Reddit mentions of PIHKAL: A Chemical Love Story

Okay ill dump this information on you then.


I think OP was referring to how MDMA has meth in it. In that MDMA stands for 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine and how people say because its has the N-methylamphetamine (Its the same as methamphetamine and technically more correct than methamphetamine (O-chem is hard and theres more than one way to write down things.(PEMDAS motherfuckers.))) that it has meth in it. that statement is true and false and hard as shit to explain.

On one side of this ignorance shitshow is that in the physical chemical molecule Methylamphetamine IS a part of the larger MDMA molecule which you can see from the picture above everything to the right of the red on the left image is the same as the right image. (thats the methmolecule.jpeg.) which means they are analogous chemicals which means they could (or could not) have some crossover in terms of effects.


On the other side many people think that there is methamphetamine mixed in with their MDMA. (which could also be true if you've experienced a methbomb but we're (for the sake of argument and making assumptions ( like assumptions they make my mind hurt less.)) talking about Molly (assume molly = MDMA) there shouldn't be methamphetamine in it.

all that being said OP could possibly be right or wrong idk that's up to you to decide. I just fucking love chemistry. that shits so cool. also awesome is that there are two different types of MDMA. yeah mind = blown (Boom). IIRC if you take the left image and mirror it you see that it is not super-imposable. so what you have are two MDMA optical isomers that are mirror images of each other but aren't exactly the same thing. think of how you have two hands but only one is your left hand and one is your right hand. the same goes for MDMA and most other organic compounds.

Well long story short they behave differently in the body. and very few people have studied it and now for the only link I could find to prove I'm not just a rambling idiot. Here is in my opinion one of the most brilliant minds to ever strut the title of chemist. The man you can thank for discovering MDMA, all of the 2-Cx chemicals and about 400 other psychedelic substances. Dr. FUCKING SHULGIN on the differences between the isomers in MDMA.


Sorry for the ramble I haz ADHD, hope you found my knowledge helpful?

TL;DR (ABOUT TIME): Meth is a building block in MDMA (like a lego.)
OP touches himself at night.
There's more than one type of MDMA
Read Dr. Shulgin's book. PiHKAL seriously This man is like the Einstein of Chemistry. cannot say enough good things about the man.

Entheogens is the word your looking for if you're talking about the phenethylamine and tryptamine analogues that Dr. Shulgin wrote about extensively in the 60's and 70's in Pihkal and Tihkal respectively. They're not that dangerous as long as you calculate your dose very carefully and understand the nature of the material.

Source: He owns a yoga studio not far from me in Portland, Oregon.

I highly recommend PIHKAL, which he wrote with his wife: http://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009605 (and the sequel as well!)

This man is a true scientist. He's not in it to be revolutionary, or to make people "high", he's doing what he does because he's fascinated by what he's studying and wants to add to the world's knowledge.

When he talks about chemical structures and synthesis techniques, you've never seen a more joyful person. (I've met him)

To anyone who finds the Shulgins and their work interesting, I can't recommend strongly enough Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story and Tihkal: A Continuation. Sasha and Ann were, and are, incredible people, with a fascinating body of work.

Are you serious? I can try to make it up to you when im employed. I found two sources: Amazon and shulgin's publisher. Amazon is cheaper but i think the other link would be more beneficial to shulgin. Here are the two links, ill PM you my address. The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me here.

Amazon

Shulgin's site

Your protocol is quite different than what I've seen in the past. Normally I've seen that the MDMA session is supported by therapy for a while beforehand to allow the person's issues to be front and center, and then a handful of sessions to work through the issues, normally three or four in the matter of a month or so. The therapy is there to get the ball rolling for the patient on their way to healing and to remind them how much in control they are over their own actions, beliefs, perceptions, and reactions, and so on.

The sessions are done for one person at a time, blindfolded, where the therapist is more of a sitter than a guide. The idea here is to let the MDMA do most of the work, not to treat it as a therapy session. The patient (one patient at a time) takes the MDMA puts on blindfolds, and sits in silence until they are ready to talk. The patient will inevitably bring up issues of their own, and often go through a psychedelic style internal journey as they work through their issues. The sitter is there to reassure the patient that they are safe and loved and to keep the patient on track if they get off course. The sitter also is responsible for the music because the music helps set the tempo, feel and can guide the patient deeper as needed. Music tends to be music without lyrics so as to let the patient go where they need to go on their own, without the external influence of ideas and notions. Music also tends to not be very popular or recognizable so the patient doesn't have preconceived notions and attachments. This is all to eliminate any outside stimulus and really be able to go into themselves smoothly.

