A Short Guide About Hallucinogenic Drugs
               For the Explorers of Inner Space

                   by Donald J. DeGracia
                       June, 1992


1. Introduction

     There are a variety of tools available to anyone interested in
exploring altered states of consciousness.  Such tools include
meditation, out-of-body experiences, brain and biofeedback
instruments, occult type rituals, visualization exercises, and also
in this category are hallucinogenic drugs.  Each of these tools
provides a different doorway into the inner spaces of our
subjectivity and consciousness.  In this article, I would like to
provide a brief overview of hallucinogenic drugs as one means among
many for achieving altered states of consciousness.  It is not my
intention here to debate whether it is right or not to use
hallucinogenic drugs, whatever is ones motive, though I will discuss
the variety of opinions that exist in this regard.  My purpose here
is twofold: 1. to give a broad overview of hallucinogenic drugs in
general, and 2. to show how hallucinogenics can provide, if used
reasonably and responsibly,  a valuable and substantial tool for
exploring inner spaces.

2. History Of Hallucinogenic Substances

     The history of mankind's involvement with hallucinogens seems to go
back thousands of years.  Some modern scholars speculate that the
soma of the ancient Hindus was indeed a hallucinogenic substance
that was used for purposes of religious ritual and ecstasy.  The use
of opiates in China and the Far East is well documented.  The
religious uses of hallucinogenic mushrooms by Native Americans is
also a well documented fact, as well as being a point of controversy
in modern legislation.
     However, the modern West only really became involved with
hallucinogenic drugs after World War II.  It was in 1948 that LSD
was first produced from rye mold by Albert Hoffman, who was at the
time looking for antibiotic substances in fungi.  Also around this
time, mescaline was identified as the active agent in certain
hallucinogenic plants.  Within a few years after being recognized,
these substances began to cause severe polarization in opinions
about their use and benefit.
     On one hand, there were in the 1950s and early 1960s, small groups
of avente garde intellectuals who began to associate religious and
mystical qualities with the effects of these drugs on human
perception.  Perhaps best known in this regard was Aldous Huxley's
"The Doors of Perception", which highlighted Huxley's personal
experiences on mescaline.  Also in this vein was Alan Watts' "The
Joyous Cosmology" which also extolled the philosophical and mystical
virtues of the hallucinogenic experience.
     On the other hand, during this same period, hallucinogenic drugs
such as LSD and mescaline were seen by the medical and psychiatric
fields as being agents that seemed to simulate psychosis.
Initially, the term "hallucinogenic" did not even exist.  In the
1950s and 1960s these drugs were generally called "psychomimetics",
meaning that their effects mimicked symptoms displayed by psychotics
and paranoids.  Perhaps the crowning tribute to this view of LSD was
the book "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" by Ken Kesey, which
reflected Kesey's experiences as a volunteer in medical experiments
on the effects of LSD.  Incidentally, Kesey, in the late 1960s went
on to be one of the leaders of the West coast psychedelic movement
with his "Band of Merry Pranksters" (as described in the book "The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests")
     So from the very beginning the hallucinogenic drugs have been viewed
from totally opposite points of view:  doctors initially equated the
drugs' effects with psychosis, and intellectuals equated the drugs
effects with profound religious experiences.
     The story of LSD climaxed in the early 1960s with the research of
Timothy Leary at Harvard University.  Initially, Leary, who was a
Harvard psychologist researching the nature of personality, had only
an impartial scientific interest in these so-called psychomemetic
drugs.  He soon found out however that their effects were so great
as to cause him to essentially abandon his roots as an elitist East
coast intellectual and to become the founding father of the
psychedelic movement in the United States.  It was Leary's
contention that hallucinogenic drugs opened up to human perception
things long lost from Western tradition, things that were well
understood in older cultures and religions.  Timothy Leary
recognized, like other intellectuals a decade before him, that these
drugs have the potential to cause profound religious and mystical
experiences, experiences that could easily be distorted and
misconstrued by Western reductionistic intellectuals as being
symptoms of insanity.  Leary, like any other person made sane by
LSD, came to the conclusion that it was the modern West that was
insane, not  some poor individual in a psychiatric ward who was
experiencing visions and hearing voices.
     I do not think there is a need here to attempt to recount in full
the story of Timothy Leary.  However, we will return to the
contention that hallucinogenic drugs cause religious and mystical
experiences.  At this point, it is enough to say that Leary started
something much bigger than himself.  The psychedelic movement gained
much momentum through 1965-1967, culminating with events like
Woodstock.  However, quick as it came, it was gone.  LSD was made
illegal, Jimmy Hendrix and Jannis Joplin died, Leary got off his
soap-box, and the United States, after failing miserably in Vietnam,
drifted into a depressing 1970s.
     And here we are, some 20 years later.  LSD has not gone away, it is
simply not talked about anymore.  The best of the actual psychedelic
movement turned into the Grateful Dead, who have been riding a
successful music career ever since.  And the basement scientists who
in the 1960s made and sold LSD turned into the "designer drug"
community on the West Coast, giving us such wonderful poisons as
"Ecstasy" (which causes severe nerve damage if taken enough - so
beware!).
     Well, with this bit of history under our belts, I'd like to discuss
a little about the hallucinogenic drugs themselves both in terms of
what their subjective effects are and also what is known about how
they react in the body.  After that, I will then go into more detail
about their use as a tool for exploring inner space.


