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

by Daniel Pinchbeck

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Spirituality, Philosophy, Psychology, Drugs, Science, Religion

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Daniel Pinchbeck is an American author. His books include Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, and Notes from the Edge Times. He is a co-founder of the web magazine Reality Sandwich and of the website Evolver.net, and edited the North Atlantic Books publishing imprint Evolver Editions. He was featured in the 2010 documentary 2012: Time for Change, directed by Joao Amorim and produced by Mangusta Films. He is the founder of the think tank Center for Planetary Culture, which produced the Regenerative Society Wiki.

Reviews

[Shivatva Beniwal]

Actually, the Hebraic-Babylonian concept of God is very premature. They imagine God as an object, a person, and not as a quality. And that's why Jews claim God's official name is Yahuha and Muslims claim God's official name is Allah. They describe God as a mighty emperor.

Whereas in the Eastern religious traditions, God is a quality, not an object. They believe God is within the universe and the universe is within God. God is not God but godliness - and godliness has to be found first within ourselves. Unless we have a taste of it in our own being we will not be able to see it anywhere else. Once we have tasted it, once we have become drunk on the divine, then we will see it in the trees — in the green of the trees, in the red of the trees, in the gold of the trees. We will see it in the sun, in the moon, in the stars. We will be able to see it in the animals, birds, people, rivers, mountains. The whole existence will reflect our understanding, will become a mirror to us. We will be able to see our own face everywhere. We can see only that which we are, we cannot see that which we are not.

Now, remember why ancient Eastern Shamanic religious traditions (such as Mithraism, Vedic religion, Tengrism, Shamanism, Taoism, Shintoism etc.) consider the sky, the moon, the fire, the sun, the stars, trees, animals, rocks, rivers, etc as divine, as God?! :)

[aloveiz · Rating 2 out of 5]

The least insulting thing I can say about this book is maybe that Pinchbeck was too young to write this when he did. It's a complicated topic and he deserves some credit for addressing its intrigue. In general, I got the feeling he wrote this to enhance his hip, New York bachelor, image. Pinchbeck's background is in journalism, and that style is expressed pretty grossly here. He travels around being the witness, relaying different accounts of psychedelic or shamanistic encounters without expounding on differentiations between the terms. His personal anecdotes all seem too recent, and too egotistical. he doesn't create the isolation of self that could make one trust that he has the foresight enough to qualify these experiences.

I didn't finish this book, I probably should have read the conclusion but I think it ended somewhere on the playa and I've always respected the solitude of the desert too much to get in to spaces like that.

[Nina H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading through Pinchbeck's incredibly well-documented experiences with various plant substances such as iboga and ayahuasca, along with his quest for knowledge in understanding the dwindling shamanic culture of the rainforests was a thrilling way to live vicariously through someone's most intimate and trippiest moments. He's just that good at getting it all down on paper. But the best part of this book is the message that really gets driven home to the heart of who we are, the potential of what we have yet to learn about ourselves, something humankind has barely scratched the surface of-- which he saves for the few chapters toward the end.

I won't spoil it for you, but Pinchbeck definitely has a lot to say about where we sit in this particular branch of "time" and the how much these ancient plant worlds play a huge part. Without getting too cheesy here, I have to say if there ever was a perfect role model of a modern-day shaman, he is it.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, I have rarely seen such an arrogrant prick writing so lazily. If the subject matter hadn't been absolutely fascinating, it would have gotten 1 star. Because of the subject matter, I only hated it (or more precisely, hated the author).

@pointblaek

[Brandon Wicke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alright, I’ve gotta call it quits on this one.

Probably just read Castaneida instead. Or drop acid and cut out the middle man.

[masttek · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pinchbeck is the type of person that gives psychedelics a bad image. While the book starts off with a rational Pinchbeck, one can already tell his rationality is more of a misplaced materialism. By the end of the book Pinchbeck appears to have lost all rational inquiry as he comes to believe he is a modern day shaman. Highly disappointed...first time I've ever really disliked a book.

[Gnarly Authenticity . · Rating 1 out of 5]

Deeply and fundamentally bogue if taken on its own terms. Three and a half stars if read as a confession by an aging horndog and failed artiste attempting to found a dope/occult cult in order to slake his need for hippie poon.

