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Psychonauts : drugs and the making of the modern mind / Mike Jay.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: New Haven ; London : Yale University Press ; [2024]Copyright date: ©2023Edition: [First paperback edition]Description: xii, 359 pages : illustrations ; 20 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780300276091
  • 0300276095
Subject(s):
Contents:
Prologue: Before drugs -- Part I. The new accelerator: drugs and mental enhancement. The elixir of life -- Prosthetic gods -- Part II. Beyond the veil: drugs and the limits of consciousness. A world of pure experience -- The unseen region -- Part III. Saturnalia of the senses: drugs and the creative imagination. Tales of the hashish eaters -- Extasia, fantasia and illuminati -- Part IV. Lost and found. A sin, a crime, a vice or a disease? -- Twice-born -- Epilogue: After drugs.
Summary: "Until the twentieth century, scientists investigating the effects of drugs on the mind did so by experimenting on themselves. Vivid descriptions of drug experiences sparked insights across the mind sciences, pharmacology, medicine, and philosophy. Accounts in journals and literary fiction inspired a fascinated public to make their own experiments--in scientific demonstrations, on exotic travels, at literary salons, and in occult rituals. But after 1900 drugs were increasingly viewed as a social problem, and the long tradition of self-experimentation began to disappear. From Sigmund Freud's experiments with cocaine to William James's epiphany on nitrous oxide, Mike Jay brilliantly recovers a lost intellectual tradition of drug-taking that fed the birth of psychology, the discovery of the unconscious, and the emergence of modernism. Today, as we embrace novel cognitive enhancers and psychedelics, the experiments of the original psychonauts reveal the deep influence of mind-altering drugs on Western science, philosophy, and culture." -- From cover.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Shelving location Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction New 154.4 J42 Checked out 06/24/2024 33111011348105
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Fascinating."--Thomas W. Hodgkinson, The Guardian



"Richly detailed and frequently illuminating."--Rhys Blakely, Times (UK)



"Excellent."--Clare Bucknell, New Yorker



A New Yorker Best of the Week Pick



A provocative and original history of the scientists and writers, artists and philosophers who took drugs to explore the hidden regions of the mind



Until the twentieth century, scientists investigating the effects of drugs on the mind did so by experimenting on themselves. Vivid descriptions of drug experiences sparked insights across the mind sciences, pharmacology, medicine, and philosophy. Accounts in journals and literary fiction inspired a fascinated public to make their own experiments--in scientific demonstrations, on exotic travels, at literary salons, and in occult rituals.



But after 1900 drugs were increasingly viewed as a social problem, and the long tradition of self-experimentation began to disappear.



From Sigmund Freud's experiments with cocaine to William James's epiphany on nitrous oxide, Mike Jay brilliantly recovers a lost intellectual tradition of drug-taking that fed the birth of psychology, the discovery of the unconscious, and the emergence of modernism. Today, as we embrace novel cognitive enhancers and psychedelics, the experiments of the original psychonauts reveal the deep influence of mind-altering drugs on Western science, philosophy, and culture.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-347) and index.

Prologue: Before drugs -- Part I. The new accelerator: drugs and mental enhancement. The elixir of life -- Prosthetic gods -- Part II. Beyond the veil: drugs and the limits of consciousness. A world of pure experience -- The unseen region -- Part III. Saturnalia of the senses: drugs and the creative imagination. Tales of the hashish eaters -- Extasia, fantasia and illuminati -- Part IV. Lost and found. A sin, a crime, a vice or a disease? -- Twice-born -- Epilogue: After drugs.

"Until the twentieth century, scientists investigating the effects of drugs on the mind did so by experimenting on themselves. Vivid descriptions of drug experiences sparked insights across the mind sciences, pharmacology, medicine, and philosophy. Accounts in journals and literary fiction inspired a fascinated public to make their own experiments--in scientific demonstrations, on exotic travels, at literary salons, and in occult rituals. But after 1900 drugs were increasingly viewed as a social problem, and the long tradition of self-experimentation began to disappear. From Sigmund Freud's experiments with cocaine to William James's epiphany on nitrous oxide, Mike Jay brilliantly recovers a lost intellectual tradition of drug-taking that fed the birth of psychology, the discovery of the unconscious, and the emergence of modernism. Today, as we embrace novel cognitive enhancers and psychedelics, the experiments of the original psychonauts reveal the deep influence of mind-altering drugs on Western science, philosophy, and culture." -- From cover.

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