Vietnam/The Sixties 2, Sixties Literature 4

139. LEARY, Timothy. Psychedelic Prayers. Kerhonkson: Poets Press (1966). The only book of poetry by Leary, modeled after the Tao te Ching, the Chinese classic of mystical spirituality. Two years earlier, Leary (and collaborators) had written The Psychedelic Experience, a guide derived from the Buddhist classic, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. As Huxley and Alan Watts had discovered before Leary did, the vocabulary of the mystical experience in eastern religious traditions could be helpfully applied to the altered state of consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelic drugs. In fact, those terms provided the framework for thinking about, and discussing, the use of drugs throughout the Sixties--one of the reasons that the discourse between drug users and non-users became so polarized eventually: without the drug experience to justify the use of a vocabulary borrowed from mysticism and transcendentalism, such talk seemed merely hollow and pretentious self-justification. With the experience, those borrowed terms provided the best approximation of a radical, dramatically new perceptual frame of reference, and lent great depth to the experience. It was not just rhetoric when hippies spoke of taking psychedelics as a "sacrament." Leary, by insisting on this approach to psychedelics--that the experience was the equivalent of a spiritual journey of transformation--may not have ultimately convinced his doubters but, far more importantly for its cultural implications, he provided the framework that connected the recreational drug use of the Sixties to longstanding traditions of spiritual quests. This is a very fine copy of the first issue, in textured pink wrappers and printed on heavy, textured paper. This copy has an ink date on the half-title (1966) and is signed by the author. A scarce edition: only 2500 copies were done of the first printing; it was reprinted by the Poets Press (with a different binding) and then later by University Books.

140. -. Another copy of the first issue. Spine creased and splitting, light surface soiling; about very good in wrappers.

141. -. Same title, later edition (New Hyde Park: University Press, 1966). Minor abrasions to covers; about near fine in wrappers.

142. LEARY, Timothy. The Politics of Ecstasy. NY: Putnam (1968). A collection of essays comprising Leary's manifesto on the psychedelic experience. Leary was the most high-profile advocate of the value of the LSD experience, and in these essays he makes his case in as straightforward a manner, and as mainstream a vehicle, as he ever did. Two instances of underlining in the text; soiling to white cloth. Owner name stamped on half title and bottom page edges; near fine in a very good, edgeworn dust jacket.

143. LEARY, Timothy. High Priest. NY: World/NAL (1968). Leary's most famous book, part autobiography, part cultural history of the Sixties. Near fine in a very good, price-clipped dust jacket.

144. LEARY, Timothy. Jail Notes. (NY): Douglas (1970). Introduction by Allen Ginsberg. A book of Leary's writings while in jail; he escaped from prison after serving seven months of a possible 10-year sentence for possession of marijuana. This is the issue in wrappers; price inked out on front cover; very good.

145. LEARY, Timothy. Neurologic. San Francisco: Level Press (1973). Third edition of this scientific essay written by Leary while he was in jail and published after he escaped. This edition was done with a printing between 500-1000 copies. "Released" stamp to half title; near fine in wrappers.

146. LEARY, Timothy. Confessions of a Hope Fiend. NY: Bantam (1973). The advance reading copy of this paperback original. An account of Leary's time in jail, his dramatic jailbreak with the help of the Weather Underground, his time in exile and his short-lived connection with the Black Panthers. Fine in wrappers.

147. -. Another copy. Partial price erasure front cover; very good.

148. -. Same title, the trade edition, a paperback original. Trace edgewear; else fine in wrappers.

149. LEARY, Timothy. What Does WoMan Want? (Dexter): (88 Books) (n.d.) [1976]. Leary's only novel, written while he was imprisoned in San Diego in 1975 and self-published (Joanna Leary owned and operated "88 Books") after his release in 1976. Leary uses the form of a science fiction novel to reflect on the period of his exile in Switzerland, 1971-2, with flashbacks to earlier periods. Thick quarto, one of 5000 numbered copies in wrappers (this copy unnumbered, however), this being the putative first issue, with "Vulcan-8" on page (iv) unchanged. Signed by Tim and Joanna Leary in 1976. Small spot to foredge; near fine.

