In the 1950s and 1960s Americans combined psychedelics with Buddhist meditation to achieve direct experience through altered states of consciousness As some practitioners became more committed to Buddhism they abandoned the use of psychedelics in favor of stricter mental discipline but others carried on with the experiment advancing a fascinating alchemy called psychedelic Buddhism Altered States combines interviews with well known figures in American Buddhism and psychedelic spirituality and personal stories of everyday practitioners to define a distinctly American religious phenomenon A nuanced portrait of a daring subculture that continues to push the limits of religious experience and intellectual possibility