The subject of psychedelics and, more generally, altered states of consciousness, has enthralled me personally and professionally since my teens. The subject grows fascinating as prohibition lifts in an era regarded as a “psychedelic renaissance.” My training as a cultural anthropologist, my interest in religion and ritual, and research focus on transformational events, movements, and figures colours this focus. Past research has included longitudinal ethnography of global psychedelic trance and festival culture. My current book project, an intellectual biography – Terence McKenna: The Strange Attractor (MIT Press, 2023) – is shaped by my interests in this area.
This indispensable pair of companion volumes created by the Shulgins and known by their acronyms represent a literary and alchemical “gold mine.” Committed to the synthesis and assaying of hundreds of new compounds, chemist Alexander Shulgin dedicated his life to the public dissemination of potential psychotherapeutic aids, most notably MDMA (which he synthesized). A collaboration with his wife, Ann, these books represent Shulgins’ life achievement. They include detailed and precise reports by the Shulgins and the psychonautical group of friend-volunteers who bioassayed newly discovered molecules. PiHKAL ("Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved”) focuses onpsychoactive phenethylamine chemical derivatives, and TiHKAL ("Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved”) focuses on tryptamines. The books are arranged into two parts. The first part of both volumes is fictionalized autobiography. In PiHKAL, the couple shares their accounts of their chemically augmented romance, including thoroughly endearing portraits of their experience with mescaline in Golden Gate…
Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved A unique document written by renowned psychopharmo -gist Shulgin and his partner which gives details of his research and investigations into the use of psychedelic drugs for the study of the human mind. Also describes in detail a wealth of phenet- hlyamines, their physical properties, dosages used and duration of effects observed, and commentary.
I’ve always been fascinated by the role of women in war: men may be on the front lines, but women deal with its impact and often struggle to have equal standing. I was inspired by stories told by my mother who was a nurse in World War II and participated in surgery under gunfire and helped liberate a POW camp in Germany. Yet, no one wanted to hear from her because she was “just a nurse.” Fast forward to Vietnam where women were still being marginalized. I wrote The Fourteenth of September to even the playing field by telling a story that was largely based upon my own experience in college during l969-1970.
A book that satisfies your voyeurism over one of the most exciting times in recent history, without the risk:
A fantastic memoir of a woman during the druggie, free-love, off-the-grid early days of the counterculture—those who tuned in, turned on, and dropped out. It tells you everything you need to know about life as a hippie in the 60s, spurred by refusal to submit to convention or an unjust war.
It was a wild time of experimentation and reckless behavior, by an author who ended up, ironically, as a family counsellor.
* There are 77.5 million boomers living today who came of age in the same time English did.
* About 32 million Americans have used psychedelic drugs at least once in their lifetimes.
* Memoir is one of the top-selling categories of adult nonfiction, and, as of 2017, adult nonfiction sales continued to increase while adult fiction sales declined.
* As of 2017, there were about 12 million single-parent families with children under the age of 18; of those, more than 80% were headed by single mothers.
I've been fascinated by psychedelics since I was a teenager, and along with my book I’ve written a number of academic papers and book chapters on the subject. It intrigues me how subtle changes in the brain’s chemistry leads to such profound changes in perception, cognition, and feeling, including religious feeling. I want to know what those experiences mean, and what they can tell us about the world. For if all they are is some derangement of the senses, why is it that so many writers, thinkers, philosophers and artists return to the experience, again and again? There is a riddle here, a mystery, and I love that I’m able to devote my research time to trying to answer it.
If all my choices so far have been, in some way, about the psychedelic experience, this is a practical hands-on guide about how to occasion one yourself. Psychedelics can be consumed safely, but there are attendant risks, not least from their continued illegality in many parts of the world. Vayne, who has decades of experience as a psychedelic user and ritual technician, talks the reader through recommended ways to prepare for a psychedelic experience, how to navigate what subsequently unfolds, and how to integrate it afterwards. This is the indispensable guide for the psy-curious, and even better it comes with a cover designed by legendary British psychedelic comic artist, Pete Loveday.
Getting Higher is a manual for exploring the use of psychedelic substances in the contexts of spirituality, self-transformation and magic. This is the psychonaut s essential guide. The techniques presented here work whether you're a scientist or a shaman; there's no requirement to believe in anything other than the wonder of your own neurochemistry and the value of the psychedelic experience. Getting Higher describes the psychedelic triangle of Set, Setting and Substance. It suggests strategies to hold and enhance the psychedelic experience; from games to play when you are high, through to complete entheogenic ceremonies. It will help you to…
I have been researching and writing about the history of psychedelics for two decades. I am a professor of History and Canada Research Chair in the History of Health and Social Justice at the University of Saskatchewan. I became utterly inspired by the many different psychedelic projects that fascinated researchers across disciplines, regions, and world views. These psychoactive substances have been fodder for deep studies of consciousness, dying, mysticism, rituals, birthing practices, drug policy, Indigenous rites, mental illness, nursing, how to measure and give meaning to experience… the list goes on. To study psychedelics is to surrender yourself to endless curiosity about why things are the way they seem to be. The books on this list are just the tip of the iceberg in a diverse conversation that is erupting on this topic.
