Originally published in 2008 ‘The Entheogenic Evolution: Psychedelics, Consciousness and Awakening the Human Spirit’ by Martin W. Ball, PhD, is a work of exploratory non-fiction. Ball examines and intertextualizes a range of topics – social, scientific, religious and philosophical – that maps out the entheogenic plateau. The construction of the work is underpinned by the knowledge and experiences he has garnered from psychedelic drugs.
Entheogen – meaning ‘generating God within’ – was first coined as a term by Gordon Wasson et al in the late Seventies but as a reading of the psychedelic experience it has a much longer history. Presently, it appears, the entheogenic reading has become the dominant paradigm for the counterculture and, as one might expect, the production of texts leaning toward this discourse have greatly increased. This offering from Martin Ball is one such text; an entheogenic treatise.
For Ball, the ‘God’ that is generated within has nothing to do with the traditional Abrahamic God. Firmly rooted in the entheogenic perspective, the text reveals the experience as an epistemological source, in and of itself, that communicates via an inner ‘voice’: “In many respects, this book is the product of my seeking to come to terms with the voice and the incredible depth of experience that has accompanied it. My striving to fully express what I have learned and come to know is written down in these pages.” The text ends with Ball’s description of his own journey and it serves as the grounding for his treatise.
A variety of different psychedelics are discussed including psilocybin, ayahuasca, N,N-DMT and MDMA but it is 5-MeO-DMT that acts as the central hub. When reading about Ball’s own journey, his experimentation with psychedelics, one feels a real sense of pace; as against the backdrop of a problematic romantic life he comes to a new ‘self’ through various sequential psychedelic experiences.
“The vibrations start early and continue through the night. As I sit in my chair, with Portuguese hymns being sung all around me, the daime tells me very clearly, as it shows me archetypal patterns of energy in rainbows of infinite complexity, ‘You are remembering who you are . . .’ I have a definite sense of coming into my purpose – whatever choice it was that I made in deciding to incarnate in this body and in this life.”
Ball discusses a variety of journeys that people can experience with 5-Meo-DMT, as part of the instructional element of the text, including The Primal Screamer, The Talker, The Purge, The Cage of Fear etc.. One of these he calls The Higher Self and although the above quote is about an ayahuasca session, it demonstrates that the journeys can be inter-psychedelic. This Higher Self allows one a new perspective on the social self and Ball states: “Be forewarned! Getting in touch with your higher self can lead to radical life alterations…” Essentially, this appears to be Ball’s own experience and this book is the communication of that new knowledge.
I mentioned earlier the epistemological value, in and of itself, in the entheogenic reading of the psychedelic experience. Ball further explores the notion by evaluating the works of both Terence McKenna and Daniel Pinchbeck in regard to the concept of Logos: “The Logos is both the word of God as well as God itself.” Ball identifies the commonality of the Logos in both their ideas and in shamanism and his own meeting with the ‘voice’ is comparable. He identifies the essential message delivered in McKenna and Pinchbeck’s work as being “it is time for humanity to awaken.”
The entheogenic evolution is about experiential spirituality becoming part of the make-up of society and, through which, Ball believes humanity can evolve and be healed. This isn’t simply a pipe-dream however as the entheogenic perspective has already begun to be ingratiated into society. Ball talks about his own association with a number of working groups like the Temple of Awakening Divinity (who use 5-MeO-DMT as a sacrament) and Santo Daime (a syncretic tradition that includes elements of Catholicism and Amazonian shamanism and uses ayahuasca as sacrament.)
There is a socio-historical relationship between the mystical and shamanic cultures that Ball explores, underpinned by a perennial philosophy of sorts, which Ball uses as an introduction to the entheogenic treatise. And, aside from the purely spiritual thread, there is also the relationship between the State (or law) and psychedelics, in which ayahuasca has come to represent a religious freedom. This social painting forms the groundwork from which the entheogenic evolution is discussed.
Martin Ball’s treatise is about the interconnectedness of the many threads that have come together to form this ‘entheogenic evolution’ but, above all, it’s about what he has come to understand by generating God within himself. It demonstrates the great effect that psychedelics have had, and are still having, on society whilst never losing sight of what it can do for the individual. You can buy a copy of this book here.
Originally published in 2008 ‘The Holy Mushroom – Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity’ by Jan R. Irvin, with Jack Herer, is a fine addition to a very much under-researched area; the entheogenic relationship with religion. It critically re-evaluates the schism between the theory’s two greatest proponents – R. Gordon Wasson and John M. Allegro – and introduces new pictorial and textual evidence to add weight to the contemporary arguments.
The study of entheobotany developed off the back of ethnobotany, which is to say the relationship between humans and plants developed into the more precise consideration of the theoretical existence of a connection between hallucinogenic agents and religious/spiritual practice in human history.
There’s a fair amount of controversy surrounding the topic and this is reflected in the fact that, for the most part, mainstream researchers have failed to give it a detailed deconstruction; leaving it beyond even the periphery of academic circles. However, one deconstruction that has been performed was by Dr. Andy Letcher in his book ‘Shroom’. He concluded that, according to the available evidence, the religious use of magic mushrooms in the Western world is a modern phenomena. According to Irvin, however, ‘The Holy Mushroom’ disproves his conclusion.
Before looking at this contemporary schism we shall first examine Irvin’s elucidation of an earlier one. In specific regard to mushrooms and the Western world, it is two individuals who have come to dominate the popular psychedelic theories of this area; banker and amateur mycologist Robert Gordon Wasson and scholar John M. Allegro.
In a nutshell, when Allegro published ‘The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross’ – an attempt to explain the roots of Christianity as a fertility and mushroom cult through the use if philology – the book was met with a great degree of popular and academic outrage. Although one might expect Wasson, who had already established a link between psilocybin mushrooms and religion in Mexican culture, to have been excited about new scholarship in the area, he was not. In fact, the two had a rather public spat via letters in the Times Literary Supplement.
