Stephen Biro's Blog - Posts Tagged "hellucination"

I'm actually very excited to see the reviews that will start coming in soon for my book. I sent out a copy to a student to use as a case study towards his Phd on cognition, perception and neurotransmission of artistic individuals....

I also have the editor of The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies with a masters in psychobiology reading it for review.



It's going to be really interesting since I have so many different people looking forward to reading Hellucination. I have theologians interested to see if it follows the word of God and the bible. I have several psychologists interested, people in the drug culture, horror fans and enthusiasts and people just curious since it is different then most books out there.

Lets see what happens.

I'm actually really excited about this. David Jay Brown, Psychobiologist and writer for the San Francisco Patch, has written several books about psychedelic studies and interviewed Ken Kessy, Timothy Leary, Terrence McKenna, Deepak Chopra, George Carlin and other lsd visionairies, that not only is he writing a review for Hellucination. He wants to write the introduction for the book on the next print run!

This is what I have been waiting for!!! An in-depth review from one of the leading minds of lsd research.

Now I need to get this into the hands of some famous theologians to get their take on it.

Oh... going over the printed version of the book. I found some typos three editors and one proofreader missed. LOL Fixing it up for the next print run.

Had a lot of people stop by that already owned the book. Was very surprised at that. Got into some deep conversations with some and they loved the book but some weren't finished with it.

Overall... a good experience.

Finally! I have my 1st review for Hellucination. I'm so used to the movie business where people can finish a movie in an hour and a half and write the review, that day. It's so much different in the book world. Here's the review on Amazon...

By Rob Fox - Thie review is for: Hellucination (Paperback)

Wow, what a ride. Real or made up, the story is solid and well told in great detail. I found myself unable to put the book down once I started it. It was like watching a train wreck, but in a good way! I found myself cheering for the author and wanting him to stop his destructive behavior, yet understanding why he did it. I read the book over a month ago, and can't stop thinking about it. Get the book, you won't be disappointed.

Not bad!!! I'm figuring my book will be a slow burn and as more people read it, they will turn others onto it. Lets hope I'm right!

Oh... and there is a day and a half left on the contest to win a copy of Hellucination. If your not entered, enter it. Giving away ten of them so it's a decent chance

I was trying to alter the contest for Hellucination but it would have put it on hold and screwed it up, so I picked another twelve people for the fun of it. It was based on the books they liked.

Were you one of them?

Thanks for everyone who found my book and wanted a copy. I wish I could give you all a physical copy but... I might be able to send you a digital copy if you ask and you don't even have to ask nicely. LOL

Spread it around but not too much. Trying to make a living here. ;-)

Stephen

I've been giving out copies to friends in the industry and I'm starting to get calls from them about the book.

All of my life... I have been on the outside of producing movies and such... being the guy in the background, trying to help others realize their dreams of sharing their work.

To be honest, I'm not used to being in the forefront of my own work but it's, my own work with hellucination. It's my life so it's different.

When talking to friends who know my life as well, as I know it, it is different. I knew I was putting myself out there with this and I will get used to it... it's just different.

I have no problem speaking to people about myself and my book. I have no problem, telling people what I know and teaching them the film industry they want to get into. I'm a decent public speaker and have no qualms about it.

I don't know what I am rambling about right now. I guess when I am on the phone with people I know who need to understand my book and what I went through. I know and understand why they do. I just really have to get ready for people I don't know, asking me the questions of my life.

It's one thing, for me to be standing in front of a crowd of people, asking me, as I give them answers about business in the movie biz. It's another to stand in front of them and tell them the reason for living. I got it, I can do it... just have to get used to it.

I like it!


Introduction to Hellucination

By David Jay Brown

One of the first discoveries that the Harvard Psychedelic Research Project made in 1962 was how important “set and setting” is when conducting a psychedelic session. Coined by Timothy Leary, the terms “set and setting” refer to the psychological mind set and the physical environment that one is in during a psychedelic experience, which can greatly influence what happens.

Decades of psychedelic drug experimentation suggest that one should be encouraged to take these powerful substances in a safe, comfortable, aesthetically-pleasing and peaceful environment that supports a spiritually-transformative experience. Otherwise, the experience can be more than a bit unpleasant, and under the wrong circumstances, it can become truly hellish.

However, despite this understanding, when Timothy Leary, Richard Albert, and Ralph Metzner wrote The Psychedelic Experience--and adaptation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead--as a guide book for LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin experiences, they neglected to realize that writing descriptions that were meant to be read aloud while tripping, which included phrases about the possibility of one becoming trapped in post-death realms, where “hungry ghosts,” “wrathful deities,” and “blood-drinking, flesh-eating demons” roamed, may not have been the best of ideas.

