We did salvia! What year is it? Why the year is 2005 and we stopped by our gas station to fill up on gas, get a big gulp 98 oz drink, and on impulse buy a mind bending trip to the outer realms of consciousness.
I wanted to watch some kick ass movie and surf the astral plane on the back of a giant bat, yeah! Loaded up the bong with 1000x Salvia Divinorum and things got weird!
Salvia Trip Report 2022
I looked at my ashed bowl and I knew that its terrors were now assuaged; that the wild shadow which had left its impress upon my fancy would never again trouble me. A sense of security flowed through every nerve and fibre of my soul –like that strange eventide of nature, when everything droops asleep in the presence of the glorious sun, yet how profound a sleep it is that only he who feels can tell.
I slept. How long, or what misadventures befell, I know not; but suddenly there stole over my spirit that keenly pervading terror, with which an utterance vibrates for ever on the verge of the boldest human speech, but is stifled by the thin icy walls of a marble sepulchre -an awe-inspiring dread, more intolerable than distant thunder.
But this illusion fled even here, although not without leaving traces, deep, dark, unwholesome traces, which nothing could obliterate. Yet buoyant was my joy; deep insight had given a vigor to my mind that carried all before it; while the mazes of intellectual curiosity were still so bewildering in their complexity, that imagination could no longer be busy with them. What thoughts were these?
I stood. It was wide noon; and I was far up within the hollow region of the mountain, where seldom anyone intruded. My first sensations on recovering from stupor, were those of wonder, mingled with immediate horror, at being still alive.
The clouds of the early morning had departed, and the sky, though pale and almost cloudless, was of the deep blue of mid-day. As the rays poured down into the valley, volumes of vapory moisture seemed bursting upward, and rolling off in huge waves of oppressive heat.
The trill of birds that usually busied themselves among the thick foliage about my chamber window, lulled at once into the torpor of midday sleep -the hum of insects became languidly audible throughout the vast extent of nature, and the very earth appeared to hang heavily under the eye of the beholder.
I thought only of enduring, and avoided with shuddering steps and frenzied agony, every thing or place around me that reminded me of my condition. But there was one idea now paramount over all others in the chaos of my thought, and seeming alone capable of sustaining my tottering heart against despair.
With unnerved limbs, and almost childish steps, I walked forward. Every creeping step brought some new cause of uneasiness before me, but the breath of heaven was forever fanning me with electric wings, and giving a kind of mad activity to my otherwise impalpable flesh.
Onward still I walked, threading always betwixt shade and sunlight, above sweltering flowers and flitting foliage, till the brief beauty of summer night’s decline was already breathing faintly along earth and air.
Now the burning atmosphere turned cold, or rather colder, imperceptibly ; and then one feeble star shone out amid the gathering darkness. And still onward, infinitely onward I journeyed, until, lost in far confusion of vapor, and downward bent into the gloom below, there flashed upon my senses a sudden light so intensely vivid, and scorching, as if bedewing with electricity, that all thoughts, all joys, all memories, all hopes, seemed withered away, and leaves their vitality absolutely perishing beneath its fierce dominion.
Upon this burst of resistless splendors, I fixed my eyes intently. Suddenly, from amidst the chaos of waters streaming from the surface of a long, black tunnel above me, there came forth distinct to view, gigantic figures with helmeted head and armor composed entirely of brass plates. His stature far surpassed that of man, and his presence filled the whole horizon.
For a time, the figure, too bright for vision’s closer scrutiny, sat motionless on horseback ; and as I gazed with uplifted arms and parched lips, I saw that his visage was frowning and hatefully ferocious. Then starting from the ground, he shook his spear with a terrific gesture : the thunder of the descending butt-end seemed mingling with the clangor of brazen gauntlets, and then there rang forth afar off the challenge of a horn, long drawn, deep answered, shrill whistled, deafening volleyed.
Again the menace and defiance sounded close beside my ear, like those furious and menacing tones heard sometimes on turbulent nights over ocean —ocean inexorable as fate, eternally silent as death—dead and icy as the solid depths from whence the pealing vibrations shot far, high up above, in reverberating echoes appalling in their multiplied remoteness.
Still baffled, sore discouraged, and dismayed, I fell senseless upon the earth, right across the threshold of the sacred doorway.
