Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty

Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty
Average customer rating:

Grumpy Old Stoners

So Much For the Golden Years

Crunchy on the outside, soft at the core

Taking a walk on the "wild"& unique side...

Comic romp and frightening parable wrapped into one

Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty
Tim Sandlin
Manufacturer: Riverhead Hardcover
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1594489335

Book Description

It's 2023, and Guy Fontaine is an unwilling new resident at Mission Pescadero, an assisted-living facility outside San Francisco. It doesn't take him long to realize that his fellow residents have reverted to the lifestyles they embraced in the sixties, complete with sex, drugs, and rock and roll (with a little Viagra thrown in for good measure). The Mission Pescadero staff, and the world outside, would like nothing more than to forget these aging hippies, but the residents want-no, demand-to be treated with respect and dignity. And they'll fight for it. When one resident's prohibited cat is discovered by Mission Pescadero's domineering administrator, the resulting confrontation mushrooms into an epic battle between authority and anarchy, complete with twenty-four-hour media coverage and the involvement of California's governor, Drew Barrymore. As tensions escalate, Guy finds himself cast as an unlikely radical in a drama he doesn't understand.

By turns outrageous, hilarious, and, ultimately, touching, Tim Sandlin's new novel is a fascinating exploration of how the baby boomers are facing their own mortality. Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty is Sandlin at his iconoclastic best.

Customer Reviews:

Grumpy Old Stoners.......2007-08-14

As much as I would love to take credit for that descriptive title, I cannot. That is merely another gem from Tim Sandlin.

If you enjoy reading a well written, entertaining, laugh out loud funny book with a whole lot of heart then you are in luck because "Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty" will deliver on all counts.

So Much For the Golden Years.......2007-08-03

I must admit to being a big fan of Tim Sandlin, ever since "Sex and Sunsets" he has had my attention. This book is way to close to my age group and Tim is too young to know all the 60's music references. Scary as the prospect of my future in an "assisted living" facility may be, send me to this spot, I want to sit between the two Sunshines, I think I met one of them at the Fillmore at a Paul Butterfield Concert many years ago. Congrats to Tim, this hilarious book has a brutal honest side that is longer than Jerry Garcia's beard.

Crunchy on the outside, soft at the core.......2007-05-19

In this old-age romp, Sandlin turns his sharp satirical talents loose while doing that other thing that hilarious satirists can't always do -- empathy. Sandlin is able to both poke fun at sentimentality and yet he has a soft touch too; when these old peeps aren't expsoing their rear ends in mass-moonings, they expose their sadnesses, bewilderments, regrets, and disappointments at the lives behind and in front of them. The best part of JHT80 is the highly refreshing take on stereotypes of old age: the wisdom, feeblemindedness and bloody boringness with which old people are often relegated don't feature here. These old folks stick it to that portrayal and fling an adult diaper at anyone who ever says growing old means acting like it.

Taking a walk on the "wild"& unique side..........2007-04-02

All "baby boomers" should read this book. The references to the sixties and people and places of the time are nostalgic. The honesty about situations that the elderly of our generation are realistically written about. Alot of food for thought, I enjoy the authors writing style.

Comic romp and frightening parable wrapped into one.......2007-03-08

It's 2022, Jenna Bush is President, Gulf War VI is going on, and Gen Xers are warehousing their aging boomer parents in "assisted living" communities and taking control of their money under false pretenses.

Guy Fontaine, a retired sportswriter from Oklahoma, has moved in with his daughter, Claudia, in California after the death of beloved wife Lily. But when he has a senior moment--he hallucinates and drives a golf cart onto the freeway--he is locked up in Mission Pescadero, an assisted living community that encapsulates the frightening world Sandlin posits for our future. An evil administrator runs the place with all the humanity of the worst lunch lady in the boomers' past, peopling it with patients brought in on the flimsiest diagnoses of dementia, with residents going "through the tunnel" to the nursing wing on even flimsier diagnoses by her corrupt doctor/near lover, where they are drugged comatose and quiet.

The Mission's population is mainly leaders of the leftist movements of the Sixties, who have created a hierarchy based on when and what they did in the decade that you're only supposed to have been there if you've forgotten it. Guy, straight, drug-free and monogamous all his life, finds himself struggling to adjust with the proponents of free love and drug use in the golden years. But when the administrator discovers one patient has--shudder--a cat in his room, Guy is driven to violence to defend someone who had befriended him, setting off a revolt to liberate the Mission.

Sandlin carries this absurd yet realistic situation with aplomb, showing real understanding of the concerns and difficulties faced by old people, as well as the trends of society that, if left unchecked, could lead to a world like the one he imagines here. Even minor characters are given some depth and the good lines are dispersed amongst them. Guy's unconventional romance with Rocky is counterpointed by other love stories, from a lesbian encounter between one of the youngest residents and a yoga instructor to an alley cat of a man who doesn't realize he has terrible breath. Even the villains are given some back story and some sympathy. And all to the tunes of Jefferson Airplane and The Who.

My favorite character is a woman who comes out of a drug-induced coma to lead the revolution, barking orders in a remarkably cogent and prepared manner, which foreshadows revelations about her character that end up shocking the residents and prolonging their isolation. Full confession: I once met a woman who might have been a model for this character while doing work in a prison. Sandlin has the type down perfectly.

He also has the good sense to provide a bittersweet ending, reminding us that mortality and fragility occur even among the worthy.

Whether the book will become non-fiction, as Sandlin predicts, is really up to all of us.

Average customer rating:

The Ultimate Perscription
Who Better?
problem children can do great things
hi
All of our lives have been changed by Hofmann's discovery, regarless of whether one consumes contolled substances or not.

LSD: My Problem Child
Albert Hofmann
Manufacturer: MAPS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0966001982

Book Description

This is the story of LSD told by a concerned yet hopeful father, organic chemist Albert Hofmann. He traces LSD's path from a promising psychiatric research medicine to a recreational drug sparking hysteria and prohibition.

