Dirty Pictures Transcribed

Dirty Pictures

Documentary – Focusing on Sasha and Ann Shulgin

I am transposing the film from video because I found most of what was said pertinent to this blog. I was unable to find it elsewhere on the internet with brief searching, but I believe rewriting this masterpiece will be useful.

"Cut scene to" will denote a change of scenery. All words spoken will be in quotes. "Text: " describes the text that appears on screen. This is accurate to the best of my knowledge. I may have misheard some speaking, PLEASE correct me if you notice a mistake!

90 Minutes

Text: "Shoreline Entertainment"

"In association with"

"Turn of The Century Films"

"Isis Films"

Present

Cut scene to hand drawing chemical molecules on the Chalkboard

Ann Shulgin: “People who do not know anything about this whole area, they sooner or later ask, are you on anything now?”

Sasha and Ann Shulgin pictured sitting together laugh to each other.

Ann Shulgin: “They think we go around on psychedelic drugs all the time

Sasha Shulgin: *laughing mid sentence* “Not all the time.”

Hand drawing on chalkboard pictured, return to Sasha and Ann sitting together

Ann Shulgin: “Uh, Mushrooms, Psilocyban”

Sasha Shulgin: “I recall ‘2 C-B’ as being very excellent psychedelic” *Ann Agrees*

Ann Shulgin: “Mescaline” *Sasha Agrees*

Sasha Shulgin: “I don’t like drugs that are too sparkly, like the MDA world”

Ann Shulgin: “Yea, I don’t like stoning drugs, I don’t like being stoned. You don’t learn anything.”

Sasha Shulgin: “I don’t like drugs that inhibit communication”

Ann Shulgin: “Like for instance…”

Sasha Shulgin: “2C-E, I mean um, MDE”

Ann Shulgin: “Oh okay, yes I agree with you. Yea, I could do without MDE. 2C-I is good”

Sasha Shulgin: “2C-I is very good. The sexual aspects are always very, very positive contributors to if we like it”

Ann Shulgin: “If we can’t make love on a drug then there’s something not quite right”

Cut scene to hand drawing molecule on chalkboard, title displayed

Text: Dirty Pictures

Cut scene to wood fire burning briefly, to police officers inside Shulgin’s home. 1985

Police Officer: “Fire in here, we have ethyl-ether in here.”

Police Officer 2: “Everyone out of here”

Cut scene to Shulgin walking outside with police officers

Police Officer 3: “All we’re gonna do is we’re gonna try to figure out what you’re doing here and if it’s legal.”

Cut scene to ABC News report, first picture image shows Shulgin in the 1960’s with his hand on his head.

Reporter: “In 1966 Shulgin quit his job as a chemist for Dow Chemical to devote himself entirely to the study of psychoactive drugs, drugs that alter the mind”

Image flashes with Electronic Music in the background

Fun Text: Rave, New World

Cut Scene to another report on Channel 4

Reporter: “The Stepfather of Raves favorite pharmaceutical lives behind the hills of San Francisco. In the mid-1960’s he re-synthesized an obscure drug that had been patented but then ignored. It was called 3,4-Methylenedeoxy N-Methylamphetamine, MDMA for short. It would later acquire the street name ecstasy”

Cut scene to video of people partying in 1960’s

Cut Scene to another report on History Channel

“Just as LSD, marijuana, and Woodstock unite a generation, ecstasy and the rave scene act as a glue for millions of savvy middle-class kids seeking an escape”

Changing scene from parties in the 60’s to 80’s party of rave style

Cut scene to another report on Channel 5

Reporter: “From Bangkok to Bormith, Manchester to Miami, if there was one place on earth where it all began, then its right here in California in the small home laboratory of a man who is known as the Godfather of Ecstasy.”

Cut scene to another report ABC News

Reporter: “No other drug has ever spread so fast”

Cut scene to video in forest as if walking along a path

Sasha Shulgin (not pictured): “25 milligrams, no effect, 40 milligrams, no effec

, 60 milligrams no effect, 81 milligrams, now is I got a plus one, 53 minutes, smoot shift into a light intoxication. Distinct almost early alcohol-like intoxication”

Cut scene to large groups of people in the desert collected in the sun, clothes in the sun, cars parked, drinking coolers out.

Text “Somewhere in the Desert”

Person speaking: “I first met Ann and Sasha years ago and I thought about how I would introduce them and everything I thought about saying I got so emotional I started crying”

Cut scene to video of an audience of people sitting around Sasha and Ann Shulgin.

Person speaking in audience, “Hello, this is kind of a personal question, is there anything that **** does to the brain that MDMA does to the heart” {Couldn’t hear speaker}

Cut scenes to several video clips of Shulgin laughing and smiling or talking with friends and acquaintances.

Speaker: “Alexander Sasha Shulgin, PHD as a pharmacologist, chemist, and drug developer 2C-T-7, 2C-I, and 2C-B are the most well known. Shulgin personally tested hundreds of drugs…”

4:00

Cut scene to Shulgin in a workspace looking through old paperwork, shows clipping from New York Times magazine

Sasha Shulgin: “New York Times Magazine, there’s an article on Doctor E for ecstasy. No reason that I should be Dr. Ecstasy. Ecstasy is not the name I gave anything. I called it MDMA. It’s an element of notoriety that does no good.”

Cut scene to person sitting at home next to a couch and bookshelf

Person speaking: “He didn’t even invent it. In his discoveries and his own inventions he encountered this drug that somebody else had made”

Cut scene to another report ABC News

Reporter speaking: “It didn’t exist in nature until chemists working for the German pharmaceutical company Merck synthesized it by accident in their laboratories in 1912. No use for the new molecule was discovered, and MDMA remained no more than a formula on faded paper for more than 60 years.

Cut scene to Shulgin playing violin

Cut scene back to person sitting by the couch

Person speaking: “So somebody made it, but didn’t realize its potential!”

Cut scene to the logo for The History Channel

Text: “The History Channel”

Narrator speaking: “This is World War I, with Germany’s defeat, MDMA and every other patented drug is turned over to the allies as a spoil of war. Its existence is lost from memory until the Cold War compels the pentagon to reexamine its potential for National Defense.”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin playing the violin very briefly

Cut scene back to History Channel speaker

Narrator speaking: “The Love Drug does little for war, but the compound still exists.

Cut scene back to violin playing

Cut scene back to person sitting by the couch

Person speaking: “It sat on a shelf but he thought hmm, they never really took it orally I wonder if its active. Lets try it at the 50 milligram dose and the 100 milligram dose, oh there’s something going on here. Wow whoa this has an altered state experience”

Cut scene to report, video of notes on a page

Reporter speaking: “Doctor Shulgin made these careful note, the first recorded experience on ecstasy.”

Sasha Shulgin: “Actually the first trial of that particular guise was on a train trip.

Cut scene to an image of a train passing by

Cut scene to former DEA agent  speaking
 : “He published a paper on it, described its effects, and several of his friends were psychiatrists and they decided to try it, they tried it on themselves first.”

Cut scene to people sitting in a group in a circle in a room

Speaker sounds the same as former History Channel speaker

Speaker: “In the psychotherapeutic community, MDMA is called empathy, its effect is likened to a year of therapy in six hours”

Cut scene back to former DEA agent speaking in house

Former DEA Agent: “Once the psychiatrists started using it, woo, man, was it in demand.”

Cut scene to The Donahue Show April 25, 1985

Donahue: “We’ve got another drug and it is synthetic and it makes you love everybody.”

Speaker in audience: “I was diagnosed to have  terminal cancer several months ago and naturally there’s a lot of fear and anger and pain, emotional pain that surrounds something like that. It [Ecstasy] has allowed me to open up and have communication with my family that I’ve never been able to have before.”

Donahue: “It’s called Ecstasy. Now who doesn’t want to take Ecstasy?”

Cut scene to Shulgin in his shop sitting

Sasha Shulgin: “The whole concept of the MDMA going into Ecstasy is really Empathy because no one knew what empathy was so they called it E for Ecstasy. It’s a popularization and in essence, destroys the medical value effectively of that material.”

Cut scene to adolescents running out the front door of a house in the 1980’s approximately

Speaker: “Had MDMA not strayed from that community, it might have remained legal, but beyond the therapist office it becomes wildly popular. And that is the beginning of the end for the legal use of ecstasy

Cut scene to report made by DEA in Press Conference May 31, 1985

Public Speaker: “This morning the Drug Enforcement Administration is announcing its intention to place the drug MDMA or by the street name ‘ecstasy’ under emergency control and schedule 1.”

Cut scene to back viewing of a press conference

Next speaker is Gene Haislip – DEA Deputy Asst. Administrator, 1980-97

Speaker: “This whole thing is pitched as a self-development type of experience. Get in touch with nature, get in touch with the universe, get in touch with your mother.”

Cut scene to a younger person in a commercial centered

Actor: “They said half a hit of E would be fun”

Next pictured is a pill being thrown into the mouth to be swallowed while the pupils dilated

Department of defense logo is then pictured in 2001.

Cut scene to another commercial, image ecstasy pills

Text: Ecstasy, the Enemy

Speaker interview: “Everywhere you look it’s there, service members

Cut scene to a night club and people dancing and pills falling onto the table. The commercial looks to be in Russian.

Several other ecstasy-related commercials are detailed.

Cut scene back to Sasha Shulgin’s office

Sasha Shulin: “And now the term [Ecstasy] applies to everything and anything used at all at a rave, it doesn’t have to have any MDMA in it at all. The term is used as a party escape drug. I’m sad to say I’m not happy with it.”

