PIHKAL: A Chemical Love Story

Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story
Alexander and Ann Shulgin
(Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved)

9.5/10

I guess what's stopped me from writing a review for this book before was the fact that I haven't read all 978 pages in their entirety. But since there was a request for reviews, here is mine.

I did read all of part one which was an excellent dual-autobiography of the authors, husband and wife, Alexander (Sasha) and Ann Shulgin. Part two covers the synthesis and trip reports of lots of phenethlyamines, many created by Sasha himself. This I read partially.

The first part is interesting and well written, covering the main details of each of the characters lives, some of their important drug experiences, and how they met and fell in love. This is very much a romantic love story and there is quite a bit of drama. As for drugs, Sasha is inspired to explore psychopharmacology after being given a drink that he was told would knock him out, did just that, and later was told he was just given a placebo (sugar). Ann's first serious psychedelic adventure was on Peyote. They are both very fond of MDMA and believe strongly its beneficial uses (see Ecstasy: The Complete Guide). The first part includes some of the most thorough trip reports in the book and provides great background on the authors for the second part.

For those of you who are completely unfamiliar with Alexander Shulgin (there's plenty on wikipedia and erowid) he was given a license from the FDA to create pretty well any drugs he wanted, provided he would do some work for them (like offering his chemical expertise in legal matters). And boy did he ever take advantage of that license and share the fruits of his labour.

The second part details the synthesis of many phenethylamines and reports on their (in)activity. Their is a research team involved, usually at least two other individuals besides Ann and Sasha take part. They have certain protocols they follow when performing the experiments (everyone can stay the night, mustn't have done any drugs in the past 3 days, will not engage in sexual relations with anyone with whom they are not already in a relationship with, but there are private rooms for those who are involved and feeling frisky). I skipped the syntheses as they are useless to me (not to mention mostly illegal) and I only read the reports for substances that I had heard about before or saw that they had a very high rating on the Shulgin scale.

This book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the phenethylamine group of psychedelics (which includes MDMA, amphetamines, mescaline as well as many more obscure ones). Any serious psychonaut should read this, the collection of trip reoprts is encyclopedic, as well as the syntheses. A wonderful work of science, a masterpiece.

Reputation Comments on this post:

good review