And so it happened that, ages after, I lay stretched senseless within the cavity of the cave, guarding the mystic ark of the legends of the gods: the vestige of that terrible antiquity whose low and mysterious murmurs have driven my soul for uncounted years into the lap of twilighted oblivion. Long I guarded, as if for holy treasure; trembling, fearful, and glad, amid forgotten terrors and transfigured dreams.
And all around was the silence and calm of midnight solitude; but round and round the precincts ran the red phosphorescent gleam of convolutions of living fire. At times there came a sound as if some distant minstrel singing with fingers upon the harp.
A dimness full of measureless depth hung above, aloof, supreme, uncertain, hovering round those hazy edges where land and water interfuse. Between was void space, without end, without dimension, quite invisible, of course, as absolute consciousness lies beyond sight, color, and hearing. On a pedestal hard by rested a broad stone bowl of glistening gold; and within lay rolls of incalculably valuable wisdom, saturated with the essence of light.
And as I stared thus, conscious, fearful, glad and reverent, something stirred within the dusk, above the sounds of faint music, slowly advancing towards me. Softly moved it along, leaning slightly downwards, resembling a full moon about to pass its extremity of vacillation before the final plunge.
Slowly, I think, but yet rapidly enough to seem suspended in the eternity of a moment, for certainly the vague edging grew thicker, while the solemn step was taking slow retrograde of its circular movement.
No voice spoke in my heart. The mysterious figure moved nearer, and upon the summits of its rounded forehead a slanting diagonal band of golden crescent formed.
Its dusky magnitude touched upon my mind, while two trailing masses of silvery lightning swept gradually back and interposed between us. Then directly above my head, a massy phalanx hurled itself with mighty revolutions upon those light hemispheres of gray, that with uplifted and expanded palms awaited each turn of flight. Full upon its impetus the figure struck lightly, sinking immediately to rest upon a hundred vortices dense with foaming energy -even as a meteor ceases to blaze fiercely as it rushes slowly downwards and plummets amid the sullen waters.
Down, down, down into the ominous cavity they sped, spreading wide with gaping mouths the rumbling billows of fleeing multitudes. In darker hues arose my dream of hopeless remembrance -every dead leaf whirling dizzily in the wintry gust, and driving angrily over the slippery cones of ice at its feet; the cruel thrust of invincible January winds, through ravines free and level enough, yet miragelike with thorns of withered grasses; the dull moanings arising from forest solitudes after midwinter storms have ceased to rage, lying silent, ghastly-eyed among the snow and frost-stricken branches.
And this too would seem confused, intangible and quite impossible; were it not that behind it danced another mighty throng, and from their awful and exulting dance an indescribable radiance floated upwards, weaving strange festoons of soft tremulous splendor around the darkest shadows.
The figures seemed to scoff the sullen pathlessness of the winter day, to leap to loftier revelries in broader fields of magical ardor ; but the beauty of their mood was not shared by the kinglier spirits astir among the arches of fresher generations.
Some laughed loud, mirth was rife. Some shouted in grim delight, mocking the very universe and men themselves ; while in fearful sympathy a chill exultation was blended with the shouts of laughter. Far away from them glided half dissolved group after group of other fiends-some flapping their batrachian wings, and yelling horribly in falsetto -some swaying backward and forward in their frightful dances -and some writhing in pure damnation amongst grotesque columns of phantom flame.
Hubris lived; and Power, and Triumph, Luxury and Desire, with their bliss and their remorse, Immorality and Avarice, Lust and Regret -into the hands of devils strange as some grotesque tragedy they rushed such havoc bringing dismay.
Like fools that some preternatural whim besets they made their ways among torturing scruples; raised shudders for dull minds at bitter memories; seized on subtleties that sting like sores; soared screaming to acute delusions ; clasped vipers to warm hearts. These and much more of wondrous torture and dire consequence did they invent, to flay, shriek, stiffen, agonize; making forth through the minds and hearts of giants the very hell of their heart’s desire.
In through the center and down from evening throne flung the monarch his priest, there emerged, sublime, peerless in naked majesty -the seraphic aspect of Destiny transfixed with open wings the hearts of sinners sickening for pardon, repentant multitudes weeping aloud, mankind reverentially kneeling in devout humility, all upturned faces spread across bright slumberous intervals with timid archangel song reaching sighing notes above mist and materia.
