And Now Back to Your Regular Programming...

 [Attention: Hey this is the final part in a series, if you want to get the full story scroll down a bit further, it’ll make much more sense.]

 I was almost through the woods when I realized I was still in the woods; the mushroom analogy came back to me and I felt as though I had to start over again as a spore. I remembered that I was actually dead, my whole life flashing through my eyes, I saw how many times I had lived this life over; how many times we had lived this scenario as humans. It was as if all my beliefs were coming to a head, that 2012 was the deadline, if we didn’t all wake up to ourselves and realize this right now we would be doomed to do it all over again as spores in another world.

 Now this where parts of the trip become a little hazy, it was quite early by now and the Sun’s rays were stretching through the gaps around the curtains. I felt as if we were all just molecules floating around, that nothing existed outside of our heads and the world was dreamt up by both us and God. The saddest part of it was that I then felt a great detachment from everything and everyone I had ever known, as if everything I had known had been a lie almost. The narrative of The Matrix then took on great significance. While I was a little sad I knew that the trip was on its last legs and while I hoped I would be able to remember my experiences I hoped I’d be able to feel normal about the world I was living in; my reality. 

 Towards the end I felt by finding that Jesus shroom in each and every one one of us that he had given me a second chance to go back into life, he had resurrected me and my faith. It was the most life affirming experience ever but all at the same time I felt death a liberation like no other and while my life flashed before my eyes I could see the purpose of my own existence as me in this present life. I felt it was time to disconnect from this universal experience I was having and rejoin my body. Although I understood my purpose as being miniscule compared to the bigger picture I felt that it was a necessary part none the less. 

 I felt as though I had traveled through inter-dimensional space and time through a wormhole in my wall.

 I believed that the chocolate had helped me travel through time, I also believed that the Aztecs and Mayans knew this and when taking mushrooms, chocolate would help you travel through time by speeding up your pulse; the song Caffeinated Consciousness by TV on the Radio had a new meaning for me now. I discovered that we and the mushrooms were connected and that aliens were nothing but our future selves checking up on us once and a while to make sure we were going down the right path. 

 I felt as though I had traveled through inter-dimensional space and time through a wormhole in my wall. Later I realized this was all hallucinogenic self actualization but I couldn’t ignore the feeling this knowledge was also coming from another place. I thought the Large Hadron Collider was also responsible for time travel and that we were using it to find Jesus, and even bring him back. Instead what we were doing was just tearing a hole in the fabric of time, destroying ourselves.

 When I finally woke up I thought that the end of the world had already happened while I was tripping and that everyone else knew the world would end except me. This is where my paranoid mind began taking the reigns from the shrooms but I was still hallucinating and this was obvious when I browsed Facebook to find zombies, satanic messages and Islamic propaganda. By now I had definitely had enough and wasn’t quite sure whether the trip was over. I felt really out of body and went down the hall to find my  mother getting ready for church.

 It was as if my thoughts began turning on the mushrooms, as if they had been trying to control us the whole time.

 I believed everyone was under some mind control like myself, that somehow the mushrooms and Satan had taken over every person and that Facebook was key to the mind control. It was as if my thoughts began turning on the mushrooms, I started to think they had been trying to control us the whole time. I told my mother that I had been eating magic mushrooms and I thought I was dead, she told me ‘Well you’re not, you’re here with me’, it was sad to think I let my paranoia go that far and that the religious experience the mushrooms had given me the night before ended like this.

 Some of my other paranoid thoughts at the time included 420, the 27 club and Nibiru, it was as if they all merged together. I found reason to believe all of it, the brain will do that sometimes. Mother insisted she take me to the hospital to get myself checked out and on the way we went past my friends place (on my insistence) who had also taken some mushrooms the night before. They were fine and I realized it was just me, the trip hadn’t ended and I was becoming fed up. I could see they thought I had gone loopy but it was just the mushrooms I kept telling myself; of course the thoughts I was having were loopy and the fact I was still seeing hallucinations didn’t help either.

 Once I saw that they were normal I got back in the car and Mother drove me to the hospital, more for her comfort than mine. The doctor questioned me about the mushrooms I ate concluding that if they were the wrong ones I would be very sick already, he wrote a letter to my GP saying I was fine and then I went home to sleep, it was a very sobering experience and probably just what I needed after the night before. 

 Many lessons were learnt that night but the one I’ll take heed of next time is give your self plenty of time to trip and don’t get caught! 

