Shulgin

Image Credit: Alexander & Ann Shulgin

“This is the insanity game.”

Wow. So… yeah. Wow! I mean, damn…

Do you know when the simple act of reading a book can have that effect? That when you finished it, all you can be is deeply, thoroughly impressed? Yeah. So, PIHKAL. Written by Alexander & Ann Shulgin. Who? Exactly. 

I have a genuine admiration for what I tend to call “real scientists.” People who are driven by an intense curiosity. The kind that doesn’t let go. They have questions about how the world works that simply refuse to stay unanswered. And so they do the only thing they can do: dedicate their lives to finding out. And in doing so, they shape the world we live in. We tend to treat at least some of these people as heroes, and rightly so. 

So, my question: Why is it that alongside the endless books, films, documentaries, and awards dedicated to these “proper” scientists and their world-changing discoveries, Alexander Shulgin and his wife remain largely absent? 

I’ll tell you why. Because this particular proper scientist worked with psychedelic drugs. To be more specific, he INVENTED them. Yes. In his own private little lab in his backyard. He then tested those drugs on himself via a very specific method, and once deemed safe and ‘active,’ he would share them with a dedicated group of friends to try and classify them somehow. He then wrote scientific papers about them, including detailed recipes and methods, and published those in medical journals. 

One hundred and seventy-nine. Yes. Is how many different substances this man tinkered together in his lab. And tested himself. And then written about. Sometimes while under the influence of those very substances. And then, towards the end of his ‘career,’ he and his wife decided to write two books about it all. This one, the first one, is one part autobiography and one part chemical handbook. Oh, yes. ALL those substances, every single one of them, are described in the book, also with detailed recipes, methods, preferred dosages, and effect descriptions. It is, therefore, a true psychedelic Bible. Yes.

But it’s much more than that. This man’s life story reads like an actual movie plot! He meets the most wonderful characters, works for shady government agencies and major chemical companies (oh yeah…!. I almost forgot: Alexander Shulgin (1925-2014) was a psychopharmacologist and a chemist with a PhD in biochemistry), and then, like a proper mad scientist, sets up his own lab in his backyard and begins exploring the hardest field of study there is: human consciousness.

And, finally, besides all that, besides being an utter genius and maverick and one of the original psychonauts, Mr. Shulgin turns out to be an excellent writer as well. Yes. Read this book!

Right. Backtrack. Who was Alexander Shulgin? Born in 1925 in Berkeley, California, to two public school teachers, he was a precociously gifted student who entered Harvard at the age of 16 to study organic chemistry. He left during his second year to join the U.S. Navy in World War II. After the war, he returned to California and completed a PhD in biochemistry at UC Berkeley. At Dow Chemical he helped develop new compounds – including the first biodegradable pesticide, which became a major commercial success.

During his time at Dow, he began experimenting with psychoactive compounds in parallel with his professional work, an experience that would profoundly shape the direction of his life. After publishing scientific work and patents, he eventually left Dow in the late 1960s to pursue independent research. He built a home laboratory on his property – “the Farm” – where he continued his work as a private researcher, consultant, and writer. Over time, he also developed connections with law enforcement agencies, including the DEA. He gave pharmacology seminars to their agents, providing them with samples of various compounds, and occasionally appearing as an expert witness in court. In 1988, he even wrote what was considered at the time a definitive reference book on controlled substances for law enforcement, for which he received multiple awards from the agency. (Yeah. And then, two years after the publication of PIHKAL, that very same DEA raided his laboratory. The agency then asked him to surrender his license for alleged violations, and he was fined $25,000 for possessing unidentified samples that had been sent to him for analysis. This stood in contrast to the previous fifteen years, during which multiple official inspections had been carried out without uncovering any issues.) 

