Breaking open the head : a psychedelic journey into the heart of contemporary shamanism

A dazzling work of personal travelogue and cultural criticism that ranges from the primitive to the postmodern in a quest for the promise and meaning of the psychedelic experience. While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness—to a holographic vision of the universe. Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival. Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos. Publishers Weekly Open City editor Pinchbeck's book debut is a polemic that picks up the threads that Huxley's The Doors of Perception, Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and counterculture idealism left in the culture. Charting his gradual transformation from a cynical New York litterateur to psychedelic acolyte, Pinchbeck uses elements of travelogue, memoir, "entheobotany" ("the study of god-containing plants") and historical research to ask why these "doorways of the mind" have been unceremoniously sealed, sharing Walter Benjamin's melancholy about the exasperating nature of consumerism: "We live in a culture where everything tastes good but nothing satisfies." Pinchbeck travels the earth in search of spiritual awakening through tripping, from Gabon to the Nevada desert. At happenings like the Burning Man festival or a plant conference in the Ecuadorean jungle, Pinchbeck meets "modern shamans" and tells their stories as they intersect with his. In his reporting, he manages to walk a difficult tonal tightrope, balancing his skepticism with a desire to be transformed. He thoughtfully surveys the literature about psychedelic drugs, but the most exhilarating and illuminating sections are the descriptions of drug taking: he calls this visiting the "spirit world," which is "like a cosmic bureaucracy employing its own PR department, its own off-kilter sense of dream-logic and humor... constantly playing with human limitations, dangling possibilities before our puny grasps at knowledge." There's little new drug lore here, but Pinchbeck's earnest, engaged and winning manner carry the book. (On sale Sept. 17) Forecast: Pinchbeck is a founding editor, along with Thomas Beller, of Open City, a kind of Paris Review for the '90s, and the son of artist Peter Pinchbeck and Beat memoirist Joyce Johnson. Portions of the book previously appeared in the Village Voice and Rolling Stone, where Pinchbeck is a contributor. Look for a few strong national reviews and solid sales, particularly among younger readers, who will turn out for the four-city tour. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information. Contents......Page 7 Introduction......Page 11 Part One My Initiation......Page 17 1. The King of the Bwiti......Page 18 2. Mad to be Saved......Page 23 3. You Want to Cheat Me?......Page 29 4. Touchers Teach Too......Page 34 5. I Am the One You Seek......Page 42 6. I See Your Grandmother......Page 48 Part Two Strange Growths......Page 53 7. Treacherous Excrescences......Page 54 8. Profane Illuminations......Page 61 9. Fun With Fungi......Page 67 10. Night Travelers......Page 70 11. Shamanism and the World Tree......Page 76 Part Three Leave no Trace......Page 84 12. A Cybernetic Pulse Engine......Page 85 13. Doctor Megavolt......Page 94 14. Great Robot Empires......Page 101 15. The Temple of Tears......Page 109 Part Four Shamanism and Modernism......Page 114 16. Walking in Mysteries......Page 115 17. I Am Not Here......Page 119 18. An Orgy of Vision......Page 124 19. A Sea of Spiritual Protoplasm......Page 128 20. A Handful of Ashes......Page 132 Part Five The Medicine......Page 138 21. The Purge......Page 139 22. My Shamanic Vacation......Page 146 23. Meet the Snake......Page 155 24. All the Energy in the Universe......Page 161 Part Six LSD and the 1960s......Page 170 25. The Multiple Million-Eyed Monster......Page 171 26. A Pathetic Clown Act......Page 181 27. The Light at the End of the Tunnel......Page 189 Part Seven Entheobotany......Page 198 28. White Blossoms......Page 199 29. The Quality of Revealing......Page 203 30. The Fairy Folk......Page 209 31. Why Did You Eat Us?......Page 215 32. Thrown-Away Knowledge......Page 228 33. I Smoked DMT......Page 237 34. Direct Mystical Transmission......Page 244 35. Do You Take Responsibility?......Page 251 Part Eight Inconceivable New Worlds......Page 256 36. Not For Human Consumption......Page 257 37. New Sensations......Page 269 38. Magical Thinking......Page 273 Epilogue: The Angel of History......Page 285 Bibliography......Page 294 Acknowledgments......Page 301 Index......Page 303 "While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon and the ayahuasca of the Secoya in Ecuador to the psilocybin mushrooms of the Mazatecs in Mexico, these plants are revered because of their potential to awaken the mind to other levels of awareness and to act as gateways to other dimensions - bringing about a holographic vision of the universe.". "Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rash personal inquiry into this deep division between views. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells of encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, highlighting such thinkers and seekers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna as well as a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation into these outlaw compounds. We witness Pinchbeck's thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an encounter with the master shamans of the south American rain forest; and sleepless nights in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, at the "Archaic Revival" that is the Burning Man Festival - all part of his effort to grasp the meaning of shamanism as well as the stages of his own spiritual quest.". "Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos."--BOOK JACKET. A dazzling work of personal travelogue and cultural criticism that ranges from the primitive to the postmodern in a quest for the promise and meaning of the psychedelic experience. While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness--to a holographic vision of the universe. Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival. Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos. " ... On one level, [Pinchbeck] tells of encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, highlighting such thinkers and seekers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, as well as a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemkists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation into these outlaw compounds. ..."--Back cover