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Psychedelic Marine: A Transformational Journey from Afghanistan to the Amazon
Alex Seymour
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Description for Psychedelic Marine: A Transformational Journey from Afghanistan to the Amazon
Paperback. A vivid portrait of both the traumas of war and the shamanic healing ceremonies of ayahuasca Num Pages: 240 pages. BIC Classification: VXH; VXWS. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 155 x 229 x 19. Weight in Grams: 396.
After returning from a tour of duty during the war in Afghanistan, Alex Seymour needed a way to cope with the extremes he experienced as a member of the Royal Marine Commandos, losing 7 men in his unit, and having his best friend critically injured by a Taliban bomb. Drawing upon his pre-deployment experiences, Alex knew that entheogens could help him release his fears and traumas. But he also knew that simply taking psychedelics wasn't enough--he needed ceremony, something sacred to draw meaning from his experiences, to help him reassess not only the war and his role in it, but ... Read morehis entire life. So he set out for the Amazon in search of the hallucinogenic brew known as ayahuasca and a shaman to guide him. Show Less
Product Details
Publisher
Park Street Press
Place of Publication
Rochester, United States
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
About Alex Seymour
Alex Seymour enlisted in the Royal Marines Commandos as a teenager, serving for 6 years and completing 2 tours of duty on active service. Twenty years later he returned to the service as the oldest front line commando in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. He is currently the Technology Account Director for a global technology company and lives with his wife ... Read moreand children in Buckinghamshire, England. Show Less
Reviews for Psychedelic Marine: A Transformational Journey from Afghanistan to the Amazon
After six years in the Royal Marines Commandos from the age of 17, and then 20 years in the corporate world, Alex Seymour rejoined the military and returned to the front line. He was posted to Afghanistan, in Helmand Province, and the enemy was the Taliban. Already a husband and a father of two, Seymour wanted to explore what it ... Read moremeant to be a good man . His tales of his tour of duty make for some hair-raising reading. But Seymour had another quest: to explore transcendent worlds. Before he signed up again with the military, Seymour experimented with psilocybin mushrooms and DMT; the awesomeness revealed to him meant that his life would never be the same again. He no longer feared death, as he came to realise that consciousness survives it. After his service, Seymour sought to take the entheogen adventure further and travelled to the Amazon to join a shaman in ceremonies centred around the hallucinogenic ayahuasca brew. In the company of other seekers, he again had direct perception of the sacred, and his experiences helped him recover from the war and set a path for the future. In his view, the ayahuasca ritual has the potential to prepare soldiers for war and to heal from it. It can offer a meaningful rite of passage for young military recruits and assist veterans overcome PTSD as well as alcohol and drug issues. Seymour's story of transformation has profound implications.
Nexus
. . . the work does offer an interesting firsthand account of encounters far removed from many readers' calm and orderly lives.
Publishers Weekly, July 2016
Psychedelic Marine is a unique, mind-stretching, powerful story that captivates you from page one to the end. If you want your spirit to be lifted and inspired and to know what is possible beyond the boundaries of convention, this is a must-read.
Chris Walton, MSc, best-selling author of The Gamma Mindset
A true story of a man who pushed the boundaries way beyond any semblance of comfort zone through the devastation and horror of war and who went on to find healing, transformation, and salvation by dissolving the boundaries of ordinary consciousness into the vast spaces of the transpersonal realm.
Tom Soloway Pinkson, Ph.D., vision quest leader, psychologist, and author of The Shamanic Wisdom of
More than a report of one marine's experience, this book is a call to the armed forces medical corps, the Veterans Administration, and veterans' groups . . . to fund research to support treating PTSD with ayahuasca and other psychedelics.
Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D., author of The Psychedelic Future of the Mind
A revealing juxtaposition of two life experiences most can only begin to imagine, bringing to life the stress and fatigue of a marine's lot in Afghanistan and his subsequent metaphysical quest for enlightenment.
Jake Wood, author of Among You: The Extraordinary True Story of a Soldier Broken by War
Alex Seymour deployed to Afghanistan to test himself and rediscover his full potential through warfare. Little did he know it was a stepping stone to his hardest test as a warrior
taking ayahuasca in the jungle in Peru where he would surrender to his greatest fears and find that the ultimate answers had been inside himself all along.
Ian Benouis, West Point graduate, former Black Hawk helicopter pilot and combat veteran, and cannabi
A raw, honest, and powerful account of a marine and a profound healing, this book stands out for its account of personal transformation of a military man into a self-governing individuator, surrendering to nothing but the sacred source within his own heart. Highly recommended reading!
C. Michael Smith, Ph.D, clinical psychologist, medical anthropologist, author of Jung and Shamanism
. . . a rare book that both acknowledges the transformative power of war with its confrontation with death and the transformative power of psychedelics, with the confrontation with ego death. Sometimes it takes more courage to face one's inner world than to face enemies in the outer world. I read this book cover to cover and recommend others do so as well.
Rick Doblin, executive director of MAPS
Hands down the most accurate depiction of what it's like both as a combat veteran and a psychedelic warrior. The worlds appear to be vastly different, but Alex was able to bridge the connection. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in either world.
Cpl Ryan LeCompte, former USMC 0311 infantryman, founder of Veterans for Entheogenic Therapy
Little by little, one step at a time, one person at a time, but very effectively, the Amazonian visionary brew ayahuasca is changing human consciousness precisely where such changes are most urgently needed
in the very heartland of Western technological, industrial, and military power. Psychedelic Marine is a truly original and authentic account of the transformations that this ancient and sacred medicine can set in process.
Graham Hancock, author of Fingerprints of the Gods
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