Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens

by Jay Stevens

Storming Heaven is a riveting history of LSD & its influence on American culture. Jay Stevens uses the "curious molecule" known as LSD as a kind of tracer bullet, illuminating one of postwar America's most improbable shadow-histories. His prodigiously researched narrative moves from Aldous Huxley's earnes attempts to "open the doors of perception" to Timothy Leary's surreal experiments at Millbrook; from the CIA's purchase of millions of doses to the thousands of flower children who turned on and burned out in Haight-Ashbury. Along the way, this brilliant novelistic work of cultural history unties such figures as Allen Ginsberg, Cary Grant, G. Gordon Liddy & Charles Manson. Storming Heaven irrefutably demonstrates LSD's pivotal role in the countercultural upheavals that shook America in the 1960s & changed the country forever.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Drugs, Psychology, Science, Politics, American History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Jay Karl Stevens was a freelance writer and social historian. Stevens was born and raised into a family of farmers in Springfield, Vermont. He attended school there as a child and then Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire, going on to the University of Vermont after graduation.
He is the author of Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (1987), and co-author of Drumming at the Edge of Magic with Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart and ethnomusicologist Fredric Lieberman. He founded Applied Orphics, a digital marketing and distribution company, and Rap Lab, a program bringing at-risk teenagers and professional musicians and poets together. Prior to his death, he was living at his family farm in Weathersfield Bow, Vermont, where he produced maple syrup.

Reviews

[Cwn_annwn_13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good book. You get lots of interesting stuff about Aldous Huxley, the famous beat writers, Owsley, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the evolution of the so called counterculture as a whole.

The problems that I have with Storming Heaven is not for what was in it but what was left out. For one Stevens was WAY too easy on Timothy Leary. The author seemed almost like a school girl with a crush when he recounts his visit to Learys home for an interview for the book. He comes off more as a fan than he does an objective writer at times when he deals with Leary. Why wasn't it mentioned that it has come out that Leary was a government informant and information he gave led to the death of two members of the Weather Underground? Its also a known fact that Leary was surrounded by CIA assets and there is a lot of evidence that he was a government agent himself, and at the least he was feeding them information.

There is also a fleeting mention that wasn't elaborated on about Ken Kesey that he had LSD experiments done on him at Stanford by the guy that ended up in charge of the CIAs Mkultra mind control program. This really makes me wonder about Kesey. Its more or less accepted history that the first LSD to get out on the street level was what Kesey stole from the medicine chest at his job as a night shift janitor at a mental hospital and distributed it among his elitist friends. Kesey went from writing what was probably the best novel written during the 1960's to, while becoming a counterculture hero, never writing another thing worth reading again. Did doing too much LSD scramble his brains and ruin his creativity or was his creativity nullified by Mkultra programming? Its hard to say for sure but I have to wonder if Kesey was not under some sort of mind control or was being used by the CIA in one way or another. There are a lot of unanswered questions in my mind about Kesey.

They also fleetingly mention the Brotherhood of Eternal Love who were major LSD distributors and were known to be full of CIA people and had a close association with a Jewish man named Ron Starks who was a CIA spook that also happened to the biggest LSD dealer in the world. Starks was not even given the first mention in this book!

I mean with all these ivy league, Mkultra and CIA connections to the elites of the so called counterculture I have to seriously wonder how much of the hippy movement of the late 60's was an organic rebellion against what was (and still is) a very repressive society both socially and politically and how much of it was intentional social engineering that came from the highest levels of the power structure. Many people believe that the anti-war movement was flooded with drugs, in particular LSD, by federal agents. Its well known that the government tried to subvert and destroy the anti-war movement with the cointelpro program so why wouldn't they also use drugs to try to destroy it? While it can't be denied that LSD has enhanced many an artist, writer and musicians work can you honestly say that sitting around frying on acid all the time is going to do anything but disable political activists who in many cases were in a life and death struggle? Besides that the fact remains that many people became permanently damaged as result of doing acid.

