In a recent interview with author, Charles Hayes, he told us that, broadly speaking, psychedelic literature could “perhaps [be] defined as books influenced by, or promoting, psychedelics.” The genre covers a number of topics within it’s spectrum; which in turn could be regarded as sub-genres. These include:
The science of psychotropic substances, wherein psychological, physiological and chemical analysis form a methodological approach. The subjective experience of psychotropic drugs; where literary method is used as a form of communication, not just merely objective fact and understanding is deduced from the experience. The cultural and socio-political implications of entheogens i.e. their place in regard to the individual and the state. And, lastly, the application of theoretical study in the “ecstatic experience”, which is perhaps best defined as pseudo-scientific psychedelia.
In reality, of course, these sub-genres impact upon one another with great force. Any single book, although written under a certain perspective, usually includes, or at least has implications of, one or more of the other sub-genres. Take for example ‘True Hallucinations’ by Terence McKenna; this book could arguably fit happily into any of the above four described sub-genres as it involves experience, analysis, application and socio-political comment.
It appears then that these cursory definitions of psychedelic literature are inadequate in creating categories; the result of which would be a failure to illuminate the particulars of each perspective due to rigid, forced pigeon-holing. I propose then to take a more empirical look at the evolution of psychedelic literature (psy-lit) in regard to it’s influences and consequences; to construct a map of the genre as opposed a category.
Psy-lit, because if it’s various implications, takes many literary forms; including fiction, non-fiction and faction. It appears as books and novella, as well as articles and features in journals and magazines. This wealth and variety of sources for psy-lit provides an excellent avenue of investigation.
According to Timothy Leary: “[The] Politics of Ecstasy [1965] was a dramatic departure from the previous texts we sober Harvard psychometricians had written about the consciousness expanding foods and drugs. The Psychedelic Experience and Psychedelic Prayers and The Psychedelic Reader were scholarly texts based on ancient shamanic tradition and designed to guide mature, thoughtful seekers.” (1)
There appears then to be an explosion of the genre, which coincided with the 1960’s counter-culture movement and which began the fracturing of the methods involved in the psy-lit genre. This is the point of angle we are going to take as the off and, to begin with, examine what threads led into this moment, before exploding into more popular, rigorous divergence.
Essentially there were four important threads; which can be identified easily by looking at The Psychedelic Reader; a compendium of articles that appeared in the first four editions of the journal/magazine The Psychedelic Review. The features came out in the early-mid sixties and included not only the leading lights of the psychedelic counter-culture movement, but also a number of people who helped lay the foundations in the preceding decade.
Most notably, amongst the contributors, was R. Gordon Wasson, the amateur mycologist who undertook extensive research into the cultural use of magic mushrooms around the world; it is from him that the first thread of cultural and ritualistic use, was derived.
Secondly Leary and his then partner in crime, Ralph Metzner, who began the academic and scientific appraisal of psychotropic’s, which first began with Albert Hoffman stumbling across LSD-25. This really began the physiological and psychological appraisal in psychedelic literature.
Thirdly, Sir Julian Huxley also contributes with a feature entitled ‘Psychometabolism’. His inclusion is notable not only scientifically but because of his links with British psychedelic history, which, for Leary, encapsulates a vital historical link for psychedelia.
According to Leary: “The key architect of the revolution is a British psychiatrist named Humphrey Osmond. Who? He invented the term psychedelic. Doctor Osmond? He turned on Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard. Doctor Osmond? Along with Abram Hofer, he first demonstrated the benefits of LSD with hopeless alcoholics. Humphrey Osmond? He published the first papers suggesting psychedelic drugs could produce a transcendental experience.” (2)
The British thread created a very experiential aspect to psy-lit. Not only with Aldous Huxley, whose essay “The Doors of Perception” is a very scientific yet literary and robust account of the subjective experience, but also literature that is not directly associated with psychotropic drugs. Poet, William Blake, writer and intellectual A.R. Orage, Alan Watts, they are all regarded as having insight into the “ecstatic experience”.
The idea that subjective literature is a valid and important communication device for forming an understanding of the experience is taken to be intrinsic, like the psy-experience itself. Their gifts to the genre are frameworks of language and concepts. Other non-British writers are also cited, like Hermann Hesse and their distinctly European flavour adds an existential layer, which seems to stem from Freud and Continental Philosophy.
Post the counter-culture, the psychedelic genre took a weaving path through the next forty years that touched upon, variously, the religious, the scientific; the subjective, the objective.
Hunter S Thompson’s ‘Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas’ is a wonderful example of how many of these dichotomies began to be explored; Gonzo journalism being a change in perspective itself, which places the journo in the centre of the action (not a disinterested observer.) Coupled with Thompson’s use of drugs, which acts as a device in illuminating social disparity and character depth, there is a strong emphasis on the ability of drugs to change perception of the everyday. ‘Fear & Loathing’ is both socio-political and experiential.
Arguably Terence McKenna, after Leary, is the most important proponent and author of psychedelic literature. His approach lends most clearly to the application of theory, based on a scientific background, however there is much in the way of esoteric speculation concerning epistemology.
McKenna’s experiences, from his 1970’s experiences & publications, through lecturing in the 80’s and finally to the publication of various other books in the 1990’s provides an important link between Western, Eastern and Latin influences on psy-lit. The move toward a Shamanic model of psychedelia.
Unlike Thompson, who sort to place drug use at the centre of Western socio-political existence, McKenna’s approach firmly replaces it amongst tribal understanding and a historically shamanic thread. This has been taken on, whole-heartedly, by today’s so called “psychedelic elite”.
This “new psychedelic elite”, as coined by Rolling Stone magazine, is most visible in the form of author Daniel Pinchbeck. In a not so friendly article, written by journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis, which appeared in Rolling Stone, she wrote: “Pinchbeck, who is actively bidding to become his generation’s Timothy Leary — or, more precisely, the less famous psychedelic thinker Terence McKenna — has created a scene around him that is perhaps the youngest and most vibrant of the current psychedelic establishment” (3)
Environmentalism and shamanism are two key concepts within the new wave of psychedelic understanding. It is, by nature, a counter-culture movement but has little in common with the 1960’s era of Leary. Historically speaking, there seems to be much more regard for the work of writers like Carlos Castaneda; whose psy-lit owes much to a Latin (and pre-Latin) S.American tradition. Grigoriadis, is right as far as, methodologically speaking, Pinchbeck takes a lot from McKenna. This combination of influence is beginning to provide a new amalgamation of thought within the genre.
Philosophically, there are many threads one could explore (some, which have been identified already in a number PsypressUK literary reviews) within psychedelic thought. Not only in the wider history of human thought but epistemologically, ontologically, ethically etc. right down to the theory of mind. My continued research into psychedelic literature will concentrate on two aspects in the future then. The historicism of the genre and author perspective; in order to further define it and to create a theoretical framework for the analysis.
1 The Politics of Ecstasy: Timothy Leary. Ronin Publishing. 1990. Page 6
2 The Politics of Ecstasy: Timothy Leary. Ronin Publishing. 1990. Page 6
3 hxxp://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11217201/daniel_pinchbeck_and_the_new_psychedelic_elite/2
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