[Joseph Y · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is one of the few books I've ever thrown across a room

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since November of 2007 to present day August 27, 2009 I have read an estimated 160 books. Daniel Pinchbeck is a voice that speaks to me more than any I've encountered along my self-developmental path. With a supreme command of the English language, Pinchbeck accounts the history of his and many great minds of the "Beat" generation while venturing into unfamiliar cultures, ritualistic initiations, and transcendent states of being and alteration through a number of organic substances and synthetic solutions. Mindful encounters with the drugs iboga, ayahausca, psilocybin mushrooms, DMT (dimethyltryptamine), and DPT (dipropyltryptamine) among others lift the veil from this remarkable author's eyes as he hears, "This is it. Now you know. This is it. Now you know."

Undeniable spiritual encounters, true hallucinations, and the emergence of fresh realities relayed via a vast lexicon render this title one I have purchased at least 4 times and hand delivered to friends.

This is my number one pick for 2008; Daniel's voice and topic leaves the reader thirsty for more of his words.

[Derek Pegritz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Daniel Pinchbeck is a complete fucking idiot. And a tool. However, this book *does* contain some very interesting material on psychedelics in contemporary society. Too bad it's filtered through the POV of a complete and utter idiot.

[Brittaney Freiheit · Rating 5 out of 5]

That moment when you finish a book and your entire conception of what it means to be a human being changes. The kind of book that leads you to a fantasmical realm as you hold hands with reality.

[Entheogenetic · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just awful! Pinchbeck,s ego just screams out from almost every page. I wonder who wants to be the next Terence Mckenna? hmmm not a chance Daniel.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

interesting subject, author seems generally unpleasant

[Chris Merola · Rating 2 out of 5]

An accidentally brilliant experience - a tome of spastic babbles, laden with unintentional sexism and xenophobia, which manages to say nothing about the world and everything about its author.

Homeboy is so self absorbed. He, a wise white boy, spends half the book critiquing western society for its ignorance and condescension towards other cultures, while consistently displaying the same carelessness in his writings. He visits Huatla in Mexico, describing the town as a "Third World backwater," "rough, functional, and ugly," "the smell of cheap gasoline hung in the air," his hotel was "plain, concrete-walled, with a septic smell."

Instead of charting various shamanic practices, as the title of the book suggests, Pinchbeck decides to spend the book tripping balls on whatever he can find, cobbling together images and puddle-deep insights from his journeys to bestow upon the reader. Across the 300-ish pages of the book, we witness his writings grow more disconnected, arrogant, self-righteous, irrational - and entertaining.

There's no knowledge to be found here. But, if you want to watch a man zap the shit out of his mind and see the effect this has on his prose and ability to structure a book - you're in for a trip.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this perspective on modern/ancient psychedelic experiences. The author has a frank honesty about the rationale for his drug use and seeks out spiritual experiences throughout this novel for his own personal fulfillment. I enjoy books that suggest other authors for me to check out and point back to an author's reading experience and journey as a learner and this book was not short on those suggestions. This book seemed to me to be the evolution of perspective that one might have on drugs if a student followed their passion for the psychedelic experience into their adult life after college. The blending of other culture's spiritual perspectives within the world of mind altering substances is an interesting study in the strange stance that our society takes on drug use as well as other perspectives that are possible to hold. An enjoyable, entertaining personal journey novel that asks the reader to come along an interesting path that other cultural perspectives offer the modern adventurer.

[Jeff Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this randomly in a bookstore and was intrigued, partly by the hallucinatory cover. But I'm glad I did. I've always had a fascination with altered consciousness, particularly with a more spiritual slant to it, as though the hallucinations represent a different world altogether. I appreciate books that change the way I think to a degree, and this book did in the fact that I do look at plant life differently. At times his tone seems like it pushing too hard to open one's mind to a psychadelic journey, but in the end, most people that open and read a book on contemporary shamanism are probably already open to it. But I believe the book started as a series of articles, so perhaps there is where the didactic tone comes from. In the end, I very much enjoyed the book as it fed into an interest of mine with not only a highly detailed personal account but a thorough anthropological examination of its tribal history.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's an intriguing, educating and inspiring read. Don't get discouraged by the overdone literary analysis at the beginning (or just beyond the beginning) of the book; there's some good stuff in there but if that's not your thing just keep going and he gets back on his psychedelic journey where he accesses parallel dimensions and his ethical reflections on human life on this planet. For me it was one of those books that sort of changes your whole perspective on things, or better put, it brings you back to ways of thinking and feeling that you've experienced before but get lost as you ride the waves of everyday life. Probably one of the most important books I've read in the last few years. It reminded me that this life is an adventure, and that every step counts.

