Customer Reviews

White Rabbit: A Psychedelic Reader

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A great anthology of stories, one of the most complete piles of drug culture writers around, giving one a brief look into a plethora of great writing that will lead to further investigation of their works by teasing them with this fine book. Packed with writers from all over the spectrum and many genres, old and new alike. A Must have for those deeply in love with the drug culture. This book gives the reader a taste of many great writers out there, all with mounds of their own material that needs to be read, this book can prove as a lead in to these readings and makes for an excellent leisurely taste of what is out there for those who desire it.

The wide variety of writing here examines the vast amount of literature about drugs with the emphasis on drug users. White Rabbit is a comprehensive anthology that permits the reader to contemplate the complete range of substances, from absinthe, eboga and ecstasy to yage and opium to moonshine, as narrated by some of the world's most imaginative writers.

Authors and sources include William Burroughs (The Yage Letters), Nelson Algren (The Man with the Golden Arm), Florence Nightingale, Jean Cocteau (Opium), Arthur Conan Doyle, Philip K. Dick, Miles Davis (Miles: The Autobiography), Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception), Charles Baudelaire (The Double Room), Terence McKenna (True Hallucinations), Lewis Carroll, Hunter S. Thompson (The Great Shark Hunt), Amos Tutuola (The Palm-Wine Drinkard), Paul Bowles (Without Stopping), Arthur Rimbaud, Marie Corelli (Wormwood), Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test), Timothy Leary (The Psychedelic Experience), Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sigmund Freud (Coca) and The Rig Veda (Soma).

Whether in ecstasy or hung over, addicted or recovering, the writers in White Rabbit examines the drug experience from every angle. Their always fascinating and often eloquent narratives provide a colorful read, amply rewarding the reader with its variety of experiences. Some pieces are way too short, though, like Florence Nightingale's one little sentence, Paul Gauguin's two short paragraphs and Rimbaud's brief poem. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's little ode to opium is also quite skimpy.

White Rabbit provides great insight as it brings together so many interesting perspectives and writing styles. As the authors put it so well: "Drugs are inherently subversive, sometimes dangerous, occasionally great fun. They 'clear away the past and enhance the present,' they can inspire great art and greater experience, or they can unleash the monster lurking within." The book concludes with nine pages of brief biographies of the authors, providing some background to the pieces collected here.

Similar works that might be of interest include Phantastica by Louis Lewin, Animals and Psychedelics by Giorgio Samorini, Supernatural by Graham Hancock and DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman.

An extraordinary sampling of some of the best authors of our time. Mind bending story after mind bending story engrosses the reader in worlds where thought has been invaded by one or another substance until the reader's mind is warped by the words on the page. I also learned a great deal about the authors and their writing that I hadn't known before. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in human thought.

Not the best drug related book I've read but certainly not bad either. You'll find the usual suspects lined up to tell you about their experiences in dimensions beyond the known. I don't believe it's true to say that there is nothing more boring than listening to other people describe their acid trips. A lot of what's in White Rabbit is pretty interesting although not as interesting and inspired as the Jefferson Airplanes classic song.