We follow Dr. Hofmann's trek across Mexico to discover sacred plants related to LSD, and listen in as he corresponds with other notable figures about his remarkable discovery.

Underlying it all is Dr. Hofmann's powerful conclusion that mystical experience may be our planet's best hope for survival. Whether induced by LSD, meditation, or arising spontaneously, such experiences help us to comprehend "the wonder, the mystery of the divine‹in the microcosm of the atom, in the macrocosm of the spiral nebula, in the seeds of plants, in the body and soul of people."

More than sixty years after the birth of Albert Hofmann's problem child, his vision of its true potential is more relevant, and more needed, than ever.

Customer Reviews:

The Ultimate Perscription.......2007-07-18

There are a few books in the world that are touchstones for our psyches. This is one of them. It should be read by all young people coming of age, regardless of their position on the use of mind altering substances. It should be re-read every 10 years or so as they mature and their world view evolves. For those experienced with exploring internal frontiers it should be checked in with every 10 years or so as well. In just 209 pages of straight forward text some of the fundamental first principles of reality, and our relationship to it, are spilled out onto us without the need for preaching, screeching, moralizing, or deciphering obscure philosophical and scientific texts.

It should be read by every political leader in the world, and you won't find too many people who'd disagree with that!

Who Better?.......2007-05-08

I first read this book when it was first published, maybe 25 years ago. The book still holds up well all these years later, as it is a calm, rational history from the Center of the Cyclone (if I might borrow the title from Dr. John Lilly). Clearly, Dr. Hoffman was no stranger to realms of what many these days call entheogens, often experimenting himself with other "new" substances he discovered in other organic plants that found their way to him as a result of his monumental inadvertant destiny in "discovering" LSD. While some of the other substances he writes on were very new at the time, and therefore might read a little dated, on the whole, there is no one better qualified or in a better position to tackle such a significant topic.

problem children can do great things.......2007-05-05

an elegant and substantive discourse on the curious ways in which science has coalesced with spirituality through the last several decades. This man's mind is truly unique and his monumental discoveries, combined with his spectacular longevity and health, command respect.

Publish a great book and give all the proceeds to a worthwhile cause: you cannot go wrong here.

hi.......2007-03-11

I havent started reading this book yet. But i was looking for it for a few years. glad to see its back in print

All of our lives have been changed by Hofmann's discovery, regarless of whether one consumes contolled substances or not........2006-07-08

All of our lives have been changed by the inquisitive nature of Albert Hofmann. The chemical that called him back was the twenty-fifth derivative of lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD-25, or simply, LSD.
The modern age of psychiatric medications is a direct off shoot of LSD experimentation. Computer technology, particularly personal computers and `shareware', have strong roots in LSD use. LSD: My Problem Child is Albert Hofmann's own story. Using a small, but known amount, on April 19, 1943 Albert Hofmann became the first person to deliberately ingest LSD. Soon other chemists and members of the Sandoz executive staff "experimented" with Hofmann's highly unusual chemical. They realized that LSD-25 had enormous potential.
Hofmann's work with LSD brought him into the search for the active constituents of "Mexican Magic Mushrooms". These almost lost shamanistic tools made their way to Hofmann's laboratory due to their similar effects to LSD. Hofmann was able to synthesize the active components and named them psilocybin and psilocin. A large portion of LSD: My Problem Child is devoted to Hofmann's communication with authors, philosophers, and major contemporary icons (such as Timothy Leary, who Hofmann liked personally but believed was short sighted about the dangers he faced personally and the advocating of hallucinogen consumption by American youth). LSD: My Problem Child is a quick, entertaining read.

Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond

Average customer rating:

Beyond is Right- This book it GREAT
Top End Data
awesome!
EXCELLENT
Acid Dreams Review

Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond
Martin A. Lee , and Bruce Shlain
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream
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ASIN: 0802130623

Book Description

Acid Dreams is the complete social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the sixties. Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain's exhaustively researched and astonishing account-part of it gleaned from secret government files-tells how the CIA became obsessed with LSD as an espionage weapon during the early l950s and launched a massive covert research program, in which countless unwitting citizens were used as guinea pigs. Though the CIA was intent on keeping the drug to itself, it ultimately couldn't prevent it from spreading into the popular culture; here LSD had a profound impact and helped spawn a political and social upheaval that changed the face of America. From the clandestine operations of the government to the escapades of Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, Allen Ginsberg, and many others, Acid Dreams provides an important and entertaining account that goes to the heart of a turbulent period in our history. "Engaging throughout . . . at once entertaining and disturbing." - Andrew Weil, M.D., The Nation; "Marvelously detailed . . . loaded with startling revelations." - Los Angeles Daily News; "An engrossing account of a period . . . when a tiny psychoactive molecule affected almost every aspect of Western life." - William S. Burroughs; "An important historical synthesis of the spread and effects of a drug that served as a central metaphor for an era." - John Sayles.

Customer Reviews:

Beyond is Right- This book it GREAT.......2007-09-20

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2NWFN612DXX3 My video review of Acid Dream. Really great bookAcid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond. ***** 5 stars =)

Top End Data.......2007-06-27

Yhis book belongs on the bookshelf of all those interested in the early days of psychedelic research and it's social ramifications. One word for it: Excellent!

awesome!.......2007-02-07

Can't think of a more informative and interesting way of describing this period of time. I loved this book. Big thanks to the authors!

EXCELLENT.......2006-12-13

This book is perfect - It offered everything I was hoping for when I first purchased it. It covered from the end of the 50's and the Beat generation and how their influence lead into the hippie generation, and it ended in the early 70's tying in the beginning of rock and punk. It is a true spectrum of the 1960's counterculture generation.

It's a large book but its facinating to learn about the history and the culture. Like previous reviewers said, it really ties up everyhting and clearly shows the correalation between the drug counterculture and the govn't & society during that time period. I was born in the 80's and this book really showed me alot about the 60's counterculture and the attitudes towards drug use and young people during that time. I can see alot of correalations between that era with Vietnam as the war that they were protesting versus todays war in Iraq and the amount of US citizens that are against it.

