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DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF
THE LAW
YAGE, BAPHOMET AND ME
Or how to have one’s heart chakra tickled from the inside
by a reptile creature from outer space…
Had a chance to try ayahuasca on a recent retirement in northern
NSW. I had been putting out for this, in one way or another, for
at least 2 1/2 years. New years eve 1999 I found myself on the
property of a well know Osho devotee. Walked in and was instantly
blown away by an original Alex Grey in the corner of a room lit
up by a black light. Bookshelves full of stuff on psychedelic
therapy. Cool wacky colourful people everywhere… New Years
eve Byron Bay!! Outside a porch decorated with beautiful statues,
an outdoor Jacuzzi, was followed by an immaculately groomed, eastern
styled, garden which sloped down for 5o metres into a gully and
then up again where, from a distance, one could make out a circled
structure. The garden was spotted with the occasional fire and
fish pond nestled among the ferns and tropical bushes. The whole
visual ensemble, porch, garden and structure yonder was enveloped
by a richly resonant ambient soundscape issuing from numerous
speakers. (Music studio next to main house).This place had style!
After wandering the gardens in thoughts of how every minute particle
of power granted to me should be put into the service of creating
such a magickal space I found myself drawn to the circular structure
on the hill. All the garden paths led in its direction. A hexagon…The
first thing which came to mind was not the exquisite care which
must have been needed to create this beautiful thing…TEMPLE
…but the visioning of it into being! Six sides, removable
sliding doors make it open to the elements in summer and cosy
in winter, with a hexagram carved into the polished floor. The
six sided walls extend to the ceiling which climaxes at the center
in 6 stained glass window panels from which, lit from an above
lamp, shine down the visage of 6 alien like creatures… looking
into, overseeing maybe, the goings on within this very special
sacred space…or so it seemed to me. As it was, the turn of
the Millennium EV, that night, coincided with the coming into
being of the Temple. For this occasion about the Temple, which
can fit about 30-40 people at a squeeze, less is best, was a multifarious
collection of musical instruments rigged up to a Bose Sound system
consisting of 10 very HI-FI speakers mounted on the walls. The
triple Piscean I was there chasing was going all Rainbow on me,
guitar in hand singin’ of love, and I left for some psychedelic
use and abuse at a doof-do down the road. Last conversation I
had on my way out was that Ayahuasca sessions will happen at the
Temple…hmmm! Some months later a couple of friends had the
opportunity to meet Yage, the spirit of Ayahuasca, at one of these
do’s. They reported highly transformative, psychedelic as
fuck, heart centred experiences. I wanted some of this and began
to put out for it. In a like manner to DMT, the active chemical
of Ayahuasca and that very allusive spirit, it has been a hard
task trying to bring this story into my narrative. The wait has
been worth it!
A couple of weeks ago a dear friend received an invite and got
3 of us an interview with the main dude who puts these on. For
a variety of reasons, all easily justifiable, interviews, shootin’
the breeze really, are often part of the process. We met D whose
property it is, for tea at 9am three days before our date. Our
man began to stipulate that Ayahuasca, also known as Yage, is
not a recreational drug but medicine. Yage, the spirit of the
medicine, goes wherever healing is required by the organism. You
can, if you are able, navigate the trip, yet one should remember
the main lesson with it: let go! Trust whatever is happening and
allow oneself to let go into the experience. Hmmm…as with
all drug use and ‘spiritual/magickal’ workings there
is the issue of retaining some sort of consciousness, some sort
of witnessing of process, of willing the process through an awareness
that is still alive with the possibility of intervention…if
possession states are to be navigated in a constructive manner.
Yet, as in the traditional use of Ayahuasca, we are in the hands
of a shaman who will guide the trip…I was very interested
in what role D. was to have in the proceedings.
