“One often asks oneself what roles planning and chance play in the realization of the most important events in our lives”
– Albert Hofmann in a 1996 Worlds of Consciousness Conference speech in Heidelberg, Germany
Man smoking pipe with bicycle, 1920’s
Bicycle Ride
On November 16, 1938 a ripple in the reality of life was created. That ripple would go unnoticed for 5 years until the man who crated it would grab his bike and ride the wave into a new reality!
Man smoking pipe and riding bicycle golden gate park San Francisco, 1935
Albert Hofmann working for Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland was on the hunt for new medication from the natural world. The basis for his studies was to create a drug to stimulate circulation and respiration.
In November of 1938 he began his work on synthesizing rye ergot. On the 16th while synthesizing his 25th lysergic acid combination he created Lysergic acid diethylamide, known today as LSD-25!
While testing this new ‘lsd-25’ solution on his lab animals, he noted…
“The new substance, however, aroused no special interest in our pharmacologists and physicians; testing was therefore discontinued.”
After unsuccessful results, his lsd-25 solution would be scrapped in the study to continue testing on more promising drugs.
Dr. Albert Hoffman in his laboratory at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland.
“I did not choose LSD; LSD found and called me.”
– Albert Hofmann
Five years later like a buried Jamanji game, Hofmann would feel the urge to remake a batch of his lsd-25 for further testing.
During the final phase while the LSD crystallized into a salt, Hofmann began to feel some intoxicating effects. Although he had been careful during his synthesis, a tiny amount of lsd had touched his fingertip…
Leaving work sick, he later wrote his boss,…
“I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dream-like state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted steam of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.”
– Albert Hofmann about his first accidental trip on April 16, 1943
Albert Hofmann working in his Sandoz lab in Switzerland
Wanting to recreate the accidental trip for further study, Hofmann decided to dose himself properly.
At exactly 4:20 on April 19, 1943 Hofmann decided to experiment with lsd-25 by dosing himself. Only telling his assistant of his plan, he sucked up .25milligrams of his lysergic acid diethylamide 25 solution (lsd) diluting it with about 10 cc water, remarking in his journal that it was “Tasteless”.
His plan was to continue this dose until the effects of the drug could be felt, to his surprise the effects came on quickly.
At 5pm, just 40 minutes after ingesting his first dose, Hofmann wrote his only entry into his lab journal…
“Beginning dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire to laugh”
Feeling the onset of affects of his first official trip, Hofmann asked his assistant to help him home. With WW2 in full swing and fuel rationed, 2 bicycles would serve as the ride on histories first trip!
“Here the notes in my laboratory journal cease. I was able to write the last words only with great effort. By now it was already clear to me that LSD had been the cause of the remarkable experience of the previous Friday, for the altered perceptions were of the same type as before, only much more intense. I had to struggle to speak intelligibly. I asked my laboratory assistant, who was informed of the self-experiment, to escort me home. We went by bicycle, no automobile available because of wartime restrictions on their use.”
– Hofmann later wrote about his first trip
Bicycle ride lsd Blotter sheet art
“I was taken to another world, another place, another time.”
On this first magical bike ride, Hofmann’s trip became overwhelming as he had not predicted such a drastic reaction.
“On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms. Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror. I also had the sensation of being unable to move from the spot. Nevertheless, my assistant later told me that we had traveled very rapidly. Finally, we arrived at home safe and sound, and I was just barely capable of asking my companion to summon our family doctor and request milk from the neighbors.”
Making it safely home he decided to ask the neighbor for milk hoping to dilute the drug in his system. The milk did little to ease the effects as his trip peaked in his living room.
“The dizziness and sensation of fainting became so strong at times that I could no longer hold myself erect, and had to lie down on a sofa. My surroundings had now transformed themselves in more terrifying ways. Everything in the room spun around, and the familiar objects and pieces of furniture assumed grotesque, threatening forms. They were in continuous motion, animated, as if driven by an inner restlessness.”
As the trip went on Hofmann realized he had already peaked, assuring himself he would survive the trip he now began to enjoy the ride.
“little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux. It was particularly remarkable how every acoustic perception, such as the sound of a door handle or a passing automobile, became transformed into optical perceptions. Every sound generated a vividly changing image, with its own consistent form and color.”
Albert Hofmann holding his LSD molecule
Hofmann would continue his experiments with lsd-25 dosing himself throughout his life.
With his mind opened to the possibilities of natural psycidelics, he continued to search the natural world for new psychedelics experimenting with salvia divinorum, morning glory and even managed to synthesis psilocybin deciding to grow his own supply of magic mushrooms he sourced himself in Sierra Mazateca, Mexico.
With further studies into the unknown, Hofmann always seemed to come back to his original creation his “sacred drug” lsd remarking to colleagues,…
“I did not choose LSD; LSD found and called me.”
Hofmann, right, cultivates mushrooms from Sierra Mazateca in his lab
“It gave me an inner joy, an open mindedness, a gratefulness, open eyes and an internal sensitivity for the miracles of creation… I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD. It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be.”
— Albert Hofmann, Speech on 100th birthday
As we prepare for the smoke filled festivities of the 20th, stretch out those lungs with some fresh air of history…
Grab the bike, buy the ticket, take the ride!
Happy Bicycle Day everyone!
Timothy Leary meeting Albert Hofmann in Switzerland 1972
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.”
– William Blake, 1793