Seeking supernormal inspiration, I determined to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in Richmond, south of the Thames, and do some perceptual fieldwork there. This glorious plant sanctuary provides a wonderful opportunity to confront some of Gaia's more exotic creations housed safely within Kew's splendid Victorian greenhouses. Once I had arrived, I discreetly downed several mouthfuls of recently gathered raw and unprocessed Psilocybe semilanceata mushrooms, and awaited the dimensional translation of my perception. I was, it must be said, a little apprehensive, especially since I was in a public place.
The effects began to emerge whilst I was walking around Kew's vast and resplendent grounds. As ever, my senses were suddenly open to a surge of external reality as if I had woken up from the sleep of normal consciousness. I came across a yew tree, upon which a sign declared it to have been worshipped as sacred in pre-Christian times. I carefully plucked one of its numerous reddish berries and begun to almost stagger in awe at the dark seed sitting curiously loosely inside. I marvelled at the natural design, for the seed looked as though it were the softly embedded occupant of a refined space vessel cunningly designed to deliver it to fertile ground where its genetic legacy, or crew, could disembark.
As I continued to stroll through the gardens, I came across some pine trees whose sweet aroma welcomed my alert senses. Then I confronted an altogether different kind of tree whose soothing green-leafed branches announced the full eruption of perceptual clarity that awaited me. I furiously began to scribble the following notes, no small feat since it is well nigh impossible to write during the full ontological throes of the entheogenic experience. Indeed, I had not done so for quite some time. At any rate, I managed the following:
"A species of Fagacea followed the pines, named Fagus sylvatica (the beech) with its smooth elephantine bark that is literally smothered with another display of naturally engineered genetic wizardry, namely lichen, testifying that this tree is freshly abrim with healthy biochemical processes. As I sit once more under Gaia's psilocybinetic spell, I am convinced that a new science is called for, a science which views life anew under the perceptual lens afforded by the mushroom. For it is only through psilocybin's perception-enhancing magnificatory power that we are able to apprehend, in full, the sheer beauty of Gaia, this luxuriant film of frenzied biological activity that surrounds the globe and from which we have been born. I therefore decree a new science - the science of psilocybinetics!
Such a science is to be dedicated solely to the observation of Nature, in the field, with the aid of psilocybin, in order to write and record in the most literary means available, those bare traces of her majesty that we are able to behold with the psilocybin-charged naked eye alone. Thus we should endeavour to build anew upon the previous body of knowledge collated by traditional naturalists in order that we provide it with a poetic finishing touch. A new empiricism then, improved upon by the object of study itself. Thus, Nature experiences itself through its latest creatures - we Homo sapiens - in the refined manner granted through the sublime perceptual effect of the psilocybin mushroom. It is as if a scientist peering at a slice of Nature through a microscope were to eat a portion of it and then find his empirical view enhanced. Such a reflective process would appear to be infinite in scope and possibility".
After writing these words, I immediately had to relieve myself, and did so in a manner most natural, that is, upon a magnificent species of 'Holm Oak', therefore once more bonding my body to Gaia. It was, I concluded, a fair exchange of substances; my recyclable urine in return for some of her beauty and splendour. A number of daunting spectacles confront me now, as I approach my ultimate destination, the King Kong-like 'cage' of the tropical Palm House. My Goddess it's incredible! I surely walk upon sacred territory here! The fresh chill October air invigorates me, birdsong cuts through the icy surround, whilst a perfect blue sky looms overhead. I sense in this morning the mystical touch of eternity pervading all and everything. Now, I know as I approach the Palm House that within there awaits the warm and humid atmosphere of its tropical flora. The air will be vibrant with life. But, under psilocybin, how will I be received into this bionomic unit? Will the caged creature within be sensitive to my unusual advances? As I sit upon the steps outside the Palm House, an incredible landscape unfolds even here. Spiders scuttle across the seemingly monumental and 'memory-laden' stone steps....yet more lichen and other tenacious expressions of light-driven life. But I must not get waylaid! I must venture within.
