Varieties Of Psychedelic Experience: The Classic Guide to the Effects of LSD on the Human Psyche

This book is a fantastic look into the psychedelic experience from a relatively objective position. It has invaluable advice and insights into something pretty much impossible to put into words. Great psychotherapeutic theoretical knowledge too.

Terrific book, very well written and sober.

It's very difficult for me to find words to review this book. It is so good and has such power to change one's thinking about life, death and the nature of reality that you have to read it yourself and then you might find that you are knocking upon the doors of a great mystery. We live in the age of the demonisation of drugs and thereby forgo their potential for healing the mind and for deeply moving spiritual insights.

This is a classic work from the time LSD was first brought into the world spotlight.A treasure trove of contemporary stories, research and speculations with a useful forward and epilogue.If you are interested in entheogens and their history, then this book is a must.I found the particular edition I bought (Park Street Press) was rather hard to read due to the way the book was bound (narrow inner margin, 326 pages), its small size (slightly smaller than A5) and the small font used.I recommend a bigger one for maximum reading enjoyment.

Huston and Masters give a well detailed and extremely fair minded account of the psychedelic experience, primarily via LSD sessions that were recorded by observers who were trained in psychology. The book covers the myriad aspects of "the trip" from perceptions of the human body to the deep religious experience.The book is somewhat more scholarly than the works of someone like Timothy Leary but this is what is needed if this movement is to ever regain its legitimacy in the eyes of the general public. While it does not condone the illegal use of the drugs, it decries their suppression and the utter halt of legitimate research into these fascinating and important substances. Read it with an open mind, but remember that the drugs are illegal and therefore also potentially dangerous. That aside, the book will almost certainly spark your curiousity.