But why did they disagree? Aside from any considerations of professional pride, on either side, it is primarily three points that came to drive a wedge between the two. Firstly, disagreements over whether the Plaincourault fresco was depicting mushrooms or stylized trees. Secondly, over the possible dates for the use of Fly Agaric in Near and Middle Eastern culture (Wasson believes it continued down to 1000 B.C. whilst Allegro takes it down to at least the time of Christ.) Thirdly, and rather obtusely because of the extent it had to with his hypothesis, Wasson was critical over the citations of the chemical make-up of Fly Agaric.
Irvin’s research deconstructing the letters and in checking the references of Allegro, alongside new research, reveals the schism to be quite possibly a mute point that has only served to hold back scholarship. He examines the misunderstandings, between Wasson and Allegro and the wider research fields, and his argument comes across very strongly; ultimately finding that their positions are not incompatible. Irvin even demonstrates that Wasson never actually read Allegro’s book. Personal and professional pride, coupled with angry popular reactions, appears to be the underlying premise in Wasson’s attack of the ‘The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross.’
“The time has come for the acceptance and incorporation of John M. Allegro’s valid research into the fields of both biblical theology and entheobotany. His insights and contributions, and those of other scholars studying entheogens in Christianity after him, are certain to move the study of Judeo-Christianity and its origins forward – far beyond his pioneering theories – for decades to come. Let us no longer be restrained by outmoded, prejudiced beliefs.”
Irvin is right to note that there are many reasons to open up the scholarship on Allegro’s work. Allegro’s analysis of Sumerian root words, for example, uses many asterisks. This is a philological convention meaning that when two root words are used in conjunction to create a new one, that there isn’t extant evidence of the new one in the record, only of the two roots. How far we can come to surmise the truth of what Allegro speculates on can be neither off-handedly discarded nor blindly applauded. The key is opening up the debate to a wider audience of expertise by garnering sufficient reason to do so and in that ‘The Holy Mushroom’ is highly commendable.
The additional evidence includes a plethora of new frescos from all over Europe dated approximately between 10th and 19th centuries but largely coming from around the 11th and 12th. Plates of these frescos are all included in the book for the reader to peruse and, whilst they can make up their own mind of what they depict, I’m not totally convinced that art history has come up with a definite answer as yet.
From a literary point-of-view the most interesting addition to the debate is The Epistle to the Renegade Bishops text. Referenced from the Harvard Ukrainian Studies journal, as part of an article by Professor Harvey Goldblatt, this rare 16th century text written by Ivan Vysensicyj, mentions the miracle of a “holy mushroom”. It also states that this miracle, which had to do with the 40 martyrs of Sebaste, “…was pronounced throughout the entire ecumene…”. This, as far as the current evidence demonstrates, is the only explicit description of a holy mushroom in the Christian corpus.
Through a combination of the new pictorial and textual evidence Irvin states that “I have also shown sufficient evidence to refute Letcher (2007).” This is a rather bold statement but highlights the more contemporary scholarly schism. Essentially this schism asks the question: Do we assume a prioi that there was a mushroom cult in Christianity and find evidence to prove it? Or should we examine the available evidence and draw conclusions from it? The Epistle text is a case in point.
According to Letcher: “Given the internal evidence of the text it seems utterly improbable that this refers to a magic mushroom cult: this is a foul polemic against apostasy in which Christians who abandon Orthodoxy for Catholicism are treated to an excoriating damnation.” When one also takes into account the more traditional use of mushrooms in Eastern European culture; then the symbology appears merely to fit the cultural history.
Academically speaking, the text offers a window of opportunity through which further research into this specific event could reveal more evidence. If it was “pronounced throughout the entire ecumene” one might assume that other references to the miracle might be out there, from which a better picture may be built, but as proof of the mushroom cult theory and as disproof of Letcher’s hypothesis it falls well short. Its value lies in opening up a new route of investigation.
‘The Holy Mushroom’ contains a wealth of information. The reproduction of the Epistle passage containing the mushroom reference, photos of the frescos and the breakdown of the Wasson/Allegro schism – not least to mention Jack Herer’s appendix and the examination of other unsupported claims – means the book is an essential addition to your library. You can buy a copy of it here.
Originally published in 1961 by Hardcourt, Brace & World ‘Exploring Inner Space: Personal experiences under LSD-25’ by Jane Dunlap is one of the earliest examples of both entheogenic literature and of a woman writing on the psychedelic experience. This beautifully crafted text explores her experiences over the course of 5 LSD sessions under Dr. Oscar Janiger’s research project on hallucinogens and creativity. Her notes from these sessions make up the content of the book.
‘Jane Dunlap’ is a pen name for the author Adelle Davis (1904-1974). During the mid-twentieth century Smith was one of the earliest proponents of the field of nutrition, who between 1947 – 1964 wrote numerous, widely read, books on the topic . ‘Exploring Inner Space’ is somewhat of an oddity in her bibliography, not least because it makes use of a pen name unlike her other works but also because it tackles such a different subject matter; for it is not physical but spiritual well-being that she explores. Immediately this begs the question; why did she use a pen name as opposed to her own?
Without specifically reasoning why a pen name was chosen by Davis, Thomas Riedlinger, in his essay ‘Two Classic Trips’ does briefly look at how the book has been largely ignored in favour of her nutritionist work since the time of her death, aged 70, on May 31st, 1974. Her “good reputation is still a lucrative commodity” – her books have sold by the millions, and – “her name is still used in promotional tie-ins”; the implication of which is that it’s not good business for her to be associated with psychedelics. In a personal communication with Michael Horowitz, Riedlinger was told that when the editor asked permission to include an extract from ‘Exploring Inner Space’ in the anthology ‘Shaman Woman, Mainland Lady: Woman’s Writings on Drugs’ that “their request had been summarily denied”.
It is not clear why Dunlap herself chose the pseudonym. Speculatively, she may have seen it as damaging to her career as a nutritionist author: In which case the social in which she wrote may not have been perceived as receptive to the topic. This would indicate a prohibitive social atmosphere that prefigured the outlawing of LSD. Then again, it may simply have been a device by which to give the text a more literary flavour. As yet I have not found any definitive evidence for her reasons.
