Drug Abuse

Seven: The Voyage Inward

With the transition to the recollective-analytic level the psychedelic sub-ject no longer is concerned with most of those phenomena to which he responded so intensely on the sensory level. The external wonder world of heightened and distorted perceptions no longer is of much impor-tance and the perceptions may become, with a few exceptions, normal-ized. Odd psychical phenomena, such as dissociation, may no longer occur unless serving some specific purpose. This same trend towards elimination of the nonfunctional may be observed in the case of the eidetic images. These images no longer are only aesthetic but become in-creasingly purposive, serving to illustrate or otherwise illumine the sub-ject's exploration of self. In short, the voyage inward now is under way and will, if fully successful, find the subject traversing his present level to reach the symbolic and, finally, the integral level—the ultimate drug-state goal of the psychedelic journey.

On the recollective-analytic level there is a readily recognizable and progressive deepening of the emotional tone of the experience. Thinking also is markedly different as it increasingly appears that the usual boundaries between consciousness and the unconscious have been breached and finally in large measure are dissolved. Long "forgotten" memories may become accessible and meaningful in the context of the subject's particular concern. Age regression (similar to that met with in hypnosis) may occur, with the subject "going back in time" to very vividly experience the emotional as well as the other contents of impor-tant forgotten or repressed events (while, however, retaining his link with present time). Or there may be a revivification, the subject so totally re-experiencing events from his past as to lose all contact with the present and relive, as child or even infant, the significant occur-rences most relevant and crucial to his present (nondrug-state) situa-tion.

What up to now have seemed to the subject to be memories of real events may be disclosed as distortions of real events or as wholly imag-inary constructs. 'The subject may discover that he misinterpreted the real event at the time of its occurrence, so that it has been preserved in memory in its invalid form; or he may find that he subsequently mis-remembered an event and then, after that, remembered the misremem-bered and not the true version. He may even find that what he has long remembered as an actual occurrence—for instance, sex molestation by some adult—never happened at all but was only a fantasy, based possi-bly on fear or wishful thinking. Indeed, with regard to the psychical contents generally, there now may be a novel ability to separate the false from the ftue, the authentic from the inauthentic, and the essential from the mountainous accumulations of superfluities. Association may be exceptionally free and productive, its speed increased, and its scope greatly extended. Abreactive release of unconscious materials fre-quently occurs, especially if aimed for in a session predefined as thera-peutic. Insight is added to insight as the subject typically announces that "The scales are falling away from my eyes and at last I am seeing myself and the world without self-deceit or illusion"—a view that may liberate the subject from guilt, enhance self-esteem, and effect other changes desirable in themselves and prerequisite to still more important experiences of growth and self-fulfillment. Of course, not all of this occurs in every case; but on the recollective-analytic level these are the characteristic phenomena and some or all occur with variations of dura-tion, intensity, and benefit to the normal subject as well as to the neu-rotic patient.

What we are dealing with here, then, is a level characterized by phenomena very familiar to the psychoanalyst, the hypnotherapist, and to practitioners of some other psychotherapeutic procedures. As regards these therapists, the very fact that the phenomena are so familiar raises certain problems. For one, the therapist is led to oppose the work of lay researchers with normal subjects on the basis of dangers which may be real in therapy but which have little application to non-therapeutic worlc. For instance, the therapist may fear that the upsurge of uncon-scious materials will overwhelm the normal research subject; but this, in our experience, does not happen. Also, it is just because of the familiar nature of the phenomena and their (sometimes more apparent than real) adaptability to vdsting therapeutic techniques, that psychothera-pists have been deterred from evolving more specifically "psychedelic" methods. Especially, they have been deterred from encouraging (or permitting) the subject to go beyond this level into regions where the terrain is unfamiliar but where a much more profound transformation and self-realization is possible.

It would, of course, be the decision of the therapist, made on a patient to patient basis, whether to deal with a neurosis exclusively on this level, then possibly in subsequent sessions encourage the patient to reach the deeper levels. But, where normal subjects are concerned, the deeper levels should be reached whenever possible; and we suspect the neurotic patient also would derive still greater benefits if the deeper levels actively were aimed for (or even, passively, permitted to be reached). That this conclusion will meet with much resistance, we have no doubt. The psychedelic experience provides nothing less than a means of truly going "beyond Freud"—and to venture into these previ-ously inaccessible, or only very rarely accessible, regions of mind where new concepts and methods have to be evolved, learned, and utilized is a challenge to vested personal psychological and emotional as well as economic and ideological interests that many therapists will be reluctant or altogether unable to accept.

The recollection of relevant materials, followed by an analysis of them, is typical of this level and explains our choice of the somewhat burdensome term recollective-analytic. However, equally important should be the subsequent organization of the recollected and analyzed materials into a clear formulation of the subject's objectives, life pat-tern, or specific conflicts and problems. It is this formulation of the materials which then serves as a basis for the symbolizations and pur-posive dramas of the next, symbolic level. Given a proper formulation, this symbolization and dramatization will occur spontaneously, may require little or no intervention by the guide, and will unfold in such a way as to best serve the subject's interests and as if in accord with a natural entelechical process of movement towards a unique and specific fulfillment. The way this occurs will be discussed and illustrated later, both in the present chapter and throughout the chapter to follow. Meanwhile, we will exemplify the recollective-analytic level experiences both as they occur when no other level is reached, and as they occur when the subject does make effective transition to the symbolic level. Additionally, we will offer some examples of therapeutic results achieved on this level and will suggest some possible further therapeutic applications.

"Instant Psychotherapy." Scores if not hundreds of therapists in many countries, working with the psychedelic drugs, have found it possible in one or a few sessions to eliminate a neurosis that had resisted months and even years of nondnig psychotherapy. In a great many additional cases, presumably there has been removal of the symptom only—often a cure for all practical purposes, since the oft-predicted replacement by another symptom rarely ever occurs. These therapeutic successes have been duly reported at congresses and in the scientific journals, often to be met with nothing more than derisive comments about "claims" of "instant analysis" or "instant psychotherapy." But they merit much more serious consideration than that, and certainly do not deserve to be rejected out of hand by those who arbitrarily announce that results can never be achieved so quickly or so easily. And the fact is that the psychedelic drug results have been consistently played down by psychia-trists and psychologists just because the antagonistic response of col-leagues was so readily predictable. Whether this should be called pru-dence or timidity, the reader will have to decide for himself.

- The cure of the neurosis and the removal of the neurotic symptom almost always are products of experiences on the recollective-analytic level. Whether this is because the recollective-analytic is the level best suited to the purpose remains a matter for debate. 'The writings of some therapists suggest that this may not always be the case; but it does seem to be true that some progress towards dissolving the neurosis must be made on this level if further therapeutic progress is to be made, or even if a deeper level is to be reached at all.

In the two following cases we will provide descriptions of what the follow-ups indicated were authentic examples of so-called drug-state "instant psychotherapy"—a term we do not use in any pejorative way. It perhaps is a further affront to orthodoxy that so very often the therapy is self-initiated and self-directed by the patient or subject with the therapist or guide doing little more than simply standing (or, more often, sitting) by. It should be added that both of these sessions were guided by psychiatrists whose goals, however, were defined as research rather than as therapy.

