Albert Hofmann, the Switzerland-born chemist who first synthesized lysergic acid (a.k.a. LSD) and thus unwittingly colored an entire subculture and culture at large, died yesterday in his home at the age of 102.

Hofmann was born in January 1906 in Baden, Switzerland. He credits a strange, pantheistic experience in nature with somehow demonstrating the presence of God; this would set his spiritual philosophy and his career path.

In 1926, Hofmann began his studies in chemistry at Zurich University and completed his Ph.D. some four years later. Hofmann went to work at a Sandoz (today part of pharma giant Novartis) chemical research lab in the early 1930s and stayed with the company into the 1970s. Set to work with medicinal plants and fungi, Hofmann became interested in ergot alkaloids, ultimately discovering in 1938 that lysergic acid is a basic component in certain useful versions of the alkaloids.

Interest of all but Hofmann was lost in lysergic acid. In 1943, the doctor accidentally ingested some of the stuff and, um, felt the effects of "a not unpleasant intoxicationlike condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination." Three days later, he deliberately dosed himself and the rest is history.

Sort of. What the partying hippies and counterculturalists tend to forget about Hofmann is that he saw LSD not as a party drug but as a way to "develop a new awareness of reality" which "could become the basis of a spirituality that's not founded on the dogmatics of existing religions, but on insights into a higher and profounder sense," meaning the God he felt in his young age.

In his book, "LSD: My Problem Child," Hofmann well illustrates his problems with said offspring when describing his meeting with "LSD apostle" Timothy Leary:

I voiced my regret that the investigations with LSD and psilocybin at Harvard University, which had begun promisingly, had degenerated to such an extent that their continuance in an academic milieu became impossible.

In this conversation, I further objected to the great publicity that Leary sought for his LSD and psilocybin investigations ... Emphasis was thereby placed on publicity rather than on objective information. Leary defended this publicity program because he felt it had been his fateful historic role to make LSD known worldwide. The overwhelmingly positive effects of such dissemination, above all among America's younger generation, would make any trifling injuries, any regrettable accidents as a result of improper use of LSD, unimportant in comparison, a small price to pay.

"LSD: My Problem Child" can be read in full here. The New York Times obituary can be found here.

R.I.P., Dr. Hofmann. Hope your trip was a good one.