A GUIDE FOR THE NOVICE TRANSCENDENTAL MYSTIC

                            or

      HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE VOID

                    by A Divine Rascal



I am writing this guide in order to help the people who are
about to take a psychedelic drug for the first time attain the
true psychedelic state of mind. "Set" and, to a lesser extent,
"setting", are so important when seeking illumination that it
can hardly be reiterated enough.

Good karma is helpful in attaining illumination, but it is not
sufficient. I have good karma but I am also, by nature, a
skeptic and a scientist. And perhaps even worse is the fact that
I am arrogant.

When reading statements such as "set & setting are of paramount
importance..." I have thought to myself that that is probably
true for most people, but that I am so superior to other humans
that there is no need for me to be concerned with such things.
"After all", I thought, "I have already experienced a total of 5
minutes of the first blushes of non-game ecstasy even WITHOUT
drugs, so there is no risk that I will not attain nirvana WITH
drugs".

But I have news for you people out there who may be as ignorant
as me. It is NOT all in the drug. The drug, be it LSD or
psilocybin, MDMA or DMT, is only a catalyst. Your heart must be
in it, or you will surely fail in your attempt at cosmic
awareness. Such things are difficult for people like me who are
scientists and skeptics at the core of their egos. First of all,
we have trouble taking statements at face value. We require
"proof". We have been burned too many times before to simply
accept the words of the guru/guide/yogi/mystic as statements of
fact. I don't know what to say to convince the die-hard
rationalists like myself out there. I expect there is nothing to
do except to try a drug and fail. That was how I learned my
lesson.

It does not really matter much if you have good karma or not. I
have known for years that ethics and morals and personality and
actions are nothing but games. I have felt it, I have known it,
and I have understood it. And still I failed. Still I clung onto
my ego. I took 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine 6 times (a
few times at heroic dosages), and I could not let go. I felt
sick and bored and I could not break through.

Faith is key. As Timothy Leary wrote in The Psychedelic
Experience: "Faith is the first step on the 'Secret Pathway.'"

I was told by myriad books: "Have faith that your brain will
take care of your body. You can't go wrong. Just turn off your
mind and float downstream." "Sure", I thought to myself, "I
understand". And surely I DID understand. I just wasn't able to
do it.

From the time I was about twelve years old I began practising
meditation. I was not conscious of the fact that I was
meditating, but I was. I began practising lying in a position
for hours without moving. I tried to wait as long as I could to
respond to bodily worries. I.e., when I felt something in my
throat I would try to remain still for as long as I could
without coughing. I suffered from insomnia, and this is probably
partly the reason I began practising such control. When lying in
my bed at night I used to toss and turn for hours. One day,
however, I found that if I tried to relax and not move under any
circumstance, I would fall asleep. After a year or so, it seemed
to me that I was spending most of my time in a meditative state,
and I was nearly constantly in a very pleasurable state. This
was also the time when I experienced (on three separate
occasions) what I would term the first blushes of true ecstasy.
My present view of the world, on morals, and on life was also
developed during this period of my life. After a couple of years
of this, however, I suddenly stopped exerting active control
over my thoughts and my body. I do not know why, but I suspect
it was because I came to the (erroneous) conclusion that my
years of pleasure and nigh-ecstasy had been generated by my at
this time diagnosed manic-depression. Pleasure was farther and
farther between, and it seemed to totally stop at the age of 18.
I began taking Prozac which helped me somewhat. To be sure I am
a manic-depressive, but it was, I now believe, the meditation
that was responsible for my state of mind. It wasn't the mania.

Why this little autobiographical passage? Because I want to
impress upon the reader how easily we can be fooled into
believing certain things, and how these beliefs can alter our
lives and the way we think.

If you intend to attain cosmic awareness through the use of
psychedelic drugs, I urge you to study and practise meditation.
The ability to control your thoughts and the realization that
the mind controls everything will be of great help to you in
your quest. Read 'The Psychedelic Experience'. Read. Remember.


"Modern psychedelic chemicals provide a key to this forgotten
 realm of awareness. But just as this manual without the
 psychedelic awareness is nothing but an exercise in academic
 Tibetology, so, too, the potent chemical key is of little value
 without the guidance and the teachings."

       - 'The Psychedelic Experience - a manual based on the
          Tibetan Book of the Dead'

A Divine Rascal