Journeys into the bright world

For a discipline-prone individual like myself who had always made a staunch effort to remain on top of every situation this necessity to relinquish every last vestige of control was an amazing state of affairs. But now there was no choice but to drop all sense of separate identity, all plans, purposes, thoughts, feelings, and desires, and simply urge onward upon this sonorous revolving circuit of primal power. There was nothing, absolutely nothing that could be done except to submit and let it be. In all this I did not feel that I was being elevated to a higher level of existence. Rather, the substance of my earth-bound psyche was being inexorably reduced to its own common denominator, like molecules and atoms dissolving into some infrangible substratum of electricity.

To summarize that instant-and insistent-transformation I would say that the lesson this and subsequent ketamine trips taught me was that one can discard all traces of ego awareness and individual volition and still be more than one was before. The loss of personality does not bring extinction. It seems to me, therefore, that any thoughtful person who tries the same experiment and achieves similar results must be disposed to accept the fact of immortality. How else can it be possible to drop the body, emotions, and mind and still exist as a self-aware entity in a realm of infinite and animate potential? How else can one suffer the loss of every known form of sensory perception, pass through that roaring void of hyperkinetic numinosi-ty, and then return intact to the human condition? Even though we sink down through the bottomless abyss, falling all the way to its nethermost depths, there is something in us that endures and rises again into the light of a new day.

For years I had read of such states of being in the writings of Eastern philosophers and Western mystics, but most of what they had said had of necessity remained book knowledge. In general, their word pictures related about as closely to my ketamine experiences as the blueprint of a house relates to the daily exigencies of functioning within that structure. We are indeed fortunate that blueprints are provided and they are indisputably useful. On the other hand, such line drawings can convey only the barest impression of how it actually feels to live, move, and grow up within that home situation.

Unquestionably the most interesting part of this first ketamine trip was the gradual process of spacing back into the body. As it dawned on me that I still possessed a physical form and would have to repossess it my first thought was, "Oh dear, I have completely blown my mind. Now my friends will have to deal with a zombie. What a bummer for them!" At that point it didn't seem remotely possible that I could ever return to the phenomenal world of things and doings in which I had formerly functioned.

Vaguely it entered my head that I was on a lecture tour and was supposed to be speaking about something called "hypersentience." The word had a somewhat familiar ring but I couldn't recall what it signified. What was it? "So now I'll have to cancel the tour. Will Isabel go on alone? Well, life continues even if this small self is out of the running."

The music in the background was ethereally beautiful. Jane had put on a record of Hindu chants and I had never heard such superlative sounds. Listening was sheerest ecstasy. "Rama, Rama…" the voices flowed on and I was melting into that iridescent current of divine love. "Everything is perfect, absolutely perfect!" I exclaimed to myself in wonder. How could Jane have known that this music would be so soul-satisfying just at this time!

As I began to look out of my eyes once more I became aware that Jane was sitting silently beside me. It seemed so terribly important that she should be there, and that we should be sharing this sacred interval together. I fancied that we were fellow priestesses in ancient Egypt, that I had been lying in a stone sarcophagus in a death-like trance, and that she was my hierophant who would usher me back to the world of the living. Images of colonnaded temples, sphinxes, pyramids, and winged figures floated behind her. I loved her enormously and felt that we had been through something like this before in one of the mystery schools of legendary eras. Surely we would remain soul sisters forever. "You are my initiator," I whispered, certain that she would understand.

For some reason I also wanted to convey to her that I thought that ketamine was a gift from Venus. Not just that it was a Venusian substance in the astrological sense but that I felt as though it had actually been brought, or manifested, from another, higher planet as a gift of grace to help relieve the present human plight. But the idea was too complex and I gave up trying to speak of it.