true hallucinations.htm - Shroomery

true hallucinations.htm
and whose anticipation had caused such strain on our expedition.
The ayahuasca had been brewed. Since then, having seen ayahuasca brewed professionally by shamans in Peru, I am sure that our brew was
too weak to have had any major role in what followed. It was the mushroom that was the causal agent, if a causal agent could be isolated. And
mushrooms we had, both ones we had picked as well as a specimen moved into the hut, in situ in its manure base. Dennis confidently stated
that living, metabolizing psilocybin should be present. We had hung the chrysalis of a Mor-pho near the mushroom so that animal tissue
undergoing metamorphosis would also be represented in the target area tableau. What was science and what ritual? We did not know and
could not tell. All bets were covered. Poetic inspiration and scientific insight had become fused.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE EXPERIMENT AT LA CHORRERA
In which the experiment is attempted and the brothers McKenna are driven mad by its unexpected aftermath.
The NIGHT OF MARCH 4 was absolutely black. A low-lying cloud bank had appeared, muffling the small world of La Chorrera and
wrapping it in a bowl of all-absorbing velvet darkness. Following the storm we had rebuilt our fire and boiled off several liters of water from
our infusion of Banisteriopsis caapi, so that it was much stronger than it had been before. We then added crushed leaves, which Dennis had
gathered that day near the chorro and which we were using as DMT admixture plants. It was the admixture plants that we hoped would
provide the DMT necessary to drive the intense hallucinations for which the brew is famous. We had tentatively identified these plants as
Justiciapectoralis var. steno-phylla—a plant thought to be used as an admixture of ayahuasca in the Vaupes drainage north of us. Now, years
after that evening, not only do I question the concentration at which we brewed the Banisteriopsis but also our identification of the admixture
plant.
There is no doubt that there was considerable harmine alkaloid in the infusion, but as I later learned not as much as is necessary to
provoke an unambiguous intoxication. The harmine alkaloids present were, in my opinion, boosted by the psilocybin that had accumulated in
our systems, or rather the MAO-inhibiting effect of these beta-carbolines caused the residual psilocybin to emerge into consciousness as a
deep hallucinogenic experience.
While I completed the boiling, Ev and Dennis went to their hammocks and lay down to await the completion of the preparations. We laughed
together and talked softly. Yet in spite of this there was an undercurrent of tension as we approached the experiment into which we had poured
so much of our energy. As we neared the critical moment, Ev and Dennis became unaccountably clumsy and seemed to find their bodies hard
to handle; it was that which had sent them to their hammocks. I seemed unaffected and was able to look after whatever needed attention.
Lying in his hammock, Dennis ate two mushrooms to launch the beginning of the experiment; Ev and I did the same.
Our little thatched hut on its stilt legs looked in the flickering firelight like a small spaceship dropped into the howling jungles of an alien
world. We all felt as if we were approaching hyperspatial overdrive. There was a sense of immense energies accumulating. The effect was
reinforced by the hammocks hanging like acceleration slings ready to receive a starship's crew. Dennis lay in his hammock nearly unable to
hold a pencil, but writing furiously in tight, operational terms about the experiment just ahead:
The mushroom is presently metabolizing within our bodies; this has keyed in on the tryptamine template in the living mushroom and it has
been sensitized for the condensation of the harmine-psilocybin-DNA molecule. When the ayahuasca is ingested the harmine analog will start
to metabolize within the body. The ESR of the presensitized psilocybin circuit will immediately cancel the ESR of the harmine and cause it to
bond superconduc-tively to the DNA-RNA complex both in our bodies and in the mushroom simultaneously in a higher dimension. The
bonding completed, the harmine-DNA memory bank and drive unit will condense into the waiting, charged psilocybin circuit in the
mushroom. We will see this condensation, as it will appear in the
mushroom at the same instant that the bond is completed in a higher dimension.
I had no notion of what this all meant or was leading to. I took the attitude that I must simply be a good witness. Surely nothing at all would
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