From The Vault
April 26, 2023: One Billion Seconds Later
In honor of the work of pioneering Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman, who discovered the hallucinogenic properties of lysergic acid known as LSD in 1943, we present this outstanding 1974 Documentary One Billion Seconds Later.
In 2006, on the occasion of Hoffman’s 100th birthday, he told the crowd of well wisher’s “LSD wanted to tell me something. It gave me an inner joy, an open mindedness, a gratefulness, opened eyes, and an internal sensitivity for the miracles of creation.”
One Billion Seconds Later is the first documentary from producer and now Pacifica Radio Archives arch angel Adi Gevins, which would win the prestiges Ohio State Award for Radio Excellence. The first of many awards.
This program explores the social history, from it’s discovery at Sandoz laboratories in Switzerland through the halls of academia, to Golden Gate Park and beyond. Included are words from Albert Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Baba Ram Dass, Ken Keasy, Dr. John Lilly and so many more. They all describe the LSD experience and speculate on it’s use as a therapeutic tool, a religious sacrament, and a revolutionary or counter revolutionary agent.