It's not coincidence, I think, that the two great, readable narratives to come out of the psychedelia's da-glo glory days in the sixties (Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) and its nightmarish decline and fall in the seventies (Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) came from two fellows whose primary love and loyalty was to journalism. Then the substances that Daniel Pinchbeck calls "entheogens" fell into cultural eclipse, the interminable pathology known as the War on Drugs took center stage, and little original or noteworthy has been published on the topic for quite a while. Terence McKenna, brilliant but sometimes barely in touch with the real world, has had the field pretty much to himself.

Now we've got another entrant, not quite up to Wolfe or Thompson, but as wide ranging as McKenna, while staying more level-headed and instructive. The strengths of "Breaking Open the Head" are once again journalistic. Pinchbeck undertakes an odyssey in search of genuine shamans, who can properly initiate him into the authentic use of psychoactive plants. He takes us with us on his journey, sets us into scenes from West Africa, to the invisible perennial contemporary Woodstock in Nevada known as the Burning Man Festival, to the Amazon, to the peyote fields of Mexico, to labs in New York City where chemicals the plant kingdom never quite got around to inventing are concocted and consumed.

We get Pinchbeck's trip reports, yes. We also get his personal spiritual journey, and a refreshingly objective picture of what remains of traditional shamanistic cultures, and what is emerging of Western shamanism (or pseudo-shamanism, as the case may be.) Best of all, we get his thought-provoking ruminations, goosed by his eclectic reading from Huxley to Eliade to Walter Benjamin to Rudolf Steiner, as to what this mysterious human drive to get high at almost any cost is all about. I don't think much of his answers, but his principal question is spang on: what is it about Western civilization? What gives us this chip on our shoulder about any and all forms of ecstatic consciousness, chemically assisted or not? Why is ours almost the only culture in the world to regard hallucinogenic plants with horror, rather than with reverence and
respect?

In the final few chapters, Pinchbeck goes off the deep end, down a rabbit hole into which few of his readers will probably want to follow, convinced that there are objectively real "plant spirits" out there directing psychedelic experiences. But his reportorial instincts are so sound, that he doesn't let his ultimate views color his account of events along the way. And so we are free to ponder some of the questions he doesn't raise. Like: if these chemicals are so all-fired spiritual, why are half the traditional shamans he meets violent, or greedy, or vain? And: how is it that all the ingesters from traditional societies
take the drugs to get practical advice from the spirit world on how to live their ordinary lives, while all the westerners take them in order to find Ultimate Answers, and to step outside consensus reality? With goals so different, can the Westerners' quest really lay claim to the value these substances might have within traditional cultures?

A lively, illuminating read, one of those books that is as fun to argue with as it is to learn from.


Oh, Come, My Dear, Is That Quite Accurate?   March 18, 2003
 52 out of 123 found this review helpful

Daniel Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head makes an earnest attempt to persuade its audience that a variety of natural hallucinogens provide users with a genuine glimpse into the vital world of spirits. Unfortunately, the key question this position raises -- whether the 'other - worldly journeys' experienced are merely hallucinations brought on by the ingested substances - hangs pendulously over the book like a perilously suspended lead brick. Pinchbeck clearly means well, but Breaking Open the Head is amateurish and misguided at almost every turn.

Readers will find that Breaking Open the Head resembles nothing so much as the weighty tome that persistently haunts editor Nancy Hawkins in Muriel Spark's A Far Cry From Kensington (1988): "On every page, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Goethe, Ibsen, Freud, Jung, Huxley, Kierkegaard, and no grasp whatsoever of any of them." Likewise, Pinchbeck uses excerpts from the work of respectable authors Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, Carlo Ginsburg, and Claude Levi - Strauss, but readers would be wiser consulting the original texts than quietly mulling through the mish - mash of their ideas presented here. Elsewhere, Breaking Open the Head is an undizzying brew of Artaud, Aleister Crowley, Thomas Pynchon, William Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Allen Ginsberg, Terence McKenna, Ken Kesey, and the discredited Carlos Castaneda. Even Dion Fortune gets a mention in the bibliography, which also lists Jeremy Narby's valueless Shamans Through Time as a source. Elsewhere, Pinchbeck refers to W. Y. Evans - Wentz's The Fairy Faith In Celtic Countries rather than to the far superior (but academically less esteemed) Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland by Lady Gregory and William Butler Yeats.

Things start off badly in the introduction when Pinchbeck reveals that one of his greatest inspirations is Walter Benjamin, a writer who spent his life overstating and complicating the obvious and more often than not simply embracing thin air. Pinchbeck, who is smart enough to reject Lacan, quotes Benjamin's comments on the Surrealists: "In the world's structure, dream loosens individuality like a bad tooth. This loosening of the self by intoxication is, at the same time, precisely the fruitful, living experience that allowed these people to step outside the domain of intoxication." Pinchbeck interprets this to mean "altered states allowed thinkers to escape, temporarily, from the overwhelming, and intoxicating, dreamworld of capitalism." One chapter is titled "Great Robot Empires," but its second paragraph begins "When I returned to New York a few days later, I checked my email," suggesting that Pinchbeck is grossly unaware of how comfortably and thoroughly a utilizer of the great capitalist robot empire he is himself. Pinchbeck has a weakness for pretentious thinkers, including Jean - Francois Lyotard -- "Being prepared to receive what thought is not prepared to think is what deserves the name of thinking." Apparently this tendency for embracing unnecessarily convoluted if not meaningless texts runs in Pinchbeck's family, as the reader is told that the author's tormented father, a failed abstract expressionist painter, "read constantly" of "Blanchot, Derrida, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche." Sadly, picking up a Zane Grey or P. G. Wodehouse apparently never occurred to him.

