Selected Trips

True Stories from the pyschedelic web

Introduction
[A]s far as I can tell the stories of others who went on similar adventures help us better understand what was going on when we were having our own. It's also how shamanic -type traditions probably began; anthologies of experiences (probably oral histories) revealed patterns and common threads, then from those insights the rituals and ceremonies intended to maximize the benefit of the experience evolved. Then the missionaries showed up and promptly burned down the proverbial library. As we collectively (and slowly) wake up to just how colossal of a fuckup that was we're starting to gather and use whatever tattered remnants of the ancient traditions are left to try to recreate the lost knowledge in the eternal quest to figure out how to tolerate existence. -TVCasualty

Winter, 2013 This collection represents some of the most electric trip stories from the internets thriving head community. They are about the authors journeys through the outer and inner worlds. Because it took me more than ten years to stumble over them in my day-to-day surfing, I pulled them together into one place in order to make them more accessible. I did not edit the stories herein except to add the occasional paragraph break. For the most part, I did not ask the authors permission to include them. If I included any of your work, I did so because I respect what you had to say and I feel that more people should have the opportunity to read it. If you dont want your work included, or if you want to edit or add to what is here, please let me know. If anyone knows of a story that should be added, please let me know. Also, feel free to drop me a line if youve got a good story. You can find me at www.mycotopia.net. In Friendship, Sidestreet

Cast of characters
H I p p I e 3 .4 E l f s t o n e 14 P s I l o c y b e f a n a t I c u s ..16 C h I n a c a t 7 2 .28 D p w I s h y .55 B u c k a r o o b a n z a I 66 D a r c I 70 B e c o m e t h e o t h e r .86 m I t r a 92 OblIvIan
and

s h r o o m _ s e e k e r 96

m I n d e x p l o r e r 99 t h I n g u m m a j I g .102 D w p I n e a l ..112

Hippie3
Why I Made This reprinted from HippieHaven, my first web site from '97 slightly edited to update it. Welcome to my website. [Mycotopia.net] I think that a site should be informative,useful, attractive, educational and entertaining. I hope I can make this one all of those things. In addition, I want to help spread my worldview and create a dialog with like-minded individuals. I consider myself to be a revolutionary, an outlaw, by my own choice. I feel that our society is repressive and corrupt, morally bankrupt. Our government is a police-state that has no legitimacy anymore ( if it ever did ) because it has trampled upon the constitution and upon the people. We are created to be free-willed self-sufficient individuals but society and the governments conspire with religious and commercial interests to enslave us all. Laws made decades ago by long-dead men are forced upon us from birth on, regardless of their relevance in today's world. All that is worth owning has already been divided up and nothing is left for those born today. We treat our brothers & sisters on mother earth worse than animals... if you are poor, you may freeze or starve but you may not steal food nor fight back. But I do not accept this. I have fought my entire life to be free... slave not to the government, the corporations, the churches, society, 4

nor other people who seek to limit my knowledge, my choices, my power over my own life and property. I hope that the information within these pages can assist people who want to break free.. regardless of what others think. To such individuals, I welcome you and hope you enjoy your visit here.

[The following is reprinted from the usenet newsgroup alt.drugs.mushrooms. ]

has anyone seen the matrix ? this fellow is living his life, pretty content but searching for something.... when he discovered that his whole life is a sham, he's only been living to service the machine that spawned him. we are in the same situation today as that man. instead of a little pill, it is a little mushroom that opens our eyes. in other places, we have spoken about history, and christianity took alot of heat for the church's historical role as a tool of society and hence, the state. but one needs to distinguish between theory & application. christ's teachings were never really implemented except perhaps in the very early beginning, in some few remote areas.

but by the time paul aka saul became converted from judaism to christianity, the spiritual rot of 'fitting in' to society was already beginning to spread, and by the time of john's exile and his 'revelations' it had become, in his eyes, the synagogue of satan, false, christian in name only. 5

the christianity of constantine and Charlemagne was a political expediency, a ploy to help cement their claim to rule by god's will. christianity was not alone, however. pagan religion had long been in league with the State, even back into pre-history the early priests served the king, bestowing divine legitimacy in return for earthly favor. the biblical story of joseph in egypt illustrates the close ties between the priests and Pharaoh, who between them owned all the land and all the food. those who worked the land did so as tenants of the state, forced to turn over the lion's share as taxes and tithes. religion has only grudgingly yielded power to the secular authority in modern times and would gladly reclaim its' dominion, if only more people were religious and obeyed. the state, for its' part, would gladly dispense with religion except that it helps keep people in line by promising in the next life what society & the state deprive us of in this world-happiness, freedom .

by teaching submission to rules in this world for rewards in the next, religion helps that state maintain legitimacy and control and in return, the state cuts religion in for a % of the take.

now, thanks to our ancestors who invented priesthoods and kings, we are all slaves 6

from birth till death ( or enlightenment ) there are no chains because there is no where to run. we all are indoctrinated from birth on with such notions as personal property( it's mine !) and obedience to authority ( because i say so !), all the while being conditioned to be 'productive', 'useful' members of society. ( work all your life to pay taxes & buy consumer goods ) our children are taken, by force if needed, and sent to schools where they are force-fed propaganda designed to mold their thoughts and conform them to society's needs. we never had a chance, neither did our parents nor their's. we are all born helpless, and promptly seized as the property of society. even the very language we are taught conditions our brains with concepts of 'democracy', 'patriotism', 'tradition', 'duty', etc. but the conditioning doesn't work 100 % on everyone. some just don't 'fit in'. maybe they talk back, or are slackers, or are too stubborn.

'discipline' is needed! there must be consequences for non-conformity. these are meted out onto children 7

at a very early age-obedience training for humans. if you don't clean your room, you can't watch tv. no pudding if you don't eat your meat. there is no logical causality-punishments are arbitrary. the idea isn't just to get you to do what's best for you, it's to teach you to fear getting out of line . all the time we are growing up, we are beset by society's agents; our parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, churches, books, television, employers, coaches, and even our peers, our friends-they all say 'be smart. play along. things will go better for you'. still, a sizable percentage just cannot be conditioned properly. they usually do not fit well into school routine, and are for the most part consigned to the dreary ranks of mass poverty, there to join the rest of society's rejects. some others act out in ways forbidden by society and are locked away in cages. not to reform them, but to keep them out of the way, while serving as a warning to any others who might be tempted to get out of line.

if you are lucky, and promise to behave, they might give you another chance but nothing is forgotten nor forgiven-you are forever a convict, contemptible to your peers, 8

discriminated against economically and socially. a tiny fraction of a %, just a few, are resistant to the conditioning and are intelligent enough to hide that fact from society's scrutiny. sometimes, they often rise quite high in this world, as creativity is often linked to this type of independent persona. more often though, because society doesn't really want or need very many 'geniuses', such individuals carve out their own niche wherein they live as they like. they are self-directed. true anarchists, needing no external ruler. for the most part, friends, we are of that last sort. more or less-of course, no one can really completely break the conditioning for long. that's called 'going insane'. that'll get you locked away, too. in another time, we might have been kings, magi, or great warriors, but today's world has little need for such strong humans. society needs workers, consumers, producers. team players, not rebels and malcontents. so we live on the fringe, the 'counter-culture', our own little niches where we try to console ourselves among those few like us. and that pretty much explains why i am here. remember that movie i mentioned way back at the beginning, the matrix ? 9

i'm like that guy who goes into the matrix-world every day, looking for those who are searching for something more. and i help them find that 'magic pill' that lets them see that there is more to life than servicing the machines of civilization. society is a necessary evil. it must exist because there are so many of us. people must be fed and housed and clothed, and society makes what we need to live. we cannot, as some would suggest, go back to living off the land-there isn't enough good land for everyone. despite the politically inclined, society isn't about to legalize real freedom until people evolve enough to be trusted. until then, with ever increasing urgency, society has set off to child- proof the world.

those who prefer not to wait a few thousand more years, will have to take their own freedom and yet not provoke society into putting them into a cage. to those who would pursue that 'outlaw' way, your 'magic pill' awaits you. we are here to help you to see beyond the veil. your brother in spirit, hip 10

[You mentioned that one time you met God , face to face , during an intense trip . Could you share the details with us ?] that was my eye-opening, my first real vision. i ran into a friend who knew a friend with some hash. i wanted some so my friend took me to see his friend. as we set there bullshitting, checking out the hash [which was good, btw] he pulled out a big fat bag of shrooms. so i said 'hey man, i'd like some of those, too.' so i ended up buying an ounce of each, dried cubensis and blond lebanese. i hadn't seen either in quite a long time so i was naturally pleased and went home to celebrate. i ate about 14 dry grams [1/2 ounce] of the shrooms and also injested about 3 grams of the hash [ate it too.] i had this old audio cassette tape of some hindu chants and another cassette called 'planet drum' by mickey hart. i set up my double tape deck to play one after the other and then repeat, so the music would last all night. i turned on some mood lighting, lit some incense turned off the phone, barred the doors, closed the curtains and laid down on my couch, just listening to the chants and the drums. at some point in time my soul left my body and began to travel thru time and space, there was an 'angellic' [for lack of a better word] being that acted as my 'guide', and it showed me many things and revealed many secret truths to me. much of what i learned the 'angel' told me to never reveal, and told me no one would believe me anyway, that i'd only hurt myself if i tried to tell. so it locked away a large portion of my memory from my conscious access to protect me. but i still remember many things that it said were ok to talk about although still no one would believe me. it showed me the entire history of the human race, 11

it took me back to when life began as some slime on a rock, and for a million years i lived the life of that slimy rock. then it began to take me thru a series of incarnations as various lifeforms as life evolved. to borrow a phrase, it showed me a brief history of time. i saw all my ancestors stretched out like a railroad into the past, and i saw their abject misery and heard the cries of a billion lost souls who had suffered in life. it showed me that we were living in slavery, but one day we would be free. as time continued to unfold before my eyes it began showing me the future, my own personal destiny as well as that of the universe itself. i discovered that before i was even born the things that would eventually kill me had already been set in motion, that my death had always been part of my destiny and there was nothing to fear. i saw that life and the universe as we know it is an illusion, just patterns of energy dancing before the eye of god. i saw that the purpose of the universe was to become The Greatest Story Ever Told that life was drama and we are actors playing a part, with each of us having our unique thing to do. i saw that some people play bit parts, making a brief appearance and die young or remain a part of the faceless masses, the audience that watches this drama being acted out across the time-space matrix. i saw that some people had leading roles, and i saw that each of got to take turns playing out each and every role over time, re-living life in the same vessel so that each of us knew what it felt like to be a king, a beggarman, a thief, a cripple, a woman, a child, good, evil, wise, foolish, a proud father, a grieving mother, a widow, a slave, etc. we played each role so we could understand that part of the drama fully. so we could see for ourselves what was right and what was wrong, life was an education, it teaches us. the bibles have it all wrong, god doesn't make up rules and shove them down our throats, he lets each of us live and learn so we can discover why it is better to be good than to be evil, why one should not murder, why one should not chase after false gods, etc. 12

i saw that some religions had come close to the truth but not one was really right, the truth was much greater than they thoughtfor we are actually what they claim jesus was, we are god become flesh, a splinter of the universal conciousness that will soon return from whence it came, to be reunited as one but yet many. i could not stand to look directly into the light that surrounded god, it was far too bright but i saw from a distance what looked like a halo around a star but as i got closer i realized that the halo was actually billions of 'angels' dancing around the light of god and they were singing to him their love and admiration. and i could see the world and its' problems and so could the 'angels'. and i saw angel after angel coming before god and pleading for him to send them back so they could help the people of the world. even though they knew that to become flesh was to endure agony and death but their love was so great that they leaped at the chance to suffer for others. and so they threw themselves into the world and became flesh, entering the world as a baby to help work out the plan of god here. i saw pure love, it radiated from god like sunshine, i could feel its' soothing warmth and knew then how utterly safe i was. and then my guide told me that i had to go back, just as i saw the angels doing, and that i had some work to do. that god would always be at my side. and so i came back and here i am.

13

Elfstone
"Fruit of 40 Years of Work With the Spirit in the Mushroom" The fellow funding the John Hopkins University psilocybin research project, Bob Jesse, is a retired Oracle executive and is philanthropically funding this project in the hopes of one day creating change in the government's attitude toward psychedelics. I applaud his efforts, but, so far, nothing the group is doing is really novel. Leary, Alpert and Metzner did this research back in the early 60s. I have conducted my own research with psilocybin now for the past 40 years. I have worked both individually, with family/friends (including my parents and children), and, for a year, intensively with a small group of fellow graduate students. The Mazatecans have been doing this kind of work for at least hundreds of years, if not millennia. We already know a great deal about it's health benefits. I started working with the mushroom in the early 1970s, when I took a college level mycology course and discovered that active forms of Panaeolus subbalteatus grew locally. It wasn't until 1976 though, with the publication of the McKenna brothers' little cultivation book that a steady supply of cubensis was available to us. At that time I was a lab tech, so aspetic/sterile technique was very familiar and growing was quite easy. I also bought a Samadhi isolation tank from John Lilly and was plying the depths of the psilocybin trance in a floatation tank long before the movie "Altered States" came out. Once I stated taking psilocybin, it began laying out a program for my development quite clearly and insistently. I was directed to read the entire collected works of C. G. Jung and slowly bought them through the Bollingen Foundation (then only $20 a volume for hardcover editions!). I was basically a back-to-nature 70s hippie freak when I started this process, growing an organic garden, canning tomatoes, and smoking about 1-2 oz. a week of top quality organically grown bud (grown outdoors; Columbian/ Mexican sativa strains then). The first thing the mushroom made clear was that for the deeper visions to be vouchsafed to me, I had to set aside the cannabis. I did so, and then perception of the soul dimension, the imaginative functions, awoke in earnest. At that point, it became clear to me that I had to return to college and pursue a degree in clinical psychology, which I dutifully undertook. I graduated from my undergrad program summa cum laude and went on to graduate school the next fall. All this, by the way, was fueled by the two strains of cubensis then distributed by the McKenna brothers, "Amazonian" and "Brillo Nuevo," available from Terence's and Kat's company, Lux Natura. Life continued to get more interesting, as my daughter was born just before I finished my undergraduate career and entered graduate school. Once in graduate school, I began to work with a small group of fellow grad students who shared my interest. In the year 1985, I conducted 5g sessions every Friday night for 52 consecutive weeks. What unfolded during that year was astounding. At the end of the year, I took a course in clinical hypnosis with a professor I hadn't seen in a couple of years. He took one look at me and said, "I don't know what it is you're doing, but, whatever it is, keep it up! My God! What a transformation!" It was with his assistance that I obtained an APA approved internship at a high end urban Children's Hospital. My career has since consumed more of my time, and I have had less time for work with the mushroom, but even at the age of 60 years, I continue to occasionally consult with my spiritual teacher, "Los Santos Ninos." They help me see more deeply into the state of my clients' souls and, I have found, allow consciousness to access their inner worlds so as to better understand their suffering and facilitate their unique healing process.

14

In the past few years, we have been putting our attention on the species with a history of traditional usage among the Mazatecan people, primarily Ps. mexicana. This species has a spectrum of effects far different from the cubensis. I find them more conducive to a calm serenity, which allows a much deeper exploration of the soul dimension of the mushroom. Deeper dimensions of awareness are opening that are far more subtle and profound than anything I had ever even considered as being possible. With the presence of the mushroom, I am finding an awareness emerging that is drawn into work with my clients at depths beyond egoic awareness, but which their souls respond to and brings forth deep selfacceptance and healing. Perception expands to depths and heights of awareness that extend far beyond what one might even think of as possible. None of this is in any way ego-based, it is a level of action beyond the individual and better described as the activity of the soul. My clients know nothing of this, it is born of my work on myself, and the presence of the spirit of the mushroom simply does its natural work. The mushroom continues to be a source of discovery, healing, and transformation, even more so, than when I first began working with it. Working consistently and persistently with the mushroom over the past 40 years, I have gone from beginner to intermediate to advanced levels, and am amazed that it continues to be a source of inexhaustible teachings. Such a gift to humanity. All of this lies far beyond what the academic researchers are even aware of as a possibility. Working from the level of intellect alone, they remain stuck in the scientific medical model and think that this is something that they can "prescribe" and "control." The mystery is far grander and far more powerful than they can even begin to imagine, and it is freely available to all of us! It is, in my humble opinion, our natural birth right. It is beyond what authoritarian governmental types can manage. They intuitively know this and they're afraid of it. They've only dipped their little toe into the water. I think that they would be better served stopping their experimentation on "patients" and just eating it themselves. Tim Leary and Richard Alpert saw it all very clearly over 50 years ago, which is why they were persecuted. Things have really not changed a whole lot since....

15

Note: Psilocybe Fanaticus, or Professor PF, was a major vendor of spores from the 90s into the early 2000s. He revolutionized home mushroom growing with his technique, now known as PF Tek. The following describes the raid that put an end to his work. -ed.

Psilocybe Fanaticus

"The Raid"

THE DAILY WORLD (Aberdeen Washington Newspaper) - Wednesday, February 19, 2003 ... (cut to last few paragraphs - a witness describes events) ... "It all started (Monday) night," a Lake Quinault-area business owner said this morning. "I seen helicopters, all of these Federal vehicles." "Then they all met up here at the Forest Service (Tuesday) morning at 6." McPherson was a regular at the business owner's shop, the man said. "I knew him for three of four years, and knew he was in the internet business - but not the mushroom thing."

Time - 7:30 a.m. Tuesday February 18 2003

BANG BANG - I awoke from sleep and jumped up off the couch I was reclining on. I was fully dressed in my usual garb, sweat pants, comfy flannel shirt and socks. Then another BANG BANG. I looked over at the front door of the living room about 12 feet away and it was shaking violently. As I came to consciousness I had several thoughts race through my mind faster than the speed of light, as if I had several consecutive thoughts occur at once. The first thought was that I was dreaming, but that faded fast. Then I thought there was a madman banging at my front door trying to get in, and I immediately thought to grab my tonfa (martial arts weapon) that I kept near me were I would crash, but then I saw black helmets through the small window view at the top of the door and as I glanced out one of the windows in the front, I saw a couple of official looking guys with their arms folded across their chests standing on the road watching. Again - BANG BANG, the door shuddered and as I ran over to the door to open it, I thought to myself, "isn't this rather extreme, I mean, for it all to end this way, this violence is a bit un-called for, don't you think (I thought to myself)."

Right before the next BANG, I opened the door just in time to keep it from crashing open with the lock mechanism ripping out of the door frame. What concerns me, was that I never locked the front door. I am sure it was unlocked. They could have just come right on in. I now try to remember to alwasy lock it at night, but I still sometimes forget. My house is four miles up North Shore road, in the Olympic National Park, Lake Quinault Rain forest and prowlers and thieves are rare. And if there are any, it is usually an inside job from dumb fuck local kids. So I open the door and there they were, several dudes dressed in black, with helmets, shields, automatic machine guns, the guy in front dropping the battering ram to the ground, and in big yellow letters on their uniforms 16

D.E.A. The next thing I heard was, "get on the floor, NOW!" As I complied, the voice screamed at me again, "get DOWN, put your hands behind your back!" I got down as fast as I could in the narrow space between me, the door, and the forward thrusting black uniforms, shields, and big fucking guns. As the well shined black boots and neat uniforms streamed by, someone handcuffed me. I felt his knee on my back, but he put no pressure. Again someone yelled, "police, search warrant, police!" Through the house they went, yelling with crashing sounds and more banging and kicking open frail little bedroom doors punctuated with a loud voice, "clear." I thanked whatever god might exist, because my wife was not upstairs in her bedroom, she was in the Bahamas on a vacation junket with her daughter (an ex employee of PF, who wisely quit a few years earlier). But her daughter just had been here at the house, and a couple of days earlier she and her mom had left for Seatac Airport for a couple of weeks of fun, sun, sand and surf (which ended abruptly when they got the bad news). My step daughter would have been in the second upstairs bedroom, naked (I think she sleeps that way, but I am not sure). I am sure those DEA dudes would have dragged them both out of bed if they hadn't of got up because of the chaos and noise that engulfed the house. But, no such thing happened. Me and the cats were the only people in the house, and to me, it is one of the great "miracles" of my life. I can't be more serious about it. The raid was a real bitch. It was like the end of the world happened. As I lay there on the floor, the realization swept in, and I knew my life had just changed. But I couldn't believe it would be in such a violent way. I expected to eventually get into trouble selling Magic Shroom spores. I was getting really famous and selling almost three thousand syringes per month with all of the usual idiotic nonsense from the usual percentage of morons who order (boxes coming back - undeliverable). But I had no idea it would be a full blown DEA raid with AK 47's et all. I thought I would just be visited by a couple of cop cars and agents with a search warrant and I would make an end. But not this way, it was as if I was an armed terrorist, or I was a wanted rapist murderer, or that I was a suspect in some kind of cop killing or armed bank robbery. So I just remained calm and laid there on the floor, what could I do? After a couple of minutes of mayhem, the house was pronounced "clear" and the DEA swat team all came back down the stairs and proceeded to go down to the garage (daylight basement and outside). After about 10 minutes, a couple of plain clothes detectives, checked out the fat living room armchair (looked behind the cushions to check for weapons) that was near the front door, lifted me up off the floor, and placed me in the chair.

Then the main dude came in - the leader of the DEA team. They led me over to the dining room table and seated me down. The special agent DEA dude then sat down across from me, placed a tape recorder on the table, and then read me my rights - you know how it goes - "you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law --- etc." Then the agent looks at me and 17

says, Robert, this is serious, you are in big time trouble. Yeah, no shit (I thought). Then he surprises me by telling me that if I give them information that they can use, it can be a lot better for me. I suppose they were asking me if I knew of any weed gro-ops, meth labs or stuff going on in the area. The DEA dudes were congregating around the living room looking at me, and I said, "I don't know nothin' about what's going on around here, I hardly know anyone, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you shit, because I'm not a rat (all true statements)." And then I turned and glared at the cops standing around. They blinked. Then the agent in charge, began his probes. He said they were at that moment raiding Judy's house (my sister in law) as well as her childhood family brothers house (Steve). That scared me. Judy is almost an invalid and suffers from severe asthma and osteoporosis. She is very weak and frail and I kind of freaked out. Then I told the agent that I know the score on these drug raids, and the advice that lawyers and various publications say about what to do in the event of a raid is to - "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DON'T SAY SHIT UNTIL YOU SEE A LAWYER." Well, I figured that they know a lot already, and if I just tell them what they already know and are ready to prove in court, maybe they won't arrest Judy. So I told the agent I was going to talk in order that they don't have to arrest Judy (hopefully). He didn't give me any confirmation that he would not arrest her. So then I talked and told them that I was the MAN that they want, the leader, the PF business owner and that the few shrooms that they found upstairs were the source of my spores and that they were magic mushrooms etc. etc. I was out in the open anyway, with income taxes paid every year, the web site, the whole deal. What was I hiding? Nothing. Then in comes a chick cop and her drug dog. I just told the chick cop that my weed was under the coffee table and her dog was jumping around it anyway. So she pulled out my jars of weed and in one jar was that special once every 6 months weed - you know - primo shit. She obviously knew what she was doing because as she took the jar out of the coffee table shelf, she looked at it, looked at the agent in charge sitting at the dining room table with me, pointed at the jar, nodded her head and rolled her eyes as if to say, "This is the good stuff." And then I complained, "that's my medical weed." And then one of the cops asked, "Do you have a prescription?" I answered, "If I did, you wouldn't give a shit anyway." He smiled knowing that I spoke truth. Meanwhile, my older cat (Piss Head) escaped out of the house through one of the open doors, but my younger cat (Cheat) appeared, and the drug dog barked at him. The Chick cop controlled her dog and then Cheat ran like mad through the DEA guys (who jumped) and out the back opened door. I yelled to them to let him go. I felt really bad because of the ordeal that my two cats were going to go through. But one of the detectives went next door with a house key and gave it to my neighbor (a really hip school teacher chick) and he said that she said she would look out for them, (and she did even though Cheat disappeared for several days). 18

The special agent in charge asks me another question, "where's the liqueur?" Damn, he knows about that! So I told him - "in the freezer, behind the turkey." He got it out and put it on the counter. (What was amazing, was that when me and my wife finally got home about 10 days later, there the liqueur was, still on the counter - they didn't bother to take it - as if to leave me a gift)! I guess they had everything they could want (photos of my little grow op - and several grams of dried shrooms that they found in a waste basket, and scads of evidence of my operation) so the psilly liqueur wouldn't have made any difference in the case. Plus, the containers weren't tight enough to keep them sealed and the liqueur would have leaked all over. And also, I told the agent I really don't have a clue exactly how good it is or what is actually in it. I was planning to test it on myself, but those plans came to an abrupt end, because when my wife and I got home, I was so bummed out that I was in no mood to try it and go on a trip. And plus, I have no idea if psilly can be detected in a drug test (probably not, but I was tested constantly for drugs and booze). So because of those two reasons, I emptied the liqueur out on the lawn. But the consistency of the whitish crystals in the ethanol was interesting - hard and not sticky, separable and loose with a surprising weight to it. I suppose the agent was pleased that I just fessed it up so that he just left it there. How bizarre! Those guys knew everything, even about the psilly liqueur that I consider to be one of the really great drug discoveries of all time. To digress, the really great thing about the PF TEK, is that it actually makes the acquisition of magic shrooms safer. With the PF TEK, there is no danger of getting poisoned by a dangerous toxic mushroom that can be encountered and misidentified in a wild collection of shrooms. The infamous deadly killer look alike shroom - Galerina Autumnalis has been seen, photographed and documented growing right next to the glorious little Pacific Northwest mulch and lawn shroom - Psilocybe Stunzii. With the PF TEK, that danger is eliminated. There are reports of youngsters and even experienced shroom hunters getting killed by these extremely dangerous organisms. I think it is one of the most amazing mysteries of nature that fungi can be a delectable edible food, a medicine, an obnoxious worthless sickening thing one might try and eat, a destroyer of trees (parasitic fungi), a poison of unparalleled lethality, and an organism that causes the human mind to experience the source of religions. So as far as I am concerned, I did a great deed in eliminating that fearful danger of mushroom poisoning that shroomers hunting for the magic realm of the shrooms can accidentally get. Plus, when the Crystal liqueur (tested, tried and then applauded on the net by adventurous doers of my TEKS) is added to the PF TEK, that is the greatest psychedelic discovery in history - total quality fit for the gods - number one. Timothy Leary and all the rest of those squeekers need to stand humble before the mighty crystals. But I digress. So then the special agent says that they are going to take me to jail up to Seattle. That made me a bit nauseous. I then saw some big trucks with trailers pull up to the house and they begin to load my pickup truck and my wife's Honda recreational vehicle. I couldn't believe it, what a pain in the ass, they were taking our cars! It wasn't that they were Mercedes, or 19

Jaguars, or Rolls Royce's. They were just low eschalon everyday cars with no big value, but just the same, those ass holes were taking them which means that if I was to get out of jail, we would really be stuck because I and my wife live way out here in the boonies. At least the agent in charge said they were leaving Judy's car. Meanwhile, over at Steve's house, he wasn't there. Steve was on his way to a vacation in San Francisco. The cops checked out his computer and discovered his itinerary and went to the motel were he was staying and arrested him there and got his truck. Those cops are really efficient. When they act, there is nothing they don't know, it's fucking amazing! BRIGHT MOMENT NUMBER ONE Amidst all of the hubbub, as I was sitting there at the dining room table, there were two DEA guys standing in the middle of the living room watching me. DEA dude number one was a little shorter than DEA dude number two. DEA dude number two was sort of glaring at me and he looked like he had been in a fight, because his lip had a scab on it. On the wall, there were photos of my Stonehenge stuff, and DEA dude number one asked me, "what's that all about?" So I told him that to put it simply, it was just a vision representing high authority - the Hierarchy. And then I asked him, "do you see that path way that is lit up with the light coming from the out way?" "And do you see that gateway and those two standing there guarding?" DEA dude number one says, "Yeah." So then I answered, "to put it very simply, ass holes can't pass thru the guardians to the avenue of the light and beyond." Then DEA dude number one turns and says to DEA dude number two, "Well I guess that leaves you out." DEA dude number two turns and glowers at me as if he is just waiting for me to do something so he can kick my ass. I guess DEA dude number one knows something about life! BRIGHT MOMENT NUMBER TWO The DEA squad was gathered in the living room standing around and I could sort of sense that they were wondering - why the big deal (?). There was no big grow op, or weed garden, or Meth lab, or guns or anything other than a couple of shrooms growing in a terrarium. So I said, "Dee Eee fucking AA!" One of them answered me, "in person - the real deal." The DEA dudes were impressed with the view out the back of my house. They had to open all the windows because the air in the house reeked of that super skunk weed I smoked before I crashed on the couch the night before. Then one of them noticed that the house seemed to be leaning towards the lake. The floor can be detected to be slanting and also, the sliding glass door has an obvious closing problem in that it doesn't shut tight at the bottom because of the lean. One of the DEA dudes made a comment that the house is falling into the lake (actually not, the house has been stable for decades), and I just said, "who cares, you are going to take the house anyway." But in the end, I kept the house, glory be! DUMB MOMENT 20

As I sat there waiting for things to get finished up around the house, another DEA dude sat near me and started some kind of bullshit philosophy thing about it all being a "dream." I sort of engaged him, but then I got pissed off and shrugged him off and told him to leave me the fuck alone. "LIFE IS NOT A DREAM" I said strongly. -------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------- The DEA special agent in charge turned out to be a pretty good guy, in that he tried to do what he could do to make it easy on me. He started to speed things up because I realized later that he wanted to get me before the judge in the afternoon, so that I wouldn't have to be taken to the Pierce county jail (an absolute hellish hole) because I would have to stay there to catch the Judge the next day. The special agent knew that if I saw the Judge in time, I would go to the Federal Detention Center at Seatac, a much nicer place in comparison and I wouldn't be shocked with that county lockup. They next took the handcuffs off of me and fingerprinted me. The agents then put the handcuffs back on me and then did a total chain up. This was a foreshadow of what was to come. They just don't put handcuffs on you anymore, they chain you up so you can't run or lash out with your hands. They make you very very safe, no matter what kind of bad ass motherfucker you think you are. Then they had to process me further so they took me up to the North Shore Ranger Station (a tourist place and ranger station combined) for more processing. There was a fax machine there. So as I was sitting there in the lovely North Shore Ranger Station, an old cedar wooden building next to a tourist type trail the goes into the Rain Forest (The Maple Glade Trail), they bring in Judy, all chained up. I got depressed. Judy told me that she was not in bed when the fed vehicles came driving up her driveway. She sensed something evil was coming her way but in the end, the woman is a class act. She has some serious intuition. She lets them in and they start their routine raid stuff. She protests at one point and one of the agents pushed her down onto her couch and told her to shut up and not to move. She told me that it hurt her a little bit. And that is because she is extremely frail, but she was all right and they respected her. And when they took her to the Ranger Station, they made sure she had her medications (Oxycontin, Vicodin, Morphine and all of that good stuff that she has by prescription). By the way, all of these years, I have never hit her up for any of that good shit. I got a head on my shoulders with a damned good brain in it. But the special agent then told me, that they were not going to take her to jail and that she was going to be released with a date with the judge. I thanked him and began to feel a lot better. And again, instead of DEA dudes watching me, there was a couple of fully armed (more armed than usual) Olympic National Park Forest Rangers guarding me as the special DEA agent in charge and his detectives were faxing stuff. Then I said to the two rangers, "you know, right out that window," startled, because of my address to them, they looked out the window to the green grassed deer field out in back, I told them, "when the first rains hit at the end of summer around September, there are thousands and thousands of Psilocybe Semilanceata growing." They didn't really know what I was talking about, but I guess 21

they eventually figured out what I told them, and it was true. I have watched that field for years in amazement as the magic lib caps appear like clock work at the very first rains, even if it has been dry. But I only look and don't pick. I hate ass holes who when they find some magic shrooms, pick them all. If you are not going to eat any, leave them be so that they can spread their glorious spores into the wind and proliferate. That's respect for nature. Selling them as a drug is a bad business, because people don't like buying shrooms, they prefer them for free. So they unchain Judy, and she wishes me goodbye and walks free. I almost cried for joy. Then off we go. The special DEA agent in charge puts me in his car, a smallish gold colored thing. As they put me in the front seat, I asked them, "what's with this piece of shit car?" "I thought you feds can have any car you want - like a Mercedes or hot muscle cars that you get from drug dealers." The special agent said, "We like to keep a low profile." So as we were exiting and on our way, I looked at the special agent and was quite amazed at how young he looked. I asked him, "compared to all of those detectives and other agents, aren't you kind of young to be the leader?" Then he looked at me and asked me to guess his age. I looked at him and said, "31". Damn! I nailed him. He was impressed by that. As we journeyed to the Puget Sound area, we are followed by a large dark utility vehicle with tinted windows (fed) and we are driving pretty fast, because the special agent in charge wanted to get me to the courthouse in time to be processed and then sent to the much better place - the Federal Detention Center at Seatac instead of spending overnight in the Pierce County hell hole that is near the Tacoma Federal Courthouse (by the way, the Tacoma Federal Courthouse has to be the most gorgeous courthouse in the USA - an absolutely beautiful facility). As we hit the highway linking Aberdeen to Olympia, that is cop alley. The staters really control speeders and they are constantly giving speeding tickets. I warned the special agent about them, and he told me that he respects what they do, and I agreed. So lo & behold, the communications radio linking the two fed vehicles started talking, "you got one on you, he's going to stop you." And behind us, the blue flashing lights of a stater was coming up fast. We pull over and the fed vehicle following us pulls over to the side of the highway in wait (far back). The state cop walks up to us and because he heard the radio chatter between the two fed vehicles he leans into the window on my side, and says, "well what do we have here?" The special agent then whips out a very impressive looking gold badge. The stater looks back and scopes out the trailing vehicle who had parked in wait, and my chains and then says, "you need to slow down, there are plenty more of us (staters) out here." Off we go, and start speeding again but with more alertness for the staters. I would warn the special agent about certain stretches of the road where the staters would be hiding around curves.

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I think we wound up at the Seattle Federal Courthouse, but I am not sure. I was taken to a holding cell and then led out into the courtroom. There was the special DEA agent in charge and the assistant US attorney waiting for me. And there was Steve, one of my employees who was arrested at a motel he was staying in getting ready to go to San Fran on a vacation. So we were questioned and the judge asked me what my salary was. Then I just told him I was making somewhere around 30 grand a month. The judge and his assistants were quite amazed at all the hubbub around us and especially with the presence of the assistant US attorney in the courtroom. The public defender shook my shoulder as if to tell me to not talk. I was startled but he seemed to think things were going to work out OK. That Public Defender was a strange man with an odd reputation. But I remember him and I would like to meet him one day but I don't recall his name, but I know I can find out, because it is all in the record. The Judge was a magistrate judge. He must have already known what the score was. It was all set up. So Steve gets a Public Defender and I don't. Then we get carted off to the F.D.C. DIVERSION NUMBER ONE - THE GRAND JURY In my case, when the investigators (the US attorneys office, the DEA, the US postal service and the Olympic national park authorities) decided to go forward, they presented their information to a Tacoma Federal Court Grand Jury. With a Grand Jury, the jury is not presented with any evidence from the defense, because there is no defense. It is all up to the government to prove its' case viable. They had plenty of juicy stuff to present to the members of the jury, including nice photos from the DEA dudes investigative PF style grow experiment he did. I think he used the PF strain - they were fat in the photos. I guess the government showed the jury how "unique" I was. They definitely didn't show them that the spores and lots of different books had been marketed for at least a quarter of a century with no legal problems ever. I guess they were made to believe that PF was unique and the first. It is true, PF invented the best Cubie cultivation technique in history and pioneered spore syringes, but still, there was nothing illegal about spores and a book. So without any information to the contrary, the feds convinced the jury to vote for an indictment. And then a few days later, the fed court magistrate judge signed the search warrants and off the DEA went on their fun little excursion into the deep dark dank forbidding rain forest domain of the evil sorcerer, Professor PF, soon to be handcuffed and carted off to jail. DIVERSION NUMBER TWO - TAP AND WHISPER When the raid went down and I got out of jail and got a lawyer, we then began the brain storming and planning for my defense. One thing I really learned that when one isn't a lawyer, anything one might come up with usually can be shot down by any experienced lawyer in a couple of seconds, no matter how much one may believe in the idea. The first thing I went to was the constitution of the USA. The fourth amendment of the US constitution reads,

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The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. It is well known that in a drug raid with a search warrant, that the cops have to "KNOCK AND ANNOUNCE." Then, if there is no answer from within the residence, the cops can bash the door down. This rule is violated all the time by the police, and if the defendant complains in court, my lawyer told me that it is very common for the police to just lie about it. The only way one can fight a raid where there is a failure of the police to "knock and announce," is to get testimony from one of the cops that took part in the raid. But that is near impossible and just doesn't happen. When I was raided by the DEA on february 18 2003, I awoke to the door being bashed. I know that they did not "announce and knock." I even made a video tape of the front approach to my house, the road, the parking spaces, the front walk, the front door, the window in the top of the door, the front window's view inside the house of the living room where I was sleeping on the couch in full view, the side window and its view and on around to the back of the house where the large glass sliding door is and the huge picture windows looking out on the lake and forest. My lawyer didn't even want to see it, because he knew it was futile. It was the DEA raiders word against mine. So let me describe what the video tape shows. The front of my house is right on the road and there is a tall laurel hedge in front of most of the house. But when one comes into the front to the front door, it is very easy to see into the living room. At the front door is a window at the top of the door. Any 6 foot tall person can stand on tip toe and get a clear view of the entire living room including the couch I was sleeping on. In other words, I was sleeping in full unobstructed view. Next, one takes a few steps to the left and there is the front bay windows. Because of the laurel bush, I don't leave the curtains down, I always leave them up for the natural light that I enjoy. At those front windows, the living room is fully revealed including the couch and anyone sleeping on it. Next, at the front door, one goes right about 3 steps and then turns left around the corner. There is another window with another full view of the living room and a total frontal view of the couch and me on it. Then one continues a few steps, walks up a couple of steps onto the back view porch deck and before one gets to the corner of the house that faces the lake and forest, one comes to the double glass sliding door. Again, because of the privacy of the house situation, I never have the curtains closed, because that is where the main natural light comes from. At that sliding glass door, one can see the back of my head (balding) reclining on the couch, and the stairway going up to the second floor of the house. Continuing around the corner of the house to the back one finds a large window with a total view of the lake and forest and likewise a total view into the living room.

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The point is, is that I was on the couch in complete and easy view of anyone that came to my house that morning of February 18. To get me up, a simple knock at the door would have done the trip. Or, rapping on the glass window with the edge of a coin would have got me up right off the bat, even if I was sleeping heavy. I am not a heavy sleeper and any noticeable noise in the house can usually awaken me. I woke up to no such knocking or rapping at the window, but I woke up to the door being bashed. I am positive they did not knock and announce. My lawyer said that the cops could easily just say I didn't get up when they knocked. But I know that is total bull shit, because I was about 12 feet from the front door, and any knocking on it would have gotten me up. I was talking to a lawyer with the ACLU and told her about that, and she said that the DEA cops could always say that they suspected that I had a weapon under the couch and that I was prepared to whip it out and kill them. She asked me if that was actually possible and I said, "sure, I could have had an Oozy submachine gun or M16 or AK47 under the couch hidden from view, but I didn't." But I got her point. So I wanted to really bring that up as part of my defense to show that the raid was illegal and violated my constitutional rights. All of the lawyers I talked to said to not bother, because it will be a fruitless path to go. But then, I realized something just recently that I didn't really think about then. I have kung fu weaponry around my house. In fact, right above my head where I was sleeping on the couch, on the wall within easy reach, was a metal tonfa. That is a marshall arts weapon that the cops now all use. It is a club with a side handle and it is great for in close self defense, defense against a knife attack and can yield a serious brain crushing blow to any attackers head. So what I know now, is that my lawyer was right without even knowing about that tonfa on the wall. The DEA cops saw it and the leader just said, "BASH the door in, he's armed." And they were right, I was armed. But, they had M16's that outgunned my feeble little defense by miles. So in any case, I had no defense against their failure to "knock and announce." They didn't have to knock and announce, because I had within reach a very deadly defensive marshall arts weapon. And I will bet any amount of money that I am right on target about that. Case closed. Then my next brainstorm was something that I think the ACLU and everybody agreed with, and that was the first amendment of the US constitution and the guarantee of freedom of speech and the right to publish. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It has been said by many observers of my case, that to take spores that are not illegal, and then add a book that is protected by the first amendment right to publish to come out as illegal or a crime, is bad math. In other words, legal spores plus a legal book equals an illegal act. The 25

governments position was that I "conspired" with my customers to produce an illegal substance - psilocin. So what that really means, was that my teaching from my book was the "conspiracy." Even my probation officer says that I was operating in a "gray area." But I was thinking that that is really true, that I was teaching my customers how to break the law, but they are the ones that were doing it and not me (excluding my illegal grow op but my grow op was not what I was marketing around the world). I was teaching my customers how to produce the illegal drug psilocin, but wasn't that their responsibility? I am the teacher, and they can do whatever they want with the knowledge that I teach them. To blame the teacher for the students crimes to me is not what the first amendment can allow. The "conspiracy" charge was the heart of the governments case against me, but they did drop it almost immediately (for a big charge - the forfeiture). I will always believe that I was in the right and the US government did wrong, but what can I do? I don't have the time or the money to make something out of it, other than writing this and trying to tell the world about how the US government violated my first amendment rights through power and bullying. So it seemed to me, that since I live in the USA, and my business was "gray area", it would be the job of the US government to close the "loophole" that I was jumping through. I have always believed that the USA was a country that gave its citizens the greatest freedom in history, but lately, I think it's going downhill. To me, one of the real hallmarks of "freedom" is the ability to "stretch" the rules a bit. Stretching the rules is something that all artists do. Even the 18th century German composer Mozart's father would complain that Wolfgang's music wasn't "quite right." What daddy Mozart was missing, was that young Wolfgang was creating new rules. That is art. And I would include the art of freedom also. But no, the US government has embarked on the doctrines of "zero tolerance." And instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt, and closing the loophole I was jumping through (spores are not against the federal law), they just slammed me and through the power of their bullying, they knew they could stop me the easy way, without passing any new laws or going through a legislative process. Closing of the "loophole" would be to make the spores federally illegal just as the states of California, Georgia and Ohio have done. I believe that the government knew that their case had a weakness. That is why they offered me the plea agreement to drop count one, the "conspiracy to distribute" (even though it cost me three properties and a couple of bank accounts to do just that - it was expensive - but, the best "justice" money can buy, praise the lord). In my opinion, the government knew I could put up a good fight and possibly win, but they also knew that it would cost me everything in legal fees and years to do it going from one court to another all the way to the United States Supreme court. That is a slow and tedious process, and I don't have the inclination or the time to go through it. I want to live my life. So the government gave me a decent plea agreement, gave me back 3 properties, 2 cars and money, went easy on my wife, dismissed the charges on my other two codefendants, and gave me a drug felony that will follow me the rest of my life. In my case, I could really care less. Being a felon means nothing to me. And, the US attorney in charge of my case, told me that all they really wanted was for me to get a felony which 26

could then be used to prosecute other people that would want to do what I did. The government has their precedent. The vagueness of their law has become tighter because they are bigger and badder than the Professor.

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chinacat72
The Thumbprint Eating LSD crystal [is] intense, magical, crazy and the ULTIMATE ACT OF SUBMISSION TO THE PSYCHEDELIC STATE. -Chinacat 72 Note: These were written in the early 2000s. This narrative includes stories by Whiterasta. -ed.

