Just wanted to know what you guys thought. Keep in mind, I am not talking about the general community because they are ignorant. Since we are all aware of many compounds, this makes it more fair.

I say shulgin also, but that's just because I love tryptamines, and don't know all too much about Hofmann

How come I can't vote? It's disabled for me.

I Don't know what to tell you. Just write it out

Why would you put a baseball player in a hockey rink? Ambiguous yes?

Seriously I don't see any comparison between these two. Granted I know only of the works of shulgin and little of the motivation behind his work.

Hoffman was the centre of an amazing accident and he dealt with it beautifully.

And for the record. Everything shulgin invented and hoffman invented is over-rated.

Nature gets the vote

Tryptamines? God made all the best ones.

Damn cover bands!

These are both incredible scientists who conducted different types of research. Hofmann also made a variety of psychoactive LSD derivatives that due to prohibition no one has gotten to try but Hofmann did not continue this research. Thus there is no comparison. The vote should have been between LSD and Shulgin's creations. Also Shulgin did not invent all of the compounds in TIHKAL and PIHKAL some where natural others where synthetics others made. These are both incredible men who have done a great deal for science of the mind.

Also what about Dave Nichols? He is surely one of the best psychedelic chemist. He has made a variety of highly potent incredible compounds some even more potent than LSD. Again most people will never try these because of prohibition. If there is no $ involved in making them you will not see them on the black market. Also much of the work in PIHKAL and TIHKAL he had a hand in as Shulgin and Nichols published much work together. Shulgin also taught Nichols. All of these compounds are valuable research tools. Take a look at Nichols extensive literature articles. It is truly incredible he is one of the great pharmacology researchers of our time (psychedelic's aside).

What shulgin has done is incredible he personaly assayed many compounds and conducted human studies. underground and reported the results. This information is a valuable tool to pharmacologists looking to understand the mechanisms of these compounds and their effects.

These men are all great and should not be compared.

These compound are made to study the molecular aspects of consciousness and the mind. They are not made to get people high. They are not "cover bands". Many have unique pharmacological properties that will allow a glance into the CNS mechanisms involved in subjective experience.

That said unless any of you have personally assayed all of the synthetics you can not say that nature is better. The subjective effects of any given compound depends on a variety of factors however there is no inherent difference between natural versus synthetic drugs. This is ridiculous and is a complete fallacy. Also last time I checked nature synthesized the chemist.


Aslo Hofmann did a lot more than just discover LSD by accident. I suggest you read some history he also discovered psilocin and psilocybin amoung other things.

Personally, I like Hofmann more. I think he was far more professional and well spoken than Shulgin. Shulgin is kind of reckless, and I don't much like the way his books make it appear as though he created all of those chemicals presented in his books. He's got a lot of inaccurate material in his books. I have both TiHKAL and PiHKAL and while PiHKAL is pretty decent, TiHKAL is a total piece of crap full of inaccuracies and flat out incorrect statements. That book makes me sick. Most of what's in it is not his work. He doesn't make that clear and gives the impression that he's some sort of tryptamine expert when he clearly isn't. I think that book was put together for profit only. It has very little value. I wish I never bought it.

The books by Hofmann are filled with his work, and when it's not his work, he makes it clear. He doesn't attempt to appear to be a fake expert in anything he's not really an expert in.

As far as the chemicals created by both Hofmann and Shulgin, only Shulgin's creations have killed hundreds of people. Hofmann's have not killed anyone. So my vote is clearly for Hofmann and not Shulgin.

Funny that, becuase both hoffman and shulgins knowledge got the majority of users "high".

As for "naturally occuring" vs. "synthetic and prohibited".

The bottom line is if you know where to look and you know what to look for, nature will deliver. Most of what shulgin and hoffman did, to me anyways is on par with time travel (talking in extremes). The materials may be around me, but a grant to access is far away and even with the knowledge to produce I'd have to commit fraud to get there.

The only shulgin drug I have tried was 2cb. One of the best experiences I have ever had on a psychedelic for a feeling of unity. A few times since, people have sold things to me as 2cb which definately were not, but sure looked the same.

No I havent assayed everything shulgin ever made. I also havent eaten every natural occuring substance under the sun. But in the way they are presented for me (yes just me!) Nature has shown much more long term insight. As someone who moves very seperate from circles who commonly use illicit substances, I'd have to be asking some pretty dodgy questions to unsuspecting folk for even a chance to find any 2c's DO's MD's etc.


Oh and if the same song has been sung before, it aint nothing but a cover band baby.

I'll interperet this as: "who had the greatest impact on humanity?"

Hoffmann, hands down. He brought knowledge of psychadelics into the modern era. Without him Shulgin likley would have never done his work.

He is like Ramon y Cajal in neurobiology or Darwin in evolution. He catalyzed a whole field.

Maybe I am being misunderstood. That is why I wrote "contributions" and not the compounds they created. This is a grouping of all the work they did to benefit psychedelics

I totally agree. Hofmann changed the world forever. If not for him, I probably wouldn't even be on this forum, and this forum would probably not even exist because most of the people interested in DMT became so after their interest in LSD.

The phenethylamine mescaline was around in isolated form for a long time. It wasn't until LSD was invented that psychedelics hit the main stream.

I was finally able to vote. Somehow it worked that time.

I'd like to see a vote on how many people think Shulgin invented all of those chemicals in TiHKAL and PiHKAL. An awful lot of people seem to think he invented all of them!

Actually it's very clear that Shulgin liked phenethylamines over tryptamines. That's probably why pihkal was better that Tihkal.

i came in here intending to vote for shulgin because i dont agree with lsd and now im leaving without voting because i didnt know this much about either of these men
shot for the eye-opener.

I completely agree. I won't vote because there simply is no comparison. Both were amazing chemists, and regardless of who did what.... They both still stand as some of my idyllic leaders.

If I was playing a fighting video game with Hofmann versus Shulgin and they used their chemical creations to fight each other then of course I would pick Shulgin because some of his creations are deadly and would beat Hofmann's any day.

Wizard Hofmann: "Here take a pill of LSD" "WHAM"

Master Shulgin: "I'm already tolerant to that one!" "You'll need to do better than that!"

Master Shulgin: "Here take an OD of DOI" "WHAM" "GOT YOU HOFMANN!"

Wizard Hofmann: "Ah...you got me "

Sorry, I'm a little out of it right now.

Albertino, definitely. He was blessed man and lived long life for a reason. His work is amazing and it`s only shame that I don`t have money to buy some more of his books. Wish I can get paws on his research with lsd derivates, bet there is plenty of useful stuff in it.
Thanx for Albertino and his child ILPT start to be interested in entheogens.
Also thanx to G. Wasson and prof. Heim for their hard work in musroom fields.

Agree with 69ron, that Tihkal is piece of crap. It will you give some ideas but is veri inaccurate book. Ilpt once tried synthesis of DET,DMT from thikal an failed greatly. Wasted money, precious chemicals(indole, dimethylamine etc.) and time

Did you know ? Hofmann sent a message from his new Realm -





http://www.bpv.ch/content/texte/apport-ah.html