William s. Burroughs and lsd-6

[DwayneHoover]

Dwayne, I'm sure Hofmann made more than 25 analogs, maybe many more.

Again, there were NOT 25 or more "analogues of LSD" created, that is NOT what "LSD-25" means!!! But that is what Burroughs was pretending it meant in Naked Lunch, that's the joke.

 

[Roger&Me]

Well technically speaking, any lysergamide with substitutions at the amide, the amine or the 2 position of the indole could be considered an "LSD analogue". Semantics, really.

 

[Ismene]

Again, there were NOT 25 or more "analogues of LSD" created, that is NOT what "LSD-25" means!!! But that is what Burroughs was pretending it meant in Naked Lunch, that's the joke.

I'm not convinced Burroughs sense of humour was that well developed. My guess is he believed there were 25 different types of LSD and so did Ralph Metzner by the sound of it. I don't think there's any intent behind it - I think they were both just clueless.

 

[Incunabula]

Dwayne, I'm sure Hofmann made more than 25 analogs, maybe many more. I'm not sure what he did with them though after discovering LSD. The N-Me-N-iPr analog is about 1.5x the potency of LSD in rat drug discrimination, according to the review above, and seems like something Hofmann might have synthesised...

I´m pretty sure he tested them for psychoactivity...............

 

[skillet]

All of them!? Like I said there were probably at least 25, maybe 50-100, I really don't know.

 

[DwayneHoover]

I'm not convinced Burroughs sense of humour was that well developed. My guess is he believed there were 25 different types of LSD and so did Ralph Metzner by the sound of it. I don't think there's any intent behind it - I think they were both just clueless.

Quite possibly correct in that he may have heard "LSD-25" and jumped to some conclusions, but he certainly seems smart enough to have known you can't take such technical nomenclature at face value.

So far as his sense of humor it was quite sophisticated, did you ever actually read any of his books? Though usually trending towards a very dark and sarcastic humor, needling the asshole power elietes who like to feel they rule the planet.

Naked Lunch and Junkie are pretty dour but still funny. Soft Machine and Wild Boys alot funnier. And his final trilogy, his best work, just brilliant genius stuff Cities of the Red Night / Place of Dead Roads / Western Lands are a hallucinatory mash-up, outside of time, of just about everything and full of humor and pathos and amazing language and depictions and ideas that just make you reel. CHECK THEM OUT!!! Some very good reviews up at the Amazon.com page for Western Lands http://www.amazon.com/Western-Lands-William-S-Burroughs/dp/0140094563

You cant go by that abortion of a film, Cronnenberg's fascinating but false version of Naked Lunch, just awful if you are looking for a filmic version of the novel... I hate him for that... totally misrepresented Burroughs writing and in fact he screweed up the story, it was 75% Cronnenberg, 25% Burroughs. Totally missing due to its structure is the voice of the Narrator whose observations and asides always have the funniest lines and were in many ways the most important parts of the book. Gave nearly everyone a very BAD filtered-by-Cronnenberg idea of what Burroughs was about... focused on the lurid grotesque surface, which Cronnenberg is habitually fixated on, and totally left out all the deeper thought and compassion and humor and yes even tenderness that was behind it.

This is probably not the best example of humor but I dont have alot of time to dig right now so enjoy...

The Johnsons and the Shits

(I like the line "Burroughs describes Shits as incapable of minding “their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a small pox virus has.” :D)

http://www.ashejournal.com/index.php?id=32

Burroughs first encountered the concept of the Johnson Family while still a boy reading the book You Can’t Win by Jack Black. First published in the 1920’s Black’s autobiographical account of hobo life was immensely popular in its day. Burroughs describes the Johnsons in The Place of Dead Roads:

‘The Johnson Family’ was a turn-of-the-century expression to designate good bums and thieves. It was elaborated into a code of conduct. A Johnson honors his obligations. His word is good and he is a good man to do business with. A Johnson minds his own business. He is not a snoopy, self-righteous, trouble-making person. A Johnson will give help when help is needed. He will not stand by while someone is drowning or trapped under a burning car.(1)

In his essay “The Johnson Family,” Burroughs elaborates on the Johnsons’ philosophical placement within his mythic system—explicitly linked them to Manichaeistic dualism:

The Johnson family formulates a Manachean position where good and evil are in conflict and the outcome is at this point uncertain. It is not an eternal conflict since one or the other must win a final victory.(2)

In contrast to the honorable world of hobos and criminals, Burroughs describes a type of person known simply as a ‘Shit.’ Unlike the Johnsons, Shits are obsessed with minding other’s business. They are the town busy body, the preacher, the lawman. Shits are incapable of taking the honorable road of each-to-his-own. Burroughs describes the situation in his essay “My Own Business” thus:

This world would be a pretty easy and pleasant place to live in if everybody could just mind his own business and let others do the same. But a wise old black faggot said to me years ago: ‘Some people are shits, darling.” I was never able to forget it.(3)

In Burroughs’ mythology, the world is one of conflict between the Johnsons and the Shits. A Shit is one who is obsessively sure of his own position at the cost of all other vantages. Burroughs describes Shits as incapable of minding “their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a small pox virus has.”(4) This is more than a offhanded analogy. For Burroughs, Shits are, in actuality, virus occupied hosts—chronically infected by what he terms the Right virus. “The mark of a basic Shit,” Burroughs reminds us, “is that he has to be right.”(5)

The war between the Johnsons and the Shits is an epic one that runs throughout Burroughs writing. Though of immense proportions, like the Gnostic battle between good and evil, the cosmic war is not figured across eternity. It has an end and, for Burroughs, that end is imaginable. It does not come without immense conflict, however. Burroughs tells his reader, “The people in power will not disappear voluntarily.”(6) There is no turning back, once the battle is met. “Once you take up arms against a bunch of shits there is no way back. Lay down your arms and they will kill you.”(7) “Hell hath no more vociferous fury than an endangered parasite.”(8) And remember: “The wild boys take no prisoners.”(9)

In discussing his mythology, Burroughs describes a classic Catch-22: “He who opposes force with counterforce alone forms that which he opposes and is formed by it… On the other hand he who does not resist force that enslaves and exterminate will be enslaved and exterminated.”(10) Burroughs’ work begs the question, how does one resist the forces rallied against one without taking on the virally-tainted of the opposing force. To imagine a permanent solution proves an easy flirtation. In his essay “My Own Business,” Burroughs writes that “one is tempted to seek a total solution to the problem: Mass Assassination Day.”(11)

In The Place of Dead Roads Burroughs imagines a scenario where the Johnson Family organizes into armed squads who fan out to hunt the virally infected. Some Johnsons are assigned as “Shit Spotters” whose task it is to move out into cities and small towns across the country recording those who exhibit virus occupied behaviors. Acting upon the intelligence thus gathered, sharp shooters follow-up eliminating the detected Shits.(12) Ultimately Burroughs tempers his fantasy. He observes, “Probably the most effective tactic is to alter the conditions on which the virus subsists.”(13)

In truth, indifference will prove the end of the Shit problem. “Conditions change, and the virus guise is ignored and forgotten.”(14) Burroughs envisions the Shit position obsoleted by changes in normative culture:

This trend toward sanity has brought the last-ditch dedicated shits out into the open, screaming with rage. Victimless crime, the assumption that what a citizen does in the privacy of his own dwelling is nonetheless someone else’s business and therefore subject to denunciation and punishment is the very lifeline of the right virus. Cutting off this air line would have the same action as interferon, which blocks the oxygen from certain virus strains.(15)

And slowly the Shits are ignored into a dull celluloid sunset.​

 

[DwayneHoover]

"In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or die of boredom."
WHB

 

[Survived Abortion]

You cant go by that abortion of a film, Cronnenberg's fascinating but false version of Naked Lunch, just awful if you are looking for a filmic version of the novel... I hate him for that... totally misrepresented Burroughs writing and in fact he screweed up the story, it was 75% Cronnenberg, 25% Burroughs. Totally missing due to its structure is the voice of the Narrator whose observations and asides always have the funniest lines and were in many ways the most important parts of the book. Gave nearly everyone a very BAD filtered-by-Cronnenberg idea of what Burroughs was about... focused on the lurid grotesque surface, which Cronnenberg is habitually fixated on, and totally left out all the deeper thought and compassion and humor and yes even tenderness that was behind it.