My information is on how the Dead/rainbow/original family handle LSD. When LSD crystal is bought it comes in little glass viles. It's a dense crystal and a gram of it looks alot smaller than a gram of coke or flour (or other powder). Ten grams can fit in a vile small enough to hold in your hand and clentch your fist and conceal. Anyway as I said in my other thread when you first buy crystal from the family there's 2 requirements. 1. You have to be taught how to lay it properly and be trusted to do so on your own. 2. You have to do a thumbprint. The family believes LSD crystal should only be handled by those with the proper energy or karma to do so. There's no better way to test somebodys faith of LSD than give them a thumbprint. Originally thumprints were given by taking the glass vile and puting your thumb over the top of the vile and turning it and fliping it upside down real quick. This put a coating of crystal on your thumb which was pessed into the palm of the person, leaving your crystal imbedded thumbrint in there palm(hence the term thumprint) where it would absorb(or they might lick it off.). This was your certification ;) Nowadays thumbprints are eaten. Any time someone eats crystal it's referred to as a print. This way was adopted because it's more efficiant. As for the experiance itself. All reviever's are experianced with LSD(at least they think so until there printed ;)) You feel it almost instantly. LSD crystal has an energy to it. Having a jar of it my pocket is enough to alter my conciousness. As soon as it touches your skin or goes in your mouth you can feel it. Alot of folks will throw up within minutes. This is an exorcism of sorts. Like all the negative energy being cast out of your body. Then you lay down and learn. As for the experiance I just couldn't do it justice to describe it. Your never the same again. A thumprint doesn't open the door of perception it blows it off the hinges. You melt into eternety. You let go and die into the moment which is all. There is no you anymore only all. The intensity of this can't be described, but you realize as your sliping away that it's familar.This is because it become quite clear this is exactlly what happens when you die. After an eternity you slowly start to come back in pieces. You feel reborn and a completely different person. You don't ever come completely down or back. This isn't a bad thing ,but it's very scary at first.
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I won't try to describe it any more because I can't. Also after your experienced with eating crystal its a little less tramatic. Your first one is spent on the ground. After awhile I could eat crystal at shows and whatnot. I have only seen one print go bad and I described this in my other thread. The guy says it's the most important event of his life and now lives happily so I guess it wasn't bad. His reaction at the time was. I think psychedelics are safer in large doses(i'm not talking about thumbprint sizes though) as far as bad trips go. They override your ego's defenses in large enough doses. you can't think your having a bad trip because you can't think at all beacause there is no you. :DTerrance McKenna and Andrew Weil MD have said this also. It is hard to describe a thumbprint. Human language cannot describe an experiance that is encompasses all of life. Every cell of every creature or living thing that ever lived or will live is connected by the energy or light. When we die are body and our ego is gone. We become one with eternity or the light or God or whatever name you wish to call it. A thumbprint allows this to happen and rerturn to our physical body. My first print I layed down and quickly realized that this was my actual death. You watch the whole process unfold with complete awareness. I didn't cling to my body I just realized my life had passed. As I was spiraling up or out I saw my life evolve through the years I lived. The happiness, the sadness,the people I loved and the people I didn't. The joy that I gave and the pain that I caused. I saw the true nature of reality and why things were the way they were. As I got higher I saw the nature of reality on the cosmic scale and saw that the reason for our evolution was to experiance love. To love is to have experianced the finest of life. Then came the moment were it was time to let go. As I did it came for me and I sobbed uncontrolabley for I realized that the light or energy we call god or creation was perfect. It was pure unconditional love. What else could god have been I realized. That glint of innocent perfection in a baby's eye. The light was pure as the heart of Jesus Christ. I dissolved into it and died. Since there was no me only the all ,I cannot remember the rest because there was no me to remember. After forever I slowly decended into my body. I spent days awake afterwards talking to myself. I vowed to god to spread LSD so others could see the light. I vowed to look at every person as the lord and treat them as such. I was reborn and continue to live by the values I learned. I became as active as I could spreading LSD. Year after year in hotel rooms with a pyrex pan and watercolor paper. Hoping excitedly that some of these hit's will help guide my brothers and sisters back towards the light. LSD is a direct message from God. Period. I don't think we get another chance. We can love each other or we can kill each other ,but it is up to us. As I always say in my threads as a reminder, my work with LSD ended years ago. As for eating and going to the bathroom. I don't think I ate for a week afterwards. As for going to the bathroom I hadn't eaten before hand at my guides advise so it wasn't a problem. I remember letting go as it got dark and coming back a lttle before sunrise. I was high for along time afterwards and as I said earlier you never fully return. I feel high all the time still and its been years. Also I did many, many prints after that. I have eaten a lot of crystal but it was never like that first time. I must stress that I was in the company of very evolved and older people that made sure my experiances were optimal. These were kind old spirits that had been were I was going many years before and many times. They held me as a baby every inch of the way. You have heard of near death experiances right. A thumbprint is a beyond death experiance. I have a rich life now thats full of good fortune. A wonderful wife and 3 children who are completely wonderful. Every day is complete joy. I couldn't ask for more, but I know it will end one day for good. I await this day with no fear ,but the knowlege that that most rewarding and enlightening experiance of life is death. :D
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... Ok i'll tell you about the one that went bad. This finds me in Oakland in the early 90's. Between tour's I would sit out in San Francisco and keep things flowing. Friends from the east coast would need shit so I would lay it and mail it or others would come out to get a lower price and I would lay it and send them on there way. Well a real good friend came out to get 4 or 5 grams.With him he had a few people. I told him he could help me lay it and to have his friends hang out in the city till were done. He says this friend of his is ready to come with us. Now I had talked to the guy before and knew he was connected to the rainbow family, but his energy seamed weird. trusting my friends judgement i said alright. So we decide to drive over to oakland to lay it in a hotel. We get to some sleazy hotel out by the freeway and get ready. Now i'm a little edgy about this newbie watching, but as long as he stays out of the way it's fine. So we get to work and it takes quite awhile to lay 5 grams of acid. Thats 50 tenpack or 50,000 doses. Were done and cleanin up and he say my friend is ready for a print. I'm like are you sure and he says i think so. I look at his friend and he's like just give it to me I can handle it. So I get out my jar of silver crystal and knock some out on the nightstand because my friend wants to take some with him to do in the mountains. Well this fuckin dude sticks his finger right in my pile of crystal and then licks it. I'm like thats a pretty hefty dose there soldier. He's like ya whatever now what do we do. Then I started to realize it was going to get weird. Within 2 minutes he's saying man my fuckin stomach hurt's that was poison. I'm like go in the bathroom your going to puke. He goes in there and and we hear him cussin and puking. Meanwhile i'm askin my friend what the hell he's got us into. Then the bathroom door opens and he comes out butt naked saying i'm gettin the fuck out of here. Were like no man just chill your not going to be able to get far. We put him in the back bedroom and turn the lights out and figure thats best for him. I close the door and tell him if he needs me were there. I figure he's got some things to sort out with god. Now this hotel Is right on the freeway. In fact you can jump out the window onto it. Were also on the second floor. Well were sitting there and i'm making some phone calls telling people i'm going to be hung up for awhile and I hear cars on the freeway honking. We go back into the bedroom and he's halfway out the window, getting ready to jump onto the Oakland freeway naked as the day he was born. We pull him back into the room and he's starting to realize he's dying.He thinks i'm causing him to die and i'm the devil. Now shit gets ugly. He's screaming at us that he's dieing and trying to get out of the hotel. Since I just layed 5 grams i'm high also as is my friend. We call some other friends to come over. Were holding him down on the bed trying to cover his mouth. We have 50,000 doses of freshly layed LSD in the room and I don't need the cops coming. I take the pan and all the supplies I used to lay with and throw them out the window onto the freeway. My other friends get there and we tell the girls take the acid and get out of hear quick. This guy's screaming at the top of his lungs that he's dying and I know the other hotel guest's can
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here him. It's got to be any minute that the Oakland police show up. I'm telling him to let go ,don't fight it. He thinks i'm satan so he's not listening to anything I say. Also as we have been wrestling him he has lost control of his bodily fluids. There's puke ,shit and piss all over. I can't imagine what the cops are going to think when they come in and see a couple hippies on some guy covered in puke and shit screaming i'm dying as we tell him it's ok he'll like it. After awhile he stops moving. He was sucked into eternity. He was gone. As he layed there motionless we cleaned him up. And my friend sang amazing grace over and over to him. After an hour passed I realized the cops hadn't came. I contribute this to 2 things. The protection of God and the fact we were in a nasty part of Oakland and people mind there own buisness. My girl comes by and brings us clean shirts and pants. Itake a shower and clean up as they watch him and then we take turns. My nerves are frazzled. I'm high and this guys bad trip has really wigged me out. Me and my girl decide to go for a walk since my friends with him and he's not moving. We get out side and realize that going for a walk at 3 am in oakland isn't going to be good. She senses my tension and we go to the side of the hotel in some bushes were she layes me down and sets my mind at ease with that magic only a woman can perform. As dawn breaks he's coming around. Talking incoherantly ,but I can see a sparkle in his eye. We all part ways and me and my girl head back to SF to get some sleep. A day or two later my friend calls and says there heading home and to come say goodbye. I get there and this guy comes up to me and gives me a big hug and says he's sorry. I tell him don't worry about it. He then tells me that he met god and was a different person now. This makes me happy. This man hasn't taken LSD since and lives in Oregon and owns a organic farm. He's happy with a family and at peace. He says that night was the most important and best thing that ever happened to him. I see him at the Oregon county fair every year and we always have a big hug. he's turned into somebody i really admire and love. After this incedent I became very carefull of who I printed. :D ... I started using LSD out of curiousety at age 13. I quickly realized that it was more than just a drug after some friends brought back some acid they got from a dead show. as for graduating. Sure if you feel psychedelics are just a stepping stone in your evolution. Read Ram Das(richard Alpert) Be Here Now it's priceless and can help you with the transition. I don't take LSD anymore. I can't ,it takes to much to get me off and to long to come down. As a middle aged father of 3 and full time college student I don't have time to spend days on end tripping. I take 3-4 trips per year on a combo of shrooms and DMT. This gets me there and back quickly. I may do acid again someday and keep a little close at hand incase I need to. I have been serously courting the idea this month as it is the 60th aniversery of the first LSD trip in
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human history. I probably won't have time. And if I do it will probibly be a small dose (300mcg?) and a bicycle ride to honor Dr. Hoffman and our sacred sacrament. I doubt I will though. I know alot of people who have moved on from acid to meditation(something I'm addicted to) and yoga. There very happy and peaceful. I know others who are in there 60's and still dose. Whatever path you choose is fine as long as it is rewarding. Some people choose to take what they have learned and move on. as for sending some "love" I no longer am involved with that sacred work at the underground level. This is why I can freely offer this information without risking the saftey of myself and the family ... People who use them for non-spiritual purposes are fine with me. The reasoning is that they may catch on and realize the value of the experiance. Lot's of people have just been looking for a new high when they find that LSD can provide so much more. The only thing that toubles me is when people are not responsible with them and they get in trouble or have problems and the psychedelic gets blamed. Also if people just use them as a way to get fucked up they'll more than likely eventually have a bad experiance, but thats there fault. As for meditation its great your practising it. i wish i would have started younger. If i don't meditate my day is alot more stressful. Meditation allows me to integrate the psychedelic world with my daily life. It gives me true balance. ... Yes the thumbprint is the ultimate test of trust. If somebody has been printed there family plain and simple. Print's are given to those who are ready and experianced. I learned the importance of this the hard way in Oakland BTW what was your print? Mine have been White fluff,Needlepoint,silver,amber and one lavender. Does a day ever pass for you that you don't feel it. I feel it every single day. Yes every day of my life at some point I feel as if i'm dosed. I'm ok with that. Meditation helps me smooth it out and enjoy it. For the most part i don't even notice it. Mine was a clean white crystaline beauty,not family acid, but guru made. I was an O Chem major with a wild side a mile wide and we met and over time he became much like a spiritual father.He would allow me to assist the "cook" and let me do column and lay up.Then one day in 78 he gave me a eighth oz of crystal and told me to "spread the word" and that he would be back after summer and then we'd talk more.So the summer of 78 I dosed 1000mics + daily all summer and played guru.In late august he came back and took a long look at me asked me if "I had made a lot of money over summer?" I replied "Money?" This was what he wanted to hear
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and it made him smile and say "Good, see ya tomorrow" the next day we were going to prep the lab after his absence,clean, dust and such.When I showed up at the trailer he had a funny grin on his face and he said 'I hope you don't have plans." we went in his old lady was there,unusual,and she was holding a small watch glass with the crystal spice in it.She said "honey it is time to grow up". They then told me to stick in my thumb and press.By then I was nervously curious and my hands were sweaty so i pulled my thumb free with a generous coating on it.I looked at it and I swear I could feel it starting then I stuck my thumb in my mouth and let go.The first hr or so I think I was in and out of the world then "I" just dissapeared for eternity.IMO part of me still is there. I am facing death due to a botched angiogram and I know I will meet with the part of me which rides the eternal winds when my time is over.I know that death is a mere transition,I know this because I died that day in late 78 and arose again reborn.My priorities of life were refocused and I have been working to integrate the new paradigm of being which was created by that day every since.I think if a lesson or enlightenment came from this it is that I consciously participate in my life to a much greater degree.This is not the "easy' way to live in a world of injustice and cruelty.I have been forced to accept the balance of positive and negative w/o imposing my own desire. And I still must struggle mightily to integrate and exist in this society.My freinds old lady said it was time to grow up but she did not say I would outgrow myself.I have absolutly NO regrets although the changes in my mind and thought process have made interfacing with traditional thinking a challenge.I think I must give Sclorch fits with the way my mind takes classic philisophical thought and twists it about.I know that "holy men" have no clue regarding my spirituality. Like China said every day I know I 'thumbprinted" but the funny thing is no matter how you rewire your brain life still bring the same challenges.I still have to stuggle with the challenges but I believe that I may have somewhat more novel solutions to some things than some others,but all in all I am remarkably Ward Cleaver considering.Any more only the wife,kids,and freinds really get the jist of my bent,and that is just fine with me. One last thing,I have experienced literal death (heart stopped) and the irresistablity of death and strong psychadelic experience are quite similar.In Death one realizes the ineffable nature of the experience and resisting is futile,much like resisting a thumbprint,it is just NOT possible . So now there are some of us out there who have customized our thinking but like the early hotrodders we somewhat haphazardly customized our brains.Like some of the early hot rods we may have some areas where we really perform well but drivability has been comprimised.But I have come to know and love all the lil idiosycrisies of my ole jalopy. Family is used to describe the brotherhood. There's the Dead family, rainbow family and there are familys of the varous types of crystal(exp.fluff family) usually your part of more than one of these family's if not all of them. It's all family. The network of the counterculture that started 40+ years ago. We are a tribe or "family". Were the ones that "know" that were all brothers and sisters on this giant ball of rock hurtling through space.
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When you travel beyond death to eternity with people you devlop a bond thats as strong as any family. We are the decendents of the summer of love and the psychedelic explosion of the sixties. We are also decendents of the indians and people of the earth who have occupied this mudball since the stone age. In the end were all family. Every person and creature that ever lived or will. We all come from the same place and oneday return there. Every particle of energy in the cosmos is connected. It's just most people don't have a clue about this till they die. Those of us that realize these important revalations and try to live in accordance with them are the family. :) Family buisness is completely different then the coke buisness. The motivation for the coke buisness is money plain and simple. The family is made of people who believe that the work they do is sacred and money is not the motivation for all ,but a few. As far as the way it's ran is very different than the coke world. For one there is absolute trust in your fellow associates. This is why we have thumbprints. To know that every body is on the level. Coke dealers and other dope dealers start snitching on each other at the first hint of trouble. That doesn't happen with the family and is why the DEA has never had any sucess in getting even close to the top. LSD is seen as sacred and to put your personal freedom before the security of this sacred system of important work would be a sin against all of man. If you don't think this way you don't have any right to carry on this tradition. As for buisness details, I have been out of that line of work since 96. They constantly change and security is more sophisticated than you could imagine for a bunch of old hippies. I don't think my friends would approve of me giving details out on how this network moves so stealthly. ... Thumbprints are not weighed out. By todays dosage sizes the amount would be in the hundreds or higher. It's more like how many sheets would a thumbprint be not doses. ;) 3-5 sheets to the wind ;) There is a massive difference between 500mcg and a thumbprint. Theyre not even comparable trips. As for saturation effect this is from medical research in the 50's comparing doses of lsd. There may not be a notacable difference between 1000 and 2000 mcg. There is a huge difference between 1000mcg. and 40 or 50 mg. Of course the reseachers never ventured into this dosage range. As for Jonathon Ott and Ram Dass I would venture to say neither has had a thumbprint. The quote you printed of Ram Dass is dealing with tolerance anyway not saturation levels.Taking 2400mcg of acid a day for weeks would be alot different than taking 40,000mcg one time. I know close to a hundred people that have had thumbprints and each one would laugh there ass of if someone told them there was no difference between 500mcg. and 50,000mcg.
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As for futher clarification try eating 500mcg. and a couple weeks later stick your finger in some LSD crystal and lick it. Then you can see just how similar experiances they are. ... Once that amount of LSD is injested you are never the same,ever!!! Most prints turn out very well. It's not like there made availble to anybody. Usually the person is deemed ready by those who can tell.They are taken care of before and after the print by the family, this may take up to a week before your functioning again. Sometimes skeptics are printed, but there reactions are usually very, very shattering. It's hard when your whole belief system explodes and the truth is revealed. You basically have to start from scratch. All those years you thought you knew the truth and God, then in a matter of minutes you find you didn't know shit, then you die. . This is all related to first prints. Repeated prints later are less traumatic and not nearlly as shattering. Most folks I know that have done prints rarely do LSD anymore. There's really know need to except for nostalgia. I do know one brother( who gave me my first print) who is in his mid sixties and still eats crystal. I don't know if I ever will again. I have courted the idea , and mabye will again someday. ... It's affected me on so many different levels. Mentally it has changed my whole outlook on life and my perception of the world. Spiritually it has given me the absolute faith in eternity that can only be had from being eternity. My philosophy's are all based on my experiances. I no longer see the world as a bunch of seperate species and things, but a connected matrix of biology and energy that flows to and from a core that is the pure light of unconditional love. Physically it's affected me in that you never come back down completely. But why would you anyway? You can't look at the truth and then pertend you didn't see it and that it doesn't exist. A thumbprint is a life long commitment. As for visual activity ,it's constant. But I hardly notice it anymore. Eternity is in the here an now. So is my life, so they constantly flow together or against each other. Meditation is key for me now. I no longer consider my physical reality my true reality. Shit man I can't explain this stuff. It's just not possible. The more I explain ,the more I need to explain what I was trying to explain :P I guess you could sum it up as Robert Hunter did after his night of 250,000mcg. "I died 1000 deaths" Thats what it really is, death. Most people live there lives unsure about what happens when we die. Even the most devoutlly religous have anxiety about the big moment.
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I don't , I welcome it. Thats how its changed me.:D I did something similar the summer of '77 I ate 1000+mics every day for 90 days and yep I had a huge tolerance at the end of summer........I thought.Then in Sept when I should have been signing up for school I "Thumbprinted" And NO I only thought I had tolerance.After I came around to this reality again I did come down but was also "changed".I took complete control over my schooling and my life(as well as complete responsibility) BTW Ram Das says he "came down" but he changed his name to Ram Das and wears white robes and even he admits LSD helped precipitate his change.One wonders what his opinion would have been had he instead of walking out of the house and coming down he would have taken 1/2 gram of crystal at the end of his experiment? The 50-500 range will saturate the seratonin system however LSD also affects other receptors like dopamine and noradrenaline to a lesser degree, at ultradoses these effects come more strongly into play negating the plateau effect. Enter the difference between 500mcgs and 10000+ is incomparable as is the mode of ingestion.The change begins as the crystals melt on your tongue and is totaly unlike eating a pile of prelayed paper.One senses his imminent ego death coming as the crystals are absorbed into the tongue.the knowledge that you are totaly in the care of family is what one clings to as long as concepts such as family contain meaning then one is simply....gone. When awareness returns it is changed and IMO forever. I have to laugh when Ram Das says he "came down" returning sobriety is not the same as being unchanged. One does come down from a print but NOT UNCHANGED. I have had the privelidge of speaking with Ram Das on several occasions and to this older tripper his "mark" is as clear as if it were painted upon his forehead. Oh yeah thats another "side effect" I can spot a serious tripper no matter how many yrs have elapsed since their last dose.You should see the suprise when I spring it on the "reformed" I would have to say to you Enter that you should meet those who have had the experience in person if possible and judge for your self if their experience is valid. What have I done with my life thats different. Everything!! I spent 8 years in hotel rooms around the country dipping gram after gram of blotter in hopes that one of these hits will bring somebody into the light. For 8 years I spread as much LSD around the country as I could, not for personal gain ,but for the hopes that it would help get the human race back on track. Now I am dedicated to becoming a part of the misniscule research movement into psychedelics. I am just getting my BS in psychology/pre-med. Next is grad school or med school. This is all for the sole purpose of working with psychedelics in addiction and othe mental disorders they have shown great promise in. Whether this will happen in my lifetime I don't know, but I will try to help as much as possible. So now i'm consentrated on getting my MD or PhD. I aslo spend countless hours on this website trying to dispell the enormous amount of LSD rumors there are.
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As for personal differences it's changed everything. The way I interact with the world and the way I see it. It also brings me great sorrow to have been a part of a movement were the kind, beautiful potential of human relationships were reasized and then to see the rest of the world and how far off track it is. As for the lord, I realize I have used this term in the past. Thats a mistake on my part because it ties in with the orthadox religions such as christianity and Islam. I want no part of these religions and feel they do much more harm than good. I do have faith in Eternity(my word for God). Seeing is believing :D -----------------Just started going to Dead shows and finally said fuck it in 86 and did tour full time. When you travel around the country and see the same folks that are doing the same thing you are you get close to them. It really is a big family. In that time period alot of the folks from the old days (60's-70") were still touring and were always willing to help and guide the younger folks. The around 89-90 they became real popular and the crowds got a lot bigger and the DEA came on tour full time the older folks said see ya, an headed for the hill's and only came around for west coast shows. It really is a great family. So many wonderful ,kind people who really care about each other , and the rest of humanity, and all life. It really it sad to see how hard the rest of our species struggle. So unconnected and focused on material things when the kingdom of heavon can be right here on earth. This is why psychedelics are so important. They can bring about that connection. That realization we are all in this together. We are all brothers and sister's. Without psychedelics I don't have a lot of hope for are species. -------------------------A thumbprint doesn't blast you into sainthood. You don't go around with halo and bless people afterwards.Your a diiferent person with a different perception of the world. I am still who I am ,but with a different perspective. My flaws are there. I became a herion addict many years after my first print. My life has had many wrong turns. Psychedelics have always helped me focus. I still use them, but rarely. What it has given me is faith. Seeing is believeing. I believe what I saw after death. And it was ultimate perfection. When my life getts tireing, or I feel I am losing focus I can always trust in the knowing that eternity is there. When you can live your life knowing that death isn't something to fear ,but a great moment of transition back home. Then your outlook changes greatlly.

-------------------------How do you prepare to take a thumbprint? You definatley need to fast for at least 24 hours beforehand. Just be ready to let go, but on a high dose you don't have a choice. The more you cling to yourself on the way up the more painful it is. Be humble and try to dispell any fear beforehand.
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Other than that there's not really anything thats going to prepare you for the experiance. As your ego vaporizes and you go out you'll come to the realization that your actually experiancing death. Let it happen,because at that point you have no choice. Then you are gone, or I should say then you are "ALL". Upon your return to the physical world take your time. Don't try to figure stuff out to fast. You have the rest of your life to figure out what happened. Stay in the moment as long as possible. You will return eventually, but your perspective will be very different. "If I knew the way, I would take you home" :) On a thumbprint size dosage you no longer have any beliefs. There is no you. Reactions can vary on the way up, but soon all your beliefs, attitudes and perceptions completly vaporize along with physical reality. None of it survives a print. There is no I anymore only ALL. Afterwards your beliefs are very different or they may be similar if your beliefs were close to the truth to begin with. People can bullshit there way threw alot of intense psychedelic experiances. Somehow they can hold onto there twisted ego games sometimes. On a thumbprint thats not even a possibility. You can't bullshit Eternity when it's blasting you to pieces. The more you try to hold on the quicker and harder it burns you. You dissolve and dissolve till theres no you left to hold on. On a print you can go quietly and easily or you can go kicking and screaming, but you are going to go no matter what. --------------------------------There isn't ever going to be any research on this. All we have is anceodotal evidence from those that have done it. For you this evidence won't be enough. For me it is. Why? Because I know hundreds if not over 1000 people that have done this. How many have had life altering effects that were harmful. None. My mind is bent but very well intact. I will be starting grad school soon. Most of the people I know who have printed lead very rich fufilling lives and are some of the most observant and kind people on earth. Many of these people have exelled greatly in the acedemic world. As for research on thumbprints there isn't going to ever be any. I don't want there to be. It's a family thing. We walk on faith alone. Research into huge dose of LSD will give nothing to science it can use. Research into the benifits of theraputic uses will. The treatment of mental problems with LSD is something that science can measure and validate. The use of huge doses of LSD in blasting people into eternity is something that can't. Also after you realize the difficulty in getting research moving there is absolutaly no way that there will ever be research done on humans using thumbprint doses. Its just not ever going to happen. And it shouldn't either. Thumbprints should be administered by the family in a family setting, not a hospital. These are experiances ment for certian situations. Its of vital importance as your sliping away and crying and flopping around that the person holding your hand is a kind brother or sister who
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has been there before. It's easier to let go and let God when your with family. Thumbprints arn't for doctors to study and measure ,but for those who wish to give themselves to our holy sacrement 100%. People who are printed are people that are felt to be ready and able to reap the benifits from the experiance. If there was a research study done on thumbprints I have no doubt as to the outcome. Doctors can't screen for motivation of heart. ---------------------------The thing about thumbprints is that after the first hour there is no you to create fear or trick your body into shutting down. We have taken BP and pulse of people on thumbprint size doses before and there is a slightly elevated BP and heart rate, but not to extreme. These were experianced people though, and there was no fear involved. If you take someone with cardio problems that has little or no experiance with LSD and print them, then I could definatly see a bad outcome. It wouldn't be from physiological toxicology from LSD it would be from psychological trauma that interupted natural bio-rythims.IMO. Really much lower doses have this potential also. We all know that our psychological state can greatly effect are physical state. Anybody can have there heart rate and BP go off the charts while there sitting still if the get mad enough. I have high BP myself and am on medication. My kids can annoy me so much sometimes that it sends it through the roof. We can only speculate as to these hypothesis, as no studys will ever be done. The fact that these doses are usually only done by people ready for them greatly helps that there are so little negative outcomes. Thats why I believe prints should be done in the mountians with family and not in a hospital like a lab rat. One thing I have noticed is at print doses after the first hour when you have been vaporized and are completely gone breathing seems to stabalize. Before that the anxiety and fear have folks breathing like there in a marathon. After they have let go though it seems that the body continues to function quite normaly while there away. It's that first hour thats so traumatic. There could be a dosage range though that can cause physiological harm. We don't know it and we never will, and people have survived more than a gram. The limited literature on LSD indicates that after a certian amount increased dosages of LSD add nothing to the experiance. I have heard that this plateau is 500mcg. Lets just say 1000mcg. to be safe. The difference between 1000mcg. and 100,000 mcg. is enormous. Length and intensity both increase. Going by the "saturation level" logic this isn't possible. It becomes apparent rather quickly under the influence of a print that what is recorded about LSD plateau is wrong. Whiterasta has spoken of other neurotransmitter systems becoming involved on print size doses. This seems logical to me. What exactly happens during thumbrints on the neurochemical level is something we don't know, but it becomes painfully clear that there is an increase in effect thats not placebo. At the miligram level I have trouble comparing doses of say 1 or 2 miligrams.
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0 can tell little difference if any at all. On comparing doses of 1or 2 miligrams and 100mg. the I doses are vastly different. A couple weeks ago I did a little speck I would guess was somewere in the range of 2-3mg. Hadn't touched it in several years. Completely flattened me. The experiance was intense and hard(probably my last), but nothing in comparison to a thumbprint.

---------------------------------------------------------I've seen Tornado juice(TJ) that was greenish before(80's). Never worked with TJ much becuase it was shady. It came out looking different(ie color and texture) every time. Makes you wonder whats going on in the lab. Amber, Lavander, TJ and Champange are all non-consistent. I've seen Amber that was a beautiful light honey color and then a month later their swinging some dark brown funky stuff. I remember looking at some lavander under a jewelers glass once that looked like it had oily dirt in it. Heard about some shady silver around also. Probably some crappy lav thats bieng sold as silver to those who don't know better. The ethics of the current scene continue to twindle. Money sure has a way of polluting people. Time to get the squirt guns out. :D

"Interview with Chinacat72 in my truck

#1 So...How are you holding up these days?

Doing well. Between my 3 kids and school I'm staying very busy. Quote: #2 Just so we can kind of establish some background here, can you tell us in a nutshell your lifetime experience with Entheogens?

Started with LSD in the very early 80's. Had friends who went to GD concerts and brought back doses. For the first few years I was just messing around.
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I liked acid alot but didn't grasp it's importance until a few years later when I decided to tour and got serious. Went from a regular American kid to someone devoted to spreading this chemical that I saw as the most important invention in man kinds history. I'm long since retired from that business, but am still devoted. My current practice of psychedelics involves around 3 trips per year of mushrooms+DMT. Quote: #3 You're currently pursuing a master's degree in some field of psychedelics, correct? Can you tell us more about this? What do hope to gain from this? What do you think you will be able to accomplish thru this?

I'm currently involved in a PhD program in clinical psychology. As part of this path I have to get my masters this year. My goal is to be part of a research team involved with psychedelic therapy in the treatment of mental disorders(ie addiction). To administer psychedelics you have to have a MD, so I won't be giving the drug. My hope is to be involved in the sessions by being a guide/therapist. I want to give support by being a trust able person to the patient before,during, and after the experience. Having a PhD in psychology will give me the credentials for this. In reality the PhD is just a formality. I feel that what makes me qualified to do this is my experience with psychedelics. If I were to add together the time I have spent in psychedelic states it would be measured in years. I learned a few things during this that I think would be helpful to people entering this. One thing I learned at a young age is that it is very helpful to be surrounded by caring ,experienced people when getting into this area. I had beautiful loving, older, and experienced people around me on tour. This really helped make my experience with LSD a positive one. I am a firm believer in LSD. But it was my addiction to heroin that really showed me the value of this substance for those who are in the midst of a life full of suffering. If we are ever going to get psychedelics viewed in a more positive light by society it will be through science. That's why I believe psychedelic research is so important. I'm not turning my back on the "underground" movement at all I have spent my time in that area and can't do any more. So the remaining years I have left will be trying to help the good folks who are trying to show the value of psychedelics in a therapeutic context. My motivating dream is this. A place were people who have problems or questions can come and have a experience in a setting of complete safety, support and comfort. Imagine the benefit to this world if people had this option.
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#4 Let's talk about Family briefly. Actually let's talk about both families: #1 your own family and #2 "the" Family. What role has family had in your life in general? Have you learned more about life thru them than Entheogens? What is the spirit of "the" Family like? Could Family and family be compared and if so how would it go down?

The family is every living thing that was created. The light resides in us all. The "family" are people who have realized this and try to help others through love or whatever means can make the world a kinder place. My biological family is very special to me. I grew up a average kid in a turbulent time. As a young boy I lost my brother to the Vietnam war. I'm very different from the ethics my father lived by. I was angry at him for many years past his death. he basically forced my brother to go to Vietnam. I hated him for that. Then I grew up an realized it wasn't his fault. "forgive them for they no not what they do". My wife and kids are great. My wife is a wonderful woman and its a privilege to share my life with her. My kids are angels. I feel I learn more from them then I teach them. The love in our house is intense. I'm really blessed. As for the "family" I feel closer to these people then my own family. It was a honor and privilege to be able to fall into this culture. I view it as the high point of human evolution and nothing less. I have studied with many religious groups ,but have never seen devotion anywhere near what I experienced in the early days of tour. Some of these peoples only desire in the world was to turn people on. They sacrificed greatly by giving up freedom and never regretted it. The closeness I feel to some of my friends in indescribable. We went through things that are beyond description. Most of my friends are settled down and leading peaceful lives with kids and grand kids. As for a comparison between my family and tour family. A simple explanation is we are all bound by love. Though the Love that binds "the family" is a love supreme. I guess I shouldn't cut my family short because the love between my wife and kids is a sacred love also. So the correlation is LOVE. Quote: #5 Are you an advocate of Ayahuasca? Can you tell us about a particular experience that stands out?

Sure. It's a great healer for some. I have found a way to get the same benefits without the
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constant vomiting. I take 5 grams of mushrooms followed 3 hours later by smoking 50mg. of DMT freebase. It's just as intense as yage, but without the constant vomiting. As for experience to share I guess my first one. Between tours once we went down to Florida to pick mushrooms for the next tour. Everyday we were up at the crack of dawn trotting through the cow pastures that border on the everglades. One night we drank the yage and had a crazy intense experience. The next morning I felt like I have never felt before. As we made our way out to the pastures I felt completely free. While picking the mushrooms I decided clothes were not needed. I stripped naked and walked for hours picking bags of mushrooms. My companions decided to follow my lead. There we were a group a dread locked naked hippies walking through endless cow pastors picking mushrooms. I never felt so good in my life. We also never found as many mushrooms as we did on that day. I remember having crazy animal sex with one of the girls with us in the muddy cow pasture. We we stoned free and having divine sex while surrounded by acres of fields full of magic fungi. It was a damn good morning. Quote: #6 What is the primary thing that all humans should know about life itself, if there is such a thing?

I guess this would be different from person to person. For me it's love. It's the only thing that matters to me. Not the love between your high school sweetie and you, but the LOVE. I have experienced many states in my life. The nothingness of the Budist void to the attachment to desires. It wasn't until I got to temporarily see though veil clear eyes and see the world with unconditional love that I felt home and free. Of course this state wasn't permanent, but it gave me faith. Though I constantly fall out of touch with it I know there is a place of perfection were we all meet as one and purify in eternal love. This is very freeing. This worldly life isn't important because like everything else in this world it doesn't last. The thought that one day part of me will rejoin the great love , has made my life very rich. I have been very fortunate to experience Gods grace. I'll stop now because I'm trying to describe something beyond language and normal perception. Some of you know what I'm talking about. Some of you will think I'm full of shit. that's fine. To each his own and to me Love is the key. Peace, compassion, kindness and all the other high quality's of life emanate from love. To me Christianity is a distorted negative force, but the message of Christ consciousness is the true reality.

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#7 You've had connections with the famous band The Grateful Dead. Do you still know the remaining members? Do they still have a fondness for Entheogens and if so, do they have any particulars?

I have never known the band. I have been close to them in a physical context. I was close enough to Jerry once in the back of the Warfield that I could have ran over and talked to him, but settled on a smile. I had enough respect for him that I knew his space was important. Perhaps if he would of had more of it he could have escaped the dragon. We viewed ourselves as part of the team just as the band was. They played their part and we played ours. Though their part was alot more important and special then ours. Anybody could have done my job, but only one man could have done Jerry's or the other members. As for their psychedelic use I don't know. I only believe what I read in interviews because the rumors fly around the Deadhead world faster then a teenage girls slumber party. I have read that bob Weir is fond of mushrooms. Jerry in a Rolling Stone interview said he used mushrooms to "clean out the pipes" every once in awhile. Quote: #8 If you could point out one flaw of Entheogen connoisseurs and their overall approach to using Entheogens what would it be?

Recklessness. I'm hypocritical on this because I have been reckless to, but learned the hard way to respect these substances. People need to educate themselves and not go eating unknown substances and doing stupid things. Set and setting are critical. Luckily on tour we had the best set and setting as possible. Now people are not so fortunate. One good thing now days it the Internet. Back when I first started there was no Internet and what little info on psychedelics was in hard to find books. Now people have places like Erowid and the Shroomery were they can learn about these powerful substances. #9 If you could caution your generation in the year 2005 with any words of wisdom what would they be?

Fly under the radar. Make informed decisions. Keep an open mind. Never stop learning. Keep moving forward. Enjoy life becuase it is trully a gift and alot of people don't get to realize this till their last
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breath.

Quote: #10 What is your favorite book (of any category) and why?

I have so many. I love to read. If I had to pick one it would be Be Here Now. It's priceless in giving insight into the psychedelic path. It helped me learn how to integrate the psychedelic experiance into my everyday life. Ram Dass is a gift to us westerners. He has taken the wisdom of the psychedelic experiance and that of the easten philosophy and layed it out real simpy for us westerners.

Quote: #11 Coffee or tea?

Tea definitly. I love it. I have Darjeeling black in the morning and a few cups of Green later in the day. Coffee throws my ph way off. It gives a nice quick blast of caffiene ,but it's after effects don't agree with me. I'm into a healthy lifestyle. Meditation, yoga, tea, vegetarian diet, and psychedelics keep me balanced. I'm not saying that this is what others should do, but it works for me. Quote: #12 I have noticed that Entheogen consumers generally have a lot of inward or introspective energy. Do you have a strong preference to privacy or do you actually find yourself to be quite outgoing and love to be around a variety of people?

I charish my alone time, but that becuase i'm at campus or with my kids alot. In my younger years I only surrounded myself with "family" and viewed all other as lesser people. Now as i'm getting grey I see the pompous jerky perspective of then. I still get frustared with people who live by ethics different then mine, but then I have to remind my self ,who the hell am I to pass judgment. I constantly battle this. Especially after this last election. I find the teachings of Christ to be usefull in knocking myself of my high horse. That or a swift
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dose of mushrooms. We are all children of the light. It's my goal to love everybody. Not their deeds, but the fact that they are part of this All that roles into One.

Quote: #13 Who is the most important person of the 20th century?

Sorry but I have to list 3, in no paticular order. 1. Albert Hoffman 2. Jerry Garcia 3. Neem Karoli baba Quote: #14 What will the future hold for humanity and Entheogens?

I don't know. What I do know is that depends on us. We need to be responsible. We need to be kind. And we need to spread the Love. If we do these things we can continue to create beauty in a dark word.

"LSD - Crystal to Blotter" [2003]

I have decided to make this thread to consentrate info that I have posted in other post`s. I will discuss LSD crystal and what happens with it.This info is from my experiances a long time ago.I can safely offer it because I have retired from this line of work and stay far away from it. First I will briefly discuss the people or family as there called so you can get an appreciation for what they do and have done. The family is motivated to spread LSD because we believe that LSD is a key givin to us from above. LSD was givin to man from god to help him see the error of his ways. Why do you think it was discovered during the most horrible time in history. It is the antidote for the atomic bomb. It`s doesn`t matter if you beleive this or not ,because what i`m trying to express is how deeply important the family feels about the sacred value of LSD. Those who are at the upper level`s of the family will gladly sacrifice there lifes and freedom to do this work. 46

OK now down to the crystal. I have little knowlege about LSD manufacture so i`m going to talk about the final product the crystal. On tour crystal came in brown glass bottles with 1-10 grams in them. The bottles were sealed and contained CO2 and crystal. You can`t just buy crystal from family. First you have to be taught how to lay it ,which i`ll cover in a little bit. Also you have to do a thumbprint(eat it) there are no exeptions to this rule.The reason is to make sure your Karma is clean enough to handle this sacred work. TYPES OF CRYSTAL Needlepoint-very pure(95%) white powerdery crystal,was available in small amount`s. The best of the best White Fluff-Very pure(95%) white light flakes of crystal. Still around and the most sought after. very pure Silver-Good and clean(85-90%)-light greyish crystal. Was an unbelievable amount of this around in the late eighty`s and early nineties. Very good stuff. My first thumbprint was this kind. If you ate acid in the 80-90`s you probably sampled some silver. Amber-Decent(70%?) This crystal varied from a light amber color to an almost dark brown color.Was always available.One batch called quadricept amber was the color of light honey and was very good.Lot`s a people worked with this crystal but I always would use silver instead since it was better and the same price. Lavender-(60-70%?) light purple to almost black colored crystal. Like amber it varied batch to batch. TJ(tornado juice) - purity unknown. I seen this shit in about four different colors and it always scared me. No experiance with it. Champagne-(50-60%) black crystal, nasty stuff IMHO. I worked with it once and swore to never touch it again. OK so you got some crystal and need to get it on blotter. It`s a pretty amazing feeling holding a jar in your hands that has 10 grams of crystal in it. That`s 100,000 doses in the palm of your hand. For dealing with laying we`ll say we got 1 gram. Acid is always layed 1 gram=10 tenpacks. A tenpack is tensheets. 1gram=10,000doses. If your laying needlpoint your doses will be 95mcg, because your crystal is 95% pure. If your laying amber your shit will be 70mcg, because it`s 70% pure. got it Now you get a glass pyrex pan to dip your tenpacks in. Your crystal is dissovled into 110ml. of everclear per gram.The purer crystals dissolve instantly with a little stirring. The not so pure take a little shaking. Champange is damn near impossible to get to dissolve evenly. Paper-for white blotter standard watercolor paper#14 or equivalent is used. It`s critical you get the right paper. If you don`t it won`t absorb right and you`ll fuck it all up.Print`s are made up ahead of time and perferated OK so you got your crystal dissolved and your paper cut and ready. There are 2 schools when it comes to putting it on the paper. First dump the solution in the pan and dip each tenpack into it then lift it up and let any excess solution run off into the pan. Second method is to put the tenpack into the pan and squirt the solution on it with a baby syringe(the ones they give little kids medicine with). I Have done both and prefer dipping them just because its quicker .Then the tenpacks are layed out to dry which doesn`t take long since alcohol evaporates quickly. If you did it right there will be very little residue left in the bottom of the pan.This redidue is extremly potent and is eather soaked up with a piece of paper(called mop up) or made into potent liquid(called wash). Whatever you choose this is saved for your personal use While your doing all this you get very,very high. As soon as you open the jar of crystal it intoxicates the air. Most people were rubber gloves when doing this some don`t. Just don`t have any plans afterwards. There might be slightly different methods used when laying, but this is how the dead family does it. After the tenpacks are dryed there distibuted and eaten up. Since the end of the Grateful Dead the massive distribution network that used to get rid of so much acid has been broken up badly. Never fear Acid is still out there One last note as I stated at the begining of this post I am no longer involved with this buisness. I don`t use or sell 47

LSD anymore. I havn`t for years. I realise many of you really want some acid ,but i can`t help you so please be so kind as not to P.M. me for a hookup. If you have questions regarding any of this i will be more than happy to try to answer them if i can. God bless you all [on what it's like to do a thumbprint:] Not pass out spin out. I imagine it`s just like death. You completely dissolve ,there is no you. We are all connected. We all came from the same place and we return there. Imagine all of creation as a big pond of water. Your life is a drop of water falling from the sky. During life you feel seperate and then you hit the water and become one with it. There is no drop of water anymore ,just the pond. I can`t realy explain it anymore. With crystal you lay down and take it. You have no choice. If you resist you will be squashed by the cosmo`s. If you don`t have absolute faith you can get burnt badly. I have only seen one thumbprint go badly. The guy just wasn`t ready. He insisted on doing it. We had to hold him down all fuckin night long as he screamed "your fuckin killing me". I have never seen somebody suffer so bad. The next day he said it was the most important experiance of his life. He owns an organic vegtable farm in Oregon now and hasn`t touched LSD since One other thing i wanted to add but forgot. Double and triple dip acid is a sales pitch. It`s a myth. Diping it again in the solution would do nothing to increase potency. When the ten pack is dipped it is completely saturated with the solution and dipping it a second or third time would do nothing. This rumor was started by deadheads on the lot to make make there acid sound superior. The only way to increase potency is to make the solution stronger. Exp. instead of 1 gram per 110ml. you could put 2 grams in and it would be 190mcg. (if your crystal is 95%). This is very,very,very rarely done since it doubles the price.

