Tell Me the Coolest Thing You Know About LSD

[Phobos]

Did you know that LSD was used extensively every day by the vast majority of the UK population right up until 14th February 1971?

Then our currency was decimalised...

Wasn't enough to get metric though.

 

[TripSitterNZ]

Do you have any idea how significant the difference in effects is between needlepoint and fluff? Is it like the difference between good wine and exceptional wine, or more like mid vs top shelf cannabis? Just wondering if it's worth the extra trouble to ensure one is taking needlepoint.

White fluff hits and needlepoint are pretty much in the same league they really make reality morph in crazy ways. Fluff is high quality but when compared to the better stuff its like everything else before shouldn;t even be called LSD. the trip takes a beyond magic turn unlocking your mind making you smarter and sending you time travelling through the infinite comsos

 

[DrumTripper]

Sorry, read it over 30 years ago.
But it was in the book, regardless of context.
And I stand corrected, I was merging chapters about La Honda and the Winterland event.
It never happened, but was only an idea; one which I kinda wish they had pulled off.
Anyway, for the record, here it is mentioned in the book from p.382:

The Acid Test Graduation is scheduled for Winterland on Monday, October 31, Halloween. The next night the California Democratic Party is holding a big rally in Winterland for Governor Brown, who is running against Ronald Reagan. Kesey and the Pranksters hold their Winterland blast on Halloween. Right? Far from being an "acid graduation," it will be an Acid Test of unbelievable proportions. Electric Kool-Aid will rain in the air like a typhoon, swizzle up every vein, 6,000 heads smashed out of their nuts, ricocheting off the walls like electric golf balls... The sky falls... But that's not all. They won't stop there! these maniacs... The Pranksters will smear all the doors, railings, walls, chairs, the heating system, the water
fountains, with DMSO ... laced with LSD ... Dig? ... DMSO is close to being an old alchemical ideal, the universal solvent. Put a drop of DMSO on your fingertip and thirty seconds later you can taste it in your mouth. It goes right through your skin and through your system that fast. DMSO with LSD ... What a vision! The following night the entire Democratic Party of California will get turned on

 

[Xorkoth]

Please everyone, can we stay on topic? If someone starts trying to pull you into back and forth bickering, please just ignore them and maybe they'll go away. Infractions have been given where appropriate, just so you all know. Here at Bluelight we have due process, this is to prevent abuse (even though we still get accused all the time of being "nazi mods"). We don't ban someone until they accrue a number of incidents and we try to avoid infractions at first in the hope that people will change their posting style out of respect rather than go on to be a chronically troublesome user.

Also just wanted to say, sorry guys, I've been on the road with my band a lot, Tuesday through Sunday this week. I'd have liked to have cleaned this up sooner.

 

[Hodor]

Not a factoid about LSD per se, but about lysergic acid in general:
For a long time, people were very puzzled that lysergic acid derivatives would appear in both the ergot fungus as well as plants of the morning glory family. After all, lysergic acid is a complex structure, and if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective, fungi are actually more closely related to human beings than they are to plants - that this chemical would appear on what are essentially opposite branches of the "tree of life" seemed like a pretty massive coincidence.

However, that mystery has since been solved: As it turns out, morning glories do not make their own ergot alkaloids. It comes from endophytic fungi, i.e. microscopic symbiotic fungi that live inside the plant's tissues, in this case the seeds. Obviously, the evolutionary relationship between a harmless endophyte and a full-fledged parasite like ergot is pretty close, and fungi are known to be extremely flexible with their life cycles to begin with: even within the same species you could have conditions where the fungus will try to dedicate itself to forming a fruiting body (like ergot does) and procreating by forming spores, or they might be content to reproduce asexually.

So yeah, if you've ever wondered where morning glories get their LSA, it just comes from ergot-related ("clavicipitaceous") symbiotic fungi that are hitching a ride on the plant's seeds.

 

[pupnik]

we got to train those fungi to make LSA at home.

