First Lesson From Papi Mescalito
DISCLAIMER: In most countries worldwide psychedelic compounds remain illegal and I do not recommend breaking the law, regardless of how powerful the experiences they precipitate can be, including psychological healing that is much more difficult or impossible to achieve through conventional pharmacological/therapeutic means. If you do choose to use one of these compounds please ensure to take a harm reduction approach with sensible preparation, set and setting, and re-integration. There are good reasons traditional cultures embed their usage in specific ritualistic contexts.
Prelude (long, skippable for the time-constrained)
At the time of writing, early July 2023, the psychedelic renaissance that began with the publication of Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind in 2018 rolls forward with new research centres investigating the therapeutic potential of these molecules opening in universities across the world along with policy advocacy and investor interest. Simultaneously, the progress of this social phenomenon seems to have reached an inflection point and many related startups launched since then have failed, not to mention skepticism from the scientific community at the possibly inflated claims of the efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapy. These vexing but necessary questions to people in the space do not yet have detailed answers and it will take years (if not decades) to develop satisfactory responses. The immense need for alternative solutions to the ongoing mental health crisis is undeniable and ignoring the highly promising results of preliminary clinical trials for reducing human suffering is a colossal mistake, yet a reasonable perspective is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff.
So why am I writing this? The above paragraphs are essentially boilerplate that can be assembled from Wikipedia articles and will be reproducible from the next large language model trained on Internet text data. What’s my contribution to the dazzling advancements and inevitable disappointments of this resurgent field?
The psychedelic renaissance paralleled a development in my own life unfolding over a similar timeframe, that of discovering the effective altruism or EA movement. The philosophical foundations and continuing initiatives all over the globe spawned from this well-meaning group of people’s efforts are worth investigating, but long story short its cornerstone is a framework of doing good in an evidence-based way, which is deeply appealing to a young person experiencing a quarter-life crisis. In my case this happened between 3rd and 4th year of engineering school when I decided to complete a year-long internship at an electronics company both for more practical experience and to stay longer in the university town of London, Ontario, Canada as I didn’t want to return to living with my parents in Toronto.
Initially the prospect of lower renumeration didn’t faze me given the chance to experiment with a surface-level more adult lifestyle (solo apartment living with more free time after 5 PM than infamously demanding technical coursework) but after a few months boredom made itself known and disturbing thoughts about my life direction appeared with increasing regularity. Was this it? Even if I found more interesting work than designing printed circuit boards for healthcare and automotive applications, it seemed impossible that the higher pay and longer hours could compensate for the sense of total futility of sitting in an office for 8 hours a day doing tasks that had no connection with solving the most important problems in the world. That’s what had drawn me to being an engineer in the first place – using my wonderful analytic brain to create machines that improved people’s lives! How had things gone so wrong?
Undiagnosed seasonal depression only made the situation worse as fall moved into winter, as did an occasional drinking habit that for a month or so became a beer after work every day until I realized how much more pain I was causing myself and stopped completely. Only in February 2018 did my condition improve as the grey weather began lightening and I was assigned the marginally more engaging project of getting an automated circuit inspection machine to work via computer vision; my first encounter with machine learning. Doing this was a light responsibility as my supervisor had noticed my lack of enthusiasm and kindly gave me a low-stress task, which gave me plenty of time in the afternoons to obsessively read about what constituted meaningful work. One day I stumbled upon a blog post by the erstwhile Tim Urban of Wait But Why detailing recommendations for young graduates and linking to a newly minted wiki of career advice called 80 000 hours, an event that instantly changed my life direction and pulls me along to this day.
The 80k portal was developed to encourage confused young people to think carefully about what committing to the idealistic vision of improving the world given at graduation speeches cashes out to at the implementation level. Founded by energized yet skeptical students at Oxford University, its conceptual lineage is directly traceable to Peter Singer, an Australian ethical philosopher infamous for his 1972 essay Famine, Affluence, and Morality describing the moral obligation of those fortunate enough to be born in rich countries to help those living in extreme poverty if no great sacrifice is required. This arguably implies donating a much larger proportion of one’s income than is the norm in Western countries. This perspective has been not unreasonably criticized over the years, but the nascent EA movement presented two new points that further increase the appeal of biting the consequentialist bullet.