[when will the acid return?] First thank you and the other`s for the kind reply`s I can only speculate the answer`s to your question. LSD is still around though it seems that a majority of the labs are inactive at the moment. This is normal as they don`t produce all the time. Most like the silver family only produce about every 5 years. Though they usually produce enough to last that long. When the Grateful Dead toured massive amount`s of LSD were disributed around the country. On a typical east coast tour 100-150grams could easily be sold. Thats a million to a million and a half doses. This flooded these citys and the lsd trickled down to every nook and cranny of america. By the time it was dry again another tour would roll through the region and resupply it. Plus we would meet people on tour from certain area`s of the country and keep them supplied with the help of the good ole USPS. Sadly when the dead stopped touring this network went into shambles. People fell out of touch and with no shows ,there wasn`t the marketplace for distibution.In turn parts of the country arn`t getting saturated anymore. LSD isn`t moved and sold like the cartel`s move coke and such. It`s handled by a brotherhood of people who truelly believe there doing the work of god(or whatever name you call creation). We believe that LSD crystal has to be handled by the right people who are totally commited to the movement. When we moved crystal there was always the feeling that we were protected by a higher power. I can`t tell you how many times i have had crystal or acid on me or my brothers and have been in situation`s where we should 48

have gotten busted and something always protected us.So many times that coincidence is not an option. Why do i think we were protected. Because the family does it for mankind not money. We viewed LSD as the only hope for the radical change in conciousness that would save us. So in effect we viewed are work as the work of God. You know why they never busted a family lab? Because we would never betray LSD. Just as Jesus was nailed to the cross we were willing to spend the rest of our lives in jail or die to protect what we viewed as the salvation of are species. Sound`s a little dramatic doesn`t it, but i`m trying to give you an understanding of the faith in LSD that the family has. By the way the Kansas bust was not a family lab incase anybody is wondering. The point i`m trying to make is the family believes LSD has to move through the right hands. This is why you can`t go down to the corner and get a gram of crystal. sorry to ramble. As far as your original question. LSD will always be around. As some of the cooks retire i rest assure you that they pass there recipes and secret`s down to those chosen to continue to fight the good fight. I don`t think it will ever be as redily available all over the country as it once was due to the break up of the disribution cycle of tour. I could be wrong and hope i am. Alot of old family have moved on and including myself retired, feeling we served our time The family does hear your cry`s for more acid and they don`t plan on giving up on mankind. Nows a good time for labs to be inactive. the current goverment administration is viewed as a bad storm that needs to pass as jerry sang "all good things in all good time" Keep the faith

[How does one become print-worthy?] As far as print worthy i assume you mean how do you fall into this line of work. For me and the rest of the people on tour it was just a matter of spending year after year on tour. The elder`s that are on top keep in a eye on everybody that help`s move there stuff. They also know the intentions of those people. If they know your true and a total believer in the work they start letting you hang around. Many hour`s are spent in hotel rooms watching them work. They make sure you know every detail. Also they make sure that you know the importance of being honest and laying your product correctly. Every hit you lay has the potentail to change somebody`s life and bring them into the light. It`s taught like an apprenticeship. My first thumbprint was silver. Before my print i thought i was pretty experianced with acid. I had been puddled many times with strong liquid. I wasn`t near as experianced as i thought as i walked into the room and everybody had a huge grin on there face, and i saw what i was about to take. Thumbprint`s arn`t weighed out on a scale. It`s more of "that`s a nice little chunk ,that should do". Your talking several sheet`s or more when you do a print. As for the comparison to Sandoz or Owsley i never had either. But Fluff and needlpoint are damn pure and i don`t imagine bears was any purer. I have heard of batches of needlepoint bieng as high as 98% White fluff is gorgous crystal. We would eat this crystal like crazy. When i first met the main guy in charge of this crystal he was snorting it!!!!!!!!!! After i did a fluff print i never did any other kind except needlepoint. When you eat crystal you definatly can tell the differences between them. Purity does matter at that level.

A thumbprint isn`t even close to the largest doses people have done. Dangerous? LSD is physiologicaly one of the safest drugs there are. There`s not one valid death that can be attributed to physiological complications from taking LSD. I didn`t know all this when i was taking it though. 49

Psychologicaly it could be very negative if the wrong person does it. That`s why we didn`t just walk around the parking lot handing out thumbprint`s As far as "fried" ,your never the same. It totally opens you up. For about a week afterwards your first print you need some babysitting. Hell you`ve just been reborn After awhile it`s less tramatic. As for after effects. I am middle aged and healthy. I have 3 bright healthy children. And i`m just getting my bachelor`s degree with a 3.5GPA I do feel high very often though, but i don`t mind. The man that gave me my first print still does crystal once in awhile and he`s in his mid sixties

[How is blotter made?] Blotter that has print`s on it are made ahead of time. There called blanks. Usually someone in the family handles the blanks. Takes them from show to show. Then as there needed someone else lays them and distibutes them. This way if your caught with 1,000,000 doses of blanks you can say it`s blotter art and after they test it your free. This has actually happened several times. This way someone else has the crystal which is very easy to hide The print`s are made using the same methods as you would for printing anything else up. Then there perferated.I always preferd to use plain white watercolor paper with no perferations.Not all cops know what a tenpack of acid looks like when it`s just a big piece of paper.

[How do you know how pure the crystal is?]

I can tell by color. How crystallin it is and what color it is. You can inspect the crystal once you know what good clean crystal looks like. And then you can compare. I have a moto "if it's white it's all right". Of course the jugement on my end is not scientific . I examin it like jewelers do jewels. The only real way to get a very accurate reading on how pure it is comes from the lab. Most decent lab's have a GC/MS and can get a decent purity reading from that. Needlepoint and White fluff are the only one's that are reliably consistant. Silver varies a little. Lavender and Amber vary greatly in appearance from batch to batch. Indicating a difference in purity. If I was buying Amber or Lavender I would want to see it first. They have a tendancy every once in awhile to skimp on the last part of manufacture. The rinse and recrysitazation at the end is crucial in determing purity. If this isn't done enough your product is less pure.Some of you may have heard Owsley say he lost 20% of his product making sure its pure. Thats because he rised it a ton of times. Thats why his shit was said to be better than Sandoz. Amber and Lavender if they don't due this good there crystal looks more dirty. Also the purer you make your crystal the less it weighs and it's sold by weight. [just roughly how long does it take to dissolve?]

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white crystal dissolves instantley. Amber lavender and silver take little stiring and shaking. champange you have to shake forever. As for solids if it pure and dissolved right there shouldn't be any left. I remember once when I had silver crystal. The Dead had just finished a run somewere and we were getting ready to leave. My friends like "hey man I need a gram layed". I'm like shit because we are leaving in minutes. We run into the room and I start laying. Silver usually dissolves pretty easy. I didnt take my time and as I was dipping I saw a chunk that wasn't disssolved. I knew it wasn't enough to ruin the batch so I kept going. At the end after they dried a little. I was holding them up to see if they were saturated. On one ten pack I saw that chunk had dissolved in a line down the middle. Those hits were maxed out. Who ever got those hits got a hell of a trip. I prayed for there safety and moved on. It isn't like we do this shit in a permanent labratory setting it's usually in a hotel. It's on the run and mistakes are made. It isn't that hard to do right if you take your time though

[I was just curious what kind of sheets were going around when you were into it, was there always different sheets or was there stockpiles of certain kinds? I was also wondering if you had any experience working with geltabs ]

Over the 8 years I was on tour I saw more prints than I possibly could remember or list. I wouldn't even know were to begin. Hundreds and hundreds of different kinds. My favorite was plain white unperferated paper. The reason for this was alot of cops don't know what a tenpack of white unperfed blotter looks like. Once on a Greyhound bus from Floridia to Baltimore our bus was stopped and a bunch of feds got on it. They searched everybodys bags. They were looking for guns or coke since we were coming from floridia. I'll never forget the feeling of watching a federal agent(FBI I believe) go through my bag and pull stuff out. I had a gram(ten- tenpacks or 10,000 doses) of white paper. He pulled it out and had no clue what it was . It looked like just a bunch of ten inch square pieces of paper to him. Had it be perferated and had a print on it he probably would have known. After that I was a true believer in white unperfed paper. Print's are usually made in mass amounts and then sold to the different familys. So one kind of print can actually have several different kinds of crystal on them. This happened years ago with the Jesus Christ prints. The first ones were made of very pure white fluff and they were dipped to contain a little over 100mcg. People went nuts over them and the were the talk of the summer. Then the lavender family got hold of the same print and put there dirty ass crystal on them and they were about half the strength as the origanal white fluff batch. Some prints are only made once and some come back over and over again(exp. felix,sunshines and a bunch of others) Geltabs are easy to make. All thats required is LSD crystal ,gelitin, and a certian kind of flourecent light fixture. People assume there stronger, but usually there the same strength as blotter though they probably stay potent longer. That said I never worked with gels much for the simple reason of there weight. Back when I was on tour they had the mandatory minimium laws. These laws determined sentencing for LSD on it's weight not how many doses. The carrier(paper,liquid,gel suger cube) was also included in the weight. So if two people got popped and one had 1000 geltabs and one had 1000 hits of blotter ,the one with the gels went to jail for quite a bit longer. Because paper is lighter. These laws were changed in the 90's from pressure from a group called FAMM(family's against manditory minimiums). It was a group of parents and family of people who were serving ridiculous prison sentances for 51

having a few doses on suger cubes or some other heavy carrier. The Band let them set up a booth at shows to gain support. We donated thousands of dollars and they eventually got a senate hearing and the law was changed.

As for this summer ,it will be alot better. There have always been bunkers My advice is to hang out and chill. You can tell who's family and whos not. Don't go buying doses off the first dude to come to you. Meet some friends and find out what the dank paper is. You said you got bunked at the GD reunion in Alpine last year? There was about 20 grams of paper there. Thats plenty for one show. My point is to take your time and not blow all your hard earned money on the first eager person to try to sell you doses. Chill ,be casual and ask around whats good. Be friendly ,but not overzealous. Then find someone who is recomended or has that vibe and your chances are alot better.

[why are you putting this info online?]

It's because there are so many myths surrounding LSD. Most of them are bullshit. Me and my friends are tired of the rumors you hear about LSD and what it does and how it's made and this and that. It's crazy some of the shit people believe and say about LSD and other psychedelics. People should know the truth. The internet is the perfect medium to transfer this knowlege. Just enough info can be given to paint a general picture of how things work, without giving specifics that would endanger this important work. I am in the perfect position to do so. I am long enough removed from the active scene to offer information without endangering anyone including myself. My friends that still live in the old world are very supportive.

I freakin hated working with 9 packs. If it wasn't my friends who came up with them I would have boycotted them altogether. As for adjusting your solution ,it wouldn't be important. You could just lay the 9 pack then and a sheet to make ten.Same amount of paper. If your doing a gram of nines you just lay 11 of them and you have 99 sheets instead of 100. Not a big deal to lay, but a pain in the ass to distribute. Paper is sold by the tenth. So every time you sell a tenpack you have to give them a ninepack and a sheet. If your selling a gram it's 11 ninepacks and a sheet. When you have big orders that you have to lay it's a bitch, because usually it's a bunch of people going in together on a huge amount. I had that problem once with the first set of fractals that came out. They were nines and we had about 20 grams getting split up about 30 ways. It's simple math if you figure it out ahead of time ,but a nightmare for a few folks that just got done laying it all.
Most of the print's now are available as ten-packs also ,for ease in laying and distibution .After years of bitching on some folks part. If the print is used as blotter art then they can make it a 9-pack. There's such a massive amount of blotter to choose from anyway so you can get anything you want. There's quite a few people that do nothing ,but make blotter paper. Thats why it's all over E-bay and anywere else they can sell it. I will always be favorable to white un-perfed though, since it kept me from going to jail once when print's would 52

have got me busted. A lot of cops don't recognize a ten-pack of un-perfed white paper, especially if you got a big stack of them. As far as blotter art goes I have a ten singed by Leary and one singed by Kesey. I have a few unsinged famous print's like Felix, SYF, Globes ext., ext. I'm not really a collector though. I wouldn't mind getting some more singed ones.

[according to the shitface that narc'd on pickard he was producing a kilogram every 5 weeeks which is a hell of a lot more than what the families have done, i'd say he was a better crusader for the movement than them cause look at the current situation and look at how it was when pickard was free!! ]

You have absolutaly no idea what the familys have produced or done. There's alot more involved in the lack of availability then Pickard. We have covered this in the other thread. But a short recap. 1. Pickards a narc and his bust scared alot of people. 2. 9/11 and the increased threat of the goverment 3. No tours anymore!!!!!!!!(the family is no longer mobile-no Phish,no Dead) 4. Alot of us fucking retired because its not possible to do this work for decades. 5. A whole shitload of other factors.

Do you really think its right to trash the family because some lousy people bunked you? Alot of people worked selflessly for many many years providing for people.

[which is a hell of a lot more than the families have ever done] The scenes a mess right now, but trashing the family is bullshit. Alot of these folks were spreading LSD around before you were born. Do you really think you have any perspective on what these folks have done? What have you done? Because there wasn't enough LSD in Wisconsin your going to spit on an organization that for close to 40 years provided LSD to anybody willing to take it. In hopes that it would make the world a better place. This summer wasn't like other Dead tours for sure. After an 8 year absence it would be a miracle if things automaticaly ran as they used to. The scene has changed. When the Dead quit touring alot of us retired. Then 2 or 3 years ago when Phish quit touring the rest quit. Alot of people fell out of touch. There hasn't been any distribution network in a few years. Now that there is acid again its being moved at the lower levels by people with greed in there hearts. Its a big problem ,but trashing the family isn't the answer. If things improve or not I don't know. Hopefully this tour will be analysized and corrections will be made to improve the quality of service in the future. Mabye there won't ever be another tour and your all on your own. When you talk shit about the family as a whole your talking shit about some of the most caring people on this planet. Do you realize how many people went to prison so we could take LSD. Some of my best friends spent years in prison because they trully believed they were doing the right thing. When you trash the family you trash them. I'm going to stop now because I could ramble on all day, but would you really understand. Do you really have the

experiance ,age ,or knowlege to make legit statements about the family?
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It was nice to see thousands and thousands of people get to experiance LSD this summer. It was sad they had to pay so much but it was nice to feel the vibe at Red rocks and Bonnaroo where there were 60 thousand people who all had acsess to as much acid as they could eat(or afford to). As for LSD availability I would have to believe its alot more available this summer than it has been in years. There's no shortage in the midwest. Prices are way to high ,but it seems most people who want it can get it. My college has plenty around. Seems the only people I hear of that can't get it are here. Seams most folks here got some though. Its all about what show you went to. The people who went to the right shows had plenty of LSD. Those that went to the shows that were skipped didn't get there acid dreams fufilled. Everybody payed way to much IMO. Some shows were flooded and some dry. It doesn't seem right, but what can ya do? To those that don't like the way the psychedelic movements heading, stop fucking crying and throwing temper tantrums and do something about it! Like the generations before did. The future is in your hands. If you trully believe in psychedelics do something for the movements future.

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DPwishy
"The Worst Trip Imaginable" I am at a loss for words, I feel like an old friend turned on me. I thought I knew what a bad trip could be like, but man, I got it good. I ate 2.5 g's of Pan Cyans, I felt like I was being attacked by an entity. As soon as I felt it happening, my dog starting freaking the fuck out and trying to get near me. My inner voice told me to go into my meditation cell. I was in the fight of my life, holy fuck. I fought and fought. It got to a point where I cried out to Jesus for help. I cried out to Jesus for help, that should tell you where I was at. I am not a christian. It kept telling me that I was going to kill my dog and gf. It was telling me i was being programmed to do it. It said I was going to black out and kill them, that I would come too not even remembering it. All the while my dog is going NUTS, its now trying to get into my meditation cell with me. A voice told me to run out of the house, that I was going to black out and hurt them. I ran from my cabin to the main house on the property, when I got to the door I put my key in to unlock it. A voice then told me I already killed them and they were dead inside the cabin. I ran as fast as I could back into the cabin to find them. This is where it got crazy. It was like the movie inception, dreams within dreams. I was going from delusion to delusion thinking I woke up in between. Like being in a dream, to wake up and still be in a dream thinking your awake. I thought i killed them, then I would come to to another delusion thinking I woke up from that one. To just go into another one. It was kind of like lsd loops, but far more real and intense. It was almost like a datura type experience. I don't remember it being like a normal trip with normal visuals. I don't remember visuals at all. 55

It was creating full on realities like they were real. The hardest part was my fiance ate like 2 g's herself, I dealt with this for 4 hours alone. I didnt tell her, how could I? How do you tell the person you love and are tripping with, that you are fighting something off that is trying to get you to kill them? There was one point where I was in one of the delusions, where I thought I already kiill them, that I was convinced I had to kill my self. That I could never tell her parents or mine that I did this, it was the only option. Then I would hear her laugh in the background, kinda like when your on K and are fully disassociated and have music on. You are in another world, but the music is anchoring you to yours also. I could hear her laughing behind the delusion tripping, and my higher self kept telling me to keep fighting, that I can make it through it. I fought and fought. It scared me that these thoughts where even being given to me, it scared me that I had to fight these ideas. Its scary to think if I wasnt as experienced as I was, I probably wouldnt have been able to fight that off. I would have killed my fiance and my dog. I would have been that news story. Holy fuck. This past week has been so hard on me. Now that I am not drinking, I honestly don't know how to deal. Its a pathetic feeling. I just want to run and hide, crawl in a hole. I want my old vice, but I know it wont change a thing. I guess that is why I am typing this now, this has festered for a week and I am going insane inside. Its been so hard trying to grasp and understand this experience. The tool that gave me my God (the mushroom), almost took everything I love and cherish. It was an eye opening experience. I really need you guys right now, I am at a loss for words. I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life...

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"Thanks, But No Thanks. I Think I'll Keep My Soul..." Last sunday I took some ps cyans, cubes and molly with my fiances and one of my best friends. We all ate 1.5 of the Ps Cyans in tea each. Then we consumed 4 grams of dried cubes. My fiance ate 2 tenths of molly, I ate 1.3 grams. A little later we made a tea with another 12 grams of cubes, but it was a waste. We already popped and there was no getting back there that night. In the end I ate about 1.5 g's of ps cyan, 8-10 g's of cubes and 1.3 g's of molly. As the night started, I looked at my cup of tea that contained my 1.5 of ps cyans. I asked God/the mushroom that it may help me figure out how I can write my book better. I have been experimenting with Lsd, ps cyans, ketamine, n20 as a cocktail/combo the last year or so. I've done it 3 times. I had very intense and eye opening experiences. I wanted to share them but in the end I thought promoting ketamine in that light would do more harm than good. It is used as an entheogen strictly in this house, but it seems to draw a different crowd with its normal users. But anyways, through these experiences I was shown that my souls purpose to be here is to write this book. I asked that the mushroom showed me how to better create it, I already know what its going to be about but I wanted more insight. I also asked to have it show me how I can be in better contact with my higher self. I think this is the name of the game. I believe the higher self to be the version of our self that exists outside of space and time. It has already experienced every time line possible and can better navigate you through your evolution to have the smoothest ride possible. It knows what choices to make. It was a pretty intense trip, most is a blur, but I want to recap it for you because it was one of the most intense experiences of my life. Lucifer, Satan, what ever you want to call it, the ego? The creator of this physical realm, who is not the creator God came to me and asked me to sell my soul. It told me that if I sold my soul, it would help me write my book. It told me that it would auto pen through me. That the book would just flow out of me in a sitting basically. I was told that it not only would be a best seller, but the topic my book is on if written correctly has the ability to make a consciousness shift. I was told that if I sold my soul, I could sacrifice my self for the all. I could sacrifice my self, but leave humanity with this book. A book that could truly help humanity step forward. I was explained the life style I could live, the money and so on. He even mentioned my 80,000+ I owe in student loans. "Wouldn't it be nice to not slave the rest of your life to pay off a mortgage style student loan?" it asked. This offer went on for about 40 minutes. At times when I thought I would say yes, when the offer sounded too good, Tool's the Patient came on and the lyrics kept repeating "be patient, I must keep reminding my self of this". It felt like God was speaking to me through the music. I turned to this entity and told him I am all set. That I will write the book my self, and that it can keep its offer. My soul is mine. It laughed at me and told me how stupid I was, how stupid my choice was. It made fun of me and told me to have fun working for the rest of my life, working 40 hours a week until retirement just to pay back student loans. It asked me one more time if I was sure, I said yes. I was called a slave and it departed. Once it left my higher self came. I felt divinity in its presence, I knew God was there also. It was explained to me because I said no to the offer, that the offer would still be given to me. Remember a few months back when my higher self contacted me through someone else? Well in that message it told me it would be back in a year, that if I didn't listen to things it was instructing me to do that I would be very angry and disappointing in my self when it comes back to me in October of next year. I listened to everything it asked me to do. Well, it came back again after I declined to sell my soul and it told me because I made that choice, which was just a test, that when it comes to me again in October the book will be given to me in full. That my higher self will come through again and the book will flow through me like Lucifer explained it would do. I was told that my ritual with AA was completed. That I could continue to go if I wanted, but it wasn't needed anymore and that the ritual was complete. I was then congratulated on my sobriety (going on 3 months now). I have zero desire to drink, zero. I know its because of the ritual I was asked to do, not with AA itself. I laughed to my self for a second thinking about how many artists sell their souls to gain what they want, when they would have gotten it anyways if they just passed the test. Now they have it, but had to lose something to gain it. It occurred to me once again that this being Lucifer is just a worker for God. He has his role and is used accordingly. I was so relieved I didn't sell my soul, I know it sounds so silly but I really thought about it. It wasn't the fame or fortune that got me. I live in a 17x19 foot cabin, I think this being knows materials have no meaning to me. But it almost got me with the bargain that my book would help the rest of humanity. I almost sold my soul to help everyone else. It seemed right when he was pitching it to me, why not do this for everyone else? I feel so blessed to have made the right choice. . Even if it was fake, the universe and God knows how I stand on these things. That's good enough for me. 57

I was told once this book comes out of me, that I will die. I am not sure if it meant that my souls purpose is to write this book and once that it is written, my soul will have no reason to be here even if my mind wants to be. My fiance comforted me and told me that maybe it just means a part of me will die. She explained how anytime I take entheogens I have these crazy experiences, she said that maybe I will be left alone after the book is done and can live a "normal" life. She understands the toll and stress this has put on me in the last 10 years walking this path. I wouldn't wish this for anyone, its very overwhelming. For the rest of the night we all just chilled and talked. They were happy I was "back" as I tend to go into my own world when I take ethneogens. The rest of the night was awesome. I smoked dmt 3 times in the am as the mushrooms and molly was coming down. The first 2 times were nice, the third time I didn't expect it. I broke through without knowing, I didn't realize until I came back and reassembled. It was very scary. I haven't smoked dmt in years and it was probably one of the scariest thing I have done in my whole life. As I was being reassembled I begged god to let me live, that I wanted to be with my fiance, that I wanted to live. I came back with a new appreciation not only for my fiance, but for existence itself. This is where I want to be for a bit if I can help it. As I was coming too I was told that I am going to get cancer. Then my memory was brought back to a time about a year ago when I was "told" that once I break through on dmt again, that my "console" would end. I was told only to smoke it when I wanted to leave this existence. I totally forgot about it and smoked it. My memory was shot back to this and then I was told I was going to get cancer and that I initiated the end of my life. I got really concerned for a moment but I can't dwell on it. I know how these entities work, they are very trickster. Hopefully this was one of their sick jokes as it scared the shit out of me.

"In the 'Information'"

So these experiences happened 8 days ago, last weekend, both Saturday and Sunday. While it was happening, I felt like a "conduit", I kept writing and writing, page after page flew off my fingers. I realized it is this knowledge I was trying to spread all along, and over the last week I have been trying to build off it. I almost released it as is, but realized the longer I sit on it, the more its coming together, and I don't want to release it until its perfect. But I do want to share the experiences that lead up to this. Its only been 8 days, but its feeling further and further away, and I am afraid it will be a past memory soon. I want to make this clear, I did not take anything to trip these days, nor have I for a very good chunk of time. I did smoke weed these days, but nothing else was taken. On Saturday, I got really emotional, I kept crying. The more I would think about things and understand them, the more emotional I would get. My thought process kept spiraling in and out. The more I would understand things and put them together, the closer to it I felt. It was almost like a practice session for the next day. On Sunday I got put in the same mind set, where I was over thinking. I kept thinking and thinking, and understanding, and putting the pieces together, and the more I did, the more it all clicked. The more I would spiral out with these thoughts, the "bigger" I would get. This kept happening, spiraling in and out, in and out. There came a point where at the pinnacle of these spirals, when it all came together, when it all clicked, that contact would happen. As this was happening, and I started to understand what was going on, I got really scared. I was at my mothers house taking care of her, and I honestly didn't know what to do. I knew contact was coming, it kept growing and growing, spiraling out more and more. So I went into the shower to be safe and be out of sight. While I was in the shower, these spirals got so big, that I understood it all, I felt like I was in the mind of God, in the "information". At this point, my body collapsed to the floor in the shower, like I was worshiping someones feet. Then I knew it was there, what ever this thing is, it was there, and I felt such peace, love, connectivness. I was shown in the 58

information that a huge change is coming to me, a change that will change me forever. I was shown in the information that I would be accepted to a 10 day Vipassana session that starts the 31st. I emailed a member while this was happening, expressing my concerns, and what I was told. I made predictions in those messages that came true days later, and every aspect of "crazy" flew from my mind, this was as real as it gets. I honestly thought I was losing it, I thought I was crazy. I signed up for this Vipassana session 2+ months ago, and didn't hear a thing from them. Which didn't surprise me, I signed up for a full session, that was full 2 months + ago. I did this on purpose, I felt like if this is what God wanted me to do, some how it will work out. I was shown in the information that this 10 day session is what I have been preparing for the last 4 years with all these contacts. I was shown that I will be accepted, and once I go, things will be different forever. I kept asking for a reference, what kind of change, and the only example I was given was, like the change that happened to me before I met God, and After. Which is the biggest change I can even fathom in my life. Monday comes around and I get a call around 4pm, 2 weeks until the Vipassana session, they wanted to go over my application and after they did, they told me that a spot opened up randomly and I would be accepted if I wanted. I got the official email Thursday, I am now enrolled in this session. This is a pretty extreme thing imo, its 10 days, all done in noble silence. You stay there for the whole ten days, there is no talking, no reading, no writing. You wake at 4am daily, and I believe there is 11-12 hours of meditation a day, one meal a day. I don't understand whats going to happen at this session, but I do know since I got accepted my ego has been fighting back. That feeling you get before you really start tripping, which I believe is the ego breaking down, trying to bring about fear to stop its death. I have had that non stop, a real deep fear, a non stop fight or flight. I was shown that my message is not one of God. We are all the same thing, No shit, get over it, move on. I got stuck on that aspect for a long time, when I was shown that it comes down to making learning "safe". I saw that I had to run in my shower, to hide a very beautiful thing from my loved ones. This is what society has done to our learning process, they made it fearful, crazy, and anxiety driven. When in fact I realized, this is the one thing we all share in common. These transitions are very scary, and we need to be there for our brothers and sisters, to hold their hand during these times. A time that we made crazy, that we made fearful, when it never had to be. We need to have tolerance for everyone's path, to let them touch, feel, and taste existence. That they may come up with their own view based on their experiences. But we need to make learning safe first! This is what I wrote about in all those pages, and I hope to share it all with you soon. I just wanted to thank this community for allowing me to express my ideas, grow, and try to understand this all. Topia is a place were learning is "safe", and I am blessed to call it home. If I was really alone in this path, without this community also, I don't know what would have happened to me. I have seen that all of this work is for these 10 days coming up. I still don't understand how, but I do know I will never be the same after. I wont lie I'm kind of scared, I am already out there. The rope holding me to the ground is stretched to its max. I am afraid that this will be the final push, a push that snaps the rope, which is a scary thought to me. How far out there can you really go? In Divine Friendship, your brother, -wishy

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"The Origins of Energy"

This is my first time writing down for other people some of my experiences, I record (audio) most of my trips, and do a lot of writing and thinking on my own but I never try to write for other people, but today i think im going to start sharing some of the most amazing experiences that have shaped not only my life, but the evolution of my soul. Thanks for a beautiful Community guys :)

My interest in psychedelics started about 6 years ago, and like most people it started off recreational, but soon the power of these medicines started to be come apparent to me. My friends didn't really understand how i could find it fun to sit in a dark room, with no music, no sounds, no lights and just sit there the whole time on massive doses (haha usually in fetal position), and completely tear everything about me apart and rebuild it new, with new understandings and learnings from an ego-less teacher. In the last 2-3 years the power of the tryptamines have shown themselves to me, nothing can compare to mother natures tryptamines in their abilities to heal and teach. I would like to share with you the first time i smoked dmt, honestly now i have learned that eating it orally is the best way to learn from it, but live and learn.

I just witnessed my parter take down 50mg of white crystal, her first time while i sat first for her. She looked pretty distressed most of the journey, and while she was in dmt land, the shade on my window flew open, as if someone intervened, as she snappen out of it crying out "thank you!, thanks!, i didn't want to go, i didn't want to go any further!" She explained to me this world she was in, and this figure, almost like a Hindu god that was coming closer to her. She explained to me that she didnt want me to take my dose, she didnt want me to go where she went at all. Honestly hearing her say this, made me we want to try it even more, iv read so much about this before hand and the power was being shown to me in front of my eyes. Now it was my turn.

I sat on my bed and began to take down my 50mg dose, the first two hits went down pretty smooth and i wondered why people thought it was so harsh, the third and final rip took care of what was left and i held it in. I looked at my partner and waved, because i knew i was going somewhere else, and with the last hit in my lungs i watch my world disappear as if every particle was being sucked away by a vacuum.My body vibrated faster and faster and I heard that break through sound that sounds like sulifane being crunched, and then i was in this black void, no body just a consciousness. Telling my self "ok don't be scared, you can do this, you have been through far worse before, you can do this". Then in the middle of this black void, there was a shine, this shine got bigger and bigger as it got closer. It almost looked like two strands of DNA double-helix type things in the shape of an X, but where the two strands of double-helix's crossed each other, it wasn't just ontop of one another, but rather looped around at the middle. This object had a rotation to it and it began to spin at me getting bigger and bigger. Each double helix had so many sections in it, all different colors, as if they were the A T G and so on of the double helix. They were so many, and then i heard something , like a voice tell me that i was looking at everything, each section was a different plain of existence basically, and as this shape got bigger and closer, i could no longer see the outlines, and could only see a small part of it, and that small part became huge and i went into that plain, i remember it being orange from the outside, but when i broke through it, everything turned the most amazing white i have ever seen, glowing. I heard this voice tell me that he was there, i wasn't alone, that he was with me, and that he loved me. At this time my consciousness was like, ok dude your on a drug, calm down, this isnt god, and then i heard the voice again tell me that he was indeed god, and that he could prove it to me to show me that he created everything for me, to show me how much he loved me. He then told me he could touch me, and before i could even register what he said, this lightning bold of energy shot through my body, it almost hurt to feel it, i knew i wasnt supposed to feel that, our bodies are just not able to almost, and as soon as it came, the feeling left. It was the most beautiful feeling i have ever felt in my life, it felt like pure love, peace and compassion, if that makes any sense. He told me that he loved me and that i wasn't alone and as fast as it all happened it was gone, 60

and i flashed back into my room looking at my partner who had tears in her eyes. I bursted out crying, "im sorry i doubted you, im so sorry" and just laid there comprehending what happened to me. I tried explaining to my partner what just happened figuring she wouldn't believe a thing, but the opposite happened. As i explained to her my experienced, she told me why she was crying. She said my body, jumped up once, stayed almost above the bed and then jumped up again even higher, as if i was being ferbulated in a hospital when i was being "touched". As i laid there for the next 20 minutes i spoke into my audio recorder, sharing all the information that was being streamed into my consciousness so i wouldn't forget it. I could go on forever about the audio tapes and what not, but i just wanted to share that one part of the experience with you guys, it has totally changed my life. This light/voice/god has come to me many more times sense that experience, the last time being a massive oral dose of dmt about a month ago. I try asking him every time to show his true form to me, let me see him, but i never am able to. Iv noticed that every time im in direct contact with him, i can hear this distinct octave ring in my ears, the most beautiful sound in the world, and its always the same tone! But i just wanted to share that with you guys, and see if anyone else has had anything similar? thanks!

love, peace, compassion, and respect wishy

"The Last Goodbye" So about 3 weeks ago maybe? I smoked some dmt, the first time I can remember in a LONG time. It was an experience that took a full year to manifest itself. If you would like to join, I'd love to share that journey with you. This all started pretty much a year to this month. I decided to eat oral dmt for the last time in my life, I was ready to listen to what God had asked of me, and it was time to do my work. I sat in meditation and prayed intensely before I ingested the sacrament. All I asked for from God was, "Please, I'm not looking for any knowledge, I don't want to know about myself, my mission or you. What I really want is to lay with you, bathe in your presence, your love. I have committed myself to what you have asked, so I lay down my love for these sacraments, but please father, let me feel you one more time so that If I never feel you again by natural means, I will still have this time with you in my memory. All I ask is that you hold me in your love, nothing more" I sat up and drank the prepared Syrian rue tea, I believe it was around 5 g's. I waited for the maoi to kick in, and then I ate 150-200mg of white spice. I sat for awhile but nothing was really happening, I felt threshold effects of the dmt, which seemed weird. Clearly the maoi was working, and clearly the spice was kicking in, but this felt like 50mg oral, not 200. I saw the faint geometrics dance before my eyes, and then a voice said, "No matter how much you take, you can not come". It was one of the worse feelings in the world! What do you mean I cant come? That is my home, that is where my father is! I let my ego take over, and I decided to eat another 5 g's of rue, just to make sure the maoi was working correctly. After I waiting and knew for sure the maoi was working, I ate another 200mg, and then another. By the end of the night I must have eaten 3 times the amount of Syrian rue needed, and like 4 times the amount of dmt. I was reminded by the voice again during the night that no matter how much I took, I wasn't going there. It was a very lonely feeling, I laid there in my bed with my eyes closed crying to the faint geometrics that were teasing me with their faint appearance. The thing that hurt the most was, although God did mention before that it was time to 61

let go of the sacraments, that my learning with them was complete and now it was time to let them go, all I wanted was one last goodbye to cherish, to hold on to and remember. I just wanted to be spooned in the love of my father one more time, thats all! Yet I was left by my self, and a feeling of not being welcomed in my own homeland. I tried my hardest not to let this experience bring me down, or change my outlook in anyway. Could this be a test of faith? Who knows, but time would tell. A few weeks later I took about 400mg of pure molly shards, I liked experimenting with molly because this was one of the only substances I took that would not induce contact. But sure enough, out of no where, there was God. He told me what I'm supposed to do and my mission once again, hinting to my death which scared the shit out of me and I begged him to leave me alone. I told God that I only took this for fun, and I didn't expect contact. I didn't want to hear about my mission or my death and to please leave. And as those words left my mouth, so did he. I sat down and cried, feeling like a complete dick that I told God to leave. As I was sitting there I felt him ask me, through intuition inside my body, to dump the stash of 6 grams of dmt I had in my vial and to NEVER make it again. I thought I was whacked out on drugs, and put the idea to the side until I came down a bit. After I came down completely this idea/intuition burned inside me like a hot coal. I felt and knew what was right and what was asked of me. I left that day (Friday) to go visit my parents in my home town. I sat on this problem all weekend, and when I returned on Sunday the first thing I did when I walked into my house was dump my 6 grams down the toilet, along with about 10 gallons of bark water that was extracted. This feeling shot through my body that I knew I made the right choice, then another feeling shot through me that God was proud, and not only that he was proud, but that it was no surprise to him. Even though I battled with this concept in my head for days, I got the feeling that God knew this whole time what I would do, and I did. After I finished dumping it, I felt like i was told to contact a professor at the university I was attending at the time. I wasn't told what to say or what to do, just to ask him to meet up with me for some coffee and a chat. I felt really scared because I haven't seen or talked to this man in over a year, what was I going to tell him? What was I going to say, I had nothing? Fear rang through me, but I followed through with what I felt was asked of me and made a date to meet. I was so scared walking to our meeting, but when I got there I felt very calm. We began to talk and talk about wonderful things, this mans understanding about existence is very sound. He told me allot of things I was waiting to hear for years, things I battled with in my head for so long. It was like all the puzzle pieces I collected over the years, were suddenly put together. As I walked out of that meeting, I was dumb founded how God worked. This meeting with the professor changed my life forever, what we talked about and what I was told, that is for another thread. About 10 months later, this September, I started smelling spice randomly through out the day. Then there would be times where I would actually taste it! This happened every day for a few weeks! I kept having dreams and these feelings where I felt like I was being invited to the other side! That not only did they want me there now, but I had an invitation, and every time I tried to ignore it, I would smell spice, or taste it. I felt really confused, How do you guys expect me to come back? You told me to dump all my spice and to NEVER make it again? As the weeks went on and I kept smelling and tasting it, One night I was sitting in my buddies basement when someone pulls a folded piece of paper off the floor. They opened it up and asked, "wtf is this, its some kind of drug". I looked over and instantly knew it was dmt, and I even remembered what batch it came from, as it was a little more yellow than normal. This was spice I made like a year ago! And now laying in front of me was one 50mg dose, folded in a piece of paper? It blew me away as everything came together, the feelings I was having and now this. I was confused, was this a request or a test? So I sat on the dmt for a few months, until 3 weeks ago when I came to the conclusion after feeling it out, that I was being asked to come. So now this brings us to 3 weeks ago. It was time! I loaded my bong with weed, and laid the dmt inside it, held the lighter far above and breathed in the hot air to melt the spice into the weed, I covered that with more weed as a buffer and sat in meditation for a bit and prayed for guidance. When I felt like I was as ready as I thought I was going to be, I reached for the bong, lit the side of the bowl and moved the cherry towards the center, clearing the 62

slide with one hit. I held it in as long as I could and breathed out. At first I thought I killed the dmt because I am used to smoked dmt out of a freebase pipe. By the time u take the 2nd, 3rd or 4th hit off a pipe, you are already feeling the ones before it. Smoking it with my bong, it wasn't like that, there was a moment where I felt nothing, then it starting to come all at once. As I realized what was going on, I asked my sitter to turn off the mantra chants I had playing, and I laid back and closed my eyes. I was transported into the familiar black void, and in the distance I saw something coming at me. It was those geometrics, ribbons, snakes, what ever you want to call that multi colored cluster fuck of beauty. As it was coming at me, it was getting faster and faster, bigger and bigger. Everything in my body was telling me that I was dying, at this time I was completely engulfed with pure joy. I watched this thing come at me and slowly take away everything that was me, there was no more me, or the concept of my family, or anything else I had back in existence. I literally laughed at my self as I was dying, there wasn't a single ounce of fear going through my being. It was the most liberating feeling I have ever felt, I cant explain what its like to laugh at death, amazing. The cluster fuck became so big that I could no longer tell on the sides that I was in the black void. As it came at me I could feel the process of death almost being completed, and that pretty soon I would have no concept to hold my self to. At this final moment, I scream out "Allahu Akbar", and as I did a brilliant white laser like light pierced the multicolored vision. The light broke through and when it did, it fanned out like one of those lights at a laser show, splitting open the cluster fuck with pure light. As I lost everything, I realized All that was left, All that I had, was God. It felt amazing that I had him! I realized there was nothing left from my life but him, not even a concept of who I was. The more I thought about him and the more I laughed at death, the more the light broke apart the beautiful cluster fuck. After this I don't remember any kind of visuals, just light. I felt his presence and I knew I was with my father. Then I heard the voice tell me that I was doing the right things with my life, that I'm making the right choices and living righteously, that I'm following my path and that he was very proud of me! I was told never to stop telling everyone about him, never stop spreading his message, and never stop being his messenger. I remember screaming out, "I WILL", "I Will", with such joy shooting through my body with each reply. It was the most amazing feeling in the world, here I was sitting with the only "thing" that meant anything to me, and here it was praising me! I felt like I was a child who came home from school with a straight A report card, and that everyone in his life that he looked up to was praising and telling him how proud they were. I bathed in his love and felt so safe As it was all going away, and as the vibration of my being was coming back to this existence, I felt how gross of a vibration it is. I went from such a beautiful vibration to such a gross one and I felt it! I commented to God not to let me go back, that I wanted to stay and he replied, "Remember you agreed to this". With this I was reminded of the many times we have talked about why I am here and what I'm supposed to do, and the fact that it was my choice before I even came here. I let go a sigh of understanding and waiting for my reality to return completely. Before God left I asked him, "why are they here, I don't get it, why put them here so full of pain and misery?????", and I heard "because they don't understand love, once they understand love the way I do, they will come home". With these words, a vision was shot through my body of me a week before when I was leaving a 7-11. A huge 300 lbs thugged out dude opened the door as I was walking passed him and for some reason I felt fear, and didn't make eye contact. I was shown how even I, who prided my self on love, didn't even understand it. Look how I treated my brother, I judged him instantly. I felt tears build up in my eyes as this was shown to me, feeling that even I didn't understand love, something I prided my self on. I was told once again that I had all the pieces to the puzzle and that I didn't need to use the sacraments anymore, now it was time to put the puzzle together. As my reality returned completely I felt such joy. It was just what I needed, a pat on the back reassuring me that I was doing what I was asked and that it was pleased. Later on after this my memory was shot back to the experience I described above, the last time I tried eating spice. I realized where I was at that point, was a very dark place, my drinking had returned, and I was having relationship problems. I saw how I let someones darkness pull 63

the darkness I had inside me to the surface. I realized that I had worked all of this stuff out and the second that I did work it all out, God gave me exactly what I asked for, one last time with him. I was ready to leave it all behind me now, I had my last good bye, I had my pieces to the puzzle. Even if I never feel his presence again, I know that I am living the life he asked me, and that I am fulfilling what he wants of me. This I took as my last blessing, and the first step in putting the puzzle together. This trip made me realize even more what matters in life. I already had the concept in my head that when I die, it wont matter how much money I made, what kind of job I had, or the relationships I formed. That they would all be taken away from me at my death. But now I was shown this, I felt it. I felt that there wasn't a single thing from this existence I had, not even the concept of my life, my family, my friends, earth, there was nothing. All I had was this thing I called "God". It made me want him even more, as the next time this happens, I wont be so lucky to come back to my body. When I came back my desire for God grew ten fold, and is a feeling that grows more and more with each day. I feel truly blessed. love, peace, compassion and respect -wishy

"Untitled" I wont lie, at first I was kind of let down when I got it, my friends and I call it the "handshake". But after awhile, I learned to accept it, and also accept the humor of the creator. It took awhile to learn that my expectations were also part of the joke, and failing to understand the joke/humor as it was, was the reason I was "let down". Once you get the handshake, the point of it all is to stop thinking about it imo. Any time I get it, or the laughing face, I keep being told to go back and live that way now, with that understanding. I keep being told to stop thinking about why, and start living. The point isn't to think, its to live in the here and now. This is the gift... My reply is always, "So let me get this straight, the difference between humans and animals is the fact that we can ask why, that we can search out these mysteries? Yet when it comes down to it, with that amazing gift you have given humans, you are asking me NOT to use it? You are asking me to not think why, to not ask questions, and to just live.....????? My whole life has been based around this, now I am just supposed to stop thinking about it and why????" :lol:I always get a laugh and a nod....:lol: To me that's the grand finally to the joke, "the dark con of man" as da vinci called it, 64

and the hardest part of getting it, imho. What a knee slapper it is though, Ill give the "comedian" that much...:lol: In divine friendship, your brother, -wishy

...

