One of the founding fathers of Basel`s pharmaceutical industries was the medicus, magician and natural philosopher Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim known as `Paracelsus` who practiced alchemical research in Basel around 1530. The swisse city also became known for the poisoning of the river Rhein by the chemical plant `Sandoz` in 1986.

On January, the 13th 2006 scientists, therapists, researchers, artists, psychonauts and guests from over 37 countries gathered for a symposium at the `Congress Center` in Basel. These were the international emissaries of the modern consciousness research community. Compiling results they shared their experiences with the audience. For three days, more than 2.000 guests would pay homage to the Basel chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann, who had celebrated his 100th birthday only two days earlier. In the early morning an excited group of chinese Doctors called from the airplane to reserve tickets and even undercover state security officials were mingling amongst the guests.

The Reason?! … during his army service he was employed as a natural chemist at the pharmaceutical research laboratory of the Sandoz AG, whose supervision he later took over. In 1938 Dr. Hofmann synthesized new chemical compounds from the `Ergot`, among them the 25th of the Lysergic acid diethylamide. Five years later, on april 19th 1943 at the peak of World War 2 and precisely on the day of the Warsaw ghetto revolt, Dr. Hofmann conducted a self experiment with this consciousness expanding substance. In this he discovered a psychoactive substance of unknown potency, a spiritual counter balance to the destructive power of the nuclear age. LSD, the mysterious `Philosopher`s Stone`, a chemical agent with a explosive potential to fundamentally change and renew our stagnated materialistic world perceptions.

Reports by Werner Stoll in the Swiss `Medizin Journal`, describe the mental Effects of LSD. These reports so impressed Sandoz that they were convinced, that LSD produced a `model psychosis` providing a deeper insight into the perception of mentally ill patients. They permitted shipments of LSD samples to various psychiatric institutions, clinics & mental hospitals worldwide. The chemical corporation then began producing LSD 25 under the brand name `Delysid`.

1949, the wonder child LSD became of interest to the newly founded American secret service. The US Army & the CIA ordered 100 million doses of LSD (10 kg of this substance) from Sandoz to test it as a chemically psychoactive agent in `unconventional Warfare`. Many of the humanitarian foundations in the 50ies, funded by the US Secret Service, contributed the lion`s share of research funding on the human psyche. Seeking new ways of controlling the mind through brainwashing, LSD was considered to be a potential `truth drug` in the context of their `MK-Ultra experiments`. LSD was applied to students, political prisoners, mental hospital occupants and clueless civilians. These impure motivations turned LSD quickly into a problem child, escalating the secret service operations even further. The CIA brought LSD into the United States, it then broke out of the laboratories generating new thoughts in modern beat artists such as Bob Dylan, William S. Burroughs, Watts, Kerouak & John Lennon – and along with them a new revolution.

Dr. Hofmann maintained friendships with activists from various liberation and freedom movements across the United States. This included ranking writers such as Ernst Jünger and William S. Burroughs, the precursor of Cyberpunk. Even the famous Rockband `the Beatles` sent a letter thanking him. The famous author Aldous Huxley recognized him as `the discoverer of the true moksha-medicin` in his novel `Island`. Visionary scientists such as Timothy Leary (who developed the 8-circuits model) and John C. Lilly (who implemented the hardware-software model on the human brain and its programming).

For his works on Ergot, squill, foxglove and for the developments of the indispensable medication Hydergin®, Dehydergot®, und Methergin® Dr. Hofmann was awarded the honorary doctorate of the Universities of Zurich, Stockholm & Berlin. His inventions increased profits up into the billions for the company Sandoz (later fusing with Ciba-Geigy creating Novartis).

In 1951 the discovery of sacred mushrooms as the sacrament of the Mexican shaman-woman Maria Sabina, as well as Hofmann`s synthesis of the mushrooms psychoactive compound `Psylocibin`, opened up the gates to psychedelic shamanism and the religious roots of mankind. As prooved by the prosecuted researches Ruck, Wasson & Hofmann the use of LSD comes from our own cultural heritage. An Ergot containing drink called `Kykeon` was at the center of the great `Greek Eleusian Mysteries`. They lasted almost 2.000 years between 1500 b.c and 400 a.d..This sacred substance opened the gateway to experiencing `death & rebirth` in the eleusian autumn rituals. Midwives also confirmed that Mutterkorn (ergotamine) extracts were used as a birth support medicine up until the late middle ages. In 1968 the psycho vitamin LSD was completely prohibited by US-President Johnson, the LSD inventor responded:`don`t throw out the baby with the bath water`. As a retired natural philosopher, Albert Hoffman still has strong hope to re-establish his wonder child LSD for therapeutic purposes, so that: `In time something similar to Eleusis will manifest – meditation centers that not only heal the ill, but intend to evolve the person through meditation techniques or chemical aid„.

Dr. Hofmann describes the primary-cyclic…natural matrix as an infinite transmitter. Our ability to perceive other worlds from it`s infinite nature depends on the quality of instruments and level of consciousness. For his entire life he pointed out the fact that: `the archaic instruments such as LSD or Psylocibin are natural agents, chemically and structurally related to common brain factors. For no means are they abnormal, but are in fact related to our interconnection with the plant kingdom.`

In the course of time, the pioneer of consciousness research abnegated to the absurd nihilistic scientific ideas, `which are harmful to the spiritual fundaments of Life, as they leave the individual in the loneliness and insecurity of a dead, technical world`. LSD-25 has the potential to help us overcome the spiritual vacuum created by our materialistic world views.

The witch hunt and the war on drugs has forced this experience of wholeness and healing underground, but as this current film documentation presents, LSD-25 has triggered the freedom movements, the Apple Computer and the global citizenship. If we make the effort to be guided by both reason & heart (Logos & Eros) inside todays global village, it will not take long before LSD`s purifying and empowering effects are recognized and even legalized as a standard therapeutic and philosophical tool.

What Dr. Hofmann and his wonder child LSD reveals to the emerging planetary community is simular to what Albert Einstein did to the physician Isaac Newton: LSD brought the transfer of our worldview from an absolute to a relative reality.

In love for live, your mediaShaman

Boris Eden Nikolaus Hiesserer (Doors Of Perception Ethic Committee-Heidelberg)