Ronin Publishing

Last updated
Ronin Publishing
Predecessor And/Or Press [1]
Founded1983
FounderSebastian Orfali and Beverly Potter [1]
Country of origin United States
Headquarters location Berkeley, California
Distribution Publishers Group West
Publication types Books
Nonfiction topicsPersonal development, Visionary alternatives, Expanded consciousness
Imprints Leary Library
Lilly Library
Official website http://www.roninpub.com

Ronin Publishing, Inc. is a small press in Berkeley, California, founded in 1983 and incorporated in 1985, which publishes books as tools for personal development, visionary alternatives, and expanded consciousness. The company's tagline is "Life Skills with Attitude!" In a 1996 Publishers Weekly profile, the company describes itself as a "strong player in the hemp and psychedelia market" that has little competition from major publishers. [2]

Contents

Ronin's catalog includes the Leary Library, [3] [4] The Lilly Library, The Fringe Series, [5] The Entheo-Spirituality Series, and various books on psychedelia.

The company has been subpoenaed by the Drug Enforcement Administration to provide names and addresses for people having purchased their books on marijuana horticulture. [6] [7] [8] A number of their books are reprints of out-of-print works from the 1960s and 1970s — including a number of titles published by Ronin's predecessor, And/Or Press [9] — on the psychedelic experience and related subjects.

In 2006, Ronin republished the 1963 Discordian religious text Principia Discordia with altered text, altered images, and a new name, so Ronin could copyright the work. This action offended many fans of the original work, [10] whose authors, Greg Hill (Malaclypse the Younger) and Kerry Thornley, had died several years previously. Malaclypse the Younger, et el purposefully put their book, Principle Discordia into the public domain outside of copyright. Beverly Potter then created a derivative of the work, as she did with eleven Timothy Leary and three John C. Lilly works.

Titles published

Timothy Leary Library

(original date of publication; Ronin edition)

Other titles (selected)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Leary</span> American psychologist (1920–1996)

Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. According to poet Allen Ginsberg, he was "a hero of American consciousness", and writer Tom Robbins called him a "brave neuronaut". During the 1960s and 1970s, Leary was arrested 36 times. President Richard Nixon described him as "the most dangerous man in America".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychedelia</span> 1960s subculture related to the use of psychedelics

Psychedelia usually refers to a style or aesthetic that is resembled in the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience produced by certain psychoactive substances. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic drugs such as LSD, mescaline and psilocybin and also non-users who were participants and aficionados of this subculture. Psychedelic art and music typically recreate or reflect the experience of altered consciousness. Psychedelic art uses highly distorted, surreal visuals, bright colors and full spectrums and animation to evoke, convey, or enhance the psychedelic experience. Psychedelic music uses distorted electric guitar, Indian music elements such as the sitar, tabla, electronic effects, sound effects and reverb, and elaborate studio effects, such as playing tapes backwards or panning the music from one side to another.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Shulgin</span> American medicinal chemist (1925–2014)

Alexander Theodore "Sasha" Shulgin was an American medicinal chemist, biochemist, organic chemist, pharmacologist, psychopharmacologist, and author. He is credited with introducing 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine to psychologists in the late 1970s for psychopharmaceutical use and for the discovery, synthesis and personal bioassay of over 230 psychoactive compounds for their psychedelic and entactogenic potential.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Krassner</span> American writer and satirist (1932–2019)

Paul Krassner was an American writer and satirist. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958. Krassner became a key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s as a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and a founding member of the Yippies, a term he is credited with coining.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychonautics</span> Methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness

Psychonautics refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a research cabal in which the researcher voluntarily immerses themselves into an altered mental state in order to explore the accompanying experiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychedelic art</span> Visual art inspired by psychedelic experiences

Psychedelic art is art, graphics or visual displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences and hallucinations known to follow the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and DMT. The word "psychedelic" means "mind manifesting". By that definition, all artistic efforts to depict the inner world of the psyche may be considered "psychedelic".

The Psychedelic era was the time of social, musical and artistic change influenced by psychedelic drugs, occurring from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s. The era was defined by the proliferation of LSD and its following influence in the development of psychedelic music and psychedelic film in the Western world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rick Doblin</span> American drug activist

Richard Elliot Doblin is an American drug activist and executive who is the founder and former executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvard Psilocybin Project</span> Series of psychological research studies into the effects of psychedelics

The Harvard Psilocybin Project was a series of experiments aimed at exploring the effects of psilocybin intake on the human mind conducted by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. The founding board of the project consisted of Leary, Aldous Huxley, David McClelland, Frank Barron, Ralph Metzner, and two graduate students who were working on a project with mescaline.

