Taken July 8, 1961 Report written
July 22
Before LSD: I was afraid of everything and everyone. I Had no confidence in myself. I was incapable of giving or receiving love. I needed constant, unremitting reassurance much as the dope addict needs heroin. I suffered a great deal from depression and alternately blamed myself for all my woes or other people. I was often able to sublimate some of the frustrations, fears and hostility by acting or writing. These outlets brought some release but were used as a crutch as well as a means of self-expression. I had spent a good bit of time in therepy and this had chipped away some of the mess but a life spent on the couch could not have done what LSD has done. It did a very good job in preparing me for LSD and in enabling me how to use the materials - but all by itself it moves like an ox-cart while LSD moves like a Mack truck. To sum it up - I played roles all the time -but never Ellen. I did not know how to play Ellen or what she was - if anything.
I was frightened yet calm when I walked into the session room. It seemed inportant to me that I not show my fear (although I don't think I fooled anyone). It seemed alright to verbalize it but not to start screaming or having hysterics -which is what I felt like doing. Somehow I seemed less fearful as a result. I drank coffe with F., N. and M. They were not yet my friends - nor yet my enemies - just people. I trusted them but could not see how they would be able to help me through what I believed would be a trip into "the dark night of the soul. " I read from The Prophet - the chapter on Re ligion and Marriage - I was familiar with these and had always considered them very beautiful but I seemed to feel a vaguely "religious" atmosphere - Christian in flavor - which aroused the stirrings of doubt and suspicion. I remembered I had been told - you will only be seeing yourself in what you see, and whatever feelings you may have toward those in the room will be projections of your own distrust. I hadn't taken the drug yet and believed that I was not projecting anything at the moment. (I turned out to be wrong.) Still uneasy about the atmosphere I drank from a silver cup - oddly pleasing - and waited for God knew what. After a while I lay down, headphones over my ears and a black cloth over my face. Liane singing German Cabaret Songs of the twenties was played. I have always loved German-Viennese songs and singers. Suddenly the music became ominous and threatening; the headphones seemed to be constricting me unbearable; the cloth was stifling me and I could not breath. Why had I ever thought I enjoyed these songs? Waves of terror and anguish swept over me. My body seemed shaken by ghastly tremors. I was drowning in blackness and I did not think I could bear it. My hand reached out blindly and I cried for help. A hand grasped mine and I clung for dear life. It seemed then to be my father's hand and I loved it, needed it. More tremors, deep harsh breaths, fear and deeper into the black pit. Then - just barely discernable - something ahead - a promise of relief. What? The veil of night lifts, some imagery appears: a child, two or one or maybe less, sitting on it's mother's knee. The mother is holding it tenderly and singing to it - German song? Yes - German. It is my mother holding me. Why is she singing? Because she loves me.
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Sudden belief that there is no such thing as wrong in the whole world. Except what you do yourself. Experiencing odd physical sensations, some pain in neck and shoulders. Annoyed at this. Impatient with failure of body to catch up to my mind. The headphones no longer constrict but become annoying. Take them off. Very vehement about my rights to remove them if I want to. No one can make me wear them. M. says: "want to bet?" I say, "yes! No one can make me do anything I don't want to do. Feel oddly satisfied by this. Feels good to defy. Feel that if M. doesn't like it he can go to hell. M. seems to like it. Smiles. Curiouser and curiouser. (Sic) Found myself annoyed by each and every sound. All my senses heightened enormously but auditory senses magnified tenfold. M. seemed to be making an unnecessary amount of noise. Noise of tape switched on and off seemed very loud; air conditioning loud. Peculiar. Realize now I was always very sensitive to sound. Much more so now. Find I hear things others don't hear until I mention it. Still don't understand this. Maybe will eventually. M.'s moving around irritates. Alternate between affection for him and irritation. M. irritates somewhat too. Don't know why. P. looks very pretty - not irritating. Affection returns for N. and M. Working thru my distrust of men perhaps? Sudden burst of physical affection for M. (not sexual) Throw myself on him. Father? M. does not seem to mind. Laughs. Feel he is very responsive. Like everyone. Feel everyone likes me. M. shows me the rose. Rose breathes - opens and closes, appears to be composed of endless layers all infolding. Suddenly resembles uncircumcised penis. My husbands. M. brings it too close. Push it back gingerly. An effort to touch it. Feel vaguely fearful. Then fear passes and I am able to hold it without shrinking. Thought occurs that it will please if you allow it to please. Seemed to be in process of working thru some kind of sex problem here, am told. Feel sure this is so. Some basic fear of male genitalia as well as resentment of it. Go out into unknown territory again - seem to be able to do this lying down, putting cloth over my face (it no longer stifles me) and listening to music (which sometimes helped a lot and at others got in the way until I discovered why). Went back into the womb - softness, peace, barely discernible imagery of lovely, girlish faces with closed eyes. Asleep. Utter peace. Recognized images I saw in CO². Women sewn up just after delivery. Just then knew what CO² image was. All fits in now. Discovered we are all born with the same chance. Why do most of us foul it all up?