A little should be said about Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is a traditional
shamanic tool, most often known as a form of medicine, found throughout
South America. These days its use is not restricted to indigenous
cultures of this continent. For the last 50 years Ayahuasca, also
known as Yage and several other names, has come out of the jungles
and spread all over the globe: from the international religion
Santo Daime, (a mix of Christianity, Voodoo and Ayahuasca Shamanism),
to small western groups inspired by the purported benefits of
psychedelic therapy and the. I have had connections with four
groups in Byron/ Amsterdam/ Brighton/Ibiza and it seems most are
on a serious mission to bestow sacredness and healing Ayahuasca
style. Apart from the Brighton crew what is distinctive about
these groups is their attempt to bring a foreign cultural form
into a meaningful structure resonant with western sensibilities.
Always it seems a charismatic healer/shaman holds things together.
Ayahusca itself is a brew made up of one plant containing an MAO
inhibitor and plant material containing DMT. Often there are various
others materials mixed in. DMT is a Tryptamine, (as is LSD and
mushrooms), and occurs naturally in the brain: it is released
at the moment of physical death. (Much research is occurring on
this particular notion). DMT smoked by itself propels one out
of one’s body, the sensation is palpable, into a morphogenetic
field, (in new science speak), astral space to us, within which
travelers often report contact with intelligent beings.
(Often this is the big attraction to many: contact with intelligences
which I have heard articulated as aliens, plant spirits, the traditional
‘little people’, the secret chiefs, us in the future…[the
latter is Tim Leary’s take]). Yet this lasts but a few minutes,
5 to 15, and is so rapid that there is often no chance to interact
or witness;(Allan Watts’ expressed it as being shot out of
a cannon the inside of which is engraved with fluoro Byzantine
paintings). Apart from a groovy high filled with the faint, ethereal
notion of the existence of other realms I strongly doubt whether
DMT has any really deep transformative potential. Some work I
did with it several years ago convinced me that it does not touch
the lower chakras and this, if not realized, can be a hindrance.
The MAO inhibitor in the Ayahuasca brew inhibits the breaking
down of a DMT enzyme thus prolonging the trip for a much longer
time: depending on dose. This, and the fact that it is ingested,
make it a whole different kettle of fish. The ingestion somatizes
the experience, keeping one in one’s body while operating
within one’s subtle body upon the astral…(maybe!!).
The length of time marks it also as a far more serious undertaking
which brings up all sorts of issues as one prepares for it. Traditionally
Ayahuasca has various uses relating to healing clients of the
shaman and the shaman him/her self, divination, and often sorting
petty-people- problems like finding stolen goods or the thief.
The way entheogenic research has developed with this brew though,
outside of its traditional use, its possibilities of use have
been greatly enriched and augmented by aligning the fruits of
its exploration with up to date findings from consciousness research.
With some info on traditional uses of this medicine, which by
the way is not illegal in Australia, (the wattle on the Australian
coat of arms contains DMT…so do cane toads!), some of our
own imaginings, and with G’s basic Buddhist advice, let go
while witnessing, we had ‘some sort’ of idea of what
to expect. What was his angle personally? A professional musician
for many years he is now a sound engineer and creator of the most
mind bending soundscape sculptures I’ve heard. He was in
a version of the AA, in U.S., in the 70’s, in India Papaji
told him to pursue his interests in sound and tonalities, then
he met Osho and became a devotee. A therapist for 10 years during
which time he studied Stanislov Grof and LSD research. D was introduced
to Ayahuasca by Terence Mckenna, five years ago, who sent him
his Ayahuasca for sometime before G. went and began to learn about
Ayahuasca from Mackenna’s Peruvian teacher who, if I heard
correctly had been taking Ayahuasca twice a week since he was
6 years old…he, D’s teacher, is now 60 odd, an expert
in his field who is flown around the world to lecture to western
authorities! In hindsight it appears that D. galvanizes all of
the above interests, know how and understanding into an amazing
7 hours, (how long the sessions last). With a background in psychedelic
therapy with one of the most well known of explorers, Grof, D.
knows a fair bit about set and setting and the space that is created
resonates with a sacredness deeply based on group sharing.To him
Grof’s work is integral to the Ayahuasca sessions. Grof is
the foremost writer and theorist of transpersonal psychology at
the moment. His basic findings are that to really access and come
to terms with the transpersonal realms, (which affect us always),
we have regress back and abreact through all our childhood patterns
including dealing with the birth trauma; the latter being his
most important innovation which has led to a popularization of
his work known as rebirthing.. According to Grof going back into
the experience of the womb and reliving one’s birth and coming
to terms with the experience of coming into being on this plane
is vital to opening up the higher centers. To G. Ayahuasca is
becoming recognized among many consciousness researchers and healers
as a tool par excellence in allowing such experiences to occur
in an integrating manner. His work as a therapist and his training
as a shaman in South America is directed to keeping the Temple
space ‘clear’ of untoward entities and to allow people
to cathart and go deeply into their own process free of any hindrances.
