A Nation of Mystics - Book II: The Tribe

by Pamela Johnson

“I quite agree with you.”

  “And if Jerry’s using departmental funds to feed his own drug habit …” Myles shrugged his shoulders, letting the sentence feed his father’s imagination. “I’m not sure we could explain that if we had to.”

  “You’re right, of course. What’s gotten into Benjamin anyway? Taking on a student with a criminal record? Even if it is Jerry.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t blame Dr. Miller, Dad. His rapport with his students is legendary, and, well, like you say, you’ve known Jerry for a long time. Even busted for drugs, I thought you might want to make an exception.”

  “It’s not personal, Myles. Forgiveness has nothing to do with it. The reputation of the university takes precedence. And you’re right about funding. I can’t afford to jeopardize other grants and current programs. Oh, I know how it is with you and Jerry—believe me—but … I simply can’t understand why someone with Jerry’s intelligence and promise would use drugs. And now you’re telling me he deals them and has gone to jail?” Dr. Corbet shook his head. “My responsibility as department chair must dictate my actions. Leave the matter in my hands.”

  BENJAMIN MILLER AND JERRY PUTNAM

  BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

  JULY–AUGUST 1968

  “But Jerry’s an excellent research assistant, Phil,” Benjamin explained. “Hardworking. Objective. Bright. Often brilliant in his theoretical observations. He’s always there if you need him. I can’t see ruining a man’s career for one mistake.”

  “I wish I could agree with you, Ben,” Dr. Corbet answered, “but how could I explain the misappropriation of funds?”

  “How are they being misappropriated?” Benjamin asked with some astonishment. “Our research is not only vital but exciting—important. Our work in conjunction with the anthropology department is stunning—the origins of religion, the development of style in art, symbiosis between plant use and culture development. Our research is no secret. Private institutions have begun to offer me grant money.”

  “We simply cannot have someone with an arrest for drugs doing research on psychoactive plants. Maybe if it were some other line of study …”

  “Phil, this is a ridiculous attitude. Jerry’s not an addict. He might smoke a little pot. So do most of the students in your classes.”

  “It’s illegal, unethical, and immoral. I’m sorry, Ben, but either Jerry goes, or I’ll refuse you funds to continue the current project.”

  Benjamin stood. Disappointment and anger flickered across his face; he had not been prepared for this.

  “Just think about it,” Dr. Corbet continued, taking a step toward the door. “I’m sure you’ll see reason …”

  “You know, Phil,” Benjamin interrupted. “I once thought I had joined a club of gentlemen explorers—men who were as excited as I was about seeking truth. What I’ve found instead is a community of overworked and very frightened aging men who care more about the honors awarded to them at the next banquet or dinner party. I’ve also grown to understand that they often receive those honors by saying what people want to hear. Keep your funding. I’ll find what I need in the private sector. Jerry stays on the team.”

  When the door closed, Benjamin Miller sat at his desk, looking sadly about the office. For the first time, he began to entertain notions of leaving the university, going somewhere where fairness and the open discussion of intellectual ideas were still meaningful. But where was that?

  Within hours, the corridors were veritably humming with the gossip of Jerry’s arrest and incarceration. A few days later, Jerry learned his student loan money for the next year had been denied.

  Confused and hurt, he barged into Dr. Miller’s office with a letter of resignation from the research project. He tried to push the anger away, but it trailed him, crept up, and tapped him on the shoulder. He couldn’t shake the feeling, nor could he pass over the person who had brought it to him.

  He thought back to the day at the Marin Civic Center, the day the charges against Max Jackson had been dismissed. He’d quietly entered the back of the courtroom, wondering if he would see Myles, prepared to look him in the eye. Instead, there was only his mother and Ellen Corbet, amused at the spectacle they were witnessing. Obviously, the defense had won.

  “Sorry to be late,” he’d told them. “It took me longer than I thought to file those papers.”

  “Don’t worry, Jerry. It was a good idea to tell us to wait for you here. Exciting.”

