My Former Days of Enlightenment
Remember how it was in those days after you heard the truth. You suffered much. People laughed at you and beat you. When others suffered, you suffered with them. —Hebrews 10:32-33
It was in the back yard parking lot of a rooming house where I saw him. I peered out from my apartment above at his stationwagon full of literature and tracts and that was plastered with stickers and slogans. He had surrounded his vehicle with placards and posters advertising Christ and was passing tracts to tenants and other passers by. With his Bible open, waving and gesturing, he was clearly a threat to us all.
So I grabbed my recently acquired attaché and dashed downstairs. When I arrived I looked around at the religious art on placards—Jesus on a cross, the Last Supper, the nativity scene and Jesus being held by Mary. But the one that bothered me most was the all-seeing eye in the triangle of providence above Jesus and his disciples. It was the eye of Horus, an Egyptian god.
By now others were standing around holding tracts they had been given. The evangelist continued flipping through his large Bible, spewing out scripture after scripture. It was well worn and underlined throughout—truly intimidating as I watched him move with such ease through his sermon. I looked down at my small attaché. I had barely cracked my Bible.
“What translation is that?” I asked with youthful exuberance.
Surprised by my impudence, his eyes flashed the question, ‘Why do you ask,’ but instead he replied, “Well, nice to meet you, whoever you are! I’m Barry. And you are—” thrusting out his hand.
Not letting him have an inch, I replied, “Is it a King James Bible?”
“Why yes it is—”
“Did you know there’s at least twenty thousand mistakes in that translation?” He was now speechless while the others were intrigued. “Look up Psalm 83:18—What does it say?”
By now he was clearly taken aback and one of my fellow tenants was drawing closer. The evangelist flipped through his Bible and began to read. “Yeah, well that’s just one of his names. God has many names—God, Lord, Almighty—”
“But those aren’t names—they’re titles! They replaced the name Jehovah—”
“Because it wasn’t being pronounced right! Who are you anyway? What religion—”
“Never mind. What does the Lord’s Prayer say?” Turning to the tenant I said, “What do you say?”
He shrugged. “I dunno … Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name—”
And so the argument went—Trinity, immortality of the soul, hellfire and torment, universal salvation—every doctrine that Jehovah’s Witnesses had successfully reduced to lies and paganism and over which I had been given sufficient ammo packed in one small, concise book called “Make Sure of All Things—Hold Fast to What Is Fine.”
Finally, he insisted I tell him what religion I belonged to.
“None,” I replied. “But I am studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
“For how long?”
“About six weeks.”
“Only six weeks? And you know that much?”
I didn’t tell him it was night and day. I didn’t tell him that aside from reading, praying, working and sleeping I did nothing else for those six weeks.
“But why Jehovah’s Witnesses of all religions?”
“They were the closest I could find to the first Christians. They also believe the entire Bible and showed me how it doesn’t contradict itself like others do.”
“Nothing’s that clear—”
“At least they’re humble enough to admit it. At least they change their beliefs to fit the Bible. What have the churches done? They’ve changed the Bible to fit their belief. Look at the pagan art you carry around. Don’t you know that none of that is Christian?”
Needless to say, after what seemed hours of intense discussion (during which my fellow tenant threw up his hands and left), I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I had defeated the evangelist on every front, even to the point of him saying, “As much as I don’t agree with you rejecting the divinity of Christ, I do admit the hellfire doctrine is more pagan than Christian.”
It was quiet now as I sat alone. My first encounter of such magnitude—I had defended successfully what I had studied for only weeks. Before that I knew as little as my fellow tenant who still knew little more than the Lord’s Prayer. At least now he understood it a little better. Or did he? As it turned out, he wasn’t all that interested anyway, which is something I could never understand. Why wasn’t everyone interested? Why couldn’t they all see it? In that very moment a profound sadness enveloped me as feelings of defeat pulled me into an abyss from which I couldn’t climb out. I began to weep bitterly. Why? Had I not defeated the foe?
