Way weirder than I was expecting. His sections about the history of psychedelics and other psychedelic thinkers and scientists are pretty good, and his trip reports about different drugs are interesting. But man, this guy comes to some strange conclusions towards the end of the book. He kind of goes off the deep end into the occult, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Even though I think he's a little bit nuts (stop with the 2012 apocalypse predictions and other pseudoscience, man!), I still enjoyed most of the book and came away with a long list of other books, authors, concepts, (and drugs) to check out in the future.

When I read this I was in love with a very sociopathic, drug and alcohol addicted guy who was completely and utterly obsessed with psychedelics... and himself. Of course, I didn't see him in this light until after I had gotten out of that abusive situation. He had really wanted me to read this book, and because I was young, dumb and felt the need to impress, I read it. He loved the book, I however, thought the author was extremely arrogant and couldn't see past his drug addiction. I remember even going so far as think that the author was a tad narcissistic because it seemed whenever another person disagreed with his viewpoint he didn't want to hear them out. Won't be reading any non-fiction anymore if I can avoid it. Keep your psychedelics. I'll stick to pixie stix.

Though Daniel Pinchbeck’s name will doubtless gain familiarity with the publication of this book, heretofore he has been known mostly to the younger literary cognoscenti who comprise the target audience for OPEN CITY, the literary magazine he began with the late fiction writer Rob Bingham. Since Bingham’s untimely death from a heroin overdose in 2000, Pinchbeck has continued OPEN CITY, publishing, among others, poet/musician David Berman. But his new book represents a personal quest that at first he found vaguely embarrassing even to talk about. For BREAKING OPEN THE HEAD delves deeply and seriously into the use of psychedelic drugs, drawing on one of the loftiest heroes of 20th century thought, Walter Benjamin, as a major influence in its attempt to achieve what the German thinker called “profane illumination.” And though the book aims for nothing less than spiritual penetration into the heart of both light and darkness, psychedelic drugs themselves have not only been considered “so frightening and dangerous that possession of them is punished by long prison sentences,” as the author reminds us, but they have also increasingly acquired a taint of the jejune, if not the downright adolescent.

“Most of my friends dismissed my new enthusiasm,” Pinchbeck writes of his initial forays into chemical hallucinatory experience, which were supplemented by his increasingly intense study of shamanic cultures. “Psychedelic drugs were weird and childish, something you did in high school or college and got over.... You tried them a bunch of times, had some freaky trips, then moved on to the adult lubricators of social interaction—booze, coke, Valium, pot, heroin.” While Pinchbeck’s friend Bingham isn’t mentioned in this part of the book, there’s more than a little ominous truth of observation in the writer’s regretful comment that in his circles, “heroin, above all, was the downtown hipster intoxicant of choice.... Over a decade, I knew at least a half dozen people—bright, artistic, confused—who died from overdoses. Compared to these hipster intoxicants, mushrooms and LSD were seen as silly, somehow regressive, or weak.”

By contrast, Pinchbeck implies, antidepressants fit our culture’s current worship of the aggressive, decisive, Type A personality that has so often succeeded everywhere from Pennsylvania Avenue to Wall Street to Hollywood. From his point of view, Baby Boomers and the members of Generations X and Y aren’t terribly different from the older, substance-befuddled, status-obsessed generations that preceded them: There’s little distinction, finally, between the heroin-dabbling, greedy corporate expatriates in Bingham’s two books, PURE SLAUGHTER VALUE and LIGHTNING ON THE SUN, and the characters found in the works of John Cheever, John Updike and, more recently, Rick Moody, who creates memorable characters from both age brackets in works like THE ICE STORM.

Pinchbeck’s own book is elegantly structured, kaleidoscoping between personal narrative, scientific research and cultural history. While the latter two are presented in scrupulous and carefully delineated fashion, the chronicles of Pinchbeck’s own experiences with psychedelics and the places he traveled to find them are unsparing in their details of the physical rigors involved. These drugs do not taste good and wreak a certain amount of havoc on the digestive system; adult-sized Pampers are sometimes involved.