This is going to be my last reply in this thread, then I am going to back out. I was late to work this morning, because I had to edit my last reply 819234 times, as to not give anything away and be as vague as possible. I wondered all day at work today if this thread should even exist, or if I over stepped with my metaphors. The handshake is a secret, the secret of secrets. I was told never to tell anyone about it, and only talk about it privately with those who have had the handshake. Its not due to the fact that only certain people should know. Its a secret and should be kept one, because its everyone's birthright to discover. You are told the joke when you are ready, not to keep it from you, but to protect you. If you are not ready for the joke, it can be a ground shattering experience, that could truly hurt, not help. Some people have a firm foundation of beliefs that define their selves for protection. Its not fair to take that away from them premature... The last thing I will say in this thread for those who do get "it", the next step is to use belief as a tool. Belief now becomes the biggest and greatest tool you have. You can choose to believe the things that help you, and when they don't help anymore, you can toss them off like clothes. you can put new beliefs on daily if you want.... The key to using belief as a tool, is to understand that in the end, you believe nothing. 65

buckAROO BANZAI
"A Trip Compilation Report (And Why I Don't Trip With Others)" People always assume the reason I don't trip with others is that they will freak out or get stupid and intrude on my trip. But that isn't the case at all. I quit tripping with other people when I realized it was ME screwing up THEIR experiences - most folks like to giggle and watch the pretty colors and just have a good time. Folks like me are a definite impediment to folks like them. Not to diss giggling and watching the pretty colors, by the way. Just don't diss my penchance for mind rending terror and soul searing pain. For whatever reason, I maintain an ability to speak with a high degree of coherence even when I am in the throes of an extreme experience - and I LIKE to talk about the unpleasant things that make me squirm and cry. That tends to become a tad annoying if your intent for the evening is pretty colors... See, I like the dark places that make my hair stand on end. One of my favorite parts about a really intense trip is the feeling of that lizard brain screaming in terror while the mammal brain sits in a full lotus and forces the issue. Sometimes the lizard wins and I scream and run around breaking stuff (this is why we keep a fully charged stun gun in the box of trip toys). Sometimes the lotus part wins and I don't move at all for hours. And sometimes - oh, the best times - I realize fundamentally that I am both parts: screaming, foaming and running away but also sitting perfectly still and serene. These are the times that I see all the before and all the after and all the iterations spiraling off into the fractal foam. Time becomes just another dimension, like depth or width, and with that realization time becomes easy to conceptualize and surpass. The fifth dimensional hypercube becomes as obvious a construct as a "normal" cube, square, line or point. Time becomes a tool of geometric expression, easily understood and manipulated...and I move past it. When I have prepared things properly and everything is going exactly according to plan, time becomes simple and obvious. The beginning and end of time, the "sphere" that surrounds and contains all of "existence," becomes a manifest thing. It is then I realize I am outside observing but also inside experiencing. I am the totality. I Am That. Those are the times I achieve and manifest the God head. Of all that is, was or ever will be - but also distinct, different and unique. This realization causes duality to fall away and I experience complete awareness and unity with all things. It is a calm place of wonder and amazement but the realization brings me awareness of a place beyond it. A miniscule imperfection becomes manifest - a barely perceivable itch. Then I immediately pursue bifurcation...separation...I look for the flaw and try to make it grow. I try to break the perfect union and oneness I am experiencing. These times are the greatest terror and the greatest joy I have been able to achieve and manifest. Standing at the edge of the known and trying to tear loose that I might hurl myself into the void; that I might go beyond what is called by some Gnosis (though it is a coarse word by comparison to what I can imagine). I have not yet been able to fling myself into that gulf. There is always a sound or a smell or a memory of some kind 66

that makes me turn my attention away for an instant. But an instant is all it takes and I am suddently thrust back inside the whirling spiral vortex of existence. I can feel the "hands" on my shoulders trying to hold me in, to hold me back from my own madness. I recognize them as those that have tried so hard and for so long, with such love and good intent, to keep me from leaving them for the certain cessation that is the void. I don't believe the void is cessation at all, but that is grist for another bread. This is always an annoying time because I for an instant remember where I was, how many times I've been there how little progress I've made in all these many lives and iterations - how much farther there is still to go. For just an instant, I maintain awareness of that potential and I lock into my cycle, my group, just as solidly as I can - that some of what I've experienced might be passed to them. And I almost always laugh to see my other aspects, so strong and certain in their grasp, so terrible in their beauty and perfection, cringe for an instant with fear/wonder coursing through them. Sometimes the ripple goes out even farther, but more often than not they contain it. And then I always cry because that means the truncheons and attempts at vicious force are just around the corner. Return to the meat machine is imminent and unavoidable; and it is in just as big a mess as it was when I left. Previously when I came back down, I would almost always try to re-dose, re-up the experience and get back...but it was almost always a dismal disappointment. I don't do that anymore. These days, when I come down, I again begin to bide my time and try to remember. I remind myself that this "life" is just as important as that "life" and that, in fact, neither can exist without the other. Then the process of reintegration begins full steam. Time starts to become a straight line again and I notice myself shrinking. I become aware that my back and knees are sore from sitting in the same position for too long. Or I tend to the cuts and bruises from flailing around. Hopefully there is a sunrise to experience in an hour or so after some quality herb and righteous sex with my wife. As the sun comes up, she will read me some of the things I said or play back some of the audio tape she recorded. I usually try to write a few things down or mumble a few things into the recorder, but the words always feel like such cheap and dirty little things. Weasels next to lions. And then I generally have some food and go to bed. This isn't every trip, it isn't even most trips. These journeys are very hard on my body and my mind and can only be attempted a handful of times every year. The fasting and meditating - the 5 or six hours of yoga a day for a week - are simply not easily integrated with "real life." But that is probably for the best, all things considered.

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TVCasualty
"Salvia Stays Potent a Very Long Time!" Last night I decided to see if an old stash of Salvia was still good. I got an ounce of straight dry leaf in 2001 and still have about 3/4 of it left, and most people who break all the way through with it can understand why. I'd stored it in the refrigerator in a plastic bag that was sealed in a tupperware container. I measured out one gram of leaf (same as my first time with it) and put it in my "sally steamroller," an old pipe a friend of mine made for me back in 1989 at the machine shop he worked in. It's a foot-long (~30cm) piece of stainless steel pipe open on both ends with a huge bowl that can hold a full gram of leaf. Anyway, I popped in some music (a recording of a guy who is expert on a didgeridoo, which seems to mesh nicely w/ Salvia), turned off the lights, and hit it. By the third hit I knew it was still good. Unlike other entheogens, where my slide into the 'spirit world' is the more difficult part of the trip, with Salvia it seems like I'm instantly transported to the outer bounds of that world, where it brushes up against the Void (pure nothingness), and it's the trip back that gets intense. Before my ego knew what was happening, I was re-living (not merely remembering) all kinds of events from when I was around 4-5 years old, which I could date because of seeing the house my family lived in back then (and moved away from when I was 6). This was all just fine and seemed perfectly natural until I 'turned around' and saw the seams of the veil between flesh and spirit, and that was when my ego suddenly realized it was on the 'wrong' side of that veil and that if I didn't get back ASAP I would risk not making it back. The seams were almost spiderweb-like lines of yellowish-gold energy that gently curved around and behind me, like I was sitting inside a dark sphere and the lines were projected on it's surface. When it began to tear, I saw it as a perfectly rectangular line that was pure white and perpendicular to all the other curved lines (possible only in tripspace), and as the tear began to open up that I knew I had to squeeze through it to get back home. I stuck my hands in it to pull it apart wider and have a dim memory of flailing my arms wildly in the dark, then my poor terrified ego remembered some trip-survival tips and focused on breathing and imagining myself lying back down (in my mind I was on my feet trying to pull apart the torn veil so I could fit through it). I finally managed to give birth to myself and eventually redisocvered my hands, which I used to turn the light back on. I'd ended up laying in my bed 90 degrees off from where I started (but fortunately I was still on my bed!). The Saliva in my bowl was still green on top, so it turns out that I'd only smoked about a third of that gram. From the moment I fired up my butane torch, this whole thing took 7 minutes. I did this after waking up to take a leak at 1am, since I've found that my state of mind immediately after waking up in the middle of the night is very relaxed and well suited to this kind of thing, plus it's dark and quiet (the Moon wasn't hitting my window yet). My first thought after getting most of the way back was to wonder if I'd been yelling out loud while I was flailing around, but none of my neighbors' lights were on, lol. So, it seems that Salvia lasts a long, long time in the fridge and as I sat there on my porch afterwards
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watching the Moon come up (still shaking a bit from the intensity of it all) I thought that I should post a thread here about it today. All day today so far I've been feeling like I took a month-long vacation to Europe or something; I'd traveled a very long way and am feeling that peculiar sense of relief and contentedness that comes from finally getting back to someplace familiar. I think Salvia can bust people out of mental ruts faster and possibly more effectively than MDMA, probably because Sally doens't sugar coat anything or pull any punches. Thanks again, Sally! :bow:

...

My very first time with salvia was the only other trip that was as out there as this recent one, and I'd say my first trip was a bit stronger. That time, returning to my body felt like putting on clothes that were too tight and restricted my movement, and I definitely wanted to keep floating totally unencumbered in the Void but sobered up anyway. I'd started a stopwatch when I lit that first bowl, and when I was back I stopped it and at first thought it said four hours had passed which seemed very plausible to me, but when I looked closer I saw it really said four minutes had passed, which wasn't plausible at all! Either way, it ended way too soon that night. A few other less intense voyages had me wanting to get back but I wasn't in a big hurry to do so, and I've never felt like I was going insane or would stay that way permanently (I have on mushrooms though). It was more a sense of being conscious and sane in an insane place, which may be a distinction without a difference (it's kind of hard to tell).

Oblivion: Oh yeah, Sally eats tough guys and self-described psychedelic messiahs for breakfast, as they soon discover. It may even be a cure for hubris in general, but unfortunately the people who need it most will likely never try it. I also noticed that it seems to act as an inoculation against worrying or possibly even phobias because there are very few experiences in the physical world that are as freaky as salvia can be, so when we get back all our temporal concerns and worries seem trite and insignificant in comparison. Well, at least mine do. When things get intense in the physical, we often automatically dissociate as a self-protection mechanism (for example, anyone who has encountered a brutal accident scene and helped retrieve scattered body parts or carry bodies around tends to not 'be there' while doing it and they often describe acting 'mechanically' and 'watching themselves doing it from a distance,' which is a textbook case of dissociation) but with salvia we can encounter things that would normally cause us to slip into a dissociative state except we're already in one, so there's no place to hide until it's over. Or something like that.

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DARCI
"Just a Girl, She Said"
Chapter 1 Just a girl, she said

An iron beast rips through the sky, tearing open the horizon. A dark spear - a technological arrow in flight sends sonic waves through the atmosphere terrifying houses below, as waves of trepidation course through channels of the military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union. Green-suited mole-warriors skitter about their bunkers. Urgent calls are made, further arrows fly to the edge of space in an effort to bring this bird down.

This black angel was the vessel my father used to carry him over enemy territory. Colloquially, it was called the "SR71 Blackbird."

Myself, I am just a girl. I have lived my entire life in the shadow of a hero. A stern-faced clasped-fist fighter, keen and intelligent and so sure of himself that everyone around him doubted who they were. I did. I was bulldozed by the presence of his aura. His name always preceded me. I was the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel James Arthur Cunningham; never did anyone refer to me as "Darci." Darci, the quiet one. Darci, the pretty one. Darci, the one who should be married by now. Darci, bearing babies.

There were informal gatherings at our home in Colleyville, Texas. A suburb of the Dallas / Fort-Worth area, and a finding-place of the upwardly-mobile, the flesh-frying at barbecues, the self-defined clever, lucky, and criminal. Expensive affairs, drug-users, and fishnet-stocking-wearing men hid among the quaint and quiet sodium-vaporlamp-illuminated suburbia. The brick facade and landscaping of our home threw domestic and comfortable fengshui unto guests as one would splatter paint randomly upon blank canvasses. I was introduced to colleagues, coworkers, sons of mothers who dealt in paperweights filing files reporting what heroes did. I made my smiles inside me, carried them unto the surface of my skin, and retreated to my bedroom as early as socially possible. I could not bear another introduction to one of these cock-wielding abstinents.

I get ahead of myself. I was once sixteen. And to tell you something about this would mean that I would have something to say. But at this age, I must confess I knew very little, or nothing. I was programmed with emotions, intuition, and instinct. I reacted strongly, unaware that the evolution of culture and society was making every pretense within me either irrelevant, inappropriate, or obsolete. And yet, I knew the things that I felt were still true. Either something was wrong with the universe, or there was something wrong with me.

The rest of my life, including the now, I remember much as one would when reading diary entries. And in fact, my diary is the well from which my pen draws its ink as I compile the rest of this narrative. Chapter 2

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God, I'm coming

Do not read.

I. Am. Not... safe for work. The images I describe are not appropriate for any forum, conversation, physical representation, or mind. What is written herein I declare unpublishable. To be ignored. Remember your Christian virtues. Carry yourselves shields of righteousness, bear them high to fend off the evil that I, and my partner Satan volley at you here: my twisted, dark, convoluted, innavigable story-telling.

(Yet, you read on...)

About me: I am now 26 years old. I have loved one man in my life. Had sex twice. Once with John, once with someone I don't care to name.

Though I am an educated woman (and still young enough) I am old enough to know better than to still feel ashamed. Yet, I am ashamed. For what? That which is ultimately natural, and human, and in accordance with nature? Why does that which creates life make me fear as much of living as I fear of dying? John didn't make me feel dead. Rather, alive more than ever. It was his cloud that hovered over me, following me like some brooding devil-spy in contract with God. Colored with the fear of never securing his love, and for not achieving this not for his confession that he cannot live without me, not for his proposal for marriage, not for at least his eternal infatuation if we were to be two lusty un-married creatures frolicking carelessly away from the eyes of all who see on This Earth. Instead, I was going to be held accountable for my sin of love by he who is responsible for creation. This was my fear. I was raised Christian.

White Anglo Saxon Protestant. I was told that sex was a filthy, ugly, dirty, sinful thing you save for the one you love. The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming.

Was God an old man, drunk on whiskey and pride fathered from the fear of his peers (due to his brutality) retiring to his calculation rooms as a Nazi scientist does... with chalkboards, measuring sin so that he may decide the quantity of suffering deserved in payment for all of our misunderstandings in our emulation of what is divine? Does not punishment only add insult to injury? What more can anyone learn in hell?

Wouldn't a wise father, rather than punish - teach?

I hesitate to use the words "Christian" or "morality" or "religion" because these words are sacrosanct in our culture. But these words are also hypocritical. Christianity taught me new ways to lie.

I lied when I said to the world around me (through silence:) "None of this matters to me. I shall be content to live alone." This phrase, when spoken, rhymed very much with: "John will never love me."

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I lied when I looked away from a boy when I was 14, afraid he would see me staring at the thick brush of his eyebrows and dark penetrating eyes. I saw him: a strand, a reed swaying in the storm, his midnight hair bounding miracles into the chaos of uncertainty, (the cruel, unjust nature of the world) making order and pattern and music and poetry that I saw every time I hovered near the stairway of our junior-high school to watch him bound effortlessly with the energy of his quadriceps. He ascended realms that he possessed not through conquer, but willing acquiescence. Gracefully. Within the arms of such organized chaos I wanted to be cradled. Obliterated. Carried. Lost.

Or something.

I lied when I pretended that I was like other girls, and associated with them, and played at words among their social dialogues and triviality. In truth, all of my communiqus were insincere. Emulations. I cared not for shampoos and gossip and spreading yourself thin before making something of what you are.

And irrelevant to all these things is the swell of random shit that interjects itself so often in my mind, such as: Why did my father move us sixteen times by the time I was sixteen? How was I to hold on to any friends? If anyone knew that this is what a military career had to offer, I don't think they would be signing on the dotted line. Why would a seed choose to take root in unstable soil?

The military makes a career of lies. The alphabet agencies deal in currencies of deception, in insincere favors, and sign promises with disappearing ink. They think they are clever. In their hubris, it never occurred to them that the truth might get them farther.

I lied. I took the poison of my culture. My father. I breathed the atmosphere of my socio-political environment. They were Gods. I absorbed them through osmosis and became hypocrisy. I kept my feelings close, and in an hour spent a lifetime pretending.

I lied when I moved in darkness. It was only in dance, on drugs, writhing through the air against the pressing shockwaves of music that throbbed in rhythm, around me, through me, inside me, tearing me down, rebuilding me again, making me pure in my impropriety, that I became true. Making me blush, giving me goosebumps, forcing my soul to pour forth through my salty eyes. Leaving me alone at the end of the night because I found no-one else sharing my pain. Or the note I needed. I am an unfinished chord, lacking a finger to press the key. I need another. Does this mean I'm selfish? Unseeing of the needs of others? How do you give to others when you have not enough for yourself? Am I so chicken-shit that I cannot benefit from charity? They say that giving is reward. I would not give a blowjob to achieve sexual/spiritual satisfaction. I know that this is an empty road. I would not give a penny.

I lied when I wore their clothing. The clothing I was supposed to wear. The things that covered me, to conceal the shame of Eve as she was in the garden: Pink, or pale hues that were faint and transparent or feminine. I wore shadows purposefully. If not in dress, then in aura. My aura was violet and gray. Sometimes black. Not my dress. People stared at the bright surface of me. I wore invisible cuffs, and God still had me on probation for my lust and crime I have yet to commit. Because God knows the future.

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I wear a prison suit. Upon my skin are borne tattoos. I am not a sailor, nor do I have a clue how to fix a motorcycle. I am not incarcerated, nor am I a boy. I'm a girl. But I stand in defiance of myself. I contradict myself, if only to say that thou shalt not define me. As much as I proclaim what I am, I feel the hubris and hearsay and pale fruitings of my dream. What I mean to myself is in defiance of what I am told I am supposed to be. Am I in conflict with nature, or is nature in conflict with me? Or I, with myself?

(Why?)

We believe that sane people are self-serving. Considering that I do not take the short-cut, that I do not habitually grasp the obvious, that I doubt myself, that I turn awareness on its head insisting that I'm sure of what I see... considering all of this, what does it say of trust? Do I trust my senses? The world? What is said to me? So much doubt... isn't bliss somewhere between riding the wave, and not knowing of it?

I keep looking in the mirror. I don't know what fields I have reaped from my appearance yet, since they be so few... but I am aware of tiny wrinkles. I see within my skin a growing divide between myself and what I remember myself to be. Are we not all children? Or would that make us all pedophiles? I want a man who is like a father. Strong. Secure. Trusted. I want a man who is like family. Predisposed to mutual ends. Does this make me immature, or incestuous?

I have felt in contest with the stronger sex. I want to be recognized as equal. Capable. I want others to know who and what I am. I want them to see my strength, my possibilities. I am as much as any of those inflated egos think they are, however few of them are willing to hire me to do... anything. Whatever cars they drive. How many mistresses they have.

I stand in the shadow of a hero, who only creates ghosts of men.

"Men" run this world. With their delusions of importance. Their acquisitions. Their sense of being someone by making other people into nothing. Having too-few zeroes on your bank statement makes you less than a full human being. Who would listen to your heartache if you are not accomplished? It's a sin to be crazy, but if you're rich and crazy you are "In-ter-est-ing."

I don't want to be "hired". I shall not participate in their socioeconomic structures, to achieve their goals which are hidden from the minds lacking the evil to imagine what they are being used for. What I seek is more sinister than they can be. More contrary to their plans than their calculations can predict. I shall undermine their goals, with or without finance or capital.

I shall be the invisible motive, impetus, and force of diabolical empires working against them. That which guides without the visibility of the hand. I make those who care abandon themselves to carelessness. I am the taint, the poison, the tincture which corrupts the corrupted forcing its path towards the novel, and divine.

I am always clever in my femininity.

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I am strong. I am strong! I am the branches that do not break in the fell breeze. I am the trunk, the strong-rooted load-bearing bough that plows its way through the winds and rivers of time, through corrupted culture, through the misused musings of history perverted by perverts and despots and dictators. I am that which sunders their longterm plans under a soil of caring and forgiveness. I shall destroy with love. I brew something new, and alter the soil their feet stand upon. Their seed shall sprout traitors, thieves and spies. They salt the earth so plants will not grow, but with my tears I shall create fertile mysteries wielding forests and dreams they cannot understand.

No man is a man. No man is a man without his relation to femininity. I am that which men are measured against.

How many of me have your honest adoration? How many of me would take your cock into my mouth, without payment? How many of me, or only one (my only self)... would part her lips to ever smile at you or allow you inside her heart?

Only if...

You are gentle in your strength. Incorruptible. Honest in your sin. Your failing and error are virtue, and divine. You tried. You would never lie... to me.

You give what is of yourself, not of others. Not on the labor of your slaves. That which I measure is not your length or girth, but of the wide-open and vast seas of your spirit. Your spirit turns my cock hard. Not your sex. Your soul gives your cum motive. Not your fluid. I am the echo, and you the voice. Your song, my vast open divide. You hear me in the reply. My emptiness. Fill me with your music.

Your mystery parts the world into that which you defend and that which you deny. What your energy cultivates grows, blossoms, and blooms. I am your flower. In the nighttime, your fog forms as dew on my petals. Your water nourishes me, and I drink and turn my face toward your sun.

Oh me, my loneliness, my despair, my lack of structure, strength, my overwhelming emptiness waiting to be filled with something that is real. My need to be held. My need to be surrounded, wrapped in steel, to fall upon pliable and loving strength, the sweet sweat of masculine perfume, the laughing, loving, magnificent, rough-soft-plunder of nighttime which gives meaning to the light of day.

Is this my quest for God or for a man?

And as for the mushroom, I have one thing to say to you tonight. I asked you for a measure of something pleasurable. Instead, you focused on me as a laser does. Or a microscope and forced me to see what I know but look away from. I shall someday forgive you, when I can assimilate this naked truth. You clever, evil, loving little demons.

What purpose is this for me? Oh, not again... is there something to learn of this when you keep repeating yourself? I say to the mirror. To the tremor. To the echo, within myself. 74

Chapter ? ?

Ssssh.... ssssh... it's a bad dream. Wake up. Wake up!

Words spoken to my brother while he was sleepwalking. Mom seemed to genuinely care that he was experiencing a kind of distress, but I wondered if she elicited the result more for her own convenience.

My brother, a slightly-famous person today, was once a child, like all of us were. When he was young he had persistent episodes of noctambulism, which, of course, does not adequately describe the experience for either the person who has this sleep disorder, or the people around them who have to deal with the bizarre experience of a person who seems to be awake but is asleep.

He stared right through me. He said Dad's been hurt. He broke his glasses! Mom! I was not his mother. He did not recognize me.

I had no idea what he was talking about. Myself only 9 years of age, took cues from my mother and believed that what was happening was endurable. He was dreaming while his mind was still in control of his body.

Ordinarily during sleep there is a disconnect between the consciousness and the somatic nervous system of the body. During REM stages, the actions you take within your psyche are not usually carried out in the material world. Some study has been taken to determine if a chemical factor is involved which essentially severs the brain stem during sleep, so that the signals which would cause our muscles to twitch never reach their destination. For my bother, the lines of communication were still functioning, even while he was well within his dreams.

Wake up!

Futile were the exclamations. He plopped down on a blanket in the living room, continuing to mutter while my mother tried to hold him still.

Some minutes passed. He calmed, and the rest of the night eventually passed away in silence.

I try to forget my point here. The fact... the undeniable fact that my mother locked my brother in his bedroom at night. From the outside, his bedroom door was locked, my mother kept the only key. To protect him. I found him outside our door one morning, soaked with rain, telling me (and I was not sure if he was still dreaming or awake) that he dreamt he could walk through walls. We found him outside that night, without a key.

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Chapter ? ?

We long for ecstasy. All of our dreams are attempts of revelation. We go to church, chasing promises that we might be delivered glimpses of the divine. That our wounds might find a salve which provides healing. Our masochism keeps us searching long after we should have learned where the mystery is not.

Perhaps it requires a kind of surrender. To acquiesce to the idea that we are not our masters; that in fact we are but sea-life caught up in the tides of destiny. And though I am a firm believer in our ability to shape our future, I sense that there are some things that are, and there are some things that are never to be.

And John said to me If you do or don't, I will be the same. He said this with a genuine smile. His body was already turned in the direction of new perceived interest. What it was, I do not know, because he merely sat down in his chair. I wanted to stop time, to obliterate the table between us. To tear the chair away and throw it beneath the bowels of reality and make it disappear. To draw a curtain of privacy around our frozen moment in time, and build empires of apologies for a transgression my heart, my hormones, and my body wished for. It happened in the blink of an eye.

It didn't happen.

Chapter 5 metaphor

Chapter ? It is not enough to know

Knowledge is static. It can be contained within encyclopedias. If knowledge were power, then books would rule the world, not kings.

What makes the difference between a pawn and royalty has less to do with brains than balls.

I sat at the altar. Before me was a shrine. A simple organism which builds no karmic negativity. It feeds on dead matter. Harms no animal. Eats no flesh. What can it teach me of truer existence?

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I prayed. "I want to know."

It answered: "How deep do you want to go?"

I said.

I... said:

"Obliterate... me."
What followed was an eternity of silence.

For two hours the mushroom said nothing. I felt its coming presence like a storm. Myself, still safe within my spiritual domicile, I stared out the window at the foreboding sky, knowing I was about to be assailed by thunder and lightning like I had never seen. It was as if the mushroom was assembling its words in an underground bunker, safe from espionage, concealed from light, existing but inconceivable in its obsidian darkness. Silence came, and silence followed, and I saw the mind beyond the veil becoming manifest. The curtains were drawn, but behind them I knew there was a god strong enough to say the unspeakable.

Oh, the vibration. The walls fell. The song of space permeated through everything. Liquid emptiness dripped from my boundaries as they dissolved. I realized the vastness beyond our self-imposed limitations.

Silence. Silence. The silence of everything.

I paused.

Something was built. And terror.

FLOOD.

In the blink of an eye, I was forced through the pages of an encyclopedia. All of them. My mind's eye penetrated through every page like a spear. It said "Aha! You think you can wield this? You think you are strong? You think that you are wanting? Show me how sincerely you are when you say, 'I am ready.'

I said, staggering, half-obliterated: "Again. Please."

It heard my request, and recompiled the program. I felt the energy of it already assembled, because it was knowing

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that I had already requested a second volley (a sort of precognition). In half a moment, I was drowned in a multiplied flood.

I was filled with visionary knowledge exploding in fast-forward fireworks of abrupt and startling imagery. I saw pages which were diagrams of how to build extraterrestrial spacecraft, models of anatomy, maps of conscious thought processes, how to re-imprint matter with new properties. I was told stories of the rise and fall of civilizations, alien and our own. I was swept apart as so many atoms carried on solar winds through the space between the stars... having memory of their origins and plans for their futures. Every molecule's will will be done when it arrives. Somehow, every nuance and speck of everything that is... knew exactly where to be.

Grappling futile-ly with the immense, our conversation was interrupted by a vision of the grotesque mask of a fourteenth-century Japanese warrior. I said "I know you. I'm not afraid of you. You are me." It disappeared.

The more truth I find, the more uncertainty I discover. I would tell you these things, but there is so much unknowing. All my words fail. Effort subverts itself.

As the music was fading, I heard the echoes of something, which coalesced finally into words: Where do I go from here? The answer is frightening. And beautiful. And can never be said.

"Entity Possession, Failure To Launch, Time Travel, and the God-Mind"

i have started a new job recently. i may appear peaceful and calm on the outside, but inside my mind are oceans of uncertainty. i feel my ship springing leaks, pirates at the helm, and a storm threatening to carry me to the bottom of the sea. my diary entry:

07-29-2011 dear diary, i've been facing a wall. i cannot calm my anxiety. thought i would drink a couple of coronas to soften it up and get sleepy. as the hours press deeper into the night, the need for rest weighs on me imperatively and with urgency. how does a motivated consciousness force its own surrender? 78

beer is having its usual effect, though not therapeutic. always at the periphery of my consciousness lies the awareness that i have a little plastic box in the corner of my bedroom with a white cake inside it sprouting innocuous little umbrellas. i peek in on it daily, anticipating... eyes beaming with pride. many times i look on them and say "my boys are getting so big! just look at you all!" i feel them smile back at me, and anticipation builds. and of course, this night carried their siren's song. at eight o'clock i knew it was a bad idea to partake of my little friends, so i maintained my restraint. but now it's 9:30 and my anxiety is becoming overwhelming. i need something new, but that old intoxicated friend says things to me i've heard too many times before. i am desperately trying, but i cannot get drunk. i think of something else. that song. that song. those promises. the mystery. the unknown. i am allured by the fear. i am aroused by the danger. i can't stand it any longer. i take the plunge. strain: penis envy. weight: 20 grams, fresh. i plucked the little half-domes with their stalks, put them into my mouth, chewed, and chased them down with a swig of yellow liquid. i felt a "thank you" from them immediately. i thanked them back, and we hadn't even begun our real conversation yet. time is passing. passed. did. (what?) uhoh... it's happening. i tend to diddle. the tryptamine agitation makes itself aware. i pace the house, and attempt to put away the little things and organize my makeup bag. it's that feeling that i have to make sure the stove is off, the front door is locked, and that i remembered to put away the knives. having been here before, i said "ok, all is taken care of tonight. time to put the music on and lie down. it's time to be still." ...and now i'm suddenly realizing that the rest of this diary entry will be written in the future. coming back. it's over. it was yesterday. today. remember. remember! the two states of mind - sober and "drugged" (regarded as such) - tend to keep their memories separate. i will attempt to merge the two. back in time, back in time. remember... the state, the feeling, the energy. the music. the dance. ah yes, i remember now. yes. oh, gawd... i feel so sexy. now, the beginning: as the phallic vegetables were coming on to me, i fiddled with a playlist or two. some synthetic notes and throbbing bass lines worked their way through the air into my body, spreading delight across my skin and and penetrating deep into my flesh. the mental lights, patterns, and colors swirl, and then the space opens up around me. the crude and clumsy physical world is thrown asunder. then SHE came. her voice began with a song. it spoke through the music i was hearing. the artist was "vas" and the song title was "sunyata." she whispered something to me, though not with words. it was something like.... "dancemusicsexlovewantingyourselfothersalllifegivereceiveartthrobbingemotioncreatelivedie. this is what i'll 79

teach you." she was dark-skinned, an ancient creature lost to history. she was the courtesan and dancer of a pharaoh, or an aztec emperor. i cannot be certain. but she was graceful, toned, long-legged, dark, filled with/emanating the essence of sexuality. the vibration of my body was adapted by the mushroom to that of her incorporeal essence. i began to quiver and shake, my spirit radiating out a vibratory energy, my spine thrusting into the nothing as our soul bodies became synchronized. she fell like a descending angel into my space, and made her home within. at first i reacted with stiff, unknowing puppet-moves, but time saw us became one as i was compelled and suddenly understood... ...how to dance. i was soon aware of my clothing. it didn't feel right. were i only myself, i would have just thrown it off - but she stopped me. she said "no, this is part of the art." i was shown how to use my clothing to tease. although i was alone, i felt the presence of an audience. i became the graceful slut to the lord of ancient empires. i danced. i moved. my body swayed in tune with the timing of the music, my arms slithered through the air around me, and my legs and feet teased my invisible guests through their motion and hints of desire. perfect timing, calculated motion, and understanding of my own body became as natural as breathing. entwined among my arms i cradled a serpent, its threat and predatory nature subdued by the beauty of my motion. i touched myself and in turn the eyes all around me touched me, dancing across my skin, probing deep into my sex, full of longing and unrequited desire. a ghostly audience surrounded me, scarcely restraining their lust. had one of my dimensional denizens touched me, i knew the pharaoh would have had them slain. as the song ended, my dance KNEW the moment, and concluded in finale. like a symphony building to crescendo, with musical and artistic and erotic precognition i felt the song reaching a punctuated ending, and with utmost grace and perfect poise my body climaxed in motion i never knew possible. i felt the cheer and approval of my spectral audience. i smiled, and gave a coy and humble bow. the dancer kissed my cheek, and disappeared into the aether. i slumped to the ground, my clumsy old self, but trembling with delight at what she showed me. i believe i learned something this night, and one day will dance like this again - on my own.

7-30-2011 what's my problem? why can't i exercise restraint? "i won't pick the big one. i want it for this weekend. just a few of the little ones... 18 grams fresh. that'll be enough. ok, go!" nothing. they said so even before i touched them. i knew it. "not tonight." i didn't listen. now, i'm caught in a box full of energy with no pattern. nothing is taking shape. i feel it near me, in me, but can do nothing with it. when you take mushrooms, it's different every time. what you also learn is that you are not the sole determinant of what will happen. it requires THEIR cooperation. you are part of an interaction, not just a witness. if they are not in the mood, then you're left to simply fuck yourself. and that's no fun at all. this night sucked. i thought about taking more, but they said it will only make me more frustrated. 80

now i have a gigawatt of energy just melting in my mouth, with nowhere to go. what a waste. i forgot respect. i didn't say my prayers tonight. i didn't give it time. i didn't reach a new understanding, have any plan or reason, other than being bored. now i am truly sorry. oh, how i feel so alone tonight.

9-3-2011 dear diary, i cannot write you while it is happening. i want you to be there, i want to share with you, but alas, you cannot eat mushrooms. you're only cellulose and leather. you have no mouth. do you have ears? perhaps, a mind? who am i talking to, anyway... i think perhaps what finds its way onto your pages are the ideas i'm really sending to... them. thirty grams, fresh. i guess that makes an ounce. if fresh shrooms are 1/10th as strong as the little cracker-dry ones, then that makes 3 grams. but this is penis envy, which i have heard is strong (although i don't have enough experience myself to confirm this rumor) and i have also heard that fresh shrooms are more potent for the reason of being fresh. if my meat/brain calculator is correct, this still amounts to only half the dose i took the very first time i took mushrooms. regardless, what happened last night will be in my memory as long as i live. here we go. i'll take you there: (forgive my crude words.) what a stuffy cake. shrooms popping out all over the place. i'm so proud of you guys. you've grown up so big and (hopefully) strong! i feel bad for taking you from this place, masticating you, and digesting you with my acids and enzymes. but i do remember you telling me once that it's okay to eat you. because it's the symbiotic gift you give to us in exchange for us spreading you far and wide - physically, consciously, metaphorically, spiritually, temporally. you have an interesting way of procreating. we just have sex. ok, i'm clearing this entire cake. and the smaller buds off that one. yes, i know i was saving that for later, but there is no time like the present moment, and i'm gathering it all together because i want there to be no doubt: i couldn't commit any more to this night than i have already done. 30.5 grams. hoowah. 81

munch, munch, much. not quite portabello, not quite nauseating. it's okay. throw a double shot of everclear and green tea down the hatch, and we're good to go. time. time passes. everything. it is. all. vibration. oh, god. it's coming. my mental eyes open wide.

an energy drone stirs from throughout the universe, carrying a parcel with my address on it. it speaks to me. the electricity finds the tendrils of my nervous system, and begin to tingle upward through my spine. once found, like a crazed and starving predator, the fractal shape of my neurons begin to feed on the waves. it drinks from the fountain of the infinite. symphonic movements surge through me. one, two... three. then another. and another. they become a drum-beat. ah! ah! drum drum drum... da da da, WHOOSH WHOOSH and then, just like the slow-motion radiating sphere of a thermonuclear detonation i feel the entire world pushed away from me as the fault opens up to the netherworld. my consciousness defines its radius. i see stars in the distance, and can feel the essence of all the blackness, the dark energy of silence around me. each point of light sings a different song. i have arrived in... THE DOME. breathe. breathe. no. i forgot my lungs. where are they? i can't feel my heartbeat. all is filled with a warm thrum. i am out-of-body. i am here. i am there. everywhere. i touch a star. the edge of my spiritual fingertip lightly touches it; it's tingling. it gives forth a song. i giggle. i pull away, and i am back in perfect, penetrating, ethereal silence. there is a glow of the god-mind near me. i haven't taken enough to see it, but i know it's there. now we play the game of metaphors. a ship sails out of the blackness and stops before me. it is a wooden vessel from the 1700's. it flies the flag of a skull and crossbones. i board it anyway. off we go. we fall into a funnel of memory and time. the navigator guides our course as if knowing these oceans, and i give my trust to him. we arrive at our destination, which is a box, with a ribbon around it. it is not opened; instead, unfolded. it becomes the home myself and my parents lived in when i was 3 years old. it is forgotten and distant, but all-at-once familiar. i know every step of this place. i can smell it. i can feel the dimensionality of its walls. i was here. i was there. i am a child again. small, innocent, vulnerable. unknowing of adult things. i hear a sound down the hallway. it is strange, and reeks of danger, but pulls with an irresistible gravity. it rhymes 82

with breath, and heartbeats, and sweat and prayer. what is it? i must know. i come to the threshold, the doorway of this room, and an impenetrable barrier confronts me. i must enter, but the fear of knowing has created an impasse. i know, but i don't know. i must see but i cannot see. i cry, i beg, i plead. i ask the witness around me, someone who might be God "what is in there? why must i see this? i don't want to. i can't." it said "you must." "no! no. nooooo...... oh, god... wha... why, what is... i can't. aaaahhhh..... " i sensed what i was about to see. i cried for a few minutes. in the real world, from a sober mind, you would have seen me weeping and clawing at the floor of my hallway. the voice kept telling me "you will." i. would. see. i gathered my strength, all the fear fell away in a niagra of weightlessness, and i stood up. i walked into my bedroom (which, in this experience, was my parent's bedroom circa 24 years ago) and gazed upon something awful. there my mother was, being fucked by a man who my dad worked for. what... the... fuck. i had no idea what to say or do. i mentally eked out the question, "why?" an answer came: "because she was lonely. just like you." and then i understood my mother's infidelity. it's not always a conscious, well-thought-out act. it's not always meaningful. i understood that moment as just something that was done to fill an empty space in time. it was meaningless. my mom cheated on my dad. i also knew (without going through a similar process of seeing my father) that my father had cheated on my mom. they were both confused, lost, and wanting of meaning. my parents are older than i am. chronologically. but i see that they are somewhere different in their spiritual development from where i am. no one is better or further along. we have our own struggles, and our map branches out into an infinite number of places. we can find similarities, but we are all just different. i understood. i forgave my parents for what they did. i forgave them for the pain that it caused me, even though i never knew in a "factual" sense what had happened. i forgave them for the sense of unbelonging, the ungrounded, the missing and empty and confused emotions i felt as a child. there was something in the atmosphere of my youth that left a hole in me, even though i could never quite put my finger on it. now i know. how long i cried over this, who can tell? in this place time has no meaning. so, recovering from this onslaught, and centering myself back within my spiritual median, i asked, "why did you show me this?" silly question. i knew the absurdity of it even as the thought manifested itself. but, for sake of completeness, i will give the reply: 83

"there was/is no i, no it, no other. all is "we"" i talked to myself. strange to think you're carrying on a conversation with another, only it is always you that replies. as i continued to probe the library of the universe, the answers flowed through me. my voice became not words but repeated grunts, groans, and shouted whispers. many times i spoke one or two-word phrases, full of meaning, such as "weeeeee... creaaaate." then took my hand into a fist, then slapped the meaty thumb-side of my fist to my forehead, stretched my arms and fingers out into the infinite space in front of me, and exclaimed "aaaaaaaahhhhh..... " rapid succession: "and we create" - slam head - "aaaaaahhhh...." "all together" - clapped hands - outstretched arms - "aaaaaahhhh...." "and it becomes" - bang the floor - reach for the sky - "oooooooohhhhhh...." deep breath. "is. us." deep breath. "inhale the god. we. together. is. everything." quiver. mental orgasm. "exhaaaaaaaale the knowledgeaaaaahhhhhh....." "wecreateitallyouandithemustofeverythinglifedeathgreendirtplantblueskylovefearlifedeathdramaevilstarslightdar knesspainmakespleasuremusicmindmakesseverythingrealandbecomesforever" collapse. weeping. weeping.

beautiful.

yes. i knew this. the glittering silent space of the infinite glowed through me. i had my answer, so i turned it all off. perfect. silent. still. i listened to my breath exhale. in the brownian motion of the molecules of the heat of my exhaled breath i heard myself ask more. what.am.i.where.doibelong.show.me.my.name.what.is. meaning.truth.give "I AM (YOU) I CANNOT GIVE WHAT YOU POSSESS" "LISTEN TO YOURSELF. SEE." And suddenly i was a man. I was a man about twenty-five years old, olive-skin, carrying a bow and wearing animal skins. I had a "wife" slightly younger than my age. I was hunting for food. 84

I felt the essence of manhood. Provider. I felt the gathering of strength into my lungs, coursing though the tension of my muscles, and screamed, out loud, in this real world, a world-shattering growl as I hurled a spear at a wild animal. I knew that the flux of energy and matter through the universe takes a natural course, from animal, to food, to man, to thought, to ideas, to creation of worlds. Through child, passing on legacy, and the vibration of this material knowledge becomes imprinted on DNA. And it is carried on through time. Slap. Forehead. "We. Become." I. Know. "aaaaahhhh....." "Think. Create. (And we) Become." Arms outstretched: No more than this. The everything. Slam head. Stretch out arms toward forever. "Aaaaaahhhhhh...." Close limbs into an egg. My body on my knees. Hands reaching for sky, I grappled the fabric of these ideas down to me, placed them on my lap, arched forward, and whispered: I am. We. Us. Forever. I knew what it was to be.

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Becometheother
"Shroomhuasca Breakthrough Shpongletron BTO" A few weeks ago we set off to Colorado, to see sphongletron at the mishawaka ampitheatre, located in the beautiful Poudre canyon. We rented a isolated cabin by the river right in the Poudre canyon, at a very small and cozy, homely little campground.. The crew included, my wifey, best friend, my sister, her friend J, and myself. (My sister came last min, and im beyond glad we were able to share this experience) Now fast forward to Friday night, the plan was for me and my friend to drink some tea (clear mimosa style) at the concert, so we brought the tea, and capped rue into the venue with us. My wifey, sister and her friend were eager to trip for this event, and kept pressuring me to find them mushrooms, so I obliged and quickly found the same fellow I bought mushroom choco's from last time we saw shpongletron in Colorado (which was quite amazing itself) I bought a half oz. of chocos from him. Upon getting the mushrooms, my friend (L) suggests instead of the tea, we do the mushrooms, and combine them with the rue, and I agree to this. We had 1/2 oz. L and I both ate an 8th, and 4 grams of rue each. The remaining 1/4 oz, was divided 3 ways between my sister, her friend, and wifey. (no rue for them, lol) If youve done shroomhuasca, you know this is a big dose, exp. for this type of event, I was apprehensive about the dose, but my friend just quickly munched them down, and took the caps right away, so i didn't want to leave him hanging, so i followed suit. Enter experience: Im just waiting for things to really get going, grooving out and dancing to Random Rab, the opener, whom i quite enjoy, when I noticed that my sister was clearly having a difficult time. She looked a little ill, hot sweaty, nervous, (you all know the feeling). I could tell the environment was getting to her, and some quite paranoid bad trip scenarios started running through my mind about the possible things that could go wrong. (lol and i ran through a lot of these scenarios in my head, including her getting apprehended by security for freaking out, cops getting called, trouble ensuing, and then how angry my mother would be at me for dosing my sis, lol) I was unable to enjoy it at first, way to worried about sis. I sat down next to her, I told her it will pass i promise, in a few hours you will be normal. You need to let go and free your mind and not judge the experience and just go with it, try to enjoy it, You know, all that jazz ;) At the same time i was coming up something powerful! Then I heard Rab end and Shpongle take the stage, and i could hear the opening calling me... Still too worried to leave sis and friend, I say STAY RIGHT HERE!! DO NOT MOVE. I will be back very shortly to make sure your fine. Wifey and i started heading for stage, then i went back to again re-iterate STAY HERE ITS IMPORTANT. The opening was amazing, and i immediately recognized it. It wasn't a Shpongle song, but Ozric Tentacles (my all 86

time favorite) song called Strangeitude. (a great ozric song, check it out) The song was one of my favorites, There was some older new age looking guy dancing incredibly strangely to it, very freaky and cool, lol. But still unable to enjoy things, i asked wifey to go check on my sister and friend. She quickly returned "They are not there". FUCK not good i thought. Again very paranoid shit ran through my mind, and i was genuinely pissed at her for leaving, and worried at the same time. I couldnt take it and was about to depart on a random and hopeless search through the huge croud for my sister, when to my left about 20 feet away I spotted them. They had smiles on their faces and were dancing. Instantly all the worries, apprehension, and paranoia melted away, and I felt so relieved, like a huge weight was lifted off me. I went to talk to her, and her incredibly bubbly and talkative friend J, was exploding to tell me how she calmed her down, and now they were both having the best time of their lives and, like omg, this is amazing and, blahblah like omg bloah blah blah. I could tell J was simultaneously annoying my sis, and grounding her and making her feel better and enjoy herself, Lol it was quite funny lol they were both reeling, so i brought them back to our little group, and let them do their thing. They were having a blast and having their (fairly virgin to psychedelics) minds blown. I was proud of my sis for quickly getting on top of it! Then DMT (divine moments of truth) came on and I was finally able to settle in and enjoy it. This is one of my favorite songs of all time. Its mind-blowing, pure genius. I was tripping powerful, and I could hear everything. It is a magical, and non linear song, Its like multiple songs on different levels of time happening at the same time connecting and interweaving between the eachother and weaving inside and out and backwards, but all flowing concisely, saying something... The voice (you know LSDdoDMT...) sounds so timeless and futuristic and ancient, calling you to the mystery and playing with it. It is a shamanic song, I believe. I noticed the audience surrounding me, and everone was going through a vast array of emotions. I would describe the mood as generally eratic, chaotic, but extatic, with a definate part of desperation... but indeed we are desperate for something, and that is why we are all here. Desperate for SOMETHING MORE. Some people are laughing dancing losing themselves, some seem more thereas a social event and seem somewhat distanced and detached from it. Still others are crying, yelling, purging, lol contorting in all sorts of various ways, lol. Then i zoned in and heard something literally speaking in my head "train the mind to be sharp and present, disciplined, be like the eagle and the owl" "seek not the extreme highs and lows, but be centered and balanced aware Thats what it said, im not interpereting it, its an exact quote! I could see the eyes of the eagle and the eyes of the owl. There is something about that piercing stare.... Its not often I hear this voice so clearly, call it what you will, I call it the plant teacher. I could see "into" the people of the crowd, and prevelent in what i saw was that hint of desperation I mentioned, a longing for a lost connection to the sacred, to the earth, to something... I experienced psychic echoes of paradise outside of time, that nirvana we aspire to achieve. Calling me to return.... Scary almost! ;) At this point ill mention, I was having a full blown entheogenic experience, very strong and very affected by it. But somehow still at ease and comfortable. I really was the detached observor, A giant sensory organ, feeling and seeing, making no comment or observation. The senses were melding into one roaring experience and i was having visions. I was also having very positive vibrations, and was having an extatic time! The DJ set was absolutely incredible, its one hell of a set! What a gifted genius this guy is. It was a fluid transmission of the other, of the inaxpressable, and unspeakable dimensions. I visualized the music as a shimmering and pulsating labyrith, forming from nothingness, a paradoxical labyrith, ever fluid and changing 87

undulating and shifting and ringing and buzzing. So many things at once. Somewhere intertwined with the very core of the multi-d imensional experience of this life is this music. I dont believe its his music. It is borrowed, channeled from the esoteric realms, like all good art ;) This is the highest aspiration of art, to be like a hardware model for the sacred, the transpersonal and magical. (IMO) I was having a lot of thoughts at a fast speed. I thought of this as the mental monkey reeling away on thought trains, while still my "self" was apart from this, observing. Then I heard Terrence Mckenna's voice booming through, "and you take let as assume, third toke, long and slow, you vaporize....) Yes! another of our favorites, and my favorite dmt smoking song, (a new way to say hooray) Im so glad hes playing this song!. (He really did play a fast array of material, including on the run by pink floyd, some younger brother songs, many of the less dancey- ambient oriented tracks, which was awesome) The beat and vocals came in sounding awesome, it damn near launched me out of my skull, lol, I was visualing the song, and the place it takes you to. I could sense the "place" like seeing it with my ears. How fantastic that another human can visualize this and create it, and transmit this vision to me. I sensed "the dome" could see it with my minds eye. "The walls, such they be are crawling, with geometric hallucinations" He's not talking about the walls of your bedroom, lol, hes talking about this place in another dimension. I had visuals of i percieved The unfolding almost squelchy synth part as a solid bolt of electric light, being moved and worked and twisted in on itself going with the music. I was having amazing visuals, everything was as glitter almost, shiny and beautiful. Aura borealis colors glittering on the backdrop of the stars and the rock face of many faces.

