ACID

The rumors about LSD were going round in Copenhagen in 1966. All the hippies were eager to try it. I had moved in with my friend Lone and we finally got hold of some sugar cubes with acid.
I had a biblical experience (though I am not a Christian). I was looking out the window and I saw something like the trees burning without being consumed. It was too overwhelming. I closed my eyes but there was no escape, the vision continued. I heard God’s voice saying: ”Look here! The works of creation!” and an unending stream of multidimensional wonders kept emerging from a center. Afterwards I tried to give a two dimensional version of it:

When I came outside after this experience it was into a clarified world. The plants were pulsing with life; the clouds were dancing. It took weeks before this amazing freshness faded. My paintings were influenced by a new way of seeing:

An old photo painted over:

I combined the symbols from Hinduism, Buddhism and Daoism in this drawing:

“The holy scriptures are the crutches of the spirit,” I wrote in my diary, for thanks to LSD I had experienced the reality that they describe. It widened my horizon and turned my life in a happier direction.