Dunlap – as I shall refer to her in the context of this review – writes that she was a long-time reader of Life magazine and says “of all the excellent articles the magazine carried, the one which fascinated me most was by Robert Gordon Wasson on the magic mushrooms of Mexico.” She read that Wasson and his wife had had “visions and mystical experiences and for these reasons [psychedelics had] been used in religious ceremonies for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.” She was “overcome by envy” at reading the article. Subsequently, when she got wind of experiments with its tryptamine cousin, LSD-25, she began the process of having herself accepted as a test subject. This clearly demonstrates the impact Wasson’s article had on the emerging psychedelic culture.
“When it came to spiritual attainment, however, my development was so pitifully inadequate that I sometimes felt consumed with an empty yearning.” Dunlap writes about her personal struggles, from an early age, in pondering the existence of God and the organised dogma that is associated with it. So it was with this in mind that she went into her first LSD session. Ultimately, her “set” was of someone for whom spiritual questions were part of her identity and with the knowledge, garnered from Wasson’s article, that this class of hallucinogen – tryptamines – had the power of spiritual revelation. Dunlap hopes “to get chemical Christianity.”
During her first session she was administered 110 micrograms of LSD intramuscularly. During the session she experiences a rapid identity shift that centres around the evolution of life on Earth. The beginning of her session puts Dunlap in a state of fearful confusion, as the focus of her attention switches between the exterior of her environment and circumstance and her own interior experience. In a single paragraph she goes from being “an angel floating”, then “a choking terror gripped me” to looking outwards and reflecting on Dr. Snow that “although I asked him to pray and he is a deeply religious man, he was now wholly a psychiatrist and remained silent.”
The fear she feels becomes magnified through a lens of empathy and she thinks “loneliness is universal… every person who has ever lived or is alive has suffered loneliness” and “for a fleeting moment I was every individual.” Through an emotional window, empathy, her Self becomes increasingly dissolved into a rapid shifting of identity. This dissolution is only tempered by brief interludes based in the exteriority of her experience. This narrative model of switching between the interior and exterior is utilized throughout the five accounts of her LSD sessions.
Eventually, at the peak of her hellish experience wherein her changing empathetic identity has locked onto negative emotion, she describes going through “ego death”.
“When “I” recovered from “death”, the ocean was lapping the shore near me, bringing tiny shells and single-celled and few-celled animals. I was a one-celled ameba, throbbing like a heartbeat. With a feeling as if I were bursting, my single cell multiplied into millions until I became not only all near-microscopic ocean life which learned to live on land but also small lichen clinging to bare rocks.”
“Ego death” as a concept has become synonymous with the psychedelic experience. It refers to a moment in which an individual is forced to let go of their ego. In this case, Dunlap’s identity is freed to explore, through empathetic emotion, the evolutionary history of earth. A guide book developed by Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert called ‘The Psychedelic Experience’ centres around this occasion and there is an intertextuality in the idea of “white light”, which one perceives at the moment of “ego death”. For Dunlap, however, the light shines through all the identities that she takes on and in fact becomes the one major consistency throughout the shifting.
She sees the light’s consistency as being representative of God: “…the possibility of reaching God seemed a little nearer each time. I now know beyond all doubting that this urge was responsible for evolution.” The result of this realisation, throughout the chaos of her identity shifts, is to give the chaos a grounding; something that connects it all i.e. God. This also grounds the text in an entheogenic discourse.
By her final trip, which took place on February 23rd, 1960 with 150 micrograms, she had herself come to understand the psychological paradigm of set and setting; she applied it to herself: “It had become obvious that the content of LSD visions could be influenced by my thoughts and feelings immediately preceding the experience; hence I prepared for my fifth session like a theological student cramming for an examination.” Ultimately she is rewarded by having a ‘mystical experience’ and the whole book rolls out the process ‘generating God within’.
It is a shame that this book has never been reprinted. It equals, indeed on occasion surpasses, Huxley’s descriptions of the psychedelic state and is such an acute evaluation of the entheogenic reading that it deserves to be held up as one of the finest examples of the sub-genre. Even for those who do not take an entheogenic reading from the psychedelic experience, even for those for whom a Christian reading might be abhorrent, as a literary work it is exemplary. There are not too many copies of this book in the world but if you manage to track one down it is a delight to read; as both a work of literature and as a pointer to the development of psychedelic culture.
Originally published in 2010 ‘The Harvard Psychedelic Club’ by Don Lattin is a work of narrative non-fiction. It biographically examines the lives of four men, involved in various ways with what was originally called the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Based on interviews with the surviving members and written accounts, Lattin’s book is a highly readable text of the impact these men had on both one another and wider society.
The four men in question are Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (now Ram Dass,) Andrew Weil and Huston Smith; who are respectively given the monikers the Trickster, the Seeker, the Healer and the Teacher. The structure of the book, a narrative non-fiction, follows the lives of these four people; from their younger days, to when their paths intersected with one another at Harvard University during the late 50s and early 60s, to the subsequent impact their lives and careers have had on society.
In understanding the picture that Lattin paints of these people it is important to bear in mind the monikers he has labelled them with; for not only do they give indication of the circumstances of their lives but they irrevocably determine their characterization in the text.
Leary – the Trickster – is the smart professor, whose provocative style helped lead to a popularization of psychedelics in Western society and who some blame for the subsequent prohibition of psychedelics. Yet simultaneously he developed some of the key methodology in psychedelic research. And Professor Richard Alpert – the Seeker – with his animated desires and personal problems, which unwittingly helped bring an end to the Harvard Psilocybin Project but that also set him off on a life-long spiritual journey, in which he even found a new name for himself – Ram Dass.
Lattin notes: “Social and political activism was never a priority with Leary or Alpert. They were not out marching to stop the war in Vietnam, nor even talking about it, In fact, they helped set the tone for the political disconnectedness of much of the human-potential and New Age movements.” Along with Ralph Metzner however, Leary and Alpert produced a whole series of texts about the psychedelic experience – both books and in the journal ‘The Psychedelic Review – and I believe it is wrong to think that their publication is not a form of social activism for the psychedelic movement; even if they appear to be A-political.