There were a chaotic array of lights blasting into the sky, or across the canyon onto the cliff face. The atmosphere at this very moment was beautiful, sublime. It took me out of my ordinary experience, i felt "this is something else" (literally something else) (what is it ?!)

I was now in a very transpersonal state, My ego and the dialouge was melting away, and gave way to the now, the timeless. Then, it almost seemed syncronized, right when the intro my favorite, and perfectly fitting for this very moment (When shall I be free), started, simultaneously i was struck by a wonderful gust or wind..(literally a refreshing gust of wind) fresh air so to speak. It felt like it came through me, and cleansed me, projecting me out. It literally felt like that, it was amazing and i was in awe for a minute. Im sure the shaman's (as I so lovingly refer to whoever the "shaman's" may be, lol) have a name for this exact thing, this wind. So i dubbed it the shamanic wind. During this song, my boundaries were no longer disolving, they were altogether gone. My self felt projected, expanded, into the experience of the people and the music and the now. At this point I quite literally was not my self. or not my own self, (well not my normal self anyways;) The limits of "me" no longer contained within my skull, and my skin boundaries. I felt like I was my wifey, and my sister, and my friend, and simon posford. One spirit having many experiences. The phrase came to mind "Many souls, one soul, Many bodies, one body" The inner dialoge was gone. no observations or assesments, just ecstacy, I think of it as a "transpersonal" experience, because the not only the factors of the actual amount of plant material i ingested, but many other factors also came into making this kind of experience possible. Im 88

talking about the group conciousness of the crowd, you know? Many people gathered for one purpose grooving the night away to visionary music. To me this type of event is our new modern version of a shamanic gathering. The (visionary) music and art (in general) points to the forgotten secrets of the ancient past, and to the future simultaneously, drawing us out of the world of physical limitations and into the timeless world of communication information and expression. Its a real place, the imagination, outside of time, and never forget, we co-create and affect this physical world as well through our will and intent. "It all starts with you" said the voice. The art is the evolution of language, of communication, in that it communicates concepts beyond the capacity of words, like a hardware model for the sacred other. We are now re-discovering what we as a culture have forgotten, denied, and repressed from our minds, A real connection to the earth, and to our souls, and to eachother. This is what is lacking in our experience of modern culture, a fundamental connection to the nature of ourselves, & and a connection with the living earth, our sacred mother. Because of this disconnect.... Well just look. You see how things are today, people are detached from themselves, eachother, and the planet. All (seemingly) is controled by the Fear. Fear of what could be, and fear of who we really are. In the endless and mindless chaotic bombardment of the mainstreem media, There is no true connection offered, nothing of real substance or spiritual value, Only mindless distractions too keep you constantly busy, leaving you no time to get down to the gnit and grit of the true nature of ourselves and our dire situation on this planet. Its all topsy turvey, upside down... So I emplore you fellow topiates (begin preaching to the choir) not to give them that power over your life. and dont be satisfied with the mind nulling nothingness consumer culture has to offer you, and also be a beacon a dock for a fellow lost soul to go to for comfort love support and guidance. be human. I didnt just go off on a rant there (well a little, lol) these were the thoughts I was having at the time, i was once again absorbed in though, eyes closed. Just like that, i became more aware of my present surroundings, the song was ending, and i looked to my lover, and she just had a calm smile on her face, Kind of like a wink, but it was a smile ;) Suddenly and uncontrollably, the tears were flooding out of me, for the first time in a long time, literally tears of joy. How amazing is this, i thought, how lucky and blessed am i to have this great oppurtunity of life, and the wonderful people involved in it. For the rest of the show i drifted in and out of this state. I thought of the shamanic wind, and the flow of energy moving through the people, affecting, and being affected by them. contiuous, fluid, evolving. This is the nature of reality, i thought, liquid, reflective always changing, but flowing to the pull of something (gravity?!)(time?) Whew sorry guys, lol, im even getting tired of typing!! i cant imagine how you must feel right now, but ill wrap it up as quick as possible ;) So when the show ended, a line much resembling a herd of cattle made its way to the exit. People were even saying, "Moo, Moo" i found that hilarious. Then a quite ridiculous chain of events unfolds: We get on the wrong bus, (under my ingenious guidance) but got off before it left, then went and found our shuttle, only to find out, it was full, and traveling 89

another direction, and would return for us in 45 min.. So there we are sitting out there waiting, and suddenly we see security jumping on this guy, (soon later, many cops and 2 ambulance) and he is freaking out and siezing out, (just out of no where) we thought they tazed him, but nope, he was having a seizure. He was making aweful, un-human sounds, vomiting forcefully while simultaneouslly having a seizure, it was horrible, i felt bad for the poor guy, and it was very disturbing to me at the time<(lol i dont even like talking about it now, but it is what happened) so we walked a ways a way and continued waiting. Then my sister shouts "BEAR!!" and there is a HUGE FUCKING BEAR like 15 feet behind us!! yeah a real bear a big black one, WTF. Your not supposed to run, but we all ran across the street and closer to the other lost stragglers. Then after an eternity of listening to sis and J blah blah blah (wich was very entertaining to me at the time) the shuttle finally arrived It was the coolest shuttle ever, there was a chill lounge with furniture in the back, and a full keg of beer, lol. Were bouncing down the canyon in this ricketty bus, listening to some crazy song, just after seeing all that.... It was quite hilarious and fun lol We talk to this guy there who i first assumed was employed by the venue, or by the shuttle, cause he was being so nice and helping all of the confused people (there were many) (which bus? where am I? f it lets just walk down the canyon!) but nope just a nice helpful guy. He said he was sitting right by the entrance talking to the ambulance guy, and the ambulance told him the guy had ingested extacy and bath salts..... After all the insanity, we were back at the nice cabin. Somehow many other shpongle campers had arrived and there were fires. But i was honestly too affected to talk to anybody out side of my close circle lol. At least talk to them comfortably i mean, lol. We smoked a bowl, and everyone went to bed, leaving me alone with my thoughts. It seemed i had not come down one bit. This was not a problem though, I accepted it as an oppurtunity to do some work, and do some work i did!! I went out started i fire, and ill tell you now i was reborn on that chair by the fire by the river with the sun rising. I closed my eyes and was taken away on a journey, a journey through my life. The teacher was guiding me showing me many things. Theres really nothing i can say about it, , but that im extremely grateful for this experience, and once again humbled. P.S. My sister had her own rebirth apparently, she told me all about it! how greatful i am to share that with her. Whew, ok thanks for reading, it took me a long time to type it so I hope that some lovely topiate out there take the time to read it Thanks a million brothers and sisters, for bearing with me through this super long report!!

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Mitra
"Holy Cow, Aliens, Soul Marriage and Divinity" This is an account of my 3rd major breakthrough experience and my first experience with aya outside. Its quite long and involved. I used my usual recipe of Caapi and MHRB. You can look at either of my other two reports for the recipe if you want. I dont know if I did a really exceptional job of brewing this time or if being outside helped the experience. I went camping this last weekend with my wife and another couple that we are good friends with and I brought along my favorite brew. J, the other guy, and I were the only two people doing aya this night. Our setting was our little camp site, in a very pretty little campground in the mountains of Washington State. We had two tents off to one side and a little camp fire. We had camp chairs set up on one side of the fire and a large blanket to lay down on by the fire. There was also a large cleared area by the other side of the fire for any dancing or other shaman-like things that I might feel inspired to do. Down a little path about 20 feet or so, a large, fast moving mountain river roars by. It is Js first time with aya and my first time outside so we are both a little nervous. We started right as it was getting dark, about 9 pm I am guessing. We each had a bottle containing what I estimated to be somewhere between 2 and 3 doses. We each drank about a third of the liquid in out bottle and put them aside. While we waited, we partook in our favorite herbal anti-nausea smoke. Less than 5 minutes after drinking our brew, J ran off to purge. We were worried that he lost it too soon. About 20 minutes later, I was already seeing pretty colored patterns on things. About 10 minutes after that, I was seeing all sorts of little visual disturbances and pretty colored patterns. J was still feeling nothing but the smoke and decided to drink a few more gulps of his brew. In total, he had now gone through about half of his brew. Shortly afterwards, his dream began. He seemed very stressed out all night and became very inwardly focused, mostly only communicating with his wife. Thus, I cannot comment on how his dream went. Instead, I will tell you all about mine. As usual, I was very quiet on the upward slope. I was getting lots of pretty closed eyed visuals and intricate colored patters all over everything. There is this weird buzzing noise all over everything. I know the brew is strong because at the 45 minute mark, my wife starts turning into an elf and I start giggling all the time. I start to get these really cool flashes of experience and I decide to lie down on the blanket by the fire to let them happen. I lie on my back and stare up at the trees that tower overhead. The stars are literally dancing in the heavens. Embers from the fire and smoke are rising up overhead, turning into fairies that dance up into the trees. The trees sprout flowers of all sorts and varieties and begin to move about in their own rhythms. The tree branches appear to be filled with little critters with big eyes, all peering at me. Patterns of colored crisscrossing lines dance down out of the sky and swirl around the rising smoke and embers. I start rubbing and scratching my head. I dont really remember deciding to do it, it sort of happened by itself. I was rewarded with incredible pleasure and vibrant visions. As soon as I started to do that, I got my first entity contact. It looked like a sentient salamander about 2 feet long including a tail. It wrapped itself around my head. I could see that all the happy pleasure feelings in the nerves in my scalp were producing this energy that was dripping out of my head. This creature was flipping out, running around on my head, eating the energy, saying, OH YEAH, OH YEAH, Oh this is good, Oh yeah, yesyesyes, OH THIS IS GOOD, UH UH OH YEAH! YUM YUM YUM. I was startled and I stopped rubbing my head. It looked startled and ran away.

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I realized that it was time to go find the outhouse for my purge. It was almost pitch black by this time. I dont really know how I made it to the outhouse. My world was completely made up of swirling colors by now. The purge was difficult but swift. Afterwards, there were too many colors and it was too dark to find my way back. Luckily, my wife realized that I had gone to the outhouse without the flashlight and came to get me and lead me back. I washed my mouth out and then went back to my blanket, too far into the dream to talk to anyone. I closed my eyes and fell into hyperspace. Some other aliens played games with me. One of them said, in a nice feminine voice, If that something wasnt that, It would be something else!! and then went off laughing. J and his wife A were deep in some personal conversation about personal issues between them that Js experience was bringing to the surface so my wife came over to cuddle with me on the blanket. She felt warm and loving next to me. I closed my eyes and felt safe and warm and wonderful all over. I tried to wrap my love around her and into her and the most wondrous thing happened. It was like the boundaries that separate us came down and we merged together into one. I felt our souls wrap around each other, coiling tightly and I felt totally ecstatic and in love and filled with pure ecstatic joy and made a wish that she and I would be together through eternity. Then I was in hyperspace again. I have been here before, on my two other breakthrough journeys, so I know a little bit about how to get around. It was ten times easier to move around than normal because we were two beings in one which gave us way more control. Hyperspace was, as always, a huge series of interconnected complex multicolored rooms that changed constantly filled with entities of all sorts. The entities seemed to be taking particular interest in our connected soul situation. They seemed to think it was quite interesting. Then, quite suddenly, they all split. They expressed something along the lines of HE is coming!!!!! and they all left. Then hyperspace itself came alive. The rooms became infinitely more complex and I realized that it was some sort of ultra powerful calculating machine, like a computer but fully sentient. Each facet of the wall was like a bit in a computer, but instead of being on and off, it was more like each bit has size, color, rotation, angle, hue, tint, sound and who knows what else. Anyways, it was obvious to me that it was a huge mind and that it was looking and us. It looked deep inside our souls and at the twining of them and did some sort of detailed investigation of the situation. Then it expressed that it was very pleased with what it saw. It seemed to ask both of our souls for permission in a language that I did not consciously understand and then began wrapping its own love energies around our coiled souls, performing some sort of magic. As it did so, it spoke, saying, I light of this most special and wonderful bond, and my pleasure with the destinies that could unfold, I hereby grant your wish. By the power vested in my by I now pronounce your souls wed, eternally connected in destiny. I could tell that we had to say I do or something so I asked her soul for permission and it just squealed in joy and wrapped itself around me tighter so I reiterated my wish and we shot off together to another space. It was like we were underwater, swimming in some great dream sea, our souls intertwined. I realized that this was like a honeymoon for our souls, or at least their wedding night. It seemed like an eternity of perfect love and joy. I have no idea how long it really lasted. As I came out of it, I noticed my wife stirring and wanting to get up. We went down to the river together. She asked me how things were going. I told her that I had been talking to aliens. She said, I know. I felt them arrive. I was surprised. REALLY!?!? I said. She explained that she had felt them arrive and that was the only way she could describe it and that it was freaking her out pretty good, seeing as she was totally sober. I told her about the experience with the soul marriage. She said that she had felt something that felt like she was being hugged by something non-physical and had noticed our extremely close connection. We spent I dont know how long being very romantic by the river. Then, she determined that I was still too deep in the dream to make a whole lot of sense and said that we would have to talk about it later and left me to my thoughts. I perched on a rock by the side of the river and dipped my fingers in a the very cold water, which felt like heaven, and dribbling it on my head, which sent cold moving drops of pleasure dripping down across my head and down my neck. Actually, everything felt like heaven. I was ecstatic, in love with the world, totally blissed out! I sat and contemplated the beauty of my surroundings. 93

Then the trees across the river started rising up into the air in great arks and dipping down into the river and everything started moving and swirling. Holy my GOD I thought over and over again as the world transformed itself around me and I kept laughing at the astounding ness of everything that I have seen so far. It all feels so much more profound even than my other two breakthrough experiences by far. Lights started dancing around and the aliens started come by to talk to me. They talked to me about all sorts of things. They talked to me about their society, and as they did so, the trees across the river rearranged themselves to form pictures of whatever they were talking about. They talked to me about my spiritual path and what they liked about it. The seemed to think that I was totally a beginner as far as they were concerned but going in a good direction. They talked to me about why humans cant use their built in telepathy most of the time. Apparently anger, fear, stress, hate, and almost every single defense patterns that we use block that system. This is why we need to become self-actualized, they said. Only then can we really start to get anywhere. After a while, they got bored of talking to me and they left. Meanwhile, I cant believe that I am experiencing all of this. I am totally blown away. Aliens. Soul marriage. I cant even begin to express the intensity of my amazement. I guess that is why this description is so damn long. I was about to head back to the fire to rejoin the group, when I realized that I should show some appreciation for the wondrous gift that this dream has been. I felt this strong desire for prayer. I closed my eyes to begin and I became an expression of thankfulness. First I was thankful for my experiences of the evening. Then I was thankful for the wonderfulness of trees and rocks and mountains and rivers. I Became overwhelmed by the emotion of it as I became aware of every memory that I had of ever appreciating a tree or rock or mountain or river in my life. I became so full of thankfulness that I began to weep by the riverside. Then, a warm, loving presence came flowing into me and my tears turned to giggling laughter. The divine presence within directed my thankfulness and my awareness to my body. It told me that my body was the greatest gift I had ever been given and showed me why it is the most amazing machine I could imagine. The divine presence seemed to think that perhaps I had not been taking very good care of my gift. I have been working very hard at yoga and martial arts for the last year, trying to get into good shape. The divine presence was pleased with me for trying so hard but still felt that I could be keeping my gift if far better condition than I was. It told me that I was in nowhere near good enough condition for it to show me any of the really interesting visions that it would like me to see and to work on it. It expressed that it felt that letting this gift get out of perfect condition was extremely disrespectful and ungrateful and that people should really have much more respect for themselves than that and a greater sense of thankfulness for what they have than that. It said that it is like they have been given a custom built precision racing car of the highest order, a true work of art and they have run it for 30000 miles without an oil change, driven it through rivers and mud pits, let it rust and break down until it can barely handle driving on a residential street. The giver of the gift would be understandably miffed at the lack of care that his beautiful gift had been given. Then it sent me love and an understanding that it said would unfold over the course of the evening and then it left and I went back to my group. Back at the group, J is still laying in the shadows having his private dream, and A and N are talking by the fire. I am still feeling a bit shaken from talking to divinity, so I just said hi to everyone briefly and went to do yoga by the fire. After all, divinity seemed to think that I need to work harder. I started out in a deep horse stance, doing chi breathing exercises. It was very intense and wonderful. I could literally see and feel the life force flowing out of the trees and moving around me. With each in breath, I saw and felt in flow into my body and cycle around. Then I started moving, flowing fluidly through the asana. Doing the yoga was a pure joy. Then it evolved into a new yoga. Between each pose, I would move through a series of martial arts moves and then settle into the new asana. Never before have I ever performed nearly so well. Each kick was precise in its placement, each asana deep in its stretch and with far better alignment that I have ever achieved before. 94

This is where the understanding ball that the divine presence gave me starts to unfold. First of all, something else starts showing me where to go next. I start seeing ghostly images of my own body moving into the position that I am to assume next and I follow. If it is a kick or something like that then I am rewarded if I hit my target with flashy lights. Anyways, following this, I move into an intricate dance of yoga, dance, and martial arts. It all flows together and it feel wonderful. Meanwhile, understandings are unfolding in my head all about why the human body is so great, why it is so important to keep it in optimal running condition, and things like that. There is also all this information unfolding about the moves of this dance of martial arts, dance and yoga that I am doing. It seems to me that I am expected to figure out how to perfect this sort of activity, as it is the best way for me to keep myself tuned up to divinitys specifications. The dance itself becomes a form of meditation, a moving prayer and it keeps getting deeper and deeper as I go. Regularly, I do have to stop to catch my breath as it is VERY hard work. As soon as my breathing slows a little I am directed to go back to it and I do. Eventually, my lesson is over and I am exhausted. I go to relax and hang out with my wife and A. I am feeling much more normal now so I hang out laughing and talking to them and telling them all about my experiences. After an hour or so, I decide that I want more. I dont feel that the spirits are done with me yet. It is my belief that the aya experience comes in two pieces and that you havnt gotten all of it until you have bumped once. The second rise has a very different flavor and stands as a counterpoint to the first. I feel that one should always bump around 2 to 3 hours into the experience for this reason. Its like doing the opposing asana in yoga. You just need to do it if you know what is good for you. So, anyway, I drank another 3rd of my brew. And went back to hanging with my friends and talking and laughing until the dreaming comes rushing back up again. Then I alternate between talking and playing and being struck dumb with awe at my situation and my surrounding and the beauty of it all. Sometimes everything transforms itself and I nearly cry with joy at the beauty of ayas manifestation. At some point, I realize that I need to be alone and I run off to my tent. This is the healing portion of my dream. Further understandings from the divine presence begin unfolding again. I am shown that because I let my body get so out of tune, that it has become like an old brittle piece of leather. Said old brittle piece of leather can be brought back to life with care, oiling it and working it until it softens up again. Well, the yoga/martial arts dance thing worked it out and now I am expected to oil and clean up after than. I am shown where things are wrong through my body and powerful energy rushes through my body and I place my hands on the places that need it and the energy flows from my hands and brings warmth and relaxation. After a period of healing work, I relax again. My wife joins me in the tent and we talk for a while and then she goes to sleep. I cant sleep yet so I hang out in the tent and think about things. They aya is still not done with me. The buzzing carrier wave that has been with me all night comes to the forefront of my consciousness and seems to hook into something. When it does so, my thoughts speed up, to catch up with the wave. My accelerated thoughts are driven and directed to look over my life, the current state of my progress down my path, and innumerable other things that it thought I should look at. All the while, further unfolding of the info packet from the divine presence keep bubbling up and helping to clarify that which I am thinking about. I wont go into it here but it was all very beneficial to me and I feel a lot happier because of it all. Actually, that part was going to be the subject of another long piece of writing, or so I had planned at the time. However, somewhere in there, I drifted off to sleep and it got a little too fuzzy to make a good explanation. Oh well. Anyways, it was the most amazing thing that I have ever experienced and I am totally and completely amazed and filled with thankfulness for it. I believe that this is the answer. To what? To everything. Anyone who feels up for it should try the combination of ayahuasca, yoga, and martial arts. A truly wonderful synergy. And for anyone who actually read this much, thanks you. May love and happiness be with you always. Tee-hee. :) :0 :D

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Oblivian and shroom_seeker

"Tripper's Survival Guide" This is my guide for getting the most from tripping while keeping a leg or two in reality during and after a trip. I'm sure there are as many variations as there are trippers but this is what I do for deep trips. I'm not really sure how other people think so this may seem freaky to some but if I can help someone cope or avoid a possibly unwanted life changing event, then it's worth the effort. 1. Build a pillar. In my mind's eye, I build a stone pillar with things about me I never want to change. The commitment with my family and my ideas of personal freedom are a couple I've carved on the pillar. There arent a whole lot more but you get the idea, qualities I think are worth saving for me and my direction. When I'm tripping, random thoughts that involve changing those ideals arent really valid even if they're persistent. One time I imagined a bunch of little guys trying to change the runes on the pillar with the intent of altering one of my desired ideals. To combat them, I imagined me looking through a one way window watching the little guys fucking around with a mock pillar. Me and the guys in the imaginary room chuckled and I went back to what I was doing. That sort of thing keeps unwanted thoughts busy while I rummage through other thoughts. I allow myself to add to the pillar after a month or sometimes longer but never when I'm tripping no matter what(see #6). It takes a while because they're very defining principals. For example, I'm fond of firearms more than I could describe. The craftsmanship that was required for the evolution of firearms to where they are today is breathtaking to me. I'm often impressed by man's genius and holding a stainless steel Ruger .357 single action hog leg is a treasured feeling that I can't exactly put into words. If you're a gun lover, you know exactly what I mean. I'm considering taking on a 'no firearm in the house' principal. The thought of killing anything for pointless reasons turns my stomach and firearms are primarily used for that purpose. Hunting is understandable but even that is difficult to accept but I can. Anyway, if I change the pillar, you'll see that its a serious change and I don't enjoy changing like that too often. For me, building a pillar is the most important aspect of tripping. It sets a foundation or an unbreakable base and reinforces my self respect.

2. Consider the consequences. I consider how I would look to my family if I ran up there tripping balls and going ape shit because I think the neighbor is secretly lowering the tire pressure in my truck to 27psi just so I get worse gas mileage because he has stock in exxon or some such. I dont think its good to be seen that way by anybody much less my children and wife. Also, if I shave my head the day after a heavy trip and switch out my faded jeans for a toga plus sandals and declare myself a prophet, it's my family that suffers. Maintaining continuity with reasonable change is a far better route for them. Trust me on that one cause I've watched a couple good man go away and it aint fun by any fucking stretch. It's actually a demoralizing wave that pretty much drags you and everyone around you down like a stone. That's a simple one and it's on the pillar.

3. Consider the source. I don't rule anything out until I can rule it out. If God exists then so does Satan and all their respective needs and deeds. New revelations and radical ideas can come from either source then, and I keep that in mind always. I have free will and only I am in control of my actions. Outside sources can drop suggestions in the comment box all they want but my actions are directed by me and me alone. 96

4. Avoid reverse logic. A duck has two legs, I have two legs, therefore I am a duck. That's good for an occasional chuckle during a trip but that sort of thinking can lead me astray and into dark places so I don't spend any time on it other than for humor.

5. Stay on guard against intellectual viruses. Intellectual viruses can come from many sources. Examples of what I call intellectual viruses can be seen in cults such as Heaven's Gate, Jim Jones and David Koresh. These are worst case examples and there are less destructive more common intellectual virus examples such as conservatism and liberalism. The list goes on and on but you get the meaning, I'm careful of the thoughts I entertain and I sift through them like a 10 year old picking through his food at the dinner table. I've had a few intellectual viruses and now that I'm aware of them, I've started building antibodies against them. This topic could be it's own thread and it's an extremely powerful and dangerous aspect of tripping and regular life. Intellectual viruses can find purchase in sober minds just as easily as tripping minds. The tripping mind acts as fertilizer.

6. Set a physical barrier up. I set up a fail safe emergency chance to change the pillar during a trip. If I low crawl from the road back to my largest oak and chop it down with a hatchet, I can change or add a rune on the pillar, warn the neighbors of an alien conspiracy or generally carry out any physical action I feel the need to do. It's 1/4 mile crawl. The tree is beyond 6 feet in diameter. The farthest I've ever gone with the physical barrier is trying to remember where I keep the hatchet. In the spirit of fairness, I keep the hatchet sharp. That may seem outlandish but that's how serious I am about not acting on life changing impulses and ideas during a trip. The process I employ is from a mind that believes in god. I think it would be good if other trippers could flesh out how they approach a heavy trip and that includes those that don't believe in god. I'm interested in all aspects of internal defence mechanisms that trippers employ. Like I said, my goal is to inform new trippers and even experienced trippers of what tools can be used and how to incorporate them into our unique and individual directions. When one tripper falls, we all feel it in the law.

[Response by Shroom_Seeker] Great idea for a thread, Oblivion. I agree we are in this together and sharing thoughts about what does and doesn't work could prove helpful for those journeying out. :heart: I hear you clear on building the pillar. It's good to make solid what is important in your life, to lay that foundation. Family is always there for me, i never realized it until now freedom has not been in my pillar but always seems to cry out during my trips. For me, God, a love and respect for life on this planet and beyond is another preset. Pre-Trip * Clean house and mind. In general, the more work i put in before my trip the better, more colorful and further my trips go. This can involve many things. I like to clean my house, make the bed, put up some flowers to be near when possible. Make phone calls to loved ones, especially those i've been meaning to for so long. I'm not big on lists but i use them here, because it feels good to get some things done beforehand. When the mood calls i burn sage or incense and do my best to cleanse my setting beforehand. Per-Trip * Examine, make-note, and let go. Inevitably on the come-up and beyond i will be flooded with painful aspects of myself that have been repressed. Things i have or have not done, strained relationships with others (can go both 97

ways) etc. I've learned that identifying these problems and solving them are core to my psychedelic experience. It is good to hunt the darkness, have your dance with it, look it in the eye and let it go. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. It's not necessary to spend six hours in hell to get the message (although sometimes it is! :p ). Make note on what to improve on, because the teacher wants to show you more. Love rules over fear. Free yourself and be grateful for life, because it is precious. Give thanks to the plants and the great spirit that flows through everything. Post-Trip * Integration. Perhaps the most challenging part of the whole experience. It's easy to take the plants and knock your socks off, but can you maintain the lesson and incorporate it into your life? In some cases, confession can play a role. They actually do this pre-ceremony and during in some groups (like the NAC and others) but in my life it seems to manifest after the heavy trips. Other things like improving my lifestyle, my values and aims are almost constant factors to work towards. I guess i can only speak for my own experience, but i think integration is very important, and if you want to go further and be shown more you better damn well be willing to put the work in. These pre, per and post-trip methods form a circle for me, a continuation.

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mindexplorer
"Life Changing Encounter With The Other" I decided to fast for 30 hours before participating in the ceremony. I knew that vomiting was inevitable, and I had been told that fasting would give me a stronger experience. I had pretty bad altitude sickness because I had just arrived in Cusco (elevation 3326 m), so it wasnt hard to fast. At sunset, we took an old-school volkswagon beetle up to the top of one of the hills surrounding Cusco. We entered a fairly spacious hut; three bed-mats with plenty of blankets were lined up in front of an altar. I remember having a conversation with the Curanderismo while he was preparing for the long night ahead. I distinctly remember him saying: Ayahuasca no es una droga. Ayahuasca es La Medecina. That resounded in me. He began the ceremony by lighting a candle inside of a large frame with holes running along the sides. This gave the room an eerie glow, as the candle flickered and projected shadows along the walls. He then proceded to fill his mouth with coca leaves, tucking them under his lip as he chanted a ritual song. Tobacco and coca are sacred to the Curaderismos, for they allow contact with the spirits. He then pulled out an empty, plastic water bottle filled with some dark fluid, the Ayahuasca. He blessed the Ayahausca with a prayer, then blew over the top of the bottle before pouring the liquid into small, ceramic glasses. He handed each of us the drink, then gave us individual blessings by blowing tobacco smoke all over us. He told me to drink it all at once. It tasted like some strong, exotic, bitter wine, but it wasnt nearly as disgusting as I had expected. I was pleased by this. The purge happened after about 20 minutes. It didnt last long. After I was certain that all of the Ayahuasca had left me, I got comfortable and laid down. There were some windows on the thatched roof, which allowed me to see the night sky. When I closed my eyes, I began to see geometrical patterns, fractals actually, all across my visual field. Then I felt a presence, as if I was surrounded by dozens of people. They were there to comfort me, to calm me down, and I began to feel wonderful. I heard, or possibly felt, a woman assure me that everything was going to be ok, and she beckoned me to come with her into the spirit world. She felt very motherly, which evokes images of mother earth or panchamama, as they say in Quechua. Then a red light appeared which jolted me up. The Curanderismo was staring straight at me, and then he asked me, You O.K., (x)? He would ask me that question throughout the entire night. Its actually a joke I still have with one of my friends who was there with me. Even when I was uncontrollably hallucinating, I would still respond si. It almost amused me, because I would always have to think for few seconds, Am I ok? I always was, and Im very glad he would ask. There were some difficult situations that he helped me through later in the night. Ayahuasca should never be used without a shaman. The Ayahuascero played sacred songs, ancient songs, beautiful in their own right, but not comparable to anything I had ever heard before, except for maybe the chanting of Chasidic rabbis. He used drums and flutes and vocal intonations to guide our experiences. The shaman uses these auditory signals purposefully to evoke visual imagery within the participants. The songs, or Icarus, convey information, stories, about their ancestors. My visions would consist of jungles and jaguars and hunts and feasts and people, and it reminded me of the Torah, just their jungle version of it. For hours he was consistently able to provoke this imagery. I believe this may represent a novel form of communication that has yet to be studied by modern science. Its worthy of investigation. During the first 3-4 hours, I came into direct contact with multiple hyperdimensional entities, also known as spirits or angels. However, there were many different types of entities I encountered, and the differences must be addressed in order to understand the phenomenon. Some spirits had human qualities, which ranged from ordinary to powerful shamans. I remember one entity had a very strong presence; the Ayahuascero became silent, and the candle began flickering furiously when the spirit entered the room. Many of the spirits would enter my 99

body, and I could feel them; I felt like most of them were healing me, although some would speak to me in exotic languages that I couldnt understand. Some spirits were not human at all, and if I were to guess, I would say they were plant spirits. I could just tell. Some spirits seemed like they were responsible for our existence, as if they played a role in the unfolding of the present moment. At first, my reaction to these spirits was that this was ridiculous, that they must just be hallucinations. But after about an hour of observing them, and scrutinizing them, I came to the rational, semi-empirical conclusion that they were real. They passed all of my cognitive tests for what spirits would actually look like if they were real, by that I mean they were far stranger than anything I could have ever imagined to be real. However, I must stress that there are no words adequate in describing them, and most of them were felt, not necessarily seen, in the traditional sense at least. Its just one of those things that may sound ludicrous to somebody reading this, but makes perfect sense if you actually experience it. At some point I realized that my experience was over. It went by too quickly. I hadnt seen my spirit animal, I hadnt had an out of body experience, I hadnt felt the presence God, I had just interacted with these spirits that showed me random shit. That was it. But what insights had I gained? It was a cool experience and all, but not the most profound experience of my life. I was a little disappointed. However, the Curanderismo noticed this. He laughed and said I could always just drink more; he said I would fully enter the spirit world if I drank more. I was a little nervous about that prospect, and went into the bathroom to fully think it over. In the end, I realized that I might not have the opportunity to do this again. I drank the second glass of ayahuasca. I had no idea what was about to happen. While I was waiting for the ayahuasca to take effect, I could hear what sounded like a few dozen dogs right outside of our hut. In Cusco, dogs travel in packs; they arent confined to the backyards of their owners. They began to growl, and soon a huge fight broke out between two of the dogs. The intensity of this situation, with over a dozen dogs barking and growling at one another, made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Then the purge happened, and I was immediately catapulted into the psychedelic realm. I kept on thinking to myself: Why did I drink it again? This is too powerful. What is happening to me? Where did the spirits go? Why is the shaman silent? I heard this loud noise, like somebody was turning a nob inside of my head that controlled all of the possible frequencies of sound. I also began to enter these extraordinary visual realms, and then immediately forget what happened. Visions were flowing so fast that I couldnt comprehend anything. However, the experience came in waves, and when I was aware enough to think about my situation, I realized that I was experiencing my subconscious. I began to analyze myself, and I felt like I was at the cusp of realizing what a thought was. Then I realized it was a paradox, how can a thought be used to understand what thoughts are? I also had many personal realizations about life, my family, and myself. I understood that our time on Earth was finite. At some point the dogs stopped fighting, and I became calm again. I laid down, and looked through the roof at one of the stars. At this point, I could understand the dogs. Communication with animals is definitely possible. That sounds really weird, but I could literally understand and empathize, on a deep emotional level, the information that the dogs were conveying in their howls. This sparked profound realizations. I realized that on a fundamental level, all conscious entities were the same. The only differences between our consciousness, and the consciousness of dogs, were merely different wavelengths within a greater medium. Upon this realization, my vision became engulfed with a white light. The light was so bright and beautiful that I began to uncontrollably cry. I knew that I was experiencing the same white light people describe upon death. It was the source of all consciousness. It was omnipresent, eternal, and about as close to a description of God as you can get. This must be God. I understood how all life, and the universe, was connected by fractals in this hyperdimensional membrane. I felt like my soul had connected to an ocean made of light, and tears flowed down my cheeks as I saw the entire universe , galaxies and all. I could feel the ayahuasca coursing throughout my veins. I noticed that I couldnt feel my hands; my body slowly became numb. I accepted God, in all of his glory, and prayed that I would be safe. There were no entities to guide me this time. Very soon I had no body. I just was. Complete and utter transcendence. But I could still see, which puzzled me, 100

because I had no eyes. I actually began to float out of my body, and into the room. I could see my life-less body, laying down, with my hands across my chest. I could see the shaman, and my two friends, (Y) was crouched in the fetal position. But there was also this violet light, and it seemed to be coming out of my body; the room was filled with this light. I wasnt scared because I knew that out-of-body experiences are common on ayahausca, but I never thought it would feel this real. The realization that I had become some sort of hyperdimensional entity freaked me out. What if I never returned to my body? Was I dead? Immediately, I returned back to my body after thinking those thoughts. I was both filled with relief, that I was alive, and regret, that I hadnt gone further into the spirit realm. However, my body was still fairly numb, and raising my hands gave me the sensation of flying through some ethereal realm. Ayahuasca is gentle. The effects just slowly taper off, and theres a calm afterglow. I had no desire to return to that realm. I got what I had come for. Its amazing how quickly you forget what the experience was like. Within a few hours, I didnt even have the ability to imagine what I had just felt. My strong convictions about the existence of God and Spirits declined, but at the same time, I knew that while I was experiencing it, my core self, was there. I trust myself, and I trust my judgement, even on Ayahuasca. I realized that there is legitimacy in spirituality. Even if God doesnt exist, I know that God is a perception that people have the potential to have. At least the stories arent completely based in bullshit. I feel like ayahuasca prepares you for death as well. I am no longer afraid of death. We will all eventually die. It takes away the mystery; allows you to at least imagine what the afterlife might be like. Whats the point of believing nothing happens after death anyway? Its fucking depressing. Reflecting upon my experience, I am no longer the same person. First of all, the Ayahuasca literally did heal me of certain gastrointestinal discomforts that I had had since first grade. I feel much more in touch with my body as well. I no longer drink alcohol; I have absolutely no desire to use drugs for temporary pleasure. I exercise on a daily basis. I feel as if my life actually has a purpose, and I cant waste any time. I need to live in the moment, and just have as many experiences as I can. Ive never felt more happy, and content with my existence. Im excited about whats to come; about where my lifes journey will take me next. There is still so much we have left to learn. We can never forget that.

