The Electric Kol-Aid Acid Test Analysis

Can You Pass the Acid Test? In 1967 America became aware of a new movement started in California that was rapidly sweeping the country known as the hippie movement. Followers of this movement depended on psychedelic music and drugs to experience a heightened sense of consciousness. Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, depicts the early years of how this counterculture arose and the adventures of author Ken Kesey and his followers known as the Merry Pranksters. Wolfe's main reason for writing this book was to document Kesey and the Pranksters as he felt they were beginning a new religion. Tom Wolfe's writing style is known as New Journalism which describes the first person point of view including full dialogue and real-life scenes in detail. The main theme of this novel is intersubjectivity which places the reader in the minds of the Pranksters and their lifestyle. "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" is effective in portraying the counterculture of the 1960s and the real-life experiences of a group of hippies that crossed all boundaries. Kesey and the Pranksters first begin to use LSD in 1964 at Kesey's ranch in California known as La Honda. Wolfe describes life in La Honda as idyllic and rural, but the tranquility of nature is disturbed by the mind-bending drug experimentations that Kesey was performing in the woods with his group of friends. This is when the group decided to purchase a 1939 International Harvester Bus and take their experiments on the road to document their…show more content…
"Books of The Times :Freak-Out in Day-Glo. " Rev. of: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York Times (1857- Current file) [New York, N.Y.] 12 Aug. 1968,33-33. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2005). ProQuest.bergen.edu/library. 20 Nov. 2008 <http://www.proquest.com/>

Miles, Barry. Hippie. 1st. New York: Sterling, 2004.
Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. 1st. New York: Bantam Books,