The mushrooms said, and I'm sure you'll be horrified of this,
the mushroom said to me in the Amazon,
when they were revealing all this information
and deputizing us to do all these things
we said, "Why us?"
"Why should WE be," you know, "the ambassador of an alien species into human culture?"
and they said, "Because you have never believed anybody."
"Because you have never given over your belief to anyone."
Uh, in 1971, I was 23, my brother was 19
I spent several years in Asia already
having been run out of Berkeley
because of the revolution
and, uh, we
were
graduates of the LSD revolution
but it had left us wanting more
specifically, wanting the kinds of experiences
that the classical commentators on psychedelics described
and by that I mean people like Havelock Ellis in The Dance Of Life
or, uh,  S. Weir Mitchell
who wrote about mescaline
LSD, for us, never delivered
uh, visions
it delivered insight and feelings and complex thoughts
but not visions
not activity in the visual cortex
that these classical commentators had led us to expect
and I had been in India for a number of years
and pretty well managed to convince myself
that whatever spirituality had ever been there
it had evaporated thousands of years ago
and that what we were left with was a very
grasping and mendacious priestly hierarchy
that was about as cynical as religion gets
and I was raised Catholic so I know what I'm talking about
and, uh, so then we decided: well, where the gnosis must be, is in the Amazon
where we knew there was a pristine, aboriginal shamanism based on hallucinogens
and I stress our youth
because, I think, people imagine
that you can only make contributions if you're old and ladened with degrees
and that sort of thing
and basically, our pure, reckless inventiveness
carried us further into the heart of the Mystery than I would have ever believed possible
and I should say a little bit about the method because I think it's important:
um..
rationalism in confrontation with the weird edges
is what's always worked for me
in other words, if you're a true believer, if you have some pre-packaged philosophy
then you're going to miss a great deal
because you're pre-programmed to ignore what doesn't fit into your model
and it doesn't matter what your model is
uh, but if you're simply
the open minded sceptic / witness
and then, if you push at the edges of the phenomenal world
you know, go to the highest mountains
the oldest cities
the deepest deserts
the most remote jungles
and just simply put yourself in these circumstances,
the cosmic giggle can get at you
you know, it can't get at you if you're pursuing your job delivering messages for Matthew and Son
or whatever it is you've got going
but if you will tear the human atom of your individuality
out of the collectivity
and set yourself into a wilderness, a desert, an uninhabited island
then this thing can rise out of the depths
and communicate if it chooses, shape your life, for sure
blow your mind
