[00:00:00 - 00:00:08] Now, years later and with years of reflection on these things, I can still discern in that [00:00:08 - 00:00:14] earliest experience many of the motifs that have persisted through the years and remained [00:00:14 - 00:00:15] mysterious. [00:00:15 - 00:00:20] At one point during the evening, Dennis and I both seem to be able to see and describe [00:00:20 - 00:00:23] the same hallucination. [00:00:23 - 00:00:29] Often on over the years this has happened several times with psilocybin, and the wonder [00:00:29 - 00:00:33] of it does not change. [00:00:33 - 00:00:39] Even in those early mushroom experiences at La Churrera, there was an aura of the animate [00:00:39 - 00:00:45] and the strange that focused in the idea that the mushroom was somehow more than a plant [00:00:45 - 00:00:52] hallucinogen or even a shamanic ally of the classical sort, that it was in fact a kind [00:00:52 - 00:01:00] of intelligent entity, not of earth, alien, and able to present itself during the trance [00:01:00 - 00:01:06] as a presence in the inward turned perceptions of its beholder. [00:01:06 - 00:01:12] In the days following our lives, the lives of my brother and myself underwent a tremendous [00:01:12 - 00:01:15] and bizarre transformation. [00:01:15 - 00:01:19] It was not until Jacques Vallée had written of the absurd element that is invariably a [00:01:19 - 00:01:26] part of the situation in which contact with a UFO occurs that I found the courage to again [00:01:26 - 00:01:33] examine the events at La Churrera, to try to fit them into some general pattern. [00:01:33 - 00:01:39] I have told various parts of our story over the years, never revealing the entire incredible [00:01:39 - 00:01:45] structure to any one listener because of what I knew it seemed to imply about our mental [00:01:45 - 00:01:49] condition during the time of the experience. [00:01:49 - 00:01:56] Any story of UFO contact is going to be incredible enough by itself, but central to our story [00:01:56 - 00:02:01] are the hallucinogenic drugs that we had been experimenting with. [00:02:01 - 00:02:08] The very fact that we were involved with such drugs as a method of triggering UFO contacts [00:02:08 - 00:02:14] would make any story we might eventually have to tell seem highly dubious to anyone not [00:02:14 - 00:02:19] sympathetic to the use of hallucinogens. [00:02:19 - 00:02:22] There were other difficulties with telling this story. [00:02:22 - 00:02:28] The events at La Churrera generated a great deal of controversy and subsequent bitterness [00:02:28 - 00:02:35] among the participants because several ideas of what was taking place were represented, [00:02:35 - 00:02:43] each basing itself on data unavailable or deemed ipso facto irrelevant by the competing [00:02:43 - 00:02:46] interpretations. [00:02:46 - 00:02:50] We were poorly prepared for the events that overwhelmed us. [00:02:50 - 00:02:57] We began as naive observers of something we knew not what, and because our involvement [00:02:57 - 00:03:03] with this phenomenon went on for many days, we were able to observe many aspects of it, [00:03:03 - 00:03:10] and I was able to satisfy myself that generally the method of approach which is told of here [00:03:10 - 00:03:18] is effective for triggering whatever it is that we call the UFO contact experience. [00:03:18 - 00:03:23] It may also be dangerous. [00:03:23 - 00:03:28] The journal entry above refers to our first Stropharia trip at La Churrera. [00:03:28 - 00:03:35] It occurred on the 22nd of February, '71, only a little more than 24 hours after our [00:03:35 - 00:03:41] arrival at La Churrera, following the four-day walk through the jungle from San Jose del [00:03:41 - 00:03:45] Encanto on the Rio Caraparaná. [00:03:45 - 00:03:48] That entry makes it clear that I was spellbound. [00:03:48 - 00:03:54] It was the last thing that I could bring myself to write for several weeks, though I did not [00:03:54 - 00:03:58] realize it as I sat writing in the sunlight that morning. [00:03:58 - 00:04:01] I was suffused with contentment. [00:04:01 - 00:04:07] I knew only that the mushroom was the best hallucinogen I had ever had, that it had a [00:04:07 - 00:04:11] quality of aliveness that I had never known before. [00:04:11 - 00:04:17] It seemed to open doorways into places that I had assumed would always be closed to me [00:04:17 - 00:04:21] because of my insistence on analysis and realism. [00:04:21 - 00:04:27] I had never had psilocybin before and was amazed at the difference from LSD, which seemed [00:04:27 - 00:04:32] more abrasively psychoanalytic and personality-oriented. [00:04:32 - 00:04:39] In contrast, the mushroom seemed so full of merry, elfin energy that casting off into the [00:04:39 - 00:04:42] drug trance was made more enticing. [00:04:42 - 00:04:49] Nothing of the magnitude of the forces even then gathering around our small expedition [00:04:49 - 00:04:51] was sensed by me. [00:04:51 - 00:04:56] I was thinking in terms like, "It's great that these mushrooms are here. [00:04:56 - 00:05:02] Even if we don't find ukuhei or yahei, we will always have them to fall back on, and [00:05:02 - 00:05:06] certainly they are interesting." [00:05:06 - 00:05:11] Our plan was to spend about three months slowly getting to know the botanical and social situation [00:05:11 - 00:05:18] among the Wittoto, living traditionally in a village about fourteen kilometers down a [00:05:18 - 00:05:23] trail from the mission on the Agaraparaná at La Churrera. [00:05:23 - 00:05:27] We knew ukuhei was secret, and we were in no hurry. [00:05:27 - 00:05:33] So the day after our first mushroom experience was spent checking our equipment after the [00:05:33 - 00:05:39] rigors of the overland walk and generally relaxing in the casita to which Father José [00:05:39 - 00:05:44] María, the