The New Psychedelic Revolution

A bold exploration of modern psychedelic culture, its history, and future.

The New Psychedelic Revolution examines three modern psy-culture architects: chemist Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, mycologist-philosopher Terence McKenna, and visionary artist Alex Grey. It investigates the use of microdosing in extreme sports, the psy-trance festival experience, and the relationship between the ego, entheogens, and toxicity. This volume also presents a "History of Visionary Art," tracing its roots from prehistory, through Ernst Fuchs and the Vienna School of the Fantastic, to contemporary psychedelic art.

After the dismantling of a major acid laboratory in 2001 dramatically reduced the world supply of LSD, it seemed the psychedelic revolution of the 1960s had run its course. However, the opposite has proven true. A psychedelic renaissance is rapidly emerging with transformational festivals like Burning Man and BOOM!, a resurgence of positive media coverage on entheogens' benefits, and a growing number of celebrities acknowledging their personal use.

Alongside the revived university research, the resurgence of psychedelic philosophy, and the increasing popularity of visionary art, these developments signify the start of a worldwide psychedelic cultural revolution more integrated into the mainstream than the 1960s counterculture uprising.

In his book, James Oroc defines the borders of 21st-century psychedelic culture through the influence of its three main architects—Shulgin, McKenna, and Grey—and illustrates facets of this “Second Psychedelic Revolution.” This includes microdosing in extreme sports and the tech-savvy psychedelic community around transformational festivals, along with the relations between the ego, entheogens, and toxicity. For the first time, he presents a “History of Visionary Art” detailing its importance to visionary culture's emergence.

Exploring entheogens' practical role in our selfish and fast-paced modern world, Oroc explains how psychedelics are powerful tools to examine the ego and the shadow via the transpersonal experience. He argues that cultural adoption of the entheogenic perspective offers our society the best chance to survive. The ongoing psychedelic revolution, a century old since the first synthesis of a psychedelic in 1918, holds the potential to birth a new Visionary Age.