I think it would be a great idea to start a Nexus Crowdsourcing Fund, run by the Nexus by donations of course, to find an organic chemist to make an easy to use, safe and well-documented extraction tek. While a lot of these teks are great, there seems to be plenty of room for (mis)interpretation in these teks and some are even well outdated. Ironically enough, there doesn't seem to be many organic chemists here to provide enough input, but correct me if I'm wrong. Ideally, it should be easy to follow and include common, easy to find ingredients. There has to be someone out there on this planet with access to the internet who can provide professional input on the matter for Nexians...

I think it would be nice to see, any one else have any input? Good idea? Dumb idea?

We have a few chemists around here and they have been giving a lot of feedback over the years. The thing is, once you know your chemistry and have some experience, you realize that "teks" are not really necessary to be followed as such, you just need to understand what you are doing, why each step is being done.

Teks have a lot more "room for maneuver" than people think, if you understand the steps and dont fixate on being exact about quantities. That's why we constantly recommend people to read different teks, and specially read the FAQ, because this should give them a better understanding and not just blindly following steps. We want to help people learning how to learn, and eventually being able to go beyond the instructions so that they can create new methods themselves, find new paths to the different alkaloids, etc.

Can you care to say which teks are outdated, not easy to use, and which leave room for misinterpretation? That way we can fix the individual teks with edits or disclaimers. Sometimes the "pro chemists" don't notice the potential misinterpretation issues that a non-chemist would notice because for them all the steps are pretty clear. So maybe feedback from normal users is even more valuable in this sense.



Recently blue.magic offered to make pictorials of different procedures, which is similar to what you are proposing here. He will probably take some time but it seems like a good initiative.

Cyb's max ion tek is a golden spoon on a silver plate, what more does one need?

I get your idea of making the teks easy to use and eco friendly. In my humble opinion the documentation is pretty good already for the mescaline extraction teks at least. What would make sense is to consolidate the work that was done on cleaning up the extracts in the wiki. @moderators would you agree here?

Making it super duper easy doesn't feel right. If you make something foolproof only fools will use it.

I think people who can't be bothered to even attempt to understand the principles behind extraction probably shouldn't do extraction.


Aye.

Extractions are pretty straight forward... there are not that many ways to go about it, even in lab... We pretty much cover most bases.

Synthesis is a whole other game all together though...

But hey! You never know... the "new" Salt Teks and the FASA teks were pretty neat upgrades!!

I agree with other that once you get the hang of said techniques, you find it's not a rocket sicence, even though there is a great deal of science in it. There is no one TEK to rule them all as the actual technique always depend on the available equipment, chemicals and so on.

I am writing a photo-book about extractions and syntheses of several traditional psychedelics, compiling the best I have found around the web.

However it's not a mere "cookbook" as I focused on detailed illustrations and extensive comments to make the reader understanding what is he doing.

I plan to give away the texts for review by Nexians who will criticize, edit and suggest updates in general.

Funding-wise, I think about allowing for some crypto-donation or selling prints via crypto-market. But the digital e-book will be avialable for free to anyone.

Wow, I didn’t expect all this great input! I will have to address them individually so this post will make sense...



Thats great there are actual chemists on the board, I wish there was some way to give a little icon or something to their profile so it would be easy to see that they are better resources than the average poster would no, no offense to all of the great posts on this board! Are there any known chemists I can follow around on the board and read up on? I would love to see some input from them on these teks/processes. They would be a wealth of knowledge to tap on this forum. I will have to get some links and go through them to outline which are a bit hard to understand or outdated but one I can think of is the one on the main FAQ although I believe it states its outdated on there and is just for reference. What I was also referring to, or trying to, was that there seems to be a lot of questions on teks but as you mentioned, there is a lot of room for maneuvering in these teks. I guess I’m one of those people that are used to being fully knowledgeable (to some degree at least) before I attempt something but that may just be my lack of chemistry knowledge showing The pictorals would be a great idea, it seems blue.magic knows what s/he knows they’re talking about. I will keep an eye out for that book, seems like they have a lot to add!




Cyb’s Max Ion is perhaps the best tek, IMHO. I love how it has a second page (queue the “OMG it has a second page?!”) that breaks it all down. Its fantastic!



