Author: John W. Raibikis
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1452083681
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A Journey to Cocktail Enlightenment Two Thirsty Guys Discover Atlanta's Best Drinks "What were we seeking? Was it an incredible cocktail or an incredible experience? Was one possible without the other? "We're evolving from our primitive beginnings of making and enjoying flavored martinis. Our search for unusual cocktails thus far has broadened our knowledge and expanded our appreciation of finely crafted cocktails. Right here, we seem to have hit the true mother lode "A long sequence of unique samplings and events had us thinking in innovative ways and discovering something that never would have entered our minds before "We not only held our own against professional bartenders, but beat out over half of our competitors. Our ability to accurately judge a cocktail has been substantiated. Two friends and bon vivants who enjoy liquid refreshments take a journey in search of the best cocktails they can find in and around the Atlanta area. Their travels take them from neighborhood bars to well-known establishments. In the process, they encounter colorful characters, discover delicious recipes, and develop an appreciation for what makes a great cocktail. Their journey also leads them to something greater.
A Journey to Cocktail Enlightenment
Author: John W. Raibikis
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1452083681
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A Journey to Cocktail Enlightenment Two Thirsty Guys Discover Atlanta's Best Drinks "What were we seeking? Was it an incredible cocktail or an incredible experience? Was one possible without the other? "We're evolving from our primitive beginnings of making and enjoying flavored martinis. Our search for unusual cocktails thus far has broadened our knowledge and expanded our appreciation of finely crafted cocktails. Right here, we seem to have hit the true mother lode "A long sequence of unique samplings and events had us thinking in innovative ways and discovering something that never would have entered our minds before "We not only held our own against professional bartenders, but beat out over half of our competitors. Our ability to accurately judge a cocktail has been substantiated. Two friends and bon vivants who enjoy liquid refreshments take a journey in search of the best cocktails they can find in and around the Atlanta area. Their travels take them from neighborhood bars to well-known establishments. In the process, they encounter colorful characters, discover delicious recipes, and develop an appreciation for what makes a great cocktail. Their journey also leads them to something greater.
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1452083681
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
A Journey to Cocktail Enlightenment Two Thirsty Guys Discover Atlanta's Best Drinks "What were we seeking? Was it an incredible cocktail or an incredible experience? Was one possible without the other? "We're evolving from our primitive beginnings of making and enjoying flavored martinis. Our search for unusual cocktails thus far has broadened our knowledge and expanded our appreciation of finely crafted cocktails. Right here, we seem to have hit the true mother lode "A long sequence of unique samplings and events had us thinking in innovative ways and discovering something that never would have entered our minds before "We not only held our own against professional bartenders, but beat out over half of our competitors. Our ability to accurately judge a cocktail has been substantiated. Two friends and bon vivants who enjoy liquid refreshments take a journey in search of the best cocktails they can find in and around the Atlanta area. Their travels take them from neighborhood bars to well-known establishments. In the process, they encounter colorful characters, discover delicious recipes, and develop an appreciation for what makes a great cocktail. Their journey also leads them to something greater.
The Sensational Past: How the Enlightenment Changed the Way We Use Our Senses
Author: Carolyn Purnell
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393249360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
Sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch—as they were celebrated during the Enlightenment and as they are perceived today. Blindfolding children from birth? Playing a piano made of live cats? Using tobacco to cure drowning? Wearing “flea”-colored clothes? These actions may seem odd to us, but in the eighteenth century, they made perfect sense. As often as we use our senses, we rarely stop to think about their place in history. But perception is not dependent on the body alone. Carolyn Purnell persuasively shows that, while our bodies may not change dramatically, the way we think about the senses and put them to use has been rather different over the ages. Journeying through the past three hundred years, Purnell explores how people used their senses in ways that might shock us now. And perhaps more surprisingly, she shows how many of our own ways of life are a legacy of this earlier time. The Sensational Past focuses on the ways in which small, peculiar, and seemingly unimportant facts open up new ways of thinking about the past. You will explore the sensory worlds of the Enlightenment, learning how people in the past used their senses, understood their bodies, and experienced the rapidly shifting world around them. In this smart and witty work, Purnell reminds us of the value of daily life and the power of the smallest aspects of existence using culinary history, fashion, medicine, music, and many other aspects of Enlightenment life.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393249360
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
Sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch—as they were celebrated during the Enlightenment and as they are perceived today. Blindfolding children from birth? Playing a piano made of live cats? Using tobacco to cure drowning? Wearing “flea”-colored clothes? These actions may seem odd to us, but in the eighteenth century, they made perfect sense. As often as we use our senses, we rarely stop to think about their place in history. But perception is not dependent on the body alone. Carolyn Purnell persuasively shows that, while our bodies may not change dramatically, the way we think about the senses and put them to use has been rather different over the ages. Journeying through the past three hundred years, Purnell explores how people used their senses in ways that might shock us now. And perhaps more surprisingly, she shows how many of our own ways of life are a legacy of this earlier time. The Sensational Past focuses on the ways in which small, peculiar, and seemingly unimportant facts open up new ways of thinking about the past. You will explore the sensory worlds of the Enlightenment, learning how people in the past used their senses, understood their bodies, and experienced the rapidly shifting world around them. In this smart and witty work, Purnell reminds us of the value of daily life and the power of the smallest aspects of existence using culinary history, fashion, medicine, music, and many other aspects of Enlightenment life.
