There’s a letter from the massive Shulgin archive written by Ann Shulgin, a pioneer of psychedelic therapy and wife of renowned chemist Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, to President Ronald Reagan. She appeals to him, trying to make him understand the value of MDMA just as the federal government was ramping up its drug criminalization efforts in 1984.

“I am writing to you, privately and urgently, in the hope that the information I have received — from a single source who could well be misinformed — is valid,” Ann writes in the letter. “I have been led to believe that you have an interest in and a curiosity about the potential value, most particularly in the area of psychotherapy, of a chemical substance known to chemists as 'methylene-dioxy-meth-amphetamine,' or MDMA. To non-chemists, it is known by various names, 'Adam' in some parts of the country, 'XTC' (unwelcome shades of the 1960's) in others."

She made a copy of the letter she sent to President Reagan and filed it away in a box. It sat among a quarter million documents, some of which are now on display at the Berkeley Alembic community center as part of “MDMA, From Molecule to Movement: A Shulgin Archive Exhibition”, which will be running through the end of May. The Shulgin Foundation — the nonprofit that stewards the Shulgin Farm, where the couple’s home and Sasha’s laboratory are pristinely maintained — produced the exhibit with funding from the Flourish Fund through UC Berkeley's Center for the Science of Psychedelics.

"Don't sleep on it," says Megan Bowers, executive producer of the installation and executive director of the Shulgin Foundation. "The way it's installed is definitely special to this place and to this time. It may just be that this is the life of it — one month."

The exhibit takes over the Mercury Room, a 20-by-20 space at the Alembic, transforming it into a sensory installation featuring the archive and a film screening. Research fellow Alysiana Carter spent nearly a year sifting through the Shulgin archives, surfacing what Bowers calls “psychedelic easter eggs,” or documents, photos, and physical media that have never been digitally published, and would never populate in a Google search. Most of the papers and images are displayed behind glass in custom encasements, but each piece is accompanied by a QR code linking to a full scan of the document, so visitors can sit with more than just the first page of a letter or dossier. 

Then, there are the quintessential ‘90s rave fliers, magazine stories, and ephemera Ann and Sasha collected. Alysiana curated them into a collage that covers part of one wall. It activates a warm and fuzzy sense of ‘90s nostalgia, even despite the fact that the Shulgins didn’t like the way MDMA was adulterated on the streets, which made elements of rave culture complicated for them. They felt that the adulteration of MDMA specifically fueled the case for prohibition, Bowers tells DoubleBlind, and they wanted to protect people’s right to use these substances to help expand consciousness and heal — not use them merely as a party drug.

In a conversation with “Interview Magazine,” Ann tells interviewer Michael Martin about her specific concern with “ecstasy.” “The term ecstasy is a street name. The drug is illegal, and there is no quality control. There is no way to tell if there is any MDMA in [ecstasy]. One research group found that at a particular rave, one-third of what was being sold as ecstasy had [only] some MDMA in it. The rest did not, which is one of the dangers of making things illegal. There’s no protection. The authorities feel there should be no protection, but their views are somewhat different than ours.”

Alongside Bowers and Carter, visual artists Hanif Wondir and Domini Anne — a muralist, musician, and multidisciplinary force from the Bay Area, and a movement-and-design polymath, respectively — created a 10-minute short film that animates archival photography of Ann, Shasha, and Leo Zeff, a psychotherapist from Oakland, CA, who pioneered the use of LSD, MDMA, and other drugs in psychotherapy in the 1970s, tracing a timeline from 1912 to the present. Wondir also created the 20-foot mural, which depicts both Ann and Sasha with their minds unfurling into connected clouds of thought, embedded with imagery endemic to the farm — their home — itself. 

The exhibit also features some of Sasha’s equipment. Glassware, instruments, and apparatuses from his home lab, all of which predate 1986, some of it built by Sasha from spare parts. Dr. Paul Daley confirmed the provenance that the tools featured are the ones used to make his famed molecules.

The exhibit opened Saturday, May 2, and runs through May 31 at the Berkeley Alembic, which is accessible during its regular open hours. People can book one-on-one tours of the exhibit, and there are also programming events tied to the run, including a Shulgin retrospective featuring speakers like Maria Mangini, Benjamin Breen, and Professor David Presti. Izzy Ali, the co-executive director of MAPS, will be speaking at the Alembic's ongoing Chalice speaker series on Wednesday, May 6, with the exhibit running alongside.

All of this matters right now for reasons beyond the historical. The Shulgin Foundation is the steward of the Shulgin farm in Lafayette, CA — a working property with a living history that visitors can actually tour. You can book through the foundation's website, or reach out to [email protected] if you're passing through the area. The farm hosts private events, dinners, and gatherings, and a sense of place that is irreducibly itself.

There's nowhere else on the West Coast — arguably in the country — where you can stand in a clandestine chemist's former living room, surrounded by his books, tools, the chess set he played on, and the land on which he created over 200 psychedelic compounds, and feel the full weight of what happened there.

It’s unclear where the archive will exist after this. But for now, the Alembic is where it lives and where you can experience the magic of the Shulgins.

*This story has been edited to correct that Sasha Shulgin created over 200 psychedelic compounds, instead of 100.

💌 If you loved this email, forward it to a psychonaut in your life.

Editorial Process

DoubleBlind is a trusted resource for news, evidence-based education, and reporting on psychedelics. We work with leading medical professionals, scientific researchers, journalists, mycologists, indigenous stewards, and cultural pioneers. Read about our editorial policy and fact-checking process here.