capuchin in charge, had kindly shown us. [00:05:44 - 00:05:49] We gathered more mushrooms that afternoon and dried them near the cooking fire. [00:05:49 - 00:05:53] That evening I pulverized them and made them into a snuff. [00:05:53 - 00:05:58] It was delicious, like some chocolate-related essence. [00:05:58 - 00:06:02] We all snuffed it and it was generally thought a success. [00:06:02 - 00:06:08] I felt elated, very pleased with everything, and impressed with what an extraordinarily [00:06:08 - 00:06:11] beautiful place we had come to be in. [00:06:11 - 00:06:15] We decided that we would take mushrooms again that night. [00:06:15 - 00:06:18] It was a different sort of experience. [00:06:18 - 00:06:23] As we sat around waiting to get stoned, there was a lot of nitpicking going on between Vanessa [00:06:23 - 00:06:25] and Denis. [00:06:25 - 00:06:29] Up to this point, Denis had not come forward as a personality at all. [00:06:29 - 00:06:37] Finally, he had apparently had enough of Vanessa and said, "You know, you're pretty weird, [00:06:37 - 00:06:40] and I'm going to tell you why." [00:06:40 - 00:06:47] I was amazed because as he talked he gave perfect expression to my own thoughts on Vanessa. [00:06:47 - 00:06:50] There was no tension in the situation for me. [00:06:50 - 00:06:55] Someone else was wrapping it down to her how she was out of line, but then after a few [00:06:55 - 00:07:00] minutes I felt very odd because I felt like Sia. [00:07:00 - 00:07:02] Weird. [00:07:02 - 00:07:04] I feel like this other person. [00:07:04 - 00:07:10] I don't know what this guy feels like, but I feel the way I imagine he must feel. [00:07:10 - 00:07:16] We were trying to smoke some grass and then I said, "Smoking makes it easier to hallucinate. [00:07:16 - 00:07:18] Look to get higher." [00:07:18 - 00:07:23] Denis was having trouble with the matches, fumbling and fumbling. [00:07:23 - 00:07:24] What's the problem? [00:07:24 - 00:07:25] Just light the match. [00:07:25 - 00:07:29] Would you light the match? [00:07:29 - 00:07:33] We were all crossed up and so we came down. [00:07:33 - 00:07:36] It was disappointing. [00:07:36 - 00:07:42] The next day was spent relaxing, catching up on insect and plant collecting, washing [00:07:42 - 00:07:47] clothes and chatting with the priest and brother in residence. [00:07:47 - 00:07:51] Through them we put out the word that we were interested in people who knew things about [00:07:51 - 00:07:53] medicinal plants. [00:07:53 - 00:07:59] That afternoon a young Wittoto named Basilio came to the casita and having heard of our [00:07:59 - 00:08:06] interest from the priest offered to take us to see his father, a shaman with a local reputation. [00:08:06 - 00:08:10] Basilio assumed that we were interested in Yah-He. [00:08:10 - 00:08:13] It is the better known hallucinogen in the area. [00:08:13 - 00:08:16] It is generally available for the asking. [00:08:16 - 00:08:20] The Uku-He was a much more sensitive subject. [00:08:20 - 00:08:25] At La Churrera a month or two before we had arrived there had been a murder, actually [00:08:25 - 00:08:28] several murders and attempted murder. [00:08:28 - 00:08:32] It all had to do with Uku-He. [00:08:32 - 00:08:37] Supposedly a shaman had murdered one of two shaman brothers by painting the top rung of [00:08:37 - 00:08:40] a ladder with the DMT resin. [00:08:40 - 00:08:45] When the victim had grabbed the rung the resin had absorbed through his fingers and he had [00:08:45 - 00:08:51] gotten vertigo and had fallen breaking his neck. [00:08:51 - 00:08:56] The shaman whose brother had been killed struck back by causing an accident. [00:08:56 - 00:09:03] The alleged murderers wife, daughter and grandchild had been in a canoe above the Choro and unaccountably [00:09:03 - 00:09:08] unable to reach the shore they had been swept over it. [00:09:08 - 00:09:11] It was said they were victims of magic. [00:09:11 - 00:09:13] Only the wife had lived through it. [00:09:13 - 00:09:19] It was not the time to be asking about Uku-He. [00:09:19 - 00:09:24] Basilio insisted that the Yah-He was a day up river at his father's Maloca. [00:09:24 - 00:09:28] He had a small canoe so only two of us could go with him. [00:09:28 - 00:09:32] After consultation it was decided that Ev and I should go. [00:09:32 - 00:09:38] We left at once for the river and I took my film canister of snuff with us. [00:09:38 - 00:09:42] Calm was the day and blue the sky. [00:09:42 - 00:09:47] An extraordinary peace and deathless serenity seemed to touch everything. [00:09:47 - 00:09:52] It was as if the whole earth was softly exhaling its exhilaration. [00:09:52 - 00:09:58] Had such a mood developed no further it would have passed into being but a pleasant memory. [00:09:58 - 00:10:04] In the light of later events I now look back on that afternoon of deepening contentment [00:10:04 - 00:10:12] and almost bucolic relaxation as the first faint stirring of the current that was shortly [00:10:12 - 00:10:17] to sweep me toward unimaginably titanic emotions. [00:10:17 - 00:10:22] Our new Witoto acquaintances were very kind, a different sort from the Witoto of San Jose [00:10:22 - 00:10:24] del Encanto. [00:10:24 - 00:10:29] We were shown their cultivated Yah-He plants and given cuttings and a bundle of the vine [00:10:29 - 00:10:32] so that we could make our own ayahuasca. [00:10:32 - 00:10:40] Basilio described to us his own single experience with Yah-He when several years before after [00:10:40 - 00:10:45] days of fever from an unknown cause he had taken it with his father. [00:10:45 - 00:10:52] He described the Yah-He as a cold water infusion, rare for that area where vigorous boiling [00:10:52 - 00:10:55] usually plays a part in the preparation. [00:10:55 - 00:11:00] After soaking the shredded Yah-He for a day and a night the unboiled