  “Well, the newspaper said it was a pretty high-profile case.”

  Jerry had kissed his mom’s cheek and hugged her tightly. “Let’s have that lunch I promised you ladies. We’re going to have champagne!”

  “Jerry?” his mother had looked at him.

  “On a dark and foggy day like this, we have to do something to make it brighter. I know a restaurant with a fire and wonderful food.” He didn’t mention that Jackson would be picking up the tab.

  Now, with the letter of resignation in his hand, he asked himself whether he would have done anything differently. Should he have let Myles get away with his illegal double life? The answer came to him, sure and swift, if not sorrowfully: No.

  “I will not accept this.” Dr. Miller passed the resignation back to him.

  “You don’t understand. I’m not only endangering the project, but without the money from that student loan, I won’t be able to return to school full time next year. I suppose graduate school is out of the question now.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Dr. Miller said, reassuring him. “Times change. Political situations evolve. And there are other universities.”

  Jerry held out his hand. “It’s been wonderful working with you, sir.”

  “Jerry, please. Must we be so melodramatic? Surely, something can be done to keep you in school next year.”

  “I wish I knew what that might be. My mother lives on a pension. And a part-time job at minimum wage just won’t cover everything.”

  Dr. Miller looked as bad as Jerry had ever seen him. He couldn’t look into the disappointment in Ben’s face any longer. “Thank you, again, sir.”

  Taking the stairs quickly, almost running, he pushed open the heavy glass doors of the life sciences building and took the north steps toward home. He hadn’t walked very far when he stopped, leaned against a tree, and sank to the ground.

  It’ll be alright, he told himself. I just need a few moments to reorganize my thoughts.

  Again, he’d resisted the impulse to tell Dr. Miller about Myles. The words had burned at his lips. His mouth was sour with the effort of holding them back.

  What will I do? I’m a natural botanist without a home. How can I use the knowledge and experience I have?

  He closed his eyes. Visions of his expeditions floated by in the dimness. The family he had created through the iboga. Mana’s lessons in the jungle. María Guadalupe’s wisdom.

  They will carry you, María had said of the mushrooms. You will teach.

  Now he wouldn’t be able to teach or write anything about the expedition findings. He’d been cut off. All he really had left were his memories of the velada and a few cubensis spore prints sealed in plastic in the lab.

  Spores?

  His eyes fluttered open.

  So that’s what she’d meant! The mushrooms will carry you. Of course! He would help teach, but not with words or paper. The mushrooms would teach as they always had!

  Jerry jumped to his feet and started running in wild elation across the campus. The botanist had a home. Those spores would be the seed he’d use to grow the mushrooms. The fruit would pay his way through school. He’d be back next year full time.

  Jerry laughed aloud.

  Oh Myles! You poor bastard! You haven’t won yet.

  The road to growing the magic mushroom was longer than Jerry had imagined when he’d first conceived the idea. For him, there had been two risks.

  The first had been economic. From friends and relatives, he had borrowed a thousand dollars. A hundred dollars here, two hundred there
, another fifty from someone else. At that rate, his debts had become a long, alarming list.

  Using every minute of the day he had, he began to construct a makeshift lab in the dingy basement of his house. He pulled a worktable from a forgotten corner, dusted it off, and set it to one side. He moved the notes and files for various research projects that had been stored in the basement to his office, piling the boxes to the ceiling. All the space downstairs would be needed to build the room that would house the mushroom beds.

  The second challenge confronted him as a botanist. As he collected and studied books on mushroom production, he knew that with October only three months away, there was no margin for error.

  The most important aspect of encouraging mycelium development was keeping lower forms of bacteria away from the growth he was trying to encourage. Using a laboratory glove box he’d constructed, he placed Petri dishes in the box, then sterilized a thin wire inoculation loop over an alcohol lamp to kill any bacteria that might also want to set up a colony in the Petri dish. Lightly, he scraped the Psilocybe spore print he had brought from Mexico, touching the agar medium in three spots. He then quickly replaced the Petri dish cover in hopes of avoiding any other airborne spores.