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We are all born with everything we need to
know. Our lives are spent in losing all we had to start with.
Feel - leave children alone more. Let them grow as they will.
Let them lead their own lives, not extensions of our own unrealized dreams
and frustrations. One should not care too much - about people.
Too much love destroys. Enjoy people more, care less. Very
puzzling. These thoughts seem to hit with absolute truth from nowhere
- not result of analyzing. Find them new and strange in some ways.
Felt great warmth for my children, despair at cruelties I had inflicted.
Can I ever forgive myself? (Feel now - children are closer to the primal
source of Life than many adults. I can learn from them. I can
teach them the mechanical things, the embellishments, the superficial do's
and don'ts demanded by society - they can teach me things more fundamental
and enduring. Will try to let my children bring me up - they are
wiser than I was.) Weeping here, I recall, N. reminds me that in
my list of questions I wondered whether or not I had any genuine talent
- find it interesting that I did not specify what kind of talent, no limit
to writing or acting - just asked if I had it. Curious. Took off
again. Getting to feel quite at home out there - yet each time I
have a slight prick of fear - what will I see this time? Fear grows
less each time as what I see gets better and better. This time saw
a face - a square, stone face with a beard. Think it is a Jewish
face - Feel "I am a Jew" (which I am, not by belief but culturally or nationally
or whatever the hell it is that makes a Jew a Jew. Face calm and
impressive. Seems to be slowly revolving. Come back.
Verbalize about image and suddenly realize it is not Jewish face at all.
Recall fine chiseling of features and something around head. The
brow was crowned with laurel. It is Pindar, the Greek poet.
Of course. Go on and on about Pindar. Poet of victory odes.
Find I seem to know more about him than I realized. (Have since read
him and offer a sample of his work: "I will be small in small things,
great among great. I will work out the divinity that is busy within
my mind and tend the means that are mine." Quite a guy.) It
occurred to me than that Pindar was a poet and so was I. But he was
actually a symbol of the Arts - all of them. And of course
I had talent. I had probably never really tapped it. But it
was there. Was very certain of this. Still am. Can't explain.
Just know. More music - can't recall what. Resent it. N. asks
why. Does it compete with me? Think he is way out. How
can music compete? (Now know. My father, a frustrated singer
- he sang, as an avocation, with the Schola Cantorum in New York - had
a thing about music. WQXR - classical music station - on all the
time. Opera on Sat. afternoons - VERY LOUD - (connection with noise
and how it bugs me? Must look into that) Determined to have me do
something musically - had piano lessons, clarinet lessons, voice lessons.
Hated them all. Father used to watch me practice and count the time
and offer suggestions etc. Felt music came between me and him.
He preferred music to me. So - being real sharp and unable to punish
my father for what I thought was so, I decided to punish music instead
- his kind of music. Have not allowed myself to really enjoy classical
music since. Do now. Enormously. Music did indeed compete.
