High Priest

Description

Back in print after 20 years, this text from the earliest days of psychedelia chronicles the experiences on 16 acid trips taken before LSD was illegal. The trip guides or "high priests" included Aldous Huxley, Ram Dass, Ralph Meltzner, Huston Smith and a junkie from New York City named Willy. It tells of the goings-on and freaking out at the Millbrook mansion in New York State that became the Mecca of psychedelia during the 1960s, and of the many luminaries who made their pilgrimage there to trip with Leary and his group. Chapters include an I Ching reading and a chronicle of what happened during those "spacewalks" of the mind.

Review

I picked this book up (in a town near Woodstock, NY of all places) not knowing what I was in for. I didn't really know much about Leary or his work. The cover and illustrations looked interesting and there were some familiar names like Aldous Huxley and Ram Dass, so that was enough to get me to buy it. This semi-autobiographical book covers a period of time in Leary's life when he had his first psychedelic experience all the way until the time he left / was kicked out of Harvard. During that time, Leary conducted a series of experiments using a variety of psychedelic substances like Psilocybin, LSD, and DMT. As stated in the back cover, each chapter covers a different experience with one of these substances setting the scene for that particular session and then diving into the experience which can be difficult to follow since the writing captures the thoughts during altered states. Some accounts were disturbing. Not exactly what was experienced during the session but events surrounding it (i.e. having one of these sessions early in his experiments at his house while his daughter was hosting a sleepover with her friends). Other accounts were laugh out loud funny. Two different sessions were the most memorable to me. The research program set up at the correctional facility and the other at the church. It was interesting to see his progression at the beginning of the book where he used these substances recreationally and towards the end he appears to develop more reverence or connect spirituality with them. Took me a while to get through the book but overall it was a fun read and first-hand account of this period of time in history.