It is 73 years ago today that one of the most famous cycle rides ever undertaken by a human being took place. Famous to those into such things, at any rate. Our Great Cycling Hero worked for Sandoz, the pharmaceutical people, where he had landed the cushy-sounding number of running the ergot project. looking for something that might be useful, like a cure for migraine (hey, they still haven't found one. Anybody with faith in this pharma lark, take a quick reality check). He had been quietly synthesising new substances for eight years (definitely a cushy number). One day in April 1943, a curious whim overcame him. There was something he had synthesised back in 1938 that he felt an inexplicable urge to revisit. It was the 25th compound he had produced in the lysergic series: LSD-25.
He sampled a wee taster on Friday 16th, enough to confirm that it was indeed (horror of horrors) psychoactive. So, on Monday April 19th, 1943, at 4.20 in the afternoon, he took what he believed to be a larger yet still apparently miniscule amount of this new substance. For thirty minutes he noticed no effect. Soon afterwards, however, he was plunged into a state where he was unable to write, so got on his bike to go home. He pedalled off into, as Jay Stevens puts it in his admirable 'Storming Heaven', 'a suddenly anarchic universe.' To quote Stevens once more:'... this wasn't the familiar boulevard that led home, but a street painted by Salvador Dali, a funhouse roller coaster where the buildings yawned and rippled. But what was even stranger was the sense that although his legs were pumping steadily, he wasn't getting anywhere.'
Our Great Hero is one Albert Hofmann. And the rest, as they say, is history. But the day is being commemorated by the Psychedelic Society as 'Coming Out Day'. Psychedelics are a natural element in the history of humankind. Let's speak about them, and the benefits they have conferred personally. So here we go.
I have written elsewhere a little about my own psychedelic history in the 1970s. It formed a turning point in my life, if only to demonstrate clearly the path I was destined already to take. I spent a good 25 years afterwards free from entheogenic materials while I did my level best to practice mindfulness, love, and freedom within the context of organised Buddhism.
It was around 12 years ago that I first revisited psychedelics as a potential aid in following my hopefully spiritual path through life. It was during those short purple years when special mushrooms could be bought openly in Camden Market, London, and elsewhere. I was not overly impressed with the results, an impression that most likely says more about me at the time than the mushrooms. Over the following years, I experimented very occasionally with various other shamanic-type plants: cactus, salvia divinorum, yopo, and ayahuasca. In general, I found these excursions beneficial; not in the dramatically life-changing ways of my youth, maybe. But highly worthwhile nevertheless: for providing a kick when I needed it, for opening doors in the shell of selfhood, and helping me confront what required confronting.
Interestingly, while the plants had some advantages over the synthetic psychedelics, nothing seemed to compare with good old LSD-25 in terms of being a substance of pure consciousness. I retained a curiosity, maybe simply a nostalgia. Then something turned up which, I wondered, might provide an answer. It is the subject of my particular 'coming out' tale for today.
Two years ago, I was not in a very good way. The place I had been working closed its doors, an event which I didn't cry about too much. Nevertheless. My diary of the period captures things pretty well: 'As I walked away from my work, I had the distinct feeling that I was heading into a new and different phase of my life. But what was being ushered in, I had no idea...... It could have been a period of great mountain adventures, fantastic meditation voyages. But it wasn't. Instead, I was beset by energy problems, anxiety. My toes and feet sometimes felt as if energy, sensation, was being pulled out of them........ Something had to give, as I felt more and more stretched psychically......' (It is worth mentioning that my wife had recently undergone surgery for a potentially serious condition, which undoubtedly didn't help).
Around this time my attention was drawn to the fact that two apparently LSD-like substances were out there for simple, above-board purchase: Al-Lad and LSZ. I made the decision to buy some of the latter (Al-Lad appeared to be in short supply at that moment) and to give it a go. As I wrote in aforementioned diary: 'I needed something to assist me to bottom out.'
In short, I was not over-impressed with LSZ on that cold, bright April Saturday in 2014. Its resemblance to LSD seemed pretty, well, limited. One thing was that I felt as though I had consumed a very foreign substance, while LSD always seemed to be welcomed and recognised as a friend by my mind and body. Rather than chilling out, I found myself pacing restlessly around - undoubtedly an amplification of my state of mind at the time. Several hours later, with the peak of the trip gone, I took a walk in the forest nearby. Nature invariably revives ones sense of reality. Back to the diary; 'I sat on the stump of a tree trunk and allowed myself to sink deeper into myself. As I did so, I also allowed myself to utter three words that I found it so hard to say: I need help. I repeated them, louder, telling the trees. I need help. This was a relief and a release. Tears welled up as I began to walk through the early evening. It was a bit of a breakthrough.'
Breakthrough indeed. Me? Self-sufficient, self-reliant, independent, shit-hot king of the castle me......need........ help? Surely not. There remained the question of what kind of help exactly was in order. As pressing as my current state of mind were the chronic migraines and sinus problems that had plagued me for years, and were showing no sign of going away. They seemed, in truth, to be intimately related to the energy, anxiety blah blah blah. I had by now given up on conventional medicine as providing anything effective as a real remedy, having tried and failed umpteen times with prescription substances, some of which seemed far more hazardous than LSZ.
I began to see a homeopath. Fortunately, my choice was a wise one. Between the LSZ trip and my initial homeopathy appointment I succeeded in making things worse by pulling some muscles in my back. I arrived at the therapy centre with a streaming cold and hardly able to get up the stairs to the consulting room. More tears, as I relived my deepest nightmares of being out of control. To cut a long story short, the homeopathy was great: a year on, I was far more able to manage my conditions, which continue to appear from time-to-time, but less seriously.
LSZ wasn't a great substance. It felt very synthetic, and came with what those in-the-know call heavy bodyload. That is to say, it made me feel nauseous and weak, for a good 24 hours after swallowing the blotter. Nevertheless, I have to thank LSZ from the bottom of my heart for initiating a process of recovery in my life which may or may not have happened otherwise. Sometimes it is the aftermath, the practical ramifications, that are most significant, rather than the trip day itself.
It wasn't long before Teresa May was on the case, deciding that psychological breakthroughs are not in the national interest, and LSZ went the way of most psychedelics. It was replaced by 1P-LSD, the new kid on the block, a far friendlier substance, and one which does seem to act like a stripped-down version of LSD itself. It's still around.
So there we have it. My contribution to Psychedelic Coming Out Day. May we all walk our paths through life, discovering its sacred dimensions as we go, with or without the help of psychedelic substances. But let that choice be a free and open matter for the individual.
