I guess my first question would be why there is cracking to begin with. That's not normal, is there or has there been a leak or abnormal moisture on the ceiling? There's no easy way to get that stuff down. If you try to strip it using a heat gun, you wil take off all the layers. You certainly don't want to spend time and money putting up a new texture coat and/or painting if there's an underlying problem that will cause the same thing to happen again.

I think that this house must have had a leaky roof at one time. The previous owner was an elderly gentleman who was obviously miserly, judging from the shape this house was in when we bought it. The house had had a new roof put on in 1997, right after the old man died, so the situation had to have been bad. I know the people that sold the house to me would not have spent the money for the roof if it weren't needed. There are huge water stains in the bedroom that is adjacent to the kitchen, and the bathroom has the same problem as the pictures. Some areas of the ceiling peel and crack off easily, whereas other parts want to stay put, which is why, as I say, "I have the world map on my ceiling!"

I,ve been in the drywall trade for 25 yrs & i seen this before,the only way to corect this problem is to remove the drywall ceiling & re-drywall it is almost impossable to get the texture off if it has been painted you can try be spraying the ceiling with water lightly so that the compound is soft enought to scrap off, but if there is coats of paint on the surfuce you can forget it,but before you re-drywll check to see were the moisture is coming from because that why you have this problem, moisture is collecting above the drywall causeing the compound to let go..