his writer in NO WAY advocates the use of LSD for the general public. People cannot handle the truth, let alone a stimulus that magnifies reality. Too many people want to escape because they cannot deal with reality as it is. LSD is an intensifier of what is real. The user gets an enormous dose of REALITY. LSD is not for everyone or even most people…because many people do not want to see, hear and feel.

Remember LSD? LSD is like God; it is a very controversial subject. People have their views on lysergic acid diethylamide. Few people still use acid. But, there are those people who have used for decades without any harmful effects. Then, there are most people who have been programmed against such mind alterations. Who owns a truly open mind regarding LSD or are pro-LSD? Minds are usually made up and people are quite definite about their feelings on the subject. Like the topic of God, people are very opinionated.

Dr. Albert Hofmann was a research chemist at Sandoz Labs in Basle, Switzerland. In April of 1943, Dr. Hofmann accidentally ingested a small amount of a compound he had synthesized five years earlier from a rye fungus ergot.

'I experienced fantastic images of an extraordinary plasticity. They were associated with an intense kaleidoscopic play of colors. After two hours, this condition disappeared,' Dr. Hofmann later stated. His stunning discovery was labeled d-lysergic acid diethylamide tart rate or LSD-25. It was soon called 'the most powerful drug yet known to man.'

In the 1950s, investigators from various scientific disciplines began to use LSD as a research tool. Psychologists reported that LSD could greatly facilitate the process of psychotherapy. Others declared that it was of no positive use whatsoever and was, in fact, dangerous. The controversy raged, but most of the general public never heard about it.

'The discovery of LSD marked one of the three major breakthroughs of the 20th Century....In psychology, the psychedelics have provided the key to the unimaginable vastness of the unconscious...'

- Dr. Duncan B. Blewett
 

EXPERIMENTS WITH LSD

In 1963, [long before the online university revolution], Harvard University dismissed two faculty members for their experiments with LSD. 'LSD is more important than Harvard,' said professor Timothy Leary. Thus began the doctor's highly publicized adventures and, to a lesser extent, those of Dr. Richard Alpert.
 

LSD

In March of 1966, Dr. Leary received a 30 year jail sentence for carrying less than a half an ounce of marijuana. This brought him national attention on an even larger scale than previously. Because of his former association with Harvard, his outspoken advocacy of LSD and extremely harsh sentence...Timothy Leary became infamous. The Moody Blues wrote a song about him.

LSD was extremely popular in underground circles; especially in American collages as it officially became illegal. Indiscriminate use of LSD was the subject of thousands of newspaper and magazine articles all over the western world. Curiously, the true properties of the chemical and its effects are as little understood today as then.

The LSD user will find that all of their senses are simultaneously more sensitive. Mental and emotional processes are heightened and accelerated. The subject might feel childlike, trusting and be literal-minded. Yet the user's thoughts will often seem enormously complex, important and of an incredible depth. Tears, laughter, loneliness, intimacy, clarity, confusion, love, ecstasy and despair may all co-exist. The intensified reality experienced by the person under the influence of LSD is very overwhelming to say the least.

Those on LSD may hear mathematics, taste colors or see music. The user can turn inward and explore vast areas of consciousness which are hardly mapped. By not leaving the room, journeys into other realms are possible.

A common description of the LSD experience is one where the subject loses reality; is far removed from the external world and is generally out of it. This is a misconception. It is not true that the tripper is unaware of the real world. The truth is: LSD takes you so deeply INTO reality that normalcy seems distorted.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Aldous Huxley, author of 'Brave New World' and 'The Doors of Perception,' does not agree with the term hallucinogen when applied to LSD. (Huxley's book was why the music group the Doors was called 'the Doors'). He believes that a much more appropriate description of its effects should be 'mind-expander.' A hallucinogen causes a hallucination; something that is not there; an unreality. Under LSD, your mind is expanded. What you experience is not a dream or illusion, but a larger world. The tripper dives INTO reality, not away from it.

All senses are increased. You see, hear, smell, taste and feel to such an extreme degree that you experience new heights of perception. On LSD, when you play your favorite song...it is like you are hearing it for the first time. Sounds you never heard before on the CD are now crystal clear.