What transpired within, remains highly personal and largely incommunicable bound as I am to the limits of the English language, suffice it to say that I was under the uncanny impression that some communication of information occurred between myself and the tropical plantlife. It was as if the dense green slowly moving plant network around me was a place where occult aspects of the Gaian system 'flowed' strongly, a good place to 'tune in' so to speak, to the Ultimate Organism. I must be somewhat coy here, and state that I entertained this idea whilst under the effects of psilocybin, knowing full well that it would appear, in sober retrospect, to be a fantastical and fanciful interpretation. Nonetheless, it really seemed as though the unfamiliar exotic plants were a living manifestation of intelligence, albeit of an almost static kind, somehow conducting a diffuse intentionality of some sort. The communication definitely stemmed from outside my ego, in that I encountered streams of revelatory thought. As ever, I cannot possibly infer that this phenomenon was a production of my Unconscious, for I cannot believe that such diverse, creative and intelligible information can arise from a personal Unconscious unless, of course, the Unconscious is itself part of some intelligent presence connected with Gaia.
That a vivid communication of information can flood the psilocybinetic brain is the goal of the neo-shamanic enterprise, for it rests upon this experience of contacting the Other, an organised intelligence of some kind that is not 'us'. If for the sake of argument, we still maintain that this Other is identifiable with the Unconscious, then psychedelic plants demonstrably suggest that the Unconscious is not confined to the individual, but rather that its informational creations are indicative that the Unconscious transcends the dimension of the personal psyche. When you talk to someone, read a book, or see a movie, then you know for sure that the information being accessed could in no way have come from your own psyche, that it was put together from some other source of intentful intelligence. This is exactly the feel of the psilocybin experience, that a transcendental Other has been accessed.
At first, a rush of 'unfinished business' surged up from the depths of my psyche, and for perhaps half an hour I fought these psychological obstacles until I actually managed to resolve the problems. I learned that without a clear, unblocked mind, one cannot attain wisdom and knowledge. One's psyche must be cleaned of neurotic detritus and of all the worries and petty concerns which normally vie for our attention. And the only way to do this psychical cleaning is to engage in a prolonged period of active mentation, a process which the mushroom seems to aid. Once my mind was free of distraction, I begun to study the plant forms in the Palm House. I cannot begin to convey the holy beauty pervading these dynamic organisms, these muscular green organs of Gaia, standing around me like benign light-munching triffids. I oscillated between an instinctual fear of being 'noticed' by the plants, as though I were amidst a den of vipers (many of the plant species were poisonous) and that they knew that I knew....and a feeling of reverence for them. It was certainly the greatest display of vital energy I have ever had the good fortune of apprehending; a rich, diverse, living testament to naturally refined biomolecular engineering, far more impressive than any man-made creation. It is as if psilocybin temporarily lifts a veil and we see the miracles of life in all their infinite glory, a glory normally hidden to us perhaps because of our predominately utilitarian approach to Nature.
As for the unusually elaborate tropical flowers in bloom, well...I have to admit that observing them at close range was nothing short of perceptual intercourse, a kind of abstract intellectual sex with plants to the point of unabashed rudeness. Indeed, I had to constantly check that my intimate perceptual encounters with these plant's sexual organs were going on unseen lest I be thrown out of the Palm House for botanical perversion. I perceived the complex coloured intricacies of design in the various flowers (particularly the various species of Hibiscus) with such depth and with such clarity that it was as if my mind were penetrating a higher dimension of the plant, as if my soul were being drawn into and enveloped by the beauty that the flowers seem to embody. The closer I dared to look, the more alluring the flowers became, revealing a wealth of living, growing detail that appeared fractally infinite. The flowers seemed to represent great intellectual or mathematical statements that, through psilocybin, I could apprehend and blend with, as if I were partaking in a higher perfected language that proceeded without the slightest hindrance or ambiguity. The sensation of being drawn into these floral designs through a resonance between the subtleties of design and my perceptions thereof, was overwhelming to the point of ecstasy.
