Archive for March, 2015

A few recent listings — ‘The High End’

Sunday, March 22nd, 2015

So, there you are at the yard sale, confronted by boxes of old books, records, and miscellany. What do you look for? “Buy what you like,” has long been good advice. Until you learn to grade for condition — and to tell a first edition from a later reissue or even (God forbid) a book […]

‘Entheogenic-Religious Fiction’

Saturday, March 14th, 2015

Thomas B. Roberts, professor emeritus at Northern Illinois University, edited the books “The Psychedelic Future of the Mind” and “Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion,” the latter of which was acknowledged as a valuable source in my latest novel, “The Testament of James.” Dr. Roberts (no known relation to the Beatles’ Doctor Robert) was […]

‘Well, there’s nothing artificial about it’

Thursday, March 5th, 2015

The book “The Archaic Revival” (HarperCollins 1991), which is a compilation of writings by and interviews with the late entheogen pioneer Terence McKenna, concludes with an interview conducted by Nevill Drury as it appeared in the Autumn, 1990 (Vol. 11, No. 1) issue of the Australian magazine “Nature and Health.” An excerpt of the most […]

Gun owners no longer willing to take it lying down

Wednesday, March 4th, 2015

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has long prohibited towns and cities from enforcing local firearm ordinances that impact the ownership, possession, transfer or transport of guns or ammo. But gun-rights groups have long complained that scores of municipalities ignored the 40-year-old prohibition by passing their own, piecemeal gun control enactments, which rarely got tested in court, […]