Timothy-Leary-The-Psychedelic-Experience-The-Tibetan-Book-Of-The-Dead

The most important use of this manual is for preparatory reading. Having read the Tibetan Manual, one can
immediately recognize symptoms and experiences which might otherwise be terrifying, only because of lack
of understanding as to what was happening. Recognition is the key word.
Secondly, this guidebook may be used to avoid paranoid traps or to regain the First Bardo transcendence if
it has been lost. If the experience starts with light, peace, mystic unity, understanding, and if it continues
along this path, then there is no need to remember this manual of have this manual re-read to you. Like a
road map, we consult it only when lost, or when we wish to change course. Usually, however, the ego clings
to its old games. There may be momentary discomfort or confusion. If this happens, the others present
should not be sympathetic or show alarm. They should be prepared to stay calm and restrain their “helping
games.” In particular, the “doctor” role should be avoided.
If at any time you find yourself struggling to get back to routine reality, you can (by pre-arrangement) have
a more experienced person, a fellow-voyager, or a trusted observer read parts of this manual to you.
Passages suitable for reading during the session are given in Part IV below. Each major descriptive section
of the Tibetan Book has an appropriate instruction text. One may want to pre-record selected passages and
simply flick on the recorder when desired. The aim of these instruction texts is always to lead the voyager
back to the original First Bardo transcendence and to help maintain that as long as possible.
A third use would be to construct a “program” for a session using passages from the text. The aim would be
to lead the voyager to one of the visions deliberately, or through a sequence of visions. The guide or friend
could read the relevant passages, show slides or pictures or symbolic figures of processes, play carefully
selected music, etc. One can envision a high art of programming psychedelic sessions, in which symbolic
manipulations and presentations would lead the voyager through ecstatic visionary Bead Games.
2. Planning a Session
In planning a session, the first question to be decided is “what is the goal?” Classic Hinduism suggest four
possibilities:
(1) For increased personal power, intellectual understanding, sharpened insight into self and culture,
improvement of life situation, accelerated learning, professional growth.
(2) For duty, help of others, providing care, rehabilitation, rebirth for fellow men.
(3) For fun, sensuous enjoyment, aesthetic pleasure, interpersonal closeness, pure experience.
(4) For transcendence, liberation from ego and space-time limits; attainment of mystical union.
This manual aims primarily at the latter goal - that of liberation-enlightenment. This emphasis does not
preclude attainment of the other goals - in fact, it guarantees their attainment because illumination requires
that the person be able to step out beyond game problems of personality, role, and professional status. The
initiate can decide beforehand to devote the psychedelic experience to any of the four goals. The manual
will be of assistance in any event.
If there are several people having a session together they should either agree collaboratively on a goal, or
at least be aware of each other’s goals. If the session is to be “programmed” then the participants should
either agree on or design a program collaboratively, or they should agree to let one member of the group
do the programming. Unexpected or undesired manipulations by one of the participants can easily “trap the
other voyagers into paranoid Third Bardo delusions.
The voyager, especially in an individual session, may also wish to have either an extroverted or an
introverted experience. In the extroverted transcendent experience, the self is ecstatically fused with
external objects (e.g. flowers, or other people). In the introverted state, the self is ecstatically fused with
internal life processes (lights, energy-waves, bodily events, biological forms, etc.). Of course, either the
extroverted or the introverted state may be negative rather than positive, depending on the attitude of the
voyager. Also it may be primarily conceptual or primarily emotional. The eight types of experience thus