 I wasn’t sure as to whether I was fully awake having hallucinations with my eyes closed or dreaming, perhaps I was somewhere between the two. As I was switching between dream consciousness and mushroom consciousnesses I felt as though I was slipping between this world and the next; in essence I thought I might have been dying when really I was falling asleep (or trying to). These thoughts of dying were made stronger by the now large paranoia of the ‘wrong mushrooms’. I kept seeing my self being found by my parents on the floor with foam coming from my mouth and my eyes rolled back into my head; I saw that I was being rushed to hospital in an ambulance and although they tried to resuscitate me I was dead. I looked around the room and asked myself how this was possible, the answer was that it was possible because it had already happened and I was dead at that very moment. This is what might be called a bad trip by most people but it was about to take an unexpected turn for the positive.  

 It was now that the trip took on the most meaning. When I say meaning I say it all made sense to  me at the time and now it feels as if a code I’m trying to unlock or decipher. I felt as if I was one of the mushrooms out there in the forest; I felt a full connection to the Earth and all my peers, my friends were also mushrooms. It was as if somewhere out there in the forest my mind had fused with that of a mushroom. It then became apparent to me that we were being picked by our human selves and every time we were picked we would die and would have to start again as a spore in the ground. I saw that not only were we mushrooms but we were also the grubs that feed on them; those maggot like worms which I had spent a whole hour earlier that night trying to rid them from our precious fungi. 

 We were eating ourselves; our own mushroom flesh and in doing so killing ourselves. It was now that things were beginning to make sense. I felt as though everything I had ever known was coming together and it all made perfect sense that not only I but everyone in the world were psilocybe mushrooms or were at least connect to them through our minds. I felt as though I had been living in my room all my life, that I was just a spore in the soil and each and every time I got ‘picked’ I would have to start again; my whole life from scratch but it was the same life over and over. I felt as a mushroom when we brake through the soil and feel the Sun on our caps that we then become awakened and so it was with our cyclic existence as humans. We and the mushrooms are one and the same, connected through our mother the Earth. It was beautiful but there was a problem; we were destroying her and in doing so destroying ourselves; eating ourselves as it were.

We and the mushrooms are one and the same, connected through our mother the Earth.

 I felt as though we were all really just sleeping in the ground and when we picked and ate ourselves as mushrooms we become awake and can see the problem. It then came to my own life and questioned why I kept going out to pick the mushrooms, why anyone would. We were all searching for one mushroom in particular, we were searching for the mushroom that embodied Jesus. If we all embodied a mushroom somewhere out there in the wilderness then surely Jesus would too. When we as humans ate the mushrooms over the centuries what we were looking for was the exact mushroom incarnation of Jesus and we couldn’t find him without the help of the other mushrooms. 

 I realized that the Jesus mushroom was really the same as any other mushroom and so it made sense that if we too were also mushrooms then Jesus would be in each and every one of us. And he is; I came to the realization that Jesus is the perfect embodiment of universal love that has ever existed on our planet and we as human beings are constantly trying to find that and by doing so we end up chopping down all the trees and drying up all the water just looking for that one perfect drug.

 We get confused and we kill each other because we have different ideas about God or how to rule over each other or what is most important but when we kill each other we are also killing Jesus our savior; we are destroying something sacred. I found this through the mushroom metaphor and decided that everything would be alright if not only I but the entire race woke up and realized this too and the only way to stop killing ourselves and each other is through cultivating compassion. You could say it was some sort of religious epiphany but now that I look back on it it is obvious that I had already held those beliefs and the mushrooms were just another way to look at it.

I did feel that I found God in that hallucinogenic state, I felt as though the mushrooms had opened me up to a universal consciousness and an undying universal love that was Jesus.

 I did feel that I found God in that hallucinogenic state, I felt as though the mushrooms had opened me up to a universal consciousness and an undying universal love that was Jesus. Whether you believe Jesus was the messiah or not you may call him or it by any other name but the energy and the concept remains the same, that of the greatest force in the universe; love. 

 The mushrooms then took me to another phase and forced me through a worm hole or ‘grub’ hole to a possible future; there were mushrooms everywhere here but not of the magic kind, they were mushroom clouds. I saw that for some reason Barack Obama, the false messiah, was destroying the planet with nuclear weapons. He was bombing Ecuador and in turn a chain reaction around the world had begun. Why was he the false messiah? Because we had made him a messiah; the people of the world believed he would bring about positive change, a change we all craved, we let him take control of our destiny when really we the people were the ones with the power of deciding our destiny.    

