Patrick Lundborg (1967 – June 7, 2014) was a writer on psychedelic culture and author of the books ''Psychedelia'' and ''The Acid Archives''. Lundborg had a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in applied systems science ('datavetenskap' in Swedish) from Stockholm University, with additional studies in classic philosophy and the history of religion. Lundborg was an original member of the Lumber Island Acid Crew, a psychedelic artist collective which formed in Stockholm in the mid-1980s and remains active up to the present time.

Works

Essays and monographs

With special focus on

psychedelic music Psychedelic music (sometimes called psychedelia) is a wide range of popular music styles and genres influenced by 1960s psychedelia, a subculture of people who used psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline, and cannabis ...

and culture, Lundborg wrote numerous magazine articles and CD liner notes within the field. Among his earlier works are ''The Age of Madness'' (1992), a guide to 1960s garage compilations and 45s, and ''

13th Floor Elevators The 13th Floor Elevators was an American rock band from Austin, Texas, United States, formed by guitarist and vocalist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland. The band was together from 1965 to 1969, an ...

–The Complete Reference File'' (1999, 2002). In recent years, Lundborg's writings have also appeared in magazines such as ''Ugly Things'' (US), ''

Shindig! ''Shindig!'' is an American musical variety series which aired on ABC from September 16, 1964 to January 8, 1966. The show was hosted by Jimmy O'Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles,Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born ...

and The Merry Pranksters,

Terence McKenna Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including ...

Mel Lyman Melvin James Lyman (March 24, 1938 – March 1978) was an American musician and writer, and the founder of the Fort Hill Community, which has been variously described as a family, commune, or cult. Early life Lyman grew up in California and Ore ...

, The

Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture and ...

, the heritage from Eleusis in Shakespeare's The Tempest and the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

, Coppola's ''

Apocalypse Now ''Apocalypse Now'' is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius and Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella '' Heart of Darkness'' by Joseph C ...

'' and

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

''The Acid Archives''

''The Acid Archives'', Lundborg's first major work, went through four printings in the original 2006 edition. The book documents and reviews 4.000 underground LPs from the US and Canada, 1965–1982, and has been favorably reviewed in leading music magazines such as ''

Mojo Mojo may refer to: *Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in voodoo Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * MOJO HD, an American television network * ''Mojo'' (play), by Jez Butterworth, made into a 1997 film * '' ...

'' and ''The Wire''. In 2010, a Second Edition of ''The Acid Archives'' book () appeared, printed in color and expanded to 400 pages. The book is currently still in print, and now also available as a downloadable digital e-book.

''Psychedelia''

In 2012, Lundborg's latest and largest writing project was launched with the publication of ''Psychedelia - An Ancient Culture, A Modern Way Of Life'' (Lysergia 25–12, ). Unlike Lundborg's earlier works, the ''Psychedelia'' book is expanded to cover a much wider field than music. Psychedelic culture is traced from its beginnings with the hallucinogenic celebrations at Eleusis 2,500 years ago, acknowledging in parallel the ancient shamanic plant drug cultures of South America and Mexico. A permanent alternative spiritual culture of the West is outlined as Lundborg follows the impulse from Eleusis through the

Neoplatonism Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonism, Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and Hellenistic religion, religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of ...

and

pantheism Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ...

of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, the rise of

hermeticism Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical system that is primarily based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These teachings are containe ...

and esoteric

alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world ...

during the

, up to the highly visible psychedelic scenes of the modern world. Certain representative works and artists are selected for detailed analysis, such as William Shakespeare's '' The Tempest'', Francis Coppola's ''

'',

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

Eden Ahbez George Alexander Aberle (April 15, 1908 – March 4, 1995), known as eden ahbez, was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s to 1960s, whose lifestyle in California was influential in the hippie movement. He was known to frien ...

the 13th Floor Elevators The 13th Floor Elevators was an American rock band from Austin, Texas, United States, formed by guitarist and lead vocalist, vocalist Roky Erickson, electric jug (instrument), jug player Tommy Hall (American musician), Tommy Hall, and guitaris ...

, the

Family,

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...

Philip K Dick Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his l ...

Father Yod Father Yod (pronounced ''Yōde''), or YaHoWha, born James Edward Baker (July 4, 1922 – August 25, 1975), was the American owner of one of the country's first health food restaurants, on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. He founded a spirit ...

