Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD, died in Basel, Switzerland at the age of 102. He discovered the effect of lysergic acid diethylamide-25 by accident and used himself as the first test case.
LSD was the result of a laboratory experiment on April 16, 1943. Hofman describes how on a bicycle trip home “I had to leave work for home because I was suddenly hit by a sudden feeling of unease and mild dizziness . . . Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror. I had the impression I was rooted to the spot. But my assistant told me we were actually going very fast.”
For the full story, click here.
Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote ‘The Hokie Pokey’ died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in…. And then the trouble started.
Aldous Huxley’s death went something like this:
“On the morning of November 22nd, a Friday, it became clear the gap between living and dying was closing. Realizing that Aldous [Huxley] might not survive the day, Laura [Huxley's wife] sent a telegram to his son, Matthew, urging him to come at once. At ten in the morning, an almost inaudible Aldous asked for paper and scribbled “If I go” and then some directions about his will. It was his first admission that he might die …
Around noon he asked for a pad of paper and scribbled
LSD-try it
intermuscular
100mm
In a letter circulated to Aldous’s friends, Laura Huxley described what followed: ‘You know very well the uneasiness in the medical mind about this drug. But no ‘authority’, not even an army of authorities, could have stopped me then. I went into Aldous’s room with the vial of LSD and prepared a syringe. The doctor asked me if I wanted him to give the shot- maybe because he saw that my hands were trembling. His asking me that made me conscious of my hands, and I said, ‘No, I must do this.’
An hour later she gave Huxley a second 100mm. Then she began to talk, bending close to his ear, whispering, ‘light and free you let go, darling; forward and up. You are going forward and up; you are going toward the light. Willingly and consciously you are going, willingly and consciously, and you are doing this beautifully — you are going toward the light — you are going toward a greater love … You are going toward Maria’s [Huxley's first wife, who had died many years earlier] love with my love. You are going toward a greater love than you have ever known. You are going toward the best, the greatest love, and it is easy, it is so easy, and you are doing it so beautifully.’
All struggle ceased. The breathing became slower and slower and slower until, ‘like a piece of music just finishing so gently in sempre piu piano, dolcamente,’ at twenty past five in the afternoon, Aldous Huxley died.”
http://thedreamatists.wordpress.com/2007/08/06/aldous-huxley-takes-lsd-on-deathbed/
Hard to imagine that while this was happening the world was learning about the assassination of JFK that very same day.
i have a conlaw 2 final tomm, much rather read stories about lsd on the blog though. haha