These are not exactly mind altering to me now I'm out of high school, but I read or knew others who read the following and had their lives influenced.
Sci-fi pulp fiction:
Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein is the classic mind altering scifi novel.
Dune (really just the first novel alone) is good enough to twist one's head off. See the David Lynch film too.
More esoterical:
Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence and Lila are 2 more classics in the genre, nonfiction though (but not real groundbreaking in terms of philosophy).
Richard Bach's stuff including Jonathan Livingston Seagull (haven't even read this one, but a good introduction to cults imo... like Dianetics, The Celestine Prophecy, or Castenada)
Ayn Rand's work. So completely disrespected in philosophical circles, but with so large a cult following as to demand a mention now in 1st year Philosophy courses.
The Acid Kool-aid Test and others like it. I think Gonzo jounalism fits here like Where the Buffalo Roam (See both the Depp and Bill Murray movies)
Great one's for me post high school:
William Barret's Irrational Man - already mentioned, but such a great book and easy to read.
A Joseph Campbell's Companion put together by Osbon
Richard Rorty - his most important work being Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - both 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera
The Triump of the Therapeutic by Philip Rieff
My suggestion is to read the classics and children's books. Just put it down if you are not getting anything from it.
Have we been grown this way deliberatly? And by whom, I wonder.