After N.'s question took off again and saw a lyre - it seemed Greek and
a symbol of Music. Overcome with the conviction that I was a musician.
Returned and talked of this. M. said there were many kinds of musicians
and many kinds of instruments to play. I said: "I want to play
on the strings of my own soul." Found
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this a very lovely and pleasing thought. Reflecting
on this image later, remembered that the lyre is symbol of Apollo - Apollo
symbol of many things among them God of Light in whom is little or not
any darkness. God of Truth. Seems significant. After
seeing lyre suddenly notice picture of last supper above me. See
outspread arms above the Christ. Confused and suspicious. Why
didn't I see arms before? Have they switched pictures? Get
up to see if arms are there when I am erect. Still there. Am appalled.
Why didn't I see them? Why? Also see Buddha face above Oriental man.
Didn't see this before either. Overcome with sudden conviction that
I saw nothing - ever; knew nothing - ever. Tears. Anguish.
Incredulity. Felt as if I saw the world, people, myself, everything
"thru a glass darkly." Never saw anything as it was. Am lost
and adrift. All the things I once clung to - gone. Must relinquish
everything - to find everything. Must lose self to find Self. Find
myself willing - even eager - to do this. Find one can discard old
concept of self as one discards an old dress - no longer serviceable, shabby,
and, upon reflection, not an attractive garment at all. M. shows
me the Dali Christ. Cannot look at it. Have always been afraid
to look at pictures of the Crucifixion. Overcome with nameless dread.
Do not know why. Never understood my terror of Crucifixion.
Force myself to look. Initial reaction - they are trying to Christianize
me. Recognize this as stupid projection. Keep looking. Fear
lessens. Think - they did a terrible thing to Him. Terrible.
Feel, somehow, that nothing worked out quite as He intended. Not
sure what I mean. Keep looking. Then - "It is me up there.
It is everyone up there. No one did it to Him. He did it.
And we do it. We crucify ourselves." Overwhelmed by this -
almost scream it out. Unbelievable, incredible, not to be borne, glorious
Truth. We crucify ourselves. Absolute conviction. Sobs.
Utterly shaken. Do not know why we do it or even exactly how in exact
detail - just know we do. Find I can accept this completely.
Find it is a kind of release to know this. Do not know why.
Mind racing with thoughts - No one (or few) ever understood Him, or what
He did or why. Feel that of his own freewill this Man, all-knowing,
all-Aware - in constant touch with Ultimate Reality - this Man said, in
effect: "Don't you (everyone) know what you are doing to yourselves?
Don't you see that your misery comes from within not without?" (Not
a whole lot of people bought this). Then he said, in effect:
"Oh, you poor, blind confused bastards, I love you all, but you just can't
seem to get with it. I'll have to show you." So he demonstrated
physically what they were doing to themselves emotionally. How many
got this? When He said to Pilate, I am the Son of God, no one realized
- or few - that He meant I am Man, the Son of Man, and Man is the Son of
God - all men. When they nailed hem to the cross and He said: "Father
forgive them." He meant also forgive yourselves for what you are
doing to yourselves. (I am convinced that the concept of Sin and
Guilt is non-existent except in the minds of men). When he told one
of the thieves on the next cross, "Repent and Ye shall be with me this
day in paradise." He meant, forgive yourself for what you did in
ignorance, blindness and fear, and let go - and you will find death not
a thing to fear but a new and exciting experience, merely another level
of Reality and Existence. (Man exists on many levels, I found, and
when they are explored some of them are indeed "Paradise." Then He Said:
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because He was human, maybe a little scared, and
probably in great pain. "My God, why hast thou forsaken me."
