And all those who sailed on the sea of tranquility you created

102? Are people going to start promoting LSD as a life-extending drug perhaps?

"Super mario"

Says it all?

Thanks for the great times I've had, thanks for letting me find out how much the senses are connected - who ever realised you could taste colour, I have a better understanding of synaesthesia thanks to Aceeeeeeed.

But no thanks to the twats who stopped its use as possibly the best method of treating chronic alcoholics. No thanks to the various governments who have refused to listen to the shrinks saying it was the best tool they'd ever found.

Mines the nice yellow sunshine one (am I really that old?)

If only more people dropped acid rather than battering their brains with booze, skunk, coke et al. the world would genuinely be a better and more interesting place. What I want to know is, why was research indicating that LSD might be able to CURE alcoholism in many cases suppressed?

The dude hated all you hippies for abusing his creation, and here you all are saying "thank you, dude, like wooooaahh, swirlyly colors, man!"

You bl**dy thoughtless b*st*rds.

-Grandma, did you see a little pill I left on the kitchen counter?

-Forget the pink pill! Did you see the blue dragons?

Like so many others, I salute you Abbie, though I never personally knew you. I too have sampled your troubled prodigy, but not for many years. Just imagine what we'd know about our own minds (and souls?) if the field of psycho pharmacology had the free reign that video game designers (and weapons designers) do...

...my icon's the penguin, but not because of Linux today :)

Well, why can't they just be thankful for the invention in the first place? It is not necessary for your personal joy from an invention to be concordant with the ideas and ideals of its inventor. In fact, that would be a very limiting premise.

Headline in I.T. around 1967/8 when evidence of LSD's damage to genetic material became public.

Presumably the sub works for El Reg now.

cheers for the melting walls, malteaser headed monster, the meaning of life (I forgot to write it down) the temporary inability to understand a word of English, and being stuck in a park all frickin day walking round in circles wondering if I'll ever recover, (always did)

...for letting me fully enjoy playing sensible soccer wearing prism glasses, in a uv lit room, with a mate bouncing a large tigger just to the left of my blind spot in time with the orbs tower of dub.

none of the above were hallucinations.

thank you mr hoffman

Heh. No, we thank him for opening the doors to something that can be used as a very effective medicine for the mind. Try looking up "holotropic breathwork" when you come down from your high horse, it's perhaps the most effective type of psychotherapy today. No drugs, mind you, just breathing. Wouldn't have had that if it wasn't for Herr Hofmann and his mistake in the lab. And I sincerely doubt that he hated anyone, he seemed to me more to be a little sad that his great discovery became just a toy to most people.

Thank you, Albert, see you around. Don't worry, some of us have figured out what the real "toy" is...

And for some of the most interesting nights of my life!

@Rob apart from the malteaser headed monster (never had that one!) we've had the same trips! :-)

I agree that Mr. Hoffmann was a scientist in the first place, and had very little to do with all that hippie trippin. He was just looking for a use of his invention that could lead to something positive. After reading most publications of Leary, about all the enlightments caused by use of LSD and various self experiments, i have to state: Basically LSD makes you high and trippin, act like you lost your mind, giggle about stupid stuff, and feel like riding a spaceship when you drive around in your car. But somehow it changes your point of view about life, the universe and everything....too much of it makes jack a dull boy...

RIP Albert - I've always admired your work

A Note to Mr Brown: In a desparate attempt to prove that LSD could be LETHAL in the 1970s scientists in the US managed to kill an elephant with it.

It took 30,000 clinical doses...

I've often wondered who decided what to use as the commercial name for LSD25 - it's

Lyserguide

Mine's the kaftan...

I had a lot of good nights due to this bloke!

The man left a complex legacy based simply on a well intentioned tool. Whatever his perspective on society and control, his accidental self-discovery created an opportunity for some people to use LSD. Some used it for fun and some used it for exploration...me and me.

Helping the alcoholic before the cure is what I like to think happened. We are born as babies with the geographical, political, and financial advantages and some physical and psychological disadvantages. For those that broke their wings through accidental or willed things that happened, it offered a modeler's objective space where the self-healer could re-construct something like the lost wing or at least reconcile the memories of flying with the current reality. Its use for me was a starting point and a doorway and I still observe events that are implausible and seemingly impossible and accept that I can create anything I want including the conditions where Implausibility and impossibility are real and possible.

