Psychedelic Marine

Seymour takes readers through two very distinct, extreme experiences in this memoir: modern warfare and psychotropic drugs. Twenty years after his first enlistment, Seymour signs up for the Royal Marine reserves and volunteers for a six-month tour in Afghanistan, leaving his wife and children behind. He mostly recounts the trials of heat, exhaustion, and extreme boredom rather than the more gruesome details. Immediately following this deployment, he heads to the Amazon to engage in two guided experiences with the hallucinogen ayahuasca. He describes in detail the other participants (including a cult-like leader and indigenous helpers), the experience of visions, and his profound insights from the psychedelic trips. Asserting that his psychoactive experience deepened his spirituality, he lauds the drug for its ability to heal and permanently change one’s outlook. Though he suggests briefly that ayahuasca could solve many psychological war traumas, he personally does not admit to being too shaken by his service, and therefore the need for his healing is unclear. The writing sometimes fails to capture what he is trying to explain, but the work does offer an interesting firsthand account of encounters far removed from many readers’ calm and orderly lives. (Sept.)