This new frequency, finally, is the frequency of the apocalypse. Terence McKenna's 2012, the Mayan calendar, and the great, last rave of all time are all part of one giant concrescence. Over the loudspeakers, samples of Terence McKenna's meandering voice now mix with the rest of the soundtrack. He's on a house record, his own words helping the dancers to tunnel toward the overmind, as the overmind lovingly drills backward through time toward them.
''If we imagine ourselves in four-dimensional space-time,'' Heley explains, "in that very dubious construct of Einsteinian space-time – we're sort of swimming towards the object from which the frequency emanates. It's like these are fragments of DNA information that are squeezed into a certain specific time frame. It's a constant exploration and discovery of how those resonate with our own DNA information in that particular moment of time. Basically it's that fact – and the rich sampling of all the moments placed within that context – that gives you this amazingly flexible framework for reintegrating yourself into your body and also communicating as a group. You're moving to a certain time-space and you're in a group state of consciousness. You're at one with it and you become the moment.''
I realize that Mark's perception and retelling is LSD-enhanced; he's just beginning to feel the full effect of a hit he took about an hour ago. Still, he's concerned that it's not strong enough to take him to any kind of ''edge.'' I offer him my two remaining Syrian Rue capsules. He pops them down immediately, explaining that they enhance the effect of other psychedelics and are related to ayahuasca, one of the main ingredients (along with DMT) used by shamans to make the most potent brews. I surmise that it puts a new twist on things the way one might turbocharge a car with NO2, add salt to spaghetti water to raise its boiling point, or throw a starship into warp drive. In an ominous synchronicity, down on the dance floor Diana helps a disoriented girl to a chair at the side of the room.
Mark goes on, the new chemical accelerating his speech toward the climax of his cosmic drama: ''The human body has not been fully danced. We don't dance our full dance yet. Time is accelerating towards this point in the year 2012 when the story of the human race will have been unfolded. We're reaching a bifurcation point. There's so much instability in our current paradigm that it's just shaking apart. A lot of people I know feel we're reaching an endgame. There's that feeling in the air. I feel myself being dragged through different time zones and it's intense. When you surrender to it, it becomes even stronger. Exponentially so. It's amazing.''
But what about the people who haven't been exposed to house? All those people Diana so desperately hopes to bring into the scene before it's all over? If they aren't dancing when the spaceships or the galactic beam comes, won't they be left out? How are people to guide themselves toward Cyberia? As Mark tries to reassure me, I become conscious that my questioning may be starting to affect his trip.
''Well, bliss is the most rigorous master you could imagine,'' he says. Then suddenly his face registers a new thought. "If your antenna is finely tuned, you'll find it [Cyberia]. In a way, everyone is tuned in. One point in humanity rises, all of humanity rises.'' He adds, as if he's never thought this before: ''But I imagine that there are some towns in the Midwest where a house record has never even been played.''
These kinds of conceptual uncertainties grow into physically realized landmines for the shamanic warrior. Mark senses his own doubts, as the Syrian Rue drives his trip down a frictionless psychic tunnel. Instinctively, he hands the laser controls to an assistant. He stares at me intently. ''There's only so much energy. My only tack is to just keep my head down and push ahead. Diana may bring in more people someday. But until then, I've got to do what I can with what I've got. We'll struggle and struggle until we give up. Then it will break through.''
He works his way to the dance floor. The bodies are writhing, peaking. It is in the middle of this swirl that Mark reaches the highest part of his trip. He realizes that the fractal pattern that surrounds him is of his own making. The synesthesic congruities between movement, sound, and light bring a feeling of certainty and wholeness. His body and mind are united, as he literally steps under the looking glass that he created. Both God and Adam at once, his very existence literally dissolves the fiction of creator and created, beginning and end. He has constructed his own womb and stepped inside. In his self-conception is the essence of timelessness. The beginning is the end.
But timelessness is only temporary. How long can this last? In that very wondering is the initial descent. The perfection of the fractal pattern has begun to decay. Reentry into time is imminent. Has he become the UFO?
Damage can occur on the way back. Downloading the cogent information requires every shamanic skill he can muster. The Syrian Rue has caused a kind of time phasing. Mark searches for a way to bring himself back into crystalline alignment, even if at a different frequency from before. He doesn't care how he comes back, as long as he can find the way home. His body is gone, dispersed throughout the room.
He tries to recreate his body by finding his point of view. A point of reference can serve as the seed. But his field of vision is compressing and expanding ... expanding as far out as the sun and even the galactic core. He is riding through the precarious Mayan Tzolkin calendar. He closes his eyes and fixes on the galactic core – on that time a year or so ago, tripping in a field, in the sun. He was like a dolphin under water, swimming under the surface yet still warmed by the sun. It was beautiful. And as he lay there, a new Gaia program came down from the sun to the earth, and needed his head to do it. The light used him to download the precious information. His own body. Strange ganglia sprouted from the back of his head straight into the soil beneath him. Beautiful.
But no. That's not what's going on here. Everything is phase shifted. It's out of control. No panic or all is lost. He could spin out and be gone forever. Mark must get down carefully. He doesn't care what he brings back anymore, as long as he gets back. He realizes that somehow he's gotten himself onto a flight of steps. Real steps, somewhere in the club. Perfect image. It's where he is. Stuck on the stairway. It's life or death now. Bliss is merciless. The rigorous master. The music continues to pound and eventually draws him back into the vortex. Everything spins. This is dangerously disorienting. He's completely losing polarity. He's on the steps, but which way is he facing? Is he going up or down? The back and the front are the same!
But wait! This isn't so bad. There's complete knowledge of what's on both sides! He can see in front and behind at the same time! There's no duality – but, alas, no orientation, either. There's no up the stairs or down. No before the trip or after. No higher than the peak or lower. Suddenly everything is static. Paralyzed. Stillness.
It is in this brief fulcrum of stability that the transmission occurs. Like an electrical earthquake, an alien thing passes up through Heley's muscles, bringing his whole being up into a faster, shamanic shape-shifting frequency. This is the state of being, Heley realizes, in which master shamans turn into pumas or eagles or visit the dead.
Suddenly, then, it's all clear. The duality is not within life as judgments or ideas. Life itself is one side of it. It's life itself that is rooted in dimension. That's one side of the whole thing. The explicate order. That's the place where will is necessary. ( I'll just keep my head down and press on.'')