PiHKAL by Alexander and Ann Shulgin is on its face a book about love and chemistry. Taken together it becomes more of a treatise on how psychopharmacology is a method of personal and sociological analysis. Drug use becomes a psychological tool to manifest the phenomena of the mind that are normally hidden, and novel synthesis becomes a tool to then access the areas of the mind unexplored throughout history. Aside of all this, the Shulgin's story is one of absolute dedication to science in the face of its many impediments: internal psychology, interpersonal relations, social stigma, technical innovation, and authoritarian censorship.