Pinchbeck's trials and tribulations while under the influence of a variety of hallucinogens in both familiar and isolated parts of the world are often unintentionally hilarious, even as they suggest a fatally careless tendency in his nature. During one session in the East Village "organized by a couple from California," the author and several others ingest yage after being provided with "Adult Depends diapers" and "plastic buckets for vomiting." In fact, so many people vomit in Breaking Open the Head that readers will expect to find Vomiting listed in the index. In another encounter, Pinchbeck travels to Gabon without first practicing due diligence, and has just the kind of experience any mature adult would expect when putting one's life completely, naively, and foolishly in the hands of unknown citizens of a strange culture. Pinchbeck is clearly familiar the work of Paul Bowles, but nonetheless places himself in exactly the sort of position that Bowles' luckless, doomed protagonists find themselves in in tale after tale and novel after novel.

Breaking Open the Head finds its author uncomfortably growing up in public; small but potent signs of deep insecurity, narcissism, and repressed hysteria (see his use of the word 'very' below) abound. Pinchbeck spends two paragraphs recounting the suffering that his "preposterous last name" and "spurious moniker" (pinchbeck means "false gold") has brought him, forgetting that "pinchbeck" is not exactly a word in common usage, and certainly not "goldbrick" in any case. The author's style also betrays itself, as Pinchbeck is fond of sentences like "it sounded like she was vomiting out her very being" and "the short - term greed and monotonous moral blindness -- increasingly threaten the very fabric of our being." Something of a grandchild of the Beat Generation (his mother was an important figure in the life of Jack Kerouac), readers might expect Pinchbeck would downplay (if mention at all) this unsubtle fact in the greater interest of his reputation, but he does not.

In Daimonic Reality: Understanding Otherworld Encounters (1994), Patrick Harpur succeeded at creating a lucid, intelligent, and deeply felt book not unlike what Pinchbeck has attempted here. Harpur also continually referred to Jung, Yeats, Blake, and others, and built his arguments thoroughly and soundly around the work and the experiences of these distinguished visionaries. In addition, Harpur had a cornucopia of original ideas of his own and brilliant talent for assimilating diverse threads of Western culture. Pinchbeck, unfortunately, merely jumps from specious "dialectic" to specious "dialectic," propping up his text with passages taken from other authors that he believes support his very slight, watery theses. The final impression Breaking Open the Head makes is not one of heightened insight or wisdom, but of short - sidedness, tunnel - vision, and its author's own lack of acute perception concerning the world around him and what may or may not constitute the nature of reality.


Psychedelics and Anti-Capitalism   December 23, 2002
 51 out of 54 found this review helpful

We can now speak of an entheogenic renaissance and this book is part of the growing literature of that movement. "Breaking Open the Head" is an autobiographical account in which the author details his transformation from a cynical Manhattan atheist to an entheogenic psychonaut. Along the way, the writer introduces us to the various psychedelics in use, their effects and cultural history (i.e how they have been used throughout history &/or at present).

One element that differentiates this book from other psychedelic accounts is Pinchbeck raises criticisms of capitalism, often via
the voice of Walter Benjamin. We are all under the spell of capital. We are hypnotised by commercials and advertising jingles. We are told, by the powers that be, that capitalism is "natural", that we have arrived at some kind of Hegelian "End of History", in which capitalism has won and any attempts to imagine a different scenario, a different form of global exchange, is empty utopianism. Unfortunately, many of us have accepted this fabrication. And so it is, that the rainforest continues to be depleted, many people in Third World countries live in poverty (thanks to multinational corporations and the politics of debt played by such organizations as the World Bank); spiritually
empty we, in the post-industrial capitalist countries, greedily seek to fill our spiritual emptiness with things, commodities. We consume more and more, yet still cannot fill the emptiness. We're like rats on a turnwheel.

Psychedelics MAY be PART of the antidote to all of this.
Through psychedelics we are awakened from our trance and can see the world from a completely different perspective. Psychedelics spark creativity. It has been said that Silicon Valley (where I work by the way) would not exist if it were not for acid. That may be an exaggeration, but only in part. Numerous luminaries in the field of computer science sought/seek inspiration through psychedelic visions. What's more, psychedelics reveal a broader (not necessarily HIGHER) reality. As biological organisms, our brains have specialized (at least this is my opinion) and have closed out many parts of the larger reality that exists. In our everyday existence, We stare out at the world through a narrow chink and conclude that is all there is.