The MDMA environment/setting is far more forgiving than other psychedelics. A comfortable place that feels safe, is clean and free of negativity in whatever form might upset the patient. Most of the sessions I've seen have been on a that curvy psychiatrist's chair or a couch.

After the sessions, the therapy is resumed to work through what came up during the session. The work needs to continue. The MDMA is not a magic bullet that will cure you. It's a tool to get you places so you can heal more directly.

It's not to say your protocol wont work, but I've just never seen it before. There is merit to taking it with that person and just talking. If you're not in a party setting you'll likely have a very good heart to heart. Through this method I was able to identify a deep loneliness I was experiencing and began a path to healing it. It's definitely healing, but a different beast than the prior described method, and far more gentle, but perhaps not as effective for really getting in there and pulling things up. The healing process of that particular wound took at least a year afterward and involved several sessions of different substances without a particular protocol. Here is the gist of my story specifically from the drug angle.

You can get really good examples of therapy sessions in TIKHAL chapter 14 - "The Intensive" where Ann Shulgin goes over her protocols for MDMA therapy, and in Acid Test which is a history of psychedelic therapy in the US and the story of MAPS. In the later chapters, I think around chapter 43, there is a really good narrative of a session, but I recommend the whole book since it all supports how the patient and therapist got to actually running the session and the reasoning behind it. You can read all of Tikhal/Pikhal, but there are only a few chapters that deal with therapy directly.

Also consider a psilocybin session, it can work very similarly. If nothing else research their protocols, which are again very similar, to understand what they are doing.

Some authors/notables to look up are Roland Griffiths and Stanislav Grof. Griffiths is currently conducting research at John Hopkins in MD with psilocybin, and Grof is a transpersonal psychologist who's done a lot of work in non-ordinary states and their healing potential.

As an avid reader, when I read the title I cringed and thought "self proclaimed idiot here" but this is obviously not the case. It sounds like your brain works exceptionally well in certain areas, but deficient in another. Organic chemistry is not something most people can grasp or are even interested in.

The description of "the words just blend into one another and I can't make any sense of anything happening in the plot" sounds like there is definitely something amiss though.

Maybe try to combine your interest of chemistry into pleasure reading? I find PiHKAL by Alexander Shulgin a fascinating read for both the chemistry and personal stories.

Link-
http://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415642555&sr=8-1&keywords=pihkal

De hecho gran parte de los alucinógenos descubiertos han sido encontrados tratando de reproducir las moléculas tanto de los hongos alucinogenos mexicanos como de la mescalina ingrediente activo del peyote.

El hecho que la secretaría de salud le de un estatuto diferente a estas dos plantas no quiere decir que todos los hippies del mundo van a tener permiso de acabarse el peyote, más bien quiere decir que van a dejar de tratar estas dos plantas como drogas y se van a permitir investigar su uso y tal vez aportaciones interesantes a la medicina psiquiátrica moderna provengan del estudio de hongos y peyote.

Más información lea este libro: Pihkal

O este otro escrito por Albert Hoffman: LSD My Problem Child.

Erowid, MAPS are two sites that wouldn't seem odd to frequent, there was recently a long article about Erowid in The New Yorker. DMTnexus, bluelight. and shroomery all have a wealth of info along with forums. Use TOR, use incognito mode if it will make you more comfortable.


PIKAL and TIKAL by Alex Shulgin are books detailing drugs that go into quite a bit about the production.

http://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-A-Chemical-Love-Story/dp/0963009605

/r/Psychonaut, /r/lsd, /r/shrooms, /r/MDMA, /r/RationalPsychonaut, /r/DMT, /r/Ayahuasca

Cheers.

ps don't make meth.

Its easy to measure success in life in something quantifiable as money. And that exposure to something that you perceive at least as having risk to reducing future income.

