Journeys into the bright world

There was nothing horrific, or even or even particularly scary, about the level through which I was passing. None of it had the insensate chill of a nightmare. Rather, I seem to have become stuck in an archetype of comic-book vulgarity. For some time I had been thoroughly revulsed by the crassness of the current drug scene. It was an element I assiduously avoided and with which we had no desire to be in any way identified. Indeed, we had sincerely hoped that our efforts might add some luster to the sadly tarnished reputation of the psychedelic repertoire and show that legitimate research in the field was still possible. But what I was seeing now was the garbage bin of this milieu where the only known expletives seem to be "shit" and "fuck" and where the grossest substances are used to produce whacked out crude, lewd and smutty "highs."

Observing this play of images with queasy fascination I thought of a phrase used by one of my hypersensed subjects when he was exploring a fantasized version of Satan's netherworld. "It's all excrement!" he had exclaimed laughing hugely. Now that was exactly what was forming. The bawdy comic-strip colors faded into a tapestry-like excremental motif which then became edged in tongues of fire. It reminded me of India where cow dung is burned in place of wood and of an old woman I had seen there patiently following a cow with broom and dustpan in hand lest someone more alert deprive her of the fuel so badly needed for her cooking stove. It came to me also that oil, the excrement of the earth, is similarly combustible, and that the scatalogical sign Scorpio is ruled by fiery Mars as well as by Pluto, lord of the underworld. Thank goodness, the flames were now leaping up, consuming all that mess. Maybe the fires of hell served some good purpose after all.

Previously, my experiences with regressed sensors had aroused the suspicion that most of the exponents of the hell and damnation fundamentalist doctrines were members of a group of souls who had been transferred to Earth from a planet which had become progressively more hot and gaseous and finally burned out. Remembering that long-gone trauma in their souls' histories and not being equipped to deal with it, they had projected it forward as a future possibility. Now, however, I could see that the fires of the subterranean strata of creation could be purifying agents serving a useful purpose in the economy of this globe's evolution.

Nevertheless, as I returned to normal awareness I still felt those low, lugubrious vibes. The room was ashen gray in the vanishing light and I wished that Howard had been there. Physically I felt fine but mentally I was flabbergasted, appalled and dismayed that the goddess, my beautiful goddess, should have given me a bummer just when I had been hoping for so much. I realized that for the sake of honesty I would have to reverse my declaration that ketamine never produced bad trips, since for people who are engrossed in ugly archetypes this sort of thing could probably happen frequently. I would also have to face whatever it was in me that had brought this to pass. At the same time it had been intriguing to discover that even in the bright world one can go slumming. Energy can be tainted and this too is a fact to be confronted. Just as there is a "big Santa Claus" in the sky, there evidently can be etherealized imprints of Mad magazine, raunchy movies and the dregs of the drug culture.

In some ways I felt like a fractious two-year-old who has pushed his mother to the limits of her patience out of curiosity to see how far he can go. Suddenly she lashes out and gives him a resounding slap on the bottom. The child is tearful and chastened, but at the same time relieved. At last he has found out where he stands. The boundaries of parental authority have been defined. Up to this point I had no idea how much ketamine might be too much. Now I was beginning to find out, and was willing to abide by the new dictum. Henceforth I would try to be more reverent and more moderate in my usage.

Despite this digression through the seamy side of consciousness I did not feel depressed. It had all been a necessary lesson, an issue that needed clarification for the sake of the research. Although I sensed that my system needed a rest the body felt fine with the usual relaxed afterglow. The conviction remained that we could count on fair treatment from the goddess if only we played the game correctly. Perhaps it is fortunate that there are built-in safeguards against over-use of this potent medicine. One should not take advantage of a person merely because he is gentle, and the same can be said for ketamine.