Cut scene to Shulgin fumbling with chemistry supplies

Reporter speaks: “To Shulgin, it was just one of many mind altering drugs he concocted. In books and papers he has published the formulas and effects of each. His critics argue he is simply providing a roadmap for drug abuse.

Cut scene to rave-like night club, then quick cut scene to a shot out the window of the countryside.

Bob Sager is walking down a train car, he is the DEA Agent who spoke formerly about psychiatrists taking hold of MDMA.

He is a retired DEA Agent

Cut scene to a farm with chickens and Ted Shulgin saying “out”. Ted Shulgin is Sasha Shulgin’s son.

Ted Shulgin: “I didn’t want my life to be a carbon of his own. The number one reason I knew he was a brilliant scientist…

Cut scene of Shulgin discussing chemical molecules with others

Ted Shulgin: “… I would never compete in that world. I didn’t want to be compared against. See my dad was very hip. During the 60’s and 70’s he was the beatnick and I was the rebel tight and close and not involved in that world.”

Cut scene to people collected outside of a conference.

Text: Psychedelics Conference

New York City

A person is explaining to Shulgin: “And I could see an orange… a larger orb of light inside of his head, and where our heads were connecting was a flash of light that shot out straight ahead and we could both see it.”

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin, close-up shot of her at home.

Ann Shulgin: “Basically I see psychedelics as spiritual tools.”

Cut scene to a couple coming up to Ann Shulgin and saying, “We brought more cookies!”

Ann Shulgin close up scene again

Ann Shulgin: “Which is not the way Sasha sees them.”

Text by Ann: writer & lay therapist.

Ann Shulgin: “They are very good tools for anyone on any kind of spiritual journey and that means whatever it means, different things to different people.”

Cut scene to Ann and Sasha Shulgin sitting in front of a large audience getting applauded

Ann Shulgin: “And psychotherapy could be a part of that. People who go into psychotherapy are on a spiritual quest, whether they call it that or not.”

Cut scene to Ann and Sasha Shulgin on stage, a question is posed from the audience

Question asker: “How do you define consciousness and how much of it is determined by chemistry?”

Sasha Shulgin: “Well that’s not a question. I consider consciousness, where you are alive, a lot of people put it as a brain function, where I put it as a mental function.”

Cut scene to new speaker in classroom with chemical molecules written on chalkboard

Speaker: “He is outside the mainstream, he is kind of a rogue”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin walking outside

Speaker: “He’s not part of any official establishment.  He is doing things that are socially frowned upon by the majority of our society.”

Cut scene to Shulgin opening the latches of a door reading

Text: Caution, radioactive materials

Sasha Shulgin: “Always duck down in case a bird flies out. Oh my golly”

Scenes of Shulgin’s laboratory, he picks up a vial off the floor

Sasha Shulgin: “That’s where that compound went.”

Sasha Shulgin: “Usually you have wall to wall carpeting, clean benches and all the bottles on the shelf lined up in alphabetical order, that’s a display in a moving picture laboratory, or a government laboratory, a real *** laboratory is really in essence a personal mess and as you have things at hand, you remember what it was, drop it down, bring it back up again.”

Cut seen to an office with a new speaker

Dr. John Mendelson, MD: “Well Sasha is passionately committed to understanding how these drugs work and their structure activity. He’s mainly a chemist.

Cut scene back to Shulgin’s laboratory

Sasha Shulgin: “I know I tried running that reaction with quite a bit of heat in a matter of an hour or two with almost no reaction at all so I put it over a little magnetic stirrer that throws off a small amount of heat, and it throws off a slight heat, maybe 30 degrees, and it’s been that now for a couple of months”

Text: Dr. John Mendelson MD

Cut scene to desk area with a person sitting

Dr. John Mendelson, MD: “His real fascination again is to make chemicals with very small differences and to test that, to test what those differences are and he’s been willing to test them on himself for the longest time period, he’s been the principle subject.”

Text: Dr. John Mendelson MD

Text: U.C. San Francisco

Text: Researches drugs of abuse

Cut scene back to Shulgin’s lab

Sasha Shulgin: “And all this mess around here, except those things that drop down thanks to squirrels and other rodents, and birds. Birds come down the fireplace periodically”

Cut scene back to the office

Dr. John Mendenson MD: “His fundamental driving force is to understand how these compounds work and what their differences are rather than just to get loaded

14:00

Cut scene to chemical being swished around in a beaker

Cut scene to view outside car window of open field with trees in distance

Cut scene to a house being driven up to

Text: “Somewhere in the Midwest”

Following former DEA agent Bob Sager up the sidewalk

Bob Sager: “Sure collect a lot of stuff. My god, I was looking the other day and said, ‘Where’d I get all this stuff?’ ha, but I use it all.”

He picks up a small brush-like device

Bob Sager: “Of all things, this is to imitate a egg sucking-leach, if you can believe that.”

Cut scene to a wall flashing buy with awards, government certificates, and accomplishments in picture frames.

Bob Sager: “Oh I was gung ho working for the government and uh, doing some good. Yea in 1969 I transferred to what was at that time the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and I took over as director of the crime lab in San Francisco.

Cut scene to a room in his house with an old gun on the wall, some pictures, and Bob Sager pointing to something  else on the wall.

Bob Sager: “That was my grandfather’s weapon, old muzzle loader”

Cut scene back to him sitting at his table

Bob Sager: “And it was very heartwarming to meet the agents, the other chemists, it was like a family, and you knew, that if you had a problem, they would help you.

Cut scene to him walking in another room in his house

Bob Sager: “See my cork collection. Working on it.”

Cut scene to video of Cacti in the desert

Sasha Shulgin: “I noticed one of the Pachanoids {? Type of cactus?} was in blume a couple, 3-4 days ago, I think it’s pretty well gone now”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin walking through a garden. He is indicating different types of cacti

Sasha Shulgin pointing: “Pyruviannis” {Spelling?}

Cut scene to image of Sasha Shulgin walking down a dirt road.

Sasha Shulgin pointing: “Tricacerus Macradonas” {Spelling?}

Cut scene to close-up of Ann Shulgin

Ann Shulgin: “Just about every country and every culture on earth has at least one visionary plant that they use, or some of them use, for altering consciousness.”

Cut scene to Sasha and Ted Shulgin in a grow house for cacti

Sasha Shulgin: “The cacti here, how many varieties do you think there are Ted?”

Ted Shulgin: “In here?”

Sasha Shulgin: “No in the overall… maybe 50, perhaps 50 varieties of cactus, and they’re all chosen because they’re all psychoactive.”

Cut scene to a close-up of Shulgin speaking seriously.

Sasha Shulgin: “I mean we have receptors for psychedelic drugs. We do not have natural psychedelic drugs inside of us. Why do we have the receptors and not the drugs? Well perhaps at one time we had the drugs as part of a metabolic process we generated the drugs that made the psychedelic state a natural state, and these people then would… I could see the potential of looking at the tooth of a Saber tooth tiger, and saying ‘Oh look at the pretty designs on this tooth’ and as a consequence of dropping your defenses against an enemy be removed from the gene pool. So perhaps those people who did turn on because of endogenous psychedelics were removed from the gene pool and therefore they are no longer there. The drugs are no longer made in the body, but the receptors are still there because the receptors were not the hazard it was the drugs that were generated that was the hazard to survival. And maybe that is why some of these plants with psychoactive components turn you on because the receptors are intact from generations, but the natural psychedelic metabolite in the body no longer exists.”

Cut scene to video of audience in a large tent in what seems to be a desert region, Ann and Sasha Shulgin are speaking to the audience.

Sasha Shulgin: “ ‘Is it a path you should avoid or a path you should go down?’ I don’t know how you can answer the question unless you start down the path. I really don’t” he smiles.

The audience laughs

Cut scene to a person walking Sasha Shulgin by the hand in the desert region

Person speaking holding Sasha’s hand: “If we could get two more seats over here and a little bit more in the shade I would really love that, I would feel much better about everything.”

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin signing one of her books (Sasha Shulgin also wrote it) PIHKAL for a fan

Person speaking 2: “Duane, D-U-A-N-E”

Cut to a similar scene but Sasha Shulgin is signing books now.

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin speaking sitting next to Sasha Shulgin

Ann Shulgin: “I think it’s been a little bit embarrassing to my children that I had written quite a lot about making love under the influence of psychedelics.”

Cut scene to a fan speaking to Ann Shulgin in desert region about

Person Speaking: “So you’ve been in this a long time and I’m wondering if there’s any information on…”

Cuts off person speaking, cut scene to image of books on a book shelf

Titles visible:

“…Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens”

“…DRUGS – Related Compounds

“PIHKAL – A Chemical Love… 6^th Printing”

“TIHKAL – The Continuation”

“Pharmacotheon”

Ann Shulgin: “These books have been an exploration, not just of the effects of drugs but of the effects of these particular drugs on us.”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin briefly signing a book made out to “Chris”

18:00

Cut scene to a whiteboard with chemical drawings and molecules on it

Followed by a flash of a page in a chemical textbook

Sasha Shulgin: “Chemical structure, outline of synthesis, biochemistry, pharmacology, legal status.

Cut scene to video of train passing by with former DEA Agent Bob Sager sitting on the train

Bob Sager: “What I saw a lot in the work I did was like in doing raids on clandestine laboratories. You have that whole class of people that know nothing about what they are doing, but they read things on how to make a drug and they screw it up and I mean they cause a lot of damage not just to themselves, but to their families, to the surrounding area, to the environment. We really had some dummies, oh man, total idiots trying to cook drugs. It’s what made it so dangerous going into labs because you didn’t know what they were doing because they didn’t know what they were doing.”

