“In the LSD state the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world more or less disappear, depending on the depth of the inebriation.”

— Albert Hofmann

Source: LSD : My Problem Child (1980), Ch. 11 : LSD Experience and Reality
Context: What constitutes the essential, characteristic difference between everyday reality and the world picture experienced in LSD inebriation? Ego and the outer world are separated in the normal condition of consciousness, in everyday reality; one stands face-to-face with the outer world; it has become an object. In the LSD state the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world more or less disappear, depending on the depth of the inebriation. Feedback between receiver and sender takes place. A portion of the self overflows into the outer world, into objects, which begin to live, to have another, a deeper meaning. This can be perceived as a blessed, or as a demonic transformation imbued with terror, proceeding to a loss of the trusted ego. In an auspicious case, the new ego feels blissfully united with the objects of the outer world and consequently also with its fellow beings. This experience of deep oneness with the exterior world can even intensify to a feeling of the self being one with the universe. This condition of cosmic consciousness, which under favorable conditions can be evoked by LSD or by another hallucinogen from the group of Mexican sacred drugs, is analogous to spontaneous religious enlightenment, with the unio mystica. In both conditions, which often last only for a timeless moment, a reality is experienced that exposes a gleam of the transcendental reality, in which universe and self, sender and receiver, are one.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In the LSD state the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world more or less disappear, depending on …" by Albert Hofmann?

Albert Hofmann 42

Swiss chemist 1906–2008

Related quotes

“If ones tries to vanquish foes in the outer world,
They increase in greater measure.
If one conquers his Self-mind within,
All his foes soon disappear.”

Milarepa (1052–1135) Tibetan yogi

Song to the Hunter

“I guessed he experienced the terrible confusion of a true solipsist when the outer world impinges.”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 13 (p. 357)

“Libertarian states have no violence between themselves. The more libertarian two states, the less their mutual violence. The more libertarian a state, the less its foreign violence.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

“Libertarianism and International Violence”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 27, Sage Publications, March 1, 1983, p. 27-71 https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP83.HTM

“The destruction of the colonial world is no more and no less that the abolition of one zone, its burial in the depths of the earth or its expulsion from the country.”

Frantz Fanon book The Wretched of the Earth

Source: The Wretched of the Earth (1961), p. 41

“In my ‘Understanding Conflict and War’ I concluded that the more freedom a state accords its citizens, the less likely it is to be involved in foreign violence; and the more freedom within two states, the less likely there will be violence between them. Moreover, war between free-libertarian-states will not occur, and other violence between them is very improbable… This conclusion about the violence-reducing effect of freedom also extends to conflict within states: ‘the more libertarian a state, the less intense its violence can and tends to become.”

Rudolph Rummel (1932–2014) American academic

“Libertarianism, Violence within States, and the Polarity Principle,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 443-462. Published by Comparative Politics, Ph.D. Programs in Political Science, City University of New York. https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP84.HTM

“Science depends on outer experiment. Spirituality depends on inner searching and seeking.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

Songs of the Soul (1971)
Context: Science depends on outer experiment. Spirituality depends on inner searching and seeking. A scientist discovers the power that very often threatens even his own life. A spiritual seeker discovers the power that guides and moulds his life into a life of divine fulfilment.

“Democracy can be an equilibrium: a system of "self-government" in which the distinction between the rulers and the ruled disappears.”

Adam Przeworski (1940) Polish-American academic

Adam Przeworski (1991) Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe, p. 26

“A system is a set of objects with relationships between the … in may be described generally as a complex of elements or components directly or indirectly related in a causal network, … Also, we are mainly interested in systems within which some process is continually going on, including an interchange with an environment across the boundary. It is generally agreed that when we deal with the more open system with a highly flexible structure, the distinction between the boundaries and the environment becomes a more and more arbitrary matter, dependent upon the purpose of the observer.”

Arthur D. Hall (1925–2006) American electrical engineer

Cited in: Addison C. Bennett (1978) Improving management performance in health care institutions: a total systems approach.. p. 40
A methodology for systems engineering, 1962

“And where is the boundary-if there is a boundary-between a collective outlook and "the world"?. Many cultures assume such a boundary, but they set it in different places. Divine appearances once were real- they are mere fantasies today. Where shall we, who examine the phenomenon, set the boundary?”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

pg 27.
Conquest of Abundance (2001 [posthumous])

“Some split between the inner world and outer world is common to all behaviour, and the need to bridge the gap is the source of creative behaviour.”

Anthony Storr (1920–2001) English psychiatrist

“In the LSD state the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world more or less disappear, depending on the depth of the inebriation.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Albert Hofmann 42

Related quotes

Related topics