The Miracle of Consciousnesses and the Phenomena of Light

The Miracle of Consciousnesses and the Phenomena of Light
Since the dawn of history, this visionary process has been attended
with supernatural light; almost without exception, religious
experiences of the supra-mundane sort are accompanied by brilliant
luminescence, such as the English mystic, Henry Vaughan describes
in his poem, “The World:”
I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light
All calm, as it was bright . . .
Sun worship, the endless day of the Apocalypse, the veneration
of jewels and bright metals, the flaming rose of the Unio Mystica,
or the overpowering light experienced by Mohammed and St. Paul,
all have their basis in some mysterious process, which is now set in
action by the hallucinogenic drug. The colors that have already been
seen in their Eden-like purity begin to glow like subtle neon, pulsing
with intrinsic inner brightness; a Kodachrome-spectacle of intense
brilliance transforms the humblest shapes of experience into vessels
of Heracletian fire. The world of mythology and ecstatic vision
suddenly opens up to the perceiver, who begins to experience for
himself what history has restricted to a fabled few. Man’s instinctive
awe before the mystery of light is reawakened by the spectacle of
cosmic luminescence, noumenously shining in every surface or
exploding like millions of Milky Ways in his field of vision.

Our identification with the miracle of consciousness has long
been symbolized by the phenomenon of light. Poetry and language
abound in metaphors such as “illumination” and “enlightenment”
when referring to higher forms of knowledge, while darkness is
always associated with chaos, negativism, and death. Goethe’s dying
words, “More light!” were the last request of one who instinctively
clung to the vanishing embers of existence. Not only our respect
for the sun, which is the source of our life, but also the peculiar
organization of our brain, which invariably provides the “supernatural”
brilliance seen in extreme moments of “otherness”, accounts for the
traditional association between luminescence and the Divine. From
pre-Socratic Greece to modern physics, with its equation of matter
and energy, philosophers have repeatedly ascribed characteristics of
fire to Ultimate Reality. Tibetan texts on Tantra claim that Being is
essentially a clear, timeless Light, in which waves of mentation create
patterns of phenomenal perception. To see this perfect Light involves
a mystical discipline not unrelated to our experience of “otherness”,
whether initiated by esoteric training or the pre-rational mechanism
of psychotropic drugs. Indeed, Hindu mythology alludes to such a
legendary substance that enabled the partaker to enter into the Vedic
world of Ultimate Light:
We’ve quaffed the soma bright,
And are immortal grown;
We’ve entered into light,
And all the gods have known.
(Rig Veda)
It is not surprising that the Indo-European races as a whole
identified their gods with luminosity. The Indo-European root *dijeus
referred to the sky, from whence was derived the Sanskrit noun dyauh;
this term, combined with the word for “father”, gave the Vedic name
of Pita dyauh, the “Sky-Father”, who was also cognate with the
Greek father of the gods, Zeu pater (Zeus). In Latin, his name was
Juppiter, similarly derived from dies pater, (“day” or “sky-father”). All
of these related words express the same ineffable longing that human
imagination has connected with the light of day, especially when it is
seen at sundown, disappearing in the distance, as a final reflection of
the far-off land. According to the legends of many races, Eternity lay
in the West, where the eye could no longer follow, as it watched the
last faint colors of day recede into darkness. The effect upon the poetic
imagination of this last brilliance, like fire behind the already black
silhouette of some elevated horizon, can easily be appreciated. Yet,
through the means of psychotropic perception, this experience may
be expanded to a level of transcendent sublimity. I have thus watched
the disappearing light of evening, spread out as a rosy mist upon the
mysterious mountains and distances of my own desert. Perched on
some high hill, it seemed to me that the magic of that realm, which
we see symbolized in light, was itself a glimpse of the Unattainable,
transforming material space into a suggestion of the Infinite. This
sum of all beyonds, transparent and luminous, like a remote prospect
of harmony or a recollection of ancient paradise, carried the mind
to the limits of its conceptual powers, as if the very secret of the
universe were to be perceived in the mystery of those last gleams,
returning to the ultimate Home of all things. This utmost nostalgia,
coupled with fear of the oncoming darkness, must have compelled
our ancestors to recognize the reflection of their own interior vision
in the unfathomable light that they daily beheld, withdrawing by
evening to its primal source and again reborn each morning. Indeed,
the whole archetypal meaning of the “otherworldly” seems to reveal
itself in those magic distances, illuminated by the departing rays of
the sun.
