A rare combination of personal and academic, this book showcases the myriad avenues for transcending the boundaries of reality through direct sensory experience. * Highlights techniques, rituals, and training of magical practitioners * Counterpoints the rational with the emotional and compares the past with the present * Takes a cross-cultural, historical, and anthropological approach that is accessible to all readers * Includes experiences of academics, shamans, occultists, healers, sorcerers, pagans, medieval magicians, cybermagicians, and indigenous peoples across the world