For this he has the help of one or two facilitators. G’s
work as a sound engineer, and his background in the AA, allow
him to use music and vibratory tones to guide the journey through
whatever portals such as in, and through, any magickal language.
Sound is the navigator. (My mate pointed to him after our session
and exclaimed: the best DJ ever…a hell of a claim!!). Lastly
his work and his life as an Osho devotee entails cultivating a
heart centred experience for all where all findings, all experiences
are filtered through the heart center in a bhakti devotional space
to the spirit responsible for so much magick. This paragraph should
have really come at the end as a clarification of G.’s intentions
for the session. I felt to put it here for the sake of contextualizing
what is to come.
For the past few weeks I had been doing a couple of hours of
Middle Pillars a day, a fair bit of work on the astral and surfing
the tarot quite intensely. (ART was a central card during these
days…apt as I’m a Sag…yet more so as I feel what
transpired related much to the 25th path), In many ways I felt
not only primed but very ripe. We rocked up to the Temple at 6
pm, an hour before proceedings. We were told things are generally
over by 2pm…people either leave or stay and sleep in the
Temple. The Temple was closed in, the sliding doors were in place.
It was lit by mellow, dimmed lights and candles. Around 2/3’s
of the circumference were 14 mattresses, covered in blankets,
next to which were large plastic bowls; for the purging! On each
point of the Hexagram, on the floor in the middle of the room,
were crystal Tibetan Singing Bowls of different sizes, (the largest
at least 20 inches in diameter…oh the tones the tones!),
each coloured by a floor lamp underneath each of a different hue.
West of the Hexagram and facing the middle of the ring of mattresses
was a South American rug upon which were G’s shamanic tools:
a dozen small jars of different powders, several bottles, charcoals,
Falcon wings, shakers, branches of trees, bells, bits of wood
and much more. Behind this was an altar proper, a low lying table
two metres long and a metre wide, facing the wall. Above it near
the ceiling was a cut out of a Falcon’s eyes. Underneath
this a Tibetan Tanka. On the altar, in prominent place, was a
picture of Osho. Around him on both sides huge quartz crystals
and many other smaller rocks. Occupying most of the altar was
electronic equipment: CD players, MD player, mixer and some effects
units. On one side of the altar was a table with at least 40 different
types of essential oils. Upon it was another huge quartz crystal
lit underneath by a violet light. On the other side of the large
altar were an assortment of musical instruments. We walked in,
took our places in whatever white garments we were able to gather
and joined the few others dressed in white. The space, the anticipation…’my
heart was a’beatin’ ‘ard brothers! Everyone arrived…the
vibe was sacred! (Whatever that fucking means…but a group
based joyful and glad deepening into a devotional vulnerability
that knows that one’s world is just about to be rocked to
its foundation! Or so was the state I was trying to cultivate!)
D. walks in carrying a bottle. Says a hello to a few of us and
then talks us through some stuff. The spiel ain’t overly
anything! It is assumed everyone there has a fairly good idea
of what they have chosen to get into tonight. Ayahuasca is medicine,
let go and breathe into it as you would into a yogic asana, don’t
hold but allow the spirit to bring healing to wherever it needs
to go, purging is part of this healing process, please don’t
talk until the formal part of the ceremony is over and remember…roses
are beautiful but you may have to deal with the thorns! Then we
were told about the importance of intention and everyone got a
chance to share with the group how and why we were there and what
we would like out of tonight’s session. Some typical South
American juju was performed with smoke over D’s tools, the
room was purified with some liquid, sprayed out his mouth in the
four directions, and consecrated with a majestic incense of sorts
which was painstakingly blown and swathed over every inch of our
bodies. We sat and dwelled in evocative smells as D. finished
his rounds before turning to the bottle of a reddish liquid. We
were then called over one by one and dosed accordingly…some
were given more than others: mine was an average dose. Ayahuasca,
we were earlier told, works best either lying down or sitting
up. I immediately laid down and covered myself in blankets for
total confort, pulled a bowl next to me on one side and pen, paper
and a torch on the other side. Twenty minutes later, a very short
time, my trip began.