[Mushatori · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book could have been shorter. It’s clear that when he wrote this book he could not see the true value of psychedelics, I don’t know if he still does. He advocates for respecting psychedelics while casually ingesting, snorting, etc like it’s no big deal.The hypocrisy of the book is mind bending. He goes on to project some semblance of humility with anecdotes from friends and disdain for the capitalists mindset. However, he fails to realize that he is part of the very culture he resents. The traveling hippie lost in the world looking for a culture to appropriate in order to satisfy a spiritual void.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pinchbeck is the embodiment of a modern Huxley, Castaneda and McKenna. His descriptions are believable, honest and valuable. Anyone with a remote interest in shamanism will enjoy this book. I will say that every once in a while, his ideas seem to carry themselves away and take him along. Keep that in mind, but for the most part, this is an excellent book.

[Talia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 3/4 of this book was this guy trying to achieve spiritual faith that most women contain by the age of 11 but once we move past that it gets pretty crazy. I appreciate how well researched this is and I can definitely see it being an important read for men who are overly attached to the physical world and their own arrogance. Four stars because it was so so well written

[queen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE this book! Reading this book was like having mental masturbation for me. It breaks open your head. For psychedelic lovers.

[Alberto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part biography, part history of the major psychedelic compounds.
What's remarkable is the author's story arc as his head breaks progressively wider open. I wonder if I'll also get to the later stages, using crystals and tarots to rid my house of evil spirits.

Highlights:

Laid out for me was the entire, intricate process of my self-development. The process was complex yet ultimately organic. The extension of the self was, I realized, a natural process, akin to the blossoming of a plant. While a plant extends toward the sun throughout its life, human beings evolve internally. We rise up and flourish, or become stunted, involuted, as we react to the forces that press against us. Our growth takes place in the invisible realm of our mental space, and the unreachable sun we rise toward is knowledge—of the self and the universe.
==========

We have sacrificed perceptual capabilities for other mental abilities—to concentrate on a computer screen while sitting in a cubicle for many hours at a stretch (something those Indians would find “utterly impossible and incredible”), or to shut off multiple levels of awareness as we drive a car in heavy traffic. In other words, we are brought up within a system that teaches us to postpone, defer, and eliminate most incoming sense data in favor of a future reward. We live in a feedback loop of perpetual postponement. For the most part, we are not even aware of what we have lost.
==========

he anticipated the development of culturally sanctioned mood-lifting drugs such as Prozac and Ritalin, which would be mass-prescribed: “They may help the psychiatrist in his battle against mental illness, or they may help the dictator in his battle against freedom,” he wrote. “More probably (since science is divinely impartial) they will both enslave and make free, heal and at the same time destroy.” Huxley died in 1963.
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This vision was a small revelation. I realized that most thoughts are impersonal happenings, like self-assembling machines. Unless we train ourselves, the thoughts passing through our mind have little involvement with our will. It is strange to realize that even our own thoughts pass by like scenery out the window of a bus, a bus we took by accident while trying to get somewhere else. Most of the time, thinking is an autonomous process, something that happens outside of our control. This perception of the machinelike quality of the self is something many people discover, then try to overcome, through meditation.
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Bergson suggested the universe “was a machine to create Gods.”
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“My assumption about psychedelics has always been that the reason they are not legal is not because it troubles anyone that you have visions, but that there is something about them that casts doubts on the validity of reality,” he wrote. “They are inevitably deconditioning agents simply by demonstrating the existence of a nearby reality running on a different dynamic. I think they are inherently catalysts of intellectual dissent.”
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[David Brady · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than what it says on the fly leaf. This is about e writer’s journeys into psychedelics and shamanism, yes, but it weaves in deep observations of social critique, political and economic theory and human history, and the nature of reality… really good. 4.5

