It has taken me a long time to assimilate this experience which relates to my recent readings on occult, freemasonry and the trivium. I’ve been listening to some fascinating podcasts with Gene Odenning which I shall describe soon. I practically owe my BA (Honours) in Geography in North Stafforshire Polytechnic to psilocybin, at least to the thesis/dissertation segment! Let me take you back to the era:
I was 23 years old and a student. I had to write a 10,000 word dissertation for my Geography degree. I had made a start but got chewed out big time by a feared female lecturer. One the train home to Wales from Stoke I was very depressed. That Friday night some old friends decided to take some magic mushrooms. They were 15 years older than me so were very experienced with them and drugs in general, whereas I was very wet behind the ears.
We handed round a teaspoon of this powder which was equivalent to 40 dried magic mushrooms which grow freely on the mountains behind my Welsh village.
At first not much happened. I was busy talking away and not noticing much.
Then I “went off somewhere” in my mind and noticed a shape in front of my eyes. A face appeared out of this regular geometric pattern in front of my eyes. The trip was starting.
Then the music went decidedly weird. The Moody Blues were on the stereo and for the first time I heard what I thought was purple music. The division between colour perception and music melted.
Then above me this beautiful chandelier appeared and I levitated upwards to it to this fantastic party where it was light all around and I was happy. I “came down” and told the room about it.
Then it went bad.
I noticed they were ignoring me. Paranoia took hold. My jaw bone suddenly seemed to turn diagonal in my head. I had difficulty speaking, or so I thought.
As I went further down I sensed this trapdoor in myself whcih scared the hell out of me. Opening that door would lead to hell.
I can vaguely recall being in a state of loss of control which was absolutely terrifying. I had lost it and was desperate to return to what I saw as normality.
I have never taken things like that since then and I never shall. There were insights you gain during the experience which seem profound but to me seemed to be very false, like wisdom obtained when one was not worthy of that knowledge.
I went back to ‘Poly and within days had written about 6,000 words of my thesis. If only they knew the kick start my brain had received!
I don’t advocate taking anything like what I did to younger ones. However if they do, they should be aware of the risks involved.
And so under a huge hallucinogen did I write a 10,000 word thesis.
40 is, at least, an effective dose. Hallucinogens are not for most people and realisations that come should most definitely not be taken too seriously.The only major thing that can be attained from them is that perception is much more fluid than we are brought up to believe. Doing them for “fun” is very dangerous.
Yeah I think that’s a valid point. I remember when stoned I’d get these profound, deep universal insights, be dying to share them with the stoned others, yet when it was my turn to make my profound pronouncement, I’d completely forgotten what it was I wanted to say!