On November 16, 1938, chemist Albert Hoffman first isolated a new compound in his lab in Switzerland, but he didn’t think it had any use. Five years later, he looked at the compound again, and on April 19, 1943, he discovered that it had properties that caused wild hallucinations.
The drug was from a category known as “entheogens,” the kind that induced altered states of consciousness. Its official name was lysergic acid diethylamide, or “LSD” for short.
Over the next twenty years, scientists and researchers looked for ways this then-totally legal drug, marketed under the name “Delysid,” could be of use.
It was tried on patients with schizophrenia, depression, and alcoholism, and it was used by shady government departments. Could it be used for brainwashing? Did it have any potential as a truth serum?
And there was another group of experimenters. They wanted to know if Delysid could enhance creativity or otherwise expand the abilities of the human mind. Some conducted formal trials with various types of artists: painters, writers, composers. Others just took Delysid to see what it did to them.
Delysid was legally manufactured by a couple of pharmaceutical companies until 1965, but by then, they were getting pressure from governments about how Delysid—now commonly called “acid”—was being used by the general public. By the end of the 60s, Delysid—LSD—was illegal around the planet.
But that was of no concern to Owsley Stanley. He may have been an amateur chemist, but he was a good one when it came to synthesizing LSD. He was a legend. His stuff was powerful and pure. In fact, it was better than the stuff you could order from those European labs. And because he was connected with the music industry, he had plenty of musicians as customers, many of them who would become very famous.
Because they dropped Owsley’s acid, the world of music changed forever. And in amongst all the tripping, Owsley also managed to create a concert sound system that also changed the world of music forever.
This is episode 55 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry.” This is part two of the wild LSD story of Owsley Stanley, the man they called “Bear.”
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