Fortunately life doesn't work out like that, there are so many variables and interactions, in unfathomable orders permutations. That things can work out, despite the risk, you can have financial, and many other types of successes that are not so easily quantifiable.

A worry for me, was that using drugs would impact my intelligence and potential success in the work place, I myself grew up in a strict environment (Jehovah's Witness). Drugs have allowed me to experience interactions with people I never thought I could, I was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. I have been quite successful career wise, 6 figure salary. And now with a social circle which I never thought I could have, and a state of mind with which I am comfortable with. Through careful dosage of MDMA. Similar to actual scientific studies at http://www.maps.org .

Just because I am breaking the law, I don't believe it is immoral to take something of which I am currently denied access to, to better myself.

There are health problems with just about everything in existence. Even oxygen causes free radicals that cause cancer. Its not easy being meticulously careful, but it is possible by buying your own drug testing kits and understanding dosages at a clinical level. But it is possible.

All that being said, you don't want somebody else to change your view. You want to come to that judgment yourself. I myself did not try cannabis until I was 26 because I knew that taking it earlier does actually lead to impaired brain development.

To get started in your journey read something like:
LSD my problem child by Albert Hofmann somebody who actually one a Nobel Prize)

Listen to music from the 60's and 70's like:

IRON BUTTERFLY - IN A GADDA DA VIDA - 1968

Or read something a bit more complex chemistry wise:
Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story: Alexander Shulgin

Or something from somebody that ended up going too far.
Programming and metaprogramming in the human biocomputer

Lastly read something grounding. Just to get yourself orientated.
The prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

If you read any of that, come back and try and convince me why you shouldn't.

"I was just high" and "live their lives by that one experience" are two polar ends of the spectrum, with most people's experiences with psychedelics falling somewhere in between, myself included. I don't overlook anything amazing I learned or realized while tripping because I was high, as the drugs allow your mind to open a bit more and look inward upon itself. As to the actual brain chemistry or function therein, I imagine the explanation might be too technical. The philosophy is probably much easier to take in from an organic chemist with a lot of experience rather than a neuroscientist. Alexander Shulgin's PiKHAL! is fascinating.

Considered PiHKAL or TiHKAL? Doesn't necessarily have the good juicy chemistry, but still very interesting.

Something I haven't read but have heard good things about is The Shulgin Index. From what I've heard, it's more about the chemistry.

"Some dude with an opinion" really denigrates the ability of the average person to grasp the situation.

It's been well over 100 years of the so-called 'War on Drugs'. An utter failure that has prevented neither people using or selling drugs in any way whatsoever. There has never been a shortage of drugs on the street nor dealers available to sell them.

These fantastic 'hauls' that customs officers and police take photos of, grinning about a massive seizure means absolutely nothing in the scheme of things.

Record breaking 2 tonnes of heroin found in old womans matress


Who cares?

All that time, money, man power the result is a newspaper headlien that says.. 'massive smuggling ring smashed'.

Not a single user noticed any difference waiting in the alleyway for their guy.


When you consider just one man, Pablo Escobar the archetypal model for what drug smuggling can achieve at its peak.. was making $62,000,000 smuggling 15 tonnes of cocaine per day.

He spent $2,500 a month on rubber bands to hold his stacks of cash together and wrote off 10% of his earnings ($1.3 billion a year) on not storing it properly and having it either rot, get eaten by rats or just lost because he had hidden it in so many places.

People aren't going to stop using drugs. The police can't prevent that many people from using them and the whack-a-mole technique of quashing drug dealers only to have another two pop up in their place has never worked either. Where there's money to be made - there are people willing to take the risk in order to make it.

And that fact applies to any profession. Including sex. Which is another vice that will eventually be legal and regulated.

Answer to your question, this is a clear example of a situations were you don't even need to be an expert to see just how plainly the government has fucked the situation up. You only need to open your eyes and read the statistics to see a failure and desperate need for a new route.. Regulation is the only way. Just consider the money flying out of the country into the hands of terrorists, cartels, our enemies, general scum bags that fund other criminal activities - worse activities - ones that the police really ought to be focused on like people trafficking or anything to do with children. Who cares about someone smoking a joint when there are kids being harmed. The choice is clear as to which should take priority.


