Lysergamides Nick Sand and Tim Scully, LSD chemists of the 60s, comment about LSD purity

[red22]

Text transcripts of the sections below.

An Interview with Nick Sand (18:43–20:09). Intellectual Deep Web, 4/25/17, YouTube

Orange Sunshine LSD Inventor Tim Scully Interview (51:38–56:33). STUFF STONERS LIKE, 11/06/2019, YouTube

Transcripts:

Nick Sand:

And I ran into Owsley at Millbrook, and he invited me also, and he became a strong critic of the purity of my psychedelic sacrament and gave me a few verbal boots in the ass about it and so I endeavored to produce something that was finer than even pharmaceutical grade and I succeeded. And that's why the onset of the LSD that I made is always so smooth...uh, not always, because some people don't have the right set and setting, but if they do, it is very smooth because LSD is a magnifying intensifier, and so if there are other [sic] impurities in it, even though they wouldn't normally have any effect on you, you can see them under this microscope and macroscope that you experience during the LSD experience.

LSD not made in Owsley's tradition and in Tim Scully's tradition of making absolutely pure double-recrystallized chromatographed LSD, if you don't have that, you will have a good experience, probably, but it won't be as good and it won't be as smooth, but it will still work.


Tim Scully:

51:38 Well, I do believe that people generally appreciate pure LSD and if they're given a choice, that's what they'll go for.

52:04 [Interviewer] Could you maybe explain what purity is, what that means? What's left in it that would make it unpure [sic] and how does that affect someone?

52:16 Well, it depends very, very much on who made the acid and what method they used for making it. There are quite a few different methods of doing it. And Bear and I and Nick, at first, all used the Garbrecht method. That method produces LSD before you purify it that is a mixture of LSD, iso-LSD, and some unreacted lysergic acid. So, it needs to be purified by preparative column chromatography and then by crystallization to make it really pure. The preparative column chromatography seperates the iso-LSD from the normal LSD and if you care about yield you can recycle the iso-LSD by racemizing it and turning it mostly back into normal LSD, which then requires further chromatography, so you end up having a little recycling loop running in your lab.

53:22 The first LSD that Bear took was made by a fella named Douglas George, who was a engineer and physicist, who had gone to a lecture where he heard a psychologist talk about the wonders of psychedelics, who cited a patent for quote, easy, unquote, process for making LSD. And Douglas George was interested so he went out and got the chemicals together and tried to cook some.

53:99 And he didn't bother doing the purification steps because he thought, well the dose is so small, any impurities would be inconsequential. And then he gave away the acid that he made: It was sort of green goo — I'm not sure how he dosed it out, maybe on sugar cubes, one way or another — but it took quite a lot of the green goo that he made in order to get you high...because it was very impure.

54:43 So, the first acid that Owsley took was that stuff from Douglas George...and he thought the experience was interesting, but he didn't really get charmed and captivated by LSD until a friend of his, his lawyer, Hal Matthews, gave him a dose of pure Sandoz LSD. And the way he described it, the difference was like the difference between day and night. And after taking pure LSD, he realized that what he needed to do was make LSD so he would have LSD that he knew was pure to take.

55:30 Now, if you wanna know what's in impure LSD, in some processes it could be unreacted ergot alkaloids, you know, people who are using the Hofmann method with hydrazine might have unreacted ergot alkaloids in there along with LSD and iso-LSD and who knows what else. Some of those chemicals can have adverse effects in small doses. And who knows, I mean, I feel maybe Bear had some insight in saying that people's intentions certainly make a difference too: I think the people who take the trouble to purify the LSD that they make so that it's very pure are at least somewhat more likely to have pure intentions in what they're doing.

 

[pupnik]

cosmic intent for sure

 

[Ismene2]

There is a line I heard or read Nick Sand say once - "You have to get the LSD purity over 99% - it makes a big difference". And after trying Dr Seuss LSD I think he was right.

 

[red22]

Tim Scully comments about a supposedly easy method of synthesizing LSD. That needs to be elaborated on:

Long gone are the days when a guy like Owsley, with only a little training and a smart wife, could buy pure ergotamine [tartrate] and all the other chemicals needed to brew legendary acids like White Lightning and Orange Sunshine. Today's operator must be prepared to isolate lysergic acid precursors from materials like ergot, morning glory seeds, or Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds. He must also be ready and able to synthesize in pure form closely watched organic reagents like diethylamine.