Although the guide did not know it at the time, S-1, a businessman in his late forties, had "definitely made up my mind to kill myself, and for me LSD was the straw the drowning man clutches at. Although I kept quiet about my intention, for fear I would not be given the drug, this decision to have an LSD experience was the last plaintive outcry for help of a man who was standing on the edge of a precipice and getting ready to jump."

Beginning very early in his session, S dredged up a host of old memories and lived through some calamitous experiences from his early and later childhood with considerable emotion. He then analyzed at length his attitudes and values, claiming to have arrived at some impor-tant insights. Yet, none of this occurred in such a way as to suggest that the subject was profoundly involved with his productions. Instead, S gave the impression of someone who is just "going through the mo-tions"—as if this sort of thing were a duty which he felt obliged to carry out. However, after several hours of such behavior, S abruptly regressed to an infantile state, curling himself up into the "foetal position," in which he remained without spealcing for perhaps thirty minutes. He then emerged from this state and rather tersely acknowledged the re-gression. After that, he seemed slightly euphoric but otherwise un-changed. At no time did he discuss his plan to take his own life. In-stead, S talked about the drug-state psychology and about philosophical and religious matters. The effects of the drug now diminished rapidly and he was taken to his home.

Only some two weeks later did the subject disclose what had hap-pened to him during his session. He revealed the existence of a long-standing "chronic depression" that had resisted the efforts of several therapists and finally had "helped lead" him to "the very brink of suicide." Since his psychedelic experience, S reported, this depression had been "totally absent." He then went on to say that during his LSD session he had suddenly felt his life "flickering and about to go out, like a burned down candle." He had "died" and then been "reborn," awakening to find himself "all curled up like a foetus in the womb." Once he had "pushed free and unrolled from that position" he had "entered into a new life exactly like someone who has died and been rebom, leaving behind all the torments of the old life."

This experience of "dying" in the psychedelic experience is not a particularly rare one and numerous other writers have made reference to it. And the subsequent "rebirth," as was the case with this subject, often is into a "new life" with "all the old troubles left behind." How-ever, there is another facet to this case which seems of particular inter-est. The subject remarks that:

"It was absolutely essential that I die. It was not the depression alone that created this urgent need within me. I had lived with the depression for years and while it was extremely painful it was not beyond my ability to endure. No, there was something else that I cannot explain beyond saying how I felt. There was this inescapable and irre-sistible feeling that I must die. I am absolutely certain that had I not 'died' in the LSD session I would have had to die in some other way, and that could only have meant really dying. Committing suicide, de-stroying myself, as I surely would have done."

'These and other statements made by this subject suggest a possi-bility that seems worthy of serious consideration. The question is posed as to whether in some cases the suicidal individual cannot satisfy his "need to die" by "dying" in a drug session so that he then does not "have to die" by other means and in a final, irretrievable way? Since it is possible in some cases to induce the experience of "dying" it seems to us that therapists should explore the possibility of salvaging suicidal individuals by this method. It should be pointed out, however, that the psychedelic experience is regarded by many as contraindicated where the patient has suicidal tendencies. 'Thus, at least until many more data are available, such experimental work would probably have to be re-served for those cases where suicide otherwise seems inevitable, so that a radical and possibly risky procedure can be justified.

As concerns the present case, S reported several months later that "the very idea of suicide now seems to me abhorrent on those rare occasions when I think of it at all. 'The other day I read a magazine article about LSD that warned that this drug might cause people to kill themselves. Let me tell you, LSD can prevent people from killing themselves. I know it still is too soon to say with any certainty that I have really been 'reprieved.' I am convinced, though, that it is true, and I cannot imagine ever having been in such a desperate state of mind."

S, for some six months after his session, received weekly encour-agement from the guide and then reported himself able to "go it alone." Over one year later, all still seemed to be well with him.
It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the follow-ups must be made and the subject encouraged to hold onto and increase his gains. With the patient, further therapy may be required or simple encourage-ment may be sufficient. Without the follow-up interviews, gains will be retained in some cases; but they also may be lost, in a few weeks or months, and the follow-ups very often serve to prevent any relapse.

We might also say a word here about the feelings subjects have in the wake of therapeutic or transforming experiences that all of their troubles have been left behind, that they are making a fresh start, or that the old slate has been wiped clean. Of course, this is an exaggeration re-sulting from enthusiasm over the fact that a or the major life problem has been resolved. Naturally, the everyday problems that beset everyone remain. On the other hand, these are usually dealt with better and so actually are minimized in those cases where a major problem has worked also to magnify the painfulness of normal, minor irritations.

In the second case where death also is a factor, although in a quite different way, we find what gives every indication of being another one-session remedy of a long-standing and severe problem. The subject, S-2, a fifty-five-year-old widow (LSD: 200 micrograms), was known in ad-vance of her session to be an alcoholic suffering also from depressions and anxiety.

S had been drinking excessively since shortly after the death of her husband some six years previous to her session. She drank, so she said, to relieve a "deep melancholy" that had been with her "constantly" since her husband's death. But the drinking, with its severe hangover aftermath, served to worsen the depression, also made her "nervous," and then she would "have to drink some more." She lost many friends as a result of her drinking and those she had managed to keep were afraid to invite her to any social occasion where alcoholic beverages would be served. They had "learned the hard way" that S would soon become "maudlin," then "hysterical," would "recover from that and drink some more" until finally she "passed out."

Analyzing in the session her life with her husband, S described a relationship of total dependency in which she had been a willing and happy satellite of a strong, aggressive male figure who had made her decisions, given her abundant affection, and provided for all her mate-rial needs and most of her wishes. With his death, although he left her economically secure, she had lost her sense of security in other respects and felt she now was too old to learn to live adequately on her own "undeveloped resources." In part, she had refused to admit her hus-band's death, keeping his clothing hanging in the closet, leaving his toothbrush and other items in the bathroom, and often referring to him in conversation as if he still were alive. At the same time, however, she always wore black and often spoke at great length and in a self-pitying way of her great loss. This behavior, too, eventually had become too much for some of her friends, who had come more and more to avoid her. Because of this, S felt herself "deserted" and utilized that feeling as another justification for her drinking.

S brought with her to her session a pipe that had been her husband's favorite and which she often looked at and held when she wanted to feel especially close to him. As she recounted the innumerable anecdotes of her thirty years of married life, she held this pipe tightly in her hands. Finally, she closed her eyes and reported that the pipe was "getting warm" and then that she had the feeling of holding not the pipe but instead her husband's hand. She now experienced the first of many vivid memory sequences during which she "relived" with intense emotion a great many past events. Still feeling that her husband's hand was in hers, she walked with him along the beach, attended church, and took an evening stroll. Her husband seemed "real as life" and she wept with joy at his "return from the grave."