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thingummajig
"Some Growing Up to Do" This all happened a while ago, and I regret not writing about it until now. As with many drug experiences, memories seem to fade even faster than they normally do. Luckily, most details of the evening are still fresh in my mind, as I expect they will be for some time. I realize that this is a very long story, but I cant make any apologies for that; its just as long as it needs to be. If you dont want to read yet another first-time MDMA story, feel free to skip down to Part II where the shit hits the fan. Part I It was the first concert of the year, and my two friends and I had been looking forward to it for weeks. I was especially excited for the show it was one of my favorite artists, and it would be the first time I attended a show high on anything but weed. The three of us each had molly 150mg for me, 100mg each for my two friends. I had never seen a chemical so pure before. It wasnt powder, it was legitimate crystal. I had never rolled before, nor had one of my friends (well call her Evelyn. She was the driver that night). In addition, my other friend and I (well call him Jerry) and I were also planning to take a hit of acid. I had taken acid once before, from the same strip, and I knew it to be rather weak. Id say I reached a + on the Shulgin scale, ++ once I smoked. We also rolled up the last of our blueberry kush in a joint to smoke before the show. On the day of the concert, a confluence of odd events occurred. Evelyn saw a black cat on the railroad tracks outside her apartment that had been sliced in two by a train. Later, when she was on her way to pick me up, her car got a flat tire and we had to wait an hour at a Wal-Mart while it got replaced. As we drove on the highway to pick up Jerry, we were pulled over for going 86mph. Evelyn wasnt lucky enough to get off with a warning (female cops...) and as we continued on with a speeding ticket in hand, we were at least glad to agree that it was a good sign that we had gotten our police encounter over with for the day. The concert was about an hour and a half away, and we left with plenty of time to spare. Jerry and I placed our hits under our tongues when we were about 45 minutes out; Evelyn, who had never done anything stronger than cannabis, abstained. We both still felt at baseline when we arrived at the venue. We parked the car and searched for a place to smoke. We settled at a wonderful, isolated spot behind the venue. The view was gorgeous we were near a river, and the lights from the nearby metropolis twinkled in the ripples of the water. I felt huge. The blueberry high mingled with the burgeoning acid trip, and I felt the world ebbing with my breath. I was filled with a familiar sense of peace. I grinned at Jerry and said I think this stuff is stronger than the last time. He smiled back. I could feel the acid creeping up as we checked our tickets, stood in line, and waited for the opening act to perform. I was an acid novice, so its hard for me to qualitatively describe what the drug was doing to me. It was stronger than my last hit, yes, but still not strong, probably not even 100mcg. Nevertheless, I clearly felt under the influence of a psychedelic. My vision breathed as I did, and I felt a fundamental calmness mixed with excitement. A new sort of energy coursed through my body, the sort that I imagined when I heard people speak of channeling energy. The night was off to a great start. This seems like a good point to pause and describe myself a little. I had tripped several times before the 102

aforementioned LSD, mushrooms, and 2C-E mostly and smoked heavily. I had never tripped in a public setting before, and in fact had always doubted that such a thing would be enjoyable. I had also never taken MDMA before, but it had been at the top of my to-do list for years. I am, by nature, introverted and not a little shy. It was something I used to really beat myself up about; I couldnt shake the feeling that I was always being judged for being quiet or a bore. As I came to realize that other people spent about as much time judging and criticizing me as I did them (that is to say, not really at all), my insecurities faded but my proclivities remained the same. I didnt usually seek company and had a hard time talking to others. I was fascinated by the potential of MDMA to break me from my shell. I had heard from friends and numerous online reports about how drastically MDMA could increase sociability, empathy, sensitivity all things that I felt I lacked and wanted so badly when I saw them in others. And, secretly, I badly wanted to dance. Music had always moved my soul, but not my body, and I was far too self-conscious to give it an earnest try. Aside from a few white-guy head bobs, I had never danced, and I privately doubted the ability of even the great MDMA to change that. Jerry had described the first bands sound as some high school kids who play pop music and made it big somehow, so as they walked onto the stage, I was expected something like a watered-down Belle & Sebastian. Luckily, their live show transcended the album and by the second number I was sold. Jerry was acid-grooving to the music, while Evelyn and I stood near the back and bobbed our white heads. Occasionally I would look at Evelyn and smile, as if to acknowledge how ridiculous it was that there was a rocking band playing with dozens of dancing and free souls all around us and we were too self-conscious to do what everyone else was doing (although for all I knew she didnt want to dance, and that is, of course, perfectly fine). The joy of the crowd should have been infectious, but I felt slightly too awkward to really get into the spirit. Jerry and I wanted our roll to peak during the headliner, and the perfect time to take our capsules was as the second act set up. Evelyn bowed out of taking the molly, so Jerry and I each placed capsules containing 100mg of MDMA in our mouths and washed it down with the most expensive bottled water I had ever drank. By this time, the acid had reached its peak effects while the cannabis high was weakening by the minute. The second act began performing blaring glitch-hop that seemed out of place with the other music, but I loved it regardless. The light show danced overhead in purple and green, the audience became more and more energetic, and I began to play the do-I-feel-it-or-do-I-not game. As the second act wore on, I began sensing a new kind of energy, which increased by degrees until I was convinced that something was happening. But still, it was just that an energy, but none of the characteristics that I had come to expect. I do remember the first instant that I knew I was rolling. I was bending my knees and bobbing my head to a particularly intense beat, and a singular thought entered my mind: My jeans feel really, really good right now And that was it. My jeans rubbing against my legs as I moved felt good in a way that nothing had ever felt good before, like a magical, perfectly soft fabric rubbing along the smoothest skin. And at that instant, the other effects of the drug began to fill me. The music took on wonderful new qualities where before the music had seemed almost too loud, I now relished in the volume. My senses were hungry for everything, and I devoured the lights, the now-beautiful clothing and movements of those around me, and the MUSIC. I had the thought some months before, while listening to a sprawling ambient Shpongle track while on 2C-E, that psychedelics didnt just improve music but totally altered it. It was like software running on different hardware; like it pushed separate and previously unknown switches. MDMA is similar, I think. I didnt simply begin to enjoy more the music I had been hearing, it took on a brand new quality. I could feel the pounding bass shake my body, but it resonated throughout every part of me. I was like a starving man, and the music was my feast. And I danced. My inhibitions were wiped away at once, but it wasnt just that. It was like I knew just how to dance, like I had always known but had never embraced it until now. One of my greatest fears about dancing had been that I simply didnt know how. That night, I learned how easy it is. I didnt have to know what to do, I just did it. My body, the music, and the drug corroborated to make my movements virtually unconscious. The urges of movement that had peeked from my depths whenever I listened to good music were finally exercised. I moved my feet, my hips, my arms I just did what my body told me to do, and I loved it deeply. The second act left the stage, and the three of us sat down at one of the small tables in the back of the room. 103

Getting off my feet was an amazing feeling; all the energy that I had been expending on the dancefloor now surged through my body, bouncing around on my insides at a hundred miles an hour. Even something as simple as breathing was a delight. I felt like I was humming in harmony with the vibrations of everything around, and every breath was perfect, just like it was supposed to happen. I had the hugest grin plastered on my face, and at that moment I couldn't understand why there was so much sadness in people when everything was so, so beautiful... I turned my attention to my two friends. Jerry was smoking a cigarette and wore a smile to match mine. We exchanged a look, and I'm sure he understood what was on my mind just as well as I understood what was on his. I turned my attention to Evelyn, and in an instant every kind thing she had ever done for me flashed into my mind. I was struck by the things she had done for me out of the goodness of her heart, and I was awestruck by the simple beauty of that. Any time that someone does something out of the goodness of their heart, it is a beautiful and sacred gift and I won't forget it. My friends and I guzzled water and talked; I don't remember about what. As the headliner was setting up to perform, I remembered that I had another capsule containing 50m of molly in my pocket. I hesitated I already felt great, did I need more? Might it be too much? I thought back to last year, to the first time Jerry and I had ever tripped. We had taken Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seeds, and I had said I didn't want to smoke because I wanted to experience the trip on its own. Alright, Jerry said, but for what it's worth, maybe it's not about having a Hawaiian Baby Woodrose experience but about having an experience. It can only make you feel better. I had no answer for that then, and I didn't now. I happily swallowed my capsule just before the band came onstage. I've avoided mentioning the names of the artists at the concert, since that lineup only played a few shows together and (for reasons that will soon become clear) it wouldn't be too difficult to identify my friends. Suffice to say, however, that the headlining band was perfect for the state of mind I was in that night. The acid and the MDMA had peaked, and the music was warm, familiar, and childlike. My dancing became more varied, but more importantly, I had fallen in love with my movements. There was nothing, I thought, that I would rather be doing at that moment. Not content to stay in one place, I started dancing in circles around Evelyn, who would laugh at the spectacle. Every time I saw any positive emotion on her face, I felt my soul lift correspondingly. We had brought about fifteen pairs of rainbow glasses to the show (if you don't know what those are, they're cardboard glasses with plastic lenses that act as prisms and show spectra of color surrounding all sources of light), and I had been sporadically wearing a pair throughout the night. Jerry was standing near the speakers to the right of the stage, and he motioned me to join him. He had been talking to a guy with light gloves on, and almost before I knew what was happening, I was getting my first light show. My jaw dropped, and after I had almost immediately put on my rainbow glasses, my jaw dropped to the floor. I can't describe in words what it looked like... it seemed like every color, everywhere, times seven. That was amazing, dude! I shouted when he was finished, and gave him a hug. He was sweaty; I didn't care. Inspired, I took the other pairs of glasses out of my pocket and dashed to the back of the room. The first person I offered a pair to declined but, undeterred, I looked for a new target. I greeted an attractive blonde girl in the middle of the room. I like how you dance! I said, and handed her a pair. Her face lit up when she put them on. She thanked me and gave me a hug, and I went off in search of someone else. I found a group of a few guys who were clearly having a good time. I tapped the nearest one of the shoulder and offered him the glasses. The instant he put them on, his face lit up with delight. He started laughing and flashing the biggest smile I had ever seen. Try this fucking things on! he shouted to his friends, and I watched their reactions as one by one they too suddenly burst into joy and delight. With each person that put them on, my mood lifted and lifted until I was in perfect bliss over how happy I had been able to make these strangers. The glasses made their way back to the first man, and he tried to give them back to me. I waved my hand. They're yours, I mouthed, and danced away. The rest of the show went like that. I danced, making sure to buy a bottle of water whenever my mouth felt dry (and once tipping the nice ladies at the bar $5). I only stopped dancing a few times to hug Evelyn. She's a lot like how I described myself earlier, and it seems like sometimes we have a hard time talking to each other for that reason. It was an amazing feeling having those barriers broken down and being able to see and talk to my good friend the way I had always wanted to. 104

But of course, the show had to eventually end. We filed out almost immediately. A part of me was disappointed, and I still wanted to do nothing but dance to loud electronic music. As soon as I stepped outside, though, I knew that was just where I wanted to be. It was a cool night, and it offered a whole new range of sensations than the loud and stuffy room in which I had spent the last few hours. My skin tingled, the cold air refreshed and reinvigorated me. The three of us quickly found a bench of the street near the river. It's hard for me to describe just how everything looked at that moment. Everything took on an ineffable quality, like a sparkle, and like breathing. The river stretched on and on, as far as I could see, and a rainbow of colors reflected and refracted on its surface from the buildings on the other side. I looked at Evelyn; she smiled, and I at last realized what a beautiful girl she really is. I looked at Jerry, and all the qualities I admired and loved in my old friend seemed to be painted on his face. The world there on that bench was, in a word, perfect. You know, I began, I've always thought that if a person says something about somebody when they're not around, then you know they really mean it, right? Well, Evelyn, I was talking to Jerry the other day and I said 'you know, Evelyn is a pretty cool kid.' And he said 'yeah, Evelyn is really cool.' He said that, Evelyn! He didn't have to say it, but he did! Jerry smiled hugely and nodded. It's true, I did say that! We continued in this fashion for a few minutes, taking delight in the delight we brought our friend. There was a pause in the conversation. Jerry, I said abruptly, square up! I immediately sat upright and extended my arms as wide as I could. He did the same, and we hugged. I don't think we had done that in years. I love you, man, I said, and he replied the same. We don't do that enough, man Jerry said, and I agreed. I hugged Evelyn and told her I loved her too. We still had a little bit of weed left, and after making sure that no one would walk up on us, we each took two or three hits from Jerry's one-hitter. The weed brought back some of the feelings I had earlier, but I felt like it augmented the acid more than the MDMA. We laughed and talked for a few more minutes before Evelyn decided that she was cold. We agreed to talk back to the car to get a jacket and warm up. I stood up and walked away with two of my closest friends, on top of the world, full on the life and love that had always surrounded me but that I had never noticed before. Part II It was much warmer in the car. I hadn't noticed how the cold had affected me, but I was glad to be out of the breeze. My friends and I continued our conversation from the bench with unabated good vibes. After a few minutes, one of us in the car commented on a group of young men on bicycles slowly riding up the sidewalk about ten feet in front of the car. I won't mince words these were some shady-looking motherfuckers and they had clearly either just gotten in some shit or were about to. And in fact, just a few seconds after we noticed them, a police cruiser rolled up behind them and turned its lights on. We quickly assessed the situation: it was 2am in a bad part of town, we were the only car in the lot, and it looked like they were there to sell us drugs. Even if it didn't we all agreed that this was not a place we needed to be. We pulled out of the lot and got the hell out of there. We drove around aimlessly for a minute, looking for a place to settle. But before Jerry could say that we were going the wrong way down a one-way street, we slammed into the side of a police car. I don't remember what happened immediately after the crash. I saw right away that we had hit the car as it was traveling to the left. The two vehicles were sprawled across the intersection at odd angles. I couldn't see the damage to Evelyn's car, but I saw that we had hit the police car in the back, not the front. The officer appeared to be unharmed, and so did we. We were in shock. All I remember until I was taken out of the car was Evelyn's crying, and Jerry and I trying to tell her it would be okay. But she was beyond consolation. My heart went out to her in that moment, and I will never forget that look in her eyes. I don't remember how long it took for backup to arrive on the scene. It seemed like ages, but with the volume of cops in the area, it couldn't have been long. Police were everywhere around the intersection, and they continued to arrive as events transpired. An officer came to my door first. 105

Step out of the car. Am I under arrest? No, you're not. Do I have to get out of the car? Yes, you do. I got out. I was terrified. I didn't know what the laws regarding people in my situation were, and I didn't know if it mattered. We didn't just hit any car, we hit one of their own. I didn't have anything on me, but I was high as a kite and I didn't put it past the police to make my life very difficult anyway. Do you have any drugs on your or anything I should know about? No, sir. Well, you mind if I search you so I know you're telling the truth? Yes sir, I do mind. I need to search you so I know you're not carrying a weapon or something you can hurt me with. I didn't know if that was true or not, but I realized that I wasn't going to keep this man out of my pockets. I consented, and he started to pat me down. Is there anything that's going to poke me in there? Nothin' sharp? No, sir... Once satisfied that I was clean, he had me stand with another officer off to the side while they dealt with my friends. The cop they stuck me with was a real tough guy, one of those who are out to give you a hard time. So why didn't you want to be searched earlier, huh? I'm a man of principle. He shook his head. It just makes you look guilty... He sounded somewhat disgusted. I didn't reply, and instead watched what was going on with my friends. Jerry was going through the same ordeal that I had with the cop. My heart sank. He wasn't clean he had his one-hitter, and worst of all, he was carrying Evelyn's capsule of molly. I prayed that he had the presence of mind to swallow it in the car. The exchange between Jerry and the cop was becoming heated. I was situated too far away to make out what they were saying, but I could tell that Jerry was standing his ground in refusing to be searched without being charged with a crime, and the cop, sensing that he had his man, was insisting with every-increasing fervor that Jerry let himself be searched. I don't know what the breaking point was in the standoff I expect that the cop threatened to call in drug dogs and it would only make it worse for Jerry if he did. In any case, I watched as the officer reached into Jerry's pocket. He found a cigarette pack and looked inside. He looked at Jerry, and I watched his lips form the words you are under arrest... Jerry turned around and held his head high as the cuffs were placed around his wrists. He was led to the back of a squad car, and the police turned their attention to Evelyn. Evelyn proved to be a much easier target. Jerry and I had a few run-ins with the police between this, but she was much more nave. To give you an idea of the environment she comes from: She grew up on a small farm in a very conservative family in the South. Her parents are unambiguously racist. When she was in high school, she was literally almost disowned for briefly dating a black guy. In spite of all this, she is an extremely cool person, very open-minded and modest and thoughtful. She had been smoking infrequently, almost exclusively with me, since last year, but that was it. This is all by way of saying: she was terrified, and didn't know what to do. Her parents still play a highly active role in her life, and she had just gotten high and ran into a police car. I don't think anything worse could have been happening to her right now in her eyes. Evelyn was right next to me as the police asked her questions, so I could hear every word that was said. Did you have anything to drink tonight? 106

No, sir. Did you smoke anything? Yes, I did. When? I smoked with them about an hour ago. I froze. I was less concerned with being implicated in anything myself at that moment, but I knew she had just given herself away. There wasn't anything she could do to help herself now. But I can't blame her for it. Even if she had denied it, even if she had passed the field sobriety tests, they would have taken her in to get a blood test and it would show that she'd smoked. The cop just nodded. Alright, he said, we're going to give you some sobriety tests now. I didn't watch as she performed them, though I did smile when I heard her absolutely nail the backwards alphabet. I had been too distracted to realize that my trip was still going strong, but now, as I sat in short sleeves in the October night, in a strange city surrounded by hostile police, watching these friends who I respected and loved on the brink of being hauled away, I plunged into negativity. I was still terrified that I was next. I was obviously lowest on their list of priorities, but once they had put away the big fish, what would happen to me? Was I an accessory to something? I was plagued by doubt, and I was plagued by the injustice the universe had just shown me. In an orientation for my job this year a few months earlier, I had been asked who my hero was. I thought a moment, and replied my friends. It was these two I had in mind. Jerry was my best friend since sixth grade, my roommate, my trip partner. So much about how I saw the world, I owed to him. And the goodness of Evelyn affected me in the same way. We all have friends, but few and far between are the friends we can truly say we respect, who connect to us on a deeper level, and who inspire us to better things by their examples. These were smart people, all of us on full scholarship at our school, people who committed themselves to living harmless lives. And yet here they were, facing an infinitely frightening uncertainty. It was no comfort to me that I couldn't even blame the police for what they were doing. Yes, if our drug laws were the way I thought they should be, Jerry would be in as little trouble as I was. But I couldn't ignore the fact that we really did hit a police car, and but for half a second's difference, we really could have killed him. I couldn't expect them to act any differently than they did, and yet it all seemed so unfair. I sat, shivering, for what seemed like hours. I became frantic, and my fear worsened. By and by, my thoughts dissolved into one shaking mantra: I want this to be over. I want this to be over. I'm not proud of my lack of courage at that moment, but it is what it is. It's an experience that I hope I've learned from. One of the officers approached me. I froze up. You're free to go, he said. I couldn't believe it. My disbelief must not have shown, because he continued unabated. Do you have anyone you can call that can pick you up? Yeah, I'll call my girlfriend. How far away does she live? I think it'd be a couple of hours from here. Alright. There's a hotel a couple of blocks away. If you want, we can drive you over there. Er... no thanks, I can walk, I said, wanting nothing less in the world to be in the back of a police car at that moment. Are you sure? Yeah, I am. They were done with me, but I still had one thing to ask. What's going to happen to them? Well, she's going to jail for a DUI. And the other one's going in for paraphernalia. My hopes brightened at that last statement. If it was just paraphernalia, and not possession... that must mean they 107

didn't find the molly! Holding this one bit of good news in my heart, I took my phone out of my pocket and walked off. It was a hard call to make. My girlfriend (we'll call her Ally) has been Evelyn's best friend since their freshman year of high school; in fact, that's how Evelyn and I knew each other. I don't need to repeat the phone call here I told her what happened, she asked if I was okay, I said yes. She told me to just find a place to stay until she could get there. I thanked her profusely, and when I told her I loved her, I don't think I had ever meant it that much before. Now that I was away from the police, I was faced with a new problem. In my hurry to get away from the scene of the crime, I neglected to ask exactly where the hotel was. I had a vague direction, and I determined to walk that way until I found it; damned if I was going back to ask. Now a new anxiety began to creep in, since it was now very late at night and the part of town I was in looked none too friendly. Thankfully, fate smiled upon me, and I came upon the hotel after only about ten minutes of walking. I braced myself for whatever was to come, and walked in. Part III The lobby of the hotel was fairly small, with pairs of cushy chairs lining the glass walls. I approached the woman standing behind the long reference desk. She put on her best friendly face and introduced herself as Cindy, and asked if there was anything she could do for me. I took my best shot: Is this somewhere I can just... stay for a little while? Her look told me that I hadn't expressed myself clearly enough. I hastily told her my story, why I was in town and how I ended up in her hotel at two in the morning. Wow... she muttered. Why was she driving? I didn't really think she was high, I replied, and it was somewhat true. Cindy still understandably seemed to regard me with a bit of skepticism. She didn't seem keen on letting me stay in her lobby forever, but she said I could sit there for a while. I was more interested in chatting with my new acquaintance, and I asked whether it were alright if I stood at the desk and talked to her, or if I should sit my ass down. She looked bewildered. That's a sit-your-ass-down face, I decided, and plopped down on one of the chairs against the wall. The distance didn't keep me from conversation with Cindy. It already seemed like the scene with the cops was in the distant past, and now I was reminded of the mixture of psychoactives massaging my brain. The MDMA made me sociable and honest, the LSD put me in a peaceful state of mind, and the cannabis gave the whole thing a slightly surreal twist. I was fascinated by what I was able to do. If I had been in that lobby sober, I wouldn't have uttered a word to her. I would've replied to what she was saying, but I wouldn't have taken any pleasure in the conversation. But as it was, I was beginning to clean bits of her life story. She had a boyfriend, and he had a son from a previous marriage. The ex-wife, the boy's mother, was rather insane, and made life difficult for all of them by her constant intrusion. Cindy had to work the late shifts at the hotel, which obviously interfered with her family life. However, she had an interview for some sort of management position in the hotel. She was experienced, and she liked her odds. My soaring empathy elevated this woman in my eyes; I was happy and proud for her that she was so capable and determined. I assured her that she and her family would be fine and that I was proud of her. Before long, though, we had a visitor. A taxi pulled up in front of the hotel, and a rugged brown-haired man in his 40s stumbled out of the cab and into the lobby. He was beyond drunk; he staggered up to Cindy and leaned over the desk for support as he explained his situation. I need... to pay the cab driver, and Imma get a room. Alright, Cindy replied. You should go do that, then. The man paused. I needa pay the cab driver, and then I'm gonna get a room. Cindy wasn't blinking. Alright, well, you should go do that, then. Pause. I don't have any money. 108

Cindy was handling the situation with the measured patience of a woman who had done this many times before. How were you going to get a room, then? she asked calmly. Oh... I have a card, but I need cash for the cab. He don't take cards. How much is the fare? Five dollars. His words hung in the air for a few seconds, when I hopped up out of my chair and approached him while reaching for my wallet. Here, man, just take this, I said as I handed him a bill. Go give this to the driver and we'll figure the rest out in here. Once the cab was taken care of, a new problem arose. The man had no form of identification on him, which meant he wasn't allowed to get a room. He would have get another cab, which meant braving a walk to the ATM a few blocks away. Cindy explained that it was near a White Castle, and his face brightened. Listen, do you guys want any White Castle? he drawled. Cindy and I shook our heads. Well, I'm gonna get us some anyway, he said, each word slowly uttered without ever changing the look of his face. I asked if he could check out the scene around the White Castle to see if there was a wreck there, or police cars. I figured this was a longshot. And away he went, thanking us for our help and confirming the directions as he left. We'll never see him again, Cindy said as she lit up a cigarette. Cindy and I resumed our conversation after the man left. I found out that she had been diagnosed with cancer when she was a teenager, but had luckily made a full and relatively quick recovery. After I expressed my congratulations, her voice lowered. Actually, though... they think I might have it again, she said with the voice of a person sharing a secret. In my colon. As she described the various medical procedures that led to this hypothesis, I was struck by three things in particular. I strongly got the impression that this new cancer was something she hadn't told many people about. It was certainly very recent, and private; yet here was this woman spilling all of this to a stranger clearly out of his gourd. I was also surprised at the frankness of her descriptions. Examinations relating to colon cancer are obviously a very private matter that people would typically shy away from relating, yet once again, here she was telling it all to a stranger. And finally, I was impressed with her composure. She delivered the news of this latest cancer almost as if it were a joke, like and-as-if-my-life-weren't-fucked-enough, and I never detected any fear on her face or in her words. My curiosity won out. Cindy, you seem really... calm about all of this. Aren't you freaked out, or scared? Well, the way I see it, I already beat this thing once so I have that going for me. And if it ends up being the death of me then, well, I guess it'll kill me. I was in awe of this person before me, who had just confidently delivered a big fuck-you to death. We will all die, and most of us will come to peace with this fact before our time. I imagine that most who are able to achieve this do so by simple acceptance. They realize that it's a part of life, and they can control how to approach it. Some remove the taboos, appreciate it, joke about it. Death can't be defeated by fighting, but only by laughter. After this talk, Cindy began walking to the front door to have a cigarette outside. I remained sitting. There was a small part of my old introverted self that didn't think she'd want to have me around while she smoked. But before Cindy opened the door, she looked at me and said well, aren't you coming outside? I smiled hugely and followed her out. It was such a morale boost to have someone truly desire my company. Outside, it was colder than it had been all night, but my psychedelic jacket kept out the chill. Cindy and I continued talking, and when replying to a question I had asked, she broke off mid-sentence. Oh my god, she said. He's back. And indeed, the man from the cab had returned. He hadn't sobered up one bit, and in each hand he was carrying a massive White Castle bag. I greeted him excitedly, and asked whether he had the cash for another cab. He looked at me with glassy eyes, and replied naw... I couldn't find the ATM. I shook my head and without any surprise in my voice, I asked him to come inside and sit down and we'd figure something out. From here, the night finally began to come to a close. We decided to call another cab for the man and let them 109

figure it out when it got here. My girlfriend called me to tell me she was close and to make sure she was in the right place. I was having a lot of fun with Cindy, but I was elated to get that call. I was drained. The MDMA was finally beginning to wear off, and I could tell I was on the acid comedown as well. I didn't crash, but it was now very late and I had spent the last several hours partying or stressed. I wanted to sleep in my bed, try to put this day behind me. Thoughts of my friends came flooded my mind, and I saw them alone in jail, with no way of knowing what would happen to them next. I felt survivor's guilt, though I chided myself for it. My best friend from high school is pretty reliably awake late into the night, and I texted him to explain the situation and to ask him to find out potential penalties for what my friends were arrested for. My heart sank when I heard that Jerry's MDMA could land him up to a year in jail, and I hoped once more that he had eaten it. Soon afterward, my girlfriend arrived. I was overwhelmed with gratitude, love, relief when I saw her. While Cindy was in the back office typing something up, I hastily wrote her a card thanking her for her kindness and wishing her good luck on her interview the next day. I shouted a goodbye to my new friend, got into my girlfriend's car, and finally drove away. Epilogue The next day, I walked to my bank and emptied out my account. Evelyn's bond was $500, and I had just over that in savings. A friend and I drove to the town the next day intent on freeing her, but when we arrived we were told that she was already gone. When I inquired about Jerry, I was informed that his bond has been posted as well. A bit confused, we returned home. We found out that both of them had been freed by their parents, and were waiting at home. The legal details began to emerge. I won't bore you with the details, but in the end, Evelyn got a DUI and a few months of probation, while Jerry is on a diversion program. Assuming he passes all of his drugs tests for three months, the charges will be dropped and erased from his record. That night obviously left a great impact on me. Each main part of the evening taught me a particular set of lessons, it seemed. At the concert, I was finally freed of my inhibitions and had what I still call the time of my life. I discovered an appreciation of dancing that was particularly infectious the first few days afterward, when I just felt like dancing everywhere I went. It was as if I could feel the rhythm (or, rather, the beat) of the universe. I still get a sense that all of these aftereffects were largely the result of one moment at the show, when I just Got It. It was sublime, perfect peace and bliss. It was an amazing feeling of appreciation of everything and especially everyone around me, connectedness with the ground I was standing on, awash in the goodness of humanity. I suppose you might expect me to say the the crash scared me straight... unfortunately, you'd be wrong. But there was a lot I took away from it. First of all, my single piece of advice to anyone reading this is to absolutely minimize the time you spend with drugs on you in a vehicle. When you're in your house, you're in one small spot where the police never are. When you're driving, you put yourself in the situation to cover the most possible ground while the most possible police cars are also covering the most possible ground. And if you have the misfortune of being young, male, and especially not-white, you're at an even higher risk. And while I'm not here to criticize high drivers - I feel safe riding with a number of friends when they're stoned and trust their abilities - this is as good a time as any to reflect on your high driving, whether you honestly think it impacts your reaction time or anything like that. If you are a great high driver, then knock yourself out. But a little self-honesty can keep you safe in unexpected ways. When I was at the motel waiting, I had the unique (for me) opportunity of going through the entire friendmaking process in only a few hours. For someone who has always had difficulty speaking to strangers, the memory of that is invaluable. I was able to draw on that experience, and not only did it make it easier for me to communicate with others, I began to truly find pleasure in it. I felt like my barriers were broken down, and I realized that those barriers were only put up by me to keep myself from having any fun. After having an experience like that, it is sometimes difficult to understand how people could not be lining up to have one like it. One person I talked to said that he didn't want the euphoria that came from a chemical like 110

MDMA, but rather he found his joy through love, beauty, etc. It was only a few weeks later (always too late on a good comeback) that I found a quote from Jonathan Ott, author of the Psychedelic Encyclopedia: we're all on drugs, all of the time. It may be an oversimplification to say that oxytocin is the love hormone, but it does play a role our subjective experience of many aspects of love. But what makes his oxytocin-based love more valuable and true than my MDMA-based love? Our emotions are made possible by the cocktail of endogenous drugs flowing throughout each of our brains. What matters is what you feel, and if you feel it, it's real. The experience I had that night was real, and it was powerful. The drug was responsible for the effects on my mind that night alone, but the long-lasting changes the experience left only occurred because I allowed myself to grow from the experience. The MDMA, LSD, and cannabis were tools indispensable ones, in this case, but tools nonetheless. They allowed me to improve my mind within its own framework. And in spite of the crash, the worry, and the fear, I still count it as one of the best nights of my life. It's psychonaut wisdom that bad trips are often the best ones, because you learn more about yourself during a turbulent psychedelic experience than during a happier one. Myself and others in the psychedelic community often forget that the principle is only an instance of a larger truth: that difficult times and risky situations not only show you who you are, but by pushing the boundaries of experience, you show yourself what you are capable of.

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dwpineal
Excerpts from Stories from the Psychedelic Underground

Trip to the Peninsula

There are some moments in time when you get the feeling that your whole life has led up to this exact moment. All your experiences and all youve learned, all of who you are and have come to be have led you to this crossroads in space and time. A moment where you are about to step into the unknown, a moment where you are looking at a chance, an opportunity, and you know your life will be forever changed should you stay the path. You look deep into yourself, and you can feel the pull of The Great Other. I had this feeling overwhelm me as I stared down into my palm and looked at the tiny square centimeter of paper sitting within the center of an unfolded piece of aluminum foil. How could this small, insignificant piece of paper hold the very essence of Mystery itself? I sat and pondered this and exactly how I had gotten to this place at this point in time. About two weeks ago, I was at a local underground coffee house, The Mud House. The Mud House was a coffee shop situated smack dab in the middle of one of Fort Lauderdales less desirable areas, just outside of downtown. It was a late-night hangout of would-be poets, artistic types and musicians. So many people would be there on Friday and Saturday nights, that there was no way everyone would fit into the trapezoidal area filled with books, checker boards, tables, and coffee. It was a vibrant and energetic scene spilling outside the confines of the tiny coffee shop into the grassy courtyard out front and the parking lots out back. The Mud House was filled with local art, and poets would share their mental reflections from the mic stand at the far end of the room. Even though The Mud House itself was small, it was housed within a large V-shaped three story building right next to the train tracks, in a forgotten corner outside of downtown Fort Lauderdale. The unique shape of the building worked perfectly for the blossoming of a small scene. The center of the V held a nice sized courtyard with grass and stone tables. Local bands would play mini-concerts in the courtyard, so the clientele from the Mud House overflowed into its outside openness when the close quarters of the coffee shop became too overbearing. The fact that The Mud house was the only business open late at night, allowed the scene to grow and flourish around the V shaped building without bothering the neighbors. The parking lot behind the V was known to the patrons as the place to relax with some friends, some old, some new, and pass around a few joints. I was still so new to smoking herb, that its effects were fully psychedelic when I smoked, especially in the amounts freely available there. It was a wonderful time for me to be in such a highly creative atmosphere. Art, music, books, poetry, interesting fashions and eccentric people coupled with the effects of pot on a relatively inexperienced smoker really captured my spirit and imagination. Empty spaces in the parking lots would fill up with circles of smokers, passing around joints and creating visible moving clouds under the streetlights. It was in the parking lot, sitting on the asphalt in a circle with some of these friends, when I looked to the guy next to me, an acquaintance Id talked with many times before, and asked if he could get me any smoke. After finishing up the joint we were smoking, he led me into the bathroom inside the Mud House. The Mud House was small, the bathroom was smaller. We squeezed into the single bathroom stall, locked the door and I handed him a $10 bill. He reached into his pocket and took out a colorful wrapped cellophane, and handed it to me. I just put it into my pocket without even looking at it, thanked him and squeezed out of the bathroom to tell my friends the good news. I walked over to the courtyard and motioned for my two friends to follow me. Together we walked to Marks Jeep in the back parking lot to check out the score. 112

So what does it look like? Alex asked. I didnt check it out, he handed me this. I think its two joints I said, showing him the small wrapped package Id been handed. It felt like two joints through the wrapper. You know people sell rolled joints like this so they can sell you oregano instead of weed. Alex was an eternal pessimist, but many times he was right, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as I unwrapped the colorful cellophane. We almost bumped heads looking into the little opened wrapper in my hand. See, I knew he was cool! I said triumphantly when I saw the package contained two nice buds instead of what I thought were rolled joints. The package felt like it had two long somethings, and I had just assumed by the feel, that they were joints. But instead, it was two perfect looking buds, not rolled into joints at all, funny how your senses can trick you like that. I was extremely happy that I hadnt just bought ten dollars worth of oregano. Looking closer, I saw the corner of a tiny plastic baggie sticking out from in between the buds. I pulled it out and it had a very small rectangular piece of paper with a design of some kind. And it seemed to be perforated right down the middle of the rectangle, making two perfect squares. Is that acid? Did you buy acid too? Alex asked looking at the baggie in my hand. I had never even seen acid before, but I had read quite a bit about it. I had a moment of Oh my G-d as I realized what had almost literally fallen into my hands. Looking at my friend in this dimly lit downtown parking lot, late at night, in this most unexpected of places, I felt the beginning of a great adventure. Regardless, I wasnt sure if my friend Rory, that sold me the herb even knew he had given me the little baggie inside the cellophane. I had asked for herb, and had only given him ten dollars. Surely there was ten dollars worth of herb in there also. I wasnt even sure if this was acid, but it was little paper in a baggie, so I went to find Rory to find out what was going on. I knew he wasnt a dealer; he was just a nice guy helping me out. I felt like it was my responsibility to let him know. It felt like a mistake. I wandered from the parking lot back through the loosely crowded courtyard looking for Rory. After a few minutes of weaving through the people outside, I headed inside the Mud House, pulling open the door and stepping into the cozy warmness of the coffee shop. The smell of coffee and brownies filled the room with a richness that reminded me of the enticing visible smell of Froot Loops tempting Toucan Sam. A girl with short dredds was reading poetry in the front corner of the room. Looking to the coffee bar, I saw Rory reclining and listening intently to her words. He saw me and gave a smile and a nod as I walked over and stood next to him by the bar. I gave him five and quietly started, Hey man, I think you accidentally, uh, well, I found a baggie inside the wrapper with the buds, it looks like acid. I dont think you knew it was in there, so I wanted to bring it back to you. Wow, I had no idea that was in there! Rory said. I had brought those for a friend of mine, theyre something special. But, I talked to him a few hours ago and hes not gonna make it over here tonight. So is it acid? Youve never done it before? No, I said with a nervous laugh, Ive never even seen it before. This comment brought on a half hour conversation in hushed tones, spoken under the poetry coming from the microphone. Two coffees later he looked into my eyes, trying to read something, and said, LSD is something special, you know its not even about the money, its so much more than I can even explain. You keep them, theres 2 hits there. Find a good friend, a safe, comfortable place, and enjoy. I had so many questions for him, but he kept implying that until I had the experience, that trying to explain it to me was impossible. Over the next two weeks I spent a lot of time in the library and talking to friends, quietly researching LSD. I 113

wanted to know more about it before I was going to take any of it. I heard plenty of horror stories from people who had never taken it. I heard that if you took more than 7 hits of LSD during your lifetime that you could be declared Legally Insane. I heard about a friend of a friends mother who had taken so much acid in the 60s that he got flashbacks and went crazy. Another friends uncle told him about a kid that had some LSD in his pockets and got caught in the rain. The rain soaked the LSD right into his skin and the kid was taken to the hospital where he still lives today, because he believes hes a glass of orange juice. I could only find the very fewest of people who had taken it, acid was not a widespread phenomenon in our area, or at least it was somewhat rare. So this led me to books. I read what was available in our high school library, which was not much. Alex and I took the bus to the Broward County Main Library, a massive eight floor building housing what seemed to be millions of books. We spent hours digging through the shelves and reading quietly in the study cubicles. As closing time approached, we checked out two books. We ended up leaving with a copy of Tom Wolfes Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Aldous Huxleys Doors of Perception. I read both of them over the next weekend. By Monday morning, my mind was abuzz. I was excited. I wanted to get on the bus. The following Friday after school we found ourselves climbing into an old beat up blue work van that belonged to our Friend Jakes dad, headed to what turned out to be the best possible place for our first LSD experience. He was taking us deep in the Florida Everglades during the nicest weather of the year. Alex, Jake and I made ourselves comfortable in the back of the van, as best as we could around all the tools, while Jakes dad pulled out of the parking lot. The back of the van didnt have windows, other than on the rear doors, but we entertained ourselves as Jakes dad kept driving and driving. About an hour later he pulled the van to a stop, and with a smile said, Alright guys, were here. Get your gear together, and dont forget anything. Alex opened the side doors of the van and the three of us climbed out into the bright Florida sunshine and a crystal clear sky that seemed to go on forever. Now go get your site paid for. He said from the drivers seat. We walked over to a building that looked quintessential Everglades, a down home swamp building that looked like it had been there for quite a while. Next to the main building was a huge thatched hut, made by the local Native American tribes, called a chickee hut. They were thatched using the leaves of the Saw Palmetto that are omnipresent in the Everglades. We opened the door, and the three of us walked through the small survival shop full of camping necessities and fishing gear up to a an older man in well-worn overalls. He looked as if he was there as long as the building itself. What can I do for ya boys? He told us that all the campsites were on their own peninsulas, each one a jutting land mass surrounded on three sides by water. He also told us the each peninsula was $11.00 a night. We put our money together and handed it over. He put the money into his register and handed me the receipt. As he did this, he looked up from under his baseball cap and asked, Now yall aint here to party are ya? Cuz we dont tolerate that Oh, no. I said, feeling a bit self-conscious. No, were gonna do some fishin. Jake said with a perfect calmness. The old man pointed us to our peninsula, and sent us on our way. Back outside I felt the massive openness of the Everglades surround me in a soothing embrace. We walked back over to Jakes dad, still sitting in the van looking out into the beautiful Florida skies. Okay, you all good? he asked. Jake gave him the thumbs up as we walked over to get our camping gear. Well alright then, he said with a smile, Ill be back to pick you up Sunday afternoon then. Have fun! We walked over to our campsite on the peninsula and dropped all our gear. We walked around to check it out. We were on a grassy area, just rising out of the surrounding water about a foot above sea level. Tall reed grasses were growing right along the shoreline of the peninsula in little patches here and there. The water was clear for about 15 or twenty feet from the peninsula and then abruptly intertwined with an amorphous green wall of 7 foot reeds. We could see one of the other peninsulas not too far away. We got to work setting up our campsite. This was my 114

first time camping that I could remember, but luckily Jake and Alex knew what they were doing. Alex brought along some herb, and he and I lit up a joint once the campsite was all set up. Jake wasnt interested in psychoactives, so it worked out well since I only had 2 hits of LSD. He didnt mind, and I dont know what we wouldve done without him, honestly. Im sure he was a boy scout, because he was a really great guy to bring camping. We didnt plan to take the LSD that night anyway, since we were going to be here all weekend, we thought Saturday would be perfect. That night the conversation wound through a thousand subjects as we sat by the stone ringed fire pit. That night after we put out our campfire, I went to sleep listening to Natures loud cricket and critter symphony. The next morning we woke up with the sun beating through the tent and baking us in our sleeping bags. Luckily this was November in Florida and not the middle of the summer. Walking out of the tent, the cool air of the Florida autumn felt really nice. Even by noon the temperatures were nice and comfortable, a nice breeze was blowing over the water, and the skies were a calming mixture of light blues. It felt like the perfect time. Opening the cooler we brought with all of our food, I rummaged around for a moment until I found the folded up piece of tin foil that held our LSD. The tinfoil was cool to the touch in the palm of my hand. I felt extremely nervous, this felt like a huge decision, but I knew the decision had already been made. I unfolded the tinfoil and inside was the little plastic baggie I had found with the herb just two weeks ago. I had no idea that the experience to come over the next twelve hours would come to shape the rest of my life. I tore the rectangle of paper in half along the perforations, and handed one of the tiny paper squares to Alex and put the other on my tongue. I had heard from one of the many people Id talked to over the past two weeks that once you put the paper in your mouth, it took 7 seconds to totally dissolve in your mouth. Alex took his and said with a laugh Well, I guess theres no turning back now. I chewed on the paper and kept it in my mouth for quite a while, several minutes at least. I wasnt sure about the 7 second thing, and wanted to be sure I got it all. Do we swallow them or spit them out now? I already swallowed mine! Alex said, so I did the same. Id read that it would take about 30 minutes to hit us, so for the first time, I noted the time we ate the tabs, so Id know when I should begin to feel it. Over the next twenty years, I would do this countless times, noting the time as I would take the sacrament, but this was the first. Ive found over the years that knowing the exact time you took a psychedelic was important, as your sense of time would be totally different, with minutes seeming to span into eternities. One of the common recurring fears during an LSD trip is that youll get stuck in the trip and be tripping forever. This usually happen around the peak of a trip, so knowing when you took the substance and approximately when it should wear off can be extremely calming. Just as the LSD was coming on, I was sitting on a tree stump by the shoreline where the land met the water. As I was looking into the water, a leaf fell from a tree overhead, landing lightly in the water and then another fell and landed about a foot away from the first leaf. As the leaves hit the water, rippling concentric circles waved across the waters surface moving toward (and away) from each other. Watching the ripples flowing outwards from their respective centers, the 2 circles met and intertwined creating a fluid pattern of circles within circles. At almost the same moment as the circles met, I glanced down by my legs to the stump I was sitting on and my eyes caught the concentric circles of the tree rings ingrained within the stump. It was as if I was getting a teaching from nature that the world and my experiences of it were cyclical as well, and sometimes the circles of my life intersected with other circles, making my own circles within circles. Information seemed to flood into my consciousness. I felt the truth that life is cyclical, sometimes youre in an upswing, sometimes youre in a downward swing, but that when you are in one of these times in your life, the other is not far. So if things are going good in your life, you can recognize how lucky you are to be in an upswing, but at the same time, know that it wont last forever. Alternatively, when things are looking hopeless and down, that a swing into the positive side of life is also right around the corner and things will get better. 115

I realized that the circles of the seasons of the year, forever moving around and around are just like the seasons of my life, moving through good times and bad. Circles within circles within circles cascaded through my mind one after the other without taking a break. I saw the circular patterns of electrons moving around the atoms in my body, and simultaneously saw the identical circular movements of the moon around the Earth, and the planets around the sun, and the galaxies of universes swirling around in the vastness of space. Of course this brought me to the possibilities that the galaxies were actually tiny cells in an organism so vast I couldn't even imagine it. If we were on the inside of an almost boundless, yet sentient and alive being, then what does the outside of that being look like? And how many of them are there? Again my consciousness collapsed upon iteslf to the microcosmic world. What if there were entire societies and worlds and galaxies with sentient beings within the tiny cells of my own body? A calming breeze came in from over the water and I had a moment of peace, feeling that everything was moving exactly as it should, and that everything was connected to everything else. I then thought about the cycles of humanity, living individual lives, but all touched by similar experiences, desires, thoughts, fears, and triumphs from the beginning of human kind all the way through to today. I saw circles of good and bad energies intertwining like the ripples in the water, and how they also are intimately connected to each other. The teachings kept coming without any breaks and I was lost in a thought loop of never-ending circles within circles within circles. The life cycles of plants and animals were moving seamlessly from generation to generation intertwining in their needs for one another. Bees needed pollen to make honey, but at the same time their very collection of pollen helped to pollinate flowers to bring forth fruits. Both the honey and the fruits were useful to humans and other animals, and all were intertwined needing the others for the continuation of the survival of individuals and species. The teaching I was receiving was much faster, richer, and more in-depth than I could possibly convey in words, and it hit me so quickly that the ripples from the leaves hitting the water were still moving slowly outward. It was a densely packed moment in time, so rich with information. I stood up and felt like I was making ripples in reality. Like my own energy was rippling out into eternity from this spot in the everglades and moving through space and time. I felt connected to everything, all of the people, places, and things from the past, and all the people, places, and things yet to be. I had the feeling that all of time, and all of human history had led me to this place and this time. It was all leading up to this one perfect moment, with me here standing in the cool breeze of nature as the sun kissed my skin gently and lovingly. My life was forever changed and I wanted to share this experience with everyone. There was so much value in the psychedelic experience how could it be criminalized? It seemed like such a holy state, why would this experience not be allowed in our society? Im not feeling anything yet! Are you feeling anything? Alex called over to me from across the campsite. All I could reply at the time was, Yes! A very short while later he was feeling it to. I felt so good, like my whole body was weightless , yet filled with an energy that seemed to be moving up from my feet and flowing all through my system. It was like I was plugged into the earth from my feet. For the next few hours I experienced an endless parade of thoughts blooming and unfolding within my minds eye. I didnt talk much during that time because I felt like my ability to make coherent sentences had left me. The words I spoke felt as if they could not hold my meaning, or describe clearly what I was witnessing and experiencing, so I gave up speaking for what seemed to be hours. The strength of the effects seemed to be coming in waves. It was moving from a calming, tranquil state at times and building to the intensity of a rollercoaster at other points. I kept looking at my watch, and the minutes seemed almost stuck in time. It seemed to be broken because minutes were taking hours to go by; it just didnt make any sense. As I felt the wave slowing down in intensity, I got up to walk around the grassy peninsula. I felt like I could walk forever and my legs would never get fatigued. My feet took me from the picnic table I was sitting at over to 116

Alex and Jake by the shoreline near the stump I had sat on before. They were doing something, but I couldnt tell what it was. As I walked over, Jake looked up and held out a long metal pole towards me. Here take this. He said, handing me what I could now see was a fishing pole. Now I had never been fishing before and tried to explain that to him. aw its nothing, here, just hold it back over your head, like this. He said, positioning the pole just right. He moved my arms and elbows into position, reminding me of my little league baseball coach as a child showing me how to hold the bat. He stood off to my side and said, Okay now just flick your wrists forward like this. He made a motion with his wrists that seemed to leave a trail of ghost hands following his real hands. I lifted my arms and looked over to him for reassurance. He nodded and I flicked my wrists like I saw him do just seconds ago. As soon as I cast the rod, I saw Jake grab the side of his neck and fall to the floor with his hand over his neck. What I saw next would ensure that I would never even try to go fishing again. As I got closer to see what happened to him, the fishing pole still in my hand, he moved his hand away from his neck. I saw the hook had punctured the skin on his neck and was lodged there. The hook looked like a traditional grappling hook, with three separate hooks. One of the three looked to be threaded around his jugular vein, with the tip of the hook protruding dangerously from his neck. He sat back up and pulled the hook from his own skin, probably feeling a little like a fish at that moment. We quickly decided that I should probably not do any more fishing for the day. I felt so terrible; Id lodged a metal hook through my friends neck! With the hook out, and a few minutes to take stock of the situation, it soon became apparent that he wasnt bleeding, and was actually okay. We went to sit down to take a break by the tent. I felt like I needed to catch some sense of internal balance, my emotions were all over the place, and shifting from one feeling to another seamlessly and unceasingly. Sitting on the cool ground by the tent I started to relax. I felt the earth and the grass on my body and felt as if I was connected to everything around me. The waves had been coming on strong, and now thankfully seemed to be starting to subside. A few hours later the sun started to set behind the next peninsula over from ours. We saw that people had rented that peninsula and were busy gathering wood to build a big bonfire in the middle of their peninsula. We should probably be gathering firewood over here too, itll be dark soon. Jake said. We were able to gather a nice pile and placed most of it in our fire pit in a nice shapely cone, the rest we put to the side for later. Once our fire pit was set up, we walked back over to our picnic table to make some dinner. I thought about eating, and I realized I wasnt hungry at all. In fact I didnt even want to think about eating. Just as I was thinking this, Alex spoke my thoughts for me, Guys, I dont think I can eat right now. Yeah, me neither So Jake ended up making dinner for himself. He started up the barbeque and Alex and I sat at the picnic table together to watch the sky as the sun set. Even in Fort Lauderdale, the sunsets can be amazingly colorful and awe inspiring, but out here in the vast openness of the Everglades, the sunset seemed to be the most beautiful sunset I could remember ever seeing. I could see the rich colors of the sky blending perfectly in a harmony of balance. The clouds seemed to reach out into the eternity of the skies, creating patterns that were slowly morphing. The clouds appeared to be comprised entirely of connected moving parts; every little wisp of cloud was alive and moving. As the sun moved closer to the horizon, it seemed be descending faster. I watched the sun touch the edge of the next peninsula over, just next to their fire pit full of wood. Once it hit the horizon, I could see the glowing orange circle disappearing at a smooth even pace. I could feel that the setting sun was an event that repeated forever endlessly. That the sun had been setting like this here since the beginning of time. I could feel that many others had the exact same feeling as I had right now, watching the sun go down from this place. The sun was vibrantly colored with orange flowing into red and moving across the sky into pinks and purples until finally a darker blue was touching the horizon opposite the sun. The colors shifted and changed as the sun made its way to the other side of the earth until we were sitting under a dark blanket of sky. All of this happened before Jake had even finished cooking his burger. Across the water, we could see that the neighbors had lit their fire, and thought it would be wise for us to do the same. 117

