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Tripping

An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures

Part of Compass

Introduction by Charles Hayes
Edited by Charles Hayes
Paperback
$30.00 US
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Books
5.98"W x 8.98"H x 0.12"D   | 19 oz | 24 per carton
On sale Nov 01, 2000 | 512 Pages | 9780140195743
Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies
“Provides the much needed ‘coming out of the closet’ that the psychedelic movement has lacked. These stories will captivate, inspire, caution, and educate. This courageous book exceeds expectations.” —Rich Doblin, President, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

A collection of transformational psychedelic experiences, and a guidebook for how to understand them
 
Flash back to a generation ago, when the world of psychedelics still coasted in the gritty, adventurous, do-it-yourself ethos of Sixties counterculture. Hang on for the bumpy thrill ride of the psychedelic experience before it was traded in for the white lab coat of pharmaceutical medicine. Read up on the early anecdotes and field reports that have made ketamine and MDMA the newest drugs in mental health treatment. In Tripping, journalist Charles Hayes compiles fifty narratives of psychedelic odysseys—from respectable Baby Boomers and young ravers to renowned Beat poet Anne Waldman and preeminent spokesperson Terence McKenna—to give readers a glimpse into this transgressive, experimental world of self-discovery. As he liberates psychedelics from their social stigma, Hayes explores ancient Greek rites and ecstasy-fueled raves, sacred indigenous plants and synthetic “smart drugs,” alien encounters and connections with nature, the terrifying and the sublime. A history, cultural timepiece, and resource guide all in one, Tripping is a compendium of forbidden memories whose otherworldly tales and expository advice will provide insight and inspiration to readers even—and especially—now, twenty years after its original publication.
“Offers a multitude of perspectives from all walks of life about the psychedelic experience . . . In this new age of microdosing and psychedelic research and experimentation, Tripping is a must-read for anyone who's interested in consciousness expansion.” – Boing Boing

“A magnificent collection." – Alexander Shulgin, godfather of MDMA
 
"Hayes is such a bristling and intelligent writer that one almost wishes that he had written the whole book himself. The free flow of ideas about these verboten substances and their anthropological/psychological possibilities is exhilarating." – The Oxford American
 
"A sensitive and responsible approach to documenting profound experiences with 'drugs.' The results of this informal research are both informative and highly moving." – The Lancet
 
“Intriguing. The narratives are informative, cautionary, hilarious and spooky. The uninitiated may recoil from stories of visions of goat-devils, the moon as an alien flashlight, and nude escapades at Burning Man, but those in on the book's implicit wink will find like-minded stories of drug-induced bliss and abject terror." – San Francisco Chronicle
 
"Readers will find a sequence of first-person narratives (a form at least as old as The Canterbury Tales) that presents, in kaleidoscopic fashion, the last thirty years as refracted through the prism of a drug experience." – The Chronicle of Higher Education
 
“We can theorize about psychedelics till the cow patties come home, but there's nothing as poignant, perplexing, and funny as a well-told trip report. Charles Hayes has gathered together some great ones. Tripping is instructive, hilarious and -- let's face it -- enticing. I loved it.” – R.U. Sirius, Mondo 2000
 
"A classic in the growing body of contemporary psychedelic literature. For the experienced, Tripping is a harvest of inspiring moments and a reminiscence of one's own deeply shape-shifting journeys. For the uninitiated, it is a profound glimpse into the hidden world of the subconscious and a provocation for wider acceptance of the usefulness of psychedelic states." – Allan Badiner, Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics
TrippingNote to the Reader
Preface

Part I: Introduction
The Psychedelic (in) Society: A Brief Cultural History of Tripping

Basic Features of the Psychedelic Experience

Methodology and Perspectives Used in the Making of This Book

Part II: The Narratives
Aaron: Trawling the ghost stream

Alice Dee: Highway to the sky: The road seen only by the dreamer

Anne Waldman: Point and Click: Icons in the window to the ancestral manse

Brendan: Pealing Faces

Bruce Eisner: Dazed in the desert at the end of time

Carl: The wat of the world

Charles Hayes: Eat the moment (and other stories)