S then began to talk to her husband, telling him how much she had missed him since his death, how difficult life had been for her, and how their friends had abandoned her since she had started to drink. To the guide's inquiry, she explained that the sense of her husband's presence was "completely real" and that he listened "very seriously" to her discourse and sympathized with her plight, but managed nonetheless to convey the idea that he "didn't really approve" of the way she had been behaving. She fell silent, and finally reported that the pipe was only a pipe again, that it was growing cold, and the sense of her husband's presence was becoming very faint. Then, however, it returned once again—a presence so powerfully felt that she thought she could "reach out and touch him." She felt that her husband smiled at her lovingly, conveying "whole worlds of encouragement and strength," then slowly tumed his back and walked away. Then the sense of presence was extinguished and somehow she knew that he would "come no more." The pipe now was "cold and lifeless" in her hands and had "nothing more to do" with her husband, would "never have anything more to do with him." "At long last," she said, he was "gone. Dead. Really dead. He has made me understand that and I have got to accept it. That is what he would want me to do. That is the meaning of what I just went through."

S did not, it should be emphasized, have any idea that she had been dealing with her late husband's "spirit," or that he had actually "re-turned" in any way..But she felt that the "sense of presence" and the accompanying ideation had been "so true, so in keeping with what he would do and say if he could come back," that she now had received what she would accept as a kind of final "set of orders" from him. These orders were to the effect that she come to healthy terms with the fact of his death, and that she "grow up, create a new life, and no more of this drinking and moping around and living in the past." On the basis of this experience, which she went on to discuss and examine in detail, S later was able to shake off much of her grief, reshape a good many of her attitudes, and begin to live a much richer, happier life. The drinking was discontinued at once and was not resumed. 'These changes were still in effect about three years after her session.

In the two foregoing cases very serious mental and emotional dis-turbances were alleviated with what will seem a near-miraculous rapid-ity and ease in a single psychedelic session in which, moreover, very little therapy of any traditional sort was employed. The extensive psychedelic literature adds hundreds of similar results to the evidence sup-porting the value of the drug experience for purposes both of therapy and personal growth and fulfillment. We call attention to these results once again in the continuing hope of helping to initiate a public outcry that will force revision of unduly restrictive legislation that has taken psychedelic drugs out of the hands of almost all therapists and research-ers in this country. And we will present still more cases which ought to provide further impetus for the protest—while they also serve the pur-pose of exemplifying the phenomena characteristic of the level with which we now are dealing.

The case to follow includes a good many of these recollective-analytic level phenomena. It also provides a striking example of signifi-cant changes in a subject who had no conscious motivation to alter his (homosexual) behavioral pattern and who had no expectation of effecting personal changes of any sort. The case also may demonstrate how the drug-state gains can be rather quickly lost when no subsequent effort is made to retain them.

'The subject, S-3, age about fifty, was an economist at a south-western university. He was married, but socially oriented mainly to the homosexual community of the city where he lived. S partidpated in a group peyote session that included two other male homosexuals, and the guide. All three subjects had some familiarity with the psychedelic drugs and wanted to have the drug experience; but it also was intended that the session be utilized as a kind of seminar to examine various aspects of homosexual psychology and problems of social adjustment peculiar to the invert.

As it turned out, no such seminar was possible. Neither was it possible for the guide to devote very much attention to the other two subjects; and, as a consequence, their experiences were almost wholly aesthetic and remained on the sensory level. 'This disruption of the plans for the session occurred because S, like many subjects who have been psychoanalyzed, went quickly to the recollective-analytic level, beyond which, however, he could not go. He then monopolized almost the whole of the session and, for various reasons, it seemed to the guide desirable to concentrate upon his productions. 'The other participants, deferring to S's superior "status," retired to a corner of the room where they conducted their own conversation. After that, for many hours, S recounted many events of his life and occasionally relived with consid-erable emotion some of the more painful past experiences. His own account of this session and its surprising aftermath follows. He also provides some preliminary personal 'background material essential to an understanding of his case. S writes:

"At various stages of my life I have conceived of myself in terms of attempting to find an answer to the question: 'What am I?' and in relating this question to my sexual identity. When people are asked 'What are you?' they usually think in two terms: either an ethnic identi-fication, such as 'I am a Catholic' or 'I am a Negro,' or an occupational one, as 'I am a doctor' or 'I am a truck driver.' But with an immediacy that betrays what is uppermost in my mind, I would usually answer such a question—at least silently to myself—with the words: 'I am a homosexual.'

"Yet, at times, there might be some slight wavering. 'There is this vast area that stands between the one hundred per cent hetero world of people who have never had on a conscious level the least interest or arousal or even curiosity about the gay life, and those at the other end who believe (mistakenly, I think) that they were born homosexual and the image of contact with the other sex leaves them indifferent or re-pelled. Between these two poles there is that vague field of bisexuality, from those slightly leaning to one side and those almost identified with the other, and the many inbetween. Where was I on this continuum?

"Kinsey and his associates worked out a 7-point scale ranging from 0 to 6. At the 0 point were the completely heterosexual people, and at the 6 point were the opposite extreme. As one went up from 1 to 5, one traveled from being almost entirely hetero, through the midpoint, to almost entirely homo, at 5. When I was interviewed, some years ago, by the late Dr. Kinsey I knew of his rating system and I told him that I was a '51/2 .'

"What is 51/2? Erotic arousal was entirely from men, and gratifica-tion largely, but not quite exclusively, from them. Any reasonably at-tractive male, ranging in age from late teens to my own age (whatever that happened to be at the time), could arouse me. I disdained the extremely effeminate, but other than that the male could be tall or short, intelligent or stupid, and of any race: I was capable of enjoying a relationship and would fantasy one merely by looking at the person for the first time. In my homosexual activities I would take both the active and passive roles in the usual types of contact.

"Then why 5½? Because women are not entirely out of my sex life. In fact, there was a time when my interest was centered more on fe-males than on males. Although my first sexual arousal was toward a male, I was a young boy who at the time wanted a female very strongly, fantasied having one, but didn't know how to go about getting one. At age sixteen, I would fantasy being with a girl, but was expending my energies looking for a man. By eighteen, I had almost forgotten these fantasies: I was homosexual. Yet, I was curious and made the effort, going to a prostitute. When it came time to perform, however, I was totally incapable.

"About six months later, I accomplished with a beautiful young neighbor woman what I couldn't accomplish with the prostitute. I vis-ited this woman a number of times, and apart from my wife, that makes up the whole of my heterosexual experience. Even at that time when I lost my 'virginity' I had already had contact with hundreds of males.

"A few years passed and I had my moments of fun and my mo-ments of remorse. . . Some of my homosexual affairs were one-night stands; occasionally I would be emotionally involved, with deep friend-ships and even with vows of fidelity, but these would last only a few months at most. Some men need an anchor and perhaps I am one. I wanted sex, but with it a home and something like a family. I finally met an attractive girl and married her, but not before I had gone to bed with her, found it was great, and told her I had had a lot of homosexuality in my life.

"Sex with her was wonderful, but somehow when I left the house I saw only men on the streets, and this continued for many years. And seeing them, I stared, they stared bacic, and often we ended up in a hotel room, at the man's apartment, or at the home of one of my gay friends. 'That was what I told Kinsey I meant by 51/2 : I could, with some effort, accept sex with my wife, and even get a sense of fulfillment out of it; but I couldn't, even with the greatest effort, resist sex with almost any willing male.

