Scan barcode
A review by pickle_burner
High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies by Erik Davis
2.0
I had high hopes for this book. In theory, it's right up my ally -- an exploration of the weird world of California in the 60s and 70s, as engendered by the proliferation of psychedelics and other consciousness-changing or eradicating substances, practices, beliefs, and/or rituals. The book seeks to describe this context, as well as a new concept of "high weirdness" (a sort of aesthetic and quasi-"religious" state), through the experiences of three figures prominent in the 60s and 70s -- Terrence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick. Before beginning Davis' book, I was passingly familiar with all three, but had only read one Wilson book and one book by Dick.
Unfortunately, Davis too frequently gets in his own way and creates a somewhat jumbled mishmash of philosophical concepts, "low brow" pop culture, occult(ish) practices and beliefs, and earnest psychedelic explorations. Somewhere in this book is a truly mind-blowing and revolutionary story about human potential and the edges of human knowledge and consciousness. What this book desperately needed was an editor, someone who could effectively push back on Davis and work with him to clarify concepts and simplify what is often the worst kind of academic speech. It won't come as a surprise to any reader of this book that it began its life as a doctoral dissertation. An example of the kind of needlessly complex writing: "This question also compels the longings of esotericism and a myriad of religious cosmologies, and is as good a diagnosis of the weird as anything. But in Rickles' emphatically embodied view, which insists on absolute finitude, the absent presence of such specters negates the existential possibilities of the supernatural views they inevitably engender" (emphasis mine). If something is finite, it is absolute, fully contained, so "absolute finitude" is a redundancy that adds nothing and only serves to confuse the reader. Likewise, "absent presence" is meaningless, self-satisfied drivel that should have been caught and cut by an editor. The book is laden with this type of writing, which only obfuscates an already challenging concept (an aesthetic of "the weird"). So often, it took my an hour or more to read 10-15 pages, and I would have to reread certain sentences over and over to try and understand them. As a reader, it is frustrating, particularly as you might consider this to be an interpretative text, one that is trying to explain and contextualize a new idea for a more general audience.
It is clear that Davis owes a great debt to cultural critics like Greill Marcus, people who are able to connect wildly different historical figures and movements to precise moments of culture eruptions in ways that are new and surprising, and which are therefore enlightening or challenging, depending on how you view their assertions. Unfortunately, where Marcus takes great pains to illuminate the core concepts of his books (thinking specifically of his books Lipstick Traces and The Old, Weird America) in language most of his readers will be able to comprehend, Davis instead leans too heavily on academic or specialized language to move the reader through key concepts in the book. I can't tell you how many times he used such words as, "ontological," "hermeneutics," "exegetical," "oneiric," and so on. I'm not trying to be petty or insolent in this critique -- one of my favorite writers is Cormac McCarthy, who is often accused of using obscure or difficult language for no real reason. But Davis' is not a work of fiction, and unfortunately the bridge through the difficult material that he builds for the reader is beset with mines and snares of his own making.
The other note I would add about this book is that, while it is not necessary for the reader to be familiar with McKenna, Wilson, or Dick, it would be helpful, and I suspect that they would get a lot more out of this if they were more familiar. Often, the tone of the book assumes familiarity, and while you might hope that Davis will go deep into the context and happenstance of particular incident, he doesn't. This is not a retelling of Dick's 2-3-74, McKenna's Experiment at La Chorrera, or Wilson's climb out of the "Chapel Perilous." Some explanation is provided, of course, but if you, like me, aren't familiar with those incidents just listed, you may find yourself somewhat frustrated by how they are handled in this text.
I don't mean to be too harsh. I really wanted to love this book. And yet, after finishing it, I'm only relieved at having made it through. Now, onto reading some Philip K. Dick!
Unfortunately, Davis too frequently gets in his own way and creates a somewhat jumbled mishmash of philosophical concepts, "low brow" pop culture, occult(ish) practices and beliefs, and earnest psychedelic explorations. Somewhere in this book is a truly mind-blowing and revolutionary story about human potential and the edges of human knowledge and consciousness. What this book desperately needed was an editor, someone who could effectively push back on Davis and work with him to clarify concepts and simplify what is often the worst kind of academic speech. It won't come as a surprise to any reader of this book that it began its life as a doctoral dissertation. An example of the kind of needlessly complex writing: "This question also compels the longings of esotericism and a myriad of religious cosmologies, and is as good a diagnosis of the weird as anything. But in Rickles' emphatically embodied view, which insists on absolute finitude, the absent presence of such specters negates the existential possibilities of the supernatural views they inevitably engender" (emphasis mine). If something is finite, it is absolute, fully contained, so "absolute finitude" is a redundancy that adds nothing and only serves to confuse the reader. Likewise, "absent presence" is meaningless, self-satisfied drivel that should have been caught and cut by an editor. The book is laden with this type of writing, which only obfuscates an already challenging concept (an aesthetic of "the weird"). So often, it took my an hour or more to read 10-15 pages, and I would have to reread certain sentences over and over to try and understand them. As a reader, it is frustrating, particularly as you might consider this to be an interpretative text, one that is trying to explain and contextualize a new idea for a more general audience.
It is clear that Davis owes a great debt to cultural critics like Greill Marcus, people who are able to connect wildly different historical figures and movements to precise moments of culture eruptions in ways that are new and surprising, and which are therefore enlightening or challenging, depending on how you view their assertions. Unfortunately, where Marcus takes great pains to illuminate the core concepts of his books (thinking specifically of his books Lipstick Traces and The Old, Weird America) in language most of his readers will be able to comprehend, Davis instead leans too heavily on academic or specialized language to move the reader through key concepts in the book. I can't tell you how many times he used such words as, "ontological," "hermeneutics," "exegetical," "oneiric," and so on. I'm not trying to be petty or insolent in this critique -- one of my favorite writers is Cormac McCarthy, who is often accused of using obscure or difficult language for no real reason. But Davis' is not a work of fiction, and unfortunately the bridge through the difficult material that he builds for the reader is beset with mines and snares of his own making.
The other note I would add about this book is that, while it is not necessary for the reader to be familiar with McKenna, Wilson, or Dick, it would be helpful, and I suspect that they would get a lot more out of this if they were more familiar. Often, the tone of the book assumes familiarity, and while you might hope that Davis will go deep into the context and happenstance of particular incident, he doesn't. This is not a retelling of Dick's 2-3-74, McKenna's Experiment at La Chorrera, or Wilson's climb out of the "Chapel Perilous." Some explanation is provided, of course, but if you, like me, aren't familiar with those incidents just listed, you may find yourself somewhat frustrated by how they are handled in this text.
I don't mean to be too harsh. I really wanted to love this book. And yet, after finishing it, I'm only relieved at having made it through. Now, onto reading some Philip K. Dick!