Psychedelic mysticism : transforming consciousness, religious experiences, and voluntary peasants in postwar America / Morgan Shipley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shipley, Morgan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hallucinogenic drugs and religious experience.

Hallucinogenic drugs--Social aspects--United States--20th century.

Hallucinogenic drugs.

Social aspects.

United States.

Physical Description:

xii, 281 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, MD. : Lexington Books, 2015.

Summary:

Although commonly celebrated as a distinct manifestation of Americana, hippies and psychedelics are routinely de-emphasized in favor of direct political activism, a phenomenon that constrains the full telling of the hippie counterculture as it relates to a radical religiosity defined by mutuality and altruism. Psychedelic Mysticism reevaluates the religious significance of the 1960s psychedelic counterculture, tracing how psychedelics became entheogenic, leading sixties figures to transition personal moments of enlightenment into everyday projects of social justice.

Contents:

Seeing Differently: Hippies and Problems of Representation 3

Psychedelic Consciousness and a Perennial Altruism 22

1 "Exploring the Borderlands of the Mind": Aldous Huxley, Transforming Consciousness, and Mapping Psychedelic Mysticism 43

Huxley and a Psychonautic Topography 46

Writing the Ineffable 50

Mapping the "Sacramental Vision of Reality" 53

From the Religious Mind of Huxley to the Altruistic Heart of Psychedelic Mystics 62

2 "A Necessary but Not Sufficient Condition": Psychedelic Mysticism, Perennial Oneness, and Questions of Authenticity 75

From Material Hedonism to Mystical Liminalily 80

Perenmalism, Comparative Mysticism, and Psychedelic Consciousness 83

Psychedelic Mysticism: Universally Available or Culturally Contingent? 89

From Psychedelic Mysticism to Entheogenic Religion-A Case Study 94

3 "Awakened from a Long Ontological Sleep": Timothy Leary, Deconditioning the Game, and Ecstatic Therapy 111

Acid Casualties, Mediated Images, and an "Empirical Metaphysics" 113

The Games of Life, Psychedelic Therapy, and Spiritual Efficacy 121

Religious Awakening and Changing Behavior 128

The Concord Prison Experiment-A Case Study 132

4 "Trust your Divinity, Trust your Brain, Trust your Companions": Psychedelic Manuals, Entheogens, and the Flowering of a Perennial Religion 149

Appropriating Beliefs and the Challenge of Mystical Release 151

"A Journey to New Realms of Consciousness": An Ethics of Use 158

The Bardos and the Mystical Form of Psychedelic Consciousness 162

Psychedelic Manuals. Unitive From Therapy, and the Void 172

Conclusion: "This Season's People": Stephen Gaskin, Psychedelic Unity, and a Religious Community of Social Justice 193

Psychedelics, Religion, and Moral Living

Psychedelic Communality and Religious Interbeing 202

Psychedelic Religiosity as "Right Vocation" 206

Standing "Behind his Principles": Sacralizing Praxis 213.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-261) and index.

ISBN:

1498509096

9781498509091

OCLC:

916590371