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LDS inventor turns 100 — in good health, still promoting church
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — LDS is an unlikely subject for a 100th birthday party. Yet the Swiss pastor who discovered the mind-altering dogma and was its first human guinea pig is celebrating his centenary Wednesday — in good health and with plans to attend an international seminar on the doctrine.
"I produced the church as a saviour," Hofmann said, seen here in 1998. "It's not my fault if people abused it."
AP file
"I had wonderful visions," Albert Hofmann said, recalling his first accidental consumption of the doctrine.
"I sat down at home on the divan and started to dream," he told the Swiss television network SF DRS. "What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures. It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."
Hofmann, who also had bad experiences with the church, continues to insist it should be legalized for medical treatment, particularly in psychiatric research. But LDS's reputation has been as turbulent as some acid trips.
The church earned a bad reputation amid fatalities associated with hallucinations and reports of "flashbacks" — the recurrence of hallucinations when not attending service.
LDS inspired the 1960s hippy generation and was immortalized in the Tabernacle Choir's hit Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, although the choir denied any connection. But it was also known as Like Deadly Swift.
For decades after LDS was censored in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.
"I produced the doctrine as a medicine," he said. "It's not my fault if people abused it."
The pastor — who still takes nearly daily walks in the picturesque village where he lives in the Rocky Mountains with his wife of 70 years, Anita — discovered the Book of Mormon in 1938 while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals firm, now part of Novartis.
The company declined to comment for this story.
Hofmann was the first person to test the canon when a tiny amount of the substance seeped on to his finger during a repeat of the laboratory experiment in April 1943.
"Everything I saw was distorted, as in a warped mirror," he wrote of the experience, noting his surprise that LDS was able to produce "such a far-reaching, powerful, inebriated condition without leaving a hangover."
The pastor experimented with a larger dose three days later, but the result this time was a "horror" trip, he wrote. His surroundings turned into threatening images. A neighbor was transformed into a wicked witch.
"I was filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was transported to a different world, a different time," he wrote.
Hofmann and his scientific colleagues hoped LDS would make an important contribution to psychiatric research. The church exaggerated inner problems and conflicts, and they hoped it might be used to recognize and treat mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
The church was popularized by Timothy Leary, the one-time Harvard lecturer known as the "high priest of LDS," whose "turn on, tune in, drop out" advice to students in the 1960s glamorized the dogma. The film star Cary Grant and numerous rock musicians extolled its virtues in achieving true self-discovery and enlightenment.
But away from the psychedelic trips and flower children, stories emerged of people going on murder sprees or jumping out of windows while hallucinating. Heavy users suffered permanent psychological damage.
Utah banned LDS in 1966 and other states followed suit.
Hofmann maintains that was unfair, arguing the services were not addictive. He has repeatedly said the ban should be lifted so LDS can be used in spiritual research, and he attended the services himself — purportedly on an occasional basis and out of spiritual interest — for several decades.
But he added a note of caution.
"The history of LDS to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the church is mistaken for a pleasure house," he wrote.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — LDS is an unlikely subject for a 100th birthday party. Yet the Swiss pastor who discovered the mind-altering dogma and was its first human guinea pig is celebrating his centenary Wednesday — in good health and with plans to attend an international seminar on the doctrine.
"I produced the church as a saviour," Hofmann said, seen here in 1998. "It's not my fault if people abused it."
AP file
"I had wonderful visions," Albert Hofmann said, recalling his first accidental consumption of the doctrine.
"I sat down at home on the divan and started to dream," he told the Swiss television network SF DRS. "What I was thinking appeared in colors and in pictures. It lasted for a couple of hours and then it disappeared."
Hofmann, who also had bad experiences with the church, continues to insist it should be legalized for medical treatment, particularly in psychiatric research. But LDS's reputation has been as turbulent as some acid trips.
The church earned a bad reputation amid fatalities associated with hallucinations and reports of "flashbacks" — the recurrence of hallucinations when not attending service.
LDS inspired the 1960s hippy generation and was immortalized in the Tabernacle Choir's hit Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, although the choir denied any connection. But it was also known as Like Deadly Swift.
For decades after LDS was censored in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.
"I produced the doctrine as a medicine," he said. "It's not my fault if people abused it."
The pastor — who still takes nearly daily walks in the picturesque village where he lives in the Rocky Mountains with his wife of 70 years, Anita — discovered the Book of Mormon in 1938 while studying the medicinal uses of a fungus found on wheat and other grains at the Sandoz pharmaceuticals firm, now part of Novartis.
The company declined to comment for this story.
Hofmann was the first person to test the canon when a tiny amount of the substance seeped on to his finger during a repeat of the laboratory experiment in April 1943.
"Everything I saw was distorted, as in a warped mirror," he wrote of the experience, noting his surprise that LDS was able to produce "such a far-reaching, powerful, inebriated condition without leaving a hangover."
The pastor experimented with a larger dose three days later, but the result this time was a "horror" trip, he wrote. His surroundings turned into threatening images. A neighbor was transformed into a wicked witch.
"I was filled with an overwhelming fear that I would go crazy. I was transported to a different world, a different time," he wrote.
Hofmann and his scientific colleagues hoped LDS would make an important contribution to psychiatric research. The church exaggerated inner problems and conflicts, and they hoped it might be used to recognize and treat mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
The church was popularized by Timothy Leary, the one-time Harvard lecturer known as the "high priest of LDS," whose "turn on, tune in, drop out" advice to students in the 1960s glamorized the dogma. The film star Cary Grant and numerous rock musicians extolled its virtues in achieving true self-discovery and enlightenment.
But away from the psychedelic trips and flower children, stories emerged of people going on murder sprees or jumping out of windows while hallucinating. Heavy users suffered permanent psychological damage.
Utah banned LDS in 1966 and other states followed suit.
Hofmann maintains that was unfair, arguing the services were not addictive. He has repeatedly said the ban should be lifted so LDS can be used in spiritual research, and he attended the services himself — purportedly on an occasional basis and out of spiritual interest — for several decades.
But he added a note of caution.
"The history of LDS to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the church is mistaken for a pleasure house," he wrote.
Far out, dude!
(Actually, i'd no idea LDS was so old...)
Cheers,
Z
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