water had become [00:11:00 - 00:11:03] hallucinogenically potent. [00:11:03 - 00:11:08] There had been many fences to cross in the visions, a sense of flying. [00:11:08 - 00:11:13] The father had seen the bad air from the mission that had weakened his son. [00:11:13 - 00:11:17] The mission was recognized as a place of ill omen. [00:11:17 - 00:11:23] After this experience Basilio recovered his health and was less often at the mission he [00:11:23 - 00:11:24] told us. [00:11:24 - 00:11:31] It was all very interesting, our first exposure to field conditions and accorded well with [00:11:31 - 00:11:36] our data on Yah-He usage and beliefs in the area. [00:11:36 - 00:11:40] We hung our hammocks in a small hut near the main maloca that night. [00:11:40 - 00:11:45] I dreamed of fences and the pasture back at the mission. [00:11:45 - 00:11:50] The next morning early we were rowed back to the mission by Basilio. [00:11:50 - 00:11:56] Our collections of banisteriopsis were reason for pride, but again I felt the elation whose [00:11:56 - 00:11:58] death could not be found. [00:11:58 - 00:12:05] "Peculiar," I muttered to myself as we swung inside of the mission, overlooking its lake [00:12:05 - 00:12:12] and placed on a sunny hill with a row of date palms sweeping up from the boat landing. [00:12:12 - 00:12:19] Very peculiar. [00:12:19 - 00:12:47] Chapter 5, A Brush With The Other. [00:12:47 - 00:12:52] Returning to our friends, we learned that in the few hours that we had been gone some [00:12:52 - 00:12:58] teachers expected to arrive to teach in the mission school had finally appeared. [00:12:58 - 00:13:04] They had been ferried in by a bush pilot, the notorious George Salikis, who served as [00:13:04 - 00:13:10] Lacherera's emergency link to the outside world and who brought the mail once a month. [00:13:10 - 00:13:16] We were out of lodging for it had been the Professores' Quarters that we had been staying [00:13:16 - 00:13:17] in. [00:13:17 - 00:13:23] Not precisely out of lodging, the priest having offered us the temporary use of a run-down [00:13:23 - 00:13:30] hut that stood on stilts on a small rise below the mission but well above the broad lake [00:13:30 - 00:13:35] that is caused by the Choro which gave Lacherera its name. [00:13:35 - 00:13:39] The word means narrow channel or chute. [00:13:39 - 00:13:45] It was in this small hut instantly christened the Knoll House that we proposed to live while [00:13:45 - 00:13:50] we arranged to move further into the nearby jungle and away from the somewhat confining [00:13:50 - 00:13:53] atmosphere of the mission. [00:13:53 - 00:13:58] We rested, passed a joint around and planned our next move. [00:13:58 - 00:14:03] In conversations with the brother, Dave and Vanessa had learned that there was a quite [00:14:03 - 00:14:09] sturdy Wittoto house unused and lying down the trail toward the village where our hopes [00:14:09 - 00:14:12] were Ukuhi centered. [00:14:12 - 00:14:17] It normally stood empty but was now occupied by the people who had brought their children [00:14:17 - 00:14:21] to the mission for the beginning of the school year. [00:14:21 - 00:14:26] It is the practice of the Wittoto to leave their children in the keeping of the Padres [00:14:26 - 00:14:32] for six or more months out of the year, the effect of which on the social self-image of [00:14:32 - 00:14:35] the children is easily imagined. [00:14:35 - 00:14:40] Children were coming from all directions, being brought by their parents who would then [00:14:40 - 00:14:45] return to their own villages until time to reclaim the children. [00:14:45 - 00:14:50] These times of gathering at the mission at the beginning and end of the school year are [00:14:50 - 00:14:56] high points of the Wittoto social swirl and an excuse for soccer games and night bilays [00:14:56 - 00:15:00] for the Wittoto or inveterate dancers. [00:15:00 - 00:15:06] We were in the midst of such a gathering time but in a few days all the families would leave [00:15:06 - 00:15:10] and there would be ample empty housing in the jungle. [00:15:10 - 00:15:16] Dave, Dennis and Vanessa had already inspected one place and determined it to be ideal, close [00:15:16 - 00:15:22] to good insect and plant collecting and definitely in the jungle itself. [00:15:22 - 00:15:27] We transferred our equipment to the Knoll house and re-slung our hammocks. [00:15:27 - 00:15:31] It was cramped but would do until we could move into the forest. [00:15:31 - 00:15:37] Then almost in a collective motion, we set out in the early afternoon to the pasture [00:15:37 - 00:15:40] behind the mission. [00:15:40 - 00:15:41] Find the mushrooms. [00:15:41 - 00:15:44] That was the thought on everyone's mind. [00:15:44 - 00:15:51] We returned at evening to the house, each with six or eight carefully chosen specimens. [00:15:51 - 00:15:58] These we ate and then as the evening's trip deepened, we smoked joints rolled out of shavings [00:15:58 - 00:16:02] of the freshly gathered banisteriopsis copy. [00:16:02 - 00:16:04] The copy smoke was delicious. [00:16:04 - 00:16:11] It smelled like light incense and each toke synergized beautiful slow motion volleys of [00:16:11 - 00:16:18] delicate hallucinations which we immediately dubbed vegetable television. [00:16:18 - 00:16:23] Each burst of imagery would last about 15 minutes and subside. [00:16:23 - 00:16:27] Then it was time to take another hit of the copy smoke. [00:16:27 - 00:16:30] The effects persisted a couple of hours. [00:16:30 - 00:16:35] We triggered it repeatedly and excitedly discussed it as an example of the sort of things that [00:16:35 - 00:16:41] sophisticated shamanic technicians have been whipping up for each other's amazement since [00:16:41 - 00:16:43] the late Paleolithic. [00:16:43 - 00:16:48] Our conversation drifted toward and around the