All that said I would definitely recomend reading or of you can get it cheap, buying Storming Heaven. I could hardly put it down once I started reading it. I realize that this book was more geared toward looking into what psychelic drugs can do with the mind and its exponents history and theories on the subject than any conspiratorial maneuverings by the US government involving LSD but it just didn't go deep enough into the rabbit hole for my tastes.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

In order to maintain the rigor of the physical sciences while maintaining that of ethics, Immanuel Kant performed a "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy by seeking the formal structures of reality in the human mind. This deep analysis, while ordinarily not regarded as necessary, the commonalities of human apperception being presupposed and therefore set aside in most of the sciences, is particualrly appropriate in psychopathology, parapsychology and in the studies of religion and of altered states of consciousness, all of which deal with extraordinary grounds of perception.

My own experiences with the hallucinagens have certainly brought this deep analysis home, particularly on those occasions when all contact with this ordinary world have been lost and other worlds, worlds that by all indices seemed realer, have appeared. Taking LSD et cetera in sufficient doses is, if a comparison to ordinary experience is to be drawn, like walking wide awake into dreams--and not just any dreams, not the ones which represent mere variants of quotidian life, but the most powerful of them, what Jung called 'the archetypal."

Having had, and returned, from such experiences, "reality" is ever after relativized. Now it appears that everything is imaginable, from the visionary beliefs of mystics and psychotics to the experiences of abductees.

Stevens' book is more an historical and sociological than a psychological or philosophical study. It is informative and entertaining. Nothing, however, substitutes for the experience if one is to appreciatively understand how LSD and related psychotropics had, and continue to have, such a profound social impact.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

While so much of this book was a recapitulation of history I'd encountered before--Aldous Huxley and mescaline, Gordon Wassan and Maria Sabina, underground LSD psychiatry--this was the first time I really sat down and learned about the LSD trinity of Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert and the work of the Merry Pranksters. I've since reneged somewhat of my contempt for Leary's egotism, as it was apparent that in between the grandiose statements, he at least tried to advocate for a more conscious application of set and setting, which of course Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters blew up like so many smoke bombs. Even now, with psychedelics becoming ever more semi-accepted by American culture as a possible medicine for mental health, the dichotomy of Apollonian "conscious, medical use" and the Dionysian "let's trip balls and dance" still haunts the discourse, and with no sign of soon going away. Meanwhile, paired with Jesse Jarnow's Heads, this is a fantastic and extremely readable (I burned through this large tome in about a week) history of LSD and psychedelics in America from about 1930-1969.

[No Problem James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although lacking in intellectual rigor and, especially, an index, it has a lively style and tells a fascinating story. It follows the the thread of one molecule through the birth of the 60s counterculture in America. There are four central protagonists--Albert Hoffman, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, and Ken Kesey-- the scientist, the aesthete, the mystic, and the provocateur, respectively. These various roles relate intimately to their notions of the usefulness of this strange chemical: to understand the mind, to awaken creativity, to provoke an encounter with divinity, and to achive a supernatural intersubjectivity. To investigate, to inspire, to transcend, and to freak out the squares.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding. Manages the remarkable trick of being a solid historical account while still letting the feel of the times dictate the shape of the material. Also, for some, some serious nostalgia value.

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really fascinating and well-documented cultural history of the middle of the last century - not at all just about acid, though of course you learn A LOT about acid as well. If you are interested in psychology, literature, the rise of Western interest in Eastern philosophies, mid-sixties music, pharmaceutical research, the CIA, California, altered states, beatniks/hipsters/hippies/squares/burnouts/organization men, the early versions of the war against drugs, or the United States generally between the years of 1940 and 1968, there is probably something here for you.

[SoulSurvivor · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hoped to give this book a high rating , but it was pretty much a bad trip . It was basically a history of the drug’s movement from a psychological instrument with promise , to theMid-60s hippie phenomena of San Francisco ‘hippies’ . The only parts I truly enjoyed was the background of master chemist Augustus Stanley Owsley III , and the Great Banana Conspiracy in the ‘Summer of Love’ . Book was a ‘Bummer of a Read’ . I had hoped for a flashback to my youth , but no .

[brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

fucking fantastic. stay way from salvia. trust me.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The rise and fall of the sincere effort to test the limits of human consciousness (and human behavior) through mind-expanding drugs. Now that LSD, psilocybin and others are making a small-scale, low-dose “comeback” in a clinical setting, it was interesting to learn that that’s also where the story of psychedelics began.

This riveting history charts the evolution of these experiments, and how they mutated, affected our culture in a profound way and, certainly, got out of hand. In our boxed-in world, this sort of thing is very inspiring. The LSD story may have failed in some ways, but you get the sense from this book that it opened up a great deal of opportunities, psychologically and philosophically, for the future.

If I have one criticism for this book, it’s that its writing is so aggressively engaging and colorful that at points it borders on being “cute.” However, all the writer’s sources are meticulously referenced, which gives the reader confidence that the writer is not stretching the truth. This book is not for all audiences, but I greatly enjoyed it. Note: I have never taken LSD.

[Moises Pittounikos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book's about the spiritual sadhana, or practice, of getting high and what comes after. But what is it we are supposed to be practising? In Tibet, they don’t believe that death is lights out. What modern people are saying about the near death experience, the Tibetans are saying something similar, but they go one step further than the modern picture. The Tibetans claim to know what is beyond the near death experience, and this is why they talk about practice.





My previous book was a philosophical look at DMT and the post-death state. The Tibetans, or the Bon shamans, or whoever lived in that area millennia ago, got there first. What survives today, in traditions like Tibetan shamanism and Yoga, is like a faint fossil, scraps, of the ancient knowledge.



You can get the outline of the T-Rex by looking at the fossil, but you must use your imagination to bring it back; and you can get the general idea of what the ancients knew about the after death, but unless you get rid of the ego, you have to use your imagination to see over the horizon, as it where.





But imagination is weak. I will like to suggest two modern techniques to do it the lazy way. Modern CGI technology can bring the T-Rex back, in a real and illusory way, but obviously more mental-friendly for you and me. The illusion looks more real than the fossil. This is the meaning of ‘Maya’. Maya means something that looks more real than the actual reality. So the CGI T-Rex looks even more real than the Fossil!



So is there a CGI for the after life? Or to put it another way, is it possible to do for your ego what CGI technology does for the fossil? But where the CGI resurrects the T-Rex, the modern teach will kill the ego.



The much misunderstood psychedelic experience is my candidate for the spiritual practice. With psychedelics, we have an illusion, but we also have a better way of sussing out what ego-death feels like than sitting on the meditation mat for hours.



Even if many argue that mediation will get you there. I use the example of the fossil versus the CGI. In this Maya, the illusory T-Rex is real, more real than your imagination and the fossil.



So even if the experts say that you hallucinate with psychedelics, the hallucination can help you to prepare for the plunge like the CGI can help a time traveller who accidentally lands in the valley of dinosaurs with a flat tyre.





Take the Tibetan Book of the Dead as an example of this knowledge. The dead man is asked not to give in to astonishment. The Lama says, ‘Don't be distracted by the fireworks’. But, of course, saying fireworks is an analogy and the actual after death experience has never been experienced by you or me while in these bodies, and especially in this ego. So, I think, the astonishment of not dying and being there will overwhelm the newly dead person.

Imagine being thrown out of an aeroplane and some guy in your headphones tells you not to give in the astonishment. This is impossible. You will panic and be very alarmed. Go down a giant water park slide and the first time you shoot off you shit yourself. The third time you feel more calm. So the more you do it the better you get. And it is the same with death and parachuting. Unfortunately for us, we only die once from this body. So how do we even begin to prepare for the after-death state the Tibetans say will happen?



You have to at least parachute a few times in your life to even get used to falling off an aeroplane, then you can practice keeping calm without the parachute! If you got pushed out of the plane and you've never parachuted in your life, you will panic!

In India they call the practice ‘spiritual sadhana’. You must do sadhana to prepare for the big occasion.



The parachuting lessons are a practice before the big fall. Buddhists say a good spiritual practice is like those parachute lessons. The more lessons, hopefully you'll be fine!

The Tibetans whisper into the ear of the corpse, to guide him through the chaotic states. In ancient times, the dead man did his spiritual sadhana while alive and so he’s in a better chance of being guided by the voice. So one who has done much practice in this life will hear the voice clearly and hopefully keep calm.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying is a good start.