"There were occasional vacillations. When things were just right between my wife and myself, so much love and passion passed from her to me that I drifted over as far as 2 or 3. Then sex with her became frequent and interest in men was only slight. But these periods of high (not heterosexual, but wife-sexual) interest were short-lived, and then I would find myself a complete 6, without even the smallest interest sexually in my wife.

"So it was at the time of the peyote session, when I was deeply involved with Paul (not his real name), another of the participants in the session.

"Before proceeding to the session, another bit of background is required. For all the talk about homosexuality and narcissists I have never been in love with my own body. In fact, I believe that a major emotional problem in my life is that I have always disliked it. Years back, I thought of myself as a rather ugly youth; when I look at photos taken in my teens and twenties I am amazed, not only at the strikingly handsome young man, but even more so at my conception of myself as ugly and repulsive. During my thirties, I developed a strong distaste for mirrors. I use one while shaving, but aside from that deliberately avoid mirrors and rooms containing mirrors. When I go into a restaurant my main and overriding concern in choosing a table and seat is to avoid seeing myself in a mirror. Now for the peyote experience.'

"I had never previously taken any hallucinogenic drug, smoked a cigarette, or been even slightly "high" on alcohol or anything else. What I knew of consciousness-expanding drugs was based solely on some reading and conversations with the guide. I arrived at the home of the guide (who was thoroughly familiar with my sex life as well as that of my companions, although himself heterosexual) at 9 P.M. The others, already present, were Paul (with whom I was involved) and Gerald (as I will call him), who at the time was Paul's roommate, and homosex-ual, but not involved with Paul. Paul is bright, to me relatively masculine, and has a strong aversion to contact with women—a disgust such as some men feel when approached by other males. Gerald has strong manifestations of compulsive ovennasculinity: the proud muscular male, the worshiper at the shrine of the cult of supermanliness.

"Some two hours later, we were under the influence of the drug but were reacting to it quite differently. Gerald and Paul experienced strangely vivid colors—tridimensional illusions. But for me, eyes opened or closed, the visual aspect was the same as always. I, on the other hand, felt an irresistible need to talk. I then started a monologue that was to last, with few interruptions, for many hours. More and more it centered around my experiences with my analyst some years earlier, and Gerald and Paul withdrew to be able to enjoy their own experi-ences.

"As our guide listened, I talked on and on. For hours I free-associ-ated, speaking of things I had never discussed before (although nothing I might not have discussed had the occasion arisen). Free association was especially unusual, because it led me into many seemingly unrelated directions, but I would come back again and pick up the strands where they had been abandoned, and always the central point of the entire discussion was the story of my brief and abruptly terminated analysis. Several features of this free association stand out in my mind:

"The influence of language, words, puns, plays on words, in determing where the monologue would go. I was particularly sharp and sensi-tive to word play. Any word that had two or three possible meanings, or that would sound similar to another word with another meaning, would jump to mind and lead me off in a new direction, but always to return again.

"I recalled specific incidents and events that I had never 'forgotten,' but that had been out of consciousness for many years, perhaps for thirty years or more, even several I had not recalled during the hours of free association with the analyst.

"I was deeply moved as I relived emotionally and in conversation some of the most painful events of my life: a death in the family, and particularly the abruptness with which I had ended the analysis some years before ...

"I recalled detail that under ordinary conditions I could not possibly have remembered, including the address on an envelope of a letter that a friend had sent me some years before—an important letter since it had had great significance for me during my analysis. I saw the en-velope in front of me, in my mind's eye, recalled the handwriting, and recited the street number and street. (A few days later I went to an attic where I had old letters put away, dug into a dust-laden box, and took out crumpled and yellowing old papers. There, among them, I found the envelope, just as I had recalled it and the details of the address were correct, entirely correct.)

"Thus the night passed. I had lost my sense of time: I might have been in that room for days or years, and yet it was not dragging time. Towards morning, we all sat for a while and watched a flickering candle give off its dying light, held in magnetic fascination by a death agony that seemed to go on endlessly. I saw Paul as I had never seen him before: less than masculine, boyish in a gamin sort of way far too young for his years, and adolescent in that undifferentiated boy-girl way that characterizes some homosexuals and is often confused, mistakenly I think, with effeminacy.

"I was never sleepy, never hungry, and never completely comforta-ble. I kept having a peculiar feeling of chills that was not shared by the others, and only wanted to talk, talk, talk, which I did.

"Of vivid colors, I finally saw some, but mainly I was seeing gross visual distortions. I put my two hands in front of me and one was much larger than the other; yet, while I saw this, silently and reassuringly said to myself that this was not so, that it was only an illusion from the peyote, and that my hands were not what they seemed to be. Other distortions I saw included Gerald's face, which seemed scarred and shriveled and aged and ugly. 'This was an interesting view because only a short time later, the affair with Paul having come to an end, I became deeply involved with Gerald and began to see him as an extraordinarily attractive male. Was I already developing this image, and was I distort-ing reality because I did not want the complication of this attraction to Paul's roommate, particularly that night when Paul was there?

"As the sun came up, I still was telling everyone else to keep quiet because I had something to say; and I still was saying it, saying it, saying it, over and over and following the threads of association wher-ever they led, and then always back to where they had started. The young men left around seven and the guide and I went down to a nearby restaurant to have some breakfast; but the sight of the food was disgust-ing and I said goodby, then went home to try and get some sleep. Now for the aftereffects:

"Arriving home, I made coffee and opened the sugar bowl to put the spoon into it. Suddenly I saw all the different shades of white in the little granules of sugar. Some were dull white, some were lustrous, some shown with an inner glow, and some were like milk. What blindness I had had to color differentiation all my life that I had never seen this before! I had no doubt that the shades and degrees of whiteness really existed, that they were not an illusion produced by the drug, but were real, and that I would see them tomorrow and thereafter. Indeed they were real, and I have often seen them since, although never with quite so intense an awareness as that day. But still am able to perceive the lovely design of monochromatic whites, posing motionless in an en-trancing work of art.

"After coffee, which I enjoyed, although I was a bit too sensitive to the flavor, I walked over to the mirror and put out my tongue, somehow expecting it to be coated with white. But instead of noting color, I saw the size, a huge tongue that surely could never be retracted to fit back into the mouth. I managed somehow to fit it in, stuck it out again, was fascinated, and stood before the mirror, tongue hanging out, marveling and frightened at its size.

"My face was drawn, there were ugly lines under the eyes, and the eyes, although large, looked tired. I wanted to sleep, but found I couldn't. Instead, I still wanted to talk, and in the absence of my wife spent most of the day on the telephone, talking with various people.
"In the afternoon I showered and then went to the mirror to take a shave. 'The grotesque, enlarged tongue, I discovered, had returned to normal size. I shaved, washed, combed my hair, and took a last look to see if I was in proper condition to go out. What I saw in the mirror was amazing!

"There, staring me in the face, was a handsome man, approximately my age! I noted his small mouth and perfectly formed lips, his hand-some all-white hair that contrasted with a rather youthful face, his deepset, brown moist eyes. I stared at the man with considerable satis-faction, and then smiled. He returned the smile.

