true hallucinations.htm - Shroomery

true hallucinations.htm
CHAPTER SEVEN
A VIOLET PSYCHOFLUID
In which Dennis begins to outline his approach to the Alchemical Opus and a psychofluid that may or may not be translinguistic matter is
debated.
My STORY FINISHED, we all went to sleep for a few fitful hours. In the dim light of dawn, Ev and I made our way to a cluster of huts about
three-quarters of a mile away on the shore of the Igara-Parana above the chorro. We knew that Witoto, coming down the river to the mission
to deliver their children to school, would be staying in those normally empty houses. Our hope was to buy some eggs, papayas, or squash to
supplement our diet of brown rice, yucca, and plantains.
We found only a small group of people whose only item for sale was a grapefruit-sized, green, heart-shaped fruit filled with slimy, vaguely
sweet seeds awash in a light, purple syrup. At the time this fruit was unknown to science; a few years later Schultes would describe it and
name it Macoubea witotorum. I have yet to encounter this fruit again. It was very inexpensive and since we had come with the expectation of
buying something we spent fifteen pesos and got nearly fifty pounds of this curious food. Even though I had been up most of the night plying
the hallucinogenic oceans of
mind, I felt fit and full of vitality. I hoisted a bulging costal—our entire buy—and set off back toward the mission at a brisk pace.
I enjoyed this chore. The costal seemed light, almost a pleasure to carry along. Without pause, even to rest for a moment, Ev and I returned to
the mission and to Vanessa and Dave's riverside residence for our breakfast in common. When we had left our hut in search of food, Dennis
had been deeply asleep, but he was up now and had apparently gone immediately to awaken Vanessa and describe to her his experiences of a
few hours previous. The interior buzzing sound, the feeling of being possessed—it was all being excitedly told as we arrived at the house and I
set down my load. Throughout the making of breakfast the events of the last evening were discussed and dissected. Vanessa and Dave were
unmoved by Dennis's excited assertion that some extremely peculiar energy field had been tapped into and verified. At the end of breakfast I
suggested to Dennis that, rather than arguing with people about the nature of the experience, he should go off by himself and write down all
that he thought about the strange sound that he had made. He accepted this advice and made his way back up the hill to the knoll house to be
alone and to write:
February 28,1971
I approach these pages with a peculiar sense of urgency as a man might who had confronted an unexplainable phenomenon as some
impossible creation of dreams or unaccountable natural principle. The task facing such a man would be a very subtle one; that is, to describe
the phenomenon as accurately as possible. My task is compounded by the fact that the phenomenon I must try to describe has itself to do with
the very tools of description; i.e., language. This rather peculiar statement will begin to make more sense as we explore the concept more fully.
Before going further, something tells me it is necessary to consider who I am. Twenty-four hours ago I thought I knew—now this has become
the most perplexing question I have ever been confronted with. The questions leading from it will provide the answers that will allow us to
understand and use the phenomenon which is so difficult to describe. These may be the last characters of
a crude language that I will ever apply to the description of anything; since the phenomenon begins at the edge of language, where the conceptforming
faculty gropes but finds no words, I must be careful to avoid not distinguishing between mere language-symbol-metaphor and the
reality I am attempting to apply it to.
When I read this prologue later, it seemed to me both grandiose and alarming, but Dennis had an aura of calm certitude that seemed to
command respect. I felt that the Logos was struggling with the vocabulary of its newest vessel. He seemed to be making more and more sense,
to be on to something. I read on:
Since any phenomenon is, to a point, describable in empirical terms, so too with this one. It has to do with controlling one's body chemistry in
such a way as to produce very specific vocal and au-dial phenomena: the state becomes possible when highly bio-dynamic vegetable
alkaloids, specifically tryptamines and MAO-inhibitors,* are introduced into the body under very carefully regulated parameters. This
phenomenon is apparently possible in the presence of tryptamines alone, though MAO inhibition definitely helps to trigger it by facilitating
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