Program Recordings

In this intimate class, Dr. Paul Daley, latter-day colleague and sidekick of the legendary psychedelic chemist, Sasha Shulgin, guides us through the groundbreaking work Shulgin did in the realm of novel tryptamine chemistry, sharing insights into how his discoveries have shaped the field and where they might take us in the future. If anyone has had the pleasure of a whiteboard chemistry lesson from Paul, tucked by the fireplace in Sasha's old lab, you know how special it feels to be an audience to his curiosity and wonder. This is a rare opportunity to learn from someone who learned from Sasha himself.

Many interesting and useful compounds are found in plants. In this session, Dr. Paul Daley addresses basic chemistry relevant to isolating these materials through plant extraction, cleanup of crude preparations, compound separation, and analytical detection. Important concepts include the nature of partitioning between phases (immiscible liquid pairs, stationary and moving liquid phases, and liquid and moving vapor phases), used routinely in cleanup and chromatography.

Much of psychedelic history has been erased, forgotten, or never formally recorded — clandestine out of necessity. At this gathering at Shulgin Farm, we took the opportunity to talk about lost information in the archives, to honor the missing decades of underground practice, and to recognize the women and elders who have carried this wisdom forward. This intimate AMA featured Adele Getty and Maria Mangini, two longtime contributors to the psychedelic movement whose lives and work illuminate the sacredness of community care.

Shulgin Foundation‬ hosted neuroscientist Dr. Gül Dölen and Joe Dolce, author of Modern Psychedelics: The Handbook for Mindful Exploration, for an eye-opening talk on Dr. Dölen’s research, which is changing how we think about psychedelics and their effects on the brain. Her early work showed that even octopuses become more social on MDMA, suggesting these effects go back millions of years. More recent studies suggest psychedelics could reopen "critical periods" in the brain—windows when we’re especially open to learning. They explore how this science could shape new treatments for conditions like depression, addiction, and PTSD, and what it might tell us about consciousness itself.