"I met my wife and we went to a restaurant for dinner. When we were shown to a table I took a seat facing a mirror and found myself looking at it more often than at the food or my wife. 'That night sex with my wife was particularly fulfilling. I felt a strong need and a satisfaction in accomplishment while it was taking place. For about six weeks there-after we repeated this experience with a greater frequency than ever before and almost always with outstanding success. My eyes strayed to males less frequently and although I had some extracurricular experi-ences during this time, they were few.

"During this time, too, my love-affair with myself and my mirror image continued. Like the shades of white in the sugar bowl, that had always been there but that I had never seen, so this handsome man of my age had been in front of my eyes countless times before, yet I had always seen him as pretty awful.

"At the end of six weelcs or so I noticed the effects 'were beginning to wear away: I began avoiding mirrors again, and saw my own image as less than attractive. But not entirely so, for at least I could recall what I had seen and then look specifically for those interesting and well-formed features, and then, seeing them in memory, I would find them to be as I had seen them before. 'You look the same to me as you always did,' a psychologist friend said when I told him this story, and I looked at him incredulously. Couldn't he see that I had changed?

"As the attractive image became less attractive, the erotic wife-centered interest also diminished, and somehow they seemed linked to one another, or they were affecting each other. But in each of these two respects I have not been the same since the session as before."

So ends the subject's account of his session, about which some more remarks should be made.

Like most (twelve out of fourteen) of the limited number of overt male homosexuals who have been psychedelic volunteers, there is to be found here a distorted body image—in this case, a much more distorted image than in the other cases. That S's distorted body image preceded and was at least partly causal to his homosexuality is probable but cannot be established beyond doubt. Certainly, the normalizing of the distorted body image produced a marked trend towards heterosexualiza-tion; in the same way, the deterioration of the body image later on appears to have preceded and been causal to the resumption of the former homosexual pattern.

After his session, and during the period when the image was most pleasing to him, S went for the first time in several decades beyond his intermittent "wife-sexual" interest to a broader and much less sporadic heterosexual interest. He repeatedly considered "testing" himself by having intercourse with other females; that he did not do so was mainly owing to his lack of knowledge of ways to effect what he desired. In the streets, he consistently saw what he had "never seen before": He no-ticed the "breasts and bottoms" of women and found them attractive. This was a source of much astonishment to him, since before he always had passed women by without seeing them at all, or noticing them only as if they were objects, "like lampposts or fire hydrants." Moreover, as the self-image began to "slip," S had a (for him unprecedented) brief "in-volvement" with an effeminate male described by him as "very girlish" —an almost-heterosexual relationship in which the techniques of con-tact employed were also approximations to the heterosexual.

Over a period of several months, S experienced more frequent than usual revivals of his attraction to his wife. Apparently, she now some-times appealed to him as a woman and not only as a wife.

'The "delayed reaction" in which the subject acquired his new image some hours after the session, is not too unusual. Some apparently non-transformative sessions produce significant changes in the subject days, weeks, and (rarely) even several months afterwards. The changes that did occur in this subject are all the more remarkable in view of the fact that he expected no changes at all and had no motivation whatever to relinquish his homosexuality. For reasons unnecessary to discuss here, S had a considerable investment in his homosexuality and this not only prevented the wish to give it up, but also discouraged post-session efforts to consolidate and expand upon the "gains." Thus, one may only speculate as to what would have been possible in this case had the subject been strongly motivated to become heterosexual. What did hap-pen is at least suggestive.

It also should be noted that S fails to mention specifically what was probably the most important single event of his session. He frequently refers to the abrupt termination of his psychoanalysis some years ear-lier, but does not mention that this analysis was terminated by the death of the analyst. After that death, S had attended the funeral, passed before the open coffin, and looked down upon the analyst's face. During the session he relived this scene emotionally, ideationally, and imagisti-cally. There was no intense reaction, but nonetheless there seems no doubt as to the importance of the experience.

It is also of possible interest to report that apart from S and one other subject, all of the homosexual subjects have had a rather passive demeanor, especially in relation to the guide but also in relation to the other persons generally. Individuals "in authority," including the guide, are approached in a rather apologetic way and the whole manner, in-cluding the speech, tends to be diffident. A frequent post-session effect is then a heightened aggressiveness, an impression of greater self-confidence and probably better self-esteem, with a noticeable deepening of the voice in some cases. Also, gestures may become more vigorous, posture more erect, and movements generally more decisive and, in some cases, more "masculine."

The preceding cases illustrate some of the phenomena and therapeu-tic possibilities of the recollective-analytic level. Cases likely to be of particular interest to the psychotherapist have been selected and should only be taken to mean that the so-c.alled "instant psychotherapy" is in fact a possibility, in the psychedelic experience and on this level. Thus, as so much other evidence also demonstrates, much more—not lessl—work with psychedelic drugs is warranted and eventually "psychedelic psychotherapy" may in some cases emerge as a standard therapeutic shortcut resulting in an enormous saving of time and energy for both therapist and patient, and additional benefits of money saved and misery avoided for the latter.

As regards this "psychedelic psychotherapy" of the future, already it is possible to foresee and wam against abuses which surely would limit its effectiveness. For example, any psychedelic psychotherapy must take all possible precautions to avoid the establishment of a dogmatized theory and the other rigidities that in the past have sapped the effective-ness of so many psychotherapeutic methods.

With the psychedelic drugs, especially, the experience of the subject must not become vicarious; that is, his experience must not be in terms of the psychodynamic constructs and other ideas of the therapist, but must remain largely his own. The therapist must remain the guide and aide, not the all-knowing, all-powerful leader of the patient.

Present psychedelic subjects display an astonishing ability to direct their own sessions precisely into those areas which will prove most beneficial to them. How long they will continue to do so well may depend upon whether an elaborate and over-systematized, inflexible therapeutic approach evolves. At the same time, it eventually should be possible to construct a more profitable and scientific approach than that of the therapist largely "playing it by ear," as has to be done in the absence of a psychedelic psychotherapy when the therapist does not merely use the drug (so impairing his own effectiveness) as an adjunct to some traditional therapeutic method.

Some notion of the extraordinary array of tools available to the psychedelic drug therapist by now should be available; and the therapist must assist the patient in making the best possible use of all these unique possibilities and capacities. As a veteran observer of psyche-delic subjects, the therapist will know what is possible and will have to impart to his patient as much of this knowledge as is in the patient's best interest. But, at the same time, he must display a degree of respect for the patient's autonomy that will not make the patient's experience vicarious or otherwise unduly restrict or deprive him.

If, as considerable evidence would suggest, the psychedelic experi-ence has the potential of initiating the unfolding of an entelechical self-healing and self-realizing process, then more than ever it will be essential that the therapist be able to refrain from interrupting that process by indulging his own authoritarianism or imposing his own ideology on the patient. This will require nothing less than a new kind of thera-pist who will not receive from the therapeutic experience the same kind of personal power rewards the therapist presently receives. It seems evident that the transition to such a different sort of patient-therapist relationship will not always be easily effected.

Transition—and Transformation. In the final case to be presented in this chapter we will show in detail how the experiencing of the recollective-analytic level may lead the subject "down" to the "deeper" symbolic level. The case will be given in somewhat greater detail than the preceding ones, since it also demonstrates how the effective experi-encing of the several levels may culminate in a transforming experience of very great benefit to the subject. As a preliminary to this case we will briefly recapitulate what already has been stated.