The Effects of Hallucinogenic Drugs

     So doctors call it insanity, and intellectuals call it
enlightenment, but really, what is it?  What are the effects caused
when on hallucinogenic drugs?
     In terms of effects, one of the most important generalizations about
these drugs' effects was laid out by Leary when he spoke of "set and
setting".  What he meant by this is that what an LSD user actually
experienced was critically dependant on the user's state of mind
(set) and where he was at and what company he was in (setting).
This fact is completely true.  It is very difficult to classify the
effects of hallucinogenic because they *are* so dependent upon set
and setting.  If the user is depressed and in bad company, the
experience will be vastly different than if the user is relaxed,
happy and in good company.
     But, keeping this idea of "set and setting" in the front of our
mind, we can still make some generalizations about the subjective
effects of the LSD experience.  Some of the most commonly reported
effects are:

1.   Visual hallucinations.
2.   Audio hallucinations.
3.   Sensory mixing (hearing sights or seeing sounds).
4.   Weakening of ego boundaries (a weakening or loss of sense of self).
5.   Enhanced ability to think abstractly.
6.   The uncontrollable urge to laugh.
7.   Enhanced ability to sense the emotions of others.
8.   Inability to maintain focus or concentration for long periods.
9.   Feelings of extreme joy
10.   Feelings of extreme depression and terror.
11.  A direct apprehension of God.

     Now this list is by no means complete.  It only states some of the
more commonly reported effects.  It is also important to state that
not all of these are experienced by a LSD user.  As a matter of fact
it is possible that none of these effects will be experienced.  It
is important to be aware that: THE EFFECTS OF HALLUCINOGENIC DRUGS
ARE EXTREMELY UNPREDICTABLE.  The rule of "set and setting" is the
best guide for anticipating what the effects of a hallucinogenic
experience may be.  As a matter of fact, I have a close friend who
is quite experienced at the use of hallucinogens, and his rule of
thumb is the following: "if you have a garden in your mind, then
you'll be in it.  If you have a garbage can in your mind, then
you'll be in *it*".  This is very useful advice.


