Tihkal

TiHKAL, much like its predecessor PiHKAL, is divided into two parts. The first part, for which all rights are reserved, begins with a fictionalized autobiography, continuing where the similar section of PiHKAL left off; it then continues with a collection of essays on topics ranging from psychotherapy and the Jungian mind to the prevalence of DMT in nature, ayahuasca and the War on Drugs. The second part of TiHKAL, which may be conditionally distributed for non-commercial reproduction (see external links below), is a detailed synthesis manual for 55 psychedelic compounds (many discovered by Alexander Shulgin himself), including their chemical structures, dosage recommendations, and qualitative comments. Like PiHKAL, the Shulgins were motivated to release the synthesis information as a way to protect the public's access to information about psychedelic compounds, a goal Alexander Shulgin has noted many times. Following a raid of his laboratory in 1994 by the United States DEA, Richard Meyer, spokesman for DEA's San Francisco Field Division, stated that "It is our opinion that those books [referring to the previous work, PiHKAL] are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs. Agents tell me that in clandestine labs that they have raided, they have found copies of those books." This attitude emphasized Shulgin's need to release the information to ensure its preservation, and led to the release of TiHKAL and his other publications. Alexander "Sasha" Theodore Shulgin (born June 17, 1925) is an American pharmacologist, chemist and drug developer. Shulgin is credited with the popularization of MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, 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, s...