<P> The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise is a 1967 book by Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, comprising two parts - the first a collection of seven articles previously published between 1962 and 1965; the second a free - flowing quasi-autobiographical piece of poetry and prose . </P> <P> The work was inspired in part by Laing's extensive experimentation with LSD; but also owes a debt (among others) to Gregory Bateson and Jean - Paul Sartre . </P> <P> Laing examines the nature of human experience from a phenomenological point of view, as well as the possibilities for psychotherapy in an existentially distorted world . He challenges the idea of normality in modern society, and argues that it is not merely people who are mad, but the world as well . He presents psychosis as "a psychedelic voyage of discovery in which the boundaries of perception were widened, and consciousness expanded". </P> <P> While accepting in principle that "There is no need to idealize someone just because he is labelled' out of formation"' (or mad), Laing tended to confirm a view of the mad as explorers of the inner world . </P>

The politics of experience and the bird of paradise