Many people have, unfortunately, reported that reading these descriptions aloud while tripping created precisely what they were meant to dispel. By invoking the dark imagery while one was in such a sensitive and vulnerable state of consciousness, these images can spring to life. This understanding is extremely important to remember, because in addition to heightening the senses, dissolving psychological boundaries, and enhancing brain processes, LSD directly effects the architecture of one’s belief system about the nature of reality. LSD is the most powerful tool ever invented for changing what we believe to be real, and this is why it is both cherished and feared by so many people.

An understanding of how one’s set and setting can influence psychedelic mind states may be helpful in understanding this extraordinary book. In your hands is an utterly fascinating story about someone who bravely explored the darkest, most extremely hellish aspects of the human psyche on a quest for God, and returned to share his mind-bending story.

Hellucination takes the form of a page-turning memoir, combining personal trip reporting with science fiction, horror movie, and religious mythologies, philosophical speculation on the nature of the author’s experiments with psychedelic drug combinations, strange encounters with other people who may not be what they seem, and the rationale behind his spiritual conversion from atheism to Christianity.

Underground film distributor and rare comic book dealer Stephen Biro’s journey through the darkest depths of his personal and collective underworld is every bit as frightening, disturbing, and enlightening as any of the creepy creations in his vast DVD and comic book collections. A connoisseur of the weird, the bizarre, the sensational, and the horrific, Biro filled his stores, his online inventories, his home, and his brain with the most profoundly gruesome imagery imaginable--“Cult, Gore, Anime, Kung Fu flicks for the Criminally Insane!”

Then Biro experimented with powerful, synergistic combinations of LSD, nitrous oxide balloons, and cannabis, while watching scary movies, with dazzling special effects, on a quest for God. He watched Rob Zombie videos, The Matrix, Fight Club, and other violent and disturbing films on his entertainment center while tripping. Not surprisingly, he had a series of hellish experiences, which he describes in great detail. The vivid and graphic visual descriptions in this book leave little to the imagination, and reading Biro’s memoir can seem like stepping inside one of H.R. Giger’s macabre visionary paintings at times.

Psychiatric researcher Stanislav Grof’s work with LSD demonstrated that the drug is basically a “nonspecific brain-amplifier.” So when Biro decided to experiment with LSD and other psychedelics he amplified the intensity of all this dark imagery and brought it to life.

Some of Biro’s extraordinary book Hellucination reminded me of my own attempts in Brainchild and Virus--the two semi-autobiographical science fiction novels that I’ve written--to describe psychedelic shamanic journeys that carried me from the underworld to the stars. I think that this journey from Hell to Heaven is an archetypal adventure, one that all human beings pass through when they take the path of psychedelic shamanism, and I also suspect that we are progressing through a similar pattern as a species.

Like Biro, I’ve also personally experimented with psychedelic drugs quite a bit, and on some of my journeys, have had similar experiences to those that he describes in this book. However, while the conclusions that I drew from my own experiences were different, the archetypal dynamics and many of the motifs are similar, and they clearly resonate with the story line in Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Religious or spiritual experiences are certainly not uncommon on psychedelics. Research by psychiatrist Oscar Janiger showed that people tend to have spiritual experiences on LSD around 24% of the time in a non-religious setting, that is, even when no spiritual or religious stimulus is present. When religious or spiritual stimuli are present, then the percentage can be much higher. Recent research at John Hopkins University in 2006 has demonstrated that psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can produce religious or mystical experiences in 61% of its participants, that are in every way indistinguishable from those reported by mystics and religious figures throughout the ages.

However, although these studies shed some light on this unusual book, Biro never seemed to have a classic mystical experience on his psychedelic journeys.

In this mind-blowing book, Biro experiences a progressive series of unbelievably bizarre personal hells, created, it appears, by filling his brain to the brim with dark and violent imagery while tripping--and this eventually propels him to break through into states of consciousness where he appears to meet and speak with “God.” While encountering the presence of “God,” or a higher spiritual intelligence, is not uncommon on high doses of psychedelics, Biro’s experiences stand out as truly unique among the reports that I’ve heard--like, for example, when he and the “real” “God” team up in hyperspace to violently kill and destroy the Western cultural “image” of “God.”

If this weren’t strange enough, as we progress further into Biro’s adventure, we learn that all of his encounters with “God” on psychedelics were really encounters with the Devil in disguise, or so Biro comes to believe.

