Entheogenic Reformation hipped us to the trailer for an upcoming documentary called
The Shulgin Project. The filmmakers seem quite experienced, with jury awards and big names and cable channels on their resumes. Indeed, at first glance, it seems clear that this is going to be an exciting topic. Here is how their web site describes the project:
The lifestyle drugs market is now estimated to be worth up to $25 billion annually, providing legal treatments for conditions ranging from depression to impotence. Why should man be prevented from using other drugs, which alter his mental and physical experiences? Many have been used for centuries and others continue to be applied in therapeutic, creative, religious, exploratory, recreational and military settings. Are these drugs so innately dangerous that people need to be protected from them? Or are there other reasons? Doctors prescribing MDMA for post traumatic stress disorder and terminal cancer, military psychiatrists testing LSD on troops, chemists developing new 'designer drugs,' shamans using psychedelics to heighten spiritual awareness, multiple sclerosis sufferers self-medicating with cannabis, artists using LSD as a creative tool. Such practices are at best restricted and at worst outlawed - but what are the motives behind the regulations?
That is a very interesting agenda, although the trailer for the film seems to reflect none of that - but trailers are clearly their own beast. Rather, the trailer seems to intimate that the film will be exploring the inherent mystery of Shulgin's quest for novelty in psychoactive substances - the strategizing, the apprehension of not knowing how this completely novel compound will affect a human being, the manner in which previous psychedelic experience informs jumping off future cliffs, so to speak. I'm absolutely summarizing. But to be clear, documentary filmmaking is no easy task, and if the purported goal is to document the inner experience of Shulgin's path, one wonders how successful they'll actually be. From the trailer, we're only really shown images of nature and images of Shulgin in his lab - what else are we to imagine lurks behind the narrative that the filmmakers are constructing for us?
Regardless, it's an eminently worthy topic, and I absolutely wish the project much success. Shulgin remains so articulate (and especially so in a context where he can be edited) about these topics that it's quite possible the weight of his personality alone will spark a following for this film.
