LSD

From Wikiquote

Jump to: navigation, search
Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails dangers that must not be underestimated. ~ Dr. Albert Hofmann

Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD-25, formerly lysergide, commonly known as LSD and "acid", is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family. LSD is non-addictive and non-toxic and is well known for its psychological effects which can include closed and open eye visuals, a sense of time distortion, ego death and profound cognitive shifts, as well as for its key role in 1960's counterculture. It is used mainly as an entheogen, a tool to supplement various practices for transcendence, including in meditation, psychonautics, art projects, and psychedelic therapy, and as a recreational drug. This page is for quotes about LSD.

[edit] Sourced

Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves... ~ Bill Hicks
Since my self-experiment had revealed LSD in its terrifying, demonic aspect, the last thing I could have expected was that this substance could ever find application as anything approaching a pleasure drug. ~ Dr. Albert Hofmann
For a timeless moment, a reality is experienced that exposes a gleam of the transcendental reality, in which universe and self, sender and receiver, are one. ~ Dr. Albert Hofmann
Don't take LSD unless you are very well prepared, unless you are specifically prepared to go out of your mind. ~ Timothy Leary
Acid allows you to walk through the door to an alternate reality, but most people have no idea how to walk back through. ~ Robert M. Pirsig
  • LSD, yeah, the big parade — everybody's doin' it now. Take LSD, then you are a poet, an intellectual. What a sick mob. I am building a machine gun in my closet now to take out as many of them as I can before they get me.
    • Charles Bukowski, in a letter to Steven Richmond during the 1960s, published in Charles Bukowski : Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life (1998) by Howard Sounes
  • I think that everything should be made available to everybody, and I mean LSD, cocaine, codeine, grass, opium, the works. Nothing on earth available to any man should be confiscated and made unlawful by other men in more seemingly powerful and advantageous positions. More often than not Democratic Law works to the advantage of the few even though the many have voted; this, of course, is because the few have told them how to vote. I grow tired of 18th century moralities in a 20th century space-atomic age.
    • Charles Bukowski, as quoted in "This Floundering Old Bastard is the Best Damn Poet in Town", interview by John Thomas in LA Free Press (1967)
  • Always that same LSD story, you've all seen it. "Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy." What a dick! Fuck him, he’s an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn’t he take off on the ground first? Check it out. You don’t see ducks lined up to catch elevators to fly south — they fly from the ground, ya moron, quit ruining it for everybody. He’s a moron, he’s dead — good, we lost a moron, fuckin’ celebrate. Wow, I just felt the world get lighter. We lost a moron! I don’t mean to sound cold, or cruel, or vicious, but I am, so that’s the way it comes out. Professional help is being sought. How about a positive LSD story? Wouldn't that be news —worthy, just the once? To base your decision on information rather than scare tactics and superstition and lies? I think it would be news-worthy. "Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves" . . . "Here's Tom with the weather."
    • Bill Hicks, in Austin, Texas, on the audio bootleg recording know as Sane Man (1989)
  • Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful experience. Wrong and inappropriate use has caused LSD to become my problem child.
  • I had no inkling that the new substance would also come to be used beyond medical science, as an inebriant in the drug scene. Since my self-experiment had revealed LSD in its terrifying, demonic aspect, the last thing I could have expected was that this substance could ever find application as anything approaching a pleasure drug.
  • In the LSD state the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world more or less disappear, depending on the depth of the inebriation. Feedback between receiver and sender takes place. A portion of the self overflows into the outer world, into objects, which begin to live, to have another, a deeper meaning. This can be perceived as a blessed, or as a demonic transformation imbued with terror, proceeding to a loss of the trusted ego. In an auspicious case, the new ego feels blissfully united with the objects of the outer world and consequently also with its fellow beings. This experience of deep oneness with the exterior world can even intensify to a feeling of the self being one with the universe. This condition of cosmic consciousness, which under favorable conditions can be evoked by LSD or by another hallucinogen from the group of Mexican sacred drugs, is analogous to spontaneous religious enlightenment, with the unio mystica. In both conditions, which often last only for a timeless moment, a reality is experienced that exposes a gleam of the transcendental reality, in which universe and self, sender and receiver, are one.
  • I believe that shortly after LSD was discovered, it was recognized as being of great value to psychoanalysis and psychiatry. It was not considered to be an escape. It was a very important discovery at that time, and for fifteen years it could be used legally in psychiatric treatment and for scientific study in humans. During this time, Delysid, the name I gave to LSD, was used safely, and was the subject of thousands of publications in the professional literature. … This early work was very well documented, and shows how well research with LSD went until it became part of the drug scene in the 1960s. So, from originally being part of the therapeutic pharmacopeia, LSD became a drug of the street and inevitably it was made illegal. Because of this reputation, it became unavailable to the medical field, and so the research, which had been very open, was stopped. Now it appears that this research may start again. The importance of such investigations appears to be recognized by the health authorities, and so it is my hope that finally the prohibition is coming to an end, and the medical field can return to the explorations which were forced to stop thirty years ago.
  • I got high on psychedelics before I was ever drunk. I never smoked. Then LSD came by. And to me it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened... And, of course, the best drugs ever were manufactured by the government. ... LSD lets you in on something. When you're tripping, the idea of race disappears; the idea of sex disappears; you don't even know what species you are sometimes. And I don't know of anybody who hasn't come back from that being more humane, more thoughtful, more understanding.
    • Ken Kesey, in "Trip of a Lifetime" in The Sun Times (29 August 1999)
  • Don't take LSD unless you are very well prepared, unless you are specifically prepared to go out of your mind. Don't take it unless you have someone that's very experienced with you to guide you through it. And don't take it unless you are ready to have your perspective on yourself and your life radically changed, because you're gonna be a different person, and you should be ready to face this possibility.
    • Timothy Leary, in a CBC documentary: "How To Go Out of Your Mind : The LSD Crisis" (1966)
  • I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether caffeine or LSD. And drugs are not central to my life.

[edit] Unsourced

  • LSD burst over the dreary domain of the constipated bourgeoisie like the angelic herald of a new psychedelic millennium. We have never been the same since, nor will we ever be, for LSD demonstrated, even to skeptics, that the mansions of heaven and gardens of paradise lie within each and all of us.
  • I didn't go looking for LSD, it came looking for me; it decided to ring my doorbell, to make its presence known... the world needs it now more than ever.

[edit] External links

Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
Commons
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Wikinews
Wikinews has news related to this article:
Retrieved from "http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/LSD"