From
the Foreword: "This book will be different things to different people.
There has never been a work like it, and since recent legislative acts
in this country have closed off the avenues of inquiry that made this one
possible we may not... see another of its kind... No library of psychedelic
literature will henceforth be complete without a copy of Pihkal.
"For nearly thirty years... Dr. Alexander Shulgin... has been the only person in the world to synthesize, then evaluate in himself, his wife Ann, and in a dedicated group of close friends nearly 200 never-before-known chemical structures, materials expected to have effects in man similar to those of the mind-altering psychedelic drugs mescaline, psilocybin and LSD. ...Others regard him variously as courageous, foolhardy, or downright dangerous, depending mostly on the political persuasion of the critic."
The first half of the book is an autobiographical novel, detailing the individual life paths which led the two main characters to their fascination with psychedelics. The second half of the book is "an almost encyclopedic compendium of synthetic methods, dosages, durations of action, and commentaries for 179 different chemical materials... Someday in the future, when it may again be acceptable to use chemical tools to study the mind, this book will be a treasure-house, a sort of sorcerer's book of spells, to delight and enchant the psychiatrist/shaman of tomorrow."
