Bicycle Day
A Memorial for the Discovery of a Chemical Goddess On April, 19th 1943 a modest chemist decided to verify an odd reaction to a chemical and afterward proceeded to take a bike ride. This small act spiraled outward; creating a range of events too complex, beautiful, and massive to be fully documented. This day would forever be known as Bicycle Day.
Albert Hofmann, the aforementioned chemist, was at the time working with a fungus called ergot; which has a grand history as a poison, medicine, and entheogen. After much success and finding out that the alkaloids in ergot had a lysergic acid base, he continued to synthesize more using already made synthetic versions of chemicals in ergot. After first synthesizing lysergic acid diethylamide-25 in 1938, he concluded nothing much of it, except the rats did seem restless in testing. Never the less, five years later, on April 16th, he had the strange sensation he may have missed something concerning it‘s pharmacological actions. He made a decision that would change the world- to re-synthesize LSD-25.
During the crystallization process, Hofmann concluded, a miniscule amount of the LSD solution may have been absorbed through his finger tips. As he wrote in his notebook:
Last Friday, April 16,1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away. Hofmann, confused and fascinated, wondered if lysergic acid diethylamide could have caused this fantastic episode. With dire need to confirm his suspicion, he decided to self experiment. With the assumption that LSD had the same threshold dose as other ergot alkaloids, he preceded to take 250 micrograms. Little did he know, the threshold dose for this fascinating alkaloid was only 20 micrograms.
After drinking the LSD diluted in water, Hofmann’s experience proved to be very similar to his three days ago but much more intense. Albert Hofmann had just become the first person to intentionally take LSD-25. Because of the war, they were not allowed to use cars, so Albert and his assistant rode home on bicycles. The world we perceive as reality seemed to dissolve and in it’s place an equally real, scary and fantastic world appeared before his eyes as he sped forward furiously, but frozen, on his bicycle. For the rest of the day Hofmann embarked into a very sacred world; scared and awestruck, he rode out the first ever LSD trip.
Hofmann has participated and been a large part in the heart of the psychedelic community until his recent, painless death of a heart attack at 102 years old.
Bicycle day is nothing less than the celebration and anniversary of the resurrection of a goddess. A catalyst for modern day American shamanism took place. It has changed the world; inspired science, art, and gratuitously granted us medical and spiritual breakthroughs as well as brought forth discoveries from our ancient past. One of the most fantastic and inevitably misunderstood chemicals was born.
The secret and sacred Eleusinian Festivals of Ancient Greece took place for 2,000 years in which participants included Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Cicero, Plutarch and Pindar. During these festivals, it is supposed but not proven, they drank an ergotized beer. This LSD like intoxicant was praised as “true nature of the soul, its relation to the body, and the method by which it could be purified and redeemed,” and “soul-shattering vision,” experienced so “that we may live in joy, but also, besides, that we may die with better hope”.
Further more, the Oaxaca people of Mexico use morning glory seeds in a sacred manner to contact deities, especially when psilocybin mushrooms are not available. Morning glory seeds contain LSA which is structurally related to LSD and has similar psychedelic effects. These two are only miniscule examples in massive history of how drugs created and influenced religion and how that intertwines with an extensive range of science.
So the consequences and benefits of introducing entheogenic substances to a country where the idea of god is much opposed to the ego and boundary dissolving spirituality, the reaction is going to be extreme. While psilocybin mushrooms, dimethyltryptamine, mescaline and other entheogenic substances were also making progress at the time, lysergic acid diethylamide acted as catalyst; it sped up and intensified the process because of it’s wide availability and how quickly it can be produced.
The events that followed were beautiful. One specific example is when Francis Crick finally cracked the double-helix structure of DNA while on LSD. Though a massive amount of authors, musicians, artists, psychologist, a wide range of spiritual leaders and seekers, physicists, chemists, and other scientists based their entire lives and carriers over their mystical drug induced experiences.
While LSD was legal it was found to be an extraordinary medicine, found to cure a wide range of diseases for example alcoholism, addiction, autism, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, fear of death, and close mindedness.
Unfortunately, due to exaggerated horror stories, a frightened public, and false propaganda, a scared government decided to illegalize most of the entheogenic substances against the advice of doctors and psychiatrists.
Thankfully, doctors are reexamining the use of psychedelic drugs as medicine and links to science and religion. As well there are still soldiers out their fighting the war for peace and entheogenic freedom. Today, they celebrate by riding their bicycles and freeing their minds with shamanic tools and chemicals. So each April 19th, you just might feel the vibes of love and freedom in the air of those who honor Dr. Hofmann and the goddess he discovered.
So what did you think? 
-FRACTALife
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myself but it's fixed! This is one reason why I love you guys! 
