Adventures in Euphoratopia: The Vine of the Soul

Ayahuasca, or the vine of the soul as some call it, can propel one's consciousness into radically dissociated (and psychedelic) states of beingness. Recently, I have become very interested in hallucinogenic substances as a doorway into another realm of experience. Granted, I have already had my share of youthful excursions into psychedelics, but those trips were juvenile and, ultimately, pointless (but, then again, maybe that is the point…).

However, I began to wonder about the deeper potentials that may or may not reside within those experiences. I was already familiar with MDMA therapy and the work of Claudio Naranjo—a Chilean intellectual with a degree in medicine, advanced training as a psychiatrist, and extensive work in the field of anthropology. Besides looking into the therapeutic benefits of MDMA-enhanced treatment, Naranjo can also be linked to the Human Potential Movement and the Fourth Way, but this is becoming an unnecessary tangent so before I wind up wandering into a diatribe about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Omega Point, I will digress (though I will return to that in a later post).

So, perhaps illicit drugs could be the key to advancing our consciousness. Perhaps it is wrong to think about these substances within a particular moral frame, i.e. as an illicit drug. After all, our consciousness would not exist without chemistry and our human chemical composition is just one expression of form—of being. Perhaps there are others—no, perhaps is wrong—there are other modes of beingness (this thought was the launching pad).

And as that concept of varying arrangements of beingness erupted, a swirl of thoughts and ideas spread across the sidewalk of my mind's eye like a child's crayons left out on a hot day and as that motley, mental gunk oozed in every direction like psychedelic lava, I began pondering the weird ideas and brilliant works that I have encountered in the past few months, i.e. David Icke's interdimensional reptilian conspiracy theories, Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, Carlos Castaneda's the Teachings of Don Juan, and Shea and Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

Then I discovered that adventurous tourists can actually trek down to the Amazon for Ayahuasca ceremonies lead by authentic curanderos. I seriously contemplated reserving a trip, but, unfortunately, such a thing resides outside of the dimensional possibilities that exist within the confines of my budgetary existence (being in marketing only earns me so much).

Instead, I picked up my copy of the Shea and Wilson masterpiece. Halfway through the first page, I encountered the following passage:

I happen to know all the details about what happened, but I have no idea how to recount them in a manner that will make sense to most readers. For instances, I am not even sure who I am, and my embarrassment on that matter makes me wonder if you will believe anything I reveal…There is nothing I can do to make things any easier for any of us, and you will have to accept being addressed by a disembodied voice just as I accept the compulsion to speak out even though I am painfully aware that I am talking to an invisible, perhaps nonexistent, audience.

This kicked my mind into overdrive. Immediately, I was reminded of a similar moment of disembodied self-awareness in issue 3 (trade paperback Entropy in the U.K.) of The Invisibles. A character named Malcom is struggling to seal a dimensional rupture, while the narrator provides us the details and context of this challenging task. However, at the climax of the action when we the reader are entirely sucked into this fabricated reality, the narrator shatters our faith in this world and our own when he, she, or it concludes, then queries:

All of it comes to an end. Which leaves, apart from who he's going to be, now that Brian Malcom's dead, only one question. Who is telling this, and to whom?

In following this runaway train(s) of thought, I was also struck by my own sense of (or lack thereof) self-awareness. After all, who the hell am I writing this blog to? And why? Are the thoughts in my head my own? Or is it just some narrator stuck trying to explain the events of a world beyond his or her (or its) own self? Perhaps, the thoughts in my head are already disembodied, but I don't realize it. Perhaps, the dissolution of the ego that one experiences while on a psychedelic trip—or, to be more accurate, the experience that one does not experience, but simply is while dissociated—frees that voice from the page, i.e. the narrator is cleaved from the story and can finally and simply, BE.

And, finally, that brings me back to the digital realm where I spend most of my time (and is the primary focus of this blog). What kind of consciousness do we experience online? Do we experience time and human interaction in the same ways we do when we're off the grid? Do we have a different sense of self and possibility when performing within the digital utopia? I know that I can bowl a 274 on a Nintendo Wii, but will be lucky to hit a 38 at the local alley. How does that affect my sense of achievement? Capability? Am I being convinced that I am better than I am, and with relation to a whole lot more than Wii bowling? Am I even an I when I slide into my online existence? Or am I a Facebook page? A MySpace page? A Digg account? A tweeting Twitter? What am I in this digital sphere? Because I'm certainly not a body anymore, but I am certainly somebody…I think.

Perhaps, that's the trick—the big scam. I'm no more real than the drying ink on a freshly reprinted page of Shea and Wilson's book and all I have is this confused, disembodied voice trying to assemble a story for a mass of confused, untrusting readers that may not even exist. Damn the compulsion!

Who's got those illicit drugs?