 

[AutoTripper]

microdots are not 1000 ug + lol even during the 70s they were like 400 ug max

Yeah no way 1000ug ever, but as much as 500ug I think I have seen some evidence/report of.

Legal doses were 279ug in mid 60's chemist stores, in little "pods". That was The Beatles first trip.

That 279 ug was considered a pretty full roller coaster dose and John Lennon explicitly described the LSD experience as being a 24-hour one at the time and he was really adamant about that as were the other Beatles.

So after criminalisation and the disappearance of the store bought LSD, the microdots came onto the scene at similar doses, with 250-300ug being most common I believe but some reported higher up to 500 ug.

 

[AutoTripper]

The bit about Kesey painting LSD-laced DMSO onto the doorknobs, railings, and water fountain in the Cali Courthouse was awesome. Even if that story is hyperbolic, it’s a great legend and I wanna believe it happened. Iirc, the judge let them off.

I never heardof this, but if somebody did do that it could be potentually dangerous, as the DMSO would allow not just the lsd, but EVERYTHING ELSE to enter the skin and bloodstream/organs.

Like all environmental pathogens and toxins the victim makes contact with while the dmso is still active.

 

[mr peabody]

In 1968 psychedelics were my WHOLE LIFE and they are still the #1 most important thing in the world to me. I was just a kid when I saw Tim Leary dance out on stage at a Moody Blues concert in a white robe playing tambourine to them singing "Timothy Leary's dead..." Leary was all the rage back then, but the damage done by Leary and others during those years was catastrophic. Some time ago I ran across this comment by Albert Hofmann:

"I was visited by Timothy Leary when he was living in Switzerland many years ago. He was a very intelligent man, and quite charming. I enjoyed our conversations very much. However, he also had a need for too much attention. He enjoyed being provocative, and that shifted the focus from what should have been the essential issue. It is unfortunate, but for many years these drugs became taboo. Hopefully, these same problems from the Sixties will not be repeated."

Now I haven't the slightest interest in anything religious, but I feel strongly that psychedelics are the key to life's deepest secrets, and that...

"Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it, we will say to each other, 'How could it have been otherwise?'" (Wheeler)

The problem is the virtual unavailability of PRACTICAL information about psychedelics and their preeminent purpose which, unfortunately, is presently beyond the means of science to address. Psychedelics inexorably collapse the scientific paradigm.

Hundreds of trips have introduced me to certain "facts," for example, that matter is materialized light. Now I can't prove this, but I know that it is so. And I'm NOT imagining it, any more than I'm imagining that I love my wife. I know these things are so, even though I can't "prove" them.

What if the following were true?

Human beings are astronomical instruments, with an aperture like a camera. Psychedelics force the aperture open, in relation to the amount of substance consumed. Like water seeking it's own level, light will flood through any open channel with full force, according to aperture dilation. More than one is prepared to handle can result in a "bad" trip.

What if psychedelics were the only known tools for developing light throughput? What if star birthing were life's ultimate purpose, and psychedelics key for enabling that?

Just saying - WHAT IF?

 

[Phobos]

In 1968 psychedelics were my WHOLE LIFE and they are still the #1 most important thing in the world to me. I was just a kid when I saw Tim Leary dance out on stage at a Moody Blues concert in a white robe playing tambourine to them singing "Timothy Leary's dead..." Leary was all the rage back then, but the damage done by Leary and others during those years was catastrophic. Some time ago I ran across this comment by Albert Hofmann:

"I was visited by Timothy Leary when he was living in Switzerland many years ago. He was a very intelligent man, and quite charming. I enjoyed our conversations very much. However, he also had a need for too much attention. He enjoyed being provocative, and that shifted the focus from what should have been the essential issue. It is unfortunate, but for many years these drugs became taboo. Hopefully, these same problems from the Sixties will not be repeated."

Now I haven't the slightest interest in anything religious, but I feel strongly that psychedelics are the key to life's deepest secrets, and that...

"Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it, we will say to each other, 'How could it have been otherwise?'" (Wheeler)

The problem is the virtual unavailability of PRACTICAL information about psychedelics and their preeminent purpose which, unfortunately, is presently beyond the means of science to address. Psychedelics inexorably collapse the scientific paradigm.

Hundreds of trips have introduced me to certain "facts," for example, that matter is materialized light. Now I can't prove this, but I know that it is so. And I'm NOT imagining it, any more than I'm imagining that I love my wife. I know these things are so, even though I can't "prove" them.

What if the following were true?

Human beings are astronomical instruments, with an aperture like a camera. Psychedelics force the aperture open, in relation to the amount of substance consumed. Like water seeking it's own level, light will flood through any open channel with full force, according to aperture dilation. More than one is prepared to "handle" can result in a bad trip.

What if psychedelics were the only known tools for developing light throughput? What if star birthing were our ultimate purpose, and psychedelics key for enabling that?

Just saying - WHAT IF?

Then there must be a few supergiants that call me daddy.

 

[AutoTripper]

As above! LSD is only LSD-25. Hofmann was studying a series of lysergic acid derivatives (LSx-1 to LSx-24 before it, one can imagine) the 25th of which had a diethylamide moiety, thus LSD-25, which is what is called a trivial name, and a German one at that. (It also explains why the 25 was eventually dropped from usage, since it's rather meaningless outside of the specific context from which it emerged). It's in TiHKAL. The other ones are not necessarily psychoactive, and I'm not sure if the entire list exists somewhere.

Do you have any interesting little facts about ALD-52? Is it correct that he discovered this one first before Lsd?

Do we think he ran the whole line of ALD experiments, discovering 52 in the process.

Then moved on to Lsd 1 (haha, that's the one I want now not sure if I have ever thought about Lsd 1 before), then when it got to 25- "Voila! Scrap that ALD crap. This is the bees knees."

Did he actually try ALD 52 at threshold dosage? Or was it actually somebody else entirely guinea pig the ALD further down the track?

I would love tonight a little more about the situation and why my ALD was put to the back burner.

 

[blistersinthedark]

Do you have any interesting little facts about ALD-52? Is it correct that he discovered this one first before Lsd?

Do we think he ran the whole line of ALD experiments, discovering 52 in the process.

Then moved on to Lsd 1 (haha, that's the one I want now not sure if I have ever thought about Lsd 1 before), then when it got to 25- "Voila! Scrap that ALD crap. This is the bees knees."

Did he actually try ALD 52 at threshold dosage? Or was it actually somebody else entirely guinea pig the ALD further down the track?

I would love tonight a little more about the situation and why my ALD was put to the back burner.

I have never read that claim before, and it doesn't sound right. It's a much more direct route from ergot to LSD than to ALD-52, which requires an extra substitution.
There is very little historical information online about ALD-52 other than the Wikipedia article (which to me screams [citation neeeded]). No mention of it in My Problem Child.
Hofmann is briefly asked about in this interview, and makes it sound like ALD-52 came much later.

 

[AutoTripper]

I have never read that claim before, and it doesn't sound right. It's a much more direct route from ergot to LSD than to ALD-52, which requires an extra substitution.
There is very little historical information online about ALD-52 other than the Wikipedia article (which to me screams [citation neeeded]). Even the No mention of it in My Problem Child.
Hofmann is briefly asked about in this interview, and makes it sound like ALD-52 came much later.

Hey, thanks very much for sharing that I've not heard anything about it other than on seeing it suggested somewhere that it was discovered before lsd-25 and I have always been a little bit curious as to how and when it came about and fitted into the picture, particularl Hofmann's own views on it. I don't expect to ever learn much. Which feels a bit funny. Look atvwhat the world knows of LSD, and yet so little of this other one which has stayed mostly under radar, is not very much inferior and is actually quite a lot of psychonaut's favorite of the two.

