So, that's our little experiment, and I think most of you really didn't think seriously about the discovery of LSD, but it puts a different light on it.
Now one aside to that we could then bring up is this. If the force that caused him to have this peculiar presentiment -- and very peculiar it is -- is the same force that induced him to have this mystical experience, which caused him to focus on this chemical, we can hope it might happen again.
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I'm not sure what to make of your post. Are you suggesting that anyone who takes LSD is having a spontaneous mystical experience, and that LSD is inactive? I'm kind of skeptical on that point...
Also, as to why he would say it lasted two hours, well, if I recall the entire story, he said that the condition of seeing extraordinary shapes and kaleidoscopic colors lasted two hours, but that afterwards he felt great and in a very jovial mood and full of humor and great wit for a much longer period of time. It could be that the peak lasted two hours, and of course at the time, the idea of tripping was totally unexplored and new to the general population, himself included. He may have just been unable to recognize that the drug was still in effect, considering that LSD can be so transparent on the body.
I may be remembering a different reported experience, maybe his first ingestion. In any case, in the experience I am remembering he claimed a 2-3 hour experience, after which he felt aftereffects as I described for the remainder of the day, which I am postulating was just the rest of what we consider to be the trip.
Also, as to why he would say it lasted two hours, well, if I recall the entire story, he said that the condition of seeing extraordinary shapes and kaleidoscopic colors lasted two hours, but that afterwards he felt great and in a very jovial mood and full of humor and great wit for a much longer period of time. It could be that the peak lasted two hours, and of course at the time, the idea of tripping was totally unexplored and new to the general population, himself included. He may have just been unable to recognize that the drug was still in effect, considering that LSD can be so transparent on the body.
I may be remembering a different reported experience, maybe his first ingestion. In any case, in the experience I am remembering he claimed a 2-3 hour experience, after which he felt aftereffects as I described for the remainder of the day, which I am postulating was just the rest of what we consider to be the trip.
Fishface
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Not that every trip is a spontaneous mystical experience but that Hoffman's 'Vorgefuhl', or 'presentiment' as it loosely translates, was.
I brought it up so as to give some air to the idea that it was not LSD25 which was delivering a message but that the message to further investigate LSD25 came from 'elsewhere'.
I brought it up so as to give some air to the idea that it was not LSD25 which was delivering a message but that the message to further investigate LSD25 came from 'elsewhere'.
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PsyGhost
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Xorkoth said:
It can't be helped, not in the world of Babylon which we live in today. The majority of people are conditioned to think this way.
Apparently I can only learn something from a textbook. Yet if ideas seem to emerge in my head because of a plant I have eaten, it can only be considered as fake. This all stems from our christianized world-view.
What has Christian Rausch said about this?
"The concept of 'model psychosis' [brought about through psychoactives] is simply aother form of ethnocentrism. Whereas the Inquisition saw the workings of the devil in these psychoactive substances, psychiatrists interpreted the sacred visions as psychotic-like states, that is, as 'artificially' induced mental illnessess. Today, however, the model psychosis concept has itself landed on the rubbish heap of modern high-technology science. Recent research into the brain activity of true psycotics and of healthy users of psychedelics, using PET scans, has demonstrated that very different regions of the brain are active in each."
Or should I even quote 13 Monkeys (there goes my credibility) "Psychology is the new religion. Psychologists decide what is real and what is not."