In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, 'One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.' 'One side of what? The other side of what?' thought Alice to herself. 'Of the mushroom,' said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
Before you venture any further into this post (you intrepid few deluded enough to think there's anything worth reading), I give fair warning that the subject will be lost on the unititiated, i.e. those of you unfortunate enough to have never ingested psychedelics. No matter how much Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, or Alan Ginsburgh you've read, if you've never tripped you won't really know what I'm writing about. It's not that I'll be writing in some lost ancient language (as I usually do) but when it comes to describing the hallucinogenic experience, I might as well type this out with Wingdings. If I described my best orgasm EVAH (hopefully we've all had one of those), it would make more sense although you couldn't get even 1% of what that experience meant or felt like much less a sense of its 4-dimensional extant.
As teh old Zen saying goes, "Those who say don't know and those who know don't say." Not to be purposely obtuse but there are no words for the concept (nor concrete conceptsto illustrate) that which describes "trippin'". The truly initiated will bear me out on this and so, without further ado...
This story caught my eye a few weeks ago:
A recent Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine study suggests "sacred mushrooms" can provide a religious experience that makes one see the world from a different, more positive perspective.
The study tested psilocybin, the active agent in so-called "sacred mushrooms," to determine whether it could induce "mystical experiences" in a group of 36 adults who come from religious backgrounds.
The answer, the study says, is an emphatic yes.
Except for scientific research, however, possession of the substance is illegal in every state.
More than 60 percent of the study subjects said psilocybin produced a "full mystical experience," and one-third said they enjoyed "the single most spiritually significant experience of their lifetimes."
I won't ridicule those of you who believe in a Universal Ruling Principle (URP, yeah), just those of you who plan to stop into the display of a cavemen riding dinosaurs. However, dontcha' think all these vague references to God and God-thought somewhat support Terrence McKenna's theory that our sense of God (and by implication, ourselves) was induced by our greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreat ancestor's lack of prejudice regarding saprophytic produce, especially what grows out of an ungulates turd piles? My God, dear God, holy fucking Christ, eating mushrooms out of cow shit had to have been a pure inspired chaos because I remember my first time and thinking, "What - you expect me to EAT that?!?"
Actually, we didn't eat them whole but boiled them and then mixed them with 10 pounds of ice and a few packets of grape Kool-aid. Yet, I'm willing to bet our ancestors had no fear of a fat pitcher braking though a brick wall and screaming "Oh Yeah!" and thus it all makes sense to me because my entire view of life shifted a few moments after I took my first sip of that lavender brew. Sure, reality shifted, shuffled and restacked in a grand way but I didn't see God and in fact it was just a Loony-Tunes-like version of reality, garish colors, tweeting perfect birds chirping hello and other absurd grabass comedy.
Most of my friends who've indulged in the Happy Caps have tied their own spirituality to trips and whatever was revealed when the fabric of reality was twisted and wrung out to be hung on the line to dance in the breeze. I won't gainsay them or the validity of their interpretation of thier experiences. It's obvious that they honestly believe the Godhead was speaking to them. Their common thread is that the voice was resonant and clear in its articulation of those things residing deep within the mystic. Those friends are good friends - GREAT friends - so I won't equivocate but neither will I capitulate; my belief that this is all random and not requiring a Big Daddy is not shaken.
One of these days I'll write about the time I was dosed beyond belief (a huge, legendary amount) and yet managed to keep my mind intact but that's a nuther story and it will be a nuther time when I tell it and until then you have this and the promise of yet a nuther tale backing up this whole post that tells you that if you have never tripped you'll stil have anuther chance to not undestand
a nuther comment about them Tigers.
3 comments:
agreed, shrooms, but didn't see "god" or anything, just very intense joyful strange...
Back when I was studying a neurochemistry textbook in college, I came across a number of very old studies that indicated that this type of activity, under close supervision had some substantial benefits. Apparently, some of the psychological revelations that are made can be carried forward through it wearing off. If there are neurotransmitters that stimulate emotions of spirituality, then it is not surprising that they can be stimulated or shut off by various things, no?
I've only been lucky enough to experience 'shrooms once, but it was a lovely, dreamy day. The one thing I remember clearly is looking up at the ceiling of my father-in-law's house and watching the alien cat heads scroll by.
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