Looks at the earliest archaeological evidence of drug use, the botanicals of the classical world, and, the mind-bending self-experiments of early scientists. This title explores the international spectrum of drug use in cultures throughout the modern world.
A definitive history of mescaline that explores its mind-altering effects across cultures, from ancient America to Western modernity
A provocative and original history of the scientists, writers, artists, and philosophers who used drugs to explore the mind. Jay, a leading expert on Western drug use, investigates the roots of psychoactive exploration often associated with the mid-twentieth century. Until the twentieth century, self-experimentation was common among scientists studying drug effects, leading to vivid descriptions that sparked insights in mind sciences, pharmacology, medicine, and philosophy. These accounts inspired the public to conduct their own experiments through scientific demonstrations, exotic travels, literary salons, and occult rituals. However, after 1900, drugs became increasingly viewed as a social problem, leading to a decline in self-experimentation. Jay highlights figures like Sigmund Freud, who experimented with cocaine, and William James, who had an epiphany on nitrous oxide, recovering a lost intellectual tradition that contributed to the birth of psychology, the discovery of the unconscious, and modernism. As society embraces new cognitive enhancers and psychedelics, the experiments of these early psychonauts reveal the profound impact of mind-altering substances on Western science, philosophy, and culture.
Ještě před sto lety si mohli lidé zajít do lékárny pro jakékoliv množství různých nakopávačů a srážečů ve formě lektvarů, tonik či prášku, které obsahovaly různé koncentrace opia, kokainu nebo konopí. Tato skvělá kniha nám říká, jak jsme z tehdejší reality dospěli k té dnešní; a také co tomu všemu předcházelo. Mike Jay odhaluje kořeny psychoaktivního požitkářství jednadvacátého století a přináší čerstvý pohled na popisy užití konopí a opia od velikánů, jako byli Baudelaire a Coleridge.