Alan's Influences
Books, Movies & Music for Psychonauts
Continuing to engage in social distancing? We're all in this together. To help our psychedelic-curious friends get through periods of isolation—enforced or self-elected, now or in the future—we made a list of our favourite books and streaming video for expanding the mind and priming the pump for your next (or maybe first) psychedelic experience. We encourage you to bake yourself some cannabis edibles as an act of self-care and enjoy these books and movies about psychedelic drugs and the people who do them.
Think we’re missing something? Let us know and we’ll add it to the list.
Books.
Island, a psychedelic novel by Aldous Huxley (1962)
Island is the final book by English writer Aldous Huxley, published in 1962. It is the account of Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist who is shipwrecked on the fictional island of Pala. Island is Huxley's utopian counterpart to his most famous work, the 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World.
Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana - Medical, Recreational and Scientific
Lee takes aim at punitive federal laws and the biased legacy of cannabis prohibition in this insightful analysis of cannabis’ past, present, and future.
The African Roots of Marijuana
Expansive study of the millennia-long history of cannabis use in Africa and how racially charged European accounts of Africans’ cannabis use influenced and continue to influence popular opinion and cannabis policy in the West.
Medical Marijuana: The Story of Dennis Peron, The San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club and the Ensuing Road to Legalization by Michael Malott
Powerful biography of Dennis Peron, the LGBT and cannabis activist who organized California’s first dispensary to distribute medical cannabis to the sick and dying, including to many with HIV/AIDS.
Cannabis: The Illegalization of Weed in America by Box Brown
A well-researched and visually appealing graphic novel that explores the racially tinged, xenophobic, and politically self-serving attitudes that have played critical components in America’s prohibition of cannabis._ It is our hope that the continued gains made by the cannabis reform movement are part of a larger movement towards creating a more perfect union. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of …
Films.
My Psychedelic Love Story (2020)
An examination of the high priest of LSD Timothy Leary through the eyes of famed lover Joanna Harcourt-Smith. Was Leary's "perfect love" a CIA plant or was she simply a rich, beautiful young woman out for the adventure of a lifetime?
Adventure Time on Cartoon Network (2010)
Adventure Time created by Pendleton Ward (2010) Watch it on Youtube Twelve- year-old Finn battles evil in the Land of Ooo. Assisted by his magical dog, Jake, Finn roams the Land of Ooo righting wrongs and battling evil. Usually that evil comes in the form of the Ice King, who is in search of a wife. He's decided he should wed Princess Bubblegum, though she doesn't want to marry him. Still, he persists in trying to steal her …
Trainspotting (1996)
Trainspotting directed by Danny Boyle, 1996 Watch the trailer Trainspotting is known for its bleak depiction of heroin use but its four protagonists – Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud – actually do scores of different drugs from the onset of the film. If you are familiar with Irving Welsh's other novels, you'll know to expect hard to understand Scottish dialect, plenty of depraved criminal acts and raves every weekend. Ecstasy (MDMA, Molly, X) features in Renton and …
The Midnight Gospel
Midnight Gospel on Netflix created by Pendleton Ward and Duncan Trussell (2020) Watch it on Netflix Is Netflix’s show ‘The Midnight Gospel‘ just like ‘Adventure Time’ on drugs, or is it more mind-bending? The show itself is a beautiful, psychedelic trip into existence self-existentialism, grief, accepting death and asking big questions about life. The main character, Clancy (voiced by Duncan Trussell), is a time-and-space hopping “space caster”, zapping himself into different planets throughout the multiverse as they’re seemingly on …
Blade Runner (1982), a film directed by Ridley Scott
Step into a dark and dystopic vision of a future where humans and androids are so enmeshed it's uncanny.