LSD

After retiring from his job as director of research at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Albert Hofmann decided to write down the events surrounding his discovery of LSD-25, a psychedelic compound destined to revolutionize Western society and its materialistic view of the world.

The result of this historical account is a book that shines with simplicity and clarity, while at the same time offering a considerable amount of interesting information. The story of LSD opens with the recollection of some visionary experiences that Hofmann underwent during his childhood, which occurred on walks in the forests of his native Switzerland. These 'revelations', according to the author, predisposed him to his professional vocation (understanding the physical structure of the Natural world), and at the same time allowed him, after discovering the psychic effects of LSD, to understand the value that this new substance could offer to the world of the soul in particular and to Western society 'in general'.

After the narration of the research in the laboratory that led him to this important discovery, Hofmann recounts the first investigations that were carried out with LSD, especially in the field of psychiatry, because of the potential of this substance to reveal what is hidden in the human mind (the unconscious). After warning about the dangers of an uncontrolled use of this famous substance, Hofmann, almost without interruption, goes on to narrate his encounter with prominent figures in the world of psychedelia during the 50s and 60s, among whom Jünger, Huxley and Tim Leary are worth mentioning. In a certain way these three characters represent the three positions that were taken during those first years of illusion and bewilderment after the rediscovery of entheogens in the Western world. Jünger was always of the opinion that the use of these drugs should be kept in a restricted sphere of intellectuals, poets and philosophers, while Huxley always held the expectation that a wider use of these tools could offer an opportunity for 'enlightenment' to broad layers of society; finally, Leary opted for the unrestricted popularization of these substances, placing them at the basis of what he intended to be a cultural revolution, with capital letters, in Western society.

And the debate was certainly not for nothing. The West, which in the 20th century had already discarded all contact with transcendence, was faced with the possibility of reopening this relationship and, above all, with a substance that could be produced in large quantities, turning this possibility of reopening contact with the numinous into an authentic mass cultural revolution. It was this potentiality that took LSD from being a promising child prodigy to a creature that, in the words of its creator, would be the child of his desires, an enfant terrible.

Bearing witness to interesting visionary experiences, related by people close to the author, the book delves into philosophical considerations on the cultural changes brought about by the rediscovery of this substance, one of the main protagonists of the 20th century. And while LSD can be considered the main protagonist of this narrative, it also recounts studies that led to the discovery and synthesis of the active principles of sacred mushrooms, the lysergic acid amides of Mexican climbers, as well as the initial studies of an interesting plant: Salvia divinorum.

In short, this essay on LSD, written by its discoverer himself -a person who, in spite of the headaches that his problematic creature has caused him, has never abandoned it-, bets on a wise use of this substance, seeing it as a valuable opportunity to rediscover that which is transcendent in human nature, as well as our relationship with everything created.

Albert Hofmann is the scientist who discovered LSD almost by chance while researching the healing properties of ergot in the laboratories of the Sandoz company in Basel. He is thus the true father of the controversial d-lysergic acid diethylamide, the most widespread psychedelic drug in the 1960s. This story is the testimony of a problematic legacy that served to expand the limits of consciousness to unsuspected horizons and gave rise to a social phenomenon known as the 'drug culture'.

Hofmann recounts his experiences with LSD and other psychotropic drugs, his relationship with writers and psychologists dedicated to investigating the frontiers of perception; and he does not forget to take critical and authoritative stock of both the harmful effects of hallucinogen abuse and its positive application in science.