Lovecraft, Proust, Antonin Artaud, & Annie Sprinkle

Sex, Drugs, Einstein & Elves: Sushi, Psychedelics, Parallel Universes, and the Quest for Transcendence by Clifford A. Pickover.
I heard about Clifford Pickover on the internet in relation to Terence McKenna and Robert Anton Wilson, which may not be entirely surprising considering the title of this book. What was more surprising was that the CPL has 17 of his books! I checked out two: Sex, Drugs, Einstein & Elves and Strange brains and genius : the secret lives of eccentric scientists and madmen. Strange brains was pretty interesting; mainly case studies of a bunch of Mathematicians and other scientists including Nicola Tesla and Ted Kaczynski, discussing their genius and also their quirks. I should note that the Kaczynski chapter is colored pretty strongly by Pickover’s unbridled technophilia. In any case I only glanced at this book.
Sex, Drugs, Einstein & Elves, on the other hand, I read all the way and enjoyed a great deal. A couple times he goes off on little techno utopian digressions, which are his right, as author, but which I can’t relate to. But mainly this book is an exploration of altered states, how we perceive the universe or other universes. He discusses Marcel Proust at length, and James Joyce, and DMT and the ‘machine elves’ that inhabit the worlds perceived by people who take large doses of this drug. The book is dedicated to these elves, and also to people who find Schrödinger’s wave equation beautiful to ponder. I mean, reading the title you can probably guess that this book bounces around a lot. The book explores the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and how language affects how we perceive the world, hallucinogens that derive from insects and fish, the drive of non-human animals to alter their consciousness by consuming ethnogens, Jewish mysticism and the names of God, fairy tales, H. P. Lovecraft, Antonin Artaud, time travel, Terence McKenna, Philip K. Dick, Annie Sprinkle, zombies, etc. If you find half these topics interesting then by all means check this book out. At his root Clifford Pickover is a scientist and a sceptic. Many of his other books are more straight ahead popular science books. He even has a Phd in some science area from Yale, which no doubt impresses many people. I mention this because true believers may find him a bit hard to take. If you are sure that DMT is a gateway to another universe you may find this book a little irreverent for your tastes. I however am not a true believer and liked this book a lot.

Unfortunately the library doesn’t have any of his Scifi series NeoReality. It does have a scifi book he co-wrote with Piers Anthony. Here is a list of the other books the library has:
The Möbius strip : Dr. August Möbius's marvelous band in mathematics, games, literature, technology, and cosmology
Calculus and pizza : a cookbook for the hungry mind
The paradox of God and the science of omniscience
Wonders of numbers : adventures in mathematics, mind, and meaning
Dreaming the future : the fantastic story of prediction
The stars of heaven
The girl who gave birth to rabbits : a true medical mystery
Surfing through hyperspace : understanding higher universes in six easy lessons
Spider legs with Piers Anthony
Time : a traveler's guide
Strange brains and genius : the secret lives of eccentric scientists and madmen
Black holes : a traveler's guide
Fractal horizons : the future use of fractals
Keys to infinity
Future health : computers and medicine in the 21st century
Visions of the future : art, technology, and computing in the twenty-first century