Journeys into the bright world

"Now I'm feeling sad. It isn't enough just to be a butterfly or to achieve samadhi. If that were all there was to it we would remain in that state. The issue is not to escape the bonds of earth, but to link the two worlds, even if that means that my body has to remain in this grublike condition." Still holding onto the image of the butterfly it seemed evident that the contact was intrinsically worthwhile even if it was only a temporary transcendence. Taking flight may dissolve rather than solve mundane problems, but even a temporary upliftment may be the key to a lasting resolution if it gives a new perspective.

Returning to the grub stage I had a vision of Howard's "Sunny" self looking remarkably like one of the bemused little boys in the comic strip "Peanuts" by Schultz. This was easy to imagine because during our various partings Howard had plied me with Snoopy cards. Consequently, these personages had a special place in our hearts. Thereupon, I launched into a long-winded rambling story about "Little Sunny and the Cosmic Butterfly."

The gist of the tale was that Little Sunny had spotted the Cosmic Butterfly passing through the sky and decided that he wanted the creature for his collection. Thereupon he had mounted his stilts, taken his butterfly net and, much to his astonishment, actually caught the winged insect. But once he had it, the question was what to do with it. After all, it was only a worm with wings. Even though it was nice to know that a worm could have wings, it was an awkward sort of pet to have to feed and maintain. The tale ended with a perplexed Sunny leading the now docile butterfly by a leash attached to a pretty jeweled collar and saying, "Oh dear, what do I do now?"

The entrance of Sunny and the Cosmic Butterfly into our private pantheon of role-playing characters turned out to be of importance because it brought out the intriguing issue of subpersonalities. It seems probable that in any prolonged use of ketamine these fragmentary selves are apt to pop up, since it is the nature of the medicine to bring everything into the unconscious boiling to the surface. This animation of the diverse aspects of the psyche also occurs in hypersentience and to some extent in any form of psychotherapy.

Presumably some subpersonalities arise out of the memories of former existences, while others like Sunny and the Cosmic Butterfly are symbolic or archetypal. For now it is enough to think of them as personifications of our diverse habits, attitudes, foibles, and idosyncrasies and leave it at that. They represent the roles we adopt in response to varying circumstances. Regardless of whether we adopt a reincarnational explanation for the antics of these ofttimes importunate denizens of the netherworld of the mind, they exist and demand recognition. What we need to remember is that a human personality is not a monolith. Rather, it is like a tree with a complex labyrinth of roots which merge into a single trunk and then branch out once more in diverse directions. We are both one and many with roots in heaven as well as within the earth.

In our cases certain subpersonalities seemed particularly dominant. In Howard there was the almost simultaneous emergence of Orphan Boy and the Warrior. These were balanced by Old Mary and the Egyptian Queen. Then later the archaic substratum or our personal mythologies burgeoned with the supporting cast of Mini and Mickey Mouse, Sunny and the Cosmic Butterfly, Wonder Boy and the Bionic Woman, and the priest and priestess of the goddess Ketamine. Most of the time these subpersonalities came in pairs of opposites. This is a phenomenon that is also characteristic of our reincarnation research where regressed subjects tend to experience pendulum swings between such characters as nun and prostitute, warrior and pacifist, beggar and aristocrat, inquisitor and witch, or administrator and outlaw.

Recognition of these subpersonalities made it decidedly easier to adjust to each other's passing idiosyncrasies. We found, for example, that Orphan Boy and Old Mary were great pals, especially in the kitchen. By the same token, the warrior and queen hit it off famously, especially in the bedroom. However, Orphan Boy simply did not relate to the queen, while the warrior was in no way turned on by Old Mary.