First, engaging in meaningful action such as giving away more money than most people and working for a non-profit organization is sensible from a purely self-interested perspective as studies have shown that additional income has a logarithmic effect on overall life satisfaction, i.e. a doubling or tripling of salary needed to improve by one point. Further evidence from the Harvard Adult Development study (the longest running investigation into well-being in the world at 85 years) has bolstered this claim by demonstrating that human connection and meaningful experiences matter far more than money, status, being with an attractive spouse, accumulating shiny material possessions, or any other of the achievements we’re expected to value by default in a competitive and individualistic culture. Second, advances in development economics via randomized controlled trials or RCTs have revealed a stunning fact: a small number of charities are vastly more effective at transforming money into quality of life improvement for the unluckiest people. Not by a factor of 50-60 % or even two or three as you might expect, but by an order of magnitude – x10 or even higher. This was a shocking revelation, especially for a soon-to-be electrical engineer with an interest in power-law distributions after taking an introductory statistics class. Many phenomena including stock market drops and natural disasters follow such a spread where a select few of the sample size account for most of the probability mass, another example being the 80/20 rule in sales.
The rest of the career guide contained a cornucopia of advice that I worked through and has since been updated, but at that moment I knew that the only viable path forward was to dedicate myself to this compelling vision of scientific thinking and applied philosophy. One way or another I had to follow through with the wealth of knowledge I’d discovered. The standard paths of business, medicine, or law school seemed laughably misguided and the fact that many of my peers would go on into these fields was horrifyingly pitiable. Still, I knew that most of them wouldn’t be immediately convinced by the combination of philosophical argumentation and published science and that ultimately the onus was on me to act.
My career trajectory since that day has been a rollicking adventure with too many ups and downs to fully recount, but a summary is useful for establishing the context of the mescaline experience. After graduating I made a switch to econometrics as trying to get into an economics PhD program was hypothetically a good option: I’d liked the full-year mini-MBA business for engineers course and most of the mathematical prerequisites were included in my undergrad, necessitating two or three extra terms of studying. If the research route didn’t work out I could exit with a Master’s and earn to give with a lucrative job for a little while before exploring other options. The pandemic threw a viral wrench into this plan and in the spring of 2020 I decided to again switch, this time to applied AI research after talking to several people at my first virtual EA conference in March about how the development of that technology could go badly. A reasonable decision at the time given the rising excitement in the field and the prospect of remote work for the next several months. That summer was the strangely enjoyable honeymoon period of COVID-19 as I started training for my first marathon while self-teaching computer science and doing UberEats bike delivery for some extra cash.
As the leaves reddened the infections continued to spread, it began to dawn on me that the biorisk segment of the EA community was starting to be proven correct in their stark assessments of wave after wave of mutations. Remote courses were fun for a few weeks but rapidly became a dull and draining grind, a daily struggle made even more unpleasant with the resurgence of still undiagnosed seasonal depression in the winter of 2021. Somehow I maintained high grades and showed up to enough research group meetings that a professor had generously let me sit in on via Zoom to get a small amount of funding for the summer. This was incredibly exciting since I felt that my intellectual side was finally being vindicated as I was more interested in nerdy topics than the average engineering student, not to mention living independently again in a student town after circumstances forced a return to staying at home with the family.
The move to Kingston, ON went well and I relished the apparent freedom for a week until the problems began anew, the first being terrifically noisy water main replacement on the street the rental house was on. It started directly outside my door and at the time due to provincial restrictions neither the library nor coworking spaces were open. As you can imagine productivity instantly dropped and never came back up once alternative workspaces became available, owing to my psychologically vulnerable state not knowing anyone in a new place and lack of previous research experience, plus accumulated neuroses. Being part of a university-run virtual running club helped keep me sane with things to look forward to every week but I fumbled interactions with the attractive female leaders and became obsessed with athletic social media application Strava in an unhealthy way, feats that nonetheless became constructive later after reflection and contributed to a Boston-qualifying time and successful charitable campaign.
A return to in-person classes in the fall could’ve gone well, but my lingering anxiety at the apparent failure to produce anything of value with the federal money and discomfort of alienating mask-wearing lectures with students 3-4 years younger than me slowly siphoned the energy that I’d started with in May. The combination of applied math and improvisational problem-solving that had made engineering undergrad fun were replaced with learning about programming language syntax and operating systems, tedious material with no relevance other than checking boxes to qualify for a CS graduate program. Things again took a nosedive in the new year when the school closed with the coming of the Omicron wave and I unwisely decided to stay for remote learning in a town known for winters bleak by high (or low, considering temperature) Canadian standards. Mental echoes of a minor car crash I’d been through at the start of September plus sleep deprivation from inconsiderate housemates reverberated and contributed to the worst episode of mental health I’ve experienced to date, with dropped courses and nearly getting fired as a TA. As before exercise was a saving grace and without the prospect of my first in-person marathon to enjoy in the spring the situation would’ve taken a much darker turn.