Practical LSD Manufacture. Uncle Fester (Stephen Preisler), 1995, 2006. Festering Publications: Green Bay, WI. ISBN: 9780970148575. (1. LSD Production: An Overview, p. 2)


You were one of the major acid chemists of the Sixties, but apart from supplying the LSD, in what other way did you help stage The Acid Tests?

I am not, and never was, a "chemist". I am no more scientifically qualified in chemistry than someone who can bake a great wedding cake is. I was soundman for a band, Grateful Dead, who were the house band at the Acid Tests.

I called you a chemist because that is what you are referred to in most literature. Also, I assumed anyone making acid had to be a chemist, considering the fact that every time manufacturing is mentioned they always go on about how hard it is to produce it.

Difficulty has more to do with reading ability and ability to precisely follow directions, so far as I can see. You need no knowledge of chemistry whatsoever, you just need to understand some basic principles as simple in concept as: water boils at 100C and freezes at 0C. Otherwise all published syntheses of organic and inorganic compounds can be reproduced successfully by pretty nearly anyone with at least average intelligence. I had only one semester of inorganic chem 11 years earlier. It took me just three weeks in a library to learn all the principles I needed to do what I had to do, including how to change standard glassware to make it work better. Simple really. Problems always have to do with availability of materials, not esoteric knowledge.

“Wolfe is Useless”: Owsley Stanley on the Merry Pranksters and the Acid Tests. Henrik Dahl, The Oak Tree Review, Jan 2003

 

[JackARoe]

This reminds me of the good/bad LSD thread. Remove the iso-lsd and stuff. I would love to ask the question, if LSD breaks down to iso-lsd would not even the purist acid turn into more iso-lsd? And iso is inactive?

Would love to hear from Sand and Owsley too at this point in time for more clarity. I will say growing up in the 80s there was plenty of good clean acid. Some of those WOW blotters would just gently bring you to a strong trip without the come up. Clean like mescaline.

Only once I believe I had "bad acid". It was in Houston and only one time I got a blotter from a NON Deadhead friend. I always got quality before this. But this one e time I took a blotter from someone else and it was sort of gross. Bad physical effects and the patterns were not clear. I remember going home and eating 150 morning glories to fix it and I called it "correct 0- trip". That was only time. All other stuff through people in the Dead scene and my Deadhead friends from San Fran was fabulous. There seemed to be a new batch made for every tour.

But yeah, there is still some fogginess on the whole thing. Imagine a sit down with these 3 here in 2024. All we have is the literature.

 

[red22]

I remember going home and eating 150 morning glories to fix it and I called it "correct 0- trip".

The natural ergolines are just such an enigma. Many people believe that they're a rather decent psychedelic, but it can't be denied that they cause an unpleasant body load. The predominant ergoline in MG seeds isn't "LSA", it's penniclavine,[1] and one document theorizes that clavines cause convulsive ergotism[2] (a milder form of ergotism). People say that chemical extractions reduce the side effects,[3] so presumably the penniclavine and anything similar is being reduced in number during such a process, but the thing is even synthetic "LSA" and ergonovine (lysergic acid hydroxymethylethylamide, found in qtys. between ⅒ and ⅓ of "LSA"[1]) have induced toxic effects.[4] All I know is I was so taken at how LSD-like and elegant one of my highs was last year, but the body load did bother me, so I wish that a proper, "clean" version of LSA and/or ergonovine and/or whatever can become a thing, but that will only happen if they're actually non-toxic. Maybe you really do need to go into artificial territory to get something respectable out of these chemicals: if so, lysergic acid ethylamide sounds very intriguing, essentially an analog of "LSA" and ergonovine.[5]

In an effort to remedy the gross lack of info about this subject, I've recently enriched the "LSA" Wikipedia article and created an archive in my Shroomery journal (indeed, I requested to the site founder that we have the option to make journal entries viewable by non-members): https://www.shroomery.org/forums/postlist.php/Journal/240779


1. Identification and determination of ergot alkaloids in Morning Glory cultivars. Nowak J, Woźniakiewicz M, Klepacki P, Sowa A, Kościelniak P. 2016. Anal Bioanal Chem. 408(12):3093-102. doi: 10.1007/s00216-016-9322-5


2. “Clavines are thought to contribute substantially to convulsive ergotism, since C. fusiformis ergots, which possess clavines, but no [lysergic acid] or lysergyl amides, cause convulsive symptoms (26). However, the ergopeptines are known to produce similar symptoms, and are also thought to cause gangrenous ergotism (6). The occurrence of convulsive ergotism without dry gangrene suggests that other clavine or lysergyl alkaloids are involved, or that individual effects of specific ergopeptines may give clinically different syndromes (6).”

