Stanislav Grof Interviews Dr. Albert Hofmann, Big Sur, California (1984) | Hacker News Reader

Stanislav Grof Interviews Dr. Albert Hofmann, Big Sur, California (1984)

maps.org

70 pointsbenbreen35 comments

Interesting article, especially Hofmann's description of the chemical processes he used and how unusual it was to find a complex compound like a lysergide in both a fungi and a completely unrelated plant. Note that much has been learned since 1984 about the brain receptors (serotonin 5-HT2A receptors) involved, however.

As far as the social problems with psychedelics, they're pretty minor compared to the effects of alcohol, tobacco, amphetamines and opiates (all drugs with various degrees of legality). A lot of the problems stem from consumer mentality across the board, i.e. advertisers have indoctrinated people with the 'more is better' mentality. Probably the most anti-consumerist sentiment ever expressed is 'Less is More' but that's then mentality anyone contemplating experimentation with psychedelics should adopt. The dose-response curve is more exponential than linear or logarithmic.

Incidentally, the psychiatric therapy models tend to involve a single relatively high dose in a controlled setting. This is entirely unlike the current (and much more profitable) pharmaceutical regime of daily dosing with antidepressants or amphetamine derivatives. Likewise, psychedelics have shown vast potential for helping people break free of addictive disorders involving alcohol, tobacco and opiates. Again, this is an unprofitable model for the pharmaceutical and recreational drug industries, who rely on the heavy users for the majority of their profits.

Finally, psychedelics have the interesting effect of distorting sensory perceptions, and if you can't necessarily trust your sensory perceptions, this has a knock-on effect - you might also start doubting things like the validity of government propaganda or the reliability of media publications or the pronouncements of the religious authorities. This can be described as an 'anti-brainwashing' effect - and such independent thinking can be a threat to established power structures in human societies. People who believe that unquestioning faith in authority figures is the cornerstone of social cohesion (aka authoritarian control freaks) are thus very alarmed by psychedelics.

> and how unusual it was to find a complex compound like a lysergide in both a fungi and a completely unrelated plant.

And much has been learned in this area since 1984 as well. Hofmann's discovery was vindicated; symbiotic fungi of the genus Balansia are responsible for producing the ergot alkaloids found in Ipomoea and similar species' seeds. This chemical process is only known from fungi, and turns out NOT to have surprisingly arisen in plants as was apparent when he isolated it from said plants.

I'm pretty skeptical of Stanslav Grof's "perinatal matrix"[1] theories which interpret powerful LSD experiences as stemming from supposed trauma that the person as an infant experienced in the womb or during birth.

There's no way to tell what the fetus/infant experienced in the womb or during birth, because we can't communicate with them, so this is wild conjecture on the part of Grof.

[1] - https://spiritwiki.lightningpath.org/index.php/Perinatal_Mat...

Perhaps it's a little out of step with today's empirical approaches. Sure, it's a (currently) untestable hypothesis but they speak themselves of how LSD could help open us to seemingly unlikely ideas. Besides, if logical positivism hadn't already been abandoned by the time of this interview, it's certainly lost credibility since.

Dr. Hofmann's Assistant from the bicycle ride came to my chemistry class in 2006 or so. (classmate's grandmother). Lovely old lady, it was surprising to hear her describe her drug experiences. I remember her warning us from trying to get it as it is not sold pure.

it might be useful to distinguish between LSD - the drug and journey, and LSD - the social phenomenon via Dr Tim Leary, Burning Man, music bands and the like.. Stan Grof from my point of view, is solid and responsible.. the other side, outrageous and unexpected, with all the ecstasies and injuries associated with such chaotic vigor. Detractors and their allies, law enforcement, quickly point out the social costs, and after decades, I see they are not entirely wrong about that part. Enthusiasm and outright dismissal of the negatives, do not overcome that, and in fact strengthen it.. since you know, drugs have been known to affect a person's judgement over time :-/

(thx for posting "fringe" journey material here on tech-heavy YNews)

It’s hard to untangle the negative aspects from the war on drugs itself. If such substances were integrated into the community in a healthy way it wouldn’t push people into the fringe and into prison.

“I have the feeling that the situation has improved, because you never read in the newspapers about accidents with LSD any more, as it happened in the 1960s practically every day. People who use LSD today know how to use it. Therefore, I hope that the health authorities will get the insight that LSD, if it is used properly, is not a dangerous drug. We actually should not refer to it as drug; this word has a very bad connotation. We should use another name. Psychedelic substances, if they are used in proper ways, are very helpful for mankind.“

There are still accidental injuries with LSD, but they are extremely rare, just as they were in the 1960s. What has changed is the media is no longer repeating the same scare stories over and over.

Maybe improved, but acting crazy on LSD hasn't completely gone away in the new century (see below). I suppose one lesson would be don't take 4 tabs of acid and drink as the guy in the article did, but still LSD isn't something to take lightly. https://sfist.com/2020/12/04/former-youtube-engineer-bettai-...

Is LSD still easy to source? I had heard that what you buy on the streets is never real LSD.