150. -. Another copy, unsigned. The second issue, with a "Prometheus" sticker over "Vulcan-8." This is copy number 893, with "S.M.I².L.E." written in holograph above the limitation statement on page (iii). Near fine in wrappers.

151. LEARY, Timothy. Exo-Psychology. Los Angeles: Starseed/Peace Press, 1977. "A Manual of the Use of the Human Nervous System According to the Instructions of the Manufacturers." Leary attempts to explicate not only the functions of the nervous system but the nature of the moment in history that has allowed this information to come into consciousness. Near fine in wrappers.

152. LEARY, Timothy. Neuropolitics. Los Angeles: Starseed/Peace Press, 1977. Second printing of this book subtitled "The Sociobiology of Human Metamorphosis," and co-written with Robert Anton Wilson (author of "The Illuminatus Trilogy") and George A. Koopman. Very good in wrappers.

153. -. Same title, the reissue, retitled Neuropolitique. Las Vegas: Falcon Press, 1988. Fine in wrappers.

154. LEARY, Timothy. Changing My Mind, Among Others. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall (1982). A collection of writings from 1956-1982, with extensive commentary interspersed. This is the simultaneous issue in wrappers. Fine.

155. LEARY, Timothy. Flashbacks. Los Angeles: Tarcher (1983). Leary's autobiography. Signed by the author. Fine in a fine dust jacket. A very nice copy of this book, which shows wear easily.

156. -. Another copy, unsigned. Fine in a near fine reflective dust jacket with some light flaking and a bit of wear at spine crown.

157. (LEARY, Timothy). Harvard College Class of 1938 Decennial Report. Cambridge: (Harvard), 1948. Leary's report of ten years out is of being married with children and attending night school to get an engineering degree. Days, he is an assistant engineer at M.I.T., "engaged in developing a glorified computing machine which will work with unimaginable speed. The project's official name is, by someone's whimsy, Project Whirlwind." Precedes his own state of whimsy by more than a decade. Approximately 500 words of Leary's. Fine, without dust jacket, presumably as issued.

158. (LEARY, Timothy). Handbill. Berkeley/San Francisco: (n.p.)(n.d.)[1967]. Handbill for Dr. Timothy Leary's Psychedelic Celebration Number One, two weeks after the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park, with Leary appearing at the Berkeley Community Theater. A "re-enactment of the world's great religious myths using psychedelic method: Media mix, molecular phrasing, pantomime, lights, sound, film and lecture." Leary gave a free-form talk on the life of Gautama Buddha, at an event that, despite heavy and mostly favorable publicity, was only half-full. Even the Berkeley Barb, normally suspicious of Leary's apolitical stance, gave him a favorable write-up before the show, and the newest issue of The Oracle had a radiant Leary on the cover. Printed in black on pink. 5 3/4" x 8 3/4". Fine.

159. (LEARY, Timothy). KLEPS, Art. The Boo Hoo Bible. (San Cristobal): (Todd Books) (1971). Leary contributes four pages to "The Neo-American Church Catechism," in part an instruction manual for navigating the LSD experience. $2.95 price sticker on front cover; near fine in wrappers.

160. LESTER, Julius. The Angry Children of Malcolm X. Nashville/Boston: Southern Student Organizing Committee/New England Free Press (n.d.). First separate edition of this essay, an offprint of an article that appeared in Sing Out magazine in 1966 and was collected in Lester's book, Look Out, Whitey, Black Power's Gonna Get Your Mama. Two sheets, 11" x 17", folded to make 8 quarto pages. 3/4" foredge tear; small smudge on front cover. Very good. Very scarce "A" item by Lester.

161. LEVY, D.A. North American Book of the Dead. Cleveland: Free Lance Press, 1965. Probably his most well-known book, published as usual by his own press and, as noted by his bibliographer, "a typically bad Free Lance production with horrendous errors throughout." This copy is warmly inscribed by the author in the year of publication to another poet: "to will inman/ for being/ and for being/ a good friend/ + a perhaps a/ great human being/ d.a. levy/ 65." Folded once vertically, and edge-darkened; very good in stapled wrappers with an old ink price written on the front cover. A good association copy of an enormously scarce book by one of the pre-eminent American poets of the 1960's counterculture.