Cut scene to Shulgin speaking to a group of about 12 people outside by a moving van.

Sasha Shulgin: “2-Methoxy Methoxy Oxygen Oxygen {??} and a Bromine down here, bond to a Carbon, bond to another Carbon and then back into the ring. You have a 5-membered ring.”

Sasha Shulgin points to someone

Sasha Shulgin: “You’re a chemist” a person nods in agreement.

Sasha Shulgin: “And then therefore your benzene ring has two rings alongside it on either side hence the idea of fly, as if there were wings.

Cut scene back to former DEA Agent Bob Sager on train car

Bob Sager: “In some areas you don’t want to teach a teenager how to make a bomb you just don’t.

Cut scene back to Sasha Shulgin speaking to group again

Sasha Shulgin: “You have to synthesize it yourself. I don’t think it’s ever been commercially available.”

Cut scene to short segments of Sasha Shulgin taking notes and doing chemical studies

A person approaches Sasha Shulgin in an outdoor desert region

Person speaks: “I’ve been dying to meet you. I so honor you. Thank you thank you thank you.

Sasha Shulgin: “Thank you very much, yes”

Cut scene to people biking in the desert region.

Cut to more scenes from desert parties with lights and party float, more people at parties or casually walking around, fires blazing

Cut scene to a camera view of a house and a brief video of Sasha Shulgin playing the piano.

Cut scene back to former DEA Agent Bob Sager at kitchen table

Bob Sager: “Yeah, it was a good agency, and they were all dedicated. They believed in what they were doing, but it changed… sorry”

He tears up a little

Cut scene to chemical processes in a laboratory viewed, more piano playing by Sasha Shulgin as well.

Cut scene to close-up of Ann Shulgin, she looks up at the sky briefly

Ann Shulgin: “Oh yeah, it will rain sometime tonight.”

Cut scene to what looks like a glass house pictured of Shulgin sitting inside having a drink of what appears to be wine.

Cut scene to Ted Shulgin talking

Ted Shulgin: “When I was in high school, my father was never speaking on the telephone; he wanted to be in-person, in private. He always thought the phones might be tapped. And I never questioned that they might be tapped, it’s just that I couldn’t think of why they were wishing to persecute my father.”

Cut scene to Sasha in his lab doing chemical processing, swishing liquids around

Cut scene to him picking up firewood for the fire

Cut scene to police officers seen inside Sasha Shulgin’s basement.

Police Officer: “Fire in here. We got ethyl ether in here. Everyone get out of here, you too” pointing to Sasha Shulgin. “Mr. Cameraman this is a safety issue you can take your pictures and get out of the area” as the police officer pushes away the camera man.

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin sitting in an arm chair reading a book

Ann Shulgin: “The trouble started only when the first book had been published. They said ‘Holy Macarel’ or something to that effect. This guy has a DEA license”

Cut to images of chemistry equipment

Ann Shulgin: “Sasha was on very good terms with a lot of the chemists in the DEA because chemists love chemistry and he was this maverick chemist. He had a DEA license to do labwork and you know, this is a respectable man and a respectable scientist. You don’t just barge in.”

Cut scene back to police confrontation of Sasha Shulgin recording in his home.

Sasha Shulgin to police officers: “Did my wife invite you”

Police officer 2: “We were here for the call”

Police officer 3: “Let’s get out of here” they guide him out of his own house. “Don’t try to resist the possibility of being arrested.”

Cut scene to backyard woods of a house

Ann Shulgin: “One of them [the police officers] asked, ‘You don’t by chance have any peyote here do you?’ and we said ‘oh yes we do right over there, next to your feet’ and he just jumped!”

Ann Shulgin is seen again sitting in the couch

Ann Shulgin: “Suddenly, you realize that these people were really scared of these things. It’s just a little damn cactus.

Cut scene to police officer guiding Sasha Shulgin up a hill

Police Officer 4: “All we’re trying to do is figure out what you’re doing and if what you’re doing is legal.

Cut scene to image of trees overlooking mountains on a sunny day

Ann Shulgin: “They didn’t understand psychedelics. They had the image of somebody out of control, somebody who didn’t belong in decent society.

Cut scene to Police Officer guiding Sasha Shulgin to a police car to be transported

24:00

Cut scene to chalkboard with chemical molecules on it, followed by image of a cactus

Cut scene to Ted Shulgin speaking in front of a wall full of tools and equipment.

Ted Shulgin: “The whole process of drug enforcement, I found it to be a huge game with them. I realized that my father was active bait for these people.”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin reading from The Constitution under a lamp

Sasha Shulgin: “The powers not delegated to the United States by The Constitution…”

Cut scene back to Ted Shulgin speaking

Ted Shulgin: “Even though he didn’t commit any crime, there was never a charge filed, but they could hound him, and I can understand his frustration.

Cut scene back to Sasha Shulgin reading from The Constitution

Sasha Shulgin: “ ‘… or to the people’ that’s it. And there’s no mention in The Constitution of drugs anywhere.”

Cut scene back to Ted Shulgin

Ted Shulgin: “I mean…”

He is seen shaking his head then just walking off screen

Cut scene to train cars passing by

Cut scene to a scene in professor’s office – Dr. Roland Griffiths Ph. D who is a Psychopharmacologist, using a Mac computer

He has a stack of books by his desk, some titles read

“Meditation”

“Spirit science and health”

“Spiritually integrated psychotherapy”

Dr. Griffiths Ph. D: “So is there a dark side to what Sasha did? Certainly”

Cut scene to train seen stopping at a train station

Text: “Baltimore, MD”
Dr. Griffiths Ph. D: “Lots of people have used a number of these compounds and hurt themselves significantly because of it. So yeah there is, there is a dark side to discovering this kind of information.”

Cut scene to sign featuring Johns Hopkins Medicine

Text on sign: “Johns Hopkins Medicine

Text on sign: “Behavioral Biology and Research Center”

Text on sign: “5510 Nathan Shock Drive”

Dr. Griffiths Ph. D: “But I certainly wouldn’t argue that it shouldn’t be done. Sasha’s interest has been exploring the nature and limits of the human condition through tweaking some of these molecules to produce different and really interesting kinds of effects and that’s really at its heart clinical pharmacology is about. I mean we’re studying the nature of the human organism.

Cut scene of a foursided fireball blowing fire in the desert with a large circle of people watching

Sasha Shulgin is seen pictured at the event wearing a king hat talking to a woman

Sasha Shulgin: “Well a lot of people think I created much grief and much sadness and naughty naughty naughty.

Cut scene to video in desert at night with lights seemingly at a big party, lots of flashing people, dressed in neon or light up outfits. Music is playing, people are burning sticks, montage of about 10 short two-second videos

Near the end, Sasha and Ann Shulgin are seen sitting in a Neon lit chair watching all the events occurring somewhere in the desert

Cut scene to camera panning around the side of a cactus with big white spikes

Sasha Shulgin: “It was my first experience with mescaline, which is a psychoactive drug that’s found in the peyote cactus and many other cacti and I had experienced it, gosh what is it 45-50 years ago?”

Cut scene to full on view of Sasha Shulgin talking about mescaline

Sasha Shulgin: “I saw colors that I am still yet unfamiliar with. A flower had a color I couldn’t even give a name to. I had recalled memories of childhood seen with articulate clarity. Then I thought, ‘why would 400 milligrams of a while crystal have all of this in it?’ What it’s doing is allowing me to communicate with parts of me that I had not communicated with for a long time.

Image pictured of Sasha Shulgin in the 1940’s

Text: “Harvard 1942-1944”

 Cut Scene to Former DEA Agent, Bob Sager

Bob Sager: “Pretty sure he was 15 when he enrolled in Harvard, I think he only went 3 semesters or something like that and emotionally it was very difficult for him because of his age compared to the age of the other people in the university, plus the difference in background”

Cut to image of a boat in black and white

Text: “U.S.S. POPE 1944-1945”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin speaking with Ann Shulgin

Sasha Shulgin: “I was curious in the navy, I studied chemistry while I was in the Navy. I had a big textbook that I carried around for three years in the Atlantic, and I had memorized it in the process as kind of a neat challenge.

Cut to black and white image of students looking through a microscope

Text: “U.C. Berkeley 1946-1954”

Sasha Shulgin: “But I came out and went into chemistry in University then I took my doctorate work in Biochemistry and I wanted to have access to exploring and interpreting the exploration of these things.”

Cut to image in black and white of what looks like a college class of students.

Sasha Shulgin: “I did not know where I was going to go. But I went into industrial chemistry, and there I really caught the good luck of having predicted the structure of something that would go commercial and I was given a total license.”

Cut scene to orange and white image of DOW

Text: “With Zectran”

Cut scene to image of Dr. Solomon Snyder, MD sitting in his office

 Dr. Solomon Snyder: “Evidently he had been one of the most productive chemists working at the Dow Chemical organization.”

Image of “Snail Slug N Bug Killer” appears, old Dow Chemical product

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “He had developed a series of insecticides that were making many millions of dollars for the chemistry division of the corporation and they let him just do whatever he felt like.”

30:00

Cut scene to old commercial of the Golden Gate Bridge

Person Speaking: “That bridge could be a gateway to a whole world of Californian charms and surprises

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “When I was an intern San Francisco in 1962-1963, I just loved drugs. I was always interested in how drugs act and I wanted to be a psychiatrist as I was particularly fascinated by drugs and the brain.”

