[Buddha-l] Buddhism, drug use and LSD

[Vaj]

Maybe stage of Enlightenment would be a better term?

Here is the illustrators note by Beer from _Masters of Enchantment_ 
used here under "fair use" and for review only. As with any review, if 
you like it, buy the book and tell your friends.
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I was born in Cardiff, South Wales in September 1947. As a child I had 
a mild
form of epilepsy which gave rise to periods of mental blankness and 
vivid
imaginings. This experience was perhaps my first perception that the 
inner and
outer worlds were irreconcilable. When I was thirteen my sister, aged 
three,
died of hydrocephalis. That one so loved for her innocence and 
helplessness
could cease to exist had a profound effect on my life. On the day that 
she died
I had a vivid and beautiful dream that we were flying through the sky 
together
and she was no longer dead or deformed. This revelation that at the 
summit
of the mountain of life was death led me to the perennial philosophical 
questions:
Who am I; where do we come from and go to; and what is God? I '
became interested in cosmology, then religion, and especially Hinduism 
and
Buddhism.

Having developed a passion for religion and art, I tried to enter art 
college,
but was not admitted because I am colorblind. In 1966 I took LSD for 
the first
time, and discovered a direct way of unlocking the door of the mind. 
For the
next three years I chased the psychedelic experience. Each voyage into 
the antipodes
of the mind became an escalating mystical and religious experience
which gave boundless insights into the nature of the mind. My gnostic 
awakening
coincided with the psychedelic and oriental movement of the sixties, and
for a few blissful years the inner and outer worlds were harmoniously 
reconciled.
At this time, I began to draw and paint seriously, inspired by the
archetypal symbolism of religious art. But the psychedelic experiences 
were
becoming too extreme and my basic instincts and awareness necessary for 
survival
were becoming unhinged.

In 1969 I had my last LSD trip. It didn't take me very far; 
excruciating pain
exploded in my head and I passed into unconsciousness. When I came 
around
I knew that the world would never be the same place again. There was 
only
myself, nothing else, but this "me" was no longer a solid and definite 
identity.
I had literally "blown my mind," and I entered into a psychedelic 
psychosis
with the terrifying awareness that I would have to live with it and 
through it.
The dream state fused with my everyday consciousness into a disembodied
experience which seemed unbearable. My skull constantly felt as if it 
were on
fire with electric energy. There was a sensation of knitting needles 
being
pressed into my ears and an enormous pressure behind my eyes. Different 
pans
of my body, especially the spine and limbs, would go numb for long 
periods
of time.

My personality would continually disintegrate, and I felt constantly 
vulnerable
to spirit possession, especially that of the most demonic order. The 
most
terrifying aspect of my condition was the sense of dissolution of being 
into nonbeing,
a reality I had to avoid at all costs. If I sat still for a few moments 
I
would feel my physical body dissolving into space and I always feared I
couldn't enter the realm of form again. If I sat in a chair I had to 
jerk myself
to avoid feeling my legs disappear and my backbone extend into an 
infinite
void. Any object I touched became part of me, and I would have to move 
to
disassociate myself from it and redefine the boundaries of my body. A
human embrace was horrific because, for me, the two bodies would 
literally
become one.

I lived in constant fear of dying in this state. Solitude, walking the 
streets,
playing music, and painting became necessary therapies. Concentration on
music or painting distracted me from the immanent state of absorption. 
This
condition lasted for many years. For the first few years it was 
extremely
intense, but then the peaks seemed to get lower or perhaps I became 
slightly
more able to live with them.

In 1970 I went to live in India and began practicing Tibetan thangka 
painting.
This was not an academic decision on my part, but came from an intuitive
identification with energies personified in the Tibetan pantheon. As 
William
Blake said, "all deities reside within the human breast," and it was as 
if the
painting of deities were a harmonious outward expression of an endlessly
incomprehensible inner turmoil. I began by teaching myself thangka 
painting,
and for a period lived next to the Tibetan painter Jampa in Dharmsala. 
From
him and his students I began to learn how the deities are drawn.

For the next six years I lived in India and Nepal and usually spent at 
least
twelve hours of every day painting. During this time I was perpetually 
hoping
to find someone who could understand and explain the nature of my 
psychic
and mental state. One day I was persuaded to take a ten-day course in
vipassana meditation given by a Burmese teacher named Goenka. In a 
private
interview, and virtually in tears, I described my condition to him. 
There was
a moment's silence and then he burst into laughter. I, of course, 
lacked any
sense of humor about my personal predicament. He asked some very direct
questions which indicated that he truly understood my state, and then 
went
on to explain that my experience of reality was as it was and that I 
should learn
not to be frightened of ego dissolution or to take myself too 
seriously. He
explained how I should use the techniques of vipassana to reinstate 
bodily
awareness of molecular and cellular realities. With time and insight 
this psychic
experience has been resolved into a more "normal" level of perception, 
but
the door is still open. Sometimes I slip through, although now I am a 
visitor
and not an inmate.

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