Shulgin Quotes & Sayings

Theorists! Stop pretending that you are not artists. — Alexei Shulgin

To demand that a person pee in a cup whenever you wish him to, without a documented reason to suspect that he has been using an illegal drug, is intolerable in our republic. You are saying to him, I wonder if you are not behaving in a way that I approve of. Convince me that you indeed are.
Outrageous.
Intolerable. — Alexander Shulgin

Several generations of high school students have grown up ignoring and disbelieving everything they've heard from government and police about drugs, including information that was factual and valid, because they discovered for themselves that most of what has been taught to them was simply not true. — Ann Shulgin

You know, a daydream properly utilized can be the most powerful force in the universe. One need only dream of freedom to begin to break the spell of enslavement. — William Joyce

Use them with care, and use them with respect as to the transformations they can achieve, and you have an extraordinary research tool. Go banging about with a psychedelic drug for a Saturday night turn-on, and you can get into a really bad place, psychologically. Know what you're using, decide just why you're using it, and you can have a rich experience. They're not addictive, and they're certainly not escapist, either, but they're exceptionally valuable tools for understanding the human mind, and how it works. — Alexander Shulgin

I'm called the Godfather [of Ecstacy] because I published for the first time information about its effects in man. I feel content with the title. MDMA is a beautiful drug ... — Alexander Shulgin

How long will this last, this delicious feeling of being alive, of having penetrated the veil which hides beauty and the wonders of celestial vistas? It doesn't matter, as there can be nothing but gratitude for even a glimpse of what exists for those who can become open to it. — Alexander Shulgin

Write down the things you wish to remember, and keep those records close. Secured. It's surprising how much you forget as the years go on. — Chloe Neill

What has she eaten to be so awake this early, and where can I get some of this magical substance? — Leah Rae Miller

Funny, I'd forgotten that what comes to you when you take a psychedelic is not always a revelation of something new and startling; you're more liable to find yourself reminded of simple things you know and forgot you knew - seeing them freshly - old, basic truths that long ago became cliches, so you stopped paying attention to them. — Ann Shulgin

They might be drugs that alter the states of consciousness, or they might be states of transcendence reached in meditation. They might be moments of orgasm, or fugue states, or day-dreams that take you momentarily to a rewarding fantasy and escape from responsibility. All of these are treasures of the spirit or psyche that allow exploration along paths which are undefined and completely individual. — Alexander Shulgin

Know what [drug] you're using, decide just why you're using it, and you can have a rich experience. — Alexander Shulgin

I don't know if you realize this, but there are some researchers - doctors - who are giving this kind of drug to volunteers, to see what the effects are, and they're doing it the proper scientific way, in clean white hospital rooms, away from trees and flowers and the wind, and they're surprised at how many of the experiments turn sour. They've never taken any sort of psychedelic themselves, needless to say. Their volunteers - they're called 'subjects,' of course - are given mescaline or LSD and they're all opened up to their surroundings, very sensitive to color and light and other people's emotions, and what are they given to react to? Metal bed-frames and plaster walls, and an occasional white coat carrying a clipboard. Sterility. Most of them say afterward that they'll never do it again. — Alexander Shulgin

The potential of the psychedelic drugs to provide access to the interior universe, is, I believe, their most valuable property. — Alexander Shulgin

MDMA is penicillin for the soul; you don't give up on penicillin when you see what it can do. — Ann Shulgin

It [MDMA] takes away the feelings of self-hatred and condemnation, which are the biggest obstacles to insight ... For reasons we don't understand, MDMA allows people to do this, typically in one [psychotherapeutic] session. — Ann Shulgin

Patchway had the enviable countryman's capacity, which is shared only by great actors, of standing by and saying nothing, and yet existing, large, present, and at ease. — Iris Murdoch

Our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us ... — Alexander Shulgin

The world amazed me, in that I saw it as I had when I was a child. I had forgotten the beauty and the magic and the knowingness of it and me. — Alexander Shulgin

MDMA, it was beginning to be apparent, could be all things to all people. — Alexander Shulgin

Three hundred and fifty years ago, Shulgin notes, the Church proclaimed, "The earth is the center of the universe, and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic." Today, the government proclaims, "All drugs that can expand consciousness are without medical or social justification, and anyone who uses them is a criminal." In Galileo's time, the authorities said, "We do not need to actually look through that mysterious contraption." Now the government says, "There is no need to actually taste those mysterious compounds." In the past, the Church said, "How dare you claim that the earth is not the center of the universe?" Today the government says, "How dare you claim that an understanding of God is to be found in a white powder? — Daniel Pinchbeck

How he could be a good user of LSD," I asked, "And know about the spiritual dimension - all that sort of thing - and still be a crook? I don't understand."
"Then it's time you did. Psychedelic drugs don't change you - they don't change you character - unless you want to be changed. They enable change; they can't impose it ... — Alexander Shulgin

I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can analyze its availability. — Alexander Shulgin

I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not cross that border. Here I am the Customs Agent. I am the Coast guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable — Alexander Shulgin

Understand that fire fought with fire does only increase the heat. — Raphael Zernoff

The most compelling insight of that day was that this awesome recall had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid. Everything I had recognized came from the depths of my memory and my psyche. I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability. — Alexander Shulgin

It is essential that our present negative propaganda regarding psychedelic drugs be replaced with honesty and truthfulness about their effects, both good and bad. — Alexander Shulgin

I really wish she had a different way of viewing things I think the city that we're from just kinda ruined things — Drake

There is a coming home. A home base. Psychedelics help you reconnect with home. — Ann Shulgin

Some part of me can't wait to see what life's going to come up with next! Anticipation without the usual anxiety. And underneath it all is the feeling that we both belong here, just as we are, right now. — Alexander Shulgin

I am completely convinced that there is a wealth of information built into us, with miles of intuitive knowledge tucked away in the genetic material of every one of our cells. Something akin to a library containing uncountable reference volumes, but without any obvious route of entry. And, without some means of access, there is no way to even begin to guess at the extent and quality of what is there. The psychedelic drugs allow exploration of this interior world, and insights into its nature. — Alexander Shulgin

How is it [, then] that the leaders of our society have seen fit to try to eliminate this one very important means of learning and self-discovery, this means which has been used, respected, and honored for thousands of years, in every human culture of which we have a record? — Alexander Shulgin

The suicide arrives at the conclusion that what he is seeking does not exist; the seeker concludes that what he has not yet looked in the right place. — Paul Watzlawick

In Europe, the big word is tolerance. You tolerate everything. — Pat Robertson