Text: “Dr. Solomon Snyder, MD”

Text: “Neuroscientist”

Cut scene to 1960’s commercial of a street that zigzags

Person speaking: “The most crooked street in the world is a curiosity.”

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “And every Sunday, my wife and I, and our friends would get together and do quote, ‘experiments’.”

Cut scene to image of George H.W. Bush picture frame in a house

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “That was in ceremonies where President Bush conveyed the Naional Medal of Science.”

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “So I was already fascinated by psychedelic drugs and when I was asked to evaluated a program involving drugs of that sort at the Dow Chemical company, I leapt at the opportunity.”

Images showing Dow Chemical advertising

Text: “Dow”

Text: “Western Division”

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “When I arrived there, I learned all about what had been going on with Sasha.”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin working with cactus plants

Sasha Shulgin: “From that point on, all my chemical thought process, all my plans, all my structural synthetic designs were in an area of taking this simple little molecule, mescaline, three Methoxy groups, a little chain, and a Nitrogen, and modifying this atom modifying that atom, change this atom to that atom. Change this, make it longer, make it shorter. Add something else out here, remove that. Where in this entire thing can I make all these changes one at a time and see where or what is it in this molecule that lets it fit into the receptor site that causes the psychedelic action?”

Cut scene to 1960’s video of people in suits walking down the stairs of a building.

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “He argued to his superiors, that this could be therapeutically important at doses at which there was no risk of psychotic effects.”

Image of someone smoking a pipe in a black and white picture is displayed

Sasha Shulgin: “And their attitude was, if anything comes of value, we’ll exploit it and patent it.”

Sasha Shulgin is pictured sitting in an office with books behind him

Sasha Shulgin: “And some of them were patented.

Cut scene to vials of different colored liquids, burners, clasps, and other chemistry supplies

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “Sasha’s work took this to a level of serious corporate interest, even though this was the time of the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco with publicity all over the United States, about the hippies taking LSD and other psychedelic drugs and how irresponsible it was. Very very controversial.”

Cut scene to a commercial of a cop siren in the 1960’s

Person speaking: “For some, the lifestyle of the late 1960’s was bohemia. Dropouts from the corporate culture joined communes on campuses in cities and on farms.”

Sasha Shulgin: “I was never part of the Haight-Ashbury scene, I was interested in seeing where it was going, and I would like to get what information I could get from it as of what drugs were being used. And I had made a couple of allies in the Haight-Ashbury to get little samples of materials and from this I was able to identify them. But some were things I made and published and some were just totally from other sources.”

Cut scene to man speaking in a 1960’s clip commercial

Text: “Insight or insanity?”

Person speaking: “They may obtain valid insights, so often though, all too often, they do not.”

Person 2 speaking: “And in a turned on or euphoric state, step or attempt to fly from cliffs and high windows with real-life permanent non-psychedelic results. Other trippers attempt to merge their beings with large fast automobiles.”

Cut scene in commercial to a man walking towards a moving car. A woman’s scream is very loud heard next.

Cut scene to Solomon Snyder MD speaking again

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “The government was very very scared of abuse of psychedelic drugs and there would be corporate risks of having the Dow respected name associated with something that people have criticized and because of that ultimately, the board of directors of Dow decided not to go forth with this drug development.”

Cut scene to Golden Gaet bridge pictured, seemingly in 1960’s, a boat is seen passing  under the bridge reading

Text: “China Shipping Line”

Sasha Shulgin: “Now, no longer at Dow, but I have my laboratory setup at home and I continued making compounds of new materials.”

Cut scene to modern day San Francisco with cars passing at a stop light on a long street.

Cut scene to image of large building in black

Text: “The Dow Chemical Company”

Dr. Solomon Snyder: “What would have happened if the Dow Administration had said. Let’s go forward. It’s quite possible that the careful use of the appropriate drugs might well have been a big advance in psychiatry.”

Cut scene to a chemist walking through a building

Person on screen: “Here” he smiles, “Yes, okay” he points to some equipment.

Cut scene on an elevator

Person on screen: “It’s our stairway to heaven ha ha ha”

Cut scene quick to laboratory of person, he points to a jar

Person on screen: “This black stuff in here, that’s platinum”

Cut scene back to elevator, door opens

Cut scene back to laboratory

Person on screen: “This is full of Hydrogen” indicating green balloon, “Looks just like the Hindenburg”

Person on screen: “This is actually a baby psychedelic in here” referencing what was in the beaker full of platinum”

Text on screen: “Purdue University”

Text on screen: “Dr. David Nichols, Ph. D”

Text on screen: “Chair of Pharmacology”

Dr. David Nichols: “Hmm, something from United, maybe it’s something about money. That’s what I need, I need good news about money.” He opens a box “Oh I know what this is, this is a dopamine d-3 antagonist that we’re using to figure out what LSD is doing in the brain.”

Text on screen: “considered world’s foremost LSD expert”

Dr. David Nichols: “I’d open this one, if my hands were stronger” He tries opening a container

Cut scene to a close-up of Dr. David Nichols

Dr. David Nichols: “I’m working in the system. Doing it the way they say you have to do it.”

Cut scene back to the lab of Dr. David Nichols

Dr. David Nichols: “You know we have all kinds of OSHA rules and EPA rules and all the radio-isotopes have to be taken care of and that’s always you know been my shtick, you know, if you want to make change happen WORK INSIDE THE SYSTEM.”

Dr. David Nichols: “Have you seen Sasha’s lab?” To interviewer. “Yeah, so I mean, what more can I say?” He smiles. “I mean, his is really more of an alchemist hangout than anything.”

Cut scene to a different part of Nichols’ chemistry lab

Dr. David Nichols: “It was the almost simultaneous discovery of serotonin occurrence in the brain and the discovery by Albert Hofmann of LSD that really made people look at the roll of serotonin in behavioral states because in the 1940’s psychiatry didn’t really believe in neurochemistry. They thought it was all bad mothering, you know, your mother wasn’t nurturing or whatever, they had no idea that neurochemicals could affect the way that we feel so the discovery of LSD in 1943 and the discovery of serotonin in 1948, and its discovery in the brain in the 1950’s that people put two and two together and said, you know, LSD has this powerful behavioral effect and it’s got a piece of serotonin embedded in it, and serotonin’s in the brain, so maybe serotonin has some effect on mood regulation. Of course now we know it affects almost everything. Mood, appetite, hunger, sex, consciousness, you name it.”

Cut scene to laboratory again

Dr. David Nichols: Pointing at a person, “Stewart, this is the guy who, this is the guy who made the mescal-, I mean psilocybin, he’s the real culprit here.”

Cut scene back to Stewart talking

Stewart Frescas: “There’s probably not that many labs in the United States where, um, PIHKAL is a desk reference. And usually, and probably, not where it’s a desk reference where the spine is broken from being opened up so much.” He laughs. “Well there’s actually, you know, as far as the synthesis of phenethylamines are concerned, there’s a lot of good work in there so if we need a quick tickle, how are we going to make this phenethylamines or this nitrostyrene or something, you can look in there and see what he did.”

Text: “Stewart Frescas”

Text: “senior lab technician”

Text: “synthesizes psychedelics”

Cut scene to music playing in the desert and a few people shown biking/walking/dancing

Cut scene to view out airplane window with stewardess voice on speaker

Text: “Little Rock, AR”

Cut scene to following a person in a new laboratory

Text: “University of Arkansas”

Text: “Dr. WILLIAM FANTEGROSSI, Ph.D”

Text: “Behavioral Pharmacologist”

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “This is probably going to be a little jarring because we have sort of a mix of 1970’s technology and more stuff going on” He laughs. “There will be a lot of flashing lights and wires”

Text: “researches psychedelic drug effects”

He walks into the next room

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “This room here is where we do our more sort of our long-term studies.”

Cut scene to Dr. William Fantegrossi sitting in a seat in his lab

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “With Dr. Shulgin, you know, he made a pretty strong case for sort of self-experimentation. And he talked about the fact that if you want to know what these drugs are like you need to try them. And he said you know, that answers the question. And in his books, you see that a lot and it answers some questions, but it doesn’t answer my questions.

Cut scene to Dr. William Fantegrossi swishing a liquid around a beaker

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “So this is one of the good ones that dissolves without much trouble. You know I think there are certain things which you can really only do in animal models right now, where we can sort of study the mechanism of action of these drugs.

Cut scene Dr. William Fantegrossi opening a box.

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “We put the animals in these boxes here so the whole cage fits right in. This guy’s got one of the probes on now, so we could throw him in there and fire it up and see what his temperature is if we wanted to.”

Cut scene Dr. William Fantegrossi is pointing at a white board

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “So what that animal is saying is that as we increase the dose, and get to active doses of this test drug, it is MDMA-like to them. The animal is trained to sort of, you know, put its head through there” he indicates a spot in the box.

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “Instead of pushing a lever, they use their head to break a photo-beam, and that’s what counts as the response.”

Cut scene back to original laboratory that was walked in on in first part of this scene

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “Working with animals really helps to sort of peel away some of the mystical veneer that has been put on these drugs throughout the past.

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin, he is in an area with many small glass bottles

Sasha Shulgin: “You’re making a material that’s never been looked at before, no one has ever made it, so you wonder, is it psychedelic? You don’t know. You can’t look at the literature for it, it is a brand new thing.”

Cut scene to a beaker swishing a liquid around.

Sasha Shulgin: “It meets you and you meet it. You begin learning from it, and it learns from you.