Jake decided that he should be the only one to light the fire, since everyone else on our peninsula was on acid. I had no problem with that after the fishing incident. Once he got the fire lit, we all sat around and talked, luckily my ability to hold a conversation had returned. I felt like over the next hour or two that I had really learned so much more about my friends than had I known before we sat down. The conversation connected us in a new and deeper way. While the conversation wandered tangentially from one topic to the next, in many ways we each touched on things about our lives, our fears, our hopes, and dreams. I was able to empathize completely, to feel the inner truths of their words and feelings. I felt like I knew how it was to be Alex, or to be Jake in the total completeness of their own experiences of themselves. It was a totally new and intense experience for me to think about someone in such intricate detail. As we were talking we noticed that people on the next peninsula were now gathered in a circle around their fire, holding hands. They seemed to be swaying and dancing around the fire together in some kind of ritual. I got a witchy vibe from the whole thing, but we kept watching, fascinated. As we looked across the water, the silhouettes of the people moved around the fire and we speculated wildly about what exactly was going on. We never figured out exactly what it was, though we kept talking about possible answers to the question for the duration of their ritual. Once their circle was broken and the people moved away from the fire, our attention focused back on our own fire. The fire seemed alive with energy, intensity and heat. The flames were moving in an incredibly intricate dance that never repeated itself, yet never stopped flowing. If you missed a second of the dance, you missed a vision that may never again be seen by another living person. We spent many hours watching the fire until long after midnight when it was finally just a bed of embers glowing in the night. The darkness of the Everglades night seemed to go on endlessly, but it was full of more stars than any of had ever seen in a nights sky. It was sparkling with the beauty of calmness and peace. I looked into space and felt like I was the tiniest speck in this vast universe. I wondered what else could be out there, was there life somewhere out there, or are we really alone in all that space? I thought about the whole day up to this point, and how much thinking and learning I had done. I felt like I had learned an amazing amount about myself, my friends, and the world around us. I felt like many of the things I had learned and had been taught before today were being challenged. Thoughts bounced around in my mind in meandering loops going from one subject to the next, only to begin again on a subject Id left hours ago and loop back around again to others. We decided to call it a night and all got into our tent, brushed off our clothes, and climbed into our sleeping bags. From inside my sleeping bag in the tent, I could hear the noises of the swamp all around us. Noises Id never heard in the city seemed to repeat and then get lost in the night, only to be replaced or accompanied by newer and stranger noises. I soon realized that I was not very tired, and my mind was continuing to venture from topic to topic as I lay there. I closed my eyes and saw beautiful and perfectly formed geometric shapes spinning slowly and covered in small blue flames. The shapes changed as they spun around, changing from a cone to a sphere to a pyramid while continuing to spin at the same speed. I watched the display through most of the night while new thoughts kept pouring into my head, keeping me awake. I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I was awoken by the morning sun baking me in my sleeping bag. Alex and Jake woke up at about the same time, and we made our way quickly out of the oven-like tent. With only a few hours of sleep the night before, I felt unbelievably rested. I felt awake, alert and clear-headed. The morning was cool and refreshing, welcoming the new day with the songs of birds. The three of us spent the rest of the day reflecting on the past 24 hours. Even Jake, who hadnt taken any LSD, had an enriching and thought provoking evening. We were going home with a deeper understanding of one another. I had seen myself from many different perspectives the past night. I saw a lot about myself that I loved, and I also saw a lot about myself that I was not proud of. I saw places in my life that needed serious improvement, and I wanted to work harder to be a better person. Taking that next day to reflect on everything that had happened during the trip really helped me. We kept talking as we broke down and cleaned up around our campsite. Eventually the morning gave way to the afternoon, and Jakes dad came rolling up in his old blue work van, kicking up clouds of dust as he got closer. So, did yall have fun? 118

The Search for More

After the experience in the Everglades, I found myself with many questions. I wanted to explore this mental landscape in more depth. I saw that there was a great value in the LSD mindspace and that it was important to have more of these types of experiences. The trip I had taken was the most interesting and most significant thing I could remember from my entire life. I continued to read psychedelic literature, and I tried to find more acid. Unfortunately for me, that turned out to be very difficult. No one that I knew actually sold acid, but some of them said they knew people who did. After several failed attempts, I had heard two kids in the hall at school talking about something called The Trippy Trippy Circus. I knew them both, but not very well. I asked what they were taking about. The two of them painted a picture of a rented college auditorium all decorated in blacklight paints, strobing lights and lasers, colorful costumes, glow sticks and music that played all night and well past when the sun came up. They told me that the events were not openly advertised, but more passed along by word of mouth, by a group called the Rave Doctors. That was the first time I had heard the word rave, at least in the context of electronic music events. I had no idea that raves would become one of the main focal points of psychedelic culture during my generation, but I could tell that these two might be able to get me some more acid. After learning a little about raves from them, I asked if either of them could help me get acid. Chris said, I did get some this weekend, and I can sell you some of what I bought. That Friday my parents were away from home, and I had the place to myself. I invited Alex and a few other friends, Mark and Abe over so we could go on another LSD trip. Mark and Abe were slightly older and had done acid before. Shortly after dark, Chris arrived and sat down on my moms white couch. There were four of us, and everyone had put in $5 so we could each buy a hit. I gave Chris the $20, and asked, So how are they? and he replied with something that has stayed with me ever since. Id never sell you anything I wouldnt eat myself. Youre going to have a great time. He said with a smile and a sense of confidence. Later, when I would begin selling acid, I always remembered Chris words. I didnt want to sell anything to anyone unless I knew for myself that what I was selling was top quality. Selling psychedelics is different from selling almost any other drug. It is done less frequently for money, than an honest desire to share the experience with like-minded people. I came to see those that sold LSD as a hidden priestly class, spreading the psychedelic message through the best way possible, through the experience itself. And Chris was right; we did have a great night. His LSD was even stronger than the stuff I had gotten from Rory. I remember thinking that I could not imagine how anyone could take more than one hit at a time, it was so potent. Again I found myself in disbelief that a piece of paper so small could have such astounding effects on my consciousness. As I felt the LSD taking effect, all four of us were laying around in my bedroom in the darkness. We had a blacklight on, illuminating the glow-in-the-dark stars Id stuck on the walls and ceiling. I had a feeling that I was no longer just in my body; I felt like I filled up the entire room. I closed my eyes and said, I feel like Im one with the universe. Alex, the eternal pessimist replied immediately, No you dont! Youre just saying that because you heard someone else say that! I broke out into hilarious laughter and so did everyone else. We laughed until some of us had tears streaming down our faces. It was like the laughter was contagious, and once you started laughing, it was almost impossible to stop. We continued to search for more LSD each week, but it remained extremely elusive. If we couldve gotten it, we wouldve eaten it every weekend. LSD was engaging on so many levels for us, giving us insights and understanding, as well as making us question the world we lived in in new and unexpected ways. However we 119

could only find it once in a while, and always from a random source who knew someone who knew someone. We never got it from the person who was actually selling the acid; it was always a favor from a friend. This went on for many months, and we had formed a close friendship, with four of us coming together to do these psychedelic explorations whenever possible. About 5 or 6 months after my first LSD trip, I happened to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, and I met a girl that would send my life in a new direction.

Meeting The Connection

Abe and I were walking down the sidewalk of the local strip mall on a warm and sticky afternoon. He was trying to explain to me what ecstasy pills felt like, except he was having a hard time explaining the experience. I didnt really understand, but I was interested. Abe was an animated talker and was a great artist, so he was very engaging, especially once you got involved in a conversation. We were walking from his parents house which was on one side of the strip mall, to my dads house way down on the other side. Abe stopped talking and walking simultaneously as he looked into the windows of Natural Foods, a restaurant closer to my dads side of the strip mall. Seated in one of the booths closest to the window were two teenage girls, both with dark hair. Hey, thats my friend Melanie, I bet she can get us some X. he said, and I could feel his excitement. We walked into the welcome cool of the air conditioning and up to their table. Abe introduced me to one of the girls, Whats up Melanie? This is my friend Jeremy. Both girls looked up; they were smiling, and invited us to sit with them. Abe leaned close to Melanie, and said quietly, Man it was crazy, we were just walking around, and Im trying to tell him what it feels like to take X, I look in here and see you! Do you have any? Do you know where we can get some? Melanie glanced up, and caught my eyes, holding them for a moment, checking me out. She had deep brown eyes, and black hair with tints of purple and red rolling down over her shoulders in soft curls. She wasnt attractive in the usual sense, but seemed to have a unique style and confidence about her. She moved her gaze from me and turned back to Abe, Well, not really, if you want X you got to go to The Edge at three in the morning. Id heard about The Edge, but had no clue what it was or even where it was. Later I would find out that The Edge was an old firehouse in Fort Lauderdales downtown area that was turned into a nightclub. Painted all black inside and out, as if shrouded in Mystery itself, The Edge became the home for the South Florida rave scene. But, she continued, I do have some acid. My heart skipped a beat and I forgot all about The Edge and ecstasy. You have acid? That youre selling? I asked. Uh-huh. This was the first time I had ever met anyone selling acid. Up to that point I was lucky to have friends that could get some for me from their friends randomly. It was very much a hand-to-hand situation, with one friend helping another. Now I was actually sitting at the table with the connection herself, and I could barely contain my excitement. A few quick words later and I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of Melanies grey Isuzu pickup in the parking lot out front of Natural Foods. She reached into her pocketbook and pulled out an Altoids tin. When she opened it I was face to face with more acid than Id ever seen. Needless to say, it was probably only around a hundred hits, but knowing how deeply a square of that paper only a centimeter on each side affected me, the two square inches of yellow perforated paper looked like endless eternities of experience. I could feel the energy that was folded into that little Altoids tin. The paper had the outline of little red smiling suns emblazoned across the bright yellow background. It was perforated perfectly into tiny squares. She called them yellow sunshine. I walked away from the pickup with a smile and a cellophane cigarette wrapper with about four or five hits of 120

Melanies yellow sunshine. Unfortunately I wasnt savvy enough to know to ask for her number, but our paths were to cross again. Abe and I called a few of our friends to share our newly acquired bounty. We walked back to Abes house and waited for our friends to show up. We dropped in the early evening and sat outside in Abes backyard surrounded by trees and good feelings. About the time the acid started hitting us, the sunset had painted the sky in amazing streaks of purple, red, yellow, and orange. In the distance was a characteristic Florida spring evening sight, a lightning storm. The lightning storm went on all night, creating an amazing light show on the nights skies. Ere since that night I have always connected deeply to the lightning storms of South Florida. We spent all night laughing, talking, connecting, and being awakened to the other that acid initiates one into. We were seeing the world we knew open into another place filled with knowledge that seemed entirely contrary to everything wed been taught, but tinged with a truth so real, it was hard to deny. The LSD kept us up all night, and a short while before sunrise I walked the few blocks to my house, so I could go out on an early morning scuba diving trip with my dad. The air was charged with a calming sense of peace and wonder. I walked as the sun rose, watching the sky brighten and the world around me come to life with color. The acid had mostly worn off, and of course I didnt mention to my dad what my friends and I had been doing the night before. He drove us over to the ocean and we got on a boat with all our gear, and headed out to sea in the cool morning calmness. Plunging into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in my scuba gear, swimming amidst the vibrantly colored coral reef, I felt I was part of all I saw, not someone separate and observing from the outside. I knew I was intimately connected to everything around me. Scuba diving is a unique sensory experience. It separates you from your vocal and auditory communication modes, so you cant speak, and you cant be spoken to by others. Alone with my thoughts, I felt as if I could think clearly and was truly involved in experiencing the world in a different way. I used this time to reflect, to look into myself. Recalling the evening before, I felt the value in my experience and I felt it was an important part of my life. I was so thankful for finding this substance that allowed me to see so much deeper into myself and to empathize with those around me. There under the water, I realized that I wanted to bring this experience to others, like Melanie brought it to me.

The Edge
I was smoking herb in a big circle of about twenty people sitting Indian-style in the parking lot behind The Mud House. Everyone was smiling and talking loudly from inside a cloud of ganja smoke enveloping our circle. The pebbles from the parking lot dug lightly into my crossed legs. I unconsciously brushed them off with my left hand, and reached for the pipe with my right. The nights darkness was broken by the streetlights reflecting off our smoky cloud. The parking lot behind the big V shaped building that held the Mud house became another integral part of the scene. A few parking spaces in the very back were always left open. People would gather, talk, and smoke for hours. It was very open. People would move in and out of the circles while pipes, joints, and the occasional bong would circulate freely, appearing out of nowhere and everywhere all at once. The conversation would roll from one topic to another with side groups splintering off into animated conversations that would seamlessly rejoin the larger conversation. This evening the talk had meandered onto the topic of The Edge. Some people were going over there around two in the morning. I asked the friends I had come with if they wanted to go and check it out. Since no one wanted to go, and I didnt have a car, I asked the people who were going if I could tag along. I figured if I could get there, and it was in downtown, I could hang out until five or six in the morning when the buses started running and take the number 12 bus
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back home. There was a big central bus terminal downtown, and you could pretty much get anywhere in south Florida from there. When you dont have a car, you get good at getting around town on public transit, and I was getting pretty good. Luckily for me, there was an extra seat in their car, and they didnt mind if I jumped in for the ride to The Edge, it was only about five minutes away. The fact that I had a little herb and some hash didnt hurt either. We all climbed into the car and set off. About five minutes later we were pulling into one of the three parking lots around the Edge. I got out of the car and thanked them for the lift. I started walking from the car through the parking lot and towards the big black building that was The Edge. The parking lot was full of life and energy. People were walking around smiling, standing by open car doors in small groups, laughing. The smell of herb drifted through the air. A lot of people were dressed in bright vibrant colors, and some were even wearing costumes. Bright candy necklaces, glow sticks, hair dyed every color of the rainbow and then some, this was definitely somewhere it would be cool to trip, I thought, and this is only the parking lot. The rave scene was still new to America. It wasnt something people knew about outside of those already in the scene. It wasnt in the news, and very few people realized that there was even anything going on, let alone that a new culture was forming around these all night electronic dance music parties. I certainly had no idea of what the night had in store for me. As I was walking through the parking lot, someone asked me, Hey, you got a pipe? I did. I wandered over to a small group of people sitting on the ground by their car, behind an open door. Here, sit down. One of the girls in the group said, patting the pavement next to her. I took out the pipe I had and took a seat. Were all tripping on these mushrooms that were grown in a laboratory! She said to me as I sat down. She looked excited and happy and her eyes had a shine from the light post above. We brought weed but none of us brought a pipe! another girl said. Here you go. I said, passing her my pipe. As she was packing the bowl, I asked if they had any more of the mushrooms, I had never taken mushrooms before. I was very interested. It sounded so scientific that they were grown in a lab. My mind created these elaborate and detailed images of a mad scientist in a high tech laboratory with mushrooms growing in beakers. They didnt have any, but turned out to be a great group to hang out with for a while. Apparently, everyone was waiting for 3 AM. That was when The Edge dropped their 18 and older policy and changed the music. It went immediately from a typical night club to an all-ages rave. Before three it was nothing special, after three it became magical. A kind of reverse Cinderella, I thought. In the next hour I learned everyones life story in that small circle. It was the most open group of people I had run into in a long while. I had a feeling that sitting in the parking lot here, with these people, I was entering something new. I had no idea what, but I was open to finding out. Soon I was in line walking up to the front door. I could hear the bass from the sound system in the parking lot, but now I could feel it moving through my body. It was a long line, but it moved along quickly. When I got to the front I paid my six dollars, got my hand stamped, and walked in. Immediately I was immersed in a synesthesia of strobe lights, lasers, fog, black lights, and a pounding bass that shook the whole club. It was like walking into a living
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organism with a thousand heads and a thousand arms all moving rhythmically to the beat. I walked through the people, and could feel the moisture in the air from the fog machines and sweat. As I walked forward through the strobing rainbows of color, I saw steps leading down into a dance floor. I walked around the sides and could look down about five or six feet into the pit. It was an undulating explosion bright colored clothing, glow sticks, whistles, pacifiers, and smiles all moving together. At the far end of the dance floor there was a wall of 8 foot tall bass bins. People were leaning up against the massive speakers and soaking in the waves of pounding bass through their bodies. I walked closer to the bass and made my way through the dancing mass of bodies to another stairway leading out of the dance floor. The Edge is a bit labyrinthine, with staircases going up here, and down there. I stepped off the staircase and walked to my left and up another stairway. As I kept moving I passed a second dance floor overlooking the bigger main dance floor I had just left. The doorways behind the main dance area lead into a room glowing vibrantly in black lights and the smell of Vicks VapO-Rub seemed to replace the air in the room. It was like walking into a psychedelic menthol cave filled with couches. People were all over in every position. It seemed as if I had walked into an orgy on another planet, or at least an intergalactic massage party. People seemed to be in every nook and cranny of the room, massaging each other, painted in the glowing neon of black lights. I noticed that some people were wearing surgical masks and other seemed to be blowing through little white sticks into each others eyes. It was wild. It was a few degrees hotter in here than the rest of the club, no need to wonder why, though. It is impossible to capture in words what I was feeling. I had never seen a party like this before. I made my way through the room, trying to look everywhere at once with my senses on total overload. I got to the other side of the room and walked back into the main area through a second door. I turned down a hallway painted in psychedelic patterns aglow under more blacklights, and followed it around a corner to another doorway. People were walking past me in both directions, the door opening and swinging shut. I pushed through and was outside the building and into the fresh night air. The music outside was not the ecstatic booming rhythmic pulses of the dancehall, but more of a calming, almost meditative chant of electronic beeps, hums, and tones. I had found the outside courtyard, the chill-out area. The energy outside was totally different, yet no less psychedelic. It was an area to recharge and escape the run-a-way energy inside, to talk, and meet and look around. A stage was set up on the far side of the courtyard and a DJ was spinning ambient breakbeats, sending out an electronic rain, cooling the body aurally. The smell of herb hung in the air of the courtyard. I sat down near a group of people in a small circle. Someone waved me over and passed me a bowl. Everyone introduced themselves to me with so much joy, like they were so happy wed all come together at that moment. I sat down and packed my bowl with some hash and passed it around. I felt like I was home, like I belonged here. It just felt so open and welcoming. All night people hugged me instead of shaking my hand, and were smiling at me with their eyes. It was really heartfelt and real, so unlike people in my school, or even The Mud House. I spent hours looking around, drinking in the scene around me. I never danced that night, because I was too self-conscious. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was almost ten in the morning and the music showed no sign of letting up. How long does this place stay open I wondered?
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Somehow eight hours had passed since I arrived in the parking lot, but it felt like I had just arrived moments ago. I walked through the strobing darkness of the club making my way back to the entrance. As I left the club through the front doors, music still pumping and pulsing against my back, I was blinded by the morning sun. I had to shield my eyes from the brightness, and give them a few moments to adjust. The club had been so dark that you couldnt tell at all from the inside that it was daytime. It was like walking from one world into another, and in a way I guess it was. Outside the front doors, people were sitting all around the building, and all through the parking lots. Feeling no immediate need to go home, I walked around a little. I got into a conversation with some kids about ecstasy. I dont remember most of the conversation, but I do remember one kid, about sixteen years old, telling me, I dont really know how to put it, but for real yo, rolling changed my life. You know before I rolled, I was likelike a thug or something. I was in a gang, just lost, you know? Then I took a roll, and the first time, it was like, opened me up. Its hard to explain if youve never done it. Just sitting on the sidewalk, by the street, I was learning about a whole new culture within American culture. Two of his friends were doing something Id never seen before, except in the Vicks room a few hours ago. What are you doing? Oh shes blowing her up. You take the inhaler and put it in your mouth like this, He said pulling out a little white torpedo shaped plastic tube about 3 inches long. It was a Vicks inhaler. So your mouth is over these holes, He pointed to little holes at the base of the inhaler. Then when you blow, it blows the Vicks out this hole in the top. Pointing to another hole at the top, and then blew to illustrate. See you blow it in your eyes, and it blows you up, it feels crazy good! Will it do anything to me if Im just stoned? Nah, probably not. His friends asked, Do you wanna try it? We can get you some E. Yeah. How much does it cost? Like thirty bucks. Uh, well I have $15, but I gotta use a dollar to get home on the bus. You need a ride home? Where do you live? Off Sheridan Street. In Hollywood? Man, we can bring you home, dont take the bus! Wow, cool, thanks! So you wanna try x? one of the girls asked excitedly. It felt like she was excited for me to try
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this stuff. She was looking deep into my eyes, smiling as she asked. The excitement was contagious. I didnt really know too much about ecstasy, but after seeing this place and talking all night with people about it, I was captivated. It was uncharacteristic of me to be so willing to jump into trying a new drug. Before I even tried marijuana I talked with people for weeks and read everything I could about it, and the same with LSD. But here and now with these friendly strangers, I felt like I was totally safe. So you got fifteen bucks? I can probably get you half a pill. Itll still be great, especially since youve never done it before. I walked around with her for a while, but we never found their friend with the X. We sat around for a bit longer right outside the entrance door to The Edge, talking about personal experiences and changing perspectives as the morning sun brightly reminded me of how long I had been awake. Suddenly the girl jumped up mid-sentence and dashed over to a small group of people walking out of the exit door. She talked for a minute to a dark haired girl and then ran back over to where we were sitting. Well, I cant get you E, but I can get some acid! That was great as far as I was concerned. Acid was still really hard to come by. I gave her the $15 I had and she came back with a small rectangular piece of white paper, and said. Here thats three. Are you gonna eat some now? Nah, I gotta get home soon anyway, you want one for getting it for me? No, thats for you. I can get more, here do you want this cigarette wrapper to keep it in? Yeah, definitely. Thanks! I cant wait to tell my friends about this place. When I got home later, that was the first thing I did. I called my friends and told them all about it. My girlfriend, Ashley said, Oh, I can see it now, youre gonna become a raver. And she was right, even though I didnt really know it at the time.

Our Paths Cross Again

The next weekend everyone wanted to go to The Edge after the Mud House. Alex, Abe and I jumped into Marks jeep around 2:30 in the morning, and headed downtown. The four of us hung out all the time, so I was really glad to have everyone along tonight, after going alone last weekend. After pulling into the parking lot, we split the rectangular paper I had gotten the previous weekend into four pieces and fired up a joint. Everyone took a piece of the paper and placed it on their tongue. Once the joint was done, we got into line and made our way quickly into the club. I thought I would be less awestruck this time since I had already been to The Edge once before. I couldnt have been more wrong! Once the acid hit me, everything transformed and I really saw what the place was all about. Instead of the music being something I was hearing, I felt I become a part of me. Since it was so loud, the high-decibel music was running through my body and the bass frequencies humming through my veins. The music became an extension of my feelings and I became connected to everything everywhere. When I dropped acid other places, it was different. At home it was more introspective, here it was completely
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experiential. Every sense was stimulated; the blue glow of all the blacklights, covering almost every wall inside the building, the rainbow colored lasers, and the flood lights synchronized with the bass drops of the music set the visual senses to overload. The music and pounding bass vibrated intensely, was so much more than sound, it was moving from my ears through every cell in my body. My nose was blanketed with the smell of menthol from so many people with Vicks-vapo-rub. Breathing the mentholated air seemed to cool me from the inside out, which was nice in the sweaty pulsating dancehall. We all danced, becoming a part of the rhythmic beast that is The Edge. Alex made up a cool marching dance, and marched all around the main dance floor, saluting to people dancing. After getting lost in thousands of years of dancing, covered in sweat, we made our way to the stairways. Walking up from the dance floor, I noticed for the first time huge fans blowing in the hallways. I went and stood right in front of one of the fans, and let its cooling breeze embrace me. To the side of the fans, I saw Alex pointing and followed his finger to see that the bar was full of plastic cups of water. We all quickly walked over and found out that they were only a quarter, so a dollar got each a cup of ice cold water. Drinking that water was one of the single most refreshing drinks of my life. I could feel the cold liquid moving through my body, cooling me as it went down. Almost without trying we found ourselves making friends and meeting people. It seemed like you could make a friendship here in minutes that would last a lifetime. People were so open and friendly. Girls, guys, it wasnt about flirting it was about being together, experiencing this as a family, and creating a community. The feeling was amazing and uplifting. I saw why people wanted to come here. We all saw. Dancing really made the experience for me. It was something liberating and new. I had never really danced much before, especially like this. Yet now, fluid movements just seemed to come pouring out from a well deep within me. The music moved me physically and I couldnt help but dance. Hundreds of people, maybe thousands, connected by the same rhythm, moving together, dancing, smiling, sweating, it felt communal. We were all one tribe, dancing to the drums. As the night became morning people filtered out of the club, thinning the group to a few hundred people. The acid was still hitting us, and we wanted to stay as long as we could, or at least until they kicked us out. At one point the DJ played We are Family, (All my brothers, sisters, and me!) And everyone on the dance floor got in a big circle and put their arms around one another and sang along. I just started smiling so strongly I felt my face was going to hurt later. This was an indescribable feeling, together with these strangers, but feeling so connected to each other. It was a bonding of the community; it was inviting us into the family. That was the last song of the night, as it ended the lights came up, the music went off, and people started making their way to the exit. Some people stayed on the dance floor and started chanting to the DJ on the second floor overlooking the scene One More Song! One More Song! With a loud click, the lights went dark and the music started pumping again. We all ran back towards the dance floor and kept dancing, so did most everyone else. That one more song became another, and another, with the DJ playing almost another hour. Finally around one in the afternoon, the lights came on and the music stopped, for real this time. The crowd, now about only about a hundred people returned from the darkness of the club to the real world, completely blinded by the brightness of the afternoon sun. I realized that this
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was something that was going to happen every weekend. People hung around the parking lot for a while, friends finding each other again after a long night of partying, relaxing in the calm after the sensory assault of The Edge. Walking out into the sunshine, I saw a group hanging out by the sidewalk in front of the entrance. I thought I saw girl that looked a lot like Nikki in the middle of the group, talking and laughing. Is your name Melanie? She looked up, and obviously didnt recognize me, but cautiously said, Uh, yeah. Oh! Hey! I met you a while back at Natural Foods with Abe She immediately softened her posture and smiled. Oh, okay I remember you now. Whats up? Do you think I can get your number? Id like to, uh, maybe do that again sometime. Sure, Its 656-1582 I grabbed a sharpie pen from my pocket and not having any paper, wrote it quickly on the knee of my jeans. Just call me whenever. That number never did come off those jeans, no matter how many times they were washed. It was there for years until I had finally worn them to shreds. I used that number many, many times.

Rainbow Family Gathering Florida Regional (1993)

Were going to go to a Rainbow gathering this weekend, do you want to come? Whats a Rainbow Gathering? Its like a bunch of hippies camping in the woods, trust me its going to be fun. My friend Darbi said as we were driving smoking a joint. Her brother Gabe, one of my close friends, and also the guy who introduced me to smoking herb was also in the car and nodded in agreement. They were both a few years older than me, and I respected them a lot. I tried to get a handle on what exactly went on at a Rainbow Gathering, but the information I got was just a drop in the bucket compared to what I would learn over the years. I asked, Should we try to get some acid to bring up there? They were going up that weekend, which made it very unlikely that wed be able to get any in time. No, there will be acid everywhere up there Darbi said. That was enough for me, I was in. That Friday we drove for hours and hours to get to the Ocala National Forest, finally arriving while it was still daylight out. Once we were in the forest we drove for what seemed like another half hour or more on dirt roads until we finally pulled into a huge area filled with cars and buses. A guy waved us into a specific area and helped us to get to where we were supposed to park and said loudly Welcome Home! I learned that we were not going to camp by our car, that at the gatherings people parked their cars in one place, and went off into nature to camp. The main camping areas were quite a hike away, and this was done on purpose to separate the outside world from the gathering. The gatherings were a place where no one used money, only
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barter to get things you might need, and they had kitchens set up and built in the forest that fed everyone there for free. No electricity or generators were used within the gathering; I had never experienced anything like this before. We gathered all our camping gear and started walking down the main trail to find a place to camp. The main trail was lined with colorful signs and streamers and decorations. People were dressed in a different style than I had ever seen, kind of a nature-hippie-forest-fairy-tie-dye style, and everyone we passed was saying Welcome Home! to us as we walked in to the deeper forest with our gear. It felt very nice and truly welcoming. After walking for what felt like a very long time, we arrived into an area where people were camping along the main trail. We found a spot there and began to set up camp. Several people walking along the trail stopped to help us set everything up and one even stopped just to smoke us out with some nice buds hed brought. Smoking that joint in the forest really set the mood for me and everything seemed to move into a space of feeling perfectly at home here. Once we were done setting up camp, the sun had already started to set and nightfall was upon us. We all walked along the main trail and found interesting things all over the place. There were camps set up and people around camp fires all over the forest it seemed. Some of them had really impressive structures constructed completely out of wood that was obviously found in the forest and built right there on the spot. We followed the signs to the Main Meadow and soon the forest opened up into a huge clearing. All along the edges of the clearing were campsites set up on the tree-line. As I walked into the Main Meadow, I saw a sign that was hard to make out in the dark, but said something about a Hopi Indian prophecy about the People of the Rainbow and a white buffalo. In the center of the clearing was a huge bonfire with people circled around it in the darkness. People closest to the center were dancing around the fire, with their outlines silhouetted by the light of the fire towering above their heads. Around the dancers were a circle of drummers and some other random musicians playing instruments like a dulcimer, a flute, and a few others. I could feel the tribal nature of the gathering really hit me here. Even though Gabe and Darbi had called it a Rainbow Gathering, I had learned the people here called themselves Rainbow Family, and it truly felt like I was coming home to a long lost family I never knew existed. Nothing from my past had prepared me for anything like this. I had never even heard of anything like this, like it was a secret society of sorts. It wasnt a concert, it wasnt anything organized around anything centralized, it was just a gathering that was created in part by everyone here and it all came together into one cohesive whole. It worked by everyone pitching in where they were needed, or where they saw a need. It was a self-created city operating on love and self-reliance. I wandered around the forest meeting people from all over the country that had come here just to be a part of the gathering. I asked a lot of people if they had any LSD, but had absolutely no luck finding any. I met a few people who had eaten some acid, but no one who had any they would part with. It seemed like the perfect place to take some LSD, but I certainly was not finding that there was acid all over the place out here. I made my way back to our campsite, thank goodness it was along the main trail as that made it easier to find, though it did take me quite a while of wandering to get there. I smoked a joint with Darbi and Gabe and we talked about what an amazing place this was, before I went to sleep in the tent for the evening. I woke up bright and early and took a walk in the forest by myself. It was very nice out first thing in the morning. The forest was quiet, but I could see the colorful and interesting camps, signs and forest decorations much better than I had in the night. After walking through the forest for quite
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a while, following different paths in the woods, I came upon a kitchen with a big sign that said Tea Time. Someone invited me in and I settled in with a big group of people that were sitting around a small fire. A tea kettle hung above the fire while everyone relaxed around with cups in their hands. I was there for about an hour when someone said they needed to do a supply run for more tea, and did anyone want to help. I offered to go along to help and so did another of the guys sitting around the fire. We walked all the way back to the parking areas and made our way to an old Mailmans truck. I thought that was pretty cool to drive around in a truck that used to be a mail truck. The drive out was so peaceful, the area was still very forested and calm in the morning. We made conversation as we drove out into the countryside, and I soon discovered that the supplies we were going for were psychedelic mushrooms. I didnt realize they were making mushroom tea! I had never gone mushroom picking before, so I could barely contain my excitement. We pulled into the driveway of a large farm and were greeted warmly by the family there. We were invited in to smoke a joint before going mushroom hunting and walked inside the home. I was way out of my element here and my judgmental nature kicked in big time inside their home. It was a large family with people of at least 3 generations living there. There were kids running around inside the house while the parents smoked joints with us. The mother was a rather large lady and she had a tattoo running down her entire leg that started in a big pot leaf and ended up in a row of dancing bears by her ankle with so many images in between that I could hardly register them all. I would later tell my friends in disbelief about these backwards hillbilly folks and the way they lived. Years later I would realize how ridiculous I was being, but at that moment, it seemed like the craziest family on the planet. One of the guys there told us that the joints we were smoking were from herb they had grown right there on the farm. They told us that we were welcome to look for mushrooms, but that we might not have much luck as this time of year it was cold out most of the time. But since it had been warm for the past few weeks it was as good a time as any. They led us out into the fields and went back in to their home and left us to search. The three of us stayed together and it was a good thing since I had no idea how to tell the difference between magic mushrooms and poison mushrooms. We looked through the fields and there were several kinds of mushrooms growing from the cow patties, but I quickly learned which ones we were looking for. I was holding the garbage bag while the other two filled it with handfuls of gold capped mushrooms, cutting off the bottom of each stem with a little knife before placing in the bag. The guy from Tea Time explained this was to avoid bringing clumps of cow poo along with us, so none accidentally ended up in the tea and also because doing that helped to spread spores around so more mushrooms would grow later. The act of cutting the stem was enough to get the spores moving apparently. Some of the mushrooms had dark red caps, some were orange/gold, but they told me they were all actually the same species, just that the red ones were younger in terms of growth stages. The caps got lighter as the mushrooms got bigger. In what seemed like almost no time at all, my garbage bag was getting heavier and heavier. Soon the sun was up and it was starting to get warmer. We had made our way deep into their fields and their home was just a little speck in the distance. The cows didnt seem to notice us or be concerned that we were walking through the fields. With our bag full we began the short trek back to the house, said our grateful good-byes and loaded back into the mail truck for the ride back to the gathering. We did some good work today! Hopefully well open some minds, maybe change some lives tonight. The Tea Time guy said as we pulled out of the driveway. I realized he was right, we had untold energy and priceless experience in this bag. It was an interesting feeling to know that I had a hand in someone elses
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experience, and that I might never know or meet those people or know in what ways the trips would affect them or the course of their lives. I said a quiet prayer that everyone that took these had a great trip and learned a lot about themselves. When we were back at the gathering I left them to go by my campsite to get Gabe and Darbi so everyone could enjoy the mushrooms. No one was there at the campsite, so I left a note to find me at Tea Time. Getting back to Tea Time all by myself was a bit harder than I imagined. The first time I got there, I had just been aimlessly wandering the forest and on the way out I was involved in conversation with my two new friends and they flawlessly guided us out. After asking several people and getting weird forest directions, (follow the trail until it forks, turn right on the path with the stacked rocks, go down a ways, you should see some signs) I finally made it back to the Tea Time camp. They had been there a while, but hadnt even begun making the tea yet. They had a few people taking the mushrooms out of the bag and laying them out, I think they were doing a last minute cleaning for cow poop. Instead of the tea kettle I saw before, there was now a really big stock pot on the fire full of water with a turkey thermometer sticking out of the top. Whats that for? I asked. You dont want to get the water too hot or the mushrooms wont work. We like to keep it around 125 degrees. We all sat around the fire pit talking while the water heated up, someone would stir up the water once in a while even though nothing was in it yet. Soon the water was steaming and they started putting handfuls of the mushrooms into the pot. We had so many mushrooms they wouldnt all fit into the pot, so they just filled it as much as they could and kept stirring the pot. Someone was squeezing fresh lemons into the pot, Tea Time had a whole crew of people working to help make this tea it was really neat to watch. The water in the pot was now a dark purple from all the mushrooms. They kept stirring it and after it sat for a while the first pot was strained and poured into another equally big pot. That second pot was filled full with more mushrooms and the whole process was repeated several times until all the mushrooms had been infused into the two full stock pots. Well we have to test it and see if its any good! someone said and everyone seemed to be in agreement with smiles all around. Apparently to reduce waste at rainbow gatherings everyone has their own cups, plates, and utensils. It seemed like I was the only one there not carrying a cup with me. Luckily they had some extra cups there and I was able to use one. One of the girls was ladling out cups of the tea to everyone, and I was able to try my first ever mushroom tea, from mushrooms I helped to gather. Everyone at the camp was drinking mushrooms that I had helped to bring back here and help create this experience for everyone. In reality I didnt do much more than hold a garbage bag and have some great conversations, but I felt like I was connected to everyone here in some new and deeper way. The mushrooms came on strong, really strong. My stomach felt uneasy and I stood up to walk into the forest in case I had to throw up, I didnt want anyone to see me. I felt wobbly on my feet and the earth started to undulate and wave like the surface of the ocean. I tried to walk as steadily as I could, with great care to place my foot down on solid ground time and time again until I was away from the kitchen and into the relative quiet of the woods away from the trails. I steadied myself against a tree and tried to catch my breath. I still had a nauseous feeling in my stomach, and I sat down in the forest at the base of the tree in a soft patch of moss. As I kept breathing I noticed that my breath was having an effect both on my stomach pains and on the imagery that was flowing everywhere around me. The deeper the breath, the more relaxed my stomach got, and the more I seemed to have some kind of control over the waves of visuals. As I worked with my breath, I
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noticed for the first time how truly important breathing is to the art of living. With a few minutes of this, I realized that my stomach wasnt really bothering me anymore, but the visuals and trip were really overwhelming. I leaned back onto the trunk of the tree and put my hand on the mossy earth, listening to the sounds of the forest and the gathering around me. I felt my awareness move down from my hand into the earth below, and begin to move through the soil and roots of the tree. Now the connection I had felt earlier to the people at the Tea Time kitchen expanded exponentially, connecting me to the rest of the forest, and then the living organism of the earth. The feeling of oneness presented itself with the sureness of undeniable truth. We are all one was not just a saying anymore, it was something I now knew from the inside. A rush of how the connectivity flowed throughout the planet washed over me, like a year of school classes condensed into a single moment. The cycles of birth, life, and death played out for every species, one feeding off the other at different points. This moved into the cycles of inanimate objects, like structures, homes and buildings from construction, to use, to abandonment and deterioration by the elements. The mushrooms were teaching me, right here in the school of the national forest, the ways of the world as it has always been, and will continue to be if we kept living in the same ways. I saw the cycles and patterns in my own life, and how my actions moved my life in one way or the other, leading up to the moment I sat here under this tree. How thoughtless I had been and so uncaring at some many times, so many wrong decisions I had made and how those decisions might have played out differently had I thought things through better. I saw my potential to be a better person, someone I could respect and love when I looked back in my old age, and decided to let the lesson I was learning now become a part of me. I knew I could be better than I have been, I needed to act from a place of love and understanding, see how others would be affected by the actions I took and the course of my life. Laughter broke out along one of the paths through the forest nearby, interrupting my internal mushroom lessons. I could hear a group of people laughing and giggling as they walked and it was almost as if the universe was purposely juxtaposing the laughter and the serious thoughts I was having, to show me the absurdity of reality. Things can go from serious to silly in a flash and move just as quickly in the other direction. From calm to stormy and from anger to love, was it all random, or is there some intricate destiny being played out? I could see the laughing people through the trees, leaves and branches, all walking, talking as they made their way down the path. They were wearing weird clothes and costumes, like many other people Id seen here at the gathering. The forest fashion was like a mix of clothing you might see on homeless people who were actually also magical elf-fairy people. These people were nothing like the kids in my high school, or in my town, and they dressed nothing like those people either. The clothing seemed so foreign when I arrived here, but now it seamlessly fit within the bounds of the gathering. I finally was able to get up from where I was sitting and made my way through the branches back to one of the forest paths and headed down the trail. I wanted to see more of this place now; it was totally transformed under the effects of the mushrooms. The colors of the forest decorations, the sounds of music, talking, and laughter all swirled into each other, creating a sense of newness and wonder. As I passed people walking down the trail, I would catch the briefest snippets of their conversation before losing the sounds into the depths of the forest. My mind would take the few words it heard, and from just that, I could move backwards and forwards in the life of the person who spoke them, seeing their entire history and entire future unfold before me as I walked. This would all happen in a split second and repeat as the
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next people walked by involved in their separate conversations. I heard people saying that dinner would be served at the main circle soon as they walked the opposite direction from the one I was headed, but after thinking that I still did not have my own plate or utensils, and realizing that even though I hadnt eaten since breakfast, I was not hungry at all, I just kept exploring the forest. Eventually I recognized some familiar paths and signs and made my way back to our campsite. I was excited to tell everyone about the tea, and bring them back to Tea Time to get some. But when I got to the camp, all the chairs and tents were empty. I sat in my chair to wait for everyone as the woods started to darken as the sun was setting for the evening. I remembered we had some herb in our tent, so I packed myself a bowl while I was waiting for everyone to return. After taking a long inhale and holding in the smoke, I felt the mushroom trip intensify in a wave of colors and emotions. As I exhaled, I followed the smoke as it rose from my lips, winding its way into the evening skies. There was a sense of peacefulness in the air, and I noticed that fireflies were starting to come out, filling the surroundings with little luminescent green blinking lights. I waited for a long time and no one ever came back to camp, but I was starting to get hungry. We had some snacks and food here, so I made myself a small bite to eat. I smoked a little more of the herb we brought and relaxed at our site with the fireflies, listening to the people walk by on the path. As the night fell, it started to get really cold, and I didnt have many warm weather clothes packed. I pulled on a long sleeve shirt, and headed out to try to find that main circle with the bonfire. I had to ask around, and shortly found some people I was able to tag along with on their way out to the bonfire. The main circle and fire seemed much more festive tonight, people were everywhere in the open meadow, smoking herb, eating, talking, and of course the drums and dancing around the fire were in full force. I spent the rest of the night here, connecting with strangers in deep conversations under the blanket of the night skies. The sky filled with so many stars, reminded me of my first trip in the everglades, connecting the two trips into one continuous psychedelic timeline. Thinking about time when youre on a psychedelic trip can be an exercise in understanding the nature of perception and experience. Your sense of time is so drastically different from normal consciousness youre led from thinking about who first invented time, how it got standardized, the calendars, watches, and of course, is time even real?. Many of the realizations and teachings in this mushroom trip were similar to previous experiences with LSD, in the ideas I contemplated, especially in relation to myself and how I could become a better person, but the perspectives and specific trains of thought were completely different each time I used a psychedelic. It was like the lessons were being taught over and over in slightly different ways, until the meaning was ingrained in my mind. Mushrooms had a totally different character to the visuals and overall feeling of the experience. LSD seemed to have an almost mathematical precision to both thoughts and visuals, while mushrooms had more of an organic-amorphous-paisley feeling to the visuals and I felt slightly less balanced on mushrooms. This was the last time I would experience psychedelic mushrooms for many years. The next time would be almost 4 years later. It was also the only time in my life that I went on a successful psychedelic mushroom hunt. As soon as I got back home, my friends and I went looking in many of the local cow fields for mushrooms, and we found some mushrooms out there, but none looked anything like the ones I picked out at the farm that day. There were rumors that there were local laws forcing farmers in our area to spray their fields with a fungicide so that the psychedelic mushrooms wouldnt grow. I dont know if there was any
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truth to those rumors, but I do know that I never found any magic mushrooms ever again in a cow field.

