Gates of Fire

I first read "Gates of Fire" around 25 years ago. Over the intervening years I have had occasional "flashbacks" of images from the novel. What an extraordinarily powerful novel.

Not easily dismissed, this distillation of the lsd experience with its illusions and insights can at once be tossed in a pile with Tom Robbins, Paul Mann, Cleo Odzer, Baba Ram Dass or, as its author seems to suggest, burned with them in one hell of a dazzling pyre...

I read this book without knowing what it was going to do to me. It is a good novel, with a good trama (if you like the sixties), but most of all, it has a lot of deep philosophy that can make you see life from a different perspective (for this you have to read a lot between lines, if not will be distracted). It is like smelling India, without having done it before. And remember, "The life is a bridge, Pass over it but do not build on it. He who hopes for an hour may hope for eternity. The world is but an hour. Spend it in devotion. The rest is unseen"...