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Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin (born June 17, 1925 in Berkeley, California) is an American pharmacologist, chemist and drug developer of Russian descent.
Shulgin is credited with the popularizing of MDMA in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially for psychopharmaceutical use and the treatment of depression and Post-traumatic stress disorder. In subsequent years, Shulgin discovered, synthesized, and bioassayed over 230 psychoactive compounds. In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL on the topic of psychoactive drugs.
Alexander Shulgin, chemist, 'father of MDMA', creates many 'drugs' in his home laboratory and catalogs his experiences with these phenethylamines.
We'll start with:
MESCALINE; 3,4,5-TRIMETHOXYPHENETHYLAMINE
[3D .mol structure]
SYNTHESIS: [I have removed the directions for cooking this up. It's available on the web.]
QUALITATIVE COMMENTS: (with 300 mg) I would have liked to, and was expecting to, have an exciting visual day, but I seemed to be unable to escape self-analysis. At the peak of the experience I was quite intoxicated and hyper with energy, so that it was not hard to move around. I was quite restless. But I spent most of the day in considerable agony, attempting to break through without success. I learned a great deal about myself and my inner workings. Everything almost was, but in the final analysis, wasn't. I began to become aware of a point, a brilliant white light, that seemed to be where God was entering, and it was inconceivably wonderful to perceive it and to be close to it. One wished for it to approach with all one's heart. I could see that people would sit and meditate for hours on end just in the hope that this little bit of light would contact them. I begged for it to continue and come closer but it did not. It faded away not to return in that particular guise the rest of the day. Listening to Mozart's Requiem, there were magnificent heights of beauty and glory. The world was so far away from God, and nothing was more important than getting back in touch with Him. But I saw how we created the nuclear fiasco to threaten the existence of the planet, as if it would be only through the threat of complete annihilation that people might wake up and begin to become concerned about each other. And so also with the famines in Africa. Many similar scenes of joy and despair kept me in balance. I ended up the experience in a very peaceful space, feeling that though I had been through a lot, I had accomplished a great deal. I felt wonderful, free, and clear.
(with 350 mg) Once I got through the nausea stage, I ventured out-of-doors and I was aware of an intensification of color and a considerable change in the texture of the cloth of my skirt and in the concrete of the sidewalk, and in the flowers and leaves that were handed me by an observer. I experienced the desire to laugh hysterically at what I could only describe as the completely ridiculous state of the entire world. Although I was afraid of motion, I was persuaded to take a ride in a car. The driver turned on the radio and suddenly the music 'The March of the Siamese Children' from 'The King and I' became the most perfect background music for the parody of real life which was indeed the normal activity of Telegraph Avenue on any Saturday morning. The perfectly ordinary people on their perfectly ordinary errands were clearly the most cleverly contrived set of characters all performing all manners of eccentric activities for our particular hilarity and enjoyment. I felt that I was at the same time both observing and performing in an outrageous moving picture. I experienced one moment of transcendant happiness when, while passing Epworth Hall, I looked out of the window of the car and up at the building and I was suddenly in Italy looking up at a gay apartment building with its shutters flung open in sunshine, and with its window boxes with flowers. We stopped at a spot overlooking the bay, but I found the view uninteresting and the sun uncomfortable. I sat there on the seat of the car looking down at the ground, and the earth became a mosaic of beautiful stones which had been placed in an intricate design which soon all began to move in a serpentine manner. Then I became aware that I was looking at the skin of a beautiful snake--all the ground around me was this same huge creature and we were all standing on the back of this gigantic and beautiful reptile. The experience was very pleasing and I felt no revulsion. Just then, another automobile stopped to look at the view and I experienced my first real feeling of persecution and I wanted very much to leave.
(with 400 mg) During the initial phase of the intoxication (between 2 and 3 hours) everything seemed to have a humorous interpretation. People's faces are in caricature, small cars seem to be chasing big cars, and all cars coming towards me seem to have faces. This one is a duchess moving in regal pomp, that one is a wizened old man running away from someone. A remarkable effect of this drug is the extreme empathy felt for all small things; a stone, a flower, an insect. I believe that it would be impossible to harm anything--to commit an overt harmful or painful act on anyone or anything is beyond one's capabilities. One cannot pluck a flower--and even to walk upon a gravel path requires one to pick his footing carefully, to avoid hurting or disturbing the stones. I found the color perception to be the most striking aspect of the experience. The slightest difference of shade could be amplified to extreme contrast. Many subtle hues became phosphorescent in intensity. Saturated colors were often unchanged, but they were surrounded by cascades of new colors tumbling over the edges.
(with 400 mg) It took a long time to come on and I was afraid that I had done it wrong but my concerns were soon ended. The world soon became transformed where objects glowed as if from an inner illumination and my body sprang to life. The sense of my body, being alive in my muscles and sinews, filled me with enormous joy. I watched Ermina fill to brimming with animal spirit, her features tranformed, her body cat-like in her graceful natural movement. I was stopped in my tracks. The world seemed to hold its breath as the cat changed again into the Goddess. As she shed her clothes, she shed her ego and when the dance began, Ermina was no more. There was only the dance without the slightest self-consconciousness. How can anything so beautiful be chained and changed by other's expectations? I became aware of myself in her and as we looked deeply into one another my boundaries disappeared and I became her looking at me.