Civil Rights Journey
Author: Joseph Howell
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1456762079
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
Civil Rights Journey recounts the coming of age of a young man shaped early by the crucibles of polio and segregation (both by decree and by custom) and later by that of the civil rights movement. Joe Howell's story depicts the effects of human vulnerability and of human cruelty. The lingering effects of polio made him at times the object of bullying and derision, perhaps thus increasing his sensitivity to such cruelties manifested in the system of segregation. The reader shares the hopes, doubts, and at times despair that form Joe as he tries to wrest meaning from his experiences and determine what his path in life should be. Civil Rights Journey offers the reader a multilayered account of a young man born in the pre-civil rights South, sheltered by a code of customs that privileged the white middle class at the expense of blacks and poor whites, and of his formation and moral development shaped by his civil rights journey. (From the foreword by Janet Hampton) Joseph Howell has written a remarkable memoir. He takes us on a journey to rural Georgia at the height of the civil rights movement and the rise of black power. His account of his struggles to work with black activists to make change in communities deeply marred by entrenched issues of racism and social injustice is honest and passionate. Through Howell's fresh and complex narrative, we come to a rich understanding of the vital role white people can play in racial justice movements and the complex terrain they enter as they struggle to build new kinds of relationships with black activists and with "regular folks." These issues remain compelling today and contemporary readers will be profoundly moved as they accompany Howell through his struggles to make sense of the world and of his life in a time of historic racial change. Mark R. Warren Harvard University Author of Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice Civil Rights Journey by Joseph Howell is a truly wonderful piece of writing. Joe Howell's personal story in the first section of the book is deeply moving and provides a beautiful frame for their Albany journal. As the Howells work with black SNCC workers in Albany, Georgia, they offer the reader a rare view of the civil rights movement during this important time. His powerful, honest book will be read and loved by many. William Ferris University of North Carolina Former chair, National Endowment for the Humanities
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1456762079
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
Civil Rights Journey recounts the coming of age of a young man shaped early by the crucibles of polio and segregation (both by decree and by custom) and later by that of the civil rights movement. Joe Howell's story depicts the effects of human vulnerability and of human cruelty. The lingering effects of polio made him at times the object of bullying and derision, perhaps thus increasing his sensitivity to such cruelties manifested in the system of segregation. The reader shares the hopes, doubts, and at times despair that form Joe as he tries to wrest meaning from his experiences and determine what his path in life should be. Civil Rights Journey offers the reader a multilayered account of a young man born in the pre-civil rights South, sheltered by a code of customs that privileged the white middle class at the expense of blacks and poor whites, and of his formation and moral development shaped by his civil rights journey. (From the foreword by Janet Hampton) Joseph Howell has written a remarkable memoir. He takes us on a journey to rural Georgia at the height of the civil rights movement and the rise of black power. His account of his struggles to work with black activists to make change in communities deeply marred by entrenched issues of racism and social injustice is honest and passionate. Through Howell's fresh and complex narrative, we come to a rich understanding of the vital role white people can play in racial justice movements and the complex terrain they enter as they struggle to build new kinds of relationships with black activists and with "regular folks." These issues remain compelling today and contemporary readers will be profoundly moved as they accompany Howell through his struggles to make sense of the world and of his life in a time of historic racial change. Mark R. Warren Harvard University Author of Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice Civil Rights Journey by Joseph Howell is a truly wonderful piece of writing. Joe Howell's personal story in the first section of the book is deeply moving and provides a beautiful frame for their Albany journal. As the Howells work with black SNCC workers in Albany, Georgia, they offer the reader a rare view of the civil rights movement during this important time. His powerful, honest book will be read and loved by many. William Ferris University of North Carolina Former chair, National Endowment for the Humanities
A Death on Diamond Mountain
Author: Scott Carney
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 069818629X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
