DOXA 2012: The Substance—Albert Hofmann’s LSD is a polished history lesson
The Substance—Albert Hofmann’s LSD (Switzerland/Germany)
This polished history shows how a single molecule changed North American society in the 20th century’s second half, altering the state of whatever it touched: religion, politics, art, medicine, warfare.
It’s a story that’s been told many times before, but The Substance is concise, finely made, and presided over by the very man who discovered LSD’s cosmos-rattling effects back in 1943: the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, stunningly alert and eloquent here, despite being interviewed shortly before his 100th birthday.
In effect, the entire kaleidoscopic tale unfolds here under his gaze. It starts with Hofmann’s first, inadvertent trip (when he accidently dosed himself while doing research on blood-circulation medicine) and ends with truly moving accounts of the role now played by psychedelics in the treatment of anxiety and depression in patients with terminal illnesses.
On the way, we witness LSD’s strange arc through society, its euphoric revelations and serious bummers. Psychiatric researchers in the ’50s hail it as a wonder drug, before bizarre, often terrifying experiments by the CIA try it out as a tool for brainwashing, and the U.S. Army tests it as a potential weapon for rendering enemies temporarily insane. (Footage of American soldiers attempting and failing to march in formation while ripped on acid provides welcome comic relief from the darkness being toyed with.)
Inevitably, we arrive at the unique blend of idealism and fatuous self-promotion that was Timothy Leary, and watch the drug’s reputation crash along with the hippie movement itself—much to Hofmann’s disgust. It’s been a long time since Haight-Ashbury became just one more gentrified neighbourhood, but the effects of the bad trip that took place there over 40 years ago still linger.
DOXA presents The Substance—Albert Hofmann’s LSD on May 8 at 3:45 p.m. at Pacific Cinémathèque.
Watch the trailer for The Substance—Albert Hofmann’s LSD.
Comments
3 Comments
Mark Fornataro
May 4, 2012 at 3:38pm
There is also a doc called The Psychedelic Pioneers with the late Canadian research team of Dr Abram Hoffer and his colleague Humphrey Osmond. Osmond coined the term psychedelic and turned Aldous Huxley on to psychedelic drugs, resulting in Huxley's essay the Doors of Perception (from which the band The Doors took their name.)
Mark Fornataro
May 5, 2012 at 10:20am
Just want to add Dr Hoffer learned LSD is similar to a compound found in schizophrenics which his team called adrenochrome. They used niacin(vitamin B3) and other nutrients to treat schizophrenia and also learned that niacin is an anti-dote to LSD. Film trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0maO8CmoHDI
Gentleman Jack
May 5, 2012 at 5:01pm
Taking advice from University graduates about LSD is a very dangerous business. The CIA, from all of its horrible research, probably came to the best overall conclusion about the psychedelics: they increase suggestibility. So if a University man tells you LSD does ____, and you respect University men, be careful: it might just do that!