Journeys into the bright world

"I couldn't agree more completely," I said. "Probably that's why people are so confused about what ketamine really does. Because it will vary with each individual."

Toni nodded. "It brings out what is already there."

"Then there seem to be two rather different issues," I went on. "The first is its use for occasional consciousness raising-what Howard and I call 'samadhi therapy.' That is, we give a person twenty-five to thirty milligrams and let him talk about himself. In this way he just about always gains some insight into his own identity and motivations. And this method seems to be safe and useful in the hands of the right people.

Then the second use would involve an intensive, long-term regimen designed to produce a total reconditioning of the human biocomputer. This obviously is not so safe and is meant only for the few."

"And which of these ways are you taking?" Lynn asked.

"Both. I really want to explore this new territory."

As he rose to return to his work John Lilly's last words to me were, "You'd better be damn strong if you're going to play that game."

"Yes," I replied to myself. "At least I am getting stronger. And God willing I will ride this comet through to the end."

As Tony strolled with us back to the car she gave me an autographed copy of their recently published autobiographical work The Dyadic Cyclone. (Simon and Schuster 1976). The kindness which this famous couple had shown to two strangers on a busy morning seemed more glowing than the spring sunshine which now, at noon, was drenching the Malibu mountains, and we left with a warm light of friendship in our hearts.

"How wonderful to know that people of this caliber are involved in the field of drug research!" I remarked to Lynn Powell as we wound down the hillside. "It does so much to counteract the general shod-diness of the dope scene. Even if it didn't turn out for the best for their group, at least they have raised the standards of our work. We should be grateful for what they have done."

Needless to say, I lost no time reading The Dyadic Cyclone. The book was a revelation insofar as it showed how parallel our courses had been. Where Howard and I had envisioned our union as a double spiral they had called theirs a cyclone, saying: "The dyad, formed from two cyclones, becomes a stable entity greater than either of its partners."

As they had seen it, the dyadic cyclone is the unification of two personal centers, one male and one female, rotating respectively to the right and the left. Once the dyad is established the participants can move beyond a single private inner reality and merge the two vortices in such a way as to establish a rising quiet center shared by both.

Many of the other concepts that had come to me under ketamine were also developed in this book. Where we had spoken about being responsible for one's own archetypes John Lilly had said, "One joins the network for Creators in which the individual Self fuses with the network of those who are doing the creating continuously at very high levels. Here there is no more of one's Self or of one's Supraself. One is the ultimate creative process."

As in the book The Center of the Cyclone he admits candidly, "As far as I and others in this area can find out, our planet is subject to influences from beings far more intelligent than us, far more advanced, far more knowledgeable and not just in the consensus science of this planet, but in sciences we have yet to discover.

There is a cosmic limiting velocity to miracles. The 'miracle speed limit' is administered by cosmic traffic cops. We are not allowed to make discoveries (so-called) any faster than the stage of evolution of this planet allows."

We were also intrigued to discover that the Lillys had become profoundly involved in the issue of synchronicity, saying, "As long as this dyad is functioning fully, events line up."

Their format for such concatenations of events is: