daniel
02-09-2003, 10:33 AM
http://www.alibi.com/alibi/2002-12-19/bookreview.html
Smoke This
By Steven Robert Allen
I've always been a sucker for this kind of book. Thomas de Quincey's classic Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Mohammed Mrabet's M'Hashish and William S. Burrough's psychotic ramblings about every mind-altering substance under the moon all make for great reading. I've just got a soft spot for books about drugs.
This is partly because I'm not much of a drug user myself, and when I do use anything, I stick to the soft stuff. Dipping into these warm pools of literary exoticism, I've learned about some of the strange states induced by these substances without risking nausea or any psychic unpleasantness.
That isn't the only reason I like reading this sort of book, though. Psychoactive drugs have a mystical quality that has always attracted me. In Breaking Open the Head, Pinchbeck does a better-than-average job of describing just what that quality is.
A privileged, hip, Manhattan intellectual, at a certain point in his life Pinchbeck found himself oppressed by the same crushing ennui that affects so many atheists in contemporary, secular America. Without the crutch of traditional religion, he began to succumb to the feeling that his life was meaningless.
It's a fairly common, bourgeois malady, to be sure, one that many people suffer from at one time or another. Pinchbeck couldn't turn to Jesus or Allah or Buddha or any traditional godhead, because his rational mind couldn't give into that kind of antiquated superstition, no matter how much comfort it might have given him.
So he did the only thing he could do: He placed himself in the slingshot of psychedelic drugs and shot himself straight into the arms of God. It's less infantile than it sounds. Being intellectually inclined, Pinchbeck wasn't satisfied with just scoring some mushrooms, peyote or acid, and tripping in his bedroom every Saturday night. He'd already done those things in college. Hankering for the full shamanic experience, he hopped on a plane to Africa and took part in a Bwiti initiation that involved ingesting a powerful psychedelic drug called iboga. Then he went to Oaxaca, Mexico, to pop some magic mushrooms under the watchful eye of a Mazatec shaman. From there, he went on to take various other drugs, mostly in controlled settings.
In between descriptions of these experiences, Pinchbeck inserts his own thoughts along with relevant theories from various philosophers and occultists. Taken as a whole, Breaking Open the Head is a sustained, often terrifying exploration of drug-induced visions. Over the course of the book, Pinchbeck ultimately makes a dramatic transformation from a hyper-rational intellectual who embraces science and secularism to a believer in spiritual realms that exist well beyond ordinary imagining.
Is this all just smoke and mirrors? Is Breaking Open the Head just the delusional rant of a writer fooled by chemicals into believing in the existence of higher spirits and alternate worlds? Quite possibly. I came away from this book intrigued by Pinchbeck's stories but thankful I hadn't dabbled with all those drugs. If what Pinchbeck describes is illusion, then I'd rather just read about it. If what he describes is real, then I'm definitely not ready to see it.
Smoke This
By Steven Robert Allen
I've always been a sucker for this kind of book. Thomas de Quincey's classic Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Mohammed Mrabet's M'Hashish and William S. Burrough's psychotic ramblings about every mind-altering substance under the moon all make for great reading. I've just got a soft spot for books about drugs.
This is partly because I'm not much of a drug user myself, and when I do use anything, I stick to the soft stuff. Dipping into these warm pools of literary exoticism, I've learned about some of the strange states induced by these substances without risking nausea or any psychic unpleasantness.
That isn't the only reason I like reading this sort of book, though. Psychoactive drugs have a mystical quality that has always attracted me. In Breaking Open the Head, Pinchbeck does a better-than-average job of describing just what that quality is.
A privileged, hip, Manhattan intellectual, at a certain point in his life Pinchbeck found himself oppressed by the same crushing ennui that affects so many atheists in contemporary, secular America. Without the crutch of traditional religion, he began to succumb to the feeling that his life was meaningless.
It's a fairly common, bourgeois malady, to be sure, one that many people suffer from at one time or another. Pinchbeck couldn't turn to Jesus or Allah or Buddha or any traditional godhead, because his rational mind couldn't give into that kind of antiquated superstition, no matter how much comfort it might have given him.
So he did the only thing he could do: He placed himself in the slingshot of psychedelic drugs and shot himself straight into the arms of God. It's less infantile than it sounds. Being intellectually inclined, Pinchbeck wasn't satisfied with just scoring some mushrooms, peyote or acid, and tripping in his bedroom every Saturday night. He'd already done those things in college. Hankering for the full shamanic experience, he hopped on a plane to Africa and took part in a Bwiti initiation that involved ingesting a powerful psychedelic drug called iboga. Then he went to Oaxaca, Mexico, to pop some magic mushrooms under the watchful eye of a Mazatec shaman. From there, he went on to take various other drugs, mostly in controlled settings.
In between descriptions of these experiences, Pinchbeck inserts his own thoughts along with relevant theories from various philosophers and occultists. Taken as a whole, Breaking Open the Head is a sustained, often terrifying exploration of drug-induced visions. Over the course of the book, Pinchbeck ultimately makes a dramatic transformation from a hyper-rational intellectual who embraces science and secularism to a believer in spiritual realms that exist well beyond ordinary imagining.
Is this all just smoke and mirrors? Is Breaking Open the Head just the delusional rant of a writer fooled by chemicals into believing in the existence of higher spirits and alternate worlds? Quite possibly. I came away from this book intrigued by Pinchbeck's stories but thankful I hadn't dabbled with all those drugs. If what Pinchbeck describes is illusion, then I'd rather just read about it. If what he describes is real, then I'm definitely not ready to see it.