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Culture and arts features with a psychedelic slant by the author of The Mad Artist: Psychonautic Adventures in the 1970s.

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Musings of the Mad Artist psychedelic, film, literature

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 3M ago

New In-Depth Review of The Mad Artist from William J Booker

Last year Bill Booker and I encountered one another on the basis that we’d both written very similar books about our respective psychedelic experiences in the 1970s. As we compared notes, we found that the incidences of crossover between our two tales were numerous and uncannny in their synchronicit

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 4M ago

My Top Film of 2011: Melancholia, directed by Lars von Trier

How do you effectively depict mental illness in cinema? The necessarily internal nature of much of its substance has presented a formidable challenge to filmmakers over the ages. Psychotic states are easier to handle, as they’re inherently more dramatic. Who can forget the cracks opening up in the w

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 6M ago

Both Sides of the Law – An Interview with Leaf Fielding

In his recently published memoir, To Live Outside the Law, sixty-three-year-old Leaf Fielding gives the first ever account of the legendary Operation Julie drugs bust from the perspective of inside the gang, whose motivation was to transform the world for the better through the mind-altering powers

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 9M ago

Review: To Live Outside the Law by Leaf Fielding

First published in July 2011, To Live Outside the Law is a book of many facets. It is part personal memoir of the ’60s-’70s psychedelic scene, part ‘true crime’-style insider account of the Operation Julie escapade, subsequent bust and jail time, and also a larger meditation on the cultural and spir

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 9M ago

Fabulous Freakdom: Trippers by William J Booker

I first became aware of Trippers by ‘overhearing’ a conversation on Facebook between Rob Dickins, editor of PsypressUK, and Andy Roberts, author of Albion Dreaming. Andy enthused about this newly written but set-in-the-1970s psychedelic memoir with Kerouacian undertones, and I thought, ‘That sounds

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 1Y ago

Tripped in the Woods

This seven-minute film is the first in a projected series of ‘trippy’ films, which in various ways will celebrate aspects of the psychedelic experience. Actually it came about as a happy accident, an afterthought. The footage was shot as part of a more extensive project—an illustration of a reading

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 1Y ago

Mad Art and Reality Hunger

It’s always heartening to discover another writer who, perhaps by taking a very different path, has nonetheless arrived at a very similar creative place to oneself. This happened when I saw David Shields being interviewed on a BBC arts programme about his book Reality Hunger and the broader implicat

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 1Y ago

The Man Who Wasn’t There

Further Mad Artist Sample Chapters Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn’t there He wasn’t there again today Oh, how I wish he’d go away —The first stanza of ‘Antigonish’ by Hughes Mearns, which I came across in childhood and retained at the back of my mind. Walking home from a party [...]

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 1Y ago

Review: Addict by Stephen Smith

Originally published independently in 1997, Stephen Smith’s Addict has gone through fourteen printings, and according to publisher Westworld International’s website it has sold 1.4 million copies worldwide. Seemingly it is the only book published by that outfit and the only book Stephen Smith has wr

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Musings of the Mad Artist · 1Y ago

Review: Hofmann’s Elixir: LSD and the New Eleusis

Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, died in 2008 aged 102. This book, which he saw in proof form shortly before his death, has consequently become a posthumous tribute to the man, celebrating his life, work and influence. It takes the form of several essays by Hofmann himself, followed by a Festschri

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