The author also goes into government policies at the time and conspiricys and covert CIA and classified documents. I was amazed by the actions of the CIA and thetesting of LSD on unsuspecting American citizens. It is like the stuff movies are made of but it really happened! Truly and amazing and interesting book - I could not put it down. I reccomend it to everyone, regardless of your view on LSD or drug counterculture - a true wealth of information on 1960's America.

Acid Dreams Review.......2006-11-10

This was a great book. It was an easy read and a fast read, while at the same time being very informative and interesting. It was everything I was hoping it would be and I would refer it to anyone whom was interested in the topic or anyone whom just wants to be more informed in general. There is a lot of great information is in this book. (I myself am a college student and I would say that this is a great book for my peers but also those who are a bit older.)

Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream

Average customer rating:

lost history
Very good but ignores many facets of certain indivuals
Five stars plus
The Politics of Consciousness
It pulls all of the loose ends together

Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream
Jay Stevens
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0802135870

Customer Reviews:

lost history.......2007-08-22

This should be required reading in American History. Who knew Canada had legal LSD centers? And the characters- Nin, Huxley, Kesey, Leary and Capt.Al Hubbard (??). Will we ever see their like again? Really a very sad story, and a fascinating one. Nice to see the Chief Boo Hoo, old Art Kleps in there as well. Sen. Kennedy: "Is your title really Chief Boo Hoo?" Art Kleps: "I'm afraid so, sir."

Very good but ignores many facets of certain indivuals.......2007-02-11

This was a very good book. You get lots of interesting stuff about Aldous Huxley, the famous beat writers, Owsley, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the evolution of the so called counterculture as a whole.

The problems that I have with Storming Heaven is not for what was in it but what was left out. For one Stevens was WAY too easy on Timothy Leary. The author seemed almost like a school girl with a crush when he recounts his visit to Learys home for an interview for the book. He comes off more as a fan than he does an objective writer at times when he deals with Leary. Why wasn't it mentioned that it has come out that Leary was a government informant and information he gave led to the death of two members of the Weather Underground? Its also a known fact that Leary was surrounded by CIA assets and there is a lot of evidence that he was a government agent himself, and at the least he was feeding them information.

There is also a fleeting mention that wasn't elaborated on about Ken Kesey that he had LSD experiments done on him at Stanford by the guy that ended up in charge of the CIAs Mkultra mind control program. This really makes me wonder about Kesey. Its more or less accepted history that the first LSD to get out on the street level was what Kesey stole from the medicine chest at his job as a night shift janitor at a mental hospital and distributed it among his elitist friends. Kesey went from writing what was probably the best novel written during the 1960's to, while becoming a counterculture hero, never writing another thing worth reading again. Did doing too much LSD scramble his brains and ruin his creativity or was his creativity nullified by Mkultra programming? Its hard to say for sure but I have to wonder if Kesey was not under some sort of mind control or was being used by the CIA in one way or another. There are a lot of unanswered questions in my mind about Kesey.

They also fleetingly mention the Brotherhood of Eternal Love who were major LSD distributors and were known to be full of CIA people and had a close association with a Jewish man named Ron Starks who was a CIA spook that also happened to the biggest LSD dealer in the world. Starks was not even given the first mention in this book!

I mean with all these ivy league, Mkultra and CIA connections to the elites of the so called counterculture I have to seriously wonder how much of the hippy movement of the late 60's was an organic rebellion against what was (and still is) a very repressive society both socially and politically and how much of it was intentional social engineering that came from the highest levels of the power structure. Many people believe that the anti-war movement was flooded with drugs, in particular LSD, by federal agents. Its well known that the government tried to subvert and destroy the anti-war movement with the cointelpro program so why wouldn't they also use drugs to try to destroy it? While it can't be denied that LSD has enhanced many an artist, writer and musicians work can you honestly say that sitting around frying on acid all the time is going to do anything but disable political activists who in many cases were in a life and death struggle? Besides that the fact remains that many people became permanently damaged as result of doing acid.

All that said I would definitely recomend reading or of you can get it cheap, buying Storming Heaven. I could hardly put it down once I started reading it. I realize that this book was more geared toward looking into what psychelic drugs can do with the mind and its exponents history and theories on the subject than any conspiratorial maneuverings by the US government involving LSD but it just didn't go deep enough into the rabbit hole for my tastes.

Five stars plus.......2007-01-07

It is no fluke that this book has an average rating of five stars from amazon.com readers. This is simply one of the most informative, enjoyable and engaging presentations ever written on the subject of hallucinogenic drugs in modern history, and how they made their way from the obscurity of laboratories and clinical research to become a fixture in the counterculture of the 1960's and beyond. The complexities of the story make it a formidable challenge for any narrator, but Stevens proves easily equal to the task. In the pages of this book, the reader is introduced to the dramatis personae with an immediacy as though meeting them in person. Many of the facts discussed herein have been recounted before by many capable others. But never have they been put into such a vivid and vibrant perspective as this, so thorough and rich with nuance. That's important because the depths of this story, stranger as it is than any fiction, are where its meaning emerges most clearly. Ever since the impact of LSD and its profound, pervasive influences on our life and times, modern society will never be the same. And it is impossible to imagine what popular culture would now be like without the psychedelic revolution of the 20th century. "Storming Heaven" offers the best single account of how and why this is so. This is a real page-turner, very difficult to put down, and is highly recommended for the interested reader.

The Politics of Consciousness.......2006-01-18

What if you could take a pill or otherwise ingest some substance that would make you see your whole world totally differently than you have seen it before? How do you think your life would change, or would you be any different at all?

