--- product_id: 130911508 title: "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" price: "€ 2.02" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.at/products/130911508-the-electric-kool-aid-acid-test store_origin: AT region: Austria --- # The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test **Price:** € 2.02 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - **How much does it cost?** € 2.02 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.at](https://www.desertcart.at/products/130911508-the-electric-kool-aid-acid-test) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Tom Wolfe - one of the 20th century’s foremost voices in cultural criticism - went from local news reporter to international icon in 1968, with the publication of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test . Now voiced with vivacity and vigor by Audible Hall of Fame narrator Luke Daniels, the non-fiction swan-dive delves into the world of hippies, hedonism, and everything in between. To most, Ken Kesey is best known as the author of the celebrated novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest . But for Tom Wolfe, Ken was the leader of the Merry Pranksters, a band of counter-culture bohemians who traveled cross-country in a far-out, brightly painted school bus they dubbed Furthur . The Pranksters were known for drug-fueled escapades, none more famous than the so-called “Acid Test”, wherein a party full of people would take LSD in an effort to escape the banality of reality and connect on a higher, subconscious plane. As Wolfe follows the group down their nonconformist rabbit hole, he’s led on a wild trip through the backwaters of the 1960s, encountering the era’s living legends - from The Grateful Dead to Allen Ginsberg - along the way. Review: Amazing book with amazing voice acting - I almost never write desertcart reviews, but I wanted to make an exception for this audiobook, because of how much I loved it. The story and writing is beautiful, but the voice acting by Luke Daniels is really superb. I think I enjoyed the book more than I would have if I had read it, due to the personas infused by Daniels into each of the characters. The tone of the book also has a mixed ironic / serious flavor - you never really know if Wolfe thinks this people are a serious social / political movement, or just a bunch of goofballs - and Daniels pulls off that ambivalence excellently. Review: Great History of the American Psychedelic Acid Movement - This book is around 400 pages and a very detailed history, many stories, and it's hard to remember all the facts, you'll have to read the book yourself for that. The story is of the "Intrepid Travelers," Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters, a communal group of acid ingesters who were the progenitors of the acid consciousness in the California, in the US, in the world's consciousness of awareness . . . "your either on the bus or off the bus." It was the influential chemists, Al Hubbard, Dr. Spaulding and the psychologists, Timothy Leary and Richard Albert, the Harvard psychology professors, who discovered for themselves psylobilin and with Michael Hollingshead and Albert Hoffman, LSD and subsequently held experiments using the right set and setting with experienced psychedelic guides. Yet to this the Merry Pranksters would say, "f**k that!" because they were from a different movie of living; in the now, the unserene and lurid art, your brain being your only guide, not some experienced taker and specific setting for a safe non-freak-out trip (and there were a lot of "freak-outs" from many young, emotionally inexperienced). And the acid influenced cultural movement they began in the early 1960's. It was Leary and Albert who endorsed the "set and setting," the intellectual approach or non-organizational religious approach, the religious experience of the mystics, in their dialogue with acid and mushrooms. With Kesey and the Pranksters it was spontaneous, wild party kind of living in Day-Glow colors, in the multimedia sound and movie. The Pranksters account starts in North Beach on Perry Lane, which becomes a major hang out for all sorts and eventually ends up in a cottage near La Honda, where the loud party of outlandish, Day-Glo painted woods - rigged with microphones and massive sound equipment, in the communal life takes on a new meaning. The Hell's Angels befriend the Pranksters and there are stories of personalities, telepathic and psychic connections and synchronicity in new fields of human life, the overmind, the collective unspoken mind of the psychedelic group. The religious realm of mystical awareness as in the game of I-Ching and dream wars. The Jungian "synchronicity" seemed to occur uncanningly many times, as their bus out of gas in the middle of nowhere only to have a tanker pull up and fuel them from nowhere. The sign on their door welcoming the Hell's Angels to end up having them and succeeding in their prankster madness. The sign on their door welcoming the Beatles, did not synchronize them to appear, but what did was having Oswley appear, the famous acid maker, who in the ways of synchronistic noncausal effect, was responsible for the finest acid which spread to England, the acid that brought the Beatles to experience the unspoken mind which ended them up traveling by bus across the English countryside with cameras and microphones. Imagine a Day-Glo painted bus, the magic bus, with Day-Glo painted people and clothes, tripping on acid traveling from California to the New York World's Faire with music blasting, a freak show on wheels, all in the year 1964! And Neil Cassidy (Jack Kerouac's buddy and drive from On The Road) driving the bus!! And their trip to the legendary Millbrook, thinking it would be some historic meeting with Leary and the Pranksters, but instead it was the mystical religious and intellectuals verses the wild party, American flag draped, painted, loud blaring music, party animals of psychedelic madness. I think it relates to