PIHKAL: A Chemical Love Story
Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin was an American medicinal chemist, biochemist, organic chemist, pharmacologist, psychopharmacologist, and novelist who died on June 2, 2014. He is credited with introducing MDMA ("ecstasy", "mandy", or "molly") to psychologists for psychopharmaceutical use in the late 1970s, as well as the discovery, synthesis, and personal bioassay of approximately 230 psychoactive chemicals for their psychedelic and entactogenic potential.
Ann Shulgin and her husband, Sasha Shulgin, co-founded Transform Press in 1991 out of a shared enthusiasm and commitment to an unfiltered investigation of psychoactive chemicals. They co-wrote and published PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story (1991) and TiHKAL: The Continuation (1997), two cult classics based on their psychedelic experiences, through the Press.
PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story by Alexander and Ann Shulgin has become a foundational work in the genre and was the first book to fully impart the how-to chemistry, as well as convey the effects, of many of the entheogenic drugs that are currently being studied and used to heal trauma and deal with death. The book, an abbreviation for "Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved," spans autobiography, organic chemistry, politics, ethnobotany, and psychopharmacology, and its cultural impact will undoubtedly be tremendous for decades to come, as it has already been.
The first section of PiHKAL is a fictitious autobiographical 'novel' - the key fabrication is that it is fiction. The first half of the book is titled The Love Story, and it follows two people named Shura and Alice as they fall in love, despite the fact that one of them is already in love with someone else. This love triangle is a horrible agony they must endure, and the reader witnesses the process with grace and deep insight into human nature. Shura is a talented chemist who has dedicated his career to creating psychoactive chemicals; in the story, they have several experiences with the psychedelic compounds that Shura has found and manufactured in his lab, all of which he has bioassayed himself. The reader will find oneself accompanying them on this journey, experiencing what they have experienced, both in their emotions and in their psychedelic journeys.
The Chemical Story, the second half of PiHKAL, offers explicit directions for, and effects of, the synthesis of 179 psychedelic phenethylamines, the majority of which were discovered by Shulgin himself. There contains information on the synthesis of each chemical, as well as indicated effective dosage, duration, and thorough discussion on the subjective effects that were experienced. This book appeals to adults of all ages and cultures, as well as to both expert and inexperienced psychedelic users.
Author: Ann Shulgin
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0963009605/
Ratings: 4.8 out of 5 stars (from 1196 reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #5,349 in Books
#2 in Industrial & Technical Chemistry (Books)
#3 in General Chemistry
#15 in Drug Dependency & Recovery (Books)
