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also immediately re-connected him with his childhood enchantments: “Taking LSD reminded me of experiences I had as a child ... It came back to me taking that first LSD trip. It made me so sure of myself. It brought an inner joy, as well as a gratefulness for this internal sensitivity that few can experience. To be part of the miracle of Creation ...” Hofmann’s connection of LSD and the religious experience would be repeated time and time again when LSD became widely available. It would be the subject of great debate between its proselityzers and those who believed it was naïve to ascribe religious experience to a chemical. 7
    Following Hofmann’s discovery of the effects of LSD-25 an intense period of research into the drug’s properties took place. Three of Hofmann’s colleagues at Sandoz took the drug and even at a third of the dosage found the effects to be “impressive and quite fantastic.” But for a drug to be used widely on humans it must first be subject to a range of clinical tests. The drug was tested on a variety of animals and it was obvious that some, such as the cat, experienced hallucinations. When given to one chimpanzee from a community the drug caused uproar, as the intoxicated chimp failed to adhere to the usual strict social hierarchy of therest of the group. Yet there was no pattern of effects common to all the experimental subjects. In spiders low doses of LSD-25 affected their ability to weave webs, resulting in web structures of increased symmetry when compared to those woven by un-dosed spiders. High doses saw a reversal of this, the webs becoming very basic and asymmetrical.
    Tests of LSD on animals sometimes exemplified the worst excesses of the scientific method. In a 1962 experiment to see if LSD-25 could induce madness in elephants, Tusko, a powerful male was given a dose of 297 mg. If this appears to be a low dose it should be borne in mind it would be enough to give 3000 adults a powerful LSD experience. An hour and forty minutes after being shot by a dart containing LSD, Tusko died. In an attempt to be positive about the experiment, its instigators noted, without a trace of irony: “It appears that the elephant is highly sensitive to the effects of LSD – a finding which may prove to be valuable in elephant-control work in Africa.” 8
    Of course, laboratory experiments on animals and insects only give a narrow view of what the effects of a drug are. While testing drugs on animals might enable study of the physical effects, they tell us very little about the effects on the brain and personality of the subject. This becomes even more relevant when dealing with mind altering drugs such as LSD. Chemists at Sandoz were aware of this and after extensive tests on animals convinced them the drug was safe and unlikely to cause psychological or physiological harm, the next step was to test the drug on adults. A research programme run by Professor Stoll’s son Werner was conducted in the psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich. The participants were given dosages of between 2 and 13 μg. These dosages were very low compared to Hofmann’s experimental dose of 250 μg, but the research subjects still reported euphoria as the principal effect of the drug. Everyone involved with the research was amazed at a drug that could have such powerful effects in miniscule quantities. Werner Stoll eventually tested the drug and took 60 μg. His lengthy report, the first published by a psychiatrist, detailed a stream of vibrant colourful imagery for which words were barely adequate. The psychological insights were startling. Stoll felt as though heunderstood abstract pictures, felt at one with all romanticists and dreamers and often “... seemed to stand at the pinnacle of artistic experience.” Later in the experiment Stoll’s euphoria changed to depression and he contemplated thoughts of suicide, but this passed and by the time he felt able to travel home he was euphoric again. “I had