An investigative reporter explores an infamous case where an obsessive and unorthodox search for enlightenment went terribly wrong. When thirty-eight-year-old Ian Thorson died from dehydration and dysentery on a remote Arizona mountaintop in 2012, The New York Times reported the story under the headline: "Mysterious Buddhist Retreat in the Desert Ends in a Grisly Death." Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, was struck by how Thorson’s death echoed other incidents that reflected the little-talked-about connection between intensive meditation and mental instability. Using these tragedies as a springboard, Carney explores how those who go to extremes to achieve divine revelations—and undertake it in illusory ways—can tangle with madness. He also delves into the unorthodox interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism that attracted Thorson and the bizarre teachings of its chief evangelists: Thorson’s wife, Lama Christie McNally, and her previous husband, Geshe Michael Roach, the supreme spiritual leader of Diamond Mountain University, where Thorson died. Carney unravels how the cultlike practices of McNally and Roach and the questionable circumstances surrounding Thorson’s death illuminate a uniquely American tendency to mix and match eastern religious traditions like LEGO pieces in a quest to reach an enlightened, perfected state, no matter the cost. Aided by Thorson’s private papers, along with cutting-edge neurological research that reveals the profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain and stories of miracles and black magic, sexualized rituals, and tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes, A Death on Diamond Mountain is a gripping work of investigative journalism that reveals how the path to enlightenment can be riddled with danger.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 069818629X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
An investigative reporter explores an infamous case where an obsessive and unorthodox search for enlightenment went terribly wrong. When thirty-eight-year-old Ian Thorson died from dehydration and dysentery on a remote Arizona mountaintop in 2012, The New York Times reported the story under the headline: "Mysterious Buddhist Retreat in the Desert Ends in a Grisly Death." Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years, was struck by how Thorson’s death echoed other incidents that reflected the little-talked-about connection between intensive meditation and mental instability. Using these tragedies as a springboard, Carney explores how those who go to extremes to achieve divine revelations—and undertake it in illusory ways—can tangle with madness. He also delves into the unorthodox interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism that attracted Thorson and the bizarre teachings of its chief evangelists: Thorson’s wife, Lama Christie McNally, and her previous husband, Geshe Michael Roach, the supreme spiritual leader of Diamond Mountain University, where Thorson died. Carney unravels how the cultlike practices of McNally and Roach and the questionable circumstances surrounding Thorson’s death illuminate a uniquely American tendency to mix and match eastern religious traditions like LEGO pieces in a quest to reach an enlightened, perfected state, no matter the cost. Aided by Thorson’s private papers, along with cutting-edge neurological research that reveals the profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain and stories of miracles and black magic, sexualized rituals, and tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes, A Death on Diamond Mountain is a gripping work of investigative journalism that reveals how the path to enlightenment can be riddled with danger.
Samsara - The Wheel of Birth, Death and Rebirth: A journey through spirituality, religion, Nepal, Bali, Cambodia and India
Author: Rebecca Harrison
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0648706621
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 490
Book Description
Travel with the author on a fascinating journey into samsara, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, the religions of Buddhism and Hinduism that hold it as central and the rich cultures of Nepal, Bali, Cambodia and India. Does spirituality offer anything of value to a twenty-first century world and can spirituality exist apart from religion? Do quantum physics, mysticism or psychedelics offer any clues about what happens after death, consciousness, reality and ourselves? This book will get you thinking about your own life and death, and where they might fit in to the bigger picture.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0648706621
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 490
Book Description
Travel with the author on a fascinating journey into samsara, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, the religions of Buddhism and Hinduism that hold it as central and the rich cultures of Nepal, Bali, Cambodia and India. Does spirituality offer anything of value to a twenty-first century world and can spirituality exist apart from religion? Do quantum physics, mysticism or psychedelics offer any clues about what happens after death, consciousness, reality and ourselves? This book will get you thinking about your own life and death, and where they might fit in to the bigger picture.
World's Best Cocktails
Author: Tom Sandham
Publisher: Fair Winds Press
ISBN: 1610586484
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
World's Best Cocktails is an exciting global journey, providing the secrets to successful cocktail making, their history and provenance, and where to seek out the world’s best bars and bartenders, from London to Long Island and beyond. Cocktail and liquor connoisseur Tom Sandham provides a comprehensive appraisal of global cocktail culture, highlighting the trends and techniques that make the finest drinks popular in their native climes and across the world. Cocktail lovers will appreciate personal tips from key bartenders such as Jim Meehan and Dale de Groff in New York and Tony Conigliaro and Salvatore Calabrese in London, while cutting-edge recent award winners point to the future with their new daring flavor combinations. At last, discerning drinkers can learn more about what to drink and where, then bring back their coolest cocktail experiences to enjoy at home.
Publisher: Fair Winds Press
ISBN: 1610586484
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
World's Best Cocktails is an exciting global journey, providing the secrets to successful cocktail making, their history and provenance, and where to seek out the world’s best bars and bartenders, from London to Long Island and beyond. Cocktail and liquor connoisseur Tom Sandham provides a comprehensive appraisal of global cocktail culture, highlighting the trends and techniques that make the finest drinks popular in their native climes and across the world. Cocktail lovers will appreciate personal tips from key bartenders such as Jim Meehan and Dale de Groff in New York and Tony Conigliaro and Salvatore Calabrese in London, while cutting-edge recent award winners point to the future with their new daring flavor combinations. At last, discerning drinkers can learn more about what to drink and where, then bring back their coolest cocktail experiences to enjoy at home.
The Soulful Journey of Recovery
Author: Tian Dayton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0757322018
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
More than just a book full of the latest information, this is a dynamic, interactive, and personalized journey of recovery for those impacted by adverse childhood experiences (ACES). Finally, they can put their past behind them where it belongs! For those who have grown up in a family with addiction, mental illness, or other adverse childhood experiences (ACES), the heartache and pain doesn’t end when they grow up and leave home. The legacy can last a lifetime and spread to generations unseen, as author Janet Wotitiz first showed readers in the groundbreaking Adult Children of Alcoholics. In The ACoA Trauma Syndrome Dr. Tian Dayton picked up where Dr. Woititz left off, filling in the decades of research that tell us why pain from yesterday recreates itself over and over again in our today. In The Soulful Journey of Recovery, Dr. Dayton gives us the how. There is a journey of recovery that you can start today. Simple, elegantly written and researched, poignant, penetrating, and on point, Dr. Dayton will move with you through the confusion, pain, and anger you may carry in secrecy and silence. Through engaging and enlightening exercises, you will give voice to hidden wounds and space to your innermost emotions and thoughts. Online links will also offer guided meditations, film clips and other tools to enhance the work you do in the book. You will learn what happened to you growing up with dysfunction and you will learn how to deal with it in the present. You will discover that recovery is a self-affirming life adventure, and the kindest and best thing you can do for yourself and future generations. Some books can change your life. This is one of them.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0757322018
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
More than just a book full of the latest information, this is a dynamic, interactive, and personalized journey of recovery for those impacted by adverse childhood experiences (ACES). Finally, they can put their past behind them where it belongs! For those who have grown up in a family with addiction, mental illness, or other adverse childhood experiences (ACES), the heartache and pain doesn’t end when they grow up and leave home. The legacy can last a lifetime and spread to generations unseen, as author Janet Wotitiz first showed readers in the groundbreaking Adult Children of Alcoholics. In The ACoA Trauma Syndrome Dr. Tian Dayton picked up where Dr. Woititz left off, filling in the decades of research that tell us why pain from yesterday recreates itself over and over again in our today. In The Soulful Journey of Recovery, Dr. Dayton gives us the how. There is a journey of recovery that you can start today. Simple, elegantly written and researched, poignant, penetrating, and on point, Dr. Dayton will move with you through the confusion, pain, and anger you may carry in secrecy and silence. Through engaging and enlightening exercises, you will give voice to hidden wounds and space to your innermost emotions and thoughts. Online links will also offer guided meditations, film clips and other tools to enhance the work you do in the book. You will learn what happened to you growing up with dysfunction and you will learn how to deal with it in the present. You will discover that recovery is a self-affirming life adventure, and the kindest and best thing you can do for yourself and future generations. Some books can change your life. This is one of them.
Journey in Search of the Way
Author: Satomi Myōdō
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791419717
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
This autobiography describes a woman's attainment of enlightenment in modern Japan. Satomi Myōdō rejected the traditional roles of good wife and wise mother, broke with her unhappy past, and followed her spiritual path beginning as the disciple of a Shinto priest. At midlife she turned to Zen Buddhism encouraged by a female dharma friend and by various teachers. Under the guidance of Yasutani Rōshi she attained Kenshō, the goal of her lifetime's search.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791419717
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
This autobiography describes a woman's attainment of enlightenment in modern Japan. Satomi Myōdō rejected the traditional roles of good wife and wise mother, broke with her unhappy past, and followed her spiritual path beginning as the disciple of a Shinto priest. At midlife she turned to Zen Buddhism encouraged by a female dharma friend and by various teachers. Under the guidance of Yasutani Rōshi she attained Kenshō, the goal of her lifetime's search.
Journey to Awareness and Beyond
Author: Liana Mattulich MD
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1469102129
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
An enriched view of personal reality drawing from medical and theoretical sciences as well as the esoteric, combining modern experimental science with ancient wisdom which provide keys to the physiology of happiness: Anatomy and Physiology of Mind-Body concepts and the Body Energy Spectrum, Consciousness and the Mind, Dimensional reality, personal reality and time, Spiritual evolution and the soul, Happiness as a self-regulated mind and physiology. A reading experience with an open perspective from human life and mind -- to matter and energies. The book describes for a layman or a professional the weaving of metaphors, exercises and scientific procedures which promote joy in life and the realization of inner freedom. Comprehensive references of both scientific research and empirical experience are provided. Experience proven approaches to joy of well-being of body and mind: subtle energies and Energy Psychology, Meridian physiology in Eastern & Western health practices; Understanding the self, personal direction, goals, and change; Psychology of success, intention, High Will, imagery, inspiration and motivation. Learn leadership qualities, communication skills, assertiveness, and Responsible Open Self-Expression used in managing personal relationships. This is the only book that amalgamates scientific technology with ancient wisdom practices in an integrated system of self-transformation going beyond intellectual and philosophical information alone. More information: www.JourneyToAwareness.org -OR- www.InnerKeys.info
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1469102129
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
An enriched view of personal reality drawing from medical and theoretical sciences as well as the esoteric, combining modern experimental science with ancient wisdom which provide keys to the physiology of happiness: Anatomy and Physiology of Mind-Body concepts and the Body Energy Spectrum, Consciousness and the Mind, Dimensional reality, personal reality and time, Spiritual evolution and the soul, Happiness as a self-regulated mind and physiology. A reading experience with an open perspective from human life and mind -- to matter and energies. The book describes for a layman or a professional the weaving of metaphors, exercises and scientific procedures which promote joy in life and the realization of inner freedom. Comprehensive references of both scientific research and empirical experience are provided. Experience proven approaches to joy of well-being of body and mind: subtle energies and Energy Psychology, Meridian physiology in Eastern & Western health practices; Understanding the self, personal direction, goals, and change; Psychology of success, intention, High Will, imagery, inspiration and motivation. Learn leadership qualities, communication skills, assertiveness, and Responsible Open Self-Expression used in managing personal relationships. This is the only book that amalgamates scientific technology with ancient wisdom practices in an integrated system of self-transformation going beyond intellectual and philosophical information alone. More information: www.JourneyToAwareness.org -OR- www.InnerKeys.info
Breaking Open the Head
Author: Daniel Pinchbeck
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767907434
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
A dazzling work of personal travelogue and cultural criticism that ranges from the primitive to the postmodern in a quest for the promise and meaning of the psychedelic experience. While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness--to a holographic vision of the universe. Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival. Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767907434
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
A dazzling work of personal travelogue and cultural criticism that ranges from the primitive to the postmodern in a quest for the promise and meaning of the psychedelic experience. While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness--to a holographic vision of the universe. Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival. Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos.