Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story,   ISBN:9780963009609

Customer Rating: 

This book is long! Even though half of it is chemical breakdowns of almost every type of drug. Not bad but very long winded towards the end, found myself flipping just to interesting parts. Was hoping for some insight into DMT but found nothing. I guess this is good for your basement chemist but not to good for any insights into the expansion of the mind.

Customer Rating: 

As anyone familiar to this series is aware, this is the seminal psych lit of its generation, the post rave nineties. Every story as well as recipe is a masterly crafted metaphor of the human condition, besides with chemical instructions only an industrial chemist would appreciate this book also covers the life of A.Shulgin as the first and only US scientist able legally to produce his own MDMA and test it on his wife and friends. An escape as well as a covert piece of anti establishment doctrine. Viola

Customer Rating: 

This book has the story and the science, the fantasy and the dry reality. I love there is a love story here as well. This is inspiration for couples to dive deeper into each other.

Customer Rating: 

I thought this book very infomative and educational.
It gives great insight to DR.Shulgin & his wifes life work.
A must read for any aspiring chemist.
This book cuts away all the propaganda surrounding many of these recreational compounds and chemicals. The facts and nothing else.
Educate yourself, knowledge is always your friend.

Customer Rating: 

I purchased PIHKAL from Amazon and read it in it's entirety.

The most poignant aspect of this book reveals that as we are organic machines, our consciousness is just another chemically induced perception and therefore only one valid reality predisposed by evolution for survival.

Shulgin's Genius is honed with such objectivity, innocence, dedication and clarity that he is able to both successfuly and interestingly document the human-mind altering effects produced by the synthesised compounds entirely dedicated to the second-half of this book.

Furthermore, I have read all of the Amazon reviews regarding PIHKAL and feel that some just do not get the extreme depth of this work. Reading this incredibly open account of Human reality means that there will always be dull bits and parts that make one cringe because that's how real life is for one and all.

The potential reader needs to approach this work with an open mindset and absorb the content without pretence, preconception or professional envy affecting clarity because this book is about the other side of the coin.

Finally, to dedicate ones life to recording Human perception so openly in hardcopy is a tremendous quantum leap ahead of the absurd revisionist realities that people in our "Soap World" prefer to pretend that they live via TV and use to deal with personal issues through the application of anger, violence and greed which are wrongly accepted as legitimate relief mechanisms.

In summary, PIHKAL is an extremely important piece in the Jigsaw of the "age of reason" and awareness. Don't be threatened, it definitely deserves at least "5 Stars". Read it, do it and get to the next level...... the evolution of mind.