Much of the book describes how the voices of “God” and “the Devil”--in the author’s own head, and coming through other people in various guises--are trying to win over his soul, and prevent him from succeeding in his spiritual quest. For Biro, his experiences became clear and convincing evidence for a divinely-inspired belief system that corresponds with the Judeo-Christian Bible. Although I’ve had many profound spiritual experiences on psychedelics, I wasn’t able to make this leap, and I still find myself surrounded by a universe of unfathomable mystery. Nonetheless, I absolutely loved Hellucination, and feel a resonance with its core message.

I completely loved the way that Biro weaves his personal experience with the story lines from cool horror and science fiction films, and how vivid descriptions of his hellish acid trips become so extreme, so intense and over-the-top, that I would simultaneously squirm with fear and and giggle with delight.

This can be a truly frightening book, and it is most definitely not for the faint-hearted. Hellucination ia so frightening in certain sequences, because when you read it, you have no doubt that it is honest and authentic reporting. The nightmarish hells that Biro experienced would scare the living daylights out of Edgar Allen Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King--and Biro’s mind-blowing story really happened!

But Hellucination can also be a pretty funny book at times, as Biro never loses his sense of humor, and sometimes his vividly-described hells can just become so damned horrible that they eventually become comical. For this reason, and because of the spiritual fruits that the author achieved, I actually found the book to be uplifting, as the hellish sequences often appeared to be grotesque parodies of my own life, and society at large, offering us fruitful opportunities for profound insight and thoughtful reflection.

--David Jay Brown
Author of "Mavericks of the Mind" and "Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse"

Working on the video for the book Hellucination and having a hard time with the sound. LOL

I know... I could have some of my people do it for me but the book is me and I want to keep it that way. LOL

Just switched to PC from Mac and working with new software so that's my problem. LOL

I have everything, vid clips, audio, soundtrack and text but having a hard time lining it up. LOL

Wish me luck!!!

I took the public domain of Dante's Inferno from 1936 and edited it, with me reading a slight chapter from my book overlayed on top of it with a little Beethoven behind it.

Had one person sort of freak a little on it. LOL Wife thought I would read a different section for it instead of the one I did.

I don't think I did too bad since it's new software for editing.

If you watch it, let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WFPU2...

From Rock, Shop and Pop...

Readers of this site and other similar cult movie review sites and forums will likely know Stephen Biro as the guy who runs Unearthed Films. Stephen’s been around the genre and cult movie scene for years now and through Unearthed has put out everything from Slaughtered Vomit Dolls to the Guinea Pig films to a special edition Blu-ray release of Rock N Rule. Having now authored his first book, Stephen can add self publishing to his list of accomplishments – and according to this autobiographical memoir, he can also tack ‘having done a ridiculous amount of drugs’ and ‘searching for God’ to that same list.

As unusual as it sounds, Hellucination is an aptly titled book about Biro’s self inflicted drug fueled search for a higher power. It’s a weird book, make no qualms about it, but it’s also very well written and surprisingly interesting. This is no 700 Club ‘come to Jesus’ novel, but instead a very personal document of Biro’s early years, his bootleg video operations, his personal relationships and all the toils and troubles they’ve involved, the forming of Unearthed Films and yes, his constant experimentation with pretty much every hallucinogenic substance you could care to name and then some. The fact that this leads Biro on a quest to understand God not only as a concept but as a higher power comes into play and winds up eventually driving the narrative but never overpowers things to the point where they get preachy, though those who know Biro probably expected something like this to be the last type of book he’d ever write.

The fact is, though, that as bizarre and frequently filthy as this book can get, it really is a book about his finding salvation in the most unusual of ways. In order to get there, however, Biro pushes the limits of his own consciousness and this often becomes the focus of the book. Told in the first person, as if Biro was guiding you through a trip through his own memories, the book turns out to be part horror story, part psychedelic science fiction parable and part morality tale but as bizarre as it all is, it’s never dull. Add to that the fact that Biro can actually write and that here he shows a real knack for building mood and atmosphere and this 165 page memoir turns out to be, if nothing else, a really interesting read. You can’t always tell ahead of time where Biro is going with this, as the book gets stranger and stranger before it starts to make cohesive sense but the narrative structure is well put together and the man can turn a phrase, all of which helps to put you in a frame of mind frighteningly similar to where he had to be at the time while experiencing all of this himself.

Don’t be turned off by the religious aspect of Biro’s book. Hellucination doesn’t moralize nor does it cram any self righteous philosophy down your throat, rather it explains in sometimes frighteningly honest terms one man’s own personal journey through a drug addled haze and his own personal conclusions as to what else is out there, just outside this physical plane.