This editorial team has worked tirelessly to promote informed discussions about psychedelic plant medicines. Peyote is one of their many published books that takes seriously the need to consider issues of Indigenous reciprocity, gender inclusion, cultural context, and environmental sustainability in the world of psychedelics. Psychedelic justice is not simply about consuming plant medicines but involves a reciprocal set of relationships that honour a long and often disturbing history of cultural appropriation and psychedelic tourism.
This book explains the role that peyote-a hallucinogenic cactus-plays in the religious and spiritual fulfillment of certain peoples in the United States and Mexico, and examines pressing issues concerning the regulation and conservation of peyote as well as issues of indigenous and religious rights.
Why is mescaline-an internationally controlled substance derived from peyote-given exemptions for religious use by indigenous groups in Mexico, and by the pan-indigenous Native American Church in the United States and Canada? What are the intersections of peyote use, constitutional law, and religious freedom? And why are natural populations of peyote in decline-so much so that in…
I am passionate about exploring consciousness using psychedelics, meditation, and the dreamscape because it leads us toward our greatest human potential. Psychedelics have been my main tool for exploring consciousness, and I want to share how they can be safely used to access our greatest psychic gifts and, in particular, to lovingly share consciousness telepathically with others to explore the infinite living cosmos together.
This book is a tome of Ken Wilber's lifetime wisdom. His book thoroughly explores a vast range of states of consciousness that helped me navigate the vastness of psychedelic experiences. More importantly, Wilber’s wisdom helped me integrate years of psychedelic experiences through his philosophy of integral theory and concepts of Growing Up, Waking Up, Cleaning Up, and Showing Up. And, funny enough, Wilber does not discuss psychedelics, yet his book is a psychonaut's guide to the universe.
This book rates in the top five books I have ever read. I felt heavily rewarded for the time and effort required to work through this epic book.
A provocative examination of how the great religious traditions can remain relevant in modern times by incorporating scientific truths learned about human nature over the last century
A single purpose lies at the heart of all the great religious traditions: awakening to the astonishing reality of the true nature of ourselves and the universe. At the same time, through centuries of cultural accretion and focus on myth and ritual as ends in themselves, this core insight has become obscured.
Here, Ken Wilber provides a path for re-envisioning a religion of the future that acknowledges the evolution of humanity in every…
I learned the Western Canon at school and from various teachers during my youth; all along, I was yearning for something other, different, and, possibly, truer. Since my early twenties I've been exploring another canon, which exists in opposition to the Aristotelian-Euclidean-Cartesian-Newtonian-Darwinian/Spencerian one. While the western world in the 21st century is free from alacritous canon-enforcing enterprises such as the Holy Inquisition, it nevertheless operates by a canon that remains very much the mentioned Aristotelian-Euclidean-Cartesian-Newtonian-Darwinian/Spencerian one, inculcated into us all from kindergarten to the grave, echoed not only by schools of all levels, but by governments, the media, official institutions and nonofficial entities, and, last but not least, by the entertainment industry.
More on the wacky side, and far more entertaining, is Terence McKenna’s True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise. For those who will never try “heroic doses” of psilocybin mushrooms deep in the Colombian jungle, this is a wild, vicarious ride, an amalgam of science, literature, myth, and exotica from an adventurer whose genuine inquisitiveness in things psychedelic goes hand in hand with mythomania—what an exuberant explosion of literary and philosophical high kitsch! If not persuaded, there follows the endorsement from The New York Times: “The polysyllabic sentences he lards with intellectual references are an attempt to lend credibility to the otherwise debunked subject of drugs.” Yes, a hatchet job from The New York Times could not make for a more valuable endorsement.
I have been researching and writing about the history of psychedelics for two decades. I am a professor of History and Canada Research Chair in the History of Health and Social Justice at the University of Saskatchewan. I became utterly inspired by the many different psychedelic projects that fascinated researchers across disciplines, regions, and world views. These psychoactive substances have been fodder for deep studies of consciousness, dying, mysticism, rituals, birthing practices, drug policy, Indigenous rites, mental illness, nursing, how to measure and give meaning to experience… the list goes on. To study psychedelics is to surrender yourself to endless curiosity about why things are the way they seem to be. The books on this list are just the tip of the iceberg in a diverse conversation that is erupting on this topic.
This is the first volume of lecture notes from the infamous Alexander (Sasha) Shulgin, “inventor” of MDMA “ecstasy or molly”. Sasha and his wife Ann are well known in the world of psychedelics for their publications based on Sasha’s incredible knowledge of chemistry, Ann’s capacity to integrate experiences, and their shared contributions to the world of psychedelia. This new book, with an introduction from Mariavittoria Mangini, is a ‘warts and all’ introduction to the chemistry of mind alteration. It is highly accessible, at times comical, and a fascinating opportunity to voyeuristically sit in on a series of Shulgin lectures that promises to pique your curiosity about our chemical lives.