For one tiny moment He doubted himself - even as all men do, even though
He knew the Truth. This makes Him greater not smaller. It makes
him human - even as you and I. But this is the difference - He was
always Aware - as most of us are not. He didn't ask to be made a
God or any of that other crap that people have made him. Much of
this can be leveled at that great Organization man, Paul. (He knew
better but he figured the end justifies the means.) Christ did not
want to be deified above all men - this is the doing of those who need
to deify something outside themselves - otherwise the responsibility is
too great. Christ would not recognize His so called religion today.
The religion about Christ and the religion of Christ are entirely different.
(Read the Brothers Karamaszov, the Grand Inquisitor chapter. Christ
comes back to earth and the Inquisitor puts him in jail and says, "who
needs you? Get lost. We rule by miracle, mystery and authority.")
After going thru all this about Christ (some of which I recognized later) became aware of Buddha - wisdom of the East. Recalled a saying, "The world is a bridge, therefore build no house on it." Felt, they knew the whole thing - those seers of India, China etc. Still feel some pains and bodily sensations. To hell with them. Look into relationshiop with husband and myself - Have always been a complete bitch there, and very fearful of what I will find. Find it is not painful and can forgive myself even for this - Feel great love for him and children. Hope he can forgive me. Time will tell. Do not want to lose him now but discover I can get along without him. Not dependent on him as before. Feel that Man must get back to primal sources, such as he had in the beginning - M. gives me Christ's picture - see tears, wounds, blood - His face changes. It is everyone's face. Look in mirror. My face becomes Oriental, then American Indian, then Oriental again, then me again. Then ancient mask - primitive - somehow wise. Find I look pretty good.
Go into my creative talent - talent not a great one but there - find I used it as escape and crutch, particularly acting. I was afraid to be me, to let go, except behind a mask. Have been thinking about this since - someone said that all drama is essentially a form of religion - If one goes back to the origins of drama or tragedy one finds this is so - Drama grew out of the ancient rituals man devised to worship his Gods - The Dionysian Ritual has these stages - Dionysius, a vegetation God, was the God of Earth, Wine etc. His festival took place in the Spring and followed the Birth, Decay, Death and Rebirth of nature - and man. His place of worship was like a theatre and the ceremony was the performance of a play. The performances were sacred; "the spectators too, along with the writers and the performers, were engaged in an act of worship." Dionysius, every year, was torn to pieces by his worshippers, and then brought back to life. This god is "the gay reveler, the cruel hunter, the lofty inspirer, and also the sufferer. He is the only tragic God. Yet he has another side. He was the assurance that death does not end all. His worshippers believed that his death and resurrection showed that the soul lives on forever though the body dies." Have gone into this because it gives rise to various thoughts - none clear - why do actors want to act?
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Acting is called a "sick" profession, actors are
thought to be essentially children, only happy pretending to be someone
else - all probably true - but might there not be another side? When
I was on stage there was always a wonderful feeling of release - much as
in sex - kind of emotional orgasm. I could somehow be Me by playing
at being someone else - also felt part of something bigger than me - acting
is not only pretending and escape but also form of communication - feel
like one is taking part in a ritual - could not actors, deep, deep down,
find this a means of returning to primal sources, a seeking for meaning,
a search for themselves - might not they be motivated by some deep yearning
for Truth, something in part "religious?" Actors have, alternately,
no ego at all and monstrous egos. They lose themselves in their acting
- in part anyway. And in order to find must not one lose first?
These are thoughts off the top of my head, as it were - But I feel, somehow,
that it was not surprising that I wanted so desperately to act - Oddly
enough I have less desire to do so now - May never get on stage again -
or if I do will be for different reasons and will probably act differently.