Cut scene to a close-up of Sasha Shulgin

Sasha Shulgin: “You can find the basic emotions in animals, but you don’t find the subtleties of the mental process and that is why you must use human subjects and why you must be really careful because sometimes you bend something that doesn’t unbend”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin sitting in his laboratory

Sasha Shulgin: “What happens is, it’s like the hair on your neck stands up a little bit, ooh, something is going on. It’s a little aura of beginning effect. Once I have found what I believe to be the active level then Ann joins me in the experiment to confirm it is not me that’s strange, but that the compound has the same action in both of us to some extent and once that has been confirmed then our research group will meet about the compound of about maybe 8 or 10 people. And we’ll share the compound all around. Maybe he is a little more sensitive so he’ll take a little bit less, he’s a little into refractory so he’ll have a little bit more, so then we get a feel of the whole group and group all confirms the activity which answers the question.”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin close-up again

Sasha Shulgin: “What you have is a part of the self-preservation is to ignore 95% of the stuff that’s out there. You have a person who is observing everything and remembers everything; he can’t cross the street because he’s fascinated by the green light, by the cars, by the gravel, by the flies that are over there by the thing, by the car that has the little blinker going, and if he pays attention to everything he saw, he’d be at life’s risk to go across the cross-walk crossing the street. So he learned to turn that off, turn that off, watch for the green light, watch for the first step foot goes down there, glance right and left to see there’s no car coming, and you get across the street safely. You have to ignore 99% of what is around you to be safe, to achieve what you want to achieve. What these things catalyze, letting you get access to those things you’ve been ignoring or have been denying.

Cut scene to car driving down open road between fields

Dr. David Nichols: “Albert Hoffman was a Swiss Chemist, Swiss and German chemists were known for the precision and meticulous techniques, so he first made LSD in 1938 and sent it to the pharmacology department and they said, ‘It’s not interesting’ and then he comes back in 1943, and he has a strong impression, a sort of intuition, ‘They must have screwed up something,, I’ve got to try again.’

Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols’ dog running around his legs outside

Dr. David Nichols: “So then he gets some in his body somehow” pointing to trees outside. “So we have a plum tree, a sour cherry tree, a peach tree, Asian pear, and an apple tree over there.”

Cut scene back to a face-to-face view of Dr. David Nichols in a car garage

Dr. David Nichols: “How does a meticulous Swiss chemist get that in his body? He can’t tell you how it got in his body. So let me offer an alternative hypothesis. First of all, we know he had mystical experiences when he was a child, he talks about it. He was walking out in the field one day and he had this mystical experience. So let me suggest he had a propensity to have a mystical experience.

Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols next to a garden

Dr. David Nichols: “I shouldn’t even let you see this. I’ve done such a bad job this year. I haven’t watered, I haven’t thinned it, I haven’t taken the leaves out.

Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols in the garage again

Dr. David Nichols: “I offered that hypothesis, in fact I told Albert. I said I don’t think you actually ingested any that first time, I think you had some kind of spontaneous experience and that spontaneous experience was related to the fact that you had this strong intuition, you should go back and make more of it.”

Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols back in his garden. It is closer to evening

Dr. David Nichols: “I’ve always had a garden and grown something.”

Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols in his garage again

Dr. David Nichols: “So it’s sort of a cosmic conspiracy, and as a scientist I’m not allowed to say things like that.”
Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols back in his garden. It is closer to evening

Dr. David Nichols: “So here’s some blackberries.” He shows the cameraman blackberries upclose

Cut scene to the desert party scene where a large train float is moving across screen. People are biking after it.

Cut scene to former DEA Agent Bob Sager looking out a train window

Cut scene to a road sign showing a swerving road and a sign on a post saying “Shulgin”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin in his laboratory again, he puts his hands in the air

Sasha Shulgin: “So you think you know how the mind works, there’s a lot to be found and you have to find out by influencing, changing, disturbing, I love the use of radioactive materials because you can scan yourself and find out where it goes in the brain. Where’s the mind? Where would you say the mind is? In the brain? In the spirit? The gallbladder? Where’s the mind in the body? When all these things, oh no – you mean the brain?  No no, the mind. I mean where’s the soul? Is it in you or around you? Where’s it located, what’s it look like? Is it rectangular is it round?

Cut Scene to Dr. William Fantegrossi speaking in his home now, not in a laboratory

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “You know I think the idea of a soul whatever it is, whatever different people all over the world think it is, it seems to me the commonality is that it’s something that continues after you’re dead, and to me that’s crazy. I mean I don’t understand how anybody could truly believe that. When you’re dead you’re dead.

Cut scene opens up to show Dr. William Fantegrossi’s wife and children

His wife: “I used to get really upset about it, you know tell him that I’ve lost too many people that I love to not believe that there’s a heaven or else that I’m just thinking that they’re rotting away you know, so and he would just be like, ‘Well that’s what happens, you know, Biodegradable and blah blah blah, I’m gonna freeze my head’ and I’m thinking, what?

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “She really doesn’t like the idea of freezing my head at the moment of death so that I can get it grafted onto a clone body when they can cure whatever it was that killed me.”

His wife: “No because then he’ll be here without me.”

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “Yup, banging some new future chicks, that aren’t you”

His wife: “Exactly! I’m a very jealous person.”

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “It’s till death right? Till death do us part. I’m out once you’re dead right?” He laughs. His wife gives him a joking slap on the shoulder and walks away

Cut scene back to Dr. William Fantegrossi in his laboratory

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “I think the brain is what most people mean when they say the mind. I think the brain is what most people mean when they talk about their personality, who they are, what they believe, how they feel, things like that. That stuff is controlled by your brain. It’s controlled by brain chemistry. That’s why the drugs we give to treat people that are having emotional problems, you know, problems with anxiety, depression, aggression, on and on. The drugs we give them don’t work by affecting your heart, they don’t work by affecting your spleen or your liver, or your lungs, they go into your brain and they change brain chemistry and when you change brain chemistry, you change psychology.”

47:35

Cut scene to driving past a university

Text: “Johns Hopkins University”

Cut scene to Dr. Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. is seen opening a door to an office.

Dr. Roland Griffiths: “I was curious to know about the effects of these drugs that hadn’t been studied very carefully, clinically for 35 years.”

Dr. Roland Griffiths is seen walking down a hallway

Dr. Roland Griffiths: “And we decided, wouldn’t it be interesting to undertake a study with a classical hallucinogen that is alleged to model primary mystical experiences.

Cut scene to Dr. Roland Griffiths sitting in his office

Text: “Dr. ROLAND GRIFFITHS, Ph.D.”

Text: “Psychopharmacologist”

Text: “led first psilocybin “mushrooms” clinical trial”

Cut scene to Dr. Roland Griffiths again seen walking down a hallway, before showing him again at his desk.

Dr. Roland Griffiths: “Psilocybin is from the mushroom which has been used sacramentally for 1000’s of years”

Cut scene to Dr. Roland Griffiths pictured saying his name into a speaker and being allowed into a supposed laboratory

Cut scene to two laboratory technicians working in the lab

Research Assistant: “You can tell him that you’re working in a research pharmacy, AC, Riteaid or something, they have no clue, now if I said mushrooms they might… but I don’t think they know what psilocybin is.”

Cut scene to Dr. Roland Griffiths sitting in his office

Dr. Roland Griffiths: “And I can’t say that I held up much hope that psilocybin would necessarily be a very good model.”

Cut scene to Dr. William A. Richards Ph.D. sitting at his desk

Text: “Dr. WILLIAM A. RICHARDS Ph. D.”

Dr. William A. Richards: “It almost sounds ludicrous, you know” he gets a bit louder. “What percentage of God did you experience?!” and he starts laughing.

Text: “Psychologist & Theologian”

Cut scene to folders in an office with different headers

Text: “Dying – Hallucinogens”

“PTSD – Anxiety”

“Cancer – Spirituality”

“SKCCC”

“Study Notes – 1”

Cut scene to Dr. Roland Griffiths sitting in his office

Dr. Roland Griffiths: “People typically will go, well, ‘You know when my first born was delivered, that changed me forever. I’ll never forget that moment.’ And my father recently passed away, and that was deeply moving, so you know it’s kind of like that. Kind of like that” he says again laughing a little. “So it was, it was an experience of that order of magnitude. I had no idea”

Cut scene to Dr. William A. Richards Ph.D. sitting at his desk

Dr. William A. Richards: “Instead of either-or either-or, it’s both-and both-and both-and.”

Cut scene to Dr. Roland Griffiths sitting in his office

Dr. Roland Griffiths: “This is eight hours laying on a couch here at John’s Hopkins”

Cut scene to Dr. William A. Richards Ph.D. sitting at his desk

Dr. William A. Richards: “I died, but I’ve never been more alive

Cut scene to Dr. Roland Griffiths sitting in his office

Dr. Roland Griffiths: “There’s something at its core that has to do with the core of ethical and moral behavior about the sense of interconnectedness of all people and things. At its heart, we’re talking about altruism at its purest sense. We’re talking about love and care-taking, for other people and for the environment. And we have the opportunity to study that. I can’t imagine anything more important than that” he says smiling.

Cut scene to Dr. William A. Richards Ph.D. sitting at his desk

Dr. William A. Richards: “Sitting beside someone who is consciousness is entering into these profound realms, at the extreme it’s almost like you are sitting beside the Buddha under the Bow tree as enlightenment is happening.”

Cut scene to a tree with the sun shining through the back of it.