A fascinating phenomenon happens on the stimulant that would intrigue the physicist. The perception of time s l o w s. Time slows, during LSD's peak, where one (normal) minute could equal 20 minutes! You literally experience more time. A little mental exercise may explain: Suppose you have a sensory knob that determines your level of perception. Reality is received via the senses. This data of the world around us flows to the brain at a particular rate. Let us say that it is like the knob on an amplifier: 1 to 10. Let us also assume that we operate naturally in our awake hours at a normal #3. On LSD, the rate of sensory intake is turned up or increased to maybe #6 or #7. More of reality flows into you through the senses; so much so, that the perception of time EXPANDS. We see the universe going by at a slower rate because we are seeing many more frames of reality per second.

{As I write this, a new anti-marijuana commercial just came on the TV screen. Now, they are saying that if you smoke marijuana...your reaction time slows. This is absolutely not true. My pinball scores are always, always higher when I am high on hemp. In college, I often tripped and played one particular machine called Mata Hari. This was my social life for a few years. Numbers do not lie. Knock, knock, knock...I would win game after game when tripping. There were times I would draw a crowd of those who heard me hit for so many games. When tripping, I could rack up over 20 games! Normally, the machine would be tough to win one game. This happened every time I tripped and played pinball...without fail. All movements seemed to go by very slowly, yet I could get myself to react super fast; the same way my mind was working. I could play other pinball machines and the same thing would happen. When a scientific experiment is repeated with the same results every time, you must conclude: Reaction time, on certain highs, can be accelerated...not slowed. If you put your mind to it...anything you do under the influence of a mind-expanding stimulus, you can do better. (Try making love on...). Hemp and other mind-expanders are the opposite of the drunken state of alcoholic intoxication}.

HUMANS ARE BLIND

Einstein spoke and wrote of the 'feebleness of the senses.' The great thinker believed that humans were virtually blind and did not see the true universe. Einstein knew of the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum which lay beyond visible light. The true universe is not static or stationary. It constantly moves.

We have all heard that people only use about one third of their brain's potential. If we really used a third of what the brain could do, we could levitate; we could move mountains. A much more accurate guesstimate is that we only use a fraction of one percent of the mind's total capabilities.

William Blake wrote: 'If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite.' What would it be like if we utilized more of our mind? How would reality appear? What is the universe to the super mind?

Using more of the mind, the view of the universe is like the LSD experience. We would be functioning at an accelerated level. Our sensory receptors increase. Time/space expands. Reality warps. Clocks melt. If you think you normally see in 3D and in color...guess again. The visual experience of LSD makes our ordinary world look 2-dimensional and black and white.

In this heightened mind state...intricate, moving, geometric patterns are observed in everything. We could be looking at a blank, white wall; then suddenly we see intense colors and changing patterns. Those colors and patterns are not hallucinations. They are really there! They lie beyond the view of our normal, limited and narrow senses. A huge range of mental levels exist above what we would call normal perception. Someone operates on the higher floors of the mind.

SACRED PLANTS AND RELIGION

Religions have developed based on the ingestion of peyote buttons and the Magic Mushroom. Centuries before LSD, higher consciousness was achieved through sacred plants. The Indians of Mexico and the American southwest have a long history with mind-expanding agents. In the words of one of the Spanish visitors to the New World: 'They eat a root which they call peyote, and which they venerate as though it were a diety.'

Mescaline is the active principle of peyote. Psychedelic mushrooms, mescaline, psilocybin and synthetic pill-versions of these mind-altering plants also became popular on campuses during the sixties and early seventies.

Professor J.S. Slotkin, one of the first white men allowed to participate in the rites of a peyotist congregation, says of his fellow worshippers: (They were) 'certainly not stupefied or drunk...They never get out of rhythm or fumble their words, as a drunken or stupefied man would do...They are all quiet, courteous and considerate of one another...Sometimes they became aware of the presence of God...'

Dr. Slotkin reported that habitual Peyotists are on the whole more industrious, more temperate (many abstain altogether from alcohol) and more peaceful than non-Peyotists.

Aldous Huxley wrote: Mescaline raises all colors to a higher power and makes the percipient aware of innumerable fine shades of differences, to which, at ordinary times, he is completely blind. The Indians who consume peyote buttons do not seem to be physically or morally degraded by the habit.

The European missionaries were horrified at these practices and attempted to stamp them out; referring to the Indian's visions as 'fantasies of the Devil.' The Europeans did not object to mind-dulling substances as they permitted the natives to use narcotics, tobacco and whiskey. Psychedelic plants, which stimulated mental processes rather than dulling them, were denounced and suppressed because according to one 16th Century friar: 'Their users see visions and are provoked to lust.' These are precisely the same arguments being used 400 years later.

