Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism [Hardcover]

Daniel Pinchbeck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2002

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Open City editor Pinchbeck's book debut is a polemic that picks up the threads that Huxley's The Doors of Perception, Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and counterculture idealism left in the culture. Charting his gradual transformation from a cynical New York litterateur to psychedelic acolyte, Pinchbeck uses elements of travelogue, memoir, "entheobotany" ("the study of god-containing plants") and historical research to ask why these "doorways of the mind" have been unceremoniously sealed, sharing Walter Benjamin's melancholy about the exasperating nature of consumerism: "We live in a culture where everything tastes good but nothing satisfies." Pinchbeck travels the earth in search of spiritual awakening through tripping, from Gabon to the Nevada desert. At happenings like the Burning Man festival or a plant conference in the Ecuadorean jungle, Pinchbeck meets "modern shamans" and tells their stories as they intersect with his. In his reporting, he manages to walk a difficult tonal tightrope, balancing his skepticism with a desire to be transformed. He thoughtfully surveys the literature about psychedelic drugs, but the most exhilarating and illuminating sections are the descriptions of drug taking: he calls this visiting the "spirit world," which is "like a cosmic bureaucracy employing its own PR department, its own off-kilter sense of dream-logic and humor... constantly playing with human limitations, dangling possibilities before our puny grasps at knowledge." There's little new drug lore here, but Pinchbeck's earnest, engaged and winning manner carry the book.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this firsthand account of the world of psychedelic substances today, Village Voice and Rolling Stone writer Pinchbeck weaves elements of his personal life, including vivid descriptions of his reactions to the substances he takes, with larger topics, such as the history of psychedelic substances in the modern world and the foundations of shamanism. To aid his inquiry, he participates in visionary rituals around the world, e.g., taking iboga as part of a tribal initiation in Gabon. He also discusses key figures such as Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Terence McKenna. Pinchbeck repeatedly decries the rationalism and destructiveness of Western culture and the shortsightedness of completely outlawing psychedelic substances. The book is not an extended diatribe, however. The author offers various viewpoints on how certain drugs should be used and on whether a modern, Western shamanism is possible. Pinchbeck posits a universe that may be difficult to accept, but his book will be of interest for public and academic libraries.
Stephen Joseph, Butler Cty. Community Coll. Lib., PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (September 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767907426
• ISBN-13: 978-0767907422
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #193,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #89 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Earth-Based Religions > Shamanism

More About the Author

I grew up in the New York counterculture of the 1970s and '80s. My father, Peter Pinchbeck, was an abstract painter, and my mother, Joyce Johnson, is a writer who participated in the Beat Generation. She was dating Jack Kerouac when On the Road hit the bestseller lists in 1957 (chronicled in her book, Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir). As a journalist, I have written for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, etcetera. I am currently the editorial director of the Evolver Project (www.evolver.net).

In my late twenties, I fell into a deep spiritual crisis that led me to the study of shamanism and psychedelic susbtances. My first book, Breaking Open the Head, recounted my initiation into several tribal cultures that use hallucinogens in their rituals. Over time, I became convinced of the legitimacy of the shamanic and mystical worldview held by indigenous peoples around the world. This led me to my most recent book, 2012, a study of prophecy.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

140 of 150 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stalking the sacred plants, January 13, 2003

By 

Royce E. Buehler "figvine" (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Hardcover)

(Four and a half stars) Dreams are fascinating, and psychedelic experiences are fascinating, to the one who has them. And the rule of thumb is, that people's descriptions of their fascinating dreams and trips rate right up there on the boredom
meter with hole-by-hole narratives of your boss's last golf game.

It's not coincidence, I think, that the two great, readable narratives to come out of the psychedelia's da-glo glory days in the sixties (Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) and its nightmarish decline and fall in the seventies (Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) came from two fellows whose primary love and loyalty was to journalism. Then the substances that Daniel Pinchbeck calls "entheogens" fell into cultural eclipse, the interminable pathology known as the War on Drugs took center stage, and little original or noteworthy has been published on the topic for quite a while. Terence McKenna, brilliant but sometimes barely in touch with the real world, has had the field pretty much to himself.

Now we've got another entrant, not quite up to Wolfe or Thompson, but as wide ranging as McKenna, while staying more level-headed and instructive. The strengths of "Breaking Open the Head" are once again journalistic. Pinchbeck undertakes an odyssey in search of genuine shamans, who can properly initiate him into the authentic use of psychoactive plants. He takes us with us on his journey, sets us into scenes from West Africa, to the invisible perennial contemporary Woodstock in Nevada known as the Burning Man Festival, to the Amazon, to the peyote fields of Mexico, to labs in New York City where chemicals the plant kingdom never quite got around to inventing are concocted and consumed.

We get Pinchbeck's trip reports, yes. We also get his personal spiritual journey, and a refreshingly objective picture of what remains of traditional shamanistic cultures, and what is emerging of Western shamanism (or pseudo-shamanism, as the case may be.) Best of all, we get his thought-provoking ruminations, goosed by his eclectic reading from Huxley to Eliade to Walter Benjamin to Rudolf Steiner, as to what this mysterious human drive to get high at almost any cost is all about. I don't think much of his answers, but his principal question is spang on: what is it about Western civilization? What gives us this chip on our shoulder about any and all forms of ecstatic consciousness, chemically assisted or not? Why is ours almost the only culture in the world to regard hallucinogenic plants with horror, rather than with reverence and
respect?

