PiHKAL

What Hacker News says

1. c420Sep 2023
   And PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved): A Chemical Love Story by Drs. Alexander & Ann Shulgin
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2. openstepApr 2023
   For anyone interested, I highly recommend these two books:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PiHKAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiHKAL

   It's a fascinating read about the chemist Alexander Shulgin

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin

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3. ipnonMar 2022
   PiHKAL by Alexander and Ann Shulgin is on its face a book about love and chemistry. Taken together it becomes more of a treatise on how psychopharmacology is a method of personal and sociological analysis. Drug use becomes a psychological tool to manifest the phenomena of the mind that are normally hidden, and novel synthesis becomes a tool to then access the areas of the mind unexplored throughout history. Aside of all this, the Shulgin's story is one of absolute dedication to science in the face of its many impediments: internal psychology, interpersonal relations, social stigma, technical innovation, and authoritarian censorship.
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4. michaelwmMar 2022
   You've said everything I could ever say about PiHKAL; it's a masterpiece. TiHKAL, published three years after the Shulgin's lab was raided by the DEA, is also a fantastic read.
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5. graderjsMar 2022
   From the page:

   ORDERING INFORMATION: The first half of PiHKAL is an excellent commentary on the Shulgin's personal experiences with phenethylamines. It is highly recommended and well worth purchasing the book. Purchasing the book also gets you a far more complete cross-index into the chemicals described in the second half. If you are seriously interested in the chemistry contained in these files, you should order a copy." And

   The Copyright for Part 1 of PiHKAL has been reserved in all forms and it may not be distributed. Part 2 of PiHKAL may be distributed for non-commerical reproduction provided... And

   This is the online version of the second half of the book "PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story" by Alexander and Ann Shulgin. It is presented with the express permission of the authors in order to spread the factual information as widely as possible and make it permanently available in the public domain....

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6. pmoriartyMar 2022
   "do you have a link to something Shulgin definitively wrote on this?"

   Read the first part of PiHKAL (ie. the part that's deliberately not published on the website the parent HN post links to).

   It's all there. He goes in to great detail about exactly how he did what he did and why.

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