Schardl CL, Panaccione DG, Tudzynski P (2006). Ergot alkaloids--biology and molecular biology. The Alkaloids. Chemistry and Biology. 63. Elsevier: 45–86. doi:10.1016/s1099-4831(06)63002-2


3. u/cpL-Incident-Loud reports 'zero side effects'[A] Kash, the author of an extraction featured on the sidebar of r/LSA describes his extract as 'a purified extract with staggering results' comparable to LSD.[ B ] dmthead420 describes his polar-nonpolar extract as 'all trip, no bodyload'[C] One person on r/LSA stated the following:

...it's the concentration of bullshit sickening alkaloids that pushes people away from cwe and oral seed consumption.

...and that only a np/p followed by freeze precipitation then an a/b is capable of largely eliminating Vasoconstriction. I take extremely high doses so I know that kashs advanced LSA extraction is the way to go if you want to dose high without Vasoconstriction and other issues.[D]

A. reddit

B. LSA truly psychedelic? or just sedative?

C. LSA the Easy Way.. All trip, No Bodyload....

D. reddit


4. "LSA":

“The expression and behavior of the test subjects changed just 45 minutes after taking the substance: the test subjects appeared to be suffering, their facial expressions were deteriorating as if they had suffered a serious illness, and their movements were noticeably slower.”

“In the self-reports of both test subjects, complaints about vegetative symptoms predominated: unpleasant, flu-like feeling of illness, nausea, sudden onset of nausea, with vomiting that could be stopped with 2 cm3 of Cyclicinum hydrochloricum. In addition, sensations of heat, sweating, dizziness, a feeling of heaviness and general tiredness were observed.”

Heim E, Heimann H, Lukács G (1968). Die psychische Wirkung der mexikanischen Droge „Ololiuqui“ am Menschen. Psychopharmacologia (in German). 13 (1): 35–48. doi:10.1007/BF00401617. 3. Results / a) ᴅ-Lysergic acid amide, pages 38–39

Ergonovine:

“Walking in this dreamy state was difficult due to leg cramps and slight incoordination. There was always a great desire to lie supine.”

“One of us (J.B.) felt the cramping in the legs as painful and debilitating.”

“We all had a slight hangover the following morning.”

“The mild entheogenic effects of ergonovine are similar to those of LSD. However, in dramatic contrast to LSD, the somatic effects of ergonovine greatly overshadow its psychic effects, so much so that we had no wish to ingest more than 10.0 mg,”

Bigwood J, Ott J, Thompson C, Neely P (January 1979). Entheogenic effects of ergonovine. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs. 11 (1–2): 147–149. doi: 10.1080/02791072.1979.10472099


5. “A substance very closely related to LSD, the monoethylamide of lysergic acid (LAE-32), in which an ethyl group is replaced by a hydrogen atom on the diethylamide residue of LSD, proved to be some ten times less psychoactive than LSD. The hallucinogenic effect is also qualitatively different: it is characterized by a narcotic component. This narcotic effect is yet more pronounced in lysergic acid amide (LA-111), in which both ethyl groups of LSD are displaced by hydrogen atoms. These effects, which I established in comparative self-experiments with LA-111 and LAE-32, were corroborated by subsequent clinical investigations.”

Albert Hofmann. LSD: My Problem Child (1979, 1980), ISBN: 9780070293250. 3. Chemical Modifications of LSD

 

[red22]

Welcome back to The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s psychedelic newsletter serving up news, culture, and events from the underground straight to your inbox.

Per usual, today’s dispatch is packed with wild stories. One of which is about Willy Myco, the multi-hyphenate mycologist, chemist, and content creator, who traveled to Pakistan to record a step-by-step instructional video on how to make LSD. It’s the first REAL, detailed recording of someone making the compound — not a cheesy voiceover tutorial on LSD synthesis paired with flashy visuals of molecules. This story truly has it all: calls from the FBI, scientists in Pakistan, death threats, and more. From the bottom of my bleeding heart, you DON’T want to miss drugs journalist Patrick Maravelias’ dazzling DB debut. You can find it below!

