Psychedelic Birth: Bodies, Boundaries and the Perception of Pain in the 1970s
Gender & History March 1, 2020 W. Kline 6 citations
Historian Mike Jay questions why psychedelic culture is dominated by privileged white men, noting a recent study showing users are typically college-educated white males. Despite this, attitudes about gender, pain, and the body crucially shaped how spiritual transcendence was experienced and interpreted in 1970s America. Historians have been slow to study the 1970s, often viewing it as a betrayal of the 1960s, yet many 1960s goals became reality for more Americans in the 1970s. The growing interest in altered states of consciousness in the 1970s offers a lens for exploring cultural meaning, as illustrated by a 1973 account of a psychiatrist experiencing intense pain during an altered state.