Spreading the Good News

After getting Melanies number, I finally had a steady supply of LSD. And since so many people had selflessly helped me to get acid up until now, I started letting some of them know about my good luck. I didnt charge them anything over what I was buying them for, I just wanted to return the favors I had been given. I bought them for $5 each, and sold them for $5. To me LSD was not about making money, it was far more valuable than money. After a few weeks went by, people started realizing that I could get acid reliably, and news spread quickly. I started taking orders for a few people, having them give me the money, and then Id bring them back the doses. Melanie dropped the price from $5 to $4, since now I was picking up more than ten at a time. So I just kept giving them to my friends for $5, and by doing this, I was able to get a little free acid for myself, while keeping everyone elses price the same. I never took my share out in cash, I always took my cut in LSD. I was extremely excited to be able to share this experience with those around me, I felt like I was doing something important. One day I was talking quickly in the hall between classes with my friend Chris. Man, you should really start selling this stuff. Youre doing this all wrong. Get her to front you a hundred hits and well sell it to everyone. No one else can get this here. I thought about that the rest of the day as I sat in my classes. When I got off school that day I paged Melanie to see what she thought. Can you come by and meet me at Sheridan Plaza? I want to run something by you. Later that afternoon, sitting in the front seat of her grey Isuzu pickup, I asked, Do you think you can front me a sheet? Ive got a lot of friends at school that want, so I think I can sell it in like a week or so. She looked at me like I was crazy. I fronted a half sheet to a guy and then he moved out of town on me and I never heard from him again. Thats $250 of my money, and no, Im not having that. She thought for a second and then said, Well, I cant front you a sheet, but I will drop your price to $3, and drive you around to move it so I can see what you can do. Set everything up and give me a call. Over the next few days I put the word out. I got everyones phone number and picked a day the next week to go around to everyones home one afternoon. I had Melanie pick me up from school that day the following week and we set off all over town. We went from house to house. Id jump out of her truck, run to the house, go inside for a few minutes and run back to the truck. Then off we went to the next stop. By the time she dropped me off four hours later we had moved through a hundred and fifty hits, a sheet and a half. I couldnt believe I sold that much in one day, and neither could she. I asked her how much she wanted to sell me a sheet for, since I now had about $300. $200 bucks. I went home with $100 and a new job.
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Not My Best Idea

I called Chris later that night, and told him how everything went. The next day I brought a few ten strips off the sheet and sold them in the morning before school even started. By about third period class, we realized that most of those hits were eaten as quickly as they were sold. People were tripping all over the school, including Chris and me. It seemed like everywhere I looked people had the LSD perma-grin and twinkle in their eyes. The school had gone from a place where you could barely find any LSD with weeks of searching, to a virtual psychedelic playground overnight. At lunchtime we went to Burger King at Sheridan Plaza. The place was filled with tripping teenagers. When we showed up, people were laughing and playing in the plastic ball-filled playground outside, it was madness. As if the atmosphere was not already wacky enough, Chris pulled out a blunt and lights it at our table in the smoking section. It was a ridiculous scene with all these people tripping and passing around a blunt inside a fast food restaurant. Unbelievably, none of the staff walked by while we were smoking; maybe they were just staying in the back to hide from the pandemonium. About halfway down the blunt, we got to thinking it was probably a good idea to get out of there before someone did notice. We all jumped into separate cars and drove to the beach. I guess we were done with school for the day. I cant really recreate the madness of that afternoon with words for you, but the situation was way out of control. Another day like that and we were going to be busted for sure. From here on out, I decided, no playing while we work. If I wanted to trip in school fine, but not on a day while I was selling doses. Selling LSD and taking LSD at the same time just did not mix well for me. It was too confusing. We also started becoming more selective about who we sold to in school. I just dont think anyone was really prepared for that flood of acid to arrive. The floodgates opened and the waves came crashing down uncontrollably. I learned some lessons that day that helped keep me safe many times in the future.

Moving On Up
About two months later I was sitting in Melanies grey Isuzu pickup in Sheridan Plaza buying a sheet, when she said, I just met this guy Jesus in Miami, and if everything goes right, everyones gonna be buying sheets from me. Well all be moving up. I thought Jesus was a funny name for an acid dealer, but kept that to myself. I also thought it was funny how she said I met Jesus, but again, didnt say anything, she seemed really excited. Im gonna start selling sheets for $165. That I liked. I guess everything went okay, because soon the price dropped just like she said. At this point I had started making new contacts and had people from some of the other high schools helping me move Melanies acid. In addition to selling singles, I also started moving a little bulk, selling quarter sheets or more. When the price drop passed on down the line I started getting people who were interested in buying their own sheets. I asked Melanie how much it would cost to buy a book (a thousand hits). A dollar a hit. She said. So I started selling sheets at about the price I was getting them at before, $180. I would take almost all the money I made and reinvest it into more LSD. It was about now that I realized that the market was insatiable, as much as I could get, people would buy. The LSD came in waves; two months on and two months 134

off. For two months it would be plentiful, I could get as much as I wanted, and then the following two months there would be none. I realized later that this was done on purpose, and for two reasons. First it helped keep everyone safe, by not allowing the supply to be overwhelmingly present within our network. It also created scarcity within the market. It kept prices stable and interest constant, also leading a lot of the purchasers to stock up during times of plenty. Now during this time I had been going to The Edge every weekend. After being there every week for months, I began to feel like it really was a family. The same core group of people was there every weekend, having ecstatic life-changing experiences together. Seeing the same people every week, and having these powerful moments emerge within the The Edge and within this group, brought many of us to feel the family vibe permeating the early rave scene. Six mundane days at home as a teenager with your biological family, climaxed into this one exciting and fulfilling night with this newly blossoming family. The scene itself was growing too. I noticed the lines to get into the club got longer and longer each week, and the inside was more packed too. We felt like this was a revolution of sorts. I remember a lot of people commenting that we were like a new psychedelic generation, like the evolution from hippies into cybernetic electronic psychedelia. This was going to be big, and we could feel it. Every week I was meeting more and more smiling, friendly people. We were all sharing a group ecstatic experience, getting our minds blown together. On Sundays after The Edge closed, people started having after hours parties at their houses. So after the party was over, smaller groups were getting together in more relaxed settings, getting to know each other a bit more personally. DJs would spin records or wed listen to mix tapes and just enjoy the trailing off of the nights excesses together. Melanie was running a lot of the acid she sold through people at the Edge. People from all over South Florida were coming week after week to party there, so the demand was huge. People would buy some there, bring it home and re-sell it to their friends. I never sold my acid there, though I did give a lot away, due to an agreement with Melanie. One night in the parking lot beside The Edge we were talking and she asked, Do you want to work The Edge? I wanna move to the background. I can do what I need to do without bringing everything here anymore. Needless to say I jumped on the opportunity. Once we started working The Edge, Chris and I quietly made it known around the scene that we had plenty of good acid available. At that point we started meeting other people into buying and selling acid, some with good networks. We learned from everyone, and many of us became good friends. We felt like we were doing important work for the community, spreading higher consciousness. Selling acid at a rave puts you right in the center of a tornado of sensory stimulation. Raves seemed like the descendent of the Acid Tests of the 1960s they were environments created to stimulate the mind, the emotions and the senses. There one can build a universal connection within the space of the dancefloor where the All-One emerges through focused energy flowing through the crowd. People were having deeply personal experiences - being touched and opened up for the first time in their lives, and we watched it happen consistently week after week. This was part of the reason we made it a point to go every weekend, it was an amazing place where magic seemed to happen unexpectedly at any time, but with reliable frequency. To sell psychedelics to people at a place like this, and see the energy in the room cycle and build in intensity through the night, is like an experience outside of time and space. Its like youve plugged into the consciousness of the group at points all over the event, because you helped to create this with everyone. The designs on the LSD blotter paper changed every few weeks, but the acid always seemed to be excellent. There were Purple and Rainbow Jesus hits, Felix the Cat, Bevis and Butthead, Tim Learys, Orange Sunshines, Aztec Calendars, Dancing Skeletons, among many others. For a while we would sell singles to friends and friends of friends. After a few months of this, we would hit the parking lots surrounding The Edge and it felt like we knew everyone there. It wasnt a huge scene, so it was easy to get to know the people who came out every week. We started focusing on supplying people selling, it was safer to work with retailers because we werent dealing with so many different people. We learned it was better to make money on volume rather than a high mark-up on small amounts. We always made a point to do good ethical business. The whole system was set up on trust, and our word was like our underground credit score, and we wanted that to be good. Unfortunately not everyone worked 135

that way. Some things we had to learn the hard way.

The Edge
The Edge became the Mecca for the local rave scene on Saturday nights. Allowing itself to become more than a nightclub, The Edge morphed into a magical jeweled garden of delights. It became a thriving, blossoming microcosmic community. A community bound together by optimism and goodwill; a smile on the face of Fort Lauderdale that radiated from deep within the city like the warm glow of a new love. A feeling of discovery pervaded the scene. Like the discoverers of immense treasure beneath the sands of Egypt, we felt like we had come upon a secret wonder that few even knew existed. There was a feeling of wonder and amazement that within the normally impersonal confines of the metropolis, an almost unimaginable merging of cultures was flowering week after week. A general feeling of acceptance knit diverse individuals together into a fine tapestry of rich and varied designs. The music I heard there was something totally different from anything Id heard before, and it was something almost unique to South Florida. Electronic music that was played and created in this area was heavily influenced by hip-hop beats and then mixed with the psychedelic acid electronica. At the time, electronic dance music was beginning to create a new and growing global culture in clubs, warehouses and remote fields around the world. The breakbeats of a previous generation became food for hungry sampling machines, which ran through the digestive systems of oscillators, multi-effects panels, and synthesizers, to emerge as the funky new anthem of a generation. Trip-hop, and funky breaks became the defining sound of South Florida, while the rest of the world remained oblivious to this side of electronic music. Each geographical area defined itself musically in the early nineties, and then DJs and producers began travelling and influencing and integrating the soundscapes of faraway places. This led to new and ever evolving genres of music that would spring up quickly and move across the globe at the speed of digital communication. The Edge became the place where the South Florida rave scene found a true home. In the beginning, warehouse parties were the first manifestation, followed by a group known here as the Rave Doctors. The Rave Doctors would rent out a college auditorium or some other random venue and throw some of South Floridas first raves. But when The Edge started hosting a party known as Late Night by the Lollipop Guild, it seemed to focalize the energy of the community into a point of light that radiated outwards. The energy moved down to Miami to clubs like Diamonte, Risk, Groove Jet, Paragon, and points all over South Beach in Miami, to as far down as MARS Bar in Kendall. The energy radiated up through West Palm Beach and connected south Florida to Central Florida through the scene emerging and taking root in Orlando. In addition to clubs, warehouses from one side of the tri-county to the other erupted weekend after weekend with DJs and producers from all over the world spreading the new psychedelic gospel of dance. The longevity and consistency of Late Nights at The Edge made it one of the longest running weekly raves in the early 1990s, certainly the biggest and best attended. As Saturday night became Sunday morning in the neon glow of Fort Lauderdale, Late Night began. People of all ages came from miles around, weekend after weekend to be a part of the
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electronic sensory artistry that was The Edge. The party spilled out of the boundaries of the physical building in a radiating halo of energy. People were everywhere for blocks around The Edge, hilarious with laughter, beaming with smiles and auras like flamethrowers. Nearby parking lots were full of people in circles around cars seated Indian-style, hanging onto open doors, lounging on hoods, trunks, or anything handy. These were breeding grounds for involved, deep, and personal conversations spanning galaxies of experience and feeling. The crowds thinned a little as you moved even farther from the inner sanctum of the party. A bit north was the entrance to the Discovery Center, a huge downtown science museum with its own IMAX Theater. Outside the entrance of the museum, away from the intensity of The Edge, was a place of peaceful transcendence. It was the home of a four story clock that looked as if it were built by Doc Brown from Back to the Future, a giant Rube Goldberg machine, built to keep time. It was kept running by a cadence of perfection, balls moving from tubes to railways, and up a conveyor belt in an endless loop moving the hands of the clock forward one minute at a time. At four in the morning, the sound of the balls rolling seamlessly and in perfect harmony with the quiet hum of downtown Fort Lauderdale, and the sight of the towering experiment in timekeeping hovering above was enough to move you into a silent meditation of your own. Right across the street there was a huge sundial and celestial marble calendar laid into the grassy lawn of the science center. A huge white gazebo sat with one side on the grassy lawn of the Discovery Center, and the other opening out onto the waters of the New River. You could walk a little pathway along the river dotted with lighted clocks and park benches looking out into the subtle waves of the river, and end up crossing the train tracks into another big parking lot full of cars, colors and laughter. These are the areas of retreat from the sensory overload of the raging party enclosed within the walls of The Edge. The pounding bass can be felt and heard as far as the white gazebo blocks away, as a subtle vibration, calling to you like the sirens song. It gains in power and volume as you walk closer and pulls you in towards The Edge like a tractor beam. In front of the Edge is the line of people waiting to get in, orbited by others buzzing by in every direction, glow sticks and light toys leaving trails of phosphorescence in the night. The line undulates as if a living entity, people moving forward already dancing to the music that is hardly contained by the walls. At this point the energy is boiling over the walkway and spilling out into the front parking lot. Walking through the threshold of the club is like moving into a bag of rapidly popping popcorn in a microwave somewhere in outer space. You feel the music moving through you, literally vibrating your cells in synch with the powerful rhythm. Fans blowing your hair like a ride in a convertible on some faraway beach, and the flashing colored lights pull you into the collective trance that is being weaved like a giant dream catcher from the DJ booth on the second floor. With a little help from the mind expanding molecules moving through the central nervous systems and pockets wandering the maze within the club, the Edge becomes the secret psychedelic nuclear reactor of Fort Lauderdale. Partiers moving like subatomic particles in a quantum flux, appearing and disappearing at will, bouncing off every surface. Eyes connect and hands drift gently over skin as people pass, inching the energy up higher and higher. Cascading rhythms paint the inner landscape of your imagination in Day-Glo puddles rippling in synch with the bass. Like a huge macrocosmic organism, the people within become the cells responsible for carrying on the processes of sustaining life. Every inch of it covered in cellular smiles and hugs, moving and coalescing into one another and effortlessly separating again. The
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motion and the music are the unending constants within the beast. Never faltering until it comes finally to a quiet rest. Yawning in the mid-morning sun, and curling up in a comfortable ball like a kitten after tirelessly playing for hours with a ball of string. We called it Church at the time, because we were there every Sunday. And also because we were having intense personal and group spiritual experiences week after week. While it had no formalized rituals or doctrine of any kind, many people were religious in their dedication to the movement and the music. It was like a revival of the tribal heritage of our ancestors, dancing around the flickering lights of the fire all night to trance inducing drumming. This experience of ecstatic dance, lights, music and community was once again coming together and opening the hearts and minds of a culture. To be dancing together with hundreds or thousands of other people, and to feel totally open and safe allowed many people to experience a state of true bliss and connectedness. The combination of the music, lights, dance, and drugs would meld into a figurative key, unlocking the minds of the dancers, opening them to the infinite possibilities of the universe. It was like each dancer was a comet, illuminating the night in sparkly luminescence while moving through space and time in precise patterns. It seemed like impossibly large amounts of experience were being fitted into tiny moment of time. People were going through multiple lifetimes of experiences from multiple perspectives of age and even genders in matters of minutes. With this kind of time dilation and intensity of experience it is no wonder why it seemed that so much was going on and so much was changing in relatively short periods of time. There was so much, in fact, that it seems like it should have taken a decade to fit in all that happened in between the summers of 1993 and 1994. During this 12 to 18 month period there was a really feeling of harmony and oneness within the rave community of Southeast Florida. There were a lot of ups and downs, but we went through it all together. The dance music culture in South Florida developed some amazing dancers. Break dancing evolved into a more fluid and personal dance that came to be called liquid because of the flowing movements. One night while on a significantly high dose of LSD, I was watching the dancers in the pit. There was a group of people doing these coordinated and extremely complex movements. The dancers were totally surrounded by electrically colored psychedelic tracers following the movements of their hands, feet and bodies. It was impossible to describe the density of visual information I was getting flowing into my mind, but it appeared that the air around them was rippling with colors that reacted to each movement. Then I watched as one of the smaller guys climbed up onto the shoulders of one of the other dancers. He folded his legs around the neck of the bigger guy while another dancer moved behind them. They all started waving their arms and all of a sudden I realized what I was seeing. I was looking at a living breathing version of the multi-headed, multi-armed Hindu gods. Staring at them straight on, it appeared that there stood a being with 2 heads and six arms all moving together. Dancing became one of the ways people communicated with one another. Some people would dance by themselves off to the sides of the dance floor, some would dance together with one or more people, while others would battle each other. The battles would clear out small circles of the dancefloor, allowing the dancers space to get down. Battles would gather large groups of people at the edges of the cleared circles, watching the dancers trying to one-up each other with ever more impressive moves. Dancing together week after week seemed to build bonds of trust
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and openness between people. This openness was expressed in many ways, but there was a lot of sharing and a lot of kindness shown between both friends and strangers. People would walk around and hand out bottled water, blow pops, glow sticks and even LSD or ecstasy for free. Within that environment selling LSD seemed very safe. We would meet new people each weekend, but most of them came through our developing network of friends. We would spend a the night dancing together and going through experiences so deep and so vast in the course of just one evening, that by the time the morning came, we felt very close. We would leave the Edge and go off to someones house, and it was a new house every weekend, and the party would continue there as an afterhours. Sunday would melt away as someone would be spinning records while people danced or relaxed, depending on the vibe. The afterhours parties would usually be about 15-20 people who would hang out all day Sunday after the Edge closed (which sometimes would be as late as 1PM), at a private home or local park. Many times larger park parties or advertised After Hours parties would be thrown with hundreds of people dancing to DJs spinning in the Sunday sunshine. Slowly it became obvious to others that there were these all night parties filled with people who were getting high all night and also had money and drugs. Parasitic people started arriving on the scene in larger and larger numbers. Gang members started frequenting the clubs, hanging out in the parking lots, and taking advantage of the ravers. People got robbed, beat up, and a bad vibe started flowing through the scene. People began to get a lot more skeptical of others, and a lot of the feeling that had originally knit the community together, was fleeting quickly. People were still doing their thing, getting high, or moving psychedelics (including ecstasy), but it got quieter, and everything became more exclusive. Some of these groups actually formed rave gangs of sorts and started throwing their own parties and selling hard drugs. The scene suffered dramatically from that, but continued to survive for years to come, but it never was able to return to the purity of the early days.

Learning the Hard Way

One night I was walking outside The Edge to the parking lot, and I ran into Melanies boyfriend, Lollipop. Hey have you seen Melanie? I wanna get together with her, I gotta re-up. Nah, she aint gonna be here tonight, but I can take care of you. Cool, where are you going to be? I have to find my boy. Over by my van, there. He said, pointing towards the back side of the parking lot. I went and found Chris; we got our money together and went off to the back side of the parking lot and found Lollipop by his old van. Can we get a book? Yeah, I got these pink suns, theyre the bomb! Just give me the money and Ill run to my place and grab it for you. 139

No Problem. A grand? Yeah. Okay here you go, I said putting a neat fold of bills discretely into his hand. Well just chill here. Alright Ill be right back, I live just about 10 minutes away. He got into his van and drove off with a smile and a wave. Chris and I waited in the parking lot, and waited, and waited. After about forty-five minutes, Chris stood up with his arm outstretched and said theatrically, Please pink sun guy, Come Back! we both cracked up laughing, and I will never forget him doing that. I went to page Melanie and see what was up. She called us back at the pay phone and I told her the story. That Asshole! she yelled; it turns out that she had broken up with him last week because hed started smoking crack and she caught him stealing money from her. Of course he never came back with the 1000 hits of pink suns. In fact I never saw him again, ever. That was one of many tough lessons. Another time, after a great night at the Edge, we got a ride home from some guys wed just met that same night, Carlos and Two-Finger John (he really did only have two fingers on his right hand). When the car pulled up and stopped at the corner near my house, we thanked them for the ride home and jumped out of the car. As we watched the car drive away down the street, I reached into my pockets and realized my keys were not in my pants pockets. To make matters worse, my key ring had a little zippered pouch that I had been using to put all our money from the nights work in. I had counted out some money in the car for gas, so I knew I had it with me then. I ran into the middle of the street trying to chase after the car. Maybe they didnt realize I was running behind the car with my arms flailing wildly trying to get their attention. I went home and called them, asking them to see if they could bring my keys back, but allegedly they couldnt find them. We never saw that money again, and Chris was really pissed off at me for leaving it in their car. That was the money we worked all night for! Yet another time, a friend of mine that I had sold quite a bit of acid to over the past few months called me and asked if I could get his friend Carmine an ounce of crip. Crip is what high-grade pot is called in South Florida. The low grade stuff comes compressed in bricks from other countries, and was of quality that varied, and was called regs, for regular. Regs sold for about $100 an ounce and crip sold for $300 an ounce. I set it up so that Chris met the guy outside a local 7-11. Carmine asked to see the bag so he could check it out, and Chris handed it to him. Carmine then jumped into the back seat of a car and sped off, leaving Chris there with no money. The guy we got the herb from was not very understanding, he told us if we didnt come up with the $300 he was going to kill us. These were some hard and expensive lessons to learn, but taught us a lot about being selective about who we dealt with. Things like these helped me to decide how I felt about morality and the way I wanted to treat others. It also taught me how I wanted to be treated myself. We came to the conclusion that we would write off bad debts. Fighting and perpetuating negative energy was not worth it. If someone ripped us off, it was worse for them, not us. Instead of doing good business where we could all make good money, they settled for whatever little amount they got on the spot. They were cut off. We were dealing in South Florida, where people get killed over bad deals, so we just decided to write them off instead of fighting or trying to get them back. The people who did good clean business we kept close, the few bad apples were cut off. One night at The Edge Chris and I were talking in the corner. He said to me I can get this awesome haze bud for $300 an ounce from Mike, he says its lime green and its got purple all over it. I knew Mike, and he did always have excellent herb. Chris and I worked as a team, always watching each others back. Everything we made we split evenly, no matter who did what in terms of sales over the course of the night. Usually one of us would hold the money and the other the doses. I went into my pocket and grabbed the money I had, and started counting him out the $300 he needed. As I was doing that, one of The Edges security guys grabbed us both on the shoulder. I 140

was shocked because they never really bothered you. Are you dealing drugs in my club? No! we both said. He dragged us outside the entrance over to a few other security guards and started searching our pockets. He pulled out my wallet, pulled out a stack of cash about a quarter inch thick, and said, Howd you get this? I work. Since Chris was the one working the crowd that night, I was just the one holding the money and the doses. I had eaten a few hits earlier in the night. This guy had no clue that in the wallet he was holding, I had a little clear baggy with about 300 hits of white unperf hidden in the flat pocket behind my ID, a few family pictures and a condom. Unperf was great because it was just white paper soaked in liquid LSD. It was called unperf because it was unperforated, unlike most acid, which was perforated into neat quarter inch squares. If it wasnt inside the little clear drug baggie, it would be virtually unrecognizable to anyone, but as it was, I was screwed. With the wallet still in his hand he said; Whats this? His other hand was touching my pocket from the outside, his fingers around a rectangular piece of paper hiding in the security of the fabric of my pants. I had no clue what it was, but time seemed to stand still for me as I realized I mustve had about thirty hits in my pocket I had forgotten about. My mind flashed to me sitting in jail, for a long, long time. How did I mess that up? What were thirty hits doing floating in my pocket with no cellophane or anything holding them? If they had that, theyd keep looking and find the sheets in my wallet, I thought. A hand reached in my pocket and fished out the little paper that had the next few years of my life written invisibly on its surface. Unbelievably it was just an Admit One ticket that the club wed been at before the Edge used as admission tickets. It was one of the little tickets with numbers on both sides that are used by carnivals and raffles everywhere. I was tripping so hard, I just stared at the ticket as I came to the realization that assured disaster had been averted. With that, they figured I had nothing else of interest for them to find. The security guard put my money back into my wallet and pressed it into my hand. Again I didnt really comprehend what was going on. I thought for sure they were going to try to at least steal the money. But no, he was giving it back, untouched. No bills skimmed off the top and falling into his pockets. The early morning sunshine fell coolly over me as we stood outside the main entrance to the club with four Edge security guards circled around Chris and I. One of the security guards pulled out a pipe from Chris pants pocket. Its a strange pipe that Chris loved, but no one else took much notice of. It was thick clear glass, about four or five inches in length, straight and cylindrical with a wooden mouth piece fitted to one end, and nothing really special about it at all, by the looks of it. Id never seen one before, and havent seen another like it since though, and I have no clue where he originally got it from. It had a tightly wound, diamond shaped spring that acted as a screen and created a place to pack the herb into by tightly fitting into the center of the glass tube. After using it a few times, if the pipe started to get resin coating the inner surface of the glass, all you had to do, was push the spring through the pipe and it cleaned itself onto the coils of the spring. Pretty nifty, I guess. Being in South Florida, in downtown Fort Lauderdale, at an all night party, with a straight glass pipe, the first thing these security guards think is, crack pipe. Oh! This is for the bad shit! The guy says as he takes it out of Chris pocket, examining it. No way, man, thats for kind bud! Chris shouts back. Turing the pipe around in his hand the guard sees the top lined in a circle of bright green, painted with flecks of orange and THC crystals glinting in the morning sun. What else do you got? His hands moved in and out of Chris pockets. He handed the pipe to a security guard lounging on the bar stool that the door man used until the early hours of the morning. That chair is like a point at which two worlds meet, the door man is the gatekeeper. Waiting crowds move from the dark world of the downtown Fort Lauderdale night to another world entirely filled with lasers, black-lights and pounding bass. At this time in the morning, the post is abandoned, even though the party rages on. The club 141

had made its money and if you wanted to arrive at 8AM, The Edge wasnt going to ask for your six dollars. After a few more minutes of fruitless searching, security saw us as a waste of time. All four towering guards turned away from us in a gesture of dismissal. I was already walking back into the club, when I hear, Hey man, can I get my pipe back? Chris was not about to give up his prized pipe. No way kid, get out of here. Youre just going to take my pipe like that? Man, forget about the pipe! I called back No way, that aint cool. Either I keep the pipe, or the cops keep it, and you. And that was the last we saw of Chris pipe. Scenes like that happened every once in a while at The Edge for us. One night I was on the second floor, looking down on the dance floor below. The second floor was more like a rectangular balcony, the DJ presiding over the club on one side, and the other three sides were narrow walkways with a view of everything and everyone below. I was leaning on one of the railings, looking down at the crowded dance floor below bathed in lasers and strobing lights. I felt like a scientist watching subatomic particles bouncing around in a giant reactor, moving in and out of reality through parallel universes in an explosion of colors. I was smoking a bowl, but saw the telltale beam of light bouncing through the walkway that meant only one thing; security. I put the pipe over the edge of the balcony, so that I could drop it if the light happened to fall on me. I guess the people below would be none too happy to be hit by a falling glass pipe from above, but since the light kept moving right on past me, they never knew the danger they were in. When the light was about five feet away, I figured I was safe, so I put the pipe to my mouth, sparked up the lighter and pulled happily on the pipe. This was not a good idea. The light swung around as if pulled by a wire tied around its beam, and shone brightly in my eyes. What the fuck is wrong with you? Didnt you see me right here? I heard from behind the beam. I dont remember my answer, but I cant imagine it was too bright. Gimme the pipe. I handed it over into the opened palm that appeared under the light. You got anything else you shouldnt have in here? No. I lied. My pockets were stuffed like a psychedelic candy store, acid, rolls*, and of course, more herb. Man, dont fuck around in here like that. With that, he and my pipe were gone. Two pipes down, and many more to go. (to state the obvious)*rolls are ecstasy pills

Microdots
Towards the end of the summer in 1994 Melanie got something new in our circles. Up until then, all the LSD I had seen was on blotter paper with different designs. She started bringing me pillows of different colored microdots. She called them pillows because each small plastic baggie of 100 microdots looked like a little pillow. A microdot is a form of LSD that looks very much like a tiny pellet about half the size of a grain of rice. Over a period of about 6 months we saw yellow, red, blue, green and purple microdots. The different colors may or may not have been different potencies, but some people liked the green ones better than the blue ones, and other people like the purple ones better than the reds, and so on. Microdots were a lot of fun because they were something different. At first they seemed a little harder to hide than paper LSD, because they were bulky, and they could crush inside the plastic bags if you werent careful. We would always keep the dust at the bottom of the bags for head stash and 142

called it pixie dust. Soon we figured out that we could open up a ball point pen, take out the ink well, and fill the inside full of microdots. We would walk around with pens filled with 100 microdots and sell them that way. Microdots are notoriously hard to keep track of when youre counting them. Theyre tiny and their shape allows them to roll around on whatever surface you happen to be using to count them. My suggestion is to never count microdots on a table in a room with carpet, I cant tell you how many microdots have been sacrificed to shaggy carpets, but Im sure the numbers are high. Counting thousands of microdots is an exercise in patience and care. Each microdot was about the size of a pin head and about the same thickness. One time we had counted and put 5,000 microdots into a regular sandwich bag and they barely filled up the bottom inch of the bag. A lot of people thought the microdots were mescaline and people were calling them mescaline microdots, but that wasnt true, they were LSD. The amount of mescaline that would be necessary to bring on the psychedelic experience, in the range of 200-400 milligrams, would never have fit into those tiny dots. The microdots only weighed a total of about 20-30 milligrams each. I would try to explain this to people, but ended up hearing some very weird explanations. The weirdest one was some guy that was telling me that the microdots were a very concentrated form of mescaline. I spent a while trying to reason with him that mescaline had a specific molecular weight and no matter how concentrated it got, even 100% pure, it could never be concentrated enough to lose 10 times its volume, but he wouldnt budge. I learned that people believe what they want to believe in many circumstances, regardless of what reality might be saying to the contrary. One of the things that I have always loved is to go to the movies. Going to the movies on LSD became one of the things my group of friends really loved; it would totally immerse us in the fantasy of the story. We would collect all the pixie dust into bags, and bring the bags to the movie theaters. Since the microdot dust was all different colors, the bags looked like little bags of sand art, or the smallest bags of Trix cereal one could imagine. We would take the pixie dust and pour it all into a bottle of orange juice, put the cap on and shake it up and pass it around. It was impossible to guess how many doses were in the bags of pixie dust, but we got pretty good at figuring out about how much pixie dust could be mixed for different size groups of people, but it was never an exact science. Before we had the ratios figured out there were a few really intense trips. One time we went with a group of about 10 people to see Pulp Fiction at the local theater. We met up at a nearby park so we could all go together. We mixed up the orange juice and sat around smoking a few joints before walking over to the theater. By the time we got to the theater we were already lifting off on the heavy doses. Purchasing the tickets seemed to take so long, dragging on into forever. Every moment passed so slowly because we could focus in on every motion, every movement, every breeze, and then look up and realize that the person at the front of the line hadnt even finished paying for their tickets. Years later when we all had our tickets and were making our way to the theater, the trip was in full swing. We all found seats in the same row and tried to sit without giggling through the previews. The movie finally began and the combination of the music, the cinematography, and completely non-linear ordering of the scenes had everyone struggling to hold onto the threads of the story. I was totally drawn into the story when Samuel Jackson was quoting from the bible and shot that kid for stealing from his boss. The scene was just dripping in intensity, and I was totally gripped by the story, even though I was having trouble following it as it switched from scene to scene. None of the scenes seemed to be related to the scene before it, and the story was confusing everyone in the group. Ripples of whispers flowed through our row and soon my best friend next to me was tapping my shoulder, saying man weve got to get out of here, everyone is losing it! I didnt want to leave, but it was almost immediately apparent that most of our group was totally unable to follow the movie and the consensus was that we needed to leave, right now. I cant imagine having been a patron in that theater with all of us, Im sure if we hadnt left, we wouldve been kicked out soon enough. Another time, we went to see Stargate and again the dosage was probably just a little too high. But this time it was only about 4 of us, and things never got out of control. The movie however really got my mind moving in high gear. I was totally blown away, and walked out of the theater convinced that it was the best movie ever made. I remember remarking to my friends as we walked out of the theater how something like that could be going on right that very moment, and the general public would never know that the government had a super-secure secret facility tucked away somewhere and experimenting with alien technologies with the danger that the whole world 143

might end if everything didnt work out just right. Then almost as suddenly as they appeared, the multi-colored microdots disappeared, never to be seen again. A few years later the market again was totally flooded with orange barrel microdots. They were all orange and all extremely well pressed. The orange barrels seemed to be much stronger and didnt crush anywhere near as easily. You pretty much had to try to crush them, which was a lot better for everyone, since every dot would be intact and at the intended dosage, instead of losing little bits here and there.

A Quick Trip North

When we got into the parking lot of Hyperspace II at a fairground outside of Orlando, about four hours north of Fort Lauderdale, we saw rows and rows of cars covering acres of grassy land and stretching into the distance. Chris and I piled out of the old red Toyota Celica with three friends that had cramped into the close quarters for the ride up. When we opened the doors, the smoke from the joint we just finished made it out first, followed by the five of us. Looking out on the sea of cars we were amazed at how big the scene was. This was the first rave we had been to of this magnitude. Previously wed been to clubs, warehouses, and local events, but this would be our first rave in a festival setting. We followed the river of partiers flowing through the rows of cars heading towards the music, like pilgrims on the way to the holy city, the dance Mecca. The river carried us through the expanses of the parking lot and through the entrance gates into a nighttime carnival of sound and light. As we walked closer I heard Raise Your Hands by the Boston Bruins and my excitement continued to build. I was feeling great and so excited, all my cells were giddy with good feelings. Sound systems were set up under the stars, filling the night like a teapot filling a cup full of rainbow colored liquid. Thousands of people were everywhere smiling, hugging, and dancing, embraced by the cool air of the evening breeze. Covered in the cleansing sheen of sweat, dancers crisscrossed the open field everywhere running and laughing, tripping over each other and falling on the grass in piles of brightly colored fabric and glowing jewelry. Three more sound systems were housed within the cavernous building in the center of the fairground. Each sound system was in a separate room within the building and each had DJs and producers from all over the world, each creating their own vibe The lasers here were even better than the best we had at The Edge, forming images and words on the ground and in the skies on the clouds above, or the walls within the inside rooms. Going to an event like this really opened my eyes to how many people, and how many varied types of people came to these events. Everyone was different ages, shapes, sizes, wore different clothes (some VERY different) and yet, everyone was not only getting along, but seemed to be having the times of their lives. I felt so at home and so at peace in the middle of all the lights, sounds, and euphoria, like my whole reason for being was taking form here and making itself known. Together we wandered around looking at everyone, and weaving through the crowds from one stage to the next. I had taken a few hits of acid shortly after getting into the festival and as they started to kick in I looked back to see if Chris was feeling his, and realized my friends were nowhere to be seen. I started re-tracing my steps as best as I could, trying to find them. As the acid really started to come on strong I became more and more immersed in the music and the crowd, and soon, I forgot all about looking for my friends. I was hundreds of miles from home, with no idea where my friends were, no car, but all of that melted away. I knew I would find them somewhere, sometime before the morning sun rose over the party. The DJ was dropping some really great grooves and I started dancing, feeling my body become fluid, moving on its own to the rhythm. Dancing on LSD does something unique to your mind and body. There is no way to describe what happens, but everything synchs up, your movements, your muscles, your reactions, the drums, the beats, the air around you, everything seems to just flow. The motion pumps the experience through your body and intensifies the trip until it feels like your whole body is one gigantic smile that can barely contain itself within the confines of your physical form. As I was feeling myself become one with the universal-human-tribal-dance-soul, losing all sense of my physical body, I felt my feet leave the ground, and arms around my body. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, 144

which felt cool and grassy, with someones arms around me calling my name in a long drawn-out excited voice. I looked and it was my friend Karla from the Edge. She was with a group of our friends and literally tackled me when she saw me. It was nice to see familiar friends in this far-away land, and I was laughing and dusting myself off while giving and receiving hugs all around. We had to almost yell into each others ears to hear ourselves speaking, so we walked back from the wall of bass bins and speakers, to where it was just a little quieter. From back at the edges of the crowds we see the whole scene, and it was a lot to take in. The night was nice and cool, which felt amazingly refreshing after dancing for so long. I was covered in sweat, but the breeze was drying me off. Someone had a backpack with a blanket and put it on the ground and we all melted into a big multi-armed, multilegged, multi-headed, multi-conscious entity. They were all excited about some pure ecstasy capsules theyd bought a while ago, apparently it was really good stuff. Once I had drunk some water, cooled down some, and been able to get a sense of balance, I wanted to get one of these capsules as well. Just watching everyone in such an excited and blissful state was enough to make my soul smile. I was able to convince Karla to take me to find the guy they bought the capsules from, and we got up from the blanket, said wed be right back, and walked back into the crowds, lights, and music. She was sure she would be able to recognize the guy again when she saw him, so we walked all through and around the crowds outside, into and through all 3 rooms of the building, but no luck. Wed been walking for what seemed like a really long time, but it was great fun to see all the wild outfits and costumes, and hear all the different and amazing music. It felt like we were on an epic quest through a magical kingdom, in search of treasures beyond description. After making a circuit of the entire fairgrounds and all the rooms in the building, we walked back outside, still looking. There he is! she said, and grabbed my arm and dragged me over back towards the edge of the crowded outside dancefloor. Ill never forget the guy she brought me up to, she was right, he was easy to recognize. He was a really big black guy all dressed in white flowing robes, exuding a feeling of kindness and peace. She gave him a hug and introduced me. He looked down at me with the nicest smile, and held out his hand. Im Nimrod. I looked down at his outstretched hand, and on each of his fingers, he had what looked like a large silver, highly decorated claws. I took his hand, and was almost surprised that it felt soft, and that I didnt get scratched by his claws. He made quite the first impression. The price seemed really high to me, but I ended up buying two of his capsules, and he sent us off with waves of knowing kindness. Karla and I went off in search of some water so I could take one of the capsules. Up to this time, I had only had ecstasy pills, and there were always rumors flying around about what might be in any batch of pills that hit the scene. People would say some had heroin, some had cocaine, some had this and that and whatever (but most almost 100% of that was just speculation and ignorance). Nimrod had assured me these capsules contained about 125mg of pure ecstasy powder. I had never even seen ecstasy in anything other than pressed pills, but I was confident his stuff must be good, based on just watching and talking with my group of friends that had appeared out of the aether of the event. It almost seemed like everything had aligned to put me alone there on the dancefloor when they found me and helped me get to this moment where I was swallowing the pill with some amazingly refreshing cold water. I was right around the peak of the acid trip when the ecstasy crept into the experience. It softened the psychedelic experience in the most profound way. The peak of the trip opened up into an overwhelming feeling of bliss and oneness. We were walking around trying to find our friends (either Chris and the group I came with, or the group Karla came with), but all of a sudden I had to stop and sit down. My stomach felt a little uneasy and I felt like I was moving up on a speeding elevator, rocketing towards the stars. I drank some more of my water and it helped to calm my stomach down, but I still had a feeling of moving up and up, getting higher and higher. The energy rush felt so crazy. It was like I was totally weightless and then like my entire body seemed to move particle by particle to become a cloud, hovering over and moving through every part of the rave. I closed my eyes, but the colors from the lights and lasers of the event seemed to continue right into the core of my mind. I felt like this was the ultimate human experience and if I could bring just a bit of this to everyone on the planet, that things would change for the better. Wars, famine, poverty, fear, it would all just disappear and a new age of cooperation would bring humanity to evolve into what we were always meant to become. My whole body was singing at the very peak of a bliss that I could never have imagined could be possible. I moved 145

back in time and experienced life through multiple viewpoints all at once. I was the experiencer, the viewer, the person outside the experience looking in, and I could relate intimately to each emotion felt, each action taken, and each word spoken in an infinity of situations all occurring in unison. I felt like all of time was happening right now, and I was every person that ever lived all at once. I opened my eyes, and was amazed to see I was sitting on the ground, next to Karla, in the middle of a rave. It was quite a shock and took me a second to get my bearings enough to put my hand on her shoulder, give her a smile, and say, you were right, this IS good stuff! She smiled back and it seemed like her eyes were smiling at me. We spent the rest of the night walking around, dancing in all of the different areas of the event, and never found either group of our friends. The sun came up and it felt like I was just glowing from the inside. Karla and I were sitting on a power transformer talking when Chris and one of our friends came walking over. Here you are! Weve been looking for you all night man! We were looking for you guys all night too! I said. Karla jumped down and gave them both hugs, and Chris said, Man, we bought a bunch of these pure ecstasy capsules out here Sweet man! Karla hooked me up with a guy here that had them, theyre amazing! Chris looked at me like I was crazy and said, No, man, these are all bunk! Were supposed to meet the guy back at our car in a few minutes to make things right. And then I felt a bad energy coming from them from whatever theyd been up to that night. Every night at a party was really a working night for Chris and I and I knew wed brought a bunch of money up with us. Apparently theyd bought 50 or 100 capsules of what they thought was pure MDMA (ecstasy), but that turned out to be completely inactive. I was having trouble getting my mind around the negativity. I just was feeling so good, that I wasnt registering that wed lost a significant amount of cash. They wanted us to come with them back to the car to get the money back, and eventually we did end up coming along. Of course the situation never got straightened out, and eventually I was able to come to terms with the loss of money, but it never really ruined my mood. I knew wed be okay, it wasnt that much money and things always seemed to work out for us one way or the other. With the sun completely up, the music finally coming to an end, and the sea of cars beginning to thin, we found Karlas group of friends. We smoked a few joints and shared all our stories from the night before splitting up, getting in our cars and heading out. We werent heading back to South Florida yet though, there was another party tonight at The Edge in Orlando. Orlando also had a club named The Edge and it was owned by the same people as the one in Fort Lauderdale. It even looked very similar. Black on the outside, it had a main dancefloor, a second floor inside, and an outside patio to chill out in. There was a live performance by two live acts, one of them was Two Bad Mice who I liked a lot. When we got to the club that night, it was like a meeting of two long lost families, South and North. Many of the regulars from the Edge in Fort Lauderdale had made the trek up for Hyperspace II and ended up staying for the party tonight at the Orlando Edge, so we already knew tons of people here. That worked out good since we had lost so much money at Hyperspace on the fake pills, now we could work here and make some of that loss up. A good friend of mine had come up to Orlando a few nights before Hyperspace to lay some LSD crystal onto paper for distribution at Hyperspace II. Apparently when he was doing it he added just a little too much liquid into the solution, so the pages didnt dry as quickly as normal. So he laid the wet pages on sheets of wax paper to finish drying. Hed sold most of the LSD at the event, but had a few thousand hits left. He fronted me and Chris 2,500 hits to work after I told him about what happened last night. Since we knew so many people there already, and some of them were our distributors from down south that wanted to work the party tonight, we were able to move all the hits almost as soon as we had them in hand. We were finished working those in less than an hour and now wed made back some of our money, and gave the rest to my friend. He was really happy as apparently that was the last of what he had brought up, and now he could drive home 146

clean. He gave me all the sheets of wax paper that the pages of LSD were soaking on and told me to give them out and have a good time. I looked at the paper and had no idea how much was a dose, so he tore off a piece about an inch and a half square, which seemed really big, but he said he thought that would be about one dose. Chris and I walked around and handed out the big squares of wax paper and soon, between the paper LSD and the wax paper, that whole place seemed like it was lit up. I had eaten a small bit of the laid LSD, but didnt eat any of the wax paper. I ran into Karla and her friends and gave them each a square of the wax paper before wandering off into the crowds. The rest of the night passed in a blur, it seemed like everywhere I looked, there was activity, people were moving really fast, laughing, smiling, but it felt like people were moving with a purpose, like things were getting done. Eventually the night wound down, the lights came up in the club, and we piled back into the red Toyota Celica and headed home. I ran into Karla next week in the parking lot at The Edge in Fort Lauderdale. When she saw me, she motioned me over and said, Damn man! You didnt tell me that piece of wax paper was going to be like eating 25 hits! I ate that and when I was driving home I felt like I was going to fly off the planet!

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