Breaking Open the Head

June 24, 2002
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.

September 1, 2002
In this firsthand account of the world of psychedelic substances today, Village Voice and Rolling Stone writer Pinchbeck weaves elements of his personal life, including vivid descriptions of his reactions to the substances he takes, with larger topics, such as the history of psychedelic substances in the modern world and the foundations of shamanism. To aid his inquiry, he participates in visionary rituals around the world, e.g., taking iboga as part of a tribal initiation in Gabon. He also discusses key figures such as Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Terence McKenna. Pinchbeck repeatedly decries the rationalism and destructiveness of Western culture and the shortsightedness of completely outlawing psychedelic substances. The book is not an extended diatribe, however. The author offers various viewpoints on how certain drugs should be used and on whether a modern, Western shamanism is possible. Pinchbeck posits a universe that may be difficult to accept, but his book will be of interest for public and academic libraries.-Stephen Joseph, Butler Cty. Community Coll. Lib., PA

Starred review from August 1, 2002
Stop the eye-rolling--now! The words "psychedelic" and "contemporary" can be used in the same subtitle, as can "contemporary" and "shamanism" without referring to American consumer shamanism ("I took a weekend workshop") but to the real thing, practiced by the Bwiti of Africa and by Amazon "brujos." Pinchbeck's startling and absorbing book flashes from German philosopher Walter Benjamin and British mind-explorer Aldous Huxley to the literature of anthropology to the politics of drug use, all while touring Gabon's outback, the lush South American jungle (six miles and several world-views away from industrialization), and the wild, evanescent culture of Burning Man in the Nevada desert. What keeps the book from being just another "apologia pro "wasted "vita sua" is the depth of Pinchbeck's personal searching. An agnostic with yearnings toward mysticism at the book's beginning, he underwent, and he documents, a genuine experience of the divine that resulted from "breaking open" the rational mind. He achieved a sophisticated vision, but one not without unease, for he encountered demons as well as gods in the otherworlds. But nothing is more demonic, he concludes, than a society whose relentless commodification blasts a short route to addiction. Grippingly dramatic, powerfully moving, this is a classic of the literature of ecstasy. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)