162. LILLY, John Cunningham, M.D. The Mind of the Dolphin. Garden City: Doubleday, 1967. The third of Lilly's books on dolphins, focusing both on the nature of nonhuman intelligence and on the possibility of interspecies communication. What began as a series of scholarly studies in the Fifties transformed itself in the Sixties, in conjunction with psychedelic drugs and other consciousness-altering disciplines and experiences, into an unparalleled exploration of the nether reaches of mind. Lilly's later books, which detail sensory deprivation experiments, near-death experiences and other extreme states of consciousness, arose directly out of his ground-breaking work with dolphins. Most of what he learned about dolphins and, by extension, other cetaceans--and seemed radical at the time--has become part of accepted common knowledge today. This copy is inscribed by the author to Dr. (and Mrs.) Fred Lord, reportedly another early pioneer of dolphin studies. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with one creased edge tear. Books signed by Lilly are uncommon.

163. (Little Magazine). Foxfire. Rabun Gap: Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, 1967-1968. Three issues: A second printing of the premier issue; a special issue on The Cherokee Indian; and the first anniversary edition. Foxfire was begun at a small school in Georgia and the magazine, which was originally devoted to fiction and poetry, with a smattering of folk arts bundled in, became increasingly oriented toward those folk traditions--folk medicine, recipes, wood lore. Imbued with a strong sense of place, it helped lay the groundwork for the back-to-the-land movement in the late Sixties and early Seventies. The books that were published of articles and excerpts from Foxfire magazine became one of the bestselling series of the time. One volume has an owner name; two have some dust-soiling; overall near fine in stapled wrappers.

164. (LSD/Psychedelics). HUXLEY, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. London: Chatto & Windus, 1954. Huxley's first small volume about his experiences with psychedelic drugs; it took its title from a William Blake line which Huxley used as epigraph: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing will appear to man as it is, infinite." Although written in the early Fifties, this book and its companion volume, Heaven and Hell, became cult classics during the Sixties, providing a means of placing the use of psychedelics in the mystical and religious context wherein the experiences they provided could be understood. The equation of the psychedelic experience with the state of enlightenment described in the literature of mysticism (nirvana, satori, etc.) became one of the most important subtexts of the countercultural movement in the Sixties. It defined the users' experience in terms that were both lofty and profound, and moved the question of drug use from the realm of the strictly legal and social into the realm of the metaphysical. Pencil marks in margins; offsetting to endpages; very good in a good dust jacket with a few stains to the rear panel and chipping at the spine extremities.

165. (LSD/Psychedelics). HUXLEY, Aldous. Heaven and Hell. London: Chatto & Windus, 1956. The companion volume to The Doors of Perception which, during the Sixties, was reprinted together with it in a single volume. Again, an exploration of the relationship between drug-induced states of consciousness and mystical experience. Slight foxing to page edges and offsetting to endpages; still near fine in a very good, spine-faded dust jacket.

166. (LSD/Psychedelics). The Psychedelic Guide to Preparation of the Eucharist. (n.p.): New American Church League for Spiritual Development (n.d.). Spiralbound photocopied sheets with instructions for the manufacture of numerous psychedelics, including LSD, STP, psilocybin, mescaline and others. Also contains some guidelines for the use of psychedelics, the procurement of the equipment necessary for their manufacture, etc. 8½" x 11" sheets, printed on rectos only, apparently a home-made edition, copied from a published edition. Small intermittent burn marks, etc., evidence of use; still near fine in plain blue vinyl covers.