Yet, how miraculous to behold this same light during moments
of visionary attunement, pouring forth in the inner eye of the soul!
All of those who have encountered the “otherworldly” in mystical
or morbid states have spoken of the brilliance in their optical field;
the identification of one’s own vital force with the external light
of infinity would be a scarcely illogical reaction to this similarity
between microcosm and macrocosm. In fact, with the help of LSD
and mescaline, one may actually re-experience this metaphysical
insight—not intellectually, but directly, as it must have happened
in the intuitive subconsciousness of the race. The archetypal basis
for this universal notion becomes accordingly apparent from the
information released by our cerebral mechanism, revealing the
identical sources of our memory and the haunting suggestions
perceived in nature. As in the sun itself, this light of interior vision
is a world of burning s, of seething fire and creative force, flowing
incessantly from one luminescent form into the next. With eyes
closed, this inner fire becomes a series of kaleidoscopic scintillation's,
varying from geometric forms of surpassing loveliness to images of
utmost sublimity, all per-fused with uniform brightness, reminding
one of the solid gold backgrounds of Byzantine art, which attempted
to portray the kingdom of God with shining metal. In the deeper
states of hallucination, matter itself becomes a play of pure energy,
curiously identical with the view of modern physics. The nervous
system actually feels this electric force feeding the forms of perception,
congealing into substance, and then reconverting itself into a sort of
luminescent élan vitale. Visionaries have experienced this equivalence
of matter and energy since ancient times, as recorded, for example,
by Zen adepts during the state of satori:
The “God of Matter” has just taken off his mask of
glacial immobility, and, behold, is transformed into
a prodigiously moving, fluid, impalpable energy. His
countenance, which once appeared sombre and dull, is
now lit up with ever more dazzling clarity. The silent
fairyland of light, perpetually unfolding in the heart of
the smallest grain of sand, far exceeds in splendor the
most brilliant fireworks we could ever hope to see.
(Robert Linssen, Living Zen)
Modern scientists will dismiss this vision as an illusory coincidence;
yet, they would do well to remember that the contents of the human
mind have remained consistent throughout history, being merely
adapted to the language and conceptual methods of various ages. The
present results of the experimental laboratory are only meaningful
according to the subjective framework of our empirical age. It is
still the “hypothesis”, representing the accumulated imagination of
the race, which guides even material science, since the experimental
method has nothing to work with until marshaled into the service of
some subjective idea. If its practitioners prefer to smile at the mystic
who arrives at certain identical notions, they should reflect that
physics today has merely modified the insights of ancient times to
its own subjective understanding, and atomistic ideas, coupled with
theories of vital force, have enjoyed an uninterrupted vogue right up
to our own time. Each successive age has recast them according to the
methods of reason it employs. It would seem, then, that the primal
ideas themselves, with their organic significance in the human mind,
are more deserving of attention than the transient terminologies used
to frame them. Indeed, one might seriously question whether or not
modern physics would have ever conceived of the forms it employs
in describing “reality” had they not existed as a cultural heritage all
along.
Only the ignorant are unaware of how great a role the past plays
in their every thought. Perhaps the greatest significance of the deeper
stages of mescaline or LSD perception is that the subject now stands
face to face with this integrative bedrock of memory. Even more
meaningful than the brilliant visual phantasmagoria are the ideational
processes that they reveal, processes that are in fact the basic content
of human experience. Unlocked by some mysterious power of the
drug, an unbelievable profusion of ancient symbols pours forth.
Ideas underlying the oldest myths appear with eidetic clarity; the
spectacle of light and motion becomes an absolute experience of the
Oneness of being; pantheism and indwelling Divine Energy may
alternate with a spectacle of the atomic force pulsing through one’s
body, projecting itself through the vastness of space into shining
galaxies. The Eternal Flux is succeeded by the changeless majesty of
Platonic Ideas; one is no longer bound by space and time, but senses
his identity with Life itself, perceived as a timeless moment, without
beginning or end. Relativity, the Harmony of the Spheres, of the
Infinite, of the Infinite are seen, not as their external representations,
but as the ageless impulses that gave them birth. A descent into the
womb draws one back onto the primal slime of creation, glistening
and palpitating with visceral wetness like a red, cavernous swamp.
