What is the ultimate experience that a human being can have? There’s no way for you and I to totally agree on an answer, but how fascinating it becomes just to try to answer the question.
Everyone who’s read my new novel in its entirety says that the chapter here is the best chapter. I certainly had an audacious goal. I engaged in an exercise of the imagination. I tried to image what I thought the ultimate human experience would be — via psychedelics or on the brain machine or during deep breathing or during any major transcendent state of consciousness.
Of course, what each of us regards as the ultimate human experience has to be rooted in our views of ultimate reality. What is our view of the Divine? Do we think much about the Field and the inner dimension of the natural universe? Do we accept that transpersonal experiences — a shift in our consciousness’s relationship to time or space or both — are possible? How, in general, do we view the human soul or consciousness?
In the end, I imagined my two lead characters, the first cousins Dylan Steffan (37) and Yale Pendry (26), having a third and final psychedelic experience together — a psilocybin experience — for five hours. Hope this enriches your own view of the range and depth of human experience.
Boulder
April 18, 1976
Bronwyn is on vacation for Holy Week, so her art business is closed and she’s allowed us to make good use of it this afternoon – on Easter Sunday – even after we’ve told her the real reason. This is my fifth psychedelic experience, all five with psilocybin, and (including his two LSD experiences) Yale’s twelfth. He remains more daring than me and takes more risks.
“I want to get beyond my ego,” Yale says. “Why do I always forget?”
“Cause you’re human,” I tell him. “Take it easy on yourself, Cousin, or you’ll miss the splendor.”
“But I went through ego death four times already.”
“It’s not quite that simple. There’s always some falling back.”
“It was just the warm-up act, wasn’t it, Dylan?”
“What?”
“The colorful displays of geometric patterns. Reliving traumas. Reliving my birth. Experiencing our ego death and rebirth. All that was just the warm-up act. Now we move to the more purely spiritual, the transpersonal.”
“I think so, Yale.”
“I know so.”
“Let the adventure begin,” I say. “Let’s start this sacred quest.”
We ingest our liquid psilocybin. About twenty minutes pass. I hear my cousin say, “My consciousness is merging with yours, Dylan.”
I’m experiencing the same thing. “It’s sacred, the oneness, the unity.” For a few moments I hold a gaze of genuine love for my younger kinsman. We reach the same realization at the same moment. “We’re going to share some of the same experiences this time?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
He nods. “On with our journey.” After another minute, he says, “We’re not bound by time or space.”
“True. Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s become our fathers,” Yale says.
“Sure.”
Over the next few minutes, we each tune into our father’s personality and identify with him – me with Aidan Steffan and Yale with Owen Pendry. We each take on our own dad’s body image, posture, gestures, traits, attitudes, thoughts, emotions, and facial expressions. Yale even takes on his dad’s voice inflection.
Then we reflect on our experiences.
“Mine was too strict,” I say.
“Mine too,” says Yale. “It was almost ominous at times.”
“I see something my father experienced as a child.”
“Wow,” says Yale.
“His father was even stricter,” I observe.
“Rough.”
“So it all makes sense now.”
“But we’re part of an incredible family!” Yale exclaims. “Riis, Carmen, Gwen, Ren, Vera, Bronwyn, even young Bodo.”
“We are,” I say. “The best of the Judeo-Christian West – including the culture, especially the Renaissance – of the Quaker faith, of America, of the American West, of jazz. Great beliefs, great attitudes. Who could ask for more in a family?”
“That’s right!”
“If we have a bias, it’s a bias toward excellence. A little bit on the perfectionist side.”
“You think?” Yale jests. “And remember, there’s one key difference between you and me. You’re 100 percent Welsh. I’m only half-Welsh. I have the blood of Spaniards and Mexicans and Native Americans running through my veins.”
“You’re right to be proud of it. But White kinfolk like me can be citizens of Aztlan too.”
We’re silent for several moments. Then Yale bursts out with “let’s be somebody famous in history!”
“All right. Who?”
“Michelangelo?”
“You be Michelangelo,” I say, “and I’ll be Leonardo da Vinci.”
We close our eyes and history comes alive for us. We’re in the city of Florence as it’s flourishing at the height of its Renaissance glory.
“I’m walking around in Renaissance Italy!” shouts Yale. “In Renaissance Florence!”
“Me too, Yale.”
“Splendid!”
“The Rinascimento,” I marvel.
“Bronwyn’s told us how the Florentines did it,” Yale says. “They loved Plato. They had a great university and great libraries. They were a Republic. They pushed each other to excel. They honored the gifts of the individual. They honored their artists.”
“An astonishing time. The high point, the Golden Age, of Christian culture.”
“Absolutely!”
“It is wondrous.”
