{"title":"Mike Jay","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the fascinating world of Mike Jay, exploring the history of science, medicine, and altered states of consciousness. Perfect for curious minds seeking insightful and thought-provoking reads.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"harold-jarman-book-mike-jay-9780750956000","title":"Harold Jarman","description":"Harold Jarman is a Bristol-born sporting legend. A highly talented winger for Bristol Rovers, he made almost 500 League appearances for the club, scoring over a century of goals. 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Moving and sometimes provocative illustrations and photographs, sourced from the Wellcome Collection's extensive archives and the archives of mental institutions in Europe and the U.S., illuminate and reinforce the compelling narrative, while extensive ‘gallery’ sections present revealing and thought-provoking artworks by asylum patients and other artists from each era of the institution and beyond.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49511158087953,"sku":"GOR008007486","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49729524891921,"sku":"NGR9780500518977","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50064663740689,"sku":"CIN0500518971VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50352156737809,"sku":"CIN0500518971G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0500518971.jpg?v=1750782747"},{"product_id":"influencing-machine-book-mike-jay-9781907222139","title":"The Influencing Machine","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49521308205329,"sku":"GOR006487615","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51558292193553,"sku":"GOR012312194","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1907222138.jpg?v=1751281719"},{"product_id":"atmosphere-of-heaven-book-mike-jay-9780300168914","title":"The Atmosphere of Heaven","description":"The stranger-than-fiction story of the Enlightenment visionaries who discovered the unexpected effects of inhaling nitrous oxide   At the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol, England, founded in the closing years of the eighteenth century, dramatic experiments with gases precipitated not only a revolution in scientific medicine but also in the history of ideas. Guided by the energy of maverick doctor Thomas Beddoes, the institution was both laboratory and hospital—the first example of a modern medical research institution. But when its members discovered the mind-altering properties of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, their experiments devolved into a pioneering exploration of consciousness with far-reaching and unforeseen effects.  This riveting book is the first to tell the story of Dr. Beddoes and the brilliant circle who surrounded him: Erasmus Darwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, who supported his ideas; James Watt, who designed and built his laboratory; Thomas Wedgwood, who funded it; and the dazzling young chemistry assistant, Humphry Davy, who identified nitrous oxide and tested it on himself, with spectacular results. Medical historian Mike Jay charts the chaotic rise and fall of the institution in this fast-paced account, and reveals its crucial influence—on modern drug culture, attitudes toward objective and subjective knowledge, the development of anesthetic surgery, and the birth of the Romantic movement.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49521645682961,"sku":"GOR005047619","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50165654225169,"sku":"CIN0300168918G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51544478515473,"sku":"CIN0300168918VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0300168918.jpg?v=1751133844"},{"product_id":"psychonauts-book-mike-jay-9780300257946","title":"Psychonauts","description":"A provocative and original history of the scientists and writers, artists and philosophers who took drugs to explore the hidden regions of the mind    A New Yorker Best of the Week Pick    “Jay is a leading expert on the history of Western drug use, and Psychonauts is the latest in a series of excellent studies in which he has investigated the roots of a kind of psychoactive exploration that we tend to associate with the nineteen-fifties and sixties.”—Clare Bucknell, New Yorker     “Captivating. . . . A welcome reconsideration of the role drugs play in life, medicine, and science.”—Publishers Weekly     Until the twentieth century, scientists investigating the effects of drugs on the mind did so by experimenting on themselves. Vivid descriptions of drug experiences sparked insights across the mind sciences, pharmacology, medicine, and philosophy. Accounts in journals and literary fiction inspired a fascinated public to make their own experiments—in scientific demonstrations, on exotic travels, at literary salons, and in occult rituals.     But after 1900 drugs were increasingly viewed as a social problem, and the long tradition of self-experimentation began to disappear.     From Sigmund Freud’s experiments with cocaine to William James’s epiphany on nitrous oxide, Mike Jay brilliantly recovers a lost intellectual tradition of drug-taking that fed the birth of psychology, the discovery of the unconscious, and the emergence of modernism. Today, as we embrace novel cognitive enhancers and psychedelics, the experiments of the original psychonauts reveal the deep influence of mind-altering drugs on Western science, philosophy, and culture.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49523579158801,"sku":"GOR013350159","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49758974968081,"sku":"CIN0300257945G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50147549282577,"sku":"CIN0300257945VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50588272951569,"sku":"GOR014007413","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50685807755537,"sku":"NGR9780300257946","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0300257945.jpg?v=1750738654"},{"product_id":"artificial-paradises-book-mike-jay-9780141181158","title":"Artificial Paradises","description":"Revealing the diverse roles mind-altering drugs have played throughout history, this collection brings together a multiplicity of voices which explore the presence of drugs in science and religion, pleasure and madness, individualism and social control.