Luckily I had continued my participation in the EA movement with occasional virtual events run by local groups, and word reached me that after a difficult couple of years (understatement of the century) a return to in-person conferences would start with a massive introductory event in Boston held in April 2022. I spent a fruitful afternoon completing and over-editing my application, and was soon admitted, to my delight having had nothing to look forward to for what felt like the past 6 months. Going there was an exhilarating experience as I’d never been in rooms with so many like-minded people and a tremendous kind of opening happened as the realization struck me that I didn’t have to bear the weighty responsibility of ‘optimizing’ my life for doing good alone anymore – there were hundreds of others with the same orientation and it would be a joy working with some of them. Being in the running mecca was equally as energizing and after one-on-one meetings with funding application advice I hurriedly sent in a form, which again surprisingly yielded success. The summer of 2022 was spent trying to find my bearings in the rapidly growing field of technical AI alignment, which was theoretically interesting but difficult to navigate for someone with no nearby peers to discuss material with now that I had left academia. Uneasiness with my personal fit for the occupation of research engineer in a mostly speculative domain grew stronger after attending EA Global San Francisco in July and observing the odd mix of old-school charity evaluation and agitation over a still-fictional techno-apocalypse, the latter receiving an increasing share of grants.
This discomfort with the more utopian/dystopian visioned segment of EAs continued after being given the opportunity to attend EA Global Washington D.C. shortly after my birthday in late September, which provided a marked cultural contrast to the unrealistic sci-fi influenced worldviews common in the Bay Area. A talk by Matthew Yglesias and Kelsey Piper on the unintuitive aspects of the community’s core concepts and the upcoming difficulties of the movement’s maturation with forays into the worlds of business and politics was a breath of fresh air, and I saw audience members visibly relax as we chuckled at the cutting yet true evaluation of our weirdness in the eyes of the rest of the world. Online forum discussion on how poor the of optics free-spending by key funders had become was proved devastatingly prescient with the implosion of FTX in November, another twist in the increasingly unpredictable misadventure of being part of this heterogeneous group of scientific do-gooders.
The collapse of that house of cards had no effect on me financially since the grant I had received early wasn’t part of the longtermist bucket now rendered penniless by the liquidation of the FTX Future Fund, but the emotional damage was lacerating. The set of ideas, institutions, and people I had grown to love over the past year were now all in turmoil and a living on a planet without such an incredible force for good seemed grim to the point of despair. At this juncture something snapped and I understood that without decisive action the upcoming intersection of the bad news and another grey winter could easily be fatal. Finally, after absurd and unnecessary suffering, full attention would be given to looking into the root cause of my seasonal depression and possible solutions.
Consultation with a doctor led to the recommendation of Wellbutrin (bupropion), an atypical stimulant typically prescribed in a slow-release form to accumulate in neurotransmitters over a period of a month. My hesitancy relating to chemical dependency soon faded after looking into side-effects as the SSRI alternatives seemed worse, and after a disconcertingly quick appointment I walked out of the pharmacy with the pill bottle in hand, an excitedly nervous tingling crackling through my body that I hadn’t felt since first year university. The first few days of dosage were uneventful but my energy level soon shot up, coupled with increased libido and trouble falling asleep. So this is what an amphetamine high feels like…fun, but how sustainable can it be? Not especially, as I soon discovered when December rolled around and life began to feel like a never-ending action movie with the anxiety and adrenalinergic effects of the compound’s stimulating signature. This was excellent in January 2023 for starting another marathon training cycle but generally unhelpful for daily productivity and doing previously mildly fretful things such as phone calls or going on dates, which became practically unbearable. Pessimistic evaluations of humanity’s capability to prevent AI-induced doom via rationalista forum posts accelerated the negative spiral and once again a crossroads was reached.
At last speaking to a trained professional about my problems emerged as a viable option and I started the nerve-wracking process of finding a suitable therapist. The work I’d been funded to do was put on pause as the task of browsing listings on Psychology Today was made pulse-pounding by the Wellbutrin saturation, and the World Cup in Qatar supplied revitalizing entertainment. Over the holidays I looked into ways to supplement merely talking which to a mind versed in electromagnetic physics and evolutionary theory seemed insufficient, and the availability of light therapy devices to counteract the notorious gloom of Canadian winters offered a glimmer of hope through the clouds of apprehension.