If the Tibetan’s are correct, then they must have somehow gotten this knowledge. In his introduction to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, near the end, as a throw away line, Jung asks whether the Tibetan’s somehow solved some riddle, and cracked into the fourth dimension. Jung here is making a personal, and to some obvious, but to most not interesting, observation. It is intriguing how confident the Tibetans are about what happens.



Many a materialist, a scientist or a celebrity snake oil salesman will never take these questions seriously. They will dismiss anything they can’t see.

Here is a line from Goethe’s Faust:





"I see the learning in what you say.
What you don't touch, for you lies miles away
What you don't grasp, is wholly lost to you
What you don't reckon, you believe not true
What you don't weigh, this has for you no weight
What you don't count, you're sure is counterfeit".

Goethe is describing the mentality of the modern sceptic.



So C.G. Jung leaves the question with a sigh. It is too good to be true that the way the Egyptians mastered the pyramid the ancients near the Himalayas mastered the death states, if they even exist and there is no reason to believe that they do exist.



Until the 20th Century there indeed was no reason to think the states did exist. I will write here about the psychedelic experience, especially LSD, as a possible ‘trip’ out of the scull.



This isn’t a manifesto. In many traditions, dreams are a leaving the scull. There is a similarity between the dream and this apparent reality.



Even when we think of the sleeper and the corpse being in the same state. Both laying down, not moving. In fact they say that death is just going to sleep, so blank. But when we do go to sleep we dream. An observer standing over the sleeper only sees the body. When I wake up I report a crazy dream. How do we know the corpse is not dreaming? The Tibetan’s say that he corpse is dreaming. The only difference is that I wake up every morning and report my adventure and the corpse in this dream never wakes up again.


This writing is about a spiritual sadhana discovered in the 20th Century. The highly misunderstood LSD experience. If as Jung asked, the Tibetan did their own journeying, then the secret is lost. A candidate is the psychedelic experience. This is all I am arguing.





Albert Hoffman writes in his autobiography (LSD - My Problem Child) that the people travelling across the globe to set eyes on him would be taken aback and somewhat surprised as to how boring and completely ordinary a figure he cut; he being the discoverer of what to their generation was considered 'the atom bomb of spirituality'; Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).



But, Halt! Please Stop Right There! You may be asking, surely a trip you take on a weekend, or worse, those crack-heads sometimes have, and they giggle about it later, surely you are not suggesting any spiritual significance? The amount of times I questioned a teenager fresh from Amsterdam, and all I get is giggling!



World government has long jail sentences awaiting you if you dare make the spiritual equivalent of the atom bomb! That's right, a world blanket ban, because the seriousness of LSD warrants such a law.



So if this chemical is more serious than attempted murder or drive by shooting, then why are you interested?



These guys, the 'druggies' the teenager, and even the writers on drugs are not exactly reporting spiritual experiences! Monkey farts, maybe. God, definitely not!



So the government is right. There is no medical use for LSD, and God, well the experts say ‘no way’! That atom bomb of spirituality you just mentioned did not cause a paradigm shift and the modern medical people are merely dabbling in therapy and the top thinkers today are working on AI and software and so we can throw away those black and white video’s of people claiming astonishing things. We have Smart phones and that’s that!



Even the experts tell us that it is a hallucination and nothing they don't understand anyway, so that's that.



So its an open and shut case, right? The weekend drug takers trip on a weekend, and that's that, nothing to see here, and the experts also find no value in the experience, and that's it, nothing to see here. It is just a trip.



So all this talk of spiritual atomic bombs is merely hype.





But I retort to the sceptic this!



You need only watch the old black and white video's, especially the video with British politician Christopher Mayhew, to get a feel for the exciting discovery. Mayhew says that he experienced what Huxley called, "telescopic aeons of eternity in a second" (please note that time dilation happens in dreams every night, so suspend your mockery).



I especially enjoy the video with the polymath Gerald Heard. Heard says that death will feel like a psychedelic trip, literally a trip rather than a tryptamine. Heard's insights tickles another obvious insight mentioned by Jung in his introduction to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, but no one listened. Jung wonders whether the Tibetan Buddhists did their own tripping and this is why they are so confident about the after-death state. C.G Jung wonders whether the Tibetans somehow had something that allowed them to tap into the third dimension.

