Constitution Club

It’s a sad, sad day in the studio.

PARIS — Albert Hofmann, the mystical Swiss chemist who gave the world LSD, the most powerful psychotropic substance known, died Tuesday at his hilltop home near Basel, Switzerland. He was 102.

“Alienation from nature and the loss of the experience of being part of the living creation is the greatest tragedy of our materialistic era. It is the causative reason for ecological devastation and climate change.

Therefore I attribute absolute highest importance to consciousness change. I regard psychedelics as catalyzers for this. They are tools which are guiding our perception toward other deeper areas of our human existence, so that we again become aware of our spiritual essence. Psychedelic experiences in a safe setting can help our consciousness open up to this sensation of connection and of being one with nature.

LSD and related substances are not drugs in the usual sense, but are part of the sacred substances, which have been used for thousand of years in ritual settings. The classic psychedelics like LSD, Psilocybin and Mescaline are characterized by the fact that they are neither toxic nor addictive. It is my great concern to separate psychedelics from the ongoing debates about drugs, and to highlight the tremendous potential inherent to these substances for self-awareness, as an adjunct in therapy, and for fundamental research into the human mind.

It is my wish that a modern Eleusis will emerge, in which seeking humans can learn to have transcendent experiences with sacred substances in a safe setting. I am convinced that these soul-opening, mind-revealing substances will find their appropriate place in our society and our culture.“

Dr. Albert Hofmann
Thursday, 19th April 2007

I hope someday that psychedelics/entheogens find their place in the medical world. Those who have experienced the dimensions of the mind that these compounds unlocked and revealed know that there is something very special, and very different about them. Their clinical uses for exploring the human mind has barely scratched the surface. New studies have recently begun with very positive results offering new hope in the treatment of various addictions, mental disorders and post traumatic stress conditions.

Seeing them scheduled the same as heroin and cocaine, drugs that devastate lives and are highly addictive, is such an injustice.

Experiences on psychedelics tend to make one realize how powerful the human consciousness really is. For many of us, those experiences changed our lives for the better.

I guess you just had to have been there and back to understand.

God speed, Dr. Albert.

St. Albert by Alex Grey–www.alexgrey.com–presented to Dr.Hofmann on his 100th Birthday