The Politics of Ecstasy

Writings that sparkle with the psychedelic revolution. The Politics of Ecstasy is Timothy Leary's most provocative and influential exploration of human consciousness, written during the period from his Harvard days to the Summer of Love. Includes his early pronouncements on the psychedelic movement and his views on social and political ramifications of psychedelic and mystical experience. Here is the outspoken Playboy interview revealing the sexual power of LSD-a statement that many believe played a key role in provoking Leary's incarceration by the authorities; an early outline of the neurological theory that became Leary's classic eight-circuit model of the human nervous system; an insightful exploration of the life and work of novelist Hermann Hesse; an effervescent dialogue with humorist Paul Krassner; and an impassioned defense of what Leary called "The Fifth Freedom"-the right to get high.