DM Turner- The Esseential psychedelic guide

Foreword to the PDF Edition
by Forbidden Donut
You, dear reader, are an extremely fortunate individual to have stumbled
upon this particular digital doorway. What lies ahead is one of the most
important volumes in the canon of psychedelic literature. The Essential
Psychedelic Guide was written by D.M. Turner, an extraordinarily
courageous and articulate pioneer in the exploration of the imaginal realm.
However, due to a tragic series of events resulting in the untimely death of
its author, this book was very nearly lost forever. Only a few psychonauts
lucky enough to have found copies from the initial print runs would have
ever been the wiser. Luckily, though, some mysterious force for good in the
universe has seen fit to digitize it for your reading pleasure. I, for one, am
awfully thankful.
The Essential Psychedelic Guide, while deceptively slim in its printed form,
is a veritable well-spring of knowledge for the aspiring psychonaut. It
brings together in a single volume the basics of psychedelic history,
essential information on physical and mental safety, and detailed chapters
on 8 of the major entheogens, including hard to find, accurate data on
dosage and administration. Turner also presents quite a bit of highly novel
thinking with regard to the philosophical underpinnings of the bizarre,
extreme, and sometimes sublime dimensions that entheogens can make
accessible. Indeed, one could scarcely dream of a better introductory text for
the newcomer to the visionary way, or a more practically useful reference
for the experienced psychedelic voyager.
What really puts Turner's work in a class by itself are his vivid, lucid and
evocative narrations from the very frontier of consciousness itself. His trip
stories convey the essence of the psychedelic experience in a manner that I
had not previously thought to be possible using such a crude instrument as
the English language. Also particularly noteworthy is the wide variety of
novel and challenging chemical combinations which this master alchemist
brought together within his physical alembic and then reported on. This
makes the work especially important, as he was likely the first and only
person ever to have tried some of these mixtures. Some may consider
certain of them to be excessive or even dangerous; indeed, Turner's death
appears to have been directly related to one of his experiments. Following
his death, it has been pointed out that he was a bit of a "hard-head"; it took
him much higher dosages than most need to acheive the desired effects.