167. (LSD/Psychedelics). LEARY, Timothy, METZNER, Ralph, ALPERT, Richard. The Psychedelic Experience. New Hyde Park: University (1964). "A Manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead" compiled by Leary, Metzner and Alpert (who later changed his name to Baba Ram Dass, and wrote Be Here Now). The authors had been involved with experiments with psychedelics at Harvard University in the early Sixties, until negative publicity caused the suspension of their program, and they left academia to pursue the work independently. A classic book of psychedelia, one of the earliest to pursue the links described by Huxley in The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell between the psychedelic experience and the states of consciousness described in the literature of eastern mysticism. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a Buddhist text detailing the stages of the soul's journey after death on its way to rebirth or, ultimately, freedom from the cycle of birth and death altogether. A translation by the Oriental scholar W. Y. Evans-Wentz, which had an introduction by the psychologist Carl G. Jung, provided the basis for the text used by Leary, et al. Others before Leary, including Jung, had interpreted the text as being also a description of the spiritual journey from the state of ignorance to that of spiritual awareness, and the idea of "death" to refer to "ego-death"--the identification of the individual with the larger cosmos rather than with his own isolated, individual existence. The authors saw this journey as analogous to the psychedelic experience, and the stages described (bardos, in the Tibetan original) to correspond with the stages of a typical drug experience. They updated the language of the original to "psychedelic English" to make it accessible to contemporary readers, and stripped it of most of the cultural references tying it to Tibetan Buddhism, replacing them with contemporary, more recognizable descriptions of users' drug trips. As such it became a guide to the use of psychedelics and provided a vocabulary for understanding the experience in metaphysical terms. The book was reprinted many times but, in our experience, is quite scarce in the first printing. Small quarto; near fine without dust jacket, as issued.

168. (LSD/Psychedelics). MASTERS, R.E. and HOUSTON, Jean. The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience. NY: HRW (1966). Billed as "the first comprehensive guide to the effects of LSD on human personality," this book was explicitly modeled after William James's landmark volume at the turn of the century, The Varieties of Religious Experience. It attempted to describe the psychedelic experience in terms that put it in the context of contemporary studies of psychology and personality, and to take a scientific, rather than an advocate's, approach to the study of the various questions surrounding the use of psychedelic drugs. This copy is from the publisher's office library, so stamped on the foredges, with additional ownership stamps on the front endpaper, the top edge and the title page. Very good in a near fine dust jacket.

169. -. Another copy, second printing. Near fine in a dust jacket with a 1 1/2" edge tear at the front spine fold; otherwise near fine.

170. (LSD/Psychedelics). Journal of Psychedelic Drugs. San Francisco: University of California Medical Center/Haight Ashbury Medical Clinic (1967-1969). The first four issues of this journal (Vol. 1, Nos. 1 and 2; Vol. 2, Nos. 1 and 2), each edited by David E. Smith, M.D., medical director of the Haight-Ashbury Medical Clinic. The first issue has a number of lengthy, scholarly articles on "Psychedelic Drugs and the Law" and includes a bibliography as well as a glossary. The second volume, "Psychedelic Drugs and Religion," includes pieces by Timothy Leary, Meher Baba, among others. The third volume focuses at length on marijuana-- pharmacology, patterns of use, legislation, etc. The final volume is a review of amphetamine abuse. The first issue is a sixth printing, revised; the other issues are first printings. Each is a quarto; three are tapebound; three state "belongs to 409 office" on the cover. There is a bit of light sunning and surface soiling; the cloth tape on the bindings is slightly frayed; on average a near fine set. An interesting journal, for both its pharmacological and its sociological content: each issue contains various case histories taken from the Haight-Ashbury community of the late Sixties, and the experiences of those staffing the Medical Clinic, in addition to more general scientific and legal information. For all:

171. -. Same title, Vol. 1, Issue 2 only, "Psychedelic Drugs and Religion." Near fine.

172. (LSD/Psychedelics). ROMANO, Deane Louis. The Town that Took a Trip. (NY): Avon (1968). Paperback original; a pulp novel about a town called Eden, run by a preacher named Old Jeremiah, and two passing hippies who contaminate the town's water supply with their "jugful of LSD." Includes various prose depictions of LSD trips. Very good in wrappers.

173. (LSD/Psychedelics). FULLER, John G. The Day of St. Anthony's Fire. NY: Macmillan (1968). An account of a town in France that in 1951 was collectively seized by illness and madness, which the author traces to a possible case of ergot poisoning, from a mold contaminating the grain from which their bread was baked--ergot being chemically related to LSD. Near fine in a very good, price-clipped dust jacket torn at the spine.

