Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gripping, insightful, passionate, poetic and terrifying, 13 Mar 2003
Once upon a time, Daniel Pinchbeck was a thirtysomething member of the New York literary set: "atheist, suspicious, cynical, disbelieving in metaphysical possibilities". Until he had his head "broken open" during a shamanic ritual involving the visionary plant, Iboga, in the Gabon. Already questioning his dependence on and self-disgust with "that most terrible drug" - himself, he embarked on a quest to explore the limits of his own disbelief. The quest led him on frightening and often hilarious journeys visiting shamans still practicing in far-flung pockets of the world: the Ecuadorian Amazon, the high plains of Mexico, and um, The Burning Man festival in Nevada. Shadowing these mind-expanding encounters is the personal story of his metaphysical journey to inner space, via the visionary brew yagé, and other psychedelic plants and chemicals. He is relentlessly confronted with experiences flatly contradicting the mechanistic secular scientific world view of Western life, and is forced to change his mind on just about everything. This is no new-age thesis or extended 'trip report'. The book is an intellectual and personal inquiry. It is rich with literary references and perspectives from thinkers such as Rudolph Steiner, Carl Jung, and Walter Benjamin, as well as the 'usual suspects' such as Sasha Shulgin and Terrence McKenna. It details the cultural history of psychedelic use and delivers philosophical perspectives on shamanism. It probes the powerful synchronicities between the shamanic view of the cosmos and what modern science is just beginning to suspect: that the universe may be far more complex, more bizarre, and more alive and conscious than our rationalistic, materialistic thinking has allowed us to believe.
Pinchbeck discovers shamanism - and its modern, urban psychedelic equivalent - to be an ambiguous tool. An antidote to Western ennui but simultaneously an apocalyptic wake-up call. The more you probe the shamanic cosmos, Pinchbeck discovers, the more it throws up its visions of "imminent historical breakdown and unleashed horrors ahead now approaching us at high speed." Gulp. Very enjoyable.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Full of adventures and ideas, 16 Feb 2004
By A Customer
Pinchbeck throws himself so completely into his subject that this book could have been the senseless ramblings of some burnt out hippie that has done too many psychedelics. Thankfully it isn't, and instead, contains stories of meetings with remarkable people from both from the ancient world and the modern west. Pinchbeck ties this together with some real insights about the role of shamanism and how it can rescue us from our destructive lifestyles. Everyone I know that has read this book has been changed by it. I myself have started taking what I dream very seriously.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A few molecules from heaven, 1 Feb 2007
I first encountered Daniel at the launch of his book, via Strange Attractor magazine, held at the Horse Hospital in London way back in Febuary 2003.
Now I must be honest from the moment the place filled up my concerns started. I am neither a stranger to mind altering chemicals or to supernatural events, and have much experience of those linked to either and indeed both. It quickly became apparent that the bulk of the audience were quite simply what I would call 'druggies' and burnt out hippy rejects, not the etheogenic shamans of which the book was relating to. Unkind perhaps but you had to be there to see it, such as the self proclaimed 'buddhist' who started glowing red and swearing, or the rude judgemental comments aimed at those who dared ask questions. This left me wondering what to expect from our speaker, and indeed his book.
However I found him to be both articulate and down to Earth, which was a good start. What left me concerned, as someone heavily involved in self development and an experiencer of many mystical events, was that I could hear little about real positive benefits from his experiments with chemicals or any of the peculiar happenings. There was no talk of moral and spiritual advancement, it was all just a great adventure, nothing wrong with that however, adventures are fun to hear about after all, but I was glad to realise this before reading the book as I think some may have been expecting rather 'higher' information than was on offer.
He did however mention a subject that I am very involved with, 2012 and the Mayan calendar. On this he showed a deeper side, and seemed more engaged with refined spiritual thought, revealing this side I was able to get a better view of him. His thoughts were very interesting, not identicle to my own but thats neither here nor there. Later i had the chance to question him, and in the evening a few of us went for dinner, where I got a little more of Daniel the man rather than the novelist. An inteligent, polite and fair seeming chap. A contemplative thinker, but more a sceptic rather than a dreamer.
What I am trying to get across is a more balanced picture of both Daniel and his book. Both seem to get very skewed and judgemental reviews all around the net. Despite many accusations to the contrary he made no movements to indicate he should be viewed as some kind of psychedelic guru, or mystical chief. He came across as what he was (back then in 2003) a man with a normal if very succesful career and home life (by normal I mean not supernatural or drug orientated!) whom had encoutered a new and radical mode of thinking. He had dared to step outside of the constricting western materialistic paradigm that had left him feeling uneasy about life, and had taken great risks to find a cure for his malaise.
It seems that for this he has experinced an old treatment of spiritual explorers, crucifiction by the masses.
If you read breaking open the head with this review in mind hopefully you will be able to view the material in a less hostile manner then some seem to of. There is much to be gained and much to enjoy, as I said this really is an adventure novel, but one based in fact rather than fiction, and with a most unlikely hero considering the context in which we find him.
If you have no knowledge of Etheogens (herbal drugs) then this is a perfect gateway into a wolrd much more fascinating than you ever did'nt bother to think. If your a hardened psychonaut then think of it as a greatly extended entry on Erowid, and they are generally good fun right?
As for the journeys to Mexican pyramids, Burning Man, Amazonian jungles and all the rest, well surely everyone loves travel stories with high jinx thrown in?
we are introduced to many of the characters and tales that make etheogenic study the captivating subject it has become. Also we get to see a man teleported from his normal life and job, into a realm where poltergeist start plagueing his home and he has to turn to experts on the occult to better understand what he thought was the 'normal' world around him. So for all those who have had a couple of weird events they will appreciate this.
For me, as someone who has a solid base in the spiritual and supernatural arena, I simply found it interesting to see what my 'normal' world does to those newbies who wander it into, wether purposefully or by accident. I took great voyeuristic pleasure in watching this poor chap squirm at times, but was very glad to see that he came out the other end stronger, better educated and more self aware.
I would advise anyone to read this book, like I say there is something in it for mystics, psyconaughts, sceptics and adventurers alike. I have strted reading his second book '2012', and feel that if you like the first you will like the second to.
Free your mind and the rest will follow...
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