R.I.P Albert Hofmann
11 January 1906 – 29 April 2008
He was the Swiss chemist who accidentally
invented LSD and then tested it on himself
in the first human LSD trial.
Bicycle Day is April 19, commemorating
April 19, 1943, when Dr. Albert Hofmann
first took LSD intentionally.
Three days earlier, he had absorbed
a small amount of the drug either through
his fingertips or by accidentally ingesting it.
On Bicycle Day, he took 250 µg of LSD
intentionally and, fearing he had made
himself ill, cycled home from his lab. During
his bicycle ride, he experienced the effects
of LSD, making this the date of the first ever
acid trip. He wrote about his experiments and
experience on April 22, which was later put
into his book LSD: My Problem Child. (1980)
Why "My Problem Child"?
He strongly believes LSD can be
a beneficial way for one to get to know
oneself and experience other worlds, but
only if the user is mentally and physically
prepared for the journey. Kids in the 60s
getting drunk and dropping ten hits gave
the drug a bad name, to say the least...
"I think that in human evolution it has never
been as necessary to have this substance
LSD... It is just a tool to turn us into what we
are supposed to be."
Albert Hofmann died of natural causes on April
29, 2008 in the village of Burg im Leimental,
near Basel, Switzerland. He was 102 years old.