Visionary states of any kind are difficult to describe and apprehend, as reading authors from St. John of the Cross to Rimbaud to Ken Kesey and Carlos Castaneda will prove. But Pinchbeck offers marvelous—though not overstated—descriptions of context in which everything makes sense, even though some of the psychedelic journeys he takes are terrifying. Perhaps not coincidentally, the bad trips largely result from his experiments with manmade—as opposed to plant-based—chemicals, many of them consisting, metaphorically enough, of isolated molecules. And for the most part, these frightening, fracturing and too often lonely experiences take place not in South America or Africa but close to home, which for Pinchbeck is New York City. Even the closest circle of urban or suburban friends can’t approximate the genuinely tribal groups Pinchbeck finds, for example, in the South American rain forest, groups who share an endogenous cultural history dating back at least a couple of millennia.

Yet doesn’t advocate the use of any drug; Pinchbeck believes that his visions, and the insights gained therefrom, can be achieved by other means. As Benjamin wrote, “The reader, the thinker, the flaneur, are types of illuminati just as much as the opium eater, the dreamer, the ecstatic. Not to mention the most terrible drug—ourselves—which we take in solitude.” In the end, BREAKING OPEN THE HEAD advocates a new way of seeing the world and all of its levels of intelligence, one rendered not only with eloquence, but also with an admirable, fully earned sincerity.

For more information on Pinchbeck’s book, visit www.breakingopenthehead.com.

(originally published in the NASHVILLE SCENE / Village Voice Media)

An all time favourite. Pinchbeck brings his most erudite prose and deep thinking to a year of losing his mind. I refer to him often and will likely think about it forever.

What if...

Interesting trip that leads the reader down a fascinating path of contemplation. The topics covered are interesting and relevant if the reader can “let go” and think about what if the author is through a door that most have never opened. The way the journey is weaved keeps the reader buckled up throughout the ride waiting to find out where the road ends or what is around the bend.

Daniel Pinchbeck is a lot of fun and tells wild tales of his explorations. More importantly, he is well read and thoughtful on his subject. Good psychedelic reading.

Dream a dream, and what you'll see will be
In einer der letzten Folgen der US-Fernsehserie "Homeland" soll ein Drogenabhängiger "auf die schnelle" vom Heroin befreit werden - und ein CIA-Agent hat die Idee, ein hochgefährliches, tödliches Mittel auszuprobieren, das die CIA früher für solche Zwecke einsetzte: Ibogain. Alle schauen den Vorschlagenden entsetzt an - waterboarding, Foltern, Morden, ja gut - aber Ibogain? Dann lieber Heroinabhängigkeit, scheint das Fazit. Ein schönes Beispiel, wie die Medien grundsätzlich entheogene Substanzen behandeln, die ja schon fast so gefährlich scheinen wie eine Runde D&D oder Rockmusik. Gleichzeitig wird im Fernsehen gesoffen, dass sich die Balken biegen - und keiner hat ein Problem damit, die staatlich sanktionierte Droge Alkohol, die gefährlicher und schädlicher ist als alle Halluzinogene zusammen, frei im Supermarkt kaufen zu können (vgl. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/po...).

Pinchbeck beschreibt seinen Weg vom ziellosen Sinnsuchenden hin zum klarsichtigen modernen Schamanen, den er mittels Iboga, Peyote, Zauberpilzen, Ayahuasca, LSD, DMT und schließlich DPT gegangen ist. Sein Erzählstil ist zu Beginn stark an anthropologischen Reise- und Erfahrungsberichten orientiert, bei denen er seine Eindrücke und die anderer Reisebegleiter schildert - hier ist das Buch großartig, spannend und mitreißend. Mit fortschreitender Seitenzahl und Steigerung der Drogenpotenz wird das Buch politisch, eine Anklage an den Kapitalismus und dessen weltzerstörendes und zukunftsloses Tun. In einem dritten Part wendet sich Pinchbeck dann einem schamanistischen Mystizismus zu - hier verliert er mich als Leser etwas.