Forcibly freeing myself from the cunning grasp of the flowers, I next came across a decidedly unusual species of plant. What do I mean unusual? It was more like something futuristic, as though its particular genetic code were immeasurably sophisticated compared with other plants. At first I was convinced that it must have been artificial. Its many protruding branches all possessed a perfect new leaf unfurling at the very tip, and these appeared to be identical....and plastic. So, I thought, I had been taken in like a fool. This plant was obviously a latest example of those appalling pseudo-plants one unfortunately finds dotted about banks and shopping centres...
Adopting the persona of Sir David Attenborough, I carefully grasped a leaf and made a minuscule incision, an action defendable on the grounds of empirical enquiry and....well, psychedelic suspicion. Immediately, thick white latex sap began to ooze out of the cut, and I realised with relief that it was the presence of latex infused throughout this astonishing (rubber) plant which was causing the plastic look of the leaves. Here then was the origin of rubber itself. I suddenly began to conceive of rubber tree plantations as being contemporary biotechnological organs of Gaia, their exudation of rubber being indispensable for our technology. And as the plaque in front of one of the Palm House's other rubber trees pointed out, it is also the case that synthetic rubber cannot match the qualities of natural rubber. Indeed, I later discovered that scientists have been unable to exactly synthesise natural rubber. Whatsmore, such a unique natural substance (this time a combination of carbon and hydrogen in the ratio C5H8) defies a satisfactory explanation for its fortuitous existence in the rubber tree. For to argue that it serves to seal up wounds on the tree is to ignore the fact that all trees possess protection in the form of bark. And even if the function of latex was protection, it does not explain why rubber molecules should be present within it. Rubber is simply a unique and invaluable expression of Nature, embodying a remarkable set of technologically-useful material qualities found nowhere else in the natural world...
I stood before the rubber tree as if I were before some holy output device for Nature's inherent information processing intelligence. I wondered at the complex genetic sequences of DNA which must lie buried within each and every cell of the rubber tree in order that it forge such a rare compound impossible to manufacture in the lab. And yet I realised that most of us are unlikely to conceive of items such as condoms as being the handy population- restricting extensions of the rubber tree. Nor are we likely to marvel at its extended presence in the motor industry. With the enhanced perception granted through the mushroom, the Plant Kingdom, although normally operating behind the scenes, suddenly loomed up before me as if it were an alienesque organism symbiotically entwined within our mammalian species and our technology.
I met some coffee plants also. A plaque declared the coffee plant to be one of the world's most important trade items (second only to oil in fact). It also noted the reason why i.e. that coffee beans contain the alkaloid drug caffeine, a stimulant of the human central nervous system. This obvious fact became a revelation to me as I studied the plant itself. Here was an organism, akin to the psilocybin mushroom already working miracles in my brain, also able to directly improve the function of my nervous system through a simple act of ingestion. I saw the process holistically. We natural entities, myself and psychoactive plants, were not in fact separate or rigidly bounded at all. There was continual chemical communication between organisms, a dynamic interplay in which substances mingle, flow, and interchange. Once again, I had that brief 'Gaian flash', in which I perceived the biosphere to be one being, constantly stimulating itself into more and more integrated patterns of activity. Language- like combinations of elements like carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen were being continuously churned up and organised over immensely long periods of time, as if Gaia were gradually writing itself into existence.
I reached out and plucked a handful of beans from one of the nearest coffee plants. After all, why go looking for a coffee shop when fresh beans were on offer? Since the plaque stated that coffee beans were originally eaten raw in the form of a paste, I readily popped a few of the red beans into my mouth. Knowing that the lethal dose of caffeine in humans is in excess of 200 cups of coffee, I ate about 8 of the surprisingly tasty beans without worry. I then imagined my body slowly absorbing the caffeine, and the subtle stimulation the coffee plant would then be granting me. Along with the mushrooms I'd consumed, I was partaking in an endless dance of innervating Gaian alchemy.