  In three days, the spores began to germinate, the mycelium sending its tiny, white, fibrous threads outward, a network of arteries and veins. The sight of the growth caused Jerry to make philosophic notes alongside his laboratory recordings.

  Life can be reproduced easily, given the right medium.

  The tiny mycelium represents life on earth, each of us with our own sensory systems reaching to touch and unite with other sensory life.

  His next step was to take a small piece of the mycelial tissue from the Petri dish and transfer it quickly to another dish, so that he would grow a single strain. As the week passed and the fungus grew, his confidence increased, and he reestimated his chances for success.

  Finally, the agar of the second Petri dish was cut into one-centimeter squares, and each cube was placed in a jar with a sterilized medium of buckwheat, calcium carbonate in the form of finely powdered oyster shell, and water. The lid was tightened, and the jar shaken vigorously.

  While waiting for the mycelium to grow in the buckwheat, Jerry worked at building the room where the plant would fruit. Most of the thousand dollars he’d borrowed went into materials for the ten-by-twelve-foot space. When the frame and outer walls of plywood were complete, he attached a wire mesh to the plywood as a base for a thin layer of stucco. Pipes were brought in for water and wires for electricity. Six shelves, three feet in width and six feet long, were built inside the room for the mushroom beds, three beds on each side, one atop the other. Using two-by-fours, he completed edging on the shelves to make long trays. Finally, borrowing a pickup, he unloaded cow dung compost by the bucketful in scores of backbreaking, leg-burning trips, using the back entrance of the house to conceal his movements.

  When the trays had been filled, Jerry sat to recount the money. He still needed a fan for air circulation, thermometers to monitor the temperature, a misting hose, and air vaporizers for steam. He closed his eyes, remembering the mountains in the Sierra Madre Oriental, how the air felt, the humidity, the sun, knowing he was trying to recreate the same environment in the closed room. Each day as he worked on construction, he would stand over the jars of buckwheat, watching, nervously contemplating the growth of the blue-white fungus. If he were fortunate, if he had separated one consistent strain of Psilocybe, the blue-white that traveled the length of the jars should be the mycelium of the Psilocybe mushroom.

  Fourteen days after the initial inoculation, he decided it was time to spread the buckwheat into the compost beds. What startled him most was that the very thought of the mushrooms brought him closer to dreams and visions.

  He trembled as he held the jar.

  Dr. Benjamin Miller sat at his desk, reflecting on the new course material for his summer class entitled Plants and Man and realized that his syllabus could not truly reflect those things he wanted to share with his students. Truth be told, the object of his lessons had always been to show that man and environment were unalterably linked, and he had meant every word. But the Amazon jungle had changed him. For years, the scientific community had considered the religions of native peoples primitive, superstitious. The reason was simple—a universal inability to translate experiential knowledge into words. Ironically, like the native, he was unable to transfer the experiential to his students or fellow professors. All he had to give them was words.

  Something else was at play as well. He, Barry Hume, and Jerry Putnam were changing, becoming different. Each of them relied more on the senses for truth, paid greater attention to the sequences of things, to the time of ideas, to intuition, to who was present, to sound, to animals. They discussed their dreams, spoke together of coincidences, no longer believing in coincidence. Together, they had journeyed to distant worlds, new geographies, souls flying from their bodies to touch power spirits, songs, and teachers in the new realms. And there, Benjamin had seen plants and had been given plants for medicine.

  He sat at his desk, deep in meditation, his fingers clasped, his eyes unfocused on the papers strewn about his desk. He thought of shamanism, the ancient religion before the priesthoods evolved, before the desire for power had cut off individuals from the Source. How was he to speak of these things to a class? How was he to help his students understand the possibilities of truth beyond what they saw and touched? Surely, the course could not be complete without discussing the consciousness-altering plants and the realms they opened. These children in his classes had been raised to believe they could control the environment rather than live as part of it. They were not of nature and knew not its spiritual element.

