Storming Heaven
6 companion texts
Stevens wrote the definitive history of the psychedelic era in 1987, before the research resumed. Reading Storming Heaven in 2026 means reading a tragedy that has developed an unlikely coda. These readings locate the history in its political context and document what the second wave learned, and didn't learn, from the first.
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How to Change Your Mind
The book that brought the psychedelic research renaissance to mass audiences. Pollan explicitly acknowledges Stevens's Storming Heaven as his primary historical source. The update to Storming Heaven, what the second wave produced, written for the same general audience.
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The Harvard Psychedelic Club
The story of Leary, Alpert, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil, the four Harvard figures whose diverging paths defined the movement after the 1960s. More personal than Stevens's account; less historically comprehensive.
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Operation Paperclip
The context for MK-Ultra: the post-war intelligence infrastructure that produced the conditions for the CIA's LSD program. Understanding what the CIA was actually trying to do requires understanding the Cold War context Jacobsen documents.
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Acid Dreams
Published two years before Storming Heaven, the other major history of the psychedelic era with particular focus on the CIA's involvement. More conspiratorial than Stevens; covers ground Stevens doesn't. Should be read alongside.
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DMT: The Spirit Molecule
The book that marks the beginning of the second wave, the first approved human psychedelic research since the 1970s, conducted by a researcher who had read Stevens and understood what had been lost. The resumption Stevens could not have anticipated when he wrote.
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The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide
The practical manual for the second wave, protocols, preparation, integration. Where Stevens documented the history, Fadiman documents the methodology. The clinical knowledge that survived the scheduling in informal form.