Maybe Gerald Heard was onto something after all.



C.G. Jung was from the same country as Albert Hoffman and bizarre as it seems, Jung was speculating whether the Tibetans somehow ‘tripped’ while Gerald Heard claimed to have done something with LSD which gave him a clue to what death will feel like and neither thinkers, or their followers, exchanged telephone numbers.





Alas, the Jungian community and the psychedelic community didn't meet, and the gap is widening, and so the insight was lost. LSD has today vanished, and charlatans are cornering the market with therapy and entheogenic nonsense about tree spirits and 'finding your calling.



A more recent video is by the physicist Nick Herbert. Herbert is the last witness I have come across. He says that he experienced what death may feel like, or another way 'of being Nick' that didn't require the body. In India this other something outside the body is the 'atman'. Sadly, even the advaita community turn with a shudder at people like Dr Nick Herbert!







The world has moved on from LSD and even people who dabble in the party scene are not seeing Spirit.



However, if you read Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens, this modern picture is not the original picture of LSD.



Back in the 1940's, yes the 40's, LSD was called the 'atom bomb of spirituality'. The suits reported transcendental experiences, the same suits cracking the atom in fact. How shocking the bomb was is how shocking this strange chemical was. We find it hard to appreciate the mindset from those days. But before the counter culture, strange currents are sensed, gathering over the ashes of the World War. The ghosts of the dead were on the march, the constellations positioned over Albert Hoffman's Swiss chemical lab, and LSD: God, was discovered.. The Gods from a Wagnerian drama were summoned, black and white split into dream, into the land of the Gods, and then the lid was closed.



Though the book by Stevens is readable, it is merely a journalistic take and therefore a sensationalist take on the biggest spiritual story never told, somewhat like a typical history documentary about the Second World War. You'll get the gist but all that propaganda will overwhelm you.





Storming Heaven got the 'Heaven' part right, but the book can't really tackle the mystery of the experience, but who can! As journalism, the read is fantastic, but it is only journalism and so polluted with the clichés and the sheathing of the experience with propaganda and utopianism.



However, even from that book, you do get the feeling that they discovered something big and miracle shining and God-Colour'Lighting.





Terence McKenna used to say that the mystery isn't why some saw God, the bigger mystery is why the weekend party people see nothing and why the experts see nothing. McKenna used to say that stupid people are inflicted with stupidity, and so they only see dancing mice when high!





The concept of 'set and setting', which most text books blindly endorse really goes against the evidence and even the genuine witnesses. With psychedelics there is a lottery. Some really broke thought to the Vastness.



It isn't only LSD we find this lottery.



This mystery of why only a lucky few get God, the question started with William James inhaling laughing gas. The gas is so called for the obvious reasons. But a philosopher of James' calibre inhaled the gas and he flew right up to God, and all the secrets of Hegel's unintelligible philosophy slotted into place and he, William James, figured out the secrets of the universe!



This is the great mystery.



Now the top men of James' day, like Bertrand Russell, mocked and giggled and the chapter was closed.



And so the experience of William James was lost, and the testimony of Christopher Mayhew is medicalised into the 'drug' model and Nick Herbert's report of being 'gods apostle' is explained by his drug use. And that's that, nothing to see here.



How's and Why's: A short detour.



We tend to mix us the 'why's' with the 'how's'.



Why did Gerald Heard see what death will be like when on acid? The psychologist will say 'LSD'. But this is a 'how' answer.

A 'how' did Gerald Heard see what death will be like answer will be that he took LSD? As for, 'why'?



Why did he figure out what death will be like? Unanswerable, so the 'how', ingesting LSD, is used.



All the You Tube commentators are doing the same mistake the psychologist made who interviewed Gerald Heard. They are swapping the 'why' with the 'how'... The 'how' explanation is easy.



Asking how is a start but answering the 'why' is impossible. Why questions are inherently unanswerable. People go through life mistaking 'how' answers for 'whys'. David Carse writes, in Perfect Brilliant Stillness, that if someone asked why is the sky blue, we answer ‘how’ the sky is blue and not why is the sky blue.



