THE DRUG EXPERIENCE

by David-Ed. Ebin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 6, 1961

This is the first collection of ""the writings of travellers into drug-land"", a subjective documentation of sensation when under the influence of ""hallucinogens"", formerly known as phantastics, and it ranges from snuff (which one experimenter claims is the strongest) to LSD, with hemp and opium providing the largest body of evidence. The editor has provided comments on each contributor, as well as the drug used, and many great writers have recorded this experience, with its special excitation and iridescence, the spiralling vertigo of euphoria which often plunges into horror, in words. There's the opulence of Gautier's world of hashish; Baudelaire's ""accursed sweetmeat"" and the exaggerated perceptions induced: De Quincey and Havelock Ellis, Huxley and Cocteau (""It is rare for an addict to forsake opium. Opium forsakes him, ruining everything""); jazz artists Mezz Mezzerow (who found no bad after effects ""outside of a 20 month jail sentence"") and Billie Holiday; Allen Ginsberg and Alexander King; the account of the banker, Wasson, who discovered hallucinogenic mushrooms; a medical doctors' symposium; etc., etc. including a section on cures and the attendant agony.... This is probably not a book to be read, except intermittently, by a general audience, but it does represent some of the truest and best writing this flowering of evil has produced.

Pub Date: Nov. 6, 1961

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Orion

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1961

Categories: NONFICTION