While waiting for one of the latter to be shipped I started tapering off the stimulant dosage regimen and instantly noticed a reduction in the chemically induced anxiety attacks that had plagued my waking hours for the past two months. Intake phone calls with potential therapists were now feasible, albeit much more challenging than they usually would be, but I powered through and set up my first session for early February. Sweet relief from the winter blues came right away after setting up the light therapy lamp and basking in its ten thosand lux rated glow, and I was bewildered by how most medical professionals have no idea such an efficacious product is available (could relentless marketing from pharma companies have something to do with it?). The acute problem had now been solved and it was time for the deeply buried chronic ones to be dug up.
The first therapy session was as expected an emotionally charged ordeal as the torrent of internally barricaded emotions was let loose, and at the end a cathartic clarity shone through. Offloading the mental weight that had clamped down on me for so long through conversation produced a sensation of lightness and freedom second only to later experiences I’ve had while in altered states of consciousness. I wasn’t an irredeemably fucked up individual as I had thought, all my problems were workable with the right tools, and even more so people with worse afflictions had been able to move forward! All fairly obvious insights to anyone with enough life experience yet for a distrustful and relationally walled off 27-year old male they were piercing.
Further sessions were helpful, albeit not nearly as much, since I had already read through the basics of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a third-wave set of techniques in the cognitive tradition with a mindful awareness component that I found appealing given my daily meditation practice since October 2018. My previous attendance to group CBT discussions while in 3rd year at Western and the mismatch between that approach and my disposition was communicated to my therapist and she agreed that going with ACT to start was a good plan. Doing the value elaboration exercises and going over how I would live up to them with her was beneficial but her continued insistence on adding in CBT methods became grating, and after reaching the halfway point in the marathon training schedule I decided that our client-therapist relationship would be ending sooner than expected. I had also started participating in a mindful self-compassion course which was far more helpful in providing practices to address the foundations of harsh self-evaluation that drags on so many of us with upbringings in the Protestant work ethic influenced industrialized world. It became evident that bottling up negative emotions until they reached a boiling point then paying for talk therapy is an exceptionally maladaptive strategy, regardless of how pathological modern societies are, and as such cultivating closer ties with friends and family is a healthier approach.
After three years of one gyration after the next things were finally improving. I applied for a funding extension from the Centre for Effective Altruism (since renamed Effective Ventures) and after an understandable delay and a series of emails it was approved – a gratifying yet humbling experience, as I had described the rollercoaster of my path as a tentative EA and was dependent on the generosity of strangers for financial security, a gift that remains to be paid back in full. Once a few minor projects in association with the Toronto branch were finished up I could go on a much-needed vacation. Since graduating in 2019 I’d wanted to do the quintessential hostel-hopping backpacking trip which had been postponed due to the friendly neighbourhood virus and was now attainable.
With that lexical diarrhea passed it’s time for the main event, dear reader – thank you for persevering. The human brain’s marvelous capacity for narration is tameable with the right tools. Next, a marginally less verbose account of the experiential circus I flowed with at the end of my voyage to South America. Vamos!
Phase Zero
Dukkha
The day before the San Pedro retreat I was in a state of tremendous exhaustion, having been on the road for over a month and dealt with the logistical, intestinal, and financial difficulties that often characterize extended backpacking trips. Transportation to Cuzco in the southeastern region of Peru near the border with Bolivia took the form of an overnight bus ride, which is as about as fun as it sounds. After previous negative experiences with loud Spanish-dubbed Chinese action movies I caved in and bought a pricier ticket with more comfortable seating and headphone jacks, but by the time we arrived the fatigue was unrelenting. My original plan of doing a more intensive 3-day retreat was quickly realized as infeasible and I requested a change to a 1-day. This proved to be fruitful as it left more time for rest and a day of flânage in the scenic environs.
With the change request confirmed it was time to undergo preparations in the form a volcanic water cleanse. I made my way over to the office for the recommended medical check (which was reassuring given stories recounting sketchy retreat centres not properly taking care of their clients) and was greeted by the friendly manager and other staff. After filling out some paperwork the doctor came in and with a translator’s help ran through a standard medical check including blood pressure and heart rate. My limited Spanish inferred that he was concerned about the possibility of intense cardiac variation that can take place during an ayahuasca retreat, after which I interrupted clarifying I would be doing San Pedro. He let out a laugh and said with my level of fitness that would be no sweat and wished me good luck before packing up his briefcase and hurrying off.