Shulgin is credited with the popularizing of MDMA in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially for psychopharmaceutical use and the treatment of depression and Post-traumatic stress disorder. In subsequent years, Shulgin discovered, synthesized, and bioassayed over 230 psychoactive compounds. In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL on the topic of psychoactive drugs.
Alexander Shulgin, chemist, 'father of MDMA', creates many 'drugs' in his home laboratory and catalogs his experiences with these phenethylamines.
We'll start with:
MESCALINE; 3,4,5-TRIMETHOXYPHENETHYLAMINE
SYNTHESIS: [I have removed the directions for cooking this up. It's available on the web.]
QUALITATIVE COMMENTS: (with 300 mg) I would have liked to, and was expecting to, have an exciting visual day, but I seemed to be unable to escape self-analysis. At the peak of the experience I was quite intoxicated and hyper with energy, so that it was not hard to move around. I was quite restless. But I spent most of the day in considerable agony, attempting to break through without success. I learned a great deal about myself and my inner workings. Everything almost was, but in the final analysis, wasn't. I began to become aware of a point, a brilliant white light, that seemed to be where God was entering, and it was inconceivably wonderful to perceive it and to be close to it. One wished for it to approach with all one's heart. I could see that people would sit and meditate for hours on end just in the hope that this little bit of light would contact them. I begged for it to continue and come closer but it did not. It faded away not to return in that particular guise the rest of the day. Listening to Mozart's Requiem, there were magnificent heights of beauty and glory. The world was so far away from God, and nothing was more important than getting back in touch with Him. But I saw how we created the nuclear fiasco to threaten the existence of the planet, as if it would be only through the threat of complete annihilation that people might wake up and begin to become concerned about each other. And so also with the famines in Africa. Many similar scenes of joy and despair kept me in balance. I ended up the experience in a very peaceful space, feeling that though I had been through a lot, I had accomplished a great deal. I felt wonderful, free, and clear.
(with 350 mg) Once I got through the nausea stage, I ventured out-of-doors and I was aware of an intensification of color and a considerable change in the texture of the cloth of my skirt and in the concrete of the sidewalk, and in the flowers and leaves that were handed me by an observer. I experienced the desire to laugh hysterically at what I could only describe as the completely ridiculous state of the entire world. Although I was afraid of motion, I was persuaded to take a ride in a car. The driver turned on the radio and suddenly the music 'The March of the Siamese Children' from 'The King and I' became the most perfect background music for the parody of real life which was indeed the normal activity of Telegraph Avenue on any Saturday morning. The perfectly ordinary people on their perfectly ordinary errands were clearly the most cleverly contrived set of characters all performing all manners of eccentric activities for our particular hilarity and enjoyment. I felt that I was at the same time both observing and performing in an outrageous moving picture. I experienced one moment of transcendant happiness when, while passing Epworth Hall, I looked out of the window of the car and up at the building and I was suddenly in Italy looking up at a gay apartment building with its shutters flung open in sunshine, and with its window boxes with flowers. We stopped at a spot overlooking the bay, but I found the view uninteresting and the sun uncomfortable. I sat there on the seat of the car looking down at the ground, and the earth became a mosaic of beautiful stones which had been placed in an intricate design which soon all began to move in a serpentine manner. Then I became aware that I was looking at the skin of a beautiful snake--all the ground around me was this same huge creature and we were all standing on the back of this gigantic and beautiful reptile. The experience was very pleasing and I felt no revulsion. Just then, another automobile stopped to look at the view and I experienced my first real feeling of persecution and I wanted very much to leave.
(with 400 mg) During the initial phase of the intoxication (between 2 and 3 hours) everything seemed to have a humorous interpretation. People's faces are in caricature, small cars seem to be chasing big cars, and all cars coming towards me seem to have faces. This one is a duchess moving in regal pomp, that one is a wizened old man running away from someone. A remarkable effect of this drug is the extreme empathy felt for all small things; a stone, a flower, an insect. I believe that it would be impossible to harm anything--to commit an overt harmful or painful act on anyone or anything is beyond one's capabilities. One cannot pluck a flower--and even to walk upon a gravel path requires one to pick his footing carefully, to avoid hurting or disturbing the stones. I found the color perception to be the most striking aspect of the experience. The slightest difference of shade could be amplified to extreme contrast. Many subtle hues became phosphorescent in intensity. Saturated colors were often unchanged, but they were surrounded by cascades of new colors tumbling over the edges.
(with 400 mg) It took a long time to come on and I was afraid that I had done it wrong but my concerns were soon ended. The world soon became transformed where objects glowed as if from an inner illumination and my body sprang to life. The sense of my body, being alive in my muscles and sinews, filled me with enormous joy. I watched Ermina fill to brimming with animal spirit, her features tranformed, her body cat-like in her graceful natural movement. I was stopped in my tracks. The world seemed to hold its breath as the cat changed again into the Goddess. As she shed her clothes, she shed her ego and when the dance began, Ermina was no more. There was only the dance without the slightest self-consconciousness. How can anything so beautiful be chained and changed by other's expectations? I became aware of myself in her and as we looked deeply into one another my boundaries disappeared and I became her looking at me.