Lysergic Acid Diethylamide - In Memoriam of Albert Hofmann
May 1st, 2008 by Kishore
Dear beloved Albert Hoffman passed away on Tuesday at the ripe old age of 102.
Who’s Albert Hoffman? He’s responsible for the little marvel: LSD.
From the NY Times obit:
“Through my LSD experience and my new picture of reality, I became aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of the animal and plant kingdom,” Dr. Hofmann told the psychiatrist Stanislav Grof during an interview in 1984. “I became very sensitive to what will happen to all this and all of us.”
Years after his initial accidental ingestion of the drug, Hofmann became an advocate of its use…mainly as a tool for psychiatry and he hoped as means to awaken man to his connection to nature. He did emphasize sacred use of the drug, treating it with the reverence that many native societies treated psychoactive plants.
In many ways, I see Hofmann furthering the natural synthesis movement (isolation & replication of active molecules occurring in plants). He was a great service to that area of chemistry.
I have never used LSD, but certainly the drug of “enlightenment” has impacted my life. I’d be without a lot of good albums without it (credit for that joke goes to the eternal Bill Hicks below).
More Info:
NY Times Obit
Erowid Section on Hoffmann
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