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49534142546193,"sku":"GOR002745568","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49642456121617,"sku":"GOR003593883","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50129356783889,"sku":"CIN014118115XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50344850293009,"sku":"CIN014118115XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52476530852113,"sku":"GOR002994986","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53270449422609,"sku":"GOR011491162","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/014118115X.jpg?v=1751444359"},{"product_id":"high-society-book-mike-jay-9781594773938","title":"High Society","description":"ENTHEOGENS \/ POPULAR CULTURE Mike Jay's book offers an excellently researched account of the changing interface of drug use, social values, international trade and commerce, and cultural conditioning. It makes for a fascinating read for those interested in our long and varied relationship with psychoactive materials and our quest for novelty. --Tom Soloway Pinkson, Ph.D., author of The Shamanic Wisdom of the Huichol: Medicine Teachings for Modern Times The fascinating history of mind-altering substances is given an articulate and intelligent treatment in Mike Jay's intriguing narrative. This is anything but a dry recounting. The intertwined influences of culture, politics, and finance on the history and perception of drug use are chronicled in this well-written and engrossing study. --J. D. Arthur, author of Salvia Divinorum: Doorway to Thought-Free Awareness Every society is a high society. Every day people drink coffee on European terraces and kava in Pacific villages; chew betel nut in Indonesian markets and coca leaf on Andean mountainsides; swallow ecstasy tablets in the clubs of Amsterdam and opium pills in the deserts of Rajastan; smoke hashish in Himalayan temples and tobacco and marijuana in every nation on Earth. Exploring the spectrum of drug use throughout history--from its roots in animal intoxication to its future in designer neurochemicals--High Society paints vivid portraits of the roles drugs play in different cultures as medicines, religious sacraments, status symbols, and coveted trade goods. From the botanicals of the classical world through the mind-bending self-experiments of 18th- and 19th-century scientists to the synthetic molecules that have transformed our understanding of the brain, Mike Jay reveals how drugs such as tobacco, tea, and opium drove the global trade and cultural exchange that created the modern world and examines the forces that led to the prohibition of opium and cocaine a century ago and the war on drugs that rages today. MIKE JAY is a leading specialist in the study of drugs across history and cultures. The author of Artificial Paradises, Emperors of Dreams, and The Atmosphere of Heaven, his critical writing on drugs has appeared in many publications, including The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The International Journal of Drug Policy. He sits on the editorial board of the addiction journal Drugs and Alcohol Today and on the board of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. 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Every society is a high society. Every day, people drink coffee on European terraces, chew betel nut in Indonesian markets, take coca leaf on Andean mountainsides and smoke tobacco in every nation on earth. This striking and lyrical book, beautifully illustrated with rarely seen paintings, photographs and engravings from the Wellcome Collection, explores the international spectrum of drug use in cultures throughout the modern world: medicines, religious sacraments, status symbols and coveted trade goods.   ‘Fascinating and highly recommended’ – Psychedelic Press ‘Straightforward and engaging storytelling and cool headed analysis of use of, and attitudes towards, mind-altering drugs … deserves high praise for rendering a complex, controversial topic with clarity and elegance. 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Their silence was ominous, for few believed he was guilty. His death would tear apart a Britain still reeling from the impact of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.   But who was Edward Marcus Despard? Was he, as his comrade-in-arms on the Spanish Main Lord Nelson believed, an outstanding British army officer of unimpeachable honour, courage and patriotism? Or, as the white slave-owners of the Caribbean claimed, a traitor not only to his nation but to his race, who had married a local woman and championed the rights of freed slaves?  And when Despard returned to London to answer these allegations, did he commit himself to the cause of political reform in Britain's best interest? Or did he join a shadowy international terrorist conspiracy dedicated to the murder of George III and the overthrow of the state? Despard's contested fate marked the sensational climax to a British revolution that never happened, but it also presaged the birth of modern democracy.  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W.N.Herbert in Scotland on Sunday As well as exploding the fantasy that a society without drugs used to exist, Jay clarifies the question of why so many of them were outlawed.in the process, he tells a series of fascinating stories about the first individuals to describe their effects, and how their use spread. Peter Carty in Time Out Intelligent, witty, cogent and a bit pissed off, Emperors of Dreams is one of the best books on drugs I have come across, and should be mandatory reading for anyone concerned with drug legalisation. Julian Keeling in The New Statesman The changing status of the coca leaf is one of the many stories told by Mike Jay in his engaging survey of drug use in the 19th century. Fear of pleasure, as Jay shows in this splendid book, is perhaps the most powerful motive in the hysterical anti-drug rhetoric that has created the mess we are in today. Joan Smith in The Independent on Sunday Meticulously researched, compulsively readable and unfailingly fascinating.more than just an inebriating travelogue of days gone by, Jay's book is important in its even-handed, dispassionate and intelligent discussion of such incendiary topics as decriminalisation and legalisation. His closing chapter on temperance and prohibition is perhaps the most level-headed prose ever written on the subject. 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Will these technologies eventually direct our thoughts and behaviour—or are they doing so already? Will they maintain us in states of artificial bliss, or connect us to higher intelligences, or replace the world of our senses with simulated realities?  Mike Jay, acclaimed author of Psychonauts, now traces the tangled, paranoid history of these real and fantastical brain technologies. From the fictions of H. G. Wells and Philip K. Dick to The Matrix, the CIA’s Cold War experiments and Elon Musk’s Neuralink, scientists and visionaries have long chased the dream of neural enhancement and control, with wildly varying degrees of success.  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