The film wasn't meant to be like the book, in fact it couldn't have been. The way in which the book was written precluded that; he structured the book by taking his writings and physically cutting the manuscripts up and rearranging the pieces. The disorderly chronology and plot is one of the characteristics of Naked Lunch. The movie is a piece of work by itself based on the writings in the book but does not follow any particular plot because there wasn't a cohesive one to start with.

 

[DwayneHoover]

Yea I know and I guess its good people have some exposure to WHB, but I still dislike the fact that many people think its Burroughs they are seeing when they are really seeing Cronnenberg-inspired-by-Burroughs, and they dislike it for whatever reason and never bother to actually read the real WHB, never realizing how EXTREMELY different that film is from the original, like immensely different. Oh well, that's Hollywood, and as you say just the nature of trying to turn such a bizarro book into a film.

I just wanted to put the other heads here on notice that if they've been avoiding actually reading WHB themselves because of that icky gross film COMPLETELY lacking any redeeming or enjoyable qualities... forget the film and go read an actual Burroughs book, you'll be in for quite a treat... he actually does give you alot of things to marvel over and find truly enjoyable and pleasant to think about... all Cronnenberg wants to do is gross you out as much as possible, he has NO other ambitions, IMO, quite pointless.

 

[red22]

Well sure maybe there is a record of the other 24 ergot derivatives. But no reason to think any of them were hyper-potent psychedelics. Just a fictional play-on-words by WHB, very fitting his style. Yea Hoffman's lab notes on the apparently not useful 1-24 could well have been saved by Hoffman or his employer for posterity I suppose, and to remember "things we already tried".

This is what I think too. With all the other ergoloids that we know are psychoactive, there is every possibility that any number of his other ergoloid creations were too. He did invent Hydergine. I fail to see any good reason why Hoffman or Sandoz would have intentionally destroyed his other work. To me it's completely normal that they were archived. And they could definitely have been revisited at some point.

edit: Dwayne, can you elucidate the nature of this "play on words" you speak of?

According to chinacat72 on The Shroomery, Hofmann's lab notes are preserved and are public record.

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/1095558#1095558

 

[EntheoDjinn]

Again, there were NOT 25 or more "analogues of LSD" created, that is NOT what "LSD-25" means!!! .......

Don't know if this is any help. It's from Chapter 1 of "LSD: My Problem Child" by AH (English translation)

"In 1938, I produced the twenty-fifth substance in this series of lysergic acid derivatives:lysergic acid diethylamide,
abbreviated to LSD-25 (Lyserg-saure-diathylamid) for laboratory usage".

and later:

"A substance very closely related to LSD, the monoethylamide of lysergic acid (LAE-23) in which an ethyl group is replaced ........ more pronounced in lysergic acid amide (LA-111), ...."

E

 

[laugh]

i couldnt imagine a junky having very pleasant trips.

mucho respecto for burroughs though, the guy was a genius, such a fantastic author, with huge respect amongst his peers. first book of his i read was 'junkie' and it really opened my eyes. cant say i really enjoyed 'naked lunch', though im definitely a fan!

 

[Ismene]

Don't know if this is any help.

Doesn't Problem child also say LSD-25 was the only active one tho?

 

[EntheoDjinn]

Doesn't Problem child also say LSD-25 was the only active one tho?

In the Section 3* Hoffman states that LAE-23 was "some 10x less powerful" than LSD. He also characterised the effect as having a more "narcotic" component. This narcotic effect with LAE-23 was "yet more pronounced" in LA-111.
(Section 3: Chemical Modifications of LSD)

Hoffman: "Fifteen years later we encountered lysergic acid amide (LA-111) which had been produced synthetically for these investigations, as a naturally occurring active principle of the Mexican magic drug olotiuhqui". So there is a certain amount of psychoactivity in other LSx substances.

E

* there appear to be different section numbers/chapters depending on who translated the book 8(

 

[Ismene]

Yeah but LAE-23 isn't LSD-23 is it? It's a completely different drug, like LA-111.

 

[Solipsis]

Of course it is, with LSD-25 you have to read #25 = LSD. Obviously he wouldn't invent the same compound twice so (taking LSD to be the diethyl amide as we know it LSD ≠ 23, LSD ≠ 6, etc.

Unless (this would be quite confusing), the abbreviation LSD-6 stands for lyserg säure dimethyl amid for example. Then LSD still holds as a name, he just did not happen to accidentally get it all over himself and it is probably some orders of magnitude less potent.