It's been a little while but as of a few years ago it's certainly still widely available. It's easy to get a test kit if you'd like to verify what you have.

The problem is the testing kits only test for known substances. The substance you've been sold could also contain some new designer drug which no test will recognize.

Yeah that's the idea of the test kit. It will change to a specific color if you have LSD. If you have some other designer drug it would either not react, or change to a different color depending on the test.

What I'm talking about is there's both LSD and some novel designer drug in the sample.

In that case the test would show the presence of LSD, but maybe not anything else (despite there being some designer drug there as well).

That's true. I haven't heard of people cutting LSD with other research chemicals. I'm not an expert, but from what I've gathered reading around is that other drugs that are effective at that dosage are sometimes easier to get ahold of but not necessarily cheaper. It's not like cocaine where it's very lucrative to cut the drug with fillers. Coke, after all, is sold by weight while LSD is at such small amounts I'm not sure what cutting it would really gain you. I feel like they're more likely to give you something under dosed and call it a day.

I think it is possible to mail in a dose to a lab that can analyze it on a molecular level. Personally, I think if you can prove the existence of LSD, I would feel reasonably confident that that's the only active ingredient. But you're right, there's no way to know for sure. In any case, one should be careful with these types of things.

You can buy pre-LSD fully legally and easily here in Germany. LSD is illegal, but the pre stage of LSD is not. There is a shop in Berlin (online + retail). you just go there and buy your LSD. the price is fair and the quality is very high as it is being produced in a controlled lab.

How do you go from the pre stage to final stage?

It happens in your body.

Check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1V-LSD

Unless I’m missing something, it doesn’t talk about how it occurs in your body. It seems more like an analog?

This is a pro-drug, the valeroyl indole amide rapidly gets hydrolyzed to LSD in the body. Same thing applies for ALD-52,1P,1B,1cP-LSD. This also means that at some point, these will be made illegal or will fall under blanket "analog" legislation.

It is very easy to source at North American music festivals. Particularly EDM-ish festivals. In fact its very common for people just offer to sell it to you unprompted. (I suspect Europe is similar but I have not really attended festivals there).

"its very common for people just offer to sell it to you unprompted"

But are what they're offering to sell you really LSD?

Sometimes, sometimes not. I believe its extremely important to get drugs tested.

I mean, I would’t know, because it’s illegal. But theoretically, maybe…

Yes, it is quite available, as is 1P-LSD, which is a pro-drug for LSD. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1P-LSD) Just get to know yourself someone in to the EDM scene. Even better if they are, I don’t know, a traveling go-go dancer with good connections.

In my understanding, LSD is rarely faked, even though the production is quite difficult. Because the effective dose to make a person trip is tiny—we are talking about 200 micrograms. So once you do have a production pipeline established, it’s one the absolutely easiest drugs to smuggle and distribute, because it’s just so strong per gram.

I don’t think it’s common for LSD to be be faked, because of that. Your most likely bad outcome with LSD is that it is…just nothing. Like, literally nothing on the blotter paper, or, the paper was exposed to moisture and/or UV light, which destroys the fragile molecule.

unfortunately not anymore. there's a number of legitimately dangerous psychedelics on blotters passed off as LSD, such as 25I-NBOMe. some people love it, some have seizures and die, some people die after several good trips with it. it's a shame because the good trips seem amazing, but it's not worth a horrible death.

After visiting SF it put me off drugs entirely

Even if its a 1% chance of negative permanent effect, its not worth it

If you're not mentally ill you should be ok

I post on the internet, very high chance I am.

Up til now(47) I've only had one bad experience with psychedelics in my life, and it likely came from a research chemical masquerading as LSD. That changed a couple months ago when I started having uncontrollable tics for several weeks after a moderate dose of mushrooms(home grown, so I know what they are). I've had tics most of my adult life, and they are very sporadic, but after tripping it went from once a week or two up to 50-60 a day. Now it's back to a few times a day, but I am questioning if I should ever do them again at this point.

No. The brain is too precious to forsake under some "psychonaut" subculture banner.

While I agree wholeheartedly that our body and mind are too precious to risk, the consumption of psychedelics being just the raising of a banner is skipping over the potential for these chemicals to be effective therapeutic and spiritual aids.

It's a lot less than 1%, but best to take psychedelics with (1) a deep knowledge of what's actually happening[1] and (2) confidence in your support network both during the experience and after.

A bad trip is not necessarily bad—it's information about further work to do. If you don't already have a handle on how to do that kind of work without psychedelics, there's definitely a chance you'll end up stuck, possibly with symptoms you don't want. But it's not just a dice-roll.

Your calculus may also change if you consider the possibility that your life could potentially be 10x or 100x better after investigation & development (via psychedelics or other means). From that perspective, psychedelics can be seen merely as a spiritual power tool. Great for gross cuts, best wielded with precautions in place, and not the right tool for finishing work.

[1] i.e. https://www.qualiaresearchinstitute.org/blog/neural-annealin...

Please "avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents" as the site guidelines ask: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Generic tangents make the threads more shallow and repetitive.

thats a lot of words for 'i hate san francisco'

Reply on news.ycombinator.com