So, what exactly is a psychonaut, you ask? Someone who, rather than turning to religion or philosophy or other channels, chooses to explore the limitless universe of their own mind in search of answers, specifically with the help of psychedelic drugs. And by that I mean those on the trippy end of the spectrum, not physically addictive, such as LSD, DMT, psilocybin, ayahuasca, and mescaline, among others, as opposed to those on the other end, which tend to be very addictive: cocaine, amphetamine, and, of course, the Big Three: caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol, with MDMA (XTC, Molly) somewhere floating in the middle. Yes? Yes. I, therefore, consider myself very much a psychonaut. And one could argue that Alexander Shulgin was one of The Originals. The granddaddy of the genre, so to speak. A true colossus in the world of all that the true psychonaut stands for. 

What makes this book especially powerful for me on a personal level is that it’s also an absolute feast of recognition! I have, myself, experienced many of the things they describe. So when they write about their psychedelic adventures, I often find myself sitting there with a big grin thinking, “Yeah, man! That’s exactly how that feels!” And the fact that these descriptions come from the very people who actually created some of these substances in the first place makes it all the more remarkable! 

And then there’s also the strange feeling of how close I somehow am to this story in history, if you know what I mean: substances like LSD and MDMA were introduced to psychiatrists who used them in their practice, and from there they leaked out onto the streets and into the party circuit. Together with the acid house and rave wave, they washed over to Europe somewhere in the eighties, and there, not that many years later, was little old me – dropping XTC like it was candy! And it is only now, some thirty years later, that I discover that the man I have to thank for that had already been promoting it among his friends less than two decades earlier! That’s amazing! I’m not entirely sure why exactly, but it is!

The first part of PIHKAL is their shared life story. In the first section, Alex writes about his life; in the second, Ann tells hers; and in the third, they speak together. What struck me about their story is how open and honest they both are about everything: failed earlier relationships, periods of depression, and their own deep personal insecurities and weaknesses are discussed without reservations. And what I really appreciate about that is that living with psychedelic drugs does not mean you spend your life permanently floating around on some golden cloud, as some (more sober-minded) people out there sometimes seem to think. No. What Alexander Shulgin made his life’s work was trying to show the world what psychedelic drugs can do: serve as powerful tools for getting through those same difficult periods, for understanding what is actually going on inside yourself, where those so-called “weaknesses” come from, and how you might be able to mend them. And maybe become a little wiser in the process. Kinder, even. A better person. And the world sorely needs those, don’t you think? 

Their explanation for why, for many people, a psychedelic experience does not necessarily feel entirely new—and therefore strange or even frightening—but instead quite the opposite is that it often feels like coming home, like recognition: a warm, friendly world filled with radiant colors and an overwhelming sense of goodness. Their idea is that this feeling of recognition comes from the fact that, as children, before we became fully “self-aware,” we experienced the world in a very similar way—bright, warm, and welcoming, much like in a psychedelic state. In that sense, such an experience is not so much a discovery as it is a memory, a recognition: I was already here.

At one point, Alexander Shulgin asks himself the same question I (and probably many others) have often wondered about: that same divine, wondrous, almost magical world you experience during a trip—is it created by the drug itself, or does the drug merely trigger something that was already there? He does offer an answer. He is quite firm in his view that it resides in the person, not in the drug. As he puts it, the experiences he has cannot possibly be contained within a few grams of white powder and therefore must arise from the interaction: powder plus person. And yes, you could argue that people can enter that same “magical” realm through other routes—meditation, religion, philosophy, extreme sports, and so on. But then again, that “evidence” immediately undermines itself, because the very same question applies there: is the experience being produced or merely unlocked by the activity? Well, the crux lies in the plus. You know—powder plus person? Right there. Where the two meet, merge, and become something else, that’s where the experience takes place. So the answer is both. If you see the substance as Yin and the person as Yang, then the experience happens precisely where they flow into one another, cancel each other out, and become more, so much more than just the sum of their parts.