Since this was published I have discovered that the alkaloid of Bannisteria [i.e., ayahuasca] are closely related to LSD6, which has been used to produce experimental psychosis. I think they are up to LDS25 already.

is the footnote of an article supposedly written by him for the British Journal of Addiction. Should be in the back of Naked Lunch.

Furthermore Kesey seems to have spoken about LSD-6 and LSD-25 in the context of CIA mind control programs, those would have been the two tested lysergic compounds... obviously they would be different compounds lol 8(

It makes much more sense that #6 would be something like the dimethyl homologue and the abbreviation would remain the same. A reason for that might be that LSD-6 did not attract all that attention so the neat 3-letter acronym was ripped in favor of LSD-25 that did get widespread attention (that would be an understatement). I guess that's my theory, it satisfies most questions. Also, dimethyl seems like a substitution that logically comes before dimethyl just like monoethyl may fall in between. If not aiming for a pharmacophore, the substitutions should evolve from simple to exotic.

Who knows really, though...

 

[Ismene]

Yeah - even I'm getting confused now solipsis. It wasn't the 25th version of LSD was it - it meant the 25th compound in the series he'd been working on during that research.

 

[red22]

http://isomerdesign.com/PiHKAL/explore.php?domain=pk&id=5051&name=6-Propyl-nor-LSD

 

[Jim Pennington]

There are references to LSD, LSD25 and LSD6 in the both the Burroughs Letters books of 1945-1959 and 1959 - 1974. The first is in a letter to Ginsberg in 1956 in the context of his (Ginsberg's) mother's schizophrenia. It is refered to as LSD. In 1957 (to Alan Ansen) he writes "The LSD6 people are clamming up". (Though he did get an evasive reply from a Dr Tait in Scotland). In 1959 he sends a clipping to Ginsberg from the Herald Tribune and quotes that during withdrawal "..substances similar to LSD 6 are released in the body." And, a month later, refers to LSD6 both in the context of a cancer treatment and of a magnetic phenomena that is not clearly described but may be to do with scrying using a mirror ball whilst under the influence. However, in August 1960, to Brion Gysin, he talks of a trip to Amsterdam . "They have the new hallucinogen there and I have made tentative arrangements to try it. Also LSD-25." (He doesn't say what the "new hallucinogen" is but it is clearly not an LSD). In September , again to Gysin, he writes "I am scheduled for LSD this week under sign of Beaverbrook Press..." This is probably a reference to a very un-scientific drug session out of which some kind of sensationalist piece of journalism was going to be produced (and paid for). At the end of December that year he tells Ginsberg "I did make an LSD6 scene in London and some other more potent hallucinogen that has to be injected..."
This doesn't really help in establishing the difference between -6 and -25, but it does seem to indicate there were two different substances. What I'd like to know is what the "...more potent hallucinogen .." was. As anyone come across Prestonia ? Or Dr Tait?

 

[spacejunk]

Ok...this is a really old thread, but I've seen the documentary in question, and my take on it is that the that made the LSD-6 comment
(Pretty sure it is Peter Weller - the actor who played "William Lee" in film version of Naked Lunch, who is just ignorant).
Burroughs may have had any number of reasons for calling it "LSD-6"
in '50s era correspondence - but I don't think it should be taken as particularly reliable.

Frankly Weller comes off as a bit of an idiot in that interview, to me anyway.
But the references to Leary et al mentioned in the OP - I don't think they are part of the dialogue at all.
Perhaps said poster was high when watching the documentary - I've seen it a number of times and just did a search online - this is the exact quote (riddled with errors and ignorance IMO)

Weller: "Well if you got the yagé papers and, he's the only guy I've ever known to take yagé , which is the absolute sine qua non of hallucinogenic drugs. He's also the guy that Timothy Leary and Baba Ram Dass... had him try psilocybin... take the original CIAs version of LSD, LSD 6, which is like a horse pill of insanity... He was a walking pharmacologist..."

"Walking pharmacologist"? Right...he wasn't a pharmacologist, but a novelist with an interest in drugs.
I take it he means to say "walking pharmacopeia" or something along those lines.

Great documentary - but that is from a pretty shit interview with a pretty ill-informed actor. The CIA did not have their "own version" of LSD.