Maybe I was not as smart as I thought. Maybe in my accusation of the evangelist’s lack of humility there was denial of my own arrogance. I prayed. I studied more—reading the Bible over and over till near exhaustion while checking and rechecking what Jehovah’s Witnesses had taught me. It all made so much more sense. And there was so little time—only eight years to Armageddon.
Why Was I Enlightened?
This was a good question. Why was I enlightened? Was I deserving? Why is anyone enlightened? Is anyone deserving? And just what is enlightenment?
Asking such a question in the ‘60’s evoked many more opinions than one might expect today. For example—the guy who sold me my first guitar. He was later enlightened. His name was David. He later went on to become an artist recluse somewhere in the Gulf Islands off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. I will always remember the transaction. He needed sixty bucks. I wanted his guitar, and he was generous enough to throw in some basic lessons. So I will always be thankful to David, for I still have his guitar, but I doubt he still has my sixty bucks.
Back to his later enlightenment. The way some might figure it, he was enlightened the way most should when they “dropped acid,” which is how you described taking LSD, a mind-altering drug. Now to me, LSD represented the means to my enlightenment. To David, it WAS his enlightenment. And whereas I once knew David to be a respectable university student who could’ve gone anywhere, I, on the other hand, was a high school dropout who couldn’t even remember writing his finals.
So when I next met David, it was a big surprise to both of us. It was probably a year or so after my experience with the evangelist. My life, now thoroughly committed to getting the Bible message out there, was filled with every resource given and invented. In my spare time, I had drawn this giant roll-out visual chart to instruct all those with whom I studied the Bible just how close we were to Armageddon. It was drawn to the same specs as shown on pages 31 to 35 of the Life Everlasting—In Freedom of the Sons of God book, produced by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in 1966. The words of the 1967 convention still rang in my ears: “Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Yes … it’s only eight years to Seventy-Five!”
And where was I now in my enlightened state? In an apartment in Toronto rented by a musician by the name of Graham, a well connected man who was lead guitar in a rock and roll band who regularly had his university prof friends and others sit in on the Bible study. And of course, Graham would always have me roll out my chart showing where we were in the stream of time. Being a good pioneer, I was always ready for any question coming my way.
“So answer me this,” said one of his professor friends. “What’s gonna happen say in eight years, and it’s—say 1976. then what are you gonna do then with this chart?”
This evoked a sudden burst of laughter followed by arguing until I held up my hand and said, “Well, what are you gonna do if Armageddon does come?”
There was a silence before arguing began again. This time Graham interrupted, “How do you expect him to answer that anyway? It’s a hypothetical question. And you guys know you can only answer a hypothetical question with a hypothetical answer.”
Getting back to David, it happened as I arrived one night at Graham’s that he said to me, “There’s someone who wants to meet you.”
A man emerged wearing some kind of two-piece toga and sandals. It was David. After much recounting of the past—since we first met on the west coast and what were the chances that we would ever meet in the big city of Toronto—he said, “It’s cosmic. We were meant to be here.”
He then went on to explain his journey to enlightenment through acid as he travelled half way across India to meet the great Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and learn the mind expanding Hindu art of Transcendental Meditation. So there we sat—two enlightened men.
Is the Graham mentioned here Larry Graham of the band Sly and the Family Stone?
Warm Christian Love
Bangalore
Fascinating!
Knowledge can be one of two things: enlightening or just another burden. It's like a hammer...you can carry it around, no place to put it, occupying one hand or the other, always in the way....or you can build something with it. Either way, the hammer is a wonderful tool, in and of itself. It can be a showpiece or it can be utilitarian.
Knowledge for knowledge-sake is just another possession that takes up space and must be guarded. I can imagine Jesus' experience with the rich young man as recorded at Matthew 19 being written another way:
16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
17"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
18"Which ones?" the man inquired.
Jesus replied, " 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'"
20"All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"
21Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, [use your knowledge to upbuild the spiritually-destitute], and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great [knowledge].
23Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a [knowledgeable] man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a [knowledgeable] man to enter the kingdom of God."
