The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia describes the archaeology of ecstasy. A pioneering study that explores the widespread use of psychedelic substances throughout human history.
Many people assume that experimentation with hallucinogens began with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, and the psychedelic revolution of the '60s and '70s. In fact, as this illuminating study demonstrates, psychedelics have been used by human societies in every part of the world for ritual and spiritual purposes for millennia. As Paul Devereux points out, our modern culture is eccentric in its refusal to integrate the profound experiences offered by these natural substances into our own spiritual life and traditions.
Modern Western culture's recent experimentation with psychedelic drugs raised the awareness of archaeologists and anthropologists, leading them to recognize the use of hallucinogens in surviving traditional societies and in the archaeological record. Devereux reveals dramatic new evidence ¾ from linguistics, ethnobotany, biology, and other fields ¾ for the psychedelic experiences of various prehistoric cultures, and ponders the implications and effects of psychedelic revelations on our contemporary worldview, linking them to out-of-body and near-death experiences, shamanic trances, even memory and dreaming!
A fascinating study of an influential yet underexplored experience, The Long Trip is revelatory in its findings, invaluable in its research, and important in its attempts to address many deep questions confronting our culture today. Read this book and discover what a long, strange trip it's been!