Ideally, the subject whose aim is to effect increased self-understand-ing and other beneficial change,s in himself brings to the psychedelic session not only his hopes but also much self-knowledge gained through auto- or hetero-analytic work. If he then, on the recollective-analytic level, re-examines his insights, possibly adds new ones, and so comes to a deepened and more adequate comprehension of his deficiencies and problems, then the chances are good that he will move on to important experiences on the symbolic and possibly the integral level. On the symbolic, if the preliminary work has been done, he may experience a symbolization of the essential psychodynamic and other materials and participate in a symbolic drama leading to a resolution of his conflicts and possibly effecting many of the positive changes that were the sub-ject's goal. In the following case, we observe the unfolding of this process in a subject who provides an almost perfect illustration of how the experiencing of the first three of our levels may be accomplished in those instances where maximum results are forthcoming. The final "descent" to the integral level is not accomplished. However, so com-plete is the symbolic participation, and so appropriate the symboliza-tion, that the transformative effects rival those achieved by some subjects who do "go deeper." And, of course, there is always the possi-bility of misinterpretation of the phenomenological signs, so that this subject may have achieved the integral level even though in our estima-tion he did not. The case will further demonstrate how much more comprehensive and self-potentiating is this type of transformation than the changes and symptom remissions described as occurring on the previous levels.

The subject, S-5 (LSD: 100 micrograms), is a forty-year-old pro-fessor of philosophy at a major West Coast school. He is married and the father of three young children.

S entered his present profession after having spent more than a decade preparing for the Roman Catholic priesthood. During that decade he had been increasingly troubled by "a sense of maladjustment to self and world." As the time of his ordination drew closer, S's "inner tensions and sense of maladjustment were intensified." He then decided he should not be ordained and abandoned his plan to be a priest in the hope that this action "might benefit the inner life." Instead, the action seemed to him, once it had been taken, to be a "social admission" of his "problems," and the effect of this seemed to be to strip away the "mask" he had developed over the years to conceal his "tension and feelings of depression." He "was exposed," his "protective façade" was "tom down," and he was plunged into a deep depression that no longer could be veiled by his customary "mask of serenity." Unlike his previ-ous depression, this present state was one of "general numbness, lack of feeling, lack even of the anxiety" that had been with him for years. So distressing was the lack of feeling, that even the absence of anxiety seemed a painful deprivation.

Shortly after leaving the seminary S entered into a psychoanalysis that lasted for six months. The depression was eased and he tenninated the analysis. He again was somewhat anxious, and much less aggressive and involved in life than he wanted to be, but doubted that analysis, unless continuing for many years, could do much more to effect the changes he desired. S then met and married a quiet and rather shy young woman with whom he shares many interests, and who is the only woman with whom he ever has been romantically involved. He em-barked upon his academic career, which has been successful if unspec-tacular.

Shortly after beginning his analysis, S went into a church and there had a "mystical experience" while contemplating a religious object. At first he became conscious of anxiety concerning the nature of his rela-tionship to Christ. This anxiety became specifically a fear of a "homo-sexual attachment to Christ" (not too uncommon among celibate Roman Catholic priests and seminarians). This was followed by a rev-elation to the effect that S could "love God without fear of this involving a homosexual love of Christ." After this experience, S felt that his mental-emotional state was significantly improved.

The fear of a homosexual attachment to Christ, S says, was the first time it had ever occurred to him that homosexuality might have any place in his life. He had never experienced any homo-erotic desires or engaged in any homosexual behavior. He discussed the mystical experi-ence with his analyst and was given a Rorschach test with a subsequent diagnosis of "latent homosexuality." Trying to find in his past some indications of an aberrant sexuality, S recalled that at the age of three or four years he had "identified with" a little neighbor girl about his own age and had envied the privileged status of girls—nicer toys, prettier clothing to wear, etc. He specifically had wanted a set of toy dishes (such as that owned by a neighbor girl), but his mother had refused this and told him that such playthings were unsuitable for a boy. During his boyhood S had had several "crushes" on male classmates but never was aware of any sexual interest in the object of the "crush." For a time, he recalled, he was regarded by his classmates as something of a "sissy." But, as he grew older, he no longer was so regarded. Although willing to consider the possibility of a "latent homosexuality," S doubted the accuracy of the diagnosis and felt that, even if true, it had little relevance to his present situation.

S felt that the really important discovery made in the course of his analysis was that of a "castration complex," and with this he had been concerned ever since. He reported frequent awareness of a slight tension at the base of his penis and associated this with his chronic sexual anxiety and also with the unconscious fear of castration turned up in analysis. In discussing what he hoped to achieve through his psychedelic session he remarked that he felt "cut off" not only sexually, but also over the whole range of his sensory experiencing. In every area of his life, he said, he always avoided the concrete for the abstract. He felt that this sense of "being cut off" had been worsened by his seminary training and that he had joined his particular order, in part, because it offered an "abstract, intellectualized approach to life." He also had entered the seminary, he felt, in order to remove himself as much as possible from erotic temptations. Since self-understanding and develop-ment, not therapy, was S's aim in volunteering for the session, he did not propose to try to deal directly with the castration anxiety. What he did hope for was that he might become "able to relate to things and others more completely," to establish a better contact with the sensory realm and to become better able "to experience life as a creative process." He also hoped to reorient some of his attitudes and values with regard to sex.

At 10:20 A.M. S was given the 100 micrograms of LSD. At 10:50 he complained of being cold and put on an overcoat which he continued to wear for the next hour. He also mentioned a slight tremor experi-enced as running through his whole body and a "feeling of constriction just below the abdomen." This later became localized at the base of the penis and was described by S as "the focal point of resistance" to a full participation in the drug experience.

A light, pleasant musical recording was played and S closed his eye,s and imaged a series of "richly colored geometrical shapes: green, blue, and possibly red." He opened his eyes and reported that all of his sense perceptions seemed much heightened. Especially, the visual, tactile, and olfactory perceptions were intensified and objects were seen not only with greater clarity but also seemed to be "more meaningful." At 11 : 10 he reported the impression that his "conditioning" was "cracking and breaking up," that his "categories" were "falling away." There re-mained, however, a feeling of resisting the drug effects.

At 11:30 the guides played for S a spoken recording that has been used to good effect with a few selected subjects, to overcome resistance and produce a movement toward deeper drug-state levels.2 S apparently soon was absorbed in the recording and in about ten minutes began to make convulsive lower body movements, most noticeably of the legs—legs jerking out from the body, legs opening and closing—with many twitches and jerks, sometimes as frequent as twenty to thirty per minute. 'The basic movement then became the spreading and dosing of the legs. S appeared to be trying to control this by frequently shifting his position and locking his legs at the ankles, but later said he had no memory of ever trying to control the movements. He also said later that these involuntary movements all seemed to move outward from the point of constriction at the base of the penis. S writes that:

"During the playing of the record I felt myself being swept along by the movement of the words, as if the meaning were coming through directly to me and the meaning itself was a movement, a dynamic flow which carried me along as if on a journey. I did not interpret the words. I simply heard them and they reflected back their individual meaning like sparks . I simply gave myself to the movement and to the richness of the voice. All the while I felt my mind being stretched, as if my faculty of abstracting and conceptualizing was being left on the surface, still capable of operating, but not interested in doing so. All the while new dimensions of my mind were coming into being and I was carried along by the sheer movement and rhythm of the voice. Although I felt periodic resistances and the tension of my mind being stretched, I en-joyed the experience of being swept along.