Ann Shulgin is then seen sitting in a chair

Ann Shulgin: “Participation Mystique” (I believe this is in French the way she says it)

Cut to close-up of Ann Shulgin

Ann Shulgin: “You become aware of yourself as a glowing thread in a tapestry and all those clichés, but the clichés are based on real experience and real feeling and real sensations. And they don’t mean anything unless they have an influence on what you do with your life.”

Cut scene to desert where people are seen riding a homemade cart. A mammoth float is then pictured with large tusks.

Ann Shulgin: “Children live in the world that we visit with psychedelics.”

Cut scene to a child trying to climb a small homemade sculpture made of plastic –looking faces.

Ann Shulgin: “Almost invariably, the first experience with a psychedelic, the person will come out of it saying, ‘Ah it was all so familiar.’”

Cut scene to desert artistry and people are walking around to look at different paintings.

Ann Shulgin: “To advance spiritually, you have to encounter your monster, your shadow. The shadow is created by parents, by our society, by our neighborhood out of those things which we,,,,,,,,,,

52:00

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin and Sasha Shulgin sitting beside each other in a pleasant environment. A pot of coffee is brewing in the background.

Ann Shulgin: “We can’t grab a toy from the child just because we want the toy. We can’t kill our baby sister just because we resent the fact she’s taken over the household. There are certain things, impulses, which have to be controlled. But they don’t disappear from the psyche. They become repressed – and all of us have that. If we’re socialized. If we’re able to live in society, we  have a shadow sign.

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin cutting holes in a pumpkin.

Ann Shulgin: “Well when you have four children somewhere along the line you learn how to cut pumpkins. Cuz you don’t want them cutting the pumpkin; they’re very small.”

Ann Shulgin: “As a lay therapist , I spent about a year and a half – nearly 2 years with patients doing work on the shadow: That part of yourself that you are ashamed of and that you also believe you cannot live with. With a good psychedelic tool, we have the patient step into the body of the monster and turn around and look out its eyes. At which point, there is no fear. There is immense strength and looking out the eyes of your own monster…” (A pumpkin with a candle in it shows a flame looking out a jack-o-lanturn) “… you begin to make friends with it. It never becomes entirely civilized, but it can become your ally.” A meaningful stare at the camera is seen from Ann Shulgin.

Cut Scene to a fire burning in the desert region. A woodwind instrument is heard playing in the background. People are gathering around the fire; it is very dark. Time seems to change to early morning and people are seen walking carrying sticks in the early morning sun.

Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols playing the wooden instrument in his house.

Cut to the view outside a moving vehicle window showing desert mountains and sandy grasslands outside of it.

Cut scene to Bob Sager, former DEA Agent sitting at his table talking towards the camera.

Bob Sager: “I was in a depressed state and I lost my balance so I was seeing a psychiatrist and at the time MDMA had not been controlled and it was not a prescription drug, but it was available and she prescribed it to me and man, it totally changed my life. It’s called, by the psychiatrist who uses it, an empathogen. It gives you empathy for yourself. I really have to think how surprised I was… I was in first grade, in grade school and we were in an old old building and it had big high plaster ceilings 12 feet high, and the ceiling collapsed, and the plaster fell on this kid that was right in front of me, hit him on the head and busted it all open, and then collapsed my desk, right down on my legs. And here he is his head back bleeding on me, and I’m trapped under here, and all the other kids screamed and they run out of the room and I’m trapped and that’s well, what a feeling. Then I had strangely enough survivor guilt, but after those two episodes, got rid of it, and that was a big benefit to me.”

Cut scene to Bob Sager on a train car walking down a hallway. The camera pans outside to show a train track speeding by.

Cut scene to a collection of people outside a building somewhere. A person speaks to Ann and Sasha Shulgin.

Person speaking: “Last year, my father was dealing with suicidal issues and talking to him I found out he’s had this since a child. I was able to take the information that you talked about and revealed to him things about his shadow to get him to open up, and so I credit you” he indicates Ann and Sasha Shulgin, “in helping to save my father’s life, and so I want you to know I’m getting goosebumps now just telling you that…”

Ann Shulgin: “No, you saved your father’s life”

Person speaking: “… thank you so much for letting me tell you that.”

Cut scene to a straw scarecrow figure sitting with its head sagged slightly. A periodic table of elements is pictured. And another image of a basement laboratory is shown. Sasha Shulgin walks in to the lab. A close-up to his face then occurs

Sasha Shulgin: “Between mind and brain, when you die, the brain becomes non-functional. Do you believe that the mind may still be functional, in the absence of a brain? Do you think the soul might be functional in the absence of a brain?

Cut scene to Sasha and Ann Shulgin speaking in a church-like building to a large crowd of people.

Sasha Shulgin: “I remember one time I was on an experiment, I forget the chemical, doesn’t matter, but – in fact you were with me” he indicates Ann Shulgin [she agrees, “I was”], “We were together and I was looking at the clock because it was interesting to see the second hand on the clock going around, and as I watching the second hand on the clock, it was going slower and slower and slower…”

Cut scene to a close up of Shulgin back in his laboratory, continuing conversation from the church.

Sasha Shulgin: “and we decided how much slower could you get it to go so we watched the second hand and worked together, and we got the second hand to where it was very very slowly moving and another second occurred, now six seconds being modeled we have a little six down there, then a little while later sometime later, another second occurred, each one was taking longer than the previous second…”

Cut scene to a close-up of Sasha Shulgin again speaking in front of the crowd at the church continuing conversation

Sasha Shulgin: “And it occurred to me if the clock were to stop, what defines death? And suddenly I had realized I had taken a chemical that was causing the clock to slow down continuously, and we both snapped right out of it and the clock went normal again!

Ann Shulgin cuts in: “Noooo, he chickened out!” the audience laughs. Sasha and Ann Shulgin laugh.

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin in his laboratory.

Sasha Shulgin: “If you are protein death in an asymptotic way, where you’re getting closer and closer and closer to time and you never touch that baseline you’re eternal. Your life is eternal. You’re just going at a slower pace.

Cut scene to an image of Jesus with a crown of thorns hanging from a cloud. Psychedelic imagery is also shown.

Text: “Chapel of Sacred Mirrors”

Cut scene to a person opening a door to an elevator for Ann and Sasha Shulgin.

Sasha Shulgin: “It’s opening! Is it safe to go in?”

Text: “New York City”

Person speaking: “Yes you’re going in so you don’t have to walk up four floors.”

Cut scene to a moderately sized group of people touring through many pictures with lots of colors and differing imagery.

Cut scene to close-up of Ann Shulgin

Ann Shulgin: “Every new generation automatically wants to break the bonds created by the older generation. That’s part of their job is to stretch things…”

Sasha Shulgin: “Never trust anybody over 16.”

Ann Shulgin: “Over 16, yeah.” she laughs.

Cut scene to a different room, possibly in the same Chapel with people coming up to Sasha Shulgin from all areas. People kiss his hand, take pictures with him, and walk around with him in this area. Music is playing in the background and some people are dancing. Someone is seen painting a picture.

Cut scene to a close-up of Ann Shulgin

Ann Shulgin: “Sasha likes to say there is no casual experiment and when you’re dealing with the human psyche, especially the part that’s not conscious most of the time, you’re dealing with life and death sometimes whether you expect to be or not.”

Cut scene back to the indoor party environment with music playing and black lights glowing.

Cut scene back to a close-up of her face

Ann Shulgin: “So all you can do is write down the things you know and the cautions. You know, if you do this this way, you could probably be safe. Always use a babysitter, et cetera et cetera.”

Cut scene back to the indoor black-light party with music. People are dancing more. The scene changes back to a more well-lit area with more pictures

Cut scene to close-ups of Ann and Sasha Shulgin talking about childhood intelligence

Ann Shulgin: “Any child with any amount of intelligence is going to be curious and want to find out what it is the grown-ups are saying ‘no’ to.”

Sasha Shulgin: “And the children are – well they see themselves as eternal. They will never die because they’re young. They have their whole life ahead of them; goes on forever. It’s only when you get up into the 30’s do you begin to realize maybe it’s not eternal.

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin standing outside the party with a smile on his face tapping his cane to the music.

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin putting on shoes

Sasha Shulgin: “I don’t usually do my experiments in the lab. I usually go to my office or the house where I have the assurance that someone else is there in case something is quite a-miss.

Cut scene to a close-up of Sasha Shulgin

Sasha Shulgin: “And occasionally you get into a situation with a new material that you don’t know where it is. I have a classification of minus, plus, minus plus, two pluses, three pluses to give the relative potency of something. There is one unusual category that I have only used two or three times in my life of four pluses. Anything and everything that occurs is at your command. I can look at a cat up in the hill, and the cat looks at me and I smile at the cat and the cat runs away. You are controlling that cat. You have control of everything around you – total control of my environment, total bliss and it occurred to me after about half-an-hour this extraordinary state, what if this state were not reversible? Could one stay in a state of bliss for the rest of his life? That’s a really scary thought to be able to control everything totally and I was very happy when it began drifting away and it went back to a regular plus three (+++), super stoned state. But these little things can occur, that are disturbing because you suddenly realize they may not be reversible. Perhaps you have instituted a change in your mindset or sensory integrity that is not reversible. This is quite scary and this has happened a couple times.”

1:04:00

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin walking outside a door from his house

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin sitting in a chair outside on a seemingly pleasant afternoon

Ann Shulgin: “Tiny bit of a breeze, but at the moment not even that much.”

Cut scene to close-up of Sasha Shulgin. The camera then shows him sitting at a table with a guest.

