Across eleven chapters, Pickover cuts a wide swath with his literary machete, hacking through such subjects as language, DMT, machine elves, Terence McKenna, his hometown in upstate New York, book publishing, the virus theory of language, Einstein, God, transcendence, the Big Crunch, and, oh yeah, Burning Man. ... Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves isn’t so much a coherent narrative as a pastiche of thoughts, a stew where nearly everything – including a porcelain kitchen sink – has been tossed in. [ read more ]

Not since “The Doors of Perception” has one book so accurately and beautifully described the transformative nature of the psychedelic experience. Pinchbeck alternates between personal journey and cultural history, spinning a thread which connects all of us – psychonauts, policy makers and just plain folks – to something greater than ourselves… [ read more ]