3 papers in the library · publishing 2026-2027
September 17, 2026 Casey Rae
Abstract Chapter Four follows the “turning wheel” of psychedelic awakening as it moved from private epiphany to collective ritual, tracing the converging paths of Ken Kesey’s Pranksters, Timothy Leary’s Millbrook circle, and the embryonic Grateful Dead. It begins with Furthur, the Day-Glo-painted Prankster bus that carried a crew of LSD-fueled experimenters across America in 1964—part road...
September 17, 2026 Casey Rae
Abstract Chapter Five charts how psychedelic culture and the early Grateful Dead catalyzed a new American vocabulary for transformation—spiritual, aesthetic, and political—while revealing the tensions embedded in that promise. It opens with Richard Alpert’s 1966 encounter with the Dead at the Fillmore, where Primal Dead’s volatile improvisation, light shows, and collective ecstasy suggested a...
February 5, 2027 Casey Rae
Abstract Dead Dharma: The Grateful Dead and the American Quest for Transcendence traces how the Grateful Dead and their extended cultural sphere became vehicles for exploring improvisation and transformation as individual and collective expressions of awakening. Combining spiritual sociology, musicology, and cultural history, the book situates the Dead within a broader tradition of American...