"Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream." The classic guide to psychedelic experience, based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Unusually practical for a book about traversing altered consciousness, hallucinations, colors and sounds, ecstasy and ego-death and rebirth. I feel like a Beatle. The journey of 1000 miles begins with one step, so let's go, I'm ready.

2.5 StarsA guide for the use of psychedelics for an enlightenment, ego-release, or spiritual purpose based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.I have had such expansive and enlightening experiences in my life. These came through and to me in Divine Love and was without outer guidance of any sort. While I like the idea of this book existing for those who do not fully trust the path within, their higher consciousness, and All That Is, I found that most of what it was saying was unnecessary for me to r...

This is a manual on how to experience death and/or experience a drug trip. A pretty niche topic. I think anyone who reads this expecting a science based guide for drug trips is missing the very overt point of the book: to guide you through a spiritual experience. So it's the Tibetan Book of the Death and the guide to dying, including the different Bardos (the spaces between life and death, levels of Buddhist purgatory if you will) and how to break the circle of rebirth. However in this case, the...

I remember reading this in high school. Bought it at a cool hippie shop in downtown Indy and finished it in the fall of my senior year. Had an intense night the day I finished it and found enlightenment in a closet. Rushed to the bookstore the next day and randomly picked out Be Here Now, written by Ralph Metzner, Ram Dass, who hung with Leary. Later, my best friend's parents turned out to be married by Tim Leary. Also, as a side note, some boys that teased me mercilessly all through high school...

No wonder Leary refused to speak to Ken Kesey when he showed up at the house. Leary > Kesey, by a lot. While Kesey’s kind of an idiot, Leary is brilliant, creative, original, inspiring. Kesey is a selfish hedonist, kind of a terror of a Jack Russell terrier, whereas Leary is a serene, sincere, wise, generous-souled therapy dog.Even reading this book while not on psychedelics was such a calming, reassuring, nurturing, and immersive experience that made me feel connected and serene and mindful.You...

Timothy Leary gets hate from all sides. He gets hate from squares for the obvious reasons. But he also gets hate from hippies, heads, and others who might form his own community because they somehow feel as if he gives them a bad image. Because mainstream academics don't take Leary seriously, his audience wants to distance themselves from his name.However, Leary deserves credit as a fearless pioneer. I found myself totally immersed in understanding with this book, but at the same time I felt som...

I have to admit, this book leaves me wanting to be a better person. I don't want the drama of acid, but I'm all for the journey of self discovery. As I read through the last section, I found myself wondering if I was capable of meditating to the extent of ego-death. I also pondered recording the guides and meditating "on" them. Somehow that seems like cheating. So, that's the good part. The bad part is that I basically had to use the techniques (hold on, don't think) to get through this book. It...

A fascinating explanation and step-by-step account of hallucination, Leary, Metzner, and Alpert's The Psychedelic Experience creates and explains an interesting philosophy of what occurs in the mind when it is in a hallucinogenic state. As a writer, this book helped me to understand that even the most organic and seemingly fluid things can, in some way, be broken down and examined in a way that can make sense of them; there is always a way to organize the stories inherent in reality, no matter h...

Brilliantly described acquired experiences by three Ph.D's. Although once in a mind trip, you are left to your own mind's devices and figments of the imagination and emerging creative processes. Contained herein is the key to experience life after death while still living in the same body, as hinted at in John 4. English translations do not carry the essence to American audiences as pure as American interpretations. It was for this reason that people hearing of the results of the American versio...

If you want to experiment with psychedelics, this is it. User's manual. Now, I would be first in line if I wasn't so afraid of spiders, and in psychedelic experience you pretty much get what you expect. Damn.

Although I have read many controversial things about Leary before, I decided to give this book a try. What a joy! Forget what you know about Leary. Read this book from a new perspective. Read it if you are into psychedelics and willing to get broader and mystical experiences. Very unfortunate that many 'psychonauts' or amateurs in psychdelics discuss so much about the trips and all it gets into are memes, funny stories or bad trips. I wish everyone had read this book before challenging and 'over...

Though it's easy to cast a hairy eyeball at Leary & co for their Milbrook antics and for appropriating Tibetan Buddhist iconography and spirituality, there is still some wisdom to be found in this old tome. I found the sections on bodily symptoms of "entering the 2nd bardo" (or coming up, in other words) to be particularly helpful--framing them as the ego's way of protesting its dissolution, instead of any physical disease/problem, is definitely something I'll try to hold onto for my next trip.

Branded as the champion of bacchanalian excess and antinomian discord - and the miscreant father of the "turn on, tune in, drop out" slogan - few people care to remember that there was also a more systematic, Apollonian side to Dr. Timothy Leary. Beneath his trickster persona, he was a first rate psychologist who wanted to properly contextualize the psychedelic experience and imbue its therapeutic use with life-transforming structural cohesion. His goal was to pioneer scientific and personal dis...

Anyone interested in experiencing Psychedelics should read this for once. The realm of consciousness is explored deeply in this manual which is based on "The Tibetan Book of the Dead." Timothy Leary indulges the reader into how such substances could have a profound and life-altering effect on the mind of the voyager. A very short read albeit an interesting one.

Zoom zoom :-)

I should have read the Tibetan Book of the Dead before reading this.In saying that, as a stand-alone piece of work 'The Psychedelic Experience' seemed more woo-woo than substance. My expectations were more along the lines of a 'psychedelic how-to' - touching base on the benefits of these drugs on cognitive function and spirituality. It didn't live up to these expectations.

The manual explains the possible effects while experiencing certain psychedelics, basically LSD. Interesting because the manual is written in such a form as being a ‘travel note’ for a voyager ready for a mind trip.

Leary's a bit full of himself but the manual surely has to be reread for the full experience.

A concise book, which is - essentially - a guide for the voyager, aka the psychonaut, the psychedelic tripper based upon the teachings of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is a guide for rebirth and reentry from one life to the next. The Tibetan view is that the mental or spiritual cannot always be reduced to material quanta and manipulated as such — the spiritual is itself an active energy in nature, subtle but more powerful than the material. The Tibetan view is that the “strong force” in na...

[LFO - Freak playing softly in the distance]