 I saw this and I wanted to hate him, kill him for doing this to us but then I realized he too was only human and Jesus resided in his heart so I could not. One final realization had come to me, that maybe the mushroom were not of this world, that maybe they were a form of extraterrestrial life here to help us make the right choice with regards to our future. I saw them as a force for good but also a foce that be used for evil. Such visions are always precarious because you never know which side of it you might come out. Fortunately for me I made it through the worst and have landed on the safe side of reality but I couldn’t have done that without going through the scary parts first.

TBC…

 The chocolate was delicious and was like a drug in itself. The cup was both so big and hot that I could only lower my head to its rim and drink like a cat, only with less tongue. I did this in between ripping Deep Forest songs off Youtube using a torrent site. I wanted this to be a truly spiritual experience and the music definitely mattered. It was now 12:30am and the rest of my family were in bed; I adorned a poncho and a hunting hat and began to weigh the mushrooms. I looked them over once more, squeezed out the larvae that were feasting and then one by one pushed the mushrooms to the back of my mouth grinding them between my molars. Back where there is little taste and the jaw is somewhat like a machine; back and forth, a squirt of saliva every few seconds and the the tongue whips it to the back of the throat where one last powerful gulp seals the deal.

 I sat on my bed reading Buddhist literature and listening to excerpts of Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception while the melodic chants and rhythms of Deep Forrest played in the background. After half an hour of this I was starting to become impatient so I sat and meditated; the mushrooms were starting to take hold but ever so slowly. I needed to pee so I left the save haven of my room. As I left the toilet my sister came out of her room complaining to me that she heard someone or something tapping on her bedroom window; this did nothing for me as you might imagine. I told her there was nothing to worry about and went back to sit on my bed where I waited and waited.

 I decided to turn off the light as this was how Wasson experienced his first trip and what McKenna recommends. The only light was that coming from the orange circle of my Ipod player. I had done mushrooms a few times before but nothing of this dosage; I was curious as what to expect but at the same time a little cautious. After a little while of sitting with my eyes closed I realized the music had taken on different characteristics; not necessarily unfriendly just strange.

I had done mushrooms a few times before but nothing of this dosage.

 I opened my eyes to see that my vision had become blurred, I wasn’t worried, I just let the music take me away and before I knew it my head was swaying in time with the flow of sound. It felt as though I had become a snake swimming up stream and the further I swam the further away from my own reality I got. Seconds became minutes, minutes - hours and before long time was at a standstill all together. The slowness or absence of time was something I was used to but what happened next I was not fully ready for.

 I lit up the room with my electronic tablet and as I did I saw myself in another world or about to enter one; the walls were non existent, the ceiling light shade molded into an undefinable shape and every other object in my room became molten with movement. The curtains became trees and the pace of everything was dictated by the now strange and unfamiliar sounds coming from what used to be my Ipod player. Time was slow and my fingers became many; I was undecided as to how I should move and if to move at all, so I just sat with my legs outstretched looking through space and time.      

 Eventually the novelty of everything looking and sounding funny started to wear off and the trip took on a new stage. It was as if the mushrooms were looking through my head to see what it could bring to the surface. It was not empathetic as it examined me and all the time I too was examining. We shared the same vision, everything I knew about myself it saw and everything it knew about itself I also saw, it let me in on the secret of itself although I kept diverging. Sometimes I didn’t like where it was taking me and I asked it to stop or change which it did. I was in a trance and if anyone were to come in and see me then I would have dissolved in amazement.

I couldn’t be sure of anything and was undecided if I should go to the toilet or whether I already had in my pants.

  I became obsessed with the time not knowing whether it existed and not knowing what I was meant to be doing. After some time, I think it was around 4:30am, I decided to try and change into my pajamas and get into bed; I had had enough but it wasn’t done with me yet. It took about 20 minutes for me to get fully changed and a further half hour to get into bed and turn the light off. I couldn’t be sure of anything and was undecided if I should go to the toilet or whether I already had in my pants; of course all these minutes are guesstimates as in my mind everything was lasting forever. I looked into the mirror and didn’t like what I saw, my face was transforming into all different shapes and positions, I decided to turn out the light and music.

 When you eat hallucinogenic mushrooms there is always a certain paranoia in the back of your head that questions the type of mushrooms you actually ate and so it helps to be certain before you eat them. Another quality of the mushroom is that it is near impossible to sleep. And so if you do close your eyes and turn off all the music and lights you’ll still be able to hear your own thoughts and in turn so can the mushrooms. As long as you keep thinking, they will keep creating visuals and vice versa. 