If you keep scrolling, you’ll find an opus on the evolution of modern psychedelic art (another story that truly has it all) by prolific writer and journalist Julia Edelman, and stories on glow-in-the-dark mushrooms, why people have bad trips, and so much more.

Sending sunshine,

Mary Carreón
Senior Editor

Dec 19, 2024


Willy Myco Just Released the First-Ever Video Demonstrating How to Synthesize LSD. Patrick Maravelias, Dec 18, 2024, DoubleBlind

After all that, the lead chemist at the University of Okara, Dr. Ali Altaf, performed the synthesis on video, and Willy released it to his Patreon on Halloween night with step-by-step instructions on how to make LSD in very simple terms. As someone with no knowledge of organic chemistry whatsoever, I was able to follow along with the video very easily.

“Literally a grandma could take my video, watch it, and produce LSD,” says Willy.

This quote corroborates Owsley's statement:

You were one of the major acid chemists of the Sixties, but apart from supplying the LSD, in what other way did you help stage The Acid Tests?

I am not, and never was, a "chemist". I am no more scientifically qualified in chemistry than someone who can bake a great wedding cake is. I was soundman for a band, Grateful Dead, who were the house band at the Acid Tests.

I called you a chemist because that is what you are referred to in most literature. Also, I assumed anyone making acid had to be a chemist, considering the fact that every time manufacturing is mentioned they always go on about how hard it is to produce it.

Difficulty has more to do with reading ability and ability to precisely follow directions, so far as I can see. You need no knowledge of chemistry whatsoever, you just need to understand some basic principles as simple in concept as: water boils at 100C and freezes at 0C. Otherwise all published syntheses of organic and inorganic compounds can be reproduced successfully by pretty nearly anyone with at least average intelligence. I had only one semester of inorganic chem 11 years earlier. It took me just three weeks in a library to learn all the principles I needed to do what I had to do, including how to change standard glassware to make it work better. Simple really. Problems always have to do with availability of materials, not esoteric knowledge.

“Wolfe is Useless”: Owsley Stanley on the Merry Pranksters and the Acid Tests. Henrik Dahl, The Oak Tree Review, Jan 2003


Related:

The Sunshine Makers (documentary). 2015. Cosmo Feilding-Mellen, Connie Littlefield, Passion Pictures, Persephone Productions, FilmRise

The fascinating untold story of Nicholas Sand and Tim Scully, the unlikely duo at the heart of 1960s American drug counterculture. United in a utopian mission to save the planet through the consciousness- raising power of LSD, these underground chemists manufactured a massive amount of acid, all while staying one step ahead of the feds.


Tracking the Supply of LSD. Trafficked, S3E2, National Geographic, Jan 25, 2023


Der Hype um legales LSD in Deutschland: Wie das Verbot umgangen wird. VICE auf Deutsch, Aug 7, 2022, YouTube (3:32) (Interview with the man who invented LSD prodrugs)

 

[perpetualdawn]

There is a line I heard or read Nick Sand say once - "You have to get the LSD purity over 99% - it makes a big difference". And after trying Dr Seuss LSD I think he was right.

I'm really torn when I hear something like that. On the one hand, it's Nick Sand, how could I even question what he has to say on the matter?

On the other hand, rationally, why would 98% LSD be any different from 99% LSD? On a 100µg dose you're talking about 99µg vs 98µg, and in either situation, whether it's in blotter or liquid or whatever, that dose is mixing in your mouth or guts and then bloodstream with all kinds of other molecules that make it 0.00001% (or whatever) pure. So why would that 1µg of impurity in the dose even matter?

I don't want to be cavalier and brush his (so many other old acid heads) wisdom aside. I'd entertain the possibility of some metaphysical phenomenon to explain, but sticking with rationality first, how does this make sense?

It could be suggestive power, that knowing you're taking extremely pure LSD enhances expectations. We all know how much of a feedback loop there is with psychedelics and state of mind.

It could be that with LSD specifically, there is some common synthesis byproduct(s) that interfere with the trip and are active at even lower doses than LSD - I think this has been discussed at length on the web with no obvious smoking gun.

