Storming Heaven: Lsd and the American Dream - Softcover

Stevens, Jay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 006097172X ISBN 13: 9780060971724

Publisher: Harpercollins, 1988

Synopsis

To a generation of psychotherapists, LSD was a door to the unconscious. To the CIA, which purchased enough to turn on 100 million people, it was potentially a mind-control weapon. To Aldous Huxley, it was a force which could push mankind up the evolutionary ladder, a belief inherited by Dr Timothy Leary, who thought LSD would transform America into a spiritual Utopia. "Storming Heaven" begins in scientific investigation and ends in social and cultural revolution. With names like Henry Luce, Cary Grant, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, G Gordon Liddy and Charles Manson, the books examines a force which shaped contemporary America.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The extraordinary story of how LSD evolved from a psychiatric experience to a social and political revolution, 'Storming Heaven' is a brilliant, revelatory investigation into how the powerful hallucinogenic drug has been used and abused. From the first explorations into LSD's psychotic effects by the American establishment to the notorious 'Summer of Love', the positive role of the mind-expanding and creative properties of the drug is a debate that has been raging for over a generation, from Aldous Huxley to Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey to Timothy Leary and Charles Manson. 'Storming Heaven' guides us through an American Dream that was – for many who tuned in, turned on and dropped out – an epic hallucination.

"A valuable historical document."
TIMOTHY LEARY

"A story about the imagination unleashed... full of irony and anecdote."
GUARDIAN

"A fascinating book... aided by an awesome amount of research and detail."
TIME OUT

"A remarkably fluent and intelligent book."
DAVID WIDGERY, 'New Statesman & Society'

"Stevens's narrative moves along at a cracking pace... reads like a good, often funny detective yarn."
NEW SCIENTIST

About this edition

• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 006097172X
• ISBN 13: 9780060971724
• Binding: Paperback