TBC…

 I bought a block of 70% dark chocolate and melted it down in a sauce pan of milk to make a huge cup of hot chocolate. I read that Mexican tribes took hot chocolate before eating mushrooms as it was part of a ritual dating back to the beginning of their civilization. Although the Aztec empire fell and the colonialists moved in with their anti-pagan ways, a lot of the ancient traditions still survive and have melted with Christianity to make a chocolate-Jesus-shroom hybrid which are still found in parts of Mexico today. I discovered through reading R. Gordon Wasson’s 1957 article for LIFE magazine titled Seeking the Magic Mushroom that he and his colleagues were the first Westerners in recorded history to study the plant and its effects.

 There is evidence to suggest that mushrooms have been used not just for shamanic purpose throughout history but as a catalyst for human evolution. The evidence for mushroom use throughout the ages comes in the form of folklore, statues, ceramics and even rock paintings. In fact Terence McKenna suggests that mushrooms played just an important role in our history as hash did. The importance of hallucinogenic drugs in the spectrum of our evolution as a whole may seem trivial but when you look at the importance of the Shaman in all traditions you realize that much of our spiritual perspective of life came through these men and women who often used medicinal plants and drugs to have visions and a communion with God.  

 For centuries before Christianity came into the picture shamans, high priests and druids etc. were the only form of spiritual guidance for most of the world. Terence McKenna argues that the psilocybe mushroom has been a powerful force of realization and creation on our planet since we evolved from ape like creatures. The fact it has been part of ancient people’s diet for millenia is a well known fact among many anthropologists; orthodox and unorthodox.

 So why are they illegal in most countries today and where did this stigma of the mushroom come from? Wasson puts forth that some cultures developed a fear of the mushroom, a mycophobia, that has been assimilated with today’s prejudices. The point that these mushrooms have been put under the broad umbrella of ‘drugs’ doesn’t help at all. The term ‘drugs’ is broad and there has never been a better time to discuss the decriminalization of drugs than now. I won’t go too much into the problems of the ‘war on drugs’ but I will happily point out that the amount of money poured into the system remanding people who grow or use hallucinogens could be better spent on education. Drugs such as the magic mushroom are not a danger to people, it is people who are a danger to themselves; in fact mushrooms are the lowest in terms of related deaths, alcohol is the highest.

 While I don’t condone the use of drugs I wish not to be a hypocrite either. The mushrooms may hold the key to our spiritual evolution and while I’m not saying that we should all go into the woods and trip balls I am suggesting that maybe in today’s world of materialism, killing for the sake of religion or ideology and the wealth gap that we should consider our roots and give an ear to the once wise shaman. For it seems to me that we could do with some cosmic guidance now more than ever.     

TBC…

 Monday, one of my most lethargic days ever. Every week it’s the day that seems to be going nowhere but I suppose the week can’t start off too interesting. It was a week ago today that my good friend Hank called me up in the morning asking if I were wishing to go to the mountains in search of mushrooms with him. I was thinking of it, indeed it was just the night before that I had dreamt I was out there among the trees and shrubs searching for the fungi like a wombat or a badger searching for his food. I picked him up from his place early but it wasn’t till later in the afternoon that we got going and when we did we had a whole expedition with us; for we had also picked up Larry and Tyler.

 We drove out past Uriarra, crossing a stream and winding up the road, our spirits were high and we were positive; this is the key to finding the mushrooms. We arrived at our usual hunting spot and were pleasantly surprised to see the gate was open. We drove down into the valley and began our search. The psilocybe mushroom can be a hard one to spot, there are many imposters out there in the woods and a wrong decision can be costly. We weren’t having much luck at first but before long I found one at the top of a ridge and then after that it was like they decided collectively to show themselves. Two, three, eight and before long we had half a bag full.

 That was last Monday, since then I had a trip with friends by the lake which involved going to the movies but then I decided to go alone; just to try it. I had been informed of Terence Mckenna before but I decided to do some more investigation and after watching a few videos on Youtube and listening to what he had to say I agreed with my instincts and prepared 5g of dried magic mushrooms for my consumption alone. It was Saturday night and most of my friends were keen to see me but I had other plans and they included traveling through space and time. Now this is where you may be thinking time travel is something of fantasy but I’d say anything is possible when you put your mind to it. In this case I believed I was ready for what ever my mind and the shrooms could throw at me; I was wrong but not completely. 

