Journeys into the bright world

Our considered opinion is that most of the liabilities associated with ketamine are those inherent in the use of any mind-expanding agent. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that ketamine is qualitatively different from the others and should not be regarded as just one more way of getting high. Most of its negative aspects are reverse sides of its positive benefits-as inevitable as the shadows produced on a sunny day.

Ketamine indisputably does enhance sensitivity, and this revving up of the nervous system can be a mixed blessing. Being more responsive to beauty can also mean being more responsive to ugliness. We can regret being able to absorb the disagreeable emanations of others, especially when these negative-thinking people are close associates. It becomes all too easy to spot the phoniness of a pose that has hitherto held us beglamored and to reject the polite shams which convention demands as the price for dubious rewards.

There can be no doubt but that ketamine acts as a truth serum inasmuch as it forces confrontation with material which has long been locked away in the unconscious. If an individual has something to conceal or has in any way been living a lie, then he takes this substance at the risk of having to be altogether honest with himself. Presumably, therefore, it could precipitate latent psychoses, just as LSD has been known to do. Unless there is a willingness to clean up one's personal life it might be better to avoid ketamine altogether. There can be little point in revealing a cancerous tumor if the patient is unwilling to submit to an operation to cut it out.

Another drawback which is a notorious feature of the heavy use of any psychedelic agent is paranoia. Howard and I did experience our share of this common side-effect and thereby subjected ourselves to much unnecessary strain. Realistically speaking there certainly was a danger that his job might be jeopardized by the premature revelation that we were engaged in unsponsored research with a controversial drug. Nonetheless, the sense of being once again an "outlaw" was probably more oppressive than it should have been.

It may be that people engaged in esoteric pursuits are especially subject to paranoid fears because they have, in former incarnations, suffered more than their share of martyrdoms. Consequently any ketamine-induced probing into the cracks and crevices of the psyche is likely to joggle the buried memories of innumerable martyrdoms. Most of us have been tortured, burned or in some way crucified in former lifetimes and these ancient traumas still produce their repercussions.

The first lifetime to which I was regressed was one in which I had been a young maiden on a South Sea island who was garbed in feathers, conducted up a steep mountain and hurled into a volcano as a sacrifice to the local deity. (Actually I think I was supposed to be bearing a message to the god and this seemed a logical way to send it.) There was also a memory of having been shoved backward over an abyss and, of course, Old Mary shivering on that damp dungeon floor. To this day it is hard to escape the conviction that we will once again be immolated, incarcerated or rudely dispatched as the result of engaging in forbidden practices. This fear has not been helped by the fact that even in this existence there has been some ferocious opposition to the esoteric movements with which we have been allied, some of which has rubbed off on us personally.

There were even times when I felt as though the gods in their heavens were throwing dice to decide which archetype would make the most fitting finale for our labors. A spectacular martyrdom might just turn the trick in publicizing samadhi therapy. On the other hand, if this old Earth is to have a new dispensation maybe we would be permitted to cut a fresh groove by enjoying our sunset years in that secluded "twelfth house" on the Olympic Peninsula that we so often envisioned. Certainly we were willing to cooperate with the "powers that be" in carving out an archetype of joy and success and have made active efforts to create thoughtforms to this effect. From what we have been able to remember of our souls' histories it would be an agreeable change of pace.

Almost certainly, no one is going to refine the pure gold of a shining new value system without digging deep into the leadmines of the soul. The individual who sincerely strives to recreate himself in a new image may eventually achieve the desired alchemical regeneration. He is likely to find, however, that reincarnation would have been an easier expedient. Perhaps that is why physical rebirth remains the preferred method of rejuvenation. Only toward the end of the evolutionary cycle do we become co-creators of our fleshly domiciles, like a tenant who having rented house after house finally decides to take the trouble to construct a home of his own, now that he knows what he really wants.