Whether you're living on the streets as a victim of addiction, a middle class blue collar worker that hurt himself on the job and is now absolutely stuck with a life on pain pills, high functioning self prescribing doctor to a rock star with multiple doctor signing off on your weekly supply of legal adult candies..

The drug usage and abusage is far and wide and the desire to alter out consciousness, experiment and drug supply and demand is so firmly written into our DNA its absurd to try and manage that desire with laws.


Okay - BOTTOM LINE
-------------------

This isn't just my opinion..

I arrived at my conclusion through my own dealings with people, my own knowldge of what its like out there on all sides of the fence but mostly, from reading.

My entire bookshelf is filled with books on the history of humans, out relationship with chemicals, our desire to refine and distil, to make stronger, to invent techniques to improve, to alter, to experiment - our entire pharmaceutical industry is built on fiddling with chemicals and experimenting with them to determine their effects - both for recreational and medicinal purposes. Asprin and Opium used as a painkillers - then as a weapon when we flooded china with it in order to conquer them while they were docile.

It's only now after all this time that we are allowing scientific work to be done on what seemed like recreational drugs - LSD, Magic Mushrooms, Ketamine (despite its uses in medicine already) that they are psychic medicines to be used in PTSD, Anxiety, Addiction problems..

All drugs are tools in their own way, but they need to be used correctly and in the right setting for the right reason.

Even amphetamines have their uses in ADHD, Cocaine in local aesthetic..

The fact that tobacco and alcohol - the two most useless, BIGGEST killers and cause of more than any other health problems (with obesity close behind - because sugar is an addictive drug, and people that don't smoke or drink are probably finding that they need something to alter the way they feel once in a while - and eating seems to have taken over their brain without them realising).. the fact that these are LEGAL is insane. While everything else isn't.

Its nuts. Totally nuts. It makes no sense. Hence the reason so many people chose to ignore the governments rules and laws on whats good and bad for you. And as soon as they smoke their first joint and it doesn't kill them - it probably is a gateway to realising the laws are people pushing them are full of shit and what else is there to try! I don't want to drink every weekend after work, a huge cancer risk, and peer pressure means that its all I have as an option with my friends. I'd say peer pressure to drink and be social, as its the only option available is worse than anything else.

Regulation is the only way.

All other methods have failed and for the fundamental reason that people don't want to stop using them and there is too much to be made from selling them. Full stop. Period.


The last century is a chapter of failed history on something we have only just tried to force on people. Humans don't want to be sober all the time. We want weekends, recreational time, an escape from the constant existential crisis that is living.


Some of my favourite and most interesting books on drugs in general from human history to the more lighthearted but nonetheless fascinating world of Howard Marks' smuggling misadventures:

Chasing the Scream is an excellent book

Writing on Drugs

PiKhal You can ignore the chemistry lesson, the beginning of the book about his contact with the DEA and his views on the essential therapeutic nature and benefits of psychedelic drugs in so much as it prompted him to pursue a lifelong career until his death into the chemistry and invention of thousands upon thousands of new drugs (all listed in this book and it's sequel 'Tihal') that he then tested on himself and friends, also writing quantitative notes and summaries of each new compound.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas I found the comments on the police and the culture surrounding drugs in the era that this was written - just after the 60s summer of love and into the 70s, where the experiment failed, peaceful student protesters were beaten by police and the vietnam war started.. it felt like 'love' had failed, and this is a reflection more on that than getting high - although that is the haze through which the story is told!

The Doors of Perception Perhaps the most important book on tripping ever written - goes hand in hand with Heaven and Hell, the book he wrote shortly after as a reflection on the first book. They need to be read together.

Nobody has since done it better. the fact that it was legal at the time meant that its written with a completely clear and objective conscience about the effects. The stripping away of the filters than normally function in our day to day lives in order for us to cope with the floor of information that comes in through our eyes every moment of every second. Without dulling the beauty of nature down to a tolerable level, we'd get nothing done - as he points out after spending 20 minutes describing a tablecloth.

But from this you an infer that so many people are perhaps so overly dulled, lacking compassion and empathy for the beauty in life that they perhaps have more hate or lack or care for ripping up the countryside and covering it in highways.. you get the point. Sure, its a hippy perspective, but its true. Humans don't fit into nature, we pave over it in the pursuit of small, green pieces of paper..