To be continued…

[Disclaimer: This is obviously a story scribed form a friend of a friend of mine, while events are based on fact, all names of peoples have been changed to protect their fidelity.] 

IN THE BEGINNING… God made all things as he wished. Perfect.

 God was happy with his work and on the seventh day he rested.

 The Earth who had gained autonomy by now asked God, “Lord why is it that you have given me autonomy?” and God replied “Autonomy has been given to you so that you may be prosperous and develop and sustain yourself, I have given all creatures autonomy but you Gaia I have given reign over all others”.

 Gaia did not want to question God’s motives and was about to accept God’s decision when a sudden and profound thought occurred. This thought came up from the depths of her bowls, fed through her mind by the Sun itself, she turned and looked at God in all his greatness and asked “Lord what if I need change things?” and God replied, my dear Gaia, I have given you the power to change what you will and if you see something fit to change then so be it”. God then turned back to the universe and fell into a deep slumber. 

He drank more, smoked more and even had promiscuous sex with ANIMALS.

 God had made man on the sixth day and he had named him Adam. Adam was in all his likeness what God is. God had also created woman from Adam’s side, her name was Eve, she too was beautiful beyond measure. Adam and Eve lived happily in the garden of Eden until they became corrupt by the serpent. God was woken to a rage of furry knowing what they had done, he banished them from his eternal utopia and left them in the care of Gaia; from which he had previously molded them.   

 Gaia took good care of them and provided them with everything they needed, food, shelter, fire and water. They both lived in abundance and although it was not Eden it could have been. Adam and Eve were so comfortable in their new habitat that they had offspring and eventually their offspring had offspring and so the story continued over millennia.  

 Adam was indeed a perfect man but living with Gaia was like living with a bipolar chameleon, everything was constantly changing. Adam could feel the power of change and lived it with the seasons but a year passed and already he was different from the Adam God had created. He drank more, smoked more and even had promiscuous sex with ANIMALS. Eve could see that he was changing and hoped their sons would not act this way when they grew older. She decided to intervene and was met with fierce opposition from Adam. Every day he would wake up and say “Where’s my breakfast woman? Feed me!”, followed by a hard slap to the face. Eve would weep, her tears soaking into the Earth beneath. Gaia was awakened by these tears and being feminine herself was overrun with empathy and so became charged with fury.   

Mammals were the new black, all the other planets were doing it in her opinion.

 It was about this time that Gaia was using her power to change things to her liking. She didn’t have much care for reptiles after the whole ‘Tree of Knowledge’ debacle and so instead (and with God’s permission) she focused on mammals. Mammals were the new black, all the other planets were doing it in her opinion. Her power was change and her favorite form of it was evolution. She could see a bright new future for herself but now that she realized what Adam was capable of she feared for her future. “What if man began treating her with cruelty and disrespect?” She didn’t like this thought at all and decided to implement evolution on both Adam and Eve. 

 Eve was easy, all she needed was more inner strength and a louder voice, fortunately she was already half there. Adam on the other hand had become something almost unrecognizable from his former self. The Adam that she first met was kind, considerate, had vision, was strong both morally and physically, he never said a bad word let alone to Eve and he was a leader. Gaia thought about this version of the earlier Adam for quite a while, she decided to make him exactly that again.

 By now Adam and Eve had come a long way; they had moved into farms, ate meat and grew orchids. They learned how to conquer each other and sail to far away lands, they built huge statues and arenas for bloody baths of sport and worshiped false gods, they had taken to the skies and developed governments. It was now they began to find the power within themselves, the power of words. Because the power of words was newly discovered Adam found himself in huge wars that involved all his brothers. Adam had taken on a more aggressive form in that of politicians and delusional dictators. 

What was a minute of thinking for her

                                                         was an eternity for us.

 This was not the first time he had let power go to his head but this was the biggest scale of his tragedy yet. The year was now 1939AD and Hitler was desecrating the name of Adam forever. Gaia was amazed at how quickly man had changed from his humble beginnings to the most destructive force other than herself. What was a minute of thinking for her was an eternity for us. She watched as man killed his brothers and sent their daughters to camps never to be seen again. It disgusted her and so she called for God’s guidance. 

 God well aware of the situation told Gaia he had already sent the solution nearly 2000 years earlier. Gaia was confused but did not question God’s explanation, she told God that man needed to change and that evolution would help him become the man God had intended in the first place. God smiled and said to Gaia “My dear, you and I already know the end of this story, let them decide how to get there”.