the age and the introvert and/or extrovert type personalities that played the large part. It was actually Stewart Brand who thought up the great Trip Festival of January 1966. The series of acid test parties held by Kesey and the Pranksters helped spawn the movement of higher consciousness, all held at the last minute, the same day notification was put, and the Pranksters playing their instruments, then finding a local band, the warlocks - later known as the Grateful Dead - to play and Roy Seburn's light shows at the acid tests. It was the acid test held in a Unitarian church where the Kool-Aid was spiked, unknowingly to those attending. It was not teachings in the stiff, reverent language and texts of scholarly limnings found in various religions being taught but instead an aura, a religious experience, an awareness that flashed deeper than cerebration, the tradition of the great prophets. People like the beats Allen Ginsberg and his entourage and Neil Cassidy were there. As this spread, so the acid tests, later without Kesey and Haight Ashbury became the scene. Later on Kesey gets busted twice for weed and is on the run from the law, to Mexico and back until caught - he was in their movie that time, fortunately most charges dropped. A lot to read of the characters and generally a great book to get an idea of a unique and special time and place in history where a much larger degree of freedom existed for the white middle class with the ability to gain other realms of consciousness available for the taking. A great pictorial book on this is "On The Bus" by Paul Perry, Michael Schwartz, Neil Ortenberg & Ken Babbs. ## Images ![The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91pYEYE5DsL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazing book with amazing voice acting *by D***B on July 25, 2026* I almost never write Amazon reviews, but I wanted to make an exception for this audiobook, because of how much I loved it. The story and writing is beautiful, but the voice acting by Luke Daniels is really superb. I think I enjoyed the book more than I would have if I had read it, due to the personas infused by Daniels into each of the characters. The tone of the book also has a mixed ironic / serious flavor - you never really know if Wolfe thinks this people are a serious social / political movement, or just a bunch of goofballs - and Daniels pulls off that ambivalence excellently. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great History of the American Psychedelic Acid Movement *by R***Z on October 26, 2004* This book is around 400 pages and a very detailed history, many stories, and it's hard to remember all the facts, you'll have to read the book yourself for that. The story is of the "Intrepid Travelers," Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters, a communal group of acid ingesters who were the progenitors of the acid consciousness in the California, in the US, in the world's consciousness of awareness . . . "your either on the bus or off the bus." It was the influential chemists, Al Hubbard, Dr. Spaulding and the psychologists, Timothy Leary and Richard Albert, the Harvard psychology professors, who discovered for themselves psylobilin and with Michael Hollingshead and Albert Hoffman, LSD and subsequently held experiments using the right set and setting with experienced psychedelic guides. Yet to this the Merry Pranksters would say, "f**k that!" because they were from a different movie of living; in the now, the unserene and lurid art, your brain being your only guide, not some experienced taker and specific setting for a safe non-freak-out trip (and there were a lot of "freak-outs" from many young, emotionally inexperienced). And the acid influenced cultural movement they began in the early 1960's. It was Leary and Albert who endorsed the "set and setting," the intellectual approach or non-organizational religious approach, the religious experience of the mystics, in their dialogue with acid and mushrooms. With Kesey and the Pranksters it was spontaneous, wild party kind of living in Day-Glow colors, in the multimedia sound and movie. The Pranksters account starts in North Beach on Perry Lane, which becomes a major hang out for all sorts and eventually ends up in a cottage near La Honda, where the loud party of outlandish, Day-Glo painted woods - rigged with microphones and massive sound equipment, in the communal life takes on a new meaning. The Hell's Angels befriend the Pranksters and there are stories of personalities, telepathic and psychic connections and synchronicity in new fields of human life, the overmind, the collective unspoken mind of the psychedelic group. The religious realm of mystical awareness as in the game of I-Ching and dream wars. The Jungian "synchronicity" seemed to occur uncanningly many times, as their bus out of gas in the middle of nowhere only to have a tanker pull up and fuel them from nowhere. The sign on their door welcoming the Hell's Angels to end up having them and succeeding in their prankster madness. The sign on their door welcoming the Beatles, did not synchronize them to appear, but what did was having Oswley appear, the famous acid maker, who in the ways of synchronistic noncausal effect, was responsible for the finest acid which spread to England, the acid that brought the Beatles to experience the unspoken mind which ended them up traveling by bus across the English countryside with cameras and microphones. Imagine a Day-Glo painted bus, the magic bus, with Day-Glo painted people and clothes, tripping on acid traveling from California to the New York World's Faire with music blasting, a freak show on wheels, all in the year 1964! And Neil Cassidy (Jack Kerouac's buddy and drive from On The Road) driving the bus!! And their trip to the legendary Millbrook, thinking it would be some historic meeting with Leary and the Pranksters, but instead it was the mystical religious and intellectuals verses the wild party, American flag draped, painted, loud