I was not delighted when I woke up in my motel room by the airport and found on the computer that my flight, almost within arm's reach at 3 hours away, had been canceled due to a foot of snow that was inching its way up in blustery squalls. Calling the airline, I found that the earliest flight that I could manage would be on the following day at 5:00 PM, an almost interminable wait given that I had no car and the busy industrial streets no sidewalks. I was stuck like a moth larvae in a cocoon. Trapped.
Fortunately, the motel, a Days Inn, had free WiFi and I a Kindle, and with that a whole library opened up to me. I was not in the mood for the heavy theology I had been reading, and had already done a recent stint with the UFO literature - the latest nearly devoid of anything truly useful to think about except: paranoia! Your government is hiding unimaginable information from you! Tantalizing but devoid of any further verifiable facts.
It's then that I returned to the hallucinatory drug literature, a category in its own right, with possibilities out the wazoo - but which were serious? Which would provide some useful information for my own endless research into deeper truth?
As it turned out, I got very lucky. The first that I clicked on was "Decomposing the Shadow" by James Jesse, published only a few years ago by a young man not yet in his thirties. His story was nearly identical in structure to my own when I was around 20 - a confused young man searching for meaning in all the wrong ways, with drinking, heavy recreational drug use, and then travel as a means to escape the wrong turns and find something, anything, Out There (in my book, Dream Weaver). At first, this did not look like such a lucky find, for there was a lot of youthful reiteration of the shallow and destructive ways of our industrial culture, but soon, very soon, this changed. Jesse, with surprising clarity, hit on several core concepts of reality, aided by his use of the "magic mushroom," psilocybin. These were not dry academic monologues meant to satisfy the need to posses reality, but intimations of direct contact with such issues. These were deeply felt and understood, as I had once understood them for similar reasons: some chemicals, the best found in natural substances, can clear the mind for deep sensate knowledge of being.
As I see it, he made three major points, each essential to the modern reader who seeks to expand personal depth knowledge.
One: that the person who we think we are is a shallow mirage. This I discovered in my early tripping days, and it has been confirmed ever since, by both the ancient philosophers and mystics that have since been read as well as by observation of human life in general. What we THINK we are has been easily manipulated and deconstructed by psychologists, for this 'thing' is far more Pavlovian than most of us wish to think. It is a construct of stimulus and response, an aspect of self that allows us to survive in nature as well as in human social groups. It is self-centered, anxious, constantly on the alert to protect what it thinks it is. It is the self's survival of the fit, no less a product of basic nature than the dog or the hummingbird.
Two: that this self creates a shadow, or all the values opposite the socially approved ways of conditioning - for to have a positive, one must have a negative; and, as a characteristic of the distinctly human animal, one must have an internal notion or understanding of the contrast. It is usually hidden from daylight, both figuratively and actually, so that the social self can carry on its business. But the shadow is never far away - not only surfacing in the subconscious through dreams, but also in neurosis and self-defeating behavior. This is the point that concerns the author most, and thus the title to the book. As an older - almost old - man, this is the point that concerns me least, although that was not the case when I was younger. As someone who's been around the block too many times, this uncomfortable side has simply become the night that must accompany day. This is not to say that the psychological discomfort is born with a cheery smile, but rather that the aging persona simply begins to accept this as 'just so.' Lest I seem too casual, it would take a lot to get me to use hallucinogens again - they can be scary as hell itself. No; but like the deft jungle tribesman, I now know how to circle around the hidden fire - ant nest. Yes, it exists; yes, I feel it when it's inhabitants are biting me; but I let it lie when at all possible.
Three: that there is an infinite mystery and depth to each individual beyond the superficial persona, and in that depth is found the basis of life, the unitive. So it is that all things are complimentary in an impossibly beautiful arrangement that, for lack of a better word, the mystics throughout the ages have called Love. So it is that in complimentarity we find a depth of unity that is Truth and beyond iteration. It, this knowledge, 'just is,' or as the author put it, is "all that there is, all at once," another term for the loaded word, God.
It is at this point that I confuse this book with the other, for the conclusions that they reach are similar - as is the youthful discordance that brought them there. Between the two, I was brought to a somewhat hopeful conclusion - that the young of today are searching for meaning, wholeness and love as much as any other generation. The difference from my own, the Baby Boomers, is that they have no nationally or internationally recognized "movement" happening. And this, I have come to believe, is a good thing. The hippie movement of my own time was quickly swallowed up in commercialism and cynicism, populated quickly by poseurs who wished to be part of this new "coolness." I have little doubt that this affected my own personality as well. Today, however, many youths are working under cover, as has always been necessary for mystical things. There are small groups that one can find on the web, some with publishing houses and fairly extensive membership, but these have kept below the radar of popular thought, almost as if the hippie era was a first, and partially failed, attempt by deep Self to promote the discovery of Self. It is as if we are being led by Self, by deep truth, towards a new way; as if we were, really, an evolutionary species rather than just another experiment gone horribly wrong. FK
Fortunately, the motel, a Days Inn, had free WiFi and I a Kindle, and with that a whole library opened up to me. I was not in the mood for the heavy theology I had been reading, and had already done a recent stint with the UFO literature - the latest nearly devoid of anything truly useful to think about except: paranoia! Your government is hiding unimaginable information from you! Tantalizing but devoid of any further verifiable facts.
