Victorian LSD

Vivisfugue

Banned
Well, so far as I can tell, the Victorians didn't need LSD.:D
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What if LSD was discovered and synthesized in Victorian Britian?

Probably not much difference. They were on all kinds of stuff as it was, much of it prescribed by doctors or in over the counter meds. Ideas of narcotic control tend to be a very 20th C thing :D
 
Probably not much difference. They were on all kinds of stuff as it was, much of it prescribed by doctors or in over the counter meds. Ideas of narcotic control tend to be a very 20th C thing :D

Between the cocaine in the soft drinks and the codeine, heroin in cough syrups, and who knows what in the patent medicines (along with 20% alcohol), your average Victorian could get heavily drugged before breakfast while remaining a totally respectable pillar of society. :p My favorite, though, were the people in the temperance movement who recommended opium as a healthier alternative to demon rum.
 
Laudanum...the choice of the previous generation of freak-outs! :D

I'm sure it would be very popular with the already extensive counter-culture, but hallucinogenic experimentation and the unintended hallucinogenic effects of other drugs had already created a whole batch of "psychedelic" culture. Look at Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking Glass i.e. Alice in Wonderland, Jabberwocky, etc.) and you get the idea. Also, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were noted drug users.

LSD might change the details as the hallucinations are longer, different, and more intense, but not as much as you might think.
 
I'm sure it would be very popular with the already extensive counter-culture, but hallucinogenic experimentation and the unintended hallucinogenic effects of other drugs had already created a whole batch of "psychedelic" culture. Look at Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking Glass i.e. Alice in Wonderland, Jabberwocky, etc.) and you get the idea. Also, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were noted drug users.

But think of those things as they were without LSD, and now think of them ... on acid.
 
Let's go from there. What would you get?

I've never done acid, so going on first-hand accounts and acid-inspired artwork of the hippie years:

More stretched, distorted, and twisted/liquid forms? The Cheshire cat is more elastic in form rather than just transparent/vanishing?

More dark, twisted visions with gaping black holes for eyes and mouths? *Shudder* Imagine Frankenstein's Monster as envisioned by Ralph Steadman.

Gods, assuming he's not butterflied away imagine Lovecraft on acid! :eek:
 
Mindf***k with mindf***k works on multiplication/addition, not cancellation.

Combine Alice with Acid and the universe could very well collapse in on itself.
 
I think acid would have been very good for them. Might have helped to loosen them up a bit. People wore too much clothing then, they must have been very uncomfortable. And they were too hung up on manners and appearance, and on making an impression.
 

Thande

Donor
LSD was invented in the 1940s. I don't remember an era of decadent free love in the 1950s. Whether a drug comes to the forefront is much more dependent on independent cultural shifts than whether it is available.
 
LSD was invented in the 1940s. I don't remember an era of decadent free love in the 1950s. Whether a drug comes to the forefront is much more dependent on independent cultural shifts than whether it is available.
Some guy travels the country selling snake oil that will make people see "worlds unseen"
 
I've never done acid, so going on first-hand accounts and acid-inspired artwork of the hippie years:

More stretched, distorted, and twisted/liquid forms? The Cheshire cat is more elastic in form rather than just transparent/vanishing?

More dark, twisted visions with gaping black holes for eyes and mouths? *Shudder* Imagine Frankenstein's Monster as envisioned by Ralph Steadman.

Gods, assuming he's not butterflied away imagine Lovecraft on acid! :eek:

Interesting thoughts about art but re Lovecraft- it would probably just have made him much less coherent. I think acid works better with the visual arts rather than the literary ones.
 

Dom

Moderator
I think acid would have been very good for them. Might have helped to loosen them up a bit. People wore too much clothing then, they must have been very uncomfortable. And they were too hung up on manners and appearance, and on making an impression.

Thats called being English, not being Victorian, and I doubt that even Acid can help us with those problems :(:p
 
I think acid would have been very good for them. Might have helped to loosen them up a bit. People wore too much clothing then, they must have been very uncomfortable. And they were too hung up on manners and appearance, and on making an impression.

They didn't need to loosen up- all those morals were for public show. Remember, this was an era of opium dens, child prostitution, gambling hells. The modern Anglospheric cultures tend to draw a strict line between licit and the illicit vices- the Victorians didn't so long as said illicit vices were indulged discreetly.
 
They didn't need to loosen up- all those morals were for public show. Remember, this was an era of opium dens, child prostitution, gambling hells. The modern Anglospheric cultures tend to draw a strict line between licit and the illicit vices- the Victorians didn't so long as said illicit vices were indulged discreetly.
I don't know - look at Mardi Gras / Carnival / Faschung. Every other christian culture seemed to evolve wild parties. And the wildest thing our English forebearers could come up with was eating pancakes for supper!:):)
 
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