The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test written by Tom Wolfe shows the effects LSD or Acid had on the development, structure, and functioning of American society in the 1960’s. Wolfe does this in a very interesting way. He portrays the story through a journalistic research, yet fictional style of writing. He also goes between plot, poetry, flashbacks, and even changes in point of view throughout the book. This is seen as a major strength in the portrayal of the story. The three major sociological themes within the book are the following; counter-cultures, religion, and intersubjectivity. The book follows Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and his followers that called themselves the “Merry Pranksters.” Wolfe depicts their…

In the late Spring and Fall of 1967, America got to be mindful of a developing development of youngsters, based mostly out of California, called the "hallucinogenic development." This development depended on medication use, odd music, and sight and sound encounters to rise above reality and convey a higher condition of cognizance to the individuals who took an interest. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is the chronicle of how this development started: with one individual, Ken Kesey, and his band…

Users of these drugs believed that they were not shutting out the world but embracing it. They believed that these drugs placed the user in contact with a kind of “universal oneness”, meaning they formed a union between the individual and the universe they lived in. This union would then lead to kindness, harmony, and love, all values that the hippies of the 1960s valued. Trying to spread these values and educate people on the idea that psychedelic drugs expand one’s mind and consciousness, many…

involved in the Beat movement and the hippie movement on both sides of the country. Kesey’s initial tries at freedom began in his time as a drug test subject in a local hospital, as part of Project MKULTRA. This experimentation opened doors for the psychedelic movement that would encapsulate the hippie movement of the late 1960s and through the 1970s. Kesey’s participation in these trials allowed him to see a side of the world and discover an entirely new creative element of himself and brought…

Groups like the Hippies and the Beat Generation has given a new outlook towards drug consumption for creative pursuits. The devastating effect of wars on people’s psyche and the post-war trauma was probably been projected differently into substance addiction and thereby into creativity. The passage from the most noted novel by Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test justifies the idea of counting on to substance abuse to alter the one’s perception and to escape from the barricades of reality…

projects such as employment discrimination, education discrimination, and unjust treatment by individuals in society. After the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, the concept of equality for all individuals under the law and in society had come into fruition in the United States, however, there was a different problem with nothing stopping its growth – drug use and abuse. As David Presti mentions in his lectures about drug regulating, the growing popularity of Marijuana (hemp) as well…

wrestler at the University of Oregon and after he graduated he received the fred lowe scholarship from the University as well. With it he received an literary education from a graduate program at Stanford . In the 1960s, Kesey had worked in a psychiatric hospital ward as a janitor and had also participated in a experiment with the army testing the effects of mind altering drugs and wrote down the effects and experiences . Both of those exposures led to the writing of the book One Flew Over The…

market definition would be “We help improve office productivity.” Similarly, Missouri-Pacific Railroad’s product definition would be “We run a railroad,” while its market definition would be “We are a people-and-goods mover.” Large companies normally manage quite different businesses, each requiring its own strategy; General Electric, as one example, has established 49 strategic business units (SBUs). An SBU has three characteristics: (1) It is a single business or collection of related…