Glancing to the figures again, they the phalanx of fury sent forth from their sides a stream of hell-fire running far along among upturned faces, leaping all heaven, crimson flames in lines unbending; and a whirlwind out of eternity surged not many paces; thick, crowding, thundering, the image of that indestructible and nameless toils.
My fallible eyes at length grew tired with strained gaze and wavering motion, and closed suddenly. I remember nothing else until waking. I woke solitary in shadowy grove. It was near sunset, yet I perceived a difference. Daylight came from eastward, though westward stood the glow, and the hand I raised to look could no longer see it. Yet I knew somehow I should not lose that inner certainty which is connected with our earthly memories -a sure sign how strange or vivid are our actual perceptions.
Where the eyes will follow anything of importance, there mind steadily prevails. By indirection my eyes followed light; and with difficulty discerned far ahead of me, where the rock walls mounted to the level plains beyond, that wondrous corridor leading back to rejoin the main temple from the hill. Light seems to take hold of our memory -for so it is with forms, and colors, and situations of all kinds; which are known by recollective connection with circumstances of interest.
At this point my journey reached its terminus, after journeying now for years in utter obscurity, months since achieved by a quest like some divinely inspired conception. My journey ended. Upon these altars dedicated to nameless heroism and veiled brow began to be illuminated! Words of wondering and doubting utterance awoke -words better left unspoken. Here first became clear to what remoteness men had traveled ; all read by inferences too dark and lengthy to be expressed or distinctly remembered.
The destination of any of my descendants to whom my name and ancestry may come upon a tombstone, becomes plain. For him they trace precisely the mighty paths that formerly seemed altogether vague. Everything clear becomes opaque. That giant stairway ascending through transmuting arcades of demon kings was worn at last up to the rim of the world, where moons can circle round terrestrial suns.
Perhaps some hint given to man after man, by some early entombed philosopher foreshadowed all we know or suspect of greater things ; if by learned interpreters into figures symbolic, stars cosmic and dynastic. Perhaps the primitive navigators sailed thru endless monsters and iron ruins, beheld old bays crumbling in blue fissures and unwinding great treasures. But even in the days when science could only whisper, the subjects were whispered of and opinions varied; and told and written upon as mere fantasies. Gradually put to question, one after the other, ancient coins & masterpieces of art were compared ; and laws scrutinized whether they fit what was held before.
Our ascension towards higher mysteries, admitted by each newer age, has always been regarded as quite other than simple progress upward. Gradual or violent evolution, either sudden overthrow or mystical uprising by breathless sorcery was favored. Thus for whatever belief you believe, all doctrines abide in the same center. They may shade or warp as different hypotheses, may build special empires for themselves-but the real secret never departed or varies. Still are the coasts unchanging, the outer shores changing seldom, and progressively, if at all.
Man descends continually-then–has he not always descended? Has he ever risen? Has he ascended from remote degradation? May that vast structure be supported by countless pillars of its own instability?
What chance led me hence I know not, but here I stood, awaiting new disclosures that might direct my future way, just where the dawn once showed the terrible crags hanging midway down the night ; revealing unsuspected lines of passage, sculptured by fearful hand as many ages now gone.
As the hand descends, as the head sinks lower and farther down into secret caverns as occult as any witch could fashion-there begins the understanding of illusions, counterfeits, deliberate delusions, surface creation, well kept facts unrealized, half unconscious half actualizable conception of seeming ruin -shadowed here like the last faint hue of twilight and doubt.
In return for the glance of peril-seeking eyes, at length among yawning depths appears to the spirit a half and seemingly mere memory of glorious circumstance: a graceful form glimpsed upon tapestried wavelets. Very mistily mirrored then appear magnificence, state, philosophy, wisdom, hope and valor.
The lure steals its genius with silent stealth -yet bends less slyly its winning mandate; invokes the errant in the midst of illustrious quests. One shudderingly recedes with vast designs, as if the other revelled by chance among interlacing history, its characters gone from fame, leaving no record but very maimed memory, now not an ounce of hope.
THE END
Whew! What a trip!