  Suddenly, it struck him that he was wrong. Many of these children of the Sixties already did know. Accidentally, working backward, they had rediscovered their personal power. They were performing the ancient practices of their forebears with their own use of psychedelics. Ten thousand years of shamanic journeying had been recaptured, tripped by a chemical source. Accidentally? Benjamin no longer believed in accidents either. But how would they share their visions? Use them?

  A knock at the door jolted his senses. He flew back into his body, tried to reestablish contact with the things in his office.

  “Afternoon, Benjamin.” Barry smiled as he opened the door. “It’s awfully still in here.”

  Benjamin laughed. “Yes … well … I was thinking. Is Jerry with you?”

  “He should be here in a few minutes. Said he had to run home and check on something.”

  “Have a seat. Tell me what you’ve got.”

  “The amount of data is unbelievable. And I’m only doing the research on Cannabis. Jerry’s got the rest on mushrooms, ergot alkaloids, and peyote. And we’re still neglecting the harmalas, like ayahuasca. Ibogaine. Muscimol in Amanita mushrooms and Siberian shamanism. So much more.”

  “I suspected there would be a great deal of information on Cannabis,” Benjamin nodded. “Do you think you could put together an hour’s lecture for the summer course?”

  “It would be hard to do in an hour, but yes, I could squeeze it. I mean, I’d have to start with prehistory—the Scythians and their migrations through Central Asia reaching Indo-European people. All the archaeological evidence shows that Cannabis was spread by nomadic tribes to more sedentary civilizations. Ancient China. Greece …”

  “Ah, Jerry,” Benjamin cried as the door opened. “Come in! Excuse me, Barry, but I’ve been waiting for you both to arrive. Now that you’re here, I’ll give you both the good news at the same time. I received confirmation on that grant money from the private foundation. Next summer, we go to Guadalajara, and from there, into the mountains of the Sierra Madre to study peyote and live among the Huichol Indians.”

  Benjamin watched their faces, the broad smiles, the aura of satisfied relief. Each knew what this grant money represented. Ben had turned down departmental money and put his
personal research on hold. Private funding not only removed him from departmental politics and allowed Jerry to remain on the team, but it also meant acknowledgement of the work they were doing.

  “Jerry, are you sure you’ll be back in school in September?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Jerry answered, “I’ve found a summer job in gardening.”

  Benjamin heard amusement in his voice, thought to question him further … then thought better of it. He would allow Jerry his privacy.

  “Barry’s going to be doing the lecture on Cannabis for the class this summer. Can you put together a lecture on mushrooms? You could use the Wasson material.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jerry answered, and laughed aloud. “I think that might be right up my alley.”

  As Jerry left the building and the meeting, he was suddenly conscious of the fruition of his abilities. As a child, he had known his gift for growing living things, but the mushroom project was something different. He wasn’t a child any more. He was a man, and he knew the choice he’d made to grow the magic mushrooms would take him onto a new path. Using all his knowledge and experience, he had produced a living being that would further expand awareness.

  That it was also illegal was no small matter. What would happen if Myles got wind of his activities?

  For the time being, Myles had left the country. In the small world of academia, the word was that he had gone to Hamburg, Germany—purportedly, as an exchange student. But Jerry knew better. By now, he was sure Myles had another purpose. He would not have left the university unless he had been pressured by something very important. Once Myles was in Europe, he would try to assuage his wounded pride by making someone else’s life miserable, by doing his best to send someone else to jail.

  And when he returned, what then? Jerry pondered. What plan would Myles come up with to once again try to ruin his life? He knew, with utmost certainty, that Myles wasn’t finished with him. An underlying emotion bound them that was more than competition—an attraction—one they had briefly begun to explore—until the bust and prison. Where would all the sentiment—perhaps even the passion—that had always undeniably drawn them closer take them?