Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20577 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 978 pages

Customer Reviews

the chronicle of a life spent searching for the answers
alexander and anne shulgin are the chris columbus and the queen isabella of the mind. the book is split into a large scientific glossary, which spans some 400 pages, and a love story, of similar length, told through the medium of psychoactive drug experiences which they shared over the course of many years. the content is truly awe-inspiring at times (i guarantee you'll want to take some if not all the compounds they test) yet it becomes a little tedious in the midriff of anne's section. that said, i'm not a huge romantic. the magnificent glossary provides information on the synthesis, dosage and predicted responses to the several hundred compounds they have discovered or simply enjoyed. however this section can only considered as a reference. a highly recommended read both for those intruiged and disgusted by psychedelic drug culture.

self obsessed but still of value
It is inevitable that a semi-autobiographical work on the function of the brain should do a fair bit of navel gazing. PiHKAL however pushes it a bit far. The Shulgins are a conceited pair, self congratulatory in their "perfect couple" self-eulogies and smug in their "Bach is for liberal sophisticates like us, Vagner is for cultural bigots unlike us" opinions. I find the notion that one need be of their class, tastes or education to experiment with psychoactives (an implication never quite made explicit) contemptable. That said, if you are genuinely interested in the funcion of psychoactive compounds on subjective experience (if not on objective brain function, an area totally omitted), it is worth wading through the bull. Boring people taking interesting substances.

A must read for anyone interested in exploring conciousness!
It's not often that you find a combination of scientific objectivity and readability, but this joint effort by Shulgin and his wife Anne was entertaining, enlightening, and passed on a wealth of information, both personal and professional in nature.

Here you find a fascinating account of their brave excursions into the inner unknown, an account of the plusses and minuses of their experiences, a glimpse of the theraputic possibilities that lay in MDMA, and a wealth of technical information, layed out in a manner that even a layman can appreciate and enjoy.
For further reading by the same author I also recommend TIHKAL, a book that tells the story of the Tryptamine family of compounds in the same entertaining manner.