I have MANY, more.. our history with drugs both natural and man made is amazing, culture surrounding it is facinating, hallucinogens in ancient culture is prolific, including native indians, shamans in puru, coca chewing, Khat chewing.. its everywhere.

And we only tend to think of the last 50-100 years because its all we are aware of, but its goes back 1000s of years.

You know all of those crazy dangerous and wrong ideas about germs and medical proceedures we have about the victorian era - well our drug laws stem from around that time too.

It's time to update our thinking about all of it.

We even have the skills to develop safe recreationsal drugs for the weekend, non addictive, better than alcohol, safer..

I mean, why not MAKE new safe drugs instead of regulate what is illegal right now? Psychedelics that only last an hour or have an antidote.. etc. The possibilities to quell the black market are huge.

Are they really concerned about people making these things at home? A lot of the chemicals you probably won't even be able to purchase without a license. A book that comes off the top of my head is PIHKAL which I'm pretty sure provides full procedures to synthesize all known phenethylamines and lists their corresponding physical effects; it isn't illegal.

EDIT: Grammar.

Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved

I should note that chapter 30 is in part 1, not drug #30 from part #2, the online referance.

i guess i was more interested in the subjective traits to LSD that you enjoyed, because not all drugs are the same.

something like "i like the trippy shit i saw", or "i enjoyed the wacked out shit my brain would come up with", or "it felt like i was flying", or what-have-you...

skiming over that link, it seems like a change of perception is what got you interested, in which case, mescaline and 2c-e, would be my suggestions to be on top of the list to research. listen to /u/hedonistphilosopher's thoughts on 2c-e. also, read PiHKAL and TiHKAL. Shulgin literally wrote the book on this class of chemicals

pihkal It's a great book. 1/2 love story and 1/2 organic chem and pharmacology.

They're $20.92 each on amazon:

PIHKAL - http://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009605

TIHKAL - http://www.amazon.com/Tihkal-Continuation-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009699

If you're interested in what they look like, part 2 of both books is freely available on erowid:

PIHKAL - https://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal.shtml

TIHKAL - https://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/tihkal/tihkal.shtml

For those wanting more information regarding Alexander Shulgin, the wikipedia page offers some decent information.

Hammilton Morris' short documentary SIHKAL: Shulgins I Have Known And Loved offers a lot of great information as well.

The Los Angeles times published an interview with him in 1995, which is now available on Erowid.

His first book, PiHKAL: Phenethylamine I Have Known and Loved is available on amazon, and contains first hand accounts of the effects of, as well as information of the chemical structure of the drugs Mescaline, DOM, 2C-B, 2C-E, 2C-T-2, and 2C-T-7. All of these, apart from mescaline, are drugs created by Shulgin himself. The book also mentions and/or details the drugs PMA, 2,4-DMA, 3,4-DMA, MDA, MMDA, MMDA-3a, MMDA-2, TMA, TMA-2, DMMDA, DMMDA-2, and TeMA, as well as over 200 other substances, all first synthesized by Alexander Shulgin himself.

His second book, TiHKAL: Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved, is also available on amazon, and contains several essays on the war on drugs, the prevelence of DMT in nature, psychoteraphy, and a number of other topics. The book also includes detailed synthesis instructions and chemical information regarding 55 different Tryptamines, including 5-MeO-DET, LSD, 4-HO-DiPT, 2,alpha-DMT, Melatonin, MiPT, and Tetrahydroharmine, amongst others.

Huxley's The Doors of Perception is a great read. So are the autobiographical sections of PiHKAL and TiHKAL by Alexander Shulgin. And back in my stoner days, I used to really enjoy reading books about neuroscience like Phantoms in the Brain by V S Ramachandran and discussing them while high.

What exactly are you asking for here?

https://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Dreaming-Oneirogens-divinorum-Dream-Enhancing/dp/159477174X

https://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009605/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481918174&sr=1-1&keywords=pihkal+a+chemical+love+story

pihkal:

https://www.amazon.com/Pihkal-Chemical-Story-Alexander-Shulgin/dp/0963009605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499568865&sr=8-1&keywords=phikal