We gather some of Bronwyn’s prints of Renaissance art, me of Leonardo’s works and Yale of Michelangelo’s. He takes a couple more minutes to find a few pictures of Michelangelo sculptures.
“At 17,” he says, “I was using marble to express human energy with economy and facility.”
I grin. “Superb, Michelangelo.”
“See my sculpture,” says the transformed Yale. “My Holy Family – my Doni Tondo.”
“Ah yes,” I reply. “Powerful. Rarefied.”
“See my sculpture Madonna and Child.”
“Never to be surpassed.”
“See my Pieta.”
“Such deep feeling. So beautiful. A marvel to behold.”
“See my Mary with the Dead Christ.”
“It astonishes. How did you combine noble strength with tender pathos? Human fragility with human endurance? Sorrow with gratitude?”
“And step outside, onto the street, and see my sculpture David.”
“Such dignity, poise, pride, heroic athleticism. The masculine ideal!”
“See my sculpture Moses.”
“Remarkable!”
“See my sculpture The Victory.”
“Virtue defeats evil, frees our soul, and links our soul to the Divine.”
“And join me at the Vatican,” Yale says. “Let’s step into the Sistine Chapel. Look up. See my ceiling.” He gives me a moment, then continues. “From Creation through the prophets through the saints! Each of us can see our soul, dragged down during our time on Earth but reaching out with homesick yearning for our Creator. And the Creator’s pure Divinity is glorious and unlimited in creative power.”
“You’re talking like Bronwyn,” I say, “but it’s great.” Yale grins. I grin. “Michelangelo, you’ve harmonized the human and the Divine. Your human beings are real yet ideal – natural yet spiritual. Their physical beauty reflects the beauty of their souls, which reflects Divine Beauty. So transcendent and exalted, made in God’s image and likeness. Your portraits of human beings pull us toward perfection.”
“Thank you, Leonardo,” he replies. “Your turn.”
“Look at my mural painting The Last Supper.”
“Excellence beyond belief!” says Yale. “Such emotional drama. And all the elements of the painting harmonized. ‘One of you will betray me,’ says the Lord. And each apostle reacts with a striking facial expression – consternation, horror, anger, shock – showing his relationship to Christ.”
I nod. “Look at my painting Mona Lisa.”
“I scarcely know what to say, Leonardo! Your paintings give us expressions of human character, personality, soul. Of the highest quality. So original. Observant and accurate yet revealing inner reality. You paint with skill and depth, animating the human face and the relationships between people.”
“Thank you, Michelangelo,” I say.
“In all you’ve done, Leonardo, you also reveal to us the breadth of the human mind. You are the archetypal genius – the most exemplary genius of all time.”
“Thank you again.”
“What all do you do, anyway?”
“I’m a painter, sculptor, architect, designer, engineer, inventor, scientist, mathematician, writer, and musician. I design sewers and latrines. I design palaces and chapels. I think about water, storms, optics, hydraulics, and engines. I dissect corpses. I paint angels.”
“Not too shabby.” Yale grins. “What are these prototypes you’ve drawn?”
“I call this one a submarine. I named that one a helicopter. And this one I call an airplane.”
“How do you do it, Leonardo?”
“I’m curious. I’m interested in everything. I observe, I contemplate, I analyze, I sketch. Most of all, I experiment.”
I’m wondering how we could be more satisfied with our experience than this. But moments later Yale turns even more ecstatic.
“Dylan, my blessed Cousin, let’s go further back!”
As he says this, I sense within myself the baggage and the strengths from the development of life on Earth. He closes his eyes and I close mine.
I see early human beings. I see them painting objects and figurines, playing musical instruments, building homes and lighting rooms with lanterns.
I see hominids. I see them walking freely while standing upright on both feet, hunting, cutting, carving, controlling fire, keeping warm, cooking.
I see primates. I see them with their clear vision, dexterity of movement, thinking and making decisions, experiencing a wide range of emotions, and cooperating in friendships, alliances, and family relationships.
I see mammals. I see them exploring with keen curiosity, working while using their long memories, and nursing and protecting and caring for their young.
I see reptiles and birds and amphibians. I see them use their lungs to breathe the air and use their legs and feet and wings to move about.
I see invertebrates without shells and fish with incredible agility.
I see all manner of plant life. I see algae and fungi. I see forests and other lands with seedless spore-generating moss and ferns. I see plants with seeds, bearing fruit without limit.
I see Earth giving rise to this rich, abundant, creative, coherent, elegant, and dynamic unfolding of interconnected life. I see all these living species, this great complex diversity of biological forms, with each organism responding and adapting to its milieu.
And my vision of Creation is not over. I see matter dancing to the Great Music. I see oxygen and rain and snow, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, seas, oceans. I see mountains and hills and weathered rocks. I see the whole planet. I pull back and see the sun and planets of our solar system. I pull back and see our galaxy, the Milky Way. I see more and more planets, myriads of planets. I see more and more stars.