Explanations of Hallucinogenic Effects

     At this point I would like to begin to discuss what it is that
these drugs are doing in the body.  There is no question that
hallucinogens cause profound effects.  The really key question is:
where do these effects come from?
     To answer this question I would like to lay out two very different
theories of what it is the hallucinogens are doing to the human
being.   We will see that these theories are complimentary in that
they both shed light on mode of the action of hallucinogenic drugs.
However, these two theories I am about to discuss are products of
vastly different world-views that most people consider to be
contradictory.  In this article, I take the attitude that we can
learn from both.  The two views of how hallucinogens affect humans
that I will now discuss are the scientific view and the occult
view.  Both science and occultism offer reasonable and useful views
about the nature of the hallucinogenic experience.  However, what I
intend to illustrate here is that the occult view is simply
better.   Let us begin with the scientific view.  There are
philosophical problems we must as well address as we proceed.
     A drug such as LSD offers a severe challenge to the conventional
scientific wisdom.  Science tells us that our  consciousness is
somehow the product of our brain; that our psychology is the
software, and the brain is the hardware.  At first glance, the LSD
experience seems to completely support this view for we have eaten a
chemical that severely alters the hardware, and thus, expectedly,
alters the software (i.e. our thoughts and perceptions).  For the
moment, let us just accept this contention and work with it.


Scientific Explanations of Hallucinogenic Effects

     Modern scientific investigations into the structure of the brain
shows that it is made of lots of different layers of tissues such as
the cortex, cerebellum and others. These tissues in turn are, in
total, made of some one trillion cells.  These cells are called
neurons.  Neurons look a lot like tree branches, branching off in
myriad directions touching many, many other neurons.  And the
neurons align themselves like fibers, making thick tracts of cable
throughout the brain.  It is well known that neurons conduct
electricity along themselves.  This electricity is created by salts
like sodium and potassium, chloride and calcium.  And these salts
act in the cells, much like the salts in a battery work to make
electricity.
     Now it is also well known that neurons do not touch each other
directly, but that there is a small space between adjacent neurons.
This space is called a synapse.  Now the way neurons conduct
electricity from one to the next is that, the electrical impulse
travels the length of the first or sending neuron until it gets to
the synapse.  At this point, the electricity at the synapse causes
the first neuron to release chemicals, called neurotransmitters,
into the synapse.  these neurotransmitters float across the synapse
where they then encounter the second or receiving neuron.  Depending
on the nature of the second neuron, once the neurotransmitters
contact it, it will either continue the impulse (and this then would
be an excititory neuron), or it will not conduct the impulse (this
is an inhibitory neuron).  It is important to appreciate that there
are two types of neurons in the brain, excititory and inhibitory.
This is important for understanding how science explains the mode of
action of hallucinogenic drugs.
     As it turns out, the chemical structure of the hallucinogenic looks
very, very similar to the chemical structure of the
neurotransmitters in the brain.  Scientist therefore conclude (and
quite reasonably) that what happens when you take a hallucinogenic
drug is that the drug gets into the brain and interferes with the
normal operation of the neurotransmitters.  The hallucinogenic drug
fools the neurons into thinking it is a neurotransmitter and it then
disrupts the normal flow of business in the neurons.  Now the
specific details of how this happens do not exist.  Yet, because the
hallucinogens expand the activity in ones consciousness, scientists
believe that whatever hallucinogens are doing in the brain,
ultimately they are disrupting inhibitory synapses.  The idea here
is that inhibitory synapsis serve a filtering function in the brain
and that unwanted or unnecessary stimuli are inhibited.  If
hallucinogens disrupt this filtering function, then one would expect
an increase in the "noise" level of the brain leading to such
activities as hallucinations or even delusions.  Thus, the effects
of hallucinogens are generally seen by scientists to be "noise"
(similar to static on a radio, for example).
     There is no question a certain degree of merit to this hypothesis.
However, one could ask as well: are there perhaps latent functions
in the brain that are turned on by hallucinogens?  This point of
view has not been well addressed by scientific research for the
simple fact that, how can you look at something if you don't know it
exists?  If there are functions turned on by hallucinogenic drugs in
the brain that do not normally operate in our usual states of
consciousness, then scientists have nothing to compare these states
to, and thus are affected by a blind spot.  Still, though this
question of turning on latent functions is not easily addressed in
terms of scientific thinking, we shall see below that occult views
provide us a basis to reasonably address this question.
     In spite of any hypothesis scientists may provide as to the
operation of hallucinogens in the nervous system, we must put this
discussion in its proper perspective.  Whatever scientists may
profess to know about the activity of hallucinogenic drugs is
colored strongly by the fact that the current scientific
understanding of how the brain and nerve cells work is highly
incomplete.
     And this point leads us back to philosophy.  Because, on one hand,
scientists like to believe that the brain creates consciousness, but
on the other hand, scientist have only a partial and incomplete
understanding of how the brain works.  This seems like putting the
cart before the horse to me.  It is possible that science will come
to understand in very full detail how the operation of the brain
leads to memory formation and other psychological phenomena.  But
the point is, they only have a partial understanding at this point.
If you took a brain scientist (a neurologist, or neurochemist, or
whatever) and sat them down and asked; "How does the brain create
consciousness?"  They'll either B.S. you with a bunch of details and
never directly answer your question, or they will out right honestly
admit that this question simply cannot be answered with current
knowledge (if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with
bullshit!).  So, the bottom line is, that science's contention that
the brain creates consciousness is more belief and dogma than it is
cold, hard, provable fact.
     Now it's important to appreciate this situation, because what it
does is leave the doorway open for alternative explanations.  And in
this quest for alternative explanations, we do not have to take an
attitude that science is wrong and the alternatives are right, or
vice versa.  We can take a more balanced and reasonable attitude and
realize that different explanations will give us a broader scope on
the issue and therefore, in the end, make our understanding fuller
than if we defensively or dogmatically cling to only one view of
things.
     So having said this, let us turn to an alternative explanation of
LSD's effects (and any other hallucinogen for that matter), and this
is the explanation given by occultists.


