He [Steve jobs] said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand,” John Markoff reported for the Times.

Real mysteries, you don't have to believe. You don't have to have been initiated. You don't have to have your aura cleared, or your mantras in order. Real mysteries operate and you get to touch.

My favorite story in the Gospel is the story of Thomas the Doubter because, remember, he wasn't present when Christ came to the upper room the first time, after the Crucifixion. And so Thomas came a couple days later and the apostles said to him, "the master was here, he was here," and he said, 'you guys have been smoking too many of these little brown cigarettes from Lebanon, we saw him crucified!" Well, so then Christ came a second time and Thomas was present and he said, "unless I put my hand into the wound, I will not believe it." So Christ said to Thomas, "come forward, put your hand into my wound," and he did.

Now my interpretation for that Gospel story is that ALONE, of all the apostles, it was Thomas the Doubter who touched the resurrection body because he was the only one who had his shit together enough to DOUBT! And so if you doubt, they will actually let you put your hand in the wound; if you don't doubt, they will give you any kind of crap and send you happily on your way.

Doubting doesn't get rid of the real stuff, becuase the real stuff is REAL. You need a crap detector to get you past all the phony baloney because you know people have been working miracles in the marketplace for millennia - that's just part of what does on in the marketplace - shell games, levitation, rope tricks, regurgitation of objects, it's just ho-hum.
-terence mckenna

*note: the dose range in this report is highly inflated, there is no reason to ever dose this high*

the first time I used N,N-dimethyltryptamine I smoked 200mgs of translucent yellow crystals on top of a small amount of high-grade cannabis, I consumed it in a single inhalation. I held the hit in less than 5 seconds when the rush began, "I don't believe it!" I kept repeating in my head, "this is impossible".... my surroundings began to quiver and slither apart, faster than anything I had ever seen everything began moving away from everything else in a mash of brilliant color geometric form, and speed, before fully shattering the "reality" in my visual and mental field, it came on like a freight train, I remember thinking "oh fuck! Get this stuff out of me!" And frantically trying to exhale. It was pure terror, I thought "now you have done it! You killed yourself!" After brief mourning at the life I had just departed from I began to pay attention to the present, I remember feeling like I was at the bottom of a foggy mountain with dirt roads, the clouds felt like a domed ceiling, everything was wet, misty, cloudy and rainy, I was overcome with an intense feeling of panic and deja-vu, I felt like a lost child, everything I knew about who I was or my life or earth seemed like a distant dream, like I dissolved out of existence, I interpreted this as dying, I knew that I was dead, and I was emotionally overwhelmed while confronting the event of my death, just like sand slipping through finger cracks I tried to hold onto this all as my entire identity as a human was dissolved, I remembered my name, the earth, my family, who I was, being a human, and life, but like grabbing at smoke, it was futile, all of this slipped away and nearly faded entirely out of my memory, impossible to cling to all this, I had to let it go...I kept thinking "what the fuck was life?" ...I could not tell if I was breathing or not, I would take air in, but couldn't feel it, I began taking in panicked deep breaths, thinking that none of the oxygen was entering my system, then noticed a pain in my chest, a giant mantis like being had its claws in my chest! It proceeded to tear open my chest and stomach removing all my organs and insides, I was about to go into shock when I saw a bright green light flash over my shoulder, it nearly hit me, it then became a beautiful fractal-geometric object, morphing and color changing, at times it was metallic at other times it was a beautiful jewel, and all the while to look into it was to view endless geometric fractal patterns, moving, morphing, and changing color. The mantis then put this object in my torn up body, he began to make billions of these objects, each one unique and radiating beautiful colored light, and the mantoid filled my body with them, billions of them, becoming small as atoms to construct the new insides of my mangled corpse, then I was sealed up and propelled into an orange light where I was resurrected, my conscious-being (soul) was becoming reunited with the physical world ...then I felt as if I was being pushed head first through a thick gelatinous membrane, violent gesticulations of the membrane surrounding me were forcing me through this thing...I was being born...slowly I began to recognize my surroundings, my face still covered in tears, I looked up and saw the branches of a tree in the yard all slither in sinister fashion in from all directions to take place and solidify as the tree in the distance, the world began to slither back into place, most things moved in an elegant liquid serpentine slithering motion, or like the dancing movements of a flame, as the world constructed itself back into the familiar, so did my conscious state and memory, I was still disoriented, and fairly traumatized, I thought I had been gone for millennia, "how long was I gone I asked?"...."about 20 minutes" was the answer ....those who were there said in reality I curled up into a ball and began to cry for 20 minutes, I was wondering why my face was wet, because it felt like I had actually just been through being born, I was still covered in tears...any way the immense deep spiritual and psychological implications of this experience left me for ever transformed, reborn as a new person entirely, it was the single most meaningful thing that has ever happened to me, and changed me in many significant ways, all for the better.
-eg

The Chikhai Bardo is the after death state described in the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) wherein the consciousness of the dead person fully enters into the light of the dharmakaya or "truth body." (explained in the first part of this series).