Strawberry, tangerine, blotter, purple haze, LSD25, Abbey Road, Tears of a Clown, Send in the clowns, I am the clown.

What an invention it was. I did worry about my genes but having children that are healthy, inquisitive, active, and with wings intact makes me believe that it helps as long as caring people use it, administer its use, and protect those that are using it.

Cheers to the accident of this man's discovery.

And so passes the man that invented the substance that allowed me to see not only the majestic soaring beauty of the sodium lamp lit underside of Spaghetti Junction, but also two youths joyriding in a milk float at 5am in Crewe.

Penguins, Strawbs, Buddhas, whatever - a good time was had by all.

/Salute

Here's hoping the final door is the most interesting one yet.

... No, no, no, he's outside, looking in.

Cheerio mate, and lots of thanks. We won't forget the debt of gratitude we owe you.

""Experiment with drugs and you'll die early.""

102 years old... geesh.

And thank you for the good times, the colours and those deep conversations that pushed human discovery to the limit...

But I still don't think you can impress a Lion with a record collection, no matter how big the record collection is.

Mines the Ohm, man they were heavy....

...blotters - white lightening - purple ohms - black microdots - smileyfaces - strawberries; thanks for the earlier research mate, I shall call you, "Al". Al-ways a pleasure. Now you can scrape me off the ceiling again.

...a truely facinating man, and dispite some people's opinion, he had no desire to see LSD used as a recreational drug.

LSD looked like it was going to become a big deal in psychiatry circles, but all the research was cut short because of the Hippie movement and their penchant for the Acid.

Read the obit here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1912485/Albert-Hofmann,-LSD-inventor,-dies.html

"Steal this book" was great. Oh, that's the wrong A. Hoffmann.

Yep, 102 is a ripe age to live to, considering he took what the tabloids love to call the world's most dangerous mind-bending drug. Consider also that many people become deeply religious after taking LSD, so it's obviously not the anti-social horror that the likes of the Daily Mail would like us to believe.

Full marks to b166er who implies that LSD is in a family with dozens of related psychedelic drugs, some of which - like DMT - occur naturally in the brain, and if anything, are even more bizarre in their effects. There's even some evidence that ergot (the fungus from which LSD is derived) has been used in religious rites in prehistoric times. It is, after all, responsible for the cosmic visions which accompany St. Vitus' Dance / St. Anthony's Fire. (Other symptoms are gangrene and convulsions. Just the sort of thing you want to experience while tripping, right?) Do you want some mouldy rye bread as a sacrament in your holy communion? It might put you touch with the almighty...

Other ergot derivatives isolated by Hoffmann are regularly used in midwifery to stimulate contractions. There are doubtless thousands of people alive today who may have died in childbirth, or become brain damaged, without Hoffman's discoveries.

Alcoholics Anonymous (and indeed any 12-step program) actually employs a similar technique to the now-illegal-and-abandoned LSD-therapy. It's just much slower, and less spectacular. The therapeutic mechanism is beautifully described by Gregory Bateson in "The Cybernetics of “Self”: A Theory of Alcoholism" (found in the collection "Steps to an Ecology of Mind"). Bateson does not mention LSD, but after reading that essay, it's immediately obvious how LSD (or any powerful psychedelic drug) could be extremely effective in treating alcoholism.

LSD proved that a slight (micrograms) alteration of the brain's chemistry, can yield phenomenally changed perception of the universe we are part of, to the extent that all opinion structures are dissolved. The government spends a fortune instilling certain opinions in the brains of its citizens, and that is why they abhor LSD so much - it twonks their efforts to condition a good consumer.

Consequently, there is now a minority subset of humanity who realise the charade most other people live seriously. Quantum mechanics just reinforces the fact the we humans have no idea what is going on, and that what is in our heads is reflected in the reality we end up perceiving. (www.jacobsm.com/anarchy.htm)

Like a dog chasing its own tail, common man will be going round in circles, pursuing whatever agenda has been set by those evil wrong-doers in charge of the planet.

Take LSD a few times, and all this becomes transparently clear, much to the embarassment of those "controllers". Life is a journey, enjoy the ride! Your opinions are not important and have no effect on the reality of shared existence on a planet bursting with gentle, loving lifeforms.

Farewell! And thanks for all the fish...