The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Over winter break I had chose to read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. This non-fiction story was about a group of people who had come together and experimented with LSD and many other drugs, escaping conviction of crime, and the crazy life style of the 1960’s hippies.

    Ken Kesey was the main leader of this movement, which he called the psychedelic movement. Within this he wanted to conduct and acid test. We never really found out what the acid test was, it was basically just all these people, Ken Kesey, the Pranksters, and even Tom Wolfe taking acid.

    Kesey and the Pranksters all take a trip from the west coast to the east coast, during this trip they travel in a day-glo painted bus that they called Further. On the days that they traveled they had taken lots of acid, along with that they had someone filming them and their whole trip. A documentary called ‘Magic Bus’ was even made about it, with some of the footage taken. As this merry group of people drove through the towns they would play music and get on top of the bus while they drove by. You could say that this was definitely a crazy bunch of kids back in 1964. Ken Kesey would say to those traveling on the bus, “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.”

    After the they had returned they all went back to La Honda, where they all lived together. People from else where would even come join and live with them. Unfortunately for them the FBI had showed up and arrested them all. Kesey had gotten arrest many times for being in possession of marijuana. Soon they all came out on bail together. However, later on Kesey was wanted again, with this he fled to Mexico in order to avoid prosecution. Even some of the Pranksters tagged along with him.

    While Kesey was down in Mexico he had realized that it was time to move past drugs and that drugs weren’t everything. He then returned to the states to let people know this. Him and the Pranksters even tried after a while to start back up what they had back in 1964, but nothing felt the same to them. It was over and time for them to move past the acid test and the psychedelic movement.

    The author of this book, Tom Wolfe, had a new journalism writing style. He really captured the moments and events that had happened during this period. He had tried to describe as much as he could in detail of everything that happened, even some of the trips that people were going through when they were on LSD. I really enjoyed this book because of all the details Tom put into it. It was a fun and exciting book to read. Just the crazy thought of all these people experimenting with drugs really intrigued me. I wanted to know what happened and how each one of these hippies felt and how they reacted to what they were experiencing. The fact that they were making a movie about it was well was very interesting to me. I can’t wait to sit down and watch the documentary about these crazy hippies taking LSD, DMT, Speed, and whatever other crazy things they got into.

    I would recommend this book to many of my friends. I thought that it was very well written and an exciting, interesting book, that made me want to keep reading. I think that if you are someone who enjoys reading about other peoples experiences and learning about the 60’s then you should read this book. I also think that those who are interested in knowing about that start of the hippie would really enjoy this, because I know that I did.