Also, why does everyone always talks about “love” as the great connecting force of the universe, perhaps even the very essence of God itself, when “humor” can be that same kind of divine force? Being in love together may very well be the greatest experience for those involved, but I also know from experience that laughing together — really laughing, to the point of tears — can be just as powerful, just as connecting. There’s that famous image of Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, (probably drunk), completely losing it together in laughter. Two world leaders from opposing ideologies, and in that moment they are not thinking about war or politics or anything like that. Whenever people genuinely laugh together, something remarkable happens: they instantly become equals, no matter what their background may be. Equals, and one, in their shared laughter. Funny, isn’t it?

This thought came to me when reading how Ann Shulgin wondered why, from a biological point of view, human beings are equipped with something like a sense of humor in the first place. What possible evolutionary purpose does it serve, this ability to find things funny, to laugh? Her answer was as simple as it was disarming: perhaps it exists because the God-Mind enjoys having company when it laughs.

Does knowledge, as a thing in itself, have any real use? Or does it only become useful when you actually do something with it? Imagine this: an otherwise reasonably intelligent man, who never learned how to read or write, wakes up with amnesia on a strange planet. A planet identical to Earth, except he is completely alone. All the knowledge he could ever need—to find his way back, to build something, to make sense of anything at all—is there, stored in vast piles of books scattered all around him. But you see the problem. In that scenario, all the knowledge in the world is entirely useless.

I found myself thinking about this while reading this book, where there is much discussion of their spiritual experiences during trips. At one point, Ann Shulgin describes having what can only be called a “conversation” with the cosmos itself, asking all the big questions, or, as she herself calls it: stalking the wild universe. It looked something like this:

Q: What is the meaning and purpose of life?

A: The meaning and purpose of life is life. All existence is an expression of the One Mind. There are many names for that which forms itself, loves itself, hates itself, teaches and learns from itself, gives birth and nourishes itself, and kills and devours itself, forever and ever without end.

Q: What is love?

A: Love is yea-saying with the heart.

Q: What about the part of the God-Mind that kills and destroys?

A: It’s there in the service of life, to keep the cycle going. On the God-level, destruction and death are part of the yea-saying of life.

Q: That doesn’t explain loneliness, pain, sadism, torture, all the cruelty and suffering! Why does the dark side have to be so dark, so evil, so terrible?

A: For there to be life, there must be duality—yes-no, positive-negative, male-female. For there to be life, the One must become two halves, Yin and Yang, each half defining itself in opposition – light does not know it is light until it meets darkness. They are the law of life and do not need your acceptance. Only you need it, and your need is of your own choosing. Life is the One telling stories about itself to itself. It’s all storytelling.

Q: What part do I play in this universe? Of what importance am I in the scheme of things, if any at all?

A: With your birth, the universe changed. With the opening of your eyes, the God-Mind saw itself as never before. In your ears, all sound was re-created. With you, the One unfolds a new story.

Q: And this happens with the birth of everything alive?

A: Yes. That is the Whole.  

The kind of answers, in short, any searching human being would be thrilled to have. And yet… I have read those same answers before, in countless spiritual and philosophical books. So on an intellectual level, I already know them. I understand them. They make sense. But I haven’t lived them. I haven’t felt them. I haven’t experienced them. Not yet, anyway. And in that sense, that knowledge — those answers — are, by themselves, useless.

Which brings up another paradox: the idea that true insight, even something like enlightenment, might only arise when you let go of all the ‘knowledge’ you think you have. After all, someone who has never read a single word of all those books could, in principle, arrive at that same state without any form of “spiritual knowledge” at all.

I guess that’s what Morpheus meant when he said to Neo, “There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

And then, when you are finally walking that path, it’s as Carlos Castaneda put it: “For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking, breathlessly…”
You should read this book. I urge you to read this book. Even if you’ve never once used drugs in your life and have no intention whatsoever of ever doing so, you should read this book. Trust me. Or don’t, I don’t care, but read this book!