It was Andrew Weil – the Healer – who added the discourse to the mix. He felt he got a bad deal from the professor’s behaviour at Harvard, which included debarring him from research and he denounced them in the press, which eventually helped lead to their expulsion. It is Weil though whose own path led him to need reconciliation with them both and whose own later career came to put him in similar circumstances, before eventually finding popular appeal in the 1990s as a health guru.
Finally, Huston Smith – the Teacher – who never fully broke from his own academic faculty and remained, throughout the psychedelic journey, on the very far edge of the social movement. Though his appraisal of the religious significance of the psychedelic experience has now become standard discourse, his greatest lasting legacy is arguably the book ‘The Religions of Man’ now titled ‘The World’s Religions’, which has sold more than two million copies. His is the element of continuity that really runs the gamut of the text.
“All four of these characters played a role in the social and spiritual changes that made the sixties such a pivotal decade in recent American history. They stirred up the water and then rode a wave of social change. The difference is that Timothy Leary never found an anchor, the stability needed to bring those changes into his life in a positive, long-lasting way. Instead of finding an anchor, Leary tried to walk on water.”
This observation is loaded with the text’s foundational discourse, which defines the characters and the narrative in a socially utilitarian manner; namely it is a measurement of popular impact. Whereas Alpert, Weil and Smith all had a subsequent influence on culture – through spirituality, through health, through academia – Leary’s impact waned from his Sixties heyday. Lattin believes that, unlike the others, Leary never found his “anchor” and continued living in a manner that excluded him from such aspirations. Whether or not this can be read as a failure in the man though is, of course, debatable.
Aside; it is interesting to note how psychedelic literature had already begun reimpacting on the social with various consequences; for example when the Leary group first left Harvard and went to Hotel Catalina: “For Leary, it was a glimpse of utopia, a glimmer of something that would not last. At first, they felt like they were living out Huxley’s vision in Island. But before long, the scene began to feel more like Brave New World. That peaceful, easy feeling soon gave way to creeping paranoia.”
‘The Harvard Psychedelic Club’ is a valuable glimpse into one of the key episodes of the era in which the rise of psychedelic culture in Western society really took off. It profiles, with some journalistic legitimacy, key figures and events and cleanly maintains a very accessible, creative non-fiction narrative throughout the text. For history and biography Lattin’s book is a very entertaining read.
You can buy a copy of the book here
Originally published by City Lights in 1963 ‘The Yage Letters’ has since been republished 3 times. This fourth edition ‘The Yage Letters: Redux’ was published in 2006; it is edited by Oliver Harris who’s also included a thorough introduction of the text’s history. The book is presented as an epistolary of largely letters between William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; who both chronicle their travels to South America in search of the hallucinogen yagé.
The introduction, written by the editor Oliver Harris, looks in some detail about the events on which the content is based – essentially some Burroughs and Ginsberg biography as background but it adds great insight into the text – and looks at how the events led to the first publication of the book by City Lights. Ginsberg had already persuaded several magazines to publish excerpts of the original document – ‘In Search of Yage’ – previously. Harris also writes in some depth on the editing process over the four editions. The book is a fine example of how multiple-authorship and editorial scholarship give a text its own life.
At the end of ‘Junky’ Burroughs declares his intent to travel to South America to find yagé, a possible miraculous cure for his addiction. ‘In Search of Yage’ makes up the majority of the book and is comprised of ‘letters’ sent from Burroughs , in South America, to poet Allen Ginsberg. Harris quotes Terence McKenna in describing the book as a work of “pharmo-picaresque” by which he means to indicate that there are two trips that are occurring; journeys through physical and mental space. It was a theme that fused beat writing with a still embryonic psychedelic culture and is to be found throughout subsequent texts of the genre; not least by McKenna himself in ‘True Hallucinations’.
The ‘letters’ are replete with the sort of language, Burroughs’ sardonic humour, which conflates the horror that confronts him with the absurd: “On the boat I talked to a man who knows the Ecuador jungle like his own prick. It seems jungle traders periodically raid the Auca (a tribe of hostile Indians. Shell lost about 20 employees to the Auca in two years) and carry off woman they keep penned up for the purposes of sex. Sounds interesting. Maybe I could capture an Auca boy.” A picture is built of a warzone; where the people and resources are ravaged by big business and political turmoil is rife; yet rising up through the social commentary is a botanical, Harvard-educated Burroughs.
On his journey he met the a fellow Harvard-educated man, the famous ethnobotanist, Richard Evans Schultes (named Dr. Schindler in the book.) Schultes had spent a lot of time in South America studying local plant use, even trying yagé back in 1943 and assists Burroughs in his search. Time is taken in the book’s content to put across ingredient descriptions and names and quantity of mixtures etc.; providing botanical and anthropological undertones. But the life of a Westerner in South America was complex. In Peru for example: “Three times ‘all the foreigners’ were asked to get out of the bus and register with the police: passport number, age, profession. All this pure formality. No trace of suspicion or interrogation. What do they do with these records? Use them for toilet paper I suspect.”
The second section – titled ‘Seven Years Later (1960)’ – is comprised of a single letter from Ginsberg, who is now in South America and a reply from Burroughs. Ginsberg’s letter is filled with paranoia; his experiences increasingly haunting; his self increasingly isolated: “I hardly have the nerve to back, afraid of some real madness.” A poem, Aether, by Ginsberg is included at the end of his letter; beautiful phonetics in the language, a sublime rhythm and extremely self-reflective. The poem invokes the sense of spiritual crisis within Ginsberg. It was Burroughs, however, who most profoundly marked subsequent literary accounts of the phenomenological experience of yagé:
“Yage is space time travel. The room seems to shake and vibrate with motion. The blood and substance of many races, Negro, Polynesian, Mountain Mongol, Desert Nomad, Polyglot Near East, Indian – new races as yet unconceived and unborn, combinations not yet realized passes through your body. Migrations, incredible journeys through deserts and jungles and mountains (stasis and death in closed mountain valleys where plants sprout out of your cock and vast crustaceans hatch inside and break the shell of the body), across the Pacific in an outrigger canoe to Easter Island. The Composite City where all human potentials are spread out in a vast silent market.”
