In my blog post about ways to become less neurotic, one of the suggested scientifically-backed areas to explore was psychedelics. Whether you’ve tried psychedelics before or you’re venturing into this domain of self-exploration for the first time, there are lots of fascinating books on this topic. This blog post is a selection of my recommended six best books about psychedelics that I personally loved reading.
(Disclaimer #1: This blog post contains affiliate links. Disclaimer #2: Psychedelic substances are powerful and not legal in many countries. This blog post does not condone or recommend their use.)
The Value of Reading Books About Psychedelics
Before taking psychedelics, it’s wise to do your research and know what you’re getting into. These are powerful substances, after all. Given that this blog is aimed at introspective/introverted people who get as much stimulation from books as extroverts get from parties, I have a feeling that a list of books about psychedelics will be well-received 🙂 Even if you don’t actually plan on taking psychedelics any time soon (or possibly ever), they are an undeniably fascinating topic and well worth exploring intellectually.
DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Straussman
I could think of no better place to start from than with one of the most fascinating research experiments in history on psychedelics. Between 1990 and 1995, Dr. Rick Straussman, a clinical psychiatrist, conducted psychedelic research on 60 healthy volunteers at the University of New Mexico. He injected the 60 study participants with DMT, which is one of the strongest psychedelic substances known, and he recorded their experiences.
The intensity of DMT is such that within moments of exposure to a powerful enough dose, you are blasted from your body into an entirely alien dimension. You can meet dancing jesters and geometric patterns made of love, as Joe Rogan once said on the JRE podcast. The fact that Dr. Straussman managed to get approval for such an experiment during a period in which psychedelics were regarded with disdain and fear in the scientific community was incredible.
Using the patient experiences as a guide, Straussman explores whether DMT is a spirit molecule that “may lead us to an acceptance of the coexistence of opposites, such as life and death, good and evil; a knowledge that consciousness continues after death; a deep understanding of the basic unity of all phenomena.”
The body produces DMT—it’s known as an endogenous monoamine. My only advice is to read this book and come to your own conclusion about whether DMT is inextricably linked to the nature of consciousness. Whatever your conclusion, DMT: The Spirit Molecule is a fascinating read.
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is an award-winning journalist who is best known for his books on food and agriculture, such as Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He writes with an invigorating clarity of language, a scientific approach, and a refreshingly open mind. When I heard Pollan was writing a book about psychedelics, I took note and bought it as soon as it was released.
How To Change Your Mind is a fascinating read. Pollan researches the history of psychedelics and investigates their current therapeutic use. He takes hefty doses of psilocybin mushrooms and 5-Meo-DMT during his journey and documents his thoughts. His first-hand psychedelic experiences and investigative research result in some diamond quotes, such as:
“Normal waking consciousness feels perfectly transparent, and yet it is less a window on reality than the product of our imaginations-a kind of controlled hallucination.”
and
“You go deep enough or far out enough in consciousness and you will bump into the sacred. It’s not something we generate; it’s something out there waiting to be discovered. And this reliably happens to nonbelievers as well as believers.”
If you are at all interested in psychedelic exploration from the point of view of a brilliant writer who takes a totally agnostic, open-minded approach to the topic, I cannot recommend How to Change Your Mind enough.
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
Any list of the best books about psychedelics could not be taken seriously if it didn’t include this absolute classic by one of my favourite authors, Aldous Huxley. The genius of Huxley is that he was able to express his linguistic prowess equally well in both fiction and non-fiction formats. In the book, which is more like an extended essay, he details his own experiences with the psychedelic drug mescaline, which naturally occurs and is found in various cacti, such as the peyote cactus and the San Pedro cactus.
The Doors of Perception is regarded as an influential book that helped spark the 1960s counterculture movement. Huxley’s perspective was that the brain acts as a reducing valve for consciousness, filtering out tons of sensory data that would be overwhelming and incompatible with our need to survive if we were exposed to it all the time. Huxley believed that taking mescaline and other psychedelics toned down the brain’s function as a reducing valve and opened the doors to perception.
You might walk away from The Doors of Perception thinking Huxley was an idealist who used flowery language to mask pseudoscientific ideas. Or, you might wake away with a different perspective on what life means. Either way, it’s an excellent read.
The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James Fadiman
The reason I include The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide on my list of best books about psychedelics is less to do with its insights and quality of writing and more to do with its practical utility. If you are sincere about exploring psychedelics not just intellectually—but experientially, you shouldn’t do so before reading this book.
The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide goes into detail on the importance of having a guide or trip-sitter. There are also sections on set and setting that are must-reads. Overall, it’s an essential book for the safe exploration of psychedelic substances.
The Joyous Cosmology by Alan Watts
I discovered Alan Watts by accident one day on YouTube, and I was quickly hooked. I remember wandering around second-hand book stores in northern Thailand a few years ago, and a book named The Joyous Cosmology by Watts caught my eye.
At the time, I had read The Wisdom of Insecurity and The Book (both written by Watts). I enjoyed them thoroughly but I never realized he had a whole host of other publications to his name. The Joyous Cosmology is pretty much the Alan Watts equivalent of The Doors of Perception.
In the book, Watts details his experiences on LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. He also discusses these topics with the type of open-mindedness and intelligence characteristic of his exposure to Oriental traditions. Some quotes:
“Whether it is organic or inorganic, we are learning to see matter as patterns of energy—not of energy as if energy were a stuff, but as energetic pattern, moving order, active intelligence.”
And
“Is this, perhaps, an inner view of the organizing process which, when the eyes are open, makes sense of the world even at points where it appears to be supremely messy?”
True Hallucinations by Terence Mckenna
Terence Mckenna was a fascinating character and a brilliant public speaker. He was also a bit outlandish in his ideas and had a tendency to veer on the side of quackery. However, his book, True Hallucinations, makes it onto my list of the best books about psychedelics completely on merit.
True Hallucinations is like no other book about psychedelics. It’s mesmerizing and bizarre in equal measure. The book details the adventures of Terence and his brother Denis through the Amazon Basin as the two of them seek out shamanic rituals and hallucinogens.
If you take a biological reductionist approach to the idea of psychedelics, you’ll probably dislike this book, but the same could be said for this entire list. On the other hand, if you are open-minded and agnostic about what psychedelics can teach us, True Hallucinations is a fascinating book.