The CIA's TOP SECRET Mind Control Drug

At the end of the Korean War, The New York Times published a gripping story detailing how returning American soldiers may have been converted by communist brainwashers. The story became widely popular. Some troops were allegedly confessing to war crimes, while others adopted the communist ideology and even refused to return home. The sphere of brainwashing or brain warfare both terrified and fascinated the American public at a time when political tensions were rising in the early years of the Cold War.

The CIA was convinced that the Soviet Union had developed a drug or technique to control minds. As a response, they launched a top-secret program called MK-Ultra. MK-Ultra's main purpose was to conduct covert experiments centered around behavior modification. Human test subjects were exposed to electroshock therapy, hypnosis, polygraphs, radiation, and a mixture of drugs, potions, and chemicals to see whether any of these would be successful in controlling the human mind.

While the CIA believed that all these experiments could be potentially useful, there was one drug that stood out and became MK-Ultra's obsession. In the 1950s and 60s, the alleged race for manipulating the human mind had just begun, and the drug at the heart of it was discovered by accident in 1938. Albert Hoffman, a researcher working for a Swiss chemical company called Sandos, accidentally formulated a psychoactive hallucinogenic that would alter the course of history.

Hoffman initially wanted to synthesize a chemical compound that would stimulate the respiratory and circulatory system by combining lysergic acid with other molecules. On his 25th attempt, he inadvertently created lysergic acid dithylamide, or LSD-25. While this new discovery was useless to his research at the time, Hoffman noticed that there was something interesting about this new compound. The animals that were exposed to it showed strange levels of excitement and behaved peculiarly.

Not thinking too much of it, though, Hoffman shelved his new discovery for five years until the results of his testing piqued his interest again, and he decided to synthesize it in his lab once more. While in the final stages of synthesizing LSD during the height of the Second World War in 1943, Hoffman accidentally absorbed some of the substance. He soon experienced restlessness, dizziness, and a state of extremely stimulated imagination that prompted him to abandon his work for the day and go home.

The next morning, he returned to his lab with a burning desire to discover what had affected him the previous day. After ruling out all the possible contaminants, he came to the conclusion that he must have somehow ingested LSD and that what he experienced was similar to the animals he had observed in his lab five years prior. To verify this hypothesis, Hoffman decided that there was only one thing to do: self-experiment.

So, on April 19, 1943, Albert Hoffman embarked on the world's first acid trip. Forty minutes after taking the drug, Hoffman began feeling dizziness, anxiety, visual distortions, and a sudden urge to laugh while riding his bicycle home. He also reported that everything in his field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen through a curved mirror. When he finally reached the safety of his home, he collapsed on his sofa. LSD's psychedelic effects locked him in a frenzy of hallucinations that manifested in a continued animated motion driven by inner restlessness.

Hoffman was so frightened that he thought he was going to die, but soon the effects subdued and the horrors softened, giving way to a feeling of good fortune and gratitude magnified by an unprecedented display of colors and shapes behind his closed eyes. Everything glistened and sparkled in a fresh light; the world was as if it was newly created. He wrote the following morning, “All my senses vibrated in a condition of highest sensitivity which persisted for the entire day."

Today, April 19th is celebrated by recreational LSD users as Bicycle Day because of Hoffman's colorful ride home. Acid and psychedelic are two terms that are forever linked thanks to Hoffman. Psychedelic is a combination of the gre...