It does seem like this sort of claim comes up a lot more with LSD than with other compounds, maybe there's something special about LSD, or its synthesis byproducts.

Maybe there is some metaphysical/alchemical magic going on that we don't understand from conventional material perspective. If that really is, LSD must be a vehicle for magnifying that sort of thing. It certainly seems like it sometimes when tripping.

 

[JackARoe]

I'm really torn when I hear something like that. On the one hand, it's Nick Sand, how could I even question what he has to say on the matter?

I have to admit when a person passes on all we are left with is their own quotes. For this very reason I will not read a biography. I will an autobiography due to the person themselves participating. I mean even reading the Miles Davis autobiography, Miles Ahead, he even says he was fuzzy on memory before telling a story. But I always thought the game of "telephone" factors in on second hand info if the person is not here to clarify.. I am not saying that is what this is, but what I am saying is it would be fabulous if Nick Sand were still here and could answer those questions.

It could be suggestive power, that knowing you're taking extremely pure LSD enhances expectations. We all know how much of a feedback loop there is with psychedelics and state of mind.

I think that is a possibility too. I remember the story of Owsely taking the same batch of acid and making them different colors. People thought the effects were different. One was speedy and the other clean. But was in fact the same batch. Now as I say that I realize Mr. Stanley is not with us to elaborate more on that. All we have is the literature.

 

[Deleted member 521610]

bear stanley had a great interview 10 years ago here

owsely is a humble guy and very great insights.

He also makes a statment saying the folk who redosed a tab before the 45 min mark were on a two stage rocket that instead of just taking two hits it was more like 4, and that they had already dosed them at 300 ug a hit back then lol.

 

[Deleted member 521610]

Read this book by stanislov grof you want to discover the acutal powers of LSD.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Adventure-Self-Discovery-Consciousness-Perspectives-Psychotherapy/dp/0887065414

During a cancer study people cured themselves of cancer taking LSD

“In our program of LSD therapy for cancer patients, we have repeatedly observed that individuals suffering from various forms of malignancy were able to connect experientially with their tumors on a tissue and cellular level. They have often made spontaneous attempts to use this experience for healing by creating psychologically positive energy fields, confronting negative emotions they felt were associated with the disease process, mobilizing the defenses of the organism, or attacking mentally the tumors. Several instances of surprising temporary remissions which occurred in this context suggest that this possibility should be systematically explored”.

Tim leary autobiography

Leary’s autobiography, Flashbacks:

Aldous looked at me quizzically. “So you don’t know what to do with this bloody philosopher’s stone we have stumbled onto? In the past, this powerful knowledge has been guarded in privacy, passed on in the subdued, metaphorical obscurantism of scholars, mystics and artists.”

“But society needs this information,” I said, passionately. My anti-elitist button had been pushed.

“These are evolutionary matters. They cannot be rushed. Work privately. Initiate artists, writers, poets, jazz musicians, elegant courtesans, painters, rich bohemians. And they’ll initiate the intelligent rich. That’s how everything of culture and beauty and philosophic freedom has been passed on. Your role is quite simple. Become a cheerleader for evolution. That’s what I did and my grandfather before me. These brain-change drugs, mass-produced in the laboratories, will bring about vast changes in society. This will happen with or without you or me. All we can do is spread the word. The obstacle to this evolution, Timothy, is the Bible.”

“I don’t remember any discussion of brain-change drugs in the Bible.”

“Timothy, have you forgotten the very first chapters of Genesis? Jehovah says to Adam and Eve, ‘I’ve built you this wonderful resort eastward of Eden. You can do anything you want, except you are forbidden to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.'”

“The first controlled substances.”

“Exactly. The Bible begins with Food and Drug prohibitions.”

“So, the Fall and Original Sin were caused by the taking of illegal drugs.”

 

[JackARoe]

^ I have had that stanislov grof book in my library for probably over 35 years. I actually had double the books I have now in my library, but somewhere along the line a lot of them got missing. But that is a good book, not sure what to think about the breath work. It never seemed to have gone anywhere. Interesting anyway though.

 

[Bitchniggaz]

Text transcripts of the sections below.

