"The Psychedelic Review" was founded in 1963 as a serious journal dedicated to the study of mind-expanding potential of both natural and synthesized psychedelic substances. Presenting experts in the fields of anthropology, religion, pharmacology, poetry, and metaphysics, this groundbreaking journal had a dramatic impact on its times, attracting a large and avid readership among academics and the burgeoning psychedelic underground. The articles included in this anthology appeared long before the media, the Beatles, and the counterculture reduced psychedelia to yet another faddish commodity. The writers in "The Psychedelic Reader" include Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Sir Julian Huxley, and Ralph Metzner on subjects as varied and fascinating as "The Religious Experience: Its Production and Interpretation" and "Botanical Sources of New World Narcotics." Touching on everything from the poetry of Herman Hesse to specific dosage levels, this anthology treats its subject with an engaging combination of adventure and solemnity.