For one man, money opens doors...but for the vast majority, it is a burden in the grand scheme. For another, knowledge opens the doors to wisdom...but for most, knowledge is just another possession that is acquired, pigeonholes a person, then must be defended. Enlightenment or burden?
gus
Is the Graham mentioned here Larry Graham of the band Sly and the Family Stone?
No, his first name was Graham ... but nice try bro!
Love,
sw
Was I More Enlightened?
Another good question. I believed I was. But only because the vision was indelibly branded into my brain. It was a vision given. But by what? Or should I say—whom?
Was it a true vision? It seemed harmless enough, beginning as strawberry-fields-forever. But it quickly turned dark and evil as I began to resist. From then it illuminated a world decidedly divided into good and evil—great evil, the ruler of which was evil and the vision evil, reducing its visionary into a giggling, blubbering, blithering fool. It was then I knew the source of everyone else’s enlightenment. They hadn’t resisted the journey. Mine, on the other hand came as the threat of insanity from which there was no return!
It didn’t seem to matter though. Anyone I would talk to thereafter didn’t know or care that there was a difference. The entire question was answered by the profound change that occurs to all users of hallucinogenic drugs. Which also didn’t matter because a profound change of morality was already festering in the ‘60’s.
What WAS good? What WAS evil? The war in Vietnam? Or was it those who protested the war? Those who went to war? Or those who desecrated flag and country? Right became wrong and wrong became right, which made it right to call down evil on returning war vets and everyone else connected to a establishment that didn’t agree with the new morality and its new found freedom. Make love and not war! And loose the chains of restraint!
No longer was it “The Shadow” on late night radio. All enlightened knew of the evil that “lurks in the hearts of men!” Yet who of them really knew their own heart? I thought I knew mine. I meditated on it and wanted it to be good, but I had nothing against which to measure. I could only wish that it would not turn evil. I prayed it wouldn’t.
I looked around at all of those enlightened. How could I point my finger at any one of them and say theirs was false and mine true? My argument was subjective, even moot, as were any that would try to define good and evil religiously, morally or otherwise. By mere definition the question would quickly reduce to a fight between whether my god was bigger than their god! How utterly silly was that? No wonder the more pacific, non-judgmental eastern Hindu and Buddhist religions were so attractive. No wonder their teachings of fate, destiny and karma were increasingly popular amongst those enlightened hippies. There was nothing to prove! Therefore, nothing to fight about!
But I determined not to let something so human rule my logic. Already skewed by my one and only hallucinogenic experience was that those who knew of my experience did not consider it true enlightenment. What they didn’t know was that my enlightenment was twofold—first coming to me from that which I found the greatest intelligence, and frighteningly so. It was an intelligence that no one dared believe ruled the world from a realm I had once imagined in mere fiction, horribly twisted of innocence, seductively powerful and incapable to grasp mercy by implantation of utter hopelessness. The pool of ones own perspiration was its signature, which lead me to my second enlightenment—through divine intervention which saved me.
No, I have nothing to brag about. No, I didn’t feel like David, above the rest because my guru was the great Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Yes, David was enlightened by LSD and his subsequent journey. I, on the other hand was enlightened in spite of it, spared of an asylum of men in white jackets and Nurse Ratchet, who kept under lock and key the only sane people of the world—those mercilessly tormented by the reality of rulers far more intelligent, far more powerful, and far more sadistic than any could imagine.
How It All Began
A reality then struck me. Perhaps asylums were built, not to keep the insane in, but to keep the sane out, should they ever begin to make sense of their incessant babblings. As I battled for my mind in its hallucinogenic state I imagined being in such an asylum protesting to those restraining me in jackets of long sleeves, “But I’m not insane!”
I could even hear them repeating with knowing nods, “Yes, yes, of course you’re not.”
“But I’m telling you the truth!”
“Yes, yes, and that’s why we’re putting you with others who share your truth, blah, blah, blah—”
Should I be surprised? After all, even I could see it from both sides, which meant I wasn’t about to let on that I had risked such a close encounter with Nurse Ratchet. So my secret would remain just that—a secret carefully concealed from those who might do me harm, which is the main difficulty of the insane returning to the real world. In fact there is nothing which prepares anyone for such re-entry.
