Graham St John’s Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT was first published in 2015 by Evolver Editions. The book joins other cultural histories centred on particular psychoactive substances, such as Shroom (2006) by Andy Letcher, Storming Heaven...
The Rose of Paracelsus: On Secrets & Sacraments is something of a rare find when it comes to books on psychedelics. Described by its author, former Harvard and UCLA researcher William Leonard Pickard, as a “literary experiment,” his 2016 debut...
Originally published in 2015 by Prometheus Books, Aldous Huxley’s Hands: His Quest for Perception and the Origin and Return of Psychedelic Science by Allene Symons is a fascinating, multi-layered story. Part personal account, and part Huxley biography, the book is a...
Author Ben Sessa is a psychiatrist, and his novel starts with a psychiatrist character, Dr Robert Austell, having a violent fantasy where he cuts a patient’s throat with a scalpel and nonchalantly watches her bleed to death. The reader can be forgiven...
The books I most enjoy reviewing are those that turn up unannounced on my doorstep. Books that haven’t been heavily marketed on the fact that you’re already aware of the majority of their content, or that slip into a reading...
Authored by Pip Waller and released earlier this year by Leaping Hare Press, the Domestic Alchemist seems to have been written for both the learned reader of herbalism, and the beginner. Since the recipes for vinegars, soaps, deodorants and the...
There are many indications of the advent of a new era for psychedelics, at least in a medical context. Many scientists, academics and researchers anticipate a “mainstreaming” of these mind-altering substances in the near future. However, it is easy to...
The story of the Psilocybin-containing ‘magic’ mushrooms, of which there are hundreds of varieties worldwide, is in many respects a mysterious one. While its ancient use can be attested to some degree in South America, it is only in the...
The history of humans ritually using psychoactive substances goes back beyond the written record, and stretches across the globe through many disparate and far-flung cultures. The ubiquity of psychoactive plants, and substances, is cogent with our world today. However, as...
Published in late 2014, Reasonances by Swedish writer and polymath extraordinaire Carl Abrahamsson is made up of essays, interviews and lectures from 2000 to 2013. Subjects that are covered include the magical art of Rosaleen Norton, Crowley’s Thelema and German...
