"Am I supposed to continue making choices, but without rejecting or trying to fight that dark side of the human soul?
"I will have to work this out, on all levels of my psyche. I am supposed to learn a truth, as my inner Self has made abundantly clear in the dreams, but first, I will have to discover exactly what it is - the archetype alone, or the archetype and all its manifestations - that I'm being urged to make peace with."
In the afternoon, I sat down at the dining room table with a cup of tea, and my attention fastened on the spine of a tall book. It was an old friend from childhood, a collection of fairy tales, most of its pages loosened from the cracked binding. I took it out of the bookcase and leafed through it until I found "Beauty and the Beast."
I read the ancient story through, as if for the first time.
The Beast is a beast until he is loved and accepted, green scales, fangs and all; then, and only then, is he transformed into the prince. My maggot, and all such buried dark images of the Self, are the Beast. They must be uncovered, brought up into the light of conscious awareness, and they must be given compassion and love, as Beauty came to love and care for her Beast. Then - not suddenly, as in the fairy story, but gradually - the reshaping will begin to take place, and the Beast will become - what? - a survivor, a guardian, a strong part of oneself that does not fear. An ally.
Do all the old fairy stories have the same essential meaning? Are they tales of the journey of the human soul to completion, the struggle to achieve wholeness? Did they all originate as spiritual teaching stories, like the Sufi tales of the East?
I spent the next few hours reading fairy stories, understanding them in the light of my own experience of the Shadow, and feeling a growing admiration for the people of courage, the wise teachers who had first created them. They had disguised spiritual truths as tales for children, probably because the all-powerful Church of that time reserved for itself the right to instruct in matters of the soul, and enforced its rules with torture and death.
That evening, the final lesson came.
After supper, when Shura went to his office to find out how his new IBM computer worked, I turned on the television. There was a documentary on Channel 9. It had been created by an extraordinary husband and wife team living in Kenya, Allan and Joan Root. Two years of work had gone into their portrayal of the mating and family-raising of a pair of hook-billed birds.
The wisdom that revealed itself in the instinctual activities of the pair and, later, their babies, struck me with unusual force. There was a strong, almost palpable, impression of a vast intelligence that lay behind the pattern of behavior being followed by these beautiful birds.
I gradually became aware of something else: an immeasurable love permeating all that was taking place. Not the kind of love familiar to us as humans, but love as affirmation of both life and death, without sentimentality or regret. Love as YES, to everything that is. My tears started again, this time in response to the presence of a mystery, and to the intense joy that I sensed running like a silent stream within it.
The documentary continued with the yearly migration of the big brown creatures called wildebeest. Thousands of animals were shown by the camera, pouring across the yellow African plains, struggling through the swift waters of a wide river - with the loss of hundreds of them to drowning or exhaustion - on the way to their other home.
I watched the screen, hypnotized, as the wildebeest raced over the dry grass, thundering towards the river, the immense herd photographed from a small plane flying above. Against the yellow background, the running animals took the form of a great brown tree with three branches, and suddenly I knew this was an entity, a single entity composed of thousands of wildebeest. I was seeing a group-soul. I felt, again, a form of consciousness that has no counterpart in the human world. It was immensely powerful, implacably driving all its component parts in the direction it had to go. It was not a comfortable thing to see. I could feel no love for it, only a profound respect and awe.
When the camera returned to the ground, following the wildebeest into and across the river, the Roots took time to record the dying of a large group of animals which had collapsed from exhaustion on the riverbank, half in the water, their heads hanging, legs tangled. Allan Root waded out to the pile of dead and dying wildebeest and struggled to disengage one young male, urging him to continue his journey across the river. The animal was having none of it; he was clearly sinking without fear into death, and didn't want to be pulled back out.
I was being shown the attraction, the seduction of that state of giving in, not fighting any more, dissolving into peace.
Somewhere within my own psyche there is that same death-pull, that potential for giving up, relinquishing the effort that life entails. I'm seeing the death-drive, there on a riverbank in Africa. All living things eventually come to it, that wanting to cease, to stop trying, to give over and float gently into a final sleep. It's there in potential, in each of us, and one has to push against it, not let it take over, if one wants to continue living. And, for humans as well as animals, that can sometimes be hard to do, if suffering has been going on too long, and exhaustion has drained the will.
The wildebeest entity I was watching did not concern itself with the death of some of its cells.
The loss was an intrinsic part of the necessary movement of itself from one place to another, and served to winnow out weakness. The whole would survive.
After the documentary was over, I was sitting curled up on the couch, thinking about what I had seen, when Shura came into the room and sat down in the big armchair. "How are you feeling. Buns?" he asked, and I said things were changing continually, and I'd just been through a rather extraordinary experience, watching something absolutely awesome on television.
He said, "I have an idea I'd like to run by you. Tell me what you think."
I smiled at him, "Okay, what is it?"
