Customer Reviews

The Expansion of Consciousness (Ecology of Consciousness)

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I know Ralph Metzner to be an excellent and articulate writer. I'm writing this review mainly because I wanted to write a helpful review and I was so annoyed that the only review for this book was written by a foolish, self-important, thoughtless, moron that no one, 0 out of 5 people found helpful. Here's what I think could be helpful to a prospective reader. This book is volume 1 of 4 in the series (Ecology of Consciousness). This volume covers Alchemy, A brief history of expansions in and of collective consciousness since WWII, psychedelic subculture and its roots in alchemy and shamanism. In six chapters Metzner covers significant influences on and the development of psychedelic subculture from the 1940's - the 1990's. He also reports on consciousness expanding developments in the "new century" 2000 - 2005 and the book concludes with the question collapse or new beginning? I see this book as an important frame and/or as creating a context for so many of the under reported, discounted, and minimized historical influences that shaped and profoundly changed the way we think and see the world at large. One could only conclude by the growing interest in exploring these topics, the amount of books published on these subjects; psychedelic subculture and the quest for consciousness expansion, is that they continue to be important and strong drivers of change today.

I thought this would be a great book, but it turned out to be a great disappointment.