Occult Explanations Of Hallucinogenic Effects

     Now occultists have a much different world-view than scientists, but
as a world-view it is no less complex.  For our purposes here what
we must realize is that occultism teaches the opposite of science
and that is that our consciousness is independent from our body.
According to occultists, our body (and therefore our brain as well)
is but a temporary vehicle that houses our consciousness in the span
of our life in the physical world.  Occultism also teaches that
there are worlds other than the physical and these worlds are called
"planes".  Only four of these planes are significant to humans.
These are the physical, astral, mental and buddhic planes.
According to occultists we also have vehicles or bodies for each of
these planes.  Thus each of us has an astral body and mental body
and a buddhic body.
     It is by this theory that occultism explains the plain facts of our
lives.  Occultism teaches that our emotions are our astral body,
that our mind is our mental body, and that our soul or conscience is
our buddhic body.  Thus, right from the start, occultism does not
bother with the idea that our physical body creates our mind,
emotions or soul (and this idea of "soul" incidentally, is something
science likes to deny).  Instead, occultism claims that all of these
vehicles overlap and interact and create our life and experience as
we know and understand it.
    Now it is not my intention here to judge occult theory, or the
validity of these ideas.  To an explorer of inner space (especially
one who frequently experiences out-of-body states) this theory is
perfectly obvious.  For someone with no comprehension of inner
realities or experiences with altered states of consciousness, all I
can say is, this article is not for you.  Go read Carl Sagan or
something.
     To return to the point, occult theories detail very carefully the
manner in which all the vehicles interact.  The interaction of the
vehicles is explained by the theory of the chakras.  The chakras are
seven (or a couple more depending on the scope of the occult theory)
vortex like depressions in the astral, mental and buddhic bodies
that serve as energy channels between the bodies.  The chakras are
energy processing centers that hold the bodies together and unify
mind, body, emotion and soul into the one framework of our direct
experience.  Any meditators out there probably have had direct
experiences with their chakras.  As it turns out, the location of
the chakras in our other bodies, line up in a line with the spine of
our physical body and they are located wherever there is a nerve
plexus in our physical body.
     Furthermore, occultism teaches that there is an intimate feedback
and interplay between all of the bodies, and this feedback is
effected through the chakras.  Our physical body also has chakras,
but these are invisible to our physical senses of sight, sound,
taste, touch and hearing.  Our physical chakras are made of a type
of radiation that is invisible to our sense (this radiation is
called "etheric matter" by occultists), but they exist nonetheless,
and serve as the bridge between our nervous system and our astral,
mental and buddhic bodies.
     Chakra theory is very complex.  Each chakra serves a variety of
specific functions.  These I will only briefly outline here to the
extent that it is relevent to our discussion of hallucinogenic
drugs.  Here is a list of the chakras by their common name (the
Hindu names can be found in any worthwhile yoga book).  These will
be listed from the bottom of the spine up to the top of the spine,
along with the corresponding body locations:

1.  Root chakra - between the legs
2.  Navel chakra - at the waste
3.  Spleen chakra - over the navel
4.  Heart chakra - over the heart
5.  Throat chakra - over the throat
6.  Third eye chakra - over the forehead
7.  Crown chakra - top of head

     So as not to keep the reader in suspense, the reason I am going into
some detail about chakra theory is that we shall see that it
explains much clearer than  science does what happens when under the
influence of hallucinogenic drugs.  Now to go into this we need some
understanding of the functions of the chakras.  These are listed
briefly as:

1. Root - sex energy, libido
2. Navel - excretion (kidneys, liver), sensation in general
3. Spleen - digestion, energy input, ability to dream
4. Heart - circulation, empathy
5. Throat - communication, speech, hearing, clairaudience
6. Third-eye - sight, cognition, clairvoyance
7. Crown - brain, thought, spirituality

    What the reader will notice about this list is that each chakra has
not only  physical functions or organs associated with it, but as
well subjective and psychological functions associated with it.  It
is by means of this theory that occultism explains the relationship
between mind and body and soul.  All of these factors are
interconnected through the operation of the chakras.  Even though it
may seem that we are getting unnecessarily complex here, we are
actually building a very powerful theoretical framework of how a
human is built and operates.  Already at this point we have related
biological and psychological functions in one coherent theory.
Science, with its reductionistic mentality can offer us no
equivalent counterpart.  Science, as mentioned above, cannot offer
any detailed understanding of how the subjective and objective
facets of our life interrelate.  Chakra theory, and occultism in
general, does indeed offer this understanding.   And what I shall
now illustrate is that occultism does not contradict or clash with
science in any way.  Instead, it offers us an expanded viewpoint
that integrates the facts known to modern science into a larger view
of our total experience as human beings
    So with this minimal picture of occult theory in mind, let us return
to the issue of hallucinogenic drugs.  Using occult theory, what we
can say is that hallucinogenic drugs severely affect the behavior of
the chakras.  All of the subjective effects listed earlier in this
article can be accounted for as effects of hyperactivity in definite
chakras:

1.  Thus, visual hallucinations are in actuality the stimulation of
the third eye chakra, leading to some degree of clairvoyance, which
is the perception of the adjacent planes.

2.  Audio hallucinations are the stimulating of the throat chakra to
hyper activity.  In this case, one begins to hear on, for example,
the astral plane.

3.  The mixing of sensory modalities is an effect of the crown
chakra, which is the site of integration, not only of sensory
perception, but astral perception (emotions), and mental perception
(thinking).  Thus, at the point of integration (crown chakra) all
separate modalities are blended into a unified consciousness.  This
effect is enhanced under hallucinogenics.  And the hallucinogenic
effect is even more pronounced because of the fact that we rarely
recognize this integration to begin with.  It is there all along but
we don't see, and when the drug stimulates the crown chakra and we
are forced to look at this integration of the modalities of our
consciousness, it seems surprising to us.

4.  The weakening of ego boundaries is again an effect of increasing
the activity of the crown chakra.  In this case, it is not so much
that the ego is loosened but that the ego is seen in its proper
perspective in the totality of our organization as a human being.
Again, this is an effect of the integration function of the crown
chakra.  The ego (which effectively is our personal identity) is but
one facet of our being.  In our day to day life however, we tend to
over emphasize our ego at the expense of other facets of our being.
Again, the hallucinogenic stimulation of the crown chakra only
serves to put things in a realistic perspective.

5. Enhanced ability to think abstractly.  What is happening here is
that the hallucinogen triggers off such an enormous increase in
libido energy (which will be discussed below) that our mind is
capable of perceiving a much vaster range of the mental plane.  This
effectively translates into broader, more sweeping and more abstract
thoughts.