"You know how good old 2C-B always connects you with your body, how it integrates the mental world with the physical?"
I nodded.
"It's taking a chance," he said, "But it seems to me that if you opened up the possibility of reminding your body of how it normally feels, maybe it would help you bring everything back into some kind of balance/ get the scattered parts of you together again. Work through the body, as well as the mind. And 2C-B is familiar to you, after all; it's an old friend. What do you think of giving it a try, just to see what happens? Of course," he added quickly, "It goes without saying that the slightest feeling of hesitation or uneasiness on your part must be respected. Go with your instincts."
I smiled. "It sounds like a perfectly fine idea. I can't see how it could hurt. At worst, it'll have no particular effect, and everything will just keep going on as before. If it does work, well, I must say I'm more than ready to get back to normal, and is that the understatement of the century!"
We each took twenty-five milligrams of 2C-B, and lay on our big double bed side by side.
Shura found Leonard Bernstein's music on the radio, and we began to touch each other.
Two hours later, we were still making love, sweating in the warm air, and I was crying again, now with gratitude for the familiar sensations of arousal and response in my body. We loved and we talked, for four hours, getting up for occasional pee-breaks and some fresh oranges. I felt whole and full of joy, and told Shura that he was, indeed, a man of wisdom, and said thank you, lovely person, thank you.
SATURDAY
When I woke up, I was myself. I was at baseline and I knew I would stay that way. The process/ as Adam had promised, had completed itself by the end of the week. I phoned to tell him it had gone just the way he had predicted, and thanked him again. He laughed and said that, of course, he would be happy to take credit for anything that turned out well, whether he deserved it or not. He said, "Vaya con Dios, my dear."
I walked outside and saw that Mount Diablo was part of what was, part of the natural world of which we humans are also a part, and that it wa
s all right to love it, even though it couldn't love back in quite the same way. Shura took me out to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant to celebrate. We toasted the Mysteries of The Human Mind, Life Its Own Self, and the Wonderful World of The Normal and Ordinary.
It was inexpressibly good to be back.
SUNDAY
Shura took the DESOXY at the same level, forty milligrams, that he had given me on the previous Sunday. It was, he reported, completely inactive.
SIX MONTHS LATER.
One fine Sunday morning, I persuaded Shura to give me the full forty milligrams of DESOXY
again, telling him I was certain that - this time - I, too, would find no activity.
I was right. There were no effects at all.
CHAPTER 39. DANTE AND GINGER AND GOD
(Alice's voice)
Of all the research group, Dante wrote the best reports. They were long, detailed, and unreservedly honest. Ginger often sent us her own separate account, folded alongside Dante's in the same envelope, and they always sounded like her - enthusiastic, breezy and down to earth - but when she was involved with family matters or house-guests, she confined herself to scrawling brief post-scripts to Dante's typed descriptions. We told her we were grateful for whatever she wrote, long or short, considering how hard it was to pull anything out of the rest of the group; at least it had been until George got his own Macintosh computer and discovered how much fun it was to write up experiments, especially now that he could illustrate them with little pictures and appropriate symbols!
Dante and Ginger had their private supply of psychedelic drugs, out there in the high desert country, halfway between the town of Gold Tree and their favorite hiking place. Mount Whitney. Over the years, they had gradually developed their own group of fellow travelers, many of whom lived in Los Angeles and would come to stay for an entire weekend, making it hard for Ginger to get to her painting as often as she would have liked.
Finally, she put her foot down and got Dante to agree to no more than one group experiment a month, max. He later admitted to us that it was a decision they should have made long ago, because he had begun feeling quite tired, and Ginger certainly needed fewer hours in the kitchen and more in her studio. After all, he said proudly, her incredible watercolor landscapes were beginning to attract attention in the outside world!
Many times, their experiments with visiting friends turned into therapy sessions, and both of them were becoming increasingly skillful at handling the occasional psychological breakthrough and the inevitable - and often challenging - surprises.
Shura and I took a trip to Gold Tree once or twice a year, usually with David and the Closes.
The Sandeman's lovely big ranch house had sleeping space for five or six guests, if you counted the living room floor and the summer favorite, the outside deck. When the moon was full, and the coyotes at howl in the foothills, the deck became a place of dark-shadowed enchantment; the only difficulty we had, when we spent the night out there, was in closing our eyes and settling down to sleep.
One May, in the 1980's, Dante wrote an account of a complex and quite extraordinary experience with a drug he and Ginger had found very friendly and insightful in several earlier trials. Its name is 2C-T-7. I include the account in this book because it moved me deeply when I first read it and it moves me still. I would call this a plus-four.
