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LSD: My Problem Child – Reflections on Sacred Drugs, Mysticism and Science by Albert Hofmann
auryni's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
Although slow paced in some parts, the whole book is absolutely enjoyable and the slow parts are very informative and interesting if one makes the effort trying to comprehend a bit of chemics and Native American history (which I heavily reccomend). Hofmann's POV is exceptional not only from a historical view, but also for how likeable, wary and inquisitive he is.
adamz24's review against another edition
3.0
The title gives you an idea of what to expect, but the book is still a (mostly pleasant) surprise.
Albert Hofmann, as everyone knows, is the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD. The standard narrative is that he's not at all like most of the people who have taken LSD since the fateful afternoon on which he became the first to experience an acid trip while bicycling home from his laboratory. The truth is more complicated. Hofmann does view LSD as his "problem child." He has a disapproving attitude regarding the use of the drug as a recreational inebriant.
What one ought to expect from the book, but probably doesn't, is that this is very much a scientist's book. It is not what certain types of human have been known to refer to as "trippy," despite containing what are known as "trip reports." Hofmann is a fairly dry writer, and assumes that the reader is as interested as he is in accounts of the chemistry of LSD and other psychiatric drugs. Wade Davis' writing on psychedelic drugs in One River is something like these parts of the book, from an ethnobotanist's perspective. This makes for a very pleasant and welcome departure from the nature of most psychedelia, which tends to be about somehow approximating the psychedelic experience or the various rantings and ravings of those who believe their minds to have been expanded.
And what's most curious about the book is that, while it is very much a book written by a chemist, it is also a mystic's book. So Hofmann is both chemist and mystic, man of science and man of well, if not God, then something of that general order. Suitably enough, given that psychedelics are both chemical molecules and gateways to mystical experiences (as shown by the Good Friday experiment at the Harvard Divinity School and the recent Johns Hopkins studies). Now, whether a mystical experience is "real" in that it literally involves meeting the "spirit realm" is not something I want to deal with. My personal feeling is that everything is reducible to some sort of material explanation, but that mystical experiences are, in themselves, a remarkable and peculiar species of experience, and one that might aid the world in general, no matter how annoying the people are who result from such experiences. And I think Hofmann comes across as being more or less in the same camp as I am, although he has spiritual beliefs I do not have.
It is not a very well-written book, and the content veers from this to that so often that it can get disorienting, hence the three stars and no more. But at the heart of the book is an accurate and serious account of a fascinating molecule and a plea for its reasonable and sensible use in therapeutic contexts. This book was written some time ago, but it is only now that the potential of psychedelic drugs in therapeutic contexts has come to the attention of largely white Euro-or-Anglo-oriented therapists. And that renews the importance of this account by the father of LSD.
If you intend to purchase this book, buy the MAPS edition. 100% of profits go to "psychedelic psychotherapy research."
Albert Hofmann, as everyone knows, is the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD. The standard narrative is that he's not at all like most of the people who have taken LSD since the fateful afternoon on which he became the first to experience an acid trip while bicycling home from his laboratory. The truth is more complicated. Hofmann does view LSD as his "problem child." He has a disapproving attitude regarding the use of the drug as a recreational inebriant.
What one ought to expect from the book, but probably doesn't, is that this is very much a scientist's book. It is not what certain types of human have been known to refer to as "trippy," despite containing what are known as "trip reports." Hofmann is a fairly dry writer, and assumes that the reader is as interested as he is in accounts of the chemistry of LSD and other psychiatric drugs. Wade Davis' writing on psychedelic drugs in One River is something like these parts of the book, from an ethnobotanist's perspective. This makes for a very pleasant and welcome departure from the nature of most psychedelia, which tends to be about somehow approximating the psychedelic experience or the various rantings and ravings of those who believe their minds to have been expanded.
And what's most curious about the book is that, while it is very much a book written by a chemist, it is also a mystic's book. So Hofmann is both chemist and mystic, man of science and man of well, if not God, then something of that general order. Suitably enough, given that psychedelics are both chemical molecules and gateways to mystical experiences (as shown by the Good Friday experiment at the Harvard Divinity School and the recent Johns Hopkins studies). Now, whether a mystical experience is "real" in that it literally involves meeting the "spirit realm" is not something I want to deal with. My personal feeling is that everything is reducible to some sort of material explanation, but that mystical experiences are, in themselves, a remarkable and peculiar species of experience, and one that might aid the world in general, no matter how annoying the people are who result from such experiences. And I think Hofmann comes across as being more or less in the same camp as I am, although he has spiritual beliefs I do not have.
It is not a very well-written book, and the content veers from this to that so often that it can get disorienting, hence the three stars and no more. But at the heart of the book is an accurate and serious account of a fascinating molecule and a plea for its reasonable and sensible use in therapeutic contexts. This book was written some time ago, but it is only now that the potential of psychedelic drugs in therapeutic contexts has come to the attention of largely white Euro-or-Anglo-oriented therapists. And that renews the importance of this account by the father of LSD.
If you intend to purchase this book, buy the MAPS edition. 100% of profits go to "psychedelic psychotherapy research."
oriol1023's review against another edition
5.0
TFG, història de l'LSD i altres drogues pel seu descobridor
cosmicloser's review against another edition
5.0
This book is simply life changing! Ever single atom in my body recommends this book to you!
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