possibilities of violations of normal [00:16:48 - 00:16:55] physics and the psychological versus naive realist views of shamanic phenomena, especially [00:16:55 - 00:17:01] the obsidian liquids that ayahuascaros are said to produce on the surface of their skins [00:17:01 - 00:17:04] and used to look into time. [00:17:04 - 00:17:10] The question of whether or not such things are possible is actually a more gut issue [00:17:10 - 00:17:11] in disguise. [00:17:11 - 00:17:17] The issue of whether what we moderns have remaining to learn about the nature of reality [00:17:17 - 00:17:24] is really not very much and will require only light fine tuning of our way of looking at [00:17:24 - 00:17:31] reality, versus the idea that we know very little and our understanding is very crude, [00:17:31 - 00:17:37] missing the point entirely about the nature of our situation in being. [00:17:37 - 00:17:39] Conversation waxed hot and heavy. [00:17:39 - 00:17:45] Ev, Dennis, and I, passionate defenders of the latter view, Vanessa and Dave insisting [00:17:45 - 00:17:50] on a psychological reductionist approach to the unusual events. [00:17:50 - 00:17:56] With ideology forgotten, they then denounced the passion of our commitment as obsession, [00:17:56 - 00:18:01] and we responded by saying that they repressed the real power of the unconscious and that [00:18:01 - 00:18:08] if they were with us trying to vindicate some behaviorist, materialist view of man, then [00:18:08 - 00:18:13] they would be in for a surprise, and so on. [00:18:13 - 00:18:18] Tension had simmered under the surface for weeks, and the life of an expedition is full [00:18:18 - 00:18:23] of stress and aggravated difference, but I believe that the real point of tension even [00:18:23 - 00:18:29] then was the sense of something in the mushroom experience that was pulling everyone toward [00:18:29 - 00:18:36] it or at least precipitating a situation where one had to decide whether to go deeper into [00:18:36 - 00:18:40] a dimension whose outline ahead of us could not be seen. [00:18:40 - 00:18:45] Each trip was a learning experience with an unexpected conclusion. [00:18:45 - 00:18:51] The three of us were delighted, psychedelic, ready to strip down and climb into the alchemical [00:18:51 - 00:18:55] fountain and take the measure of the thing from the inside. [00:18:55 - 00:19:01] Call it Faustian, call it obsessed, that was our position. [00:19:01 - 00:19:07] I called it continuing the program of investigations that brought us to La Chorrera in the first [00:19:07 - 00:19:13] place, for Vanessa and Dave the reality of the dimension we were exploring, or rather [00:19:13 - 00:19:19] our growing insistence that somehow it was a dimension with elements more than psychological [00:19:19 - 00:19:22] was operating like a threat. [00:19:22 - 00:19:29] There we were, a group sharing a common set of symbols, completely isolated in the jungle, [00:19:29 - 00:19:35] struggling with an epistemological problem upon whose solution our sanity would eventually [00:19:35 - 00:19:40] seem to depend. [00:19:40 - 00:19:47] And so, and in short, Dave and Vanessa withdrew from us, withdrew from the excited speculative [00:19:47 - 00:19:52] conversations with their intimations of the possibility of being overwhelmed from the [00:19:52 - 00:19:53] unseen. [00:19:53 - 00:19:59] There were no arguments or scenes, but a tacit and mutual understanding that a fork in the [00:19:59 - 00:20:04] road had been reached and that some of us were committed to going deeper into the idea [00:20:04 - 00:20:10] systems of the mushroom trance, and some were disturbed by the sudden depth of things and [00:20:10 - 00:20:13] preferred to pass on this occasion. [00:20:13 - 00:20:18] The cramped Knoll house and the polarizing of two approaches toward further tripping [00:20:18 - 00:20:25] combined to inspire Vanessa to expand her checker playing contacts with the police garrison [00:20:25 - 00:20:28] of three very displaced young Colombians. [00:20:28 - 00:20:34] After several closely fought games, she had a full-fledged invitation to relieve our crowded [00:20:34 - 00:20:41] conditions by moving with Dave into an unused riverside house nominally in the care of the [00:20:41 - 00:20:42] police. [00:20:42 - 00:20:48] Later, this house, which was at the river landing of La Churrera, would be the site [00:20:48 - 00:20:54] of my own UFO encounter, but that was in a future long days away from the afternoon of [00:20:54 - 00:21:00] our vegetable television trip when Vanessa and Dave took down their hammocks and moved [00:21:00 - 00:21:05] down the hill to the promptly named Riverside House. [00:21:05 - 00:21:09] It was a beautiful day and their departure was friendly. [00:21:09 - 00:21:12] They would spend more time in the water now, Vanessa laughed. [00:21:12 - 00:21:16] It was the sixth day of our residence at La Churrera. [00:21:16 - 00:21:19] We had taken the mushrooms three times. [00:21:19 - 00:21:25] We were healthy, relaxed, and delighted with ourselves for having come so far in such good [00:21:25 - 00:21:26] shape. [00:21:26 - 00:21:31] There were insects and plants to collect and the lake beneath the Choro to swim in. [00:21:31 - 00:21:37] My new relationship with Ev seemed promising and well-launched by then. [00:21:37 - 00:21:42] We were being lulled by the warm tropical sun in the depthless blue sky. [00:21:42 - 00:21:46] Something was about to happen. [00:21:46 - 00:21:52] After the departure of our two friends, we each lay in our own hammock, lost in thought [00:21:52 - 00:21:56] as the heat and insect shrill built toward midday. [00:21:56 - 00:22:04] My journal entries had already ceased, my busy writing now replaced by long flights of reverie, [00:22:04 - 00:22:10] dizzying and beautiful, the faint traces of the deepening of