Ten Trips

This is an original and thrilling investigation into psychedelics and the claims and narratives that currently surround them. Its journey across the spectrum of wildly different psychedelic paradigms with which we're currently presented - scientific, therapeutic, countercultural, indigenous - demonstrates the extent to which psychedelic experiences are shaped by context and expectation, and transcends these limits to achieve profound insights into their essential qualities -- Mike Jay, author of Psychonauts A dazzling, timely book, as deep and poignant as it is madcap and hilarious - exactly what you'd want from a book on psychedelics. Mitchell does something rare: he takes a promising, voguish region of interest in medical neuroscience and deepens it so that the whole culture is implicated -- Professor Mark Lythgoe, Director of the Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, University College London A hair-raising hurtle of a ride into the belly of the psychedelic renaissance, exposing and dissecting its perils and pitfalls, as well as the marvels and mysteries the 'medicines' can open up, all fueled by spectacular prose, and by the urgency of a desperate quest for healing of self, world and culture. Neuroscience, extractive post-colonialism, religion, therapy, addiction treatment, meditation, the contemporary wellbeing industry - all are given a thorough shaking-out, with as much brilliantly rendered trip porn as you could ever hope for -- Henry Shukman, author of One Blade of Grass As self-described thought leaders, bureaucrats and Wall Street tune in to the promise of medical psychedelics as an antidote to all that ails us, Mitchell's decapod of delirious drug experiences is, in turn, an antidote to this hype and a rallying cry to keep psychedelics... psychedelic -- Josh Hardman, Psychedelic Alpha A much-needed corrective to the psychedelic science hype machine, Mitchell offers his own punctuated, racing dreamscapes. Eagle-eyed, poetic, and always playful, Ten Trips is chock-full of profane illumination -- Tehseen Noorani, Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Pharmacy, University of Auckland