A mesmerizing guide to psychoactive plants, from their pharmacological roots to the literary offshoots. AK

Publisher: Mercury House
Paperback: 287 pages
Illustrated

“A second later, while I was opening the box containing the LSD vial, I heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Only then did I understand the strange behavior of the people that morning. I said, ‘I am going to give him a shot of LSD-he asked for it.’
The doctor had a moment—you know very well the uneasiness in the medical mind about this drug. But no 'authority,' not even an army of authorities, could have stopped me then. I went into Aldous's room with the vial of LSD and prepared a syringe. The doctor asked me if I wanted him to give the shot-maybe because he saw that my hands were trembling.”

Publisher: Mercury House
Paperback: 330 pages
Illustrated

“Certainly to disembody human beings into shadowgraphs of my concepts of them is no labor of love. To enclose them in an ever-shifting frame imperceptible to them, to persuade or compel them to conceal their bewilderment, to force them to walk the chalk line of a vision alien to many who move in front of a camera, is not conducive to ‘creative ecstasy’… Engraved on a surface more sensitive than any other known material are thoughts that have been absorbed by large masses never before exposed to such a vigorous agent. But what went into my films and what came out was not always the same.”

Publisher: Mercury House
Paperback: 352 pages
Illustrated