the contact, though I did [00:22:10 - 00:22:14] not then recognize it for that. [00:22:14 - 00:22:17] Another warm night was upon us and we slept long and well. [00:22:17 - 00:22:23] When the morning ground fogs had burned away, this new day was revealed to be as pristine [00:22:23 - 00:22:30] and as flawless as the days always seem to be in this marvelously beautiful jungle-isolated [00:22:30 - 00:22:32] settlement. [00:22:32 - 00:22:51] Each day seemed like a pearl born from the warm and starry night preceding. [00:22:51 - 00:23:20] [Birds chirping] [00:23:20 - 00:23:25] We used that day to explore the lake edge in the direction of the Choro. [00:23:25 - 00:23:28] It is an extraordinary landform. [00:23:28 - 00:23:33] The Choro, with its abrupt narrowing of the Egaloparaná and sudden terrible increase of [00:23:33 - 00:23:37] power and speed, is impressive enough. [00:23:37 - 00:23:42] But the lake into which the Choro empties its waters is no mere catch basin for the [00:23:42 - 00:23:43] rapids. [00:23:43 - 00:23:50] Rather, it is the site of some ancient geological catastrophe that shattered the basaltic layer [00:23:50 - 00:23:56] deep beneath the earth's surface, peeling back a great hole and laying thousands of [00:23:56 - 00:24:02] house-sized rock fragments on the cliff-edged northern side of the lake. [00:24:02 - 00:24:07] The mission is perched on the top of this basaltic knoll and is the highest point in [00:24:07 - 00:24:12] the immediate vicinity. [00:24:12 - 00:24:17] We made our way along the bluffs leading to the Choro, their steepness increasing finely [00:24:17 - 00:24:22] to the point that we could go no further, but at that distance the ground was shuddering [00:24:22 - 00:24:28] with the throbbing reverberations of the millions of tons of water cascading through the rock [00:24:28 - 00:24:31] walls of the Choro nearby. [00:24:31 - 00:24:37] Unusual ground-clinging plants seemed endemic there in that turbulent atmosphere of mist-whipped [00:24:37 - 00:24:40] sand and thundering noise. [00:24:40 - 00:24:47] The feeling of being so small among such sharply shattered stone and close to such energy [00:24:47 - 00:24:51] was eerie and somewhat disturbing. [00:24:51 - 00:24:56] I felt a very considerable amount of relief as we climbed hand over hand up the bluffs [00:24:56 - 00:25:01] and made our way back through the meadows and pastures that the mission had cleared [00:25:01 - 00:25:08] over the years with the free labor of the Wetoto children. [00:25:08 - 00:25:16] Once back on level ground and still well within the aura of sound made by the Choro, we rested. [00:25:16 - 00:25:21] There on the point of land overlooking the entire surrounding area, the mission had established [00:25:21 - 00:25:24] a small cemetery. [00:25:24 - 00:25:30] Within the rudely-fenced hexagonal area, perhaps two dozen graves, many of them obviously of [00:25:30 - 00:25:34] children, were eroding away. [00:25:34 - 00:25:39] The shocking red of the lateritic soil was laid bare here. [00:25:39 - 00:25:44] It was a place touched with sad loneliness even on a perfect sunny day. [00:25:44 - 00:25:49] Our respite finished, we hurried away from the odd combination of emptiness, solitude, [00:25:49 - 00:25:53] and the distant roar of moving water. [00:25:53 - 00:25:59] Our walk and the exposure to so much sun and stone sent us as if by instinct toward the [00:25:59 - 00:26:04] unbroken green wall of the jungle across the pastures behind the mission. [00:26:04 - 00:26:11] Broad sandy trails led to the system of Wetoto, Bora, and Mu'inani villages that are the indigenous [00:26:11 - 00:26:20] component of Commissaria Amazonas, the rest being a few missions, police, and unclassifiables, [00:26:20 - 00:26:24] traders mostly, and ourselves. [00:26:24 - 00:26:30] We wandered down the trail, checked on our home-to-be, and found it still occupied. [00:26:30 - 00:26:37] Returning through the pastures under a spectacular sunset, we gathered more mushrooms, enough [00:26:37 - 00:26:42] for Ev, Dennis, and me to each take more than we ever had before. [00:26:42 - 00:26:44] How much? [00:26:44 - 00:26:48] Perhaps 20 mushrooms apiece. [00:26:48 - 00:26:53] It was during that walk through the pasture that I noticed for the first time, or at least [00:26:53 - 00:26:59] mentioned for the first time, that everything was very beautiful, and I felt so good that [00:26:59 - 00:27:07] there was a strange sense of being in a movie, or somehow larger than life. [00:27:07 - 00:27:12] Even the sky seemed to have a slight fish-eye lens effect, as though everything was slightly [00:27:12 - 00:27:14] cinematic. [00:27:14 - 00:27:15] What was this? [00:27:15 - 00:27:22] Was it a slight distortion of space brought on by accumulating levels of psilocybin? [00:27:22 - 00:27:25] Psilocybin can induce similar kinds of perceptual distortions. [00:27:25 - 00:27:30] I felt 10 feet high, just a touch of the superhuman. [00:27:30 - 00:27:58] It was odd, but very pleasing. [00:27:58 - 00:28:04] Back at the Knoll house, we kindled a fire and boiled rice for a light supper. [00:28:04 - 00:28:07] Rain was falling intermittently. [00:28:07 - 00:28:12] After dinner, we smoked and waited long, thinking that Vanessa and Dave might visit. [00:28:12 - 00:28:17] Finally, it began to drizzle a bit harder, and so we drew ourselves forward and each [00:28:17 - 00:28:20] ate a large pile of mushrooms. [00:28:20 - 00:28:26] The onset of the stropharia was rapid, and the hallucinations very vivid. [00:28:26 - 00:28:30] But after an hour or so, the experience did not seem to be particularly different from [00:28:30 - 00:28:34] the earlier trips, in spite of the larger dose. [00:28:34 - 00:28:39] We had come out of our reveries and were conversing softly about our reactions. [00:28:39 - 00:28:45] Dennis