An exploration of the personal and spiritual truths revealed through LSD
• Reveals that LSD visions weave an ongoing story from trip to trip
• Shows that trips progress through three stages: personal issues and pre-birth consciousness, ego-loss, and on to the sacred
• Explores psychedelic use throughout history, including the mass hallucinations common in the Middle Ages and the early therapeutic use of LSD
Toward the end of his fifties, Christopher Gray took, for the first time in years, a 100-microgram acid trip. So extraordinary, and to his surprise so enjoyable, were the effects that he began to take the same dose in the same way--quietly and on his own--once every two to three weeks.
In The Acid Diaries, Gray details his experimentation with LSD over a period of three years and shares the startling realization that his visions were weaving an ongoing story from trip to trip, revealing an underlying reality of personal and spiritual truths. Following the theories of Stanislav Grof and offering quotes from others’ experiences that parallel his own--including those of Aldous Huxley, Albert Hofmann, and Gordon Wasson--he shows that trips progress through three stages: the first dealing with personal issues and pre-birth consciousness; the second with ego-loss, often with supernatural overtones; and the third with sacred, spiritual, and even apocalyptic themes. Pairing his experiences with an exploration of psychedelic use throughout history, including the ergot-spawned mass hallucinations that were common through the Middle Ages and the early use of LSD for therapeutic purposes, Gray offers readers a greater understanding and appreciation for the potential value of LSD not merely for transpersonal growth but also for spiritual development.
By:
Christopher Gray
Imprint: Park Street Press,U.S.
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 28mm
Weight: 338g
ISBN: 9781594773839
ISBN 10: 1594773831
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 24 September 2010
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface 1 Batch 25 2 Wonder Drug 3 The Doors of Perception 4 Psychopolitics and the Sixties 5 Bad Trips 6 The First Maps 7 Sleep--and Waking Up 8 Realms of the Human Unconscious 9 Session 1: A Low-Dose Trip 10 The First Group of Trips 11 Session 6: Doubling the Dose 12 BPM 2 13 Session 8: Windle Hey 14 Session 9: Mum 15 Underground Psychotherapy 16 Set, Setting, and History 17 God as Light 18 “I Saw a Man Cloathed with Raggs . . .” 19 Resistance 20 Psychedelics Since the Sixties 21 Resistance (continued) 22 Anna and A Cappella 23 Anna’s Death 24 Session 21: Being Two People Simultaneously 25 The Transpersonal 26 Tripping on the Heath 27 The Purple Flowers 28 “Ecstatic Journey of the Living into the Realm of the Dead . . .” 29 “Ecstatic Journey . . .” (continued) 30 Terrible Beauty 31 “Not the true samadhi . . .” 32 Session 27: Last Trip in the Woods 33 Demonstrations, Ecstasy, Advaita 34 Return of the Repressed 35 “Another World Is Possible” 36 “Another World Is Possible” (continued) 37 Toward a Sacramental Vision of Reality 38 Meltdown in God 39 Out of the Body? 40 Session 45: At Judges Walk 41 BPM 4 42 The Long Flashback 43 Interim Report 44 Interim Report (continued) 45 Mutual Immanence 46 Sanctus Appendix: Ergot and the West Notes Bibliography: A Chronology of Psychedelic Literature
Christopher Gray (1942-2009) was well known for his involvement in the 1960s with Situationist International, for his various radical writings, and as Swami Prem Paritosh, disciple of the guru Osho. He translated Raoul Vaneigem’s Banalités de Base (as The Totality for Kids) and is the author of Leaving the Twentieth Century, the first English- language anthology of Situationist ideas, and the biography Life of Osho.
Reviews for The Acid Diaries: A Psychonaut's Guide to the History and Use of LSD
Like any strong acid trip, there is both existential angst and cosmic bliss, and many states in between. The Acid Diaries is a contemporary classic of personal psychedelic exploration.
