Ralph Metzner

BIRTH OF A PSYCHEDELIC CULTURE shines a bright light on the exploratory culture of the time and experiments undertaken by Professors Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) and, then-graduate student, Ralph Metzner. Based on a series of recent (2003 to 2005) conversations between the survivors of that distinguished trio, Metzner and Alpert, facilitated by psychiatrist/writer Gary Bravo, the book describes their initial experiments with mind-altering substances while at Harvard. It goes on to cover experiments they conducted after being dismissed from Harvard, their trips to India and their reflections looking back through time at all of the above. It is filled with intriguing photographs marking and illuminating the events brought to life through the text. Experiment advisors, supporters and participants who appear in the pages of this astonishing account include Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Arthur Koestler, William Burroughs and many other well-known personalities from that time period. No understanding of the history of the sixties would be complete without some grasp of the work of Leary, Alpert and Metzner, the backlash to their experiments and the way in which drug use became absorbed into society thereafter. Nor can any diligent attempt to study the spectrum of the human mind exclude what we have learned from them about the impact of psychedelic drugs.

The Psychedelic Experience, created by the prophetic shaman-professors Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzer and Richard Alpert, is a foundational text that serves as a model and a guide for all subsequent mind-expanding inquiries. In this wholly unique book, the authors provide an interpretation of an ancient sacred manuscript, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, from a psychedelic perspective. The Psychedelic Experience describes their discoveries in broadening spiritual consciousness through a combination of Tibetan mediation techniques and psychotropic substances.

Teonanacatl was the name given to the visionary mushrooms used in ancient Mesoamerican shamanic ceremonies mushrooms that contain psilocybin the psychoactive agent identified by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann the discoverer of LSD. The rediscovery of these visionary mushrooms by the Mazatec healer Maria Sabina and mycologist R. Gordon Wasson ignited a worldwide mushroom culture that inspired the consciousness revolution of the 1960s. This book describes in vivid detail the consciousness-expanding experiences of psychoactive mushroom users - from artists to psychologists - and the healing visionary inspiration they received. It provides firsthand accounts of studies performed in the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project including the Concord Prison study and the Good Friday study. It also details how psilocybin has been used since the 1960s in psychotherapy prisoner rehabilitation the enhancement of creativity and the induction of mystical experiences and is being studied as a treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Ralph Metzner Ph. D. who studied psychology and psychopharmacology at Harvard University was part of the Psilocybin Research Project with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass). He lives in Sonoma California.

In his introduction to "The Well of Remembrance, "author Ralph Metzner provides a telling explanation of the theme of his work: "This book explores some of the mythic roots of the Western worldview, the worldview of the culture that, for better and worse, has come to dominate most of the rest of the world's peoples. This domination has involved not only economic and political systems but also values, basic attitudes, religious beliefs, language, scientific understanding, and technological applications. Many individuals, tribes, and nations are struggling to free themselves from the residues of the ideological oppression practiced by what they see as Eurocentric culture. They seek to define their own ethnic or national identities by referring to ancestral traditions and mythic patterns of knowledge. At this time, it seems appropriate for Europeans and Euro-Americans likewise to probe their own ancestral mythology for insight and self-understanding." Focusing on the mythology and worldview of the pre-Christian Germanic tribes of Northern Europe, Metzner offers a meaningful exploration of Western ancestry.