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Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures

Publisher: Penguin Compass (2000)

It was a feeling akin to what Huxley described as 'an unspeakable sense of gratitude for the privilege of being born in the universe,' citing Blake's observation that 'gratitude is heaven itself.' In my life, there has been nothing so comforting as this state, rocked by LSD or MDA, in which I felt immensely grateful to the Lord for the breath in my body and the gift of life. The sense of belonging was consummate. It was as though I'd attainted the deceptively modest goal that Huxley ascribes to all of us: 'to discover that we have always been where we ought to be.

...one might question the whole idea of 'preparing' for a psychedelic experience at all, a process that can be likened to gearing up for a tornado to rip through your home. The punch line of a trip is often enough that you can't take it with you. Still, the storm is more liely to be apprciated by the person who builds his own house than by the one who just lives in it. There are volumes of lessons about life's dynamics worth incorporating before you watch the cosmos engulf your puny, insignificant self and wash across your windscreen during the ensuing metaphysical twister. There's no sense in sumitting yourself to an experience that can strip you down to your 'nothing' unless you know it can happen and that you can fill the void imploded into you with something more life-enriching than it held before. Of that there are no guarantees, so who you are going into the experience - how supple and healthy your spirit and sense of self - makes all the difference in how you come out.