Journeys into the bright world

By now Howard and I had become convinced that ketamine could be useful in dealing with problems that by ordinary standards seem hopeless-problems involving disappointments, disillusionments, depression, disease and death. So many times there is no way out of the squeeze of circumstances except the way up. Why then, shouldn't distressed people be offered a helping hand to a higher elevation, even if they can remain there only a short time? More and more it began to appear that most difficulties are insoluble at the level at which we customarily function. Could nature have contrived these various binds in order to force us to transcend ourselves? If so, this may be a therapy to which sufferers can turn when all else fails.

Pondering these issues we also considered the need for a global catharsis. If world leaders could have a taste of samadhi every so often perhaps the whole earth could be diverted from its plunge into an abyss of self-destruction. But would nitpicking critics be willing to consider the possibility that a consciousness-raising medicine might be humanity's last resort? Would those authorities who did not wish to experiment along these lines deny the right to others?

Up to now the votaries of ketamine have not wanted the cat let out of the bag lest resisting forces be aroused and the substance summarily banned. Howard and I too could go on indefinitely enjoying our private paradise legally, inexpensively and without feeling in any way reprehensible. But there was too much at stake in the issue to let it lie. Being the kind of people we are it seemed apparent that we would have to place ourselves in the spotlight, even though such a course of action would jeopardize his job, our reputations and the position of ketamine users elsewhere. In the meanwhile, though, we were grateful just to be more sensitive, fulfilled and loving human beings.

5: The Aesthetic Anesthetic

ACTION

The anesthetic state produced by Ketalar has been termed "dissociative anesthesia" in that it appears to selectively interrupt association pathways of the brain before producing somesthetic sensory blockade. It may selectively depress the thalamoneocortical system before significantly obtunding the more ancient cerebral centers and pathways (reticular-activating and limbic systems).

– Parke-Davis

Ketamine is the democrat of drugs inasmuch as it demonstrates that richness of the imagination need not be the exclusive possession of artists and madmen. Surely one of the greatest gifts bestowed by this "esthetic anesthetic" has been the experience of expanding into the spheres where beauty is born, where colors are palpable, sounds sparkle, and scatterings of disparate percepts converge into supersensory fantasias of synergistic delight. In observing our own and other people's reactions it has seemed undeniable that the esthetic is the entry way to the mystic. When that first apprehension of beauty would begin to burnish common objects with brighter shades of meaning we would know that we were already passing through the provinces of the luminescent empire of the gods where the hierarchs of creation were conceiving their experimental designs.

In the kingdom of ketamine it is as impossible to divorce physical beauty from its metaphysical implications as to separate signs from significances, or portents from importance. Here the much touted slogan "art for art's sake" sounds like the babbling of Flatland fools. Everything exists for the sake of everything else, each separate object reflects a greater reality, and all are supremely consequential.

Despite the intensity of emotion engendered during our explorations of the mountains and valleys, ridges and abysses of the bright world these ventures remained strictly "mind trips", devoid of even the slightest trace of sensuality. Seldom have we or the subjects with whom we have worked found ketamine to be erotically stimulating. In the terminology of yoga we were functioning strictly in the upper chakras of the heart, throat and head. There was a purifying flow of affection and a richness of response that gave wings to the spirit. At such times Howard and I found that our communion was so complete that even a touching of hands seemed irrelevant. Only afterward did it become supremely important to feel a sense of physical closeness. Even then, for me at least, the need to be held was that of a small and vulnerable child rather than that of an importunate lover.