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Recent Reviews
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The Spirit Molecule (Documentary)
by Mitch Schultz (Director)
Publisher:
Spectral Alchemy 
Year:
2010 
Reviewed by Alyson VonDerlan
10/21/2010

Though The Spirit Molecule struggles to clearly define its overall message, the director is to be applauded for his bravery and persistence in reporting on this controversial topic. For readers of Dr. Strassman’s book, the film brings the characters to life and provides an intimate insight into the deep personal nature of their experiences. [ read more ]

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Improved Paintings
by Mati Klarwein
Publisher:
Max Publishing 
Year:
2000 
Reviewed by Jon Hanna
10/7/2010

Characterized simultaneously as a Fantastic Realist, a Surrealist, and a Psychedelic artist, Mati Klarwein’s art is difficult to pigeonhole. [ read more ]

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Madness & Art: The Life and Works of Adolf Wolfli
by Walter Morgenthaler
Publisher:
University of Nebraska Press 
Year:
1992 
Reviewed by Jon Hanna
10/7/2010

Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930) produced his prose, poetry, musical compositions, and drawings while living as a patient at the Waldau Sanitarium, near Bern, Switzerland. Walter Morgenthaler, Wölfli’s physician, produced a unique look at Wölfli in Madness & Art; it is one of the first books to focus on the art of a mentally ill person, treating him as an artist of merit, rather than viewing his work solely as a symptom of disease. [ read more ]

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Codex Seraphinianus
by Luigi Serafini
Publisher:
Various 
Year:
 
Reviewed by Jon Hanna
10/7/2010

So what’s all the fuss about? The Codex appears to have time-travelled from some future human world or parallel dimension. It is written in an impenetrable “language”, which may well be imaginary and untranslatable. Still, the more one looks at it, the more it seems to have a logical structure; the numbering system, for example, seems internally coherent. Read full text of review in original context…read more ]

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Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason
by James L. Kent
Publisher:
PIT Press 
Year:
2010 
Reviewed by Sheldon Norberg
10/5/2010

In Part I, “Psychedelic Information Theory”, Kent lays out the multidisciplinary neuroscience that informs his Control Interrupt/Non-Linear Destabilization premise. This premise suggests that the primary action of psychedelics (mostly around 5-HT receptors, since that’s where research exists) is to destabilize neural network switching related to serotonergic and cholinergic visual processing, as well as the auditory, olfactory, and tactile senses. Part II, “Shamanism in the Age of Reason” extends the conversation into how tates of “neuroplasticity” are driven, by wave form mechanics, to internal, communal, and universal states of transpersonal consciousness, always with the question of how the information is valued. [ read more ]

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The Pharmacology of LSD: A critical review
by Annelie Hintzen & Torsten Passie
Publisher:
Oxford University Press 
Year:
2010 
Reviewed by psypressuk
10/5/2010

A joint publication between The Beckley Foundation Press and the Oxford University Press, The Pharmacology of LSD is the first comprehensive review into the pharmacological effects of LSD and comes at a critical time in the re-emergence of research into psychedelic substances. [ read more ]