| by Robert Anton Wilson This book can be considered a "scholarly" appraisal of both the historical and modern use (and misuse) of drugs in conjunction with sex and "occult" practices. But don't let the word "scholarly" put you off. Done in Wilson's inimitable style, this is a book filled with humor, cynicism, wonder and essential information for those who would pursue what can be an immensely rewarding path, potholed with an array of social and physical dangers. A potentially explosive book if it catches on. It is remarkably free from the Alice-in-Freakland logic so popular among drug scene apologists; concurrently it has enormous built-in appeal for those we lump—for want of a more explicit term—into the "counterculture." Wilson's major concern—the causal relationship between the "real" sex drugs (marijuana, hashish, cocaine, the psychedelics) and sexual pleasure and performance—is pursued via case histories, consideration of the medical and social scientific evidence, and personal formulations (e.g., a tabular comparison of "ordinary" sex and sex on varieties of dope). All of this is accomplished in an easy spirit of author-reader camaraderie. But Wilson's turn-on goes well beyond examination of the sensate drug-sex experience: he analyzes historically and cross-culturally the use of stimulants in Christian and Oriental societies, finding parallels, for instance, between Masters and Johnson's recent findings and Hindu practices. More important, he sees the drug-sex equation (or "revolution") as precipitating a "holy war" within the hitherto repressed "Christian" (or puritan) soul—"the crisis in Christian culture is mainly sexual we should not be surprised that sexual elements are very prominent in the unconscious channels opened by the Drug Revolution." Wilson recognizes the hazardous side of the drug milieu and includes a risk-warning glossary which emphasizes moderation and small doses ("I write as a war correspondent, awash in a deluge of propaganda from both sides."), but his sympathies are openly pro-liberation—Timothy Leary, he says, made the "second most important scientific-political decision of our century" (the first was Einstein's resolve to help the U.S. obtain the A-bomb) when he decided that LSD "was too important to be monopolized by any government, or any scientific committee, or any other elite; that it should be available to all." To reiterate: if this essay gets the attention it should, psycho-sexual consciousness could be expanded by, what?, a decade, an orgiastic eruption, one person's victory over frigidity? Who knows? The only sure thing is, "the future will be much wilder and hairier than the immediate past." — Kirkus Reviews "Robert Anton Wilson is one of the leading thinkers of the modem age." — Barbara Marx Hubbard, Committee for the Future "The most important philosopher of this century..." — Timothy Leary Novelist, teacher and former Playboy editor, Robert Anton Wilson is the author of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy; the Illuminatus! trilogy (with Robert Shea); the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy; the Historical Illuminatus series; TSOG: The Thing That Ate The Constitution; Prometheus Rising; Quantum Psychology; Coincidance; Email to the Universe; and many other works. ISBN-13: 978-1-56184-001-4
5.5 x 8.5
Paperback: 272 Pages | 
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