[Helmut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dream a dream, and what you'll see will be
In einer der letzten Folgen der US-Fernsehserie "Homeland" soll ein Drogenabhängiger "auf die schnelle" vom Heroin befreit werden - und ein CIA-Agent hat die Idee, ein hochgefährliches, tödliches Mittel auszuprobieren, das die CIA früher für solche Zwecke einsetzte: Ibogain. Alle schauen den Vorschlagenden entsetzt an - waterboarding, Foltern, Morden, ja gut - aber Ibogain? Dann lieber Heroinabhängigkeit, scheint das Fazit. Ein schönes Beispiel, wie die Medien grundsätzlich entheogene Substanzen behandeln, die ja schon fast so gefährlich scheinen wie eine Runde D&D oder Rockmusik. Gleichzeitig wird im Fernsehen gesoffen, dass sich die Balken biegen - und keiner hat ein Problem damit, die staatlich sanktionierte Droge Alkohol, die gefährlicher und schädlicher ist als alle Halluzinogene zusammen, frei im Supermarkt kaufen zu können (vgl. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/po...).

Pinchbeck beschreibt seinen Weg vom ziellosen Sinnsuchenden hin zum klarsichtigen modernen Schamanen, den er mittels Iboga, Peyote, Zauberpilzen, Ayahuasca, LSD, DMT und schließlich DPT gegangen ist. Sein Erzählstil ist zu Beginn stark an anthropologischen Reise- und Erfahrungsberichten orientiert, bei denen er seine Eindrücke und die anderer Reisebegleiter schildert - hier ist das Buch großartig, spannend und mitreißend. Mit fortschreitender Seitenzahl und Steigerung der Drogenpotenz wird das Buch politisch, eine Anklage an den Kapitalismus und dessen weltzerstörendes und zukunftsloses Tun. In einem dritten Part wendet sich Pinchbeck dann einem schamanistischen Mystizismus zu - hier verliert er mich als Leser etwas.

Vielleicht muss man selbst schon entsprechende Erfahrungen gemacht haben, um diesem Teil wirklich folgen zu können. Über Shrooms und Papers bin ich nicht hinausgekommen, daher kann ich das schwer beurteilen (nach den Berichten Pinchbecks strebe ich das auch nicht mehr wirklich an) - und diejenigen, die Halluzinogenen sowieso ablehnend gegenüberstehen, werden Pinchbeck eh schon viel früher als spinnerten Acidhead abtun. Dabei hat er viel zu sagen, und er tut dies in einem wunderbar lesbaren Ton. Pinchbeck sieht unsere Generation in Gefahr, sich vollends vom Spirituellen zu lösen. Psychotrope Mittel scheinen, verantwortungsvoll und in Maßen genutzt (also nicht zur Unterhaltung und zum "Kicken"), ein Weg zu sein, sich mit dem Sakralen auseinanderzusetzen - und der Bedarf ist zweifellos da, wenn man sich ansieht, was Leute heutzutage alles tun, um sich nicht mit dem Materialismus unserer Konsensgesellschaft abfinden zu müssen; das aktuelle Beispiel sind deutsche Jihadisten.

Ein sehr spannendes Buch über ein Thema, das heutzutage nur noch ein Nischendasein fristet, und dabei man muss eigentlich kein Konsument irgendwelcher Kakteen, Baumrinden oder Pilzen sein, um manche der Ideen in diesem Buch auf sein eigenes Leben zu übertragen. Manchmal brauchen wir nur einen Schubs, der uns den Kopf aufbricht.

[Ogilviemt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book started off well and I was interested in the subject matter that I didn't know anything about when I started reading. I also liked how each Part of the book was devoted to each entheogenic compound which made it easy for me to keep track of all of the different topics being covered.

I quickly found the book less interesting (I even started skipping whole paragraphs and sections) when what I thought would be a subjective recount of a man's experience with psychoactive substances but instead was presented with his Marxism and opinion of how capitalism is a force for evil in the world. Not only is that thesis demonstrably wrong, but it's a waste of my time (and money having purchased the book) to have to sit through that.