& The Source Family, and several more. Broader cultural developments given close scrutiny include the

ayahuasca AyahuascaPronounced as in the UK and in the US. Also occasionally known in English as ''ayaguasca'' ( Spanish-derived), ''aioasca'' (Brazilian Portuguese-derived), or as ''yagé'', pronounced or . Etymologically, all forms but ''yagé'' desce ...

religions of Amazonia, the rich hallucinogenic culture of the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

, the 1960s

Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...

scene, the 1970s interest in homegrowing

psilocybin Psilocybin ( , ) is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi. The most potent are members of the genus ''Psilocybe'', such as '' P. azurescens'', '' P. semilanceata'', and '' P.&n ...

mushrooms, the Electronic Dance Music scenes of

acid house Acid house (also simply known as just "acid") is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthes ...

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to th ...

PsyTrance and Psybient, and several more.

Psychedelic philosophy and the purposeless play

A psychedelic philosophy drawn from classic Platonism and the modern

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

and

Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest and ...

is presented as a foundation for a modern psychedelic lifestyle. Lundborg links the German phenomenologist Eugen Fink's notion of life as 'play' with the 'purposeless play' advocated by John Cage and

, thereby expanding the phenomenological stance into an approach to life in general. The higher spiritual world which emerges in the peak states of the psychedelic experience can be seen reflected in the joys and wonders of nature and everyday life. Repeat exposure will cause the development of a hedonistic-pantheistic lifestyle, where like-minded individuals congregate in enclaves or 'tribes' for shared psychedelic celebrations. This ''double positive'' of mundane joy and transcendental bliss is found expressed in many key psychedelic works. Lundborg puts this spiritual lifestyle in contrast with the Abrahamic religions that came to dominate the West as Plato's mystic individualism and the psychedelic initiations at Eleusis fell out of favor.

Unified Psychedelic Theory

The last chapters of ''Psychedelia'' examine the need for and difficulties in mapping out the ''Innerspace'' of psychedelic experiences,Extensive interview with Shindig magazine, April 2013 and discusses several ways in which this could be done, along with the presentation of a generalized ''trip model'' that outlines the stages and thematic contents of a typical psychedelic journey. A speculative explanatory model for the bizarre, yet frequently recurring visionary experiences available via high-dose

tryptamine Tryptamine is an indolamine metabolite of the essential amino acid, tryptophan. The chemical structure is defined by an indole ─ a fused benzene and pyrrole ring, and a 2-aminoethyl group at the second carbon (third aromatic atom, with the f ...

drugs like

DMT ''N'',''N''-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT or ''N'',''N''-DMT, SPL026) is a substituted tryptamine that occurs in many plants and animals, including human beings, and which is both a derivative and a structural analog of tryptamine. It is used as a ...

and

is presented, based on the latest theories in neurophenomenology and bio-evolutionary research. Lundborg's Unified Psychedelic Theory (UPT) ties together the unbiased, phenomenological approach to psychedelic states with anthropologist Michael Winkelman's neuropsychological model of altered consciousness and Paul MacLean's

triune brain The triune brain is a model of the evolution of the vertebrate forebrain and behavior, proposed by the American physician and neuroscientist Paul D. MacLean in the 1960s. The triune brain consists of the reptilian complex (basal ganglia), the ...

, and adds a suggestion that several of the more enigmatic aspects of the higher psychedelic states can be explained via residuals of ancient evolutionary responses to genetic matter of a cosmic origin, what is known as panspermia. The UPT hypothesis solves several lingering questions around the recurring contents of the psychedelic experience, the tryptamine spectrum in particular.

References

External links

Note Towards the Definition of a Psychedelic Philosophy – Lundborg's final article (2014)

Last Interview with Patrick Lundborg for Magivanga Magazine (26/06/2013)

Description sheet for the Acid Archives Second Edition
https://magivanga.com/2013/06/26/interview-with-patrick-lundborg-60s-psych-garage-guru-psychedelic-culture-scholar-and-author-of-brilliant-psychedelia-and-acid-archives-books/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Lundborg, Patrick 1967 births Living people Psychedelic drug researchers Psychedelic drug advocates Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people)