As soon as we all finished imbibing D. began to play music. After
about 2o minutes of some very shanty ambient electronica we began
to hear sacred Ayahuasca songs which D. brought from various parts
of South America. They began as simple little folksy songs, some
highly devotional others circling around themes, “ayahuasca…medicina’,
or ‘onde esta escondidinho’, (‘where are you little
hidden one’), and slowly, over a period of 40 minutes, their
vibrational depth and play on tones increased until I began to
feel myself swooning into a very somatic based fractalite matrix
out of which issued a reptilian like intelligence I first encountered
through a slow letting go into a space of glossololia. The first
signs that I wasn’t dealing with a synthetic ‘spirit’
which works mainly through amplification, such as LSD, came through
a powerful feeling to sing and vibrate tones with the songs. Yet
it wasn’t so much a singing but an allowing of sound which
issued out of my Visuddha Chakra in a totally symbiotic relation
to the music. This began simply, softly and slowly and then, (here
the use of the first person singular is not applicable), my tongue
began having a life of its own hissing with a mysterious knowing…as
‘I’ swooned something was awakening within me and through
me. Within an hour the main trajectory within my witnessing space
was an allowing of a cultivation of as much space as this being
needed to manifest. I guess it was a possession state…yet
wasn’t this part of the instructions? Let go and allow? Yet
what, who was this being? At the time it seemed quite clear and
obvious to me: Baphomet!
After about an hour and half, since start, the opportunity to
dose again was presented. I opened my eyes and it was nearly the
same as with eyes closed. I switched back into allowing mode…I
was deep enough. Most of the group dosed again, I later found
out, and this was nearly immediately noticeable. Suddenly the
group was very much more alive with tangible otherness. The group
nature and symbiotic qualities of the experience were now very
apparent. Yage, the Ayahuasca spirit, manifests in and through
the group in a totally synaesthetic manner: someone’s vomiting
over yonder is felt in my visual field, someone’s yelling
gets me in my Svadisthana, one’s cathartic letting go is
the group’s catharsis. With the second dose we were in very
serious space…a seriously sacred and therapeutic space brimming
with insights from other dimensions as from the depths of our
souls. I was being stretched in a million dimensions, all my powers
and energies, all my knowing galvanized on the edge of something
so fucking big yet so soft I would often cry out in with wet eyes:
WOW!!!
Shortly after the second dose, (I asked others afterwards), the
music had changed to psychedelically mind-bending sounds, tones
and vibrations either mixed or played live by D. who can vibrate
a hell of a deep and highly moving noise: Pan teaches one to sing,
no? With this new music, and with the second dose turning the
whole room upside down, the demons came to play. I went through
so much during this period…felt the pain of friends, the
fuckedupness of it all, cringed and cried and yelled shedding
tears of so much pain as I regressed back abreacting along the
way. The idea of Saturn came to me…the 32nd path: a little
squeeze before entering the hall of mirrors! Yet what went down
had a pattern to it, exhibited throughout the rest of the night
and which I find most well articulated in the work of Stanislov
Grof. The regression backwards to the experience of basic patterns,
or even primal Freudian situations, seemed to be a launching pad,
or ‘the’ gateway, to transpersonal realms. At one time
I found myself at my mother’s breast, as she wiped my dribbles,
shedding healing tears of depth before moving onto thoughts of
my sisters to be giving birth this year, to mothers in general,
to motherhood, womanhood and general yin principles upon which
the cosmos is held…as I myself was held in my pain and vulnerability
knowing deep down everything I do, everything that is is OK! Yet
beyond this Babalonian ‘wash’, a getting in touch and
coming to terms with my ‘female’ side, was the pattern
of movement from the particular to the general where all impressions
were synthesized and sublimated into insights beyond the personal,
impinging on cosmic principles. For some time, during this particularly
oral phase, to the right of me, (I was lying down), I stared facing
Sophia as stylized by Alex Grey the American artist.