"At the end of the record, I felt that I had been on a long journey and that I had come to my destination. My guides came to me and welcomed me into this 'brave new world.' I felt that I had reached the psychedelic shore and enjoyed the wonderful things around me. I felt joyous and deeply related to everything, as if I were part of a whole. It was a feeling of solidity and yet fluidity, a sense of total relatedness and involvement, bringing with it a sense of joy, peace and wonder. This was the deepe,st and most sustaining experience of the entire session. It remained throughout, as if it were the base of all other experiences. In my estimation, it was the most valuable dimension of the entire ses-sion.

"I explored the room, the flowers, the fruit, and my own hands. My hands seemed wondrously dear. I explored the cauliflower, the flowers, and the grapes. I slowly peeled a grape and enjoyed the intricate pat-tems of the veins. 'Throughout the room colors were alive and clear. Outlines were sharp and certain perspectives, especially of depth, were altered from their normal dimensions. In all of this, I felt closely related to the room and the objects and persons in the room."

At 1:00 P.M. S, having shown no tendency to deal with recollective-analytic level materials, was encouraged to experience phenomena char-acteristic of the symbolic level. He attempted to image scenes from ancient Greece, but met with only very slight success. S now initiated an experience of regression along evolutionary lines, as he describes:

"'Then I said, don't want to go to Athens; I want to go to the beginning.' I felt good at this statement and felt myself going back and down into a dark substance. Then I began to move my body—my arms and shoulders, as if I were trying to bring something to life. I felt that I was the earth and I was trying to bring something to life—growing, working, growing, with great effort and struggle and yet driven by a powerful force. I worked and worked and life came forth. It was difficult and I felt the life force within me toiling and striving to come to fulfill-ment. Then I moved to the floor of the room, where I became the ocean. I was in the ocean and I was the ocean. I moved and rolled like the ocean. Finally I was asked if I saw any animals. I said 'Yes, tigers,' and when asked 'What, no dinosaurs?' I said that maybe I had by-passed them. 'Then I felt myself slowly becoming an animal. I tried to resist this, but finally accepted it. I found that I had become a panther and writhed about, stretching my limbs as if I were a panther."

S now reported that he no longer was a panther and was back in his own body. Lying on the floor, he reported himself "very relaxed" while, at the same time, locking his legs together at the ankles and apparently exerting much effort to control the leg movements. He finally gave up on this effort and there followed more spasmodic movements of the lower body, accompanied by many sighs, groans, grunts, and snorts. All activity continued to be in the lower body, with little or no movement above the waist. S said he was finding in his movements "a sense of release" and of "relatedness to things" and, thereby, of "relatedness to the world."

At 2:00 P.M. S abruptly entered into the recollective-analytic phase of his experience and continued on this level for two and one-half hours. Without any apparent associational linkage to his preceding idea-tion he re-experienced with great accompanying emotion the death of his grandmother when he was not quite four years old. He describes the onset of this experience:

"Suddenly I felt as if some obstacle were coming up to me—something large, dark, and vague, but very powerful—as if it were knocking on the walls of consciousness. I said that some block was coming up. Then I said, `It's Granny's death! I must examine Granny's death!' At once I felt ill and dashed to the bathroom and vomited—not food, since I had not e,aten. This vomiting, and all the vomiting to follow, was more a kind of ritual emission of negative emotion than a physical vomiting of food, but I did go through the physical motions of vomiting and spit up liquid."

Returning to the session room, S said he believed at the time of her death that he had killed his grandmother by a magical act—by smash-ing the head of a doll he had identified with her. This doll he also had identified with himself and with the previously mentioned neighbor girl. He thus, in destroying the doll, effected "the destruction of my world, the concrete world of affection and real persons."

S re-experienced with great emotion the incident that had caused him to destroy the doll. Soon afterwards, his grandmother fell ill and finally died. During the period of her illness his guilt was so great he would not enter her room. After her death, too, he would not enter the room where her body was laid out. And, when the grandmother was buried, S had felt that "a part of myself was being buried with her."

This incident had left him cut off from "the concrete world" and also had been a "symbolic autocastration." Moreover, he now felt, he had never liberated himself from the identification with the neighbor girl. Thus, in a variety of ways, he was blocked from reaching full manhood and from direct, uninhibited experiencing of the world around him. These formulations yielded more affective discharge and vomiting. He later wrote that "In the state of deep relatedness of the psychedelic experience, I was able to experience these negative emotions in a way I had never been able to do before. There was a sense of totality in the experience, as if I had actually entered in to the mythic framework of the world I had destroyed by my magical act."

Memories and regressions continued, accompanied by the recurring nausea, and S was taken into another room where he would be doser to the bathroom. He there lay down on a couch, closed his eyes, and considered further his need to achieve full manhood by overcoming the old guilt, the effects of the autocastration and the feminine identifi-cation. Then began his symbolic level experiences, image sequences consisting of a series of rites. These were:

A fertility rite. This consisted mostly of white-skinned savages danc-ing and singing around a fire, "trying to bring something to life." S was emotionally, and through body sensations, a participant in this imaged rite, but his involvement was not great and the rite lasted only a few minutes. It seemed to him to be a preliminary to something more impor-, tant still to come.

A puberty rite. Here, S was one of a number of youths dancing around an older woman. T'here was a sense of identification with this woman, who represented "the feminine principle." The youths had coitus with this woman and so shed their identification with the femi-nine, becoming wholly male. S was totally involved in this rite—experienced on the levels of image, emotion, ideation, physical sensa-tion, and appropriate body movements. At the end he leaped up, dashed into the bathroom to vomit several times, and emerged to say that he had vomited up the whole of his feminine identification. In fact, his appearance seemed to be more strongly masculine than before.

A warrior initiation rite. This rite also began with dancing, which became increasingly faster and more violent. Then the young candidates for initiation participated in the killing of an older man— "the father." They pulled off his genitals and devoured them, thus liberating them-selves from patemal influence and so becoming ready to assume their roles as warriors and leaders of the tribe. S also was fully involved in this rite, which precipitated still more strenuous vomiting.

A rite not classified as to purpose. This rite, involving the same white-skinned primitives as the others, again began with dancing. It was a curious combination of primitive and Christian elements and, at the end, passed over wholly into Christian content. It accomplished the salvation of S and made him "whole." Again, participation was on all levels (image, emotion, ideation, physical sensation, kinesthetic). 'The subject's own account of this ritual series, written next day, provides additional materials of interest:

"I suspended my thoughts for a while and the material simply began to come up. I soon had an image of a group of people dancing. 'They seemed to be primitive people, but of white skin. 'They were dancing around something raised, a pole or a platform, and there was a snake associated with this ceremony. They were dancing, dancing, trying to bring something to life. I had a sense of labor and duration. At this point I was lying on the couch and was having periodic spasms of the legs, seeming to come from that point of tension at the base of the penis. These spasms continued through the long sequence of primitive rituals.

