LSD: My Problem Child—Reflections on Sacred Drugs, Mysticism, and Science
JAMA December 9, 1983 DOI: 10.1001/jama.1983.03340220075044 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstractAbstract
Along with watches and cuckoo clocks, the Swiss produce drugs. They have been doing it for a long time— since Paracelsus of Basel, a contemporary of Columbus. On April 16, 1943, another Basel chemist, Albert Hofmann, was working in his laboratory at Sandoz. His specialty was ergot, a fungus that grows on grains. Starting with lysergic acid, the ergot nucleus, Hofmann had synthesized several medically useful drugs that made Sandoz a great deal of money. On this fateful day, while working with the 25th substance in his series of lysergic acid derivatives (LSD-25), Hofmann began to feel odd. "I sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition," he writes, and perceived an "uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors." Unwittingly, not knowing how he had absorbed the stuff, Hofmann had just taken the first LSD trip. Sandoz, alas, would not make a franc. Later Hofmann
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on LSD, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Experimental Use of Psychedelic (LSD) Psychotherapy | 1970 | Historical analysis | |
| LSD: My Problem Child | 1981 | Historical analysis | |
| On the Use and Abuse of LSD | 1968 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Use of Music in Psychedelic (LSD) Psychotherapy | 1972 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Flashbacks: Recurrent Intrusive Images After the Use of LSD | 1969 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 43
- Global Street Food: la cocina de la calle Diseño interior 2009
- The History of Psychedelics in Psychiatry Pharmacopsychiatry December 7, 2020
- The influence of therapists’ first-hand experience with psychedelics on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy research and therapist training Journal of Psychedelic Studies October 5, 2018
- Dark Classics in Chemical Neuroscience: Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) ACS Chemical Neuroscience February 20, 2018
- The induction of synaesthesia with chemical agents: a systematic review Frontiers in Psychology 2013
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