 

[TripSitterNZ]

Hey, thanks very much for sharing that I've not heard anything about it other than on seeing it suggested somewhere that it was discovered before lsd-25 and I have always been a little bit curious as to how and when it came about and fitted into the picture, particularl Hofmann's own views on it. I don't expect to ever learn much. Which feels a bit funny. Look atvwhat the world knows of LSD, and yet so little of this other one which has stayed mostly under radar, is not very much inferior and is actually quite a lot of psychonaut's favorite of the two.

ald-52 is a less darker version of lsd imo. i have done a few trips on some medium to strong doses of ald-52 before and it feels very clean come up it totally clear headed til peak hits 3-4 hours in. If i had access to more of it i would probably choose it over lsd most times as LSD is very sinister and darkness undertones to the trip.

 

[cryptix420]

While I found ald-52 much preferable for pleasure use, LSD certainly seems to take the cake in terms of excavating the internal muck that needs some light shined on it. No pain no gain ya?

 

[pupnik]

….
Hofmann is briefly asked about in this interview, and makes it sound like ALD-52 came much later.

enjoyed reading the interview link!

 

[Chris Timothy]

Hundreds of trips have introduced me to certain "facts," for example, that matter is materialized light. Now I can't prove this, but I know that it is so.

That follows from Einstein's equation, considering light is electromagnetic energy. You could call a particle a localized (within the uncertainty principle) field expression.

 

[mr peabody]

You are a light being with unimaginable powers.

Your celestial body resides at the stellar location you came into existence.

Your physical body is merely an astronomical instrument engaged in the expression of free will from your celestial body.

Over many lifetimes, we who are born into the evolving worlds of time and space attain the maturity necessary for star birthing.

You have advanced to the celestial nursery. Find your beloved, and prepare for the next chapter of your great adventure.

Psychedelics are the key to life’s deepest secrets. Use them wisely.

 

[perpetualdawn]

Hofmann is briefly asked about in this interview, and makes it sound like ALD-52 came much later.

Great interview. Here's what I found to be it's juicy core:

Horowitz
For many people LSD provides what they describe as a religious experience. What are your feelings on this?

Hofmann
People for whom LSD provides a religious experience expect to have such an experience when they take it. Expectation--which is identical to autosuggestion--determines to a high degree what will happen in the session, because one of the most important features of the LSD state is its extreme suggestibility.

Another reason for the incidence of religious experiences is the fact that the very core of the human mind is connected with God. This deepest root of our consciousness, which in the normal state is hidden by superficial rational activities of the mind, may become revealed by the action of the psychedelic drug.

Horowitz
Is LSD an evolutionary agent?

Hofmann
Possibly. In the LSD state we may become conscious, in the words of Teilhard de Chardin, of the "entire complex of interhuman and intercosmic relations with an immediacy, an intimacy and a realism" that otherwise happen only in spontaneous ecstatic states and to a very few blessed people.

Agreement exists among spiritual leaders that the continuation of the present development, characterized by increasing industrialization and overpopulation, will result in the exhaustion of natural resources and destroy the ecological basis for mankind's existence on this planet. This trend to self-annihilation is reinforced by international politics based on "power trips" and the preparation of weapons of apocalyptic potential.

This development can be stopped only by a change in the materialistic attitude that has caused this development. This change can result only from insight into the deepest spiritual roots of life and existence, from comprehensive use of all forces of our intelligence and all resources of our knowledge.

This intellectual approach, supplemented by visionary experience, could produce an alteration of the consciousness of truth and reality that could be of evolutionary significance. LSD selectively and wisely used could be one means of supplementing intellectual with visionary insight and helping the prepared mind become conscious of a deeper reality.

 

[mr peabody]

In my childhood I experienced spontaneously some of those blissful moments when the world appeared suddenly in a new and brilliant light, and I had the feeling of being included in its wonder and indescribable beauty. These moments remained in my memory as extraordinary experiences of untold happiness, but only after the discovery of LSD did I grasp their meaning and existential importance. It was my experiences with LSD that caused me to think about the essence of reality. The insights I received increased my astonishment about the wonder of existence, of which we become conscious in enlightened moments. -Albert Hofmann