complained that he felt blocked from a deep connection by concern for our father [00:28:45 - 00:28:51] in Colorado, whether or not our last messages to him before setting off down the Rio Putumayo [00:28:51 - 00:28:55] had reached him before he went on his vacation. [00:28:55 - 00:29:03] Dennis seemed melancholy, a state of homesickness in combination with a hallucinogen, I supposed. [00:29:03 - 00:29:08] I tried to reassure him, and we talked softly in the darkness for several minutes. [00:29:08 - 00:29:14] He said that his trip consisted of many things, a suffusing inner heat and a strange, audial [00:29:14 - 00:29:20] buzzing that gave him, so he said, insight into audial and linguistic phenomena that [00:29:20 - 00:29:25] I had experienced on DMT and described to him before. [00:29:25 - 00:29:30] I asked him to imitate the sounds that he was hearing, but he seemed to think it not [00:29:30 - 00:29:31] possible. [00:29:31 - 00:29:36] While we talked, the drizzle had lifted somewhat, and we could faintly hear the sound of a transistor [00:29:36 - 00:29:42] radio being carried by someone who had chosen the letup in the storm to make their way up [00:29:42 - 00:29:48] the hill on a small path that passed a few feet from our hut. [00:29:48 - 00:29:54] Our conversation stopped, and we listened as the small radio sound drew near and then [00:29:54 - 00:29:58] began to fade. [00:29:58 - 00:30:04] At that moment, Dennis gave forth with a very machine-like, loud, dry buzz. [00:30:04 - 00:30:09] His body became stiff for a few seconds, in which this occurred. [00:30:09 - 00:30:14] After a moment's silence, he broke into a frightened series of excited questions. [00:30:14 - 00:30:15] "What happened?" [00:30:15 - 00:30:16] "What happened?" [00:30:16 - 00:30:17] "I don't want to become a giant insect." [00:30:17 - 00:30:21] "And most memorably, 'I don't want to become a giant insect.'" [00:30:21 - 00:30:25] He was very disturbed by what had happened, and Ev and I both talked to him and attempted [00:30:25 - 00:30:27] to calm him. [00:30:27 - 00:30:33] It was obvious that what to us had seemed only a strange sound had had far different [00:30:33 - 00:30:35] effects on the person who made it. [00:30:35 - 00:30:41] I understood his predicament because it was familiar to me from DMT experiences where [00:30:41 - 00:30:47] a kind of glossolalia of thought that seemed to me the very embodiment of meaning seemed [00:30:47 - 00:30:52] mere gibberish when verbalized and heard by other people. [00:30:52 - 00:30:57] Dennis spoke of tremendous energy in the sound and said that he had felt it like a physical [00:30:57 - 00:31:00] force of some kind. [00:31:00 - 00:31:05] We discussed it for several minutes, and finally Dennis decided that he wished to attempt the [00:31:05 - 00:31:07] effect again. [00:31:07 - 00:31:09] This he did, but for a much shorter time. [00:31:09 - 00:31:15] He again reported that the subjective experience was of great energy being unleashed. [00:31:15 - 00:31:22] He said that he felt as though he might leave the ground if he directed his voice downward. [00:31:22 - 00:31:29] We discussed the effect in terms of sound possibly having a synergistic effect on metabolizing [00:31:29 - 00:31:31] drugs. [00:31:31 - 00:31:35] Dennis vowed that from the inside it felt like the acquisition of a shamanic power of [00:31:35 - 00:31:37] some sort. [00:31:37 - 00:31:43] He began pacing around and wishing that Vanessa would appear out of the gloom with her skepticism [00:31:43 - 00:31:48] which he felt would crumble when confronted with his testimony of the reality of a strange [00:31:48 - 00:31:49] effect. [00:31:49 - 00:31:55] I told him that she would only think of it as a strange sound in combination with a drug, [00:31:55 - 00:31:58] a drug she was growing uncertain of. [00:31:58 - 00:32:03] At one point he became so excited that we all three left the hut and stood looking out [00:32:03 - 00:32:05] into the pitch darkness. [00:32:05 - 00:32:10] Dennis was contemplating going immediately to find Vanessa and Dave to discuss with them [00:32:10 - 00:32:12] what had happened. [00:32:12 - 00:32:17] Suddenly a bewildered Dave and I convinced him to return to the hut and leave it all [00:32:17 - 00:32:19] for the morning. [00:32:19 - 00:32:24] Once back in the hut there was more talk and attempts to figure out what was going on. [00:32:24 - 00:32:28] I felt Dennis' amazement was perfectly reasonable. [00:32:28 - 00:32:33] My own encounter with the audio and linguistic powers of the tryptamine drugs had been what [00:32:33 - 00:32:38] had originally sent me looking into halocenogens and their place in nature. [00:32:38 - 00:32:44] It is an incredible experience to see all that you believe about reality changed around [00:32:44 - 00:32:46] by these compounds. [00:32:46 - 00:32:52] It is edifying and excitement is a reasonable reaction. [00:32:52 - 00:32:57] My brother and I had been close over the years and especially close since our mother's death, [00:32:57 - 00:33:03] yet there were experiences that I had had while traveling in Asia that we had not yet [00:33:03 - 00:33:09] shared to calm us all and to argue with the universality of the kind of experience he [00:33:09 - 00:33:11] had just had. [00:33:11 - 00:33:24] I told the following story. [00:33:24 - 00:33:28] Chapter 6 - Kathmandu Interlude [00:33:28 - 00:33:35] Two years before, during the spring and summer of '69, I lived in Nepal and studied the Tibetan [00:33:35 - 00:33:36] language. [00:33:36 - 00:33:42] The wave of interest in Buddhist studies was just beginning so that those of us in Nepal [00:33:42 - 00:33:46] with Tibetan interests were a tightly knit group. [00:33:46 - 00:33:50] My purpose in studying Tibetan was different from that of most Westerners involved with [00:33:50 - 00:33:53] the