3: The Geography of the Bright World
KETAMINE HYDROCHLORIDE
There are at least two types of agents capable of immobilizing patients for operation… Those of the first type, such as halothane, ultrashort-acting barbiturates, and diethyl ether at surgical levels, act by CNS depression. Agents of the second type, such as nitrous oxide, phen-cyclidine, and ketamine hydrochloride, act by cataleptoid CNS excitation. There is a tendency to assume that a reduction or lack of responsiveness is associated with depressed states only. The patient who is catatonic, hallucinatory, or convulsing has a reduction in responsiveness to stimuli and loss of memory, but is in fact hyperexcited.
October flew by in a frenetic flurry of activity as I attended to a multitude of details in Ojai, endeavoring to convert a one-woman operation into an independently functioning research foundation. Our regression therapy was now being handled by a team of competent people. The Hypersentience Bulletin had its own office and I had the satisfaction of knowing that the work would continue even in my absence. Altogether, Howard and I had spent ten days together. Nevertheless, we went ahead with plans to be married at Marwayne's home in Lynwood, Washington. The ceremony was to take place on November 25th at the time of the Gemini-Sagittarius full moon.
Because I had scheduled hypersentience programs along the way the trip north stretched into an intensive week of lectures and workshops. Hence, it was three thirty in the morning of November first when I pulled into Seattle in the midst of a lashing rain. That evening Howard and I moved into our shining clean, empty house in Alderwood Manor, a country town half an hour's drive north of the city. It had been five years since I had spent more than three months in one place. More often it was just a matter of days or weeks before the necessity arose to move on. Was I finally to be permitted to rest? Howard's welcome was such as to make me feel that at last I had come home.
Neither of us felt any urgency about pursuing our ketamine experiments, nor had we yet thought of doing a book on the subject. However, on our first Saturday morning it seemed as though it might be interesting to see where the goddess Ketamine would take us next. We had already come to regard this venusian substance as an entity in her own right. Evidently, she has her own plan, program, and intent. She does not necessarily tell you what you want to hear, but you can be assured that it is what you need to know. To me, this surprise element confirms the authenticity of the experience. You just can't dictate to the goddess. The idea also crossed my mind that perhaps in our personification of this feminine spirit we ourselves were becoming matrix-makers-spinning out a new archetype. If so, I felt that I wouldn't mind serving as her priestess.
We decided to use our waterbed for this first trip in the new house. I would lift off first and Howard follow after. The dose would be seventy-five milligrams-ten more than the amount taken previously but still far less than would normally be used in anesthesia.
Session 4
As I whirled into the now familiar kingdom of ketamine on a glistening glissando of accelerating beats I had the sense of going very deep. There was that brief interlude of wordless intimacy with the world of essences as definitions dissolved into the roaring silence of sheer vibrational energy. Then came the awareness of being caught up, turned inside out, and sucked implosively into the revolving maw of that vast fulminating identity that seemed always the same.
For the sake of discussion I will term that inmost realm the cosmic matrix, or cosmatrix. However, the semantic necessity of coining a new word requires the understanding that, like the universal solvent of the alchemists, this state of being which remains when all physical sensations, emotional responses and mental constructs are eliminated, cannot be confined in any verbal receptacle. It has no outlines, no boundaries and no limitations-indeed no form and no content except itself. Like looking at an illuminated movie screen before the show begins one sees the background rather than the accustomed images. In other ways, it is like being the screen itself. At no time did consciousness disappear. There was only a sense of being all and one simultaneously-merged in the only reality that could possibly exist. As before it was possible to tell when I was coming back to the name-form world by the frustration aroused by my inability to link the two realms. There simply weren't enough nerve fibers of awareness to convert the abstract into the particular. There seemed to be one level, however, at which I descended from a state of pure mentation to a plateau from whence rivers of feeling began to flow.
The emanating source of these feelings was an all-sustaining love-the total concern of God for His universe. But how was this nurturing energy to be conveyed? Yes, canals were being constructed, conduits cleared, and pipelines set in place. The necessary couplings would be made. Within the cosmic organism revivifying forces were pushing outward through an integrating network of subtle connections. Fiery impulses radiating from the flaming heart of creation were streaming through the arteries, veins, and capillaries of the metagalactic circulatory system of starry space.
As in a waking dream I saw a celestial city bathed in golden light. Was this a city that existed in another dimension, or was it Seattle as seen from a god's point of view? I wasn't sure but felt that this luminous annunciation comprised an outpouring of redemptive power that was showering down upon the citadels of men and out over the countryside.
All at once the elements of that panoramic spectacle were melting, melding, and intermingling. Gushers and geysers of color streamed volcanically through widening fissures. Every sentient cell, tissue, and concavity of the earth was incandescently alive and moving. Even the rocks were effervescing internally as waters bubbled and the ground heaved like a woman in labor. Nature had been fecundated and the process of parturition had begun. What might it be that was coming to birth?
"Everything must flow." I wasn't sure whether my mouth was shaping the words but the phrase seared through the landscape of my mind like a river of lava. I was on my way back now. The molten effect was turning ashy and walls were wavering into view. It seemed terribly important that all that had been observed should be remembered. Somehow the idea to be branded in my brain related to the regenerative potency of ketamine as a cathartic psychological plumbing agent which could dissolve the accumulated grime of the ages and flush away hardened layers of accruing anxieties. But there were still too few channels to make the boundless supply of raw energy available where it was needed. Piping systems, irrigation complexes, and all manner of aqueducts would have to be devised. Emotion washed over me like a flood in the desert with no place to go. "I love you, Howard." The words were delicate tendrils of feeling curling out toward him and brushing his face. It would have been unbearable if he had not been in the room. I had been conscious of his presence, even in the midst of my visions, and relied upon the knowledge that he was there.
In the peaceful aftermath of this excursion I lay back in bed and meditated upon the ideas of regeneration and rejuvenation. It seemed as though a part of my brain was awakening that had hitherto lain dormant. Atoms were stirring from their long slumber; molecules were quickening their dance. The secret was to keep these inner forces mobile. To some extent this could be accomplished through outer movements such as we practice in yoga, calisthenics and dance. Breathing exercises would be particularly relevant since when the breath ceases to animate the body death quickly supervenes. I wondered if I could ever again stand to have anyone smoke in my house. It would be like black magic, polluting the very source of our livingness. But as I saw it now, the only real way to counteract the stultifying inertia of the aging process would be to create new relationships based on more perfect alinements with higher activating principles.