During most of the climax of the trip the noises coming out of
me were a combination of snake hissing, animalistic growls and
guttural grunts punctuated by either crying noises or a crazy
laughter issuing from the feeling that my heart chakra was being
tickled from the inside by a reptile creature from outer space.
In between, and sometimes contemporaneous if not the ‘same’
experience, with my emotional catharsis ‘the Universal Joke’
was on! Insight after obtuse insight came to me and all I could
do was laugh outrageously as intellectual, and emotional ,complication
upon complication seemed to melt as complexes dissolved with the
realization of their inherent illusory nature; or maybe their
reality on other planes but not on this one.
I was basically out to it for most of the trip so I did not get
to suss out D’s shamanic interventions as much as I would
have liked. At times, as the spirit emerged in quite a strong
manner in different parts of the rooms, I could hear him, or one
of his two facilitators, quietening the spirit or maybe channeling
it in a certain direction. This was accomplished through like
shakes of musical instruments, of bushes, whistling, the spraying
of different scented oils or waters and other little tricks which
basically fanned the spirit in difference ‘directions’.
Often people going through their catharsis would need some settling
or maybe a bit of body work, some form of somatic support, to
move the energy through. Words were kept to the minimum. At one
time, as someone screamed ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t
want to die’, in a plaintive wail the word ‘die’
was spoken loud and stern by D. deepening the fuck out of my space
and sending half the room into cackles of psychedelic laughter:
a laughter full of mad understanding!
I began to regain some sort of consciousness of this plane, as
I came ‘down’, when D. picked up a guitar and began
to sing the most soulful and beautifully devotional sweetest of
sweetest of songs:
‘And when the fire in my soul,
Looks inwards for the gold,
In my heart
I know
Itsssss
Yoooouuuuu!!!!’
BAPHOMET!!!
This period was handled incredibly well. Vulnerable, post the
trip, what we were now offered was an initiation into bhakti via
a meta-programming session in opening our hearts.
I just wept and wept and wept with the beauty of it all, rising
upon wings of devotion to a spirit which cracked open my heart
in such groovy style.
Some people joined in the singing, I cried a little and just
mellowed into a ‘post one of the biggest experiences of my
life ever’ feeling. This singing went for an hour until the
formal part of the night ended and people were allowed to speak
and download brains. We sat up a while talking, trying to integrate
what went down. Everyone was fully blissed and blessed, often
in intellectual awe, yet dwelling in an amazingly open heart…which
at the time seemed more important than trying to split hairs over
the possible ontological certainties just transpired. We hung
until the morning and three of us spent the next day chewing the
fat listening to the most ambient beats in a geodesic dome in
the hills of Mullum. On meeting a mate’s partner we brought
her to tears simply through being there with open hearts.
This night blew me away so much I rang to have another go a few
days later, just to put things in perspective. The second night
the crew, 1o people, were of a mature age, in their 50’s
maybe which provided a more emotionally stable context in which
to trip. The night was incredibly soothing and shanti. I didn’t
cathart dynamically but wept and wept; oral issues again! Yet
this weeping was, yet again, such an amazing initiation into a
bhakti space of devotion that I’m sure will stay with me
for many years. I was left speechless and in awe of the possible
beauty of things and the possible spaces in which I can access
the most powerful of feelings. One thing that was noticeably different
was the God form which came up for me: Pan. I did not go as deeply
this time and with the little consciousness I had I allowed myself
to join D. in his toning and singing. Pan does teach one to sing!!
I sang like I had NEVER sang feeling, for the very first time,
the most incredible vibrations in my Vishuddha and Annahatta Chakras.
D. affirmed my intuition that Ayahuasca taught one how to find
one’s voice: literally and metaphorically!
Thankyou…a mantra I used as tears streamed down my eyes.
