Original subtitles

A fraction of a milligram, and everything changes.

A molecule that changes our perception.

Anyone who has experienced it

will never forget.

I then had a wonderful experience.

But I didn't know where it came from.

All my thoughts were images.

It was absolutely beautiful, I layed down at home

it was in the afternoon, because I went home

and then it slowly dissipated.

The sight of these almost bizarre images

and that feeling of happiness.

It all starts April 16th 1943 in Switzerland.

Despite the terror of World War 2

the chemist Albert Hofmann was looking for a drug

for the circulatory system.

The young father of a family found

the position of his life at Sandoz in Basel.

But on that day in April

he must have come into contact with an unknown substance.

Three days later he decides to run a self-experiment.

As a cautious scientist

he chooses a very small dosage.

But the substance he ingested was acting stronger

than everything else known to science.

His first self-experiment

was a trip into the unknown.

And it then was a horrible experience.

Terrible because I felt

that I would already be in another world.

And I knew I had a young family

and now I had to leave and I'm already gone

from this beautiful world.

It was a horrible torturing experience.

Fear, the feeling

that I was in another world,

probably this is the end. I was already on the other side.

My wife came home at midnight.

And I was in the positive phase again.

I returned and

one day later,

I woke up and had the feeling

I was living a new life.

Reborn.

I had gone to the other side,

in some way.

In my conscience,

I was almost dead.

In his laboratory of natural products

Albert Hofmann worked with ergot -

a black mushroom that mainly grows on rye.

It is known from

natural medicine since the Middle Ages.

But one of the new substances he isolates

does not affect the circulation as expected

but the human mind.

Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD

And immediately we including myself realized that

this is a exceptionally interesting substance

for psychiatry.

It changes the psyche and consciousness.

We had a new tool

in psychiatric research.

After the first clinical trials in Switzerland

Sandoz decided

to authorize the LSD production.

The new molecule attracts huge interest

among psychiatrists all over the world.

The substance affects gradually.

Brain activity is recorded.

Ready. Ready to start.

Close your eyes.

In the first ten years

it was a miracle drug.

It was such an important tool

in psychiatry for patients.

And I always believed:

The actual application of LSD was yet to come.

It can not disappear, that's impossible.

During the Cold War,

other groups

start to be interested in this new miracle drug.

LSD becomes the focus of attention

of international secret services.

At the forefront, the American CIA.

How does our consciousness come into existence?

It is created by what is received

through our senses

in every single moment.

That defines our consciousness.

It is through our senses. And what LSD does:

The whole mechanics consists of

the amplification of our senses.

Enormous amplification.

And then we see the world differently.

Don't you feel good?

Do you want to stop the experiment?

In the late 50s,

LSD has found its place in psychiatry.

It is used in many European and

North-American clinics on a regular basis.

Because they supposed LSD

would enhance creativity,

more and more artists

and intellectuals became interested in the substance.

LSD or psilocybin are

structurally chemically related

with endogen neurotransmitters in our brain

and affect a part of the brain

that controls other parts of the brain

in combination.

And thats's why LSD can be very

active, even in small amounts.

It is possible to determine the

brain regions affected,

locate psychological changes

and see which networks are active.

Emotional areas

that control fear

are partially regulated down.

Others that

allow a feeling of happiness

are regulated up

and the visual part

is filled up from the inside.

The inner consciousness is extremely amplified.

A good trip is

a gradual dissolution of the ego.

One merges with the environment,

ceases the control,

but can enjoy.

One feels embedded. Being one.

And with it, one also senses a feeling of happiness.

Time and space are abandoned,

it is a personal perspective,

and one flows with the experience.

You are the experience itself.

It is this oceanic self limitation.

In the mid-50s Gordon Wasson,

a researcher from New York

made a mysterious discovery in the highlands of Mexico.

A unremarkable mushroom

ingested as a sacrament in rituals

to get in touch with the world of the gods.

Wasson collects some samples of that mystical mushroom.

That time the mushrooms were then chemically analyzed,

first in the United States and and then aswell in Europe in Paris.

Nothing was found,

they failed to extract the active substances.

So they thought in Basel there is a substance, LSD

that had the same effect.

And they enquired

if we were interested in analyzing these mushrooms.

And so the LSD brought these mushrooms

to my laboratory.

Natural sciences show

what is objectively there for everybody.

But you have to see,

you have to think about it.

And a scientist sees the secrets,

the objective secrets.

