Pihkal

by Alexander Shulgin

  And obviously, the only way I can conceive of another kind of God-Mind is to form it out of myself, my own mind and soul.

  Comprehension began trickling in.

  Is that what I am? A piece of the God-Mind trying to give itself a new definition? Or am I going to make a full circle and end up re-affirming what already exists?

  The ringing of a telephone reached me through the back door. I spilled the cat off my lap and went inside to the office/ hoping it would not be a complicated call, but as my hand touched the top of the phone, I knew it was Shura.

  He asked, "How are you. Buns?"

  "I'm okay, honey. Struggling with the cosmos/ but okay."

  "Anything changed for the better?"

  "I really don't know. I mean, it's hard to look at it all objectively enough to say whether something's better or not. I'm just awfully busy trying to figure things out."

  "Not coming down yet?"

  "I don't think so, Luv, but I know in my heart of hearts that it won't be permanent, so I'll just keep on doing what I have to do and wait until it's run its course."

  That's interesting. I didn't know I was going to say that. The words came out of some part of me that DOES know it won't be permanent, that it will pass.

  Shura said he loved me and would be home soon, and I told him there was no need to worry, repeating that I was basically okay, in some peculiar sort of way, and that I loved him very much.

  As I hung up, a face appeared in my mind, the face of the psychologist, Adam Fisher, our favorite grandfather figure and wise-man. I went to the living room, where I could sit on the couch and use the ashtray, and dialed his number.

  "Adam," I said, "This is Alice." He said Hi, in his warm, smiling voice. I told him, "I'm in trouble, and I need help."

  I could feel him snapping into focus on the other end of the phone, "Tell me."

  I told him, pausing every now and then to gulp down the tears that kept rising in my throat.

  I summarized, "I'm living in a universe that is full of some kind of cold intelligence that watches and records everything and has no feelings at all, and it may very well be the truth of what God is, although I don't really think so, but I don't know what else it could be, because it's everywhere and I can't get away from it. I've decided I'm not going to accept it. I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's the way I feel."

  I clenched my teeth to stop the tears from choking me, and plunged on, "All I seem to be able to do is think a Hood of thoughts and cry continual stupid tears and inside I'm screaming NO, NO! at something that couldn't care less, and I want to get the hell out." I stopped for a moment, coughing to clear my thickened throat.

  I heard him say, his voice sharp and emphatic, "First, you haven't discovered anything about the cosmos at all. Whatever you're facing is not out there, it's inside you. It's you, not God and not the universe. Start dealing with it as an aspect of yourself."

  I said Oh.

  "Next thing," continued Adam, "What you're going through is a process. You don't have any way of understanding what it is or why it's happening; don't try to understand, right now.

  You're just going to have to accept the fact that some kind of process is taking place which needs to take place and there's only one thing you can do, must do, and that is: don't get in its way."

  "Jesus, Adam," I said, "Am I going to be stuck here forever?"

  "No," said Adam, the sharpness gone, "You're not going to be stuck there forever. In fact, I can assure you that you'll be out of it by the end of the week."

  I understood, with a brief flash of amusement and admiration, that he was programming me -

  my unconscious, anyway - for recovery by the weekend, and I felt a surge of gratitude. I mentally dug an elbow into my own ribs and flashed the thought, "Listen, you, hear what he said? Out by the end of the week!"

  "Thank you so very much, Adam. Listen, if I get to where I can trust myself to drive safely, can I come over and talk to you for a while? Will you be home the next couple of days, in case I can manage the car and everything?"

  His voice was gentle and I realized he was speaking more distinctly and a bit slower than usual, so that I would hear him through tangle and confusion, "You call me any time of the day or night, and if I'm not here, leave a message on my answering machine and I'll get back to you as soon as I'm home. And when you can drive safely, you come over here and spend all the time you want. I'm here for you," he said, intently, "I'm here for you any time, just as you would be for me."

  I thanked him again and hung up. Then I put my head in my hands and cried, hard, for a long time.

  When Shura got home, he kissed me and held me to him/ then searched my face and hugged me again. I knew he was concerned, and that it couldn't be helped - so was I. But whatever this was, it had to be lived through. I told him that the streams of thought were very intense and that I couldn't shut them off, so I would either talk to him or write them out, although the images and the concepts had become so continuous and so complex, it was hard to focus on any of them long enough to write them down. I said I seemed to be reviewing all aspects of human life and experience, but that I was tuned in, most of all, to the painful, sad, tragic aspects, and it was getting to be a drag.

  I followed him into the dining room, where he always put down his work papers and the mail. I suggested he go ahead and read his letters while I attended to dinner, which was going to be a matter of taking a frozen meal out of the refrigerator and putting it in the oven. Nothing more complicated than that, I said, which I was sure he'd understand, considering.

  He told me he was perfectly willing to go out and get a cheeseburger, if I preferred to leave kitchen stuff alone right now. I assured him I could manage a frozen dinner without any problems at all, and heard myself actually chuckling. It was a nice, normal sound.

  When he had finished with letters and bills, I sat down at the table and gave him a shortened version of the day's struggles, and described the call to Adam.

