Still making waves after his return, Kessy can see how large the LSD phenomenon has become. Growing probably the fastest in colleges everyone is turning on to LSD in a big way. Kessy is a hero. I believe maybe at this point Kessy begins to feel the burden for all of this wide spread drug use. Kessy has a new vision, “beyond acid”. While putting the concept together Kessy orchestrates an interview with a newspaper reporter. During the interview Kessy makes remarks directly to J. Edgar Hoover who was then the leader of the FBI. Quickly following this up Kessy arranges a television interview and again makes similar comments such as “I intend to stay in this country as a fugitive, and as salt in J. Edgar Hoover s wounds”. Unfortunately just after viewing himself on television Kessy is apprehended by federal agents on the freeway in rush hour traffic. Kessy makes a valiant effort for escape but is unsuccessful in his attempt and is captured facing three felony charges. Unbelievably Kessy only spends five days in jail before he is able to be released on bail. Upon release Kessy begins to organize what he has labeled “The Acid Graduation”. Initially Kessy tries to capture the whole encompassing scene but due to all the media hype and controversy Kessy loses his cosponsors. Everyone is fearful of Kessy because he is a figure head of the movement. Political issues concerning the movement begin to evolve as money becomes a motivating force behind all the hoopla. The graduation is moved to an old warehouse where some of the pranksters have been living and Kessy does not display any negativity over this. At this point the book has come full circle and we find ourselves surrounded with the same characters at the very beginning of the book. With a much more involved perspective of the characters, their attitudes and beliefs the reader feels an added layer of comfort in understanding this atmosphere. Surrounded by pranksters, hippies, Hell s Angeles s. and reporters Kessy speaks out on his new concept of direction. Unfortunately this direction seems to be mostly empty. Offering no concrete future combined with the idea of depriving this culture of it s psychedelic crutch Kessy is not embraced by all present. In fact most of the bodies present do not even understand what Kessy is really saying. I believe it is quite possible that even Kessy himself does not understand what he is saying. The common belief offered by Tom Wolf is that Kessy was copping out to the system in order to receive a lesser sentencing. By the end of Kessy s speech we are left with a whole lot of confused people and one visionary with a very obscure goal. Kessy goes on to serve a lenient sentence to a reduced charge, six months on a work farm just a few miles from his house in La Honda. After serving the sentence Kessy accompanied by his wife and three children headed to Oregon where they took up residence with Ken s brother. The pranksters scattered to several different locales. Some went to Mexico, some to L.A., and some simply disappeared. Although it would seem the end of an era this would only be true in part. The acid scene continued to explode throughout the entire nation. A beast had been released and there would be no accounting for anything left in it s wake. Ken Kessy and the merry pranksters were bygones but the hippie revolution would carry on. The Grateful Dead did more than their part in carrying the torch in the acid world as did many other rock groups spawned from the psychedelic drugs introduced by Kessy. Tom Wolf brings everything together beautifully in his recreation of an era influenced more heavily by psychedelic drugs than any other to date. Wolf does this first by giving the reader an extraordinary look at Ken Kessy the man. The reader gets a strong sense of Kessy s character and learns to view him as the good guy against a restricting, faceless, monster known as ignorance. We also learn to view Ken Kessy as a leader and an educator of the unknown. Personally I visualize Kessy not being the holder of genuine wisdom but instead a man of great personal power. Kessy would condemn the restrictions of society while at the same time harboring a passion for control over his followers. Kessy s power and unusual charisma would emulate an obscure force powerful enough (with the aid of some psychedelic drugs) to set the stage for a revolutionary age. Wolf gives us an all around look at the man who brought LSD into the culture of San Francisco. With Wolf s insightful writing style one gets the impression that this was the real deal. Good or bad in the eyes of the masses Wolf offers a realistic, unbiased account of real events as they happen. Released in the middle of the sixties revolution “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” may have not only clued people in to what was happening but influenced them as well. One cannot help but feeling inspired by Wolf s encounters with this freewheeling, cosmic mentality shared by the Merry Pranksters and company. I for one found the book very educational as well. It is common belief by younger generations that “hippies” did come around until 1967. For those of us who were not around to see it music is our recourse to establish time lines and mind sets of the sixties and early seventies. After reading Wolf s work I personally can now see the music was created by the movement and not vice versa. This book I believe will shed light on many common misconceptions of the nineteen sixties. This light will extend even further to reach into the shadows and corners to luminate ideas and concepts present in the minds of this culture. I believe the book to be not only beneficial to the young reader but also to those who were there and took part or those who just looked on. Tom Wolf s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” was one hell of a great book!