DOSE: T+ 0:00 1 cup oral Cacti - T. pachanoi (extract) T+ 0:30 250 mg oral Mescaline (capsule) T+ 2:00 150 mg oral Mescaline (capsule)
BODY WEIGHT:
130 lb
Over the last ten years, I've taken more in the way of psychedelics than can be counted or even reasonably estimated. At times, the repetitive illusion of this human monotony overshadows that guiding impulse in the use of something like a psychedelic. In all these years of psychedelic use, amounting to hundreds of trips on dozens of different substances, I consider only a handful (3 to 4) of materials as being medicinal in the shamanic sense. As if a certain temperament gravitates towards materials that facilitate a direct recognition of clear reality, mescaline above all I consider 'classic' in facilitating this clarity. Considering that mescaline derives from a cactus source endemic to the area of the planet I consider home, with a relatively long history of usage, and tentatively showing no real long-term toxicity, I think of mescaline as being a truly 'natural' psychedelic. Call it childish fantasy, but the image of mescaline, in my mind, embodies psychedelia.
This considered, I measured out a gram of Mescaline HCl as follows: 2 capsules containing 250mg apiece, 2 capsules containing 150mg apiece and 2 capsules containing 100mg apiece. Putting the capsules aside in labelled containers, 3ft of cactus was prepared by sheering the cactus down the spines into 8 equal sized spears that were then chopped into 1 inch thick to 1.5 inch deep by 1 inch wide wedges. The wedges were then fed through a champion juicer resulting in a fairly large bowl of yogurty gunk. The yogurt was put into a pot, boiled for one hour and strained. The goo was squeezed resulting in a more pulpy goo, that was boiled for another hour, strained and boiled again. The three boilings were combined and boiled down to ~2 cups of thick syrup that was put into the fridge overnight.
Awakening early the next morning, my brother and I made our way to the kitchen with some apprehension and excitement. The sun not yet risen, silence suffused the inner/outer worlds of our early morning. Taking the cactus juice out of the fridge, one cup a piece was poured out, and the process of drinking began. Over the years, I've grown somewhat accustomed to the taste of cactus juice, but it's definitely an 'acquired taste'. In fact, I'll often joke that cactus juice tastes better the more be-cactused (high) one becomes; at the point cactus juice begins to taste good, it's time to stop drinking it!!
Finishing our one cup apiece, we settled into the living room for a short spell that we might decide the course of our day. After a period, we each decided to swallow one of the 250mg pills T+30min. That down, we made our way into the backyard and watched the sunrise. Now, cactus has an onset that, in my opinion, differs significantly from that of pure mescaline. In my experience, cactus begins as a giddy feeling in the gut that then moves into a content sedation.
Leaving the comfort of our backyard setting, a short walk around the outdoor Golf Course opened some of the perceptive and hallucinogenic dimensions of the cactus/mescaline combination. One thing Mescaline seems to consistently do, is make everything almost unbearably brilliant and bright. Colors literally glow radiantly; sunlight takes on an utterly fresh quality, brilliant, clear and ineffably wonderful. The rolling green hillsides and blue vista of sky, opening like an inverted petal, opulent and sheen. At times, the magnitude of nature's space really penetrates the drama and sorrow of this human condition. Returning home, we lay down a bit, ate the second capsule at 150mg T+2hrs(400mg mescaline total) and listened to some new music my brother recently acquired.
At a certain point, the psychedelic effect really began to take hold. Visually, the field of awareness in front of me began to lose any real solidity, being perceived as radiant and vibronic patterns of pure energy. The unfolding of these mind-states makes it difficult to differentiate between one experience and another. At times, I strongly sensed a deep self-hatred in my brother manifest as unconscious and self-defeating ways of physical posture and movement. The real conundrum of self-image enveloping the mind; bottom line, one person's suffering penetrates another. For me, the sensing of this self-hatred took the form of a personal anxiety that generally characterizes how I relate to the world: an inability to trust. Over a period of perhaps two hours, the urgency of my anxiety took on an archetypal character. All things considered, brotherhood in the human sense, is a sort of frightening proposition. Though undertones of cooperation exist in human family, close brotherhood seems largely competitive in structure.
My brother through this, intermittently struggling, clenched his hands, unable to relax. For a spell we jumped into the large bathtub upstairs, anything, hoping the warm water might assuage the imminence and urgency of what seemed inevitable. In a way, you're trapped, around the next corner lies that which ends you. Panic setting in, the building wave of that utterly alien other. My brother grabbed a towel, folding it into the empty silence of that outer edge. Through and through, what is it we're looking for in psychedelics? Why the pull, the gravity of these materials? Extending the pole of this living light into the most dense regions of animal space, what flower grows there? Through and through, what is it we're looking for in psychedelics? Why the pull, the gravity of these materials? Extending the pole of this living light into the most dense regions of animal space, what flower grows there?