Vielleicht muss man selbst schon entsprechende Erfahrungen gemacht haben, um diesem Teil wirklich folgen zu können. Über Shrooms und Papers bin ich nicht hinausgekommen, daher kann ich das schwer beurteilen (nach den Berichten Pinchbecks strebe ich das auch nicht mehr wirklich an) - und diejenigen, die Halluzinogenen sowieso ablehnend gegenüberstehen, werden Pinchbeck eh schon viel früher als spinnerten Acidhead abtun. Dabei hat er viel zu sagen, und er tut dies in einem wunderbar lesbaren Ton. Pinchbeck sieht unsere Generation in Gefahr, sich vollends vom Spirituellen zu lösen. Psychotrope Mittel scheinen, verantwortungsvoll und in Maßen genutzt (also nicht zur Unterhaltung und zum "Kicken"), ein Weg zu sein, sich mit dem Sakralen auseinanderzusetzen - und der Bedarf ist zweifellos da, wenn man sich ansieht, was Leute heutzutage alles tun, um sich nicht mit dem Materialismus unserer Konsensgesellschaft abfinden zu müssen; das aktuelle Beispiel sind deutsche Jihadisten.

Ein sehr spannendes Buch über ein Thema, das heutzutage nur noch ein Nischendasein fristet, und dabei man muss eigentlich kein Konsument irgendwelcher Kakteen, Baumrinden oder Pilzen sein, um manche der Ideen in diesem Buch auf sein eigenes Leben zu übertragen. Manchmal brauchen wir nur einen Schubs, der uns den Kopf aufbricht.

An interesting book but seemed all over the place in writing style.

Daniel Pinchbeck takes us on a personal psychedelic reverie into some places we can’t easily access independently, and for that, some credit is due (namely the rituals of ancient cultures as preserved by their modern descendants). The subject of entheogens needs as much positive exposure as it can get. Unfortunately, it seems he used this opportunity to cast himself as a tenured psychonaut, a kind of Terence McKenna, Jack Kerouac hybrid. There are moments in this book when his true prowess as a writer shines through, however, these don’t make up for his generalized glibness and pretentious prose.

This is an excellent book about altered consciousness. I particularly like the fact that it instills a need for respect and integrity when working with the invisible realms. Too many people approach drug use, getting drunk and getting "high," casually. This is dangerous. Daniel Pinchbeck's writing and stories illustrate and emphasize this reality very clearly. I also like how the book is broken down into paired chapters. A first chapter on a particular substance will be historical, anthropological and reference information. The following chapter will be anecdotal information based on personal and direct experiential work. the balance of both sides is elegant and complete. I have recommended and loaned this book to many people.

I've gone back to this book time after time because there is so much valuable information in it from several perspectives - including Pinchbeck's own subjective eyes, historical, cultural, and scientific.

A MUST READ for anyone who has ever taken psychedelics, or is considering taking psychedelics. I recommend this book to everyone I know because it sums up so much of what I believe...if everyone were to read this book, I believe that our culture would be a more accepting place for those who responsibly take psychedelics.

I will warn you that Pinchbeck is highly dogmatic in his claims about psychedelics, and if you're looking for a light read, this IS NOT it.

Be prepared to have your head broken open.

I felt that reading Pinchbeck's book really broke open my head to the world of psychedelics. I have always felt a spiritual connection to the mushrooms I took when I was younger and reading this book about his experiences and references of others who have taken the drug as well, I felt a connection with what he was saying and describing. while the book is informative and intriguing I felt that sometimes it was a little over my head. The plant based hallucinogenic trips he went on really intrigued me and something I might want to dabble in if i ever come across them in the future. Interesting book.