The Novels of Ken Kesey
Journal of American Studies August 1, 1971 William David Sherman 3 citations
A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, by Richard Alpert, Ralph Metzner and Timothy Leary, interprets signs of the ‘Third Bardo’ in a psychedelic experience using Ken Kesey's fiction: where Tibetans saw demons, a Westerner may see impersonal machinery, futuristic control devices, and visions of world destruction. Kesey's novels One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion describe the ego's disintegration, death, and rebirth central to an LSD trip; both books serve as literary metaphors for psychedelic experiences.