I had once lived in a boarding house in Toronto. Actually, it was two houses about a half block apart that shared a dining room for about twenty-five of us at a rate of $25 per week. We were from every background imaginable—landed immigrants, university students, the odd Hungarian, Greek or French-Canadian who spoke no English. All were struggling singles, divorcees and other misfits of society.
It was run by a landlord and his wife who cooked and shared their common area. And, of course, they collected their $25 per head each week, grossing over $32,000 per year—a pretty good income for the ‘60’s. But being young and impetuous and not considering the cost of food, it was not beneath me to ask for ‘seconds’ from the passing tray. They thus affectionately dubbed me Ollie, short for Oliver Twist.
It was where this story began—on a quiet little street called Pleasant Boulevard, which was soon to become anything but pleasant.
The problem was that the landlord drank. Which wasn’t so bad except that his drinking got increasingly heavier and more frequent. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad had he not also beat his wife. At first it was just a rumour. But it became factual one morning when we all saw her residual blackened eye while serving our pancake breakfast.
As time went by it escalated. Then, one morning as he began pouring himself a highball, they got into an argument over it. He swung and struck her, knocking her into the pantry. It was the last straw. All-out war erupted between landlord and tenants. But unlike his helpless wife, the tenants he took on were tougher and in the end, he lost more than his dignity. He lost many good tenants.
Five of us moved into a house on Davisville. It was a deal! Four bedrooms and maid service for less than $200 a month! While two paired up to share one bedroom, each of the rest had their own, mine being the best I thought, because while it was smaller, it had its own fireplace. So, not only did it keep me warm on those cold winter nights in central Canada, it was full of ambiance—the greatest chick magnet in the house.
That meant we became partiers. And the chicks dug that too, not just because we had maid service to clean up for the next party, but because we partied every weekend of the year summer and winter—rain, snow, sleet, hail—with as much booze, tobacco and drugs as any could ask for. What can I say? We were five guys without a purpose and riding the coattails of a decade of rebellion never before experienced on this planet. We had no plans for the future because there was no future—just a yellow brick road and strawberry fields forever.
But that’s where it ended—and began, for me at least. For I had a serious side that no one saw, and it gnawed away inside. Even as I played guitar and we all sang our folksongs of protest against the crumbling establishment of the day, nothing could sing away my deeper discontent that I knew it was all just an excuse for our youthful recklessness.
Greater Enlightenment Leads to a Greater Dilemma
“Wisdom begins in wonder,” said Socrates. “Beauty is a short-lived tyranny, and the unexamined life is not worth living.” And when it comes to life, Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Truth, when not sought after, rarely comes to light.”
And when it does come, it will fade if not pursued. That was my addendum in those drug-infested sixties. In a rigidly structured world without anything to hope for, nothing made sense. Not unlike the years of “Prohibition” in the U.S., when laws of abstinence merely created a greater demand for alcohol, the demands of an incongruent “traditional morality” actually spawned the “New Morality.”
Was it was the unscrupulous McCarthy era? Was it the Korean and Vietnam wars? Was it these in succession through which a more youthful generation could see so vividly the now duplicitous demands of patriotism? Was a New Morality so evil when measured against such blatantly dishonest propaganda?
Everyone wanted the “bigger picture.” Once attained, who would be content with anything less? Who would accede any longer to vagueness? Or even attempt to defend a vague belief thereafter? Really, if I was going to have anything at all to do with the bigger picture, I needed to know how truly big it was. After all, this was the ‘60’s! And that’s what the ‘60’s were all about—questioning EVERYTHING.
On top of the list was that mind-bending, daredevil drug, lysergic acid diethylamide—LSD. Some feared it while others fearlessly ingested it. Regardless, it was more than just high on everyone’s priority of curiosity—especially as news flowed of its enlightening powers beyond expectation. Publicity abounded faster than a freight train out of control on a descending track. "Dropping acid” became the fashion statement of the decade. Adding to this was its guarantee to enhance and accelerate spiritual awareness through religious experience. And since it was something none of these guys had ever tried, it soon became an important ego-boost for me among my peers.