"Question authority" is a popular slogan often used on bumper stickers, T-shirts and as graffiti. The slogan was popularized by controversial psychologist Timothy Leary, although some people have suggested that the idea behind the slogan can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. One of the most influential icons in the counterculture movement which formed in the late 1960s out of opposition to the Vietnam War's escalation, Leary gained influence among much of the youth by advocating the use of LSD – which was criminalized in the United States in 1966 – as a way to escape from the burdens of society. Following the Watergate Scandal, which resulted in the resignation of US President Richard Nixon and the conviction of several officials in the Nixon administration, the slogan became arguably the most accepted form of ideology among baby boomers.

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love was an organization of drug users and distributors that operated from the mid-1960s through the late 1970s in Orange County, California. They were dubbed the Hippie Mafia by the police. They produced and distributed drugs in hopes of starting a "psychedelic revolution" in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Eisner</span> American writer, psychologist, psychedelicist, and activist (born 1948)

Bruce Jay Ehrlich, better known by his pen name Bruce Eisner, was an American writer, psychologist, and counterculture spokesman mostly known for his book Ecstasy: The MDMA Story.

Michael Hollingshead (?–1984?) was a British researcher who studied psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin and LSD, at Harvard University in the mid-20th century. He was the father of comedian Vanessa Hollingshead. He evangelized the use of LSD to many notable figures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyberdelic</span>

Cyberdelic was the fusion of cyberculture and the psychedelic subculture that formed a new counterculture in the 1980s and 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">League for Spiritual Discovery</span> 1960s spiritual society advocating for the legalization of LSD

League for Spiritual Discovery (LSD) was a spiritual organization inspired by the works of Timothy Leary, and strove for legal use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) for the purpose of meditation, insight, and spiritual understanding. It was in existence during the mid-to-late 1960s, and eventually closed by Leary. The New York Center for the League of Spiritual Discovery, in existence for around a year, was co-founded by Timothy Leary and Nina Graboi in 1966. The center was the first LSD-based meditation center in Manhattan.

<i>Principia Discordia</i> 1963 Discordian religious text

The Principia Discordia is the first published Discordian religious text. It was written by Greg Hill with Kerry Wendell Thornley and others. The first edition was printed allegedly using Jim Garrison's Xerox printer in 1963. The second edition was published under the title Principia Discordia or How The West Was Lost in a limited edition of five copies in 1965. The phrase Principia Discordia, reminiscent of Isaac Newton's 1687 Principia Mathematica, is presumably intended to mean Discordant Principles, or Principles of Discordance.

The following is a list of works by Timothy Leary. The majority of Leary's works were put into the public domain by his estate in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William J. Craddock</span> American novelist

William J. "Billy" Craddock was an American author who published two novels in the early 1970s chronicling psychedelic and biker culture in California in the 1960s. Doubleday published Craddock's books Be Not Content: A Subterranean Journal in 1970, and Twilight Candelabra in 1972. Craddock has been called one of the seminal chroniclers of the psychedelic period, along with Timothy Leary, Alan Watts and Andrew Weil.

And/Or Press was an independent small press publisher based in the San Francisco Bay Area that operated from 1974 to 1983. The company published books on personal development, guides to the countercultural lifestyle, and consciousness expansion. A number of the company's books were on the psychedelic experience and related subjects. And/Or Press was also one of the first book publishers to embrace underground comix, publishing collections by Bill Griffith, Dave Sheridan, and Fred Schrier.

Entheogenic drugs have been used by various groups for thousands of years. There are numerous historical reports as well as modern, contemporary reports of indigenous groups using entheogens, chemical substances used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.

References

  1. 1 2 Stafford, Peter. Psychedelics (Ronin Publishing, May 1, 2009), p. 182.
  2. "The next generation." Publishers Weekly 18 Nov. 1996: 36. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Sep. 2012.
  3. Mansnerus, Laura (November 26, 1995). "Conversations/Timothy Leary;At Death's Door, the Message Is Tune In, Turn On, Drop In". The New York Times . Retrieved 2012-09-26.
  4. Farmanfarmaian, Roxane. "For publishers, Leary lives on." Publishers Weekly 5 May 1997: 26. Academic OneFile. Web. 29 Sep. 2012.
  5. "Beyond the Fringe." Publishers Weekly 14 Aug. 2000: 285. Academic OneFile. Web. 29 Sep. 2012.
  6. "Marijuana Book Buyers Sought". Lodi News-Sentinel. Oct 29, 1997. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
  7. "Feds Waiting for Marijuana Book Info". The Sunday Courier. Phoenix, United States. Nov 11, 1997. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
  8. "DEA Subpoenas Out of Line (editorial)". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 31 October 1997. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  9. "Obituary – Sebastian Orfali," SFGate (November 6, 1997).
  10. Hogan, Ron (2006-11-06). "Free Radical Book Now Under Copyright - GalleyCat". Mediabistro.com. Retrieved 2012-09-26.
  11. Yoshitake, Dawn (3 June 1996). "Leary Leaves Technical Legacy". Daily News. Archived from the original on 29 September 2014. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  12. "Timothy Leary, Pied Piper Of Psychedelic 60's, Dies at 75". The New York Times . Retrieved 2012-09-26.