Albert Hofmann was the Swiss chemist at Sandoz in Basel who led the team that first described psilocybin in the scientific record. A March 1958 note by Hofmann, Heim, Brack and Kobel names psilocybin as a psychotropic substance from the Mexican mushroom Psilocybe mexicana (Hofmann et al., 1958). A November 1958 paper reported its structure and synthesis (Hofmann et al., 1958b), and a 1959 paper says both compounds were isolated in crystalline form and named psilocybin and psilocin (Hofmann et al., 1959).
The mushrooms reached him through Roger Heim, who grew Psilocybe mexicana in France after the Wasson expeditions and gave material to Sandoz, a 2026 review reports (Tabal-Robles et al., 2026). Sandoz then supplied psilocybin to researchers under the name Indocybin, and a 2022 paper analyses a Sandoz lot dated December 1963 (Sherwood et al., 2022). One source says Hofmann visited Huautla with Wasson in 1962 (García de Teresa, 2022).
“Discovered” is a loose word here. These papers date the chemical isolation, not the much longer human use of the mushrooms in Mexico. Hofmann’s own memoir is often quoted for what came next, such as a reported 1965 end to Sandoz production (Barber et al., 2025); that date reaches us second-hand.
Sources
- Hofmann et al., 1958, Experientia 14(3)
- Hofmann et al., 1959, Helvetica Chimica Acta 42(5)
- Sherwood et al., 2022, Acta Crystallographica C (Indocybin)
- Tabal-Robles et al., 2026, Journal of the Mexican Chemical Society
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