The Stoned Apocalypse is erotic author Marco Vassi's autobiographical account of the year and a half he spent searching through the sixties counter culture for a way of life and a state of mind that offered him more bliss and freedom than the world he came from.

The book begins when he is asked the question, "Are you searching?" by a woman he works with who subsequently leads him to join a small Gurdjieff cult. But Vassi has little aptitude for the "enlightenment-through-psychological-abuse" so popular in many spiritual movements and quickly jumps ship. From there, he dabbles in Scientology and Communism before dropping out completely and moving to California, where he continues his explorations into the soul and spirit of humanity while taking copious amounts of drugs and having sex with many, many people.

It took me a little while to get into this book. It's written in a straight narrative style, with little in the way of the "show, don't tell" scenes and dialogue that are required of today's writers. But once the story got going, it became fascinating to me on a number of levels.

Vassi's descriptions of his spiritual explorations were of particular interest to me as his front-line experience with various early cults show that little has changed in the last 40 years. Vassi's clear-eyed descriptions of his experiences as both student and teacher have useful insights to offer anyone interested in this topic. His discussion of his stint as a teacher of relaxation classes at Berkeley's experimental university is particularly fascinating in this regard; no sooner has he signed up to teach than Vassi found himself the object of all manner of mystical projections as people interpret his stoned behavior as somehow enlightened. His honest discussion of how he worked to both guide these people while also taking advantage of them offers a sage look at elements of the guru dynamic.

The book also served as an intriguing window into a world that was mostly over before I was even aware of its existence. Vassi's depictions of the drugs he took while bouncing between hippie crash pads is colorful to say the least. In the midst of expanding his mind, he also expanded his sexuality, moving through various stages of denial and experimentation before finally accepting his own bisexuality.

This is not a book for those easily offended by graphic sex or certain combinations of letters. But for those interested in a colorful and gritty report written from the front-lines of the experimental sixties, this book has a lot to offer.