Pharmacological digression: mescaline, the active organic compound in San Pedro cacti which grow all over the Andes plus peyote which can be found in Mexico & the southwestern United States, is part of the phenethylamine chemical family, whereas the other classic psychedelics are tryptamines. The base molecule of the former is structurally similar to dopamine, giving the derived compounds a stimulating and energetic character, whereas the latter is closer to serotonin, yielding more sedate and reflective experiences. Ayahuasca contains the tryptamine DMT which has the shortest duration of all entheogens at the price of bewilderingly powerful hallucinations and the prospect of ego dissolution, a phenomenon that I was less than keen on encountering. Mescaline has the opposite profile: extremely long lasting without incapacitation and a warm and mellow quality with well-grounded psychological insight, hence its nickname as the grandfather psychedelic.
Post-medical check the opportunity came to taste the local igneous brew. One of the staff (who I later learned was a trained nurse) motioned for me to walk outside for an awaiting taxi, which was surprising since I had expected to drink a bottle of the volcano water then and there before going on my merry way. Such naïveté – a delightful gastric gauntlet was in store. My confusion was dispelled as soon as I saw her lug a massive gallon-sized container into the back of the taxi: full preparation for the retreat involved drinking 3.5 L of saline solution in a procedure identical to pre-colonoscopy intestinal flushing.
Twenty minutes later we were dropped off at the hostel near the historic Plaza de Armas, where luckily I’d chosen to book a single room, minimizing witnesses to the humiliation I was about to endure. Natalia explained that for the cleansing to be effective the entire container would have to be drank in an hour or less, which worked out to one large cupful about every six minutes. After each guzzle I’d need to hop up and down like a jittery kangaroo for sixty seconds to increase the colonic flow rate. A non-trivial endeavour but it was too late for any hesitation, so we began in earnest.
The first three went down smoothly but after the timer finished on the third a wave of cool lethargy washed over my body, along with light intestinal cramps that became stronger with each cup of solution. By the seventh the taste became revolting and I was only able to choke down small sips. The remainder were a struggle yet I persevered knowing that if the next day went poorly then at the very least it would make a good story; type two fun as it were. This projection was confirmed after I forcibly gulped down the last glass and Natalia left me to my own devices, which for the next hour was lying on the bed with a bloated stomach as I waited for the colossal volume of salt water to pass through my digestive system.
Eventually the rumbling started and I managed to lift myself up and waddle over to the toilet. Any doubt about the effectiveness of the cleanse swirled away as the contents of my lower intestine squirted out, which in a way was a relief as after experiencing Montezuma’s revenge a week into the trip I had dealt with occasionally extreme constipation owing to the 8-12 hour bus rides and starchy roadside stop food. A few minutes and multiple flushes later the ordeal was over and I mustered the energy to make dinner in the hostel kitchen. A vegetarian diet was recommended in the days leading up to the retreat, which I welcomed after eating meat at nearly every meal for the past month. After reading through the psychonaut wiki entry for mescaline again I listened to the Star Wars Legends audiobook I’d been enjoying on the last bus ride before being whisked off to dreamland.
Phase One
The morning started early as I waited on a cool cobblestone street to be picked up for the drive to the retreat centre in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Like many occasions in America del Sur there was a delay owing to miscommunication, which my stubborn refusal to buy a local SIM card didn’t help with, but after a little while I found the waiting carro and we accelerated out of Cuzco. Immediately after reaching the outskirts of the city the jarring contrast between well-maintained tourist areas and the dusty poverty most Peruvians inhabit was ramified. They seemed relatively happy and there are certainly worse parts of the world to live in, with my guilt at being a wealthy gringo minimized after a prior volunteering stint on an olive farm near Nazca, although discomfort remained. The problem of global moral luck is conceptual until it’s seen directly.
An astonishing view of emerald mountains opened up as we drove down into the valley, with the sun’s rays brighter than usual at such high elevation with no cloud cover. Ancient ruins and snaking footpaths on their slopes increased my appreciation for how Quechua people have made such a perilous place their home for thousands of years. Thirty minutes later we reached the small town of Calca and navigated down a dirt road to the retreat centre.
