10/24/2022
When I first started on my quest, I thought that religion and science had to come together to describe God. I took a class called, Altered States of Consciousness and found how many cultures attained this state through rituals and lifestyle. I was looking for an explanation of my psychedelic experiences. Instead, I found that many cultures attained this altered state through natural means and that drugs were only a temporary study guide. I read Carlos Castaneda and I felt a tingle that told me that I needed to understand. I was intrigued by a story I heard about the military experimenting with L*D in the 60’s and when they gave it to Buddhist monks it had no effect on them. I also saw a documentary on Netflix called, How To Change Your Mind and it posed that the tech revolution could have resulted from the influx of L*D in the Bay area. Johns Hopkins did research into Psylocibin and found it was useful in the treatment of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and end of life treatment.
A few of my friends wanted to experience psylocibin and I accommodated them. I tried to explain the experience to them beforehand, but it truly is an experience beyond words. I made a safe environment for them and used music to help guide their experience. They experienced a world beyond their normal perception, a world of Joy. The experience was dreamlike and in the morning the dream faded telling me I was nowhere close to understanding that Joy.
I saw many cultures described God, or the ultimate consciousness, in their own experience and language. People fought over the words, but their descriptions were similar. I knew that a holographic approach might be better. Taking different perspectives of an experience and finding similarities instead of differences. If earlier people didn’t have the science to explain their experience, they described the experience in whatever words they had. I started reading the Bible looking at the symbolism of the stories and found similarities in Judeo-Christian faith and the Enlightenment and universal consciousness of Buddhism. I didn’t have the science to explain the Joy I felt in the experience, but I knew that I must. The responsibilities of family took me away from the journey and I learned about life through the eyes of my children. When the kids went off on their own, I got back to the task of understanding consciousness and altered states.
I thought that evolution was trying to attain a goal and humans were, so far, the epitome of evolution. Where was evolution taking us and were we going to make it? Many civilizations reached the top but then destroyed itself. If we don’t understand history, we will repeat the mistakes.
I started to feel I was special, and my experiences uniquely situated me to figure out what I knew was my goal. Well, I found out that I was not special but one of millions trying to figure this out. Many didn’t even realize what the question was, but I felt their interpretations in many things whether it was art, music, literature, movies, and life. I felt a tingle when I would experience these things and I tried to figure out how it fit into the puzzle.
I became infatuated with the Bible. The Garden of Eden was full of symbolism. I felt it was describing our consciousness and how we were once part of the ultimate consciousness but got kicked out when we developed our individual consciousness or when we ate from the tree of knowledge of right and wrong. To get back to the garden we had to reach the Tree of Life which was guarded by a flaming sword. I equated it with birth which was the beginning of our development of our individual consciousness and the flaming sword was the trauma of birth which kept us from the Universal Consciousness we experienced in the womb. I felt that the New Testament was the best description of God, or the Joy of Universal Consciousness in that God is Love. I liked the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus knew what was in store for him and asked God if this was what he had to do. Then he drank from the cup of man’s sin and for a moment lost his connection to God.
Recently a friend of mine inquired about Psilocybin. He had seen the research from John’s Hopkins University on Psilocybin and treatment for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and end of life acceptance. I agreed to take him on that journey. I was always anxious before guiding another person in the experience, even though I have never had a bad experience. That anxiety faded when my friend said, “There is such beauty all around us and we can’t see it.” I introduced him to a few friends I met along the way, The Moody Blues, Alan Parsons, Isoa Tomita, John Mclaughlin, and Frank Zappa. My friend and I had many conversations about the experience. He downloaded the playlist that John’s Hopkins developed for their Psylocibin studies. It was hauntingly beautiful and provided for another great trip. In one of our conversations, he mentioned a hole in our consciousness that religion tried to fill. It provided fuel for thought but that is another story.