The epilogue is dated 1963 and contains a short, and rather warming letter addressed “to whom it may concern” that describes Ginsberg’s state-of-mind three years on. It also contains a short, thought-provoking piece by Burroughs called ‘I am dying, Meester’, which employs his cut-up method: It “grounds Burroughs’ new technique in that yage-inspired montage to reveal significant experimental continuities across decades” according to Harris. In the Redux edition there is also a detailed appendix containing supplementary letters and journal entries.
‘The Yage Letters: Redux’ provides the reader with two fascinating skins from the layers of a text. Firstly, the scholarship to contextualise the book as a product of both history and society; evolving before, during and after its first publication as a complete work. Secondly, the cleanly edited text, which does great credit to the rich content and striking language. The book itself is wonderfully executed and it is a bridge between Beat and psychedelic literature; especially in the timing of its first publication in 1963. Without doubt, a masterpiece.
Originally published in 2008 ‘Hofmann’s Elixir’ is a collection of talks and essays by Albert Hofmann and various other psychedelic notables including Ralph Metzner, Myron J. Stolaroff and Stanislav Grof. The text is edited by Amanda Feilding of the Beckley Foundation. Published the same year that Albert Hofmann passed away (aged 102) the book is a fitting reflection of the man’s life and legacy.
The text is divided into two parts. The first contains a selection of eight talks and essays by Albert Hofmann himself. It contains a diverse cross-section of information that succinctly portrays the thought and history of a man who, on April 19th 1943, became the first person to intentionally consume the hallucinogen Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Having first synthesized the substance in 1938; intuition returned him to it some years later and the actions of this moment have had huge repercussions on society ever since.
During his lifetime Hofmann developed several theoretical models that have demonstrated that he was no simple scientist; rather someone with a keen insight into both the nature of his own work and the wider world around him. Alongside Gordon Wasson and Carl Ruck, he developed a strong but not widely held theory that hallucinogens were used during the Eleusinian Rites of the ancient world. A book was published on the topic and a chapter in this text examines ‘The Message of the Eleusinian Mysteries for the Modern World.’
Another theoretical model that Hofmann developed and which is explored in this text is his ‘sender-receiver model of reality.’ In a very precise and thoughtful manner he explores how this model demonstrates that “everyone is the creator of her or his own world, for alone within us can the Earth and the variegated life on it, the stars and heavens become real.” The model is also a useful demonstration in uncovering the dualism, which pervades a good deal of human thought in that the a dualistic system is in fact more usually a unity.
“Within our sender-receiver metaphor, the following can be expressed: as matter, the human brain is part of the material universe, and as so the brain is part of the sender. But the idea and the blueprints for the brain have developed to such a level of mental ability as we have defined as receiver. This means that mind and matter, sender and receiver, are fused together in the brain, that the dualism of sender-receiver doesn’t really exist.”
My personal favourite text from part 1 is ‘Jünger: The Frontier-Walker’. Hofmann and the author Ernst Jünger were good friends and this chapter talks about LSD sessions that the two undertook together and about Jünger’s thoughts on the place of “phantastica” in society: “Jünger saw the essential significance of the phantastica in the possibility of contributing to this transformation.” The transformation is the over-coming of the dualistic, material world view; something that echoes across the psychedelic spectrum of ideas.
Part 2 is a collection of essays by several notable people from the psychedelic community; Huston Smith, Myron Stolaroff, Ralph Metzner, Jonathon Ott, Stanislav Grof and the collection’s editor Amanda Feilding. From the perspective of ‘self’ that we find in part 1, the text then extends the boundaries of Albert Hofmann, into the individual who has had great cultural and social impact via his thought and research.
Huston Smith writes a small passage about meeting Hofmann, which is heart-felt and revealing of the man’s friendship and manner. Similarly Myron Stolaroff writes a tribute to Hofmann that extols the virtues of both his LSD discovery and his philosophical outlook, which Hofmann wrote in more detail in his book ‘Insight Outlook’: “It is essential to recognise that the one-sided belief in the natural scientific view of life is based on a momentous error. Certainly, everything it contains is true, but this only represents half of reality; only its material, quantifiable half.”
I found Ralph Metzner’s essay ‘Albert Hofmann and the Quest for the Alchemical Philosophers’ Stone’ to be particularly informative and enlightening. In it Metzner looks at the history of alchemy across different historical cultures and explains it in regard to the transmutation of self. He ties in its historical roots with the shamanic knowledge-seeking traditions and the intertextuality of their ideas. Although he is “not saying that LSD or any other psychoactive molecule is the legendary stone of the Philosophers” he does argue that Hofmann’s discovery re-ignited an ancient link in the Western esoteric tradition.
Jonathon Ott describes how he came to be Hofmann’s text translator in ‘LSD/Spirituality/Life: Signs and Portents’ and how their friendship had created certain pathways and occurrences in his own life. It goes even further in painting a picture of a man who, by all accounts herein, was extremely remarkable. Stanislav Grof, as someone who has run approximately 4000 psychedelic sessions in his fifty year career, looks at the history and current state of clinical research. He speaks of great hope about the current ‘psychedelic renaissance’.
Finally, Amanda Feilding, founder of the Beckley Foundation, wrote ‘LSD and the Evolution of Consciousness.’ This final chapter beautifully contextualises how the tools for exploring consciousness are at our fingertips; through a backdrop of her own life and a meeting with Hofmann, in which she promised to obtain the permission to research LSD with human subjects, for the first time anywhere in 35 years. Something she succeeded in doing.
The measure of a man is beyond the remit of his physical self. ‘Hofmann’s Elixir’ goes to great lengths to show that the measure of Albert Hofmann is not just a single discovery. His cultural and scientific impact has been hugely diverse and yet has been tempered by a man who had great reverence in all that he undertook. His character has left great impressions on those who knew him and this book provides the reader with a wonderful, insightful picture of one of the 20th century’s most important and charismatic scientists. To obtain a copy of this book please visit the Beckley Foundation page here.
Originally published in 1991 ‘PiHKAL –A Chemical Love Story’ by Alexander and Ann Shulgin is one of the finest examples of psychedelic literature to have graced the printers. A combination of science, romance, insight, history and travel; of trip reports, biography, friendship and culture. The book is an exemplary blend of both authority and personality and pushes out the boundaries of psychedelic literature.