Architecturally its triangular façade resembled a ski lodge and was surrounded by a grassy yard with the expected hammocks and firepit. More smiling staff greeted us as we stepped into the naturally lit atrium, and I was directed to the second floor to wait for the ceremony maestro (shaman). After a few minutes of admiring the colourful lama textiles one of the Ingles-speaking employees came up to make small talk and explain how the day would go. I asked if anyone else had signed up for the San Pedro ceremony, with the answer being no, which was a relief as I was weary of interacting with fellow travellers after hearing variations on the same conversational themes. The shaman joined us and I was struck by his youth – Andeans typically look young yet he seemed close to my own age of 27, which was a surprise compared to the image of a wrinkled healer versed in primal wisdom. He greeted us with an amiable half-smile coupled with the piercing gaze often held by spiritual practitioners. The translator explained that the maestro grew up in a village several hours away with no running water and had started training in traditional medicine in his teens, carrying on the ancestral art for the benefit of anyone in need of healing. There wasn’t any buried resentment towards Westerners in his reverential tone and I began to appreciate the significance of what I was about to undergo.
The maestro asked how I was feeling and I responded positively, being enthused at the prospect of spiritual insight in line with my five years experience in daily meditation practice and exploration of Buddhist philosophy. Like many of my generation I don’t find the dogmatic aspects of the modern incarnations of Judaeo-Christian religions especially appealing, and the more pragmatic Eastern contemplative approach to dealing with the root causes of human suffering offers a compelling window into skillful ways of living. He grinned at my excitement and then inquired about my relationships: everything going well with the people you spend time with? Your parents, friends, colleagues, and siblings? An arresting question as one of the reasons I had decided to travel was escaping overly familiar relations and creating new ones in a fresh setting. I responded that overall they were good but could use some improvement – the iciness of pandemic-induced social isolation still left neural traces, along with my own tendency for dismissive avoidance. The maestro was silent for a moment before replying that it was good that I was willing to be honest with myself. Wachuma (traditional word for the cactus before its renaming by the Spaniards) would reveal unhelpful patterns but ultimately it was up to me to change them.
The first ceremony then began and I donned a loose alpaca poncho. Before the chemically augmented San Pedro experience there were a few necessary preparation steps to go through, starting with an Andean coca leaf unification ritual. This involved using the mountain flora to represent the connection between the material and spiritual realms which is always there, although in everyday situations we forget its presence. The maestro carefully laid out some leaves on the table and chanted with such rapidity that the translator didn’t bother explaining, but I intuitively understood the overall idea. Next the leaves were wrapped up in multicoloured fabric and firmly pressed onto my head while I closed my eyes and enjoyed a slower, more melodic chant. Once finished a unique kind of energetic buzzing tingled through my body and mind.
Following this we headed out to the yard for the second ceremony called Kuti or cleaning. A forceful experience ensued as the shaman instructed me to close my eyes and hold my arms outstretched sideways while he chanted more loudly and powerfully than before. Negative energies were then removed through braided rope strikes, and a long condor feather smoothed them away and set the stage for the healing process. The translator remarked that the major life aspects of love, work, health, and family could now be aligned.
With the necessary prep done we were ready for the greatest show on Earth, or at least Peru. The maestro, a different translator, Natalia the nurse, and me jammed ourselves into the vehicle. Our destination was the entry point of a hiking trail up the mountainside which we reached in ten minutes. A venerable-looking clay structure sat on a small hill overlooking the trailhead and we installed ourselves inside. It was roughly circular with a ceiling open to the sky and three windows at ninety degrees to the door, which made sense after the translator commented that its original use was a sun clock. We sat down on the earthen floor to begin.
The shaman carefully laid out the ceremonial apparatus while Natalia brought out the cactile elixir. It was a dark green colour with bright white flecks, which meant that the plant material had been sliced and ground up rather than the more time-consuming method of slow boiling to make tea. Given their production volume for frequent retreats this was understandable although it also meant that the mescaline-containing liquid would be much harder to get down. I eyed the mind-expanding beverage with apprehension as it slowly oozed out of the 1 L plastic bottle into the same kind of cup I’d drank the volcano water out of the previous afternoon. After the maestro had performed the necessary solemn recitations the medicine was ready for the patient.
