There is another hidden masterpiece out there (available through various used book retailers for $700 to $1800 these days) called BE NOT CONTENT: A Subterranean Journal by William J. Craddock. The cover blurb reads: "Being a skeletal history and chronicle of the experiences of a single, minor freak connected to a single, minor tribe of acid freaks in California, beginning in the early days of the Psychedelic Revolution". If you were in the "scene" of acid freaks in the mid-1960s in NorCal, you would quickly realize that this book is more than a skeletal history, actually an autobiography and biographical history of the core constituency of 'hippies" trying to live the dream, only to discover the dream's impending demise. Mindless Eddie is an amalgam of acid casualties, of the type that became the icon of the dangers of LSD; when in truth, the danger was inherent within the conscious, both of the culture and of those forced to bear its pathologies.

I remember how divisive RD Laing's THE DIVIDED SELF became for many during that period. Most readers never finished the book, feeling that they were reading about themselves in a mirror and fearing for their own fractured sanity. If they had bothered to read it through, they might have understood that the divisions are more within the contexts and constructs of the dominant imperial culture of privilege: think for a moment about the ongoing pollution of our water and air and the ever expanding global climate crises. In a world in which Nixon was a better environmental steward than Clinton (who would have been hideous were it not for Bush's massively destructive excesses), much of the mental illness lies in our way of life; or as the Hopi's say Koyaanisqatsi!

An interesting example of how the evil LSD did not cause brain-damage and suicides is the film out on Netflix on the band "Pretty Things" in Britain 30 years after their massive LSD ingestions - they are all doing quite well and are not drug casualties at all, as I don't consider myself one at all. I am hardly a drug surviver but a drug thriver. Thank you Lycergic Acid for heling to create the consciousness that I am enjoying experiencing the world through now.

I read it and thought that he was as good as, or better a writer than his father. I just read the father's "Hocus Pocus" which
is a reprise of his early classic style, and a good read if not breaking new ground. From Mark Vonnegut, I learned that cracking up is no fun.

A good adjective from an old NY Times review: "Vonnegutsy!"

As far as psychedelics are concerned, the most you could say is that if you have mental illness, the chemical might bring
it up, but the chemical is not the cause!