"In the next ritual there were boys present and they were having intercourse with an older woman, with the earth mother. Then I saw the image of a huge female figure over me and, at that moment, there was a bursting reaction as of liberation and the figure seemed to move quickly away. I became very ill and dashed to the bathroom to vomit. I retched violently. This was the most intense of the vomiting spells and seemed to involve my whole body. I had the sense of spitting up deep anxiety—from the innermost part of my body, from my very toes. There was a realization that I was vomiting up my identification with the Female—an identification which had led to terrible anxiety about being castrated. As long as I was identified with the Female, I seemed to be castrated, and unless I got to this level and liberated myself, contact with women in my life would ultimately lead to a sense of castration.

"I returned to the couch again and again saw dancing, this time faster and more violent, like a war dance. I think this was the initiation ceremony for new warriors, but I am confused about the sequence here. Then I saw a group of boys killing an older man. 'This was the father. Then they began eating him. I felt that I was also there mutilating this man. I pulled off his penis and testicles and, at that moment, saw vividly his mutilated body and the wound in his groin. I felt a deep release of tension and, I believe, I vomited again.

"Then I returned to the couch and saw more dancing. This time the people were dancing around a raised platform, on which people were tied by their arms on supports, perhaps two or three males. Then I had the awareness that I was lying down on my back and that someone was placing hot coals in a circle on the lower part of my abdomen near my penis. I was afraid:Then I accepted the situation and entered into the ritual. I ritualistically accepted my own castration. At that moment, a man appeared in front of me, in the same position that the large woman had been in in the first ritual. I knew that he was the Savior. I could not discern his features. His face seemed to be white, without any features, and I could see only his bust. As soon as he appeared I threw over his left shoulder a piece of animal skin; it seemed to have hair and to be a piece of goatskin. At this moment I knew I was saved from castration.

"'Then I noticed that the people were on a field and were tearing the Savior to bits and eating his flesh. 'Then I felt that I was the Savior and was lying on my back being nailed to a cross. Then the cross was lifted up, and at this moment I was a spectator viewing the Savior from a distance as he was being lifted up on the cross on the top of a hill for all the people. From the time the Savior appeared, I had a deep sense of peace and integration. I felt that I was saved and that I was whole."

S now was exhausted and slept briefly, something we have seen in only one other case. At 5:40 P.M. he awakened and thereafter the drug effects appeared to diminish sharply. S described himself as very tran-quil and happy. He remained silent for some time and then reported that he had been "integrating" all that had occurred, and that this integration was extremely important. He felt drastically and beneficially transformed. He viewed his image in the mirror and said it was greatly changed. His face now was "much more youthful and relaxed" than it had been for years. He felt "strongly related" to everything around him. His appetite, when a meal was served, proved voracious and he stated he had never felt better or enjoyed food more.

The post-session effects of this session will also be dealt with in more detail than usual, since they convey a good impression of what may occur as the result of a truly transforming psychedelic experi-ence.

In general, at the end of the first week after the session, S felt energized, more masculine, more tranquil, and self-esteem was height-ened. His experience of everything around him was more intense and "everything" seemed to be going extremely well. One event of the week was of outstanding importance to the subject.

For almost two years S had been collaborating with another philos-opher on a book. Many difficulties had plagued this collaboration, which had reached a virtual standstill. S had long felt that he had the "key to the whole problem—the ideas that would bring the book to a successful conclusion." But, as junior author, he could not insist upon these ideas; and he never had been able, despite strenuous efforts, to get his points across to his collaborator. Now, however, a few days after his session he had a meeting about the book and was able, as never before, to communicate with his co-author. S reported that "This time I found myself letting the issues simply emerge and did not try to look for arguments or tactics. The meeting was extremely pleasant. For some time we ranged over the several issues he had raised. All the while I was trying to move towards a formulation of what I thought was the differ-ence between us: our understanding of metaphysics. Eventually he formulated my basic idea. I said, 'That's it.' For some time then he devel-oped the implications. This was one of the richest moments of com-munication on a philosophical level I have ever had. I left feeling very much at peace personally and as concerned the future of the book. Professor--was very pleased with the meeting."

Another event of personal importance also occurred. The oppor-tunity presenting itself, S without hesitation accepted leadership of a major departmental project—something he felt he could not have done before. Both of these events he related in a detailed way to materials of his session.

Three weeks after his drug experience, S attended a seminar on Whitehead and found himself understanding and able to explain to others points of Whitehead's philosophy which in the past had always been obscure to him. His other gains were being maintained and he reported, too, that "I continue to experience a deeper relation with my wife. There is less tension and negative affect in the relation. I have a much clearer realization of the significance of her love and understand-ing to my own personality and inviduality. I have also had a deeper sense of sexual relatedness to her." He mentioned also that "During the last few days I was experiencing a bit of inner tension, which led me to believe that something was working its way to consciousness. Finally it emerged in the context of fantasy images associated with the Attis myth. I experienced anxiety and hostility towards the Earth Mother—Cybele in the myth. The anxiety was over being castrated by her. The hostility was over being subjected to her destructive force. It seemed that I had drunk in the hostility and in its inverted force it became a vehicle of my own castration. I could now hurl it outside and direct it towards Cybele—to turn towards her the knife she directed to my own castration. In this way I felt liberated from her power. 'This seemed closely associated with the ritual of the puberty rite where I was liber-ated from identification with the female. 'The same type of sense of deep affect and physical anxiety was present. Since then I have been able to be aware of a positive dimension of sex as a means of relating to the world."

The subject's progress continued and five months after his session the situation was as follows: For the first time, S was greatly enjoying working with his collaborator on the book. His other work was pro-gressing excellently and he felt that "The sense of integration gained through the session has extended to an integrating vision of my work. Now I am really discovering what scholarship means."

He reported a "continual stream of penetrating insights and deep-ened philosophical understanding. Common to all this understanding is the new integrated view of the world and the sense of the concrete relations between things." Before his session, all of his relationships "were on an abstract level"; now, however, he had a "continuous sense of immediacy, a sense of existing in the moment, a total commitment to what is being done at the moment." There was a "continuously height-ening relatedness to nature—something qualitatively new, a sense of belonging to nature that was not present before. This relatedness to nature has had an important effect upon my relationship with my wife. Before the session, our communication very largely had to do with theoretical intellectual and academic matters; now there is a shared feeling level to the relationship that never existed before. I have also a deepened sense of what it means to be a father and, along with this, a much better relationship with my children. I think, and apparently my students agree, that my teaching never has been better. I communicate feelings as well as cold ideas, and ideas communicated with feeling seem to be communicated much better than when the feeling is lacking. In short, I am happier with myself than I have ever been, and others seem to be happier with me too."

As noted, this is something of an ideal case. The subject came to his session well prepared in terms of self-understanding. The transitions from level to level were smoothly accomplished and the insights and formulations made on the recollective-analytic level laid the basis for a symbolization in terms of rites best suited to enable the subject to move beyond those early experiences which had previously blocked his devel-opment. In the chapter to follow, some other varieties of symbolic experience will be exemplified and the phenomena and problems of the symbolic level will be considered and should shed additional light on the present case.

< Prev		Next >