In the novel, the two main characters — Dylan, 34, and his cousin Yale, 23 — share in a psychedelic experience, Dylan’s first and Yale’s second. (This is before Dylan meets Dr. Stanislav Grof.) This is in what we might call the “basic range” of a psychedelic experience; I’d guess that tens of millions of people around the world have had a psychedelic experience in this basic range.
Boulder
July 29, 1973
I’ve just finished describing my Primal-Therapy experiences to Yale when he surprises me.
“A couple months ago I did mushrooms.”
“You did mushrooms?”
“Yes. Psilocybin mushrooms.”
“You’re 23,” I reply. “You’re too young for psychedelics. What did you experience?”
“Everything was very vivid. Lights and colors playing around the edges of things. My friend and I played darts.”
“Played darts? What a great use of valuable psychedelic time.”
“Are you an elitist?” Yale taunts me. “Like Aldous Huxley?”
“Huxley?”
“Yeah. Huxley told Timothy Leary that only a select few should do psychedelics.”
“Well, we can see all the dangers in millions of uninformed people doing psychedelics.”
“Elitist.”
“I’m not doing mushrooms with you, Yale. I brought liquid psilocybin home with me but I’m planning to do it by myself.”
“Why not with me?”
“Again, you’re only 23. And you don’t know enough about psychology.”
“I majored in it, Dylan. I’m one year into grad school in it. Besides, our family is full of experts in psychology. Our family lives and breathes psychology. Our family is psychology.”
“That’s a firm No.”
“Well, I’m only 23. Surely you don’t want to leave me alone to explore psychedelics without your wisdom or guidance.”
“What?”
Hours later on this warm Sunday, Yale and I find ourselves together in Bronwyn’s art business. We’ve told Bronwyn a white lie – with a huge omission – that we’ll be talking about therapeutic and other private matters.
We’ve set up two recliners, thrown several pillows on the floor, set out books of art, and placed eyeshades nearby. We dress in light, casual, comfortable clothes.
One reason we’ve chosen this place is that Bronwyn has indulged herself and her employees by buying a $3,000 stereo system. The turntable is precise down to the millisecond and she’s got woofers, subwoofers, amplifiers, and monster cables. It makes for quite a listening experience.
We’ve agreed on instrumental music only. I’ve brought along eight albums – guitar, harp, and sacred music by classical composers Bach, Mozart, Handel, Beethoven, Verdi, Gounod, and Poulenc as well as the evocative and transcendental contemporary music of Alan Hovhaness. I let Yale perform disc jockey duties and select which albums to play and in what order.
We then ingest a modest amount of liquid psilocybin.
About 20 minutes later, colors become brighter. The contrast between light and colors is enhanced. And soon everything around us seems to be in motion.
Within 30 minutes, each of us is much more aware of his body than ever before. We count the beats of our hearts, feel the blood move through our arteries and veins, notice our breath passing in and out of our bodies, attune to our nerves humming with messages, and sense our brains alive with active cells and a wide range of mental processes.
Within an hour, my mind is processing a lot more information and I’m beginning to synthesize it in new ways. I experience amplifications of my past thinking and a great deal of new thinking.
Soon I’m overcome by an extreme sense of doom. Yale is too.
“No wonder Huxley called it Heaven and Hell,” he says, flinching and grimacing.
I start to wonder what any of this has to do with my leading. And I doubt I’ve made the right decision trying psilocybin.
Soon enough, though, the sense of doom begins to lift. I close my eyes and vivid imagery fills my visual field. I see rich eidetic images, including geometric patterns that turn into intricate, kaleidoscopic, and even panoramic patterns. For a while I see pastel triangles and circles which are drenched in white and golden light.
I begin to relax. This imagery fills me with emotional warmth. I shift to feelings of extraordinary well-being, profound peace, tranquility, serenity, bliss, cosmic unity, ecstasy, and even rapture.
I open my eyes. “Heaven and Hell,” Yale says again, this time with a wide smile.
I close my eyes a second time. Now I start to move around virtually in many scenes. Ancient Greece. Ancient Egypt. The interiors of temples. The decorated arabesques of Moorish palaces. The cupolas and ceilings of mosques. The intricate designs of Oriental rugs. The configurations of mandalas. The naves of Gothic cathedrals. Statues of Christian saints. The imagery flows quickly – really, too quickly.
About two hours in, Yale and I get up and wander around Bronwyn’s gallery and warehouse, looking at the art. We immediately discover that our aesthetic sensibilities are enhanced in profound ways. For an hour, we enjoy the Renaissance paintings in which Bronwyn specializes.
Soon Yale sits down and gets lost for half an hour in a book of paintings by Van Gogh, Matisse, Ernst, Bosh, Magritte, Giger, Gustav Limt, Piet Mondrian, and Wassily Kandinsky. He eventually hands the book to me.
“I understand these painters now. I’m filled with deep insights into their worlds.”
I get absorbed in the paintings.
About four hours into our trip, Yale and I find we’re more in control of ourselves. We pull out the sheet music for John Denver’s “Rhymes and Reasons” and I sing it as Yale plays it on the guitar. Yale plays and sings Elton John’s hit “Your Song”. We sit and really listen to the classical music we’ve brought along.
About four and a half hours in, we walk outside. We’re more aware than ever of the beauty of Boulder and the surrounding mountains. As we walk along, we closely observe the plant life and listen keenly to animal life, especially to birds breaking into song. I visualize being an eagle soaring above the crags and peaks nearby. We look closely at the intricate patterns of leaves, and we sense the universal harmony of Creation and Spirit.
If all that shrooms did was to enhance and deepen our appreciation of musical, artistic, literary, and natural beauty, they would make a huge contribution in our lives – and probably be worth the troubles and risks. But shrooms can also take our thought processes onto more solid ground and deepen our commitment to our work.
About five hours in, as the experience concludes, we explore each of our missions in life.
I make my firmest declaration yet. “I’m going to succeed at integrating five approaches to therapy into one.”
Yale nods and gives me a thumbs up. “Impressive. But you’re so focused on spirituality. You’re all about ascending and ascending and ascending – and never descending back into real life.”
“You exaggerate, Yale, but your point is well-taken.”
“What about all the lower rungs on the ladder of human development?”
“Developmental psychologists work on that.”
“But they stop around age 20.”
“True.”
“Who’s working on human development across the lifespan?”
“I can’t think of anyone. Well, wait – take a look at Erik Erikson, back in 1950.”
“That’s going to be my mission, Dylan. Human development across the lifespan.”
Then we wrap things up.
“The most interesting five hours of my life!” Yale exclaims. “Definitely transformational!”
“Same here,” I reply. “How do you feel now?”
“Calm.”
We sit around drawing mandalas, painting, and writing lines poetry and scenes of stories. Yale writes a song, both the lyrics and the tune.
Seven hours after we ingested the psilocybin, we both finally get tired. But we’re beaming as we straighten up the room and pack things up.
I look at him. “It may take us weeks to integrate this experience.”
Yale nods. “Or months.”
It sounds like contrast is magnified but not in a way that is divisive; rather it highlights the way all things, with great nuance, actually fit.
Thanks Mike for the vicarious morning trip. Your characters are often exploring the most interesting edges of consciousness.
One thought on the history of psychedelics, while it was before my time, I don't think "liquid psilocybin" was a thing in the 70's. Liquid LSD most certainly, but had not heard of psilocybin in liquid form in that time aside from making tea or home brew. Do you have a personal experience or fact check on that one?