I sense molecules, atoms, photos, electrons, electromagnetism, waves, and Field information and energy.
For an hour I take in this panoramic vision of Creation in all its glory.
I reopen my eyes. I’ve known throughout the hour that Yale has been experiencing something similar. And he has.
“I identified with animals all the way up and down the continuum. I ascended and descended through the whole process. The development of life on Earth in panoramic detail! And felt the impact of all of that within myself. The insights, Dylan! The revelations! I was one with all species on this planet. So many forms of life, striving for expression, emerging with higher and higher capacities and powers! I felt my unity with all human and animal and plant life on Earth. What a profound love of nature! Never felt that before so intensely, so deeply. Then I went beyond the planet. There was no difference between me and the universe!”
“I thought my experience was amazing, Cousin,” I say. “It was in the same ballpark, but you may have surpassed it. We both had wondrous experiences. What’s next?”
I feel a strange excitement. Rhythmical, tingling impulses are moving up and down my spine. They feel like electromagnetic waves. I feel as if I’m plugged into a high-voltage socket. As if I’m a vessel for a mighty force of energy. Is this going to be a kundalini experience? Are chakras real?
“It’s the Field!” Yale enthuses. “Everything emerges out of the Field. Everything manifests from the Field.”
“Except our soul,” I assert.
“Well, consciousness does.”
I close my eyes again. I identify with the Field. I identify with the creative energy and information in the universe. I become continuous with the universe’s Field of energy and information. I feel my consciousness as part of a dynamic continuum with the Field. The Field is in flux. I am in flux. I am a whirl of pure information and pure energy.
Here is the natural Ground of all that is. Here is the natural universe’s deep, rich, subtle moving and organizing energy and information. From here arise all natural structures, forms, shapes, and order. I experience the Field in my consciousness as a dynamic, flowing, moving natural wholeness – unbounded, undivided, indivisible, inherently unified. It’s the natural reality that unites all natural realities. And one more fundamental insight: Wholeness is primary.
This Realm of Becoming is the Great Fabric and the Primary Molding Pattern. I experience the Field as a Treasure of boundless electrified natural energy and information. It’s an ever-flowing Rhapsody, magnetizing and resonating with and quickening and incubating and blanketing and vitalizing everything natural – giving rise to every natural phenomenon – including everything in the world that we see.
I am peering into the processes of Creation. Nothing has ever been more intellectually satisfying.
I open my eyes.
“The universe is not a gigantic collection of material objects,” Yale declares.
“Definitely not. It’s an infinite network of adventures in consciousness.”
“But is there anything beyond the Field?”
When he asks this I close my eyes and my vision shifts again. I begin to see the inhabitants of Heaven. I see the spirits of departed, now-angelic beings. They shine with a beauty and handsomeness from their prime of life on Earth, and yet their beauty and handsomeness transcend that of Earth. Joy and beauty of love shine out from their faces. They are the very forms of love. I’m affected by their love in the very inmost of my soul. I’m amazed. What I feel is unspeakable. I weep. And I hear Yale weeping.
I open my eyes. “Every moment of our life, we’re moving closer to Heaven or further away.”
“I am my soul,” says Yale. “Why do I keep forgetting?”
“Take it easy on yourself.”
“Maybe I’ve let myself off the hook that for too long.”
“Easy, Cousin.”
But our awe and wonder have only begun to peak. I am flooded by even deeper feelings of love. I know, somehow, that Yale is too. I close my eyes.
“The Light!” I say.
“Oh my God, the Light!” Yale says. “Keep talking, Dylan.”
“A million incandescent crystals in melded gold and white light. Radiating out to me in brilliance. Filling me up. Supernatural light. Preternatural light.”
“We’re being filled up with Love and Light,” Yale says. “Divine Love and Light. From the Divine Being. From God.”
“The fullness of Divinity is coming to us. Directly.”
“I feel such noble motives.”
“Yes. Such high aspirations.”
“I feel such unity with people,” he says. “I’ve never had such a deep desire to be a blessing to people. Flashes, but never this powerful.”
“Remember what your Grandma Carmen always said?” I ask. “Be members of the Church of Pure Motives.”
“Yes! And even your mother Gwen, the agnostic, considered herself a member in good standing.”
“Here we are. We’ve joined.”
“Pure motives toward our billions of neighbors,” Yale says, “and toward each neighbor who is present in front of us, each moment of our lives.”
“Universal good, and doing good for the pure sake of goodness.”
“I want everything I do to flow from Divine Love and Goodness. I want to wisely love all people.”
I open my eyes. He opens his.
“Remember what Ren has always told us?” I ask. “God desires to purify every soul. Divine Wise Love is accessible to each of us, and ours for the taking. Just desire It and take It in.”