So, why not? It was endorsed by university professor Timothy Leary, the coolest dude on the planet! And had he not already proven its worth by his thousands of ‘trips’ into enlightenment? Not only was it also guaranteed to turn me on, tune me in and turn me into another of the coolest dudes on the planet, it would drop me out of a rat race this guru had so eloquently exposed.
So I did the deed but as stated earlier, the enlightening wasn’t what I expected. This was even more evident upon returning to my then shared place of dwelling.
“So tell us what you experienced, Ollie?” said one of the guys.
“Yeah, like you didn’t jump from a building,” said another. “Which means you ain’t totally nuts.”
“Well, maybe everyone’s experience is different but mine is kind of a long story …” I replied.
“Yeah, well I had a brother who took it and he totally couldn’t explain it either.”
“I can explain it but—it’s just that you guys might find it hard to believe—”
“I guess!” exclaimed the first. “My aunt takes the stuff all the time it and teaches Transcendental meditation. She says the closer you get to the universal cosmic mind the less you can explain it to others.”
At this point I pull out my Bible and say, “It’s really all about this …”
“You gotta be joking! Are you sure that was acid you dropped?”
“Wow, that is weird stuff!”
“So tell me, Ollie. What if I took it? Would I get enlightened like you?”
“Not unless you’re prepared for a bad trip. No, I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Then what would you recommend?”
“Um, well, maybe like me—a study with Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
“What? Are you #%&# crazy??”
“Yeah, like why would I ever have anything to do with those J-dub nutcases?”
“I just think there’s better ways of finding the truth—”
But I was hooped. The more I talked the more those I talked to—friends, people I worked with, family—were intrigued, not with any quest for truth but with mere curiosity over the acid I took and what I saw. I couldn’t even tell the truth about the truth and be believed, something entirely foreign to me since I had been such a formidable liar.
How was my experience different from other acid users? Mine was unique. So was theirs. Mine was spiritual. So was theirs. I was getting nowhere. For all they knew, I simply had an altered course—basically no different from the rest; just another cosmic journey of mind expansion to achieve oneness with the ultimate universal mind, so that the more I argued, the less there was to argue about. PhD Leary said it all already: “Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God.”
An Even Greater Dilemma
Except Leary wasn’t into God at all. He was a self-appointed, self-proclaimed pagan who did little more than inspire others into territorial contests of male egos seeking worship as gurus. They were, in fact, pseudo-gurus who aspired to only wishful proximity to the universal consciousness they claimed empowered them.
While ‘make-love-not-war’ was the outer message, the inner message was self. After all, wasn’t that what the ‘60’s were all about? Self-love, flower power and the declaration of uninhibited love on hate and war? Guru challenging guru to greater pacifism? Maybe I didn’t see it at the time but as I look back, the whole thing amounted to who’s brand of love was more gushingly passive. Ultimately, hippie love did nothing but moralize its own rationale over self-gratification. You couldn’t argue with it because, the more inexplicable its logic, the greater its enlightenment was to its adherents!
That wasn’t my enlightenment. It was far simpler—far more tangible, solvent. And it was rare, for no one seemed to care except the one who saved me while leaving me to search for myself who or what it was. For all that I received, my salvation was an enlightenment that was now entirely up to me. After all, had I not come to understand who was really in control of this experimental drug?
And that was why so few I told would be convinced. I was telling everyone enlightened by the drug that they were still in the dark. Yet I had no evidence other than my own experience to prove it. Even now as I look back, it would be easy to say that it was all just an illusion. My only argument?—I resisted, I had committed the cardinal sin against the sanctity of acid. I had refused to conform to its bidding—or whatever was bidding me through the acid! I had questioned the entire ‘strawberry fields forever’ mantra of love and peace that all acid converts were expected to accept without the evil question: Was there something evil behind this message? Was this “higher intellect” the only intellect? Or was it something deceitful—even treacherous?