All this may sound incredible to those who have never experienced
the states entrained by psychedelics. Many believe that psychedelics are a means of escaping reality. It is possible, like all things, that they could be used to that end. However,
for the escapist, psychedelics would not be the drug of choice. The reason for this being that psychedelics are AMPLIFIERS, not sedatives. If you were to use them as a means to escape some phenomenon, that phenomenon would more than likely end up in your trip amplified to the nth power!

I am happy that through his book an anti-capitalist orientation has been introduced into the psychedelic context. While it is true that psychedelics have more or less defied being co-opted by capitalism (indeed there is a "war on drugs" campaign), there could be in the future an attempt to "integrate" psychedelics into capitalism. We have seen how the "New Age" is, for the most part, a marketing scheme. We have learned how paranormal talents, such as remote viewing, were tested by the CIA for use in spying. Should we break through this period of "anti-drug hysteria", one can well imagine that psychedelics could be coopted for capitalist use.

We, instead, should use psychedelics as a means of breaking free of the capitalist mindset, envisioning other possible socio-economic systems, and re-associating with the broader reality that exists (which some call the "spirit world").


Absolutely essential reading on many levels.......   October 3, 2002
 35 out of 36 found this review helpful

If you've found the writing of Terence McKenna interesting and thought-provoking, then you should consider this book an immediate must-read. However, Pinchbeck's book deserves to be read (and hopefully WILL be read) by a much wider cross-section of society than McKenna's. One of the problems inherent to writing about psychedelic experiences is that the nature of the experience itself makes describing it through the written word extremely difficult. I think Pinchbeck has done an incredible job of bridging this gap (to the extent that is indeed possible) and relating his experiences in a way that even someone who has never touched a psychedelic substance can begin to understand.

While that in itself is an important achievement, I think the real value of this book lies in the moral and ethical issues it ultimately poses for the reader...and this includes both those who've used these types of drugs, as well as those who've never even had a beer. The issues of corporate greed, ecosystem destruction, and blatant consumerism have never been more relevant to our society; the author addresses these issues with thought-provoking insight, and offers some extremely interesting and somewhat frightening ideas about the future of the human race....ideas that seem to have been catalyzed, but NOT created, by his use of psychedelics.

In my opinion, that's where the real value of this book lies, and the reason it should be a rewarding and worthwhile read for anyone who considers himself a concerned, active, thinking member of society and the human race. It would be a tragedy if potential readers overlook this and skip the book based on a preconceived notion about the subject matter.


Break Open the Head but Keep the Brains   August 22, 2005
 22 out of 22 found this review helpful

Pinchbeck has put a great deal of research and years of rich personal experience into this interesting, highly readable book. His presentation of both traditional uses of psychedelic plants as well as contemporary experimentation reveals a powerful history and looming future role for these substances.

The writing style is fast paced and lucid, largely due to the fact that author has invested the text with his own personal journey to better communicate what these drugs are all about. The psychedelics ended up playing a powerful role in his own philosophy and his candidly portrayed crises and angst adds much to the journalistic style. However, because the book is so infused with the author's perspective it also opens itself to much criticism since he ultimately comes out the other side of psychedelic usage like so many pioneers before him did-as ardent advocates nearly devoid of critical reflection. There is a certain `rah-rah drugs!' indulgence that appears time and again when reading many of the luminaries of this field. This makes one appreciate the sober-minded folks (like Shulgin) all the more. The usage of these fascinating substances seems to engender a particular soft-headedness. As Timothy Leary, Terrence McKenna, and many others have demonstrated, you can go too far too fast and lose the critical mindset necessary to better integrate these radical insights into a contemporary context.

My feeling is that the psychedelics reveal such strange alternate landscapes that one's traditional tools of thinking, the various types of logic and criticism that form the basis of Western science and culture, prove inadequate. And, instead of proceeding with humility and parsimonious words, so many psychedelic initiates lose all their rational sensibilities and accept any and every irrational method to interpret these strange new experiences. So a finely trained academic with a critical mindset and particular methodology may well end up prattling on about alien visitors, elfin overlords, the intricacies of the I-Ching and its improbable correspondences with Mayan calendrical prophecies, sex with geometrical entities, Jungian synchronicities by the droves, new found weather controlling abilities, etc. In short, so many courageous `psychonauts' come back not with a set of careful notes and humble observations but with typically schizophrenic symptoms. This does not bode well for future research. If this field is to progress it must eschew the `holy fool' model of communication for something a little more humble and dignified. If Western reason is incapable of integrating the highly charged episodes of a psychedelic experience then one should choose to record observations with detachment and avoid overlaying it with shoddy irrational systems.

I admire the enthusiasm and wild stories that this crowd of researchers brings to the campfire but worry that it will otherwise spoil an interesting field of research. The great explorers of history are not the ones who become famous for sensational tales but return with genuine wonder that fuels disciplined research, observation, and future exploration. The book is a fun and wonderful read, but if one is new to these ideas he should read them with sufficient caution and criticism. It is important that in breaking open one's head one doesn't allow his brains to entirely fall out.