The Nature of Drugs presents Sasha Shulgin's popular San Francisco State University course on what drugs are, how they work, how they are processed by the body, and how they affect our society. The course also delves into social issues and reactions involving drugs, and discussions of governmental attempts at controlling them and features Sasha's engaging lecture style peppered with illuminating anecdotes and amusing asides.
I have always been fascinated by strange and “forbidden” states of consciousness. My first taste of psychedelia came in the form of cannabis—more potent and otherworldly than it gets credit for—and quickly graduated to MDMA, which blew me away. I dove head first into this new world, experimenting with psychedelics new and ancient while reading about all things psychedelic: their history, emerging science, and therapeutic and spiritual possibilities. My other great passion is books, so it was only natural that I would try to encapsulate all that I had learned in book form.
There are plenty of academic tomes about psychedelics—their chemistry, their medical applications, their cultural impact, and so on. I was hunting for something more personal: stories of people’s experiences while zonked out of their gourds. What I found was this aptly named collection of tripping stories, with chapters submitted by writers from all walks of life.
It's a sipping book—at over 500 pages, it’s one you take a chapter at a time, not devour cover to cover. What makes the book special is its remarkable curation: the stories are diverse, covering the full gamut of psychedelic experiences from spiritual nirvana to hellish ordeals. Some stories struck me as stronger than others, but thanks to the editor’s deft hand, the prose always sparkles.
Like a good acid trip, the overall effect is stimulating and emotionally satisfying. But unlike a real trip, this vicarious ride is one you can pause and resume…
A collection of transformational, awe-provoking psychedelic experiences.
In Tripping, Charles Hayes has gathered fifty narratives about unforgettable psychedelic experiences from an international array of subjects representing all walks of life--respectable Baby Boomers, aging hippies, young ravers, and accomplished writers such as John Perry Barlow, Anne Waldman, Robert Charles Wilson, Paul Devereux, and Tim Page. Taking a balanced, objective approach, the book depicts a broad spectrum of altered states, from the sublime to the terrifying. Hayes's supplemental essays provide a synopsis of the history and culture of psychedelics and a discussion of the kinetics of tripping. Specially featured is an interview…
I am an archaeologist dealing with prehistoric societies for the last 30 years. For many hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors worldwide practiced shamanism and altered states of consciousness. I think this is what makes us human and what allows the persistence and success of our genus. The more I learn about these two subjects, the more I understand their importance and relevance to us today. There is a lesson sent to us by past societies: Pay respect to the world. Respectful behavior is assisted by shamanism and altered states of consciousness. We can be better, feel better, and do better, and the books I recommended are the beginning of this wonderful way.
It just blows my mind any time I read it, the same way it did the first time. Huxley was way ahead of his time when he wrote this influential book, and he was one of the first prophets of the New Age and the Age of Consciousness.
I was deeply touched by his intimate descriptions of his own experiences with LSD and Mescaline and the way it opened his mind to understanding the complexities of our consciousness beyond our regular and daily way of perceiving the world.
One of my favorite rock bands, The Doors, is named after this book, and it gives me ultimate pleasure to listen to Jim Morrison while reading it. What an experience!
Discover this profound account of Huxley's famous experimentation with mescalin that has influenced writers and artists for decades.
'Concise, evocative, wise and, above all, humane, The Doors of Perception is a masterpiece' Sunday Times
In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gram of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. Huxley described his experience with breathtaking immediacy in The Doors of Perception.
I have always been fascinated by strange and “forbidden” states of consciousness. My first taste of psychedelia came in the form of cannabis—more potent and otherworldly than it gets credit for—and quickly graduated to MDMA, which blew me away. I dove head first into this new world, experimenting with psychedelics new and ancient while reading about all things psychedelic: their history, emerging science, and therapeutic and spiritual possibilities. My other great passion is books, so it was only natural that I would try to encapsulate all that I had learned in book form.
This little-known paperback journals the psychedelic exploits of its pseudonymous author, a young bookkeeper who is equally adept at traversing far-out realms of consciousness and, crucially, writing about them.
Each of the twelve short chapters focuses on a unique combination of an obscure “research chemical”—a designer hallucinogen that has not gone mainstream—and a public art exhibit or concert. The result is outstanding. This little volume offers a peek into the life and mind of an avid psychonaut who, thanks to his insightful, relatable tone and strong writing, should appeal equally to trippers and teetotalers alike.
Daniel, during the stage of his life described herein, is a young, discrete, mild-mannered bookkeeper by day but an intrepid explorer of consciousness by night and on weekends. He also possesses a highly refined sensibility and an abiding passion for art and music. In this collection of true tales, akin to prose poems, he recounts a series of experiments he undertook over a two-year period that combined his aesthetic and consciousness-modulation interests: twelve psychedelically mediated visits to a range of New York museums, galleries and concert halls to encounter specific collections, shows, installations, and musical performances. Drawing from his substantial…