At 978 pages (2007 edition) PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved) contains a huge amount of information. It is split into two books. Book one is composed of three sections; the first is the narrative voice of Shura, the second is the voice of Alice and the third is a combination of the two. The second book is an index of 179 phenethylamines, which includes formula, synthesis, dosage, duration, qualitative comments and some extra commentary. One is immediately presented by the two key elements in the human-drug relationship – objective chemistry and subjective experience.
Book one is autobiographical but is told through two fictional characters: Dr. Alexander Borodin (Shura) and Alice Parr. “Most of the names in this story have been changed to protect personal privacy and to allow us freedom in the telling of our tale. Certain characters are composites.” I imagine there were some legal implications to worry about when the book was first published, so it would appear that a fictional veneer provides useful protection against the illegality associated with the topics of psychedelic literature.
The story of Shura begins from a young age, from an inquisitive young boy, searching out new hidden treasures in basements, through to his first experience of mescaline and his eventual path into psychopharmacology. An academic, and by all accounts musical, protégé, Shura traverses his way through some of the academic history of the psychedelic movement; at one point he even comes close to working for Aerospace but after being asked to sign the security bind he realised “I had no choice. I declined the opportunity.”
As the biographical story unfolds, so does the revelation aspect of both the discovery and effects of certain phenethylamine drugs. One that particularly sticks out from Shura’s narrative is Aleph-1: “This drug, too, shall pass. I want to scream about it to the world, but that would destroy it. This drug is power. I will talk about its effects, but I must not reveal its identity. I will have to explore through the open doorway alone.” And “I am perhaps the Rosetta Stone.” Inflections of the personality through chemistry produce a potent mix in the human-drug relationship and they are beautifully explored in PiHKAL. By the end of the first narrative, Shura’s first wife dies, he takes a trip to Tennessee and takes a trip of 2C-E:
“When I lay on my bed, I saw myself as an old, old man, many years in the future. I was appalled to see my forearm as a withered, dry-skinned, almost-bone which could only be that of someone dying. I looked down at the rest of me, and I was thin, emaciated, brittle, shallow. I knew I was alone at this time of my life, this time of my death, because a long time ago, back when my wife had died, I had chosen to be alone.”
The second narrative piece – Alice’s voice – makes up the bulk of the first book. The opening chapter of this section explores a strange phenomenon that Alice had experienced on and off for the first 25 years of her life and which she names the “spiral”. The strange, experiential series of visions, which lasted only a short time, serve to illustrate the very mystery that lies at, not only the heart of this book but psychedelic literature in general i.e. the mystery of experience. It introduces the character of Alice as an individual in touch, though not always in control of, her emotions and intuition.
The more clinical and reasoned approach of Shura is juxtaposed wonderfully against Alice’s journey. The Alice narrative is a more subjective affair than Shura’s. Her feelings are implicit through the use of italic paragraphs that represent her thoughts at the very times of conception, during the events that are described. It beautifully threads an extra dimension into the overall perspective that allows the reader to switch between inner and outer experiences; which in itself reflects the psychedelic experience.
The content is formed through her meeting, her falling in love and her friendship with Shura. Alice battles with herself in overcoming obstacles – like Shura’s relationship with another woman called Ursula – and you read her thoughts being externalised into action. The voice of her “Observer” always shines reasoned and patient light and as romance blossoms through her exploration of new drugs – not just phenethylamines but some tryptamines as well – and her new love, the voices begin to come into an alignment.
“We lay beside each other on the bed, Shura naked and I still in my dressing gown. When I closed my eyes, the inner world erupted into detailed imagery. Shura went up to the radio dial and found Chopin, and when he turned back to me, I sat up and took off my gown. I saw behind closed eyelids a lovely scene. We – Shura and I – were looking down from an open balcony into a central courtyard.”
Alice’s narrative ends with an exquisite chapter describing their surprise wedding on the 4th of July, 1981. It beautifully sets up the third section of book one, which is composed of passages of text from both Shura and Alice. They travel to Europe together, describe new drug experiences (Shura’s 2C-T-4 experience is notable for its personal profundity) and there’s even a spiritual crisis, which Alice grapples with (illustrating how one’s own continuum can be intersected by the drug experience.)
The final chapter of book one is formed from a lecture given by Shura to his university students. It is an impassioned and reasoned lecture on the state of democracy, U.S. politics and its drug discourse. In many respects it explains the wider social conditions under which all the events in PiHKAL take place. And although the establishment connection is referred to in the text – Shura held certain high level clearances for dealing with certain substances – only a small amount of prohibition discourse enters the narrative; that is until this final chapter when Shura explains the erosion of liberty through the pro-psychedelic perspective.
Book two primarily provides the chemist with two important points; for the laymen scientists among us (in which I count myself) there is one. It begins with an index of the phenethylamines, Alexander’s code for them and their compact chemical name. Then it proceeds to examine all 179 of them by explaining their synthesis (useful to the chemist) and then their dosage, duration and commentary (useful to both chemist and psychonaut alike.) As a reference book it is invaluable: “My [Alexander] philosophy can be distilled into four words: be informed, then choose.”
The second book completes another story from the first. There is mention of drug development in the first book but more often than not they are fleeting and merely go to introduce the drug into narrative form. What the second book does is complete the process, so to speak. These strange names and numbers could be straight from science-fiction and yet, they’re not. You can move from book two to book one, in that you can see how some of the scientific method in the second translates to narrative in the first; indeed it wouldn’t surprise me if it were the better order to read the book in, if one was chemistry minded.
Within the first book there are several chapters and passages centred around Shura’s research group that helped come to qualitative evaluations about the phenethylamines in question. The story of friendship is as central to PiHKAL as the story of love (some might argue there is no difference) and it is through the research group, and their behaviour with one another, that ultimately reveals the social aspect in the human-drug relationship. In fact, the whole book itself has the comfort of friendship wrapped about its words and it is this that makes it the remarkable literary feat that it is. If you haven’t already, find yourself a copy.