blaring music, party animals of psychedelic madness. I think it relates to the age and the introvert and/or extrovert type personalities that played the large part. It was actually Stewart Brand who thought up the great Trip Festival of January 1966. The series of acid test parties held by Kesey and the Pranksters helped spawn the movement of higher consciousness, all held at the last minute, the same day notification was put, and the Pranksters playing their instruments, then finding a local band, the warlocks - later known as the Grateful Dead - to play and Roy Seburn's light shows at the acid tests. It was the acid test held in a Unitarian church where the Kool-Aid was spiked, unknowingly to those attending. It was not teachings in the stiff, reverent language and texts of scholarly limnings found in various religions being taught but instead an aura, a religious experience, an awareness that flashed deeper than cerebration, the tradition of the great prophets. People like the beats Allen Ginsberg and his entourage and Neil Cassidy were there. As this spread, so the acid tests, later without Kesey and Haight Ashbury became the scene. Later on Kesey gets busted twice for weed and is on the run from the law, to Mexico and back until caught - he was in their movie that time, fortunately most charges dropped. A lot to read of the characters and generally a great book to get an idea of a unique and special time and place in history where a much larger degree of freedom existed for the white middle class with the ability to gain other realms of consciousness available for the taking. A great pictorial book on this is "On The Bus" by Paul Perry, Michael Schwartz, Neil Ortenberg & Ken Babbs. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Merry Pranksters Ride On in Day-Glo Wonderment *by A***R on January 11, 2014* I give this non-fiction book about the brilliant author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Signet) and the early day of the hippies, four stars and here's why: In most areas of my life I am organized. That is not the case when it comes to my reading pattern. It is rather chaotic. I'm not one of those people who sit down at the beginning of the year, line up the books I am going to read in a corner of the bookshelf, and start reading them in order. I usually have a general idea of the book I want to read next and despite my best laid plans, if I like the book in hand it inevitably leads me on to some other book I am unfamiliar with as I follow the trail through the literary forest until I step off a cliff or the trail comes to a dead end and I have to follow the bookmarks that I dropped along the way to lead me back out of the forest. And The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is no exception. What made me follow the trail of this nonfiction book with the bombastic title when I rarely read nonfiction? One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--one of my favorite books of the twentieth century--is to blame. So it was a bird that I followed into the forest. I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 2013 after seeing the movie of the same name a decade earlier. You can read my review here [...]. When I finished I wanted to learn more about the high-artist (no pun intended) named Ken Kesey------ ------the straight-laced Stanford student who showed up one day at a government funded LSD experiment to earn $25 and ended up promoting the drug like no other in the fledgling days of the hippies. Ken Kesey decides to paint a school bus in Day-Glo colors and drive it across country with his merry band of pranksters. That's where Tom Wolfe comes in. The (pre-novelist) journalist followed those merry band of pranksters on their trip and recorded their adventures in in the 1968 book: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Why the crazy title? Well you will have to read the book. But what is not to like about the title? And speaking of crazy, the slapdash way Tom Wolfe writes in the book gives one the early impression that he is trying to capture the frenetic, drug fueled pace of the pranksters, which he verifies with an author's note at the end. He does a fine job of it, too. At times, however, he sacrifices clarity to accomplish this. New people pop in and out of scenes, never to be heard from again. There is often little setup to events that happen in the book. Poooooooof! Zaaaaamoooooo! Kablaaaaam! People come and go. Drug busts. Misery. Ecstasy. All on the same page. The bus rolls on in a Day-Glo sheen. The drugs flow. Tie-dye is invented and the hippie generation is ushered in thanks to Ken Kesey and his merry band of pranksters. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a pure rush of literary adrenaline by a journalist in full command of the English language and every crazy symbol found on the ASCII keyboard as if there is no shortage of how many colons can be strung together even though we know that the colon is an endangered species in the English language. Why? Because Tom Wolfe used most of them in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The book is recommended as it is part of America's culture in the sixties and so is the movie Ken Kesey and the pranksters filmed of the bus tour-- Magic Trip [HD ]. I am watching it now. But what I am enjoying most are Ken Kesey's interesting comments about the making of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, not the least of which is that he wrote the first pages high on peyote. And we all know how Edgar Allan Poe and other early literary pioneers have been portrayed for taking hallucinogenics as portrayed in Coffee With Poe . Let's hope the general perception turns out better for Ken Kesey as time passes. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.at/products/130911508-the-electric-kool-aid-acid-test](https://www.desertcart.at/products/130911508-the-electric-kool-aid-acid-test) --- *Product available on Desertcart Austria* *Store origin: AT* *Last updated: 2026-10-14*