LSD as a Spiritual Aid

The following is excerpted from Spiritual Growth with Entheogens edited by Thomas B. Roberts, available from Inner Traditions.

Albert Hofmann, Ph.D., Dr.Pharm.H.C., Dr.Sc.Nat.H.C., is best known for his serendipitous discovery of LSD and for his chemical work identifying the active principles of the sacred mushroom of Mexico. He was the retired director of research for the Department of Natural Products at Sandoz Pharmaceutical Ltd. in Basel, Switzerland. Dr. Hofmann was a fellow of the World Academy of Science and a member of the Nobel Prize Committee, the International Society of Plant Research, and the American Society of Pharmacognosy. He wrote many scientific papers and several books: The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens and Plants of the Gods with Richard Evans Schultes, The Road to Eleusis with R. G. Wasson and Carl Ruck, LSD: My Problem Child, and Insight/Outlook.


Born January 11, 1906, Albert celebrated his 100th birthday in excellent health with thousands of grateful admirers at the Spirit of Basel -- a celebration of his life's work (www.lsd.info/en/home.html). Albert died two years later, on April 29, 2008, four months after his wife, Anita, had passed away. His archives and legacy are managed by Dieter Hagenbach at www.gaiamedia.org.

The use of soma (which is the Iranian haoma) is one among many examples of the religious use of drugs and intoxicants that have strange psychological effects. In our own day, Aldous Huxley has advocated the use of mescaline. The weird and glorifying properties of such plants and concoctions have given man a heightened religious experience, a window, as it were, on a world that is normally beyond the range of humdrum senses. --Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind, 1984

Before I start with the report on the role LSD has played in my spiritual development, some general remarks on this very special psychopharmacon are appropriate.

LSD is not a product of planned research. I did not look for it, it came to me. This means to me that a higher authority thought it was necessary now to provide mankind with an additional pharmacological aid for spiritual growth...

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