The same applies to cases of epileptic seizures. A video, Epilepsy and God, Dr V.S. Ramachandran is making the same mistake. He is mistaking the 'how' (the siezure) with the 'why' (God-consciousness).



So 'why' the god-intoxacation... Answer: Epilepsy. But epilepsy is a 'how' explanation, not a 'why' explanation. Ramachandran doesn't even notice his mistake.

[Mark Cretella · Rating 4 out of 5]

First 2 parts were very captivating, even though I had read most of these narratives before in other books. I was disappointed in the 3rd, it almost felt like it should have been in a separate book. Overall, a good read for those interested in the history

[Piotr · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know all about Leary's Harvard studies and Kesey's bus, but do you have any context for the pharmacological movement of what They sneeringly call 'the Sixties'? 20+ years after I first read it as a tie-dyed snot-nose, Jay Stevens' history of how and why humans choose to explore their sub/unconscious via psychedlics (and how we even came to call these drugs as such) remains a vital American History read. May the social powers that be one day reconsider the lessons learned on this trip, and apply them to where it is we may be going. ESSENTIAL READING (to some of We).

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

,,,a good history of LSD and intertwined CIA fuckery and their 'tests' on an unwitting public as well as good background on it's other impacts on larger society...some myths were dispelled and some perpetuated, but Mr. Stevens' overall research is sound and his writing style clear and concise...I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to discover how certain powers in our nation actually view both th' populace and policies towards us regarding personal freedom and how cheaply both are regarded...

[Don LaVange · Rating 5 out of 5]

A facinating journalistic history of LSD. It delves into the phenomenon I am very interested in, the birth of the flower children out of the ashes of the beats. Once they dropped acid they left their black berets behind and adopted the colors and edwardian glory of their innocent and naive rebellion.

A must read to understand the 60's and drug culture if you weren't there personally. I was but on the fray...

[Ferine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The clash between psychedelic drugs and 1950s American culture is one of the most riveting and fascinating periods in all of U.S. history. This book gives an overview of the who, why, and how, primarily from the perspective of those who were in favor of the drugs; it is a fair, objective account. Why was this promising class of drugs abandoned for 40 years? How did the CIA 'turn on' writer Ken Kesey and singer Robert Hunter of the Greatful Dead?

[David Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens (Grove Press 1987)(306.1). This should be titled ”The History of Acid in America,” and it's a great book. Sound scientific and cultural research makes this a pleasure to read. My rating: 7.5/10, finished 1990.

[Frank Palardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly good book from what I recall.

[James Brechtel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting dive into that period and piece of American society. It casts a rather unforgiving light onto Leary, which I was not expecting.

Starting from Albert Hofmann and Aldous Huxley and ending with the summer of love and Leary going to jail...the book goes on a tour of the psychedelic revolution that feels quite complete, in the end. It touches briefly touches on the advent of 'designer drugs' like MDMA and Ketamine in the epilogue but nothing terribly substantive.

If you're interested in a biography of the major figures in that movement (Leary, Huxley, Alpert, Kesey) then this book will provide. It's worth noting that the author spends much more time on Timothy Leary than the others. I would say this is justified but this is the only book I've read on the topic.

It feels more neutral in its viewpoints than I expected and, in the end, I was happy about that. I started the book thinking it would essentially claim that the movement (both the social and research aspects) had been shut down unilaterally and unfairly by the US government's crackdown...but the author really paints a more complex picture than that.

The quality of the writing itself was superb. This book had me gripped like typically only good fiction does. I couldn't put it down and would look forward to picking it up.