Later, a moment came as I sat in hyper-contemplation of life's Mystery, when I felt a perfect state of being wash over me. It was, I believe, a brief flash of enlightenment, a blissful state of mind when everything, absolutely everything, was as it should be. My psyche was charged with superconsciousness, as glistening crystalline thoughts flowed into one another with mathematical precision and clarity.
I sat gazing at a small shallow pool of water at my feet, in which I discerned a perfect reflection of the blue sky beyond the glass roof of the Palm House above me. As I considered this perfect and infinitely deep reflection, I thought it remarkable that light could be so reflected without loss of information. Then, a drop of water fell into the shallow pool from above, having originally condensed from the periodic fine sprays of water that serve to keep the greenhouse humid. This single drop of water temporarily shattered the perfect reflection of light, and instantly there appeared a series of expanding circular ripples that flowed out from the minute splashes. These ripples flowed into one another causing a series of unique interference waves whic h were eventually absorbed by the pool as equilibrium was restored. Once more the water was still, the disruption lasting no more than a second. Yet the psilocybin allowed me to experience the process as being drawn out in time, as if the grain and depth of my perception had increased, providing me with more 'room' to perceive.
As the water stilled, the reflected light resolved itself into a coherent whole, but just as I perceived this holistic reflection, another drop of water fell creating another interference pattern. Again the rings were absorbed and again the perfect reflection emerged. I sat mesmerised by this process, particularly at the point where the whole image resolved itself. I felt convinced that here, at work, was some important universal principle or process. This impression was very strong, though it was an intuitive feeling, as though the idea of interference waves temporarily veiling a perfect reflection was such a powerful metaphor symbolising life and our quest for understanding, that it would only be fully graspable at a later time.
Each time the pool stilled itself, an holistic pattern of reflection seemed to 'click' into being at a precise moment, rather akin to those dot pictures which appear, on first sight, to be merely random disconnected dots, but which suddenly emerge as a coherent depiction of some object when the pattern is discerned. As the holistic pattern of reflected light coalesced again and again, I felt an ecstatic sensation of wholeness as if I too were merging with the whole picture....As interference melted away, all was revealed as connected, and this process left me awash with awe and exultation. It was also apparent that the small reflective pool was itself formed from the drops of water, these same drops ultimately interfering with the reflective process. A self reinforcing paradox then, like some cosmic dance of information that expressed the riddle of existence.... or was it all some imaginative trick of my intoxicated mind?
My conclusion on this matter, based upon similar experiences, is that the mushroom allows one to listen to Nature as if she were a powerful teacher, a notion commonly held by native American peoples. Although such a belief might appear foolish and primitive, I have come to suspect that it contains some profound wisdom and insight that predates our modern Gaia theory and further, that psychedelic plants can help us recover this wisdom.
Time passes, psilocybin is metabolised into inactive by-products, and one finds oneself back in the profane world of traffic, vat-laced gas bills, and ubiquitous advertisements selling the consumer dream. The psilocybin mushroom, temporarily at least, launches one into realms of experience both sublime and illuminating, and many would claim that the knowledge acquired in the entheogenic state of mind provides a valuable insight into the human condition with respect to our relationship to the Earth and the rest of Nature. Such a neo-shamanic option remains to be explored.
This is an extract from "The Psilocybin Solution: Prelude to a Paradigm Shift" by S.G. Powell. The book is about Nature, consciousness, the psilocybin experience and the meaning of life., and a publisher is sought.
S.G.Powell edits the electronic journal http://www.nemeton.com/prescience/index.html which is up on the Shamen's Nemeton site. He can be reached at Simon@biocom.demon.co.uk .
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