Psychedelics Encyclopedia

by Peter Stafford

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Author: Peter Stafford

Publisher: Ronin Publishing

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 9780914171515
ISBN 13: 978-0914171515

Traces the history of the use of hallucinogenic drugs and discusses the psychological and physical effects of LSD, marijuana, mescaline, and other drugs.

From Library Journal

Psychedelic drugs have been disparaged, exalted, politicized, romanticized, and outlawed. This extraordinary volume covers the history of their development and the controversies surrounding them, including the important role played by such figures as Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon, and the CIA in politicizing their use. For LSD, peyote, marijuana, and a variety of drugs both natural and manufactured, the history, botany, chemistry, form of preparation, and distinct mental and physical effect on the user are detailed. Wisely, this book neither defends nor denigrates the use of these substances but presents well-organized and thoroughly researched information on a controversial subject. An excellent reference source for scientific and social research, this book is highly recommended.
- Gail Wood, SUNY Coll. of Technology Lib., Alfred
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Offers the most thorough history to date of the modern-day use of psychedelic drugs. LSD, mescaline, psilocybin, cannabis, and a host of lesser-known and exotic psychotropic agents are discussed in this entertaining survey. -- New Age Journal

Peter Staffords encyclopedic guide to psychedelics is a gas to read. It is scholarly, hip scientific, witty, well-written, hopeful, and a treasure chest of weird and wonderful information. -- Robert Anton Wilson, author of the Illuminatus books

Psychedelics Encyclopedia draws from scientific research, personal accounts, and popular literature to document the properties attributed to psychedelic substances, their preparation and use, and the shifting social attitudes toward them over the past half-century. Psychedelics Encyclopedia is a remarkable sourcebook for anyone interested in the psychological, biological, physiological and cultural aspects of psychedelic drugs. A fascinating historical reference on psychedelia, from the LSD-25 of the sixties, to the memory and cognitive enhancers of today are compiled with over 200 illustrations. Featured are the LSD family, marijuana and its botanical relatives, peyote, mescaline and san pedro, psychoactive mushrooms, the MDA cluster, yage and harmaline, ibogaine, short-acting tryptamines (DMT, DET, DPT), nootropics, and other psychoactive substances. Each is treated with respect to its history, botany, pharmacology, physical effects, mental effects, forms, sources, purity tests,. Included are biographies, updates, and bibliographies for further research and studies. Psychedelics Encyclopedia is the seminal reference work. -- Midwest Book Review

Origin of the word Psychedelic: In the early 1950s, researchers Humphry Osmond and John Smythies wrote a paper about the mental effects of mescaline that came to the attention of Aldous Huxley, who invited Osmond to visit him if he should be in the Los Angeles area.

In the literature then available about what we now call psychedelic drugs, the term most commonly used to describe the effects was psychotomimetic (meaning psychosis-mimicking). Yet it is evident from Huxleys description in The Doors of Perception that when he tried mescaline sulfate he was not going through some kind of imitation psychosis. Huxley believed he had experienced something akin to mystical experience.

Psychedelics Encyclopedia

From Library Journal

Review

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