Sasha Shulgin: “Lightness, lightness, running my own body at my own show at my own pace. Could I drive a car, well no I couldn’t drive a car but I couldn’t anyway because I’m blind,” a person laughs. “So that doesn’t count”

Person speaking: “But you could play the piano”

Sasha Shulgin: “Nope not with the rope and strings on it.”

Person speaking: “It’s hard standing up – just a bit”

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin mixing ingredients in a bowl to cook. Sasha Shulgin is then pictured maneuvering his hands around. Ann Shulgin’s voice is heard in the background.

Ann Shulgin: “He’s trying to figure something out” is heard quietly.

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin moving around outside on a backyard patio”

Sasha Shulgin: “There you go throw it on the bricks. That’s it.” Ann Shulgin throws some sandy looking material on the brick patio out back. “The squirrels will get it first though”

Cut scene back to Ann Shulgin outside by the chair out back except she is standing up

Ann Shulgin: “I’m pretty close to a plus 3 (+++)”

Person speaking: “Really?”

Ann Shulgin: “Yeah”

Person speaking: “Oh, how lovely!” person laughs

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin writing something down on a piece of paper. A squirrel is then pictured walking slowly outside the back door. The faint voices of Ann Shulgin and another person speaking are heard. A blue jay is shown eating from a bird feeder. A glass sculpture with a stick with thorns sticking out is imbedded inside. A cactus top is shown before cutting.

Cut scene to Ted Shulgin

Ted Shulgin: “Frankly, they’re very boring to me. You only get a bloom once in a while. You can’t control the bloom. They will bloom when they’re ready to bloom. Cactus – I’m surrounded by them just as my father was surrounded by them.”
Cut scene to Shulgin standing atop a hill looking down.

Sasha Shulgin: “My father to my best knowledge may not even know what I did in my own research.”

Cut scene to a close-up of Sasha Shulgin seen sitting outside

Sasha Shulgin: “He probably intellectually knew of it, but was not concerned or interested, didn’t know what it meant. Never thought about it” he laughs a little.

Cut scene back to close-up of Ted Shulgin talking in his work room.

Ted Shulgin: “I don’t have any problem in understanding the botanical structure. I don’t have any problem with the grafting, but cactus have this thing called spines and there’s nothing I can do to stay away from a spine. But beyond that I’m not saying that what I have done is less than or better than, all I can say is that it’s quite different than. I deal with nuts and bolt – adapters, fasteners of all different kinds and structures. Things you can’t normally find at the hardware store

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin lifting up a wooden stringed instrument. Sasha Shulgin is pictured trying to tune it. He begins to play a little bit.

Cut scene to outside brick patio in the backyard. Sasha Shulgin is pictured walking to different places around the back yard.

Sasha Shulgin: “Living out here, I was totally in love with a German girl Giesla, and she was married, and it was a very complex relationship because she wanted to move in with me here but also she was in love with her husband. That’s after my wife’s death, my late wife’s death and established a relationship with Ann, that has evolved into a very firm partnership.”

Cut scene inside to a book shelf filled with books and small collectables inside a house.

Sasha Shulgin: “I’m playing the key of G and it sounds like I am playing the key of A. That’s weird” he is heard saying in the background.

Ann Shulgin: “Maybe it’s not your ears, maybe it’s the piano.”

Sasha Shulgin: “No the piano I think went out of tune I think. I am going to try to find out if it’s my ears or the piano because it’s shifting the whole world out of tune.

Ann Shulgin: “We have deep respect for each other. We don’t try and change each other. I treasure him as he is and he treats me the exactly the same way.”

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin is seen sitting at a desk with papers all around her inside.

Ann Shulgin: “It was right at the passage way. I haven’t the slightest idea why I put it there. You know, tchk,” she points to the temple on the side of her head.

Cut scene to a bookshelf with pictures, picture frames, and books.

Ann Shulgin: “We’ve both learned from unhappy marriages, what not to do, and I’m happy to say that having had three previous marriages that were not great relationships. So that’s good for my children to see too,” pictures of kids are shown amongst other utilities around the house. “because there are an awful lot of failed marriages. But in this case we both have a very strong common interest in psychedelic drugs and visionary plants, but you know they’re not the only way of doing it, it’s just our chosen way.”

Cut scene to Ann Shulgin cooking on the stove

Ann Shulgin: “You want the most famous example of ordinary everyday altered state? Falling in love. Any time you fall in love you go into an altered state. There is no question. You could have a complete absolute psychedelic experience by falling in love which is kind of nice because nobody could legislate against that, though I’m sure they would if they could. Because falling in love is also potentially very dangerous.” She tastes the food she’s cooking. “Hmm maybe, maybe not… I have to take my chances on that.” She closes the lid.

Ann Shulgin: “Because more murders have been committed over the loss of a love-relationship than anything else in human experience right? Yes right.” She looks down at her food. “I don’t know if that’s done or not. And there are people who have a psychedelic experience from the food and that has its dangers too. Oh my god I’ve got to…”

Cut scene to chemical models on the whiteboard and Sasha Shulgin is looking down over a computer drinking some coffee. An outdoor gathering is pictured. It seems quite relaxed, possibly in the same backyard as the Shulgin’s house. A man tells a younger boy to go see Sasha for a question answered.

Cut scene to a close-up of Sasha Shulgin explaining something

Sasha Shulgin: “Minus I think the lousy border touching of the consciousness. How far out from you is your outer universe? Where does your consciousness extend to? How do we communicate? By word, by motion, by action? These are things that are thought out processes. This is the brain function: the talking all this is the operation of the brain, but the concept is the idea. The expression of emotion… Empathy. Where does the concept of empathy originate?

Cut scene to a close-up of a person sitting in an office. A book “Ambulatory Medicine” is in the background

Person speaking: “Anyone knows exactly what is meant by the term empathy, in terms of actual biological relationships with others.”

Cut scene back to the man and the boy at the outdoor gathering again. They are father and son.

“One theory is that when you have kids one of the reasons you bond with your children is that children are completely parasitic. They eat your food. They sleep in your house. There’s no rational reason why anyone would wan- and I have two wonderful kids – why anyone would want children! But once you have them you give them anything. That is total empathic bonding. And what is love? You know, what is the biology of love. Undoubtedly there is. Every human experiences love, but is that different than empathy. That area has been underfinanced and understudied.” The man and his son are seen showing a loving emotion towards each other.

Cut scene to a paper pinned to a board with some newspaper articles behind it. The text is unreadable for me at this resolution. Cuts to another person playing a piano. Ann Shulgin is then shown talking to another person. Following that a chess board is pictured as well as an outdoor view to the backyard, now cleared of people – empty. It is now raining outside. Cars are seen with rain plummeting down on them.

Cut scene to Dr. William Fantegrossi with his two sons in the garage beside the cars that are getting rained on.

Boy speaking: “Dad look at this rain!”

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “Yeah you’re right it’s getting wet in here.”

Cut scene to Dr. Fantegrossi tuning his guitar. He is then pictured in his laboratory before speaking.

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “As you get older, you tend to get interested in more spiritualities, life after death, that sort of stuff.”

Cut scene to him playing his guitar back in his home again. And back to his lab

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “I may wind up there one day myself, but you know, psychedelics have multiple effects for sure. You can imagine efforts through chemistry that define a new molecule that is subtly different from the ones we know of is now able to give you, for example an anti-anxiety effect with one of these sorts of drugs without the psychedelic action.

Cut scene to his wife and children pictured talking in his garage

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “We need new anti-anxiety meds. We need better anti-depressants. The anti-depressants that we have are terrible. They are rarely as good as placebo when you test them, but they are very widely prescribed. There’s a load of people on them. They come with all sorts of side effects: sexual side effects, metabolic side effects leading to weight gain and things like that. Who wouldn’t want something better than that? And you know, that’s sort of where I see myself.”

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin sitting in an office closing a filing cabinet. He is with another person.

Person speaking: “Did you want to respond to this?”

Sasha Shulgin: “Yeah why don’t you write that up”

Cut scene to a close-up of Sasha Shulgin

Sasha Shulgin: “There are many who are doing what I did in the 50’s and 60’s today. They have their little laboratories, but in the commentary of all the recipes I left a lot of clues, little clues, ideas – people are picking up on them and they’re pursuing them and that’s exactly what I want.

%%%%%%%%%%%%

Text from a letter written to Sasha Shulgin:

“I want to have a show of “Storytellers” on a stage porch to bring people back to the days when listening and leisure were valued.

It would be an honor to paint you. You are the first I’ve asked to be on the porch.

Would you be willing to meet with me? I would love to meet Ann as well and share with you the one chemical reaction I was able to do. Combining 13 different herbs and a still, I made some excellent Absinthe.

If you would like to see more of my art, my husband  I would welcome you and Ann to our home in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. Of course, I would love to meet with you at your place, whatever is more convenient.

Whether or not you’d like to sit for me, I hope to meet the man who inspired a greater direction in my life.

…

%%%%%%%%%%%%

Person speaking: “Are you surprised your work would have such a creative influence. He’s an artist.”

Cut to the continued monologue from above from Sasha Shulgin

Sasha Shulgin: “I want this to be an encouragement of ideas. I’ve got a lot more ideas than I do time or energy. There are a lot of people working around the edge of the law.”

Cut scene to a passing by view of a stream through a low valley with some pine trees on either side.

Announcer speaking: “Today prospectors still search for gold along the American River.”