It is a beautiful May afternoon. I am sitting in the park in downtown Gold Tree. I've come to my favorite place, a park bench under a huge cottonwood. Nearby a stream is flowing, and I delight in its continual murmuring as it makes its way over the rocks in the stream bed. There is something magical about the breeze rustling through the trees. It is still early enough in the year for the air to be comfortable, and the breeze is fresh and caressing. The expanse of green grass and the shimmering leaves vibrating in the sunlight make this a wonderful place to sit and contemplate.
And contemplate I must, about the intense activities of last weekend. I don't know if it's possible to adequately describe all of it, the arguments and discussions, the searching thinking, the sadness and depression over apparently irreconcilable points of view, and what remains afterwards.
How to describe what remains? This wonderful glow inside my being, the remembrance of having been touched by the most exquisite Feminine Presence imaginable, touched in such a way that goodness, beauty, tenderness and love are reflected all around me, in everything I see. And the wonder and majesty of the Mystery that created this universe, endowing it with the miracle of its Presence.
How long will this last, this delicious feeling of being alive, of having penetrated the veil which hides beauty and the wonders of celestial vistas? It doesn't matter, as there can be nothing but gratitude for even a glimpse of what exists for those who can become open to it.
Here is what happened. Charles [è friend of the Sandemans who was a student of Asian history and had written several books on the subject] and Glenn [an engineer] arrived on Friday. We hadn't seen each other for many months, and there was much to share, the recent activities of mutual friends, and our growing understanding of what we ourselves are about.
Our continual discussion was augmented by three bracing excursions into the mountains. We enjoyed the stretching of our bodies, and thrilled to the grandeur of the high granite faces of the Sierras. It is especially satisfying to enjoy the beauty of the high country in the company of good friends and stimulating conversation.
We all consider ourselves seekers of God, yet have quite different views of what God-realization is and how it is to be accomplished. Glenn sees God so far away that direct contact is impossible. Only by leaving this corrupt and pain-engrossed world, he says, can one hope to breathe the atmosphere of the Divine.
Charles holds the view that the evil and corruption of the world are far too great to be the result of our own doing. Instead, he views the dark forces as a result of demigods, or the demiurge, an arrogant and power-hungry creator who imposes the darkness on humanity.
Thus we do not have to feel guilty for the troubles of the world, as they are not our fault. He says that recognizing who we truly are, and drawing upon divine assistance, we can become free of the works of the demiurge and the archons that assist him.
My own experience is that God is everywhere, the essence of everything that exists, "As near as hand and feet," waiting to join us as soon as invited. For He will not violate His established law of free will. Our role is to grow in consciousness, in awareness, and to so open ourselves that we may be joined with the Divine, that we may become partners, channels, for bringing the Divine into the world. Until ultimately there is complete union, as the great mystics have taught/ with no separation between God and man.
I find Carl Jung to hold the most accurate view of the psyche. What stands in the way of integrating with our Inner Self, apart from our reluctance, for whatever reason, to discover who we really are, is the Shadow. As a simplified approximation, the Shadow is composed of all the material that we keep repressed from our conscious awareness. Most of us are not at all pleased with the prospect of encountering much of this material, and in fact usually strenuously avoid it. This readily accounts, in my mind, for most of the difficulties in the world.
In my personal experience, encountering and reconciling Shadow material results in leaps in growth, brings understanding, freedom from unconscious forces, and also releases for our use the energy that was formerly tied up in the repressed material. And with this freeing comes a heightening of all of our functions.
My dear friend Glenn holds it entirely unnecessary to pursue the Shadow material and the psychological understanding that comes with that pursuit. He says that it is only necessary to hold fast to our sense of the Divine, and all will be well.
While he agrees with Charles as to the horrible state of the world and the hopelessness of saving it, he is not sure that Charles is entirely right about everything else.
We sat down that evening to a delightful dinner which Glenn had p
repared for us. We were soon into a hot and heavy discussion, which lasted right up until bedtime.
I argued eloquently for my position, bringing up my personal experiences and evidence that supports it. Glenn was equally eloquent, and stood firmly in his position. God was far too far away to have any direct contact with humans, and we would only find the Divine by freeing ourselves of the bloody mess of this world.
Much to my surprise, Charles came forcefully to Glenn's side, thoroughly supporting him in all of his views, and castigating me for the errors of mine, and for my love and faith in the world.
I went to bed quite saddened. Our differences were so great and seemed so unreconcilable that I wondered about spending the next day together under the influence of a powerful chemical agent.
I had a horrible nightmare that night, far more intense and real than any dream I've had for years. I was at a hotel, and all of my belongings were in my room. Guests of the hotel were being entertained by what seemed like a group of friendly, outgoing men and women, putting on skits and performing for their benefit. I returned to my room, and found that all of my possessions had been taken by the performers. I wanted to raise an alarm, but they immediately surrounded me, and physically restrained me. I was told that if I didn't do exactly what they said, I would receive severe physical punishment. I felt I had no choice but to comply. I was outraged, and continually racked my brain for ways to get free and report them.
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