Charlie: That's when I realized I was out of my senses

Clark Heinrich: Heaven (and another story)

Daniel: I realized I was dead

Dennis: They don't show you all this on the top of the mountain just to destroy you on your way down

Fiona: Unbridled

George: Saved by the belle (and other stories)

Gregory: Sinister toys and the Internet of souls

Henry Bass: Hallucinating the horror of sobriety

Herbie Greene: Ride the snake and break on through (or) Crashing the snake dance

Jack: The pinball machine I could play without feeding it coins

James: Hell's den and Pan's glen (and another story)

Jarl: An early absolution

Jason: The orgasm death dance (and other stories)

Jeremy: The schlomus: The price of a moment's doubt

John Perry Barlow: My first trip

Julian: An awakening from within

Kate Coleman: Then the emotions started happening

Keely Stahl: The menacing orgasm that almost melted me away

Keith: First communion with life

Kenny: How can I die if I'm not here? (and other stories)

Kevin: To either die or come

Lena: I've definitely been psychotic

Leonard Gibson: Portals of flame, petals of the lotus blossum

Leonard Mercado: Psychedelic terra firma

Malcolm: The Psychedelic is the Center

Marcel: Is this a trap or a welcome?

Mark: Sounding the black box of the subconscious

Mark Fischer: Over the spillway

Matthew S. Kent: Maha maya: The V in my path

Megan: A blink of rabbit fur

Paul Devereaux: Do I want to be seeing this?

Peter: Everything else was normal (and other stories)

Philip Cooper: The Cathedral of San Pedro the Divine

Reverend Marianne: The vision made it real (and other stories)

Robert Bell: I had a theory who I was (and another story)

Robert Charles Wilson: The Immigrant's landing

Ruth: The apostate's homecoming

Sarah: Our Lady of the Eastern Star

Stephen Kessler: The initiate

Steve Silberman: the organismic display monitor

Steven Martin Cohen: A thousand cruise missles pointed straight at my brain stem

Terry: Loosing the hounds of war

Tim Page: Memoirs of an acid-salved war photographer

Part III: A Conversion with Terance McKenna
Appendix: A Concise Index of Psychedelic Substances

Notes
Bibliography and Resources
Acknowledgments
Index

About

“Provides the much needed ‘coming out of the closet’ that the psychedelic movement has lacked. These stories will captivate, inspire, caution, and educate. This courageous book exceeds expectations.” —Rich Doblin, President, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

A collection of transformational psychedelic experiences, and a guidebook for how to understand them
 
Flash back to a generation ago, when the world of psychedelics still coasted in the gritty, adventurous, do-it-yourself ethos of Sixties counterculture. Hang on for the bumpy thrill ride of the psychedelic experience before it was traded in for the white lab coat of pharmaceutical medicine. Read up on the early anecdotes and field reports that have made ketamine and MDMA the newest drugs in mental health treatment. In Tripping, journalist Charles Hayes compiles fifty narratives of psychedelic odysseys—from respectable Baby Boomers and young ravers to renowned Beat poet Anne Waldman and preeminent spokesperson Terence McKenna—to give readers a glimpse into this transgressive, experimental world of self-discovery. As he liberates psychedelics from their social stigma, Hayes explores ancient Greek rites and ecstasy-fueled raves, sacred indigenous plants and synthetic “smart drugs,” alien encounters and connections with nature, the terrifying and the sublime. A history, cultural timepiece, and resource guide all in one, Tripping is a compendium of forbidden memories whose otherworldly tales and expository advice will provide insight and inspiration to readers even—and especially—now, twenty years after its original publication.