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book focuses more on intellectuals and gurus rather than Acid Dreams which focuses more on the Military-Industrial complex and LSD. I honestly prefer intellectual history rather than unpleasant realities like the national security state and its machinations. Anyway, the kerfuffle over LSD and how it blew up in the sixties can be traced to three or four figures in the development of psychedelic proselytizing. LSD is as Terrence Mckenna called it entheogens and anything that makes you come in touch with the divine has the annoying property of making one a missionary for that thing. Pioneers like Al Hubbard and Aldous Huxley thought it was a drug for an enlightened elite to run society on a higher plane. Timothy Leary took it a step further that everybody should take LSD under the proper supervision to make a better world. And Ken Kesey thought LSD should be for everyone on demand. Each figure radicalizing upon the other. Kesey hosted huge Acid Tests in the Bay Area with Grateful Dead as the house band. I have seen them a lot in the 80s and 90s BTW. But sooner or later the chaos unleashed brought down the wrath of the authorities and the drugs became schedule II substances hence illegal, which is too bad they do have therapeutic uses. Anyway good story about a substance that is referred to by its creator as his problem child.

[Noah MacKinnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read. It covers a lot of familiar ground if you're into the world of 60s/70s history, psychedelia, the Beats, and anything and everything that goes with it. It's what you expect from a sociological history of LSD, and for that I enjoyed it very much. I appreciated how it started with the germ of the idea, purely scientific, with Hoffman's isolation of LSD-25, and from there Stevens tracks the initial study both intellectual and then the inherent spirituality of the experience. The early pioneers Huxley and company, leading into it's pop culture status both highs and lows in the age of Aquarius and onwards. Again a lot of familiar territory if you're into that aspect of history and psychedelics, but I appreciated the condensed timeline and sources that Stevens built and draws from.

[John Marricco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely interesting and well researched book. This is a serious psychological look at how the invention of LSD changed a generation. Being born in 1969 and just being able to catch the end of the Grateful Dead, it was interesting to me to see how things got from then to now. This book is not funny stories about the affects of a crazy drug. It is a comprehensive study of what chemicals can do to a person's brain, and how average man and the government dealt with them.

[Quinton Oosthuizen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive account of LSD and it's relation to American counter-culture of the 1940s to 1970s, it's contribution to psychology, and the incredibly complex politics it gave rise to. I don't know if it will be sufficiently stimulating to those who haven't tried mind expanding drugs and don't get what the fuss is about, although it pretty much reads like an anthropology/sociology paper to a responsible upstanding citizen like that.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good deep dive into not just the history of LSD in America, but the way it overlapped with so many different elements of mid-century American culture. Yes, the big hitter like Leary and Kesey get plenty of space here, but so do the countless other scientists, researchers, psychologists, searchers and psychic frontier riders. It's one of the best overviews I've read and nicely ties a lot of different threads into a compelling read.

[gwawd · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 1/3 is very enlightening. A quick tour to the history of the psychedelic revolution is captivating. However, the author's excessive fascination with the figure of Timothy Leary, which sprouts and swells starting from the middle of the book is quickly tiring. Frankly, couldn't finish the read: felt like I'm wasting my time.

[Lewis Waite · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bible of psychodelic history. Covers most of the significant characters of the 60s-80s discovering the uses and effects of psychodelic drugs. A bit difficult to follow with so many people's stories being told separately and then merging at different points, but by covering so much the references are full of great reads that I'm yet to get through

[Rick Christiansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took me almost two years to get through. So 2 stars is generous enough. It is excessively thorough yet meanders somewhat aimlessly with an overall odd writing style/narration. I felt like it touched on a lot of interesting topics that I have read about before in better books. So I wouldn't recommend it

[Mark Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this immediately after reading Acid Dreams by Martin A Lee & Bruce Shlain. They both cover the history of psychedelics in the sixties and complement each other nicely. Storming Heaven puts less emphasis on the machinations of the CIA and more on the personalities of the main shapers of the movement, Huxley, Leary, Kesey, and Owsley. Highly recommended.

[Brett Raeburn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting topic and the author obviously did his research and covered the scope of the subject diligently. I found it hard to follow his stream of consciousness style of writing at times, however, and there were several chapters in the middle that I felt like I had to trudge through.

[Neal Umphred · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are going to read just one book about LSD and the psychedelic experience, I suggest THE JOYOUS COSMOLOGY by Alan Watts. If that whets your appetite for more, I then suggest STORMING HEAVEN by Jay Stevens.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

An even-handed, objective look into the history of LSD and its use and abuse by various users who understood "set and setting" as well as those who just wanted to get hammered a different way.