6.  The uncontrollable urge to laugh is a classic phenomena
indicating enhanced chakra activity.  Laughter is a release of
tension.  Increasing the activity of chakras is also a release of
tension.  The increased chakra motion effectively burns up the extra
energy.  An experienced LSD user is unlikely to have this laughter
effect, only a novice who is not used to the sensations of enhanced
chakras would express these sensations by uncontrollable laughter.
This is very similar to how people laugh when they are nervous or
cry when they are very happy.  However, on the hallucinogen, the
effect is greatly increased.

7.  The enhanced empathic ability is mainly a function of the hyper
stimulation of the heart chakra.  Our whole ability to be sensitive
to the emotions displayed by others resides in the heart chakra.
The hallucinogenic stimulates the heart chakra, so it is no
surprises that a typical hallucinogenic user is more sensitive to
the feelings and attitudes of others.

8.  Inability to maintain focus or concentration for long periods.
Here we run into a situation that is probably more a function of the
brain than of the chakra system.  It should be pointed out that
experienced hallucinogenic users will report that this effect only
lasts for a small percentage of the time that the drug effects are
occurring.  Probably what we are seeing here is the maximum effect
of the actual chemical in the physical body in which there is a
maximum disruption of the normal function of the neurons in the
brain.  Again, this effect is short lived (usually about 30-60
minute).  And often it seems that this effect is a prelude to the
effect of thinking abstractly.  It appears that we are dealing with
distinct phases of the drug experience here and with effect number
5, again, with number 8 here preceding number 5.

9.  Feelings of extreme joy.  This effect is literally the opposite
of effect 10: feelings of extreme terror and/or depression.  What he
have here is an amplification of ones normal state of mind by the
enhanced libido of the drug.  Whatever the user is feeling becomes
greatly magnified, so reports of extreme emotional states are
common.  Also, since emotion is generally a function of the
concerted (simultaneous) operation of the four lower chakras, we
find here evidence that the hallucinogen is affecting not only the
higher chakras (throat, third-eye and crown) but the lower ones as
well.  Again, this will be generalized below.

10.  Finally, the direct apprehension of God.  It is in studying
this hallucinogenic effect that we can begin to tie together many
elements of this article.  We have seen that intellectuals such as
Huxley, Watts, and Leary identified the LSD experience with
religious experience.  It is also a common, though reasonably
accurate picture that the guy in the nut house thinks he's Jesus.
Furthermore, all yoga texts worth reading explain that the function
of yoga is ultimately to transfer all of the libido energy to the
crown chakra at which point the yogi achieves nirvana, or mystical
insight, which, practically speaking, is *the* total, integrative
psychological event.  One directly perceives the unity of the
cosmos, and ones place in this unity.  For all practical purposes,
this is indeed seeing God.  That Western intellectuals have
perceived this in a religious context, and Western physicians have
perceived this in the context of psychosis, really tells us
something about Western intellectuals and Western doctors.  All I
can ask is: "Who would you invite over for dinner, or have watch
your kids?"
     At this point, I would like to attempt to generalize this picture
of the action of hallucinogenic drugs on the chakras system.  One
important facet of occult teaching I have not explicitly stated yet,
though I have been using it, is the idea of "kundalini".  Yogis and
occultists teach that housed in the root chakra is a fundamental
energy called kundalini.  This energy is depicted as a coiled snake
and it is the goal of the yogi and occultist to, slowly and in a
controlled manner, release this energy.  The purpose for releasing
this energy is to bring it progressively through the chakras, which
in turn confers the particular psychic abilities associated with
that chakra.  This process is known  as "awakening" or "vivifying" a
chakra.  This energy is brought up the spine (or the etheric
counterpart thereof) and its final destination is the crown chakra,
which, upon successfully reaching, confers enlightenment, which is
the true goal of both yoga and occultism, as well as mysticism.
Bringing the kundalini to the crown chakra is exactly the method by
which enlightenment is conferred.  This is a well known and well
accepted fact in Eastern cultures in which the yoga tradition is
kept alive.
     Above I used the word "libido", a word derived from Freud that
loosely translates as "sex energy".  Libido is kundalini.  However,
the idea of kundalini is much broader and clearer than Freud's
concept of libido, so I will now use the word kundalini from  here
on out.
    So with this backgound, let us attempt to give a general
explanation, in occult terms, of the effect of hallucinogenic drugs
on a human being.
     What seems to be happening during the hallucinogenic experience is
that the kundalini is spontaneously activated by the drug.  How this
occurs I do not know.  I can speculate that probably what happens is
that the hallucinogenic somehow affects the gland system of the body
(which is called the endocrine system and includes the adrenal
glands, thyroid, parathyroid, pituitary and pineal glands, among
others), not simply the brain.  I make this statement about the
endocrine system because occultist often point out the crucial role
played by the pineal and pituitary glands in meditative practices.
In a fashion that is very ill defined both scientifically and
occultly, these glands play an intimate role in relation to the
kundalini.  Unfortunately, not much more than this can be said.
     Somehow,  the drug confers changes in the endocrine system of the
body that result in the stimulation of the kundalini.  The kundalini
becomes active in an uncontrolled fashion, which is literally the
opposite of yoga in which kundalini is slowly and painstakingly
controlled over years of meditative practices.  The onset of
alterations in the LSD user's perception corresponds with the onset
of the kundalini release.  As this energy is released in a
spontaneous and uncontrolled fashion, any number of psychological
and subjective events are possible that would be completely
dependent on the circumstances under which the drug was taken.  This
then is the explanation of Timothy Leary's notion of "set and
setting".


