04/17/2023
As some of you may know, L*D was first synthesized on November 16, 1938, by chemist Albert Hofmann, at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland. Dr. Hofmann was working with ergot alkaloids searching for childbirth and headache medicines. He gave L*D to lab animals – to see if it changed their heart rate or stimulated their uterus -- and despite some agitation in the animals nothing apparently happened, so it was not further developed.
Five years later, on Friday April 16th 1943, Hofmann had what he described as a “peculiar presentiment” of the importance of this substance and decided to make a new batch. “I heard the voice of L*D calling me and never before or since have I heard such a voice,” was how he described it at the Spirit of Basel While re-synthesizing L*D, he accidentally absorbed a small amount of the drug and discovered its powerful effects. He described what he experienced to his colleagues: “Last Friday, April 16, I was forced to stop my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and to go home, as I was seized by a peculiar restlessness associated with a sensation of mild dizziness. On arriving home, I lay down and sank into a pleasant inebriated condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed … I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.”
His accidental discovery led him to plan a stronger intentional dosage on himself a few days later on April 19th on what became known as Bicycle Day. It’s the 80th Anniversary this year! Albert signed this painting on his 100th birthday and it will be on display in the Psychedelic Reliquary at Entheon. After Dr. Hofmann’s death at the age of 102 in 2008, his family donated a holy relic to CoSM, Alberts glasses that he wore when he mixed the L*D and took his bicycle ride and that are portrayed on my painting St Albert and the L*D Revelation Revolution. They will be on display with the painting in the Psychedelic Reliquary at Entheon.
