In 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann (born 1906), working on certain cardioactive properties of mushrooms, discovered, by chance, a substance with hallucinogens virtues: LSD. It is known what the importance of LSD was in “psychedelic” years. Ernst Jünger, whom Albert Hofmann met very early with Cary Grant, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary helped to popularize this substance, first used in psychotherapy, then attached to beat generation, becoming the symbol of a counter-culture of civil disobedience, before being banned in 1967. This meeting with an old wise man, aware of the dangers of his discovery, is an opportunity to reflect on the role of drugs in artistic creation and in the evolution of civilizations. Antonio Gnoli is a journalist and Franco Volpi teaches philosophy at Padua University.