Consolidation would be great! While the foolproof statement is a good maxim, personally I don’t think that would be a good fit for something like this. There will always be people who don’t care to put the time in and cut corners, but the rest shouldn’t have to suffer because of it. Clear directions and some explanations of the process would go a long way to give confidence before undergoing a long process such as most teks are. This is exactly why I like Max Ion tek because its not just a “do this and then this” list, it suggests Cyb actually knows what is happening and took the time to write it down.



I agree, although this is a forum on sharing knowledge...why should it not be shared here? Theres nothing wrong with external links and research, but personally I feel there seems to be a lack of depth to dig further. Maybe I misspoke about the ease of use, theres no reason for a “foolproof” tek (that would be impossible, have you seen the Internet?) but I personally feel there should be more than a list of “do this and then this” teks out there. We shouldn’t let those few who don’t seem to care about the process dictate how teks are written for the rest of us.




Excellent point! As a non-chemist, I didn’t previously understand the differences between synthesizing a la Shulgun’s “TiHKaL” and extracting naturally occurring alkaloids from plant matter. I took some time to read up on it after I read this post, thank you for the input! I agree the new salt teks look great, I will be moving on to learning about those next, I wanted to work my way up so I can actually understand whats happening first. They seem a bit more complex to me so I want to know what I’m reading first. to you, Good Sir!





I agree, they seem easy, maybe it was just me wondering why it seemed so easy and I’m no rocket surgeon, either! That book sounds fantastic, I would love to read the comments you add on it, it seems like you know what you are doing from what I have read already! I will keep an eye out for it!

The chemists do have an icon to recognize them, a little coloured lab flask under their avatar, the more flasks the whiter their lab coat.

It's a pile of info here yet all you need is already here, it's a matter of engagement.

Just like in a library there's near double or maybe contradicting info (on first sight anyway), this is a way a library works, it does not have to be spoon-feeding, you wander and wander in the library and ask help and harvest your intel finally. No quick fix, many new comers are put off by the study and I understand your urge to have it more streamlined, but if you start to study then many many aspects keep coming back and it all becomes much simpler as it looks. There's not that much of principal ways to do things really, yet there are many teks that handle these same principles in just another way. Let the puzzle fall together.

I agree with the comments about learning the science and finessing your own methods. I suspect we (non-chemists) all select a tek that resonates (and uses materials that we can access) then over time and experience develop understanding/knowledge to the point where we can all adjust/adapt/trial processes to suit individual circumstances or resolve issues. There's so much to learn.. chemistry, neuroscience, spiritual/personal stuff, traditional/ceremonial entheogenic uses, botany, history of psychedelics, ingestion methods, combining alkaloids etc... personally, this is a big part of the attraction. It's a journey of art and discovery.

nope, it’s not. it’s separation science.

I’ll do my best to elucidate separation procedures, as chromatography is my forté.
The TLC project is a worthy fundraiser, and that can translate directly into preparative scale.
the A/B chemistry is the focus of most of what we do here. The general rule is, a compound is either >99% protonated or deprotonated at +/-2 pH points over/under the compound’s pKa, respectively. when it is deprotonated, it is more soluble in nonpolar organic solvents. when it is protonated, it is soluble in polar organics, and water.

I have only done three extractions with zero chemistry background but a bit of Soil science but that took a couple of months reading until I realized the connection between Cation/ions and nutrient lockout with extraction.

I am not complaining here: There is a ton of information here and for me personally, I needed to actually get a couple done first. I am a hands on learner then the reading makes more sense. And problems help with understanding, solve a problem and I will learn way more than if things go smooth. A few people have helped along the way too, this is a beautiful resource as was "overgrow.com" 18 years ago before Marc Emery was busted by US NARCO COPS in the early 2000's. Which is why I download everything I can... Experience tells me, get the info local.

my biggest lesson is learning patience.

I know I know very little but I read some posts that seem ridiculous and then I look at the questionnaire and the person answered three questions with sarcasm. No wonder.

Thank You DMT-Nexus Community!! You are Awesome, appreciated and loved.

There IS so much to learn on here, I would have to agree that's part of the appeal for me as well. The FAQ and Wiki are set up great, so kudos for that Nexus!

I never noticed the flask icon underneath the username, great to see that exists and is a little depressing I never noticed before...I dont pay attention to that side of the post as much but maybe I should