Journeys into the bright world

The Empress is the Earth Mother, here seated in a blooming garden. A field of ripe wheat lies before her, sacred to the Egyptian goddess Isis; behind her is seen the stream of consciousness flowing between cypress trees sacred to Venus. The heartshaped shield is inscribed with the symbol of Venus. The Empress' hair is bound with a wreath of myrtle-again reminiscent of Venus as are the seven pearls around her neck. She wears a crown of twelve stars, each with six points, denoting dominion over the macrocosm, as does her scepter surmounted by a globe.

The High Priestess symbolizes the virgin state of the cosmic subconscious, but the Empress typifies the productive, generative activities in the subconscious after it has been impregnated by seed ideas from the self-conscious. The subconscious has control over all the steps of development in the material world; therefore the Empress represents the multiplicator of images.

She is the Goddess of Love, Venus, the symbol of universal fecundity. As the High Priestess is Isis veiled, the Empress is Isis unveiled.

Yes, that was exactly what I had seen, even to the associations with Isis and Venus. Now I understood why Catholic theologians had incarnated the memory of this bright being in the figure of the Virgin Mary. How marvelous that an assemblage of misogynous monks in their Medieval cloisters should somehow have recognized the everpresent reality of the mother goddess of old and incorporated her in their mystical pantheon-even if only to cater to a superstitious populace! Or had some of those church fathers actually glimpsed her as she was, yearning over her world and impartially accepting all the sons of men as her own beloved children.

The following day a phone call came from a friend who was undergoing some excruciating personal problems. Realizing how badly he needed psychological support I promised to send him a shot of healing energy. Formerly, I would have thought of this aid as being transmitted on the level of our phone conversation-person to person across the separating miles. Now, however, I could envision a more effective procedure. The secret was first to go to the goddess upstairs and request her help. Immediately I pictured her once again enfolding the world, which was also our world, and saw the lightbeam of her loving gaze descending upon my anxious friend. Henceforth I would first direct my prayers upward to that innerdimensional amplifying station (comparable to a satellite which propagates a TV program around the world) and then let the good wishes ray down to the place they were needed. Perhaps in this way we could make a closer connection with the cosmic motherspirit and blend our energies with hers in tending the fields and flocks of planet Earth.

Following this trip into the bright world we began to set down an account of our ketamine experiences. One might say that this book, conceived at our meeting, was born with our marriage and grew along with our maturing relationship. Henceforth, we decided, we would tape our sessions and see where they led.

Coincidentally a friend sent us a book entitled Samadhi and Beyond by Sri Surath Chakravarti. Samadhi, which is the final stage and goal of yoga, is a trancelike state of sublime bliss. It is characterized by one-pointed concentration, loss of distinctions between subject and object, insight into cosmic laws, and above all by a sense of divine union. A person who has experienced samadhi is never again quite the same. A loaf of bread can be baked, but not unbaked. Similarly, the fiery process of samadhi anneals formerly disparate elements of the personality into a new synthesis.