  I concluded, "He said everything I'm going through is inside me, that what I'm facing is an aspect of myself. He said it's a process of some kind that has to happen, otherwise it wouldn't be happening, and that all I should do is not get in its way."

  Shura half-smiled and nodded, "Sounds reasonable to me."

  I smiled back, "And he told me I'd be out of it, all through and back to normal - whatever the hell that is! - by the weekend. Isn't that great?"

  We both laughed.

  When I put his meal on the table, Shura tried to persuade me to eat something, but I said I had no appetite - which was perfectly fine with me, considering my eternal weight problem -

  and would he mind eating alone while I went and sat down at my typewriter and made notes on all this crazy business? He said he wouldn't mind at all, and to call him if I needed anything, including just plain loving. I kissed him, and turned away so he wouldn't see the tears rolling again.

  At the door of the kitchen, I looked back and decided to tell him about the watering eyes, instead of trying to hide them, because that would eventually become impossible.

  "Shura?"

  He looked up quickly, his face anxious, "Uh-huh?"

  "I think I should explain that part of this - whatever is happening - seems to be an almost continual dripping of tears. Sometimes it is actual crying, but most of the time they just flow down my face for no particular emotional reason, you know; they're just there. It seems to come with the territory/ and I haven't the slightest idea why. So you don't need to pay attention to them, okay? Tears don't mean what they usually do, while this stuff is going on."

  He smiled at me, "All right; I'll ignore your tears unless you tell me I shouldn't."

  "Good," I grinned, wiping away the latest example. I sat at my desk and turned on the electric typewriter. It was time to

  start writing an account of this whole very strange business.

  "DESOXY, 40 mgs.," the report began, "This is the oddest experience I've ever had. I've tak
en drugs before which were threatening, but the problems were entirely neurological. The difficulty this time is not physical/ but psychic."

  I wrote a brief summary of the previous day's experience, for the record, then continued: "Adam said it's all myself. That means I've been projecting onto the world around me some part of my psyche that observes and registers everything and learns. That is its function."

  I remembered the pressure of that unseen awareness, an almost physical sense of being pushed at, as I stood outside the back door.

  On the other hand, that old phrase, "As above, so beloiv," could also mean, "As inside, so also outside." The universe outside me mirrors the one inside me, and visa versa; of that, 1 am sure.

  I was suddenly recalling, vividly, a painting I'd seen in a book on the mythology of the East, of an Indian god surrounded on all sides by huge pearls which reflected his face and body. And I remembered its name: the Net of Indra. A net of pearls which is the cosmos; a cosmos which mirrors the God.

  So whatever I've been projecting onto the world outside is within me, but it's also an archetype of some kind in whatever surrounds me. Out there. 'Whatever "out there" means.

  Okay.

  My notes went on:

  "It is entirely possible, and at this moment I think probable," I wrote, "That whatever the God-Mind is, my human psyche reflects it, and that means I've been confronting not only my own Fact-Recorder, but the cosmic one, as well. I got into trouble because I was afraid that it was the Whole Truth about God, and it isn't."

  It isn't? Of course, it isn't. I know that. I've known it all the time, somewhere within me. Just forgot because that crystal intelligence took over the whole field and didn't seem to be leaving room for anything else. But it's only a part of the God-awareness, as it's only part of mine.

  As I sat there, reading what I had just typed, a series of concepts formed in my mind, and I started writing again.

  "We are indeed being true to this aspect of ourselves - what I was calling the White Mind - in our creation of thinking machines which function without emotions. Computers, for instance.

  Strange (and funny, in a way) how we've given birth to the computer - a really helpful, power-giving tool - out of those very elements of ourselves which are farthest from what we usually think of as human."

  Another thought was forming, and I typed as it took shape.

  "What about the part of us - the human species - which showed itself in the so-called 'scientific experiments,' done on the inmates of the Nazi concentration camps? There were people, including doctors, who were able to turn off all empathy, all connectedness, and just watch.

  They watched pain, fear and horror, and made notes, feeling nothing but intellectual interest.

  What was that, if not the Fact-Recorder, put to use by the side of us that loves to dominate and control, and wants to devour another's power and freedom?

  "The White Mind is, I suppose, pure intellect. It is morally neutral. It serves our survival -

  individually and as a species - and it functions effectively because it is untouched by the world of feeling.

  "An integrated, complete human being, of course, uses all of himself - emotional, intellectual and spiritual - and does not fail to exercise any one part, in favor of another.

  "Isn't that what some people are doing when they conduct animal experiments which cause pain to the animals? It's necessary to do this; it's in a good cause,' a scientist reasons, 'Therefore compassion cannot be allowed to enter into it.' He's afraid that empathy might interfere with the gathering of factual information for a scientific paper which, he hopes, will earn him the respect of his peers and the continuation of his grants." After I'd re-read the words/1 added,

  "Of course/ there are many scientists and laboratory workers who love animals and don't cut themselves off from caring and sympathy, but there are too many of the others, and there should be none. In my opinion, that is. There ought to be a law that only people who love animals are to be allowed to do experiments on animals."

  I smiled. Fat chance. If you could legislate love and empathy, the world would have been cured of its ills long ago.