In the final few chapters, Pinchbeck goes off the deep end, down a rabbit hole into which few of his readers will probably want to follow, convinced that there are objectively real "plant spirits" out there directing psychedelic experiences. But his reportorial instincts are so sound, that he doesn't let his ultimate views color his account of events along the way. And so we are free to ponder some of the questions he doesn't raise. Like: if these chemicals are so all-fired spiritual, why are half the traditional shamans he meets violent, or greedy, or vain? And: how is it that all the ingesters from traditional societies
take the drugs to get practical advice from the spirit world on how to live their ordinary lives, while all the westerners take them in order to find Ultimate Answers, and to step outside consensus reality? With goals so different, can the Westerners' quest really lay claim to the value these substances might have within traditional cultures?

A lively, illuminating read, one of those books that is as fun to argue with as it is to learn from.

71 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Psychedelics and Anti-Capitalism, December 23, 2002

By 

Thomas M. Seay (Palo Alto, California USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Hardcover)

We can now speak of an entheogenic renaissance and this book is part of the growing literature of that movement. "Breaking Open the Head" is an autobiographical account in which the author details his transformation from a cynical Manhattan atheist to an entheogenic psychonaut. Along the way, the writer introduces us to the various psychedelics in use, their effects and cultural history (i.e how they have been used throughout history &/or at present).

One element that differentiates this book from other psychedelic accounts is Pinchbeck raises criticisms of capitalism, often via
the voice of Walter Benjamin. We are all under the spell of capital. We are hypnotised by commercials and advertising jingles. We are told, by the powers that be, that capitalism is "natural", that we have arrived at some kind of Hegelian "End of History", in which capitalism has won and any attempts to imagine a different scenario, a different form of global exchange, is empty utopianism. Unfortunately, many of us have accepted this fabrication. And so it is, that the rainforest continues to be depleted, many people in Third World countries live in poverty (thanks to multinational corporations and the politics of debt played by such organizations as the World Bank); spiritually
empty we, in the post-industrial capitalist countries, greedily seek to fill our spiritual emptiness with things, commodities. We consume more and more, yet still cannot fill the emptiness. We're like rats on a turnwheel.

Psychedelics MAY be PART of the antidote to all of this.
Through psychedelics we are awakened from our trance and can see the world from a completely different perspective. Psychedelics spark creativity. It has been said that Silicon Valley (where I work by the way) would not exist if it were not for acid. That may be an exaggeration, but only in part. Numerous luminaries in the field of computer science sought/seek inspiration through psychedelic visions. What's more, psychedelics reveal a broader (not necessarily HIGHER) reality. As biological organisms, our brains have specialized (at least this is my opinion) and have closed out many parts of the larger reality that exists. In our everyday existence, We stare out at the world through a narrow chink and conclude that is all there is.

All this may sound incredible to those who have never experienced
the states entrained by psychedelics. Many believe that psychedelics are a means of escaping reality. It is possible, like all things, that they could be used to that end. However,
for the escapist, psychedelics would not be the drug of choice. The reason for this being that psychedelics are AMPLIFIERS, not sedatives. If you were to use them as a means to escape some phenomenon, that phenomenon would more than likely end up in your trip amplified to the nth power!

I am happy that through his book an anti-capitalist orientation has been introduced into the psychedelic context. While it is true that psychedelics have more or less defied being co-opted by capitalism (indeed there is a "war on drugs" campaign), there could be in the future an attempt to "integrate" psychedelics into capitalism. We have seen how the "New Age" is, for the most part, a marketing scheme. We have learned how paranormal talents, such as remote viewing, were tested by the CIA for use in spying. Should we break through this period of "anti-drug hysteria", one can well imagine that psychedelics could be coopted for capitalist use.

We, instead, should use psychedelics as a means of breaking free of the capitalist mindset, envisioning other possible socio-economic systems, and re-associating with the broader reality that exists (which some call the "spirit world").

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely essential reading on many levels......., October 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (Hardcover)

If you've found the writing of Terence McKenna interesting and thought-provoking, then you should consider this book an immediate must-read. However, Pinchbeck's book deserves to be read (and hopefully WILL be read) by a much wider cross-section of society than McKenna's. One of the problems inherent to writing about psychedelic experiences is that the nature of the experience itself makes describing it through the written word extremely difficult. I think Pinchbeck has done an incredible job of bridging this gap (to the extent that is indeed possible) and relating his experiences in a way that even someone who has never touched a psychedelic substance can begin to understand.

While that in itself is an important achievement, I think the real value of this book lies in the moral and ethical issues it ultimately poses for the reader...and this includes both those who've used these types of drugs, as well as those who've never even had a beer. The issues of corporate greed, ecosystem destruction, and blatant consumerism have never been more relevant to our society; the author addresses these issues with thought-provoking insight, and offers some extremely interesting and somewhat frightening ideas about the future of the human race....ideas that seem to have been catalyzed, but NOT created, by his use of psychedelics.

In my opinion, that's where the real value of this book lies, and the reason it should be a rewarding and worthwhile read for anyone who considers himself a concerned, active, thinking member of society and the human race. It would be a tragedy if potential readers overlook this and skip the book based on a preconceived notion about the subject matter.