Praise

“Offers a multitude of perspectives from all walks of life about the psychedelic experience . . . In this new age of microdosing and psychedelic research and experimentation, Tripping is a must-read for anyone who's interested in consciousness expansion.” – Boing Boing

“A magnificent collection." – Alexander Shulgin, godfather of MDMA
 
"Hayes is such a bristling and intelligent writer that one almost wishes that he had written the whole book himself. The free flow of ideas about these verboten substances and their anthropological/psychological possibilities is exhilarating." – The Oxford American
 
"A sensitive and responsible approach to documenting profound experiences with 'drugs.' The results of this informal research are both informative and highly moving." – The Lancet
 
“Intriguing. The narratives are informative, cautionary, hilarious and spooky. The uninitiated may recoil from stories of visions of goat-devils, the moon as an alien flashlight, and nude escapades at Burning Man, but those in on the book's implicit wink will find like-minded stories of drug-induced bliss and abject terror." – San Francisco Chronicle
 
"Readers will find a sequence of first-person narratives (a form at least as old as The Canterbury Tales) that presents, in kaleidoscopic fashion, the last thirty years as refracted through the prism of a drug experience." – The Chronicle of Higher Education
 
“We can theorize about psychedelics till the cow patties come home, but there's nothing as poignant, perplexing, and funny as a well-told trip report. Charles Hayes has gathered together some great ones. Tripping is instructive, hilarious and -- let's face it -- enticing. I loved it.” – R.U. Sirius, Mondo 2000
 
"A classic in the growing body of contemporary psychedelic literature. For the experienced, Tripping is a harvest of inspiring moments and a reminiscence of one's own deeply shape-shifting journeys. For the uninitiated, it is a profound glimpse into the hidden world of the subconscious and a provocation for wider acceptance of the usefulness of psychedelic states." – Allan Badiner, Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics

Table of Contents

TrippingNote to the Reader
Preface

Part I: Introduction
The Psychedelic (in) Society: A Brief Cultural History of Tripping

Basic Features of the Psychedelic Experience

Methodology and Perspectives Used in the Making of This Book

Part II: The Narratives
Aaron: Trawling the ghost stream

Alice Dee: Highway to the sky: The road seen only by the dreamer

Anne Waldman: Point and Click: Icons in the window to the ancestral manse

Brendan: Pealing Faces

Bruce Eisner: Dazed in the desert at the end of time

Carl: The wat of the world

Charles Hayes: Eat the moment (and other stories)

Charlie: That's when I realized I was out of my senses

Clark Heinrich: Heaven (and another story)

Daniel: I realized I was dead

Dennis: They don't show you all this on the top of the mountain just to destroy you on your way down

Fiona: Unbridled

George: Saved by the belle (and other stories)

Gregory: Sinister toys and the Internet of souls

Henry Bass: Hallucinating the horror of sobriety

Herbie Greene: Ride the snake and break on through (or) Crashing the snake dance

Jack: The pinball machine I could play without feeding it coins

James: Hell's den and Pan's glen (and another story)

Jarl: An early absolution

Jason: The orgasm death dance (and other stories)

Jeremy: The schlomus: The price of a moment's doubt

John Perry Barlow: My first trip

Julian: An awakening from within

Kate Coleman: Then the emotions started happening

Keely Stahl: The menacing orgasm that almost melted me away

Keith: First communion with life

Kenny: How can I die if I'm not here? (and other stories)

Kevin: To either die or come

Lena: I've definitely been psychotic

Leonard Gibson: Portals of flame, petals of the lotus blossum

Leonard Mercado: Psychedelic terra firma

Malcolm: The Psychedelic is the Center

Marcel: Is this a trap or a welcome?

Mark: Sounding the black box of the subconscious

Mark Fischer: Over the spillway

Matthew S. Kent: Maha maya: The V in my path

Megan: A blink of rabbit fur

Paul Devereaux: Do I want to be seeing this?

Peter: Everything else was normal (and other stories)

Philip Cooper: The Cathedral of San Pedro the Divine

Reverend Marianne: The vision made it real (and other stories)

Robert Bell: I had a theory who I was (and another story)

Robert Charles Wilson: The Immigrant's landing

Ruth: The apostate's homecoming

Sarah: Our Lady of the Eastern Star

Stephen Kessler: The initiate

Steve Silberman: the organismic display monitor

Steven Martin Cohen: A thousand cruise missles pointed straight at my brain stem

Terry: Loosing the hounds of war

Tim Page: Memoirs of an acid-salved war photographer

Part III: A Conversion with Terance McKenna
Appendix: A Concise Index of Psychedelic Substances

Notes
Bibliography and Resources
Acknowledgments
Index

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