Went on another journey - way back in time. I saw hooded figures whose faces were hidden by their hoods, early Christians; other people with staffs and robes whose faces are unclear - a shepherd people - Jews - then desert, sphinx and pyramid, then high mountains snowcapped, peaks crowned with gold from the sun, the Himalayas; then an early Mongaloid people - some on horseback coming down steep mountains - Chinese, Tibetens, Mongols - faces very clear. Farther back - swamps, primitive animal shapes, dinosaurs etc. Back past the dawn of creation to a whirling ball of fire. The sun? The Earth when it broke from sun? I go thru the ball of fire and up - and up and up and up - somewhere above me there seems to be a Reality that waits with open arms to clasp me - I move toward it - I seem to feel the arms clasping me and yet the Reality is always above me - I do not see it - because it has no face. I do not touch it - because it has no form - It can only be felt as There. What is it? God? What? It is wonderful beyond words to describe. "The peace that passeth understanding." Felt I could have gone up endlessly - higher and higher and higher - there was no end. Come back to room. Overcome. Verbalize - The early peoples knew the secret - those in touch with nature and themselves - Somehow feel sorrow that man has progressed over all the centuries only to lose something vital he had in the beginning. Religion today is so preoccupied with ritual and dogma that it no longer remembers what the ritual stood for - Feel - I am the universe, I am all men. Ever-recurrent images of Buddha face, Oriental peoples - feel my roots are with these - See mural on wall - Center spike above faceless figure seems to be lit brightly - all people around table seem of different races and times - Christ is there - Who is central figure? He has no face. Puzzled. Must be God. After recognizing Reality in journey feel God is there - great relief that it is so - yet not quite satisfied. Something have not yet found - What? Mind and body not together as yet. Damn body - very cross with it - Feel Christ not the first - other christs - but none have same meaning for me - all peoples had their christs - Dionysian ritual etc. Death and rebirth - Feel great - very excited - Go for drive in convertible - Everything
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looks beautiful clear and bright - Overwhelmed
by experience - Feel it is almost too much to take in - Mind racing like
mad - Everybody seems wonderful - Want to weep - Feel - I never knew anything
before - was not bad - just blind - cannot crucify myself for being blind-
all things I did only desperate search for meaning to my life and trying
to discover my self - Regret past errors, cruelties, lies, faithlessness,
etc. But have lived with self loathing and guilt always and find
it accomplishes nothing - Find I can forgive myself and not spend time
weeping over spilt milk - What was done was done. I did them. It is over
- I am reborn - I have punished myself enough. It is time to live
- and do better in light of what I have learned. Get out of car and
touch redwood - feel it too is alive - feel its memories - see into its
heart - drive again - see hills - some green, some old and bare - much
struck with older looking hills - Feel they are old, very old - they were
there before time, before eternity before God - stop, panic struck - Before
God? Impossible. Try to squelch this thought - Utter confusion
- after some hesitation verbalize this - look closely around for reaction
- N. says, now that couldn't be could it? Agree. That could
not be - look around - feel - hills were there before God but - not before
man, not before me -what does it mean? Terror and bewilderment and
then burst of tremendous truth - I AM GOD - Utterly shaken by sobs and
trembling all over - Enormity too much - Sudden blazing joy, realization,
humility, power - tumbling one on the other - Can I accept this?
This, the Ultimate Reality - at least for me? Yes - but just barely
- Conviction grows - slight doubt also as to sanity - don't they lock you
up for going around saying you are God? M. says Man is Divine - Yes.
Of course. Bless Him. Not insane. Whew. Feel - I am God,
the universe, Christ, all men, all everything - all exists within me -
The Self is limitless, endless, eternal - it is all knowing, all aware
and at bottom Good - I came full circle - I started with me and I was nothing
when I walked into the session room. I ended with me and I was everything.
I Am. This is the sum and substance of it all. I am me, the
kingdom and the power and the glory. And this Truth is not only true of
me but of all men. It is true of those who know it and true for those
who don't - Each man must find his own truth and seek his own salvation
- Yet I cannot help but feel that there are some truths common to us all
- and this is one of them.