An Interview with Nick Sand (18:43–20:09). Intellectual Deep Web, 4/25/17, YouTube

Orange Sunshine LSD Inventor Tim Scully Interview (51:38–56:33). STUFF STONERS LIKE, 11/06/2019, YouTube

Transcripts:

Nick Sand:

And I ran into Owsley at Millbrook, and he invited me also, and he became a strong critic of the purity of my psychedelic sacrament and gave me a few verbal boots in the ass about it and so I endeavored to produce something that was finer than even pharmaceutical grade and I succeeded. And that's why the onset of the LSD that I made is always so smooth...uh, not always, because some people don't have the right set and setting, but if they do, it is very smooth because LSD is a magnifying intensifier, and so if there are other [sic] impurities in it, even though they wouldn't normally have any effect on you, you can see them under this microscope and macroscope that you experience during the LSD experience.

LSD not made in Owsley's tradition and in Tim Scully's tradition of making absolutely pure double-recrystallized chromatographed LSD, if you don't have that, you will have a good experience, probably, but it won't be as good and it won't be as smooth, but it will still work.


Tim Scully:

51:38 Well, I do believe that people generally appreciate pure LSD and if they're given a choice, that's what they'll go for.

52:04 [Interviewer] Could you maybe explain what purity is, what that means? What's left in it that would make it unpure [sic] and how does that affect someone?

52:16 Well, it depends very, very much on who made the acid and what method they used for making it. There are quite a few different methods of doing it. And Bear and I and Nick, at first, all used the Garbrecht method. That method produces LSD before you purify it that is a mixture of LSD, iso-LSD, and some unreacted lysergic acid. So, it needs to be purified by preparative column chromatography and then by crystallization to make it really pure. The preparative column chromatography seperates the iso-LSD from the normal LSD and if you care about yield you can recycle the iso-LSD by racemizing it and turning it mostly back into normal LSD, which then requires further chromatography, so you end up having a little recycling loop running in your lab.

53:22 The first LSD that Bear took was made by a fella named Douglas George, who was a engineer and physicist, who had gone to a lecture where he heard a psychologist talk about the wonders of psychedelics, who cited a patent for quote, easy, unquote, process for making LSD. And Douglas George was interested so he went out and got the chemicals together and tried to cook some.

53:99 And he didn't bother doing the purification steps because he thought, well the dose is so small, any impurities would be inconsequential. And then he gave away the acid that he made: It was sort of green goo — I'm not sure how he dosed it out, maybe on sugar cubes, one way or another — but it took quite a lot of the green goo that he made in order to get you high...because it was very impure.

54:43 So, the first acid that Owsley took was that stuff from Douglas George...and he thought the experience was interesting, but he didn't really get charmed and captivated by LSD until a friend of his, his lawyer, Hal Matthews, gave him a dose of pure Sandoz LSD. And the way he described it, the difference was like the difference between day and night. And after taking pure LSD, he realized that what he needed to do was make LSD so he would have LSD that he knew was pure to take.

55:30 Now, if you wanna know what's in impure LSD, in some processes it could be unreacted ergot alkaloids, you know, people who are using the Hofmann method with hydrazine might have unreacted ergot alkaloids in there along with LSD and iso-LSD and who knows what else. Some of those chemicals can have adverse effects in small doses. And who knows, I mean, I feel maybe Bear had some insight in saying that people's intentions certainly make a difference too: I think the people who take the trouble to purify the LSD that they make so that it's very pure are at least somewhat more likely to have pure intentions in what they're doing.

Really hope this puts the end to the BS that "LSD is LSD, purity is a marketing trick".

If the chemists themselves say that there is a difference then the internet knowitalls should chill and try to learn something.

 

[perpetualdawn]

Really hope this puts the end to the BS that "LSD is LSD, purity is a marketing trick".

If the chemists themselves say that there is a difference then the internet knowitalls should chill and try to learn something.

I agree with what you're saying, but what's the reason why LSD purity matters? Is it an immaterial/metaphysical reason, or is it the power of suggestion, or is there something within normal chemistry and physics that explains it?

Does iso-LSD or other synth byproducts/intermediates bind with the receptors and behave in an undesirable way?
Is it psychology?
Is it magic?

 

[Bitchniggaz]

I agree with what you're saying, but what's the reason why LSD purity matters? Is it an immaterial/metaphysical reason, or is it the power of suggestion, or is there something within normal chemistry and physics that explains it?

Does iso-LSD or other synth byproducts/intermediates bind with the receptors and behave in an undesirable way?
Is it psychology?
Is it magic?

