The electric kool-aid acid test

I probably should have read this book 50 years ago. I've known the title for a long time, but I never saw it before this month. I had read a couple of [a:Tom Wolfe|3083854|Tom Wolfe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1368273666p2/3083854.jpg]'s novels, and from the blurbs in those I had become aware that he was the author of this book too, so I pictured it as being like them, a fictional novel about fictional characters. So I was rather surprised to see that it was actually a documentary about [a:Ken Kesey|7285|Ken Kesey|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1363273797p2/7285.jpg] and the Merry Pranksters, whom I had known had played a role in the rise of the hippies, though precisely what role I did not realise until I read this book.

So, having read it, I think I should have read it 50 years ago. I knew vaguely that Kesey and the Merry Pranksters had toured around North America in a brightly painted bus, but that was about it. I'd read one of Ken Kesey's novels, but not been particularly impressed. I had known that the hippies of the 1960s were a more colourful outgrowth of the Beats of the 1940s and 1950s, but had not realised how deeply involved Neal Cassady was involved in the Merry Pranksters (he drove the bus), even though I had read biographies of him. So it tied up a few links of literary and cultural history for me.

As I often do, I've added more comments on my blog From Beats to hippies: the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test | Khanya.

This was a fun book. An informative and interesting snap shot of a specific time in American history when the zeitgeist was all about expanding the mind while getting to the real heart of humanity and the meaning of life. Unfortunately, personalities came before principles and the whole thing fell apart in a bacchanalia of sex drugs and rock and roll rather than the evolution of humanity.

Still, an excellent expose on the main characters (mainly Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters) who wanted to explore new horizons, to boldly go where no man has gone before, (um,...further, yo) to delve into the psyche of mankind and come back with the map to guide the way in AND out again. Too bad once the acid trip was over, as explosive and mind altering as it proved to be, most people had little idea how to bring those revelations into the "real world" and live in that deeper understanding of the "connectedness of it all." Once acid became so widely available to everyday people and teenagers who were just interested in "blowing their minds" the whole thing kind of fell apart and became almost passé. Like Jerry Garcia once said, (to paraphrase) "The door opened for a minute and a few people got a glimpse inside then the door slammed shut and was locked again".