The book's tone then settles back into the journalistic retelling of his various adventures and chemicals that shamanic tribes have used which once again I found interesting.

But then Daniel decides to change the entire tone into a new-age, alien, morally relativistic nonsensical attributation to alien beings from other dimensions living and guiding humanity through magical plants. It's utter rubbish and a waste of time. The last two Parts of the book can be forgotten entirely.

Daniel's lack of skepticism in regards to his experience is the mark of a true buffoon. I agree with another reviewer in that Daniel likely had some kind of political motivation with this book to perhaps get more cred in his own New York scene. At least it reads like that.

This could have been a great book if Daniel had stuck with the subject matter at hand and left out the opinion on political theory and allusions to some alien reality that he supposes must exist.

Three stars for the parts that warrant it. One star for the rest.

[Jack Barten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a refreshing book to read when it came out and the fact that it seems a bit dated now is an indication of how much has happened since then, in terms of use of research chemicals and the expansion of festivals, than a reflection of the book.

It journals a mans journey from that of a cynical hack to a new age neo shamanic enthusiast, via assignments to the jungles to take shamanic potions and also via the use of research chemicals. Those descriptions are a touch navel gazing but better than many accounts of drug use in recent literature.

The books in itself is good but it is unfortunate that much of his subsequent book, The Return of Quetzalcoatl, contained so much information that was a re-hash of it.

The descriptions and history of Burning Man are one of the most original aspects of the book and certainly would have helped some decide on whether or not they would wish to spend days in the blazing sun with IT folks.

In terms of writing style, it is perhaps a bit American for English tastes but one certainly gets a sense of the angst of being Daniel Pinchbeck, which is what it's all about.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

What starts a relatively objective become a little more woo-woo and New Age-y as it goes on. Also, don't forget he's been accused of being a sexual predator.

However, the idea of Shamanism meeting Modernism is an enjoyable and escapist narrative to consider in this world. The idea that the ecological crisis is a rite of passage or initiation for humanity collectively, forcing us to reach the next level of our consciousness as a species is an idea that fun to consider as the world appears to erode.

As such, this book is a nice throwback, its fun to consider a time when Burning Man wasn't so compromised and those ideas weren't so commercialized, but Pinchbeck's analysis is of shamanism and his conclusion is that it's a valid choice in a world that favors rational materialism.

He's a bit of a looney when he gets to Quetzalcoatl (not in this book), it's the noble idea that we are working towards being Star Children. The ideas of my favorite writers like Grant Morrison and Jodorowsky still lives on. It's a naive optimism to me, but sometimes we need that. Especially as Childhood ends.

[Mike Correll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daniel Pinchbeck takes us on a personal psychedelic reverie into some places we can’t easily access independently, and for that, some credit is due (namely the rituals of ancient cultures as preserved by their modern descendants). The subject of entheogens needs as much positive exposure as it can get. Unfortunately, it seems he used this opportunity to cast himself as a tenured psychonaut, a kind of Terence McKenna, Jack Kerouac hybrid. There are moments in this book when his true prowess as a writer shines through, however, these don’t make up for his generalized glibness and pretentious prose.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is much more than a cultural history of psychedelics. It is an argument for 21st century spirituality, which Pinchbeck claims is necessary to regain different levels of consciousness lost to the Western world. Towards the end, the book takes a rather bizarre turn but until then it's a good read. As a person who had previously only taken psychedelics for fun, Pinchbeck's book really made me reconsider the possibilities of these drugs and what other realities could be out there. It could have done with some information on acquiring some of these drugs, particuarly ibogaine which sounds potentially lifesaving. Pinchbeck was lucky enough to be able to go to shamanic retreats and that sort of thing through his work but the majority of people don't have that luxury.

[Teri Dluznieski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book about altered consciousness. I particularly like the fact that it instills a need for respect and integrity when working with the invisible realms. Too many people approach drug use, getting drunk and getting "high," casually. This is dangerous. Daniel Pinchbeck's writing and stories illustrate and emphasize this reality very clearly. I also like how the book is broken down into paired chapters. A first chapter on a particular substance will be historical, anthropological and reference information. The following chapter will be anecdotal information based on personal and direct experiential work. the balance of both sides is elegant and complete. I have recommended and loaned this book to many people.