A larger number of people are exploring psychedelic states of mind in the world today than at any other point in history. In Psychedelia, this unique culture and way of life is given its first ever in-depth presentation. Psychedelia's roots are traced from the hallucinogenic celebrations in ancient Greece through the utopian counterculture of Haight-Ashbury, and into the ayahuasca rituals and all-night dances of the 2000s. In Psychedelia, a colorful picture of a dazzling, vividly alive psychedelic culture is painted in contrast to past attempts to reduce it to a poorly understood aspect of psychology of religion. Psychedelia is a pioneering effort that presents psychedelia as a culture and lifeforce with its own history, philosophy, art, visions, and traditions.

Over the course of 500 pages, the past, present and future of psychedlia are presented, the fruit of 20 years of research by one of the leading scholars in the field. Drawing on rare sources and interviews with experts, the book offers many previously untold, often amazing stories from the world of Psychedelia, taking the reader from the temple at Eleusis to the beaches of Goa, from the music of Eden Ahbez to Shpongle, from the visions of William Blake to Philip K Dick, from the plant drugs of the Amazon jungle to new DMT research.