Former DEA Agent Bob Sager speaks again

Bob Sager: “Spent a lot of money, turned a lot of wheels, and put a lot of people in jail, but it did not change the drug seen. It just didn’t.”

Cut scene to close-up of Bob Sager

Bob Sager: “And all and all I’m awful glad to be out of it. Cuz I don’t think we did a whole lot of good. We sure tried.”

Cut scene to Bob Sager walking down the train car. He is then pictured outside a white van in the night time.

Bob Sager: “Hello friends!” he says to the car. “That is indeed, how are ya?”

Sasha Shulgin: “Hey buddy boy!”

Bob Sager: “It’s good to see you!”

Cut scene to inside the car

Sasha Shulgin: “It’s good to have you here fella,” Sasha is seen holding Bob Sager’s hand with kindness in the car.

Bob Sager: “Yeah you betcha.”

Sasha Shulgin: “Jesus are you still a republican?”

Bob Sager: “Well, about half.”

Cut scene to Bob Sager opening the car door for Sasha Shulgin so that he may step out of the car.

Sasha Shulgin: “Sorry…”

Bob Sager: “I don’t care Sasha my love. I really don’t care” he says kindly.

Cut scene to Bob Sager and Sasha Shulgin speaking in a room now. A bottle of Carlo Rossi wine is sitting on the table, about the same size as the one sitting in my refrigerator right now, just significantly more empty J @30 March, 2015

Sasha Shulgin: “See it right there” he is pointing at something.

Bob Sager: “Right there”

Sasha Shulgin: “Okay. Zingo zingo zango. Okay?

Bob Sager: “Okay”

Sasha Shulgin: “And here’s an oxygen. Obviously CH double bond C is CH3, CH2, really come on.”

Person speaking: “How many years now have you been friends?”

Bob Sager: “Oh my god, since 1969?”

Sasha Shulgin: “Oh Jesus, you may be right…”

Person speaking: “Wow!”

Bob Sager: “Yup since 1969.”

Person 2 speaking: “Why is that not surprising?”

Bob Sager: “At that committee…”

Sasha Shulgin: “That’s right! In San Francisco, 17^th floor, federal building

Cut briefly to Sasha Shulgin drawing something on a piece of paper

Person speaking: “It’s wonderful we’ve gone up to a plus one (+) and it’s very…”

Cut briefly back to Bob Sager and Sasha Shulgin sitting beside each other.

Bob Sager: “It was that conference I think where we got our picture taken together.”

Sasha Shulgin: “Yes!”

Bob Sager: “Then it ended up in High Times. Right. Yeah. And I *** see Dr. Shulgin, inventor of MDMA and I’m thinking wait a minute, Jesus! He’s an unidentified asshole!” Sasha Shulgin, Bob Sager, Ann Shulgin and the rest of the group seen sitting around the table all burst into laughter joyfully.

Cut scene to Bob Sager sitting back in his household again – where we saw him in the beginning

Bob Sager: “It was great till the afternoons. It was my job to keep the fireplace going and make runs up and down to the magic store room where we have chemicals stored. As long as I didn’t get paid it was okay to work in his lab.”

Cut scene to Bob Sager and Sasha Shulgin looking through many dark glass jars of chemicals. Flash back to Bob Sager speaking a monologue again

Bob Sager: “He was able to get a standard for new drugs that were out on the street before we could get them from headquarters. He did all kinds of stuff for us. We gave him an award for his assistance.”

Cut scene back to Bob Sager looking through chemicals

Bob Sager: “Ah Zinc Oxide! That’ll work won’t it?”

Cut scene back to Bob Sager sitting in his house

Bob Sager: “He’s my brother. Maybe we were brothers in a previous life, who knows.”

Cut scene to a rooster cawing. A chicken is seen walking around the ground. Ted Shulgin, Sasha Shulgin, and Bob Sager are all seen looking out at a small farm area with chickens

Ted Shulgin: “Oh here he comes!”

Bob Sager: “Yeah, come on out in the sun.”

Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols in a workroom fixing something

Dr. David Nichols: “And so we’re supposed to pay for a hog roast next Saturday.”

Cut to him playing the electric harmonica in his garage

Cut scene to Sasha Shulgin and Ann Shulgin walking hand-in-hand with harmonica music in the background.

Sasha Shulgin: “Crossing the street again? Red light no walky no walky”

Cut to Dr. David Nichols talking next to Sasha Shulgin.

Dr. David Nichols: “I was telling somebody a story about the time I came to visit you and you had figured out this formula for solving the Rubix Cube…”

A monologue by Dr. David Nichols begins off camera

Dr. David Nichols: “We used to get together once or maybe twice a year at a meeting or something, always fun, it’s nice when you can talk to somebody who understands your language, you know. What you’re talking about. Sasha is basically retired. He is trying to write up his final book.”

Cut back to Sasha and Ann Shulgin talking with Dr. David Nichols.

Sasha Shulgin: “I take a print out. I can’t even read that anymore.”

Dr. David Nichols: “Oh that’s terrible.”

Cut scene to a close-up of Dr. David Nichols in his car.

Dr. David Nichols: “Secretly down, I wish there were a drug that we could find that someone could take it and go do you realize how fucked up you are in your thinking? Do you realize what you’ve done? What we as the most advanced civilization, what have we done, we’ve landed on the moon, but other than that, we have the best weapons, the best stealth missiles, the best stealth bombers, the best machine guns, the best laser guided missiles. Is that something to be proud of? I don’t think so.”

Cut scene to Dr. David Nichols inside his garage again

Dr. David Nichols: “Try to pick up a few hints and get better, so when I retire I can play in an old blues band and they can say there’s Dr. Dave on the harp, ‘Used to be the world’s LSD expert and now he plays blues harp for us’ ”

Cut scene to Dr. William Fantegrossi fumbling with his Electric guitar player. Then to a frontal view of him speaking

Dr. William Fantegrossi: “The sort of existential questions that people have, I am just not sure science is what you want, but I don’t take these drugs. I haven’t had one of these experiences before and if someone who had were to sort of argue that’s missing the core of the experience, I would say ‘Okay, I accept that. Fill it in for me. What do you got?’ ”

Cut scene to Dr. William Fantegrossi playing his electric guitar.

Cut scene to a sunset and a backyard patio again outside Sasha Shulgin’s house.

Cut to Sasha Shulgin sitting at his table drinking some water. He seems to have taken a pill

Sasha Shulgin: “Ugh those little pills are terrible.”

Cut to a cat seen eating out of a food bowl on the back table.

Cut to Sasha Shulgin walking up his back stone hill.

Cut scene to a person inside Sasha Shulgin’s lab.

Person speaking: “That’s like, totally an amazing site, his hand written molecules on bottles and stuff. That’s way cool. I think it’s just art. He does it so beautifully” an image is shown of little bottles with chemicals written on them. “His notebooks are filled with these. He calls them dirty pictures.” The person laughs. A view of the bottles is shown but it is indecipherable for me what the two chemicals are in the person’s hand.

Dr. Paul Daley: “And when you consider each one of those is probably weeks to months of work, there are some hundreds of compounds that he’s synthesized and tested. I first started doing serious work here, Sasha hadn’t been working, he had been invaded by local critters, but his vision and his intuition are still very lively. I’m sure I could not keep up with all the things that he would like to make, but I’m gradually getting a little better and there’s a long way to go.”

Text: “Dr. Paul Daley, Ph. D.”

Cut to Dr. Paul Daley doing chemical work

Dr. Paul Daley: “So now it’s down to 50 degrees even.”

Sasha Shulgin: “See in IPA at 50 degrees.”

Dr. Paul Daley: “Yes”

Sasha Shulgin: “Good enough, sounds good”

Dr. Paul Daley: “Okay and we got a little more than one and half grams of total cleaned 5-Methoxy-NALT out of that”

Sasha Shulgin: “Add methyl you’d have more would you”

Dr. Paul Daley: “Right methyl hallotriptamine”

Sasha Shulgin: “We don’t have methyl yet”

Dr. Paul Daley: “Nope.”

Sasha Shulgin: “So this is really mono-hallotriptamine”

Dr. Paul Daley: “Right.”

Sasha Shulgin: “So start calling it MALT then you’re into ambiguity, right”

Dr. Paul Daley: “And lord knows, we have all the ambiguity we could have.”

Sasha Shulgin: “All that we could possibly want, yes”

Cut scene to outdoor shopping place with lots of people  Sasha and Ann Shulgin are walking around. They might be somewhere in a foreign country buying things and riding camels. It is in a different desert region than the party that was happening before it seems. Sasha and Ann Shulgin dismount the camel.

Cut to a picture of chemicals on bottles “Dirty Pictures” as named by Shulgin. Beakers and injections are included

Sasha Shulgin in a monologue

Sasha Shulgin: “I did not have a goal, I still don’t have a goal. What I’m looking for is learning from the process. What’s the goal of a – ah I can’t think of a good analogy. Ann?”

Ann and Sasha Shulgin are pictured inside a household

Ann Shulgin: “It’s like an explorer, you know there’s a hill in front of it. A hallway full of closed doors – go through them and you find another hallway with more doors. It’s an absolutely marvelous continuous process of discovery.”

Cut scene to a distant image of the pyramids in the desert (seems like we discovered where they were) and Sasha and Ann Shulgin are looking outwards towards the desert. Cars drive past houses.

Sasha Shulgin begins a monologue again

Sasha Shulgin: “Maybe the mind does continue, and the soul does continue, but we the observers of the normal clock see the brain stops.

DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY

Etienne Sauret

…

Credits continue to follow