Road to Eleusis - 30th Anniversary Edition
Originally published in 1978 ‘The Road to Eleusis – Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries,’ by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck, was only reprinted as a paperback in English for the first time in 2008, for its thirtieth anniversary edition. The work of an amateur mycologist, a chemist and a classicist, the text attempts to solve the mystery of the Eleusinian rites of ancient Greece by hypothesizing the use of an ergot-derived hallucinogen.
The first three chapters were initially read as papers, by the three respective authors, before the Second International Conference on Hallucinogenic Mushrooms, in Washington, on Friday, 28th October 1977. Essentially, there are two important objectives that are running in tandem with one another in this text. Firstly the hypothesis itself that draws on the relevant expertise of its authors; the multidisciplinary approach is highly effective. Secondly, it is a treatise on the entheogenic discourse; indeed, the term was originally coined/announced by the authors at the conference.
Wasson writes the first chapter, which acts as the hypothesis to which the following chapters of the book are put to the test. Having already uncovered the ancient, and modern, ritualistic use of psilocybe mushrooms among Mesoamerican Indians, Wasson turns his enthnomycological mind toward one of the Western world’s oldest secrets; the Eleusinian rites. Roughly held between 1600 B.C. and 400 A.D. in Eleusis in Greece, the rites, at their height, attracted thousands of individuals to participate in the ceremony.
Many of the greats of the ancient world attended – Plato, Cicero and Aristotle for example – and attendees were allowed to go through the ceremony only once in their lifetime and were also sworn to absolute secrecy about what went on. In Athens the secret was kept under pain of death; but regardless, elsewhere in the ancient world the secret was held well enough for us to know extremely little about what occurred in the ceremony.
The Mystery of Eleusis is what was given to attendees; the thing that could, firstly, make the secret so successful in its privacy and secondly produce such descriptions as Pindar’s: “Blessed is he who, having seen the rites, undertakes the way beneath the earth. He knows the end of life, as well as its divinely granted beginning.” Or perhaps Aelius Aristides who said of Eleusis: “Both the most awesome and the most luminous of all the divine things that exist among men.” Wasson’s hypothesis is that an hallucinogenic, or in this case to be inkeeping with the text, an entheogenic substance was used in the Eleusinian rites.
Albert Hofmann picks up the mantle in the second chapter: “In July 1975 I was visiting my friend Gordon Wasson in his home in Danbury when he suddenly asked me this question: whether Early Man in ancient Greece could have hit on a method to isolate an hallucinogen from ergot that would have given him an experience comparable to LSD or psilocybin.” He then goes into the scientific and botanical history of ergot and his own methodology at coming to the answer “yes, Early Man in ancient Greece could have arrived at an hallucinogen from ergot.”
Using etymology, the extant literary evidence and evidence pertaining to sculpture and pottery of the time (which is far more comprehensive than the literature, for reasons of secrecy no doubt,) classicist Carl Ruck creates a picture of how an hallucinogen could have played the part of ‘Mystery’ in the Eleusinian rites. He includes observations about Dionysus (God of intoxication and theatre among others) and the lesser Mystery; which specifcally pertains to him. All of which give a very compelling narrative that certainly appears to give great credence to Wasson’s hypothesis.
The main literary evidence we have is the ‘Homeric Hymn to Demeter,’ which is translated by Danny Staples and included in the book. The writer ‘Homer’ as author and individual is certainly up for debate, however, along with ‘The Odyssey’ and ‘The Iliad’ the thirty-three Homeric Hymns also use the dactylic hexameter as their rhyming scheme. The ‘Hymn to Demeter’ is a beautiful tale and it sets the dramatic scene for the beginning of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Chapter seven of the book explores all the documentation, very carefully and mindfully and certainly gravitates around the possibility of the hypothesis. Chapter eight, titled ‘Entheogens’ sets the model for a modern interpretation of the psychedelic experience, which the authors hope to promote through their examination.
By first arguing (quite convincingly it has to be said) against ‘hallucinogen’ and ‘psychedelic’ as terms; they then go on to espouse ‘entheogen.’ Taken from three ancient Greek root words, the combination essentially translates to ‘generating God within’. In the light of Wasson’s Mesoamerican discovery and the Eleusinian Mystery hypothesis, it certainly seems to be an historically consistent word. Whether it is appropriate for current understandings is, of course, an area of debate.
Since its first release there have been few arguments with the hypothesis, the few there have been are dealt with in the appendix to the thirtieth anniversary edition. It is, however, remarkable that more serious scholarship hasn’t been undertaken from it. One could speculate many reasons for this but – whatever your view might be – it seems incredulous to me that it hasn’t been tackled more thoroughly; for better or for worse it is worthy of serious academic attention as a hypothesis. A fascinating read and highly recommended. The older version can be read or downloaded for free on the MAPS website here.
Originally published in 2010 ‘Psychedelic – Optical and Visionary Art since the 1960s’ is a visual history of the ‘psychedelic sensibility.’ Three essays, by the book’s editor David S. Rubin, Robert C. Morgan and Daniel Pinchbeck, introduce and frame the diverse selection of paintings, mixed-media and new media works, within a succinct cultural perspective.
For many the ‘psychedelic era’ is a time period located during the Sixties but whilst optical, visionary and, indeed, psychedelic artistic sensibility found its earliest popular expression during the decade, its historical reach is much larger. In his forward, Marion Ottinger Jr., writes that this book “explores the visual impact that the psychedelic culture of the 1960s and earlier has had on an impressive assortment of artists working over the past five decades.”
David S. Rubin, the collection’s editor, is The Brown Foundation Curator of Contemporary Art, at the San Antonio Museum of Art. His introductory art history essay puts the genre in a cultural context and examines the historical development from abstract early modernism, through colour theory, Bauhaus influence in the U.S.A and others. Like psychedelic literature, the artistic movement draws its influence from a wide range of outlets.
Thinkers, such as Carl Jung and Aldous Huxley, are mentioned because of their influence on transcendental elements. It’s fascinating to see how not only the psychedelic experience itself, but literature and philosophy have contributed to optical and visionary art. Whilst some artists like Henri Michaux and Alex Grey were directly affected by drug experiences, others like Frank Stella and Victor Vasarely primarily sort to overcome historical and artistic problems. Such variety lends itself perfectly to the kaleidoscope of visionary art.
“By the late 1970s the op art phenomenon and the psychedelic movement were considered trends that had seen their day. Nevertheless, the optical and psychedelic styles that occurred sporadically during the 1970s and 1980s suggest that, for some, the impacts of aesthetics of these subcultures was significant.”
One of my favourite plates included in the book is ‘Shonen Knife’ by Peter Halley. In the 1980s neo-geo artists, like Halley, began to expand on the ideas of critical theorists like Michael Foucault and Jean Baudrillard. In ‘Shonen Knife’ the thick blocks of day-glo paint, give the impression of social strata and individual alienation. The effect is both simple and thought-provoking.
The two other essays that introduce the collection of over 70 plates extend the historical scope of the collection. Robert C. Morgan’s ‘Eternal Moments – Artists who explore the prospect of happiness’ looks at cultural influences and movements, like the pop art of Andy Warhol, but also highlights questions raised by the genre. For example, questions about “whether these forms are fleeting or substantial in their potential to open doors of perception.” And Daniel Pinchbeck examines the specific role of the psychedelic movement in regard to its influence on wider culture.
Christian Schumann and Gary Panter’s ‘A. Grokpit’ and ‘B. Motherbox Mushroom Gauntlet’ were among those plates that really caught my eye; busy, urban, intricate works that reveal new complexities with each viewing. From installation, to digital and through traditional techniques, all the plates belie quick referencing and certainly spur one on to wanting to see the works in the flesh. The greatest challenge of such a collection is to present a vast range of artists succinctly and this, I believe, has been successfully achieved.
In conclusion, Rubin said it best: “Using psychedelic pictorial languages as seductive stimuli, these artists are merely conduits transmitting optically charged information, enticing viewers into sumptuous wonderlands for inquiry, speculation, and connectivity.” This is a beautiful book to hold in one’s hands and its ability to capture the eye, through such diverse means, is a great testament to both editor and artists alike. Sumptuous wonderlands indeed.
Buy a copy here
Literary Review: ‘Being Human’ by Martin W. Ball
Originally published in 2009 ‘Being human – An entheological guide to God, evolution and the fractal energetic nature of reality’ is an attempt at explaining and guiding one through the fundamentals of reality. The author, Martin W. Ball, describes the text as being a treatise for the ‘radical non-dualism of the entheological paradigm.’
Ball’s underlying foundation, on the surface at least, is taken from the mathematical sciences. The two principle points being that firstly, the single substance of the universe is ‘energy’ and secondly that this energy is organized in fractals. God, he posits, is then essentially the total energetic being.
Unlike traditional pantheism however, which some of the more mystic scientists ebb toward, Ball take a more panentheistic conception. That is to say, God is not simply a totality but a self-aware being. Being ‘self-aware’ and in a constant state of flux, God is, according to Ball, also equal to evolution, the Now or, more succinctly, self-actualization. The universe then, is the actualization of God into physical being, which it must be noted, is only one degree of the infinite potentiality of energy.
There is one latent contradiction that I struggled with: “First and foremost, God is a being. God is not an abstract principle, a philosophical necessity, or a featureless, contentless consciousness that is fundamentally empty.” If God is a being, then this is clearly a philosophical supposition – even if it is scientifically grounded. Ball later goes onto say that the psychedelic experience is categorically not ontological. But if confronting the cosmic, fractal, energetic Self, in a state of dissolved ego, is not ontological, I’m not sure what is.
Science, according to Ball, is not complete: “[It] must be understood as providing absolutely no insight into why life or consciousness exists. At best, science can only describe the physical mechanisms through which the energies of consciousness and life appear to express themselves in biological beings.” Self-actualization, of God, is outside the limits of science and represents the ‘purpose’. This is the dogma of Ball’s metaphysics.
The Self is an important axiom in psychedelic literature because the very act of taking a psychedelic is self-referential. The literature is born out of the psychedelic experience in that it then posits the Self as a relationship between the individual and the drug. The various methods of constructing the relationships consequentially define/limit the identity of Self within the text. And, in this case, it is a three-way relationship between God, I and the psychedelic.
For Ball, it is the ‘ego’ that ultimately defines these relationships. He believes the ego must be overcome in order for the “illusion” or duality of I/other, which the ego predisposes us toward, to be dispelled. The ego then, is a biological necessity (though illusion) that stops one from realizing that one is One. The ego is “a self-referential and self validating energetic construct within consciousness.” And the problem of overcoming the illusion is solved experientially i.e. through the use of entheogenic substance.
One of the intrinsic components of this text is in creating dividing lines between its own position and others. For example, it posits itself away from philosophy and religion, saying that these are essentially story-telling fantasies, wherein unnecessary agents belie truth. Ball goes to great lengths to show that this is not a culturally relativistic text but how successful he is doing this is questionable.
Ball defines energy as being physiological; this is the key point in how his theory tries to develop in a cultural vacuum. He draws the line between Eastern mystical conceptions of energy, which he describes as “subtle” and the physiological meaning that he deems to be foundational in his system. On the entheogenic journey, for example, one ultimately enters the heart, which is an electromagnetic hot point in the body.
The end result “once you have cleared away all your resistance and fully taken ownership and responsibility for your energy” is to “perform fractal energetic yoga.” Though Ball does concede (at the time of writing) that “I am currently the only person that I know of who can do this.” In other words the metaphysical goal in entheogenic practice is the responsible self-actualization of your energies; though the yogic practice itself is not discussed in the book.
The invisible landscape generation of late psychedelia might well find the text slightly archaic, with terms like “ego-loss” and “game playing”, not to mention his disregard for the landscape which he describes as being just talking to oneself. For legacy, Ball seems to owe a lot to the Leary school of thought, in that he places a lot of faith in physiological circuitry and psychological theories. ‘Being Human’ also follows Leary’s great tradition for producing guides for the psychedelic experience; although this attempts to ground it in much wider metaphysics.
