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Breaking Open the Head Paperback – 2 Feb. 2004
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A new ‘The Doors of Perception’ for the 21st century? A visionary journey from cynicism to shamanism by a brilliant young US writer.
Daniel Pinchbeck was an essentially sane and rational person, living the life of a sophisticated urbanite. But one disenchanted day he felt he’d exhausted the shallow aspirations of the contemporary scene. So he went on a quest.
And he went all the way: to West Africa to test Iboga, a psychedelic herb which can cause such profound insight that one dose equals twenty years of psychoanalysis; to the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert where cutting-edge technology meets radical self-exploration; to Mexico and to the Amazon where shamanic traditions are practised daily.
Sceptical but curious, following in the footsteps of Aldous Huxley and Terence McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck guides his readers on an astonishing journey around the world and through the mind. Are you brave enough to suspend your post-modern cynicism and break open the head with him?
- ISBN-100007149611
- ISBN-13978-0007149612
- PublisherFlamingo
- Publication date2 Feb. 2004
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions12.9 x 2.13 x 19.81 cm
- Print length336 pages
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Review
‘As mind-expanding as the chemicals it chronicles, “Breaking Open the Head” is the most artful and provocative investigation of psychedelia since Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception”.’ Stephen Johnson, author of ‘Emergence’
‘I much admire “Breaking Open the Head” for being the account of an authentic quest for enlightenment in jungles, up rivers, in deserts, and hardest of all to access, the human mind and heart via the one of the oldest thoroughfares on earth, mind-expanding drugs. This is a serious and illuminating journey.’ Paul Theroux
‘By the end of this highly readable report, Pinchbeck’s head has been broken into so often – by ayahuasca, magic mushrooms, DMT and other drugs – that you might expect him to install hinges. Yet there is a seriousness behind his self-experiments and while the drug tales are gripping, and funny, he is at pains to put them in the context of his search for meaning.’ Guardian
‘A modern Odyssey, a search for spiritual revelations, a success.’ Independent
About the Author
daniel pinchbeck is a founding editor of leading US literary quarterly Open City, and he has written for many US publications such as Rolling Stone and the Village Voice.
Product details
- Publisher : Flamingo (2 Feb. 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0007149611
- ISBN-13 : 978-0007149612
- Dimensions : 12.9 x 2.13 x 19.81 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 78,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 34 in Occult Shamanism
- 46 in Psychology & Hypnosis
- 72 in Shamanism
- Customer reviews:
About the author

I am the author of Breaking Open the Head (Broadway Books, 2002), 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), How Soon Is Now (Watkins, 2017), and When Plants Dream (Watkins, 2019), among other works.
In When Plants Dream, coauthored with anthropologist Sophia Rokhlin, we look at the global spread of ayahuasca. We consider the history of ayahuasca, how indigenous communities use it, as well as its legal, medicinal, and spiritual aspects. Graham Hancock writes: "When Plants Dream ... is the first book to set the Ayahuasca phenomenon in its proper context as it emerges from its background in Amazonian shamanism into the foreground of the urbanized 21st century.The authors write well, demonstrate a masterful grasp of their subject, set out all the key facts and all the latest research and developments, and lead us to some thought-provoking conclusions. All in all a tour de force. Highly recommended."
How Soon Is Now came out in February, 2017. Featuring a preface by Sting and an introduction by Russell Brand, How Soon Is Now looks at the ecological crisis as a rite of passage or initiation for humanity and proposes a "blueprint for the future" - how we must redesign our technical and social systems to avert the worst possibilities and to build a regenerative society for the future. According to John Perkins, "Daniel Pinchbeck’s life is the hero’s journey. Like Homer’s Odyssey, How Soon Is Now is a song of redemption for a world torn apart by the monsters of our own creation. We’ve dreamed a world that is consuming itself into extinction. Pinchbeck offers us a new dream and in doing so takes us on a powerful, magical voyage into balance and sanity."
Other new titles include The Occult Control System, on UFOs and aliens, and a full-length play, Deep Zero. These are only available via Amazon.
My essays and articles have been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Rolling Stone, ArtForum, The New York Times Book Review, The Village Voice and many other publications. I have written columns for Conscious Living and Dazed & Confused. My life and work were featured in the 2010 documentary, 2012: Time for Change, directed by Joao Amorim and produced by Mangusta Films. Amorim and I also produced a series of short animated films, PostModernTimes.
I have been a speaker at conferences around the world. These have included DazedFest in London, Horizons in New York, Breaking Convention in London, Distortion in Copenhagen, La Callaca TedX in San Miguel del Allende, the World Psychedelic Forum in Basel, and Summit Series in Utah. I have been interviewed by The Colbert Report, Coast to Coast AM, The History Channel, Whitley Strieber’s Unknown Country, BrandX with Russell Brand, Interview Magazine, Purple, and many other places.
I have written introductions for The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary, The Joyous Cosmology by Alan Watts, and Rainforest Medicine by Jonathan Miller Weisberger and Kathy Glass. I have written catalogs for art exhibitions including a show of Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol at the Gagosian Gallery in New York.
I hosted a talk show, Mind Shift, for GaiamTV, exploring the evolution of technology and spirituality, and our potential for the future. I have facilitated retreats to Costa Rica, with the Secoya, an inidigenous group from the Amazon in Ecuador, and Colombia, with the Kogi and Aruak people. Please join the mailing list at www.pinchbeck.io for information on upcoming work and events.
My podcast, How Soon Is Now, is on iTunes.
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