language in Nepal. [00:33:53 - 00:33:58] They were nearly all interested in some aspect of Mahayana Buddhist thought. [00:33:58 - 00:34:03] While I was interested in the religious tradition that antedated the introduction of Buddhism [00:34:03 - 00:34:06] into Tibet in the seventh century. [00:34:06 - 00:34:12] The indigenous pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet was a kind of shamanism closely related to [00:34:12 - 00:34:16] the classical shamanism of Siberia. [00:34:16 - 00:34:21] Tibetan folk shamanism is called Phön and it continues to be practiced today in the [00:34:21 - 00:34:26] mountainous area of Nepal that borders Tibet. [00:34:26 - 00:34:31] Practitioners of Phön are usually despised by the Buddhist community being thought of [00:34:31 - 00:34:34] as heretics and generally low types. [00:34:34 - 00:34:40] My interest in Phön and its practitioners, the Phönpo, arose out of an interest in Tibetan [00:34:40 - 00:34:42] painting. [00:34:42 - 00:34:47] It is a commonplace of such painting that the most fantastic, extravagant and ferocious [00:34:47 - 00:34:53] images are drawn from the pre-Buddhist substratum of folk imagery. [00:34:53 - 00:34:59] The terrifying multi-armed and multi-headed guardians of the Buddhist teaching called [00:34:59 - 00:35:06] Dharmapalas with their aureoles of flame and light are autothinous Phön deities whose [00:35:06 - 00:35:12] allegiance to the late arriving Buddhist religion is maintained only by powerful spells [00:35:12 - 00:35:22] and rituals which bind and secure these forceful demons. [00:35:22 - 00:35:27] It seemed to me that the shamanic tradition that spawns such outlandish and fantastic [00:35:27 - 00:35:33] images must have at some time had the knowledge of a hallucinogenic plant. [00:35:33 - 00:35:39] Shamanic ecstasy in Siberia was attained through the use of Amanita muscaria and R.G. [00:35:39 - 00:35:44] Wasson has made a good case for the use of the same mushroom in Vedic India. [00:35:44 - 00:35:50] Since Tibet is situated roughly between these two areas, it did not seem impossible that [00:35:50 - 00:35:57] before the coming of Buddhism, hallucinogens were part of the indigenous shamanic tradition. [00:35:57 - 00:36:03] Amanita muscaria was only one of several plants that might have served as a hallucinogen in [00:36:03 - 00:36:04] ancient Tibet. [00:36:04 - 00:36:09] Pagamen harmala of the zygophilaceae is another hallucinogen. [00:36:09 - 00:36:16] It like Banisteriopsis copy contains the hallucinogenic alkaloid harmin in considerable quantities [00:36:16 - 00:36:21] and is probably a hallucinogen by itself. [00:36:21 - 00:36:27] Certainly in combination with a DMT containing plant of which the flora of India boast several, [00:36:27 - 00:36:33] Arundhodonax for example, it should yield a strong hallucinogen whose composition would [00:36:33 - 00:36:39] not differ chemically from the ayahuasca and yahe bruise of Amazonas. [00:36:39 - 00:36:45] My interest in Tibetan painting and hallucinogenic shamanism led me to Nepal. [00:36:45 - 00:36:51] I had learned that there were refugee camps in Nepal and near Simla in India whose populations [00:36:51 - 00:36:57] were nearly entirely outclassed ponpo, unwelcome in the camps where Buddhist refugees were [00:36:57 - 00:36:58] housed. [00:36:58 - 00:37:04] I wanted to learn from the ponpo whatever they still retained of any knowledge of hallucinogens [00:37:04 - 00:37:07] that they might once have had. [00:37:07 - 00:37:12] I was convinced that the original source of the fantastic images in Tibetan painting must [00:37:12 - 00:37:16] be a shamanic use of plant hallucinogens. [00:37:16 - 00:37:24] I wished in my naivete to prove this idea and to write a monograph about it. [00:37:24 - 00:37:29] As soon as I arrived in Asia, the enormity of the task and effort that it would require [00:37:29 - 00:37:33] were seen more nearly in their correct proportions. [00:37:33 - 00:37:39] My proposed project was actually an outline for a life of scholarly research. [00:37:39 - 00:37:43] Eventually I found that nothing could be done at all until I was familiar with the Tibetan [00:37:43 - 00:37:45] language. [00:37:45 - 00:37:51] I put aside all the ideas I had hoped eventually to research and instead resolved simply to [00:37:51 - 00:37:57] dedicate myself to learning as much Tibetan as I could in the few months that circumstances [00:37:57 - 00:38:00] gave me in Nepal. [00:38:00 - 00:38:07] I moved out of Kathmandu, away from the pleasures of the hashish dens and the social swirl of [00:38:07 - 00:38:13] the international community of travelers, smugglers, and adventurers that had made Kathmandu [00:38:13 - 00:38:15] its own. [00:38:15 - 00:38:21] I moved to Bodhanath, a small village of great antiquity a few miles east of Kathmandu and [00:38:21 - 00:38:27] recently flooded with Tibetans from Hlasa, people who spoke the Hlasa dialect that is [00:38:27 - 00:38:30] understood throughout the Himalayas. [00:38:30 - 00:38:35] The people of the village were Buddhist and I made my arrangements to study with the [00:38:35 - 00:38:41] monks there without mentioning my interest in the Ponpo, a tradition considered by them [00:38:41 - 00:38:43] debased and pagan. [00:38:43 - 00:38:50] I sought lodging and came to terms with Dhanbadu, the local miller and a naiwari. [00:38:50 - 00:38:55] He agreed to rent a room on the third floor of his prosperous adobe house which fronted [00:38:55 - 00:38:58] the muddy main street of Bodhanath. [00:38:58 - 00:39:04] I struck a bargain with a local girl who agreed to bring me fresh water each day and I settled [00:39:04 - 00:39:06] comfortably in. [00:39:06 - 00:39:12] I whitewashed the adobe walls of my room, commissioned a huge mosquito net in the market [00:39:12 - 00:39:18] in Kathmandu, and arranged