174. (LSD/Psychedelics). MASTERS, Robert E.L. and HOUSTON, Jean. Psychedelic Art. NY: Grove (1968). Small quarto, heavily illustrated in color and black-and-white, discussing psychedelic art and its antecedents, and the relationship between the psychedelic experience and creativity. The authors, who also wrote The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience [see above], concentrate on antecedents-- Hieronymous Bosch, Native American peyote ritual art, the Surrealists, and others--with relatively few examples of contemporary psychedelic art, the greatest flourishing of which took place after this book was prepared, in the years 1968 and later. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with a couple nicks near the crown.

175. (LSD/Psychedelics). Psychedelic Review, Vol.1 , No. 4. (NY): Johnson Reprint Co., 1968. The first reprinting of this 1964 issue of Psychedelic Review. An interesting journal, which was originally published when LSD was still legal, and includes two articles on legal issues, as well as articles on the use of LSD in psychotherapy (with a bibliography) and the use of LSD and the drug Ritalin to treat frigidity. Near fine in wrappers.

176. (LSD/Psychedelics). OSMOND, Humphry and AARONSON, Bernard, eds. Psychedelics. The Uses and Implications of Hallucinogenic Drugs. London: Hogarth Press, 1971. Osmond is the Canadian LSD researcher who coined the term "psychedelic" in 1957. A collection of scholarly articles including pieces by Alan Watts, Paul Radin, Osmond, Stanley Krippner, Abram Hoffer (on treating alcoholics with LSD), Peter Stafford and others. Fine in a very near fine dust jacket.

177. (LSD/Psychedelics). STAFFORD, Peter. Psychedelic Baby Reaches Puberty. NY: Praeger (1971). A collection of extended personal essays, interviews and reflections on psychedelics, intended to illustrate the author's thesis that psychedelic drugs had precipitated a social revolution. Contributors include Alan Watts, Humphry Osmond, Stanley Krippner, Arthur Kleps, rock promoter Bill Graham, Bill Kreutzman (drummer for the Grateful Dead) and others. Near fine in a very good, internally tape-strengthened dust jacket.

178. (LSD/Psychedelics). McKENNA, Terence. "OSS, O.T. and OERIC, O.N." Psilocybin. Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide. Berkeley: And/Or Press, 1976. The pseudonymous first book by Terence McKenna, co-written with his brother. McKenna has become in recent years the most outspoken continuing advocate of the use and benefits of psychedelic drugs, psilocybin in particular, and was called the "Copernicus of consciousness" by the Village Voice. Fine in wrappers.

179. (LSD/Psychedelics). HOROWITZ, Michael and PALMER, Cynthia, eds. Moksha. NY: Stonehill Publishing (1977). A compilation of Aldous Huxley's writings on psychedelics and the visionary experience, 1931-1963, the most thoroughgoing collection of his writings and thoughts on the subject. With an introduction by Dr. Albert Hofmann, who inadvertently discovered LSD in the 1940s. Fine in a very good, price-clipped dust jacket taped internally at the spine base.

180. (LSD/Psychedelics). WHITMER, Peter O. Aquarius Revisited. NY: Macmillan (1987). Subtitled "Seven who Created the Sixties Counterculture that Changed America," the book profiles William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, Norman Mailer, Tom Robbins, and Hunter S. Thompson. An attempt to chart the development of the counterculture through the lives of these seven individuals and their interrelationships. Fine in a fine dust jacket.

181. (LSD/Psychedelics). HOROWITZ, Michael. "Gordon Wasson and the Psychedelic Revolution." an offprint from Integration, No. 1. (n.p.): (n.p.) (1991). Quarto, a two-page reprint from a German journal, partly written in German and partly translated, the translation being a relatively unpolished one. Still, a very interesting essay by Timothy Leary's bibliographer on Wasson, whose experiments with the psilocybin mushroom in the 1950s were rediscovered by the psychedelic movement of the Sixties, and whose books about those mushrooms became underground bestsellers; very near fine in wrappers.

182. (LSD/Psychedelics). FAHEY, Todd Brendan. Wisdom's Maw. Lafayette: Far Gone Books, 1996. A novel that contends that the counterculture of the Sixties, and its heroes--Cassady, Kerouac, Leary, et al--were part of a government experiment in mind control and genetic manipulation. Fine in wrappers and signed by the author.

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