In this state, the person temporarily experiences for the first time the state of awareness without a second, that is to say, a state of pure consciousness.

This is the state of non-duality. The first experience here is the sight of the Primordial Clear Light or the "Clear Light of Reality." This is the pure mind of the Buddha, Christ, and all the perfected saints and mystics.

It is generally accepted among various spiritual traditions that the total amount of time it takes to transition between two consecutive earthly incarnations is 49 days. During this period, the first 3 to 4 days are spent in the Chikhai Bardo wherein the Awareness-body is formed. The formation of the awareness-body is a significant point in this process since it will carry one’s consciousness when it travels the path through the afterlife.

I usually make an effort to fast, refrain from sex, and set intentions beforehand. This kind of discipline and respect for the medicine has really helped me in the past to stay grounded throughout the experience. However, I'm finding that my partner is approaching taking it more as a recreational substance. This is deeply frustrating to me, and it detracts from my experience overall, because to me aya is a profound spiritual tool. At the same time, I recognize that I can't force my beliefs/approach on anyone else. Part of me wants to be patient with others and give them the chance to open up and see their potential on their own, but part of me is really disheartened.

All of life is a profound spiritual tool.

I was like you in preparation (although aya has not been amongst my tools), and a great ritual can do a lot to focus and achieve the right state of mind. Its not essential though, in Tarot there is the fool - and he is sort of the hero of the story, the fools journey stepping out with naivety and an open heart with hardly any preparation or expectation. In a way the fool is far more pure than the over thinking, worried and concerned traveller who needs to spend ages preparing for the journey.

There is a frowning at recreational use generally on this forum, and I think it is where we see others not drawing as much spiritual growth from an experience in a way we would expect. I have a friend like that, we do not discuss things about it much as he talks about the cool patterns and how great he feels when listening to music+DMT - but he has changed, I have noticed a growing self awareness in him which he did not have before.

So if you love your partner, love them for their differences. Talk about what you feel, and accept what they get from it - if you can both understand what you each feel from it or certainly accept it then that should be enough, you cannot expect others to be you.

There is a frowning at recreational use generally on this forum, and I think it is where we see others not drawing as much spiritual growth from an experience in a way we would expect. I have a friend like that, we do not discuss things about it much as he talks about the cool patterns and how great he feels when listening to music+DMT - but he has changed, I have noticed a growing self awareness in him which he did not have before.

MT: Terence, you were talking about extra-ordinary realities and it occurs to me that there's an enormous amount of prejudice against the... psychedelics and the use of hallucinogenic substances and, it's almost as if there's an inordinate fear to open up the door to the closet that these substances reveal. Um, what about that prejudice? What do you think is- how's that gonna be resolved? What is the resolution of that?

TM: Well, I think it's it's more complicated than a prejudice. It's a prejudice born of respect, because most people sense that these compounds probably actually do what their adherents claim they do. It's possible to see the whole human growth movement of the 1970s as a wish to continue the inward quest without having to put yourself on the line the way you had to when you took 250 gamma of LSD. And, I think all these other methods are efficacious, but I think it's the sheer power of the hallucinogens that puts people off. you either love them or you hate them, and that's because they dissolve worldviews, and if you like the experience of having your entire ontological structure disappear out from under you, if you think that's a thrill you'll probably love psychedelics.

On the other hand, for some people, that's the most horrible thing they can possibly imagine. They navigate reality through various form of faith, and I think that with the psychedelics the doors of perception are cleansed and you see very, very deeply

One of the interesting characteristics of DMT is that it sometimes inspires fear - this marks the experience as existentially authentic. One of the interesting approaches to evaluating such a compound is to see how eager people are to do it a second time. A touch of terror gives the stamp of validity to the experience because it means, "This is real." We are in the balance. We read the literature, we know the maximum doses, the LD-50, and so on. But nevertheless, so great is one's faith in the mind that when one is out in it one comes to feel that the rules of pharmacology do not really apply and that control of existence on that plane is really a matter of focus of will and good luck.

I'm not saying that there's something intrinsically good about terror. I'm saying that, granted the situation, if one is not terrified then one must be somewhat out of contact with the full dynamics of what is happening. To not be terrified means either that one is a fool or that one has taken a compound that paralyzes the ability to be terrified. I have nothing against hedonism, and I certainly bring something out of it. But the experience must move one's heart, and it will not move the heart unless it deals with the issues of life and death. If it deals with life and death it will move one to fear, it will move one to tears, it will move one to laughter. These places are profoundly strange and alien. -terence mckenna

if one is not terrified then one must be somewhat out of contact with the full dynamics of what is happening -TM