CREATIVITY - IMAGINATION

A rare book from 1967 entitled 'LSD - The Problem-Solving Psychedelic' by Peter Stafford and Bonnie Golightly looks at numerous LSD-inspired cases. The cover reads: 'The astonishing benefits available through the proper use of LSD - documented by medical research and supported by personal testimony. A positive approach to the most controversial issue of our time.'

For example, an architect had been working on a technical problem for years without success. After an LSD trip, the architect removed the stumbling block and found that the solution to his impasse was child's play. From the book:

'...the true essence of each individual can be revealed in a mind-lighting fashion. With LSD, mankind can at last be released from an accumulation of illogical customs and traditions, and Everyman can become a prime problem-solver.'

Dr. Kary Mullis invented the PCR process used in DNA testing whereby a person can be identified from a single molecule of DNA. In 1993, the biochemist won the Nobel Prize for his discovery. Kary Mullis attended the University of California at Berkeley. He claims the inspiration for PCR came to him during an LSD experience. The doctor probably visualized each and every colorful, little shape of the DNA components. About taking LSD, Dr. Mullis said he would 'walk around in the woods and think grandiose thoughts…and I still do it (today).'

The U.S.military has certainly tested subjects (and in many cases without their knowledge) with LSD and LSD-like substances; hoping to achieve a more efficient, human killing-machine. The film 'Jacob's Ladder' concerned that idea. What our government found was that war was too much of an effort to the tripper. He did not want to fight. It was reported that the psychedelic BZ was used in experiments on soldiers in Vietnam. The Pentagon, of course, denied the story.

The secret 'MK-Ultra Program' had Manchurian Candidate objectives; to create a controlled/brainwashed human slave or assassin. The test subject might not even be aware of his own double-life. They control the subject. On cue, they do their every whim. LSD, and other powerful psychedelics, were federally used to attempt to make the super-soldier. It was not quite successful.

Dolphins have large brains that rival the human brain in size. They may naturally function on these upper-mind levels similar to the LSD experience. Dolphins could view the world in moving, laser-bright colors and little (geometric) patterns...in constant motion...with an elongated sense of time. Their doors of perception are opened very wide. Dolphins are tripping! Why do you think they are smiling?

Aliens have been reported to possess larger-than-human-sized heads. In some cases, people have interacted with older; more evolved; more complex life forms. It is logical to assume that advanced ETs function mentally on these higher levels of the mind. The way an alien sees the universe may have a connection to the LSD experience. Is LSD a glimpse into the future?

As we improve the human condition, how much will our mental state also improve?
In the far future, the human race will be using more of the powers of the mind. As we naturally get more complicated and become a greater creature, the way we ultimately view the universe could very well be similar to the LSD experience. Reality would be seen the way it really is with a wider sensory range: Colorful, moving patterns; an extended view of the world; and an expanded perception of time.

This writer has spent 30 years studying our ancestors; the Egyptians, Incas and the Atlanteans. The Cro-Magnons were not simple, ape-like creatures. They possessed brains LARGER THAN MODERN HUMANS! This is a fact that anthropologists do not tell us because their traditional views would no longer make any sense. Hieroglyphs are a form of language FAR beyond our understanding. These ancient pyramid-builders could have operated on a mental level similar to the LSD experience. The past could be the future, and the future might be the past. Did we once use those unused portions of our brain and have lost this ability with the fall of technology? Also, was this long lost mental state like the LSD experience? Food for thought?

'There is no question that LSD can precipitate psychotic reactions among certain unstable people if used improperly. However, the dangers of ill-advised LSD use must not overshadow the potentials of wise psychedelic usage and careful experimentation.'
- Stanley C. Kripper, PH.D

From the forward of Dr. Albert Hofmann’s book ‘LSD – My Problem Child’:

‘I believe that if people would learn to use LSD’s vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonder child.’

'For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.'
- Genesis 3/5

Doug Yurchey is a writer, artist and inventor. He has studied ancient mysteries for more than 30 years and was married to a 'channel.' He has lectured at Carnegie Mellon University and California State at Northridge. For two years a background artist with the Simpsons TV Show, Doug now promotes his unique theories.

He would welcome your comments or questions at: dugko@surfside.net

© Doug Yurchey (with permission)