Hallucinogenic Drugs And Inner Exploration

     At this point we have completed our overview of hallucinogenic
substances.  We've briefly mentioned the history, discussed the
subjective effects of these drugs, and gone into some detail of
scientific and occult explanations of why these drugs do what they
do to human beings.  In this last section, I would like to try to
tie all of this together in terms of how these drugs provide a tool
for the individual interested in exploring his or her own
subjectivity, the inner spaces of ones being.
     Going off on all the occult chakra theory as I did above has one
overridingly important lesson to it, and that is the realization
that hallucinogenics do in one hour what yogis spend their lives
trying to accomplish.  The release of the kundalini energy is no
small or trivial matter.  My friend that I mentioned earlier likes
to compare LSD and related substances to nuclear bombs.  Both are
immediate, almost uncomprehensively powerful, and can kill a lot
more readily than they can heal.  LSD is something to be respected,
if not revered, because it is indeed a doorway to many divine
things.  I would not discourage one from taking the drug.  However,
I do not advocate the careless use of the drug either.  If one is
interested in using it as a tool for experiencing realities that
current dogma tells us do not exist, well, I recommend that the
explorer exercise respect for this particular tool.  And then, as an
explorer, you can see that current dogma is simply wrong.
     Another purpose for going off on both scientific and occult theory
is to show that there is way more going on here than meets they
eye.  In this regard, I have a favorite quote by Leadbeater that
says it all: "We must beware of falling into the fatally common
error of supposing that what we see is all there is to see."  LSD,
and hallucinogenic drugs in general, can be used as a tool to give
concrete substance to Leadbeater's statement.  The watchful and
attentive hallucinogenic user will learn many things about the
hidden worlds that we cannot perceive with our physical senses,
ranging from things as unbelievable as seeing the cells inside your
brain, to seeing atoms and molecules, to readily perceiving
abstractions so glorious as to defy your very being, all the way to
-dare I say it -seeing God first hand, and allowing God to talk
through your mouth.  On this note, I'd like to end this article with
a quote by Alister Crowley, (taken from "The Book Of Wisdom Or
Folly) that absolutely captures the spirit of this article:

"Concerning the Use of Chymical Agents, and be mindful that thou
abuse them not, learn that the Sacrament itself relateth to Spirit,
and the Four Elements balanced thereunder, in its Perfection."


Please direct your questions and/or comments to:
Don DeGracia, CIS address: 71331,3517