Much has been written about Leary and his compatriots, but Albion Dreaming retains a gritty UK perspective. From the still-secret experiments conducted at Britain’s military research establishment at Porton Down, to Ronald Sandison, a doctor who opened the world’s first specialized LSD psychotherapy unit at Powick Hospital in Worcestershire in 1952, the author packs the pages with a riotous selection of well-sourced anecdotes. [ read more ]
...An unforgettable read about an unforgettable time. Regardless of your taste for their music, this is an invaluable account of not only a seminal American band, but of the very roots of the psychedelic counter-culture itself. The book is full of priceless anecdotes on what it was like to be a head in the then-hostile Texas environment, as well as insights into the West Coast musical and cultural scenes. Innumerable punk, new wave, and psychedelic bands have counted the 13th Floor Elevators as an influence. [ read more ]
Mike Jay, in The Atmosphere of Heaven, explores the golden age of gentleman amateurs—the years prior to and following the French Revolution—through the life of Dr. Thomas Beddoes, the founder of the Medical Pneumatic Institution, which was dedicated to the alleviation of suffering through the new possibilities of chemical medicine, and in particular, “factitious airs”, the newly isolated gases such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide. [ read more ]
It is the second half of both The Age of Wonder and The Atmosphere of Heaven that considerably overlap, centering on the life and career of Humphry Davy and his experiments with nitrous oxide at the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol. Beddoes hired Davy as his assistant physician and researcher at the Institution in 1798. Thus Beddoes becomes the crucial link in a chain that runs, we might say, Priestley → Beddoes → Davy → Faraday → Maxwell → Einstein. [ read more ]
The author shares an intensely personal but phenomenological account that wrestles with the scores of important and sometimes contradictory ideas that psychedelics can bring to mind. His experience of “the acid” toys with his concepts of personal and collective identity, shifting their boundaries in unexpected ways, as he undergoes dramatic alterations in consciousness that suggest new borders or horizons of self, other, and world. This is a rich, dense, philosophical, and psychological trip memoir. It may not be playful, but it is deep. [ read more ]
A gem from my favorite poet-author, Inspired Madness: The Gifts of Burning Man by Dale Pendell offers an excellent introduction for the curious virgin, while providing enough insight to stir a longing desire for pilgrimage in the most jaded, dust-encrusted veteran burner. [...] it contains no photographs, but is sprinkled instead with whimsically potent line drawings—art that captures the heart of the event like no other art I have seen. [ read more ]
Drawing from behavioural economics, Heyman shows how the failure to sacrifice short-term gains (getting high) for long-term gains (sobriety-aided productivity) is endemic to a consumer culture, and how important a person’s social context is to reining in the penchant for pleasure. This, he argues, explains the effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous: it re-socialises addicts, giving them a reason to make the harder choice. Heyman implies that social institutions, particularly those that can guide by example and incentive rather than by precept, are crucial to preventing and “treating” addiction. [ read more ]
Beyond the unsuccessful humorous Zombie premise, factual problems throughout demonstrate a lack of expertise on the topics at hand. While some errors of fact will creep into any work, it seems clear that Johnson did not have a qualified fact-checker edit his writing before publishing it. In addition to errors of fact, what cements this book as unsafe for children is when the author tells some young readers that their parents “don’t really love [them]”. Despite a few positive messages and possibly useful anti-drug content, this book is unsuitable for children until it is re-written. [ read more ]
An examination of America’s legacy of vilifying some substances and deifying others. In an exhaustive series of well-referenced examples, the author updates the concept, discussing recent developments such as congressional hearings on tobacco and the troubling state of the antidepressant industry. He explores how the reputation of a drug, as well as its effects, are often heavily dependent on contextual factors distinct from its pharmacological action. [ read more ]
Fourteen years after its publication, On Drugs still feels fresh in its call to move beyond divisive posturing and verbal constructions that quell discourse on one of the most significant questions we should be asking: how do drug-taking behaviors reflect and shape personal and societal consciousness? An intellectually invigorating yet down-to-earth pharmacography.
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