The Ketamine Papers: Science, Therapy, and Transformation (2016) - A Psychedelic Book Review

Phil Wolfson, M.D. and Glenn Hartelius, Ph.D. (Eds.); Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) & Synergetic Press (Pubs)

The Ketamine Papers is one of the rare anthologies in psychedelic literature that feels both comprehensive and genuinely alive. Although marketed as an introduction, it reads more like a guided tour through the evolving ecosystem of ketamine’s development as a medicine, a psychedelic, a research tool, and a catalyst for personal transformation. As a clinician who works with neurodivergent adults and a researcher in this field, I found it deeply satisfying. It informed, surprised, and challenged me in ways few books on ketamine have.

I listened to the audiobook and found myself slipping into the material with the same full-body curiosity that ketamine itself evokes. It became something I kept wanting to return to. Even though it is a substantial volume, I finished it in a week because I had a hard time putting it down.

A strong beginning: firsthand accounts with depth and maturity

The book opens with personal narratives from early Western psychonauts and researchers, including Stanislav Grof and Kenneth Ring, an investigator of near-death experiences. These early chapters offer what so many contemporary trip reports lack. They include emotional history, relationship dynamics, and the intellectual climate of the time. They describe what it was like to explore ketamine at Esalen and why this molecule captivated thinkers steeped in transpersonal psychology.

These narratives are articulate, reflective accounts written by people with developed psyches and decades of contemplative and clinical experience. They reveal how ketamine entered the lives of those shaped by curiosity, study, and therapeutic inquiry. For neurodivergent readers who rely on context-rich storytelling to make sense of altered states, these accounts feel especially grounding.

One moment that stayed with me was Ring’s attempt to compare ketamine directly to near-death experiences. He took the medicine at his colleagues' invitation and concluded that the similarity was essentially complete. Later chapters expand on this theme by describing the nuanced differences between out-of-body experiences and the fuller phenomenon of near-death experience. For neurodivergent readers who tend toward phenomenological mapping, this kind of detail is a gift.

A bridge between qualitative insight and scientific rigor

After the narratives, the book shifts into research and clinical material. This section is remarkably thorough. It summarizes meta-analyses, discusses experimental designs, and explains significant findings about efficacy across depression, suicidality, PTSD, and other conditions. It outlines protocols, routes of administration, and dosage ranges in ways that are actually useful for practice.

As someone who enjoys the procedural transparency of Rick Strassman’s DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2000), I appreciated how much the editors share about the structure of ketamine studies. They offer preparation scripts, patient instructions, and details about clinical dosing approaches that rarely appear outside professional training materials. This is the kind of information that deepens both understanding and skill.

The Roquette section: valuable history with complicated ethics

One of the most intriguing sections focuses on Salvador Roquette, an early and controversial figure in psychedelic group work. The book offers the most complete description of his methods that I have found. Roquette experimented aggressively with set and setting. He layered sensory input across multiple media sources, including two record players at once and film projectors, to create overwhelming, dissonant atmospheres. He worked with many medicines during a single overnight session and was the first psychotherapist to introduce ketamine into structured group work. He also introduced ketamine to Grof.

Roquette is a complex figure. His work was creative and influential, yet many of his approaches were not trauma-informed by today’s standards. He crossed boundaries that would be unacceptable in contemporary practice. For clinicians, understanding this history matters because it reveals the field's origins and helps us recognize how far it has evolved. It also positions current trauma-sensitive, relational approaches as intentional responses to an earlier era of confrontational and cathartic psychedelic exploration.

The Roquette material is also culturally valuable. Much of what is known about him is scattered, incomplete, or contradictory. This book provides the clearest account available, especially regarding the sensory architecture of his sessions and the experimental spirit that animated them. For anyone interested in the history of psychedelic music use, this section alone is worth the price of the book.

The discussion of poly-medicine practices, including stacked combinations like LSD followed by ketamine, offers an important historical contrast to modern KAP models. It reveals the roots of the dissociative-psychedelic synergy that people continue to describe today in online communities. It also illustrates the creativity and risk of early explorations.

Neurodivergent resonance and the value of multiple perspectives

While the book centers mostly white, male, Western academic voices, it still opens meaningful doorways for readers exploring ketamine through neurodivergent lenses. Many neurodivergent people with trauma backgrounds describe ketamine as the first time their nervous system felt relaxed. The book does not directly address neurodivergent experiences, yet it offers enough phenomenological detail to help readers understand why dissociation can feel both regulating and revelatory.

Its discussions of sensory layering, dissociation, and altered interoception resonate with the lived experience of neurodivergent bodies. The anthology structure also supports nonlinear thinkers well. Readers can move through chapters out of order without losing coherence, which can be supportive for those who experience fluctuating attention or executive fatigue.

This is also where the absence of broader perspectives becomes noticeable. The field would benefit from accounts written by neurodivergent clinicians, BIPOC practitioners, disability advocates, and queer scholars who might interpret the dissociative landscape differently. 

Ketamine as a mystery and a moving target

You can feel throughout the book that ketamine is still a mystery. Some people experience it as calming, while others experience it as shocking or dramatic. Some describe it as a revelation of ultimate truths. Others experience it as a visual, disembodied strangeness unlike anything produced by psilocybin or ayahuasca. The book captures this breadth without trying to produce a single theory of what ketamine is.

This mirrors what people share in psychonaut communities. Reading Reddit, Erowid, Psychonaut Wiki, or the Subjective Effects Index gives you a sense of the wide spectrum of responses to ketamine. The Ketamine Papers feels like the clinical and historical counterpart to that community-generated landscape.

The editors acknowledge how rapidly the field is changing. Much of the data summarized here will eventually feel dated, which is a sign of healthy scientific progress. This volume captures a pivotal moment, almost an archaeological layer in the story of ketamine therapy. I imagine that in ten years we may read it very differently. A future edition could include more material on trauma-informed practice, somatics, neurodivergent experiences, and harm reduction, especially given the addictive potential of frequent ketamine use, which is discussed widely in psychonaut communities.

I find myself hoping for a Volume Two.

Final thoughts

The Ketamine Papers is an excellent resource for clinicians, researchers, and psychonautically curious readers. It is rigorous without being impenetrable. It offers meaningful stories along with the sterile data (which I love). It illuminates the history of a medicine that continues to surprise us. 

It expanded my understanding and gave my knowledge a more cohesive feel. For me, that is the highest praise. Five stars.