Natalia handed me the cup with a sly smile. Estas listo? Are you ready? I thought so until the thick drink rolled into my mouth – its bitterness was staggering, even for a black coffee sipper. The pulpy consistency made every gulp a struggle and the previous day’s intestinal challenge seemed like a cakewalk in comparison. Still, my curiosity had led me this far and I wasn’t about to give up, so I soldiered on. The second full cup was harder to stomach owing to waves of nausea but with encouragement from the healing crew it gradually went down. Right at the beginning the maestro had slammed an entire dose in one go with zero hesitation, giving me little reason to complain or waver.
As the medicine churned in my digestive system a fresh round of chanting began. At the end he stood over my shoulders and blew tobacco smoke from a hand-rolled cigarette, its sweet and ashy scent pleasantly complementing the bitter sharpness of the cactus. Again he put his hands on my head while I closed my eyes and let the vibrations of his voice wash over my consciousness. Once done the butt was firmly placed in the ground and we silently watched it burn itself out. This seemed to take longer than usual, and the bright flickering of the flakes had a life of its own.
Now that the mental landscape was established, our venture into the trails of the Sacred Valley of the Incas could begin in earnest. While we started to make our way up the side of one of the mountains I felt a sense of relief at the stomach troubles being over plus fresh delight at the absurdity of the situation: once again I found myself in a foreign land relying on the generosity of strangers to show we the way, this time under the influence of one of the most potent biochemical substances known to humankind. The joviality of my chaperones added to the fun as they whistled and scampered about like schoolchildren on a field trip.
Twenty minutes into the hike I felt a wave of slow euphoria cascade outwards from my chest and expand into the world. This was surprising since mescaline usually takes an hour or more to enter the come up phase after ingestion, confirming the validity of the preparation and my receptivity to the shamanic rituals. Even more remarkable was its gentle naturalness – no trace of the synthetic edge that pills bring or the central nervous system hammering of alcohol. Relaxed excitement made itself known as I opened to what might happen next.
We slowed down as the slope became steeper and the maestro motioned to stop for some rest. The translator put down mats for us to sit on in the shade, a welcome letup from the intensifying sun. I spotted a hummingbird deftly flitting from flower to flower and marvelled at how evolution produced such an iridescent creature. The Peruvians noticed my fascination and shined beaming smiles, telling me that seeing one was a good sign.
As I drank water and took in the richness of the greenery, an astonishing geometrization of the grass and foliage began to take place. Dense tessellations generated from the well-defined edges of the plants grew and regrew as I moved my gaze. These patterns were utterly absorbing and I barely noticed my companions talking amongst themselves, who no doubt knew from experience the importance of not disturbing someone so immersed. After a few minutes they eased into silence and the sounds of the surrounds layered onto awareness.
The maestro decided that this was an opportune time to begin playing melodies on his quena, the traditional wooden flute of the Andes. Its bright timbre and the almost childish simplicity of the music added to my delight. The effects of the sacred cactus continued intensifying, especially sharpening of the senses: colours brighter, sounds clearer, the ground beneath my feet warm and wonderfully textured. I became restless and felt the need to wander down the trail and marvel at the indescribable abundance of the natural setting.
At this point, a process described by Aldous Huxley in his seminal work The Doors of Perception as the opening of a ‘reducing valve’ that in usual waking life filters the torrent of sensory information channelled into the brain began in earnest. Everything in my perceptual field suddenly became more vivid, more intense, somehow more real than ever before. The most mundane objects such as bushes and sticks took on a life all their own and I was astounded that I could’ve missed the shapes and forms that wove themselves into the tapestry of reality in any direction I looked. I picked up a pebble and gazed awe-struck at its surface glittering like a jewel, each bright spot sparkling with the cosmic fire of the noon sun. And the flowers…gloriously beautiful. Using mere words to communicate how mesmerizing they appeared is futile to the point of absurdity.
After an unknowable length of time I walked back up to rejoin my spiritual facilitators. The quena melody shifted to a slower, more mournful rhythm and the darkness coexisting with the light in the heart of the sound’s texture revealed itself. I sat down on a rock a dozen paces away to sip water and let the waves of musical emotion roll over the world. The maestro’s earlier question about the quality of my relationships reverberated, and the faces of friends, romantic interests, close family members, and relatives scattered across the globe sparked in and out of awareness. I realized in a flash that in many ways I hadn’t been holding up my end of the bargain: their generosity had been returned with minimal effort, if at all. More often than not cold detachment in the form of polite pseudo-friendliness had taken the place of genuine sincerity. The full force of this insight was shattering and tears flowed into the ground as I let the experience move through the heart-mind. Such an incredible waste to squander the finite number of moments I’ve been given to enjoy with the people I care most about! Never again would I allow myself to be distracted with self-concern, to be lost in thought while the opportunity for being fully present quickly slipped away. Connections are what make life meaningful.