NOTES:
Drug use is a tricky thing…drugs and spirituality even trickier…writing
about the latter,
often about as self indulgent an exercise as exists, the trickiest
of all! Luckily, as the intellectually refined Thelemites that
we are, we know a little about semantics. Rather than traveling
the tricky roads of the pros and cons of drug use we can shift
paradigms
and linguistic structures by siding a little with the Ayahuasca
shamans of South America. To the latter Ayahuasca is medicine.
Medicine heals and healing entails a homeostatic alignment with
one’s body. If one buys into a non-dualism, macro-micro affair,
then healing is attuning oneself with the cosmos. The Ayahuasca
spirit heals by going where it is most needed…where blockages
exist. Light has to be shed upon the darkness, the darkness needs
redemption, it needs to be confronted before further exploration
into the possibilities of existence may arise. All thought is
a boundary over facets of existence, a solidification of energy
which, although useful on certain planes, is not ultimately true.
‘Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted’. Ayahuasca
allows an exploration of boundaries through a confrontation of
the patterns, intellectual/emotional/somatic, which create the
beings that we are individually. Through this confrontation, beyond
our self-made boundaries, the greatest mysteries are allowed to
play before one’s mind…yet, the lotus travels through
much mud to reach the sun’s rays!
My alacrity and enthusiasm about Ayahuasca is based on a variety
of interests which were galvanized in such a powerful manner in
this work that I am still reeling. I have had a Shiatsu practice
for four years and live in the belief that emotional energy is
stored in the Body. Anyone into chakra work,, mirroring the tree
on the body, yoga or any body based healing modality must share
my views. Although we may share this fundamental insight there
is the issue of what tools to access what and how useful they
may be. I have my own ideas of what works for me. A few years
ago my bodywork explorations led me into Reichian therapy, (like
a good Regardian), and into Reichian Therapy training as spaces
in which I could go deeper into my own process. All is good and
have been enjoying the work. For 4 months now, with this work,
I have been trying hard to manifest a good cry as symbolic of
getting in touch with certain spaces I need to work on. Although
one could say I was ripe, imagine how bowled over I was as, on
Ayahuasca, I sobbed like a little kid in front of 15 total strangers
without a thought of stopping, lapping up joyously the experience
that it was ok! To me what D. manifests in his Temple is serious
deep healing…a psychic archaeology bordering on Theurgic
Therapy which G. would agree are the same thing. Redeeming the
dross, to me, is a serious part of Thelema which goes hand in
hand with creating the type of sacred space conducive to accessing
such in a constructive manner amidst accepting peers. How this
may be accomplished within Thelemic ritual and the OTO is a challenge
I would like to take on.
At the heart of investigations into Ayahuasca as a tool with
transformative potential are perennial questions entheogenic consciousness
research has been dealing with for some time. One of these is
whether the spaces accessed are ‘real’. This question
is a basic ontological query which research paradigms based on
a subject/object, mind/body duality never get anywhere near exploring
in a creative manner. Within a macro-micro affair one can have
more fun BUT,I feel, as with any work on the astral, (or maybe
any magickal work at all), plenty of time for integrating and
assessing the validity of the insights is needed. In relation
to the latter one of the dangers with psychedelic work is creating
neural grooves of such a deep and interesting manner that trouble
is run into when space is not allowed for questioning something
that runs so deep and affected one so strongly. (I had basically
nearly given up on psychedelic exploration as mostly geared towards
the higher charkas…until I met Yage! How much is there in
my story which I am not willing to challenge??). A further important
point about psychedelic work, a most poignant issue, is coming
down the mountain. All psychedelic use is ‘Storming Heaven’,
in a sense, and most often one is yanked back from the heights
in a dramatic way…often having to explain to dear ones crazy
words spoken days earlier. This is a basic issue of keeping insights
from magickal workings alive. More often than not understanding
stolen from Heaven in the white light and heat of magickal work
is not integrated fully, ‘in one go’, and one has to
often focus and zero in on certain issues to create transformation
which has long lasting effects. I feel the same can be said for
psychedelic work. To finish off one should say a little about
neurological burnout: an issue with psychedelic use, a definite
danger mixing the latter with magick.
LOVE IS THE LAW LOVE UNDER
WILL
Fr. SA
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