Why was my experience so unique that I should have rather landed in a straight-jacket? Why didn’t I? Had I got into it then, it would have been nothing more than a subjective argument: ‘My god is greater than your god!’ followed by: ‘Prove it!’ The only proof being my discovery of a Biblical evil, which meant that if there was one thing that no one could take away from me it was the distinct notion that this higher intellect wished to silence me permanently. Especially as I embarked to examine more closely the one who saved me in that moment of truth—the one I called upon because I only suspected He existed, but who now became the object of my greater enlightenment through study.
The No-Win Argument
If nothing made sense to my friends until then, my spiritual direction made less. Not that I wasn’t prepared for it—and not just because Jehovah’s Witnesses had warned me. After all, it was my experience, my enlightenment. It wasn’t some intellectual acceptance by textbooks written by a religious order. It was my spiritual awakening to a sacred text which revealed an intelligent underworld unlike that which eastern religious philosophy was teaching.
Of course there was no shortage of those willing to debate the sacred text. After all, had I not stumbled on something much more deeply covert and carefully veiled? Would they not have their own group of confederates ready to emerge, proving it all uninspired, full of contradictions and without scientific or historical backing? Their first line of defence? A division so profound between those professing belief in the sacred text. Why, they had even resorted to bloodletting, torture and war. Not reason.
Upon further study I noticed how specious such “evidence” was. All were strawman arguments designed to obscure what was already obscured. I didn’t doubt religions professing the sacred text were divided. But I somehow knew it wasn’t the fault of their sacred text. Neither was it the fault of translators of the sacred text. It was the interpretations driven by the inept believers, many of whom were already prejudiced by the pre-existing beliefs of their own perceived “authorities,” the resulting dogmas of whom only served to confuse the legitimacy of Biblical doctrine.
But how could I make a difference? I was still severely hampered by my own lack of knowledge. Enthused as I was over my own revelations, there were just as many others equally driven by theirs—the difference being, theirs was driven to teach and disprove, whereas mine was simply to learn, prove and refine what I was searching for. The difficulty? Knowing the difference.
I had yet to understand that motive had everything to do with it. Those who need to disprove are driven by fear, whereas those who need to prove are driven by curiosity. I was yet to learn that their almost hostile resistance to what piqued my interest in the “underdog” religion of the Witnesses was driven by their hate and fear.
Strange how truth is actually a two-edged sword. One edge is fear, the other is courage, and one cannot live without the other. For this reason alone I could’ve easily given it up. But something drove me on. Was it the urgency of the times? That the end was so near, as taught by the Witnesses? I can’t say it didn’t give me a major rush, and being that I so valiantly clung to my enlightened path, the idea I was converting to the Witnesses was sending everyone into panic. But did they not know that I had already been converted? It had all happened in an instant of time. Isn’t that what the truth is supposed to do? Illuminate everything? The good, the bad and the ugly?
For what other reason should the truth be revealed? If it didn’t bring everything into question, how could it be the truth? And if I was willing to accept all of it, including the unpleasant part—even if I appeared silly to everyone for questioning that which no one else dared question—what would the truth be? My truth? Their truth? What good is truth if it is only true to me? I was now committed to the uncomfortable task of determining what the truth would yet expose to all in its universe.
So came the questions over my questions. As it was with my friends and family—it was an uncomfortable, inconvenient truth, so that every argument spawned an equally and plausible sounding counter argument. It even became comical, the notion arising that the institutionalized of society were really the sane ones being protected from an insane world. Even those who acknowledged such to be true would only dare stay long enough to hear it whispered in back rooms of concern while teasing the rest of humanity just for thinking such lunacy.
My Encounter With A Superior Intelligence
So it wasn’t hard for me to believe I had entered one giant conspiracy. I had just met the ruler of this world—or maybe his underlings. To this day I’m not sure. I can only say that it was as vivid as anyone who has ever dropped acid, had a vision and who resisted enough to have had such a bad trip that suicide would’ve been preferable. Needless to say, the experience was not one I would need to repeat.