  When Shura came in to see how I was getting along, I was writing hard, ignoring the tears, which were dripping off my chin. "How about a good night's sleep. Babe?" he suggested. "Now that you mention it, I guess I'm ready for exactly that." When we were under the covers, Shura held me and stroked me gently, watching my face in the dim light from the radio. I closed my eyes and felt the firm, skillful hand on my body for a few moments, then looked up at him and apologized, "Honey, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm feeling practically anesthetized down there; it's like a piece of wood. I can't remember this ever happening before!"

  Shura said, "Well, it's certainly an unusual development -" "You mean, 'A reeVOLTIN'

  deeVELupmint/ don't you," I said in my best Durante.

  He was continuing, " - but if lust isn't on the agenda, at least for the moment, its absence will only serve to sharpen our anticipation of its return," his fingers prodded, "To whet our -"

  I made a grab at his ribs and he arched backwards, then caught my wrists and pinned them to the bed. He had me laughing again, and it felt wonderful.

  We were both hoping a little bit of playing around might help me get back to some kind of normal. Never expected the whole region to go dead like that. What the hell could be making that happen?

  When we had settled down under the covers, I kissed him and said, "Thank you for being so patient, my love. This is all very peculiar and 1 don't seem to have much control over any of it, so I just have to wait until it resolves. One way or another. The worst of it is the self-centeredness, you know, all the obsessive involvement with my own inner workings, but I guess that's what I'm stuck with, for the moment."

  Shura hugged me to his chest, "You do what you have to. Buns, and I'll do whatever I can to help you. If nothing else, I'm here to love you, all right?"

  I nodded silently, knowing that he would feel the heat of tears on his skin, hoping he would ignore them. He did.

  I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, as Shura settled into sleep, his hand occasionally twitching slightly, in mine.

  So the White Mind is just one component of my own consciousness, an essential part which observes, records and learns. That's all.

  I thought of my own, very personal Observer, which I had always considered a friend, not a disinterested machine; it was able to keep track of events, precisely because it wasn't influenced by emotions, yet I had always regarded it as a caring, concerned interior ally, with a great capacity for humor.

  Perhaps my Observer is the Alice version of this same archetype. I've dressed it up in nice things like caring and humor, but its essence is exactly what I projected onto the world around me and fought as an enemy, today, because I didn't understand what it was. It's not an enemy at all; it's a necessary part of me.

  I wondered if I would be able to sleep. It was the last waking thought I had.

  I had vivid dreams, but was able to recall only one of them later. It involved a long adventure with some friends, and I was aware of the White Mind overseeing the whole thing, but this time with fondness, and unmistakable amusement.

  All the dreams had a feeling of peacefulness underlying them, as if my soul understood perfectly well what was going on and was satisfied with the way it was all progressing.

  TUESDAY

  Before opening my eyes, I checked out the world and myself, feeling around with mental antennae like a nervous cockroach, and knew I wasn't out of my private little hell yet.

  This time, getting dressed in the bathroom, I felt grim. We are not amused, I thought, brushing my teeth. When I had washed my face, I picked up a comb and set to work on my sleep-tangled hair, examining my reflection in the mirror with great care. My eyes had a familiar look; they appeared liquid and soft, and the pupils were enlarged, as if I were under the influence of a psychedelic.

  Not young any more, th
at face. But it actually looks quite beautiful. Eyes swollen, but still - not bad to look at. Ah, well; for small favors, we are grateful.

  Shura taught his toxicology class in the fall, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he would not have to leave for the University until noon. He was reading the morning paper and I planted a kiss on his neck before sitting down at the table with my coffee.

  I decided to find out how much I could understand of the news - to see if I could focus on anything in print - before giving him an update. I felt him glance at me a few times, but there was no need to hurry, I thought; let the poor man have at least a few minutes of good coffee and Chronicle time, to begin his day.

  After a while, I realized I was re-reading everything two or three times. My mind was Grand Central Station, and no more than a few printed phrases penetrated the steady rush-hour foot traffic, the comings and goings of thought after thought, idea after idea. I was busy.

  When we had disposed of the paper, I filled him in on the latest developments, and we talked.

  I said, "Whatever this damned thing is, there's no question that any standard-issue psychiatrist in the world would label it psychosis, right?"

  Shura shrugged, "Probably, for whatever that's worth, and we both know it isn't worth much!"

  I smiled in agreement. Most of our friends - those who weren't chemists or writers - were psychologists and psychiatrists, or did therapy of some kind, and we both knew how little any of them really understood about the nature of either mental health or mental disorder. But the term "psychosis" seemed a reasonably good starting place in attempting to define this experience.

  "Okay," I said, getting up to sponge off the plastic tablecloth, "Everything about this - the streams of thought, the continual imagery and the intensity of the concepts, ideas falling over each other, there's so many of them; all the crying, the fact that I know I couldn't possibly drive a car, because of the distraction of what's going on inside - it's all the kind of thing you'd label psychotic, if you were an ordinary, unimaginative psychiatrist, right?"

  "Well, now, I'm not so sure," replied Shura, "There are a lot of things about this that just don't fit with that diagnosis."