POWERS OF MIND

by Adam Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1975

Another coy odyssey by a Straight into the netherworld of Consciousness-Changing. This is the Money Game Smith, who gave up (temporarily) wine and ice cream for LSD, brain probes, sensory deprivation, and assorted mystical experience. He was not wholly a novice because fifteen years ago he was in a UCLA experiment with LSD and the giant spider about to devour him turned out to be his mother. This time he tried it all--yoga, Transcendental Meditation, Erhard Seminars Training, William James, etc., etc. The I Ching was used to predict stock movements--and why not? Smith ended up passing out flowers in a Penn Central train saying ""Namaste"" to everyone. Then he went back to Baskin-Robbins, but retained a sinsister belief that the brain is merely a storage system from which we can retrieve any ""bits"" we want, like old drinking songs and phrases from Bergman movies. This, of course, is the principle of deep-level behavior modification, in which connection Smith's experiments do provide a broad lineup of institutions and people. Smith also notes that the U.S. Army piled up large stocks of LSD during or after WW II. This is scarcely an expose, however--it's a venture into a supersaturated market.

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1975

Categories: NONFICTION