It's then that I returned to the hallucinatory drug literature, a category in its own right, with possibilities out the wazoo - but which were serious? Which would provide some useful information for my own endless research into deeper truth?
As it turned out, I got very lucky. The first that I clicked on was "Decomposing the Shadow" by James Jesse, published only a few years ago by a young man not yet in his thirties. His story was nearly identical in structure to my own when I was around 20 - a confused young man searching for meaning in all the wrong ways, with drinking, heavy recreational drug use, and then travel as a means to escape the wrong turns and find something, anything, Out There (in my book, Dream Weaver). At first, this did not look like such a lucky find, for there was a lot of youthful reiteration of the shallow and destructive ways of our industrial culture, but soon, very soon, this changed. Jesse, with surprising clarity, hit on several core concepts of reality, aided by his use of the "magic mushroom," psilocybin. These were not dry academic monologues meant to satisfy the need to posses reality, but intimations of direct contact with such issues. These were deeply felt and understood, as I had once understood them for similar reasons: some chemicals, the best found in natural substances, can clear the mind for deep sensate knowledge of being.
As I see it, he made three major points, each essential to the modern reader who seeks to expand personal depth knowledge.
One: that the person who we think we are is a shallow mirage. This I discovered in my early tripping days, and it has been confirmed ever since, by both the ancient philosophers and mystics that have since been read as well as by observation of human life in general. What we THINK we are has been easily manipulated and deconstructed by psychologists, for this 'thing' is far more Pavlovian than most of us wish to think. It is a construct of stimulus and response, an aspect of self that allows us to survive in nature as well as in human social groups. It is self-centered, anxious, constantly on the alert to protect what it thinks it is. It is the self's survival of the fit, no less a product of basic nature than the dog or the hummingbird.
Two: that this self creates a shadow, or all the values opposite the socially approved ways of conditioning - for to have a positive, one must have a negative; and, as a characteristic of the distinctly human animal, one must have an internal notion or understanding of the contrast. It is usually hidden from daylight, both figuratively and actually, so that the social self can carry on its business. But the shadow is never far away - not only surfacing in the subconscious through dreams, but also in neurosis and self-defeating behavior. This is the point that concerns the author most, and thus the title to the book. As an older - almost old - man, this is the point that concerns me least, although that was not the case when I was younger. As someone who's been around the block too many times, this uncomfortable side has simply become the night that must accompany day. This is not to say that the psychological discomfort is born with a cheery smile, but rather that the aging persona simply begins to accept this as 'just so.' Lest I seem too casual, it would take a lot to get me to use hallucinogens again - they can be scary as hell itself. No; but like the deft jungle tribesman, I now know how to circle around the hidden fire - ant nest. Yes, it exists; yes, I feel it when it's inhabitants are biting me; but I let it lie when at all possible.
Three: that there is an infinite mystery and depth to each individual beyond the superficial persona, and in that depth is found the basis of life, the unitive. So it is that all things are complimentary in an impossibly beautiful arrangement that, for lack of a better word, the mystics throughout the ages have called Love. So it is that in complimentarity we find a depth of unity that is Truth and beyond iteration. It, this knowledge, 'just is,' or as the author put it, is "all that there is, all at once," another term for the loaded word, God.
It is at this point that I confuse this book with the other, for the conclusions that they reach are similar - as is the youthful discordance that brought them there. Between the two, I was brought to a somewhat hopeful conclusion - that the young of today are searching for meaning, wholeness and love as much as any other generation. The difference from my own, the Baby Boomers, is that they have no nationally or internationally recognized "movement" happening. And this, I have come to believe, is a good thing. The hippie movement of my own time was quickly swallowed up in commercialism and cynicism, populated quickly by poseurs who wished to be part of this new "coolness." I have little doubt that this affected my own personality as well. Today, however, many youths are working under cover, as has always been necessary for mystical things. There are small groups that one can find on the web, some with publishing houses and fairly extensive membership, but these have kept below the radar of popular thought, almost as if the hippie era was a first, and partially failed, attempt by deep Self to promote the discovery of Self. It is as if we are being led by Self, by deep truth, towards a new way; as if we were, really, an evolutionary species rather than just another experiment gone horribly wrong. FK
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