Thats a good question indeed.
Maybe all of the above?

Im certainly a believer in the Alchemical theories of the past.
That modern chemistry ignores the non material aspect of making potions, pills and powders etc.

However im still fairly grounded in whatever science i somewhat understand aswell.

Imo science is Magic and vice versa, its just different technologies that are based on various theories.

 

[red22]

I think you guys will appreciate my response to a reply in my Shroomery thread, you, especiallly, BN:

Nah, that's just ridiculous, "green tar LSD" is bad, unlike black tar heroin.

At burning man he knowingly gave away a really bad batch of LSD; you know the muddy black stuff. It caused several people to go into convulsions.

Krystle Cole speaking about Todd Skinner, circa ~2005. James Kent interviews Krystal Cole

The one time I worked with champagne crystal I felt like I was poisoned. It was black nasty shit and I only ate a tiny speck not a thumbprint.

chinacat72, 2/2/04, Re: LSD death


Owsley tried Nick Sand's LSD and felt the difference and subsequently educated him about the importance of purificatory procedure. Owsley could feel that Sand's initial LSD was different, and it wasn't just a subtle feeling. I speak from experience. I recently ordered some 1V-LSD, in part because I was intrigued by the fact that it's fat-soluble. I was surprised to see that this fat-solubility has a noticeable effect on the experience: you can feel it slowly moving through your veins like oil, as opposed to the quick flow of aqueous material.* This also subdued the effect and made it less psychedelic, more like MG seeds. Intrigued, I ordered more. This next batch felt a bit similar, i.e. unique from LSD, but it was like running your hand across a rusted bar instead of a smooth one. It reall was that different. A staticy radio signal would be another comparison.

So, in spite of the lack of technical data (probably primarily because of legalities), people can feel the difference, and, indeed, Nick Sand said that the LSD, itself, enables one to feel that difference, i.e. an otherwise trivial impurity is magnified under the "microscope" of LSD, just as everything else is. Scully hints that people have distinguished between clean and unclean LSD over the years; the float tank pioneer guy in this video mentions it: Sensory Deprivation Tanks: Part 1/3 (Documentary) [7:24]. Hamilton’s Pharmocopeia S1 E14. Vice. Apr 30, 2014

“Gotta get the clean stuff, right?” [7:24]


... because LSD is a magnifying intensifier, and so if there are [...] impurities in it, even though they wouldn't normally have any effect on you, you can see them under this microscope and macroscope that you experience during the LSD experience. – Nick Sand (see the top of this post)

The capacity of LSD and some other psychedelic drugs to exteriorize otherwise invisible phenomena and processes and make them the subject of scientific investigation gives these substances a unique potential as diagnostic instruments and as research tools for the exploration of the human mind. It does not seem inappropriate and exaggerated to compare their potential significance for psychiatry and psychology to that of the microscope for medicine or the telescope for astronomy.

Grof, Stanislav. 1975. Realms of the human unconscious: Observations from LSD research. New York: Viking Press. 1. General Introduction / Heuristic Value of LSD Research


*And, by the way, I confirmed this with another person:

- You didn't find 1V to have a slow release effect and a unique body high?

- Yes it took 3 hours to start

- But was the effect itself slowed down? And did you find that its body high was unique?

- Yeah it had its quirks, but LSD

Src: reddit, Dec 30–31

 

[JackARoe]

The natural ergolines are just such an enigma. Many people believe that they're a rather decent psychedelic, but it can't be denied that they cause an unpleasant body load.

For the most part I agree Red. I was 19 when I did that. But there is a difference from seeds I just plucked off a vine and seeds sitting around for months. Something changes. Fresh Morning Glories and HBWS can be very strong and have little side effects and give a great trip. But I think somewhere in your post is the reason as maybe time changes the content. I have had fresh seeds that were as potent and nice as good LSD. Then again I have had stale seeds that all they did was give a slight effect and nausea. On the fresh I never got nausea. So I learned to only use fresh. Morning Glories thrive and grow like crazy. The vines always gave way more seeds than I could get to.. Honestly just once every few years to remind myself.

I am always the guy that says Morning Glories are underrated. If that were the only psychedelic on earth we would still be lucky. And even when I had great acid some years in the late Fall I would take some fresh seeds. They remind me of LSD with a natural spirit. I had some very strong visuals that felt great on some of those trips. Organic.