It took about twenty minutes to feel anything. At first visual—a sphere slowly forming in the distance before traveling toward me—it would happen repetitively, each time to dissolve while another would appear. Then came the intense emotions rocketing between love, peace and benevolence, and hatred, fear and terror. The sensation that my neck was elongating and the top of my head was being removed in painless surgery told me I was cooperating and that it was all simply part of the “trip.” I was as if entranced by a hypnotist, beckoning me to cooperate fully. It was important to let my inhibitions leave me entirely—to let the drug take complete control. After all, wasn’t this what it was all about? Wasn’t I being brought closer to the divine intellect?
There were two books on the table: the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Bible. Why the Bible? Insurance. I had learned one scripture. Proverbs 18:10. “The name of Jehovah is a strong tower. Into it the righteous runs and is given protection.” Only one problem. I was far too stupid to be righteous.
Between the books burned a candle. As the drug took greater effect, its wax began flowing in greater and greater volume while not shrinking or without its wax filling the plate below. the floor would then creak and groan while shadows flitted about the room and the faces of those with me became strangely contorted as though taken over by a mad caricaturist. To those unexpectant of evil, it was not unlike watching a three-ring circus of clowns, swinging elephants and coloured smoke-bombs.
My eyes shifted to the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It glowed with anticipation of being opened. Next to it was the Bible, shrivelling and discolouring as though going through some sort of rapid metamorphosis of postmortem decomposition. Was it all just some post-hypnotic illusion—a suggestion implanted by earlier cautionary words against taking the drug? How could I be sure? Whatever it was, my suspicious mind began to resist this seductive power intruding upon my senses.
It came suddenly and hard—like a hammer. Jarred by such force I could not anticipate the whirling gloom of fear and terror that so quickly swirled about me, enveloping me like the eye of a storm. The anger was intense—and its threats were worse than death. I was losing control of everything—all of my senses being pulled away and twisted into something horribly grotesque, the horror of it all swelling to the top of my head until I thought it would explode. I called out, “Jehovah!” my voice was weak and shrill. It sounded childish, ludicrous—foolish. I called again. Another hammer! Whatever such post-suggestion might have done was now so real, so intense, each entreaty of the divine name would bring taunting feelings of vivid absurdity.
Then, just as I thought I would burst a vessel or go permanently insane—it was as though a bell jar had dropped out of heaven. Light shone peacefully overhead. I dared not look heavenward for I was humbled to regret everything I had done. It was as if I had stirred the ancient gods of Atlantis but knowing they weren’t. It was far deeper, far more profound. That my own guilt returned upon me was only to separate it from this benevolent interlude of peace. There was no voice, no vision, no special appearance of an angel—just the silent message that it was due to no faith or humility on my part, but simply power conjured through prayer. I thanked the God I didn’t know—while knowing I needed to know better.
I picked up the Bible. Mistake. This time it began writhing in my hands, its pages falling out like wrinkled, yellowing parchment. I opened it and it swirled with coloured words and lines that moved as I read. My eyes traveled in the attempt to read but instead I found myself reading the same line over and over while an awaiting laughter loomed and ascended as pages turned, the Bible becoming what now appeared to be a colouring book brilliantly arrayed between lines and moving lights that changed like neon signs.
The mocking sensation grew until I again felt silly calling upon the divine name. Shadows danced about and the entire room began to creak and groan as faces distorted to the extreme. It was insanity in all its fullness—where I would spend my remaining days. It was a state worse than death. At least in death I would be given the dignity of a sound mind on my tombstone.
Again—the bell jar of peace descended. Another reassurance of divine intervention. While there, the name of Jehovah sounded real, noble and powerfully without inhibition as I thanked Him again—before the mocking would return, again and again with all of its visions and ugliness. So this was the “superior intellect.” This was what all those acid trips were about. Who would yet tell the truth with any credence under such a regime?
The fight went on for about twelve hours, although it seemed forever. I came out of it and slept for what seemed days. When I awoke it was as if I had been reborn! I had such clarity that I was now a raving lunatic! It was as if I had fled the mafioso, now with the true protection of an impenetrable Godfather!