Hosts of sperm-like animals swim upward into the translucent glow
of some prehistoric springtime, aglow with the force of creation,
oozing up through the roots and trunks of rank vegetation. Legendary
creatures peer out of the jungles of unconscious memory; sexual
phantasmagoria dissolves into mythical spectacles of reincarnation,
driving the Round of Existence with an electric rhythm of immense
carnal lewdness. Human bodies tumble past, emanating their sheer
suggestion of blood and instinct, charged with the fullness of every
poetic feeling that man has experienced since the origin of his race.
Love, exaltation, joy, and suffering pour out of the well of time in
images of shining clarity, succeeding one another as threads in a living
tapestry, wherein are woven the patterns of primordial meaning that
form the heart of human consciousness. Within this iridescent sea
of archetypal pictures, the secrets of the mandala, the Rebirth from
water, the phallic serpent, the Eternal Feminine, the uterine caves
of the Venusberg, and the beasts that appear to us in nightmare, all
unfold in their turn. Whatever mysteries man has projected into the
wandering clouds, the heart of the atom, or the wisdom of philosophy
await discovery in the depths of the soul that gave them birth. This is
the ultimate exploration that can ever be undertaken.
In addition to these collective and archetypal memories, which
should prove of immense value to anthropology and philosophy, the
personal past of the individual returns with amazing total recall. It
is this particular phenomenon that currently makes LSD of use to
psychiatrists, who experimentally employ the drug as an analytical
aid in uncovering suppressed material from the subconscious mind.
The occasionally claimed validity of memories prior to birth must
be questioned, since the embryo, even if possessed of the ability
to record its experiences in the womb, would certainly not have
formed the conceptual mechanisms that adult memory attributes to
these prenatal events. Yet, the unexplained clarity of long-forgotten
scenes from very early childhood raises the question whether or not
some primitive mental process indeed might be active in the fetal
consciousness, which later stimulates the universal occurrence of
uterine and birth fantasies in the dreams or hallucinations of various
races. I am disinclined to believe that such fantasies can be direct
memories; nevertheless, the continuity of human consciousness
from the present moment back to an undetermined point in the past
suggests that there may well exist some psychic record of a diffuse
sort, beginning even before the neonatal state.
Imagination certainly plays its part in these fantasies, as is proven
by the immense creative power of the mind under hallucinogenic
stimulation. Daydreaming can lead from one arbitrary picture to
another, devised quite at random and under the complete control
of the will. Yet, the eidetic power of the memory is at the same time
so strong that actual events are recaptured with the concreteness of
direct experience. Tastes, odors, minute visual details, and attending
emotions are present in perfect clarity, as fresh as at the moment
of their actual occurrence. This absolute ability to transport oneself
back into the scenes of former life mimics possession of supernatural
power, which explains why certain peoples even today employ
hallucinogenic drugs in practicing clairvoyance and communication
with the spirit world.
The basic anthropological connection between memory, the
world of the beyond, and the existence of ghosts becomes obvious
through the juxtaposition of past and present, which LSD or
mescaline projects upon the screen of inner vision, where a thousand
scenes from bygone years appear as if the movement of time were
indeed an illusion. What imagination attributes to the state of
innocence, the intellect can examine directly as a re-established fact,
here and now. To actually relive a phase of life wherein the clouds,
the green boughs of secret trees, the scent of ripening apples, or the
cry of a distant bird seems more important than the margin of profit
shown in dusty bankbooks is not merely an aesthetic experience,
but direct evidence for our hopes of a simpler, more golden-rich
existence amongst the basic things of blood and earth. For some
years I had in my papers a youthful attempt to record the almost
visionary impression that a summer afternoon on Clapham Common
once made upon my boyish mind. From the viewpoint of practical
reason, such powers of perception seemed more romantic than real,
yet a capsule of mescaline one day restored not only the memory
of that vanished poetry, but also the tangible experience itself,
which irrefutably transcended any preconceived imagination. Such
gratuitous return of lost energies, even temporarily, is like the sight of
a distant beacon, redirecting the conscious mind toward the image of
reality slumbering within. Our unexplained dreams and preferences
we thus understand to be reflections of our far-off land. Among-st the
symbols and archetypes of cultural life, the entirety of our past lies
root-active, waiting through the years of intellectual distraction to be
reawakened in adult experience. Buried in this store of memory are
the patterns of all the perceptions that we experience as reality; for
this very reason, the psychogenic re encounter with our primal vitality
can reveal the meaning of whatever ordinary existence has to offer of
genuine significance and fulfillment of inner destiny.
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