my books and small Tibetan bench inside. [00:39:18 - 00:39:25] I was very comfortable and treasured my existence as a traveler and scholar. [00:39:25 - 00:39:28] Tashi Yaltzin Lama was my teacher. [00:39:28 - 00:39:32] He was a very kind and understanding galukpa. [00:39:32 - 00:39:37] In spite of his age, he would arrive every morning promptly at seven for our two hour [00:39:37 - 00:39:38] lesson. [00:39:38 - 00:39:40] I was like a child. [00:39:40 - 00:39:43] We began with penmanship and the alphabet. [00:39:43 - 00:39:48] Each morning after the lama departed, I would study for several more hours and then the [00:39:48 - 00:39:50] rest of the day was my own. [00:39:50 - 00:39:57] I explored the King's Game Sanctuary further east of Bodhanath and the Hindu gods at nearby [00:39:57 - 00:39:58] Pashupatinath. [00:39:58 - 00:40:06] I also made the acquaintance of the few Westerners that were living in the vicinity. [00:40:06 - 00:40:10] Among those whom I met, there were an English couple of my own age. [00:40:10 - 00:40:13] They were self-consciously fascinating. [00:40:13 - 00:40:17] He was thin and blonde with an aquiline nose and an arched manner. [00:40:17 - 00:40:22] He was the model product of the British public school system. [00:40:22 - 00:40:26] Haughty and derbane, but eccentric and often hilarious. [00:40:26 - 00:40:29] She was small and unhealthily thin. [00:40:29 - 00:40:34] Scrawny is the word I used to describe her to myself. [00:40:34 - 00:40:40] She was from Somerset, red-haired and wild-tempered, cynical and like her companion with a razor [00:40:40 - 00:40:42] wit. [00:40:42 - 00:40:48] They had both been disowned by their families, were traveling hippies as we all were then. [00:40:48 - 00:40:50] Their relationship was bizarre. [00:40:50 - 00:40:55] They had stuck together from England, but the relaxing of tension which a rival in [00:40:55 - 00:41:01] bucolic Nepal had brought had been too much for their fragile liaison. [00:41:01 - 00:41:07] Now they lived apart, he at one end of Bodhanath and she alone at the other, and they met only [00:41:07 - 00:41:15] for the combined purpose of visiting someone or of abrading each other's nerves. [00:41:15 - 00:41:19] In that exotic setting, they managed to charm me completely. [00:41:19 - 00:41:24] Whether alone or together, I was always interested to pause from my studies and to pass some [00:41:24 - 00:41:26] time with them. [00:41:26 - 00:41:31] Naturally we discussed my work at times and since it involved hallucinogens, they were [00:41:31 - 00:41:37] very interested being familiar with LSD from their days in the London scene. [00:41:37 - 00:41:42] We discovered that we had mutual friends in India, that we all loved the novels of Thomas [00:41:42 - 00:41:43] Hardy. [00:41:43 - 00:41:45] We became fast friends. [00:41:45 - 00:41:50] It was a pleasant time. [00:41:50 - 00:41:55] During this time, my personally evolved method for probing the shamanic dimension was to [00:41:55 - 00:42:00] smoke DMT at the peak point of an LSD experience. [00:42:00 - 00:42:05] I would do this whenever I took LSD, which was quite occasionally, and it would allow [00:42:05 - 00:42:10] me to enter the tryptamine dimension for a slightly extended period of time. [00:42:10 - 00:42:17] As the summer solstice of '69 approached, I laid plans for such an experiment. [00:42:17 - 00:42:22] I would take LSD the night of the solstice and sit up all night on my roof smoking hashish [00:42:22 - 00:42:24] and stargazing. [00:42:24 - 00:42:30] I mentioned my plan to my two English friends and they expressed a desire to join me. [00:42:30 - 00:42:35] This was fine with me, but the problem was that there was not enough reliable LSD for [00:42:35 - 00:42:37] them to take any. [00:42:37 - 00:42:43] My own tiny supply had arrived in Kathmandu, prophetically hidden inside a small ceramic [00:42:43 - 00:42:46] mushroom mailed from Aspen. [00:42:46 - 00:42:52] Just as a joke, I suggested that they substitute the seeds of the Himalayan detura, detura [00:42:52 - 00:42:55] metal, for the LSD. [00:42:55 - 00:43:03] Deturas are the source of a number of tropane alkaloids, scopolamine, hyalcyamine, etc., [00:43:03 - 00:43:06] compounds which produce a pseudo-hallucinogenic effect. [00:43:06 - 00:43:13] They give an impression of flying or confronting visions, but all in a very hard to keep control [00:43:13 - 00:43:17] of and difficult to recollect later dimension. [00:43:17 - 00:43:24] The seeds of detura metal are used in Nepal by sadhus or wandering hermits and holy men, [00:43:24 - 00:43:27] so their use was not unknown in the area. [00:43:27 - 00:43:33] Nevertheless, my suggestion was made facetiously since the difficulty of controlling detura [00:43:33 - 00:43:35] is legendary. [00:43:35 - 00:43:40] To my surprise, my friends agreed that this was something they wanted to do. [00:43:40 - 00:43:45] We arranged that they would arrive at my home at six on the appointed day. [00:43:45 - 00:43:50] When the evening finally came, I moved my blankets and pipes up to the roof of the building. [00:43:50 - 00:43:54] From there I could command a fine view of the surrounding village with its enormous [00:43:54 - 00:43:57] stupa with staring eyes. [00:43:57 - 00:44:02] The upper golden levels of the stupa were at that time encased in scaffolding where [00:44:02 - 00:44:08] repairs necessitated by lightning strikes suffered some months previously were going [00:44:08 - 00:44:09] on. [00:44:09 - 00:44:15] The white domed bulk of the stupa gave the adobe mud village of Bodnath a Saucerian and [00:44:15 - 00:44:17] an earthly quality. [00:44:17 - 00:44:23] Further away, rising up many thousands of feet, I could see the great Annapurna Range. [00:44:23 - 00:44:27] In the middle distance, the land was a patchwork of emerald paddy.