''Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius'' is a 2001 book by the American writer

Gary Lachman Gary Joseph Lachman (born December 24, 1955), also known as Gary Valentine, is an American writer and musician. He came to prominence in the mid-1970s as the bass guitarist for rock band Blondie. Since the 1990s, Lachman has written full-time ...

. It charts the presence of mystic and

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

ideas in the pop culture and

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

of the 1960s. A revised and expanded version was published in 2009 as ''The Dedalus Book of the 1960s: Turn Off Your Mind''.

Reception

According to

Paul Krassner Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key ...

in ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', "''Turn Off Your Mind'' offers an alternative chronicle of what went on in the '60s when, somewhere along the spectrum of expanding consciousness, many

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

s collided with a fascination with

black magic Black magic, also known as dark magic, has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes, specifically the seven magical arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 145 ...

. But Lachman's book reads more like a list of references that could conceivably serve as an aid in preparing for a stint on 'Occult

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...

'" Krassner found the book to focus too much on the negative sides of the 1960s counterculture. He further wrote that Lachman "resorts to ... mendacious generalizations", "fails to report interesting details", that his "selection of anecdotes isn't without errors" and that there is "a fixation on

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

in the book that taints Lachman's perceptions". Krassner wrote: "I suspect that, unless you are a hard-core enthusiast of occult esoterica, you will find reading this book a chore rather than a pleasure." ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

s Christopher Hirst wrote that there is "much in Lachman's book to entertain and inform those who wished they had lived through the Sixties and those who did but can't remember it. If you want to know about, say,

beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the undergr ...

king

Brion Gysin Brion Gysin (19 January 1916 – 13 July 1986) was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices. He is best known for his use of the cut-up technique, alongside his close friend, the ...

, ley-line apostle

John Michell John Michell (; 25 December 1724 – 21 April 1793) was an English people, English natural philosophy, natural philosopher and clergyman who provided pioneering insights into a wide range of scientific fields including astronomy, geology, opti ...

and

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

master

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

, this is the place to start."

References

{{Reflist

External links

Publicity page
2001 non-fiction books American non-fiction books Books about spirituality English-language books Sidgwick & Jackson books