And I believe that a chemist, that is not

a mystic, is not a real chemist.

He still does not understand.

During the analysis of the magic mushroom,

Albert Hofmann risks the method

of a self-experiment again.

And so he and his colleagues succeed

to isolate the active substance for the first time.

Psilocybin (4-Phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamin)

Chemically closely related to LSD.

Mister Wasson was very delighted.

And so he said he would like to take us

to Mexico, and show us this wonder world.

And so we went to that expedition

to Mazatec - an area in the south.

The American lead him to Maria Sabina

an old healer

highly reputated among the Mazatec.

At her place, the two researchers want

to put their psilocybin tablets to the proof.

My friend Gordon explained to Maria Sabina

we had isolated the spirit of the mushroom

and she could now do a ceremony

with these pills aswell.

She then organized a ceremony.

And when these pills had been given out

it was a fantastic ceremony

which lasted until morning.

In these sacred drugs,

I basically found LSD.

This just gives the meaning to LSD.

LSD does not only by the effects but

also by the chemical structure belong

to these drugs that were

discovered thousands of years ago.

Among an infinite world of plants, one

picked something and says it is sacred.

And then, what is very crucial,

they have always been used in a sacral context.

The Indians still use them.

You have to prepare, fast and pray.

And finally, you come to a higher power,

in another world.

In California, 1964

a group of young people leave for

a journey all across the country:

"The Merry Pranksters"

In the center of the group, the writer Ken Kesey

who could afford to live an independent live

after his bestseller

"One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest"

His novel is inspired by an experience with LSD

Ken Kesey had as a volunteer

in a Californian clinic.

Wherever the old school bus stopped,

LSD parties were getting larger.

The "acid test" as an

initiation ritual to a new

psychedelic lifestyle.

Millbrook, on the east coast of the United States

In the vacant country residence of a rich patron,

former professor at Harvard,

Timothy Leary,

founded a psychedelic community.

At Harvard, Leary adds the study of

hallucinogenic drugs to the curriculum.

That was the beginning of the end

for the ambitious teacher

at the elite university.

Tim Leary and his team

were dismissed from Harvard.

His new headquarter - Millbrook.

A place for meditation,

but also a start.

He placed an order to the company.

I do not know, about 200 grams of

LSD and another half kilogram of

psilocybin.

And he invited me

to come to see him.

He would organize large events,

large conventions, etc.

I wrote to him not to do it,

because everything was still in research.

Why do you hype this, while all

was still in the ascendent?

The psychedelic movement began

gaining ground in California.

Haight-Ashbury, a run down district

of San Francisco,

experienced a second spring.

So I accused him of forcing LSD on

young people, very young people.

LSD requires

preparation, a certain maturity

and it is irresponsible to fudge with people

whose conscience is

still under development,

with such an instrument.

So I addressed reproaches to him.

In the street, the acid or LSD, is initially

tolerated by the police.

The use of the new fashion drug was

still not prohibited.

After increasingly heated public debates

about the dangers of LSD,

the state of California finally reacts

in October 1966:

The substance gets prohibited.

Shortly after the ban of LSD

more than 20.000 people gather

in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.

Hippies, oppositionist students

and various streams within the

protest movement gather to

a huge collective rally.

The hymns of the youth movement

conquer the big TV studios.

The new mass media spread the

message of the hippies all around the world.

Summer of 1967.

The psychedelic movement flourishes.

The Summer of Love

From my own experiences,

I never thought that a substance which such

an effect would ever come to the streets.

Yes, the abuse.

When a substance is out in the world,

when it exists, you don't remain in control.

President Nixon publicly declares Timothy Leary

the most dangerous man in America.

Shortly after that he was sentenced to a draconic prison sentence

for the possession of two joints.

Albert Hofmann's magical drug became

his problem child.

LSD is pushed back to psychiatry

where it came from, but it is still

tolerated in some clinics.

After the last exceptional permissions

had expired,

LSD disappears to the underground.

Banned as a devilish drug at international level.

The research on hallucinogens

seemed to fade into obscurity.

Basically, the whole world is enchanted.

The deeper you look into the

living nature,

the more beautiful you perceive it

and I also believe

we then feel secure, because we

are part of it.

We are blessed,

we can see it,

we can experience it.

Our conscience is

the greatest gift that the creator

gave to humanity.

Being aware of his creation,

not walking blindly through paradise.

Albert Hofmann died on April 29, 2008.

Thanks to jimmy @ MeHmoN for the portuguese subtitles