A passerby on the trail snapped me out of the cathartic narrative, and I ambled over to the rest zone established by the trio of locals. They didn’t seem to notice the emotional upheaval that I had just experienced, or more likely decided not to interfere with the process of psychological insight; either way I was genuinely happy to be enjoying their company. After packing up the blankets and mats we continued on our merry way up the mountain.
As we strode forward the bright warmth of the mescaline was unceasing. A strong undertone of euphoria pulsated throughout awareness, yet the quality of elation was calming rather than frenetic and my rational faculties were unaffected, even amplified. Conversing en español flowed more easily than at any point since arriving on the continent and I energetically navigated the rocky terrain. We encountered a couple with an intimidating-looking dog and without hesitation I greeted them with a broad smile and commented on the beauty of the trail – a striking departure from my typically taciturn social style. Being unfriendly simply didn’t make any sense.
At this point what’s called tathātā or suchness in Mahayana Buddhism began permeating everything. This is a phenomenon where reality is stripped of all labels and whatever one perceives becomes primally fresh, superseding any conceptual understanding. The previous opening of the reducing valve was a tiny candle in comparison to the starlight of sublime completeness that enveloped the entirety of conscious awareness. As well, the usual sense of separation between ‘me’ and the rest of the world dropped away. During intensive meditation practice I’d previously experienced the fusing of subject and object for brief periods (on the order of a few seconds at a time) but here the apparent construction of a separate ‘self’ vanished and would only return days later. Seeing, hearing, and feeling unvarnished reality in its most raw and pure form was astounding, blasted beyond the boundaries we establish through slicing the world into manageable pieces via language. Doing so is of course useful, but overreliance on this mode of being prevents us from experiencing things directly, as young children do. The ultimate beauty of the world is always there – learning to notice it is more about subtracting than adding.
Magnified perception rolled on when we reached the top of the trail and took a break for lunch. Another associate of the retreat centre was waiting for us there and again my reaction to meeting someone new was bright delight; people are supremely interesting if you open up to them without preconceived notions of who they are or what they’re about. Our meal was primitively simple: bread with fresh avocado and local fruit. I’d grown tired of the limited flavours of Peruvian food outside of the capital of Lima, but now eating rustic fare was nigh transcendental. The chewiness of the bread, the savouriness of the avocados, the tangy sweetness of the aguaymanto, the velvet creaminess of the cherimoya – my sense of taste became a conduit to pristine bliss.
Basking in the afternoon sun like a contented lizard, the ground seemed to vibrate at the same frequency as the tingling that pulsated throughout my body. A kind of primordial energy suffused all things. I also enjoyed the coming and going of tactile synesthesia where the sense of touch intermingled with the other four, especially sound and colour. The prismatic shades of plants, mountains, and sky developed their own textures, while the sunlight seemed dense enough to grab with an outstretched hand. The gurgling of a nearby stream and pleasant jabbering of my guides were tonal waves that oscillated the medium of air before dissipating into my skull.
A mini-infinity of time passed and then the maestro motioned for us to begin climbing back down to the start of the trail. Zenith having already passed, the sun illuminated our descent with diffuse golden light.
Plant geometrization, connection with relatives, hauntingly beautiful Andean flute melody, purity and childishness of the Peruvian people, sadness at everything gone wrong in my life yet appreciation for the chance to try again, tactile synesthesia
Pachamama, The Gift, zero distance between sacred and profane, fuego del vida
Phase Two
Sunyata
I am the passenger, gonzo pareidolia, in living colour, extraordinary lucidity, amor del mundo
Phase Three
Anicca, overwhelming brightness of city lights and stars, vibration of the universe, deliberately inviting negative closed-eye visuals, electricity of being alive
Integration
Harmony, beginner’s mind, joyously pulled along by the river of life, Catholic priest on plane, start cultivating a life well lived as otherwise it’ll end up dry as the Atacama. Fun of being an alive rather than a stone Buddha, leaving the boat behind after crossing the river, not knowing is most intimate, extroverted spiritual realization. No lo se
Backpacking is this generation’s most proximal experience to war
Mellow, organic, and complex. Carrying forward the primal freshness of the Beatnik Generation’s work, existence is upbeat and beatific