Journeys into the bright world

Neither of us felt any urgency about pursuing our ketamine experiments, nor had we yet thought of doing a book on the subject. However, on our first Saturday morning it seemed as though it might be interesting to see where the goddess Ketamine would take us next. We had already come to regard this venusian substance as an entity in her own right. Evidently, she has her own plan, program, and intent. She does not necessarily tell you what you want to hear, but you can be assured that it is what you need to know. To me, this surprise element confirms the authenticity of the experience. You just can't dictate to the goddess. The idea also crossed my mind that perhaps in our personification of this feminine spirit we ourselves were becoming matrix-makers-spinning out a new archetype. If so, I felt that I wouldn't mind serving as her priestess.

We decided to use our waterbed for this first trip in the new house. I would lift off first and Howard follow after. The dose would be seventy-five milligrams-ten more than the amount taken previously but still far less than would normally be used in anesthesia.

Session 4

November 4, 1977   8:00 am   Alderwood Manor, Wa.   75 mg

As I whirled into the now familiar kingdom of ketamine on a glistening glissando of accelerating beats I had the sense of going very deep. There was that brief interlude of wordless intimacy with the world of essences as definitions dissolved into the roaring silence of sheer vibrational energy. Then came the awareness of being caught up, turned inside out, and sucked implosively into the revolving maw of that vast fulminating identity that seemed always the same.

For the sake of discussion I will term that inmost realm the cosmic matrix, or cosmatrix. However, the semantic necessity of coining a new word requires the understanding that, like the universal solvent of the alchemists, this state of being which remains when all physical sensations, emotional responses and mental constructs are eliminated, cannot be confined in any verbal receptacle. It has no outlines, no boundaries and no limitations-indeed no form and no content except itself. Like looking at an illuminated movie screen before the show begins one sees the background rather than the accustomed images. In other ways, it is like being the screen itself. At no time did consciousness disappear. There was only a sense of being all and one simultaneously-merged in the only reality that could possibly exist. As before it was possible to tell when I was coming back to the name-form world by the frustration aroused by my inability to link the two realms. There simply weren't enough nerve fibers of awareness to convert the abstract into the particular. There seemed to be one level, however, at which I descended from a state of pure mentation to a plateau from whence rivers of feeling began to flow.

The emanating source of these feelings was an all-sustaining love-the total concern of God for His universe. But how was this nurturing energy to be conveyed? Yes, canals were being constructed, conduits cleared, and pipelines set in place. The necessary couplings would be made. Within the cosmic organism revivifying forces were pushing outward through an integrating network of subtle connections. Fiery impulses radiating from the flaming heart of creation were streaming through the arteries, veins, and capillaries of the metagalactic circulatory system of starry space.

As in a waking dream I saw a celestial city bathed in golden light. Was this a city that existed in another dimension, or was it Seattle as seen from a god's point of view? I wasn't sure but felt that this luminous annunciation comprised an outpouring of redemptive power that was showering down upon the citadels of men and out over the countryside.

All at once the elements of that panoramic spectacle were melting, melding, and intermingling. Gushers and geysers of color streamed volcanically through widening fissures. Every sentient cell, tissue, and concavity of the earth was incandescently alive and moving. Even the rocks were effervescing internally as waters bubbled and the ground heaved like a woman in labor. Nature had been fecundated and the process of parturition had begun. What might it be that was coming to birth?