BREAKING OPEN THE HEAD (2002)

The author of this ''journey into the heart of contemporary shamanism'' is not some hippy-dippy hedonist staggering down the road of excess but rather a skeptical philosopher of consciousness seeking the enlightened path. In the late '90s, a spiritually exhausted Pinchbeck took a magazine assignment to gobble the African psychedelic iboga, launching an earnest exploration of himself, his self, and this world. Acid in Manhattan, mushrooms in Mexico, yage in Ecuador.... He reports on his trips, travels, and travails in an unfailingly strong voice and analyzes a broad range of theorists with a light touch. Pinchbeck ought to have done a bit more homework on neuroscience, but his book nonetheless blows the mind.