As we all know, even if we weren't there...this is a large part of what the 1960's were about. And this book provides a window into the web of events and players that emerged during that turbulent time in our evolution. In my view, it presents an unbiased social history of consciousness expanding chemistry and it's consequences on the human mind and by extension, upon the greater society as a whole. The author uses scenes that are vivid and intimate into the players that had major roles in this upheaval of the status qou - Tim Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Alpert(aka. Ram Dass), Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Aldous Huxley, to name just a few. And of course, they all had their own opinions on how the revolution was to proceed, with frequent disagreements. There is also considerable light shed on the fact that LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, and other compounds were being used with considerable effectiveness within parts of the psychoanalytic community for several years before the powers that be came in and put them back in the box. But even if they hadn't passed laws against these tools, it would have eventually come crashing down of it's own weight. In the end, it was too radical a departure from the societal norms and the movement itself had no real leaders. Leadership was anathema to the revolution, the paradox being that authority was what was being disempowered. The result is that the dream spiraled out of control and we eventually ended up with Ronald Raygun as President and we haven't quite been the same since.

The central question posed by this book seems to be: Who is the ultimate arbiter of what you do with your consciousness? I would suggest that if your answer involves anyone or anything outside your self, then you are not truely free.

It pulls all of the loose ends together.......2005-09-28

The author takes the reader on a fascinating journey to visit the people, places, and cultures of the psychedelic movement. This book contains interesting inside information about Albert Hoffman, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Ken Kesey, Owsley, and a myriad of minor players whose names are fading into history. The story is chronicled from the Swiss Labs where LSD was first discovered to its legitimate use in the psychiatric profession to the artistic salons of the 50's to Harvard to the native villages of Mexico to Leary's temporary home at the Millbrook mansion to Kesey's Prankster hang-out in La Honda to the Haight-Ashbury to the streets of America. An enjoyable peek into diverse cultures from the psychiatric clinicians to world renowned authors and artisans to the faculty of Harvard and Berkley to pre-Columbian mushroom cults to the Beat poets to the Hell's Angels to the Hippies. It is The Doors of Perception, The Psychedelic Experience, On the Road, Howl, Holy Goof, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and Living with the Dead all rolled into one. Exhaustively researched, a very entertaining read from front to back. Like the era that it chronicles, I hated for the book to end.

Summer of Love: The Inside Story of LSD, Rock & Roll, Free Love and High Times in the Wild

Average customer rating:

Psychedelic Who's Who
THIS GUY STINKS......
Selvin's Scrapbook of Snapshots lacks Synthesis
A wealth of detail, incoherent presentation
The Summer of Love That Never Happened

Summer of Love: The Inside Story of LSD, Rock & Roll, Free Love and High Times in the Wild
Joel Selvin
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

The Haight-Ashbury: A History
San Francisco in the Sixties
The San Francisco Oracle / The Psychedelic Newspaper of the Haight Ashbury (Digital Re-Creation)
Magic of the Sixties
Memoirs of an Ex-Hippie: Seven Years in the Counterculture

ASIN: 0525936750

Book Description

This book weaves a fascinating narrative that separates surprising fact from entrenched mythology.

Customer Reviews:

Psychedelic Who's Who.......2007-08-23

Enjoyed this book immensely - reading it was like watching a good documentary. The information inside was mind-blowing.

THIS GUY STINKS.............2005-05-10

as a reporter and a writer, there isn't a cohesive paragraph in this mess of a book. Names thrown at you a mile a minute with no introductions, numerous subjects addressed in a single paragraph, disjointed sentences, NO feeling whatsoever in his writing. Just fact after fact after fact after........ GOD I had to put it down after 100 pages it made me sick. I was growng up during this era ON the west coast and it sure as hell didn't seem this boring!!!! AND NO MENTION OR CHAPTER ON THE SUMMER OF LOVE 1967. But then he would of just made it seem totally worthless and boring anyway..... I want my 16.95 BACK.
and i dont need my memories blandly reported by someone who I doubt was even close to being there.

Selvin's Scrapbook of Snapshots lacks Synthesis.......2004-05-04

Joel Selvin's chronicle of the span of years that saw the rise and fall of San Francisco's Ballroom heyday leaves one with a mixed bag of responses. While it is jam-packed with bits of "insider" history, it lacks synthesis, often making for a tedious read. Its title is misleading--"The Summer of Love: The Inside Story of LSD, Rock n'Roll, Free Love, and High Times in the Wild West" suggests a comprehensive exploration from the inside out. It would have been more accurately heralded under something like "San Francisco's Ballroom Era: Snapshots of the Players."

There is no in-depth analysis of the culture here--none of the great and privileged perspective that is often the gift of time and distance. Their is no insightful working over of how and why the elements came together the way they did. The text plods along, most of the time, with the certain monotony of required recitation --"this happened, then that happened,then this, then that..." It is distinguished only by chaotic leaps from scenes at one camp of personalities to those of another. It is the textual equivalent of a hastily compiled scrapbook covering some particularly seminal years in the rock n' roll counterculture. Some of the pages are given decidedly more consideration than others. We seem to be in Grace Slick's sidecar much of the time, but if this were the only exposure one had to the early days of the San Francisco scene, there is the danger of walking away thinking the Grateful Dead were a minor consideration, and Bill Graham was a pitbull who never had a good day.

The text is rife with other minor sins. The period's biggest events play out in an almost anti-climactic fashion, with Selvin often focusing on odd bits of detail when it seems there ought to be vibrant, big pictures. Among places where minutiae effects the frustrating sense of walking through a major event with a view through a straw are Altamont, Woodstock, and the death of Janis Joplin. Too many minor characters are unceremoniously punched in, and subsequently abandoned to fates we are left to imagine.

The text strives for cliffhanger transitions, structured with the same misguided melodrama of a soap opera. Clever turns of phrase make it to the page now and then, but more recognizable are attempts at lyrical grace that fall short of the mark. The content often smacks of secondhand news and the feeling that a peripheral perspective has been superimposed on the epicenter of dozens of critical moments and private conversations. A journalistic approach would have given more credibility to the many personal accounts. Was Selvin the ubiquitous fly on the wall in the lives of the people he writes about, or has imagination manifested the intimate details of conversations and events long since consigned to the quiet annals of private histories?

Selvin has offered up a few good nuggets--some precious gems in the rough--but one must be willing to mine for them. This is no motherlode, and upon closing the book, one is left with the feeling that this was a collection of narrative notes, still waiting to be refined to glistening. There are myriad fascinating leaping off points, but in the end, too many have us still hanging in the air.

A wealth of detail, incoherent presentation.......2003-10-01

I don't care how interesting the material is - if a book is poorly written, I invariably get frustrated and set it aside. I grow weary of wondering "Why can't this person write a coherent, orderly narrative? Where was the editor?"

So it was with this book. I thought it might be me, but then I found myself reading a similarly awkward piece in MOJO and, sure enough, Selvin was the author. He obviously has a passion for the subject matter, but I expect a higher level of exposition for my money.

My judgment: if you want a lot of colorful details about this fascinating period, you'll probably enjoy the book, as other reviewers have. However, if you put a premium on clarity of presentation, be forewarned.

Two stars, plus one for attention to historical detail.

The Summer of Love That Never Happened.......2003-04-02

"Summer of Love" may have been a bit over the top with it's tabloid style coverage of the rise and fall of the San Francisco music scene, but it was a fun read. Author Joel Selvin does have his facts straight and seldom misspeaks on this insider's account of bands like the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service. Selvin devotes a fair amount of coverage of the Bill Graham organization and the Family Dog, the primary promoters of live music in the old ballrooms of San Francisco. That coverage is justified because it is doubtful that this music would have found a national audience without the vibrant live music scene in the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms. And it is all there: Quicksilver's obsession with firearms; the Lovin' Spoonful's narking out on the manager of the improv group, the Committee; Janice Joplin's turbulent love life; Marty Balin's courageous attempts to diffuse the violence at Altamont, the internal bickering of the Grateful Dead which lead them to serve "walking papers" to Pig Pen and Bob Weir for not having enough musical talent, and Bill Graham's fisticuffs with just about anyone who disagreed with him. If you loved the music of Haight-Ashbury, you will enjoy "Summer of Love." Oh by the way, the expression "summer of love" was just a media label for the San Francisco music phenomena and I think some of the other critics have taken the book title too literally.

Average customer rating:

Love it
Not the real deal
The right book for the thinking Psychonaut
Practical Lsd Manufacture

Practical LSD Manufacture
Uncle Fester
Manufacturer: Loompanics Unlimited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1559501618

Customer Reviews:

Love it.......2006-03-05

This book is obviously a 'research piece' done by Uncle Fester. Fester has no experience in the synthesis of LSD, but he does offer some good inspection of how LSD would be, and could be made. There are many methods he covers in this book, and one would be quite impressed at the journal articles and patents he pulls up to support the methods described.

This book covers how to grow morning glories, extract lysergic acid amides (LSAs) from them, and convert the LSAs into iso-LSD, then into d-LSD (active LSD). He covers many syntheses for Lysergic Acid, and several methods for converting the lysergic acid into LSD. One of the questionable methods is the method of converting lysergic acid into LSD using phosgene - a war gas he covers in his book Silent Death. But I guess if you are skilled enough to make LSD, then you are skilled enough to play with phosgene. A really cool chapter is Method X, a very interesting and mildly simple method for creating LSD.

There is also much writing into the production of TMA-2 (trimethyoxyamphetamine) from Calamus oil - a common plant oil. Fester gives addresses and phone numbers for chemical waste exchangers, and shows you just how to use these exchangers to procure your own hard to obtain chemicals. Another cool little section is "letters from the heat," where he has photocopies of official documents sent to him by the DEA asking about why he bought certain chemicals that he did.

Definitely a good read, I suggest it for those who want to know how LSD would be made.

Not the real deal.......2005-10-05

I had to create a brand new amazon ID for myself to write this review because even admitting that one had read this can be toxic to one's career.

It's obvious to me (as a former student of chemistry) that Fester never made LSD himself. It's also clear that he didn't spend enough time researching the subject. The first edition had several errors in it - some of them due to bad proof reading but others due to mistakes Fester made because of a rushed job. This is much better but still ... a person looking for good advice on how to make LSD should investigate Shulgin's Tihkal ... I definitely get the impression that Shulgin has either made LSD himself or is one intimate terms with someone who did.

So why am I giving this 3 stars if I think it's so bad? Because the book is not a complete waste. I rather admire the notion that someone like Fester would spend so much time writing subversive books like this. His freedom-loving spirit is refreshing in these conformist and authoritarian times.

The right book for the thinking Psychonaut.......2004-09-30

I'm a former intelligence officer to my country and, as such, I meet several famous persons, and also became friend of some.
One of these persons was the late Timothy Leary, with whom I keept corresponding for years after meeting by person a few times (one of these times here in Brazil).
My "other side" is know to more people than my "warrior side", for obvious reasons: I'm an occultist and published author of 60 titles in my country, mostly on Magic and such topics.
I was ever intrigued by LSD, and my curiosity go beyound the experimentation: I wanted to know how it is done.
Them I found this book, the first one I've buy from this author.
All I wanted to know was there. Long Live Uncle Fester! Keep telling us these valuable secrets!

Practical Lsd Manufacture.......2004-09-29

In the sixties Timothy Leery told us to drop acid and drop out. Uncle Fester took it a step further with actual recipes for making your own LSD! You'll definitely want to take this trip!

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love: From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture

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The Brotherhood of Eternal Love -- A Key History

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love: From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture
Stewart Tendler , and David May
Manufacturer: Cyan Communications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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I Have America Surrounded: A Biography of Timothy Leary
Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond
Timothy Leary: Outside Looking In: Appreciations, Castigations, and Reminiscences by Ram Dass, Andrew Weil, Allen Ginsberg, Winona Ryder, William Burroughs, ... Huston Smith, Hunter S. Thompson, and Others
Hashish!
Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream

ASIN: 1904879950

Book Description

First released in 1984, this book became an instant bestseller, and later on, a cult classic. Now updated and containing new material, it tells a brilliantly researched story of a group of idealists fascinated by the potential of LSD to improve the quality of life. Called a hippie mafia by police, The Brotherhood of Eternal Love came to symbolize the rise of LSD, the growth of the psychedelic movement, and the heady, optimistic, revolutionary days of the 1960s.

Customer Reviews:

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love -- A Key History.......2007-10-11

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to gain insight into how the psychedelic movement of the 1960s and 70s developed. It suffers from a cop's-eye-view similar to that of Vicent Bugliosi's well-known "Helter Skelter," but it remains so far the only serious examination of this loosely knit group that became so influential in the movement.

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christopher theophilus from the green mountain state of Vermont writes:
revolutionary?
Great book
3,000 sessions and counting . . .
Remarkable, practical wisdom

LSD Psychotherapy
Stanislav Grof M.d.
Manufacturer: Not Avail
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

Psychotherapy, TA & NLP | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

LSD: My Problem Child
When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-ordinary Reality
Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transendence in Psychotherapy (Suny Series, Transpersonal & Humanistic Psychology)
The Holotropic Mind: The Three Levels of Human Consciousness and How They Shape Our Lives
The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience: The Classic Guide to the Effects of LSD on the Human Psyche

ASIN: 096600194X

Customer Reviews:

christopher theophilus from the green mountain state of Vermont writes:.......2007-03-25

My previous review of this book was entitled" HEALING & GROWTH THROUGH SUPERVISED PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY," and I refer interested readers to that review, which also says "Reviewer: A Reader". To clarify, and in summary, if you are looking for my review, my amazon pen name is christopher theophilus, even though my review of "LSD Psycotherapy simply says the Reviewer is "A Reader," and does not identify me as "christopher theophilus. --Christopher Theophilus, from the green mountain state of Vermont.

revolutionary?.......2007-02-13

A previous reviewer writes about Grof: "His insights into the deeper nature of the personality are simply without equal, transcending psycho-analysis, psychiatric theory, and the history of religions. "

This quote reflects, in a nutshell, a view prevalent among the New Age 'transpersonal' crowd and psychedelic advocates. I doubt it reflects Grof's own beliefs which tended to morph, shift and readjust. While this book has clear historical value, the applicability or usefulness of Grof's idiosyncratic concepts is debatable. Working with the fascinating material that was emerging from LSD seances in Prague and at Johns Hopkins, Grof had to develop his ideas on the fly, swimming in order not to sink.

While a lot of people (rightfully) resent the limbo in which entheogenic research finds itself today, theysometimes find it difficult to accept that this is to a considerable extent a result of unethical behavior of the early pioneers who flounted conventional research standards. If hallucinogenic flights of fancy brought you personal and cosmic insights this doesn't mean they are going to be equally helpful to someone dealing with a psychotic breakdown.

The question that comes to mind is whether these treatments were designed to help people or to satisfy Grof's scientific curiosities and test his ideas about the 'development of consicousness'. I find the apparent ease with which Grof administered LSD to shizophrenics, psychotics and other mentally ill patients, disconcerting. In my view it is short of irresponsible and bordering on unethical, as LSD most likely pushed many unfortunate clients further into dissociation. In any case, while the man made his name in psychedelic circles, conventional recognition eluded him. I am sure that, as always, conspiracy theorists will be happy to put the blame on the guvmint; a responsible reader of LSDP, however, can't help but wonder what ultimately happened to those LSD-exposed schizophrenics.

Probably appropriately, these days Grof steers clear of controversial 'enthe0-therapy', appearing to be more interested in spiritual applications of hyperventilation. heh. While Grof was not amongst those chiefly responsible for the (undeserved) disrepute of entheogenic therapy, his undiscriminate use possibly contributed to the current state of affairs. Basically, Leary, Alpert and Grof mucked the field for everybody else, making it hard for bona fide researchers (such as UCLA's C. Grob) to secure reputation or federal funding. In any case, this is an interesting book that should be read by conventional and transpersonal shrinks, as well as the lay audience interested in putting into context their own extra-ordinary experiences. It is, however, one man's work, unsupported by peer review, unverified, highly speculative and with respect to psychiatry and psychotherapy, a dead end.

Great book.......2007-01-16

i`m not very good writing in english, but this book rules, is quite serious and the investigation is very well done...the pics are great, so the edition

3,000 sessions and counting . . . .......2006-12-14

Stanislav Grof's book "LSD Psychotherapy" is definitely not a light read. Its divided into 9 main sections, and also includes an epilogue, index, two appendices, and an extensive bibliography. Weighing in at over 350 pages, it's Grof's history of LSD therapy, a discussion of the circumstances/therapeutic paradigms under which LSD has been used, and most importantly, a collection of practical wisdom gleaned from the "more than three thousand sessions over the years" which Dr. Grof personally supervised.

Although a book of this size and scope is obviously written for clinicians, it's nevertheless an interesting and informative read to the layperson. Dr. Grof's writing is erudite, informative, and flows surprisingly well (especially when one considers that English is actually not his native language. He was born in Czechoslovakia). He has very practical information regarding the set/setting required for this type of therapy, and lays down a clear outline of how a session should go, and what a subject (or sitter) is likely to encounter.

Two points he stressed repeatedly:
-- an LSD session is a transformational and decidedly internal experience. The goal isn't to see pretty colors or watch Disney cartoons in the palm of your hand; it's to undergo a great deal of introspection and apply what you learn from it.
-- LSD isn't always a lot of fun, nor is it supposed to be. He spends a lot of time discussing difficult experiences, and explaining how they hold the most potential for personal growth in a subject.

All in all, if you're interested in psychedelics, this book is a great read from a man who has devoted his life to researching these areas. If you like this book, I also recommend Myron Stolaroff's "The Secret Chief" (another primer on hallucinogenic psychotherapy) and Rick Strassman's "DMT: The Spirit Molecule".

Remarkable, practical wisdom.......2004-01-23

I have to respond to the review of Zosimos, listed previously.

This is a training manual for hosting psycho-therapeutic sessions involving close encounters with LSD. Obviously, today this is going to be frankly difficult to pull off. Sandoz quit making it 40 years ago, and they made it out of organic base materials. The underground chemists of the 60's and 70's tended to use a synthetic base, and ended up with a product that was probably not the equivalent of the Sandoz pharmaceutical that was available to Grof.

Remember that Grof was engaged in Research, not practice, at a time when this was truly a new frontier. In the early days most the research was being sponsored by the CIA. Not in Czechoslovakia. This was a period of intense intellectual challenge. Grof had been trained as a confirmed Freudian. He gave the stuff to his experimental research subjects--then observed what happened. Now, this is basic science. His preconceptions were all Freudian. But mapping his observations to Freudian theory left a lot hanging over the edges. He quickly grasped the fact that LSD is a non specific mental amplifier. He also realized that neurotic resistance limited the reaction tot he drug, and that numerous encounters were required to break through this resistance. On other occasions, the full range of effects would manifest themselves in a single session. One of his breakthroughs was the recognition that, experientially speaking, the unconscious tends to categorize together experiences that share a common pattern of elements. For example, someone feeling intense pressure at work might recall, with great affect, a collection of memories from their childhood when they were under intense pressure by teachers, parents, a playground bully choking them, getting tangled in the blankets of their crib, intra-uterine birth contractions. These layers of related memories he called condensed experiences, or Co-ex systems, because, collectively, they tended to organize the personality, and, when remembered, seemed to lose their organizational influence. Grof observed that subjects who recalled the various stages of their birth resolved many of their previous symptoms. But not always. Sometimes it was only as if they had peeled away a layer, exposing a deeper nodal disturbance, as if they had opened a door in the floor of the basement that leads down to catacombs. The act of reliving these apparently repressed conflicts or traumas seemed to deflate their energy and organizing influence within the subjects personality. These layers seemed deeper because they typically emerged later in a series of sessions, after birth related material stopped surfacing. The birth related material he called peri-natal, and he regarded them to be the gateway to a transpersonal, or collective unconscious, as suggested by the writings of C.G. Jung regarding the racial archetypes. Grof discovered that, under the appropriate circumstances, the psyche tends towards equilibrium, and will strive towards a greater integration of the personality--a phenomenon frequently observed among those engaged in surviving a horrendous ordeal, sometimes among schizophrenics, the dying, or mystics. He detailed the mechanics of the process the mind follows to effect self-healing.

The reviewer below, Zosimos, has it ALL wrong. None of Grof's theoretical frameworks began as a set of apriori assumptions, as Zosimos' own prejudice and bias suggest. Instead, they began as attempts to understand, and illuminate, to make sense out of the bizarre transormative phenemena he and his assistants observed emerging in the course of their investigations --and to find practical, therapeutic applications. His insights into the deeper nature of the personality are simply without equal, transcending psycho-analysis, psychiatric theory, and the history of religions.

This material is clearly intended for a technical audience, and encompasses both the history of psychedelic therapeutic models, as well as practical guidance for conducting therapeutic sessions gathered from a lifetime of research into the subject.

Although this manual specifically targets LSD-25, the best practices cited would apply to any psycho-therapeutic approach with any entheogenic compounds.

This is an area that is fraught with controversy, largely because of the political ramifications of a psychiatric procedure which has, as its principle effect, healing and liberation. This is a profound threat to a militaristic, authoritarian society governed by a powerful ruling class and Big Religion. Better to keep the Djinn locked safely inside the lamp.

While the primary importance of the role of set and setting has been mentioned from the earliest days, and it must be remembered that a "therapeutic" model imposes its own potential for suggestibility--with all its self-fullfilling prophetic consequences--yet in spite of this, the notion of a therapeutic outcome is desireable above all others. This is an issue of great complexity and profundity, made all the more so by the mystification and mythifications of popular culture.

The metaphor of blind men touching an elephant and describing what they feel seems somehow appropo of the various schools of psychotherapy. Now that we know the rest of the story, each school was modelling only a tiny aspect of the elephant. Grof, apparently has made an honest attempt to model the whole beast in its entirety, using electro-magnetic imaging. LSD produces a situation of unique opportunity for observing the dynamics of mental processes in their extremity. If LSD acts as a general amplifier of mental processes, then the dynamics of the personality, following such amplification, should be the same regardless of the stimulus. Grof has established that this is, indeed, the case, through research with holotropic breathwork. Yet, LSD is the substance, sine qua non, for inducing the highest degree of psychic amplification quickly and beyond question. The amplification of mental processes CAN be achieved using other methods that do not involve drugs, and may be more manageable.

The therapeutic goals desribed by Grof are valuable, but at a certain point the therapeutic process becomes something else entirely--self integration turns into the quest for self realization. LSD is a powerful substance, undeniable potential as a useful therapeutic tool, yet extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. All in all, it seems that the biggest problem with close encounters with entheogens is living with the fact, that, when the jello cools and the personality re-solidifies, the individual is left with the challenge of self actualization within the reality of the socio-cultural matrix into which they have been born. LSD may reveal the mysteries of the galactic core and show you the winding way of the Magician at midnite, but in the end you must walk the Earth with your feet on the ground, and your head out of the clouds.

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Excellent book!
Mistakes in previous review
Detailed discussion of the infamous drug
Best Book on LSD Synthesis Ever Written

LSD
Otto Snow
Manufacturer: Thoth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Love Drugs
THC & Tropacocaine
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Oxy

ASIN: 0966312848

Book Description

At age 15, Otto developed hemi-paraesthesic migraine headaches. These cluster migraines resemble a stroke. He was given narcotics, barbiturates and ergot alkaloids. The drugs were making him ill. He learned of a new medication that might help. The drug was LSD-25 and it worked.

His physicians would not prescribe LSD so Otto entered the world of LSD. Several laboratories provided him and other patients with the medication. Included are comments and research from the greatest scientists of the twentieth century. Personal satori experiences. At nineteen, Otto discontinued his exploration of LSD.

LSD is the most comprehensive book ever written on the synthesis of LSD. Otto includes the reactions and the chemistry behind the reactions. Many simplified reactions (e.g. diethylamine from vodka, lysergic acid directly from Claviceps sugar culture, coupling agents from scratch). Extractions translated to English.

LSD is written by someone who has been there and knows the subject/chemistry first hand. LSD is as popular today as it was in the 1970s and 1960s. For many it is a party drug, for others it is a medication. The Decade of the Brain heralded in a new interest in psychedelics and their medical application.

The book is illustrated by Tulasne, Chase, Gill and others. LSD is packed with chemistry for future generations of neurochemists and explorers. 275+ references. UV laminated.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent book!.......2007-06-06

"I am truly fascinating and will now convince you of it by explaining how lsd affects the brain." Please, I'm sure you are fascinating but, could you just review the book?

Mistakes in previous review.......2004-10-16

The effect of LSD and other psychedelics is a fascinating area of study, and unfortunately, due to the failure of the legal system to keep up with the pace of neuroscience, very little research has been done in this area since the advent of modern scientific technology such as the fMRI (and what a shame it is!)

It is with that caveat that I must say the previous reviewer is either mistaken or simply not up-to-date with the current hypotheses as to how LSD and other indoleamine psychedelics affect the brain. Perhaps the previous reviewer may be interested in checking out the latest research, what little of it there is.

The idea that LSD is merely affecting the retinal cells does not make any sense in that it does not account for most of the subjective effects of the drug. Since sustained firing of retinal cells may account for the visual short-term sensory store (an effect that causes some degree of "trails" in all people) then perhaps LSD's effect of elongated "trails" is caused by this. However, it cannot account for anything else, and LSD certainly has myriad other effects: visual, auditory, emotional, cognitive, you name it.

Current literature states that LSD acts on a variety of 5-HT type (serotonin) receptors. The serotonin pathways originate in the raphe nuclei and spread throughout the cortical and sub-cortical areas; consequently, LSD may act on these pathways throughout the brain. Not only that, but LSD and similar compounds have been shown to have noradrenergic and dopaminergic effects, including effects on the locus coeruleus, a system that also extends pathways throughout the brain and acts as a modulator for such functions as emotion and arousal.

And finally, for many people, LSD truly is a mind-expanding experience. The effect it has certainly depends on the person taking the drug, their mindset, their openness to new experiences, etc. But regardless, LSD has the potential to, at the very least, shock the user into experiencing a new way of perceiving the world and the self, shaking to the core any previous assumptions that the world is exactly as they see it and they see it exactly as it is. For many, this can be truly valuable.

All that being said, this book is chock-full of information and as such is an extremely welcome addition to current psychedelic literature. This is a vastly under-studied topic, and new information whether related to neuroscience, or pure chemistry, or potentials for psychotherapy, is all extremely helpful for the growing academic and spiritual interest in this subject.

Detailed discussion of the infamous drug.......2004-09-18

This is a detailed book on the chemistry, manufacture, and physiological effects of LSD. It includes comments by doctors and therapists who have used it in their practice, and information on some of the other medical uses. For example, until I saw this book, I wasn't aware that it had an application in the treatment of specialized stroke-like migraines, which is how the author first became involved with the drug. So apparently there is at least one legitimate medical use of the drug, if one credits the information and statements here.

I personally never understood the fascination with LSD. All it's really doing is altering the chemical reactions in the lower strata and cells of the retina, the retina being composed neuronally of the rods and cones, amacrine cells, bipolar cells, Muller cells, horizontal cells, and ganglion cells in more or less distinct layers, although there is some mixing to some extent. It's not even a retinal ganglional effect in the lateral geniculate nucleus, the main visual system ganglion, let alone a visual cortical effect. In other words, it's a pretty primitive effect that occurs "up front" at the sensory transducer of the visual system and doesn't affect, at least from a perception and sensation standpoint, the advanced visual information processing centers further down the line.

Now if there was something that actually affected the three cortical primary visual receiving areas in the occipital lobe, or cytoarchitectonic areas 17, 18, and 19 of Brodmann, you'd really have something, maybe something really mind expanding and mind blowing, instead of what you have with LSD.

And as for LSD being mind-expanding, well, it certainly is perception-altering, but the people I knew back in the 60s who took it certainly didn't became any brighter or more brilliant taking it, from what I could see. On the other hand, they seemed to think it was something important. Still, they didn't seem any more perceptive, creative, insightful, or smarter to me, although they often thought so. As someone once observed about Aldous Huxley's book, The Doors of Perception, in which he reported on his experiences, it wasn't so much that LSD helped him write more and better, so much as it helped him write more about LSD.

Anyway, I apologize for waxing a little nerdy, but the neurobiology of perception and sensation is a subject I know something about, that having been my area of interest for my master's and doctoral work. Although I've been out of school for a while, this was the consensus on the neurophysiological effects of LSD at the time, and perhaps you'll find my comments there useful.

Best Book on LSD Synthesis Ever Written.......2004-05-10

LSD is truly an amazing book. No doubt the best book ever written on the subject of LSD synthesis. It is very comprehensive, describing the construction of all precursors from common materials. The illustrations are beautiful. There are quotes and descriptions from psychotherapists who personally used LSD in their practice. The text is small print, packed with multiple formulas that have been used by the actual manufacturers. Complete with graphic pictures of tablet machines and sheeting equipment. This first edition is sure to become a classic; collectible by all those interested in the subject of psychedelics. I really enjoy it and would recommend LSD (the book) to everyone.

The Varieties Of Psychedelic Experience - The First Comprehensive Guide To The Effects Of Lsd On Human Personality

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The Varieties Of Psychedelic Experience - The First Comprehensive Guide To The Effects Of Lsd On Human Personality
R. E. L. and Houston, Jean Masters
Manufacturer: Delta / Dell Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000IY727M

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