“Why does it feel like a homecoming?” Yale asks.
A few moments later he asks, “So how do you sort out Jehovah and Christ?”
“Yehovahe and Yeshua,” I say. “Well, I’m experiencing Yehovahe and I’m experiencing Yeshua.”
“I’m experiencing Jehovah and Christ too.”
We close our eyes and several minutes pass.
I reopen my eyes. “Maybe the fullness of Divinity flows through Christ.”
He reopens his. “Maybe you’re right – that Christ is universal.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s Lord of the Earth’s afterlife. Or Lord of all Christians.”
Yale laughs. “You’re experiencing the Godhead my way and I’m experiencing the Godhead your way.” He pauses a while. “Maybe Emmerich is right. Swedenborg. If we believe in more than one Divine Being, we fragment our soul.”
“Maybe. The unity of our soul is important. Maybe Yehovahe is the Divine Creator Being since eternity and with the Glorification They fused into one Divine Being which we should call Yeshua Yehovahe.”
“Who’s view is that?”
“No idea.”
Yale laughs again. “Maybe Eastern Orthodox Christians have gotten it right. The Godhead is a Trinity but also a mystery to human understanding.”
“Understanding falls away. All that matters to each of us now is this direct encounter with the Divine.”
“For sure. We can just soak in the experience without knowing.”
He closes his eyes. I close mine.
A couple minutes later he is bursting with energy. “Do you think God and the Field are one somehow? Together they’re the All?”
“Not exactly,” I say. “We’re experiencing God’s Presence. Which is beyond the presence of the Field.”
“God is beyond the Field,” Yale replies. “Yes.”
“The Love and Intelligence and Creative Power that brought our universe into existence,” I suggest. “And these remain behind all that is, the whole universe.” I feel my soul filling up with what is Divine. “What blessedness! What joy!”
“The ecstasy!” Yale exclaims. “Is this who God is? Yes! This blazing glory of radiance, of light, of love, of beauty. Like a million suns!”
“Glorious! It’s overpowering.”
“Oh man, Dylan, we’re in direct connection with the Divine Workings.”
“Workings far beyond our comprehension.”
“The Divine Intelligence and Creativity of the Supreme Being! This is the ultimate!”
“Dazzling rays, charged like a current, all the sparkling lights – gold, purple, emerald, ruby, amethyst.”
“I cannot endure this any longer,” Yale says. He weeps again. I hear him lay back down.
“I can’t endure it much longer either. Maybe we are each only given as much as we can endure.” My eyes fill with tears. I sit down and open them.
“Is there anything further for us tonight?” Yale asks.
“Just one thing more, I think.”
“What?”
“Going back to the beginning of Creation. To God’s original Intent.”
“Ambitious, Cousin.”
“Stan Grof says it’s the ultimate experience anyone can have. Maybe we can’t quite get there now. But let’s give it our best.”
We stand back up, close our eyes, and tune in.
Two minutes later, sure enough. All the way back, and in the Presence of Deity.
I cannot describe it. After a minute, I fall back on a recliner. I open my eyes. Yale opens his, dives into the blankets and pillows, and yells, “I can’t take anymore!”
“There’s nothing beyond that!” I exclaim.
Yale looks over at me. “The ultimate experience!”
I nod. “Do you remember what Ren has always said? Nothing’s quite the same once you conclude that the whole purpose of the universe and of human life is for us to freely conjoin with God so that we can be blessed with Divine Wise Love. Once you decide that the goal of Creation is the return of every human soul to what is Divine, to God. That each of us was created to live in a state of spiritual blessedness.”
Yale moves up to the other recliner. “And unlike Ren, we believe that this great blessing will be to eternity.”
“That’s the whole thing! The Divine Intent. The Divine Purpose. God created the natural universe to give rise to human beings on planets who would freely conjoin with Him and be blessed to eternity with His Wise Love.”
Yale nods. “And anyone can join the Church of Pure Motives, and intend, think, communicate, and act toward other people from Divine Wise Love—”
“—And be redeemed to eternity.”
Yale nods and smiles. “That’s redemption. And so my Cousin, we’ve had the ultimate experiences, gained the ultimate insights, received the ultimate truths.”
“I see nowhere we could ever go that would be beyond this.”
We begin to come out of our journey together. We know we’ll never be quite the same. How to hold onto this altitude? How to make it a consistent part of our daily life – to live our lives from these visions, these breakthroughs, these insights?
I know how these experiences will most impact me. In my vocation. It’s been a year and a half since I launched my new therapy practice. I’ve been struggling to guide each of my clients toward a fullness of consciousness. I haven’t guided any of them into as deep a transformation as I think I should be able to. Now I see how to better help each and every one of them.
What a trip.