Review: 'The Acid Diaries' by Christopher Gray

'The Acid Diaries -- A Psychonaut's Guide to the History and Use of LSD' by Christopher Gray was originally published in the UK by Vision under the title 'The Acid: On sustained experiment with lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD' in 2009. The author sadly passed away last year but fortunately this extraordinarily insightful book is being republished by Park Street Press, in November 2010.

Christopher Gray (1942-2009) first came to prominence in the 1960s for his involvement with, and text translations of, the Situationist International. During his formative lifetime he saw himself, politically, as being part of the New Left -- a movement, in many ways, entwined with the counterculture. Having travelled extensively, he eventually settled back down in the UK with his wife and child. The book picks up with Gray post-divorce and pushing retirement age, in a time of personal crisis. He finds himself drawn into the psychonautic world of LSD, something he'd not considered since its 1960s heyday, but through which he saw a possible salvation for himself.