Amazing Dope Tales

Rating:
Summary: expansive humor
Review: a wildly fun and entertaining romp through some of the more interesting corridors of mind. Well worth the trip!

Rating:
Summary: Nahweary,INC.
Review: Amigo-I too/also think the "truth" can be agreed on. Give Thanks 4/that! And I have allways remembered that version of Monday PM class that had that "dose"--Initials taken OUT! I'm not 2/sure I wanna know anything about DMT-but I'm gettin vexed with all the food gettin dosed with canola oil. It's 2/close to mustard gas in your "lower". Kinda freightening the way square world stuffs your gut to weaken you-that just can't be defended. BRO.{OUT!}

Rating:
Summary: Nahweary,INC.
Review: Amigo-I too/also think the "truth" can be agreed on. Give Thanks 4/that! And I have allways remembered that version of Monday PM class that had that "dose"--Initials taken OUT! I'm not 2/sure I wanna know anything about DMT-but I'm gettin vexed with all the food gettin dosed with canola oil. It's 2/close to mustard gas in your "lower". Kinda freightening the way square world stuffs your gut to weaken you-that just can't be defended. BRO.{OUT!}

Rating:
Summary: A Distinct Disappointment; Not Really a Spider Book At All!
Review: First off, this book's not even by Spider. I'm not vertain why he lent his name to it, much less wrote the introduction. The book itself is a loosely connected series of ramblings of a proto-typical dope-fiend from the 60's San Francisco scene. It's a bit trippy, and even mildly insightful once is a while, but was certainly not worth picking up if you're expecting anything like the quality of writing and storytelling that Spider Robinson imparts to all of _his_ works.

Rating:
Summary: To Kamiu
Review: I was wondering, did you read the title before buying the book?

Rating:
Summary: Get a contact high
Review: I've got somebody I'd like you to meet. Reader, this is Stephen Gaskin; Stephen, this is Reader.

Stephen Gaskin is, among other things, one of the founders of The Farm (which is about the only big hippie commune that turns out to have been built to last) and an activist for cannabis legalization. He's usually billed as a "hippie spiritual teacher," which means that listening to him has the power to knock your mind loose from your brain.

And that should clue you in that this book -- originally published in 1980 and republished here with a new foreword by Stephen and a new introduction by Spider Robinson -- is _not_, despite its title, about dope. Stephen himself will tell you that dope is just one means among others and that all of this stuff can be approached in other ways. As for dope itself, Alan Watts and Baba Ram Dass used to say that when you've gotten the message, you should hang up the phone.

If you're worried about the drugs, you should be aware that for the most part the only drugs involved here are cannabis and LSD (plus an occasional bit of peyote and one or two others). Moreover, the book includes lots of cautionary tales about bad trips. And it's not _at all_ about (what I regard as) the really dangerous drugs. (These distinctions are important, especially during today's indiscriminate "war on drugs." Being "anti-drug" is roughly equivalent to being "pro-food.")

So what _is_ the book about? It's about consciousness and religion and getting telepathic, and it's about some things that happened during some of Stephen's trips that hipped him to all of that stuff. More prosaically, it's a transcription of some oral history about the late '60s as delivered in Stephen's unique voice.

You'll like Stephen. And I wasn't kidding when I said he can knock your mind loose from your brain.

The _way_ he tells his stories is as important as the stories themselves. You can read a couple of sample pages and see what I mean; the whole book is like that. He talks from inside the experiences he describes, and these transcriptions make them real for you too, just as if he were sitting there talking to you. He's also pretty self-critical in what he makes of these experiences; pay close attention to his opinions about how hallucinations work and in what sense(s) they may be "real."

Anyway, when you read one of his amazing dope tales, you may find that you've picked up a contact high from Stephen and that you, too, can sometimes see the subconscious on people. If enough of us did this sort of vicarious tripping, it might help us to get telepathic even without taking dope ourselves. That would be a good thing, wouldn't it?

If (like me) you're also a Spider Robinson fan, you'll enjoy his short introduction, which deals with both the significance and the failures of hippie ideals. (Stephen has shown up, sometimes disguised, in several of Spider's books.) And vice versa: if you like this book, you'll probably enjoy Spider's fiction as well.

Rating:
Summary: Help me
Review: This is just what ever pot head needs. A book to read after a few bingers to brighten your day. The last thing anyone wants is a bad trip but this book makes it all good. At least now you'll know that you're not the only one who sees the size of that chicken! Help the paranoids are after me.