Since the session other thoughts have come - I seem to prefer my own company to others - although I enjoy people more than ever - I feel alone and detached and yet part of the whole - I am free of compulsive needs, of using people to share every thought and act - (although I slip back sometimes) I do not need others to tell of my worth though it is pleasurable to hear this from them - Sex is creation and I am much freer sexually than before - Sex is Life - and although I had no sexual feelings during the session and jumped over some areas there - I feel I went out beyond sex in a way - on the way down I experienced it all - Went thru a very horny period several days later - Discovered the less you need people the more you can give - Expect nothing, fear nothing - everything will come - Open yourself to life and you will be full - Act on what you have learned - Behavior patterns are not changed in a day and it is constant work - some changes have automatically occurred in me - others I must work at all the time.
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- My inner Self, the God that dwells within is
absolutely ruthless -when I am unworthy of myself I feel badly - I know
absolutely when I have acted against this Self - it is two steps forward
and one half back - I want very much to be Good - to be always ME - for
the inner me is incapable of harm or cruelty - I know full well that this
can never be achieved in totality - but I will try - Fear of anything is
only fear of yourself projected outwards - Just as hostility is fear turned
out and depression is self hatred turned inward - Do not get too involved
with others as you lose contact with your Self - the exceptions would be
only those very few who live near your heart - otherwise involvement renders
you less effective - you do not see the forest for the trees - Do not force
yourself to feel one way or the other - Accept your feelings - no matter
if good or bad - act on your knowledge of the truth - Laotzu says: "I find
good people good, and I find bad people good if I am good enough; I trust
men of their word, and I trust liars, If I am true enough." You will
make mistakes - don't sweat them - try again - the heart is wiser than
the head - for the heart's knowledge is not acquired - it is felt - All
the answers lie within the Self.
Laotzu says:
The Way itself is like some thing Seen in a dream........... In it are images, elusive, evading one. In it are things like shadows in twilight. In it are essences, subtle but real, Embedded in truth
This seems like LSD in some ways. In my own experience with the drug I saw everything in soft muted color not violently clear but clearly discernible - I saw no image or shape that was not recognizable - I mean there were no distorted patterns or weird images - everything was familiar to me - I honestly do not think I made an effort to analyze what I saw or felt - it seemed as if everything I saw and experienced had meaning - the meaning seemed to hit me - shortly after the experience not while I was in it - I seemed to understand what I saw and found that it could be integrated into my life - I accepted everything I saw without question - I feel the absolute truth of what I saw and know - I cannot answer for the other truths that other people discover - there is more than one truth - but for me what I saw is the truth - I alternate between feeling of humility and what might be called "ego mania". I feel myself wonderful, remarkable and very special. I even feel superior -although I am just as sure that all men have the same things in them - I merely know it and some of them don't. I am indulging my feeling special and good and pleased with myself. For one who was always afraid to feel good about herself, who felt without identity - this is a feeling I do not intend to squelch. If I like myself I intend to relax and enjoy it. What I have to get over - and am - is that I am going around telling this to other people too. It doesn't interest them very much, I have to admit, but it pleases me. I'll get over it once I get used to it. I seem to bear a great burden - and I seem to bear it alone -
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yet it is light as a feather - I would give up
anything rather than lose what I have learned - And if I don't want to
lose it I won't.
My last vision - when I went home after the session, later that night, I took one more trip - I saw the Dali Christ and suddenly I was on the cross and not Christ - Then, with no seeming effort, I lifted myself off and began to soar upward on huge wings - People were below me, looking up and laughing in great joy - they seemed to fall on their knees and worship me - not in awe or fear but with delight and happiness - (for Man is Divine). Then, there was Christ - none of your pansy looking Christs mind you, but a great big, virile Jewish looking Christ, with full beard and massive body - He laughed and laughed - in great earth joy, and clasping me to his arms, said: "See how easy it is?" (Those were the only words anyone spoke during the session in any of the journeys.) Then He gave me a huge hug, a very sexy kiss, and with a great push, let me go. Then He said: "Take off girl, you are on your own. Have fun." With that I flew - He disappeared and I was still flying - I looked around and lo, there were other people flying too - We waved to each other and called - They were there but I flew alone and free. I am still flying.
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