Psychotherapists who have worked with LSD have stressed the importance of staying with the drugged patient long after the peak experience. The patient may have "come down" 4-5 hours after the peak, but if he is dismissed from the hospital, he may return the next day for follow-up, and report terrifying aspects of the trip that continued at home. An overnight visit is usually required for hallucinogen therapy. This safeguards against the worst possible situation: for a drugged person to be left alone with his thoughts. Yet that is exactly the situation in which Hofmann found himself, during his first brave trip on LSD. As bewildering his experience, Hoffman was a champion of objectivity. He linked the experience he was having to the drug. Later, he found it amusing that LSD was synthesized in the laboratory, before people began to search for the active chemicals of magic plants.
Hofmann tracked down the story of ergot use to the Demeter cult in Greece. He read about the history and destruction, by Cortez, of the Aztec Empire. The sacred mushrooms were eaten by Indians of Mexico at their feasts and religious ceremonies for more than 3500 years, if scientists are to believe carbon dating of mushroom god stones.
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| From LSD research |
The mushroom cult dates more than thousands of years before Christ. Christian missionaries arriving on the scene in Mexico did not understand "teonanacatl" or the practice of taking the "flesh of the gods" into their own bodies. The ingestion of mushrooms helped the Indians to see the cause of disease and how it should be treated. After a field trip to Mexico, Hofmann identified psilocybin as the psychoactive ingredient from mushrooms.
This man had the lab accident of the century, and the humility to realize that he had stepped into the past, not the future. Nihil sub sole novum. That the chemical psilocybin and the fungus Psilocybe give the same effect has been known for less than 100 years.
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| From satellite g |
References
HOFMANN, A. (1961) "Chemical Pharmacological and Medical Aspects of Psychotomimetics." J. Exp. Med. Sci., 5, 31-51.
COHEN, S. J. (1960) "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide: Side Effects and Complications." Nerv. Ment. Dis., 130, 30-40.
